The room, like most areas of the headquarters building, didn’t contain much in the way of non-essentials. Bed. Night table. A small wardrobe, half-filled with clothes. An attached bathroom was the only luxury, in that it contained a real, hot-water shower.
Terian had taken me in there, too, painstaking washing the wounds he had inflicted, caring for me with a gentleness that had thrown me at the time. When he’d finished, Terian had knelt in front of me in the shower, too, and given me a slower-building and more sensuality-induced orgasm that literally made my knees buckle, to the point where I might have fallen and hurt myself for real if Terian hadn’t been there to catch me.
I had cried out like a child that time, clutching the other man, and for a long moment, I’d opened my light completely, unable or perhaps unwilling to shield any part of myself from Terian’s light.
I felt like a fucking asshole for that now, of course.
Needless to say, Terian hadn’t done the same for me.
Even then, he still hadn’t let me in.
I could feel my lingering frustration around that, even now. I could feel the part of myself, of my light, that was angry about it, that felt rebellious about it, that felt deprived and borderline entitled about it. I knew I was letting myself get into dangerous ground there... but luckily, I also knew the most efficient way to cut that lingering want off.
I had to remove myself. Entirely.
I’d ask Pavel for a blow job. That would help.
The other seer would probably be open to it.
Especially if I offered to return the favor.
I didn’t look back at the seer on the bed as I hunted for my clothing and then dressed, but I could feel those amber eyes on me anyway, and had to fight to keep from snapping at the other male for staring, although I had no idea what I even wanted to say. My separation pain worsened in those few minutes it took for me to get dressed, until I was hard again, painfully hard, but I fought not to react to that, either, as I pulled my armored pants on over the erection, then fastened them carefully to the top.
I’d known what this was. I’d known, walking in.
I damned well should have known, anyway.
I was already heading for the door when a blur of motion came from the bed, covers and springs making sounds, but the whole thing happening so fast that I felt it more in my light than I saw it via the limitations of my physical eyes and other senses. By the time I had paused my steps, Terian already stood between me and my exit.
Even in the dim light, I could see the seer smiling at me.
That predatory sharpness had returned to the other man’s light.
For the first time, I noticed that he was almost as tall as I was.
“Leaving so soon, brother?” Terian said. Planting his feet slightly apart, he leaned casually against the closed door. “Just who is kicking who out of their bed, I wonder?”
I didn’t answer. I didn’t even bother to avert my eyes.
“Are you really so anxious to get a blow job from this... Pavel?”
I felt my jaw harden.
“He’s good with his mouth then? This... Pavel?” Terian’s voice sharpened. “Should I invite him over here then, brother? Save you the trip?”
I still didn’t speak.
Somehow I knew he could see me just fine, despite the dim light.
My pain worsened abruptly when Terian put his hands on me, feeling over my chest, and then the bulge on the front of my pants. Those amber eyes still boring into my face, Terian began to massage me there deliberately, using that incredible light of his in his fingers and sending more heat into my chest with his other hand. After a few more seconds, I let out a strained breath, leaning a hand against the door behind him.
“Fuck you, sir,” I managed.
Terian laughed.
My light remained charged, strangely intense, borderline aggressive even as the other man trained his gaze, laser-like, on my face in the dark.
“What if I ordered you back to my bed?” Terian said. “Would you disobey me, brother?”
I felt my anger worsen. “You know I would not.”
“Do I? I am not sure that I do, brother. Not at this moment.”
I saw a frown touch Terian’s mouth, even in the dark.
“Clearly I’ve fallen out of favor,” the other male added. “...To have you leaving here so quickly, brother. Without so much as a thank you... or, better yet, an offer to suck me off a last time before you scurry back to suck this ‘Pavel’ instead. Hell, I would have settled for a kiss, brother... on any part of my body, really.” He massaged me harder, and I let out a low sound, leaning my face into my arm. “...Maybe you intend to get me back for this imagined slight against your pride, then?” Terian said. “Maybe fuck another in your pod, too, in your delusional quest for revenge? Or maybe one of my people, here? One of the camp rats, perhaps?”
I looked over at his words, feeling my jaw harden more.
“What difference would it make, sir?” I said.
Terian’s smile faded, leaving a look that caused me to immediately regret my words.
“I apologize––” I began, but Terian cut me off.
“––Perhaps it wouldn’t make any difference to me, after all,” Terian said, his voice as cold as ice. “I wonder, though, how much do you value your own cock, brother? Perhaps I could rid you of the inconvenience, if it pains you so to simply fucking ask me what I desire, instead of storming out of here like a wronged adolescent?”
I felt my pain worsen when the other didn’t stop the motion of his strong fingers, and now I felt confused, too. Terian used his light and his touch with a deftness that made me lose my train of thought as he seemed to focus more of his attention there. Closing my eyes, I leaned into the other male’s hand.
After a few more seconds, I gave up, letting my light grow submissive again.
“I apologize, sir,” I said, quieter.
