[ To a less observant person Rico might paint the picture of a casual John: his posture relaxed, his expression open and inviting, his clothes disheveled in that "I just had sex" kind of way. It's a pity that death grip on the bottle gives him away, or he might actually be mistaken for a man who has his shit together. Angel smile with a devil's teeth. Vicious and possessive in a way Len should have perhaps predicted, like a nightstalker with a bone. People vie for the Courier's attention all the time, Rico just needs to learn to share.
Even as the thought floats past Len doesn't bother entertaining it seriously, because men like this don't change. Already tipsy, maybe a little Day Tripper wearing off, no doubt feeling particularly proud of himself for his impeccable aim and irritatingly good-looking, to boot. ]
I told you before. [ He says with unadulterated calm, trigger finger suddenly, inexplicably twitching. ] I got busy.
[ His pack, his gun belt, Len leaves draped over a chair to prevent temptation from getting the better of him, closing the distance deliberately slow. He stops just short of a foot or so away and makes no bones about looking Rico down and up again, impassive. The relative cool of the suite lifts the sweat-slick curls from the back of his neck, a reprieve from the heat outside and the heat this motherfucker always seems to stoke. ]
Now, if I didn't know any better, Rico, I'd say you were jealous.
free trial period is over, it’s a lifetime subscription now (menacing)
And if I didn't know any better, I'd say that you caught that bottle with your head.
[It's fucking hilarious to see Len like this. His manner placid and impassive, acting all unruffled when his trigger finger's twitching right there. Dishonesty in action, and twice as funny on a man who likes to appear easy-going. Rico's smile widens by a fraction when he clocks that, and it only gets more satisfied when he sees the way Len closes the distance, looks him up and down. It lets the irritation simmer down. Somewhat.]
You’ve been spending a lot of time with that Follower lately. You know the one. Tall, blonde, and mouthy. Got the glasses, too.
[He says this in an easy, breezy tone, but it's very much like the kind of breeze that blows through the Mohave. In theory it should be welcoming, but it's hot, prickly, and unpleasant. Enough to induce the sweats. The grip on the bottle doesn't lessen, and his knuckles flex. But he does screw the cap back on. Not that it's really any better.]
'Cause I got to thinking, and correct me if I'm wrong - just under a mile away...
[Rico makes a thoughtful noise from the back of his throat, but it's pretty damn clear that it's an affectation. And it's just as clear what he's been thinking about as he's been waiting for Len to join him.]
The Fort, maybe? Is that where you went and got busy?
[ Len likes Arcade. Would spend less than platonic time with him if given the opportunity, but the man plays everything so close and tight to the vest. Told Len once that lovers make for poor confidantes, and when it comes down to it Len would prefer them to be intellectually amicable over physical. He's smart, has a weird sense of humor, probably has a list of high standards about a mile long - most high-maintenance man in the Mojave. There are plenty of bachelors in the wasteland who would jump at the chance to be with him.
So he doesn't bother maintaining any kind of poker face at the assertion that they're fooling around. Arcade is more in love with his pithy little Latin phrases and broc flowers than the idea of ending up in Courier Six's amorous crosshairs, and that's just fine by Len so long as he's safe. ]
Is that what this is about?
[ What Len doesn't like in the least is the way Rico's smug fucking face looks, bringing this up. Like he's itching to make Len regret the association, like he's trying to catch him in a lie. As if Len has the energy to spare for roundabout bullshit when he could just get to the point. He's seen Rico shoot men for lesser crimes than being a mild annoyance and wouldn't put it past him to disappear somebody he didn't like. ]
You sat here for half an hour doin' what, exactly? Imagining me blowing the guy? I delivered a bundle of Med-X to Farkas and some sterile equipment to Arcade. Shoot straight if you got a problem with what I do with my time, slick, 'cause I simply do not have the hours in the day to try to read your mind.
[It’s an answer that’s not good enough, judging by the way that pleasant smile doesn’t budge. But honestly? Very few answers would have likely been good enough, once this man gets an idea in his head.
Rico’s fingers twitch away from the bottle and it falls from his hand as he pushes off from the pool table in the same motion. It lands on the threadbare carpet with a dull thud, rolling away. He plants his feet more firmly onto the floor and takes half a step to close that gap between them provocatively, in both senses of the word as his pants ride down another inch to show that’s all he’s wearing.
At least he hasn’t thrown the bottle at him again. That’s a promising sign.]
Alright, Lenny. How’s this for shooting straight?
[Rico says, reaching up to flick Len’s collar in a sloppy gesture. Then he brushes the back of his knuckles down his front, holding Len’s jacket still in one hand as he idly picks out a few small glass shards of where they’re trapped in the folds with the other, like pulling weeds. Then he speaks up again in that playful, hypothetical tone of his.]
If you ambled your ass down to Freeside tomorrow morning and you didn’t see Arcade where you last left him…
[If Len realizes where this sentence is going well before it finishes, there’s a sharp shard of glass between Rico’s fingers digging into the underside of Len’s jaw, held so tightly in his grasp that there’s blood trickling between his knuckles. And with a grin that’s much more teeth than smile;]
You think you’d hurry on back to bed a little goddamn quicker?
[ Inches away it's even more apparent how tall Rico is, coolly confident and flirting with the idea of being mildly unhinged at the edges of his smile. He smells like liquor and Len's hand-rolled cigarettes, freshly laundered sheets, the sticky-salt musk he exudes like pheromones that were lab-designed explicitly to spike Len's blood pressure. A fist with scuffed knuckles wraps itself in the denim of his jacket and he reads the gesture for what it is: a thinly-veiled strategy to get him close, cut to the quick. The glass doesn't surprise him; one of the most reliable things about Rico is that he's opportunistically volatile, and Len lifts his chin on instinct.
It isn't an empty threat. Rico can turn on a dime and Len knew that getting into this, knows his own tendency to be a reactionary shit and maybe the man is counting on that. Ever since he got shot twice in the head he's felt as though he came back all wrong, pieces of himself in different places, sorting through memories and empty static alike. Hard to find balance when he shouldn't be alive in the first place. ]
I'm going to pretend I didn't just hear you call me Lenny, because I...hate...when people call me Lenny.
[ He begins softly, conscious of the powder keg he's courting. As it turns out black isn't really Rico's color, running greener than Joshua Tree in the springtime. His hands, previously hanging at his sides, slip over the belt loops of Rico's pants, curling in them as his thumbs press firmly into the juts of his bare hips. ]
And I'd like to remind you that I keep business and pleasure separate for a reason. I ain't going anywhere and I don't need the incentive, so don't fuck with my people or you will find me much less friendly to your sugar-sweet advances.
[ One palms skims the line of Rico's side, under his shirt and over his ribs as Len maintains unflinching eye contact. ]
["I ain't going anywhere", the newly-nicknamed Lenny says. And maybe that's what Rico really wanted to hear, because he tilts his head slightly at that. He's clearly loving the hands at his hips, the touch running up under his shirt.]
Huh. How about that?
[He says faux-thoughtfully, as if just realizing he's made a great point, the words coming from a perfectly pleased rumble in his chest in that sugar-sweet tone. Then he leans down, locking gazes with him, still holding that prickling threat at Len's throat. It’s easier to dig under his skin with an unwelcome nickname and a smile, but it sure doesn’t hurt.]
Guess you did, hotshot. I've got nothing to complain about now.
[What Rico smells like, really, is Len’s things. His cigarettes, his liquor, his sheets. The things he’s taken with entitlement because he's pissed off, because he tends to move on quick with his flavors of the month but only when he's done with them, not when they're done with him. And he wears it all like a challenge he's shoving in Len's face, daring him to do something about it and find out just what Rico really could truly and honestly do if pushed just a bit too... far.
Rico yanks him in with a tight-fisted grip in his jacket, jerking him closer to give him a taste of that malt whiskey splashing Len's boots. Just as promised. But at the same time he does, the rough pull causes a small jagged gash to cut across Len's skin from where Rico's holding the flashing glint of glass, running along the underside of his jaw. Something he doesn't acknowledge in favor of biting his way into Len's mouth as he holds him close, feeling blood start to drip over his hand where the sharp edge is pressed even harder right up against his throat, shaking with possessive fury and mingling with his own.]
[ What Len understands about Rico is that he's fickle. Finds an intense subject for his attention, an obsession, and clings to it until he's wrung every last molecule of personal pleasure from it before discarding it like a wet rag. Surely it's the same with people. Maintaining not so much relationships as it is juggling interest, the luster gone once he gets to know them too well, sees their tells, loses that thrill of not knowing and gets tired. Bored. It's a high he'll be chasing interminably and one that Len does not envy.
The kiss hits him like a train and he's only barely ready for it, fingers tightening in Rico's skin with a vicious hunger that flares low and deep in his gut. That gasp is accompanied by pain: ripped open along the line of his jaw, Rico's knuckles brushing his throat and he immediately knows it's the glass. Len meets him teeth for teeth, morning breath and malt whiskey, ignoring the dull throb, the hot blood he can feel dripping off of Rico's hand and onto his own chest.
He smells iron and tastes that smoky burn, shocking all the way down into his lungs as the other man tries to pull handfuls of him that he refuses to give. Rico needs to work harder than that.
Len wraps a fist in his tank and shoves him back against the pool table, riled and wild-eyed with some nascent frustration brewing about the fucking nerve of this guy. Like taking a hit of something strong it bowls him over all over again, the sharpness of his attraction honed to a razor's edge, the familiar sensation of agonized relief that someone doesn't treat him like the Mojave's savior. His hands make short work of Rico's half-undone fly, a sly grin stretching across his face when he reaches down to palm him firmly, deliberately, and says: ]
Bullshit. You always find somethin' to complain about.
[Rico's well aware of this little habit of his, and he can feel it starting to happen every time, the beginning of the end - that little film slowly peeling away at the edges when he wakes up every morning with a little more of that burnt-out taste of restlessness in the back of his mind. Hates it, and he sometimes claws too deep trying to stave it off. But the luster on the man underneath his hands won't wear off for a while yet, because he makes him fucking work for it and Rico relishes a challenge. It still tickles him pink to dig under Len’s skin, see what other hidden noises and impulses he can pry out of him along with the blood.
