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James woke in his own room, head pounding and body aching. He tried to fit together the fuzzy-edged pieces of the previous night into a single truth. Had he dreamed the whole thing, all the scraps of sensation that bobbed and sank in the mire of his memory? Or had something terrible happened, something he could never come back from?
The second option was impossible; it didn’t mesh with reality, that smile on Clover’s face didn’t belong with those sensations, with that violent urge to fight or flee. With, at the very bottom of it all, that craving.
So it had to be the first option, a fever dream born of illness and overwork. Except for the sharp pain when he sat up, for the fading bruises on his knees, and for the extremely vivid contours of those fleeting shreds of memory. Stars wheeling in front of his eyes, a wall of muscular betrayal crushing the life out of him, a trusted friend cherishing him with violent hands.
He made it to the bathroom before throwing up, a miserable spasm of dry heaves. He called in sick, which probably broke a betting pool somewhere.
He told himself to sleep it off, and tried for most of the day. When he woke, it was late enough to feel good about drinking, so he did that until he slept some more. He ignored all of his calls.
He woke in the middle of the night, achingly hard, face wet with tears. He jerked himself off with savage strokes, mind filled with whirling images he refused to see, fist jammed in his mouth to muffle his gasps.
He took a half-day the next day, avoided the office until everyone was out on their duties. He didn’t think about who, in particular, he might be avoiding.
Throughout the day, he constructed a model of normality, letting all the structures and routines and little banalities of the job surround him.
When the late afternoon shaded towards evening, golden light slanting through the office window (that he hadn’t faced or looked out of all day), he didn’t examine why his hands shook or his ears strained for stray noises. He just decided, for a change of pace, to take work back to his apartment.
The next day, he realized there were changes he should make to his routine, minor efficiencies that would make it impractical for him to stop by the Ace Ops briefings most days. Clover could… they would be run well, they didn’t need him checking in.
He felt almost normal by the end of the day, satisfied that the brief but unpleasant illness hadn’t knocked him out for longer. There was always so much to do, too much ground being lost to the Grimm or the lesser evils of human civilization.
He lost track of time until Clover came in, and at the sound of the door closing, the pen in his hand broke in half.
Clover came toward the desk, a smile on his face that crinkled the corners of his eyes. “Sorry to hear that you were under the weather, sir. But I’m glad that you’re up and about. Working late again?” He lifted the cup of coffee he was holding and wiggled it invitingly.
James’s metal fingers scored short lines against the desk. The small but discordant noise made Clover blink, but he didn’t remark on it.
James’s throat was closing up. He shook his head mutely and stood, leaving papers in a half-arranged pile and shutting down his screen with no memory of what was on it. “Just heading out,” he said, and felt a sickly smile stretching his mouth. “Think I’ll lay off the coffee for a few days.”
Normal, sound normal. His eyes kept straying to Kingfisher, hanging on Clover’s belt.
Clover didn’t seem to notice anything wrong, smile widening a bit. “Probably better for your health,” he winked. “See you tomorrow, then?” He went to the door and waited, and he was a friendly colleague and a loyal subordinate, and it had been a bad dream.
But it took James an eternity to cross the office, legs made of lead, left hand shaking. He couldn’t work out how to get through the door without getting close to Clover, but Clover blithely exited ahead of him as he approached. “Take care of yourself, sir,” Clover called over his shoulder as he headed off down the hallway.
Back in his apartment, James closed himself in the bathroom and sat against the door until late, his mind blank. Normal. Everything was normal.
He shored it up over the next week, tearing off bits of himself inside to reinforce the facade. He slept little, took cold showers for the fits of unwanted arousal that woke him up shaking. He kept up all his normal duties.
He set a timer in his office and when it went off in the evenings, always before Clover arrived, he went home.
He began to eat only prepackaged foods. And still sometimes he would get a cramp or a stomachache or have a moment of lightheadedness, and he had to lock himself in the small bathroom adjoining his office until his stomach was empty and he could stand steadily and he was sure that it was safe.
