ninefox | anchorage

The shadow is prowling, now, pacing back and forth, tails swishing, long slender legs stretched like planetside shadows at sunset, still connected to Fives where his feet are pressed against the floor. Every time the fox turns, its mouth is partly open, teeth silhouetted in profile, tongue not quite lolling.

"Go slower," he says, ruthless and mean, just like the fox's grin. "Fuck, I want go down on you. I wish I were there on my knees, I'd lick you and lick you, hold your knees and bite bruises onto your thighs, and then lick you again, long ones down the shaft and little ones under your foreskin. Big messy licks over the head when you're really leaking so I can't taste anything but you, until you can't stand it anymore and grab my hair and make me suck."

Edited 2017-08-21 11:05 (UTC)

Slow... isn't what he wants, but only because it's never been what he's used to, and Clark has been teaching him how good it can be to take your time. Still, this body is young and cranked up to eleven and his hands shake a little as he forces them to slow, turns the short jerks of his hips into long, slow rolls that set his abs to rippling, show the muscles straining in his thighs with the effort of doing as Jedao asks... as he orders.

"Aaah, Force," he rasps, still watching Jedao from under his eyelashes. It might be his shadow only, but Fives associates it enough with his presence that it feels like him for this, and the way it's stalking, prowling, sends shivers down his spine as he drags his thumb slowly over the hyper-sensitive skin at the head of his cock. "Your kriffing mouth, vod. Bet I could-" He fumbles for a moment, reaching for Jedao's word. "I could fuck your mouth, couldn't I? Bet you'd just... take it."

"I would," he purrs. "I'd take it and love it. You could drag my mouth onto your cock and feel me moaning from inside my throat, fuck my face as long as you wanted, make me cry with how good it feels, but I wouldn't close my eyes, I couldn't look away from you. The way your muscles move, just taking me, using my mouth like it was made for you. I'd go cross-eyed staring at your gorgeous cock every time you pulled back just enough to let me breathe, not until I was dizzy with it, rich and purple with blood like it is right now. Your eyes, fuck, black and gold, your eyes in Kel colors, watching me turn into a mess for you."

Edited 2017-08-21 23:18 (UTC)

Even with everything Clark's introduced him to in the last few months, this is completely outside Fives' experience, something it never even would have occurred to him could be arousing at all. If he lets his eyes go out of focus he can almost see Jedao kneeling in front of him, hands braced on his thighs and lips, spit-slick and red, stretched around his cock. It takes every scrap of focus to keep things slow, and he shivers with every stroke, the smooth glide of his foreskin along his shaft, the rough drag of one calloused thumb over the head of his cock on every downstroke.

With his voice in his head, saturating his thoughts in that slow, rich drawl, it's so kriffing easy to imagine it's Jedao there, touching him. Wanting him. He bites back a groan, years of habit and conditioning making him try desperately to keep quiet. He hisses a few ragged breaths through tightly gritted teeth, and when even that's not enough he drops into Mando'a, low and intimate and safe at least from the haughty Kaminiise, the language too far beneath them to ever bother with.

He gasps out curses and endearments and, finally, pleas, as sweat beads on his skin and his muscles strain and heat shivers along his nerves like lightning and coils, low and tight, in his gut.

"Spread your legs a little wider," he murmurs, voice languid and slow, like pouring honey. "Show off for me, sweetheart, that's right, I want to see you, I want to hear you, I want everything."

The shadow has come in close again, no longer turning in profile, the two sharp peaks of its ears and the wedge point of its nose outlined on the floor between Fives' bare feet, the tails streaming out behind in the classic semicircle crown.

"I'm with you, I've got you, come all over me -"

He tries to do what Jedao asks, but his kriffing blacks are still in the way, pushed down around his thighs. He has to take one hand off himself and reach to shove them farther, far enough that he can catch one leg with the other foot and strip it off. It gives him the freedom to splay his legs wide, dig his heels in and arch his shoulders against the wall so his body's a taut line as he goes back to rolling and tugging at his balls, stroking himself in a rhythm that's starting to go erratic.

He can't take his eyes off the shadow, off the gleaming eyes gazing steadily back at him, and he bites off another ragged, tearing groan as it comes closer. And he wants to touch, wants to touch so badly, but he knows he can't. So he listens to that voice, thick and slow and rich, and feels it almost like hands on his skin, fingers down his spine.

"Fuck... fuck, Jedao... Jed'ika-" Thinks about Jedao's hand on his balls, his mouth on his cock, breath ghosting over spit-slick skin, that kriffing voice. And curls forward over himself with a hoarse cry and a look on his face almost like shock as he comes in thick, milky ropes and spatters precisely aimed at the lurking shadow as Fives keeps his gaze locked on the central pair of unblinking, golden eyes.

"Fives," Jedao breathes, can barely think for wanting, for craving, for the hunger and sheer awe that coil tighter and tighter and never release; he has no body to hit its limits, and not even any real sense through the shadow, but he pretends that he does, that he can feel the hot sticky mess dripping down his face, down his chest, that he can lick it off his lips and has to wipe it out of his eyelashes.

Edited 2017-08-22 07:58 (UTC)

Fives stays leaned forward over his legs, sucking in long, labored breaths, muscles tremoring slightly as he recovers from the force of his orgasm. The floor between and beyond his drawn up feet is a mess, Jedao's shadow with its languidly swaying tails of course completely unmarked, and he just looks almost helplessly at it for long seconds while he gets his breathing under control. The lack of Jedao's physical presence aches, but it's the quiet inside his head, the lack of Jedao's voice after that last breathless gasp of his name, that feels like a weight on his chest.

"Jedao?" He stretches out a hand to the insubstantial shade of him. "Ori'vod?" The shadow's some reassurance, but he wants to hear Jedao's voice, to know that he's still there... and that he's all right.

