Wolf's-own: Koan Read online

  He was stripped of his shirt roughly, but with a strange reverence he couldn't credit. Each scar was touched and stroked as it was revealed, a hard press of fingertips that dug down deep for sensation and didn't relent until Jacin was forced to feel it. He couldn't protest, Malick was drowning him in kisses, and every time Jacin gathered enough fury to shove through the outrage of dead flesh brought back to life, Malick drove it away with a press of his thigh to Jacin's groin. Jacin was being played, manipulated, and there was an appalling erotic relief in knowing that it was out of his hands, not his choice, it was all on Malick, but somehow it failed to shame him.

  He had just enough wits to try to help when Malick went for Jacin's trousers, but Jacin's “help” was more like disconcerted flailing, and more begging every time Malick let him breathe. So, Malick took both of Jacin's hands and pinned them above his head, kissed him into silence again and did it himself. The position, the near-violence, the urgency and the helplessness—it took whatever sense Jacin might have held in reserve and throttled it down to raw, simple need. He was wild with it, trying to drag his hands away just for the reassurance of knowing that he couldn't, moaning like he was dying, and kissing Malick back with a desperation born of every single rejection he'd suffered since he'd known what rejection was—rejection of his kiss, of his touch, of his love, of his self—because Malick had never rejected him, had never looked at him like he was nothing.

  "Fuck,” Jacin whimpered when Malick let him, when Malick's mouth finally moved from Jacin's and down to his throat, his collarbones, his chest, sucking at nipples and driving his fingers deep into Jacin's body, twisting, pumping at Jacin's erection so Jacin's mind went abruptly white and blank. “Please, please, please, fuck, Malick, do it, just—” He had to snap in a choppy breath as a hard knot of sensation opened up inside him and set fire to his spine. “Just... uhn, do it, please, I... Malick."

  Malick did. It hurt at first, but Malick had meant it to, because he knew Jacin needed it to, needed the focus, needed the reality.

  Jacin somehow didn't have his hands again, so he couldn't claw and drag as Malick shoved into him. All he could do was arch and try to tilt his hips, get more, until Malick stopped him from doing that, too, with a firm hand to his torso and a look that was so intense Jacin thought he might smolder to an oozing puddle of slag beneath it. Malick's palm was right over the scar beneath Jacin's breastbone, flaring a heat that didn't belong there just beneath Jacin's skin. Malick's gaze was so concentrated that it felt like he'd opened up the wound and Jacin was bleeding out all over the place. Jacin's eyes filled and spilled over again, because he didn't know what all of the things churning and stoppered up in his chest meant, but he thought Malick did, and he knew Malick was waiting for him to ask, but he couldn't, he just couldn't.

  "Please,” was all Jacin said; it seemed it was all he could say anymore. He knew there should be humiliation tangled in it somewhere, but this was all on Malick now, that was the whole point, so Jacin pinned it down just as firmly as Malick pinned Jacin's wrists to the bed.

  "Tell me,” Malick bid him, rough and demanding. And then he waited.

  A bright flare of panic ripped through Jacin's gut, because he didn't know what Malick wanted him to say, had no idea what Malick wanted to hear, and Malick wasn't going to tell him, he wanted Jacin to know. And Jacin didn't. He probably should, but he didn't. He thought about snarling and cursing and biting back, but this was what he'd wanted—this was what he'd asked for, pleaded for, thrown away pride and self-respect and begged for. Jacin had no choice. He took all of the unnamed, unknowable things that were driving in his chest—all of the chaos, all of the terrifying emotion that was too unfathomable and just too much. He let it all leak out his eyes with the tears that wouldn't stop, bound them to two words, “I need,” and shoved them from his mouth on a breath that was meant to be forceful but trickled out on a wretched little sob instead.

  Malick shut his eyes, opened his mouth on a gasp, hissed, “Damn it, Fen,” and he laid his body fully to Jacin's, covered him, stilled him, immobilized him, and took his breath again in a deep, hard, soul-scouring kiss. His grip on Jacin's wrists relaxed, but he didn't let go; he slid his fingers through Jacin's instead, and pressed his hands down into the bedding. “Show me, Fen,” Malick breathed. “Show me what he wouldn't take from you. Give me what you hide inside yourself because he told you it's not worth having."

