Archive of Our Own

Ἔρος δηὖτέ μ᾽ ὀ λυσιμέλης δόνει, γλυκύπικρον ἀμάχανον ὄρπετον”

”Eros once again limb-loosener whirls me sweetbitter, impossible to fight off, creature stealing up”

— Sappho, Fragment 130

It is well past eleven when they make it to the townhouse. Aerion had made a fuss about the car, which dragged dinner out well past its prime. He wanted to take it into town, claiming they had uni friends waiting at a bar they’d made promises to and can’t his dad and uncle just get a cab instead?

Maekar had waspishly reminded him he could take the taxi, as announcing yourself with a car baring the fucking family crest in Camden was as much an invitation to get mugged or stabbed as it was to get spat on.

The argument had lasted well beyond coffee, and left their quiet guest shifting awkwardly in his seat —an impressive feat given his size. Baelor had eventually summoned the maître d' and quietly asked him to prepare one of the restaurant's private cars for them—ignoring Maekar’s belligerent muttering—and just gave Aerion their driver for the night.

He’d left a very, very generous gratuity. It was the season of giving after all.

“He has become utterly spoiled!” Maekar announces this as news as soon as they are safely behind the privacy of closed doors, the staff dismissed for the night. He flings his heavy cashmere-blend coat carelessly over the drawing room's sideboard, where it slithers in a forgotten black mass to the floor. “The insufferable little shit. And that car stank of menthol cigarettes."

Baelor stoops to pick it up, carefully folding it over an arm before placing it neatly on the side along with his own for the staff to press and hang in the morning, while Maekar makes a beeline for the drinks cabinet.

“He was just showing off for his friend.”

Maekar scoffs. “Friend. He barely spoke to the boy, except when he was stealing food from his plate or feeding him off his own. Far more interested in regaling us with all his various academic successes, most of which seemed to take place on the rugby pitch. It was like he was his pet. I hope our money and novelty is worth enduring that kind of humiliation.”

“Yes, well, that is the age of experimentation,” Baelor says, circling the grand room to turn on the standard lamps, making the dark wooden panelling glow a little more invitingly. The house carries that cold, dormant feel that places get when they haven’t been inhabited for a while, despite the staff dutifully maintaining it. Baelor would bring a little warmth to it for the hours he and his brother shall enjoy it during their stay in the city before they return to their respective homes the following day. He turns and finds Maekar watching him intently, frown in place, crystal decanter frozen in his hand.

“What do you mean, experimenting?”

Baelor’s mouth twitches in a little smile. His brother could be surprisingly naive when it came to matters of his children. “Don’t you remember us at that age?”

“Yes,” Maekar snaps, face still twisted in outraged confusion. “What of it?”

“We could hardly keep our hands off each other, Maekar. We were nearly caught by Nanny at least three times in a single summer.”

“But that was us,” Maekar splutters, gesticulating dangerously with the container. “That’s not—” He stops himself mid-sentence, face losing its flummoxed expression and not particularly gaining a new one. He turns to finish pouring out his drink and knocks it back.

“Fuck me,” he mutters around a grimace that came from strong drink. “He is, as well, isn’t it? Christ, that boy is nearly twice his size.” He takes another swig, draining the glass, then refills it. “Not that I think that would in any way impede Aerion terrorizing him.”

He holds a glass out to Baelor, who crosses the room to accept it with a murmured thanks. Maekar is still wearing his perfectly fitted black leather gloves with ruby red stitching down the three points, which look very fine paired with the deep charcoal grey of his woollen sports coat. He’s always had cold hands, even as a boy. Baelor lets his own fingers brush against the butter soft leather in the exchange, enjoying their feel.

He’d had Maekar choke him with a pair very similar once, in the back of a hired car they’d rented for the day when they were in Berkshire for a cousin’s wedding. They snuck off for the afternoon before the rehearsal dinner for a few precious hours alone, shared a quarter of very poor Vodka they’d bought with cash from an off license, then fucked on the back seat in a deserted car park, inflicting delicious pain on each other in ways that wouldn’t obviously show above a suit. Baelor still enjoys tracing the cigarette burn he’d seared into Maekar’s left hip with his tongue.

They were much younger back then, with far less to be responsible for.

“This will be good for him,” he says, conversationally, slipping out of his dinner jacket and laying it over the back of a chair. The air in the room isn’t especially cool but his skin prickles under his turtle neck. He did not care for this time of year. Maekar always claimed Baelor was part lizard, made to bake in the continent's sun rather than be trapped in dreary old England. “Having someone who he can't easily bend to his every want. You saw how he… encouraged Aerion to drop that business with the waiter with the stammer.”

“Yes…” Maekar appears lost in thought, tracing his bottom lip absently with his tongue. “Do you think we… What we… ? Did he… did he ever realise…?”

“There isn’t much that could influence Aerion beyond his own stubborn wants and desires, brother,” Baelor says, in a gentle manner but one that doesn’t allow any room for doubt. “Certainly not in matters of the heart. And I don’t think he possesses the… delicacy necessary not to make his awareness of such a thing known.”

“Yes, no. No, of course.” Maekar looks down at his own black hands clutching his glass. Baelor watches the hard line of his shoulders loosen. “Well, the boy could always just sit on Aerion if he starts being a vicious sod, I suppose,” Maekar says, the usual assertiveness returning to his voice. “Might help burn off some of that endless bloody energy too. I’ll have Roland do a full background check. See if the great lump contains a single other facet besides his ability to be a one man scrum. Don’t want any unpleasant surprises.”

“It is good to see Aerion settling into his independence,” Baelor says in his most reassuring, placating voice, having had his fill of this subject for the evening and wishing to conclude it soon. “The first semester away is a true test of character, one he is embracing commendably. This shall be the making of him, I'm sure of it.”

“Yes, well, Daeron is in greater need of that, I’d wager. Though I’d be more likely to get him paragliding naked off Scafell Pike than I would getting him to take an interest in university again.” Maekar takes a seat heavily in one of the twin wing back armchairs, nursing his drink. Baelor knows him well enough that he will need a moment to brood on this, so takes up before one of the tall windows, enjoying the sweeping views of the broad river that cleaves the city, how it catches the glinting white-blue lights excessively adorned for the festivities, savouring his own drink.

All four brothers had contributed to the initial alcohol curation of the town house’s healthy stock after it was given to them by their father as young men, but as it was becoming increasingly impossible to drag Aerys away from his lecturing in Oxford and Rhaegel was not up to much travel these days, the selection had slowly been refined to just Baelor and Maekar’s preferences; work bringing them both here regularly. They’d discovered this particular Cognac the summer Baelor graduated from Cambridge, where they’d travelled across the continent together, Maekar primed for his last year at school and eager to see the world. Baelor sips the brandy, lost in the memory of pouring it copiously into each other’s messy mouths straight from the bottle and licking away the excess in the bath they shared in that gîte in Provence, which looked like it wouldn’t withstand one more hard winter.

“He looked well, did he not?” Maekar says into the silence after a while. “Healthy.” Baelor turns to look at him with a kind smile. Maekar’s brow carries the burdens of children who were still finding themselves, and Baelor gives yet another silent thanks that his own boys were so levelheaded and self-sufficient.

