Archive of Our Own

In the black, Joshua was at peace. He allowed himself to close his eyes, and felt the gentle lap of waves at his skin, easing him along so gingerly, like the rock of a cradle. He drifted, and as he did, he thought that now, he was free. Once, he had said that duty was the enemy of freedom, but now, he knew that duty’s absolution was the key to it. Though his wings were once clipped, now he could fly.

Joshua lets go, but the heat holds on. It comes to him slowly, like a lover slipping into bed. A gentle caress, a soft kiss. It’s a heat that he knows, but can’t quite place. He craves it, leans into, though a part of him wants to shrink away. It isn’t right, it says, He can’t know.

The kiss of the heat is heady, and he is losing himself, losing his clarity. He knows this is wrong. He does not deserve this warm embrace, and he knows he is where he should be—he would not yield to temptation.

The heat begins to bleed, gradually, into a swelter. Despite it, Joshua shivers, and pulls away—only to be dragged back. Even with the temperature, a chill fills his chest, as fear grips him. As he kicks and writhes, the air ripples and shimmers, and the embers in the air brighten. The hotness rages, until it combusts, and the air is alight in flames. 

The last of the gentle waters turn to vapor between his fingers as he scrambles to it for purchase. Now, there is only fire. Blackened brimstone licks up his spine as he struggles, not just to get away but for breath, any breath that isn’t filled with smoke. The flame licks at his lips—his first kiss, stolen, not gifted.

Claws, liquid and white hot like the metal in a forge, peel away his clothes. The tips kiss along his chest, to his navel, downwards and downwards, but Joshua cannot fight the grasp. When he breathes, he drinks fire, and it fills him until there is nothing left, like there had been nothing else in the first place.

As he is mauled, he is pulled, ripped far away from where he should be, and he fears what awaits him as it gets hotter, brighter. Every touch is feather light and yet scorching, a pain he did not know he could have, for he is fire made flesh—what flame could consume him? But Joshua knows. He knows of the inferno that could devour him, and has devoured him before. Joshua writhes, and he screams.

Everything is red and black, and he is closer, more real, when he shouldn’t be. He tries to beg, but his words are smoke in his lungs. Even as the heat consumes him, somehow his limbs are stiff and cold, and he can’t move them. He can’t move at all. He is limp, and at the mercy of a beast. Though he is weak, Joshua has never known resignation, and so he fights to return to the gentle waves, where he knows he belongs. It is futile, but he cannot accept it. 

The claws drift, terrible and tempting, gentle like a lover’s kiss and searing like a knife. They move from the dip of his hips to his thighs, where they are spread open, on display as if for consumption. 

Leave me alone! he demands, but he only hears a scream as he is penetrated.

Joshua had been afraid, but he has not known fear like this as he is breached, a white hot fire poker inside him. His tears choke him, but they are flame on his cheeks, melting to lava as they drip from him. The thief takes him, uncaring for his cries, for his loss, and Joshua can do naught but take it. Helplessness is not unfamiliar to him. None of this is unfamiliar, but that’s a distant, worse fear, tucked away in his heart.

He feels faint, like he’s losing himself, and yet he’s never felt so whole, so complete, like a grotesque painting finally finished. He thinks of gentle waters as tears slip from his eyes, uselessly. 

The movements still and the fire leaves his insides. Joshua pants his relief, one blissful moment in hell, and screams when he is opened again, breached further, deeper, wider. He is being hollowed out, like a shell for this creature to make its home. And still, still he is being pulled, ripped from a pure existence. 

As he is taken, stolen like a prize, there is a light. It is vague, his eyes blurry with tears, and he reaches for it. Joshua feels feathers, soft and scorching on his skin, as familiar to him as himself. The Phoenix. He gasps when feels her, as she crawls inside his chest, nestles back into his rib cage. No, he thinks. You don’t belong with me, not anymore. The Phoenix cries a mournful sound, a trill of pain and resignation. 

This is wrong, everything is wrong, and Joshua can’t make it right. All he can do is take.

Everything is wrong, but everything feels more real, solid in his skin and solid in the breaths he doesn’t have, not anymore. The flames have long since consumed him, but maybe that was for the best. Perhaps he was made to be consumed, to burn brightly, fleetingly, and then be snuffed out.

He feels something wet on his cheek—tears, not of his own. It’s a strange feeling, for something so soft and cool to be here.

Joshua is smoldering, scorching, hotter than the hell around him. He expects his death, a second one—no, a third, he remembers. But it doesn’t come. Claws wrap around him, a lover’s embrace, a gentle touch. Joshua opens his eyes, though he did not remember closing them, and he sees gold—molten and sorrowful, eyes full of a grief that makes Joshua want to weep. They are familiar. He sees them when he sleeps at night, and he sees them in his brother’s gentle smiles.

Ifrit.

But, he knows Ifrit now. He knows it was never his brother's fault. He isn’t frightened, not anymore. Clive would never hurt him.

I don't fear you anymore, Joshua thinks, as Ifrit wretches forward his claws and pulls, pulls out his heart, to be his forevermore. 

Joshua takes a breath.

