Chapter Text
The sun simmers low and lazy on the horizon as Artemiy wends the paths of The Cape. At his side, Daniil cuts a stark silhouette, lean but familiar, themselves keeping amiable company with no objective in mind other than a leisurely stroll and quiet contemplation. They’ve just been to see Lara to continue their work on the logistics of a centralized clinic, an endeavor that has seen little progress beyond discussion of hypotheticals, but it’s an earnest one and—in the growing weeks since the Pest’s eradication—still proving itself more and more of a necessity.
Initially, Daniil was the hardest to win over, if only as a result of the magnificent depression he fell into following the destruction of the Polyhedron. It has taken Artemiy a great many strides to revive in his colleague the wit and scorn that, for whatever reason, Artemiy has grown deeply fond of. With winter on the horizon, and a future still in store for them all, Artemiy has managed to bring Daniil back around, watching the doctor throw himself into the task of the clinic with such fervor, the mania would surely frighten a lesser man.
Artemiy and Lara are no such specimen, and they eagerly weathered the lecture Daniil subjected them to this evening, the doctor using them more as a sounding board for his own ideas than the participant audience they try to be when he goes into one of his excitable fits.
Having apparently burnt himself out, he offers as little conversation to Artemiy as the menkhu gives in turn, though something irresistibly hopeful glows about his person, leaving Artemiy reticent for reasons quite other than the balm of October’s twilight.
“I have been thinking,” offers Daniil at length, “about our lack of funding.”
Artemiy, decidedly, has not. In fact, since departing Lara’s, he has been unable to consider much beyond the meditative quiescence of walking in silence with his colleague. Not that he resents their conversations, but the doctor will never not be most enjoyable at his quietest.
They’re halfway to the Stillwater at this point, the understanding Artemiy would see Daniil safely home gone entirely unspoken, as it has done so many times prior, though now it feels expectant, something lingering amidst their company, making a pretense of it.
Still, it’s irrelevant to his colleague’s innocuous comment, so Artemiy sobers his head and replies, “Oh?”
They’ve been striding mostly out of synch, Daniil taking two steps to Artemiy’s one, but the latter finds himself slowing, their paces aligning neatly.
“I have some… contacts,” Daniil says, “in the Capitol. Certainly I’ve burned most bridges there, but I do know a few fellows who might be persuaded to lend their purses.”
Artemiy laughs softly, ever amused when Daniil skirts the less savory specifics of his past.
“And what would they wish in return, oynon? Forgive me, but most of the men I rubbed elbows with at school would sooner die than bleed charitably a single ruble.”
“You,” bites Daniil, throwing a weak glare, “are not experienced in the art of social finesse.”
“And what finesse does that entail?”
Now arrived at the perimeter of The Cape, Daniil brings their party to a halt, pulling himself to his full and unimpressive height.
“A gentleman doesn’t tell, Burakh,” he says curtly, pressing a gloved finger to Artemiy’s sternum. “And besides, what concern is it of yours how I procure funds? What matters is that we have them – will have them”
“I was only joking,” Artemiy says lamely, feeling abruptly pinned.
Daniil’s gaze slackens, but his finger remains a distracting point of pressure through Artemiy’s jumper. Worse still, is that he offers no rebuke, just stays standing there, eyes flitting and, by increment, travelling downward to stare at his hand at the center of Artemiy’s chest.
He pulls it away, a deliberate and methodical movement, not unlike every other way he conducts himself. It inspires an inadvisable urge in Artemiy to touch him, too.
“I’m sorry,” he says instead, unsure of how to emerge from this odd moment. “I really meant nothing by it.”
“I know,” Daniil’s voice is soft, lacking any trace of offense.
“I think – I think it’s a very generous idea, emshen.”
Daniil hums, gaze still trained below Artemiy’s. Then, with that bleak intensity he pulls seemingly from nowhere, he looks up, and demands in a low growl, “Take me home.”
The seconds teeter as Artemiy tries, and fails, to reconcile the strangeness in the doctor’s countenance, his command, and in his own head, a cloying fog settling there and suggesting all manner of absolutely terrible ideas.
For, in this interim of reconciliation and refounding, they have not remained wholly immune to each other as colleagues, alone. Of course, neither has acted on the growing desires that mutually plague the moments when they too closely insinuate themselves into each other’s space, when hands touch or a palm stays too long on a shoulder. When a smile lingers too sweetly. When the lighting of a cigarette from Artemiy’s match bewitches him to savor the curls of smoke from Daniil’s teeth, the way his throat works down on the inhale, up on the exhale.
Right now, his mind tells him something to that same effect, to reach out and refit the man’s fingers between his, or braid them around that long, pale throat, too exposed for the chill rising up out of the earth as the night bleeds dry the last dregs of the day’s autumn warmth.