The rumpled clothes really are just window dressing to that broad-shouldered frame. He graciously allows Len to shove him back as his ass hits the pool table, lets him know that by looking just as sly and twice as smug. Also: it's plenty true what Len says.]
Hard to think of something right now when you've got your hand down my pants, but if you’re asking... You smell like booze. You been drinking?
[Rico laughs, as if it’s not obviously the goddamn whiskey bomb he just threw at Len. It gives him such a fucking kick to watch for that wild, vaguely pissed-off glint in Len's eyes, know that he's got him hooked on something only Rico can give him. For another day at least, and his full attention for the next hour. Not that Rico’s had very many inhibitions to lose in the first place, but the warm heat in his gut mingles well with arousal and Len’s palm over his cock only stokes it hotter.
Anger, adrenaline, arousal... Hell, one's as much of a rush as the other, interchangeable and indistinguishable. Exchange your chips at the counter, it's all the same to the guy standing behind it. The blood pounding in his ears, emotion surging up so high it leaves him running eager and hot, every instinct in his body pointed in the same direction and humming with a single-minded intensity. Rico knows he has some wires crossed in his brain, tangled all up together by being forced to tread that path too often. He knows that, and Len knows that, but he's still not changing.
Rico's grip on his jacket slides upwards - he winds his hand though Len’s hair and yanks his head back, baring more of his vulnerable throat and showing off that blood-slicked cut. With just a twist of his hand, he could slash him wide open, leave him on his knees and gagging on his blood. As a reminder, he plays at being careless as he grinds down into Len's hand, that sharp point lifting just a fraction, tapping at his jaw. He turns his face to the side as he smiles, hot breath over that stinging cut -]
What do you think, Lenny? Should I give you another one so Arcade can kiss it better? Or would you prefer it'd be me?
[ It's obvious how much Rico likes seeing him like this, likes pushing him until he's close to snapping. Conscious of his own past - what he can fucking remember of it, anyway - and knowing the kind of personality he has, Len makes considerable efforts toward not indulging that side of himself. The hazy days of his twenties were rife with exactly the kind of ultra-violence Rico craves, succumbing to every base desire, leaning into the grain instead of pushing against it. Every now and again he plays with that kind of fire once more, reminding himself why he worked so hard to leave it behind in the first place.
Mornings like these, it's difficult to parse between good and bad habits. Sometimes he just doesn't care. Rico's not the only one with wires crossed and something truly tragic happened the day Len died and came back again, and it wasn't just the way they left him bleeding under a shallow layer of dirt and sand. He does good because it's asked of him, because he's singularly talented in doing it when a person actually needs help, but he doesn't know how much of that is contrived and how much is sincere. Play enough poker and you believe your own bluffs.
A hand twists into his hair and grips it firmly, pulling his head back and Len hisses in response, half-hating the delicious shudder that runs down his spine like an electrical current. The stinging tug of torn skin is barely recognizable like this, stretched long and lean as his fingers tighten around Rico's cock and it pulses against his palm. Len rubs his thumb into the slit, slicking the head and recalling with sharp clarity the way Rico had smiled last night when Len fit his mouth over his dick with obvious relish.
The threat is still there, tippy-tapping along the edge of his jawline and Len refuses to capitulate, flirting with danger like always as his free hand wanders to his own belt. ]
I think you should be careful, playin' with sharp things.
[ The blade of his hunting knife presses through Rico's tank, drawing a prick of blood from his side, between the bones. Fastest way to a man's heart is through his ribcage. ]
[It drags a sound from Rico's throat, and he thrusts lazily into Len's hand as his breath quickens. There's that sting of sensation between his ribs, and he doesn't have to look down to know exactly what that means.
The other man could take his other hand away and wrap it over the butt of the knife's handle - drive it in hard in at the right angle, sink it into his chest and take a good fucking bite of his heart. Isn’t that what he’s playing at threatening? Ha ha ha. Bullshit.
He deliberately leans into the point, letting Len's arm feel how he's shoving his weight into it as he holds it up. More than he intends - the way his head spins makes it easy to fall into it, barely feeling the point work deeper into his skin and only registering the vaguely warm, wet sensation of his shirt sticking to it.]
Am I supposed to be impressed by a little prick?
[A dick joke. Classy. Rico laughs, louder and harder than it really warrants, pleased as punch at his own joke.]
How the hell am I getting off from that?
[He closes the short distance between his eager mouth to Len's exposed neck, undeterred. Calling out his bluff, daring him to follow the line of logic right through from the edge of the hunting knife. Rico will kiss the cut better, alright. He'll do that fucking plenty. He keeps him still by that tight grip on his hair as he drags his blunt teeth over the cut under his wiry beard, presses the flat of his tongue against it and bites. It’ll be fun to make him jump. His cock gives a twitch, suddenly achingly hard at the taste filling his mouth.]
[ Every time, Len thinks there is a way to prolong the precursor bit, the part where Rico almost plays nice, almost acts charming. Every time, Rico's dubiously intact grenade pin pops out of place with the suddenness of a how-do-you-do, wipes the floor with him, and rails him into a bed, teeth buried in his shoulder. He should know better, but he continues to solicit it. Len read somewhere once that the definition of insanity was doing the same thing over and over, and expecting a different result.
Yeah, he never was much of an existential philosopher, anyway.
He should have felt it building sooner, should have identified it faster. It strikes him with a suddenness that nearly knocks his breath from his lungs, vise grip suddenly more secure in his hair, teeth sinking into his skin. The sound that escapes him is muffled by surprise, knife twitching against Rico's side and cutting a line through his shirt, his flesh.
Rico is always too fast, faster than a fiend on super-jet or psycho, careening forward with animal-like precision, a predator in the pale morning light of Len's flat. His fucking hard-on pressing into Len's hand and even Len isn't strong enough not to make a sound at that, just as turned on in spite of himself. Eyes burning and teeth bared Len wishes he weren't this predictable, wishes it didn't feel like something they were meant to do.
For all that Len is of decent height, Rico has size and muscle on him. Denser and heavier, a lower center of gravity Len has seen him use to throw people around like rag dolls. Len Darin has always been a scrappy, resourceful combatant, fully willing to fight dirty if it lends him the upper hand, but that strategy is for raiders, for fiends. For people he doesn't know, for people already trying to skin him alive. In times like these Len isn't sure he knows the difference between friend or foe anymore. ]
You ever shut the fuck up? [ Len hisses, rhetorical, and squeezes Rico's cock so tight he prevents that much-needed friction. ] Or do you just run your mouth when you're feelin' insecure?
[Rico draws back from the bite after one last teasing nip at torn skin and gives him a perfectly centered blood-smeared smile that would be flirtatious in any other context, the flash of his teeth glistening red on perfect pearly white. All of a sudden, he doesn’t look all too different from the kind of people he makes a paid habit of tracking down and slamming bullets into.
But he isn't. He just likes pretending. Shame he's the only one in on the joke. Who doesn't like a playful game of would he really...?]
Len-ny! [he says, mock-hurt and breathless as Len's temper flares up, stops him from feeling more.] I’m trying to make it up to you here, and it’s like you’re trying to hurt my feelings or something. Christ.
[He looks right into Len's eyes with fever-bright fascination as he drags the glass shard over skin. Rough, careless. It's slippery to hold now, slick and dripping with Rico's blood as well as Len's, and it almost fumbles out of his fingers. A seam here? Rico wonders. As if it'd open him up to reveal a history of something less than dead and buried behind the weight of years, whose afterimage still shows signs of existing through the violent twitch of a trigger finger. His gun's been slung over the back of a chair as a deliberate acknowledgement towards avoiding precisely that, and Rico can't not follow it up with a callous, curious attitude. Christ, just come out already. What are you, really? Behind the haze of Courier Six, is Leonard Darin something closer to himself?
Besides... the man likes this. He’s turned on. All a guy has to do is just listen to him, the sounds he makes. He loves what Rico can do for him. And that's as good as loving me, Rico thinks. So he’ll take this, if that's the closest thing he can get to what he really wants. To actually wake up next to him, for once in a god damn while.]
Hate to tell you this, but you've got your hand wrapped around the wrong thing if you want me to shut up. [Rico pauses, trying so hard not to laugh but failing to suppress the condescending undertone of amusement. Then adds;] You’re not being honest with me. Brought out that big knife, and for what? You only cut me because I made you jump. So why should I be careful?
[He breathes out the next words, blood on his breath.]
[ Rico is so much smarter than the average layperson could give him credit for, analyzing Len's hands and eyes, picking apart what he does and why he does it. Too clever to let things lie, questioning each and every action with a perverse kind of interest, a feral glee. Always wanting more, as if it'll answer whatever series of questions he's got rolling around in his handsome skull.
Len doesn't hate this man, but he does hate how easy it is to be like this around him. Hates that he can hit all these buttons, scratch these itches, makes him laugh. That kissing blood from his mouth feels the same as a sharp drag on a fresh cigarette, lungs full of satisfying fire. Len keeps his distance because he knows what they could do together, and that scares the shit out of him and excites him in equal measure.
He knows he's a hypocrite, too. Acting like he's better than this isn't worth the effort when he wants to punch Rico square in the teeth with his own teeth. You're not being honest with me, he says, and he's goddamn right. Just the same, Len can't help but provoke in return when it comes so naturally to him. He bares his teeth in a smile and for an instant he remembers what it was like before two bullets clipped his head open, before he took the Mojave Express job. Young and dumb and raging on some synthesized strain of Jet from New Reno that no amount of Addictol could kick, the people who profited off of it rolling in caps.
Back then he would have killed anyone for a hit. He'd be lying if he said he didn't, at least once. The endorphin blockers he took to pull himself out felt like dying and just because he's off now, just because it was over a decade ago, doesn't mean he doesn't still get the cravings. Bubbling up now and then, suppressed with other substances. Rico gets those cravings too, or else he wouldn't get so uppity about Len skipping out early in the morning. Wants what he wants, when he wants it. They shouldn't be at cross-purposes if they want the same thing.