“Very well. He has matured greatly. The shorter hair suits him.”

Maekar’s expression does not change as he says, “He gets that from his uncle.”

“I’d say he looks very much like his father at that age.”

Maekar huffs in not quite amusement. “I did not pout quite so much, I think.”

“Oh, infinitely more, brother.”

Maekar glances to Baelor then away again, still preoccupied with thoughts of sons and inadequacies. He runs a leather clad hand over his mouth, fingers trailing over his lips like he still wished to taste the dead animal, and Baelor decides he has had enough of patience. He knows what his brother needs tonight and how to provide for him.

He crosses the room to Maekar’s chair, moving without urgency, holding his glass low with fingertips around the rim. Maekar’s attention now stays on him as Baelor steps into the wide bracket of his parted thighs, and he sits up a little straighter in keen expectation.

“You did well tonight, brother.” Baelor places his right knee between Maekar’s spread one on the chair, leaning forwards, letting it take his full body weight, not paying mind to whether he’s resting too heavily against any connective point of his brother’s body. His knee is very near his crotch, the bone of it hard. He takes Maekar’s jaw in his hand, cupped underneath, forcing him to look up at him, enjoying how wide his eyes get and the quickening of his breath, hot on his wrist. “You were nervous about it, weren’t you? Seeing Aerion again for the first time since he left home and what you would find. You can speak.”

“Yes,” Maekar says, voice a little constricted from where Baelor holds him.

“You needed me there with you. Your big brother.” It is not said as a question but an answer is required.

Baelor can feel the slight grind of teeth under his touch.

“Yes,” Maekar eventually forces out.

“And there was nothing to be concerned about, was there?”

“Aside from the eight-foot giant he’s now supposedly fucking?”

“Yes,” Baelor smiles. “Aside from the gentle giant.”

“No, nothing, I suppose.”

“There now.” Baelor lets his voice descend into something sonorous, relishing the small shiver it provokes. “Nothing at all. Nothing need cause you any more worry tonight, dear brother. I’m here.”

Maekar nods as best he can. Baelor hides his smile. He enjoys pushing Maekar past the point of speech.

“Still,” he says with a slight sigh, “you were rude on occasion. I would not like Aerion’s new friend thinking poorly of his father and miss out on all the good there is to find.” He gives Maekar a hard, contained shake by the jaw, and Maekar’s eyes flutter closed. “You should only be rude to me, do you understand?”

“Yes.”

“Look at me.” Cool eyes like ice open to slits. In certain light, on the right evening, they hold a flicker of lilac, like one of Baelor’s own. A joint aberration Baelor has always privately enjoyed; something that marked them perversely the same. “Are you going to be rude for me tonight?”

“Fuck you.”

Baelor grins crookedly. “Good boy. Open your mouth.”

After a momentary pretence of reluctance, he obeys. Baelor’s fingers sink a little more into the hollows of his bearded cheeks and he opens up wider.

Baelor takes a leisurely sip from his glass, leaving most, then puts the cold, wet rim to Maekar’s bottom lip, slowly tipping it back to neatly pour its contents in his awaiting mouth. They watch each other as it pools, eyes unmoving. The moment drags out, even after it's drained, Maekar’s open mouth reduced to nothing but a cup, a vessel. Until Baelor finally withdraws, offering a casual, “Swallow, please.”

He does and Baelor feels the thick motion of it under his hand.

He smiles, rubbing away lingering shine on his bottom lip with his thumb. “Good. Very good.”

“You aim to get me drunk and useless,” Maekar accuses in a rasp, but the indignation is thin. Baelor can feel how hard he is becoming against his thigh.

“I know your impressive tolerance.” He sets aside the glass to instead take up one of Maekar’s gloved hands, holding it by the pale wrist, sliding a thumb down the deep valley of his palm. “That would take a great deal more Cognac.” He brings his hand to his mouth and bites down on the tip of a leather finger. Maekar’s breath catches, eager for more of the same, but Baelor just uses it to tug the glove free. Maekar lets him without protest. Liberated, Baelor slides the article onto his own right hand, clenching it tight once it’s in place, feeling the pull of the supple leather and enjoying its taut creak. It fits very well, like it was made for his own hand. Of course it did, they were brothers.

“These are lovely,” he murmurs, admiringly. His teeth have left a slight indentation. “Your taste is always exquisite."

“Yes,” Maekar says simply, gazing up at him with that burning look of adoration Baelor so cherishes that almost makes him look seventeen again. He smiles back, brushing the backs of leather fingers across Maekar’s strong, silvery jaw and further, into his equally silver hair. His grip tightens, forcing his head up and back, drawing out a sharp gasp. Then he descends upon him, kissing him with the fervour he’d been imagining all evening, immediately opening Maekar’s mouth wide with his own. He tastes like sweet brandy and anticipation. Maekar is quick to moaning as always, clutching at him desperately.

“It’s been two months since last I kissed you,” Baelor murmurs into his mouth, their lips barely parted. “God, how have I lasted?”

“No.” Maekar forces Baelor back a little to look at him with that easy strength that always excites him. He’s frowning. “That cannot… What about that miserable fundraiser down in Ashford last month?”

“We never found a moment’s peace. And Matarys and Aegon travelled with us.”

Maekar's frown transforms into one of genuine concern. “No.” His hold on Baelor tightens, pulling him back to him and surging up to kiss him fervidly, as though he thought he might disappear for another two months any moment. Baelor can’t help but smile into it, a fierce rush of affection making him heart sick.

Much requires Maekar’s attention, both at home and at his duties spearheading so many divisions in their many companies. Perhaps not as much as Baelor but still, he could never begrudge him for such a thing slipping his mind. Not when he is so wholly and utterly his when they do manage time alone together.

Maekar keeps trying to pull him closer, drag Baelor over him like a blanket, but though the chair might have borne the pair of them once, thus contributing to the majority of the deep scuffs and gouges in the wood under its feet, it was now a snug fit.

“Spare my back, Maekar,” Baelor says, extracting himself from his needy kisses and standing with a slight grunt. Maekar’s disgruntled look is remarkably similar to the one Aerion had taken to much of the tail end of the evening. Baelor holds back a smile, instead offering out his bare hand for Maekar’s matching one. “Come. The bed is far more appealing than the chair. My room, at least, keeps the warmth.”

Fingers carelessly linked, he leads them down the many dim corridors and up the many stairs. They had tried to keep The House out of this home and preserve it just for family. Photographs in silver frames line the walls instead of old portraits and heirlooms, some sun-bleached and aged from childhood, some as new as the shared family holiday from the past summer. No hanging piece of artwork was any older than the past century and leaned more towards Baelor’s strange interest in Fauvism and Maekar’s personal photography curation from the Tate. Maekar claimed if their father ever had the inclination to actually leave the family estate and visit here, he’d probably disinherit them both for their heresy.

Still, it is a draughty home this time of year, no matter what they’ve done to soften it, and Baelor would not lose the heat that Maekar has already so generously provided. Shadowed in the sparse light of the stairwell, separated by a single step that unlevels them, he turns to him, letting his hand slip from his, and with a childishness Maekar’s presence incubates, says, “Race you.”