But Dankovskiy is not cold, his is a burning presence. Has he been so enticing this whole evening? Or did it take the shroud of darkness to lure Artemiy’s thoughts to wicked places. Not that they’re by any means cruel, though the repercussions of taking his colleague’s hand for any reason other than – than whatever the hell excuse, are dire enough to prevent that.
“Of course,” is the reply he gives, a struggling whisper that mortifies himself as much as it appears to mollify Daniil.
“Good,” says the doctor, and Artemiy half expects him to reach out and take his hands for his own.
No such luck, and Daniil turns, and strides away, leaving Artemiy to tag along, confused and daunted and inexplicably light-headed. He rejoins the man in no time, but feels the need to match his pace instead of pulling ahead.
The quiet they lapse into is not at all like before. That was aloof, friendly, and this is rife with something wanting, poised on its haunches and waiting to pounce, a visual Artemiy quickly discards, though an implacable ache settles in his limbs for the rest of the journey to the Stillwater.
Usually there to greet them, Eva is nowhere to be found, an oddity that apparently does not phase the doctor as they pause in the door, Daniil halfway inside, Artemiy dithering just beyond.
“And?” Daniil draws in Artemiy’s gaze once more, a hostile grip of honey hazel that pours right down into Artemiy’s gut.
He wavers, overcome with dizziness. What the hell is wrong with him?
“I – you’re home,” he says stupidly. “I’ve taken you home.”
“You look unwell, Burakh,” says Daniil, ignoring Artemiy’s attempt to veer their script back in the direction of valedictions.
The mere idea of saving face leaves Artemiy preemptively exhausted, so he laughs, shakes his head, and mumbles, “I confess I feel as much.”
Daniil steps from the door, letting lamplight spill over his shoulders and furl velvet shadows along his cheeks. Another egregious need burns up Artemiy’s better sense, and it’s all he can do not to bury his mouth beneath Daniil’s jaw and inhale that cologne he wears so damn well.
Only Daniil doesn’t stop at their usual prescribed distance, keeps drifting closer and closer, till he’s a hair’s breadth from Artemiy.
“My dear friend,” he mutters, cupping his hands either side of Artemiy’s face. “Must you always be so dense?”
Artemiy blinks at him, genuinely stupefied, but his head’s a fucking mess, his skin alight with tingles where Daniil touches him and where they are not quite touching, the doctor so very near, too much for politesse to excuse, and he smells incredible, a bouquet of parchment and tobacco and the earthy sweet sting that is entirely him when stripped of every other pretense.
“I – I’m not so sure I follow, oynon.”
“A forgivable transgression,” replies Daniil. “You always do best by example.”
Artemiy opens his mouth to refute the backhanded insult, but Daniil is faster, a blur of black, of bloodless lips parted to meet his own, fitting perfectly against Artemiy’s mouth. The rest of Daniil surges after, the doctor writhing the length of his torso flush to Artemiy’s, one knee bracketing Artemiy’s right thigh, the other nudging between both.
It’s fiercely startling, like whiplash with a cut of twyrine, but where was the moment to go? Artemiy’s head proves no clearer, but in the dazed haze of Daniil against him, inside him, touching him, tasting him, things find their own sense, and even if this is madness, he resolves to savor it.
So he kisses back, hungry for the heat of his colleague’s tongue, pouring every stunted and shamed bit of want he’s harboured for the man into this confluence. Daniil eagerly gives back double, until Artemiy seizes him by the hips, surely bruising him even through his layers of clothes, and the doctor whines, an undignified peel that pierces through Artemiy’s core.
He pulls back without wanting to, but he has to see Daniil. Has to understand what this is supposed to mean, where they go from here.
With his mouth hung open and panting, Daniil glares at him through a thick lock of fringe fallen across his eyes. He looks almost animal, wild and swift to lash at the slightest wrong move, and Artemiy’s blood runs molten at the sight. Several impossible images flash across his mind’s eye, all of them resolving to a finality of Daniil's wrecked and exquisite bliss, the man coming undone in a shout of writhingly sweet pain and greedy, exalting pleasure.
Wait –
Oh.
Oh.
Yes that – that would explain some things…
“You’ve taken me home,” growls Daniil, his eyes manic in their darkness. “Is there anything else you wish to take, Artemiy?”
“You’re –” Artemiy starts.
Daniil exhales impatiently, “In heat, Burakh, yes. Very observant of you. Would you also like to know how many men I’ve turned down for you?”
“...For me?”
Daniil scoffs, a throaty sound that does terrible things to Artemiy’s stomach.
“As if I’d choose any mangy alpha for my pleasure. I’ll admit you’ve been a stubborn one, you’ve barely looked at me at all this week, genuinely had me worried you wouldn’t want me, and meanwhile Andrey has solicited me twice today.”
