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cerise/gilbert

type: suitor/oc

summary: your medicine doesn't work, but his tongue can.

warning: this fic contains thoughts of self-harm, unsanitary (period sex), cunnilingus, and vaginal sex.

notes: for @xxsycamore and @queengiuliettafirstlady's ccc different universe, same love. modern au.

shout out to @violettduchess and @aquagirl1978 for beta-reading this for me :3 but making it crashing wave special for aqua bc i don't think i could've finished this w/o your support. thank you

word count: 8k

tag list: @thewitchofbooks / @aquagirl1978 / @chaosangel767 / @atelieredux / @themysticalbeing (if you'd like to be removed, please message me. i currently can't add anyone right now)

I.

Tonight, Laine is at a loss of what to do.

Enclosed in the summer humidity, his right palm burns, fingers bunching up into a fist and coming undone just as fast. Breathing out a sigh, a displeasure vocalized by way of his least favorite season, he closes his eyes in hopes that he could return to sleep: the peaceful darkness that separated this moonlit evening from his blue, bloodshot eyes. He who stirs in the midst of ungodly hours. The alarm clock reads a miserable three in the morning; Laine could count the hours he slept on one hand.

He opens his eyes, having failed.

The problems, minor in the grand scheme of things, pile on. One after another. The inconvenience. The exhaustion. The heat. But even the heat, toeing closer to a smolder or a full-fledged scorch, couldn’t hope to compare to the pain in his lower abdomen. And that isn’t the archetypal cherry to top this unfortunate sundae.

There is no other time than this string of days that Laine could feel this sensation. Over the course of the years, the descriptors for his pain had grown rather colorful—a few months back, Laine morbidly likened it to being pulled apart from the inside without being granted the mercy of ripping entirely.

This time, Laine compares it to a creature, an entity assembled together from his own blood. Unruly as it runs its claws down the fleshy walls of his insides, feeling out the foreign terrain it has woken in before claiming the blood-swathed pit as territory. A time would come when it would hibernate, dormant for a few weeks…but, rejuvenated after its slumber, it returns for its monthly hunt, spanning days at a time, reaping what it pleases from his insides.

It nonsensically wreaks havoc in an ever-changing pattern as if it couldn’t get enough of the pliable world Laine’s anatomy offered. He thinks of Play-Doh in humor, innards molded to submission.

Undoubtedly, this month is the worst one in a while. Laine poorly emulates what he imagines it is doing, immersing his nails, painted with chipped anguish, into the empty side of the king-sized bed. Scratching the silken covers even if the fabric itself strains against the pressure he applies, on par with the weight of his affliction. He might just bend his nail. Break it, even.

Laine committed it to memory that this cyclical agony comes in variations; variations that were, for the most part, tolerable. He hasn’t seen…or rather felt anything of this caliber yet—it’s excitable. Irrepressible.

The pain sings in his chest, occasionally deviating to a rasp. Laine could feel it all, for they are forcibly made one and the same. He feels as if the creature was warming up for a recital, mimicking the rhythm of Benitoite’s glittering waves merging into a pitiless riptide. A dissonance that has Laine curling into the fetal position, seeking to subdue it as if the vulnerable warmth and weight of his legs could asphyxiate it.

Thoughts of violence run apace through his veins, his joints. He feels possessed. He wants to take a knife to his stomach. Twist the flesh back to regularity if carving it out wasn’t an option. Would that make the pain wane? Subside? Of course not. But, mind-crazed, he craves for better. Better, however ill-defined it was in his sleepless mind. All the while, yearning for something to empty this undisturbed lake of crimson, a tranquil image that scaths him, echoing a nebulous memory of his lover.

Laine knows his nails aren’t strong enough to breach through the silk, but he imagines they might regardless. How hard he holds onto it, believing it to be the black sleeve of that man instead of this inanimate textile, inert on the mattress. Unsympathetic to the blood oozing out of him, sharing the habitual indifference of the moon, wading along the sky among its brethren of satellites and stars.

Even a romantic thought like that was stemmed by caprice, uprooted in a split-second by a sudden barrage of pain. Debilitated by the burden in his flagging body, Laine couldn’t stand sound, even less touch. The foggy picture of five fingers spreading over the breadth of his arm, a lazy arm sweeping over his waist, maddens him beyond comparison. He bemoans how his lover is made a prime torture method, potent in his effect.

Gilbert.

Gilbert, and his cherry-red eye, bursting with an uncontrollable attachment to him in sickness and health.

Made one and the same, the pain residing in Laine despises what he does: the notion of a presence other than itself dwelling about its vicinity infuriates it. Upon hearing Gilbert breathe, it twists itself through Laine’s abdomen, shoving itself up his gut like the enthusiastic hand to a sock puppet, binding itself to him with an incapacitating intimacy.

The other day, Laine ousted him from their bedroom out of desperation for self-preservation, leaving Gilbert to sleep alone in the guest bedroom. Whenever Laine crossed the hallway to use the restroom, he would find the moon protruding out of the small gap Gilbert’s door gave way to, exhibiting an inviting air by way of its parallel stream of dimmed blue. It illuminated Laine’s slippers as they strode by, passing the door. He looked through it once: one glance at the interior and he could scarcely see more than the window and the bedside table peeking back at him, interested in what he might do.

He didn’t try again afterward. But now, passing that room while Gilbert departed from their home, he would recall, with razor-sharp precision, his face when he pushed him out.

