Chapter Text
Rook was confident in sex, but their heart raced with nerves in the aching pause that stretched between them and Lucanis. "We'll talk about it first," they insisted, loosening their grip on his hands, letting him pull away.
Lucanis didn't pull away.
"Can we talk outside?" he asked softly. "I do not know whether it will remain only talk if we do so within reach of a bed."
Rook wanted to assure Lucanis that this was no problem, that they would cheerfully move their proceedings to Lucanis' bed, or the floor, or the dining room table if it were the only flat surface within sight. But that wasn't what Lucanis wanted. It wasn't what Lucanis was okay with. Rook was well-versed enough in these things to hear someone's limits.
"We'll have a contract," Rook said, feeling the air, not quite fresh here in the Fade, on their face, a near sobering sensation. "You, me, and Spite."
They watched carefully as Lucanis nodded in understanding. For a while they only walked, circling the courtyard of the Lighthouse. Lucanis took Rook's hand in his, their fingers entwined.
"A contract," Lucanis said at last, "is negotiated."
Rook nodded. "What are your starting terms?" they asked, pausing their step.
Lucanis' eyes closed thoughtfully. "I do not know the strength of Spite's...desires. Anything we begin, he may...continue. Can you truly want this?"
Rook looked Lucanis in the eye. Lucanis could read people well, and they trusted him to see the truth when they said, clear and simple, "Yes."
Lucanis' face flushed in response. "Then my simplest of terms is that, until we know, I do not want to wake up to find my body...engaged without my knowing." He rubbed at his shoulder with his free hand, his arm crossing his body.
"You want to be there when we start."
"Yes." He sighed. "Ideally when we...when I..."
"Finish?" Rook smirked, giggling at their own joke.
"That." He was so cute when he was flustered, and it gave Rook a thrill to know they were the one to fluster him. "But there are many things I do not know about what my body is capable of in Spite's grasp. If I lost control. If such an act would...pull him in."
Rook stared, wide-eyed. "You're talking about an orgasm. You're saying you don't know if...Lucanis, you haven't...since Spite?"
Lucanis shook his head in a shameless snap. "Since before the damned prison. At first I didn't want to, and then...well, recently...but a moment alone is never truly alone."
No wonder Spite wanted them nearly as desperately as Lucanis. If Rook had that much sexual frustration built up, they could probably use it to kill both of the blighted gods single-handedly.
"So we figure out your limits," Rook said, and they cursed the dazed softness to their voice for giving them away, and cleared their throat. "In a controlled environment. As long as Spite is okay with it."
"Spite?"
"It's his body, too."
Lucanis frowned, looked like he wished to disagree, but nodded his concession. "Spite can discuss his own terms."
"Will you have a problem with being restrained? Will he?"
Lucanis looked almost relieved at the question. "He will want to touch." He chewed his lip. "So will I," he added, voice husky. "But I don't fear it."
"It won't bring up bad memories?"
"Not if you're there," he was quick to answer. Rook noted this, and resolved not to leave Lucanis alone for even a second while tied down.
"Rope?"
Lucanis hummed, considering. "Yes."
"Chains?" It was worth asking. "Cuffs?"
"No." Lucanis didn't elaborate, and Rook left it at that.
"Hands only? Or do you want your legs tied as well?"
Lucanis' breath hitched, and Rook could not be sure it was the good kind. "Wrists only. For now," he added, and Rook was pretty sure it was the good kind. They'd have to ask later, if opportunity arose.
Rook ran their fingers down his chest until they caught on the chain hanging from his shirt collar. "What will you let me do to you?"
Lucanis gasped and swayed into Rook like he wanted to devour them. "Whatever you want. I am yours."
They stood in quiet awe of this man, who had endured, and not so long ago, torture and hopelessness at the hands of another, and was now entrusting the well-being of all that was left before them in their hands. "The second you say stop, I will untie you."
Lucanis covered their hand with his own. "Rook, no."
"Yes."
Lucanis growled in frustration. "Any key you give to me could be used also by Spite."
I'm not afraid of him, Rook wanted to say, but the crux of the matter was that Lucanis was. If not afraid of Spite directly, afraid of what he might do with Lucanis' body.
"I won't let you be tortured again, even if it's by me or your own thoughts." They reached up to cup Lucanis' jaw in their hand, thumb smoothing along the wiry hair of his beard at the corner of his mouth. "Especially if by me." Lucanis dipped his head slightly to press his lips to the pad of their thumb. Rook swallowed hard.
"This is a bad idea," Lucanis whispered.
"Good things usually are," Rook replied, voice pitched to match. "Will you kiss me?"
"Now, or later?"
Rook whined. "Now? And later. Both."
"Later," Lucanis said, stepping closer, "you will kiss me." Rook could feel his words against their lips. They took in a shaky breath.
"Lucanis, please."
As though that were the breeze to knock away his last resistance, Lucanis surged against Rook, pushing them back into the warm, sturdy wall of the Lighthouse. Rook had expected him to be sweet, slow, maybe even chaste, but this was the gust the belied the tempest within. Hot hands against their waist, the scent of his hair, the scratch of his beard against their lips, and his mouth hot and wet and firm against theirs. There wasn't a breath between their bodies, as though Lucanis wished to crawl inside them and share each other as much as he and Spite.
And when Rook pulled away for a shaky, desperate breath, they saw a flash of purple reflected in Lucanis' eyes. Rook pushed gently at his shoulders, reasserting the space between them. Lucanis took a step back immediately.
"That was you?" Rook asked.
And it was decidedly Lucanis who answered, "Yes." There was no confusion in his voice; he knew exactly what Rook was asking. "Not the whole time, though," he confessed. "In the middle of it, I felt Spite take control."
Rook tried to trace the moment that Spite stepped in, a change in body or demeanor, but there had been only Lucanis. Except, by Lucanis' own account, it hadn't been only him. They hadn't considered how seamless the line was between one and the other. A thought occurred to Rook, and they hoped it not uncharitable. "Did you do that on purpose?"
Lucanis stiffened as though caught.
"To see if I'd try to stop you? Stop Spite?"
"Not entirely," Lucanis said, an answer that was neither truth nor lie. "You were very distracting." He looked momentarily shame-faced. "But yes." He hesitated. "I trust you, Rook. But I need to trust you know what you are getting into."
Were it anyone but Lucanis, Rook may have taken offense, but Rook had witnessed enough of the caution of the Crows—testing their food over even a friendly meal, eyeing each other for weapons both concealed and not. Sex was not always a weapon, but Rook had known some who wield it as one, and they'd put money down that Lucanis had as well.
"Whatever it takes," Rook said, taking Lucanis' hand in their own. "Do you want me to stop if Spite joins in again?"
Lucanis sucked in a breath he released with a barely-there growl that went straight to Rook's gut. "No," Lucanis said. "I don't want you to stop at all," he confessed.