Chapter 25 #2
His other hand comes to Sidney's hair. Not pulling. Not gripping. Just resting there, fingers threading through the blond strands, settling against his scalp with a pressure that is present without being heavy. A hand. In his hair. Holding on.
Sidney leans into the touch. He turns his face against Erath's palm for a moment, just a breath, and then his hands move to Erath's waistband.
He undoes the button. Pulls the zipper down.
His fingers hook under the fabric and Erath lifts his hips and Sidney pulls his pants and underwear down past his hips, his thighs.
Erath is half hard already, thickening, and Sidney wraps his hand around him and strokes slowly, base to tip, his grip firm and unhurried, and feels him grow fully hard in his palm.
Erath's hand in his hair tightens. Just slightly.
A reflex, controlled almost instantly, and Sidney feels it and doesn't flinch.
He leans forward and takes Erath into his mouth.
The first contact draws a sound from Erath that Sidney has never heard from him, low and guttural and involuntary, torn from somewhere deep in his chest. Sidney's mouth is warm and wet and he takes him in slowly, lips sliding down the shaft, tongue pressing flat against the underside, and he doesn't rush.
He takes his time. He takes him deeper by inches, letting his throat adjust, his jaw relax, and Erath's hand in his hair trembles.
Sidney pulls back. His lips drag up the length of him, tight and slow, and he swirls his tongue around the head and presses into the slit and Erath's hips jerk, a small, aborted thrust that he stops immediately, his thigh muscles going rigid with the effort of holding still.
"You can move," Sidney says, his mouth still close enough that the words brush skin. "I'll tell you if it's too much."
Erath exhales through his teeth. His hand flexes in Sidney's hair, still not pushing, and Sidney takes him back in.
Deeper this time. He hollows his cheeks and sucks and his hand wraps around what his mouth can't reach and strokes in time with the rhythm he's building, and Erath's hips roll up once, tentative, and Sidney hums approval around him and the sound Erath makes in response is wrecked.
Erath's hand on his jaw slides to the back of his neck.
Fingers curling around the nape, thumb pressing into the muscle at the side, and the grip is firm, holding, the way Sidney asked, but not directing.
Not pushing. Not guiding his head. Just a hand on the back of his neck, anchoring them both, and Sidney's chest fills with something so enormous he almost has to stop.
He doesn't stop.
He works Erath with his mouth and his hand, finding the rhythm that makes Erath's breath catch, the angle that makes his thigh tense under Sidney's palm, the pressure that pulls those low, rough sounds out of his chest. His eyes are closed and his knees ache on the hard floor and he doesn't care.
Erath's fingers flex in his hair and his other hand grips the back of Sidney's neck and Sidney can feel the restraint in him, the iron control, the deliberate stillness, the way his whole body is strung tight with the effort of letting Sidney lead.
Sidney pulls off. He wipes his mouth with the back of his hand and looks up.
Erath is looking down at him with an expression that is wrecked, shattered, open, and his hand in Sidney's hair is shaking and his chest is heaving and he looks undone in a way that Sidney finds deeply, absurdly satisfying.
The god of death, brought to pieces by a bartender on his knees.
Sidney's mouth twitches, and the twitch is involuntary and also the most himself he's felt in days.
He rises. His knees protest, stiff and sore from the floor, and he climbs into Erath's lap.
One leg on either side, straddling his hips, and Erath's hands come to his waist immediately, holding him there, and Sidney can feel him, hard and wet from Sidney's mouth, pressed against the inside of his thigh.
Sidney pulls his shirt over his head. Erath's hands track up his bare sides, over his ribs, the touch mapping him the way it always does, cataloging, memorizing.
Sidney reaches down between them and unfastens his own pants and lifts off Erath's lap long enough to shove them down and kick them away.
He settles back into Erath's lap and they are skin against skin, chest to chest, and Erath's arms wrap around him.
"Hold onto me," Sidney says again. Quieter this time. His mouth is close to Erath's ear and his voice is rough and his hands are on Erath's shoulders and his hips shift, rocking forward, and the friction of Erath's cock sliding against his draws a sharp breath from both of them.
Erath wraps both arms around him. One arm low across his back, the other higher, his hand splayed between Sidney's shoulder blades, fingers spread wide.
Tight. Close. Total. Sidney's chest is pressed against his and he can feel Erath's non-heartbeat against his own racing one, and the contrast, the living and the not-living, the frantic and the still, should be jarring but instead it's grounding.
A counterweight. Something steady to calibrate against.
Sidney reaches behind himself. The warmth comes before he asks for it, Erath's magic spreading through his fingers, slick and smooth, and he works himself open quickly, impatiently, two fingers pressing in and stretching while his forehead drops against Erath's shoulder and his breath stutters.
He's not being careful. He doesn't want careful.
He adds a third finger and his back arches and Erath's arms tighten around him and he can feel Erath's breath against his neck, rapid and rough.
"Still showing off with the magic lube," Sidney mutters against his shoulder, and Erath huffs a breath that is very nearly a laugh, and the laugh loosens something in Sidney's chest that needed loosening.
He withdraws his hand. He reaches down between them and wraps slick fingers around Erath's cock, one stroke, two, and then he lifts his hips and lines himself up and sinks down.
He takes him all at once.
Not slowly. Not inch by inch. He drops his hips and takes Erath to the hilt in one movement and the stretch burns, a bright, sharp ache that flares from the base of his spine to the back of his skull, and the sound that tears out of him is raw and broken.
His hands grip Erath's shoulders hard enough to bruise if Erath could bruise and his head tips back and his mouth falls open and his whole body clenches around Erath and the fullness is overwhelming, enormous, total, a pressure that exists at the exact intersection of pain and pleasure and obliterates the boundary between them.
Erath groans. The sound vibrates through his chest and into Sidney's, and his arms are iron around Sidney's body, holding him so tight there's no space between them, and his face is pressed against Sidney's throat and his breath is hot and ragged against his skin.
Sidney rolls his hips. A slow, grinding circle, adjusting to the feeling of Erath inside him, and the stretch eases into something warmer, deeper.
He lifts, just an inch, two, and drops back down, and the angle sends a bright shock of sensation through his core that makes his thighs shake.
He does it again. And again. Building a rhythm, short, deep movements, his hips rocking in Erath's lap, taking him over and over at the angle that makes his vision white out at the edges.
Erath holds onto him. His arms don't loosen, his hands don't roam, he doesn't try to guide or direct or control the pace.
He holds Sidney against his chest and lets Sidney move and his breathing is ragged and his muscles are trembling with restraint and every few breaths a sound escapes him, low, guttural, wrecked, that Sidney catches against his neck and keeps.
Sidney's rhythm builds. His hips move faster, rolling and dropping, and the friction between their bodies and the fullness inside him and Erath's arms around him and the sounds Erath is making all compound and layer and the pleasure spirals tighter and tighter in his belly.
His cock is trapped between their bodies, pressed against the hard plane of Erath's stomach, and every movement grinds him against the friction there, and he's leaking between them, smearing arousal against Erath's skin.
He wraps his arms around Erath's neck. Pulls himself closer, impossibly closer, until they are fused together from hip to chest and his face is buried in Erath's shoulder and his mouth is open against his skin.
He's making sounds he can't control, bitten, desperate, half-formed, and Erath's hand between his shoulder blades presses flat and firm, holding him, anchoring him, and Erath turns his face against Sidney's temple and breathes his name.
"Sidney."