Gilbert was often vocal about his disagreements, so his silence towards Laine’s aggressive nature was, needless to say, unnerving. However, the agony paid no mind to the undertones. Rationality didn’t exist in its lexicon; it thrived off inner pandemonium. Propelled by it, its puppetmaster strings lacing taut around his wrists, Laine promptly shut the door.

But as he was, he caught a glimpse of a smile—it might as well have been a blade. It sent through him a puncture that didn’t fluster the creature, but the heart. His heart. A serrated loneliness, brandished just before he slammed the door shut with an unintentional force. How easy would it be to interpret it as Laine being angry with Gilbert? Actions speak louder than words, don’t they?

An underhanded play. Laine hasn’t recovered from the cut that it made, deteriorating into an infection.

He sighs. Decides to pick at that scab instead of unreachable outer space. Pain had a way in making him lose his bearings. No more, he decides.

Gilbert was always understanding of his dilemma. That much is articulated, having dealt with it in previous months. His touch when he saw him last was careful, his uninhibited devotion purposefully curbed to the creature’s liking. Despite himself, the pads of his fingers barely dripped with it, paving paths of gooseflesh as he guided his hands over the spread of his clothes.

No skin. That was the rule while the pain skittered about Laine’s midsection, on edge. Gilbert’s fingers floated over his skin, made sensitive to the searing cold touch as a chalkboard under nails. He keeps away from Laine’s midriff, cautiously inhaling to halt his affliction from arbitrarily thrashing about. The tantrum it threw, cocooned by fleshy tenderness. Screeching out of consternation.

At the time, Laine pondered whether or not he should keep his stomach puffed out or not. The entity was so fickle. If Laine couldn’t steady his worn-down breathing, then it would punish him by amplifying itself into every crevice it could find under the false impression he wasn’t aware it was there. But he was. It was. It always was.

He sucked in a breath that scraped its complacency. It gnawed on his insides in retaliation, swallowing up mouthfuls of his leniency towards Gilbert until all that remained were scraps of volatile temperament.

It was then Laine insisted he left.

That time coincided with a rather convenient change in Gilbert’s work schedule; he would be busier the following days, unable to return home until late in the night to rest, and then returning as dawn emerged from its bed in the dirt. Leaving Laine lonely when even the creature decided beating a dead horse didn’t make for great entertainment anymore, holing itself up into a blissful nothingness.

Laine gathers a lump of his blanket into his arms, resting his head against the lukewarm cotton. As he inhales, tentative to keep the creature at bay, the dying residue of Gilbert’s cologne drifts into his nostrils.

He could feel the man’s presence in the next room; it must be the hyper-awareness of the creature that makes this possible. In its unquenchable thirst for solitude, having an inclination for it more than anything else, it vividly traces the existences of others with haste, vigilant in its scrutiny.

He wishes to weep. At this weakness? No. It is not something akin to the depths of the Marianas Trench.

The contradictions of his emotions, swinging on a pendulum, muddy each other. As if the blood wasn’t enough of a mess on its own. He feels putrid all over. Even while he yearned to see Gilbert, he could only have the scent that turns him inside out. Because Gilbert’s voice unsettles the creature. To it, capricious, he is nothing more than a stranger to the familiar alcove Laine so graciously provided. It wants him to go away. It got what it wanted. What else does it want? Laine restrained himself to make its stay easier. By association, his own.

They are one and the same.

Laine couldn’t even be honest with himself. He missed Gilbert, but how he doesn’t want him close. Because the smallest echo of his footsteps treading down the hallway upon his return home, the faint thump of his unorthodox cane against the tiled floor of their kitchen, embeds a deep furrow in Laine’s brow.

The immensity of his existence, harrowing in his straining mind, reduces him to this bottomless hell.

Gilbert.

Gilbert.

Gilbert,

Leave me alone.

Everyone has told him it was illogical for a heart to beat in his stomach. To that, he swears the pain itself must be living. What else could explain it? He sucks in his chest. It hurts this way, but he cannot afford to have it otherwise. Because the creature is screaming once again, hellish, finally ready to tear him open. His heart throbs, synchronizing with its chaos. Trying to breathe as quietly as he can, Laine buries his face into the pillow, a dryness rubbing raw in his throat from the common aftermath of slumber.

He tries to get up, muster up the energy to alleviate himself of this if nothing else. And yet, here he is. He can’t. Everything hurts. He doesn’t know where to move next. Doesn’t know how to. A fleeting thought of hugging himself dies as soon as it’s conceived; it hates touch and nothing enrages it more than his own. Perhaps, they are truly bonded together to the last blood cell now. (Self-loathing: a word denser than the blood coursing through his veins.) He lies in stagnation, dead silent. Waiting for it to finally be over.

Creature. Pain. The interchanging names of this suffering made personified. What it’s called doesn’t matter. It never will. It doesn’t change the fact that it’s living, that it acts of its own volition, snuffing out Laine’s livelihood however it can. Always to his inconvenience must it act. He can’t sleep fast enough. He can’t do anything to alleviate this suffering because they are one and the same.

If he whines, it screams. Dead silence is what keeps him floating; each sound threatens to pull him under. Wrapping around his ankle, anchoring him to the prospect of drowning.

Waiting. Waiting. Waiting.

Seconds, minutes. All slowed down, an elastic band that stretches but doesn’t snap.

Until it’s being soothed, for whatever reason. Lulling itself into sleep. Nothingness.

His stomach rumbles. Laine still doesn't move if it feels like changing its mind.