Rico has his full attention now, blood slicking down Len's throat, Rico's chin. He deftly flips the knife in his hand and stabs it into the worn felt of the pool table's rail, leaving it behind. His thumb he crushes into the new gash in Rico's side, hard enough to bruise the flesh around it. ]
Let's quit with the foreplay then.
[ Len advises with a thin smile, lifting his other hand to lave his tongue over his palm, maintaining eye contact. He reaches between them to take Rico's cock once more, curling around the head with deliberate patience. ]
Tell me what you woulda done if I were here this morning.
[Oh. Rico's whole body jerks as he lets out a strangled shout of pain, as if he’s been shocked. That blunt, bruising pressure pushing into his cut with the same casual conviction that comes with pulling a trigger; his body shakes underneath his grip, nerves set on fire. Watching Len hurt him so fucking intimately with one hand and licking the other with an incongruous, flirtatious gesture that’s so very much like him - it’s the same man, and there’s his answer after all.
Rico has to break away from Len’s steady gaze to tilt his head back, his eyes squeezing shut as a laugh bubbles up in his chest. He loves being right. And he loves - fucking loves - being shown a side of the Courier that not everyone has seen, or could suspect. There is something there, and it's just as dead as the man standing in front of him, and buried just as shallow. Rico's just prying open the polite fiction that everyone prefers to skirt around when they ask for a specific kind of help from Courier Six and Leonard Darin steadies that rifle of his to provide exactly that. Because it takes a particular kind of person or history to be good at it like they are. As much as Len likes to act as if it doesn’t… Rico of all people would know.
It’s just nice to call him out on this one, and have Len relent with the truth and so clearly enjoy it. Fuck any pretense of distance - why bother when it feels so good, feels like fun?
So when he finally opens his eyes again, there's a new look in them entirely. Bright-eyed and gleeful. And good god, is he smiling. The glass shard slips entirely from numb fingers, but he’s well past caring about it when he drags his hand down to the side of Len’s neck, nestles his own bloody thumb over his pounding pulse. He’s itching to fuck into the heat of Len’s body already.]
And spoil the surprise for next time, just like that? You missed out. Too bad. I’ll tell you this though - you would’ve sauntered in late with your delivery, and the entire fort would’ve known why.
[The grip on his hair slackens, sliding down to rest over the back of his neck.]
But forget about what I would’ve done, I’ll tell you what I will. [Rico practically purrs, taking labored breaths around the blunt intrusion, stifled by impatience and pain both.] You already ruined the pool table, I’m thinking we might as well break it in the rest of the way. How about it?
[ There's something so inherently satisfying about the way that Rico jerks in surprise, like he touched a live wire and the electricity is coursing through him, nerves alight. It isn't hard to retain a decent poker face through that display, all shock and vivid, evocative sound, a fucking symphony of immediate pain served as recompense for the bullshit Rico put him through.
He likes it, too, based on the way he shudders, the same reaction Len can pull from him when he's close, the same satisfaction. Probably thrilled that Len deigned to give him a taste of what he's been searching for, rooting around in every close interaction they have, scrounging for the scraps of another person Len swore he'd smother. Rico laughs for it, content with his little victory, another mystery solved and certainly one for the books given its wide disparity from the alluring draw of The Courier.
Len Darin is different, hungry and heat-sick, drawn like a moth to far more dangerous flames. A small, soft noise of approval ekes its way from his throat when Rico's thumb slots into the space beneath his jaw, when Rico's palm curls around the back of his neck. Intimate and friendly for the blunt nail biting into the wound at his side, barely-checked patience tempering his delight. He wants a fuck and isn't shy about asking after it.
Len would love nothing more than to ruin the immaculate felt top of the monument to excess that is Benny Gecko's former pool table, and it shows in the saccharine smile on his face. Half-hard in his jeans even he knows better than to just bend over, to make it easy. Rico Dredd requires a firmer hand, rewards meted out in reciprocation. ]
Darlin,' I'll mess around on any surface you want. [ Comes the easy drawl, bloody fingers slicking up Rico's tank, taking his chin in a deceptively strong grip. By no means does he pose a significant physical threat but fuck if it isn't fun to play with fire like this. ] But you get your mouth on me first.
[Might require a firmer hand than that. Combining adrenaline and pleasure is one thing, but pulling orders into the mix? It's always unpredictable how Rico will take to them, and it isn't just down to his mood. Sometimes it's the way they're spoken, some arbitrary detail impossible to discern that makes him tense. Or the way a hand settles on his face that makes a muscle in his jaw twitch and a look in his eyes flare up. But most other times he might play along and sink down to his knees, looking like he's secretly laughing at a private joke as he does. Hard to tell what triggers which, right up until the moment it happens.
It seems like he could take to it, right now. But he doesn’t. He lifts his chin slightly as Len takes it, his eyes flicking down. That's not really the mistake, though. Len’s mistake is thinking that Rico is content with this, that he's satisfied with what he's dug up so far. Willing to leave it there, call the blackening bruise spread underneath his dripping side his glittering trophy for today.]
Shit, you sure? [Rico smiles all friendly, running his tongue over his bloody teeth. Just a blatantly unsubtle reminder of what that mouth did the last time it was on him.] Once bitten, twice shy… Isn’t that something people like to say?
[He poses the question with fondness as he brushes his thumb over his pulse. It's absolutely breathtaking what Len keeps coming back for, what he invites into his life. It's what Rico would call stupidity in his uncharitable moods, and something different in more romantic ones. He locks gazes with him, still bright-eyed.]
You ever stop to think why? Trick question, Len. I know you don't.
[That affectionate grip around Len’s neck tightens like a vice and his thumb crushes in exactly as violently as the one in his side, choking him off hard. No more, no less. Hard enough that it doesn't feel like playing, but they are. Where's the fun in playing with fire if you don't actually get burned, once in a while? He only waits a split second long enough to see Len's reaction, what his hands would scrabble for first - if he’d double down on his grip on Rico, or if he’d reach for the knife, his throat - before he kicks his ankle in and drops him like a rock, hauling Len to the ground with all the curt professionalism of a butcher dragging a brahmin to the chopping block.
Rico pushes him down, crushing Len’s face into the carpet with a hand splayed over the back of his head. He still wants a fuck. He just wants it his way. So he mouths at his skin and bites down on the curve of his shoulder, tasting the sweat there, then releases his grip on his hair with a contemptuous shove - and aims a sloppy, final slap at the back of Len’s head while he’s at it. Think that’ll do it? Maybe that’ll really piss him off, give Rico more to chew on than just scraps and a taste of what he’s been trying to hide. He wants to dig his nails right into the crack he’s found and split the coffin wide open. See what the hell kind of secrets come spilling out, the real body he’s hiding in there. Not just a glimpse.]
You didn't tell me where you wanted my mouth, sweetheart, [he mocks in a cheerfully rough voice, shoving his words right up against his ear. Who doesn’t love loopholes? His body shakes with laughter on top of him, his position turning precarious with his hysterics.] So if you had a different idea in mind, go ahead and make me.
[Rico likes to play with fire too. He’s better at it.]
[ It wouldn't be the first time Len bet high and called, anticipating a hand he could easily manage. He overplayed his own, made the mistake of thinking the scraps that might satisfy anyone else would satisfy the yawning expanse of an appetite that Rico has, that he wouldn't want more. First mistake. He isn't faultless, he's taken his fair share of beatings and falls, and hasn't underestimated the other man in the room so much as he's overestimated his own assessments. Rico is peerless and in that regard it's difficult to predict his moods without a real frame of reference beyond "generally unpredictable."
Len knows he fucked up the instant Rico smiles, reminded of a text he read somewhere at some point about how predators only bare their teeth as a show of aggression. Once bitten, twice shy. A familiar thumb smears through the blood at his throat, an act that almost feels like endearing petting, a faint edge of something that sounds like pity, amusement, in Rico's voice. He's never shied away from danger - courts it, even - and recognizes the threat just before it hits, fingers wrapping around the handle of his knife as Rico's wrap around his neck. It's a grip he only just secures before a heavy boot knocks his leg and he goes down like a bag of cement.
He hits the floor hard, gasping in musty carpet, weighed down by the substantially larger man straddling his hips. It's a vulnerable position (too vulnerable) as teeth scrape the rough fabric of his shirt and skin, palm sharply clipping him across the back of his skull and knocking his forehead into the two-hundred year old faded pattern beneath him. A vicious shudder rolls through him at the treatment and he knows it's a test.
When Len was nineteen a group of raiders caught him out on his own, brought him back to a well-established camp as labor, put him into rotation with a handful of other helpless nobodies. They weren't clever enough to make the collars that have become prevalent in the small community of enslaved people under Caesar's rule but they enforced their power in other ways, vengeful and exacting if slighted, gluttons for doling out corporal punishment and no prisoner at their mercy was spared it. His stay wasn't long. One of the bigger motherfuckers pushed him one too many times, getting his kicks from shoving a then-much lankier opponent around. Threw him a shiv once as a joke, told him he could leave if he won a fight. He remembers being held down, the jeering, face shoved into the choking dust, a knee on his hip and a forearm braced against his shoulder blades. He remembers feeling so angry he thought he might combust.
His hand tightens around the knife, the heat radiating off of Rico oppressive and dizzying, and something in him snaps. With his hands on the floor Len hitches a knee up behind one of Rico's for leverage, shifts an arm to throw him off-balance, and rolls them over with a ferocity and speed that surprises even him. He's quick to right himself, the blade's edge pressing up under Rico's jaw, other hand fisted in his tank top. Cutting a line of red into his skin, hissing through clenched teeth: ]
[Rico's slower to orient himself when he’s slammed onto his back, the nausea of the whiskey slamming his senses like a brick. From down there looking up, Rico can see the shift, the sudden change in him. He knows that kind of anger, what he's shaken loose from Len by pinning him down and rattling his head. Carries it with him all the time. His arm comes up automatically, his bloody hand closing around Len’s wrist as the sharp edge is already lining up against his skin. There’s a flash and score of heat - and that’s all he can tell, when a hunting knife cuts across under his jaw and Rico's hand is dragged along in its wake, too close to his throat. For one distant, weightless moment he wonders if that’s it, if Len's just killed him with Rico's own hand in it. The feeling of taking a risk, reaching out for something real and missing and falling, ha ha ha.
