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It had been grey outside, the kind of weather where the day never got properly light, the slow turn of the earth like something forgotten, asleep. Off the train and through the streets for a layover so short it was barely worth mentioning. Night crawled up on the city with a chill that reached bone. February, and Christmas lights still flashed and the cold air bit at Ghost’s skin as he smoked. Breath a blue cloud blown out hard through his nose. His boot catches chunks of grey ice, sends them skidding idly across the parking lot, spinning and spinning, hitting the tyre of a beat up hatchback. Midnight. More than three months since they’d seen each other last, a quiet question of whether they still wanted it, whether it still existed, and Ghost only had to ask himself for the space of a heartbeat or two before he knew the answer. He caught a stray piece of tobacco on the tip of his tongue, spat it onto the packed snow.
Where will you be in forty eight hours?
Krakow, why?
His chest was heavy with the sense of an impending mistake; one he had already made and would continue to make as if it were out of his control. Maybe it was. A chance meeting, pure luck. But everything was just chance until it wasn’t and everything was just luck until it wasn’t. Ghost stood with his backpack at his feet dismantling the difference between luck and chance. A series of half-thoughts, not formed, not going anywhere, while he waited.
Ghost didn’t mind waiting, he was good at it, but he was not good at warding off the thoughts that came along with it; the long and twisting paths that diverged to places he’d rather not go, how little control he had over the way his mind was forced to observe the worst things about himself as if it were a task he’d been given, as if going through it again and again would finally allow him to change anything. An unwanted memory reverberated through his mind. Panicked jerking of legs, boots kicking and sliding in mud as he’d eased a knife through the ribs of the last man he’d killed, the wild whites of his eyes flashing behind Ghost’s own, desperate clutching of blood slicked fingers at Ghost’s face and neck. A default state of reliving his sharpest, deepest wrongs, all coming as natural to him as breathing, a kind of labyrinth of wishing things were different and hoping they’d never change.
Two hours hour later his backpack is leaning up against a wood laminate cabinet that’s peeling at the edges, snow-wet, on worn carpet the colour of brick. Ghost is shaking out the dense chill that’s settled in his limbs and König is pulling the hood back off his head and rubbing grazed hands through dirty, too-long hair, boots leaving damp, dark imprints on the floor. Ghost breathes in the smell of him, four feet away and still it reaches, metal-thin, something earthy, the bitter air outside.
Before he’s even removed the cover on half of his own face, König moves in and threads his long fingers under the fabric of Ghost’s mask like the distance between them has been intolerable. His touch is cold at Ghost’s jaw, and König tries to make it gentle, but there’s a tremor there. A faint smell of cigarettes. No threat in it but Ghost feels himself go still. Instinct, maybe, or habit.
König strokes at the skin at the back of his neck in small circles, Ghost blinks slow, cat-like. Lets the touch happen, cataloguing the places it lands. The buzzed short hair at the base of his skull, the notch at the top of his spine. Familiar. Not familiar. It’s been a long time since someone touched him like this without asking for something back, or taking it. He waits for the catch and it doesn’t come. Feels a sigh work its way up his throat.
‘Been a while.’ König says, and Ghost can tell he’s smiling, eyes soft, can’t force himself to return it. ‘You look good.’
‘You look like shit.’
König exhales a low laugh and the sound of it is uneven, pushed out. His hand still at the back of Ghost’s neck, thumb brushing along the soft edge of his hairline like he doesn’t know he’s doing it. Ghost lets it stay another second, then moves back. König’s hand drops, empty in the air for a beat before falling to his side.
‘What do you need?’ He asks.
Ghost feels a warm, enticing pull at the ease of his proposition; an open invitation, an opportunity he might not get again for a while.
‘I don’t know.’ Is his answer, truthful but kind of stilted, knowing he absolutely does need something and that König can easily give it to him, but finding his head increasingly empty at the thought.
‘Do you want to talk?’ König offers.
‘Not really.’
‘Do you want to fuck?’
‘Yes.’
‘Okay then. Easy.’
‘What about you?’
‘I want what you want.’ König says, soft shape of a smirk under the tight black wrap of his mask. Half-there, half imagined. He drops his own bag onto the floor. He looks kind of wild, hair grown out and hanging in strands over his eyes, a slice through his right eyebrow haloed by a yellow and purple bruise, fresh and angry. Stubble at least four days old. The metal smell on him is blood, Ghost guesses. It hits him slow; König came straight here from something bad, didn’t stop once on the way.
‘Maybe we should take it easy.’ Ghost says, brain is backing up, pushing against something, craving resistance. ‘If you’re not up to it.'
‘I’ll fuck that stupid thought right out of you, okay?’ König replies.
A moment of heavy silence, of decision and balance along a line that they swore not to cross, Ghost wondering idly whether pushing his mouth to König’s through their masks counts as crossing it, and whether he cares or not.
‘Shower first?’ He says instead.
‘Sure.’
‘You smell like a slaughterhouse.’
König shrugs, a quick lift of one thick shoulder. ‘You’re not wrong.’
The casual banality and the quiet violence and the quick, thrumming surge of want through Ghost’s entire body makes him smile. Sharp-edged, unwanted.
A swift memory then, of words caught between drunken curses and low whimpers and a rushing, almost painfully strong aching in Ghost’s chest as they had torn at each other’s clothes the very first time, like he was being pulled towards König so hard that eventually they’d just collapse inward, molten, entwined and tethered to one another with no way to take it back; König’s mouth at his jaw, breath hot and shaking, Ghost’s vision blurring and the world tilting sideways-
It’s nothing. Just do it. I know you want to.
Are you sure?
Yeah.