  Jacin stiffened, bared his teeth, snarled, “Shut up,” then he lifted his head and bit at Malick's lip, sucked him into a kiss that was rough and spiteful, and refused to give in to the impotence of position. He pulled back with a glare, tears still leaking, burning like fire behind his eyes. “You never let up,” he said through his teeth. “You just can't ever shut the fuck up."

  "Oh, I can,” Malick told him softly, then he dipped in and sucked the lobe of Jacin's ear into his mouth, puffed hot breaths through his nose into the shell, and set a light nibble to Jacin's throat just below. He lifted his head and looked right into Jacin's eyes, like he was seeing through to bone. “But then you'd never show me, and I wouldn't know.” He smiled a little, too deliberate but not cruel. “And you want me to know. Don't you? Because you know bloody well that I want it, and to me it's worth it all."

  He didn't wait for Jacin to answer, which was good, because Jacin wouldn't know how. He moved, a long, slow thrust of his hips, pushing in, pushing down, pushing, pushing, pushing, because that was what Malick did. Pushing until he got what he wanted out of Jacin, and Jacin somehow ended up both grateful and resentful at the same time.

  Jacin felt like he was dissolving beneath Malick's steady force—mental, physical and emotional—pressing into Jacin's heart and mind as he pressed Jacin's body into the bed. Jacin was just a mess of nerve endings and reactions, held together by the grip on his hands, the pressure of blood and bone surrounding him, shoring up the fissures and keeping them from winnowing into fractures.

  It started out slow, so slow Jacin thought he'd scream if Malick would let him, but that was the point—Malick wouldn't let him—so he just rode along into oblivion, let Malick push and prod his body into sensation that didn't terrify him and reaction that wouldn't end in rebuff. Time stretched out into long, sticky threads, each touch, each movement, each kiss spinning into its own web, striating out and over Jacin's body and mind, binding mind to body to soul to heart. He had just enough time to take hold of that thought, close a mental fist over it, before it wasn't slow anymore.

  He didn't know where his mind went while Malick fucked him into a clutter of raw need and animal want, but it was somewhere pleasant and free of constraint, a perfect contradiction to the constriction of his physical self. His body was slave to Malick's tempo; his breath was captive to Malick's kisses. His pleasure climbed with the hard strokes of Malick inside him, and ebbed with every rhythmic retreat.

  Helpless. Powerless. Vulnerable.

  No loved ones to save, no souls to salvage, and even if there were, he was trapped and just as defenseless.

  It shouldn't have spiked the pleasure to new levels of intensity, but it did. And Jacin didn't even care that Malick knew it.

  Jacin let go. Jacin flew, riding on the current of the rhythm into which Malick forced his body, spreading the wings of his self on the cooling wind Malick slipped through his mind. Uncertainty was forgotten, grief was an unknowable thing, and madness was something that looped his body into its feral desires, and shaped it into craving that wasn't shameful or base or twisted, but met and heightened and mirrored by another.

  "Yeah,” Malick breathed, hot breath all over Jacin, runneling over throat, shoulder, chest and sliding deep down into his gut. “Like that, baby, there you go, c'mon, love.” Soft, soothing counterpoint in Jacin's ear to the near-obscene things Malick was doing to Jacin's body, the filthy reactions he was coaxing out from a core that opened like an aperture and spilled Jacin into the free fall of the universe.

  The tears hadn't stopped, not once, and fuck, Jacin was
going to drown himself in them, but they'd changed, they didn't hurt and sting. They leaked steadily as Malick pounded into him, held him down, held him together, drove his body toward bliss and his mind toward somewhere cool, calm and dark, where there were no ghosts waiting to ambush him with the accusations of his own guilt. He was free there, while his body was pinned to the bed, his back scraping against the sheets and his chest slick-sweated and fusing with Malick's. Like the physical imprisonment enabled the mental liberation.

  It was forever inside, and full of colors he could taste. The bliss was so intense—sparked that much brighter with every hard shove of Malick inside him, every breath that was driven from his lungs with the force of Malick's thrusts—that he thought he might die of it. He almost laughed at the irony that it seemed this was the only time he really didn't mind living.