It returns into emptiness. Just like that. A slope now lain vertically.

It’s over. It’s over. It’s over.

…for now.

II.

Laine wakes up from a nap.

Surprised at the sight of the moon pouring through the glass, igniting his bedsheets in a demure blue, he deflects his attention to the glaring red letters of the alarm clock. Flashing on the black backdrop was the number eleven, minutes shy of midnight. He remembers having taken the nap as early as noon; it wouldn’t be far-off if he told Gilbert that he slept the entire day away when he returned. Contrary to this morning, when he in his pathetic misery convinced himself it was impossible.

The ability certainly was non-existent, swamped in the cerise flowing in his veins. Thankfully, that isn’t the case anymore.

Throwing off the monochrome blanket, cold air runs across his skin—a satisfying chill to wake up to. The air conditioner thrums with activity, blasting cold air from the front grille. Pulling away from the bed, he, in an instant, catches onto the minuscule pain in his lower abdomen.

“Oh, not again…” Laine mumbles, hoping that the creature would stay oblivious to his consciousness. Nevertheless, there’s nothing he could do about it if it did. The only solace he has remains in the fact that the following days would be easier. Imbued with a paltry hope, he heads to the restroom to wash his face.

Some days are undeniably worse than others. And one of those days fell upon this morning, its duration stretched into an uneventful evening. The moon drags across the sky, sluggish, lounging about the dark clouds and draping itself in its vastness. Hunching over the sink, Laine shuts his eyes to splash cool water across his face.

Thoughts of spending the rest of the day in bed disperse with the thin rivulets dousing the ceramic sink, melding together to draw towards a face instead: a ghostly face, robin-red eye flickering in and out like the visions of a poltergeist. Passing through Laine as if they were on separate planes of existence. Untouchable, he swears.

Gilbert.

His name seeps through his abdomen in time with the stray droplets blending with the gentle ebony of his nightgown. The syllables eddy inside his feeble form, ravaged thoroughly by the creature inhabiting him.

Rather than comfort, his name winds the loose pain into a sturdier knot. An unwanted knot. Reminiscent of the kind that one may struggle with, similarly to a ball of yarn that refuses to unravel under a kitten’s claws, or a tangled clump of hair that refuses to give in to a hair comb.

He groans, frustrated with the avid recurrence of pain. Why wouldn’t it let up? He withdraws, tugging his towel off the enclosure of the shower. He’d dry himself in the comfort of his room. Maybe the pain would be filtered out by the cold, going so far as to blow away. A weak smile. He hopes his lover returns soon.

With an eager step, he leaps onto his bed. A mistake. His stomach instinctively shrinks in on itself, a backlash that has him thrumming with scorn. Slowly, he readjusts himself to lying on his bed, pillow flattened beneath his head.

“...this should be that time, right?” Laine asks aloud as if the shifting covers, the creaking mattress, or the clamoring air conditioner could offer him a verbal answer.

And completely ignoring that inquiry, his blood streams forth, coaxed out by the warmth of his thighs pressing together. He bites his lip, revulsion swirling in the back of his mind.

He groans. This is no longer a pain he has the luxury of ignoring. Meaninglessly, like it would spark a fire that burns all sensation away, he rubs his legs together. Lets his fingertips play out the flame’s pathing, crawling over to the empty side of the bed as though Gilbert was here by his side.

The closest he could get to Gilbert is to conjure up his intangible arms.

It does nothing for him, all the same. Expelling a whimper, the creature stirs. Feeling the sound in the way of an echo swarming the interior of a cave, it punches against the wall of his midriff.

Time and again, he is confined to this mind-numbing stasis he cannot shrug off. Not as easily as he might shrug off his towel for a lover’s tryst in the bathtub, where his desire may fog up with the steam or tip-toe across bubbles waltzing senselessly across the surface. It toes closer to when one’s hearing is clogged after submerging their head deep into the water before they lift it up, unlatching the droplets encased within.

“Gilbert…”

Laine whispers his name, lets the two syllables float into the air as if they were a pair of bubbles. Gil-bert. They pop back into an undesired quiet, quelled by the bellowing of ventilation. Amplifying the loneliness hosted alongside the hurt. Burying his head into the ivory-white pillow, the split ends of his blue tendrils, he inhales until his lungs rattle the pain’s nest, spurring the pain to a suffocating expansion. He exhales.

It’s not as bad as it was in the early morning. If it was, then the pain would have threaded itself through the delicate interior, chipping away at him until he was overcome with exhaustion. One that wouldn’t be formidable enough for him to fall asleep with the creature in tow. Another punishment drawn out. Laine’s had enough of it. Sleeping had long lost its value as a fool-proof plan to get it to rest—if things went awry, the pain would flare ever stronger to his dismay, reappearing instead of disappearing. Disillusioning him to believe the seconds metamorphosed into an eternity.

Clamping his mouth shut, he flops on his middle. Perhaps it is better that Gilbert isn’t here at all. It wouldn’t do if he saw him, breath suppressed to keep the weariness from being known to the air.

But, it becomes too much for him to bear. This affliction is too big for his enfeebled body, clenching until his bones creak under its weight. He wants this dam to burst. To feel a solid that wouldn’t dissipate into liquid or gas, to feel him, who—

“Laine?”

The pain squeezes tighter at the sound of the voice, a softness that levels out his coarse puffs of air. Yet, its hold on Laine is simultaneously loose. The creature is repelled and attracted to it—more so Laine, who takes his time in turning his body to face the almost silent tremble of the wooden door, just so he doesn’t strain his body any more than he should. Gilbert hovers over the threshold with a curious look in his eye.

