Scene 9: Carraway's office.

  With Rafael at his heels, Rich leads the way through a seemingly endless to-do list. They’re only two or three tasks along when there’s a bright, horribly familiar pair of chimes from both Rich and Rafael’s cuffs. Rafael’s stomach drops, but Rich balks like a spooked horse attempting to bolt out of his own skin, nearly dancing in several random directions, his gait gone shockingly light and quick with panic. He finally stops in the middle of the hallway, wild-eyed and breathing hard as Rafael catches up, then taps his palm, chuffs in vicious frustration and clicks his rings together. He stares in bewilderment at the screen he pulls up while Rafael is still adjusting to the man’s intense startle reflex, and to Rich’s cuffs making the same noise as his own. It seems surreal when they should surely ring out in some deep organ chord instead.

  “But, what, why?” Rich wails.

  “Yes, he wants me as well?” says Rafael breathlessly, just as bewildered.

  “Yeah, but it’s Sunday,” Rich protests. “It’s Sunday, right?!”

  “Yes?” hazards Rafael, who would normally have no idea, and has to remember the date that showed on his screens yesterday to be sure. It was a shock to learn that it’s October already.

  “It’s supposed to be his off day, he had some kinda golf thing, or a horse tournament, or whatever the fuck he does out there, why’s he still here,” Rich says miserably, and scrubs a hand at his hair. “Fuck. We gotta—he wants to keep screwing with us in the office, I guess, you and me both. I’m sorry, man.”

  Rafael realizes too late that his face has gone blank, mask knocked awry with the shock, and for a strained breath or two he can’t choose which one to go in its place. Screwing with us, yes, but surely when Rich was alone Carraway didn’t generally bestir himself to torment the man all day. The difference is Rafael’s presence: their captor loves to use his toys against one another, no matter how desperately they might wish not to be his tool in cruelty. And for Rafael to allow himself to seem dismayed would only be a further unkindness.

  “Well then, hold hard the breath,” Rafael says, with a firm, unflinching look, “and bend up every spirit to his full height.”

  Rich shows no recognition for the words, but he must recognize Rafael’s tone because he gives one of those terrible smiles: a soft, grateful thing far too tender for the wolf’s den.

  Rafael smiles back to him and concludes: “Unto the breach once more.”

  Rich nods, sighs and leads off back down the hall the direction they came, heading for the nearest stairs to the second floor. “I don’t get why he hadta beep my cuffs as well as text me, though,” he mutters, his accent thickening with annoyance. “I mean he’s got the work ethic of a dead selkie, he just had to put in the extra work this time to play the stupid little noise at us?”

  Rafael hasn’t the breath to explain that Rich’s shock and distress were the very goal of the exercise; a reminder that Rich’s status is still plaything and not employee. Even if he could speak, hurrying along at Rich’s heels, he might not have the heart.

  Carraway’s design for the day is indeed to play the new game he’s discovered, watching in lazy fascination as Rafael is directed to reduce Rich to a panting, sweating, pink-flushed disaster while the poor man is still doggedly, wretchedly trying to work. It’s only after an hour or two of this farce of a workday that a quiet chime rings on one of Carraway’s devices and he turns back to his desk, summoning a screen from the surface of it with an absent wave of his hand and scanning over it.

  From the side Rafael can see, it appears no more than a rectangle of pearly gauze, but that must be some arcane technical illusion, because Carraway reads something on it that darkens his mood immediately. He looks away from the show being performed for him, performs a few perfunctory gestures of command to his screen, and draws up a stylus to begin writing something in a bold, dense hand that Rafael has no chance to read from across the room, brows drawn low and lip curled back from one inhuman fang.

  Rafael hasn’t been ordered to leave Rich be, so he continues to periodically lean over and touch him—as sparingly as he feels he can get away with, although he still feels like a monster every time his touch makes Rich shudder and moan. The more distracted Rich gets from his office work, the more stressed and dismayed he seems, struggling to focus even though Carraway's barely paying attention.

  Carraway works until the early afternoon, looking increasingly irritable to have real business to resolve, while Rich grows more and more upset. He obviously wants to please the man, help him somehow, but the few times Rafael experimentally lets Rich collect himself and set back to his work with any amount of coherence, Carraway does look up, and gives Rafael a stern reminder to keep Rich ‘entertained.’

