Rave (![[info]](http://www.insanejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} cheloya) wrote in ![[info]](http://www.insanejournal.com/img/community.gif){kind=small} happenstance,@ 2009-08-12 22:51:00 |
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[HAVEMERCY] Standards; Rook/Thom
Title: Standards
Fandom: Havemercy
Character/s: Rook, Thom
Words: 5905
Warning/s: If you don't know the spoiler, don't fucking read this!
Notes: Forfeather_qwill, who has been very patient, and I hope the length makes up for the long wait, which has been so long that I have actually forgotten why the fic is titled as it is. Also, this fic is not really Shadow Magic-compliant, because that would involve rewriting it entirely from scratch, and really, fuck that. XD
HAPPY BIRTHDAY/CHRISTMAS 2008, SEME-SAMA.
XD;;;;; *fails SO HARD OMG*
I
When Rook gets back to the room, dripping wine and blood and holding his hand out to the left so it can stain the floor instead of his fucking trousers, the professor is reading. Pretending to read, he ought to say – his jaw’s tight and his face is pale enough to let Rook know that he heard at least half of what was going on and he’s siding with the hag downstairs. Rook half wants to smash his fucking glasses, but with one hand swollen and the other leaking blood all over, he figures he’s broken enough glass for one night.
“Pack your fucking bags,” he growls. “We’re fucking leaving.”
There’s still glass in his hand when he’s done washing it, but it’s the best he can do in the little pitcher this shithole has on the nightstand, and it’s not like he’s bleeding so bad he can’t stand. He wraps it up in his bloody shirt, shrugs the jacket on over his bare shoulders, and grabs up his bag, glad he doesn’t unpack his fuckin’ toilette like the professor does at every turn.
He’s halfway down the stairs before the professor’s even finished closing his suitcase, glaring at the whole fucking bar on his way out, just daring anyone to ask him for so much as a fucking chevronet.
The professor catches up with him halfway down the street, lips thin and white with frowning.
“Bet you even fucking paid them for that,” Rook snarls over his shoulder, and later thanks the memory of his dragon that Hilary’s got too much goddamn sense to reply.
In the flickering light of a small fire, Thom searches for fragments of glass in Rook’s palm and consoles himself that it was only a matter of time.
There’s a direct corelation between the distance they travel from Thremedon and the level of hostility directed at the airman, and though he’s fairly sure that Rook didn’t anticipate it, Thom most certainly did. Has since the first town they passed, in which eyebrows were raised over how boldly Rook conducted himself with the whores.
He’s never brought it up, not directly, though he’d tried to make casual mention of the general level of hygiene in brothels outside Charlotte. He knows telling Rook — even asking Rook — not to do something is about the fastest way of getting him to try it. But he’s seen what happens to men’s hands when they break bottles. Rook’s lucky he’ll get to keep his, lucky there’s enough of his hand left to suck the glass out of.
Of course, he doesn’t say as much. Worrying about Rook is difficult and dangerous enough without saying things like ‘I told you so.’
II
Rook’s hands are swollen and painful in the morning, and they don’t much improve on the walk to Gjelsmund. Needless to say this does nothing for his temper. Thom observes two of the more obvious landmarks aloud in the hope that opening an avenue of conversation will at least stop Rook from clenching his jaw like that, but gives up when the airman makes no reply. The last thing he wants is for Rook to accidentally clench his fists.
He’s surly but silent when they reach the town of Gjelsmund, allowing Thom to arrange their accommodations without a word outside of asking where the baths are. As soon as the bags are flung down, Rook vanishes, towel in hand. Thom passes the time by looking over the route they’ll probably take tomorrow, wondering if there’s anything likely to catch Rook’s eye along the way other than pretty shepherd girls and whores. He doubts it.
When Rook returns the better part of an hour later, towel slung shamelessly low about his waist, Thom blinks. His hair is completely unbraided, the humidity turning it slowly into a tangled, half-curled mess of tawny gold and royal blue. It reaches nearly to his bare shoulder blades. Thom is puzzled until he notices that the bandages on Rook’s hands are fresh, and fresh blood is seeping through the wrappings.
“Do you want me to rewrap those?” he asks, already well aware of the answer.
Rook snorts and shakes his head. He doesn’t sneer, though. Thom thinks if actual baths improve his temper this dramatically, they may have to stay in hotels with bath houses more often. It is not as though Rook cannot afford it, and this - the easy way the malice is drawn out of him, and not the startling and oddly beautiful sight of his brother’s unbrushed hair – is well worth the cost.
Of course, it is not precisely Thom’s tournois. And he’s done enough to manipulate Rook already, without steering him toward establishments with private baths.
The temptation is there, though. Especially when Rook flings himself onto the bed without a glance toward the ointments prescribed to keep his scar tissue from impeding his movements. Without so much as running a comb through his hair.
He’ll regret both in the morning, Thom thinks, but knows better than to ‘harp’.
They’ve had that argument already.
Of course, Rook does not regret either. He is never less than striking, and the unruly mass of gold shot through with blue seems to soften his jagged edges where any other man would merely look unkempt.
If his scars pain him at all, he is too stubborn to mention such to Thom.
The breeze is just strong enough to make itself a nuisance, and warm as breath so that before long Thom’s hair is sticking to his neck and the sides of his face. Even without the coat, his shirt is so damp with sweat that cleaning the dust of the road from his glasses smears the colours of the day together so that he is little better with his spectacles than he is without, and he tucks them resignedly into his shirt pocket.
He doesn’t need to see Rook clearly to know that the other man is sweating like a pig. He can follow the heavy musk of his brother down this grass-lined road as well as any hound, and a hound would be just as bewildered by the run of both hands backward over Rook’s head, the frequent toss of sweaty hair like an irate thoroughbred.
Rook might be painfully handsome and know it, but he’s no dandy, and the persistent, unfamiliar tic alarms Thom about as much as it amuses him.
It’s not until they reach their lodgings at Kerrigan and Rook — obligingly, and that should have been Thom’s first clue — has water drawn for two baths that Thom finally understands. Because the moment he’s free from the filth of the road and can see in more detail than sweeping coloured blurs, Rook tosses a comb at him and says, like he’s daring Thom to make something of it, “Make yourself useful.”
Thom blinks at Rook, then at the comb. And then, realising that it’s this petty irritation that’s been creeping up Rook’s spine all day, says, “Of course. Where would you like to sit?”
There’s not much he can do about the relief in his voice, but Rook is kind enough — or mindful enough of the supposed favour — not to mention it.
It fucking figures that the professor knows how to braid hair, and braid it neat and pretty — like a fucking champion, if you want to know the truth. His hands are nearly as big as Rook’s, but he has to guess the longer fingers help, because the professor braids like he was born to it, and neater than Rook can manage by far.
“You’d think you’d been a fucking handmaid,” Rook says before he can help himself, because for all the times he’s called the kid cindy, he knows skill when he sees it, and the professor’s never seemed that good with his hands.
Thom gives him a look over his glasses, fingers still moving of their own accord, and the smile is wry. “I grew up with whores,” he says, as if this explains everything. “You learn all sorts of things.”