“Hi.” Laine says, awkward in his position. A chill flutters on top of his shoulder. “Welcome b—ah!”

Laine is not given another second when his chin is perched on Gilbert’s chest, the gray fabric of his collared shirt grazing against his breasts, bound by a willowy nightgown. His arm lovingly curls around his hip. A huff masking a laugh resounds in the room, hollow of all but their inhalations. Laine opens his mouth to say something, hands limp at his sides as he greedily drinks in mouthfuls of his scent, magnified where he sits. He lies his head on the crisp outlines of his shirt, cheek above the half-undone tie.

“Mm…welcome back.” Laine nuzzles into his touch. The rumble of Gilbert’s laugh embeds into him, therapeutic against the pain’s rage.

“Are you feeling better now?” Gilbert threads a hand through one of his tendrils, steeped in silver. “You’re cozying up to me.”

A soft exchange, however strange it is to the world beyond. Laine is coaxed into the most tame of his instincts, restfully lying on Gilbert again. And the creature? It begins to flail. He could feel its tantrum, thrashing violently when pressed against Gilbert’s midsection. Screeching for him to separate himself from Laine, for it loathes every sensation. His visage, his scent, his touch. For every one that his mind processes, it seethes twofold, trying to rein him in. In this scenario, who is the dog on the leash?

“Actually, it. It hurts a little...” He dislikes how whiny his pronunciations are. He enshrouds himself in the gray of Gilbert’s clothes, as if they would let him hide inside that fog so that the pain does not give chase.

He ignores the hand that slithers into the small gap between their conjoined bodies. The slow, successive fumbling and popping of buttons. From Gilbert’s shirt, Laine knows. Except, they are rather sharp sounds to the shells of his ears. Voices in a cave chock-full of bats ready to bite.

“Does it?” Gilbert inquires. He seems to like how Laine’s mouth splits into a pout—not that he makes that known. Pulling away for a moment, the pain migrates. Strides to the middle of Laine’s legs with the noisy squeaking of Gilbert’s movement atop the mattress. Each shift is a squeeze. A suppression. Laine feels like a fruit, his five senses the five fingers to press and crush him to the pit.

Gilbert’s closeness crushes him. “Well, it’s there. But it’s nothing like the day before,” he admits bashfully.

He is so close.

Laine’s eyes rove over the broad width of his shoulders, the shirt half-undone, the slender length of his fingers affirmed by the creases of jet-black gloves, invested in undoing his tie. He watches, mindless. Only comes to his senses when Gilbert’s voice projects loud, sonorous, overpowering the sight of skillful hands tugging the gloves off. “Did the medicine not work?”

Laine bites his lip, guilt accentuating the soreness that fluctuates in his chest, repressing his sprouting need into a measly seed. “I…didn’t take it.”

He can feel Gilbert’s gaze, raw on his bare shoulder from Laine’s accidental tug of his bodice. Even as lovers, it feels monstrous. Depraved. “That won’t do, you know? You won’t get any better like this.”

“I’m sorry.” Laine bows his head, eyes falling on his thighs, apology prevalent in pursed lips.

“There’s no need to apologize. See, I have a better idea.” Gilbert says, offering his right hand to him. But, the implication behind his words, behind his stare, wind desire tight into his middle, layering the already stressful exertion of the creature within. “Curious?”

“Well, I don’t think you’re giving me much choice.” Laine teases, yet takes his hand with ease. He can feel every inch of his body belting out a cry and it was not this affliction speaking—well, partially. Maybe. Just common sense that he casts to the air in favor of his lover. The otherworldly frigidity of Gilbert’s fingers washes over the sweltering heat garnered in his palm. A beloved recurrence between them.

“You’re forward.” Gilbert laughs, fingers steeling around porcelain, holding it in place as if to warn him: there is no chance, no room to let go. “But, you’re right. I’m not.”

His voice, filled to the brim with cloying sugar, seems to drain, becoming half-empty. Laine flushes in response, thinking of tugging his hand away even if that holds no worth, but he stays put. Mirrored in the twin lakes of his eyes, Gilbert sits taller in front of him, head hovering over him when he gets closer. Here, Laine can see the thin pink of his lips, carnal want glistening.

He doesn’t even realize when they’ve touched his own. Closing his eyes in response, Laine blindly outlines the knobbly shape of his long sleeve, enclosing his lithe, calloused hand in his own. He could feel Gilbert’s fingers moving to reciprocate, interlocking their fingers together. A wave of love rolls over him, watering a bud of delight that blooms in the pit of his stomach, overgrowing with anticipation. The creature wilts under the enormity of its stem, rising higher than the fantastical beanstalk with each kiss.

Laine had felt Gilbert in previous entanglements, colder than the brisk winds of winter, but his lips brush campfire-cozy over his right cheek. Leaning in, his voice lowers into the cup of his ear, as though it was hot chocolate. This idea…

Laine thinks he knows it.

And that makes him reel, back resting against the head of their bed, to which Gilbert swiftly follows, freeing a hand to clasp on his waist. The other, prepared to scale the length of his skirt.

“No?”

It is unfair, Laine thinks, how a single, teasing utterance adds to the wetness of his pussy with ease. He can feel the blood rushing, the stain surely spreading over his pad. It’s mortifying. The idea of having sex with Gilbert usually wasn’t, for the record, but it was a different story when he’s actively bleeding. Laine pushes his hand from his waist—at least, tries to, but Gilbert is strong, insistent. He feels a reflexive shame in being scrutinized under that gaze, even if a greedy part of him does want it.

