"Kaldur"
He sits bolt upright in his bed, hot and damp with sweat. His legs are tangled in the sheets, damp skin stuck to linen, and his heart is hammering. He feel nauseous and fevered, the dark of the room pressing down on him in an oppressive blanket of heady heat. Throat dry and tight, he grasps with one hand at his own sweat-slick neck, soothing his fluttering gills. He's heaving for breath the same way he did when he first came to land, gills flapping and drying in the merciless air. His other arm trembles to support his weight.
Kaldur had fallen asleep without meaning to, and of course Roy had been there waiting for him, just at the edge of his thoughts where he's been lingering for days. Reclining snake-like on the bed, all sultriness and infuriating confidence, he'd climbed on top of Kaldur and leered down at him, eyes glinting faintly in the dark.
" Kaldur "
The memory is searingly fresh and has him squeezing his palms against his ears to block the rasping voice out. It's been haunting him even in his waking hours, and he isn't sure if his own refusal to sleep has him hallucinating that it's real or if the unwanted desire is so strong that he can't suppress it anymore.
Sweat pastes the sheets to his thighs and hips as he curls his legs in towards his chest protectively, like a child hiding from smooth linen feels rough through the thin fabric of his boxers against his length, which had hardened against his will in the night.
Still gasping, he tries to breathe in deeply to calm himself, attempting to dispel the dream and its... effects. The heat of the room is unbearable, making his breathing constricted and panicked. He listens hard for the soft hissing of his air conditioning. The eternal cacophony of the city at night greets him but the comforting hum is absent. The depths-damned thing is broken.
Again.
Shaking violently, he peels himself from the sheets, making his way unsteadily towards the hall. The book he had been reading before sleep took him sticks to his arm, the words blurred from prolonged contact with his damp skin. Huffing, he shakes it off. It clatters to the ground and he winces at the noise. Every faculty is hypersensitive, the slightest input feels like an assault. The dry paint of the wall seems to suck yet more precious moisture from his body as he feels his way along the wall. The short, stumbling walk to the bathroom leaves him as hot and weak as the desert did months ago.
Sighing in relief when he reaches the cool tiled floor, Kaldur goes to the sink. He turns the faucet and cups his hands to splash water on his face, but nothing comes out. The power must have gone out.
Again.
Sighing to himself, he presses his forehead into the mirror, hoping the cool surface will calm his fevered skin. His limbs are still trembling and he grips the counter in an attempt to steady them.
He can get this under control.
He opens his eyes to stare himself down. ' You have to get this under control ', he thinks furiously, desperately. ' You have to -'
" Let me in. Let me take you. "
A flash of red in the mirror, lit up by moonlight through the bathroom window. Gasping, he spins to confront his monster.
Nothing.
Nothing but his own fevered dream and damned desires .
The specter that haunts him is Roy,and yet it's not Roy . Roy would never solicit him this way, would never push and hunt and stalk him.
No. This Roy is the Roy that only lives in his dreams, in the hot, oppressive shadows of his subconscious. It's a Roy he invented, which makes it worse, makes his stomach clench and his vision swim and his mouth go unbearably dry because this-
He's bringing this on himself.
On some level he wants this, because if he didn't it wouldn't be happening. The voice keeps talking. It's a rough whisper, low and rasping and confident.
Threatening. It's in his body and his limbs, every inch of him burns when he hears it. And when it continues on, he can swear he feels those gloved palms running down the curve of his thigh, those bare, callused, too-clever fingers tight on his hips, on his neck. His back presses down painfully against the counter and his weight's all on his trembling arms because his knees are jelly about to give out beneath him.
A brush of hot air against the side of his neck and he flinches away, spinning to collapse into the opposite wall, legs splayed out beneath him.
" Don't be afraid of this- - Not when it's everything you want. Let me give it to you, Kaldur "
Knowing he's imagining it doesn't make it any better, and he drops his head into his hands. His palms are slick, his whole body is pouring sweat and he's delirious from the lack of sleep, boiling in his own skin and so hard it's painful.
He's been fighting for so long (years, even) to keep this back. But the sleepless weeks have begun to take their toll and ever since Tula he hasn't had anything else to focus on, to distract him from these feelings.
These horrible, awful, disgusting, seductive, undeniable feelings and it's-
It's gotten to the point where he's considering telling Roy, because maybe that will dispel the dreams. But the risk is too great, because if it doesn't work then he'll have to deal with both Roys, the hunting seductive predator in his dreams and the real one who will be so baffled, so disgusted and he, he can't do it. Because he already knows how he feels about the real one and if Roy leaves him over this, abandons him-
" Let me in. "
His fingers drift from his ears to his waistline, hesitating on the band of his boxers. He grits his teeth, hissing air through them in one last-ditch attempt to stop, to get control.
