Work Text:
silence is the language of god,
anything else is poor translation.
“You’re gonna get me killed, Colonel”, Lyle mutters, more to himself than in actual protest. “Again”.
And it’s not that he’s afraid of dying (once you’ve done it, there really isn’t anything that scary about it), or that he’s actually annoyed at Quaritch, or that he’s gonna disobey an order (he’s thought about it, but ultimately decided against)... It’s just, well, that blind faith that Quaritch has in himself is starting to become old news.
At first, it was endearing. At first, it was the thing that drew him into Quaritch’s squad and orbit, and once you were in, the only way out was death. At first, this blind faith — for how much Quaritch denied that he ever believed in anything — made him feel seen, wanted, trusted to have Quaritch’s back... it was like being drunk on the best mead, heady and hot in your stomach and warm in your throat, the tingle and the sweetness of honey on your mouth... He was addicted to it.
It was easy to become addicted to Miles Quaritch and the way he made you feel the centre of the universe, even if for a little bit. But — like with every drug out there — the supply eventually ran out, and you were left reeling, desperate and alone. Ready to take any sort of substitution, even the diluted stuff, even under the danger of death.
So he did it. He took the chance and signed away both his body and his soul over to the RDA — but to Miles Quaritch in actuality.
The first night it happens, Quaritch has to repeat himself.
“Lyle!..”
Quaritch is on his way out of the cabin, but turns at the door and looks at him again. Apprehensive, like he’s not entirely decided whether Lyle’s worth it.
“I’m going to my cabin, Lyle. You joinin’?”
It sounds nonchalant. Matter-of-fact. He sounds casual, almost as if he’s inviting Lyle over for a nightcap and not... — whatever this is.
Sure, they’ve had some (Mansk always has something stacked away, his measure of dealing with shit that gets too much even for a badass Marine like Johnny), and Colonel had joined them for a bit. It’s hard to judge with their new blue bodies how drunk they are. So, when some half an hour, he hits the head to piss (and get some quiet from Z-dog and her incessant gum-chewing out of his head), the last thing he expects is this — whatever this is... Quaritch offering to fuck him? Lyle’s too drunk for that shit. Or, maybe, not drunk enough.
Lyle squints.
“Sir, what exactly is this? Are you offering to fuck me?.. Out of what, charity?”
Quaritch scoffs, and one of his eyebrows twitches upwards in that delicious way (Lyle can almost imagine Quaritch saying who do you take me for, Searge? he’s so fluent in the eyebrow twitching language of one Colonel Miles Quaritch, revived).
“I don’t do charity, Lyle. You should know that best, out of everybody...”
Lyle blinks. He’s definitely not drunk enough for this.
Lyle blinks again. His mind is drawing a blank.
Quaritch sighs, in something that sounds almost like disappointment... The last thing Lyle wants is to disappoint him, so he reaches out... for something, but Colonel’s turned away already, and Lyle’s coordination is not at its best now... He wants to grab him by the shoulder, forearm, wrist, anything, but he misses and grabs him by the tail instead.
It’s weird, the whole “dying and coming back as a three-meter-tall blue alien” thing. Lyle’s a Marine: he knows missions and objectives, and usually when there’s one of those, there are drills. Briefings, preparation, reconnaissance... This is... whatever this is, it's uncharted territory for him. Unfamiliar. This is the first time he’s doing it, and he’s in over his head. He’s drunk enough to admit it.
Lyle drops his hand back and tries to school his expression back into something that doesn’t look like he’s a drooling schoolgirl who has just seen the boy she has a crush on without a shirt for the first time.
“Wait”, he croaks out. “You serious?”
“Like a heart attack, Lyle.”
He nods; he doesn’t think he can trust his voice not to crack just now.
The walk to Miles’ cabin is silent. Lyle falls a few steps behind, a SIC to his officer — a role he knows and understands. He tries not to think too hard about Quaritch and what will happen once they reach his cabin, lest he gets a brain aneurysm.
Once they’re in, Lyle doesn’t know what to do with himself. He’s sobered up a little, but not enough to give up on the idea entirely. After all, it was Quaritch who offered. Lyle’s not gonna chicken out just because he wishes he could be a bit drunker, his tongue looser, and his brain quieter. He leans against the wall. Fumbles with his hands, and finally, settles with one hand on his thigh holster.