Rook thinks of the things he’s paid for his whores to have learned over the years, and the professor must see the look on his face in the mirror, because before Rook can decide whether to be disgusted or intrigued, he says, “My god, it might even be symmetrical when I’m finished. Have you ever even used that comb before?”
It’s probably just as well his hands still hurt. He’s sure it’s still illegal to kill your brother, even if no one knew he was your brother until about three months ago.
Even if nobody knows he’s your brother but you and him.
III
‘Course, there’s plenty of ways to kill your brother, and they don’t have to involve your hands. Well, not directly.
It’s because of Rook’s hands that he can’t spin his knives; because of his hands that there’s no way to occupy himself of an evening but making the professor’s mouth thin out and turn down at the corners while he tries to pretend his cheeks ain’t pinker than a virgin’s. Rook might even feel sorry for it if he weren’t so pissed off; it’s also because of his hands that he can’t even fuck the way he wants to. The whores have been on top for the last four days, and their smugness is making him grouchy.
He’s not above voicing his displeasure over this, either – not when it gets under the professor’s skin like nothing else. Not when it’s so much fun to watch him snap.
“I don’t think I remember you being quite so disgusting as an eight year old,” he says, all poison green eyes and sour mouth, and Rook only grins.
“Maybe I just took special care to keep it outside the house,” he offers, and gets a snort in return.
“If only you’d do me the same courtesy now,” Thom mutters, and before Rook can say anything about how much happier he’d be if he hired himself a woman every once in a while – only maybe the professor’d be happier with a cindy for hire, maybe one that looked like Balfour – Thom’s off again, like there’s a list he’s been sitting on and only just remembered. “I’d rather you kept it in here and made them bathe beforehand. Your chest’s not getting any better, and I hope to the scarlet horn god you’ve not been putting your hands on them.”
He has, of course, and not thought twice about it because they weren’t that unclean, and he’s lived in Molly, for fuck’s sake. It shouldn’t be that much of a problem, and the fact that his hands might be more tender, maybe inflamed, after a few days of cheap whores just makes him angrier.
“I s’pose you’d rather your own hand,” he sneered. “You wash them often enough.”
Thom’s jaw firms in a way Rook recognises from his very own mirror, and he says, nice and slow, “I’m only concerned that bad hygiene and strenuous activity aren’t—”
“You fucking bet it’s strenuous,” Rook says, and Thom stares at him, green eyes narrow and furious, lips trembling and pale. Rook waits, as he always waits, for a curse to emerge, or a five tournois insult, but Thom rolls his map, removes his glasses, and sets them both resolutely on the table.
“I’m going to bed,” he says, with infuriating control, and there’s no satisfaction in sneering at his back.
Rook doesn’t apologise, of course. The next day he barely acknowledges Thom until they hit Rigton — which is fine by the younger man, since the way Rook smirked as the ladies of the house bid him farewell in the morning turned Thom’s stomach — and the only thing he says when they get there is, “See you before curfew.”
But the next day his clothing is awkward, as if he hadn’t quite been able to sit things straight or comfortably when he dressed, and Thom catches him rubbing his bandaged palms together and picking at his fingers when he thinks he can get away with it.
It’s ridiculous, the surreptitious glances and the careful way Rook blocks Thom’s line of sight with his shoulders whenever he goes to relieve the niggling ache of the infection, but rather than call his brother on acting like a thwarted five year old, Thom waits until they reach the Bay of Pillars. While Rook is showering, he slips from the room down to the stables, where a very helpful and possibly lecherous stable boy finds him some horse liniment and a tincture that will do more or less what Thremedon’s latest antiseptic creams aspire to.
Rook is struggling into a shirt when he gets back to the room – struggling slowly, because his shoulders are stiffer than they had been when they left Thremedon, the ointments blithely ignored in the moronic quest to go against every word to come out of Thom’s mouth. He grunts when Thom grabs his sleeve, wariness sharp in his blue eyes, but Thom is in no mood for this nonsense, and says so.
“Take it off and go sit down,” he says flatly, and watches Rook’s eyes widen fractionally in either glee or alarm. “Would you like to call me cindy first? At least I’m not stupid enough to lose my hands over country whores.”
“I ain’t gonna lose my fuckin’ hands,” Rook starts, and Thom glares at him.
“You’re not in the Airman any more,” he says curtly. “They don’t have medicine here, and if they do, it isn’t at your beck and call.” In Molly, you could pay someone to steal what you needed – or sell yourself into service for the privilege, more likely – but out here there weren’t even respectable doctors to filch from.
“Quit acting like you’re my fucking mother,” Rook says, disgusted, which means he knows Thom is right, but despite that small satisfaction, all Thom can think is that he isn’t.
He won’t abandon Rook like she did.
It must show in his face, because Rook looks at the wall behind Thom rather than meet his eyes for the long minutes it takes him to remove his shirt. Then he sits on the edge of the bed, jaw clenched, and waits as if for a whipping.
Thom makes a point to change the dressing on his hands as quickly and impersonally as possible, but when he reaches the scarring on Rook’s chest and stomach, the twisted, tangled scars that marr the shoulders he once rode piggyback through the market, it’s harder to ignore the painfully tense set of Rook’s shoulders and the discomfort writ large across his face. Thom works the liniment slowly into Rook’s shoulders first, pressing at first with the pads of his fingertips, and then with the heel of his hand.
He works across Rook’s back, standing close enough to rub down its length with one hand and trying not to let the lump of misery in his throat force its way out into the still, tense air. His brother did not deserve these scars; despite everything, he doesn’t think Rook does, either.
It’s four days later when Rook returns to the room half-naked, tosses something small and hard at Thom, and flings himself expectantly onto the bed closest to the door.
Thom, for whom the reflexes of a mollyrat are never more than half a breath away, catches the small hard thing before remembering he shouldn’t, drops it before he remembers he doesn’t have to pretend, and winces when his fumbling sends a tiny, delicate-looking bottle clattering onto the table. Rook twists up on one elbow to smirk.
“Nice catch, Professor.”
“I take it you’re ready to be tended to,” Thom murmurs wryly, but he leaves his spectacles folded into the roman to mark his place and moves toward the bed without further protest. The bottle is small enough that it frustrates his long fingers for a moment, but then a fresh, spicy scent hits his nostrils and he glances at the bottle in surprise. That certainly brings back memories.
Rook flops back onto his stomach the moment Thom’s knees touch the mattress, and then he’s shuffling awkwardly across the bed so he can reach Rook properly, the tiny bottle awkwardly crushed in his palm.
Oil is not liniment. It runs so quickly over Rook’s shoulders that Thom has to cup his hands and scoop it quickly back toward Rook’s spine before it can ruin the bedcovers. The scent of it rises around him, sweet herbs stirred by rain, and he pauses a moment too long because Rook twitches and tosses his head to one side.
“What’s the problem?”
“Nothing,” Thom says, instead of, unscented oil would have done just as well, and goes to work on his brother’s scars.