“I – you,” Artemiy stumbles for an excuse, but nothing logical proves forthcoming. He’d simply put his addled behavior down to the natural progression of their relationship, but it all makes… far too much sense, now.
Theirs is a match too perfect for denial, and although Artemiy has not recently had reason, or for that matter an established enough relationship, to give himself over for an omega’s pleasure, Daniil’s advances have undone him, utterly, his body suddenly alive with the bone deep need to bring Dankovskiy to climax again and again and again.
It’s still too much, too quickly, and he can only shake his head as Daniil watches him curiously.
At length, the doctor sighs.
“Perhaps you haven’t been paying attention to your needs, Burakh,” he says, “but I have. Lara, as well. The dear girl, she thinks you’re coming down with the flu, but we know better, don’t we?”
“You’re not mine,” Artemiy blurts. “I – this isn’t… Oynon, this is completely inappropriate. I’ve never laid claim to you, this – this isn’t –”
“Oh but you have,” interrupts Daniil, sweeping again far too close to Artemiy, bracing his hands against the menkhu’s chest. “All in a thousand little ways and gestures. Every night you’ve kept me from terrible thoughts, every day you prove the world is not over.
“You don’t have me,” he says, with a small, sardonic laugh, “simply by fucking me.”
Artemiy says nothing for that, save an inaudible whimper, but Daniil is too keen for his own good, and he smirks up at Artemiy, fingers tightening in the fabric of his jumper.
“But you can, erdem,” he purrs. “Look me in the eye and tell me you haven’t dreamt of taking me, feeling me stretched on your cock, spilling inside of me and making me yours as many times as I want.
“Could you really deny yourself my pleasure?” He’s so near again, his mouth to Artemiy’s, unmeeting as his final taunts slip through his teeth like spilled wine.
“Surely you are not that selfish.”
“You’d let me, then,” croaks Artemiy, daring to rest his hands over Daniil’s. “I would never take advantage, kheerkhen.”
“Nor could you,” Daniil replies, softer save his incorrigible smile. “Please do not think you are beholden to stay. Only I worry that you won’t make it so easily through the night. You are, my dearest colleague, already quite a wreck.”
“A-am I?” Artemiy stammers as heat creeps up his neck, filling out his cheeks.
Daniil hums, his right hand moving to caress Artemiy’s ear, tickling and tracing, “Perhaps not outwardly, but –” and here he leans in, slotting his half-open mouth against Artemiy’s throat and inhaling deeply.
“You smell positively sinful.”
“O-oh, well I – um – “
Daniil kisses him again, rough and commanding, and Artemiy gladly defers to his lead. It reminds him, distantly, of a woman he once courted in the Capitol. Then as now, he’d not recognized her heat till she had to quite literally haul him to her bedroom, and even then, his senses were so delayed, it felt more obligatory to fuck her than any real imperative to give her pleasure.
Other than his brain playing catch up, with Dankovskiy, no such reticence further spoils the blood singing through his veins, and the longer they kiss, the headier it all becomes. Daniil’s scent fills him at every point of ingress, his nose, his mouth, hell even his eyes water from the sheer intoxication of a body greedily in need of another to play its strings.
It’s a testament, really, to how well suited they are for one another. Adversity plagues them at every step, but inevitability is never wrong, and that he was always destined to fall into Daniil—body, mind, and soul—seems about the most correct thing in the universe right now.
The doctor, having reached this conclusion probably days ago, reserves no patience, licking into Artemiy’s mouth like a man starved, clutching at his shoulders, his waist, back up to his shoulders again, and then the hair at his nape, tugging and scraping and stroking.
Wearily, Artemiy laughs into his warm mouth, “Careful, Danya, or you’ll have me thinking it’s you who is so desperate.”
“Can I not be?” Hisses Daniil, evidently displeased having the kiss interrupted, and with a grand sigh, he pulls back, looks Artemiy dead in the eye and intones, “I know you think me some grand tableau of stoicism, Burakh, but please just fucking permit me to indulge a bit of desire.”
Artemiy laughs again, full on and rich in his throat before he dives back down and hooks his tongue behind Daniil’s teeth, filling his mouth with a hot exhale.
“I take it,” he breathes, “I’ve not been playing my part to your liking.”
“A l-little more enthusiasm wouldn’t go amiss,” answers Daniil.
Enthusiasm? Or aggression. Briefly, Artemiy wonders what other partners he’s taken, what breed of men falls at the feet of Bachelor Dankovskiy, slavering for his pleasure. He wouldn’t half mind going to his own knees, but a slightly cruel part of him purrs louder than the voice in his mind telling him to hurry up and let Daniil use him how he wants.
