No Deadly Thing

by Tiger Gray

  As soon as they were touching Mal felt all that tension that had made him come on to Ashrinn in the study that night. He couldn't make himself shove Ashrinn again but he wanted to, wanted to get that temptation away from him and forget it had ever happened. But he didn't have the will, not with Ashrinn clinging to his arm like that, like it was his only lifeline.

  "Mal..."

  "Don't." Mal said, his voice sticking in his throat. "Just... don't touch me."

  Ashrinn stepped back, steady now, and looked at him with such coldness Mal hardly recognized him. It was a far cry from how Ashrinn had come in here, on fire with righteous rage.

  "Are you saying you don't want me?" he said in a tone Mal couldn't read. Mal dropped his gaze.

  "No. I don't." He tried to turn away but Ashrinn caught his wrist. Before Mal could react Ashrinn spun him around and kissed him. Mal forgot himself, forgot to resist it, and grabbed Ashrinn as desperately as Ashrinn had just done to him, like he was drowning.

  When they parted Mal had tears on his face and that just made it worse.

  "You goddamn liar," Ash hissed.

  "Why are you doing this to me?" Mal demanded, fists balled at his sides.

  "You're doing this to yourself."

  Now Ashrinn turned to go, and it was Malkai who caught his wrist. Ashrinn stopped and looked at him, and for one of the longest moments of his life Mal couldn't make any words come. All he knew was he couldn't let Ashrinn walk out. All those years he'd been at Ashrinn's side, all those years he'd kept up being married and never breathed a word of how he felt or what he wanted, all that cracked open and he couldn't do anything but cover his eyes.

  "Mal." The tenderness in Ash's tone was worse than when they'd been fighting. Ash urged his hands away from his face. Mal was sure he looked a sight.

  "I was wrong about you, wasn't I?" Ash said, watching him, brows furrowed just a little to where that little pale line etched itself in his friend's dark skin. "All those times I teased you about being so damn straight."

  "Don't want to talk about it," Mal grunted. "Just want to do something about it."

  "Here?"

  "Yeah." Thank god, Ashrinn's mouth on his then, hands in his hair, no more words.

  * * *

  Ashrinn wanted nothing more than for someone to handle him roughly. A moment later he got his wish when Malkai twisted his arm behind his back, turning him around to face the car. He'd even considered paying for it, he'd been so desperate, and it was only his good fortune that had put him in his current situation instead.

  Ashrinn guessed Malkai couldn't look him at him while they did this. Normally that might have bothered him, but now he took a certain comfort in it; he was accustomed to being used and it felt familiar in a world that had been all too confusing as of late.

  Mal shoved him against the car and he couldn't help but whimper. His body wasn't even close to being what it was before the fire and Mal's handling was reminding him of that fact in a visceral way.

  "I'm all right," he said even as Mal's grip on his arm loosened. He couldn't let Mal hesitate or he'd think too hard about what was happening and reject him again. He didn't care if he had to suffer to get what he needed. The suffering was part of it.

  He heard Mal draw a shaky breath. "I'm hurting you."

  "Yes." Ashrinn prayed Mal wouldn't press him any further on that point. He was so hard even that hurt, in its way, and he wasn't hard in spite of the pain, in spite of being pressed to the cold metal of the Mustang by Mal's weight.

  Mal grunted noncommittally and Ash knew then that he'd leave the topic alone, thank the divine.

  "Just..." Ashrinn tried. "Do what you're going to do." He squirmed against Mal because his instinct was to show spirit even if he wanted to be mastered. "Don't make me beg for it."

  He tried to make it sound sarcastic, but he would have, he realized, and blushed with shame. The pleas rose in his throat and it was only will that kept them unsaid. Mal's free hand snaked around him and fumbled at his belt buckle and a moment later managed to get it undone. His mind started to go blank, the wished for nothingness intensity often brought him, the animal state Kir had taught him to crave.

  A moment later and he could feel Mal, skin on skin, and the realization that he was about to get taken against the car like a whore sunk in. He tried to stifle his moan though the people in the house couldn't have realistically heard it anyway.