When Rook drifts back into consciousness, it’s to warm, soft hands on his shoulders, their weight pressing him expertly into the mattress. Oil-slick thumbs roll mercilessly along the nape of his neck and he groans appreciatively; strongest whore he’s ever had, he thinks, with his face in the pillow and his head clouded by her perfume. He’s not much for the stuff as a general rule – it’s hard to get off, and it goes fucking sour if you give it long enough, at least on Rook’s skin – but this is light and pleasant, fresh and almost enlivening. He smirks into the pillow at the thought that any woman might wear him out that much, but he’s glad he paid for it – from where he’s lying, it’s a hell of a lot better than musk.
He grins when the whore’s hand runs right down his side, and she says, deep and crisp, “Now the other half.”
“’s more than half,” he mumbles into the pillow, half-grinning at the sluggish warmth in his limbs. She sure knows how to use those thumbs, even if her hands are on the large side.
He keeps his eyes shut as he rolls, because the lamps in this room are brighter than any but the prettiest whore would dare to use, so her thigh, when his hand finds it, is a little meatier than he’s expecting. And a little more clothed. He runs his hand along it in a slow, searching way, hunting for skin.
The choked, shocked little squeak is not how any whore has been trained to say his name or anyone else’s, and it snaps Rook back to the reality of the room so fast he has to blink at his surroundings: Thom’s eyes wild and green without his spectacles, and Rook’s hand still curved appreciatively around the back of the professor’s upper thigh.
IV
The masssages come to a dead fucking stop after that. Thom doesn’t say a word about Rook’s scars or the medication thereof, and Rook curries his hair back roughly with his fingers and abandons the idea of braids altogether, since his dye is fading, anyway. Brave, stupid men keep bringing it up in backwater dives. Rook hasn’t broken any more glasses, but he’s getting pretty good at breaking noses with his feet.
He’s been pretty good at doing without sleep for months already, but there’s a big fucking difference between doing without sleep because you don’t have five minutes to sit still, and doing without sleep because your damn head keeps going five seconds further than your hand did with your little brother’s thigh.
He’s tried whores but they’re all dark haired out here and hazel is too close to green by half, and the looks Thom – Hilary, he reminds himself furiously, little Hilary who used to laugh until he nearly puked when you spun him round in circles and dangled him upside down – keeps giving him over the top of his glasses make him want to shove the professor up against the wall like he did at th’Esar’s fancy fucking party, only Rook wants to make him cry this time, like Balfour did once or twice out of sheer fury.
They’re in a tiny little shithole of a village with no name that exists only because there’s nothing better between two larger towns when his head goes and changes that, too. He wrenches himself out of the dream with the ease of long practice and lies sweating and shaking with his hands tighter than a choke hold on the covers and his balls tight and aching between his legs.
He swings out of bed as soon as he can move without disaster. Their fucking room doesn’t even have a window to speak of, just a shutter in the ceiling. He splashes his face with water, which doesn’t do a whole fucking lot, and spends the rest of the night staring at the line of clouded sky through the shutter, wishing he were anywhere fucking else and listening to his brother pretend to be asleep.
He’s no fucking good at that, either, but the fact that he cares enough for Rook’s pride to try sits cold and heavy in Rook’s stomach for fucking days. He never thought Ace’s worrying would be contagious.
The nightmares must be particularly bad, because Rook isn’t even deliberately antagonising him any more. It’s a relief, in a sense, because Thom isn’t sleeping well enough to keep a good hold on his temper, but it is also profoundly worrying. The torture methods of the Ke-Han are shrouded in horror and mystery. Rook never speaks about his time with them, and Thom never dares to ask.
Allowing Thom to tend to the scars was as close as Rook had come to sharing anything about his time as a prisoner of the empire, and that–
Well, Thom doesn’t know how to fix what happened in that room. He doesn’t know what to do about the way his pulse leaps every time he thinks about it, either. But the fear and the guilt — those, he can deal with. They’ve been his primary emotional responses to Rook ever since th’Esar assigned him to the Airman.
Thom is only glad that he has long since ceased to be angry.
It’s more than he can say for Rook, who keeps shooting him odd, narrow glances from the corner of his eye. Thom isn’t sure what to make of it. It isn’t anger, exactly, but he’s not sure enough to say that it’s not anger, either. There’s a dark weight to his gaze and a tightness to his mouth that doesn’t match the stiffness of his shoulders — Rook doesn’t go stiff when he’s mad, he goes soft and hot like liquid fire, like the mercury that used to drive men mad.
Thom thinks he understands why.
It’s late afternoon when they crest the hill that gives them their first glimpse of the gardens. The grounds and walls surrounding the gardens proper, anyway, as the professor explains in minute fucking detail on their way into town, while the sun sets and the moths and the fireflies rise up out of the grass on either side of the road and the crickets start up like the top half of a pianoforte going down the stairs.
Hilary doesn’t try to eat the fireflies, although he does look like he’s trying not to smile the second time he has to wave one out of his face.
There’s inns aplenty in Esk, since the hanging gardens are such a fucking draw, and Rook spends three whole seconds deciding on the perfectly serviceable villa instead of the gigantic, expensive hotel next to it: he’s pretty fucking sure he doesn’t want scented oil anywhere near him, even in a bath. The lift to Hilary’s eyebrows makes him grit his teeth; he’s spent this much time following Rook around like some kind of fucking puppy, spent all those years in the versity learning all about people out of books, and he can’t even work this one out. Some professor.
Once he’s inside, though, he understands what it was that surprised the professor so fucking much: the other half of the villa is a long, low room that probably used to be a barn, and arranged all down the sides and in the middle there’s all kinds of helpful displays and informative plaques if you gave two shits about the gardens, which Rook didn’t.
He leaves Hilary in the museum with the dust and the fancy-looking tourists and goes to harass the desk clerk about that bath.
“–and the different tiers are sown with different flowers,” the professor continues, although Rook has only just stepped out of the bathroom and hasn’t actually heard the first ten minutes of this conversation. “Ostensibly they bloom their brightest at different times of year and day, but I noticed while I was looking at the plans that the lowest tier has flowers you’d be most likely to buy around the docks, which is interesting, don’t you think?”
He pauses to lift one eyebrow, though he’s not paying attention to anything other than what he’s saying or he’d look a little less fucking smug. Cindy as the professor obviously is, he’s never batted an eyelid about Rook in a state of undress.
“The top tier, of course, is full of all the most expensive and difficult-to-maintain flowers of the nobility,” he continues. “At least, the ones I recognise are. I haven’t read extensively about the gardens, so I’m sure there’s a treatise on it somewhere, but I’m curious as to whether the segregation was deliberate — well, it was obviously deliberate, but I want to know whether the medical ‘versity had its own tier, since it doesn’t have grounds so much as halls–”
There’s a note to his voice that Rook’s never heard, that he’s never even imagined might’ve been there. It’s worlds away from the careful tone he took with the airmen; it’s almost like his thoughts are running away with him and he’s having to sprint to keep up.
Rook watches the flush to Hilary’s face, watches the faint excited tremor to his left hand as he pushes his glasses back up his nose, and can’t quite keep himself from grinning.