“You’d fucking well better,” Terian said pleasantly. “...Don’t get me wrong,” he added. “I like it that you’re possessive. You got me hard as hell, getting all territorial like that, especially with only a single, marginally unconventional fuck under our belts. I have to say, it’s been quite awhile since one of my playmates got to me like that... quite awhile, indeed.”
I winced at the playmates reference, but bit my tongue, not voicing it.
Terian felt it, anyway, and grinned.
“Gods. I may have to keep you on a short leash, brother. This jealousy... is it normal for you? If it is, you’d better lie to me.”
I didn’t answer that, either.
After another few minutes, I was having trouble controlling my light at all, though.
“You don’t want to be a name on a list, then, brother?” Terian prompted. “Is that it?”
“No.” I let out a low groan when the other man began unfastening my belt. I clenched my jaw, then finished answering him anyway. “No to both questions... sir.”
“So what is it that you want from me, brother?”
I felt the confusion in my light worsen.
Despite that confusion, I felt my aleimi reaching for that of the other seer.
I knew I was reacting strangely to him, and perhaps even more so to his light.
I couldn’t quite admit to myself in what ways, or how quickly my light seemed to want to return to being immersed in that of the other seer. I had heard stories about such things, of course... I’d had crushes before, fixations even, but my mind couldn’t go logically over how this differed from those, either. As soon as I let myself, my light flooded back into Terian’s without reservation, though, pulling on him... hard.
I could feel the insistence there, the near-anger... both of which still felt totally out of proportion to anything I could articulate in my mind, anything that made logical sense. The intensity caused Terian to tense, too, pausing where he’d been unfastening my pants.
“I see,” Terian said, his voice thicker. “You like my light, is that it?”
“Yes, sir.”
“How much?”
I closed my eyes, fighting to think. “A lot, sir.”
“A lot? Is that all you can tell me?”
I grimaced, looking away as I fought to think.
“...Enough to want to beat the hell out of you right now, “ I said finally, speaking before it occurred to me to censor my words. “Enough to want to hurt you... for finding this... I don’t know... funny. Enough to want to force you. Force you to open to me, at least...”
I tensed once I’d said it, unsure how the other male would react, but I only felt Terian waiting. My whole fucking body hurt by then, but I couldn’t seem to move, not even to get away from his fingers. When Terian’s palm began caressing me through my pants once more, I let out a low sound.
“Gods,” I said finally, as those deft fingers finally got my pants open. “Don’t do this to me... please, sir. Find another. Please, find another...”
Terian gripped me tighter. “Why would you want me to find another?”
Confused again, I shook my head, clenching my jaw.
“You think this is a diversion to me?” Terian said. “...Is that it?”
“Yes,” I said, my voice thick once more. “I do.”
“I see,” Terian said. “And what the hell else would it be to me, brother?”
I clenched my jaw harder, unseeing in the dark. After a too-long pause, I shook my head.
“I don’t know.”
“Don’t you? Are you certain, brother?”
I fought to speak past that, too, to say more, to even wrap my mind around what he wanted me to say, then flinched when he knelt abruptly in front of me, yanking down the armored pants. The other seer had his mouth on me again in seconds, before I could make up my mind how I wanted to react to that, either.
Then that moment was gone, too.
I groaned aloud when I felt the other male’s tongue and lips, nearly painful with light despite the fact that Terian had shifted back to sensual again, to borderline soft. Leaning my weight deeper into the palm I still rested against the paneled door, I clenched my fingers in the auburn hair, letting go of more of my light when the other man didn’t stop. My aleimi snaked out of me in a dense wave soon after, wrapping aggressively into Terian’s, demanding that he open more, that he let me in... all the way in.
He wouldn’t.
He didn’t fight me. He didn’t even try to resist.
He just fucking... wouldn’t.
I felt another surge of that possessiveness, and that time, the man below me paused long enough to look up at my face.
“Do you really want me to stop?” Terian asked.
I shook my head.
“Do you want me to find another?”
I hesitated, then shook my head again.
For some reason, that brought the smile back to Terian’s lips.
“Ah, back to quiet, are we? We’ll have to see what we can do about that, too, brother...”
He didn’t wait for an answer that time.
I fought to control myself briefly, then decided I didn’t care about that, either.
I let the possessiveness rise to the forefront of my aleimi, using it to wrap my light deeper into that of the man kneeling in front of me. Terian’s light resisted at first, but I gripped his hair tighter, going from asking to demanding, hitting the other man harder with my light, tempted to use more than my light. Below me, Terian let out a low sound, the first glimpse that I was getting to him at all, even from before, when we first came to the room.
I wanted to hit him again after that, but just clenched my hand tighter in his hair, knowing I was being toyed with, but unsure how much, or even in what ways. I could feel Terian getting off on the reactions he was evoking, but something else lived there, too.
Something I could almost feel, some hint of real emotion...
Terian stopped what he’d been doing some minutes later, and then he was standing.
By then I was practically in a trance, barely supporting my own weight.