But then they're fumbling, hooking onto the elastic and tugging his underwear down and off his hips. He shimmies on the cool tiles to get them over and off his thighs, down his calves and off his ankles. He's bare on the cool floor and the places where his skin presses into the tile are the only places where he's cool. The rest of him is wrapped in heat, a heat that intensifies as he wraps one webbed hand around himself, leaning back to let his head thunk into the wall. He feels like he's drowning in the heat, in the darkness. Ghost fingers trail up the inside of his thigh, whisper up his side and stroke at his neck, raising goosebumps that are as much a product of fear as they are arousal. He's losing his mind, his battle against this thing he's been fighting so long with sleepless nights and too-cold showers.
He's never been so terrified and so relieved to lose anything in his life .
" You can't hide from me anymore. You're mine . "
He brings his unoccupied hand up to his mouth, bites down harshly on his clenched fist. The skin breaks and the taste of copper fills his mouth. Clouds have moved over the moon outside, and darkness eats the room. His foot brushes up against the soft bathmat, and his whole body shudders. Something, wind, maybe but more likely Roy, shifts the shower curtain.
" I'm through with waiting. If you won't take what you want, I'll give it to you. "
A gust of insistent breath is cool against his hot, wet shaft and pulls a pained groan from him. His breathing hitches and his arms shake, pulling a bare leg up against his chest, and his head falls down to rest on his shoulder, leaving his neck open and vulnerable to the dark.
" Stop agonizing, stop holding yourself back. Give into it, give into how I can make you feel , make you shaking and open for me, sticky and hot with want between your thighs. "
His skin, his lungs are on fire. He's burning alive. Roy's voice echoes in his mind- not his ears, no, this is like when M'gann pulled him back in Bialaya, voice all twisted up with his thoughts, oppressive and inescapable. His ghosting caresses and Kaldur's own hand are overwhelming him, suffocating his senses and if he doesn't calm his breathing he's going to pass out here on the bathroom floor.
" First, I'll give you my mouth. "
Groaning, he presses the tip of a finger into his mouth, fondling it with his slick lips and tongue. Messy spit smears the side of his face, a cool spot in the hot air. He can't bring himself to care, too far gone in Roy's phantom touches and the horrible, wonderful heat. The dark presses down on him- suffocating him and hiding him from the truth of what he's doing, what he wants .
" I'll work your pants down with my teeth, pin your hips to the wall and swallow you to the root. "
The slick finger tip leaves his lips with an audible pop, obscene and awful and the heat and the darkness are pressing down hard enough on him the Kaldur can't bring himself to give a damn. The hand reaches down, down, between his shaking thighs. Bypassing his sack he rubs at his perineum, gathering the slick sweat that's gathered there. His hands pause as he takes a slow, shuddering breath, bracing himself. And then he's reaching, pushing back against the fingertip that's too much and not nearly enough, damning his hands and thanking every god he knows for the webbing between his fingers that keeps him from letting this go any further than it already has.
And despite his blessings he's cursing, slowing his strokes in favor of twisting, gritting his teeth against the pain as he strains the skin and bears down harder, desperately trying to get deeper, more. This is wrong, this all the guilty, awful things that he is gathering up so he can't run away from them. Every horrible thing in his mind is trying to eat him alive and it's his friend's phantom touch on the inside of his thigh, on the crease where leg meets groin that's driving him, pushing him to abuse Roy's trust by disrespecting his image.
" You'll cry out because you want to cry out, and you'll bury your hands in my hair because it's what you want and because you can't lie to yourself anymore, not when I have you, not when you're in my control. "
His teeth grind, his thighs stretch to spread wider, toes curling and uncurling on the floor. His spine aches from the awkward position he's in, shoulders and back half-pressed to the wall and hips tilted up to the ceiling. He's slowly sliding down the wall, sweat slicking the way so he can't get friction anywhere, not on the wall or the floor or on himself. He's still pumping, trembling fingers lax as the voice continues, hissing hot in his ear. His head is light and he can't think worth anything, is losing his grip on his mind as well as his body.
" I'll go slow so you get frustrated, get greedy. I'll draw it out, tease you until I'm pressing hard on your hips to keep you from thrusting, from taking my mouth because the only thing holding you back anymore is me alone. "
With a whimper, he slips another finger tip in with the first one, just barely resisting the urge to stretch. The rough slide gives him something the lack of depth can't. His mouth is drying out, hot and open with his panting breath.