Rook’s been trying to sour the professor’s guts so long, he’d forgotten what it was like to make Hilary happy.
It’s the grin that makes him pause, Rook’s pretty sure, because the last few times the professor had seen it were probably about thirty seconds before Rook did something truly fucking awful to him. But the professor doesn’t look like he’s dwelling on anything like that. An answering grin splits his face, making it rounder and warmer and — fuck — adoring, like it was back in Molly, only it’s a whole lot cleaner and without so many gaps while his teeth were still working out where they wanted to be.
“I can’t wait until the gates open,” the professor confesses, eyes shining, and he laughs a little bit like he can’t keep it in. “I’ve– do you remember that woman who used to sell the tulips from the washing fountain? Hester, I think. She told me about this place when I was nine, and it sounded so–”
He seems to realise Rook is laughing at him, then — his shoulders are shaking too hard for it not to be a pretty big fucking clue — and he stops mid-sentence. His grin fades, but the glitter in his eyes doesn’t.
“Thankyou,” he says, and that stops Rook’s laughter in his throat. “I mean it,” the professor adds, his expression sobering quickly, although none of the warmth leaves his eyes. “Thankyou for bringing me here.”
Rook keeps his mouth shut, because he has no fucking clue what to say.
“Thankyou for bringing me along,” Hilary finishes quietly, shyly, and takes off his glasses so he has the excuse to look down at his soft versity hands while he polishes them. As if they need it, when they both know it’s an excuse. His little brother, covering for him so he won’t have to– what? What the fuck does he even want?
He’s on his feet before he can think twice about it, trousers low on his hips, towel still around his shoulders because his hair is still sitting damp and heavy against his neck.
“You’re looking forward to it that much?” he says, a little roughly, when the professor looks up in surprise, eyes creased with just the slightest bit of pain as he tries to focus on Rook’s face without his glasses. “Fucking– really?”
And then creasing more, warmly, as the hint of a flush springs up on his nose and cheeks. “I doubt I’ll sleep,” he confesses, very quietly. Still looking out for how Rook’s going to feel about the matter, but they’re close enough that there’s no way to hide just how fucking happy he is.
Just how fucking grateful he is, since it’s all Rook’s doing that he’s here in the first place.
There’s something in Rook’s throat, heavy and warm, and it feels like it’s trying to split him down the middle. The stupid little fucker. All the bullshit he’s pulled, all the fucking years sitting between this and the last time Rook did a fucking thing worth smiling over–
“You are one stupid son-of-a-bitch,” Rook growls, and grabs his shoulders to kiss him on the mouth.
Hilary’s mouth opens with a sharp sound, breath stuttering in surprise, but Rook gives no quarter. He kisses with bruising force, more fiercely than he’s kissed any woman — at th’Esar’s ball or anywhere else — because this, this is something the professor needs to fucking understand. Rook’s going to fuck with him. Rook’s going to fucking break him, if he keeps fucking caring so much.
Except when Rook’s teeth fasten to the professor’s lower lip, the low moan that emerges from his throat doesn’t sound like he’s trying to escape, or voice protest. It doesn’t even sound like he made it on purpose.
His big hands curl against Rook’s chest, one catching the towel and one bracing firmly against his ribs. Rook didn’t even hear him drop his glasses.
Fuck, he thinks, and he’d have pulled away then and there, point made, except that Thom’s tongue moves against his, darting into his mouth and out again, a quick lap against the roof of his mouth. It makes him think of a fucking mouse — and then the professor sucks his tongue right out of his mouth like he wants to fucking swallow it, and any thoughts of mice go out the fucking window.
It’ll take more than that to make his knees weak, but he’s glad the bed’s right behind him all the same. It only takes his hands moving from shoulders to narrow little hips, one of Thom’s arms slipping up and around his shoulders to avoid it being crushed between them. A few quick, leading steps backward and the professor is sprawled on his lap, the fingers of his right hand curled firmly in the hair at the nape of Rook’s neck, getting the angle all wrong. Rook slithers a hand up between them to grab at Thom’s chin and correct it, and has to huff a breath out in surprise when the professor all but melts against his chest.
Sensible shirt and jacket and too many fucking buttons. Rook yanks his shirt out of his pants without bothering to undo the belt, and the second he has his hands on the professor’s skin, Thom’s fingers start carding through his hair. His kiss loses its focus as Rook runs his hands from the small of the professor’s back up to his shoulders, and when Rook runs his hands back the other way, Thom sighs against his mouth.
When Rook’s hands move lower, haul him closer, his forehead drops to Rook’s shoulder with a harsh sound of surprise that becomes a moan as Rook laves a hot tongue up the line of his neck.
Rook bites the side of his neck just to hear him curse, and makes a noise of his own when Thom bucks against him and hisses something he’s pretty sure Macgoughin didn’t know until Rook told it to him.
“Just like a fucking molly-rat,” he growls into Thom’s ear, grinning ferally, and of course it’s that that makes the professor sit up and pay attention, bracing himself on his elbows just in time for Rook to grab his ass and grind. His face hovers above Rook’s for a few moments, green eyes hooded and far away, cheeks flushed and lips swollen like any of the fine ladies of Tuesday Street.
Well, not exactly like.
“Rook,” he says, deeper and less together than Rook’s ever heard him speak. He can’t quite focus without his glasses on — only at short distances, Rook figures, and fuck, he never thought that would be quite as hot as it actually is.
“Why don’t you get rid of that fucking jacket,” he says, “and show me what you learned from those whores of yours.”
Thom flushes even more, his gaze skittering purposefully away. “I... don’t know what you mean. I’m not... that is, I haven’t...”
He bites down on his lip as if waiting for the guillotine, and Rook feels his eyebrows lift without actually intending to raise them.
“What, you never–”
“I lived in a whorehouse, Rook,” Thom says, not quite flatly. “With whores. Another house would have been like treason, and my own would have been like...”
He pauses, sudden pallor replacing the flush to his face. His eyes snap to Rook’s, or near enough to, and Rook feels his expression shift into something a little more natural: dark amusement.
It’s better than letting the chill in his stomach get away from him.
“Quick, aren’t you?”
Thom pushes himself up, flushing darkly again as pressure and heat takes effect even through their trousers. “I... I think we should...”
And yeah, that had been the plan to begin with. But Rook’s cock doesn’t seem to care that the weight against it is his brother, and if the fucking whores were like incest, well. He sets a hand against Thom’s hip to hold him still.
It’s been twenty-one years, for fuck’s sake.
“I sure as fuck ain’t John no more,” he says, slow and clear, because he’d spent enough time trying to get the little fucker to pay attention when he was three to know that he isn’t too good with complicated statements when he’s stressed. Thom stares down at him, teeth fastened around his lower lip like that’ll help him out, hands hovering in front of him like they’ll light on fire if he touches anything.
He stays perfectly still as Rook props himself upright and grips both of the professor’s hands with his good one.
Both of them look at their hands, and then stubbornly watch each other’s faces.
“C’n call you Hilary if you want,” Rook mutters, and tries not to grin too hard when the colour races back into the professor’s cheeks like it's chased by a fucking dragon.