Chilly air fills his lungs, blissful and horrible, sending an ache through his chest. There is no flame. There is a weight pressing down, a pressure on him, and perhaps hands. They are familiar.

He opens his eyes, and tries to blink the blurriness away. He sees a shape, and it too is familiar.

“Clive?” Joshua says, or thinks he did—it felt like another was in his body, puppeteering his husk. Sounds are muffled, echoing strangely in his ears. He thinks that he might feel pain, but he’s so cold and stiff. “What’s happening?”

Joshua feels something wet against his face—his brother is weeping. Instinctively he goes to press his hands to Clive’s cheek, to brush his tears away, but he doesn’t move despite his commands. He’s so, so tired, a weight he has never known before even with his body’s weakness. 

“Joshua,” Clive trembles out the words, more warm tears wetting him. His brother’s voice brings Joshua so much relief, he yearns to weep too. “I’ve missed you.”  

Joshua aches. He has missed Clive, too. For thirteen long years, perhaps since birth. His entire life his brother has been out of reach, ever since the Phoenix picked the wrong son and forced Clive to kneel. 

At their rejoining, he had thought them finally truly together, eighteen years too late, but it was a lie—Joshua’s lie, a cruel one. Their reunion was bliss, but also agony, in knowing that he would have to leave his brother, again. But Joshua had saved him. He wouldn’t have it any other way. He would give his life for his brother again, with pleasure and pride. 

It is then Joshua feels the cold. It’s in his chest, in his lungs, in the heavy weight of his limbs. Spreading through him like a warning.

How was he here?

This isn’t right.

Clive leans in, and Joshua thinks he will be embraced—he hopes for it, because he is afraid. It’s making his heart begin to drum, his blood begin to race. The sensation is searing in his cold body, his cold body that is telling him to run, but he yields to the comforting weight of his brother. Clive sobs against him, and Joshua wants to comfort him, but he’s so tired, and his tongue is heavy in his mouth. 

Clive’s tears drip down his neck, making him shiver, but when Clive kisses and licks them away, he trembles, teeth clicking together as the cold in him burns. His brother gives him a tired but happy smile, full of love and relief, and then he is shifting Joshua’s legs. There is pain. 

“What are you doing?” Joshua asks, so quietly, desperately in his confusion—for his understanding could not be right.

Joshua doesn’t know why, but he thinks, he knows, that Clive has caused this pain in him, but that doesn’t make any sense. A slight movement causes the pain to sear, taking his breath with him, and he knows it’s at his opening. Fear grips him, and so too does shame—to think that Clive would want him in this way, to hurt him in this manner—that was Joshua’s sickness, not Clive’s. Nothing made sense, but Clive’s hands were on him, and Joshua’s mind couldn't keep up with the movements. He wished his brother would help him understand.

Joshua’s heart seizes in his chest as his brother looks at him reverently, eyes bleary, his warm hands scorching Joshua as he grips his thigh for leverage—because Clive is inside him. His breaths are starting to come in short pants, as panic takes him. The cold in his breast is suffocating, and he looks to his big brother for an answer, any answer at all for what was happening.

“I love you,” Clive chokes out, words that Joshua has only allowed himself in his dreams, given so easily. “So much. So, so much. Thank you for coming back to me.” He graces Joshua with another smile, his watery eyes full of heat and affection, and then he is moving. Joshua hears a sound—high, thin, fearful, almost eerie in the quiet of night. He realizes that he made that sound when another is ripped from him, and another, at each violent caress. His brother is fucking him.

Joshua has never known pain such as this, has never known this fear—no, he has, it’s happened before. It’s happening again. But that was Ifrit. Ifrit was Clive, but that night, that wasn’t Clive, it was a god, fate itself trying to keep them apart. It wasn’t Clive, he thinks, as his brother quickens his pace. Clive would never hurt me.

“Brother—” he pleads, but Joshua is not heard. Clive moans, a strange, lovely sound in hell. With all his strength Joshua puts energy to his body, trying to writhe away, sweat dripping from his exertion, only for his brother to hold him down with ease, barely exerting any pressure—a gentle embrace, so at odds with the violence, at the frenzy in which he takes him. Clive’s eyes never leave Joshua’s, except when he closes them in bliss.

Joshua can do naught but hold on, clinging to his brother like the child he still was, clawing his blunt nails down Clive’s back. As his nails catch skin, Clive groans, his eyes half-lidded as he pants his pleasure inches from Joshua’s face. He snaps his hips into Joshua’s prone form even harder, as if in reaction. Joshua wants to stifle his sounds, these horrid noises of an animal, but he can’t, not when his brother is forcing all the air from his lungs. The more he cries, the faster Clive fucks into him, pulling forth his screams like a terrible cycle—their own cycle, their perfect circle of death and rebirth, grotesque and perfect in every way.

Clive’s bed creaks and groans with the effort of his thrusts, and Joshua’s head is knocked into the wall behind him at the force. His vision swims, but he has no time to recover, as he feels a searing give at his hole—he’s wet, he realizes. He’s wet like an eager cunt, dripping for his brother, and it is because of his blood. The slickness is audible, and Joshua can feel it drip down his cheeks, mixed with his brother’s own fluids. At this, the sounds are trapped in his throat, his head thrown back as he gapes at the ceiling, and he can’t see, because everything is blurred with tears. He doesn’t want to see, anyway. But he has to.