König’s hand grabbed at Ghost’s face, the pressure against his teeth digging deep into his cheek, König’s focus dropping to his waiting mouth, eyes dark, flat grey, and with it Ghost felt nothing and yet felt everything; a pause where he almost gave in, almost let it happen, and instead turned his head to the side and said -
Don’t, don’t make it mean something.
König had stilled and then -
Whatever you need.
Ghost had barely been aware of his own body, just the tight grinding friction between them, but whatever happened to König’s face made him look away, tear his gaze to the hammering at the base of König’s throat, too fast, anywhere but directly at him, and then it was done, and I promise I’ll never love you was said out loud in so few words and in such a thoughtless fashion that he didn’t come to regret it until it was too late.
The shower tap crunches loose, spits water for a minute. Then it’s hot and the pressure is good and the bathroom fills with steam. It’s almost too small to fit them both. There’s rust on the pipes and the tiles are cracked underfoot and Ghost sheds his clothes, wishes he could have a drink and knows he can’t, tries not to look at himself in the small bright-lit mirror as he turns to feel König’s hands at his bare waist.
König, behind him, sinking a slow, deep bite into the curve between his shoulder and neck, a sore point, a place of pressure and memory of similar pain, of other people’s mouths, the dull blunt force of someone else, Ghost not wanting to think about Soap but doing it anyway -
‘You’re tense.’
‘What else is new.’ Ghost’s voice hollowed out, leashed.
‘Is it anything I can help with?’ König’s words right against his skin.
Ghost closes his eyes. He allows a few moments of control to slip away, rests his head back, gives König some of his weight, bares himself. König’s mouth drags, slow slide of his teeth over the artery in Ghost’s neck. He wants König to feel the pulse under his tongue. Wants him to know what he does to Ghost’s body, how fast it happens, how readily he gives himself up to it. The slow easing out of himself and into this other person who can barely control himself, who almost loses it at the slightest touch.
‘I don’t know. Maybe.’
‘Tell me.’
A flare of frustration makes Ghost open his eyes and he sees them both reflected back in cloudy half-steamed glass, a mass of flesh framed by ugly green tiles and König bent over his shoulder, delicate hands holding him, cut knuckles, grazed in a way that makes Ghost flex his own fingers into a fist.
It’s a thing he didn’t want to see but now can’t make himself look away from. The shape of their bodies, the curve of them fitting together, Ghost suddenly aware maybe for the first time in decades of how small he can look, knows he isn’t but enjoys the weird novelty of it. Wants more than anything to fall fully against König’s waiting body, to be held up by it, to not have to see himself be this way and just feel it instead.
He watches as König opens his mouth and bites again, as if lifted from his own body like something from a movie, some shitty old VHS tape all distorted and dirty, something he’d be punished for seeing. It’s a reminder, or a warning, maybe. He shifts on his feet. His breath shudders when it comes out of him, he hears himself make a quiet noise of encouragement.
‘Talk.’ König says, and his lips brush the reddening dent in Ghost’s muscle. ‘Whatever you want, you can say it.’
Ghost flexes his hands again and a bone in his wrist cracks.
‘Just want a few hours thinking about nothing. If I’m gonna lose sleep, might as well be with you.’
‘Yeah?’
‘Mhhm.’
‘I would like that too.’ König says. His hand slides up Ghost’s waist, skims lightly over his nipple, grabs softly at his chest. Tension spills out through the soles of his feet like warm water. His own hands hang at his sides, long arms, one tattooed, a dark blur in the mirror. Capable and strong and never knowing rest. König another reflection behind him, the same only larger, skin more pale and marked by bruises rather than ink. He tilts his head, and presses his mouth lightly to Ghost’s temple.
‘How do you want it?’
A ripple right down the centre of Ghost, a swooping a little like the lurch of motion sickness at the idea of being indulged, of being made to watch himself struggle through his words, tangled in all kinds of stupid shame and pride and things even darker that make it easier to say I don’t care, just make it hurt, rather than something he actually wants -
‘Slow.’ Is what he comes out with, and that’s okay, that’s close enough. While he can’t meet his reflection it doesn’t pain him like he expected, and the sound of König’s soft laugh by his right ear makes him shiver, he shakes it out in a small twitch, rolls his shoulders to hide its effect.
‘Okay. We can do that.’ König says. The moment stretches out, quiet, drifting. König’s fingertips run in slow curves on Ghost’s skin, prickling in the cool air. ‘How long do you have?’
‘Until the morning. Early.’ Wishing for more, knowing he wouldn’t know what to do with the time if he had it. ‘You?’
‘As long as I need, apparently.’
Ghost lets it hang in silence, then turns towards him, away from the mirror. The sink presses cold against the backs of his thighs. Casual, not meaning to but saying it all the same, the space between them closes, heats. ‘Was it that bad?’
König shrugs, half-hearted. Runs his palm down Ghost’s ribs. ‘That’s all I was told.’
Ghost studies him longer than he should, caught on the bruised slice through König’s eyebrow, the thought of his face hitting the blunt edge of a rock or the butt of a rifle sparking something sour and awful in his gut, a reflex he won’t acknowledge.
‘Well you look like you earned it.’
König’s face lifts in a tired smile. ‘I think so.’
They make it into the shower with trailing hands and no more talking and the door closes behind them with a terrible creak. The water scalds Ghost’s wind-lashed skin, burns its way down his neck, his chest and back. He feels kind of raw, as if a layer of him has been stripped away, realises by now they’d both usually be at least halfway to drunk, that the blurred outlines of that world are far easier to navigate than this; stark and badly lit, not enough space to move, so close their arms bump into each other’s ribs as they wash and their toes touch under a layer of soap foam that doesn’t drain away like it should.