V
“Yeah,” says Rook the next morning, sticky and smug. “I can see where this is hygienic.”
Title: Standards
Fandom: Havemercy
Character/s: Rook, Thom
Words: 5905
Warning/s: If you don't know the spoiler, don't fucking read this!
Notes: For
feather_qwill, who has been very patient, and I hope the length makes up for the long wait, which has been so long that I have actually forgotten why the fic is titled as it is. Also, this fic is not really Shadow Magic-compliant, because that would involve rewriting it entirely from scratch, and really, fuck that. XDHAPPY BIRTHDAY/CHRISTMAS 2008, SEME-SAMA.
XD;;;;; *fails SO HARD OMG*
When Rook gets back to the room, dripping wine and blood and holding his hand out to the left so it can stain the floor instead of his fucking trousers, the professor is reading. Pretending to read, he ought to say – his jaw’s tight and his face is pale enough to let Rook know that he heard at least half of what was going on and he’s siding with the hag downstairs. Rook half wants to smash his fucking glasses, but with one hand swollen and the other leaking blood all over, he figures he’s broken enough glass for one night.
“Pack your fucking bags,” he growls. “We’re fucking leaving.”
There’s still glass in his hand when he’s done washing it, but it’s the best he can do in the little pitcher this shithole has on the nightstand, and it’s not like he’s bleeding so bad he can’t stand. He wraps it up in his bloody shirt, shrugs the jacket on over his bare shoulders, and grabs up his bag, glad he doesn’t unpack his fuckin’ toilette like the professor does at every turn.
He’s halfway down the stairs before the professor’s even finished closing his suitcase, glaring at the whole fucking bar on his way out, just daring anyone to ask him for so much as a fucking chevronet.
The professor catches up with him halfway down the street, lips thin and white with frowning.
“Bet you even fucking paid them for that,” Rook snarls over his shoulder, and later thanks the memory of his dragon that Hilary’s got too much goddamn sense to reply.
In the flickering light of a small fire, Thom searches for fragments of glass in Rook’s palm and consoles himself that it was only a matter of time.
There’s a direct corelation between the distance they travel from Thremedon and the level of hostility directed at the airman, and though he’s fairly sure that Rook didn’t anticipate it, Thom most certainly did. Has since the first town they passed, in which eyebrows were raised over how boldly Rook conducted himself with the whores.
He’s never brought it up, not directly, though he’d tried to make casual mention of the general level of hygiene in brothels outside Charlotte. He knows telling Rook — even asking Rook — not to do something is about the fastest way of getting him to try it. But he’s seen what happens to men’s hands when they break bottles. Rook’s lucky he’ll get to keep his, lucky there’s enough of his hand left to suck the glass out of.
Of course, he doesn’t say as much. Worrying about Rook is difficult and dangerous enough without saying things like ‘I told you so.’
Rook’s hands are swollen and painful in the morning, and they don’t much improve on the walk to Gjelsmund. Needless to say this does nothing for his temper. Thom observes two of the more obvious landmarks aloud in the hope that opening an avenue of conversation will at least stop Rook from clenching his jaw like that, but gives up when the airman makes no reply. The last thing he wants is for Rook to accidentally clench his fists.
He’s surly but silent when they reach the town of Gjelsmund, allowing Thom to arrange their accommodations without a word outside of asking where the baths are. As soon as the bags are flung down, Rook vanishes, towel in hand. Thom passes the time by looking over the route they’ll probably take tomorrow, wondering if there’s anything likely to catch Rook’s eye along the way other than pretty shepherd girls and whores. He doubts it.
When Rook returns the better part of an hour later, towel slung shamelessly low about his waist, Thom blinks. His hair is completely unbraided, the humidity turning it slowly into a tangled, half-curled mess of tawny gold and royal blue. It reaches nearly to his bare shoulder blades. Thom is puzzled until he notices that the bandages on Rook’s hands are fresh, and fresh blood is seeping through the wrappings.
“Do you want me to rewrap those?” he asks, already well aware of the answer.
Rook snorts and shakes his head. He doesn’t sneer, though. Thom thinks if actual baths improve his temper this dramatically, they may have to stay in hotels with bath houses more often. It is not as though Rook cannot afford it, and this - the easy way the malice is drawn out of him, and not the startling and oddly beautiful sight of his brother’s unbrushed hair – is well worth the cost.
Of course, it is not precisely Thom’s tournois. And he’s done enough to manipulate Rook already, without steering him toward establishments with private baths.
The temptation is there, though. Especially when Rook flings himself onto the bed without a glance toward the ointments prescribed to keep his scar tissue from impeding his movements. Without so much as running a comb through his hair.
He’ll regret both in the morning, Thom thinks, but knows better than to ‘harp’.
They’ve had that argument already.
Of course, Rook does not regret either. He is never less than striking, and the unruly mass of gold shot through with blue seems to soften his jagged edges where any other man would merely look unkempt.
If his scars pain him at all, he is too stubborn to mention such to Thom.
The breeze is just strong enough to make itself a nuisance, and warm as breath so that before long Thom’s hair is sticking to his neck and the sides of his face. Even without the coat, his shirt is so damp with sweat that cleaning the dust of the road from his glasses smears the colours of the day together so that he is little better with his spectacles than he is without, and he tucks them resignedly into his shirt pocket.
He doesn’t need to see Rook clearly to know that the other man is sweating like a pig. He can follow the heavy musk of his brother down this grass-lined road as well as any hound, and a hound would be just as bewildered by the run of both hands backward over Rook’s head, the frequent toss of sweaty hair like an irate thoroughbred.
Rook might be painfully handsome and know it, but he’s no dandy, and the persistent, unfamiliar tic alarms Thom about as much as it amuses him.
It’s not until they reach their lodgings at Kerrigan and Rook — obligingly, and that should have been Thom’s first clue — has water drawn for two baths that Thom finally understands. Because the moment he’s free from the filth of the road and can see in more detail than sweeping coloured blurs, Rook tosses a comb at him and says, like he’s daring Thom to make something of it, “Make yourself useful.”
Thom blinks at Rook, then at the comb. And then, realising that it’s this petty irritation that’s been creeping up Rook’s spine all day, says, “Of course. Where would you like to sit?”
There’s not much he can do about the relief in his voice, but Rook is kind enough — or mindful enough of the supposed favour — not to mention it.
It fucking figures that the professor knows how to braid hair, and braid it neat and pretty — like a fucking champion, if you want to know the truth. His hands are nearly as big as Rook’s, but he has to guess the longer fingers help, because the professor braids like he was born to it, and neater than Rook can manage by far.
“You’d think you’d been a fucking handmaid,” Rook says before he can help himself, because for all the times he’s called the kid cindy, he knows skill when he sees it, and the professor’s never seemed that good with his hands.
Thom gives him a look over his glasses, fingers still moving of their own accord, and the smile is wry. “I grew up with whores,” he says, as if this explains everything. “You learn all sorts of things.”