“—Please—,” Joshua asks of his big brother. Clive is just a smear in his vision, and it reminds him of how he would look when Joshua would come to him in his youth late at night, eyes full of tears and needing comfort after a nightmare. He wants to cry like then, to reach for his brother and be pulled into his arms, chasing away the monsters and bad dreams.

Joshua jumps when the blur tugs at his cock. He shudders out a breath, and tries to pull away, but it is futile. There is a measured rhythm to his pumps, and Joshua’s belly goes queasy at the strange snake of pleasure slithering up his spine. The combination of hot white pain, cold fear, and heat building from his hardening cock leave him dizzy and nauseous, gasping out his brother’s name, hoping for any sanctuary. He arches into Clive’s grasp, his length pitifully drooling precum on his belly. Taken by force, and he’s hard from it—it is shameful, and tears prick at Joshua’s eyes while sickness coils in his belly. His mournful moan when Clive removes his hand only makes it coil worse.

His brother gazes into his eyes as he intertwines their fingers together, the rock of his hips both Joshua’s salvation and hell. It’s worse like this, so much worse with the undercurrent of pleasure, and Joshua is sure he’s going to be sick, though there’s nothing in his belly to come up.

“You’re so beautiful,” Clive says, his face rapturous.  His face is so close that Joshua thinks he’s leaning in for a kiss, and even now, still, his heart leaps in his chest. But Clive just stares, his affection obvious, scorching Joshua until there’s nothing left. Joshua closes his eyes, blinks away his tears, and holds onto Clive’s bicep to beg.

“It hurts,” he pleads, his voice strange and raw. It is blinding—searing, scorching, Joshua is burning up from the inside out, burning from the ardor his brother was fucking into him, a gift Joshua had always yearned for. Not like this, he thinks, but he isn’t sure, as something hot simmers inside him.

Clive doesn’t answer, he just holds Joshua’s hands all the tighter, his brow pinched in focus and pleasure as he makes Joshua come unwound.

“It hurts,” Joshua says again, a pathetic, childish sounding crack in his voice as he shutters close his eyes and tears streak his face. If Joshua could just ask sweetly enough, surely his brother would understand, would gracefully deliver upon him mercy. But he struggles with every word, each one more garbled than the last as his mind scrambles to keep up.

Soft lips are pressed to his cheeks as his brother kisses away his tears, and Joshua is grateful for this small comfort. He whimpers, and leans into the gentle touch, only for Clive to piston his hips even faster.

Joshua’s breaths are more like hyperventilation, until Clive is swallowing them—his brother is kissing him. Joshua tenses, so still, his heart so loud in his ears as he gets his first kiss. He could taste his brother, and he tasted blood. When Clive kisses him, pressing his tongue so deeply inside Joshua’s mouth until he can only think and taste Clive, Joshua can feel the infernal maw breaking into his beak.

Joshua yields to his brother’s affection, opening his mouth wider, as if he could allow Clive to swallow him whole—how he wished for it, to be consumed until there was nothing left, no more aches, just something for his brother to savor. Though he does not—can not—return the kiss, he can feel the heat of Clive’s satisfaction all the same.

With every press Joshua hopes Clive will give him salvation, an ending—one last final kindness from his brother, who had given him everything.

Clive kisses him, and he does not stop, not until Joshua is shaking and raking his nails down his brother’s chest in a pitiful attempt to flee, to get just one gasp of air. Clive parts from him with a wet sound, his face so flushed, and Joshua heaves. His body shudders violently as he expels blood from his throat, a familiar taste in a familiar scenario. Joshua wheezes pathetically, a strange creaking sound emerging from his lungs as he does so, and never once does his brother lessen his pace. 

A part of him feels this is right, a culmination of fate, and the idea makes him shake, makes him weep harder, for how complete he feels.

His rasps quickly turn to shrieks at the force of Clive’s affection. Though he screams, it is not all in pain—it is in fear, in pleasure, in joy and loss. It is in the overwhelming ardor of Clive, all his love being forced into Joshua’s body. His brother looks at him, but he does not see him.

Was this a jape? Some sort of cruel joke, to mock Joshua’s black heart, his rotting desires? Clive would never mock him, but Clive would never hurt him, either. Who’s doing is this?

Was this even real?

Joshua shouts as Clive bends him, his knees to his shoulders, making Joshua so small and fucking into him all the deeper. Joshua is full, and there’s nothing left of him but his gentle brother, who is carving himself so deeply inside him. Pleasure coils in his belly as his brother pounds into something sensitive within him, and he can’t see, because he’s screwed his eyes shut.

It is a dream—it must be. A terrible one, one Joshua has had for thirteen years, but never quite like this. No, Clive did not hold him like this in his dreams. His embrace in his dreams was neither the violent claws of a hungering beast or the gentle caress of a brother, but the embrace of a lover.