  "I got to do anything special?" Mal murmured in his ear. Mal might have sounded hesitant but his hands weren't, pawing at his aching dick and exposed ass with the kind of desperation only years of repression could give someone.

  "No," he said, wanting Malkai to fuck him hard and dry, to give him the kind of agony that could exorcise all of his mental demons for just a little while. Something sharp and rough, not the baseline creeping misery he lived with every day.

  Mal pressed inside him and his world went grey. His body tightened out of pure instinct. Ashrinn could tell Mal knew enough to spit on his dick first but it didn't do much to ease such forceful penetration and for a moment he thought he might pass out.

  Mal seemed to sense it because he let go of Ashrinn's arm. Ashrinn immediately braced himself with both hands, clinging to consciousness with the bare tips of his mental fingers. Mal shoved all the way into him and he cried out, sounding pitiful in his own ears.

  "Shut up," Mal growled at him, gripping his shoulder hard enough to bruise. "You want Raietha to hear you?"

  Ashrinn bit his tongue until the sharp sensation brought some modicum of sense along with it. His body was alive with pain.

  Alive.

  He pushed back to meet Mal's thrusts and Mal put an arm around his waist again, pulling the two of them as close together as they could be. Ashrinn felt a rush of pleasure at the attention, and when Mal dropped a hand to his dick and started stroking he thrust shamelessly into Mal's fist, chasing that state where he was nothing but feeling with a single mindedness a sniper would have envied.

  Mal breathed a curse and Ashrinn felt pride too, that even scarred and half-broken he could still make Mal lose control. By the time Mal's deep thrusts told him Mal was about to come, Ashrinn had surrendered to it completely, body limp against the car between strokes, letting Mal do exactly as he pleased.

  A flash of fear roused him, though, because he wasn't sure if he could come without being told to. He didn't want Mal to think he couldn't perform like a normal man, especially since Mal already suspected much more about his life than he was comfortable with. He closed his eyes tight and lost himself in the torment that was pleasure and pain together, felt Mal come inside him, and that was enough to trigger his own orgasm.

  He felt knee-weakening relief more than he felt the base pleasure of that act. Mal stepped back from him too quickly, pulled out so that it hurt, and he would have fallen if Mal hadn't been there to keep him on his feet. Both knees were on fire with pain, he realized, and his bad arm felt beastly, like it wanted to tear off.

  Still, he made himself stand, made himself arrange his clothing with what dignity he could muster. There's no graceful way to dress yourself after something like that, he thought, tugging his jeans over his hips and fastening his belt without looking at Mal. He turned and glimpsed Mal's face, fair skin flushed, mouth working as though his friend were trying to come up with something appropriate to say.

  He limped out to the street before Malkai could tell him to go.

  * * *

  It took a good long while for Mal to work up enough courage that he could even think about going on over and knocking on Ashrinn's door. Even though he'd decided to do it, he screwed around anyway, putting it off down to the last second, but he just couldn't make himself stay in the shower longer than ten minutes. It wasn't just because he was jumpy. He couldn't help but think that for every moment he stood in there, he was taking precious water out of the Order's limited supply. He was lucky he could still get drinkable water at all, so showering felt like an obscene luxury. He stepped out and
glanced at himself in the mirror, but the glass was steamed over.

  The kids had been put to bed and Raietha was ignoring him like usual. He'd scrubbed himself damn near raw and he started to comb his hair, doing it over and over, never really satisfied. He hadn't been this nervous on prom night, though he bet he was the only guy in McKinney who hadn't scored. Luckily he'd passed it off as being too wholesome and Christian for that.

  He knew Ashrinn was pissed at him and that didn't help. He realized he'd acted poor, to put it mild. That part of himself, the mean and cold part that could just use people without thinking about it, scared the hell out of him.

  He was half hard thinking about what they'd done, though.

  Guess I'm a faggot after all.

  He stopped with his hands in his hair, trying to smooth it into place one last time. He felt hollowed out by that thought.

  Faggot. I'm a faggot.