Rook thinks of the things he’s paid for his whores to have learned over the years, and the professor must see the look on his face in the mirror, because before Rook can decide whether to be disgusted or intrigued, he says, “My god, it might even be symmetrical when I’m finished. Have you ever even used that comb before?”
It’s probably just as well his hands still hurt. He’s sure it’s still illegal to kill your brother, even if no one knew he was your brother until about three months ago.
Even if nobody knows he’s your brother but you and him.
‘Course, there’s plenty of ways to kill your brother, and they don’t have to involve your hands. Well, not directly.
It’s because of Rook’s hands that he can’t spin his knives; because of his hands that there’s no way to occupy himself of an evening but making the professor’s mouth thin out and turn down at the corners while he tries to pretend his cheeks ain’t pinker than a virgin’s. Rook might even feel sorry for it if he weren’t so pissed off; it’s also because of his hands that he can’t even fuck the way he wants to. The whores have been on top for the last four days, and their smugness is making him grouchy.
He’s not above voicing his displeasure over this, either – not when it gets under the professor’s skin like nothing else. Not when it’s so much fun to watch him snap.
“I don’t think I remember you being quite so disgusting as an eight year old,” he says, all poison green eyes and sour mouth, and Rook only grins.
“Maybe I just took special care to keep it outside the house,” he offers, and gets a snort in return.
“If only you’d do me the same courtesy now,” Thom mutters, and before Rook can say anything about how much happier he’d be if he hired himself a woman every once in a while – only maybe the professor’d be happier with a cindy for hire, maybe one that looked like Balfour – Thom’s off again, like there’s a list he’s been sitting on and only just remembered. “I’d rather you kept it in here and made them bathe beforehand. Your chest’s not getting any better, and I hope to the scarlet horn god you’ve not been putting your hands on them.”
He has, of course, and not thought twice about it because they weren’t that unclean, and he’s lived in Molly, for fuck’s sake. It shouldn’t be that much of a problem, and the fact that his hands might be more tender, maybe inflamed, after a few days of cheap whores just makes him angrier.
“I s’pose you’d rather your own hand,” he sneered. “You wash them often enough.”
Thom’s jaw firms in a way Rook recognises from his very own mirror, and he says, nice and slow, “I’m only concerned that bad hygiene and strenuous activity aren’t—”
“You fucking bet it’s strenuous,” Rook says, and Thom stares at him, green eyes narrow and furious, lips trembling and pale. Rook waits, as he always waits, for a curse to emerge, or a five tournois insult, but Thom rolls his map, removes his glasses, and sets them both resolutely on the table.
“I’m going to bed,” he says, with infuriating control, and there’s no satisfaction in sneering at his back.
Rook doesn’t apologise, of course. The next day he barely acknowledges Thom until they hit Rigton — which is fine by the younger man, since the way Rook smirked as the ladies of the house bid him farewell in the morning turned Thom’s stomach — and the only thing he says when they get there is, “See you before curfew.”
But the next day his clothing is awkward, as if he hadn’t quite been able to sit things straight or comfortably when he dressed, and Thom catches him rubbing his bandaged palms together and picking at his fingers when he thinks he can get away with it.
It’s ridiculous, the surreptitious glances and the careful way Rook blocks Thom’s line of sight with his shoulders whenever he goes to relieve the niggling ache of the infection, but rather than call his brother on acting like a thwarted five year old, Thom waits until they reach the Bay of Pillars. While Rook is showering, he slips from the room down to the stables, where a very helpful and possibly lecherous stable boy finds him some horse liniment and a tincture that will do more or less what Thremedon’s latest antiseptic creams aspire to.
Rook is struggling into a shirt when he gets back to the room – struggling slowly, because his shoulders are stiffer than they had been when they left Thremedon, the ointments blithely ignored in the moronic quest to go against every word to come out of Thom’s mouth. He grunts when Thom grabs his sleeve, wariness sharp in his blue eyes, but Thom is in no mood for this nonsense, and says so.
“Take it off and go sit down,” he says flatly, and watches Rook’s eyes widen fractionally in either glee or alarm. “Would you like to call me cindy first? At least I’m not stupid enough to lose my hands over country whores.”
“I ain’t gonna lose my fuckin’ hands,” Rook starts, and Thom glares at him.
“You’re not in the Airman any more,” he says curtly. “They don’t have medicine here, and if they do, it isn’t at your beck and call.” In Molly, you could pay someone to steal what you needed – or sell yourself into service for the privilege, more likely – but out here there weren’t even respectable doctors to filch from.
“Quit acting like you’re my fucking mother,” Rook says, disgusted, which means he knows Thom is right, but despite that small satisfaction, all Thom can think is that he isn’t.
He won’t abandon Rook like she did.
It must show in his face, because Rook looks at the wall behind Thom rather than meet his eyes for the long minutes it takes him to remove his shirt. Then he sits on the edge of the bed, jaw clenched, and waits as if for a whipping.
Thom makes a point to change the dressing on his hands as quickly and impersonally as possible, but when he reaches the scarring on Rook’s chest and stomach, the twisted, tangled scars that marr the shoulders he once rode piggyback through the market, it’s harder to ignore the painfully tense set of Rook’s shoulders and the discomfort writ large across his face. Thom works the liniment slowly into Rook’s shoulders first, pressing at first with the pads of his fingertips, and then with the heel of his hand.
He works across Rook’s back, standing close enough to rub down its length with one hand and trying not to let the lump of misery in his throat force its way out into the still, tense air. His brother did not deserve these scars; despite everything, he doesn’t think Rook does, either.
It’s four days later when Rook returns to the room half-naked, tosses something small and hard at Thom, and flings himself expectantly onto the bed closest to the door.
Thom, for whom the reflexes of a mollyrat are never more than half a breath away, catches the small hard thing before remembering he shouldn’t, drops it before he remembers he doesn’t have to pretend, and winces when his fumbling sends a tiny, delicate-looking bottle clattering onto the table. Rook twists up on one elbow to smirk.
“Nice catch, Professor.”
“I take it you’re ready to be tended to,” Thom murmurs wryly, but he leaves his spectacles folded into the roman to mark his place and moves toward the bed without further protest. The bottle is small enough that it frustrates his long fingers for a moment, but then a fresh, spicy scent hits his nostrils and he glances at the bottle in surprise. That certainly brings back memories.
Rook flops back onto his stomach the moment Thom’s knees touch the mattress, and then he’s shuffling awkwardly across the bed so he can reach Rook properly, the tiny bottle awkwardly crushed in his palm.
Oil is not liniment. It runs so quickly over Rook’s shoulders that Thom has to cup his hands and scoop it quickly back toward Rook’s spine before it can ruin the bedcovers. The scent of it rises around him, sweet herbs stirred by rain, and he pauses a moment too long because Rook twitches and tosses his head to one side.
“What’s the problem?”
“Nothing,” Thom says, instead of, unscented oil would have done just as well, and goes to work on his brother’s scars.