He thought vaguely about seeking some kind of help, but shied away from what that would mean. And in the end, there simply wasn’t time to add a personal crisis to the struggle against Salem.
It all lasted about a week before he collapsed with the room spinning around him. He just wanted to be alone, so he said whatever the doctor needed to hear and agreed vaguely that someone would check on him. Just a few sick days.
The sound of a closing door woke him, snapped him from pleasant rest into unease that sharpened when a form blocked the light in his doorway. “Hello, James,” said Clover.
“Get out,” said James, because in his half-asleep state he felt the certainty that he buried while awake. Remembered Clover pressing him against the wall and taking everything he wanted and in the end taking James’s dignity too.
“I brought you some food,” Clover said, as if he hadn’t spoken. “You should eat.”
James tried to sit up, to swing his legs off the bed, but he felt groggy from sleep. It was only that, right? Or had Clover already been and gone, and now was coming back to gloat? His head ached.
Clover disappeared, followed by sounds of humming and containers opening in the kitchen. By the time he returned, James was halfway across the room, leaning on the dresser and waiting for the head rush to abate.
Clover frowned. “You should be resting.” He was carrying a bowl of something that smelled food-like, and extended it as he came closer. James moved without thinking, knocking it away with a clatter of metal, and then blinking stupidly at it as it rolled across the floor.
“You shouldn’t have done that. You need to keep your strength up, James.” His eyes dragged back to Clover, who just looked exasperated. For a wild, sanity-shaking second, both realities existed: The one where Clover had done nothing, and it was all in his head, and he was being unconscionably rude to a trusted colleague. And the one where every word Clover spoke now had a sinister undertone that James had missed before, and he was in James’s room and nobody knew that was bad.
He froze, trying to reconcile those two versions of reality.
Clover’s jaw set and he came forward, and as James backed away--decision clear in his body if not in his thoughts--Clover followed. He shifted angles slightly, so casually James didn’t even notice until the back of his legs hit his bed.
His hands curled into fists, too late. Clover put out one hand and pushed James off balance almost contemptuously, spilling him back.
A short struggle later, James was face-down, left arm twisted up painfully behind his back, Clover’s weight heavy on his hips. “I was right,” he hissed, still trying to buck off his opponent. “I remembered, and I didn’t believe it.”
“I’m sorry it wasn’t memorable enough,” Clover said in a pleasant tone that raked down James’s spine. “Because you didn’t listen the first time, this one is going to hurt more.”
James snarled and twisted with a sudden frantic ferocity, but Clover restrained people for a living. The only sign this was even inconveniencing him was the pickup in his breathing as he wrestled James back into place, as he dragged down the loose pants he had been sleeping in, as he pushed his knees down between James’s and forced his thighs apart.
James jerked forward but there was nowhere to go, cry muffled in the pillows, as Clover pushed in a finger to the first knuckle and began to work him open.
He hadn’t lied; it did hurt more this time.
When Clover finished, sat back and pulled out, James’s breathing was shallow and fast. He felt ripped open; he wondered how much of the warmth he felt on his inner thighs was come, and how much was his own blood.
He was desperately glad that his cock was pinned under his body, half-erect despite Clover’s complete lack of interest in it this time.
When Clover left, he would... something. He would figure it out. This was almost over.
Clover was still on top of him, sitting on his thighs. He ran his hands down James’s flanks, fingers appreciative of flesh and metal alike. “Beautiful,” he murmured. “Now…”
The plug nudged against the rim of James’s hole. This wasn’t over.
A number of hours passed that James couldn’t track. Clover had bound his wrists securely to the headboard before leaving, that much he knew. Less distinct were the number of times Clover came back, the casual way he ran his hands across James’s body, the gentle way he washed him off.
He brought more food, and something to drink, but James turned away from all of it. He couldn’t trust anything Clover brought him, yet without it, he was only growing weaker.
He slept, and at some point heard a murmur of voices in the outer room, and didn’t know if he wanted them to find him or wanted to hide this secret forever. Before he could figure it out, they were gone.