This couldn’t be real, but how could he even face such a terrible dream? Joshua curls inward, curls his body, his mind, each pressed as small as he could go. His brother wraps around him, encasing him like a second skin. He fills Joshua up, until nothing else remains, nothing else matters.

“Brother—” Joshua gasps wetly, “Brother, Brother, Brother—!” He gapes blindly, looking past Clive, fear and pleasure consuming him whole. He is shaking, screaming as his brother gives him the sweetest touches, as he ignites his shame and makes Joshua come undone. He has never felt so much pain in his life, nor such ecstasy. Someone was screaming, a frightening sound that told him to flee, but he is held down.

If not a dream, he must be in hell, Joshua decides, though he does not grasp why. He had given his light, his life for his brother, and surely, wasn’t that a virtuous thing, worthy of ascension? He knew no regrets and would give Clive all he had again, in a heartbeat, eager to give when he had taken so much from Clive. He had taken his birthright, taken his safety, his devotion and his tears. The least Joshua could do was give him his life, if he wouldn’t take his heart.

But that was not enough to earn him a place in heaven, for this hell was of his own making. A punishment wrought by his own hand, by someone who knew Joshua, knew the blackness of his heart and the sin of his thoughts. His thoughts of his poor, dear brother, who deserved so much better. 

He is afraid, fearful of this satisfaction burning in his belly, pulling him up taut in this stranger’s grasp. Feebly, Joshua pushes, to get away from this torment, but he can’t push it away when it’s not truly real. He weeps, and most of all he yearns for his brother’s embrace, to save him from this hell. Hadn’t Clive said he would protect him, always? Where was he? 

Tears and spit trail his frenzied red face as he hugs this stranger, desperate for any comfort. How he wished it was his brother. Joshua needs him, needs him now more than he ever has, but the shame of thinking that as heat is alight in his limbs has him sobbing all the more.

The more he thinks of Clive, the more he comes unwound, the pounding to his sweet spot unrelenting as he clings. Most disgustingly of all, he wishes that it was his brother delivering this upon him, even the pain, for any gift from Clive would be precious.

At the stranger’s brutal place, he feels himself getting wetter, slick and crimson and weeping. 

“Help me—”  

Where was his brother? 

“Help me, Clive—!” 

Had he left him again? No, it was Joshua who had left Clive, left him all alone. 

As everything is taken from him, so too is Joshua’s breath as his assailant claims his mouth, his kisses that should only belong to his brother. Selfishly, he thinks of those kisses, how they might taste, how they would feel. Rough stubble on his skin and his brother’s gentle gaze, looking to Joshua with love and lust and eternity.

Distantly, he feels something, hazy pleasure and scorching pain, tension as he pulls up taut and shakes. There’s wetness on his belly, and on his face, yet more tears—he is amazed he had anything left. But that’s all far away, happening to someone else—Joshua was here, drifting into a dream, a dream of being held in his brother's arms.

He lets the blackness take hold, and he hopes for gentle, soothing waves to guide him home.

Joshua wakes from a terrible dream. It is early morning. The sun drifts through the open panes of the wall of Clive’s room, warming Joshua’s skin. 

Maybe he had not awoken, for this could only be a dream. Joshua inhales, and when he does, he is filled with the scent of his brother. The room is rich with it—and strangely, a more metallic scent, but that was nothing when he has been given such a gift. A giddiness fills him, a childish feeling, reminiscent of when he would crawl into Clive’s bed in their youth, knowing that he would never deny him. Warmth fills his chest, and he must see his brother, his sweet brother who is holding him so gently. 

Joshua turns, sitting up gingerly so as not to wake him, and his breath leaves him quietly, like a knife in the belly, at the sharp stab of pain. The warmth, the elation, evaporates like vapor between his fingers. The dream is dead and gone.

He sits there. The sun is warm on his back, his brother’s strong arms are gentle and secure around his middle, and there is semen on his thighs, and blood caked around his opening. His brother’s seed was still inside him.

Joshua looks to said brother—he is asleep, his face soft and lax. He looks less weary, in a way he hasn’t in a long time. Joshua turns slightly, as gently as he can with his wounds, and slips his fingers through Clive’s tresses, threaded with silver. He uses the touch to ground himself, because Joshua is struggling to catch his breaths, as his heart begins to race and his vision begins to swim.

The confusion eats at him, leaving him shaking. How was he here? Why did this happen? How was any of this real? His brother would never hurt him—but he did, didn’t he? Even now, still, as fear grips, he earns for the comfort of Clive’s embrace, where he had always felt safe.

In a brief moment of clarity, Joshua lifts his palm and summons flame—his flame, the Phoenix’s flame. The flame he had given his brother. Nothing makes sense, everything blurs, and he clutches his fire like it is his lifeline.

Joshua puts a palm to his chest, and feels the Phoenix nestled inside him, glowing like a dying hearth but alive, alive— he gasps, and feels tears on his cheeks. How was he alive? 