König’s body is so bruised that Ghost almost asks him what happened. He slides his palm down the strong, thick curves of König’s arm, bicep barely fitting into his cupped palm, presses lightly on one vaguely purple stretch of skin, experimental and trying to kill the satisfied look on his face when König sucks in a short breath through clenched teeth.
‘I slid forty feet down a ravine two days ago, if you were wondering.’
Ghost almost laughs. ‘Christ.’ He nudges König’s knee with his own. Doesn’t look up. ‘Hit every rock on the way down?’
‘Feels like it.’
‘State of you.’
“You probably like me this way,” König says, quick slice of confidence he’s more than earned.
“I like you quiet,” Ghost replies, biting down on a slim smile.
König makes an amused sound. ‘Do you?’
‘As the grave.’ Ghost says, presses his thumb again on the bruised skin because he can’t help it, likes the way it makes König flinch.
‘Liar.’ Is König’s reply. He shifts slightly, enough that their bodies touch, thigh against thigh, something deliberate about the way his weight moves. Ghost feels it, not just in his height, but in the way the air seems to contract around him. Like he takes up more space than should be possible, like his presence has a pressure that presses all the way into Ghost’s skin.
Ghost finds the meat of König’s shoulder, slick with soap, kneads at it gently. König sighs, a low, contented sound. And its hard at that moment for the first time in this long, strange, cold day, because Ghost does want to kiss him then. Want being a weak word for what he’s really feeling. He thinks König would let him, would probably sigh deeper and sink down as much as he could to make it easy, would slide his palms over Ghost’s wet and too-warm body, would open his mouth for Ghost’s tongue, would let his lip be bitten, would-
It would fuck everything up of course, in the way that kissing the wrong person always does. A downshift with no hands on the wheel. König is both the wrong person and the only person, a shape that shouldn’t fit into Ghost’s life but has somehow made an irreplaceable home for himself there. That thought is pushing something in Ghost’s mind completely off balance, he feels himself fighting it again, heels digging in and still veering dangerously closer to the edge, and he has to clench his jaw to stop himself tilting his face upwards to König, pushing him back against the tiles-
König bows his head, lets water run over it, pulls his fingers through knots in his hair. Something dark streaks down his neck and chest, gone after a moment, and some grim, un-indulged part of Ghost feels a throb of heat at the sight of it. Wanting him like this; soaked in someone else’s blood, washing it out of his hair like it’s nothing feels easier than it has a right to. How far he’s fallen. Ghost watches until the water flows clear over König’s cut knuckles, streaming from his chin, clumping his lashes.
Pressure builds up his legs, beats at his wrists, flares down his spine, and it pushes him forward, then he does press König against the tiles, his hands gently on König’s skin turned pink and flushed by the hot steam, and licks a slow, indulgent line up and under his jaw. He tastes of bitter water and soap. König breathes out hard, his head knocks back against the wall, a sound at the end, a weak moan softened into words.
‘Mmh-god.’
Almost too quiet to hear but heard all the same, and maybe the two of them aren’t so different, maybe König loses control at the slightest touch too, and when Ghost takes his turn to bite down over his collarbone there’s this sound in König’s chest, so deep it’s barely anything over the rush of the water, but he feels the rumble as if it reverberates through them both, a sound of surrender and need that makes him smile again, just a small curve of his mouth, sliding gentle and quietly happy to König’s ear.
‘Reckon this is slow enough. C’mon.’
Ghost notices their fingers link as he leads König out of the bathroom. He tries not to at first, fails.
The bedroom reshapes itself; first the hallway of his own apartment, then barracks, then a hundred other places they’ll never be. Outdoors, sunlight on their backs. König ducking under doorframes of rooms they can’t enter together.
The sheets drink water from their bodies, darkening impressions of their movements, Ghost one knee and then both onto the mattress, a careless turn onto his back, a welcoming roll of his spine as König follows; pressed between Ghost’s open thighs, dripping and smiling in the dark.
This is one of the moments where not kissing doesn’t make a lot of sense. Ghost’s lips parted at König’s neck, the scent of his skin something like dust or salt or copper, wants to press their mouths together, finish it, or maybe start it -
Instead he says ‘You’re soaking,’ kind of stupidly, because they both are; and König’s hair falls around his face, the hard angles of his cheekbones, strands dripping onto Ghost’s chest.
‘You want a towel?’ König asks, semi earnestly, already leaning back on his knees, moving down Ghost’s body with his hand following the wide line of Ghost’s ribs, waist, hip -
‘No, -uh-’ His words are forced out in a little rush as König’s mouth closes around his dick, no warning, and he’s half hard already, gets all the way there in a few seconds of wet heat.
He touches König’s head for a moment, feels the rise and fall of it, before his hand slips back to the bed and he exhales hard, watching the hinge of König’s jaw, the thick swallow of his throat, the flick of his lashes as he closes his eyes, the lazy wrap of his fingers around Ghost’s cock, sliding so slow and so soft -
Ghost wants to speak and can’t, something low and shaky escapes him instead, a buzz of satisfaction running through him like a tide, a lifeline. So welcome and so missed. He spreads his thighs further and König settles there, small and familiar rhythms of his neck, long line of his shoulder bunched up at Ghost’s hip. Bruises like dark clouds down the muscle over his ribs as if the water sinking into the sheets has stained his skin. His tongue curls, catches a part of Ghost that makes him twitch and swear and flutter his eyelids.
‘Sorry.’ König says, panting lightly, ‘That wasn’t so slow.’ His mouth is so inviting that Ghost’s hips move in a grind, desperate to feel the slick soft pressure of it again.
‘It’s okay.’ Ghost manages to reply. ‘It’s good.’