“Look, man... as I said, it’s an offer. You can take it or leave it. No rank here: don’t have to do anything you don’t want to.”
“I want to!”
That was too fast. Too eager.
Quaritch smiles at him, canines showing.
“Copy, champ. But, just an idea”, he chuckles, “maybe think about it for more than a second?”
Lyle nods, if only because he’s used to agreeing with his CO. Even when he argues with Quaritch, it’s always after having thought it over, and “Permission to speak freely?” and “Shoot it, man”.
Lyle gets RDA is not the Corps, but it’s ingrained in him by now. If anything, Quaritch is the chill one between them, only pulling rank when it suits him and his agenda.
Lyle looks at his watch and counts to 15, which is definitely more than one. Looks up at Quaritch again and smirks.
“I want to.”
He clicks on the quick-release clasp on his vest. Sure, he could take it off the usual way, but hey, the quick releases gotta be good for something aside from getting shot, right? The vest falls to the belt, and Lyle unclasps both the vest's side buckles and the belt buckle. He wants it to be fast, but he’s not a savage. Also, he’s pretty sure he has some Semtex in his vest, and that shit needs gentle handling.
He’s not a greenie (pun intended).
Colonel’s smile grows broader. It seems impossible, but Quaritch’s been pushing the limits of what is impossible from the first moment Lyle met him back when he was only a PFC, facing his first deployment. His first kill.
A soft pink darts out to lick Quaritch’s lips, goes over his canines... — oh God, just shoot Lyle here and now.
It wasn’t like that when they were human. Sure, Lyle looked up to Miles. Gods, the man was as close to a father figure as Lyle ever had and could ever ask for. But ever since the whole turning blue shenanigan, it’s like Lyle’s back into his teenage mindset, and just looking at people (tails, and their hair, and their hands, and biceps — oh God, Quaritch’s biceps) can get him all hot and bothered. He doesn’t want it, and he doesn’t welcome it, but.. He’s been dealt shitty cards, and he has to play with what he has. Semper Fi to the grave, even if signing up with RDA has pushed the limits of “grave” for him and his squad.
Fucker has a dimple.
It hits Lyle suddenly, with the subtlety of an oncoming truck, almost like he’s being punched in his stomach. He’s hit, and his entrails are on the road for the squints at the RDA to put him back together... only, he’s been put together wrong.
Lyle’s not new to fucking. Neither is he new to fucking men: to rough hands, stubble burning the skin of his chin, and then — later — the inside of his thighs. What’s different is the dynamic. What’s different is blue fucking bodies. It’s like his arousal is a lightbulb one didn’t finish installing fully, and it flickers blearily until Quaritch comes along and fixes it. One turn of his wrist, one word, and it’s like Lyle’s being lit up with the brightness of thousands of lumens.
What Lyle's new to is this — Quaritch’s fingers on his face, their grip tight and unforgiving, Quaritch’s arms (oh Gods, those biceps) bracketing him into a wall, and Quaritch’s lips on Lyle’s own.
Heat coils low in his belly.
“Breathe, Lyle”, Miles chuckles, and then his mouth is on Lyle’s neck — biting, sucking, licking, marking.
Lyle’s outmatched. Outgunned. The body against him is wider, bigger, and stronger, and Miles doesn’t even have to try to pin Lyle against the wall. Out of two of them, Lyle got dealt a shitty hand, and his body is more that of Na’Vi than that of a human. He’s leaner than Quaritch, and he could probably take him in a fight with the sheer dexterity of this new body (although human Lyle was a bitch to fight against, too, and boy, did he fight dirty), but then this isn’t a fight. This is more of a dance, and Lyle has never bothered to learn.
Or maybe, Lyle thinks, just as Quaritch is sinking to his knees, maybe this is more like a communion.
A hand settles on his hip — scolding hot, like Lyle’s being branded.
Quaritch unzips his cammies, pulls them down, the determined strength of a man on a mission. Lyle’s still wearing his knee pads, so the fabric gets stuck a bit above, and Quaritch’s not happy — he lets out a screeching rawr, almost as if Lyle’s cammies are a personal enemy of Quaritch’s.
“Fuck..”