The more Joshua heaves, the more his opening smarts, tearing himself anew. Gingerly he lowers his flame slicked hand to his hole, and breathes a ragged sigh of relief as he ghosts his heated fingers over himself. The wound knits together, and the rawness abates, the familiar gentle warmth Joshua’s only succor. When the Phoenix is done, it’s like Clive had stolen nothing at all. From his destruction, Joshua had made himself whole, his rebirth complete. There is relief in that, but still his breaths come short.

“Joshua?”

His tremors and gasps have raised Clive from his slumber. He’s at Joshua’s side at once, a hand to his back, pulling him in close. Joshua tenses, and his mind screams at him to flee, flooding him with adrenaline, while his heart yearns to be closer. And so he is locked in place, his eyes pinched shut as he struggles for air.

“It’s alright, you’re safe now. You’re here. I have you, Brother,” Clive murmurs, his voice pitched low enough to make Joshua shiver. He’s so warm and solid against Joshua’s side, and he’s getting closer. The pounding of his heart shakes his body, as Clive cups his cheek, pressing his lips to Joshua’s own.

His brother is kissing him, devouring his frantic pants. He’s forced to seek his breath through his nose, as Clive slowly, gently, presses his lips against his, smoothing his thumb across Joshua’s jaw. He feels dizzy, from his brother’s heat, from his lack of air, from Clive’s fingers in his hair.

Tentatively, Joshua kisses back. He is unsure in his movements and he shakes, but his elder brother guides him. He feels himself slipping, into this comfort, and he melts, chasing ease.

When Clive slowly breaks away, mouth slick with saliva, Joshua realizes he can breathe again, and has been. Clive presses a kiss to his cheek, kissing away his tears he hadn’t known he’d shed.

Clive leans back, and Joshua follows, resting his head on his brother’s shoulder. This—this was so much better. Better than thinking, remembering—feeling his brother’s heat was a better dream.

Clive strokes his hair, and Joshua breathes, then grimaces as he feels tackiness on his thighs—a threat to his dream, a cruel, grounding reality.

“I could use a bath,” Joshua says quietly. He tries to pull away, but he can’t, because his brother’s grip is iron.

He’s looking at Joshua, a fearful look, a frenzied one—a familiar one. 

“Clive?”

His wild eyes look away from him. “Stay,” he murmurs, looking to Joshua’s chest. It is less a command, than more a plea.

“The baths aren’t far, Brother,” he says lightly, hoping to keep him calm. It does not work—the grip tightens. The dream slips farther from Joshua’s fingers.

“You can’t,” Clive croaks, and though his face is ducked, Joshua can hear tears.

Anxiety worries at Joshua, and so too does confusion. “I can’t bathe?”

“You can’t leave. Not again.” Tears are slipping from Clive’s eyes, the redness of his scelera making them so blue, as he grits his teeth.

Joshua swallows. “You would keep me here?”

“I would keep you safe.”

The room feels very small, then. Clive wipes at his tears with the back of his hand, and then he’s moving. When his brother, his protector, gets closer to him, fear coils in Joshua’s belly like it never did before, and it makes him feel shameful. He is far too limp in Clive’s hold, too trusting—too easy. Clive presses his warm, rough palms to Joshua’s cheeks, and crowds him near the wall.

Joshua looks into his brothers eyes—they are dilated, frenzied, and so very blue.

“Stay with me. Please. Don’t leave again.” Clive looks at him, his eyes watery, his voice cracking in sorrow.

Joshua is burned by his brother’s words, and his heart is a distant ache in his chest.

Did Joshua have a choice?

Has he ever?

He feels fat tears slide down his cheeks. How could he leave Clive, when he gave him everything? He gave him his life, devotion, the heat of his body, his ardor, his seed. 

But his hands shake, his body recoils, and he can’t catch his breath again. He loves his brother very much. He curls inward, and Clive lets him. He gasps for air, but it won’t come. How could he be without Clive, how could his brother think he would leave him? Because he had left him before, many times, each unforgivable. The more he fought, the more the air left, leaving him only tears to choke on as he curled further in. He loves Clive more than anything.

“I’m sorry,” Joshua barely chokes out. “I’m so sorry.” He would never leave his brother again.

He had rejected Clive last night, on that night, but he wouldn’t now. He accepted his brother unconditionally. His other half, his end. Joshua should have let him devour him whole, to keep him safe, never to be parted again. None of this would have happened, if Joshua hadn’t left.

He could forgive Clive, as Clive had forgiven him, would forgive him again, gracious even though Joshua was undeserving.

“You're alive. We both are. Nothing else matters.”

Clive is smoothing his hand down Joshua’s back, and pulling his head up by the chin for a kiss. Joshua whimpers and chases the gentle touch of his lips, desperate for his brother’s comfort and forgiveness. 

Joshua wraps his arms around Clive’s shoulders and neck, to pull him in a close as he could go. As he kisses him, Clive is shifting, baring Joshua down onto the mattress, and the warm comforting weight of his brother feels so good. He wants to slip into a sleep like this, smothered by his brother, never to be cold again.

As Clive nips his lower lip, Joshua lets out a little sound of surprise, a moment Clive uses to press his tongue in deeper. Joshua threads his fingers through his brother’s thick hair, running his nails over his scalp. After all the pain he’s supped on, to be cherished by his brother has him slipping, feeling strange, syrupy, too sweet and too thick. 