Disappointingly, Daniil doesn’t yelp when Artemiy hoists him by the back of his thighs, hefting the doctor clean from his feet. He does give a pleased little grunt, legs immediately wrapping around Artemiy’s hips, which will have to do for now, at least until Artemiy gets the both of them on a damn bed.
“Did you – really – have to instigate this – out here,” he says between fervent nips of teeth to his lower lip, tediously steering them into the Stillwater and kicking shut the door.
“Have I chosen wrong, then?” Daniil teases back. “And here I thought you were the pick of the litter. Perhaps I should have taken Stakh. He held himself back remarkably you know. Even said please.”
Whether it’s the goading, or another ill-timed rush of endorphins, Artemiy can’t tell the difference, but Daniil’s words carve right through him with a rush of caramel heat, and, with one hand shifting to brace Daniil by his arse, the other shoots up, grabs his hair, and yanks, exposing the doctor’s lean throat.
A deliriously pleased whine barely escapes that wicked mouth before Artemiy cuts him short, laving his teeth over Daniil’s pulse point, leaving finely pink lines in their wake.
“I think,” mutters Artemiy, “that you should shut up, and let me take care of you.”
“Who would I be to – mm – refuse?”
“You’re already a prick, Bachelor,” answers Artemiy, returning his mouth to Daniil’s. “So I’ll have to get back to you about that.”
“Do plea – ah !” Daniil scrabbles to stay balanced as Artemiy shifts his weight, arms winding right around his shoulders.
“You can let me down you know.”
They’ve arrived, somehow, at the stairs, and Artemiy’s pulse is a dangerous thing. The floodgates have broken, entirely, the warmth from Daniil’s body rolling off of him in waves, destroying completely any forebrain thought that doesn’t end with Artemiy throwing him on the bed and burying his face between the man’s thighs.
He’s inclined to say as much, but then Daniil’s looking at him, appraising eyes plucking him apart at the seams, and it’s too much.
With a decisive shift of weight, Artemiy pins Daniil’s back to the nearest wall and, letting his legs fall fawnishly to the floor again, he hurries his hands to the task of Daniil’s trousers.
“W-wait, Artemiy, I th –”
The rest goes unfinished, swallowed back into itself with a guttural moan as Artemiy shoves his fingers against Daniil’s cunt, stroking between his folds to gather slickness before moving back up to massage his cock.
“Shh, there we go,” Artemiy exhales along the corner of Daniil’s now slack mouth, nuzzling his cheek.
“Burakh –” Daniil heaves, hands shivering as they grip meekly at Artemiy’s wrists.
“I need this,” says Artemiy, every trace of bashful embarrassment fled. “I need you to come for me, Daniil. Like this. Just like this.”
He times his words with soft strokes of Daniil’s cock, thumb and forefinger coaxing back the hood, circling the shaft. Back and forth and back and –
Dankovskiy’s whine is so broken, so pitifully hushed, Artemiy fears, at first, he has hurt him somehow.
Then comes the trembling, the pitch of Daniil’s breath tumbling low and gravelly, and Artemiy holds his, caught between awe and adoration, keeping pace with his fingers. He wants to pull away and watch Daniil come undone, but the heat will have to do, their skin scorching where their cheeks meet, where their lips do not, where thick, gentle fingers play deft pleasure until Dankovskiy shivers, swallows his keen, and Artemiy goes still.
“I’ve wanted that for so long,” he admits, drunk on the miracle of Daniil’s body yielding so sweetly for him.
“As – have I,” breathes Daniil.
“I’d… like more.”
“And you shall have it.”
Groaning, Artemiy buries his face in the scorch of Daniil’s collar. Whether by good fortune or because the doctor had been planning ahead, he’d forgone his usual cravat today, leaving only his shirt to thwart Artemiy’s need to taste bruises over that mean jut of clavicle.
He gets one button in before Daniil stops him, lifts his head by a firm grip of his chin, and raises a brow.
“My dear,” he says plainly, as though he hasn’t just come on Artemiy’s fingers. “Some of us are not so spry as to enjoy their heat spent reclining on plaster.”
Artemiy blinks at him, hazy mind struggling to make sense of the doctor’s stupid, flowery vocabulary.
Daniil sighs, rolls his eyes, “Either take me to bed, Burakh, or get on your knees.”
And that is just unfair, so Artemiy makes a compromise for them both. In an impressive moment of lucidity, he picks Daniil up again, and clears the stairs in seconds. It’s a slight bit more of a chore to maneuver into Daniil’s study, properly, but once inside, the final obstacle—the short distance to the bed—is bested with due haste. Here, Artemiy lets down the doctor again, and they spare a breathless second simply to stare at one another, to drink the composure steadily crumbling between them.