After a longer absence, Clover came back with a spring in his step--James could hear the difference in his stride, had been reduced to listening for those cues. When Clover came in, he frowned at the raw marks James had worn at his wrist, trying to free his hands. Clover sat beside him, and rubbed salve into those, and then shifted to spread James’s legs. James hissed in pain as he drew out the plug, and gritted his teeth against the intimate intrusion as Clover’s fingers spread salve there, too.
“Are you ready to eat and be reasonable now?” Clover asked when he was done, running a hand idly up and down James’s back.
“Why are you doing this?” said James wearily, voicing the question that had battered around his head during the hours of solitude.
Clover made a disappointed noise. “Well, I’ll try again later.” But before he left, he pinned James in place one last time to tie a blindfold around his head, shutting out even the part of his room that he could see.
The passage of time came even more unstuck. James was hungry, thirsty, starting to wonder if it was possible for him to die here in the heart of Atlas before anyone one even realized he was missing. Had no one noticed that he never took this many sick days?
The next sound in the room woke him with a fuzzy-headed murmur. A moment later, he felt Clover’s hand stroking over his hair, and pulled his head away as far as he could.
Clover sighed. “No point in trying to reason with you right now.” And in a different life James could have laughed, because Clover had said that to him a few weeks ago when they were disagreeing about work hours or menu options in the mess or something ridiculous like that. And Clover dropped that line and left, and James had thought that he wasn’t sure when they had slid from being colleagues to being friends, but he was glad for it.
Here and now, the real Clover shifted, and James had the warning of a light finger-touch before a smaller and smoother shape was being worked into his ass. Unimpeded by his feeble struggle, the new intrusion came to rest seated inside him, innocuous compared to recent indignities--then it started vibrating and his shout was barely muffled by the pillow.
“All right,” said Clover, and he sounded almost regretful, his voice receding. “I wish it hadn’t come to this.” The buzzing subsided after a bit, and James told himself he could ignore this too, wait it out until... whatever came after. He no longer had any idea what the endgame was, only a sense that if he endured enough, an opportunity would come.
That drifting thought spun aside as Clover returned and lifted up James’s head, holding him and making him drink a bit of water. James sputtered, still flinching away from it, but swallowed in the end because he was incredibly thirsty. Afterwards, Clover patted his hair--good boy, well done--and sighed. “Things will be better, afterward.”
Then, his grip tightened again, pulling painfully at James’s hair and locking his head in place. His fingers entered James’s mouth, hooking under his tongue and leaving something small and papery there before James thought to bite him. A moment later, he shoved a wadded cloth in James’s mouth, securing it with another strip that tied behind his head. “You look good in red,” he said in James’s ear, and then he was gone again.
The vibrator buzzed irregularly, setting off twinges of pain and worse twinges of pleasure, as James’s restless shifting rubbed his cock against the bedclothes. Distracted by that, it took him a while to realize that he was shivering, skin gone cooler and mild tremors running through his body. Whatever Clover had put in his mouth, small enough to forget in the struggle, the gag had kept it there.
It was something different this time. The shivers worsened and were gradually replaced by disorientation--not quite vertigo, but a more profound sense that he was coming unmoored from his body. Every time the vibrator went off, it set off a light display behind his eyelids, starbursts and undulating waves that rippled and receded. Nearly pleasant at first, it worsened as he tumbled further into a loss of time and space. He could barely feel his bruises or the ache in his arms, missed even that anchor point. The world dissolved into a void of raw feeling and incoherent thought, where the only tether to reality was the occasional stimulation of the toy in his ass.
At some point, he heard a whimpering noise. At some other point, he realized it was him. At yet a third point, he tried to stop, but he was never able to check back with himself to see if he had succeeded.
It went on and on, drawing him up into higher and higher peaks of sensation, until he wondered if dying was supposed to take this long. He was beyond arousal, in some strange territory where at any moment he might leave his body and join the universe. And then a spasm would run through him again, and he would distantly remember that he was in his bed, curled up on his side, unable to touch or free himself.