  "There it is, Fen,” Malick panted, staring right down into Jacin's eyes, his gaze a soft counterpoint to the ruthlessness of his rhythm. “That's it, yes."

  Jacin didn't know what Malick was seeing, and he thought he should be a little scared that maybe he was giving too much away, but Malick wasn't rejecting it, whatever it was, he wasn't turning away, so Jacin just let him keep looking. It spiked the intensity somehow, roped sensation all through Jacin's body like jags of lightning.

  "Perfect,” Malick breathed, sonorous and so replete with brutal authenticity, “perfect, just like this, you have no fucking idea, Fen,” and save him, it hurt, Jacin wanted to sob out loud, and he had no idea if it was from the words—that word—or the way it caught on his building climax and twisted it sharper; maybe both, all, he couldn't suss it, all snarled together, that was it, just bloody it, Jacin couldn't take another single second.

  He almost didn't need Malick to touch him to slip him into orgasm, but he was grateful for it anyway. He shouted as he went over, something guttural and grinding, his body seizing in pleasure, and his mind completely white, completely blank. Bliss sparked and sputtered all through him, heaved him around inside it, then threw him down, gasping. He could only try to breathe through it as he rode on the tail of Malick's orgasm, the hard jerking of Malick's hips and the muffled curses into Jacin's shoulder just another chunk of sensation that sent fizzy little ripples up and down Jacin's backbone.

  They were both wheezing, shaky and weak, residual shudders breaking through Malick's body as he panted into Jacin's hair. He finally released Jacin's hands and slid his arms around Jacin's ribcage, squeezed. “Fuck, Fen,” he gasped, another shiver jolting through him and leaking into Jacin through osmosis. The joints in Jacin's arms were a little stiff, but he made himself move them and wrap them around Malick's neck. If he didn't, Malick might move away, and it was too soon, Jacin didn't want to let go yet. “Just... fuck."

  Jacin rumbled something slurry and incoherent but agreeable nonetheless, and shut his eyes, breathed deeply the scent of pine and sage and sex. He thought it was probably strange and perhaps even unhealthy that he could only seem to reach this sort of contentment in the aftermath of practically begging for domination, then giving submission over without even a token fight, but... well, he wasn't perfect, he'd never been perfect, and he'd never be perfect. If he was right about nothing else, Beishin had pegged that one, at least. Anyway, Jacin was batshit, right? This was probably normal for him.

  "Fen, this....” Malick let the whisper drift off as he pulled out, turned it into a hissed little, “Shit,” with which Jacin agreed, but Malick didn't pull away, like he knew Jacin wasn't ready for him to yet, so Jacin didn't say anything. “Everything's about choice, right? Yours, mine... other people's. This doesn't have to be as wrong as you think it is."

  Jacin frowned. Malick had assured him hundreds of times that he couldn't read Jacin like he could read just about anyone else if he tried, and Jacin mostly believed him. Because if Malick could see what was inside Jacin's head most of the time, Jacin thought he wouldn't right now be lying beneath Malick, trying to catch his breath after being fucked halfway stupid. But then there were times like this.

  "What does that mean?” Jacin asked, not angry, because he wasn't willing to let go of the contentment yet, but perhaps a touch wary.

  Malick sighed, propped himself up on his elbows, and peered down at Jacin, too sober for what they'd just done together. He stroked a finger over the small plait at Jacin's temple. “Your choices are yours,” he said, calmly, like he was expecting Jacin to freak out any second. “Not mine. Not... his. You can't keep letting his opinions influence what you think of yourself. It'll matter one day. It matters now, really."

  Ah. Right.

  Now Jacin was ready to let go. He clenched his teeth and wrenched his gaze away, turning his head to the side. “I told you I don't want to talk—"

  "Fen, just listen to me for a moment, all right?"

  "No!” Jacin shoved at Malick's shoulders, trying to shimmy out from beneath him, but Malick still had the advantage. “Why d'you have to bring him in here?” Jacin snarled, helpless to escape, helpless to keep the tears from burning their way back out again, just... helpless in general. “In here!"

  In here, where Jacin handed Malick everything that Asai refused, and Malick pretended to want it and accept it. In this room where Asai taunted him, in this bed where Malick fucked him and where Jacin forgot to pretend Malick's eyes were dark and mocking.