And then Daniil lays two fingers over Artemiy’s lips, stroking the cupid’s bow dip beneath his nose. It’s only then Artemiy notices he’s no longer wearing his gloves, and the warmth and scent that pours from those fingers alone…
He’s seized his hands to Daniil’s shoulders before he registers the movement at all, and the doctor’s breath catches, and Artemiy can’t think, can’t fucking think. What did Daniil say? On his knees? Yes, he should be on his knees.
But first, he lets slack his lips, taking Daniil’s fingers along his tongue, and his entire body sings from that, alone, from salt and heat and the sweet musk of latent endorphins. Yes, there is a far more potent spot to abuse behind Daniil’s ear, under his jaw, but no point of the doctor is immune, now, and Artemiy will savor him at every inch.
“You poor thing,” Daniil hums, his other hand making light whorls of his nails over Artemiy’s brow, his temple.
Artemiy’s eyes flutter closed, and he sucks harder on the fingers now stroking his tongue.
“If you wish to deny yourself for my benefit,” begins Dankovskiy.
Abruptly, Artemiy pulls off his fingers, dives in, and promises against Daniil’s mouth, “Do not look away from me. I want to see it all.”
And, finally, he goes to his knees.
When he last gave such supplication to a partner, Artemiy can’t recall, not because he has so few exploits to draw from, but because each partner was truly just so forgettable. A string of overly needy omegas and even a few fellow alphas who amused themselves seeing him go so keenly to heel. None of them compare to Dankovskiy and how he looks, now, how he gazes down at Artemiy with such genuine pride and adoration, how he lets Artemiy set the pace and tug at his trousers, gentler this time, till they pool at his ankles, and, still without breaking eye contact, Artemiy coaxes Daniil from his shoes.
“No, please,” he says, when Daniil makes to lift his leg. “Let me.”
So the doctor does, and Artemiy caresses him by the back of his knee, guides it to bend, slips his trousers free. He repeats this with the other leg, leaving Daniil to divest his coat, until the doctor is stood only in his shirtsleeves, every inch of exposed skin icily pale, with the dark thatch of curls between his thighs making Artemiy’s mouth burn.
He steals himself, though. Daniil is a specimen to revel slowly, and they have the whole night for this. That his cock aches between his own legs, his arousal reaching untenable discomfort, only enthralls the moment, further, and Artemiy paints long stripes with his tongue to the insides of Daniil’s thighs, a relieved sigh spilling over the sweetness of his skin.
“I – had taken you – for a romantic, Burakh,” Daniil stammers, those fingers once again wending their way through Artemiy’s hair. “I’m afraid I ha- ave! T-to admit – mm – you’ve yet outdone my expectations.”
Artemiy glances up, mouth paused around the bruise he’s put along the seam of Daniil’s left thigh, and smiles.
“Would you prefer I was a little more cruel, Bachelor?”
Daniil laughs, and the fingers in Artemiy’s hair tighten, drawing tingles down his neck.
“I would prefer your tongue inside of me,” answers Dankovskiy, and all the proverbial cruelty smolders thickly in his eyes. “Only you must be starving to have me come in your mouth.”
It’s Artemiy who whimpers, now, and he almost wants to nod, but Daniil’s hands forbid it, forbid any movement, in fact, that isn’t forward, not that Artemiy is complaining. He just shifts a bit, gets a little more comfortable on his sore knee, pets his palms to Daniil’s thighs, and bows his head. As if in prayer. And, really, who wouldn’t call this worship?
Daniil is so slick, he’s practically dripping, and Artemiy swears he can taste the dust and herb sap from his own fingers as he wraps his lips around the lovely little mouthful of Daniil’s cock. It’s a fleeting consideration, his sensate thoughts quickly overwhelmed by the taste, the smell of Daniil, how he twitches in Artemiy’s mouth, the abortive little thrusts his hips give.
“Oh you wonderful thing,” the doctor sighs, and Artemiy peers up through his lashes to watch as Daniil throws back his head, shoulders shaking with a helpless half laugh, half moan.
“Christ, your tongue is like silk.”
For that, Artemiy dips between Daniil’s folds, teasing out another moan, and he deliriously wonders if he can’t simply stay here forever, penitent for Daniil’s pleasure, remaining only a body to service another’s.
It would seem, though, that Daniil is not so composed as he puts on, and within the moment, he’s shaking apart under Artemiy’s tongue, feet shifting, and without a word, without even moving his mouth, Artemiy coaxes him to sit, pushing down on his hips and following the doctor as he trembles onto the mattress behind him.
“Y-you –” Daniil starts, but Artemiy leaves him no chance to finish.
With a dexterity that will later embarrass him, he hooks Daniil’s legs over his shoulders, tugs his hips to the very edge, leaving Daniil to fall back onto his elbows with a gasp.