He’s already off, taking the remaining steps two at a time, before he hears Maekar’s indignant, “No, wait, I wasn’t ready!”

The reverberating sound of their feet thundering through the house revives the place a little; Baelor in front but Maekar close behind. He can feel it by where Maekar grabs for him, only ever catching his clothes. Baelor’s breathless laughter is muffled over the blood pumping in his ears. He feels drunker than the two glasses of wine at dinner and the barely a snifter of brandy could warrant. They blur down the landing, past the other bedrooms, past Maekar’s that Baelor cannot recall getting use beyond clothes storage. Maekar had once admitted in a whisper across a pillow—with the loose, easy affection a good fucking evokes—that he only ever slept in Baelor’s bed, even when he wasn’t there.

When they crash through the door of the master suite, they do it almost simultaneously, but still Baelor just pips him. Maekar has him pressed up against the wall immediately, bodies flush, their laboured breathing mingling. His eyes look a little wild, darker than nature, hair a harried mess falling into his eyes. Lovely, so lovely.

“That wasn’t fair!” His genuine displeasure makes Baelor’s heavy panting break into another quiet laugh.

“Poor Maekar,” he murmurs, head tipped back, eyes glittering in the sparse light, and lets himself be pressed even further into the wall by the savage kiss Maekar claims. Maekar always kissed like he was malnourished of it, affection starved, and Baelor has always sought to feed that appetite. He allows Maekar’s heated blood to lead them for a while, and slips his roaming hands under his clothes, rucking up the back of his tucked shirt to touch skin, enjoying the long lengths up his trim sides, and down to the hollowed dip of his lower back.

Before he digs the points of vicious fingers into the soft places at the base of either hip.

Maekar lurches, his grunt of pain lost to Baelor’s mouth. “You fuck,” he hisses, lip curling with a mixture of outrage and amusement, reaching back to grab at his hands but Baelor evades his hold and captures his wrists instead, squeezing hard enough to feel bone.

Once, Maekar would then have kicked Baelor’s legs out from under him, bringing them crashing to the floor, where they would wrestle without pulling punches until one of them emerged the victor and claimed their prize. Usually, that meant Baelor pinning Maekar down— maybe an arm bent and held awkwardly behind him, maybe a hand to his neck, face forced into the floor—stripping them only enough for practicality, slicking him perfunctorily with spit or pre-spill or on one notable occasion, the copious blood pouring from his nose Maekar’s swinging elbow had broken, and taking him with a roughness akin to their play.

Now, their bodies were no longer solely each other's, if they ever were truly their own, and cannot afford such carelessness.

Instead, Baelor uses his firm hold on him to physically guide Maekar backwards towards the bed. The tense resistance in Maekar’s arms remains until he is forcibly sat down, and even then he still glares up at Baelor reclaiming the space between his thighs. He did so take to feeling hard done by. Baelor releases him to smooth back his ruffled hair with both hands, one bare and one leather-bound, then lets them drop to his shoulders.

“My poor Maekar,” he repeats, because he likes the way it makes Maekar’s throat bob to hear it. He puts his leather thumb right over his Adam’s Apple, pressing down a little, eliciting another swallow. “What shall your consolation prize be, hmm?”

“There is no consolation prize because you didn’t win. The game wasn’t fair."

Baelor lets out a noise that could be acknowledgement, already occupied with pushing off Maekar’s jacket and sliding his fingers under his shirt buttons. He fumbles on one—a rare slip—and forces himself to be steady, be slow. Anticipation was perhaps getting to him a little. He had been eagerly awaiting this. Had thought of little else since receiving the invitation to dinner. Maekar might have let the growing number of days since their last time together slip him by with his absent, busy mind, but Baelor hadn’t. Couldn’t.

There is a tightness that starts behind his eyes and spreads down to his shoulders, growing pervasively the longer the period between when they can be alone and free with each other—where they needn’t perform for anyone and could simply be the boys whose only real concern was how best to entertain the other—and when they must pretend to be civilised, well-integrated beings. Baelor is most acutely aware of this pressure when sitting in his study, one day already tumbling over into the next, slowly chipping away at the work of two men and an empire, or in the centre of a crowd at some function, speaking words that don’t sound like his own voice. It only lessens when he has his brother’s touch on him again. Hard or gentle, it didn’t matter. So long as it was his.

“Maekar,” he says, and finds his voice strange. An urge for closeness has him hastily tearing his shirt from him, baring his broad, firm chest with a dusting of pale hair that has never altered in shade, and strong, muscular arms. There is a constellation of scars to be found here, some Baelor put there, some not. Growing up, Maekar would throw his body around like it was imperishable, an utterly untamable force of nature that Baelor made habit of attempting to tame. His fingers reflexively seek out the slight ridge of intermittent scar tissue on the swell of Maekar's right shoulder; mementos of a too-deep bite Baelor had given him when they’d both been a little worse for wear on Absinthe late into their father’s fiftieth birthday party. Though the memory is hazy, the urge to compress his jaw further and sink his teeth down to the bone still lingers, like the fragmented deja vu of a recurring dream.

“Your turn.” Baelor blinks, as though coming out of a reverie, and finds Maekar’s intense attention on him. His face is usually utterly open to him but there are times when it keeps its thoughts to itself, as it does now. “Arms up.” He says it brusquely, as he speaks to his children, and Baelor sees no reason not to comply. He lifts his arms to let his jumper and undershirt be pulled from him. Maekar then performs his own inspection, his hands travelling across his torso, exploring with the complete lack of shame that they always touch each other, becoming increasingly more covetous. He seeks out Baelor’s own scars, tracing the ones he’d put there like a proud collector. Baelor prides himself on his recollection but still it takes a moment to recall the last Maekar gave him: a gouge on the elbow from shoving Baelor roughly against the ornate kitchen dresser of the summer rental home, before getting on his knees for him, telling him with a wicked grin to keep quiet as he peeled down his swimming trunks, what with Jena napping in the room down the hall.

Twin thumbs drag hard over Baelor’s tits with a fizz of sensation, before Maekar surges forwards like a delirium to latch onto one with sharp teeth, his bite wide around it. Baelor can feel Maekar’s gratified groan right through him and hums, pleased.

“Good, good,” he murmurs, stroking his hair with both hands as he sucks wide-jawed, tongue insistent, then gives him room to move onto the next.

Still mouthing at his chest, Maekar’s black hand finds the slope of Baelor’s neck, giving a brief, teasing squeeze before hooking two fingers under the silver chain bearing a single bloody ruby that eternally sits under Baelor’s clothes, using it to tug him down to him.

“You’ve lost weight,” he accuses into the hollow of his throat.

“Have I?” Baelor smiles. “I hadn’t noticed.”

“I don’t like it.”

“Oh?” Baelor closes his eyes to focus on the hot mouth at his neck and its blunt, hungry teeth. “Perhaps you should come cook for me, then. I’ll dismiss Culler and you can fatten me up to your heart’s content.”