  Jacin couldn't make himself fight before, and now he couldn't stop. He growled as Malick pressed him down into the bed, snapped his teeth when Malick took hold of his jaw and forced Jacin to face him. Jacin didn't want to, wouldn't, so he shut his eyes like a five-year-old.

  "Fen, look at me."

  Perhaps, little Ghost, you should ask your Temshiel what you are. See if he will tell you

  "No. I don't want to hear it and I don't want to see you when you say it, just get the fuck off me, I don't want—"

  "I'm trying to tell you that he's wrong, Fen. I'm trying to tell you that whatever he says to you in that twisty little head of yours, whatever he tells you to make you think you're not worth the effort, it's not how I feel, all right? This—” Malick took hold of Jacin's hand and slammed it to the mattress. “If this is what you need to stay here with me, then this is what I want to give you. Your choice is to ask it of me. Mine is to give it. And it's not like it's some great hardship, so stop feeling like you've betrayed yourself, or... or him, just by needing it. All right?"

  Jacin sucked in a shaky breath and cautiously opened his eyes, but he didn't meet Malick's yet. “That's all?"

  "That's all."

  Jacin was silent for a moment, going over what Malick had just said in his head, picking it apart so he could be sure he'd gotten all the nuances. He flicked his eyes up then quickly away again. “There's... you....” No, he should be looking at Malick when he said this. He slanted his gaze upward. “That's not what you started out to say."

  Malick sighed, laid his head down to Jacin's shoulder, and let go of his hand. “No. Never mind. Another time."

  Yeah. Well, Jacin had known that. And he knew “another time” would probably be sooner than he wanted, but “ever” would be sooner than he wanted, so what difference did it make? As long as it wasn't right now.

  Still, this... whatever it was Malick was thinking—it annoyed Jacin. No, it worried him. And he wasn't sure why.

  Then you can know what you really are to the gods. What you are to treacherous Wolf. What you are to his own.

  Fuck you, Beishin. If you see so much, why can't you see that I don't want to know?

  "You think I still let him tell me what to do, even though he's not here anymore."

  "I think,” Malick said slowly, muffled into Jacin's skin, “that you still... care. I think it still messes with your head. And I think you have to learn to stop letting it. You have to stop stifling what you need because of what he might have thought of it, until you need it so bad it almost explodes out of you and takes you out in the blast. That's what I think."

  Jacin frowned at the ceiling, going
over that, too, wishing he had that bottle of liquor close by, because he'd stopped wanting to get away from Malick, but he'd rediscovered his desire for a soothing buzz. “You get what you want, so what does it matter to you?” he whispered, not even sure he wanted Malick to hear or answer.

  There was a puff of warmth across Jacin's shoulder, an ironic-sounding snort, and Malick slid a little off to the side. Jacin could breathe a bit easier than he could a moment ago, but Malick's grip was still comfortably firm enough to keep him in place.

  "It matters,” Malick said. “It matters here. And it's not... it's not all I want. Damn it, Fen, I care."

  Jacin actually believed that last bit. A little. The rest... the rest was too close to that “something” Beishin kept saying Malick wanted from Jacin. Jacin should be demanding to know, he should be pushing and poking and prodding like Malick did, until Malick was so frustrated and disconcerted that he blurted it out before he could help it like he made Jacin do.

  Jacin couldn't do it. He didn't want to know. He wanted to pretend he was still flying. And Malick seemed willing to let him.

  "We should clean up,” he said instead, but with no real conviction.

  "Mmph,” was Malick's considered reply. He emphasized it by dragging the quilt from where it had slid off the side of the bed and pulling it up to cover them both. “Should do a lot of things.” He tightened his grip around Jacin's ribs and turned his head to plant a kiss to Jacin's throat. “Fen,” he said as he settled back in, getting himself comfortable while keeping Jacin right where he was, “I think—"

  "Jacin."

  Malick stilled. “Um. What?"

  Jacin wasn't sure why he said it. Maybe he was just afraid Malick wasn't going to let the other things drop after all. Maybe he was just tired of being different versions of himself for different people, when none of them seemed to fit very well into those people's expectations. Malick didn't seem to expect him to be anything but what he was.