“Wait, let me,” Lyle says softly... because well, one needs to be soft under the scorching heat that is Quaritch. He melts Lyle down, moulds him into something new, something different. Something unique.
Lyle unclasps the knee pads and drops his pants.
Miles is looking at him as if he holds the body, the blood, and the soul of Christ in him. It’s intoxicating. If Lyle weren’t already drunk, he’d certainly feel like he is after whatever this is. A prayer. A worship. A sacrilege.
Miles Quaritch doesn’t believe in God, any God, but boy, does it feel like he’s worshipping when he’s on his knees. Lyle has never felt so fucking powerful. Not even in full kit, with his favourite AR as his constant companion. This — and the first touch of Quaritch’s tongue to his dick, faint and fleeting as it is, but so hot even through the thin fabric of his issued underwear — makes him feel like he’s mixing explosives, the danger of making one wrong move... and not getting out of it alive.
This is what it is to Quaritch. A hunt. He’s a predator, and Lyle sees it in the way he licks his lips when he looks up for a brief check-in... They don’t need those, even getting reborn into those new bodies, terrifying and thrilling as it is, cannot hinder the understanding they have, the camaraderie, the way they don’t need words to communicate... It feels like Lyle is on top of the highest mountain, and any wrong move can send him tumbling down on his ass.
He cares little for the new biology of his new body. A body is a body... but, then, he doesn’t remember everything being quite so bright and quite so electrifying back when he was a human. It may be the squints were right blabbering about the sensitivity and sensuality the blue dumbfucks have (connecting to nature and pleasure centre of the brain skewed somehow because of it, the fucking braid being an additional neural pathway or some shit), or maybe it is Quaritch. He has no baseline for it; the only time he’s ever gonna get this chance is now.
He forces himself to snap back into reality.
(Lyle does this sometimes — wanders off into his mind, and stops being present while his body acts on learned behaviours and patterns). He doesn’t want it now. He’s all in, and he wants to be present.
Active.
His dick is all the way out now, and Quaritch’s looking at him weird. Like, the unusual amount of weird. Lyle’s used to weird, and he mostly enjoys it in work and leisure. Especially in leisure. If he can make someone blush, or squirm, or laugh because of him, it gets him going. But this is too much even for him.
There’s a coil inside his belly, and he’s both terrified and anticipative to find out what the fuck happens when it uncoils.
He reaches out and puts a hand on Quaritch’s shoulder. Skin on skin, stripy blue on stripy blue.
“Quaritch”, he says breathlessly.
Lyle thinks he might have a heart attack from the way Quaritch looks in front of him. On his knees, his hand curled around Lyle’s dick. He’s listening to what Lyle says next, but keeps twisting his hand, tugging on Lyle.
Where’s Lyle’s riposte when one needs it so desperately?
“Bed?” he asks Quaritch, and well... this is marvellous, but he wants it to be more. He wants to push back and to give as good as he gets. He wants to ravish Quaritch, to make it so the only sound out of those sinful lips will be Lyle’s name.
(And that here is a sobering thought he decides to file down to ponder on later).
“Take off your boots, cupcake”, Miles looks at him, and his pants still pool around his ankles and his boots that are still on with a disapproving look. Like it somehow personally offends him that Lyle still has them on.
Which is an interesting thought, because... forgive Lyle for being busy trying not to come right there and then like a fucking sixth-grader.
“You, too”, he bites back, sharper than he intends to.
Fuck.
He sits on the bed, and unties his boots, and when he looks up, Quaritch is naked already, the dogtags still in between those pecs. Lyle wants to lick him all over.
He follows the line of his body, and something scrathy settles behind his solar plexus. A tingly sensation, that could be anticipation except it isn't one that happens before Lyle's about to get laid. He's familiar with that, and this here is different. This here is the desire for a person, and Lyle knows that's going to be a big fucking problem.
He pushes it to the back of his mind. To his try-to-never-think-about-it-again part of his mind. To the get-rid-of part of it.
The sight of naked Quaritch in front of him is obscenely overwhelming, so Lyle goes back to tugging both his boots and socks off.
He doesn’t know how long it takes, or how long Quaritch spends still looking at him, but he knows this: when the only thing left on Lyle is a set of dogtags and his glasses (he always forgets those exist when he pushes them up), Quaritch downright pounces on him.