  Finally, when Rich is a trembling, teary-eyed mess of anxiety and frustrated need, Carraway settles whatever issue had him too busy to enjoy the game to which he set his toys. The big lykoi sighs, sets his stylus down, and settles back in his chair. He pulls an unlabeled bottle of some kind of liquor out of his desk, cracking it open and taking a deep draught.

  Rafael is perched in Rich’s lap, grinding against him in a deliberately slow, shallow way that spares his aching thighs and stokes the wretched heat between them only very gradually. At the sight of that bottle, the trembling tension in Rich’s limbs shifts all at once, his attention diverted entirely from Rafael. Carraway drinks long, breaks off to take a deep huff of a breath and then glances over and catches Rich watching intently, motionless in his seat.

  “Thirsty, darlin’?” he says, and swirls the bottle a little. Rich shifts under Rafael, swallowing audibly. “That last little bit I handed off to you must be runnin’ dry by now, huh?”

  “Yessir,” says Rich hoarsely. Shifts again. “Could I—Can I, do something for you, sir, for…?”

  “Aw, sugar,” says Carraway, amused, and closes the bottle again. He sets it deliberately aside, and Rafael watches Carraway watch Rich track that bottle. “I do appreciate that generous nature of yours. C’mere.”

  Rafael finds himself set on the edge of Rich’s desk in one smooth, swift movement, as Rich rises up underneath him and crosses to stand before Carraway. Their master pushes back from his desk and Rich goes to his knees before him with a breathtaking motion; not the fall of a titan or the collapse of a tower, but rather a swan’s wing folding in. Rafael hadn’t noticed before how adept Rich was at kneeling to another man, but he’s as smoothly precise as a dancer.

  Carraway also seems to appreciate it. He palms at his inseam, savoring the sight before him, then settles back in his seat, languidly expectant. Rafael watches with something in his chest and throat burning—not his heart, he doesn’t think, but something—as Rich reaches out his massive hands and gently, neatly undoes the fastening of Carraway’s slacks, bares the man’s arousal, and bends to take it into his mouth.

  Rafael would look away, if he could. He wants to, or at least wishes he could want to. But Rich is so graceful like this, so astonishingly artful and well-practiced. He’s so massive, so strong, so powerfully built, like a white ox, vast slopes of muscle laid over inhuman spans of bone, and all that power is perfectly harnessed to another man’s pleasure. It’s an incredible sight. Rafael’s own lonely, hungry hands drift over the meager span of his own body, his own teeth find his lower lip, and he is lost to how beautiful the man before him is, bowed down in service, and how terrible it is to want it for himself.

  Finally, eventually, Carraway growls in satisfaction, rolls his hips up a last few times, and pushes Rich away.

  “Mm. You sure are somethin’ else, sweet thing,” he murmurs, deep and throaty. “You really know how to make a man feel good.”

  “I try,” Rich mumbles, his own voice even lower and rougher. “Glad you like it. Sir.”

  Carraway chuckles, ruffles Rich’s hair, and nudges him with one padded foot until Rich shifts back on his heels and then cautiously levers himself back upright.

  “Well! Didn’t you have fun!” Carraway says, and reaches out to rub at the prominent arousal before him. Rich makes a hoarse, confused noise—half a convulsive laugh, half a basso profundo squeak—and takes an uncertain step backwards. Carraway lets him go, still smiling, and busies his hands tucking himself away.

  “You’re learning, sweetheart. I like when my boys don’t get greedy or pushy. I like a pretty young man who takes what I feel like giving him.”

  “Yes, sir,” Rich says, still cautious, but he also glances sidelong to the bottle resting on the desk. Carraway doesn’t miss this, and laughs again before waving a hand indulgently.

  “Good boys get what they deserve, sweet thing. Go on and have it. Nothing like fine whiskey to clean your mouth out a treat.”

  Rich swallows again, rough and unmistakably thirsty.

  “Yes, sir,” he says gratefully, taking up the bottle and tucking it securely in the crook of his arm. “Thank you so much, sir. ‘S real generous.”