Quick direct weight of König’s gaze on him, searching for something, working him out, wet sound of his fist closed around the width of Ghost’s cock in a languid upward slide. Ghost struggling to keep eye contact and König enjoying seeing him like that.
His face is flushed, he can feel it, blood vessels opening up, pumping, pushing to the surface in a way that burns. From the cold air outside and the hot shower and the coiled curve of König’s body over him, holding him down. König too, a dusting of pink over his cheeks and down his neck, so fucking warm and smooth and -
‘You want more?’
Ghost nods and lets his head drop to the bed like he’ll need all his strength just to remain conscious. The sound of spit, the sudden, light push of König’s finger inside him.
‘-Oh - fuck.’
‘Shh. Slow.’ König actually saying this with his lips almost brushing the tip of Ghost’s cock, the words slurred in a low kind of hush, as if he isn’t the one curving his wrists, pulling Ghost apart with his fingers and hands, and then his mouth, the slow sinking over his tongue and Ghost is glad he’s not speaking anymore, glad he’s found his purpose in taking Ghost’s dick right to the back of his throat and swallowing around it, burying his finger up to the knuckle as he does it-
‘Oh my fucking-’ a roll down his spine again, lower back leaving the bed entirely, all the muscles in his thighs pulling tight - ‘god.’ He grabs hard at the thin sheet, balls of worn cotton against his palms, touches the sodden mess of König’s hair, tries to anchor his fingers into it like it’ll help, but just finds himself holding König’s head down through another wave of pleasure. It pulls right through him, reaches his fingertips, makes him screw his eyes shut. A hard moan pushes out of his mouth and he hears, as if in the distance somehow, a noise from König, a satisfied sound like a laugh or maybe just a throat-full kind of expression, and when Ghost looks down König releases his mouth, a line of spit spilling from his lips as he sucks in a breath.
‘There you go. So easy. Half gone already.’ He says, his voice slurred, pleased with himself. He slides a second finger easily into Ghost and they look at each other, more than hazy shadows now, adjusted to the dusk, and Ghost just whines -
‘Jesus fucking christ’, covers his face with his arm and lets his hips push forwards.
He likes König’s fingers inside him, likes the refined pressure of them, the precise movement, the sensation like he’ll melt right through the bed, liquid, no thoughts or words or feelings other than a safe, soft knowledge that he’s being taken care of. He likes the way it makes his insides ache, all down his back and around his bones and along the soft parts of his inner thighs, likes the way it makes his cock twitch and leak against König’s tongue.
He thinks distantly that he should have said something about being easy, summoned a little effort to push back against that, true or not, if only to make König try harder to prove himself right. Ghost is easy though, like this, flat on his back with his legs spread, König’s fingers working in and out of him, dizzyingly close to coming already, trying to keep some oxygen in his brain and managing only to writhe and quietly moan, little sounds of complaint and pleasure so deep it verges on discomfort.
It takes most of his strength not to grip König’s head, hold him still and fuck his throat. He wants to, so much that he almost does it, but doesn’t know how König would take it and doesn’t have the mental capacity to ask, so keeps his fists loosely caught in the sheets. Enjoys all the same the tight rhythmic slide of his cock in the confines of König’s mouth, a sinfully rare thing, he realises. Ghost’s had his own throat full like this countless times, looking up at König with hot tears in his eyes and drool looping off his chin and his own dick so painfully hard he can’t help but touch himself roughly through his clothes.
He meets König’s eyes on an unstroke, iron grey like a sky about to open. He’s beautiful, the word lands before Ghost can stop it, slender and sculptural features despite his size, despite the mass of muscle and the bruises and scars and the rest, the hollows of his cheeks as he sucks kind of pretty, kind of heart-twistingly delicate.
Ghost finds his hips moving against his will and König lets it happen, tilts his chin to meet the eager rise of Ghost’s body, twists with his hand, curls his fingers, slow, methodical, doing everything right.
‘Oh my god your mouth,’ Ghost says, mostly an inward thing, not sure if he’s voiced it out loud until König makes that noise again, low and full and pleased.
It’s a familiar kind of loose haze, body and mind being pulled open. Strange maybe, after months apart, but König is the only person he’s ever let fuck him, and the only person he ever thinks about when he can’t sleep, and the only person he’s ever begged for anything, so familiar is really how it feels.
Floating and sinking at the same time, his body rides the width of König’s fingers, pushing down onto them, curving up, pulling himself back down. Movements that feel huge but aren’t, probably seem like nothing but feel like everything all the same. König jerks him off lazily, rests his cheek on Ghost’s twitching thigh and watches his face, catches his breath.
‘You like it?’ He asks, as if it isn’t obvious.
‘Yeah I like it.’ Ghost says, trying hard to keep his focus and his words steady. ‘It’s fucking incredible.’
‘Can I fuck you?’ König lifts his head, then his mouth finds the skin at the crease of Ghost’s thigh and v-line of his hip and licks at it, a slow soft drag of his tongue and a thick slide of his fingers. Ghost shivers, full body.
‘You don’t need to ask.’ He replies, swallowing past the tight feeling winding through him. ‘God I fucking feel like I could come.’
König breathes out with a smile. It’s an uneven one, gorgeous, turned down a little on one side. ‘Do you want to?’
Ghost gathers himself, fights the tightness in his stomach and the stupid loose euphoria threatening in his mind. ‘Not -yet. Just gimme your cock.’ Panted out of his mouth, a desperate request.
‘Say please.’
Ghost waits, makes a sound that breaks into a low laugh and then melts into a moan when König’s fingers slide out of him. ‘No chance.’
‘You’re so lucky I like you.’ König replies, kneeling. Ghost’s body follows his movements, his knees fall open, spine lengthened, still chasing the sparks of an orgasm as they die down. ‘Did you bring lube?’
