Work Text:
“Is this what you wanted?”
A large, tan hand around his throat. His thighs spread over Dan's legs, the man buried up to the hilt inside of him, unable to push him away now. Despite the fight they'd had earlier, Dan was still asking him what he wanted. And maybe if any sarcasm or anger existed -
It was somewhat lost on Herbert West.
That or he chose to ignore it, as he did so many things.
It’d been a particularly stressful day, admittedly. Their last pass at reanimating one of the local yokels had resulted in less-than-stellar products. The man had fallen to pieces after only a short time upright. Then again, with the hay-baler in question, it was no small wonder.
Herbert had been so absolutely certain he had the rapid-regeneration aspects of the reagent down pat. But apparently they weren’t rapid enough to prevent the collapse of dismembered limbs when Tom Horner decided to bull-rush them both.
Dan had hesitated on the rifle trigger, but that was alright. Herbert kept a pistol on his person for that express purpose. Where his muscle jammed, he had a quick back-up at-hand.
They hadn’t needed it, of course. The man had snatched up a pitchfork, charged at them, and toppled forward after three lunging movements, spiraling organs spilling out of a freshly-opened chest.
“They always come back so…angry,” Herbert groused, watching the twitching, seeping mass of dissolving matter sink into the parched South Dakota soil. “Why is that?” He’d ignored Dan’s sounds of sickness in the nearby flowerbed, rolling his eyes and returning to their farmhouse with an exasperated sigh.
They hadn’t spoken much after that. They’d been out in this state for about three months now, under the guise of house flippers, thanks to Dan’s “quick thinking”. Herbert would’ve no sooner picked up a hammer to do anything but put down one of his creations, of course, but it seemed Dan, as usual, passed for the lie.
The women in town certainly seemed to think so, with how many of them asked him to come by and fix their…leaky pipes, or what-have-you. Herbert tended to ignore that, too, given how long he’d been set back by their inability to stay put for longer than a half a year.
Dan seemed quite certain that this remote town would do the trick, however. The same old proverbial song and dance number that Herbert, admittedly, was rather sick of.
Maybe it was a sign he was “growing up” - or getting old, more like. He was tired of the constant struggle of settling anywhere, annoyed with how much the moving around disrupted any of his progress. The reagent’s shelf life depended upon whether or not he had adequate equipment and storage, after all. Refrigeration was key - and when they’d left Louisiana under uneasy circumstances, he was relieved . Namely because the appliances and wiring in that fucking bungalow proved utterly insufficient.
“Some handyman you are,” he muttered to Dan the moment they’d pulled up to their new abode - a 19th-century house with a sag to one side, a corn silo and a barren field. “You couldn’t even get the Baton Rouge place to cooperate. And you somehow expect this to be any different?”
“Get your own bags,” Dan had said by way of reply - leaving Herbert to haul his suitcase, medical bag, and trunk all on his lonesome.
[He’d come back to find Herbert sitting sullenly atop his trunk, the rest of the bags on the porch, and, after a reluctant back-and-forth from both sides, agreed to carry the trunk in - Herbert atop it and all, much to the scientist’s chagrin.]
That was the way it’d always been with them. An argument, a cooldown period, a begrudging understanding, and Herbert usually got his way.
After they’d disposed of what remained of Tom in the pigpen - a necessary annoyance, Herbert had found, and much easier to manage than a mausoleum full of half-dead things - he’d gone inside to shower. Dan had cursed at him after for taking all the hot water, but he’d managed to walk the man back [so he thought] on the basis of a need for sanitation.
“You’ve never cared before,” Dan muttered, and Herbert - whose ritual of cleanliness was surpassed solely by Dan’s hair-care routine - merely looked at him. The two of them had gone about their business until about 2:30 PM or so, when Dan decided he’d make a great deal of noise in the kitchen, directly over the root cellar Herbert had begrudgingly accepted as his “homebase” for the time being.
He’d stormed back upstairs, already annoyed with the failure before five a.m., and now this - Dan wrestling with the pipes beneath the sink, clanging and twisting from side to side as if the wrench had some powerful hold over him - a wriggling piece of bait on a line.
“If you want to play pretend , Dan, that’s no concern of mine,” Herbert said hotly, looming over the sink, covered in reagent stains and smudges of blood, “but do it on your own time. You should be downstairs with me, working –”
“I am working,” Dan growled, pulling on whatever stubborn piece of equipment was caught beneath the belly of the deep, ceramic beast , “this is the hot water valve–whoever plumbed this place did a terrible job, so if you want your precious sterilized equipment–”
“Oh, this is for me, is it?” Herbert banged a spoon against the side of the sink and Dan winced. There was a clunk and a clang before Dan started to move again. “Not practice for all those precious women who so depend upon you–”
“Hey, you’re the one who challenged me to fix this place–!”