“Don’t fucking tempt me.” Maekar takes the necklace between his teeth like a horses’ bit, giving it a possessive tug. He’d presented it to Baelor years ago accompanied with a lifelong promise, telling him in a thoroughly Maekar fashion that rings were passé and Baelor already had too many. Baelor hardly notices it anymore having lived with it so long, like the silver scales of a second skin, but when he does it comes with the comforting thought that he’ll probably be cremated in it, along with the plain gold on his left hand.

He traces where it disappears into the corners of Maekar’s mouth. “Perhaps you need to be fed too, hm?” Maekar makes an agreeable noise and Baelor licks over his lips, deepening it into a kiss. The sharp tang of tangled metal between them tastes like blood and he moans.

And slides a hand smoothly between them, down Maekar’s belly. The backs of his fingers just brush over where he’s noticeably tenting his trousers, but he avoids it to grip his belt firmly, fingers wrapped around the buckle, giving it a hard yank upwards. Maekar grunts, the chain slipping from his mouth.

“Up on the bed, then,” Baelor says calmly, using it to lift Maekar’s hips with a heft, and half tossing him up onto his back. Maekar scrabbles, sprawled, trying to get his arms under him.

Admiring the sight, Baelor’s hands fall to his own belt, wrenching it open with jerky motions, noting the catch in Maekar’s breath, the dip in his lidded eyes that linger on his hands. “Not tonight,” he says, knowing his mind. Maekar does enjoy his belt. “Undress, please.”

Maekar eagerly begins pulling at his remaining clothes. Baelor briskly follows suit, stripping until he is down to his briefs, then kneels up on the bed before Maekar is finished, absently dragging his trousers free for him and discarding them with little care as he makes his way up his body. Unperturbed by Maekar’s attempts at finishing the task, he forces him back down flush to the mattress to straddle his shoulders, up on his knees, looming.

“Be still,” he hushes soothingly, raking his gloved fingers through his hair, latching on tightly, holding him in place at the crown. Then he sits down over his face. Not particularly doing anything, he’s only half hard, just leisurely grinding at him with the heavy pouch of his briefs, rolling his hips loosely with his entire body weight behind him. Giving him his scent. Maekar is immediately groaning, craning up to bury in as closely as possible, rubbing right back like a cat seeking affection, which Baelor allows. He clutches at the meat of Baelor’s thighs to get even closer, hard enough to leave more souvenirs of the night.

“Three deep breaths,” Baelor murmurs, and enjoys listening to them, the feel of Maekar’s body expanding below him to facilitate it. He’s breathing him in, only him, pouring more of Baelor inside him. His cock is starting to fill out more in his briefs. “You can taste now.”

Immediately he can feel it; the hot wetness of his mouth, the dexterity of his eager tongue lapping at him best he can, the vibrations of the urgent moaning of deep satisfaction. The thin barrier of cotton makes it better somehow, the dulled stimulation improved by all the desperate effort involved. Maekar’s hands are expressive in the absence of his concealed features. His ungloved hand travels to slowly rake blunt nails deeply down Baelor’s back, leaving four delicious lines. Baelor tips his head back, humming at the dual sensations—the perfect mixture of pleasure and pain—cock jerking in its confines, fingers tightening a little in his hair. The lines will fade soon, more’s the pity.

He reaches behind him blindly for Maekar’s cock, fully engorged in his own briefs; always quick to attention. He slips beneath to squeeze all of him in a handful right at the root and feels the effects in the grunt and lurch beneath him.

“Get me fully hard and I’ll do something about this.”

Maekar groans like he’d taken a limb, and redoubles his efforts, suckling at him through cotton, wetting him thoroughly. He takes his sack fully into his mouth through the material, sucking. When the cotton is taught and straining, Baelor takes himself out fully, letting out a little hiss at the touch, and sits back a little to rub himself messily over Maekar’s exposed face, smearing the remnants of spit and his own eagerness, letting him see a job well done. Maekar gasps in air and nuzzles open-mouthed against his length.

“What do you think?” Baelor asks conversationally. “Good enough?”

“Do you want to waste it coming over my face or do something actually useful with it?” Even like this, Maekar manages to be insolent. Baelor rakes his teeth over his bottom lip, charmed.

“Point taken.” He backs off a little more, now perched on his chest and cups his cheek in a leather hand, petting. Then brings it back down hard in a slap that snaps his opposing cheek into the mattress. “Say it nicely next time.”

Maekar groans deeply and his hips jerk upwards, all but begging for another. “I thought you wanted me rude.”

Baelor caresses the faint redness blooming on his cheek, smiling. “Oh, I do.”

He climbs off him, leaning over for the side table, retrieving what he requires. Maekar is already back to petting at his waist and thighs, needy for touch even in the few moments Baelor’s attention is diverted. He can’t imagine this Maekar, desperate and loving, surviving two months without him. Perhaps he doesn’t want to.

“The rest off, please.” Maekar hurriedly obeys but Baelor stops him when he goes to remove the glove. “No. We keep these on.” Maekar nods, and returns to touching him with it. His arm, his chest, his ribs.

Kneeling between Maekar’s spread thighs, Baelor flicks open the cap of the lube he had bought at the small shop around the corner from the house on their last shared visit after their usual, far superior supply ran low on a particularly lengthy session, along with a pack of Marlboros for Maekar as an indulgence. As the cashier rang the items up, Baelor had the strange urge for them to comment on it, to ask him some prying question that required a reply. They’re for my husband, Baelor had ready on his lips, repeating it over and over in his mind, desperate to voice, but of course nothing was said and all he’d murmured was a quiet thank you as he’d left.

Making sure Maekar is watching, he drizzles it copiously over his leather clad hand, making it glisten. He awaits a reaction, a complaint, but Maekar just drinks in a deep breath and shifts his hips, cock lurching where it sits fat and flushed along his stomach. He skims his mirroring gloved hand down his chest, as though needing confirmation of how it would feel on his skin.

“How many?” Baelor asks, smearing the clear substance thoroughly with both hands, sliding it between digits, as though it were hand lotion.

Maekar lets out a tight noise. “Two.”

“You sure?” Baelor pushes his legs wider apart. “It’s been a while.”

Maekar takes hold of one knee, holding himself open. “Not since I’ve imagined you doing this to me.”

Baelor has to carefully moderate his breathing to keep it steady. He always knows when Maekar is thinking of this; he will receive the text, or if he’s lucky, the video. He puts his leather fingers to his opening, rubbing it slick, the barrier of sensation made up for by what a sight it makes. Then pushes inside with middle and ring.

Maekar sucks in air sharply through his teeth but again there is no complaint. It’s a lovely contradiction to him; he will grouse about almost anything except what Baelor takes from him like this. He opens him carefully, aware of its necessity even with Maekar’s body so thoroughly trained for him by now. Reshaped exactly for him. The leather slides in beautifully, as slick as it is, as much like skin as it is. He wonders whether Maekar was getting as much enjoyment as he is at the thought of being fucked open with a semblance of his own hand. Of how overlapping their bodies were becoming.

And he is evidently enjoying himself. Well-earned muscles quiver, his breath hitching on every other inhale where Baelor teases out the sweet pleasure of his body. His eyes have lost their focus a little, as they do when sensation takes over from sense. He relies on Baelor so much when he’s like this. Of his many duties, there is none Baelor relishes as much.