Lyle clenches his teeth. Forces himself to breathe slowly.
As if he read the hesitation in his eyes, Quaritch reaches out and plants a kiss to the corner of his mouth. It's almost chaste except nothing they do could ever be chaste: Lyle bites back, and when a metallic taste reaches him, he licks it away, and pushes even deeper into Quaritch’s mouth.
He swears he can hear a purr (maybe it's Quaritch, maybe it's him).
The mattress of Quaritch’s cot is soft on Lyle's back, and he settles into it. Reaches out to yank Quaritch by the waist (the squints probably jerked off themselves to the absolute treasure of the waist they gave to Colonel's blue alter-ego), closer to himself and then closer some more. Their dicks brush together, both of them fully hard. The friction and the heat of it might actually push Lyle over the brink of insanity, and he's not the most stable tool in the shed as is.
There's fervour in the way they move together, and Lyle's not sure if it's him or their new bodies’ second puberty that makes it so intense. He doesn't care.
Lyle knows his role here. An obedient attack dog in everything else, this feels like a part of his training. He knows what to do. Don’t lose control. Give back. Don’t take advantage. Adapt.
He's not entirely sure Quaritch understands the gravity of what this is to Lyle. Lyle himself probably doesn't, if he's completely honest with himself.
Quaritch rests his forehead in the crook of Lyle's neck, his breath hot on Lyle's clavicle.
There’s a weird gleam to Quaritch’s eye, like he’s not sure he understood Lyle correctly and wants to ask again. He doesn’t, and Lyle’s hesitant to break the silence for something he’s not sure was there for long enough. It happens a lot to Lyle; he’s learned to shut it down even before deploying to Pandora.
“What do you want with me, sir?”
“I think I’ve been pretty clear,” he smiles, pulling their hips together until the contact is nearly unbearable.
That's all Lyle needs. He was in this position before. This is almost like a drill: there's a condom somewhere in his cammies, and he's pretty sure the biology of their new species means they need no lube (if anything, Lyle would like to eat Quaritch out, thank you very much). This is familiar. This is easy. This, he knows.
So, he's sprung into action before Quaritch can surprise him again with his disappearing looks and soft touch.
He hooks his ankles behind Quaritch’s ass and, with a bit of cooperation (and a sly smirk on Quaritch’s face), they've switched positions. They're horizontal, so no getting on one's knees is required, but the way he now can slither down Quaritch’s body and kiss every mole and every scar and every freckle?.. Hundred times better.
Something about this blue body is that the skin is thicker, so it makes absolutely no sense for his fingertips to be this sensitive to temperature, and yet, the moment he touches Quaritch’s hip bone, and then lower and to the side, hooks up his hand right under Quaritch’s ass, it feels like getting burned. It feels like lighting a gas stove and not being fast enough to pull your fingers away, so they burn the tips, and a white film forms over that, which is somehow even more sensitive to stimuli... Lyle’s losing his mind here.
He’s also pretty sure he’s the one getting fucked tonight, but before that happens, he has to try. He has self-preservation instincts of someone who signed their body and soul away to the military, which is to say none at all, and if someone asks him, that is exactly the reason he goes further in his exploration of Quaritch’s body. He puts his mouth on his dick (God, if one exists, spent a lot of time perfecting this dick), and it is angry-purple for all the blood rushing in. This here is a worship, a eucharist.
Lyle hollows out his cheeks and sucks in, swirls his tongue around the head and the slit, the taste of it slightly salty. Quaritch’s breath hitches, and it’s all Lyle needs. His fingers go further, the pad of his index finger finally touching there, behind Quaritch’s balls.
He’s fucked men before, but this here is different. Whether it’s their new blue bodies, or the fact that it’s Miles Quaritch and for Lyle, it’s like he’s back at SOI training and sitting around idly as a MAT. Not quite here, nor quite there. Waiting to be uprooted and moved in a matter of seconds. Always taut and ready to bounce. Or, like clearing a minefield, when one wrong move decides whether he lives or dies.
He’s a risk-taker, Lyle is. It usually comes back to bite him in the ass spectacularly, but well, the reward is usually worth the risk. He fakes the confidence until he can make it, and when he does, it’s either a stupendous fuck-up that all of the confidence in the world could not save him from, or a roaring success.