The pain doesn’t hurt enough to dissuade him—he read about it once, that sex could relieve him.

“Are you sure…?” It does not come out the way he had hoped; it comes off cold, unsure. That wasn’t what he wanted to show. He rubs his thumb snug over the back of Gilbert’s knuckles. The feeling of them suppresses the pain that trailed his stomach freely without any restraint. “Because I want to. I really do.”

“Then, there is no need to think about it anymore, right?” Gilbert innocently asks, which would have knocked the wind out of Laine if he were not deliberately cutting to the chase. Laine huffs out a breath, mouth twisting into a scowl at the blatancy of it all—really! The methods Gilbert employs, sometimes. It makes him want to laugh at his audacity; an aspect of him he adores. “Or, are you opposed to it after all?”

“I’m not.” Laine’s mouth falls into a straight line at his expression, shoulders shrinking inwards. “I just…I don’t want you to feel, well…”

Is there a right way to put it? Alluding to it instead of being direct? He cannot string the words together for them to make sense to his own ears, much less Gilbert’s. Might as well get it over with.

He whispers the word, as if there was something to be ashamed about in his honesty, holding little to no value at all. “Disgusted.”

Gilbert’s eye rounds, punctuating the tension that presses into Laine’s belly—seconds before the vermillion narrows, becoming half-lidded, his lips curling into a laugh. But not the spine-chilling one, lodging glacial into Laine’s vertebrae. He occasionally struggles at discerning what is what with him, just that this laugh is not the one that unrelentingly folds cacao-bitter humiliation into his chest. Rather, it’s welcoming.

“You’re the only one who can say such a thing to me.” He murmurs in a tone indicative of contemplation, kept brief in his company. A languid hand pushes up the skirt of Laine’s nightgown, countenance veering to  disarming sweetness. “But, there is no need for that—no matter how disgusting you believe you are, I’ve already told you, haven't I?”

Before he opens his mouth to reply, Gilbert whispers low against his lips. Words that cancel his train of thought, flowing away with the stream of wind that presses on his backbone. “You’re the lamb loved by a beast.”

Laine has to stop himself from leaping at him for saying such a quaint thing. That sentiment was once outlandish to his ears. The stuff of fairytales. Being loved from the bottom of someone’s heart was once a childhood dream of his, unfurled into reality by his confession, here and now. He can’t quite put together a comprehensible syllable, defenseless to his patience. Putting his mind at rest. He stays quiet.

Gilbert leans over him, fingers brushing over incongruent rows of damp creases bundled up between his hip and his leg, positioned upright. “Hm? Did you stain your…”

“No, no!” Laine cries out, rupturing the silence as if he weren’t faced with a heartfelt admission just second before. He blushes furiously, eyes rounded in mortification, knowing full well what points he would’ve connected if he didn’t intervene when he did. “It’s just water! I was just washing my face...”

Gilbert laughs in return, keeping his hand there. Laine couldn’t stand it, sometimes. Couldn’t tell if he genuinely believed him or not. His unsaid question is answered by the casual slide of his skirt upwards, baring his inner thighs. In his periphery, Laine’s eyes brand into it, his anticipation barely contained by the clench of his fist.

“You’re making such a cute face.”

“What…?” Laine’s voice dips into brief sarcasm, washed down by a shy laugh. “I’m just looking.”

“Liar.” Gilbert breathes. He laughs softly, catching Laine by surprise.

“And…?” He asks, gathering the hem of his nightgown. The moon, overlooking them from the left-side window, limns his figure in a lucent silver. The sleeve, deviously hanging off Laine’s delicate shoulder, catches Gilbert’s eye. What captures him most of all is the raw sensuality of his half-lidded eyes, the remnants of his levity gone. “What will you do now?”

Laine pulls up his nightgown, above the black panties snug around his hips, above his waist, his breasts, his head. His skin is covered with gooseflesh from the moment the garment falls onto the floor with a thud. Gilbert pulls him close instantaneously, arms linking around him. A sudden touch, radiating with suggestion that has Laine on high alert, nipples hardening. Grazing against him, he lowers his face to hide his pleasure, transparent through the display of red over his moon-kissed cheek.

Gilbert takes his chin, lifting it to look at the flustered expression, burning up with fever. Closer. He wants to be closer.

They kiss, chests meeting. The creature recoils, surrounded by body heat and carnal desire. He gives chase to Gilbert, who pulls away to get a glimpse at the unmasked longing. A quirk of Gilbert’s lips conveys his satisfaction, not that Laine could tell—his palms are flat on his lower back, composed. Exhibiting a disposition of nonchalance that betrays the hunger exuding from his ruby eye.

When in reality, Laine could. Gilbert could play coy all he likes, but actions have always spoken louder than words—he’s melting under the desperation, searing onto his lips as Gilbert dips his head down for more.

He missed this. Him. But, it’s not enough. It’s not enough that Laine couldn’t savor Gilbert’s skin reciprocally; he developed a craving for it. A craving that should be satiated. Seeking an appetizer, he pops the rest of his buttons off, sliding the shirt off his shoulders. Dragging him on top, he raises his head up for another kiss to savor. Tasting the faraway black coffee, a staple to his morning routine.