  “Run along now, enjoy your evening,” Carraway says grandly as he rises from his chair, and spares a sidelong, disinterested glance for Rafael as if it had only just occurred to him anyone else might be in the office. “And you, doll… Help this big ol’ sweetheart out tonight, why don’t you? Don’t wear him out, mind you. I expect him in the office bright and early as ever tomorrow.”

  “Yes, sir,” Rafael murmurs. He’s warm all over, a prickle of sweat between his shoulderblades, the taste of Rich’s skin on his tongue and his body drawn to an unwilling eagerness by the spectacle. Ignoring his arousal with the ease of long practice, he slides off the desk to take up station at Rich’s elbow.

  “Uh,” says Rich, and when Rafael looks up at him, preemptively concerned by his tone, the man is looking from Rafael to Carraway in shy, uncertain pleading.

  Surely he can’t intend—But he does, he steps after Carraway, fidgeting with the bottle in his hands, and says, “Sir, uh. Can I return the favor? Uh, with him. For him, I mean. I don’t wanna be selfish, and he’s, he makes me feel. Real good. And I don’t wanna get him in trouble…”

  Carraway glances back, eyebrows rising. Rafael weighs the balance—chiding Rich for overstepping in a show of obedience, or playing the eager, desperate toy and begging alike. Neither seems likely to end well.

  He looks up at Rich in startled and fawning amazement instead, and then makes a show of marshalling himself and murmurs, “You mustn’t worry on my account. Your reward is to be your own—”

  “It would reward me plenty if I got to make him feel good,” Rich says, and the words aren’t demanding or petulant, but stubborn and pleading in perfect measure. The man could almost have calculated his tone to draw out the rueful amusement that softens Carraway’s stare—he didn’t, Rafael knows. And Carraway must as well, because he sighs and finally, miraculously, waves a hand in assent.

  “Well, alright then, suit yourself,” he says, and Rafael clings to Rich’s arm for a moment of genuine shock and then softens the look to an adoring gratitude, glancing up at Carraway’s face and then turning away as though overcome by shyness.

  “Thanks!” says Rich, grateful in the entirely un-artificed way he seems to do most things, and Carraway shakes his head, lips quirked, and takes his leave.

  Rich grips the bottle in one hand and rests the other between Rafael’s shoulders, holding still as though he might listen for the man’s silent footfalls as they pace away. Once a minute has passed in silence, he huffs and relaxes, and leads Rafael tentatively out to the hall, beginning the increasingly familiar walk toward their shared quarters.

  “Okay,” he finally says, once they’re down a hall and around a corner. He stops and holds up his bottle, hefts its weight, holds it up to the light to measure how much remains in it. “Fuck, okay. That’s another—okay. Cool.” He takes a deep breath, lets it out. “Good.”

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  Rafael studies him, worried now. Rich is still captivatingly aroused, the flimsy stretch fabric of his tight jeans pulled even tighter over the massive span of his erection, barely leashed down against one thigh. It seems gauche to bring such a condition to Rich’s direct attention, but perhaps if he were to offer his own service… He quickens his stride enough to catch at Rich’s free arm, meaning to suggest they retire to somewhere Rafael might address the issue. But instead of slowing, Rich tenses and draws away, pulling the bottle close like he’s afraid Rafael will try to snatch it for himself. Rafael recoils in turn, shocked, and the next instant Rich is all apologies.

  “Fuck, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean—bad habits, hey, come here. It’s just been a really shit day. C’mere.”

  The bottle is tucked back in the crook of Rich’s arm and Rafael is drawn close, kissed on the forehead, a big hand cupped around the back of his neck. Rich smells of sweat and soap and simmering arousal, and Rafael could no more resist his embrace than he could spontaneously levitate. He melts into the heat of it and finds himself clutching a fistful of Rich’s shirt, as needy as a starving cat. Oh mercy, he’s so tired. Every muscle in his body hurts after the exertions of the morning, and the prospect of getting Rich off this afternoon before he’s allowed to sleep is as daunting as it is desperately desired.

  “There. There, you’re okay, we’re okay.”

  “We’re okay,” Rafael repeats, quiet and savoring, and manages to let go of Rich’s shirt when Rich draws himself back and looks down at him.

  “You wanna get outta here?” he asks, and when Rafael nods, he sets back off down the long hallway of old painted portraits and landscapes.

