Sumage Solution GL Carriger

by G. L. Carriger

  Max continued. “Maybe it was a test. Maybe it was out of fear. Maybe it was just hate. I don’t know. My dad was complicated. Perhaps in my gayness he saw the end of his glorious line? You see, another Surge could have used quintessence to form a shield, just deflect a blast like that. So, when he hit me, I did what I’d been taught. I reached in and pulled at the quintessence to protect myself. Or I tried to.”

  Max’s blue eyes were unfocused and distant. Watching a memory of himself.

  “It didn’t work. It felt like a net of pain burst all around and inside me. God, it hurt. And I’m not sure if that’s because I was trying too hard, or the sheer volume of my father’s blast. Or just the tracers forming for the first time.”

  Biff squeezed Max’s hand, encouraging him to continue. Trying to imagine the boy Max was, built for this one thing, and failing so spectacularly to be what was expected. To be trained and taught all his life to become a Surge, and end up sumage instead.

  “Why no scars on your face or hands?”

  “Or feet or cock? I don’t know. Nobody does. Something to with circulation.”

  “And they only hurt when you work quintessence?” Biff had to make absolutely certain.

  “Only then. It tries to split me open, like the trace lines are seams and the quintessence wants to bloat outward. Because it’s not my abilities that I’m working with, you see, it’s someone else’s already-used quintessence. My body knows it’s wrong.”

  “Could I help?”

  Max laughed. “You are a sweetie, aren’t you?”

  Biff felt his cheeks flame. “It’s not that, it’s just I have this odd feeling like I should be able to help.”

  * * *

  God, he really is the most adorable thing, this big, sheepish werewolf.

  “I think that’s likely just a residual emotional connection. You know, from your first time with a man and it being so good and all.”

  “Yeah?” Bryan looked up through those long lashes, his hazel eyes accepting everything because Max wished it, not because he believed him. “Good?”

  “Yeah. Very good.”

  “You smell amazing, did you know that? You aren’t meant to. All mages are bad, coolant and chemical and flameless fire. But sumages are usually the worst, like the sweet has gone rotten.”

  “Flattery will get you everywhere.” Max flinched. “But not me?”

  “Naw. Brown butter and caramel, most of the time. Spiced rum occasionally. Most places.”

  “Not everywhere?”

  Bryan’s eyes flicked over his body, going from neck to crotch to feet and then back to crotch. “Not everywhere. Though that’s good too, in a different way. I wouldn’t mind checking, just to be sure.” His voice slipped a little lower, became a little scratchier.

  “You’d not mind, huh?” Max tried to pull himself back. Something twigged him. Why do I smell good to a werewolf? That’s not normal. I usually don’t smell good to any hunting shifter. That’s why I’ve never fucked one before. “I wonder if I smell good to your whole pack.”

  Bryan gave a funny little growl. “I certainly hope not. I’m not the only gay one, you know.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Max,” he grumbled, “we’re not solid yet. Maybe after we fuck again you can tease me.”

  “Well, let’s fuck again, then. Anything to give me more teasing options.”

  Bryan pounced, grabbed him, and fell back to sit on the couch once more, only now with a new and improved Max-shaped blanket sprawled atop him. He buried his face in Max’s neck. His chin was scratchy and his breath hot. Max supposed he would have to get accustomed to this. If he was lucky. The werewolf huffed him, inhaled him.

  Bryan groaned. “Okay, maybe after we’ve fucked a lot, you can tease me. And then you can meet my pack.”

  Max tensed up. That was basically like being told you’d be meeting the relatives. Only all Bryan’s family were large and male and turned into slavering beasts once a month.

  A wide, warm palm caressed his back in slow comforting circles, easing the tension. “Pack can wait.”

  Max expected Bryan to turn into the aggressor then. After all, he’d grabbed first, but the werewolf seemed content just to cuddle him. While Bryan’s cock was certainly interested in taking things further, the man himself stayed calm.

  Max ground against him, trying to give him ideas. Encouragement.

  Bryan’s touch remained light and gentle. Perhaps he was still afraid of causing pain.

  I’m going to have to show him it’s fine.

  Max didn’t mind. He could be the aggressor too. And now he knew for certain that he’d have a hard time physically damaging Bryan.

  He leaned back into the support of that large hand.