Gilbert sighs, removing himself from his arms to mouth over his collarbone, grip onto his waist, a casual reminder of his undying fervor. A groan, an encouragement drawn meek from Laine’s unmarked throat, calls him.

He submerges himself into skin. His breasts. Flicks his tongue about his areola, takes it into his mouth to suck. Feels a shaky arch against him; a reverence marked with a wobbly foundation. He grins. Inducing such a reaction this soon speaks volumes about his proficiency—he knows Laine, knows what would get him to succumb to his coquetry. He called him a menace for it, but doesn’t he know?

The unspoken truth is that he’s at the mercy of his absurd faithfulness.

Gilbert lets his breast go with a wet pop; Laine sways. In spite of the whirlwind of ardor, overwhelming to the point of bringing him to the eve of an orgasm, he interlaces his hands through the unkempt strands of his hair for proper stability. He lifts his head over his thighs, prudently pressed together.

Laine parts them of his own volition, baring his slit. Gilbert catches a glimpse of the expression he made—anticipation veiled by his blue tendrils, framing his face in shadow. Unearthed by a fortunate sliver of moonshine. Gilbert dips his fingers into the waistband, wrapped snug around his hips. Tugs them down his thighs, his knees, his ankles. Lifts Laine’s legs over his shoulders when he stops him.

Laine sits up. “Wait,” he breathes.

“Yes?” Gilbert looks up at him, feigning unawareness to what he is about to do.

“Are you sure?” He shivers at the red eye, glazed with an ache to consume, and he trembles on his words. An unfathomable indecision surfacing from his arousal. Gilbert can’t help but smile. “You…you can…”

“I’m not uncomfortable.” He answers, kissing his inner thigh. A singing exhalation grazes against the congealed scarlet. “Are you?”

“No. I just wanted to be sure.” Laine flushes despite the encounters that they had shared, varying in intensity. A constant trickle of disparity each time. This was new to him. Thoughts of proposing it to Gilbert were always kept lock and key in his throat for his convenience. No matter how much Gilbert tried to pry it out of him, he remained firm with his decision. And now, now that he’s so close…

He resumes his previous position, lying on his back.

The sides of his knees are ticklish under disheveled onyx locks, adhering to his legs coated in a thin sheen of sweat. He fixes his gaze on the inclination of Gilbert’s head towards his warmth. Thinks of an appetizer to the side dish, hands on his thighs.

Gilbert pushes his tongue inside and his vision flickers.

No warning. This shouldn’t be different from any other time, yet he’s already breathless under the weight of his tongue, bounding out at the spot where his pleasure had coiled moments before, coaxed out by an excess of soothing caresses. Gilbert has etched it into memory the points where he can wring out an orgasm, adept to the functions of Laine’s  body.

He knows that he’s not in Gilbert’s sight as he tongues him down, but the idea of him catching him stare so intently, dealing out a beguiling tease that he couldn’t recover from, beckons him to squeeze his eyes shut to keep from releasing over his face. Why does it feel so good already?

“G-Gil…” Laine’s breath catches on the first mouthful of his name, as if voicing it full would put a startling end to this euphoria so soon. He squirms. He is well-acquainted with his cruelty, sweetened by the curl of his tongue. Laine makes sure to keep utters of his name to a minimum, folded under the poor composure of his breath. Muffling himself with his hand, he spreads his thighs, seeking to make room for his tongue to delve further inside. His palm swallows up his moans, depriving the air of his symphony.

Dissatisfied by this, Gilbert laps greedily at the blood dribbling down his slit, eliciting an acute squeak to rip clean from his mouth. As his fingers push back against his thighs to lick up his wetness, Laine’s hand falls to his side. Copper filters his nose. Wincing, he dips his face into his pillow, flailing because he’s on the brink of screaming.

“Gilbert!” He can hardly stop his mouth from falling open, surrendering to the wanton need to show him how much he wants this. He doesn’t realize he’s fallen prey to yet another tactic employed, disadvantaged by the jumble of sensations lost in the onslaught—he could hardly bear Gilbert to begin with, his tongue mercilessly trailing back and forth. When he tries to retract his legs, frenzied by the offensive, the grasp on his thighs solidifies to titanium. He wails, at a loss of what to do. A cluster of sounds tumbles off the apex of his tongue. It feels so fucking good.

“I’m gonna come. I’m gonna, ah,” he cries, crushing the mattress into his fingers. “Gilbert.”

He’s frothing at the mouth. Concerns for Gilbert, regarding the taste of his blood, are drowned out by the clear eagerness, expressed through the tilting of his head, the rhythm in which his tongue moves, unhesitating in its meticulous motion. 

Gilbert moans into his pussy, a deliberate, long-winded vocalization that tempts him to clench.

Laine’s mind fogs up, burns, stoked to life by a fantasy of Gilbert screwed in between his legs. Laine unconsciously tugs harder at the covers. How Gilbert’s silence wrecks him, his remnants of palpable verbalization penetrating him again and again in tongue. At the thought of his face, his coming face, Laine’s lips falls open with pleasure, and he burns and burns until—

“I’m cominnnnnnng!”

—his hips surge, his back arches, and he comes, vision white from the violent burst.

He shudders, caught in a post-climax haze that distracts him from the loss of Gilbert’s mouth, leaving behind one last warm breath to spark him anew.

Laine keeps his legs parted, teary eyes boring into his outline that blurs into the darkness. He can see crimson, breaking from Gilbert’s face in thick rivulets. Mingling with his release, he flushes, feasting his eyes on the resounding clink of his belt, the sweat-inducing unzip of his pants, the finishing rustle of them being pulled downward. 