But the moment passes without choking on his own blood, and all that's left is the primal, unwanted relief of finding himself still breathing. A sick surge of victory, vindication, and fucked-up arousal scours him clean and makes him feel more alive than anything. He doesn't stop laughing now that their positions are switched and a knife is at his throat. If anything, he laughs harder and meaner, the indulgence of violence settled in the lines of his body and on full display. The motherfucker sure looks like he's having fun as he looks lazily back at Len. He's not taking this seriously. Not remotely.
When Rico was nineteen, he'd turned to his twin and asked him a question, just out of the blue. He'd chosen his moment carefully, out of earshot from the man they'd only ever called 'sir' as they were scrubbing off their bloody hands in the tub where they'd made camp. "Do you ever feel like we're doing something wrong?" He'd posed it casually, the tension of almost a decade strung up in his back. Then he'd watched his brother's face carefully for his reaction, but he already knew the answer he'd get when his expression hadn't changed at all. So he'd turned away and stared at the flecks of brain matter slowly floating down to the bottom through pink-tinged water, scraping out the rest from underneath his fingernails as his brother had laconically answered "no".
So if he had hit on a still-raw nerve by the way Len shuddered as he was pinned down? He'll hammer down on that all day if it gets him what he wants. Rico knows how to play up the embodiment of every asshole in this shitty wasteland who's ever done something cruel for kicks, taken a person and rattled them just to see what comes out. He's been aware of what it looks like from the moment he'd carefully pushed a door open while clutching a pistol that was too large for his hands, and seen what was behind it. How he'd learned how to do terrible things to terrible people, and been nothing but praised for it. Since the first night he'd started seeing it in the mirror and realized the price he'd paid.]
C'mon, Lenny, [he jeers, his breath coming in juddering fits and starts, held tight by that hand fisted in his tank top. More, he wants more. His grip squeezes down tighter on Len's wrist. Threatening him, or urging him on.] You know I did. So what the fuck are you gonna do about it?
[ Len gets a sudden edge of something that rolls over him like a high, adrenaline spiked, a jittery flash of pure impulse that tells him to press harder, deeper, puncture Rico's artery. He can picture the spray as clearly as if it were already happening, feels the low, rhythmic thudding in his skull, tastes blood on his tongue. Then, just as swiftly as it comes, white-knuckling the handle of his knife, it leaves. The ringing in his ears shatters with the wide-mouthed laughter that fades in weakly, then louder, Rico's satisfaction an excruciating reminder that he didn't do what he could have and they both know it.
He's not the raider that Len rolled over as a teenager before forcing that torn, sharp piece of metal into his windpipe. He might be worse, but Hell - isn't Len, too? In some way?
The comfortable distance of a rifle is something he always preferred, even growing up. By the time somebody got close enough for a shotgun to be of any real use Len didn't especially enjoy the implications, and while he can hold his own in hand to hand - more or less - he doesn't quite relish it the same way that Rico does. It's a necessity when he isn't afforded the luxury of hunkering down on a ridge line, scope at his disposal. It's the reality of the world they live in, but his opponents are usually drugged-up fiends, crazy assholes high on Jet, or feral ghouls.
A knife is intimate. This is intimate. More than that, he likes the challenge and a smaller part of him likes that someone is trying so goddamned hard to see him. It's a level of effort rarely afforded to those practiced in the art of building multiple walls around themselves; usually the first barricade is the one that prevents people from trying again. Rico just keeps fucking hammering.
To what end? He knows Len won't kill him for something this stupid, and is calling his bluff. Len couldn't pull back even if he wanted to with that vise grip around his wrist, and so he indulges a sick little thrill in tipping his hand, ever so slightly, watching a rivulet of red slip down the side of Rico's neck and spatter silently onto the carpet. ]
You got me. Ain't a whole lot I can do.
[ As if anyone could make Rico Dredd do anything. The hand fisted in his tank releases it slowly, sliding up his chest - fuck, but it's really unfair how attractive he is - and Len ever so gingerly shifts the knife from one hand to the other. The point presses into the hollow of Rico's throat, dragging a thin red line down to the stretched, worn cotton of his shirt before Len rips through it, nicking skin in the process. Oops.
He carves his way lightly down around Rico's navel, glancing briefly as it skims the scar tissue from an old surgical procedure, and taps the flat of the blade against the stiff length of Rico's cock. ]
[Nobody can make Rico do shit. Not anymore. That’s half of the point he makes when he does anything he does, proving it to himself as much as other people. He takes orders at his leisure, and he'll do exactly what he wants, when he feels like it.
The quiet remaining trickles of Rico's laughter cuts off completely with the knifepoint tucked into the hollow of his throat, every movement coming to a standstill. He only starts breathing shallowly again once that thin red line reaches past his collarbones, and his tank top lifts and splits; falls open to his sides to frame a body used as a tool and built for strength, rarely seen completely exposed for too long at a time. Strewn with the kind of scars that have been scored with much more viciousness and less care, deeper into his skin. Some of them much older than others, their lines warped slightly as they stretched out over a still-growing body.
Rico barely pays attention. His whole world narrows down to the sensation of the knife dragged deliberately down his body, and the attention of the man holding it. Len traces an intimate, meandering path down his body, taking his sweet fucking time on the scenic route. He only lets himself take deeper, eager, shuddering breaths when the knife lifts briefly from his skin. But once it taps his cock, there's the first flash of something that could be muted fear behind his half-lidded gaze that sinks back beneath the surface when his hips give a juddering twitch, his cock lying flush and heavy with interest. Smeared with pre-cum, remembering what it felt like to have his touch on him.
This is what he thinks while lying down on the floor of a room surrounded by another age, the morning light streaming in making the man straddling him look spectacular. It’s not trust that keeps him perfectly still, his hand still wrapped around his wrist. He doesn’t trust Len until he knows how far he’ll go - or won’t. Maybe he will after today. When he knows for sure how deep Len’s rot reaches. There’s a long stretch of possibilities between death and damn all, and he wonders. He’s betting all his caps on a roulette wheel for a laugh, watching the ball rattle around to see where it’ll land, leaping over the two fat, green zeroes that’ll leave him with nothing and walking away a loser. Watching Len watch him, hypnotized by the dark look in his eyes erupting with lust and anger, letting it spin, spin...]
Not a whole lot. [Rico's voice is hoarse with aggressive cheer, when he finally speaks up.] But there's still something. You're the one holding a knife to a man's cock. Who the hell am I to tell you what to do?
[Rico gives a thin smile, just as threadbare as the carpet underneath him. The grip around Len's wrist relents. Just as Len tips his hand, it forces him to tip his own.]
A knife's edge trailing down his body, a thin red line of someone else's intent. Borderline at their mercy. At the time he'd solicited it, invited it. Where was the fun in having such tools if no one was going to play with them, and back then he'd been seeing someone with few cares and even fewer scruples. Can't remember the bigger details, interestingly enough - just another loss to chalk up to the head trauma. Hard to forget what it felt like, though. Every disparate fragment of focus concentrated on the space where metal met skin, and Len would be lying if he said he hadn't enjoyed it.
Rico's breath catches and Len can feels his eyes on the blade, on him. He acts the part of a showman well, spent more than his fair share of hours entertaining people, conning people, satisfaction in each and every second spent on the endeavor. It's the same kind of heat and impulse here, watching Rico attentively, feeling something delicious flare up in his gut at that brief, blink-and-you-miss-it spark of fear, quickly supplanted by arousal.
It takes a long moment before he opens his big, stupid mouth again, and Len knows he's proven his point. ]
Who the Hell indeed.
[ No pressing, no slashing, just the threat of worse if provoked in the way that Len drags the flat of the knife up the length of Rico's cock. Another twitch in a small puddle of pre-cum and he smirks, wetting his lips with his tongue as his other hand is freed. It slips down to one of Rico's hips, thumbnail digging into the flesh there. It's almost nice like this: being fully clothed, armed, settled on Rico's thighs with his shirt rent open and his dick out. Sucker's got it bad. ]
You wanna fuck me over this pool table, you're gonna have to make it worth my while.
[ In a show of immaculate benevolence, Len lifts the weapon and rests the tip at the space just beneath Rico's ribs. ]
Or so help me, I will deprive this world and myself of your cock.
[When Rico lets go of Len's wrist, the smaller bite of his nail settles right into the divot of his hip. Not much compared to the point of the knife angled underneath his ribs, or the weight of him on his thighs. Rico thinks he might enjoy this. He swallows, feeling it strain the cuts that are burning a line across his skin with every breath, right now. Doesn't feel too good, to be honest, in a way that's eclipsed by his arousal and satisfaction. But it's what he wants - gets him what he wants - and it gets him hard.
As Len performs for an audience of one, Rico watches. At seeing the smirk on his face, there's a flash of tight anger and humiliation in his gut. Oh look. Lenny boy's got room for jokes now that he's on top, and enjoying it. With that, he switches up the tension in the room from outright violence to again just the razor's edge threat of it, but mostly it just feels like a dig that bites into him harder than any kind of steel could. Like Rico doesn't recognize mocking magnanimity of playing it up and the lie of aren't you lucky I've decided to be nice?
He might be projecting.]
Sounds like cutting off your nose to spite your face to me, [Rico responds, just as seraphic. Like he's ever going to shut up for too long.] You're not finding a better fuck in a hundred mile radius, and you know I always make it worth your while.
[A point's been proven. From both ends. And with that, he reaches up slowly towards Len's belt. Aware of the threat of worse but still gauging how far that honestly goes, he stills for the briefest, dangerous second as his fingertips touch the warm metal of the buckle, like a thought comes to him. But then it passes, and he flicks Len's belt undone instead. Glances up with that thin smile. Sure. I'll behave, buddy.]
Isn't that why you’re here anyway?
[Why he’s still here, despite all the ridiculous bullshit Rico just put him through. He draws a finger down the length of Len's cock over his jeans, straining against the fabric. Other than his sparkling personality. Of course.]