Baelor shifts, rising up high on knees, pressing thighs against the backs of thighs, busy wrist bent at a sharp right angle between them to allow it. His movements become more purposeful, languid and stimulating, rather than merely practical and he rolls his hips with the motion of it, as though it were the driving force. A deep, grinding that moves his whole body in a fluid rhythm. He watches Maekar spread out below him, watches how the simulation of what he shall soon do to him steadily unravels him; his flushed cheeks, hair sticking to his brow with sweat, the plump throb of his unattended cock that’s already smearing a puddle on his belly. How he moans and mirrors the motion, hips rolling into Baelor’s, like the hull of a ship rocking with the lapping of water with no say in the matter.

“Fuck.” Maekar’s head pushes back hard against the mattress, mouth gritted, throat all taut, flushed, and straining. He sounds overcome and annoyed by it. “Too soon. Not yet.”

“Always so easy to rile.” Baelor says it with a fondness that has real heat behind it. “How do you think you can last for me?”

“I can.” Maekar’s eyes snap open to slits to glare at him. “If you get on with it.”

Baelor unceremoniously stops, removing his fingers with a nasty sound that tugs on the gut. The black of the leather shines like crude oil. “Alright,” he says.

He slicks himself with a proficient efficiency, not letting himself think of how it feels. This was for Maekar’s benefit, not his. Maekar is impatiently shifting his hips, offering himself up. He would want it fast and hard the first time, not much thought to it beyond release. To burn off all that tension that has been building all these weeks without Baelor’s care. He shouldn’t have let it go on this long, not with how much Maekar needs him.

Pushing Maekar’s thighs back further, Baelor hitches himself to his soft middle, admiring the handsome sight of it. Then sheathes himself in one long, slow side. Maekar’s guttural groan lasts with the motion, like Baelor’s cock was forcing all the air out of him to accommodate his presence.

Baelor lets himself settle, their hips coming to rest stacked against each other, drawing in steady, deliberate breaths through the nose; how they tell you to breathe through great pain and focus the mind to avoid unconsciousness. He stares intently at the texture of the bedspread by Maekar’s head, letting his eyes fixate on the intricate thatch of cotton instead of the beautiful expression Maekar wears and his quivering, velvety insides surrounding him. Waiting until the urgent ache between his legs retreats to something distant and manageable.

“Brother.” Maekar’s little grunting whine and clenching hole very nearly breaks his focus. He’s got a tight grip on Baelor’s gloved wrist where he’s holding open his thigh. “Come on. Get the fuck on with it.”

Baelor blinks.

“Not yet.” He shakes off Maekar’s grip to take his cock in leather hand, giving him a long stroke root to tip. What was left of the cheap lube had dried a little, making the motion drag. Maekar lurches. “You’re all pent up, Maekar. Look at you.” Baelor gives him a tight squeeze and he drools a stream over his fist. “Silly Maekar. You’ve gone too long without. You can’t last, can you?”

Maekar tosses his head on the bed as Baelor does not let up the steady, tacky pulling on his cock. “No, I mean yes, fuck, I can.”

“You can’t. You’re half mad from just me putting it in. You've needed my cock that much. You’d come from sitting on it, wouldn’t you?” Baelor’s hand is merciless, focusing on the sensitive, slick head, his grip too tight as he massages it roughly. Maekar near-screams, thumping one fist against the mattress. Still Baelor doesn’t move where he’s buried fully inside him, thigh and stomach muscles fluttering slightly from the effort.

Maekar’s hips buck with real force, nearly dislodging him, almost rising off the bed. “Settle,” Baelor soothes, forcibly keeping him down with the other hand firm on the hard muscles on his lower stomach. He presses down harder, splaying his fingers, making him feel every inch of where he sits below. “Settle now. Easy, Maekar, easy, don’t disrupt me.”

“Fuck me,” Maekar sobs, beyond himself. “Please. Please move. I’m so good. I'll feel so good. Fuck my insides.”

“Yes,” Baelor says, breathless now, arm movements becoming frantic, thighs where they meet slippery with sweat and the lube smearing between them. More sweat trickles from his hairline. He blinks it out his unwavering eyes. “Yes, my love, I will. You just need to come for me first. Show me how much you’ve missed me.”

Maekar sobs and obeys, coming over himself copiously, oozing from between Baelor’s gloved fingers and making a mess of his stomach and chest. Baelor hums contentedly, wringing the very last of it out of him. It’s lovely and thick, it really must have been a while.

“Well done, Maekar,” he says, rubbing the slippery evidence into Maekar’s skin, smearing it over his firm tits and into his chest hair. “Thank you for showing me.”

“Fuck, Baelor, Christ,” Maekar pants, one arm thrown over his eyes. He’s barely flagged, cock still twitching like it needs something. He’s always been insatiable. “You nearly ripped my fucking cock off.”

Baelor huffs a laugh. “Not quite.” He slides his hand up Maekar’s throat, enjoying the strong line of it, then hooks two messy fingers in his mouth. Even blind, even with where they’ve been and what they’re coated in, Maekar sucks them eagerly, cheeks hollowing, tongue tracing the ridges of the stitching. Rooted deeply inside him, Baelor throbs.

Pulling out, both fingers and cock, makes him let out a sharp hiss through his front teeth and his stomach muscles jolt. “Turn over, please.” It is growing increasingly difficult to keep his voice steady and calm. “Up on your knees. That’s it.”

He can’t stop touching Maekar as he rearranges himself on hands and spread knees, running a hand over his back, his flank, his rear, appreciating the shift and flex of toned muscles from a lifetime of discipline. Maekar was never more beautiful than when he was fully applying the physicality of his body: fighting, sporting, fucking. He became alive, a singular creature, mind clearing of all that usually weighs on it.

Baelor thinks perhaps this is where he thrives best too. Doubt lies in everything else: leadership, fatherhood, matrimony. Everywhere, the constant potential for mistakes. But not in this, not here. How right that he saves his best for Maekar.

The look Maekar shoots him over his shoulder, dark, hungry, and primal, very nearly makes Baelor’s control slip. “Well?” He demands expectantly.

“Yes.” Baelor parts Maekar’s cheeks further with one hand, revealing that puffy, slick hole where he’s been opened tonight and a thousand nights like it. “Yes.”

Again, Baelor does not let himself dwell on how impossibly good it feels to sink inside him, how Maekar groans like he’s being completed. How his head tips back, his shoulders bow, and his slippery insides part for him like he’s coming home. Instead he braces himself in the optimum position when fully seated, knees evenly parted and sturdy, core engaged, legs slotted beside Maekar’s, keeping them spread, then slips an arm under Maekar to wrap his throat in leather, levering him up, bent back in a lovely curve.

“Tell me how you're going to take it,” he murmurs with a kiss brushed to the base of his neck, just beyond where his thumb grips.

The noise Maekar lets out is guttural. “For you.”

“Very good.”