He was begging for it to stop, pleading for Clover to come back, because right now James was alone in the universe and that was even worse. But nothing stopped, nobody came to help, and there was only the void that went on forever.
Gradually, eventually, the peak receded. He felt blasted, unable to control his limbs even if he were untied. He heard a noise in the room and made a pathetic sound.
His body dipped and rolled, and for a moment he had tipped and fallen off the edge of the universe, he was going to be lost forever. But then it settled, and it was only the mattress shifting as Clover sat beside him.
More time passed, moments of coherence began to emerge. Enough to realize that he would be left alone again soon, and he couldn’t keep a thought in his head for more than a moment, but he knew he would die if that happened again. He stirred, thrashing feebly, and butted up against something warm and solid. Unthinking, he rubbed his face against it, blindly seeking affirmation or at least acknowledgment.
There was a low hum, and then the vibrator went off again, harder and longer than it had done for some time. James made a hoarse cry and writhed, desperately seeking escape. He nudged his head against the warm bulk with renewed fervor.
“Something to say?” came a voice from above him. A voice he had trusted once.
He nodded, and after a moment the cloth was pulled down and the spit-soaked gag was drawn from his mouth. He panted, momentarily overwhelmed by the air rushing in and out of his lungs without obstruction.
Clover’s hand came to rest lightly on his head, a comfort and a warning.
“Please,” James said with difficulty.
Clover made a hmm? noise.
“Please help me.” He couldn’t do this again.
Clover shifted, his hands framing James’s face and lifting it. “Are you going to listen now?”
James nodded.
“I want to hear you say it.”
He could do this. He had to do this. “Yes.” Clover’s grip tightened slightly, the pressure of his hands just this side of painful. “Yes, sir.”
“That’s good.” And Clover sounded relieved, and then he was kissing James. And it wasn’t actually pleasant, the boundaries of James’s body still felt too raw and uncertain, but he relaxed and took the wet press of mouths until Clover let him relax onto the mattress.
Things were fuzzy but easier, for a bit. Clover eased out the toy, then unhooked his wrists from the headboard, though they were still bound together. He tried to pull off the blindfold but Clover pushed his hands down. “Not yet,” he said firmly, and James subsided.
Clover pulled James up to sit against his chest and held him in the cradle of his arms, gave him a little water and then soup from a cup, and he was so gentle and patient. Then he pressed a pill lightly against James’s lips, and after only a brief hesitation James opened, and took another drink and swallowed.
Then Clover helped him up, half-carried him to the bathroom on staggering legs and cleaned him up. And somewhere in the shower it transitioned, the warm water beating down became a series of distinct drops that James could feel like notes of music on his skin, healing and caressing him. He still couldn’t think straight, but it was so much better. He didn’t even murmur a protest when Clover cleaned his sore backside, but he gasped when Clover’s hands brushed his cock.
The touch vanished, and in his weakened state he could only lean where Clover had propped him, but he made a needy sound. There was a quiet laugh and Clover’s hands returned, finishing the wash with a briskness that didn’t help the growing warm feeling of more, please, now.
He was dizzy again--or still?--but pleasantly, as Clover walked him back to the bed. He collapsed onto it gratefully, because he was so tired but also so awake, and his skin was hungry for touch where an hour or a day before it had been a torment. “Please,” he said again, barely a whisper, but Clover heard him. Propped him up on the pillows, secured his hands over his head, teased at his hole with slicked fingers until James was writhing again, alternating feather-touches on his cock until he almost begged for the gag again so he could scream properly.
Clover spread his knees wide, and James was grateful that he couldn’t see how he looked, with his thighs open and his cock straining at the air. Then Clover was at his entrance, tip of his cock resting there just a moment before he pushed forward. James whined in the back of his throat, because it still hurt, but it was different now. Sore, but he didn’t have to be afraid, didn’t have to fight. There was nothing he could do but take it.
He was still gasping by the time Clover finished seating himself, buried to the hilt, hands a relentless pressure on James’s hips. Then one of Clover’s hands slid over to curl around James’s cock and he moaned, arching up. Clover leaned forward and kissed his forehead, then began to move.