From this angle, Daniil’s thighs splay completely open, his cunt displayed for Artemiy to devour, which he does, discarding his chaste little licks and sucks for a full perusal of his tongue from Daniil’s entrance to his cock.
“A-ah!” Dankovskiy gasps, scraping at Artemiy’s neck, helpless to find purchase there. “Y-you are just –”
Whatever he is, Artemiy doesn’t hear it, his head so much of cotton soaked in honeycomb and razors, his nerves aflare and attuned to every one of Daniil’s twitches and whines, his mouth a beast all its own, his tongue fucking shallowly into the man, curling and flicking, hoping to catch the spot that will leave Daniil breathless.
When he finds it, he does not relent, and Daniil wails, a half-formed sob limping into the air around them as he spills over Artemiy’s tongue, a small gush of slick and the menkhu’s own spit.
And still Artemiy needs more. But this is for Daniil to set their paces, so he sits back on his heels, a portrait of patience though his body thrums and aches everywhere he is unable to touch.
Daniil joins him in time, leveraging higher onto his elbows, hair a wreck, expression even stormier.
“Your obedience – beseems you, Burakh,” he breathes. “I should reward you.”
A blush climbs unbidden around Artemiy’s throat, spiders up his cheeks and tickles at his scalp.
“You’re enough,” he replies hoarsely, his idle hands once more coming to rest on Daniil’s thighs.
Which still lay parted for him, the doctor sparing no modesty, it would seem, to leave his body open, accepting. Twice brought to orgasm has left his cunt quite a shade of scarlet, his cock jutting hard, the dark curls there glistening in the low light. Artemiy wonders what punishment he might suffer if he buried his tongue there again sans permission…
“Artemiy.”
The sheer composure of Daniil’s voice is what brings him back round to reality, and Artemiy blinks, dislodging the visions of Daniil subduing him however he wished. Perhaps another time…
“Yes?” He answers, still rough in the back of his throat, no more than a whisper, which appears to placate the doctor, though not by much.
“I couldn’t want for a finer partner,” says Daniil, slowly as if he’s castigating an unruly youth—which, being ten years Artemiy’s senior, he might as well be.
But Artemiy is better than that, so he listens, though the attention Daniil inflicts on him as he sits upright and takes Artemiy’s face in his hands, leaves the menkhu breathless and squirming.
“You are a superior specimen, erdem,” he says, somehow able to make such a clinical phrase sound unfairly lavish, “and you understand well that you are for my pleasure. But, my dear friend, I am only sometimes so selfish, and nothing would bring me greater satisfaction than hearing you moan my name.”
“I’ll give you anything you need, kheerkhen. Anything.”
“I know you will,” Daniil’s smile offers a devious slant, and Artemiy’s stomach drops. “As well, I think I would like for you to take some pleasure for yourself. Can you do that for me?”
Artemiy swallows roughly, an almost audible gulp, and Daniil’s teeth shine between his lips.
“What would you like me to do,” he rasps.
In a flourish of limbs and hands and rustling bedclothes, Daniil rearranges himself so that he’s laid on his back, his head to the edge of the bed, smirking upside down at Artemiy.
“I think,” says the doctor, letting his head fall back, his eyes closing, as he strokes three fingers along the length of his own throat, “I shall leave that to your discretion.”
“Shudkher…”
Artemiy can’t help himself, that warmth, that smell, it blooms around him, and he bears down on Daniil with a savage kiss, sucking fiercely at the man’s lower lip before working his own along Daniil’s chin, then his throat, retracing the bruises from earlier, abusing them starker till his nose reaches the severe dip of his suprasternal notch, where he then stays, lapping at the doctor’s trachea, and breathing as deep as he pleases.
When he deigns to let composure recover his senses, Artemiy comes to with his hands spanning Daniil’s chest, thumbs brushing the buttons of his shirt. Trembling, he undoes one, then, when Dankovskiy gives no objection; another. And another. Till he’s done away with the lot, and as if beholding the most sacred of damask, he drapes aside the shirt.
Daniil’s chest is small, in little need of binding to keep flat, and one breast fits entirely in Artemiy’s hand as he grazes his palm over Daniil’s sternum. Beneath him, the doctor gives a fluttery gasp, and the want in Artemiy’s core seizes tight. Amending his technique, he draws his fingers to a close around Daniil’s left nipple, pinches lightly, flicks with his thumb, and Daniil lets loose a litany of sighs. Artemiy does it again, teasing his nipples cherry red, and just as Daniil tries to say something more coherent, Artemiy dives down, sucking at his breast, laving one nipple against the backs of his teeth while he continues massaging the other with slightly-too-tight fingers.