Ghost motions to his backpack, enjoys the view of König’s naked body as he walks across the room, one hand lazily wrapping his own dick, squeezing it lightly. Strong legs, gentle swoop of his spine, dimples in his lower back above the curve of his ass. Gravel rash red and purple at the side of his hip. Ghost crosses his arms behind his head and watches König crouching, tearing his way through zips and pockets, hands that know their way around Ghost’s body better than his own rifling patiently through his meagre belongings. His shoulders are wider than Ghost’s, wedges of muscle moving under pale skin. There’s a notch on the left that Ghost hasn’t noticed before. Pink and shiny. A new scar he’ll try not to dig his nails into. König dumps the bag back on the carpet and flicks the bottle open with his thumb. Makes his way back to the bed, kneels on the mattress between Ghost’s ankles.
‘Like this?’ He says, one hand smooth up Ghost’s tattooed shin, and before Ghost can think of something offhand and careless to say, he comes out with -
‘Yeah, I wanna look at you.’
He watches König pool lube into his palm and coat his cock, not reacting, maybe not feeling the hot kind of ricocheting inside his head that Ghost is. Maybe better at hiding it. He tosses the bottle to the floor, fixes his eyes on Ghost. Heavy lidded and flushed. His breath stutters as he slides his fist slowly up and down, something tensing in his chest. Ghost could watch him like this, would like to, just to hear the sounds he makes, see what his face looks like when he’s fucking himself. König moves closer, a small shuffling of his knees in the sheet. Holds Ghost’s hip with one hand and starts to ease his cock into Ghost in an achingly slow, careful slide.
‘Ah - fuck -’ Ghost chokes, his whole body tightening.
König is huge, feels huge anyway, as if Ghost’s body has almost forgotten the shape of him, a thought that barely six months ago would have seemed impossible. König watches him carefully, a small part in his lips the only thing that gives his pleasure away. A thought rises in Ghost, something he hasn’t felt in a long time crawling up his gullet from a place of old fear - please go slow. He exhales hard and blinks up at the ceiling, König’s steadiness, his competence even now, too bright a thing to withstand like this.
When a pained sound works out of his mouth König’s hand leaves his hip and threads their fingers together. He squeezes, knuckles sliding.
‘Don’t go somewhere else.’ König says, and his voice is low, dredged up from the depths of him, taking in the sight of Ghost like he’s starving. ‘Stay with me. You can take it.’
Ghost tries, swallows, loses the ability to speak when König rocks his hips lightly, testing. König swears quick, soft, not in English.
‘That’s it, you can do it.’ His grip on Ghost’s hand tightens, thumb stroking over Ghost’s finger. His hair hangs in loose dark strands, damp still. Water clings to him, drops scattered and glittering across bruised skin. He sits back on his knees, a slow roll of his spine that makes Ghost’s jaw clench and his legs tighten around König’s body. Its a minute thing, the gentlest of movements, soft shuddering of the muscles over König’s stomach, all ridges and lines holding so much power and exerting none of it.
‘Okay?’ König asks, pushes Ghost’s thighs open, follows the curves to his waist. Ghost feels it expanding with a sharp inhale under König’s rough palms.
‘Yeah.’ He says, and is starting to feel it, starting to remember being filled so deeply it’s like he can’t catch his breath, can’t think, can only focus on the thick width of König’s cock pushing into him.
‘You’re - fuck. You feel so good.’ König says, a tightness in his words like something in him is constricting. He looks at Ghost’s mouth, and Ghost imagines him falling forwards, closing the space between them, what it would be like to kiss him like this, to close the loop of their bodies, to feel the slow curving of König’s hips as his tongue slides against Ghost’s.
He starts to like the feeling of denying himself that particular pleasure, likes the familiar sting of wanting something so vitally and not letting himself have it. He likes pain that he can control, so much that it starts to feel good somewhere in the back of his head, like sinking into some known kind of suffering, like belonging there. He likes hurting, is good at it, in the same way he likes the painful pressure of König’s cock finally sliding inside him all the way, opening him up as deep as it’ll go, air forced out of his lungs in a stunned kind of gasp.
‘F-ffuck, oh fuck-’ Fists in the sheets again, harsh enough to tear the threads.
‘Shit.’ König breathes, ‘I forget how tight you are.’
It brings out fresh heat in Ghost’s face. A bared kind of vulnerability sweeps over him, makes sweat swell under his skin, the thud of his heart suddenly hard and knocking at his lungs. He wants to turn his head away, twist out of reach of that thunder-grey stare. Instead he watches the flush of warmth spread up König’s neck as he tries to control the movements of his body, tries to be careful, tries not to let the hot thread of pleasure that winds through him pull too tightly. König wants to, Ghost can tell, because they’re two parts of the same person, and because König’s gaze is dark, all hunger and barely held restraint.
‘How does it feel?’ Ghost asks, the tone of his voice more a statement than a question, forced out when it wants to tremble, a kind of permission. He spreads his thighs wider, curves his spine up, waits for it to hurt and it doesn’t. He does it again, watches the effect. König’s breath billows shakily out of him and he grips onto Ghost’s waist, starts to fuck him slowly, as gently as he can stand.
‘Like I want to fuck you forever.’ Is his reply and he’s smiling loosely, the curve of his mouth fading into something more desperate with each small pull and push of his body. Ghost’s brows hook up at the centre and he closes his eyes, sinks into the bed with a low, pitiful moan.
‘Oh, god, fuck.’
Forever.