[ As if Len would ever make it easy for him. There's a particular satisfaction to be gained from putting his money where his mouth is, from being a delirious - or incendiary - pain in the ass, especially with someone as hair-trigger as Rico. It's an empty threat and they both know it but it's pleasant to have him on his back all the same, even conscious of the fact that it'll never be for long. It is a little bit of a pity he can't find a better fuck in a hundred-mile radius because it would probably be a lot less complicated than whatever this is, but Len has every confidence it wouldn't be nearly as fun. More than likely Rico will roll his ass over all over again and it'll be worth it, for the work he put in here first.
Len's eyes narrow into dark slits as the buckle clicks quietly, inhaling sharp and thin as a bloodstained finger presses down, firm and deliberate, against his cock. It pulses in response; no sense admitting it doesn't all turn him on just as much. Very, very slowly, Len lifts the knife, shifting to tuck it back into the sheath at his belt.
A concession. ]
I do live here.
[ He points out with obvious amusement, wetting his lips with his tongue, aware that if they were in any other venue he'd be staying either way. Len read somewhere once that celestial bodies have gravitational pulls, that they orbit each other because they have to, that if they get too close they could destroy each other. Seems like my kind of way to go, he'd thought then, and thinks the same now. Long fingers tug at the torn shreds of Rico's shirt, more coaxing than demanding. ]
[Len could’ve killed him. He could’ve kept inching that bright red line welling up right over his skin, played with keeping him at the tip of his mercy to get him back long after the statement's outworn its welcome. And Rico likes it, so there's plenty of room to take his pound of flesh under that guise. But the knife lifts off his body instead, still dripping with blood, the handle gripped in a perfectly steady hand. Tips back into its sheath, all evidence of its sharp edge disappearing.
But now Rico knows it's there. It’s written all over his body. The spinning wheel in his mind slows with his heartbeat, and the possibilities start closing off. His anticipation builds. Isn't that fun?]
Being nice now, [he comments with just as much amusement, watching Len lick his lips. Like Rico’s never kicked a man out of his own home before, just to see what they'd do about it - not everyone's willing to brave what follows a warning shot from him. But there walks in Len, dumping his gun and closing the distance between them with deliberate strides. Calling Rico's bluff and finding out why it isn't always the best idea. You can be right, but dead right. And maybe that's why Rico likes the guy so much.
So just as slowly, he shifts upright with a slight strain of effort. Braces a hand against the floor, leaving a wet stain of a handprint behind - gets a little kick out of it, the mess they're making. He follows after his coaxing tug upwards, comes face to face with the man straddling his thighs. With the knife tucked away, it could be all sweetness the way they're positioned. Like Len's just sitting in his lap, as if they just happened to end up on the floor like this.
At remembering this, Rico feels strained at the leash ( a flash of an impulse and heat, push him back with a shove to his midriff and ) to see Len stripped of his clothes and underneath him already. He palms Len's cock more firmly over his jeans before grabbing at his jacket, beyond worked up.]
You ever gonna take any of this off? It’s in my way.
[ Being nice is that mischievous middle ground, the mask he wears the most in questionable company, the play-pretend when he's stripped down with somebody else. It would have been easier to let Rico have his way completely - Hell, Len would have enjoyed it - but there's something about being a little bit of a shit that really enhances the experience. Foreplay is everything. It's entirely possible that a man with a stronger sense of self-preservation would have avoided coming back to the suite after that initial display of petty, alcoholic annoyance, but this is his house, his town, his point to make.
Rico eases up and Len can feel the heat of him through his shirt, still catches that sharp taste of whiskey in the air between them. There's no reason to pretend that the proximity doesn't make him feel deliciously dizzy, that the man doesn't press all those buttons Len likes to think he's got a handle on. Indulgence in its most distilled form, the red iron cooling on their skin. It's exhausting being this close and holding off much longer and he grins as a firm hand grips at his dick, teeth flashing between them.
There's that Classic Rico Impatience, too. On-edge and close to snapping like a dry twig. Humming in agreement he shifts enough to start shrugging off his jacket, abandoned on the floor. His shirt follows: Len picks the buttons apart without breaking eye contact, peeling the collar away from his throat where it sticks, tacky from drying blood. It joins the jacket. He's lean and scarred, built for the track and field marathon that makes up courier work. Fast but not overtly powerful, certainly not made of the same bulk comprising the brick shithouse he happens to currently be sitting upon, but the marks on his skin would disabuse anyone of the notion that he wasn't born to survive this world.
Len rolls his hips and the novelty of toying with Rico's ever-mercurial mood is dissipating swiftly with the friction. Feels a bit like giving permission when he curls a hand around Rico's side to his back, fingers dragging up each vertebra, over bits of scar tissue, and asks, ]
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judgementcrime) wrote2000-08-20 11:21 am
RIP is it too late for Len to unsubscribe from all these issues
Even as the thought floats past Len doesn't bother entertaining it seriously, because men like this don't change. Already tipsy, maybe a little Day Tripper wearing off, no doubt feeling particularly proud of himself for his impeccable aim and irritatingly good-looking, to boot. ]
I told you before. [ He says with unadulterated calm, trigger finger suddenly, inexplicably twitching. ] I got busy.
[ His pack, his gun belt, Len leaves draped over a chair to prevent temptation from getting the better of him, closing the distance deliberately slow. He stops just short of a foot or so away and makes no bones about looking Rico down and up again, impassive. The relative cool of the suite lifts the sweat-slick curls from the back of his neck, a reprieve from the heat outside and the heat this motherfucker always seems to stoke. ]
Now, if I didn't know any better, Rico, I'd say you were jealous.
free trial period is over, it’s a lifetime subscription now (menacing)
[It's fucking hilarious to see Len like this. His manner placid and impassive, acting all unruffled when his trigger finger's twitching right there. Dishonesty in action, and twice as funny on a man who likes to appear easy-going. Rico's smile widens by a fraction when he clocks that, and it only gets more satisfied when he sees the way Len closes the distance, looks him up and down. It lets the irritation simmer down. Somewhat.]
You’ve been spending a lot of time with that Follower lately. You know the one. Tall, blonde, and mouthy. Got the glasses, too.
[He says this in an easy, breezy tone, but it's very much like the kind of breeze that blows through the Mohave. In theory it should be welcoming, but it's hot, prickly, and unpleasant. Enough to induce the sweats. The grip on the bottle doesn't lessen, and his knuckles flex. But he does screw the cap back on. Not that it's really any better.]
'Cause I got to thinking, and correct me if I'm wrong - just under a mile away...
[Rico makes a thoughtful noise from the back of his throat, but it's pretty damn clear that it's an affectation. And it's just as clear what he's been thinking about as he's been waiting for Len to join him.]
The Fort, maybe? Is that where you went and got busy?
goddamnit
So he doesn't bother maintaining any kind of poker face at the assertion that they're fooling around. Arcade is more in love with his pithy little Latin phrases and broc flowers than the idea of ending up in Courier Six's amorous crosshairs, and that's just fine by Len so long as he's safe. ]
Is that what this is about?
[ What Len doesn't like in the least is the way Rico's smug fucking face looks, bringing this up. Like he's itching to make Len regret the association, like he's trying to catch him in a lie. As if Len has the energy to spare for roundabout bullshit when he could just get to the point. He's seen Rico shoot men for lesser crimes than being a mild annoyance and wouldn't put it past him to disappear somebody he didn't like. ]
You sat here for half an hour doin' what, exactly? Imagining me blowing the guy? I delivered a bundle of Med-X to Farkas and some sterile equipment to Arcade. Shoot straight if you got a problem with what I do with my time, slick, 'cause I simply do not have the hours in the day to try to read your mind.
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Rico’s fingers twitch away from the bottle and it falls from his hand as he pushes off from the pool table in the same motion. It lands on the threadbare carpet with a dull thud, rolling away. He plants his feet more firmly onto the floor and takes half a step to close that gap between them provocatively, in both senses of the word as his pants ride down another inch to show that’s all he’s wearing.
At least he hasn’t thrown the bottle at him again. That’s a promising sign.]
Alright, Lenny. How’s this for shooting straight?
[Rico says, reaching up to flick Len’s collar in a sloppy gesture. Then he brushes the back of his knuckles down his front, holding Len’s jacket still in one hand as he idly picks out a few small glass shards of where they’re trapped in the folds with the other, like pulling weeds. Then he speaks up again in that playful, hypothetical tone of his.]
If you ambled your ass down to Freeside tomorrow morning and you didn’t see Arcade where you last left him…
[If Len realizes where this sentence is going well before it finishes, there’s a sharp shard of glass between Rico’s fingers digging into the underside of Len’s jaw, held so tightly in his grasp that there’s blood trickling between his knuckles. And with a grin that’s much more teeth than smile;]
You think you’d hurry on back to bed a little goddamn quicker?
this is Romance™ right
It isn't an empty threat. Rico can turn on a dime and Len knew that getting into this, knows his own tendency to be a reactionary shit and maybe the man is counting on that. Ever since he got shot twice in the head he's felt as though he came back all wrong, pieces of himself in different places, sorting through memories and empty static alike. Hard to find balance when he shouldn't be alive in the first place. ]
I'm going to pretend I didn't just hear you call me Lenny, because I...hate...when people call me Lenny.
[ He begins softly, conscious of the powder keg he's courting. As it turns out black isn't really Rico's color, running greener than Joshua Tree in the springtime. His hands, previously hanging at his sides, slip over the belt loops of Rico's pants, curling in them as his thumbs press firmly into the juts of his bare hips. ]
And I'd like to remind you that I keep business and pleasure separate for a reason. I ain't going anywhere and I don't need the incentive, so don't fuck with my people or you will find me much less friendly to your sugar-sweet advances.
[ One palms skims the line of Rico's side, under his shirt and over his ribs as Len maintains unflinching eye contact. ]
I came back, didn't I?
abso-fuckin-lutely
Huh. How about that?
[He says faux-thoughtfully, as if just realizing he's made a great point, the words coming from a perfectly pleased rumble in his chest in that sugar-sweet tone. Then he leans down, locking gazes with him, still holding that prickling threat at Len's throat. It’s easier to dig under his skin with an unwelcome nickname and a smile, but it sure doesn’t hurt.]
Guess you did, hotshot. I've got nothing to complain about now.