The reactions he can pull from Quaritch with a twist of his tongue are reward enough. They are reward enough for Lyle to throw caution to the wind (if they had any here, instead of a holo screen).
“Fuck me already, Lyle.”
Lyle’s dead. He was never brought back to the blue body, and even if he was — this, right here, would have killed him all over again. He feels shaky, and so is the breath that leaves his mouth.
Blank screen. Error code or some shit. No way in hell Quaritch just asked him — nay, gave him an order — to do what Lyle thinks he did. That’s it. He spent too much quality time with Browning, and now his hearing is gone, because there’s no way in hell...
Except it is.
Except this Lyle doesn’t really know this Quaritch.
Except he’s overthinking everything again, and it might be just that Quaritch is too lazy to fuck him, and is instead indulging in learning his new biology’s capabilities first-hand. Or, more like first-dick. Which is, well, it’s not fair of Lyle to judge, seeing as he has to think about chow back at BMT to stop himself from finishing right there and then, a mere thought of Quaritch’s inviting heat enough to push him over. Liver pate. Surstroming. Naked Jason Caruso from ROTC, landing in a pile of mud when he fell off trying to do a pull-up. Farts. Dead bugs. Tapeworm. This giant-ass Pandoran panther cat. Anything to keep his cool.
It’s kinky, too. What Marine (what guy in general) hadn’t thought about what having a vagina might feel like? Everyone did it. No one would acknowledge it, because that shit’s gay, but everyone thought about it once or twice. Or every time he fucked a chick he hit it off with during his leave, in Lyle’s instance, wondering what it felt like for her. Wondering if she’s kinky enough to peg him, too.
It’s like that now, too, and entirely different at the same time.
He lets Quaritch’s dick pop out of his mouth with a sound so wet and so obscene even he, himself, cringes a little.
He swears he can hear a purr when his finger finally creeps further, and further and finally into the wet heat of Miles’s cunt. He’s not entirely sure how bumping uglies works when they’re blue, and he errs on the side of caution here. One, two fingers in and a few minutes (it simultaneously feels like all the time in the world and not nearly enough of it) of motioning come-hither inside Miles — and maybe a mewl or two, although Lyle would lie under oath if asked who it belonged to — he finally gathers enough of his faculties to stop. Withdraw. There was a condom in his cammies. He remembers putting it in his pocket. Where the fuck are his pants now?
“Changed your mind, champ?”
Miles is sprawled out, like a big, lazy cat. Lethargic. It’s a secret between the two of them here that he is, in fact, an apex predator, and Lyle’s been caught.
He props his elbow and turns to the side a little, his leg going on top of the other, bent at the knee. And, okay, Lyle — logically, at least — knows that they are well over 9 feet now, which means the proportions of the body changed, too, but Lyle’ll be damned if this isn’t the longest leg he’s ever seen. The sexiest thigh, a white-ish light of their cabin, a subtle gleam on the striped skin. Carolina blue, RAF blue, Carolina, RAF, it’s maddening.
“Condom,” he answers to Miles’ questioning look. When did he start thinking of him as Miles and stop as Quaritch?
He looks like he might say something, but ultimately decides against it.
“Got it”, Lyle shows a foil package that he found inside his boot, of all places. There’s a crude joke in here somewhere.
Gotta love the squints for thinking about them and providing all the necessary shit for their newfound blue bodies and all the leisure options that come with it. Lyle doesn’t think even Magnum makes them this big.
He’d like to say that he sees heaven when he pushes into Miles, but the reality is he’s on autopilot. It’s all a blur for him, until he thrusts once more, hard, and is stopped by a hand on his chest.
“Lyle”, Miles says, and it’s like Lyle’s pulled back into his body. All sensations amplified.
Oh my fucking God, someone needs to outlaw his accent. Seriously.
He stops thrusting, suddenly extremely conscious and aware of his body, and the way his body feels, and bloody hell, the way it feels to be inside Quaritch’s body... It’s hard to stay still.
Quaritch grabs him by the arm, and it upsets the balance — before either of them can realise it, Lyle’s on top of Quaritch, and his elbows have given out, and they’re so fucking close Lyle can feel his body being moved up and down with Quaritch’s chest, when he breathes. In and out.