When Rook drifts back into consciousness, it’s to warm, soft hands on his shoulders, their weight pressing him expertly into the mattress. Oil-slick thumbs roll mercilessly along the nape of his neck and he groans appreciatively; strongest whore he’s ever had, he thinks, with his face in the pillow and his head clouded by her perfume. He’s not much for the stuff as a general rule – it’s hard to get off, and it goes fucking sour if you give it long enough, at least on Rook’s skin – but this is light and pleasant, fresh and almost enlivening. He smirks into the pillow at the thought that any woman might wear him out that much, but he’s glad he paid for it – from where he’s lying, it’s a hell of a lot better than musk.
He grins when the whore’s hand runs right down his side, and she says, deep and crisp, “Now the other half.”
“’s more than half,” he mumbles into the pillow, half-grinning at the sluggish warmth in his limbs. She sure knows how to use those thumbs, even if her hands are on the large side.
He keeps his eyes shut as he rolls, because the lamps in this room are brighter than any but the prettiest whore would dare to use, so her thigh, when his hand finds it, is a little meatier than he’s expecting. And a little more clothed. He runs his hand along it in a slow, searching way, hunting for skin.
The choked, shocked little squeak is not how any whore has been trained to say his name or anyone else’s, and it snaps Rook back to the reality of the room so fast he has to blink at his surroundings: Thom’s eyes wild and green without his spectacles, and Rook’s hand still curved appreciatively around the back of the professor’s upper thigh.
The masssages come to a dead fucking stop after that. Thom doesn’t say a word about Rook’s scars or the medication thereof, and Rook curries his hair back roughly with his fingers and abandons the idea of braids altogether, since his dye is fading, anyway. Brave, stupid men keep bringing it up in backwater dives. Rook hasn’t broken any more glasses, but he’s getting pretty good at breaking noses with his feet.
He’s been pretty good at doing without sleep for months already, but there’s a big fucking difference between doing without sleep because you don’t have five minutes to sit still, and doing without sleep because your damn head keeps going five seconds further than your hand did with your little brother’s thigh.
He’s tried whores but they’re all dark haired out here and hazel is too close to green by half, and the looks Thom – Hilary, he reminds himself furiously, little Hilary who used to laugh until he nearly puked when you spun him round in circles and dangled him upside down – keeps giving him over the top of his glasses make him want to shove the professor up against the wall like he did at th’Esar’s fancy fucking party, only Rook wants to make him cry this time, like Balfour did once or twice out of sheer fury.
They’re in a tiny little shithole of a village with no name that exists only because there’s nothing better between two larger towns when his head goes and changes that, too. He wrenches himself out of the dream with the ease of long practice and lies sweating and shaking with his hands tighter than a choke hold on the covers and his balls tight and aching between his legs.
He swings out of bed as soon as he can move without disaster. Their fucking room doesn’t even have a window to speak of, just a shutter in the ceiling. He splashes his face with water, which doesn’t do a whole fucking lot, and spends the rest of the night staring at the line of clouded sky through the shutter, wishing he were anywhere fucking else and listening to his brother pretend to be asleep.
He’s no fucking good at that, either, but the fact that he cares enough for Rook’s pride to try sits cold and heavy in Rook’s stomach for fucking days. He never thought Ace’s worrying would be contagious.
The nightmares must be particularly bad, because Rook isn’t even deliberately antagonising him any more. It’s a relief, in a sense, because Thom isn’t sleeping well enough to keep a good hold on his temper, but it is also profoundly worrying. The torture methods of the Ke-Han are shrouded in horror and mystery. Rook never speaks about his time with them, and Thom never dares to ask.
Allowing Thom to tend to the scars was as close as Rook had come to sharing anything about his time as a prisoner of the empire, and that–
Well, Thom doesn’t know how to fix what happened in that room. He doesn’t know what to do about the way his pulse leaps every time he thinks about it, either. But the fear and the guilt — those, he can deal with. They’ve been his primary emotional responses to Rook ever since th’Esar assigned him to the Airman.
Thom is only glad that he has long since ceased to be angry.
It’s more than he can say for Rook, who keeps shooting him odd, narrow glances from the corner of his eye. Thom isn’t sure what to make of it. It isn’t anger, exactly, but he’s not sure enough to say that it’s not anger, either. There’s a dark weight to his gaze and a tightness to his mouth that doesn’t match the stiffness of his shoulders — Rook doesn’t go stiff when he’s mad, he goes soft and hot like liquid fire, like the mercury that used to drive men mad.
Thom thinks he understands why.
It’s late afternoon when they crest the hill that gives them their first glimpse of the gardens. The grounds and walls surrounding the gardens proper, anyway, as the professor explains in minute fucking detail on their way into town, while the sun sets and the moths and the fireflies rise up out of the grass on either side of the road and the crickets start up like the top half of a pianoforte going down the stairs.
Hilary doesn’t try to eat the fireflies, although he does look like he’s trying not to smile the second time he has to wave one out of his face.
There’s inns aplenty in Esk, since the hanging gardens are such a fucking draw, and Rook spends three whole seconds deciding on the perfectly serviceable villa instead of the gigantic, expensive hotel next to it: he’s pretty fucking sure he doesn’t want scented oil anywhere near him, even in a bath. The lift to Hilary’s eyebrows makes him grit his teeth; he’s spent this much time following Rook around like some kind of fucking puppy, spent all those years in the versity learning all about people out of books, and he can’t even work this one out. Some professor.
Once he’s inside, though, he understands what it was that surprised the professor so fucking much: the other half of the villa is a long, low room that probably used to be a barn, and arranged all down the sides and in the middle there’s all kinds of helpful displays and informative plaques if you gave two shits about the gardens, which Rook didn’t.
He leaves Hilary in the museum with the dust and the fancy-looking tourists and goes to harass the desk clerk about that bath.
“–and the different tiers are sown with different flowers,” the professor continues, although Rook has only just stepped out of the bathroom and hasn’t actually heard the first ten minutes of this conversation. “Ostensibly they bloom their brightest at different times of year and day, but I noticed while I was looking at the plans that the lowest tier has flowers you’d be most likely to buy around the docks, which is interesting, don’t you think?”
He pauses to lift one eyebrow, though he’s not paying attention to anything other than what he’s saying or he’d look a little less fucking smug. Cindy as the professor obviously is, he’s never batted an eyelid about Rook in a state of undress.
“The top tier, of course, is full of all the most expensive and difficult-to-maintain flowers of the nobility,” he continues. “At least, the ones I recognise are. I haven’t read extensively about the gardens, so I’m sure there’s a treatise on it somewhere, but I’m curious as to whether the segregation was deliberate — well, it was obviously deliberate, but I want to know whether the medical ‘versity had its own tier, since it doesn’t have grounds so much as halls–”
There’s a note to his voice that Rook’s never heard, that he’s never even imagined might’ve been there. It’s worlds away from the careful tone he took with the airmen; it’s almost like his thoughts are running away with him and he’s having to sprint to keep up.
Rook watches the flush to Hilary’s face, watches the faint excited tremor to his left hand as he pushes his glasses back up his nose, and can’t quite keep himself from grinning.
Rook’s been trying to sour the professor’s guts so long, he’d forgotten what it was like to make Hilary happy.