Clive shifts, and Joshua’s breath stutters when he feels his brother’s erection pressing against him through his breeches, a sudden dousing of ice to his heat. He thinks of flames, of the inferno of brimstone, and his hands are at Clive’s chest, vaguely pushing—but it’s more of a tremble

Clive grabs his wrists, and rolls his hips into him. Joshua moans.

“Can you honestly say you don’t want this?” 

He couldn’t.

It was an inevitability, after all—they were two parts of one whole, and they would always yearn for their completion—their perfection.

He lacks words, for theirs was a love indescribable. So tentatively, he looks to his big brother, and nods his assent.

As his brother pries apart his legs intently, Joshua shakes at the memory, of flame and white hot heat splitting him in two.

“Please,” Joshua grounds out, his voice cracking. “Oil, please, anything—it will be better for you. For us.” 

Clive opens Joshua’s legs anyway. A cold dread takes him, but his brother is just looking—for now. He hooks his thumb against Joshua’s rim, and his own seed seeps out, thick and wet, warmed from Joshua’s body heat. He spreads it over his hole, and Joshua trembles. 

“You’re good,” Clive says, but Joshua still shakes. At his disquiet, Clive lifts his legs to angle his pelvis up, and spits a glob of saliva on his hole, making him jump. Clive slips his fingers into his mouth before he brings them to his opening, and he is pushing, spreading the saliva and fucking his spend back into Joshua with his digits. Joshua burns, with humiliation, and something else. He shuts his eyes, and allows his brother to take as he pleases.

Clive slips his fingers from Joshua, making him gape around nothing. “You’re ready.”

At that, Joshua steels himself, and hopes he can please his brother, despite his inexperience. He spreads his legs, but he’s stopped by Clive’s movements. Gently, gingerly, Clive moves him with his hands to Joshua’s waist—onto his stomach, forcing him into a kneel. Heat floods Joshua, the embarrassment stifling. Why like this, he wanted to cry, but he says nothing. He couldn’t even see Clive’s face.

Joshua clasps his hands in front of him, like a mockery of prayer, and rests his forehead on them as Clive’s cockhead rubs against his hole. My first time, Joshua thinks, but it isn’t.

Clive breaches him, and Joshua stifles his whimper into his clasped hands. There is a burn as he is filled, still a strange, foreign feeling, but he does not tear, there is no blood, and Joshua could weep from joy of that alone.

Clive fills him, inch by inch, never ending in his pursuit of claiming Joshua’s body. Joshua shakes with the exertion of accommodating his brother, sweat shiny on his skin, his hair sticking to his forehead and his lashes wet with tears he doesn't recall shedding.

When he feels Clive’s sack resting against his rear, he breaths a ragged breath. He’s taken all of his brother, and there is a heat in that, a satisfaction, but most of all he feels a clear relief.

Clive groans as he bottoms out, and at the sound Joshua’s heart leaps—that he could make his brother feel good, as good as he made him feel. Elation floods to nervousness though, as Clive grabs his hips. 

For the first few thrusts, Joshua is tensing, tensing like he knows he shouldn’t, but he can’t help it. The wall gets closer to him, and farther, as he is rocked back and forth from the force of his brother’s cock, which was inside him.

Joshua swallows, the saliva so thick in his throat he could have choked on it. Clive leans over him, pressing Joshua into the mattress, caging him with his body. His brother is fucking him. Joshua’s kind, gentle brother, who never asked for anything, was fucking him like he was a dog, a beast made to heel. Tears slip from his eyes, and Joshua moans.

Joshua fumbles, searching for an anchor, anything, and feels his brother intertwine their fingers, his hand covering his. Joshua stares at the wall, and finds he can’t help but think of when they were children, and Joshua would slip into Clive’s bed. It’s a queasy thought, strange in his belly when pleasure is rising in him, heating him, making him pant and gasp and hold his brother’s hand all the tighter.

He’s hard, he realizes, though his length is untouched. It feels different, this time—a pleasant swelter, rather than an inferno. Clive rolls his hips into him, persistent and rhythmic, into something that makes Joshua arch and tremble.

“It feels good,” Joshua says, so quietly, hanging his head and looking to the sheets. He was quiet, but his voice is ripped from him loudly when his brother starts to piston into him more harshly, as if in response to his words. Clive groans, a desperate sound, and covers Joshua like a second skin, pumping into him all the while.

The force makes Joshua afraid, that it was happening again. He shouldn’t be afraid, not of Clive, and not of his nature, but he can’t help but shake, and try to shrink in on himself. Worst still is how his body reacts—his weeping cock jumps, and he shudders, collapsing on the bed as his brother gives him such ecstasy.

Clive follows, pining Joshua flat on the bed and lying down bodily on him. Like this, it’s even deeper, and sheets rub against Joshua’s length. Joshua gasps wetly, and yearns to cover his mouth, but Clive is still holding one hand, and the other can’t wedge underneath him to reach his face, because he is pressed down. All the while Clive ruts into him, going faster, and faster.