“ I’m also the one who suggested we don’t move out here at ALL.” The wrench slammed into the floor as Dan shot out from under the sink as fast as he could. Herbert felt a white-hot shock of thrill race through him, straightening upright, hands [and spoon] behind his back as he stared up at Dan, who - covered in grease, wiping his hands on a towel - looked utterly mutinous.
“So it’s like that, huh?” Herbert swallowed. Dan’s voice had lost its typical warmth, the edge to it particularly wrathful. “You told me you weren’t going to work on anything else until tonight.”
“I got bored, Dan,” Herbert drolled, brows lifting. “Haven’t you ever gotten bored before? There’s only so many equations one can run until the itch to actually enact them takes over.”
“So you lost control.” Dan’s smile, lethal and white, slashed his face open; malicious. Herbert looked away - just to make sure nothing in the basement was making its way up the stairs. “How ‘unlike’ you, Herbert.” Affronted, the scientist swiveled back toward his partner.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Dan’s hand hauled him in by the collar, and, walking Herbert backwards toward a chair, the smaller man found himself helpless to the onslaught of Dan’s efforts, the shove toward the kitchen table one that left the seat he landed in skidding across the old linoleum.
“You don’t wanna be bored, huh?” Dan was untying the bandana from around his neck, chucking it aside. The shirt came next, bare, rippling muscle exposed to the air that smelled of metal as it crackled with suspense. “I bet I can find another way to keep you occupied.”
“Not like that you can’t,” Herbert quickly slid in, voice just a touch closer to shrill. Dan stopped mid-undoing of his jeans, tossing long hair out of his face with a squint. “You’re…filthy,” Herbert murmured, looking him over. “Go shower .”
“Nah,” said Dan, but did nudge the sink on, lather on some of the lemon-verbena soap sitting in the frog-shaped dish he insisted he kept for sentimental value , and get to scrubbing. Oily water sloughed away into the sink as steam rose and uncurled, a deep sigh from the pipes which made the whole house shudder. “But here’s a compromise.”
Flicking his hands before drying them on a towel, Dan grinned - nastily. “I’ll let you work yourself open for me nice and slow. And then we’re going to fuck .” He enunciated the word with a punch to the ‘fuh’, back to undoing his denim only enough to tease. “You want me to treat you like how you think I treat those townie women? Will you lay off me then?”
Mesmerized by this turn of events, this fire inside of Dan, Herbert slowly reached up to begin undoing his tie, verdant eyes wide and reverent. “No,” he challenged despite the tremor in his voice, “I want you to…treat me better .” Licking his lips, Herbert added hoarsely - but firmly - “I am your partner, after all.”
Which seemed to have some kind of strange effect on Dan. His hands slowed, as did the way he moved toward Herbert - going so far as to drop to a knee before the kitchen chair, his shaggy hair half-in his eyes again, eyes blown wide and dark beneath the sandy fringe.
One broad, warm hand crawled over Herbert’s thigh, the other dragging the leg of the chair closer, till Dan was level with Herbert’s [now-straining] crotch, the sunlight swathing him in a gilded way. Good and golden Daniel Cain, now covered in sweat and soap and pump grease, looking up at Herbert like he wouldn’t want to be anywhere otherwise.
Like he wanted to eat him like the remains in the pigpen.
“I’m your partner,” Dan reiterated, and, little by little, started to smile. Mad, dark eyes traced the outline of Herbert’s bulge, and, with those same warm hands, Dan began to undo his trousers. “This is a give and take,” he said, “so start giving . Get to work.” Before Herbert could answer, Dan had tugged down his pants and underwear enough to mouth at his skin directly - and with one hand, Herbert scrambled to grip a fistful of that light brown hair, hauling Dan closer as a jolt sent him bolting upright.
For once, he’d done what he was told. He’d opened himself up to Dan, in some small part, and let him in. It was more than mere release of the flesh, the earthly pleasure, la petit mort . It was - metaphorical, maybe. Hell if he knew. Philosophy, poetry, they were of no use to him.
But Dan was. Dan, who sank into him so hard and sweet, who filled him with - confidence [among other things]. That Herbert did, in fact, still have his… control .
“Yes,” he decided, croaking the words out around the hand that softly enveloped the clean white column of his throat, thumb plunged up against the pulse beneath his jaw, “yes, this is what I wanted.”
You, he didn’t say, you, in Arkham, in Baton Rouge, everywhere. All along. This.
This and their work, of course.
So long as both had a…satisfactory climax -
What more was there in this life than the only death between them being one orgasmic symphony…
And the warm feeling of triumph to follow for however long.