It’s the grin that makes him pause, Rook’s pretty sure, because the last few times the professor had seen it were probably about thirty seconds before Rook did something truly fucking awful to him. But the professor doesn’t look like he’s dwelling on anything like that. An answering grin splits his face, making it rounder and warmer and — fuck — adoring, like it was back in Molly, only it’s a whole lot cleaner and without so many gaps while his teeth were still working out where they wanted to be.
“I can’t wait until the gates open,” the professor confesses, eyes shining, and he laughs a little bit like he can’t keep it in. “I’ve– do you remember that woman who used to sell the tulips from the washing fountain? Hester, I think. She told me about this place when I was nine, and it sounded so–”
He seems to realise Rook is laughing at him, then — his shoulders are shaking too hard for it not to be a pretty big fucking clue — and he stops mid-sentence. His grin fades, but the glitter in his eyes doesn’t.
“Thankyou,” he says, and that stops Rook’s laughter in his throat. “I mean it,” the professor adds, his expression sobering quickly, although none of the warmth leaves his eyes. “Thankyou for bringing me here.”
Rook keeps his mouth shut, because he has no fucking clue what to say.
“Thankyou for bringing me along,” Hilary finishes quietly, shyly, and takes off his glasses so he has the excuse to look down at his soft versity hands while he polishes them. As if they need it, when they both know it’s an excuse. His little brother, covering for him so he won’t have to– what? What the fuck does he even want?
He’s on his feet before he can think twice about it, trousers low on his hips, towel still around his shoulders because his hair is still sitting damp and heavy against his neck.
“You’re looking forward to it that much?” he says, a little roughly, when the professor looks up in surprise, eyes creased with just the slightest bit of pain as he tries to focus on Rook’s face without his glasses. “Fucking– really?”
And then creasing more, warmly, as the hint of a flush springs up on his nose and cheeks. “I doubt I’ll sleep,” he confesses, very quietly. Still looking out for how Rook’s going to feel about the matter, but they’re close enough that there’s no way to hide just how fucking happy he is.
Just how fucking grateful he is, since it’s all Rook’s doing that he’s here in the first place.
There’s something in Rook’s throat, heavy and warm, and it feels like it’s trying to split him down the middle. The stupid little fucker. All the bullshit he’s pulled, all the fucking years sitting between this and the last time Rook did a fucking thing worth smiling over–
“You are one stupid son-of-a-bitch,” Rook growls, and grabs his shoulders to kiss him on the mouth.
Hilary’s mouth opens with a sharp sound, breath stuttering in surprise, but Rook gives no quarter. He kisses with bruising force, more fiercely than he’s kissed any woman — at th’Esar’s ball or anywhere else — because this, this is something the professor needs to fucking understand. Rook’s going to fuck with him. Rook’s going to fucking break him, if he keeps fucking caring so much.
Except when Rook’s teeth fasten to the professor’s lower lip, the low moan that emerges from his throat doesn’t sound like he’s trying to escape, or voice protest. It doesn’t even sound like he made it on purpose.
His big hands curl against Rook’s chest, one catching the towel and one bracing firmly against his ribs. Rook didn’t even hear him drop his glasses.
Fuck, he thinks, and he’d have pulled away then and there, point made, except that Thom’s tongue moves against his, darting into his mouth and out again, a quick lap against the roof of his mouth. It makes him think of a fucking mouse — and then the professor sucks his tongue right out of his mouth like he wants to fucking swallow it, and any thoughts of mice go out the fucking window.
It’ll take more than that to make his knees weak, but he’s glad the bed’s right behind him all the same. It only takes his hands moving from shoulders to narrow little hips, one of Thom’s arms slipping up and around his shoulders to avoid it being crushed between them. A few quick, leading steps backward and the professor is sprawled on his lap, the fingers of his right hand curled firmly in the hair at the nape of Rook’s neck, getting the angle all wrong. Rook slithers a hand up between them to grab at Thom’s chin and correct it, and has to huff a breath out in surprise when the professor all but melts against his chest.
Sensible shirt and jacket and too many fucking buttons. Rook yanks his shirt out of his pants without bothering to undo the belt, and the second he has his hands on the professor’s skin, Thom’s fingers start carding through his hair. His kiss loses its focus as Rook runs his hands from the small of the professor’s back up to his shoulders, and when Rook runs his hands back the other way, Thom sighs against his mouth.
When Rook’s hands move lower, haul him closer, his forehead drops to Rook’s shoulder with a harsh sound of surprise that becomes a moan as Rook laves a hot tongue up the line of his neck.
Rook bites the side of his neck just to hear him curse, and makes a noise of his own when Thom bucks against him and hisses something he’s pretty sure Macgoughin didn’t know until Rook told it to him.
“Just like a fucking molly-rat,” he growls into Thom’s ear, grinning ferally, and of course it’s that that makes the professor sit up and pay attention, bracing himself on his elbows just in time for Rook to grab his ass and grind. His face hovers above Rook’s for a few moments, green eyes hooded and far away, cheeks flushed and lips swollen like any of the fine ladies of Tuesday Street.
Well, not exactly like.
“Rook,” he says, deeper and less together than Rook’s ever heard him speak. He can’t quite focus without his glasses on — only at short distances, Rook figures, and fuck, he never thought that would be quite as hot as it actually is.
“Why don’t you get rid of that fucking jacket,” he says, “and show me what you learned from those whores of yours.”
Thom flushes even more, his gaze skittering purposefully away. “I... don’t know what you mean. I’m not... that is, I haven’t...”
He bites down on his lip as if waiting for the guillotine, and Rook feels his eyebrows lift without actually intending to raise them.
“What, you never–”
“I lived in a whorehouse, Rook,” Thom says, not quite flatly. “With whores. Another house would have been like treason, and my own would have been like...”
He pauses, sudden pallor replacing the flush to his face. His eyes snap to Rook’s, or near enough to, and Rook feels his expression shift into something a little more natural: dark amusement.
It’s better than letting the chill in his stomach get away from him.
“Quick, aren’t you?”
Thom pushes himself up, flushing darkly again as pressure and heat takes effect even through their trousers. “I... I think we should...”
And yeah, that had been the plan to begin with. But Rook’s cock doesn’t seem to care that the weight against it is his brother, and if the fucking whores were like incest, well. He sets a hand against Thom’s hip to hold him still.
It’s been twenty-one years, for fuck’s sake.
“I sure as fuck ain’t John no more,” he says, slow and clear, because he’d spent enough time trying to get the little fucker to pay attention when he was three to know that he isn’t too good with complicated statements when he’s stressed. Thom stares down at him, teeth fastened around his lower lip like that’ll help him out, hands hovering in front of him like they’ll light on fire if he touches anything.
He stays perfectly still as Rook props himself upright and grips both of the professor’s hands with his good one.
Both of them look at their hands, and then stubbornly watch each other’s faces.
“C’n call you Hilary if you want,” Rook mutters, and tries not to grin too hard when the colour races back into the professor’s cheeks like it's chased by a fucking dragon.
“Yeah,” says Rook the next morning, sticky and smug. “I can see where this is hygienic.”