Terian had been holding me off orgasm for what felt like an interminable length of time, and the pain in my light nearly blinded me when he stopped entirely. Before I could recover enough to step back, or even take my hand off the fucking door, Terian hit me hard in the chest, using both of his fists that time.
He hit me again before I could recover, forcing me to stumble back, nearly making me fall. My light reacted in shock, but I only stared at the other male, breathing hard.
“You aren’t leaving, brother,” Terian said, his voice cold once more, a harsh command. “You try to leave here again before I tell you to leave, and I’ll do more than just threaten you...”
I nodded, gasping. “Yes.”
“Yes, what?”
“Yes, sir.”
That fire in Terian’s light didn’t dim.
He continued to stare up at my face in the near dark.
For the first time, I realized that the other male was shaking, barely containing some emotion that seemed to twist brokenly through his light, stuttering it behind my eyes. The sheer level of voltage in the room caught in my chest, made it even more difficult to breathe. I felt glimmers behind that fire, hints of memory and familiarity, most of it not attached to me. It occurred to me again that Terian saw something in my face, something beyond me as a person, something that merged into some aspect of his light, that connected us and separated us all at once. As soon as I’d thought that much, I found I understood.
Really understood, that time.
Dehgoies.
Gaos di’lanlente a’ guete... this was about that fucker, Dehgoies.
As soon as I thought it, I realized I was hard again.
I was hard, but I was angry, too.
I couldn’t explain to myself rationally why either of those things would be true, but I knew they were. Nor did I care about the reason behind them, not really. Not then.
Maybe not ever.
Worse than the anger and the part of me that was turned on by that vulnerability I could feel in Terian’s light... were the softer, more wrenching emotions that flavor from Terian’s aleimi evoked in me at the same time. I felt for the other man.
I felt for him, and I hated it.
I felt that older, denser hurt, something so raw that I flinched whenever I got anywhere close to it with my light, and it made me want to hurt him, really hurt him. That vulnerability made me nearly irrational, in fact... made me want to both beat the other male and shield him from any pains caused by anything outside the two of us.
It made the possessiveness worse, the pain worse, that irrationality I felt towards him worse, the anger worse... the desire to claim his light worse.
All of it, I could see now, from that wound of lost light, of deprivation.
Such a small thing.
So small, so seemingly insignificant, yet it could render even a being like Terian raw to the touch... broken even... even a half-decade later, and despite all of his power within the Org hierarchy. Terian must be significantly more powerful now than he had been back then, when Dehgoies had been the brightest star in the network.
But Terian still missed his friend.
Maybe Dehgoies had been more than a friend.
At the thought, I fought not to hit him, to knock him down with my fists.
I forced my mind to turn around those feelings, to wonder if Dehghois and Terian had possibly been more lovers than friends. On some level, the question itself felt meaningless. It wasn’t even the true source of my jealousy. Truthfully, I had no idea what they’d really been to one another, either alone or in the outside world, at least in the strictest since, and maybe in the end, that truly had no bearing on any of it. Maybe in the end, given everything they had been through together and how long they had shared light, Dehgoies had been family.
Not biological family, but family nonetheless.
Light family.
Something I myself had never had... not even in the Org.
I felt Terian flinch as I thought these things, almost like he’d heard me.
I felt those amber eyes staring at me. I saw them glowing at me through my aleimi in the Barrier’s rose-tinted dark, flickering with greenish glows.
Whatever Dehgoies and Terian had been to one another, some part of my light wanted to know more about that wound. I hated it, yes. I was jealous of it. It angered me and made me feel irrational, but I felt some part of that truth belonged to me now, as well. The more my light coiled into and around those questions, the more I found I wanted to know. I wanted the truth of Terian. The truth of the two of them... him and Dehgoies. I wanted to crawl inside that truth, to witness it maybe... or more likely, to feel it, perhaps from both sides.
I didn’t know if that wanting came more from jealousy, curiosity, or something else entirely, but thinking about it made my separation pain significantly worse.
It also made me want to fuck again, and more than just physically.
I wanted brother Terian to tell me things.
Above all, I wanted him to open his light.
I would gladly have beat him half to death, if I could get him to open his light. Even if it got me killed in the end, I might have done it anyway by the time those few minutes had passed.
“You’ll stay, brother,” Terian said, his voice as hard as ice.
I felt my muscles tense.
Yet I didn’t lower my gaze, or retract any part of my light.
I backed deeper into the room when Terian stepped towards me, though.
“You’ll stay by my side every minute I want you there,” Terian added, his voice lower still. “You’ll do what I tell you, when I tell you... no matter what it is. If I ask you to stay with me when your pod leaves this insect-infested swamp, you will stay with me then as well, brother. If I make you my second in the field, you will operate in that capacity, no matter how much the others complain about it, and no matter how many of them say you don’t deserve it, or accuse you of getting the job from your knees...”
I just stood there, listening without speaking, feeling the charges off the other man’s light even as my own pain worsened.
Allie's War Early Years Page 32