James was sore, but he was on fire, in a delicious way that licked along his skin and danced incandescent everywhere Clover touched. Inarticulate, wanting, James pushed back against Clover and Clover laughed--a little unsteady himself--as he found a rhythm for his strokes.
Slow first, then speeding. There was an uncomfortable echo of memory there, but James let go of it willingly, as Clover adjusted James’s hips to hit a deeper angle. Each stroke pushed the air out of him in a little gasp, each inhale was a minor gift. His head fell back, too much work to support, as his sweat-slicked body rocked and the slow warm feeling built in his gut.
He couldn’t see Clover, but he could feel him everywhere, and also hear the speeding catch of his breath, feel the moments of intensity when his hands flexed harder. And then, as things were building slowly but inevitably to a crescendo, Clover stilled. He was still seated in James, filling him utterly, but his hands went away and left James adrift again.
“Ask for it, James.”
Confused by the sudden change, James wasn’t ready for the command, and it hit him like a blow. For a moment a sense of wrongness wavered through him. Then Clover’s hips shifted slightly and James felt his hard length deep inside, and his comforting weight on top of James, pinning him to his body and in turn to the bed.
He was here, Clover had saved him, Clover wouldn’t abandon him again. And he wanted so much. “Please let me come,” he said, the words dragged from somewhere deep in his gut. “Sir.”
Clover made a pleased sound, and tugged James’s hips forward slightly and resumed thrusting, a deliberate rhythm that was forceful enough to leave James breathless. And blessedly, his hand dropped back to James’s cock, circling the shaft and stroking with alternating gentle and heavy pressure, swirling his thumb over the tip as James bucked upward helplessly.
Clover leaned forward, weight bearing down even harder, half crushing the breath out of James as Clover spoke next to his ear. “Now,” Clover said harshly, hand pumping. And in that comforting inescapable vise James cried out and came as hard as he ever had in his life, stars filling his blacked-out vision and hips jerking as warmth spattered over his stomach.
He was half crying when he came down, breath sobbing in and out as the strokes of Clover’s hand slowed. “Good, that was perfect,” Clover murmured in his ear. His hand massaged at James’s stomach, rubbing the seed into his skin as if to mark him forever.
Then he kissed James again, just a light touch of lips, and leaned back. Pulled his hips back and slammed forward hard, and it was too much, but every scrap of energy was drained from James’s limbs by now. All he could do was shudder as the impacts resounded against and inside him, Clover using him like a broken-down toy until he spent himself in his own climax.
After, James passed back out of consciousness into a kind of warm daze. This time, when Clover wiped him down and rearranged his limbs, there were no more bonds. At one point when Clover was gone for a minute, James made a wordless questioning noise, and Clover came back and tucked in beside him, wrapping James in an arm and a blanket and stroking a hand over his hair until he relaxed again.
Eventually Clover eased out of bed again. The last thing he did was remove the blindfold, and James blinked up with squinted eyes to find Clover looking down at him with love and concern. “Rest up,” Clover said, and bent to kiss his forehead. “I’ll see you in the office.”
Then he left, and James finally passed from trembling half-awareness into sleep, deep and dreamless.
In the morning, he felt... it was impossible to describe how he felt. Like the inside of his head was scoured clean, painful but new and full of promise. He ate the food that was left on the counter for him. Dressed and went to work, though later than usual. Let his body and mind alike proceed through the day, because so much of it was actually autopilot, and he felt like part of himself was still far away and finding its way back.
Late that afternoon, Clover stopped by the office. James watched him come in, stomach tight, and he genuinely couldn’t tell if it was fear or want.
Clover was holding a cup. “Herbal tea,” he said with a smile. “Might be a good idea while you’re recuperating.” He set it on the corner of James’s desk and left, and James only realized afterward that he hadn’t spoken a word himself. But his cheeks were flushed, a lingering shiver in his stomach.
Then it was just him, sitting in his office in the twilight and staring at the cup on his desk. After a minute, he reached out to take it, hand trembling only slightly. He could trust Clover to take care of him.