It starts rough because that’s how Maekar needs it. The harsh slap of skin and muscle that’s loud in the quiet house. Baelor sets a hard rhythm paced to the beating of his own heart, and ramps up with its acceleration. Fucking Maekar is instinctual, he just needs to listen to his body to do it right. His hold on Maekar’s throat is careful and steady, just like the anchoring one at his hip. Not enough to choke or restrict air, but firm enough to concentrate the mind. Baelor cannot lose himself and tighten it. Even through the leather, he can feel the vibrations under his palm of the continual stream of encouraging noise, both high and deep, that pours from Maekar like water.

His eyes are pulled to where they’re connected, the fast rippling of Maekar’s cheeks, the swell of his hips, the stretched opening that’s parted wide to accept him. It all makes his blood surge and gut clench with urgency, so forces himself to look away, instead gazing at the shifting of the muscles in Maekar’s broad back, how his thick arms are flexed and tensed to bare his weight and Baelor’s force, the movement of the wings of his shoulders that bend together like they’re trying to meet. Maekar’s body is a wonder.

The bedding bunches under Maekar’s white knuckle grip, Baelor’s grinding knees, as his pace quickens, becoming even more forceful, more like violence, working the angle he knows Maekar favours. The one that makes him leak every time. There's wetness trickling down his wrist and he knows Maekar is drooling all over himself, mouth ungovernable as always, making more of a mess of his gloves. Sweat rolls down Baelor’s temples, the base of his throat. Damp on his busy palms. Droplets fall on Maekar’s already slick back, making him glisten in the dim light. Heat is everywhere; the unpleasant cold doesn’t touch them here.

The grunting in Baelor’s ears is so loud it nearly overrides Maekar’s. He wants to be silent, to tune it out to only listen to his brother, but finds he can’t. He’s breathing like a race horse, hips thrusting like a piston, unrelenting and brutal. There’ll be bruises on both of them where they collide tomorrow. Still, he could go on for hours if he needs to, if it was asked of him.

The leather of the glove creaks under his grip, tightening around Maekar’s throat. Just barely.

But then one of Maekar’s hands lurches up to clutch desperately at Baelor’s wrist. “Oh Christ,” he says, the words ground out of him. “Oh God.” Then his insides are clenching up lovely and tight, his thighs shaking like he’s being shocked, and he lets out a noise like he’s dying. Baelor fumbles under him for his jerking cock hanging heavy between his legs and strips it along with his own rhythm, just so he can feel the spurting jet of it. Maekar’s second release wrings out of him for some while, his whole body shuddering through it, pretty filth being torn from him as he groans and whines. Baelor feels every second of it.

Maekar then collapses forwards, arms giving out, whole body quivering, face planted in the bedding. “Baelor.” The name is barely audible and slurred. “God, fuck. Baelor. Baelor…”

Baelor carefully frees his arm from under him, wiping the mess Maekar has graced him with on the already ruined bedding, then runs a hand over the back of Maekar’s head, finding his hair damp with sweat. Maekar doesn’t react, body limp. Baelor eases out of him gently, still so hard he feels sick with it, then stumbles off the bed, legs feeling as strange as they do after sitting cross-legged too long.

He enters the en suite, not turning on the light and runs the tap cold. The rushing sound of water is soothing. Scooping a cupped palmful, he bathes his sweaty face, down his neck and his chest. He takes another and rinses out his dry mouth then spits. Breath heaves out of him ferociously, wracking his whole body. He braces himself on the basin, willing himself to calm, to control himself. He opens his eyes and catches sight of himself in the large mirror spread across the wall before him, finding some wild thing looking back. His cock juts out from him violently, glistening. Both eyes look uniformly black in this light.

Maekar has not moved when he returns, slumped face down like he might have passed out, legs carelessly splayed just as Baelor left him. Like he’d been used and was still ripe for use. Baelor’s quietened heart thumps harder again.

He crawls back onto the bed, straddling the backs of his thighs, cock slotting between his cheeks, and leans over him to lick a long stripe up the centre of his back up to the top of his spine, enjoying the taste of salt.

“Let me, Maekar,” he murmurs, mouthing at the wet hair at his neck, and gets an incoherent groan in response. Permission enough.

He fucks him slowly this time, perched snug atop him, hands propped up on Maekar’s strong back, enjoying how it builds inside him, letting himself feel all of it. Rocks into him with languid, deep thrusts that stay rooted, using his whole body. Maekar moans into the bedding, moving along with it as much as he can while still essentially immobile. Baelor thinks he can make him come again, even if it's just with the pleasure he gives him from within. He loves making his overly spent, soft cock gush.

Even with a slower pace, release is quickly catching up to him after such a long build up and he doesn’t try to stop it. He tips his head back, eyes falling shut, and lets it wash over him, basking in pure sensation. Maekar’s hand fumbles blindly behind him, finding Baelor’s thigh and sinks in vicious nails that scrape at his skin in lovely bites of pain. Baelor has no chance after that. The surging, momentous crest of it has him grunting, loud and urgent, the hand braced on Maekar’s shoulder clenching up tight, thumb digging harshly into the knob of his spine. His come is planted deep and he holds it there as long as he can. Maekar’s insides clench up tight around him again and he tells himself that's him giving him his third release.

The tension completely bleeds from him after, and Baelor has to catch himself on an elbow braced on the mattress by Maekar’s head. He lowers himself gingerly down to lay over him and bury his face in the crook of his sweat slick neck, breathing in their shared air. He takes pleasure in listening to the little moans and oh my Gods Maekar lets out as he slowly comes down and returns to himself. When Baelor's cock finally softens enough to slip out unattended, they both groan in unison.

Eventually he rouses enough to rearrange them on their backs, with a great deal of cajoling and resistance from Maekar, away from the mess they’d made: Maekar tucked into the snug of his arm, shoulder overlapping Baelor’s chest, their limbs tangled together.

“Cigarette,” Maekar mumbles into the quiet after a while. He doesn’t even open his eyes. Baelor retrieves the packet and the lighter from the nightstand onehanded, arm bent awkwardly so as not to disturb them too much or rouse Maekar from his sprawl atop him. He places one between his lips to light, giving it a cursory drag, before taking it between leather fingers and bringing it to Maekar’s lips. He feeds him it for a while, mostly correctly gauging when he wants his next drag or being met with a needy noise if he takes too long. He takes the occasional pull himself. He only ever smokes around Maekar and only after sex.

“I owe you a pair of gloves,” he murmurs after a while, admiring the way the cigarette looks between its fingers. A shame, they really were very handsome. Unusable now.

“Consider the way you’ve thoroughly melted my spine as payment,” Maekar drawls, voice lazy and content. Baelor huffs a laugh and places the cigarette back to Maekar’s lips, making him kiss the leather that’s been inside him.

When it’s nearly burnt down to the filter, he takes the fine pewter ashtray from the nightstand, tipping out the cufflinks left in there, and uses it to stamp it out.

“Another?”

“No, maybe in a bit.”

“I seem to recall it was around this time last year you said you might quit.”

“You should have realised such optimism was severely out of character and recognised it for the madness that it was.”

“Could always try again in the New Year.”

“And you could try pulling out instead of making me dig come out my arse everytime but you’re not, are you?”

