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He is willing beneath his hands, all claws and sharp edges and breathless whimpers. The prince has never been very vocal but Niles has learnt to read his face over the years. And in the flush on his cheeks he sees pleasure, in his eyes he sees the hurt and fear.
Tristan never tells him to stop, so he doesn’t. He offered and the prince is a big boy, so he better live with the choices he makes.
It goes well until it doesn’t, really. Until Niles craves the touch of his cold hands clawing into his back like he is the only thing that is real, the only thing left on the world. Until Niles feels dizzy after the dragon boy pulls away from a heated kiss, crimson eyes glowing.
Until it’s not just about him feeling good but also about Tristan not seeing a person in him he isn’t.
“Won’t you talk to me, milord?”
Niles’ lips find his pulse, his teeth dig into the skin above it and he can hear the small sigh that escapes the boy — for that’s all that Tristan is, even past his twentieth year; a boy, lost and scared and fighting a war he doesn’t know how to win — and he shouldn’t feel this aroused at the thought of drawing all of these sinful sounds out of the prince.
There are so many things wrong about this, about
them
.
“What do you want me to say? I’m sure– ah– “
There is a strange venom to Tristan’s words, usually missing in his portrayal of an honourable knight. Niles feels grim satisfaction in his chest at watching the façade crumble.
“There’s nothing I could come up with you haven’t– oh, dragons above, Niles– “
The prince draws blood and the outlaw feels the sting of fingernails cutting into his flesh. Niles moans into Tristan’s neck, pressing closer.
He is loath to admit that his lover knows how to manipulate his desires, to coax him into painful hardness when Tristan himself remains impassive, indifferent about whether he himself comes to completion or doesn’t.
“Then I haven’t been good at teaching you about the desires of the flesh,” Niles teases and presses a kiss to the point where the other’s jaw meets his neck.
“Oh, you’ve been a good teacher, trust– “
The prince is cut off by Niles’ lips finding his in a hard kiss, more teeth clashing than tongues meeting. It’s forceful and almost fumbling and when they both pull apart, gasping for air like two men drowning, they both feel hollow.
“Don’t lie to me, princeling.”
Niles digs his fingers into the skin above Tristan’s sharp hip bones and doesn’t have to look down to know that there will be bruises blooming across it come morning light.
“This here? If I wanted something like it I’d go find myself a working lady.”
Hurt flashes across Tristan’s face, his eyes widen and Niles only notices too late that the truth now is not what they need.
He is sick of the silence, sick of being a stand-in for a faceless figure of violence for Tristan. But alas, Niles is also twisted and broken and when he feels the prince hanging onto him he can almost pretend he is loved enough not to be left.
They have never talked about the word; it’s too outlandish a thought to entertain that either one of them could be someone worth loving.
( until it’s not. )
“Talk to me,” he repeats, shifting until he can move no further, until the heat is too much to bear, until he feels Tristan’s tear-slicked cheek against his.
Niles won’t get an answer this time around, either. It’s a bitter but familiar disappointment he’s grown to expect and to savour like bad wine. If it’s all you can get, there’s no point in squandering it.
So they go on, desperate and harsh and careless until Niles is filling his lover up with the proof of his desire and Tristan recoils when he wants to bring him the same pleasure.
“I’m fine,” he lies and there’s no doubt he seems very much uninterested in coming himself.
Nothing is fine. Nothing is fine, not in the way he rolls off his own bed gracelessly nor in the way he makes to get dressed and leave his rooms again like Niles is nothing but a cheap whore.
Not in the way he can’t bear to look him in the eye, nor in the way he doesn’t seem able to take any sound at all.
Niles cleans himself up and pulls his clothes back on, hissing at the fabric of his clothes scraping over the fresh scratches all over his back. And then, as soundlessly as he arrived he disappears again, the taste of blood in his mouth and the image of the one person he was careless enough to fall in love with in a long time, eyes wide like a wounded animal waiting for the death blow.
Niles wants to let go;
he’s a disappointment
, he tells himself,
nothing but a cunning liar with a martyr complex
, he thinks,
pathetic
.
Sounds like just the man befitting a scoundrel from the streets
, a different part of him whispers.
And he will be back tomorrow so they can rub salt into each other’s wounds, again and again, waiting for one of them to finally go up in flames.
Niles wonders how much longer it will take.