[What Rico smells like, really, is Len’s things. His cigarettes, his liquor, his sheets. The things he’s taken with entitlement because he's pissed off, because he tends to move on quick with his flavors of the month but only when he's done with them, not when they're done with him. And he wears it all like a challenge he's shoving in Len's face, daring him to do something about it and find out just what Rico really could truly and honestly do if pushed just a bit too... far.
Rico yanks him in with a tight-fisted grip in his jacket, jerking him closer to give him a taste of that malt whiskey splashing Len's boots. Just as promised. But at the same time he does, the rough pull causes a small jagged gash to cut across Len's skin from where Rico's holding the flashing glint of glass, running along the underside of his jaw. Something he doesn't acknowledge in favor of biting his way into Len's mouth as he holds him close, feeling blood start to drip over his hand where the sharp edge is pressed even harder right up against his throat, shaking with possessive fury and mingling with his own.]
no subject
The kiss hits him like a train and he's only barely ready for it, fingers tightening in Rico's skin with a vicious hunger that flares low and deep in his gut. That gasp is accompanied by pain: ripped open along the line of his jaw, Rico's knuckles brushing his throat and he immediately knows it's the glass. Len meets him teeth for teeth, morning breath and malt whiskey, ignoring the dull throb, the hot blood he can feel dripping off of Rico's hand and onto his own chest.
He smells iron and tastes that smoky burn, shocking all the way down into his lungs as the other man tries to pull handfuls of him that he refuses to give. Rico needs to work harder than that.
Len wraps a fist in his tank and shoves him back against the pool table, riled and wild-eyed with some nascent frustration brewing about the fucking nerve of this guy. Like taking a hit of something strong it bowls him over all over again, the sharpness of his attraction honed to a razor's edge, the familiar sensation of agonized relief that someone doesn't treat him like the Mojave's savior. His hands make short work of Rico's half-undone fly, a sly grin stretching across his face when he reaches down to palm him firmly, deliberately, and says: ]
Bullshit. You always find somethin' to complain about.
no subject
The rumpled clothes really are just window dressing to that broad-shouldered frame. He graciously allows Len to shove him back as his ass hits the pool table, lets him know that by looking just as sly and twice as smug. Also: it's plenty true what Len says.]
Hard to think of something right now when you've got your hand down my pants, but if you’re asking... You smell like booze. You been drinking?
[Rico laughs, as if it’s not obviously the goddamn whiskey bomb he just threw at Len. It gives him such a fucking kick to watch for that wild, vaguely pissed-off glint in Len's eyes, know that he's got him hooked on something only Rico can give him. For another day at least, and his full attention for the next hour. Not that Rico’s had very many inhibitions to lose in the first place, but the warm heat in his gut mingles well with arousal and Len’s palm over his cock only stokes it hotter.
Anger, adrenaline, arousal... Hell, one's as much of a rush as the other, interchangeable and indistinguishable. Exchange your chips at the counter, it's all the same to the guy standing behind it. The blood pounding in his ears, emotion surging up so high it leaves him running eager and hot, every instinct in his body pointed in the same direction and humming with a single-minded intensity. Rico knows he has some wires crossed in his brain, tangled all up together by being forced to tread that path too often. He knows that, and Len knows that, but he's still not changing.
Rico's grip on his jacket slides upwards - he winds his hand though Len’s hair and yanks his head back, baring more of his vulnerable throat and showing off that blood-slicked cut. With just a twist of his hand, he could slash him wide open, leave him on his knees and gagging on his blood. As a reminder, he plays at being careless as he grinds down into Len's hand, that sharp point lifting just a fraction, tapping at his jaw. He turns his face to the side as he smiles, hot breath over that stinging cut -]
What do you think, Lenny? Should I give you another one so Arcade can kiss it better? Or would you prefer it'd be me?
no subject
Mornings like these, it's difficult to parse between good and bad habits. Sometimes he just doesn't care. Rico's not the only one with wires crossed and something truly tragic happened the day Len died and came back again, and it wasn't just the way they left him bleeding under a shallow layer of dirt and sand. He does good because it's asked of him, because he's singularly talented in doing it when a person actually needs help, but he doesn't know how much of that is contrived and how much is sincere. Play enough poker and you believe your own bluffs.
A hand twists into his hair and grips it firmly, pulling his head back and Len hisses in response, half-hating the delicious shudder that runs down his spine like an electrical current. The stinging tug of torn skin is barely recognizable like this, stretched long and lean as his fingers tighten around Rico's cock and it pulses against his palm. Len rubs his thumb into the slit, slicking the head and recalling with sharp clarity the way Rico had smiled last night when Len fit his mouth over his dick with obvious relish.
The threat is still there, tippy-tapping along the edge of his jawline and Len refuses to capitulate, flirting with danger like always as his free hand wanders to his own belt. ]
I think you should be careful, playin' with sharp things.
[ The blade of his hunting knife presses through Rico's tank, drawing a prick of blood from his side, between the bones. Fastest way to a man's heart is through his ribcage. ]
You're liable to get cut.
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The other man could take his other hand away and wrap it over the butt of the knife's handle - drive it in hard in at the right angle, sink it into his chest and take a good fucking bite of his heart. Isn’t that what he’s playing at threatening? Ha ha ha. Bullshit.
He deliberately leans into the point, letting Len's arm feel how he's shoving his weight into it as he holds it up. More than he intends - the way his head spins makes it easy to fall into it, barely feeling the point work deeper into his skin and only registering the vaguely warm, wet sensation of his shirt sticking to it.]
Am I supposed to be impressed by a little prick?
[A dick joke. Classy. Rico laughs, louder and harder than it really warrants, pleased as punch at his own joke.]
How the hell am I getting off from that?
[He closes the short distance between his eager mouth to Len's exposed neck, undeterred. Calling out his bluff, daring him to follow the line of logic right through from the edge of the hunting knife. Rico will kiss the cut better, alright. He'll do that fucking plenty. He keeps him still by that tight grip on his hair as he drags his blunt teeth over the cut under his wiry beard, presses the flat of his tongue against it and bites. It’ll be fun to make him jump. His cock gives a twitch, suddenly achingly hard at the taste filling his mouth.]
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Yeah, he never was much of an existential philosopher, anyway.
He should have felt it building sooner, should have identified it faster. It strikes him with a suddenness that nearly knocks his breath from his lungs, vise grip suddenly more secure in his hair, teeth sinking into his skin. The sound that escapes him is muffled by surprise, knife twitching against Rico's side and cutting a line through his shirt, his flesh.
Rico is always too fast, faster than a fiend on super-jet or psycho, careening forward with animal-like precision, a predator in the pale morning light of Len's flat. His fucking hard-on pressing into Len's hand and even Len isn't strong enough not to make a sound at that, just as turned on in spite of himself. Eyes burning and teeth bared Len wishes he weren't this predictable, wishes it didn't feel like something they were meant to do.
For all that Len is of decent height, Rico has size and muscle on him. Denser and heavier, a lower center of gravity Len has seen him use to throw people around like rag dolls. Len Darin has always been a scrappy, resourceful combatant, fully willing to fight dirty if it lends him the upper hand, but that strategy is for raiders, for fiends. For people he doesn't know, for people already trying to skin him alive. In times like these Len isn't sure he knows the difference between friend or foe anymore. ]
You ever shut the fuck up? [ Len hisses, rhetorical, and squeezes Rico's cock so tight he prevents that much-needed friction. ] Or do you just run your mouth when you're feelin' insecure?
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But he isn't. He just likes pretending. Shame he's the only one in on the joke. Who doesn't like a playful game of would he really...?]
Len-ny! [he says, mock-hurt and breathless as Len's temper flares up, stops him from feeling more.] I’m trying to make it up to you here, and it’s like you’re trying to hurt my feelings or something. Christ.
[He looks right into Len's eyes with fever-bright fascination as he drags the glass shard over skin. Rough, careless. It's slippery to hold now, slick and dripping with Rico's blood as well as Len's, and it almost fumbles out of his fingers. A seam here? Rico wonders. As if it'd open him up to reveal a history of something less than dead and buried behind the weight of years, whose afterimage still shows signs of existing through the violent twitch of a trigger finger. His gun's been slung over the back of a chair as a deliberate acknowledgement towards avoiding precisely that, and Rico can't not follow it up with a callous, curious attitude. Christ, just come out already. What are you, really? Behind the haze of Courier Six, is Leonard Darin something closer to himself?
Besides... the man likes this. He’s turned on. All a guy has to do is just listen to him, the sounds he makes. He loves what Rico can do for him. And that's as good as loving me, Rico thinks. So he’ll take this, if that's the closest thing he can get to what he really wants. To actually wake up next to him, for once in a god damn while.]
Hate to tell you this, but you've got your hand wrapped around the wrong thing if you want me to shut up. [Rico pauses, trying so hard not to laugh but failing to suppress the condescending undertone of amusement. Then adds;] You’re not being honest with me. Brought out that big knife, and for what? You only cut me because I made you jump. So why should I be careful?
[He breathes out the next words, blood on his breath.]
You God. Damn. Idiot.
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Len doesn't hate this man, but he does hate how easy it is to be like this around him. Hates that he can hit all these buttons, scratch these itches, makes him laugh. That kissing blood from his mouth feels the same as a sharp drag on a fresh cigarette, lungs full of satisfying fire. Len keeps his distance because he knows what they could do together, and that scares the shit out of him and excites him in equal measure.
He knows he's a hypocrite, too. Acting like he's better than this isn't worth the effort when he wants to punch Rico square in the teeth with his own teeth. You're not being honest with me, he says, and he's goddamn right. Just the same, Len can't help but provoke in return when it comes so naturally to him. He bares his teeth in a smile and for an instant he remembers what it was like before two bullets clipped his head open, before he took the Mojave Express job. Young and dumb and raging on some synthesized strain of Jet from New Reno that no amount of Addictol could kick, the people who profited off of it rolling in caps.