Baelor chuckles, admitting defeat and leaving the topic alone. Instead, he strips himself of the glove, then takes Maekar’s hand and peels that too, tossing them both across the room. Maekar immediately grabs for his hand, linking their fingers and bringing them to rest together on his chest. Somehow, his fingers still hold a chill.

His brother and his cold hands. Cold hands, warm heart.

A sudden irrational flare of panicked guilt grips Baelor, a fear that he's forgotten something, that he should have checked in at home and is leaving someone neglected while he selfishly indulged. Only Valarr was away, off at university doing a good job of not needing them, Matarys was already nurturing his own young independence by staying at a friend's for the weekend, and Jena had her own date night with the latest girl, Alyce; a gallery opening Baelor recalls. No one would even be at the house to miss him. The thought is both comforting and not.

“Let’s do dinner,” Maekar says, disturbing his thoughts.

“We’ve just had dinner,” Baelor says. Just to make him spell it out.

“Yes, smart-arse, again. Soon. You might have noticed you are required to have it every day. Especially you.” Maekar gives him a little tap on the flank with a loose wrist. “I’m going to force feed you until you’re at a weight I find acceptable. I’ll sit on you if I have to.”

“Promises, promises.” Baelor presses his smile into Maekar’s hair, thoroughly enjoying his fussing. “Can’t do Monday through Thursday. In Geneva. Friday, I have a dinner meeting.”

“With whom? I’ll join. Make it a great deal shorter no doubt, you do go on at these things. Second thoughts, just cancel it. I’ll take you to Rules. They’re currently doing something clever with lamb you’ll like.”

“Lyonel Baratheon. And I can’t cancel.”

“What?!” Maekar shifts around to glare at him in outrage. “The fuck are you meeting him for?”

“Something to do with the five hundred million he brings in per annum.”

“Fuck his money. It probably comes crusted in coke and £20 cunt.”

“If that was where we drew the line, we’d never make much of it, would we? It’s not just the money anyway, he has a foot in the door over at Tarth Solutions. I want to use it.”

“Can Jena not—”

“No,” Baelor says, mildly but definitively, “she can’t.”

He was admittedly being a tad cruel even mentioning the meeting. And perhaps a little goading. Maekar had loathed the man ever since he’d come onto Baelor in an executive function room at the Corinthia very late into a networking event many years past, perhaps perceiving something intrinsic within Baelor that he carefully kept masked to most of the world or maybe just because he was exceptionally drunk. Baelor had told Maekar about it afterwards—being sure to emphasise how he’d politely but adamantly turned the offer down—finding it amusing and also a little flattering, and Maekar had sulked for the rest of the evening, only cheering up when Baelor took him back into that very same executive suite and put his cock down his throat.

“But by all means join us if you’re free. You can ensure my virtue is preserved. It'd be far more enjoyable with you.” Less productive and profitable, probably, but infinitely more enjoyable.

“Oh, I’ll be there,” Maekar mutters, settling back against Baelor’s chest, “and I’ll break his fucking fingers if he even tries to shake your hand.”

Baelor hugs him closer to him, exceptionally satisfied. “I’ll send you the calendar invite.”

It wasn’t their finest qualities; Maekar’s fierce jealousy that so quickly turned to violence, nor the pleasure Baelor gained from it. He has endeavoured to stamp it out in both of them but perhaps not all that hard.

At fifteen, Maekar had tampered with the brakes of the bicycle lent to the first girl Baelor had brought back home from university. That was when Baelor was still trying to fulfil this particular requirement of being an eldest son and find a suitable love match outside of the far more preferable love he found at home. The girl had nearly careened into a tree and bent her wrist rather badly in the fall. Baelor somehow pushed both their bikes back up the hill to the house while she rode on his, the empty stirrups churning, clutching her arm awkwardly to her chest. She had returned to her parents’ home that afternoon.

Maekar had adamantly denied it, with all his red-faced indignation that told the truth for him, but had eventually confessed when Baelor had him folded over, clutching his own spread ankles, floppy hair skimming the wooden floorboards of his bedroom, sobbing as Baelor worked him three fingers deep but refusing to let him find release.

Baelor told him in no uncertain terms to never do such a thing again, while privately relishing such a display of selfish, possessive love.

“When was the last time we properly marked each other, brother?” he asks quietly. He brings Maekar’s hand to his mouth to press a kiss to his knuckles. There is a barely visible scar between the two largest from a punch catching one of Baelor’s teeth. Baelor can’t find it in this light. “All my gifts to you are as silvered as your hair.”

“You're the one who insisted we must be careful.”

Baelor hums, struggling to remember why he’d ever concerned himself with such a thing. There was no one but Baelor to admire Maekar’s body anymore and no one in Baelor’s life who could care. “You always look so beautiful covered in my bruises. Remember the double black eye? I could barely be prised from you.”

Maekar’s breath catches a little. “And your broken nose. How it would just keep bleeding again when I'd shove my cock in your mouth.” Baelor shifts a little at the memory, almost tasting the coppery tang of blood down his throat. It was easier when they were younger, with sports and games as an excuse.

“You have a way of making me gush, brother.”

Maekar laughs, twisting his head back to receive a kiss. Baelor holds his jaw to keep him there, deepening it until he’s had his fill. “Remember the cigarette burn in the back of that hired Mercedes?” he murmurs against his mouth.

Maekar pulls away, grinning lazily. “God, how the fuck do you even remember the car? If I committed every detail to memory as you do I’d go quite mad.”

Baelor runs a hand down Maekar’s side, fingertips seeking out the circular raised scar tissue on the flat, intimate seam of his hip. “I remember the important things.”

The headache-inducing new car smell being overridden by the ripe scent of sweat, sex, and something charred. The way every breath of it had come with a rasping texture, his throat still tender and raw from Maekar’s strong fingers. The flecks of Maekar’s come dappled on navy leather like tear drops where he’d jerked so violently from the cigarette’s sting, the orgasm shocking out from him. The small, singed hole left in it where the cigarette had been heedlessly discarded, Baelor too preoccupied to consider it. Unusually careless of him; he’s self aware enough to not blame the vodka. He’d paid the rental place triple in cash so they wouldn’t ask about it.

It had been such a happy afternoon. It felt like they were the ones soon to be married.

“I would like that,” Baelor says slowly, as though pulling himself from the depths of sleep. “A burn, I mean. I would like you to give it me.”

Maekar sits up suddenly, turning around sharply to look back at him, the lethargy of the afterglow immediately evaporating. “Are you serious?”

Baelor smiles. “Certainly. Why not?” He brushes back Maekar’s tousled hair that has fallen in his fierce eyes; a mirror of only one of his. “We’d match.”

He’s entirely calm as he watches Maekar eagerly scrabble for the red packet of cigarettes and lighter, getting himself comfortable on his back, hands on his stomach, supine on the mattress. Like lying on the surgeon’s table.

Maekar climbs astride his thighs, pristine-white cigarette between his teeth. Flicks a substantial flame with one efficient click, simmering the end. Hollows his cheek on a suck of it, then leans forward to offer it to Baelor, perched between two long-stemmed fingers. Thick grey smoke curls in a stream past his lips, as he watches Baelor take a short, shallow drag, letting his own smoke loose quickly, having already had his fill before.