  For a second he wanted to smash his fist right through the mirror, find out how big a dent he could make in the wall behind it. He turned away and crept through the gloomy house instead, the muted light from all the wards pulsing here and there in the evening darkness. He plucked his jacket from the rack by the front door and wrapped himself in the leather like it might protect him, or hide him. He jammed his hands in the pockets.

  You take your hands out of your pockets when you're talking to me, boy.

  His father's voice came to him from across the years. In his bad moments, when he was feeling petty and low, he was glad the old bastard had got cancer and died.

  Every step, he hesitated. It wasn't just the homosexuality; he'd cheated and that was a sin by itself. And yet in the back of his mind he was fixing to do it again.

  Getting over to Ashrinn's place was such a blur he was surprised to find himself standing on the front porch. He must have knocked because Ashrinn answered, big green eyes narrowed. A thin haze of incense smoke curled up against the darkness.

  "You had better be here to do something for my knees."

  Mal dug in his pocket and came up with the tin of balm, holding it up wordlessly. Ash gave him an exasperated look, but stepped aside to let him in. He knew he'd done a job on Ashrinn's body, jamming them up against the car like he had.

  It was the first time he'd been inside since Kir and Coren had gone, and he tried not to stare as he went up the stairs and in to the living room. It was dark, of course --- everyone's house was dark nowadays --- except for a tiny mage light trapped in a crystal globe, sitting on the end table next to the couch. Mal didn't think it was such a good idea for Ashrinn to just sit in the dark all the time with everything that had happened, but Ashrinn wouldn't want to hear that anyway, so he kept quiet.

  The smell of whatever Ashrinn was burning was pleasant, but it surprised him. Ashrinn got nervy when he struck a match, these days. Must have been something damn important for him to get past that for even a couple of minutes.

  "What is that?"

  "Esfand," Ashrinn told him. Ashrinn folded his body into a sitting position on the couch. He'd started to get some muscle back in his arms and legs. Mal knew his friend had been working hard at the physical therapy, since getting left behind when there was a war on stuck in his craw so bad. He still looked pretty stiff and sore, though, and while Ashrinn had always had a rangy build he was looking downright scrawny compared to how he was when he was healthy. Too thin through the torso. Ugly raised scars covered every bare inch of him from neck to groin, and that arm wasn't ever going to be normal. Only then did he realize that Ashrinn had on a pair of boxers, a tank top, and nothing else. Malkai felt that weird mix of sympathy and attraction Ashrinn tended to bring out of him these days.

  "Kir never allowed me to burn it. Said the smell made her ill." Ashrinn smirked, humorless. "It's supposed to keep the evil eye away. I always feel a little silly about it, but I've certainly seen stranger things work." He glanced over and there was a sudden awkwardness to him, like he didn't know what to do with his limbs. Malkai realized he was staring. He flushed and cursed inwardly, and for a second all that hateful stuff inside him, the stuff his dad had put there, almost made him turn and bolt.

  Defiance made him cross the room and settle in next to his friend.

  You can go to hell, old man. You're dead and you can keep your fire and brimstone, he told the echo of his father in the sternest mental voice he had, though most of it was bluster instead of courage. He glanced at Ashrinn and fidgeted. The silence stretched between them until Ashrinn broke it with a sheepish little laugh.

  "Ridiculous, isn't it?" Ashrinn said. "I feel like a callow schoolboy."

  "There you go with that fancy talk," Malkai grumbled, though he knew good and well what the word meant. He relaxed some. The back and forth was good, like things were normal. Ashrinn gave him a withering look.

  "Yes, yes. You're all apple pie and football and so forth." He waved his hand in a dismissive gesture. Normally it would have been just a friendly joke but there was a subtle but sharp edge to everything Ashrinn had to say this time. Mal swallowed his hesitation and said,

  "Can you stretch your legs out over my lap here? Then I can put some of this here balm on."

  Ashrinn winced and Mal realized both of his friend's knees were swollen. Ashrinn had a hard time moving as asked and Mal had to help him stretch out.