A stupid thought but a tempting one. The rhythm of König’s thrusts push all sense out of Ghost’s head, he tilts his chin and stares at the ceiling, at the fan fixed above them, the cracked and peeling paint, the low pulsing of Christmas lights like a heartbeat reaching through the blinds, blue and white, blue and white. König’s hands on his hips, thumbs to hipbones, anchored down, rooted in him.
In some distant part of himself Ghost hopes he’s making it obvious how much he’s missed this, maybe he won’t be able to say it out loud but his body is trying, opening up and flexing and riding the steady waves of König’s thrusts like the months apart are nothing. He lets his gaze drop back to König, the hunched shape of his shoulders, tight line of his waist, the shadow darkening his face to a deep blue-grey blur. His pace quickens, pulls a low groan from Ghost, kicks his brain into motion again.
‘You like it like this? I want you to feel good.’ König says, a murmur half panted out and rasping like he’s been shouting, or hasn’t slept for days, and maybe he hasn’t but Ghost likes the worn down, scraped sound of it, likes the command and the shake of it in the air.
‘Yeah, it's so - it’s so good.’ His fingertips find König’s thigh, try to grip it. König fucks into him harder, long, sure strokes that make Ghost struggle around the width of his cock, every inch sinking into him punctuated with the smooth, muffled slap of their skin. It floods back, minute by minute. The meeting of their bodies some kind of primal truth, relearning the strength and lines of each other, escalating together into a tangle of lithe, sweating, lowly cursing flesh.
It goes long past the point of urgency. Long past the need until it wears away to something else, a more instinctive thing. The rhythm changes, slows, deepens, quickens again. Ghost starts to lose himself in it. König shifts above him, murmurs things he won’t recall later and Ghost holds on, tries not to spiral, takes it well. It’s sharper without alcohol. More visceral. He still finds himself drifting in that place of emptiness; a vague and dark stretch of nothing making space only for bright, spitting sparks of pleasure, bare and open for whatever König needs to take.
He’s making too much noise, knows this and can’t stop, covers his mouth with his forearm, bites into his own tattooed flesh to stop his moans breaking into awful desperate whines. Each exhale a laboured, shaking sound and he talks even with his mouth occupied; a string of half-words, mostly ‘fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck-’ into his own skin.
König pulls his arm away, holds it against the bed, an echo of the roughness Ghost is used to.
‘C’mon, look at me. No one else gets you like this, do they?’ König fixed on him, heavy, pushing.
‘Fuck’s sake…’ half-moan, half hard exhale, Ghost doesn’t know what to do with that but he likes the way it hits, how it says what he can’t, how it hurts something inside him.
König links their fingers again, brings Ghost’s hand up to his parted lips, and without really knowing why, or if he should, Ghost pushes his thumb into König’s mouth. Hooks the joint over König’s bottom teeth, feels the warm slide of his tongue, the blunt force of a gentle bite. König moans above him, right from the back of his throat, eyes on Ghost but empty too, lost and hazy and unfocused. Ghost half sits up propped on his elbow, slides his thumb in further, tilts his hips and König’s eyes roll back, flickering closed.
‘Jesus.’ Ghost says, kind of amazed, feeling König’s dick throb heavily inside him. König sucks softy, kicks up his thrusts and his brows crease hard in the middle, vein thick and thudding in his pale neck. A harsh groan tears out of him, Ghost feels it all the way down his arm. He thinks about pushing two fingers into König’s mouth, slipping them out, fucking him with them, König drooling helplessly and glass-eyed down his wrist. He thinks about how it would feel for them to switch places, wonders savagely what kind of things König would let him do.
Ghost swallows, pulls his thumb free and makes sure König watches him suck the spit right off it. He falls back flat to the bed, a white hot pressure in his gut, legs falling open, feet tangled in the sheets. König clutches his waist, using his weight to pull Ghost’s body roughly down on his cock, meeting the curving, forward jerks of his hips.
‘Mhh-yeah, just like that-’ Ghost knows he asked for it slow and this doesn’t feel quite like that; it feels sort of fevered and intense and sweat-drenched and Ghost knows it will live inside his head for weeks, the delicate touches and the animal pace and the lack of substances to dull the edges, all of it will come back. He’s okay with that, likes it even. Maybe he’ll wake with his dick hard and grind mindlessly into his own bed thinking about it.
König drives into him, getting lost inside his own head as they fuck, and he’s talking slow and slurred and unending - Ghost’s heartbeat thrums in his ears, a muted whoosh of his own blood flooding through his veins. He’s aching. All through his muscles and in the depths of him, aching and wanting and hurting and desperate.
‘Look at you,’ König forces out, something like disbelief, like loss of control. ‘Look what I get to do to you.’
Ghost’s body reacts instantly, a twisted groan, pained, a tightening right through his core. He shuts his eyes like that might block it out, like not seeing how close König is to losing it might dull the sharp sting of want those words leave.
He could come like this, has done before, just listening to König talk him through it as he’s fucked viciously. It’s too raw this time, too real, the edge of König’s words too sincere for Ghost to handle while he’s out of his mind like this, but he’s been one well-timed murmur of praise in that pretty accent from coming since König first touched his body hours ago -
König’s hands move up his body now, further, slowly up to his chest, and when Ghost opens his eyes König leans over him, palm to the side of Ghost’s neck, thumb at the soft part of his ear. Sweat beads and slides on his forehead, catches strands of his hair and flattens them to his skin.
Ghost reaches up for him, one hand on the back of his head, brings König down further until their foreheads touch, sliding and heavy and hot, breathing each other in, their own version of a kiss that doesn’t hurt like it could.
‘You feel so fucking good. So good and you’re mine.’ König says, and Ghost believes it, if only for a moment. König catches Ghost’s calf and hooks it over his massive shoulder and Ghost’s moan turns to a broken, pathetic sound and by instinct alone he grips his cock, hard and slick and hot in the cramped space between his legs, starts stroking it.