“There,” Maekar smiles with a wicked pleasure, sitting back, “now it’s been properly baptised.”

Baelor hums a laugh at the mild blasphemy, letting his hands fall lazily above his head to give Maekar complete access to his body, feeling terribly relaxed, as though the smoke had been cannabis rather than tobacco and was dripping its sedation into him like an IV.

Maekar’s large hand roams over the very base of Baelor’s flat stomach, pale where it had least touched the sun, then follows the sharp ridge of his iliac furrow. Baelor isn’t hard and isn’t expecting to be but no less excited. “Here, isn’t it?” Maekar murmurs, fingertips tracing just above the seam of thigh and groin. Baelor runs a hand over Maekar’s thigh, putting a thumb over the scar again.

“Yes, maybe a little higher.”

“Do we want it on the actual same side so as to match?” Maekar asks, rolling the cigarette between thumb and fingers as though in consideration of where to strike. “Or parallel, so we can press them up against each other? Like little clits.”

Baelor swallows thickly. “Parallel.” His voice is all at once strained.

The stinging kiss of the cigarette's cherry is sharp and immense, the rush of it almost blinding. A hitching gasp leaves him but he remains still, baring it down, staring in wonder at Maekar’s lovely capable hands inflicting it on him: one holding firm on his hip, the other elegant in its wielding of the cigarette, carefully twisting it into Baelor’s skin while keeping the stem of it intact and unbent.

“You make a wonderful ashtray, brother,” Maekar murmurs, lip curled back in an expression that is pure, ravenous greed.

Baelor lets out a breathless laugh in a gush. He feels blissfully dizzy. The room smells like his burning. He grips at the bedding above his head in one fist so tight, he doesn’t know what might rip first, it or his skin.

The sensation begins to shift, not dulling but transforming into an aching, throbbing burn that seems to permeate his whole body, filling him up. He’s groaning, only really aware of it from the vibrations in his head. It must be loud. His eyes have closed. Maekar is rocking against his thigh, excited. He loves Baelor’s pain as much as his own.

Eventually the cigarette is lifted, removed and set aside. The pain doesn’t leave. Baelor concentrates on his breathing. There’s a tickling sensation, strangely gentle after such intense feeling, and he blinks open his eyes to see Maekar gently blowing cool air on the gathered ash, clearing it. Every nerve ending seems to feel it.

“It’s come out well,” Maekar says proudly, tracing around the perfectly circular shape of the angry red wound with his thumb. Even that sensation smarts. “It’ll scar nicely.”

“It’s beautiful.” Baelor’s voice is surprisingly strong and even. “Thank you, Maekar. I shall treasure it.” Something loud has quietened in his head. He feels he could sleep for the rest of the year and yet is startlingly awake and present. He runs his fingers affectionately through Maekar’s hair, loving him so intensely in that moment, it overrides every other sensation, even the pain.

Sappho called eros sweetbitter. Γλυκύπικρον. Sweet and bitter. Pleasure and pain, in that order. Baelor subscribed to this thought as soon as he first read it—a student, his heart sickening for more than home, moored only by steadfast obligation and the gratifying discipline of study—and gained an understanding of something he had always known. Pleasure required pain for its contrast, to set its standard and to know itself. It cannot come easy, cannot be simple and singular. And united, they are euphoria itself.

Baelor scrapes his nails over Maekar’s scalp how he likes, and he lets out a whining moan, eyes sliding closed, then shifts to rest his head on Baelor’s opposite hip, nuzzling against him. Baelor will see to him soon, attend to where he’s needing him again, its evidence pressed against his shin, as he always has.

Maekar returns to caressing the space around the burn, petting and admiring. “An early Christmas present,” he says, voice a little mumbled from where his cheek is pressed against him.

Baelor smiles, still stroking his hair. He shall not receive a finer one. “I’ll have to think of a worthy reciprocation."

“It’s soon, isn’t it? Christ, where has this year gone?” The sigh Maekar lets out is a hot breeze on Baelor’s skin. “A week at the homestead. Everyone will come this year, they’ll have to. Mother will not let up on her endless reminder of how this might be the last with the old man. Exactly what we all want to hear at fucking Christmas.”

“We might need to abduct Aerys to bring him down. He very proudly sent me the lecture series on Alban Arthan that he’s currently giving every evening for the season. It seems to be getting a fair bit of attention.”

Maekar lets out a disgusted noise. “He can just stay there, then. His absence can be his gift to us.” Baelor gives his ear a gentle tug in chastisement. They both know he doesn’t mean it. “Then it’s New Year’s at yours. Nearly two whole weeks together.” Baelor smiles at the sheer contentment in Maekar’s voice.

“Jena mentioned a quieter one this year. Make the most of having the boys home.” The duty of host is one that wears thinner every year, but Baelor would have endured it with good humour if it was what Jena wanted.

Maekar makes a sound of approval. “Good, you always invite too many people I wouldn’t bestow my piss upon if they were on fire. Although no doubt Aerion will now wish to bring the fucking giant in tow. That’s if it’s housetrained.”

“Would you like me to extend an invitation to them both?”

Baelor watches the indecision gnaw at Maekar, feeling the grinding of his jaw against his hip, as he struggles with the answer he wishes to give and the one he knows will get him the outcome he desires: Aerion’s attendance. “Yes,” he eventually grits out. “Fuck it, fine. At least he’s large enough to carry Daeron to bed singlehanded when he inevitably makes an embarrassment of himself.”

“It will be a relief to know someone is keeping an eye on Aerion all night.” Last New Year’s, Aerion had somehow stolen three fireworks from the hired crew set up in the gardens, and let two off in the house, scorching the three hundred year old mural on the dining room ceiling and breaking a fifteen foot window pane. The last one had eventually been discovered hidden under Aerion’s bed attached to a very long fuse fashioned from twine. The fact it might have actually worked is what exposed Aegon’s involvement. It wasn’t hard to guess his intention. The changing from one year into the next had been spent with Maekar screaming at them both, red faced and livid, while Baelor watched on in silent support just so he could see in midnight with his brother, the cacophonous sound of the remaining fireworks at their backs.

“With any luck Aerion will lose interest and it will be over within a week," Maekar says.

Baelor doubts it. He recognised the look Aerion had fixed the boy with, eyes heavy with the raw, savage hunger of something deadly and starved. It was the same one Maekar had sent his way since he was thirteen. Across dining tables, crowded rooms, sports pitches. A bedroom in the dead of night, the house frozen save for their breathing. The look that had removed any hesitation and doubt from Baelor’s mind that he was going to have his brother, in every way he could.

“As long as we’re all together,” he says, diplomatically.

“Yes.” Maekar turns his head to burrow into him again. He moves to press a gentle kiss over the burn, lips barely brushing. It stings wonderfully. “Just family.”

Baelor should get the burn under cold water soon, apply the aloe vera they always had in good supply, then dress it, lest he run the risk of it becoming something nastier. Just as soon as Maekar has had his fill of it. If kept well tended, it’ll turn out just like Maekar’s. Their fingerprints on each other, branded in another shared perversion. Sweetbitter.

“Just family,” he murmurs in agreement.