  They’re halfway to Rich’s room when they meet someone coming the other way; a face familiar from breakfast that morning, a pretty young white man with coppery orange hair and an expression of grim anticipation on his face. At the sight of them, his look slides sharply into resentful disgust.

  “Garnet,” says Rich flatly. “Hey.”

  “Fuck off, tweak,” says Garnet, a syrupy Georgia drawl gone poisonous with raw loathing, and shoves between them, elbowing Rich in the side. Rich huffs faintly, but doesn’t even sway, which doesn’t improve Garnet’s mood at all. He shoots a glare back at Rafael—the venom clouded by suspicion and confusion, but certainly far from pleasant—then grimaces at a soft, demanding chime from his cuffs and keeps going down the hallway towards Carraway’s suite.

  “Fuck,” sighs Rich, and rubs the place Garnet elbowed him, frowning absently. “What a sad little asshole.”

  “Mm,” says Rafael, bitter with distaste. He’s been looked at like that before, and he didn’t enjoy it this time any more than he has in days gone by. “So it seems.”

  “I mean I get why some people don’t trust the whole…” Rich waves a hand up and down at himself as he starts to walk again, still frowning. “But he’s such a dick.”

  “Yes, well,” says Rafael dryly. “Love may be blind, but hatred tends to be particular about looks, in my experience.”

  “…Yeah,” says Rich, and heaves a sigh. “Sure. You look tired, man. Let’s get you to a bunk before you fall over.”

  “I’ll be alright,” Rafael says, all evidence to the contrary. “I don’t mean to slow you down, if you had other things you wanted to do today, I’m sure I could—”

  “I can do them while you get some rest, buddy.” Rich rests a warm, solid hand between Rafael’s shoulders, rubbing gently. “C’mon, you’ve had to go from run aground to full speed ahead in like a day, cut yourself a little slack for feeling the strain.”

  Overwhelmed by this latest kindness, Rafael can only nod.

  “Can I carry you there?” Rich asks. His hand is so warm, and for all that Rafael is sore and tired, he’s also pricklingly aware of everywhere they’re touching, and the solid attentive weight of Rich waiting to enfold him. He’s had enough pleasure these last few days to glut himself, but each time he finds himself hungry for more.

  “Yes,” Rafael says. “Yes, I’d—if you truly don’t mind. I’d appreciate it.”

  “Nice,” Rich says, as if Rafael’s given him a gift, and scoops him up in a flawless, rock-solid princess carry. This time Rafael rests his head on Rich’s thick slab of a shoulder and lets his eyes close as he’s borne along. It’s a remarkably smooth ride, now that he comes to think of it. Rich moves with such steady, precise grace, in his hands, his gestures, his stride… it’s as unexpectedly beautiful as all the rest of him.

  “Here,” Rich says, startling him awake, and he blinks his eyes open as he’s laid gently down on Rich’s bed. He yawns and reaches for Rich, only to find himself clumsily pawing the side of Rich’s arm as he turns away.

  “Hm? Hold on, babe,” Rich says, distracted, and there are the small noises of him opening the bottle Carraway gave him and taking a number of long, deep drinks. “Ah, fuck,” Rich sighs, sounding more sad than satisfied, and his footsteps go into the bathroom.

  Rafael hears a splash in the sink, and Rich’s deeply resonant voice murmuring: “One for the lake; may she rest easy. And wait for me.”

  Then the quiet steps come back over to the bed and it sinks as he sits down on the edge.

  Oh, Rafael closed his eyes again. He opens them to see Rich take another swallow, then go to put the bottle down on the end table, next to the last dregs of the previous bottle. Then, a little disturbingly, he picks it back up and takes one more drink before screwing the cap back on with a careful deliberation, as if the action takes significant concentration.

  “There,” he says. “Fuck. Okay. I’m—sorry. I’m okay now. You okay?”

  “I’m fine,” Rafael says, though his heart is doing something terrible and confused in the vicinity of his stomach. Rich doesn’t look, act, or sound like someone who’s okay. Rafael forces himself to sit up, feeling the muscles in his core tremble with strain, and reaches out to cup the heavy angle of Rich’s jaw.

  “May I—may I tend to you?” he asks. “Carraway granted me leave. I’d like to… repay you what little kindness I can offer, in exchange for how well you’ve cared for me.”

