For Ikathy, who always seems to give me the wickedest Elfman ideas. Ily. Thank you for thinking of our boy. P.S. this is better than What we do in the dark. You can't change my mind.

And thank you icemakestars for being a beta for me. I really appreciate it!


It's dark in the basement, the only light is that which slips through the open doorway, meek and soft as it filters in from the upper floors. Elfman is careful, though, using memory and his other senses to compensate for the sudden change in visibility.

Music of the Valentine's Day party upstairs throbs through the floor slats, muffled but still loud in a place that's usually quiet and remote.

Elfman steps over a crate he set down weeks ago in preparation for this raucous day. It's full of candy hearts; he can smell the sugar-coated cinnamon when he nudges it with his thigh.

"Careful," Bickslow says, "We'll be down here forever trying to clean that up if you knock it over."

"Like anyone's going to want to eat candy off the floor," Elfman grouses.

"We wouldn't tell them, obvi," Bickslow sasses.

Elfman curls his nose. Bickslow is despicable sometimes. In unobvious little ways. Candied hearts today, a beer can dropped on the floor tomorrow, given to someone unexpecting. Just a little wicked. Off the top. Otherwise, Elfman doesn't think he could stand their current proximity. Or he'd hate it a lot more.

"That's our crate," Bickslow decides. Elfman can vaguely see him pointing to a short box. "Sit down."

Elfman's palms are slightly damp, and the back of his neck. "Someone's going to come down and check on us." They've never done this in the guild hall before. It presents its own gauntlet of dangers.

"Not if we hurry up." Bickslow smiles one of his unsettling smiles. The hallway light reflects off his eyes, taking away his mild mischievousness and replacing it with menace.

Elfman breathes out, trying to dispel the nervous butterflies fluttering in his chest. It's not the first time they've done this, but every time makes him feel the same. Like he's doing something wrong, or like Bickslow's setting him up to laugh at him.

But he never does.

Bickslow throws his helmet aside where it clatters on the floor. His face is rough when he presses it against Elfman's cheek, getting close enough that he can grab Elfman's hips and pull him to the edge of the crate, just where he wants him. Elfman's already stiff and pressing against his pants. It's embarrassing how little Bickslow must try.

"Remember the first time?" Bickslow's voice sounds rusty and unused. They've left aside the men they are in the light, and stepped into another space, where they can be different people in the dark.

Elfman closes his eyes and remembers the hot tub in Bosco. A tentative humid kiss, a stroke in a place only women had ever stroked before. It gives him shivers thinking about it. His cock pulses against Bickslow's thigh and Bickslow breathes out unevenly. Elfman never would have agreed if Bickslow seemed like he wanted it any less than him. But Bickslow is manic about everything; especially this once the lights have dimmed.

"Sometimes I think about it," Bickslow confides. Elfman can feel him stroking his own cock through his pants and knows what he means. "Do you?"

Elfman tries to find it within himself to lie; he doesn't like giving Bickslow the upper hand, but one by one, his inhibitions are slithering away and what's left behind feels raw and truthful. "A lot." Almost every day.

Bickslow smiles against Elfman's throat. His tongue slips out, draws a hot wet line to Elfman's chin. Elfman can feel his heart thundering against his chest. His blood is roaring in every inch of his body. He wants to grab Bickslow, force his touch, but that's not how this game works. He learned that in Hargeon three months before. Bickslow pulled away and didn't come back to him for another three weeks, choosing to fill his time instead with women from Magnolia as though just to make Elfman mad. And it worked. Somehow.

At his jawline, Bickslow slides his tongue across the bone to Elfman's chin. Then he presses his hips into Elfman's, showing him how excited he is before he seals their mouths together.

They rarely kiss. It's both the best thing they do and the worst. It brings an intimacy to this thing that it didn't previously have. It makes Elfman want more and ashamed for wanting it. Especially from someone as bullying as Bickslow.

But when Bickslow's breath escapes him in a whoosh and brings with it a small moan, Elfman forgets about that power struggle, and whatever shame he feels. There is only this moment, and Bickslow knows it.

He touches Elfman's chest and it's like someone has poured liquid fire into his veins. He's desperate for skin on skin but won't dare voice his opinion on the matter, remaining perfectly still as Bickslow unbuttons Elfman's collared shirt, in case Bickslow sees his desire and pulls away from it.

He's done it before. Just for fun. Bickslow loves this game.

The storeroom's cold air hits Elfman's bare back and makes him shiver. The discomfort is secondary, though. Bickslow takes all his attention, redirects it with a few small movements, undoing the tie holding Elfman's pants up and then yanking them down all the way, and throwing them onto the cold floor.

Bickslow looks Elfman over, eyes moving down his chest, narrowing in on where he's straining against his underwear. Bickslow touches him once, gripping Elfman's throat and holding his face up while he uses his other hand to slide from his chest to the band of his underwear. His nail scrapes over the material, across Elfman's cock, gentle like, promising of more to come. Pre-come wets the material. Bickslow slides his thumb through it. His fingers tighten minisculely, and release Elfman again.

"Now undress me," Bickslow commands.

He likes to do it this way, see Elfman mostly nude first, and then work on himself.

Elfman lets out a breath; it's uneven, too wispy. He sits forward and does as Bickslow tells him, fighting with the buckles on the armour he rarely takes off, and then letting the material fall to the ground. The buckles clatter noisily. Elfman barely notices now.

Bickslow's pants come off easier than the rest of his garments, and when they fall, Elfman makes sure his underthings go with them. Bickslow bounces free, straight, and true and hard.