Back then he would have killed anyone for a hit. He'd be lying if he said he didn't, at least once. The endorphin blockers he took to pull himself out felt like dying and just because he's off now, just because it was over a decade ago, doesn't mean he doesn't still get the cravings. Bubbling up now and then, suppressed with other substances. Rico gets those cravings too, or else he wouldn't get so uppity about Len skipping out early in the morning. Wants what he wants, when he wants it. They shouldn't be at cross-purposes if they want the same thing.
Rico has his full attention now, blood slicking down Len's throat, Rico's chin. He deftly flips the knife in his hand and stabs it into the worn felt of the pool table's rail, leaving it behind. His thumb he crushes into the new gash in Rico's side, hard enough to bruise the flesh around it. ]
Let's quit with the foreplay then.
[ Len advises with a thin smile, lifting his other hand to lave his tongue over his palm, maintaining eye contact. He reaches between them to take Rico's cock once more, curling around the head with deliberate patience. ]
Tell me what you woulda done if I were here this morning.
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Rico has to break away from Len’s steady gaze to tilt his head back, his eyes squeezing shut as a laugh bubbles up in his chest. He loves being right. And he loves - fucking loves - being shown a side of the Courier that not everyone has seen, or could suspect. There is something there, and it's just as dead as the man standing in front of him, and buried just as shallow. Rico's just prying open the polite fiction that everyone prefers to skirt around when they ask for a specific kind of help from Courier Six and Leonard Darin steadies that rifle of his to provide exactly that. Because it takes a particular kind of person or history to be good at it like they are. As much as Len likes to act as if it doesn’t… Rico of all people would know.
It’s just nice to call him out on this one, and have Len relent with the truth and so clearly enjoy it. Fuck any pretense of distance - why bother when it feels so good, feels like fun?
So when he finally opens his eyes again, there's a new look in them entirely. Bright-eyed and gleeful. And good god, is he smiling. The glass shard slips entirely from numb fingers, but he’s well past caring about it when he drags his hand down to the side of Len’s neck, nestles his own bloody thumb over his pounding pulse. He’s itching to fuck into the heat of Len’s body already.]
And spoil the surprise for next time, just like that? You missed out. Too bad. I’ll tell you this though - you would’ve sauntered in late with your delivery, and the entire fort would’ve known why.
[The grip on his hair slackens, sliding down to rest over the back of his neck.]
But forget about what I would’ve done, I’ll tell you what I will. [Rico practically purrs, taking labored breaths around the blunt intrusion, stifled by impatience and pain both.] You already ruined the pool table, I’m thinking we might as well break it in the rest of the way. How about it?
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He likes it, too, based on the way he shudders, the same reaction Len can pull from him when he's close, the same satisfaction. Probably thrilled that Len deigned to give him a taste of what he's been searching for, rooting around in every close interaction they have, scrounging for the scraps of another person Len swore he'd smother. Rico laughs for it, content with his little victory, another mystery solved and certainly one for the books given its wide disparity from the alluring draw of The Courier.
Len Darin is different, hungry and heat-sick, drawn like a moth to far more dangerous flames. A small, soft noise of approval ekes its way from his throat when Rico's thumb slots into the space beneath his jaw, when Rico's palm curls around the back of his neck. Intimate and friendly for the blunt nail biting into the wound at his side, barely-checked patience tempering his delight. He wants a fuck and isn't shy about asking after it.
Len would love nothing more than to ruin the immaculate felt top of the monument to excess that is Benny Gecko's former pool table, and it shows in the saccharine smile on his face. Half-hard in his jeans even he knows better than to just bend over, to make it easy. Rico Dredd requires a firmer hand, rewards meted out in reciprocation. ]
Darlin,' I'll mess around on any surface you want. [ Comes the easy drawl, bloody fingers slicking up Rico's tank, taking his chin in a deceptively strong grip. By no means does he pose a significant physical threat but fuck if it isn't fun to play with fire like this. ] But you get your mouth on me first.
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It seems like he could take to it, right now. But he doesn’t. He lifts his chin slightly as Len takes it, his eyes flicking down. That's not really the mistake, though. Len’s mistake is thinking that Rico is content with this, that he's satisfied with what he's dug up so far. Willing to leave it there, call the blackening bruise spread underneath his dripping side his glittering trophy for today.]
Shit, you sure? [Rico smiles all friendly, running his tongue over his bloody teeth. Just a blatantly unsubtle reminder of what that mouth did the last time it was on him.] Once bitten, twice shy… Isn’t that something people like to say?
[He poses the question with fondness as he brushes his thumb over his pulse. It's absolutely breathtaking what Len keeps coming back for, what he invites into his life. It's what Rico would call stupidity in his uncharitable moods, and something different in more romantic ones. He locks gazes with him, still bright-eyed.]
You ever stop to think why? Trick question, Len. I know you don't.
[That affectionate grip around Len’s neck tightens like a vice and his thumb crushes in exactly as violently as the one in his side, choking him off hard. No more, no less. Hard enough that it doesn't feel like playing, but they are. Where's the fun in playing with fire if you don't actually get burned, once in a while? He only waits a split second long enough to see Len's reaction, what his hands would scrabble for first - if he’d double down on his grip on Rico, or if he’d reach for the knife, his throat - before he kicks his ankle in and drops him like a rock, hauling Len to the ground with all the curt professionalism of a butcher dragging a brahmin to the chopping block.
Rico pushes him down, crushing Len’s face into the carpet with a hand splayed over the back of his head. He still wants a fuck. He just wants it his way. So he mouths at his skin and bites down on the curve of his shoulder, tasting the sweat there, then releases his grip on his hair with a contemptuous shove - and aims a sloppy, final slap at the back of Len’s head while he’s at it. Think that’ll do it? Maybe that’ll really piss him off, give Rico more to chew on than just scraps and a taste of what he’s been trying to hide. He wants to dig his nails right into the crack he’s found and split the coffin wide open. See what the hell kind of secrets come spilling out, the real body he’s hiding in there. Not just a glimpse.]
You didn't tell me where you wanted my mouth, sweetheart, [he mocks in a cheerfully rough voice, shoving his words right up against his ear. Who doesn’t love loopholes? His body shakes with laughter on top of him, his position turning precarious with his hysterics.] So if you had a different idea in mind, go ahead and make me.
[Rico likes to play with fire too. He’s better at it.]
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Len knows he fucked up the instant Rico smiles, reminded of a text he read somewhere at some point about how predators only bare their teeth as a show of aggression. Once bitten, twice shy. A familiar thumb smears through the blood at his throat, an act that almost feels like endearing petting, a faint edge of something that sounds like pity, amusement, in Rico's voice. He's never shied away from danger - courts it, even - and recognizes the threat just before it hits, fingers wrapping around the handle of his knife as Rico's wrap around his neck. It's a grip he only just secures before a heavy boot knocks his leg and he goes down like a bag of cement.
He hits the floor hard, gasping in musty carpet, weighed down by the substantially larger man straddling his hips. It's a vulnerable position (too vulnerable) as teeth scrape the rough fabric of his shirt and skin, palm sharply clipping him across the back of his skull and knocking his forehead into the two-hundred year old faded pattern beneath him. A vicious shudder rolls through him at the treatment and he knows it's a test.
When Len was nineteen a group of raiders caught him out on his own, brought him back to a well-established camp as labor, put him into rotation with a handful of other helpless nobodies. They weren't clever enough to make the collars that have become prevalent in the small community of enslaved people under Caesar's rule but they enforced their power in other ways, vengeful and exacting if slighted, gluttons for doling out corporal punishment and no prisoner at their mercy was spared it. His stay wasn't long. One of the bigger motherfuckers pushed him one too many times, getting his kicks from shoving a then-much lankier opponent around. Threw him a shiv once as a joke, told him he could leave if he won a fight. He remembers being held down, the jeering, face shoved into the choking dust, a knee on his hip and a forearm braced against his shoulder blades. He remembers feeling so angry he thought he might combust.
His hand tightens around the knife, the heat radiating off of Rico oppressive and dizzying, and something in him snaps. With his hands on the floor Len hitches a knee up behind one of Rico's for leverage, shifts an arm to throw him off-balance, and rolls them over with a ferocity and speed that surprises even him. He's quick to right himself, the blade's edge pressing up under Rico's jaw, other hand fisted in his tank top. Cutting a line of red into his skin, hissing through clenched teeth: ]
You know what I fucking meant.
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But the moment passes without choking on his own blood, and all that's left is the primal, unwanted relief of finding himself still breathing. A sick surge of victory, vindication, and fucked-up arousal scours him clean and makes him feel more alive than anything. He doesn't stop laughing now that their positions are switched and a knife is at his throat. If anything, he laughs harder and meaner, the indulgence of violence settled in the lines of his body and on full display. The motherfucker sure looks like he's having fun as he looks lazily back at Len. He's not taking this seriously. Not remotely.
When Rico was nineteen, he'd turned to his twin and asked him a question, just out of the blue. He'd chosen his moment carefully, out of earshot from the man they'd only ever called 'sir' as they were scrubbing off their bloody hands in the tub where they'd made camp. "Do you ever feel like we're doing something wrong?" He'd posed it casually, the tension of almost a decade strung up in his back. Then he'd watched his brother's face carefully for his reaction, but he already knew the answer he'd get when his expression hadn't changed at all. So he'd turned away and stared at the flecks of brain matter slowly floating down to the bottom through pink-tinged water, scraping out the rest from underneath his fingernails as his brother had laconically answered "no".
So if he had hit on a still-raw nerve by the way Len shuddered as he was pinned down? He'll hammer down on that all day if it gets him what he wants. Rico knows how to play up the embodiment of every asshole in this shitty wasteland who's ever done something cruel for kicks, taken a person and rattled them just to see what comes out. He's been aware of what it looks like from the moment he'd carefully pushed a door open while clutching a pistol that was too large for his hands, and seen what was behind it. How he'd learned how to do terrible things to terrible people, and been nothing but praised for it. Since the first night he'd started seeing it in the mirror and realized the price he'd paid.]
C'mon, Lenny, [he jeers, his breath coming in juddering fits and starts, held tight by that hand fisted in his tank top. More, he wants more. His grip squeezes down tighter on Len's wrist. Threatening him, or urging him on.] You know I did. So what the fuck are you gonna do about it?