Quaritch pulls him even closer, and a little up — and kisses him, eyes squeezed shut. (Lyle’s so fucked). It’s also the best kiss he’s ever had, even though it’s short and awkward, all lips and teeth and no tongue. He smells of sweat and base-issued soap, and unmistakably Miles.
He waits, still, for the command to be given, and when, — finally — Quaritch breathes out and nods, his hand going on Lyle’s ass cheek, and forcing him to move, close and impossibly closer, Lyle might cry. It’s like he’s on fire, all of his neurons electrified and ready to receive. It’s the most intense he’s felt in years. The most alive.
There’s nothing sure anymore anyway.
He’s not sure he will be able to let go and forget about it once Quaritch’s finished with him.
He briefly wonders if the natives have it figured out, if the sex is always this intense for them, if maybe they did know something about this bond shit, where their braids touched. He used to dismiss it completely, but maybe Jake Sully and his local tail had it figured out better than Lyle himself did, all scrambled brain and no one there except white coats when he first opened his eyes in this body. In a white, empty lab, still convinced he was fucking bleeding out, and choking on a panicked cry, his only company and witness to his weakness behind a tempered bulletproof glass, clad in their lab coats and writing pads with clinic notes as their fucking shields. He tried not to think about it, second chance at life and all that jazz, but, well, it was kinda hard to forget dying. It wasn’t clean, and it wasn’t pretty.
Quaritch gets it.
Sure, he was one of the last to be woken up, and as reluctant as Lyle is to admit it, he had his squad with him. Lyle, Z-dog, Johnny, and everyone on their squad were woken up alone, so all in all, Quaritch handled it better than they did.
Something in him is bitterly aware of that, still.
Miles’s hand is sharp on Lyle’s ass, fingernails digging in, and forcing him forward, to thrust harder and harder. Deeper. Miles’s thighs clamp around Lyle, and then it’s like Lyle’s pushed back into his body, into awareness, and everything is suddenly sharp and loud. Deafening.
He bites down on Miles’s shoulder and pushes in, unrelenting.
No one has ever done this to him. No one ever made him feel like that. Lose control like that. It’s a funny thing to have first times at his age. Except for the dying and coming back in an alien’s body part, that one’s most certainly not.
“Fuck”, Miles exhales, sharp and husky.
Lyle privately thinks this should be outlawed; there's no way in hell it’s fair what that little word, bitten off and private in its quietness, does to him. It’s an out-of-body experience, and he suddenly feels like a voyeur, a stranger to his own body, just looking in and stealing those little moments for himself to lament over later.
Fuck indeed.
Lyle responds with a quiet hum, flexing his hips some more, rocking into Miles, closer and sharper. He looks down at Quaritch (a big mistake on his part): his pupils are constricted to small slits, and the irises are like amber. So amber, in fact, Lyle’s afraid that if he looks into Miles’s eyes for too long, he’s gonna get stuck like all those carefree insects before him; Lyle is not carefree, and neither is he careless... But looking into his eyes, their hips still flush together, and the sweat from his forehead dripping onto Quaritch’s blue skin — the colour of tree sap being mixed with pyrite, Lyle’s brain unhelpfully supplies, — he thinks it may be worth it. This here — in the movements of his hips, and the quiet whimpers he can’t fight anymore, and the way Miles’s cuspids are slightly visible when he bites his lower lip, and all the other million details Lyle feels drunk on... — all worth it, even if he needs to walk away and forget about it ever happening. Not even. When.
He thrusts especially hard, especially deep, because if he can’t have Quaritch for longer than this once, he’ll at least be sure to make him remember, if not in his mind than in his body.
Miles’s head lolls back during one of those absolutely delicious thrusts, and he half-swears, half-purrs.
Hot sparks crawl down Lyle’s spine, all the way to his tail, which seems to be living a life of its own.
He has to press the heel of his palm roughly to the base of his erection to stave off an orgasm that has no right to be as close as it is.
Quaritch is eyeing him lazily, like an appraiser in a pawn shop. His dick, neglected up until now in favour of his other parts, lies on his stomach, already in a pool of stickiness. Lyle’s tongue itches, pictures of him licking it from Miles’s skin popping into his mind.
"Shh," Miles soothes, closing his eyes and tipping his head back, exposing the long line of his throat, "slow down, enjoy it."