  The werewolf held him suspended like that, pierced by a hazel-eyed look of inquiry.

  “Yes, Muscles? What do you want? Use your words.”

  Bryan gave him an ironic look. “Can I see you? Would you take this off?” He plucked at the hem of Max’s shirt with his free hand.

  Max frowned. But why not risk it all now, before he became too addicted to those pleading eyes? He unbuttoned the shirt cuffs. Bryan, after a moment’s hesitation, began at Max’s collar, unbuttoning down the front, his big fingers fumbling a little. When he was finished, he smoothed the shirt off Max’s shoulders, eyes following the lines of his tracers. Frowning.

  “They’re faded a bit from last time.” He accused, as though angry with the reliability of his own memory.

  Max nodded. Relieved that it was only a question and not something worse. “Yeah, if I didn’t disPlace a Surge for a long time, they’d eventually turn white. I work around all manner of mages, civic and savage, so they often activate a little. Keeps them…fresh. Raw-looking. I know a few sumages who took to isolation, cloistering themselves away from mages and shifters, just to avoid the pain.”

  “Not you?”

  “I’m no weakling to absent myself from society for a little sting here or there.” Screw ‘em all, Max always thought. I’m not going to hide like some social embarrassment. He’d stayed. Close to his father. He’d built himself a life, dating men, working a menial government job, rubbing both in his dad’s face. “Fuck ’em.”

  “Ah. Of course.” The werewolf nodded, amused. He smoothed one of the lines with a finger. His eyes fixed on Max, searching for a reaction.

  Max reacted, shivering at the touch. Feeling a trail of heat that had nothing to do with his trace lines.

  Bryan smiled, showing a bit of canine. Max thought he saw his lover’s eyes flash yellow before the werewolf lowered his lashes and bent forward.

  He licked the lines. Intent, focused. Following them over Max’s chest. He lapped at his nipples, softly with the flat of his tongue, and then rougher when Max responded with a tiny moan. He moved on down, following the lines as if they weaved a pathway. Over the muscles on Max’s stomach, the V formed by his hip bones, dipped into his belly button. Max gasped and shivered a little but mostly just watched, fascinated, as the man worshiped his scars. Like they were a road map laid out just for him.

  Bryan paused finally.

  Max realized then that he was clawing at Bryan’s massive shoulders, encouraging him or trying to get him to stop, Max wasn’t certain which. When Bryan paused, Max yanked him up for a kiss. Blistering with gratitude and possibly terror.

  The werewolf sighed into Max’s needs, allowing him to take. The broad muscles under Max’s frantic scrabbling hands relaxed, relieved. Silly boy, he was still worried about causing pain.

  Max kissed him with encouragement then. Putting aside his own fears in an effort to allay Bryan’s. He pushed himself back and off Bryan’s lap, and stood to strip out of the rest of his clothing.

  “You can follow them anywhere they lead. It won’t hurt me. I like it.” I love it and I fear it and it is way too intimate. But you need to know it doesn’t hurt me, and I need to know it doesn’t disgust you, so I’ll risk this thing. Max tried not to think about h
ow much it opened him to this man. How much he was allowing that he’d never allowed before.

  Grabbing the werewolf by the hand, he hauled him to his feet – well, pretended to – and pulled him toward the bed.

  * * *

  The trace lines ran everywhere. All over Max’s chest and arms, his legs and back. Biff followed them. Wondered if he might learn them, memorize them until they became a familiar pattern, like a daily commute.

  They did not decorate his cock but they did network over his balls, so Biff followed them there. Lapping gently, soothing and tickling, as it turned out. Max writhed. Biff held him down with both arms over his stomach and mouthed about, exploring textures and scent, until Max’s poor neglected prick was angry and red with need.

  Max was spouting a litany of foul words that finally resolved themselves into “Stop.”

  Biff immediately stopped, drew back. Tense. Have I done something wrong again?

  “It’s not fair that you’re the one constantly driving me crazy. My turn.”

  Biff relaxed. “Okay.” He rolled over onto his back.

  Max loomed over him, grinning, all tilted blue eyes and wicked cheekbones.