  “You don’t owe me anything,” Rich says, wide-eyed and flushed. “Really, man. You don’t have to do anything you don’t want—”

  “I like it,” Rafael says, gracelessly and too loud. “To help you, I mean, Rich, I’ve—you’ve been—please, this has been so good. You’ve been so good to me. I like… you.”

  “Okay,” Rich says, and his broad, strong-featured face is captivatingly young and shy and flattered, warm against Rafael’s palm. He reaches up and folds his hand warmly around Rafael’s wrist—and half his forearm—and swipes his thumb along the back of Rafael’s hand.

  “Okay,” Rafael echoes, and tugs at the neckline of Rich’s shirt. “Lie down. Let me have you.”

  Rich smiles at him, looking pleased and a little shy still, and shifts over on the bed to lay himself out. “Whatever you want, man. This good?”

  “Yes,” says Rafael, and endeavors to swing smoothly up, a controlled motion—almost falls, with a startled huff, as his wavering limbs all but give out underneath him. Rich grabs for him, and instead of a sensually elegant mounting, Rafael is pulled ungracefully forward, sprawling over him like a broken marionette.

  “You okay?” Rich says. “You hurt?”

  “Ah, no, that's—no,” Rafael says, then collects himself enough to admit, “only my pride.”

  Burning with private mortification, he attempts to make the best of the situation, leaning down for a kiss, and Rich seems gladly distractible. He enjoys this, he’s said before, maybe too much, and at this at least Rafael feels competent at the moment. Of all the muscles he’s worked to exhaustion today, this requires none.

  It helps as well to feel Rich make soft, pleased sounds, humming through his barrel chest. His arms come up to wrap around Rafael, holding him firm and warm and secure, and Rafael breaks off the kiss to breathe against the sturdy marble of his shoulder, just resting his heavy head.

  He doesn’t realize he’s drifting off until Rich makes another noise, softer this time, fond and amused—Rafael jumps, tensing, and focuses again with ragged effort.

  “I’m sorry,” he says again, and moves, unable to prevent a breathy groan as his muscles ache plaintively at him. Rich lets him push himself up, but his hands linger, on Rafael’s wrist and the curve of his waist. “Allow me—”

  “Rafael,” Rich says gently, still just smiling at him.

  “I’m more than capable, I swear,” Rafael says, with more desperation now. That fond look, shading all too close to pity—it’s not quite the look he’s grown accustomed to from Carraway, but it’s so similar as to turn his stomach with dread. You’re failing, it says, however kindly, just as expected. “I’m—I can be of use—”

  “Hey—no, hey,” Rich says, smile falling, and sits up, a great, inevitable movement like the rise of floodwaters. Rafael is moved by it with Rich’s arms still around him until he’s being held again, pressed into the solid warmth of Rich’s chest. Rich’s voice hums around him as he says, “You can be tired, man. It’s okay if you’re tired.”

  “You were promised relief,” Rafael says, stupid with exhaustion and dismay. “I want to render aid, I want to help, wh-wherever—” he yawns, can’t stop himself, breaking the word into mangled halves. “Wherever I can.”

  He doesn’t move to pull out of the arms wrapped around him—it’s deep in his bones now, how to behave when held in the lap of someone so much stronger, he could never dare to pull away—but he doesn’t dare to relax either. If he lets himself be still, relax into the warm touch, the exhaustion will swallow him again and he’ll have left Rich unsatisfied, and every particle of him rebels at that thought.

  But Rich just sighs softly against his hair and pets him some more, stroking the whole length of his back.

  “I know… how it feels,” Rich says, slow and careful, piecing the words together one at a time. “To be worried about not pulling your weight. Being a freeloader, y’know. But if you—” he pauses, searching for words—chuffs softly, then tries, with painstaking enunciation, “You gotta cut your engines before you drive yourself up onto the rocks, not afterwards. Nobody likes that kinda salvage operation. Especially not folks who, uh. Care about you. I dunno, does that make sense?”

  It does. Rafael has proven himself incapable, too wasted and mired in his own self-pity to keep up. And to try further would be a waste of both their time—

  “And I do,” Rich adds, and Rafael blinks, startled and confused. Rich’s grip on him has gone looser, faltering, his voice small and shy as it sometimes is when he seems abruptly no older than his age. “I do care about you,” he repeats, and bumps his jaw against Rafael’s skull. “And I know you’re not a freeloader. You’re working really hard, that’s why you’re so tired, so just—just lemme take care of it, okay? I can take care of us, this time.”