Fuck Lyle seven ways to Sunday, this man is gonna be the death of him.
Lyle nearly fucking weeps.
He can’t ignore a command from Quaritch, not unless it’s an unlawful one — and even then, Lyle’s grasp on morality is, well, questionable at best, so he usually relies on Quaritch’s or Mansk’s judgement as it is — but this here?.. It’s a request, and Lyle certainly cannot ignore a request from Quaritch, not in that voice, too.
“Didn’t figure you’d be this quiet”.
“What, you want me to talk dirty?”
The tips of Lyle’s ears go red. He chews on his lower lip a little, contemplating what to respond.
“Not like that”, he settles on. “I just want to make it worth it for you”.
Quaritch sighs, a little tired, almost as if he had this exact conversation a million times, and he’s running out of arguments. It’s a first one for Lyle, though.
“It is," Miles says, his voice devoid of his usual authority. “It is, Lyle”.
It may show on Lyle’s face that he doesn’t exactly believe him, because the next thing Lyle knows, he’s being manhandled and pushed around until it’s him on his back, and Miles, a little out of breath, is on top of him, looking a little too smug for Lyle’s liking.
“Lyle”, he says, accentuating every other word. “I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t”.
And, well, if Lyle thought fucking Quaritch was akin to a religious experience before, he’s downright seeing Jesus now. Quaritches reaches down, his braid — kuru — dangling down, the individual hairs tickling Lyle’s chest, and Lyle briefly wonders what if? He’s heard enough scuttlebutt and has been around Spider enough to know the implications and the significance of it, which is exactly the reason he’ll never ask for it, but it slithers into his mind, like water into cracks, and well... the idea is planted.
He’s not gonna act on it, he’s not an idiot, despite what his recent actions might lead you to believe, so instead, he reaches up, his fingers wrapping around the base of the braid, and he pulls, hard.
“Oh?” Miles asks, surprised and just a little winded. “Is it like that now?”
“Maybe”, Lyle whispers.
He’s a coward. He’s an idiot and a coward, and if this is the closest he can be, he’ll take it. He pushes up into Miles, harsh and desperate to reach even deeper into the man, while his other hand lands on Quaritch’s hip, splayed there over a bone and blue skin, hot-iron branding itself on it.
The frustrated pinch of Quaritch’s brow eases slightly, just a little.
It is like that for a while: Miles on top of him, his hips doing little circles and his breath coming out in short little spurts, peppered with huffs, mewls and the occasional “Fuck”, and if Lyle listens harder, a bitten-off “Lyle” can be heard, too. He tries not to let it get to his head, but ultimately fails.
“Miles”, Lyle groans out, on an exhale, and oh, the things they could be doing. He’s hungry and greedy, and while — logically — he knows he can’t have it all in the span of a single fuck, he’s desperate to fit as much as he can into it. To burn it on the inside of his retinas for his wank bank — and if imaginary Miles will kiss him like it actually means something, well, Lyle’s the last one to complain.
He’s a sergeant. He’s Miles’ SIC. It makes him privy to things others in their squad aren’t privy to, but it’s also the reason he’s so close to Miles. So close it hurts him. Too close.
He’s also a little bit fucked in the head, because everyone who signs more time after their initial tours are over — one way or another — is. There are a whole bunch of reasons people join up, and then stay out of obligation but leave the moment the fucked-up shit that made them join is over and taken care of; those who stay after usually have something to prove or, alternatively, nothing to lose.
Lyle was all but a few months into his specialist training and still waiting for his security clearance to come through when Miles spotted him and snatched him over to the Recon unit. In a weird twist of fate, the unit he was initially in was deployed to Venezuela soon after Lyle’s transfer papers were finalised. In a cruel twist of fate, or if any of the pencil pushers over in HR had been a little more laid back about deadlines, he could’ve been in that shitshow, that ambush. He could’ve been in Sully’s unit.
Instead, he ended up with Quaritch as his CO. They still deployed to the same places, and more, but the timeline was different, and he was spared getting in anything serious he couldn’t crawl his way out of with all his limbs intact. Well, except for PCSs, but everyone and their uncle had them. It was like a badge of honour for the Corps. Been there, done that, got the t-shirt and the PCS to prove it sort of shit.
