Loki took his time. With an artist's patience, he drizzled burning flourishes across a trembling canvas. The bright colours, with their white barber's pole stripes, melted into a rainbow of pastels.
Hidden, the soft skin of Clint's stomach and thighs were pink and raw under a sheen of sweat, stinging at even the barest graze of Loki's fingertips and screaming when painted with wax. His breath came in harsh, sobbing gasps. Blind eyes rolled under hooded lids. The ribbons stayed tight and unyielding around his wrists and ankles as he struggled.
With every touch – wax on his blistered thigh, enough to make him scream, lingering, drop after drop after drop – Loki's hand on his cheek, soft lips over his eyelids – nails drawing blood across his chest – whispered praise against his skin, he was being good, so good… the tide lapped at his body, washing over him in waves of churning waves of agony and desire. Clint was sinking, drowning, and Loki was holding him under. Telling him to breathe.
…It was wonderful.
By the time he lost count, Clint had forgotten how to lie.
"How many?"
He opened his mouth but nothing came out. Nothing came to mind. Not a single digit. His hands tightened around the ribbon over his palms as he swallowed nervously. He couldn't even summon the will to guess.
A cold touch settled on his stomach and trailed lower until he felt each of Loki's fingers settle around his balls. A tendril of fear curled through him and he pushed out a whimper, shaking his head. His eyes roamed the dark for Loki's voice.
"Oh, pet…" Loki smoothed his other hand over Clint's hair, cupping his cheek to let him turn into it and hide his face. Then he suddenly clenched his fist and Clint choked on a cry as pain burst hot and bright between his legs to shoot up through his abdomen.
"Shall I remind you?" he offered kindly.
"Yes," he gasped, shaking as Loki's grip only tightened. "Please, Loki, pl–"
Click.
And then he broke off, eyes and mouth agape, as a single drop of wax (baby blue) spattered onto the base of his cock. He sucked in a breath, only to have the scream die on his tongue as Loki let go of his balls to clap a hand over his mouth and nose.
"Hush," Loki coaxed, over the muted squealing, "or we'll wake the neighbours."
Clint tried his best to nod. Still, it wasn't until the aborted scream started burning in his lungs, ribcage fluttering uselessly, hands and feet twitching against the ribbons, that Loki finally let him breathe. But for reasons that were soon to become all too obvious, he kept his hand over the boy's mouth.
As Clint moaned with gratitude, Loki kissed him fondly on the bridge of his nose.
"That's one."
Then another drop landed just lower than the first (and if Clint had any kind of higher cognition left he would have seen the pattern, would have fought harder, screamed louder) tearing a hoarse yelp out of him before Loki pinched his nose shut –
"And two."
One gasp, in and out, and then Clint jerked violently, arms straining as if he had the slightest chance, back arching, as –
"Three. Are you following, pet?"
Another breath, panting, tossing his head to the side, trying to escape Loki's smothering hand, to get a word out –
"Four."
He convulsed like he was being shocked, stomach trembling with effort, tears and sweat wetting the pillow –
"Five."
It can't have been that long, can it? Five seemed reasonable. It had to be over soon, it had to be –
"Six."
He managed to cough out a sob, but Loki just pressed harder, forcing his head back–
"Seven."
It was too much, he couldn't breathe, it hurt so much, please –
"Eight."
His lungs were going to burst, his skin was on fire –
"Nine."
Loki, please, Loki –
"Ten."
Finally, on the end of his cock, right over the slit, Loki held the candle low and blew sharply across the flame. It flared spectacularly, sucking air with a squeaking hiss; an inch and a half of candle liquefied in an instant. Loki suffocated him on the exhale and held steady as hot wax splashed onto him.
"Eleven."
Clint's eyes rolled back.
The tide washed over his face and dragged him under, filling him up, through his mouth and nose, through the fire in his lungs and between his legs, through Loki's voice in his ear, squeezing him from every direction, until it threatened to tear him apart, until…
"Come."
His eyes snapped open, lungs heaved against nothing, hips stuttered –
– and he came in a wash of blind, breathless, agonizing bliss.
The stars faded just as the ribbons pulled themselves away. In a ripple of chill over his feverish skin, all the wax that had been painted over him disappeared. Gentle hands and then a warm tongue mapped the burns.
Clint floated somewhere above it all in warm seas. The tide swelled gently and he blinked lazily up at the dappled mirror of the surface.
He felt the barest tickle of heat by his lips. Blew it out at Loki's prompting.
"How many, pet?" he asked again, soft like the marshmallows in Clint's bones, warm and smiling.
"Mmm… 'lev'n…"
A low chuckle rumbled through his sternum from Loki's lips. A wet swipe through the hollow of his chest and up to suck at the dip between his collarbones, then up, up over his throat, his chin, until Clint felt his lips part for Loki's tongue. His hands were free, but his fingers barely twitched. Unless Loki told him to move, Clint didn't want to do a single thing ever again.
He was soft dough as Loki turned him over onto his stomach. The sheets were rough against his tender skin, but he was soon coaxed onto his knees. His arms were pulled behind him and bound together from elbow to wrist. Suspended from the ceiling, they were drawn steadily up, taking his weight, until his shoulders were just higher than his hips. Loki manoeuvred him around ninety degrees so he was east-west across the bed. Then he felt the familiar slide of satin around his knees and ankles as the ribbons found their marks and pulled his legs open.
Clint had time to get comfortable, appreciating the strain on his shoulders, the fact that if Loki left him here he'd be begging within the hour, before Loki grabbed his hips and pushed in.
Clint's mouth fell open and he buckled, toes curling, thighs trembling.
He wasn't anywhere near ready, but Loki was slick and warm. And insistent. A low whine started in his chest, crawling up his throat and rising to a pleading keen. He couldn't help clenching every time Loki moved, especially when friction was overtaken by the slow, penetrating ache of blunt pressure inside him.
"Am I hurting you?" Loki asked.
Even through the flood of sensation, Clint thrilled at the breathlessness in his voice.
He moaned the affirmative. Then fingers dug into his bones, and it turned into a howl, pain flaring inside him, deep and sharp, as Loki jerked suddenly forward. Clint arched, yanking on his shoulders. But he was already at the literal end of his rope, having bowed forward as far as his bound legs and arms would allow, and now there was nowhere to go and nothing to do but take what was given.
"Answer me," the prince demanded. He gripped him tight again and dragged back just enough to threaten, to make Clint weak at the thought of it and clench reflexively, which of course didn't help at all.
"Yes!" he gasped. Sweat was dripping off his neck and the backs of his thighs. Every word was a struggle through his addled brain, past his quivering diaphragm. "It h..urts, Loki, s-so much, pl…ease… d-don't–"
"Don't what?" Loki asked innocently, and then shoved himself to the hilt.
The waters surged with a heady torrent of breathtaking fear and ravenous delight, deeper and darker with every inch his body was forced to yield for Loki's pleasure.