" When you're wild and desperate, begging me, I'll guide you to the bed and kiss your neck until you can hardly breathe. "
"Roy," he rasps, and he hardly gets the noise out because his throat is so hot and tight that opening it is agony .
" I'll crawl between your thighs and start in with my hands, finger you open like you've never been able to do to yourself, give you a taste of what we've been missing. Of what we've been keeping from each other, all this time, for no other reason than your guilt and my pride. "
Roy's hand presses down on his shoulder, forces him down the wall until he's on his back on the floor, wedged between the wall and the sink. His feet bump up against the counter, his legs have to scrunch and spread to accommodate him and there, the fingers in him are scissoring, his hips rocking down into them desperately. Roy's hands pet at his sides, tickling his ribs, inside his knee. Kaldur tosses his head to the side and moans into the tile, reaching for him, but he's moved back to perch atop the counter.
" When you've gotten enough to drive you half-mad, I'll add my tongue and push you the rest of the way there. "
The muted sounds of the city have reached a hundred fold, for all he can hear them over his own harsh gasping and the pounding in his head, his chest. There isn't enough air in the whole world and the floor is slick with his sweat, the drool leaking from the corner of his mouth because he can't bring up the concentration to swallow. The tile has warmed, it reflects his body heat back to him leaving him overheated and drenched and hopelessly, horrendously turned on.
" You'll squeeze my shoulders with your thighs, twist your fingers into my hair until some of it pulls out and you won't dare apologize, won't even think of it, not for a moment. And soon enough, when I think you've had enough, I'll stop. "
The city, the world has gathered outside his bathroom window, is staring up at him and waiting, waiting for him to break. To give in. "I'm sorry, Roy," he chokes out hoarsely to the one who can't hear him.
" And then you'll beg. "
He's hyperventilating as he works himself from both ends, chest caving in-out-in-out. His head is light and buzzing, pressure builds behind his eyes and that voice, these feelings, this fever dream is driving him mad. His limbs buzz and burn with the pleasure piquing in every neglected hollow of him. Whether he's dying or coming, he feels disgusting, incredible, like he's teetering on the precipice between life and death.
" You'll beg for me, beg me to pull your legs up over my shoulder and give you what you've been craving for so long, for what you've never had the courage to admit to yourself that you want , let alone ask for ."
His fingers curl and twist, in and out, and he drives himself back on them, feeling the air stir beside him as Roy leans down, running a callused fingertip along his jaw and shaking off the drops of sweat he takes away.
" I'll make you feel so good you'll beg me to fuck you, Kaldur. "
Turning to face him, Kaldur closes his eyes because he knows that Roy will run away again, if he thinks he might be seen. He swallows a mouthful of sticky, stringy saliva. The heat between his legs has reached a burning intensity, it threatens to consume him from the inside, leave him hollowed and full of nothing but ashes and guilt.
" And once you do I will. I'll take you slowly, take you slowly and softly and in a way that it hurts, just enough, that you know it's real. Just enough for you to really feel it. I'll take you slow and you'll get desperate for more and more. And then, when you're still begging and begging for me to go faster, to go harder, I'll put you on top and make you ride me. "
This is carnal, prurient, of his traitorous flesh. The Roy who hovers over him, whose hand joins him on his length, who traces the sweat dripping from his heaving chest, his throat, his clavicle- he doesn't care about the pain building in Kaldur's chest, the desperate scream in the back of his head that asserts no , it's more than that, it's more than riding and taking and giving and hot skin on hot skin.
This isn't a release as much as it is an insult, a simplification, a degradation of something terrifying and unreachable and wonderful to wanton pumping hands and thrusting hips on a cramped bathroom floor.
" I'll put you on top and make you take what you want, because there's no other way you're ever going to let yourself have it. "
Kaldur stills, and he shudders and shakes and moans lowly, softly like a small and dying thing. The strength leaves his body, his trembling arms and quivering thighs as he releases into his hand. The room begins to cool around him, his limbs all turning to lead.
The Roy who lives in his head (the twisted homunculus of his friend, born of guilt and fear and shame and want )is gone, taking his phantom touches and cruel, seductive whispers.
Minutes, hours tick past. Eventually strength enough returns to him that he's able to get himself back to his bed, wiping his hand on the sheets as he crawls beneath them.
In the silence that draws over him as his heart beat fades out of his ears and back into his chest, Kaldur curls into himself and listens to the lonely quiet of his empty apartment. His eyelids droop and one thought sticks in his mind as sleep finally takes him.
He has to get this under control.