  It sounds so true when he says it like that. Rafael hesitates, breathing slow and deep to control the urge to weep, and then nods. Rich relaxes again, lays a brief, chaste kiss on Rafael’s forehead and then busies himself like he’s embarrassed to let the moment linger.

  They settle at the head of the bed. Rich lays Rafael against his chest and pets him slowly, coaxing his shirt up over his head and gently working his pants down his hips.

  “So fuckin’ gorgeous like this,” he says, voice soft, and Rafael dares to close his eyes, leaning his cheek against one collarbone, already growing dizzy in the dark behind his eyelids.

  “Just… I can make you feel good, you can rest. You’re good. You did plenty…”

  Rich shifts and then his hand comes back slick and cool, quickly warming—traces up the line of Rafael’s thigh, a blind, seeking touch, and then strokes him gently. Rich pauses a moment when Rafael tries to rouse himself—murmurs no it’s okay, I’m taking care of it, it’s okay, until Rafael is settled again and Rich can keep whispering to him, teasing his pleasure up in slow, rising swells.

  It’s impossible to count the minutes there in the warmth, pleasure slowly unstringing his bones. Rafael relaxes slowly into its sway, each urgent jolt of nerves more muted than the last. It seems a thousand years before he wakes, gently, and realizes he slept—that he’s still sleeping, or almost sleeping. Panting softly as he slips in and out of wakefulness, moaning soft, wordless pleas into Rich’s chest. Rich is breathing roughly into his hair, his grip slick and firm and warm, and he has both of them in hand now, stroking. Rafael manages to crack a heavy eye open and Rich is looking down at him, a gentle, hungry warmth in his gaze.

  “Yeah?” he says softly, and Rafael gives a shivering sigh and lets his eyes fall shut again. Rich laughs, but he sounds rough at the edges now, his touch more urgent but no less careful.

  “Look at you, babe,” he sighs, and squeezes Rafael a little closer. “Fuck, just—look at you.”

  With Rafael’s ear pressed to that huge chest he could imagine he’s out on some distant coast again, listening to the steady wash of the water against the broad, pale stretch of sand, with a sky that stretches from one horizon to the other. He can almost taste the warm salt wind, the smell of open air… a distant voice as deep and steady as an ocean's tide, rumbling against his cheek, a dream mixing warmly with reality at the edges.

  “Almost there,” he hears from far away, fathoms deep. “Gonna come for me, nice and easy, that’s all you gotta do…”

  He shouldn’t, there’s a reason he shouldn’t, but he’s being held and he’s got permission, they gave him permission—Rafael clings at a sturdy side, a shifting bicep, moans and then shudders all over as the pleasure rouses him, a rushing wave of electric heat. The dream melts out of his grip and he’s awake, supported in a huge pair of arms and trembling there as a deep voice murmurs sweet encouragements in his ear. He tries to reply, to speak some fitting rhyme or piece of ancient poetry, but all he can manage is a startled, broken gasp and Rich’s name, hitching as he shakes.

  “Nnf, fuck,” Rich breathes, choked, and then follows Rafael in pleasure, rocking both of them with the force of his climax.

  Afterwards they just breathe together, still and warm, and Rafael begins to sink under again. Then Rich shifts under him, moves him off Rich's lap to the bed and Rafael starts upright, panic stirring sluggishly.

  “I'm, I should—let me, washcloth,” he mumbles. There are things to be done, he has to make himself useful.

  “Man, you're running on empty,” Rich says gently, putting a hand on his chest to nudge him back down on the bed. “Just rest, okay? I'll get us cleaned up, don't worry about it.”

  “‘M to help you…” Rafael manages, trying to keep his eyes open.

  “Yeah, and you do,” Rich says. “But I've got this, okay?” He snorts softly. “I'm good at cleaning up. Just relax.” A kiss lands on Rafael's cheek, and then the bed shifts and footsteps cross the room to the bathroom. Rafael's limbs are deliciously heavy. He'll open his eyes again and be helpful in just a minute…

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