Bickslow takes a step back, leans against one of the crates, and pulls Elfman forward, making him hunch over his middle. He pushes his cock against Elfman's lips, and then into his mouth. Then Bickslow sighs like he's been waiting all day to do this.

His fingers tighten in Elfman's hair, keeping him exactly where he is, though it's not the most comfortable position, and he starts thrusting forward, slow, slow, deep, and then deeper, to where he's hitting the back of Elfman's throat and threatening to go further, and then he bucks his hips hard, back and forth, fucking Elfman's mouth with a vigor he rarely exhibits.

Elfman pushes his tongue up against Bickslow and grips the crates hard, holding himself steady for the onslaught. Sometimes, he thinks about how uncomfortable he is, teetering, on the brink of falling off his perch, but mostly, he thinks about Bickslow, and his frenzied breaths and the tightness of his grip on Elfman's hair, his cock pulsing in Elfman's mouth, threatening to burst.

Bickslow pulls away suddenly. Elfman gasps for breath and blinks his damp eyes clear. Bickslow is pulsing just inches from his mouth. He could lean forward slightly, stick out his tongue, and touch the head of his cock. If he does that, he's sure Bickslow will come.

He blows a line of cool air on it instead. Bickslow makes a long, tortured noise. His cock pulses again.

"Lie back," Bickslow orders when he can.

Elfman plants his elbows on the crate and does as he's told. His erection has found its way to the top of his underwear and pushes at the band, the head of his cock straining to escape. Bickslow leans over it and licks the precum off the head. His tongue is hot and wet and skilled, slipping over the sensitive skin just before his lips make a seal at the very tip.

Elfman sighs and lies back completely. He stares at the ceiling slats, bare, a bit dusty, webbed with spider silk, feeling Bickslow do what he wants at his hips.

His underwear is pulled down and tossed aside the same way his pants were. He's naked, exposed, and vulnerable when Bickslow grabs Elfman by the knees and spreads his legs wide, pushing them up to his hips while his tongue explores every inch of Elfman, pushing into his opening, teasing at his most intimate entrance, making him slick with his spit.

Bickslow reaches for Elfman's cock and begins pumping it while he works and the sensation is so intense, Elfman sighs again, longer, louder, more desperate. He wants to come. He wants Bickslow's tongue pushing him wide, he wants Bickslow's grip cinched on his cock, he wants the euphoria.

More than wants.

Needs.

Bickslow makes his tongue rigid and pushes in. Elfman cries out, sure he's going to orgasm, but his partner is no longer stroking his cock, pulling him toward elation, knowing what will come if he does. Bickslow is nothing if not a tease.

He works Elfman that way for long, patient moments, but never long enough, yanking away when Elfman thinks he will come anyway.

Bickslow takes his time settling in between Elfman's legs. Once situated, he pushes their cocks together. "Jerk them off," he tells Elfman.

Elfman spits on his hands and grabs his and Bickslow's cocks together and starts making slow careful strokes. Bickslow is as hard as Elfman. Harder, maybe even. Precum slides down the head of his cock, hot and slick.

"Faster," says Bickslow.

Elfman obeys, finding a steady but brisk pace. Bickslow grips Elfman's knees tight, spreads him wider. His breathing is chaotic; the tendons stand out on his neck.

"Do you want to get fucked?" Bickslow whispers harshly.

The question makes the same hot flush crawl through Elfman every time Bickslow asks. He used to resist and deny, but Elfman is beyond that now.

"Yes," he whispers back in the same harsh tone.

Bickslow moves quickly now, shoving aside Elfman's ministrations and getting low to lick Elfman's opening again, making him slick and ready while his clever fingers fight with a condom.

It takes seconds, but it feels like forever before Bickslow is ready to push against him and spread him wide.

Another low, agonized sigh worms out of Elfman. It's so easy now to let Bickslow inside. He loves the feeling of being filled up and stretched out, he loves being held in place while Bickslow works his slow way up to a frantic pace. He loves the feeling of their bodies crashing together, and the sound of Bickslow's unadulterated pleasure. He loves how when Bickslow is ready to come, he can feel him thicken inside him just before he plunges as deep as he can go and empties himself. He loves how that sensation tips him, Elfman, over the edge and he comes, too, spraying the hot thick liquid all up his chest, and sometimes, like now, over Bickslow's, and he loves how afterward, Bickslow will spend the time to run his tongue over Elfman to clean up the mess one inch at a time, prolonging the intimacy and shortening the gap between this time and the next just a little.

Eventually, the come is gone and Elfman shivers, wet only with the trails of Bickslow's kisses. The other man pulls out and cleans himself up, rolling the condom up in paper towel to dispose of. He dresses. Elfman is still naked, panting, staring at the ceiling, shivering with pleasure on the odd occasion.

"I'll meet you upstairs," Bickslow says with his signature smile. And then he's gone, and Elfman is alone, dressing and thinking too much about too little.


A/N: This was part of a Valentines event spanning many different fandoms. If you wish to read and support other authors participating, the list is below!

Alastair, AsgardianHobbit98, Damnyousillygoose, GustavonkaLondon, HisagiKirigakure, Iceburg-sanCPX, Kakashi97, Kairomone, Kamil the Awesome, Karkatsbabe, Max333, Nazaki-Sama, NekoPantera, Phoenixreal, Potashiamu, Sailor Silver Ladybug, Seth's Kiss, SerenaJones585, SesshomaruFreak, Spunky0ne and Yatsu Narurasuke