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He's not the raider that Len rolled over as a teenager before forcing that torn, sharp piece of metal into his windpipe. He might be worse, but Hell - isn't Len, too? In some way?
The comfortable distance of a rifle is something he always preferred, even growing up. By the time somebody got close enough for a shotgun to be of any real use Len didn't especially enjoy the implications, and while he can hold his own in hand to hand - more or less - he doesn't quite relish it the same way that Rico does. It's a necessity when he isn't afforded the luxury of hunkering down on a ridge line, scope at his disposal. It's the reality of the world they live in, but his opponents are usually drugged-up fiends, crazy assholes high on Jet, or feral ghouls.
A knife is intimate. This is intimate. More than that, he likes the challenge and a smaller part of him likes that someone is trying so goddamned hard to see him. It's a level of effort rarely afforded to those practiced in the art of building multiple walls around themselves; usually the first barricade is the one that prevents people from trying again. Rico just keeps fucking hammering.
To what end? He knows Len won't kill him for something this stupid, and is calling his bluff. Len couldn't pull back even if he wanted to with that vise grip around his wrist, and so he indulges a sick little thrill in tipping his hand, ever so slightly, watching a rivulet of red slip down the side of Rico's neck and spatter silently onto the carpet. ]
You got me. Ain't a whole lot I can do.
[ As if anyone could make Rico Dredd do anything. The hand fisted in his tank releases it slowly, sliding up his chest - fuck, but it's really unfair how attractive he is - and Len ever so gingerly shifts the knife from one hand to the other. The point presses into the hollow of Rico's throat, dragging a thin red line down to the stretched, worn cotton of his shirt before Len rips through it, nicking skin in the process. Oops.
He carves his way lightly down around Rico's navel, glancing briefly as it skims the scar tissue from an old surgical procedure, and taps the flat of the blade against the stiff length of Rico's cock. ]
Who am I to tell a man which dick to suck, right?
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The quiet remaining trickles of Rico's laughter cuts off completely with the knifepoint tucked into the hollow of his throat, every movement coming to a standstill. He only starts breathing shallowly again once that thin red line reaches past his collarbones, and his tank top lifts and splits; falls open to his sides to frame a body used as a tool and built for strength, rarely seen completely exposed for too long at a time. Strewn with the kind of scars that have been scored with much more viciousness and less care, deeper into his skin. Some of them much older than others, their lines warped slightly as they stretched out over a still-growing body.
Rico barely pays attention. His whole world narrows down to the sensation of the knife dragged deliberately down his body, and the attention of the man holding it. Len traces an intimate, meandering path down his body, taking his sweet fucking time on the scenic route. He only lets himself take deeper, eager, shuddering breaths when the knife lifts briefly from his skin. But once it taps his cock, there's the first flash of something that could be muted fear behind his half-lidded gaze that sinks back beneath the surface when his hips give a juddering twitch, his cock lying flush and heavy with interest. Smeared with pre-cum, remembering what it felt like to have his touch on him.
This is what he thinks while lying down on the floor of a room surrounded by another age, the morning light streaming in making the man straddling him look spectacular. It’s not trust that keeps him perfectly still, his hand still wrapped around his wrist. He doesn’t trust Len until he knows how far he’ll go - or won’t. Maybe he will after today. When he knows for sure how deep Len’s rot reaches. There’s a long stretch of possibilities between death and damn all, and he wonders. He’s betting all his caps on a roulette wheel for a laugh, watching the ball rattle around to see where it’ll land, leaping over the two fat, green zeroes that’ll leave him with nothing and walking away a loser. Watching Len watch him, hypnotized by the dark look in his eyes erupting with lust and anger, letting it spin, spin...]
Not a whole lot. [Rico's voice is hoarse with aggressive cheer, when he finally speaks up.] But there's still something. You're the one holding a knife to a man's cock. Who the hell am I to tell you what to do?
[Rico gives a thin smile, just as threadbare as the carpet underneath him. The grip around Len's wrist relents. Just as Len tips his hand, it forces him to tip his own.]
😘
A knife's edge trailing down his body, a thin red line of someone else's intent. Borderline at their mercy. At the time he'd solicited it, invited it. Where was the fun in having such tools if no one was going to play with them, and back then he'd been seeing someone with few cares and even fewer scruples. Can't remember the bigger details, interestingly enough - just another loss to chalk up to the head trauma. Hard to forget what it felt like, though. Every disparate fragment of focus concentrated on the space where metal met skin, and Len would be lying if he said he hadn't enjoyed it.
Rico's breath catches and Len can feels his eyes on the blade, on him. He acts the part of a showman well, spent more than his fair share of hours entertaining people, conning people, satisfaction in each and every second spent on the endeavor. It's the same kind of heat and impulse here, watching Rico attentively, feeling something delicious flare up in his gut at that brief, blink-and-you-miss-it spark of fear, quickly supplanted by arousal.
It takes a long moment before he opens his big, stupid mouth again, and Len knows he's proven his point. ]
Who the Hell indeed.
[ No pressing, no slashing, just the threat of worse if provoked in the way that Len drags the flat of the knife up the length of Rico's cock. Another twitch in a small puddle of pre-cum and he smirks, wetting his lips with his tongue as his other hand is freed. It slips down to one of Rico's hips, thumbnail digging into the flesh there. It's almost nice like this: being fully clothed, armed, settled on Rico's thighs with his shirt rent open and his dick out. Sucker's got it bad. ]
You wanna fuck me over this pool table, you're gonna have to make it worth my while.
[ In a show of immaculate benevolence, Len lifts the weapon and rests the tip at the space just beneath Rico's ribs. ]
Or so help me, I will deprive this world and myself of your cock.
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As Len performs for an audience of one, Rico watches. At seeing the smirk on his face, there's a flash of tight anger and humiliation in his gut. Oh look. Lenny boy's got room for jokes now that he's on top, and enjoying it. With that, he switches up the tension in the room from outright violence to again just the razor's edge threat of it, but mostly it just feels like a dig that bites into him harder than any kind of steel could. Like Rico doesn't recognize mocking magnanimity of playing it up and the lie of aren't you lucky I've decided to be nice?
He might be projecting.]
Sounds like cutting off your nose to spite your face to me, [Rico responds, just as seraphic. Like he's ever going to shut up for too long.] You're not finding a better fuck in a hundred mile radius, and you know I always make it worth your while.
[A point's been proven. From both ends. And with that, he reaches up slowly towards Len's belt. Aware of the threat of worse but still gauging how far that honestly goes, he stills for the briefest, dangerous second as his fingertips touch the warm metal of the buckle, like a thought comes to him. But then it passes, and he flicks Len's belt undone instead. Glances up with that thin smile. Sure. I'll behave, buddy.]
Isn't that why you’re here anyway?
[Why he’s still here, despite all the ridiculous bullshit Rico just put him through. He draws a finger down the length of Len's cock over his jeans, straining against the fabric. Other than his sparkling personality. Of course.]
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Len's eyes narrow into dark slits as the buckle clicks quietly, inhaling sharp and thin as a bloodstained finger presses down, firm and deliberate, against his cock. It pulses in response; no sense admitting it doesn't all turn him on just as much. Very, very slowly, Len lifts the knife, shifting to tuck it back into the sheath at his belt.
A concession. ]
I do live here.
[ He points out with obvious amusement, wetting his lips with his tongue, aware that if they were in any other venue he'd be staying either way. Len read somewhere once that celestial bodies have gravitational pulls, that they orbit each other because they have to, that if they get too close they could destroy each other. Seems like my kind of way to go, he'd thought then, and thinks the same now. Long fingers tug at the torn shreds of Rico's shirt, more coaxing than demanding. ]
C'mere.
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But now Rico knows it's there. It’s written all over his body. The spinning wheel in his mind slows with his heartbeat, and the possibilities start closing off. His anticipation builds. Isn't that fun?]
Being nice now, [he comments with just as much amusement, watching Len lick his lips. Like Rico’s never kicked a man out of his own home before, just to see what they'd do about it - not everyone's willing to brave what follows a warning shot from him. But there walks in Len, dumping his gun and closing the distance between them with deliberate strides. Calling Rico's bluff and finding out why it isn't always the best idea. You can be right, but dead right. And maybe that's why Rico likes the guy so much.
So just as slowly, he shifts upright with a slight strain of effort. Braces a hand against the floor, leaving a wet stain of a handprint behind - gets a little kick out of it, the mess they're making. He follows after his coaxing tug upwards, comes face to face with the man straddling his thighs. With the knife tucked away, it could be all sweetness the way they're positioned. Like Len's just sitting in his lap, as if they just happened to end up on the floor like this.
At remembering this, Rico feels strained at the leash ( a flash of an impulse and heat, push him back with a shove to his midriff and ) to see Len stripped of his clothes and underneath him already. He palms Len's cock more firmly over his jeans before grabbing at his jacket, beyond worked up.]
You ever gonna take any of this off? It’s in my way.
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Rico eases up and Len can feel the heat of him through his shirt, still catches that sharp taste of whiskey in the air between them. There's no reason to pretend that the proximity doesn't make him feel deliciously dizzy, that the man doesn't press all those buttons Len likes to think he's got a handle on. Indulgence in its most distilled form, the red iron cooling on their skin. It's exhausting being this close and holding off much longer and he grins as a firm hand grips at his dick, teeth flashing between them.
There's that Classic Rico Impatience, too. On-edge and close to snapping like a dry twig. Humming in agreement he shifts enough to start shrugging off his jacket, abandoned on the floor. His shirt follows: Len picks the buttons apart without breaking eye contact, peeling the collar away from his throat where it sticks, tacky from drying blood. It joins the jacket. He's lean and scarred, built for the track and field marathon that makes up courier work. Fast but not overtly powerful, certainly not made of the same bulk comprising the brick shithouse he happens to currently be sitting upon, but the marks on his skin would disabuse anyone of the notion that he wasn't born to survive this world.
Len rolls his hips and the novelty of toying with Rico's ever-mercurial mood is dissipating swiftly with the friction. Feels a bit like giving permission when he curls a hand around Rico's side to his back, fingers dragging up each vertebra, over bits of scar tissue, and asks, ]
How's that?
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😏
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