‘Yeah I’m yours. Come with me.’ He says raggedly, his mouth almost touching König’s, the closest they’ve ever been to destroying everything and Ghost doesn’t care, wants it so fully it tears at his chest, König stutters in his rhythm like something in him just snapped loose, panting and moaning through the wet, down-soft smacking of their skin -
‘Oh fuck oh - fuck - are you sure?’
‘Yeah. I want it.’ Ghost is nodding, yes, yes, please fucking god -
‘Fuck-’ Ripped from König’s mouth, pure lust and a thoughtless, spiralling exhalation of feeling -
Ghost’s chest heaves, a shuddering like he’s drowning, and his fist tightens on his cock, pumping roughly, jagged movements that draw sharp, deep pressure through his body, building and building -
‘I’m so fucking close. Give it to me.’ Begging now, like he has before but meaning it this time, needing the way it sends König into a frenzy, turns his thrusts blunt and quick and so deep, getting loose and uncontrollable- ‘Just like that, yeah that’s it, oh my god - fuck-’
‘Ghost-’
‘Yeah? Fuck - come on. Please please pl-’
A sound like a sob, a cracked moan, a single, deep thrust and Ghost feels nothing but the weight of König’s cock throbbing thickly inside him as he comes. It does something to Ghost’s mind, feeling that in his body. Turns it to a black space, surrendered and wide open and taking everything, letting it flood into him, hearing nothing but the meeting of their bodies and the gutted struggle of their breaths -
Ghost is coming before he realises it, something dragged forcibly over the edge of his consciousness with a low gasp, hot and fast across his stomach and chest and right up to his neck, free-falling into the aching, pitching clench of his muscles that pulls broken moans from König, mixing with his own, a pure white noise of desperation and release so raw and so deep he doesn’t know how long it’s been happening. Dark, hard shocks of pleasure beat through him as they breathe against each other’s mouths, lips just catching but not enough, everything around them falling away, their movements scraped bare and devoid of thought.
‘Oh - fuck -’ Ghost pants, tightens his legs uselessly, one caught heavily over König’s forearm, one hand knotted in König’s hair, holding him close. ‘Oh my god oh my g-od-’ their skin slides, dewed with sweat, still fucking but slowly, like it hurts but they still need it, on and on and König is still hard and Ghost is still burning for it; can’t think or stop or speak so just lets it happen. Wet and full and barely a thought in his head. König is murmuring something low against Ghost’s mouth, not in English. His voice like Ghost has never heard it, worn raw to a whisper. Ghost does kiss him then. A press of his lips against the corner of König’s mouth, a half-thing, but it feels right anyway, tasting like salt.
König rolls his forehead softly against Ghost’s, lets his weight fall forward on the bed above Ghost’s shoulder.
‘Holy fuck.’ He sounds beaten down and perfect, his hips still moving until they’re shaking in a slow grind, until Ghost’s legs fall limply back to the bed, easy and soft and letting go, minutes that he never wants to end.
He pulls out gently, Ghost keeps his complaint to a low, satisfied groan. König falls onto the mattress beside him, his chest rising and catching. Ghost’s body is wired, like a current runs through it and lights his nerves, pulls at him from the inside. He can feel his heartbeat everywhere, a thud in his vision like the flashing lights outside. He turns his head to the window, instead sees the thin grey light of dawn pushing through a gap in the blind. Its pale hand reaches for them. König says nothing. Ghost listens to the sound of their breathing, synced without trying. It’s the kind of moment where people might say things, promises, names. Just this once Ghost wants to hear it. The real one. But-
‘Ghost,’
He cranes his neck back towards König above him, too stiff to sit up. ‘Yeah..?’
A moment of emptiness, König blinking at the ceiling, pulse rippling steadily in his neck. Sharp angles of his face caught in half light.
‘I don’t know.’ He blows out a tired sigh and Ghost smiles, tries to shift his body but his neck aches sharply. He rubs a hand across his face, cooling sweat at his wrist.
An empty-minded kind of acceptance settles on them in the quiet. Its heavy, but Ghost has carried heavy things all his life, and this one isn’t so bad. König’s weight is gone from over him but Ghost still feels the shape of him, the heat of his body, the press of all that mass, something warm and comforting torn away. He drifts, sheets stuck to the backs of his knees, between his shoulder blades. König is still silent beside him, fingertips catching Ghost’s wrist, not moving.
He feels kind of bruised, like sometime in the last few hours he’s undertaken something new, isn’t used to the way it fits. Time stretches out and Ghost listens to the sounds of the room, the tick of the heating, the whir of the bathroom fan they forgot to switch off. A car starts on the street outside, its engine kicking up and spluttering in the cold.
König shifts, just once. Ghost turns his face slightly toward him. It takes a long time for any words to rise.
‘Hey. Ghost’s knuckle nudges the flat side of his bare thigh. ‘You good?’ he asks, voice rough and thin in the half-light.
‘Yeah, just thinking.’
‘Go on.’
A moment and then, ‘You know, when I fell off that ridge I thought it might be over.’ His voice is steady, quiet, something wavering at its edges.
Ghost says nothing, waits for this new thing growing in the air between them to show itself.
‘I was on my ass in the dirt, and rounds were coming from both sides, and I just stared at the sky. Like I was waiting for it to happen.’ He frowns, caught in the memory. ‘Know what I thought about?’
Ghost shakes his head, a small, nothing-movement.
‘I thought about the last thing we said to each other. But I couldn’t remember it. I felt so sick I just got up and carried on.’