  He didn’t lick. He gnawed and bit. He sucked up hickeys and left teeth marks. It was like Biff was his last meal, and he was bent on savoring the feast. He tested different parts of Biff’s body for sensitivity. The thin skin over his ribs and collarbones, and inside his elbows and thighs. Max clearly liked the places where Biff was blue-veined and very pale.

  Biff loved it. Max was marking him in his own way. Biff was back to being filled with shards of toffee – spiky and sweet. They weren’t melting this time, just fracturing into smaller and smaller pieces so they fit into every limb and digit of his body, lodged there, sharp with desire and sticky with wanting.

  Max prodded him to turn over so he could explore the back of Biff’s knees, and spend some time on his ass, not in quite the same manner as Biff had done, but with as much intent. Max nibbled and massaged, fascinated by the roundness. Biff squirmed – he wasn’t as smooth as Max. He worried about peach fuzz and… Nope, Max was definitely not opposed.

  Max drew one fingernail down the indentation of Biff’s spine, which caused him to arch up involuntarily and tingle all over. He’d never thought pleasure and pain could combine so exquisitely. He wasn’t certain whether it was the sensation itself that excited him, or the smell of Max’s arousal, or the certain knowledge he would be covered in marks, memories of this moment.

  Of course, they’ll be healed and gone soon. I hope they at least last long enough for me to see them later in a mirror.

  Max chivvied him back over. Biff felt his stomach muscles quivering. He was floating in some strange euphoric place where his prick, near to exploding and dripping with desire, was also somehow not as important as the marking, as the tiny shafts of pain-pleasure Max was causing.

  Or so he thought.

  Until Max deep-throated him.

  “Hell!” Biff nearly came off the bed. Nearly came down Max’s throat at the same time.

  Max grinned up at him around his cock, blue eyes twinkling.

  Biff collapsed. Panting. Tried to play it cool.

  Max did it again, all the way to the root, then swallowed around the head so that Biff heard himself give an involuntary groan, as if protesting his own effort not to climax immediately and disgrace himself.

  Fortunately, Max retracted slightly.

  “Fine.” Biff panted. “I’m impressed.”

  Max did it again.

  “And I am going to cum if you keep that up.”

  Max kept it up.

  Biff did not. He came, quite possibly harder than he ever had in his life.

  Max shut his blue, blue eyes in a kind of ecstasy and swallowed with a beatific expression.

  Abruptly he popped off. “Holy shit, it’s, like, totally spicy!”

  “Valley girl, much?” Biff grinned down at him.

  “I got a hint before, but dude, that’s hot.”

  “Bad?”

  “No way. I’m a three-alarm chili man myself. This is mild. Delicious though, salty, sweet, and spicy. You’re better than the local taco truck.”

  Biff looked nonplussed. “I am? So long as it’s not fish taco, I guess.”

  “Definitely carne asada.”

  “You calling me flank steak, boy?”

  “Or maybe if I’m lucky, lengua.”

  Biff could take the hint. He grinned. “Fine, then. Now you.” He made a move to flip them over and reverse positions, but Max crawled up his body, leaving a wet smear. “No need.”

  “You came from sucking me off?” Biff’s well-milked cock tried to twitch at the very idea.

  “What? You think you’re the only one in this relationship who gets off on looking after his man?”

  Biff didn’t say anything, just wrapped his arms around the sumage and tugged him down to lie fully atop him. He arranged Max like a tablecloth, despite Max’s amused grumbling about being sticky and too warm. Biff stroked his hands down Max’s back and ass and thighs, as far as he could reach, pressing him down, enjoying the lean weight, inhaling his scent as if he could be absorbed. Biff didn’t say anything, but he glowed with joy, not because of the sex, although that was wonderful, but because Max had said both relationship and his man in the same sentence.

  CHAPTER NINE

  Marvin the Nosy Merman

  Max woke up the next morning draped over a warm, rumbling, slightly scruffy mattress. Consequently, he knew several things all at once. He was not alone in his bed. He was happy. And he was freaked out about both.

  To prevent himself from panic, he used a trick from his childhood. He analyzed each observation separately.

  Part the first: not being alone. Bryan is in bed with me. Bryan is in my bed, underneath me. A werewolf. A lover. A good guy. A nice man of the furry variety.