“Please—Clive—!” Be gentle, he wants to say, Please be gentle, for I can bear no more heartbreak. But he would. For Clive, he would.

Clive moans a low sound at his cries, and must see them as encouragement, as he bares down harder. Joshua is so full, so full that there was nothing left of him but his brother, and it frightens him at how whole, how complete he feels.

“You feel so good,” Clive pants into his skin, sincere and rapturous. Even as tears prick at his eyes, Joshua is so glad he can make his brother feel this satisfaction. 

With every snap of his hips Clive is hitting something sensitive inside him, driving out an ah, ah with every thrust. He feels Clive pepper soft kisses along his shoulders as does so, a gentle, affectionate gesture that makes Joshua’s stomach flutter, but he yelps when Clive bites into him. Clive laves his tongue over his mark at the junction between Joshua’s neck and shoulder, and Joshua tenses, tightens around his brother, making Clive shudder and rumble out a blissful sound.

It hurts, and Joshua wishes to use his flame immediately to remove the angry, searing, red mark, but he wouldn’t dare—it was a gift from his sweet brother, after all.

And then Clive is pulling away from him. The heat of him on his back is gone, and so too is cock, his completion, slipped out from Joshua, leaving him gaping around nothing. Joshua gasps against the sheets, because he feels so cold and alone. Blearily he looks over his shoulder—but his brother is still there. His hands come to Joshua’s hips, and he flips him with ease onto his back.

Joshua reaches out his arms, needing his warmth, and Clive obliges him. His brother blankets over him, holding him, and aligns his cock back at Joshua’s hole. He shivers as he is filled, stretched full and complete. This—this is what he wanted, what he’d always wanted—his brother in his arms, looking into his eyes, as they made love.

Joy fills him, but as he’s pressed back, the bite on his shoulder sears. It’s a distant thing in his mind, gone soft and milky in bliss, but it hurts, a persistent ache, and it gets all the worse as his brother quickens his pace.

The pleasant heat begins to swelter, again. It nips at Joshua’s skin as Clive cups his face, their foreheads pressed together as he sets a slow, hard pace, knocking the breath out of Joshua’s lungs at every thrust. It’s too much, and all Joshua can think of is the white hot inferno, but he can do nothing but hold on tightly and stare into his brother’s glassy eyes.

“Brother,” Joshua chants. “Brother, Brother—please—” Please, my brother, take all that I have, until there’s nothing left. Then there will be no ache.

Clive won’t break eye contact with him, won’t stop his brutal pounding and won’t stop the tears leaking from his eyes. Pleasure is consuming Joshua whole, but so too is guilt—because he is the reason his brother cries, because Joshua hurt him.

It’s so hard to think, so Joshua feels—he feels consumed, loved and cherished, he feels his cock drooling precum on his belly, and he feels his brother’s sorrow being fucked into him as deeply as his ardor. Tears well in his eyes, and he hugs Clive in tightly.

“Clive,” Joshua cries, breath catching at the force of his brother’s thrusts. “I’m so sorry.” How could he have left him again? His nails rake down Clive’s back, desperately clinging to him, for any anchor at all—for his brother’s safety, for his forgiveness. Joshua hooks his legs around Clive’s back, and curls in, needing to feel his brother all around him, holding him, comforting him, keeping him safe. He makes himself as small as he can, just a little boy in his elder brother’s arms.

His face is smothered in Clive’s clavicle. “I’m sorry,” he chokes out. “I’m sorry.”

Clive grips him so tightly, so harshly that Joshua is in pain, and he needs it. Clive lifts his head up by cupping his cheeks, his eyes shining and wet. 

“You’re safe. At last. I’ve got you.” He presses their foreheads together, and looks into Joshua’s eyes as he rolls his hips. 

I’m sorry, is all Joshua can think, but when he speaks, he hears wet gasps, each higher than the last. His brother delivers him white-hot pleasure, and Joshua can do nothing but gape, his mouth lax and lips slicked with saliva, as he is wound tighter. The more he pants and cries out, the more forcefully Clive fucks into him, intent on hearing his trills. Again Joshua finds himself losing his breath, and so he presses in for a kiss, so his brother could give it to him. As Clive pins him, Joshua’s cock smears its weeping slickness across his belly, and his brother swallows all his moans as he peaks, a metallic taste in their kiss. Joshua shudders from the force of it—it’s too much, everything is too much, and Clive pistons into him all the harder.

Clive fucks him through his orgasm, unrelenting, even when he’s shaking from the stimulation and it gasping for breath, his nails clawing down his brother’s chest. He sobs as his sweet spot is pounded, again and again, while his softening cock drools yet more seed, the pressure in him unrelenting. “I’m sorry,” he sobs, saliva slick down his chin from his panting mouth.

A groan is rumbled out into his shoulder, and by his frenzied pace, Joshua knows his brother is close, and he needs it. Clive bare downs fully until Joshua is bent in half, his knees near his face and bent over Clive, and his brother fucks into him so deeply Joshua can only gape into his shoulder, his eyes blurry and his breath gone. Once, twice, Clive steals all the air from him, and then he stills, gasping ragged breaths as he fills Joshua up with a familiar warmth. 