Pleasured agony rolls off Daniil in waves, the man arching and shivering, but perfectly unable to escape Artemiy’s ministrations, diligent and messy. Until –
“Artemiy, please.”
The second Artemiy straightens, Daniil is upon him, twisting onto his side, and reaching half-blind over the bed. It takes one too many seconds for Artemiy to conclude two and two, but Daniil is always too persistent, and as soon as he gets his fingers curled in the band of Artemiy’s trousers –
Ah. Yes. Yes fucking please.
Wavering fully onto his knees, Artemiy spares a brief flash of pride for his height, which allows him to meet his hips level with Daniil’s mouth.
“You are going to fuck my throat,” intructs Dankovskiy gravelly as he unclasps Artemiy’s belt, yanking it roughly from the loops and throwing it to the floor as though it’s been a noose around his neck this whole affair. “And then you are going to fuck me over the side of this bed. Understood?”
Artemiy consents by way of shoving Daniil back onto the bed before fumbling the rest of his trousers out of the way and taking his cock in hand. He almost weeps from that alone, but Dankovskiy is staring at him, eyes in awe of what awaits his mouth, and Artemiy is so nearly gone by this point, he just drags Daniil over the edge of the mattress so his head falls back, pries open his jaw with a vicious thumb, and thrusts his cock over that velvet tongue.
“Fuck,” he about collapses from that alone. “Fuck, Danya…”
Daniil hums, deep in his chest, and Artemiy sobs, hitting the back of his throat. The doctor gags, only once, a quick spasm before the muscles acclimate and he’s swallowing around Artemiy, his throat bobbing up and down along the faint bulge delineating Artemiy’s cock. It’s an impossible sight to endure, so Artemiy wraps his palm loosely around Daniil’s neck, keeps it there as he thrusts shallowly, feels himself sliding inside of the man.
It’s filthy. It’s depraved. It’s…
“You’re beautiful,” he breathes. “God, Daniil, you’re e-everything. You feel so – so… fuck.”
He doubles over, forehead bowing to Daniil’s chest, his naval flush to the man’s face. They stay like this, joined and breathless, until Dankovskiy begins to writhe, and Artemiy pulls back, pulls out, lets the doctor cough for air through the mess of spit and precum staining his lips.
“Sorry,” he mumbles, stroking Daniil’s face, kneading along the sharp curves of his cheekbones.
“Whatever for,” replies Daniil dreamily, his voice shot to hell, and Artemiy groans.
Daniil simply smiles, cranes his neck, and licks demurely at the underside of Artemiy’s cock, drawing a thin line of flaring, wet heat.
“Would you like to fuck me now?” he asks, lips dusting the flare of the head.
“Yes,” whimpers Artemiy. “Yes, please – I… please.”
“Such manners,” hums Dankovskiy. “Take what you want, Haruspex, I am yours to use.”
A barely lucid rebuttal nips at the heels of Artemiy’s hindbrain instinct to pin the man onto his front and stuff his cunt full. A reminder, no, this is not for himself, he is merely the conduit of Daniil’s enjoyment, a mouth, a cock, to enjoy until he’s spent, whole.
But Dankovskiy so loves to decimate decorum when it suits him, and if he wants Artemiy to take him as though he spares no regard for the Bachelor’s release, Artemiy will happily provide such attentive disregard.
So he is not kind as he steps back and seizes hold of Daniil again. He grabs at the man to leave marks, hands encircling his skinny waist, nearly encompassing the entirety, and he tosses Dankovskiy onto his stomach, relishing the purring whine Daniil exhales into the sheets.
“Such a brute,” the doctor opines, with no small trace of admiration. “I could – hah – struggle all I’d like, and you’d just make me take it, wouldn’t you?”
“Not unless you begged,” growls Artemiy, less perturbed by Dankovskiy’s questionable fantasy than he is by the fact the doctor still hasn’t lost enough of his wherewithal to even make such comments.
Still vindictive, Daniil replies, “And if I didn’t?”
“Too many questions, Bachelor,” huffs Artemiy, hauling Daniil, now hunched on all fours, to the edge of the mattress where he lets one leg fall over. The other, he secures, skewed out, on the bedspread, effectively hobbling Daniil, his cunt and arse solely at Artemiy’s discretion.
He closes in, then, rolling his hips to Daniil’s, letting his cock slide leisurely through the man’s folds and catch at his rim.
“You will come for me,” he promises, a low threat rumbling in his chest as he strokes the backs of his hands over Daniil’s sides, tracing them down before turning his fingers to the task of drawing black and blue on the skin of his hips.
“No need for dramatics, Burakh,” exhales Daniil, wriggling happily in Artemiy’s grip. “I believe I’ve demonstrated my capabilities already.”