It’s funny how fate keeps fucking him over. By the time his reenlistment papers came, three tours in, he was so far gone he would have followed Quaritch everywhere had he called.
Never in his wildest dreams — except the ones he had in the privacy of his own room, locks triple-checked and a bottle of hand lotion at the ready by his bed — that he allowed himself this would happen. Not only would he be allowed to see Quaritch naked, blue bodies notwithstanding, but that it would be this whole ordeal and not a quickie in a supply closet where Quaritch would just pull his pants down and fuck him from behind — hard, a little sticky from the impossible heat of this fucking place, and rushed.
This is infinitely better. This way, he looks his fill. He remembers every tiny tremble, every tiny reaction, every tiny humph leaving Miles’s lips where Lyle thrust his hips up with more bite than strictly necessary. His rhythm is getting more erratic, and he feels himself getting closer.
A whine, high-pitched and needy, leaves his throat despite his tries to keep it in. He’s so out of it, he’s losing it, and his hips start to shake under Miles. He doesn’t want to come, not yet-
But Miles is looking down on him, eyelids half down, almost as if he himself is struggling not to let himself squeeze his eyes in pleasure. His pupils are wide, and in the low lighting of the cabin, Lyle can barely make out the golden of his irises, the ring so thin it may as well be invisible. There’s a heavy, heady feeling at the bottom of his stomach, and lower, not all of which can be attributed to his arousal. It’s more. It’s the knowing he made it like that for Miles. It’s a feeling Lyle can probably get drunk on and get addicted to.
“Come on, Lyle”, Miles all but purrs and honestly, fuck that man. Fuck his pretty eyes, and shapely ass — and God, especially fuck those biceps. Lyle feels like he might cry if he looks at Miles, at the lilac-coloured blush high on his cheeks, and the way his dick bounces up and leaves a little wet spot right on top of Miles’s navel every time Lyle thrusts too hard, too sharply. He does it again, just because he can, and because he’s a lot of things, and petty is, unfortunately, among them.
He drives it home. He thrusts up, deep and deeper still, and then he moves his hips in little circles and eighths, his hand still splayed on Miles’s thigh, and he thinks he can cry from how intense all of it is.
And then Quaritch is changing the angle, reaching down, and- scratch that, Lyle might actually cry from how good it feels.
“Let go for me, Lyle”.
Oh, for fuck’s sake-
It’s over embarrassingly fast after that. He feels like his bones were all turned to mush, while still inside his body, and he can barely move, and there’s a pleasant weight of Miles still on top of him. He reached down, and Miles is so fucking wet and leaking, Lyle would probably be up for another round were he not so thoroughly fucked and bone-tired-
It takes him several tugs and a flick of his wrist before Miles’s spurting pearly, hot cum in between them.
They don’t talk.
Lyle allows himself a small reprieve to catch his breath, and then he’s oscar mike again.
There’s this moment where-
-Miles reaches to kiss him goodbye.
Lyle pulls away, of course, he does. It was a fluke. A one-time thing. A way to release tension. One did not go around kissing one's tension relief after the tension subsided; one cleaned up, made sure they weren’t seen, and promptly fucked off. It’s just the way things are.
Lyle’s not allowed to want more. And yet-
And yet, when he pulls away, Quaritch regards him with a weird look. Full of something Lyle can’t quite put his finger on, but he feels bile at the back of his throat. Panic knots in his stomach. The last time he saw that look, he also saw himself die.
Run, Lyle.
“This is the last time we do this, okay? Is that clear?”
His voice is strangely tight. Lyle nods slowly.
Stay quiet, Lyle.
The rest of the squad is still busy drinking, although a lot of them are nowhere near coherent and are sprawled out in different levels of consciousness all around.
Lyle quickly makes his way to his own bunk, regretful now of passing up the offer to shower off their activities in the quarters-adjacent shower Quaritch got. He just- he didn’t want it to end. He wanted to smell himself and Miles on his skin for a while longer.
He takes a quick wet-wipe shower, a thing one usually does for general hygiene, so as not to waste water.
They had resources now, and communal showers even had hot water sometimes, but something in him — something ugly and possessive — wanted to smell like Quaritch for as long as he could get away with it.
When he finally falls asleep, his cheeks are wet. He dreams of gunshots, and the smell of cedarwood and of quiet, soft let go for me, Lyle.