His brother’s seed should not satisfy him the way it does, should not repulse him in the way it does. Clive collapses on him while still breathing heavily, running his fingers though Joshua’s hair, and graces him with a languid smile, happy and sated and in love.

Shakily, Joshua leans up for a kiss, and it is soft and sweet, perfect in all the ways he’s ever wanted, but the bite on his shoulder is smarting. He shifts uncomfortably, and feels spend flood out from around Clive’s softening cock. There is an itch, and unease to Joshua, that he cannot quite place. 

He very much wants to bathe.

“Would you join me, in the bath?” Joshua tries. “If I can?” Perhaps Clive would be more amenable, if they were together.

Clive frowns. “You don’t need my permission.”

Didn’t he?

“I didn’t know—” Joshua doesn’t know how to explain, without upsetting him. “You said not to leave.”

Clive looks away, perhaps in shame. “I didn’t mean it like that. I just—” Agitated, he brushes his fingers through his hair. “Do not be long.”

“The invitation is still open, if you’d like to come with me,” Joshua says lightly.

Clive shakes his head. “There are things I ought to attend to. You go on. I'll go later.”

And so Joshua stands, and dresses, and winces at his soreness. He sops up his brother’s seed as best he can with a spare rag before setting to his trousers. All the while, he feels his brother gaze on him, unrelenting and predatory. It makes Joshua tense, though he wills himself to relax. He tucks in his tunic into his breeches, and turns, and startles when Clive is directly behind him.

His expression is pulled tight, indecisive and worried. Gingerly, he takes Joshua’s hand, and brings it to his mouth, his warm breath ghosting Joshua’s skin.

Clive brushes his lips to Joshua’s knuckles. “Please. Do not go far from me.”

“I won’t be gone long.” At the word gone, Clive’s expression falters, but he gives Joshua a small smile, and nods. Joshua leaves, gently closing the door behind him, as Clive watches.

There is no one in the baths, and Joshua is grateful. He scrubs himself until he is raw and red, like with enough force he could wear himself away until there was nothing left. It’s not enough.

He wishes to sit in the hot water, and be at peace, but he doesn’t want to be seen. He feels—he knows—that someone would see through him, see him bare if they caught sight of him undressed. As Joshua slips into his garments, he breathes a sigh of relief at feeling his cowl coiled around him, like he is dressed in armor.

He did wish he could linger in the bathes, but this was not the only area of the Hideaway with gentle waters, though. He walks to the docks, blissfully empty, and sits at the very end.

Joshua slips off his shoes, and then his socks, and rolls his pant legs up to his knees. He sits on the end of the dock, and dangles his feet in the water. The water is cool, and he sighs at this small reprieve. He closes his eyes, and for a time he is peaceful. He doesn’t know how much time has passed when he hears soft footsteps—familiar ones.

He doesn’t need to turn to know it’s Jill, but he does, anyway. Her face is indescribable—her eyes are red, clearly from weeping, and there is horror there, but a kind of laxness to her face that only comes with acceptance. 

Jill swallows, her throat bobbing. “How?” She speaks gently, like she is afraid—either of her own question, or of Joshua, he does not know.

How are you alive?

Why are you alive?

Joshua hears it, though the words are unsaid.

Joshua looks away, and summons a flicker of flame in his hand, blooming into a wispy Phoenix feather “It is who I am.” 

He lets it die, smothering it with a curl of his fingers. “It’s who my brother is.” Joshua has no other answer to give her.

“Joshua…we heard screams. Your screams. Please, tell me. What happened?”

He looks at her, then. “We were all born screaming.” Joshua wasn’t, though. He came into this world asleep, barely with a heartbeat. He couldn’t even do that right. Already, he cannot keep her gaze, and he looks away, to the waters. They lap at the docks so gently, so tempting.

“It seems apt to be reborn in much the same way.” And he had needed Clive’s help, as he always had. He did not know what he would do without his brother—he wouldn’t be here, in so many different ways.

Joshua looks out to the gentle waves, and feels the pull, the softness of it. A sweet siren song, calling him home. 

He turns to Jill. "I'm alright," he says, with a little smile, but he can tell by her face that she doesn't believe him.

Joshua pulls his feet from the water, rubs the wetness away with his sleeve, and then puts his socks and shoes back on. He stands, and walks past his friend, and goes back to his brother.

Opening the doors to Clive’s room, Joshua knows immediately the matters he had attended to—he was moving Joshua’s things into his room. Books and personal journals, medicine vials and stationary sit on Clive’s desk—all his. Clive needed Joshua nearby, after all.

Upon seeing him, Clive’s face lights up in relief, in happiness. He opens his arms, and Joshua goes to him, to his brother’s warm embrace. Clive lets himself fall back onto the bed, taking Joshua with him. He nestles behind Joshua, and it is warm, comfortable, and Joshua is still so sore.

Fingers part the longer hair at his nape, and Joshua shivers as his brother kisses his neck. He feels a wet tongue, hot and slick, tasting him, devouring, searching for his mark. Clive gently laves at the bite mark he left on his neck, and Joshua feels the press of teeth.