Gilbert lifts himself by his forearms, climbing on top of Laine and flanking his shoulders with steady hands.

The hunger in his gaze is articulated, red bathed in a scintillating glow that Laine is bedazzled by. He can’t think properly, mind wrecked with an overabundance of raunchy visuals, flipping through the possibilities of what would come next. Laine is typically not one for surprises, but things change—starting from the bead of saliva crawling down the corner of his lip, creeping to his chin.

Unsure of when he began huffing, salivating at the thought of Gilbert burying his cock inside of him, the man of the hour smiles through blood, makeshift lipstick derived from his pussy. Laine stares, fixed on the dribbling liquid, mind blanking at the disconcerting image. Not that it made him uneasy. Hell, he couldn’t even factor in the stain that he must’ve left on the sheets. They’d have to replace them later. Later, which didn’t matter now.

The notions of fear and rationality are swept away in a cloud of sensuality, condensed into an incoherent string of gasps that leap carelessly from his mouth, giving voice to his need.

How delightful. Gilbert might as well have said it, but there was no need—his smile spells it out for his short-circuiting brain, a lump of mush whose only focus is the mouthwatering prospect of connection: their joining together at the hips. His knees drop down, the right caught by Gilbert’s palm, dragging along a path of gooseflesh at a snail’s pace.

“You’re so wet here.” Gilbert whispers, guiding a hand between Laine’s legs. Tracing the sensitivity that twitches lecherously under his fingertips. He gapes at the warmth that pries his thighs apart as easily as the weight of double doors. Gilbert loves this, having him pliant in his hands.

Taking hold of his hips, he lines himself up against the blood-soaked entrance, teasing it with a grin Laine could barely see in the thickness of the night. Not like it makes a difference. He tenses up immediately at his erection, a stiffness that he couldn’t possibly wait for any longer. Running hands over his breasts, a minuscule attempt to entice him, Gilbert pushes himself inside, beguiled by that obscene gesture.

“Ah!” Laine’s breath catches. The push is somehow…easier than before, he realizes.

“Mm…” Gilbert groans, sultry laid on thick. This is where his charade begins to end—his control is wavering, colored with a frustration that is not often seen. In precursory trysts, he acted as if an overt display of his weakness would be the same as forfeit, admittance to a loss. (He’s never lost. He told Laine that once.) How the tables have turned. Gilbert wants to be inside of him as much as he wants it. He huffs at the harsh clench encompassing his length. Pushes himself even deeper.

“I’ve been waiting to have you again.” Gilbert murmurs in between a sigh, more to himself than Laine, splayed about their bed. Regardless, he heard, expressed through the ghost of a tremor at that subtlety. They haven’t been away from each other that long. Guess it took a toll on him, sleeping alone without a wafting sweetness of strawberry and whipped cream suspended in the air, a signature of his beloved.

“Me too.” Laine lifts his hips in earnest, wrapping his legs around his waist. The pain in his lower abdomen is long gone, pushed out by Gilbert’s boiling gaze. Averting his eyes at this, overcome with a precipitous influx of restraint, Gilbert whispers gently.

“Look at me.”

What else could he do but give in? The tonality his voice takes, softness reforged into a blade, pulverizes him. He gives in so easily to him, heart fine-tuned to a fragile responsiveness Gilbert carved into a recess of his memory well, refusing to let it wade into the dark ponds of his mind. He looks, stares, tears running down his cheeks in the wake of this heaven-sent fulfillment. He sighs, lifting his arms to wreath them around his neck.

And Gilbert begins to move.

He lowers his head, drinking up the discordant gasp spilling from his mouth. Laine can taste the remnants of his release on his lips, the usual pink dashed with a stark red stain. He hates the taste of blood brushing against his mouth, hates the copper sliding down his throat, but he had expected it to taste worse. Expected to gag against his mouth and in turn, sully this moment. He must be out of his mind, then, mindlessly sucking on the vermillion that breaks faith with the emergence of nausea.

“I thought you’d hate it.” Gilbert rocks his hips into his, lifting a hand to fondle his breast. Pinching his nipple, he rotates it in elated, circular patterns.

“It’s a little…hah!” Laine downs a deep gulp of air, taken aback by the forceful snap of Gilbert’s hips. He can’t help but feel elated at the unrelenting pace Gilbert sets, the reveal of his impatience without the slightest inhibition, refusing to wait for an answer. He hates wasted time. Laine trips on his moans, rippling through his vocals. “It doesn’t taste good, but—,” his throat catches, “aaaah!”

Gilbert hums. How considerate of him; he should reward him for his honesty, shouldn’t he? But he would be giving it to him so easily. He mumbles his name, slotting between purposeful grunts. He wants to hear Laine, after all. Hear the excitement when he digs his nails into his hips, pulling him forward to hold him in place so that there’s barely room to part, so that he could fill him with unbroken frequency. Hear the pathetic whimper when he’s panting into the delicate spot of his shoulder now, slowing himself to a velocity that Laine couldn’t fathom the reason being.

“Ah. No,” his voice is so weak. “I…I want more…more.” Laine whines, head rolling against Gilbert’s locks. He gropes at his skin with his right hand, crazed, searching for his own. Noticing, Gilbert spares him his left, the pads of his fingers compressing his knuckles. So forgiving in reciprocation. Laine clenches on, nails skimming rough against the back of his hand. All the while, keeping his other arm tethered on Gilbert’s neck. “Faster. Please.”