  Okay, so that leads to part the second: happiness. An odd sensation. Giddy. Bit of a knot in my throat that needs to be swallowed around. Although – that could be last night’s deep-throating. Mmmm, spicy cock. Stop that, Max. What was I thinking about before dick? Oh yeah, happiness.

  Which quickly resulted in the part the third: freaking out. So, being happy freaks me out. That’s charmingly messed-up of me. Maybe what I really need is coffee.

  Max eased himself off Bryan. Well, he tried to – they were rather stuck together. This was a delightful memory and kind of gross. Eventually he managed it, leaving warm peach fuzz and sexy muscles behind. He climbed out of bed and pulled on some boxers. No need to be ashamed and cover up further, Bryan had seen everything now. And how do we feel about that? Poke poke. More terror, apparently. Definitely time for coffee.

  Max settled himself into the mindless ritual of caffeine, putting water to boil, mixing the different kinds of beans – Italian, French, and peaberry – grinding them, pouring the water over, pressing down slowly.

  He waited until he was sipping the coffee to test his fear again. Pressing against it like a tongue against a loose tooth. Why? What’s wrong with me?

  He stood looking out the kitchen window at his father’s huge, ugly, crumbling house. Max was bad at most things. He was bad at being the son his father wanted. He was bad at being the mage his family needed. He was bad at being gay: too self-conscious to be promiscuous, too much self-doubt to offer himself on the altar of love. Not that he indulged in fantasies of white picket fences and adopting unwanted shifter kids. Truth be told, Max had no notion of what he might want in a relationship, because he’d never thought to have one. He was bad at so many things, but what he sucked at the most, apparently, was being happy.

  Two strong arms wound around him, and naked werewolf nuzzled into his neck. Max leaned back. This part was easy. Bryan made it easy. Why does the tickle of chest hair have to feel so glorious?

  Bryan huffed the smooth skin behind his ear. The sniff turned to one of slight disgust. Then the werewolf gave a funny, pathetic sigh. “I suppose I�
�ll have to forgive you for being a coffee drinker.”

  “Wrong smell again?”

  Bryan yawned, his jaw cracking slightly. “Not really, it’s just that coffee is disgusting.”

  Max gasped. “Sacrilege. Get out of my house this instant!”

  “So…you have no tea?”

  How did such a big gruff man manage to sound so pathetic?

  “There’s probably some mint growing out in that mess I call a yard, somewhere.”

  “Mint is not tea. Mint is an herb. Tea is a sacred plant grown by sumage monks in the highlands of exotic foreign lands where Vanaras dust them with dew every morning—”

  “You’re a freak. That’s the most poetical you’ve ever been about anything, and it’s a pack of lies about tea.”

  “Everyone is moved to poetry on some subject.”

  “Your dick, for example?”

  “Yeah? Gonna write it an ode?”

  “I think I need some more inspiration first.”

  “Say no more. Put down that swill and come back to bed.”

  Max really did want to. “Can’t. Work. Must drink coffee.”

  Bryan didn’t push the matter, just rested his chin on Max’s shoulder and looked out at the run-down house and the untended garden while Max sipped. It was ridiculously domestic. Max loved it. The terror returned.

  Bryan rumbled, “Good bones on that place, if someone cared to fix it up.”

  “Someone doesn’t.” The terror ramped all the way up.

  “It’s yours?”

  Max stiffened.

  Bryan shifted position so he could stroke Max’s naked chest from belly to shoulder with one big hand in a gentling way, as if quieting a skittish kelpie. He murmured his understanding. “Your father’s?”

  Max nodded.

  “Fuck him,” said Bryan.

  Max laughed. Just like that, the happiness was back, only without the terror. Max let it settle over him and attempted not to question anything for a while.

  * * *

  Despite the lack of tea, Biff tried to be as easygoing as possible. Frankly, this wasn’t a challenge. He was pretty laid-back most of the time, and in the morning, it was easier. In the morning, people were less demanding and his naturally taciturn nature was found to be less abrasive. He focused on fitting neatly in and around Max’s normal workday routine. When the toast popped, he was there to butter it while Max fixed himself a second cup of coffee (lots of sugar and vanilla creamer). He dressed while Max dressed, and made the bed while Max gathered his things. He made no awkward motions to linger or to do anything at all that might slow life down. Don’t be difficult, Biff. Don’t be a drag. The motto of his existence.