Ghost swallows. Feels a little like he’s been handed something that’ll cut him if he holds it wrong. Doesn’t know what to say. ‘You’re alright now though.’ He offers uselessly. ‘You’re with me.’
‘Am I?’
Ghost does sit up then, tendons pulling, old injuries rearing their heads. ‘König.’
The first time he’s said it in months, the shape strange in his mouth. Intimate.
‘Do you ever wish we’d never started this?’ König says, gaze still on the ceiling. Its soft, not accusing, a sudden thought made solid.
‘No.’ Ghost replies flatly.
‘Sometimes I think it would be easier.’
‘Course it would.’
A door slams somewhere down the hall. Low mechanical whine of the elevator waking up. König’s face softens into a worn smile. He looks at Ghost then, features arranged how they should be, wall almost all the way back up. In the grey morning light he’s clearer, eyes kind of bright.
‘Sorry I kept you awake all night.’ He says. Easy, a gentle tone.
Ghost still staring, still catching up. ‘I wanted you to.’ And then, ‘Don’t sleep much anyway.'
‘No I guess you don’t.’ König replies. He stretches, groans, rolls his shoulders, tucks one hand leisurely behind his head. ‘Shit, my back’s ruined.’
There are words trying to form in Ghost’s mouth, fighting against each other for clarity or purpose. He pushes them down. Stays quiet.
König runs his other hand through the tangle of his hair. It’s dry now, soft from sweat, haloed against the sheet. Ghost wants to touch him, feel something he recognises. Wants to follow the pull he feels somewhere in his chest all the way, see where it leads. Instead he gets up, the bed creaks. His back cracks dully as he straightens. Naked still and feeling it, smelling like sex and dried sweat and nearly swaying on his feet at the end of the bed. König watches him, level and affectionate, stretched out.
‘Mind if I take the shower first?’ Ghost says, König smiles, soft and lopsided, like the answer’s obvious.
‘You don’t have to ask.’ Ghost glances at him, just for a second and König adds, gentle - ‘You look good like this. Shame you can’t stay.’
There’s something a little winded about how Ghost feels standing there in front of him, everything drawing him back to König, down, between his parted thighs, just a little longer-
‘Yeah.’ Ghost lets himself enjoy the view for a moment. Soft rise and fall of his stomach as he breathes, one knee bent, kicked out to the side. ‘Travesty.’
The bathroom light hums. Bare feet on cold tiles, Ghost holds his hand under the water until it’s hot. Steps underneath and lets it scald the haze right out of him. In four hours' time he’ll be on a plane, in thirteen he’ll be in Belarus and by then his head needs to be on real fucking straight. The water hits his face. Squinting against the downpour he scrubs at his skin, faint knowledge that he’ll come out of here smelling of König, of the same cheap hotel soap.
He’s finished a few minutes later. Steam in the air, billowing in the draft from the extractor on the wall. It leaks a line of grey down the tile. Ghost with his back to the door, scrubbing a towel over his face, and he doesn’t flinch when it opens with a click behind him. König steps in wordlessly, brushes past Ghost with a hand at his waist, heavy-lidded, slow-moving.
Ghost leaves him in there, dries off in the bedroom. Strips the sheets because he’s not an animal, shoves the bed with his shin where they moved it off its dents in the carpet. He starts to get dressed, drags it out. The water runs for a long time. Ghost listens absently as he pulls on his jeans. It sounds like König’s not really washing, just standing there and letting the water flow over him. Cotton t-shirt over his head, jacket, boots laced. His mask is held in his hands still when König reappears a few minutes later.
He’s moving with a familiar looseness, towel low around his hips, skin damp and flushed all over again. His eyes flick to Ghost, and for a second something warm and alive flickers between them.
‘Thought you’d be gone by now.’ he says, small amused curve on his mouth. He adjusts the towel, drips run onto his shoulders, down his back.
‘Owe you a goodbye, at least.’
‘You don’t owe me a thing.’
Ghost leaves it unanswered. Says instead, ‘I’d appreciate it if you didn’t fall off any more cliffs.’
König almost laughs, doesn’t. Just looks at him for too long, takes the sight of him all the way in. ‘I’ll try.’
‘Good.’ Ghost checks his watch, lifts his backpack off the ground, heaves it onto his shoulder. The weight helps. A long pause, and then -
‘You’re alright now.’ Ghost says again. Tries to be softer this time, tries to mean it.
König nods. ‘Yeah. I’m with you.’
Ghost waits for it to settle in him, knows it probably won’t, ever. He walks to the door. Pulls on his mask, stops with his hand on the frame. ‘Take care of yourself, alright?’
‘You too.’
‘You can stay as long as you like,’ he adds after a moment. ‘I’m not footing the bill, though.’
It earns him a small, restrained smile. ‘See you around.’ König stands there by the bed, tired and open, hair dark and curling at his temples, bruises clouding over his chest, a mark on his collarbone where Ghost bit too hard.
Ghost nods once, an inward gesture. He opens the door, steps out into the corridor, snaps it shut behind him.
The air is colder here, stale with the smell of cleaning products. A vending machine hums, a distant voice gives directions in Polish down the hall, a phone rings in a room to the left. Normal life grinding forever onwards.
Ghost makes it ten steps before his body stops. There’s nothing intentional about it, just a flat refusal to move any further. He stands still, feels the shake of his heart inside his ribcage, stares at his boots, breathes through it. Rests a hand on the wall, feels the cold, smooth paint under his palm.
Then, for five full seconds, he lets himself want to turn around. Imagines his knuckles hitting the door, König answering, not saying anything, pulling him inside by the front of his jacket. Ghost lets himself imagine staying, lets himself want it.
Then he pushes off the wall, and starts walking again.
*