“Why?” Gilbert rocks into him, maintaining a calm smile. “Tell me why.”

“I’m not lying this time; it’s not that bad—I’m being good. Please. Please fuck me…”

He cries when Gilbert pulls out entirely, thinking he did something wrong, only to choke on an ecstatic gasp when he slams all of himself inside so swiftly, inclining his toes to curl. He pumps into him at a gratifying speed that Laine sobs at, choking out lovestruck praise between a consonance of dry squeaks and needy huffs, pulled from the base of his throat.

“Does it feel good?” Gilbert asks. Laine could hear the smile in his voice, the knowingness breaking him. “I want to hear it from your mouth.”

“Yes, it—it feels so good. So good.”

It drives him mad, how ruthless the friction of his hips are, banging against his own.

“You’re so tight around me. Do you want to come?”

“Yes!” Enthusiastically said.

“Good.” He praises. “Then, come with me, Laine.”

“Yes,” he warbles, “yes, yes, yes…”

Encouraged by this admission, he thrusts harder into him, groaning. He uses his free hand, the one that doesn’t hold Laine’s, to circle his back and press him to his torso, squashing his breasts against his chest. He could feel the vibrations of Laine’s voice, urging him to go even faster.

Gilbert could feel himself throbbing, molding into something violent, animalistic with each time his cock rammed into the depth of his pussy. Laine’s throat is hoarse, ebbing in gasps.

He moans against his neck, his heartbeat racing against his mouth, drumming under pale skin. He could feel him throbbing inside too, setting up an unforgiving pace that makes him shake beneath his weight. This refusal to relent makes him tremble.

Laine screams, writhing under the slam of his cock. Everything feels so good. His eyes roll to the back of his head, tears dropping to the bedsheets. They were already sullied with his blood. What could tears do that they couldn’t? Helpless, he grasps harder onto Gilbert’s hand, panting. He looks up.

Laine tightens at the sight of weakness, laid into the ivory skin. He can see the pleasure nuanced on his face; the grit of his teeth he loves so much, the wavering smile into the same type as his. He could feel the inferno scorching him, burning away that stretching thread of sensual gratification he worked so hard to keep. Looking down at him, lost in the desire he possesses. Laine can’t help but pull him in. Trembling.

“Gilbert… I love you.”

With one last piercing thrust, they come together. A thick stream of cum spills into his pussy, clamping down on his length to keep him from pulling out. Laine falls back against the bed as he gushes, arm coming loose, now limp on his belly. The hand holding Gilbert’s stays, unwilling to separate.

“You know, I read about it online, once…” Laine mumbles, the mist of desire wearing off.

“Hm?”

“I read online that having sex would make the cramps better.”

Gilbert laughs, seemingly knowledgeable. “And did it?”

“…why do I get the feeling that you knew about this?”

“Did you pick up on that just now?”

“Yeah. I didn’t even think about it at all.” Laine trails off into an elongated yawn. “Ahh. I feel really sleepy, but…I want to take a bath.”

“Huh? But I don’t want to leave you just yet.”

Laine huffs out a sigh, mind hazy still from the numbing pleasure. Floating about their proximity is their sweat coalescing into the chilly air, tinged with a copper that would typically have him scrunching up his nose in disgust. Somehow, it’s made bearable, Gilbert looming over him the way he is, rouge eye fixed on his face like he was the only one in the world. Raising his hand, Laine strokes his hair. Slow, gentle, like a butterfly. Watches him droop under his fingernails, eye falling adorably half-lidded.

(He would fuck him if he could. Another time, hopefully.)

“We should take a bath.” Laine whispers languorously, lightly scratching the nape of Gilbert’s neck where his knuckles brush steady against soft, ebony strands. “Come on…”

Gilbert shakes his head, pressing his mouth to his cheek, dyed a lush red the motif roses of Rhodolite would envy. A tempting offer to stay in bed, sleep the rest of the night away. “You want to leave me?”

Laine bites his lip, willfully diverting his attention to the silk of their pillows to conceal his shyness. An effort made for naught. Rarely does his lover let things, even of trivial nature, slip past him. “That’s not what I said,” he says with a crafty kindness, something he learned from Gilbert, “we could always have round two in the bathroom.”

“When did you become skilled in bargaining…?” Gilbert off-handedly murmurs, the corners of his mouth curving up into a sly smile. Laine grins, suppressing the gut feeling of the notion that a card might be up his sleeve. Not that he was wearing any. “Alright, then.”

An obedient answer. Laine purses his lips, skeptical about the integrity behind his affection. He’s well aware that discipline wasn’t Gilbert’s forte so far as he was concerned. And as if Gilbert caught on, he kisses him again, this time on his lips to seal the question within his throat. Preserving this tenderness instead of spoiling it. And once again, he wins. Because Laine can’t help but let his elation become visible.

Gilbert withdraws from his embrace, reluctant. Laine’s mouth half-twists in longing. He struggles to turn himself over, stomach wrought with the remainder of their encounter. Watching Gilbert slip into the softly illuminated room, he rests his head against their mattress.

He would follow soon behind, cuddle him in a blanket of steam. They’d have to clean later, definitely. For now, though, he lets Gilbert carry him kissing his cheek as the man shuts the bathroom door behind their shadows, now made one and the same.

ending notes: btw, this was my first time writing smut ^_^; sorry if it's cringe LOL

...and not even a minute after i posted this, my friend sends me lancelot angst. i hate it here