  "Shit," Mal said, when he could really get a look at Ashrinn's legs. He didn't want to talk about what had happened in the garage, but he couldn't ignore it either. He was trying not to be a total bastard, after all. "I'm sorry. I --- "

  Ashrinn held up a hand. "Peace, Malkai. I wanted it."

  "I was too hard on you."

  "You can make it up to me by doing something about it."

  Mal took his cue and opened the container of balm, camphor and menthol making his nose sting. He started to work the stuff into Ashrinn's joints while Ashrinn relaxed bit by bit against the arm of the couch.

  It took Mal a while to notice that Ashrinn was giving him that "come fuck me look" he was so good at. It took Mal a second longer to notice his own dick was half hard. There was something sexual about touching Ashrinn, even like this and despite how he was trying to keep that kind of thought far from his mind.

  "Ashrinn." He felt Ashrinn tense, like he was expecting to get hit. He couldn't figure out what to say so he just barged right through the middle of the problem. "I can't leave Raietha. The kids have been through enough."

  Coward.

  Ashrinn pulled his legs back, rubbing at his knees. He got that look that said he was trying to cover up how hurt he was. "I don't expect --- "

  "I want to keep doing this," Mal blurted, and he felt his pulse speed up like a freight train about to jump the tracks.

  Ashrinn looked stunned. "You're asking me to lie." His words had a flat quality that made him difficult to read, but Malkai saw a flash of something like desperation in his friend's expression.

  "I can't leave her. I'm sorry. I wish I could." Mal felt mortified by the knot of emotion choking him. He couldn't make this all even more shameful by crying like a sissy, too.

  Be a man, son, for the Lord's sweet sake.

  "I'll do it," Ashrinn said. Mal couldn't even process that before Ashrinn followed it up with, "On one condition."

  "What's that?" Mal managed, though his voice was a worn and threadbare thing.

  "That you don't bullshit me." Mal could always tell when Ashrinn was really serious, because Ashrinn hardly cursed otherwise. "If I'm going to be your dirty secret, you're at least going to look me in the eyes when you fuck me."

  The words gutted him not only because they were brutal, but because they were true. What had happened in the garage had been no better than animals in a field and Malkai knew that was his own damn fault. Shame made him angry, and then when that passed he felt that much worse for being pissed when he was the one who had done wrong.

  Mal wanted to argue or explain himself, maybe. How sex was one thing but kissing and cuddling and carrying
on made him the worst kind of queer. It felt like Ashrinn had demanded he pull all his skin off.

  He watched Ashrinn for a long time. This man had been at his side since they were just barely done being kids, saved his life, been an absolute rock he could always rely on, and had lead him alive and whole through combat more times than he could count. He'd known Ashrinn longer than anyone. Longer than Raietha.

  Somewhere inside he knew he was taking advantage of how vulnerable Ashrinn was, offering Ashrinn the validation that had often been sorely lacking from his friend's life. He had to give Ashrinn something. He nodded, too full up with feeling to speak.

  "I'm not going to be your bottom all the time either," Ashrinn said, "so you can put it in me and feel better about your masculinity. If we're going to sneak around, it's going to be as equal as possible between us."

  Oh, god. No turning back, then. And he knew Ashrinn wouldn't budge, not by that sharp and stubborn look Ashrinn had on his already beaky face. If he took it, that for sure shut the door on being straight, even if he pretended to be in public.

  "You got any good moonshine?"

  Ashrinn raised his eyebrows. "Are you asking me if I have liquor?" Mal knew Ashrinn was probably a drunk, but he thought Ashrinn deserved some vices. "My jacket is hung up by the back door. There's a full flask in the inside pocket."

  Mal worried he wouldn't be able to stand, with how he was shaking. What bothered him most, he thought as he felt his way to the kitchen on the hunt for Ashrinn's coat, was that he wanted to do it.

  He came back with the flask and sat next to Ashrinn again. He took a long pull of what was inside. Good whiskey, no surprise. Ashrinn tugged it out of his hands and did the same before capping it and setting it on the floor.

  "Let's do it right now," Mal said, the booze warming him and loosening his tongue and his knotted up muscles both.