For his cheek, Artemiy lands a heavy palm between Daniil’s shoulder blades, forcing his arms to give and crushing him to the bed. In one, fluid thrust, he sinks his cock into the heat of Daniil, looming over the doctor’s trembling body, drinking in each twitch and keen that comes from the body beneath him.
So enamored is he of this, alone, he almost fails to enjoy the tight heat around his cock, but he recovers quickly, and pants into the back of Daniil’s neck, going still inside the man, buried almost entirely in him.
“Fuck,” is Daniil’s eventual response, and Artemiy bites a severe wound to his nape, achingly drawing back his hips as he does, before shakily pushing them home.
“Oh my God.”
“I know,” Artemiy soothes the skin he’s made scarlet before nuzzling down the man’s cheek. “I know. I know.”
Repeats this like a plea, like benediction, and it tastes of nothing so much as sugar and salt and that guarded poise Daniil holds so dear to him, and now he has let Artemiy undo it all, unstitching the man from seam to sigh to learn, and covet, and luxuriate in the bliss of their body’s met, one giving, one taken what is given, and both impossible to extricate from the other as tension and warmth rise to a fever pitch.
“You are s-so much more,” murmurs Artemiy, “than I could have wanted.”
“And you,” gasps Daniil, clumsily reaching back to claw at Artemiy’s hip, “are being much too gentle.”
A pointed thrust, the smack of thighs to arse, and Daniil hasn’t much else to say about that. Artemiy doesn’t keep the pace long, just enough to sate the masochist in the man sprawled before him, and he leans back to enjoy a brief view, shivers at the sight of his cock so slick and red stretching Daniil no doubt to breaking, his cunt such a gorgeous dark pink as it clenches around him.
“I – nm… I want to c-come when you do,” Daniil mumbles sometime later. “Want you to feel it.”
Artemiy bites down a whine, and squeezes Daniil’s thigh that much harder, pushing his leg up as far as it’ll go, fucking deeper and deeper. The sounds, obscene and wet and skin-to-skin, service as an unexpected feedback loop, Artemiy growing desperate to hear it all louder, to savor for certain that Daniil has been satisfied at every point—fucked out of his mind, more or less. It almost makes Artemiy laugh.
But then Daniil’s tightening around him, his hands making fists in the bedsheets, his spine bowing out, then in, and his mouth making beautiful little “ ah-ah-ah’s” between a wreckage of moans.
Immediately, Artemiy curls over him, lodging his forearm beneath the doctor’s chin and grunting in his ear, “You’re close.”
“Yes,” hisses Daniil.
Artemiy drops his head to the doctor’s shoulder, slamming his hips flush to Dankovskiy’s arse.
“Can you hold out,” he almost begs. He’s close. He’s so close.
“Yes. Yes. Ple-e-ase.”
The moment stutters to increments, then, a deluge of sensation and the awe that it is shared flooding Artemiy’s blood, his brain, his every point of connection with Daniil.
He moves, hard and fast and steady, sheathing himself in the man again and again and again, his knot swelling, catching no doubt painfully each time he pulls back and out of Daniil.
Till he can’t anymore, and with one last brutal thrust, he fills Dankovskiy, feeling his walls spasm and stroke him dry till there’s nothing left but the dull sting of oversensitivity, and still Daniil is coming, writhing in the sheets, sobbing immaculately.
“Danya, kheerkhen,” Artemiy laves his mouth to Daniil’s throat, sucking at the scent still lingering there.
“Please,” is Daniil’s meek response. “A-a moment, please.”
Artemiy gives it, as he gives his tongue to Daniil’s skin, lapping at every bruise, distracting himself from the struggle it is to keep from collapsing fully atop the doctor. His arms, unfortunately, betray him seconds later, though he manages to fall to the side. Daniil draws a sharp breath, clearly pained. Artemiy’s mouth is quickly on his, swallowing each sound to drown it in the lazy drag of their tongues.
He’s mindful, though, and using the last of his strength, pulls Daniil fully onto the bed so they’re laying back to chest. If prior experience is anything to go by, it will be some time before they can separate, but that suits Artemiy just fine. He’s had his fill of Daniil’s pleasure, and now he will diligently see the man through the afterglow. Very diligently.
“It would seem,” says Daniil a small, serene age later, “that I chose quite right with you.”
“You flatter me,” says Artemiy, his mouth pressed to Daniil’s hair.
“I’ve every right to,” and Daniil has the audacity to wiggle his hips, squeezing around Artemiy’s cock, still half hard inside of him.
“Careful, Bachelor,” warns Artemiy, “it’s a week yet of your heat. And I’ve dreamed several ways of taking your pleasure.”
Daniil just laughs, cranes his neck, and promises against Artemiy’s lips, “Well, dear Haruspex, I am most assuredly looking forward to learning them all.”