"My Fives," he murmurs, warm and so gentle, just the slightest bit tentative. "I'm here. I just...don't know what to say."

I want you. Too crass, now that the moment is over. I love you. Too much, awkward timing. You're beautiful, you're perfect, if I had to live like this forever I could bear it as long as it was you. Honest, maudlin, useless. And it's hard to think about anything else, watching Fives tremble and breathe.

The shadow shifts again, a little bit forward, until the darkened outline of its head falls like a cloud over one of Fives' bare knees.

Edited 2017-08-22 21:47 (UTC)

Fives breathes out an almost sigh of relief, not just at the sound of Jedao's voice, but at the words he chooses, and slumps back against the wall again, completely unselfconscious. He's careful, though, not to shift his leg, where the fox's head rests across his knee. He can't feel it, but it matters to know it's there, that Jedao's getting as close to touching him as he can, and he settles his hand over the spot as well.

"Say we'll do that for real when whatever the Admiral's done this time is over and you have your body back," he answers, voice low and still rough, but so warm as his lips quirk into a faint, hopeful smile.

Even this young, Fives shouldn't be capable of the wave of desire that sweeps over him after he makes the request, not that fast. And Fives' hopeful lust wouldn't be so complicated, edged with fear and shame and self-loathing like rot curling the skin around a bright red wound, taut and tender with infection.

"I can't hurt you," Jedao whispers, and the feeling writhes in Fives' chest, love and need struggling against the weight of history. The word fraternize comes from a word that means brother. "I know you think it doesn't matter but I can't - I can't risk -"

As if he hasn't already, as if Fives' smile right now wouldn't be enough to live on for three months in the dark, and yet -

Edited 2017-08-23 06:17 (UTC)

Fives hisses a sharp breath in through his teeth at the sudden wave of lust that rolls across him, at the sudden tight ache in his groin and the realization he's getting hard again already. But it's the sickening wash of shame that pulls a startled gasp out of him, has him pulling his knees in reflexively, defensively, at a kind of fear that he has never once experienced in his short life, and a self-loathing so alien he can hardly identify the emotion. It takes him a few agonizingly long, disorienting seconds to realize the emotions--all but the confusion and startled distress--are Jedao's, not his.

He doesn't say you can't hurt me, doesn't even think of uttering such a lie; anyone can hurt you, pain is life and life is pain. What he does is force his gaze back up to meet unblinking gold again, expression stained but absolutely steady, and say, "Of course you'll kriffing hurt me, why does that even matter?"

Jedao wants - more than sex, more than escape - desperately to kiss him in that moment, fast and sweet, slow and sleepy, careless and endless, ardent and urgent. Jedao wants to kiss him a hundred ways, to press against him and have an excuse to say nothing, to hear nothing he can't handle. He fights to shut down the bleedthrough, wishes he could close his eyes, wishes he could breathe, wishes he knew how to trust the relentless bravery in Fives' expression.

"There are so many different ways to be hurt, Fives. I don't - I don't want to be the person who teaches you a new one your life hasn't. Can you understand that? You -"

He's so young. Jedao knows better than to say it, and yet -

Edited 2017-08-23 07:18 (UTC)

Fives is quiet for maybe too long, just breathing in and out, slow and steady, settling the rabbiting of his heart. Locking everything away but stolid determination. And when he can move without feeling like he'll rage or shatter he reaches down to pull his blacks free where they're still tangled around one leg, then rises to his feet with steady, unconscious grace, and stalks to the bathroom with as much assurance as if he were fully armored, not stark naked and covered in sweat and his own come. He's going to look Jedao in the eyes for this, even if it's just his brother's reflection where his own should be.

When he gets there he leans on the sink for a long moment, looking down at his own white-knuckled hands before he takes another slow breath, makes them relax, and looks up. At Jedao. "I'm maybe thirteen years old," he tells him, quiet and steady, because he's honestly not sure of even that. He might still be twelve, but he prefers to round up if it comes to it. "And I've learned enough to know just how kriffing twisted and wrong that is. But it doesn't change facts. It doesn't change that I'm thirteen years old and if I'm very very lucky I have maybe ten more years left. And I can't remember a single, Sith-damned day of my life that hasn't been painful. Life is pain. Every day, every breath. It just is. Fear and pain, with death waiting at the end of it. And if you're lucky it comes fast, and maybe even noble, and if you're not it's slow and agonizing, and it's always kriffing filthy." He's not being dramatic, he's not raising his voice, he's just staring steadily into the eyes of Jedao's reflection in the mirror and stating facts, flat and incontrovertibly true as he knows them.

"Some day you'll die. Or you'll send me to. You'll give the order to fire on my brothers and I will, because there's no other kriffing choice. And in between Force only knows how many other ways we'll find to hurt. But it's worth it for the things that don't, or that hurt in a good way, for however... however fucking long I get to keep them. It's had to be." Because before Jedao that's all there was. No hope of anything better, for himself or any of his brothers, just stolen moments of peace. Of something like happiness. Of love. "Because that's the point--finding something good, something worth having, something that lets you forget, even when you're not allowed it, even if it's just a moment here and there." He's quiet for just a breath, jaw tight and whisky gold eyes intense and intent. As unblinking as the ninefox's golden ones. "Nothing, abso-kriffing-lutely nothing, is more important than saving my brothers. But in the meantime you're a good thing, Jed'ika. And unless it gets in the way of that you don't get to choose for me if you're worth hurting for."

He's quiet again, and his expression shifts minutely, a flash of worry, of hurt, of fear, there and gone again on the next breath. "But you do get to make that choice for you," he adds, quiet and solemn. And if he's not worth hurting for... if Jedao needs to protect himself more than he needs whatever this could be. Fives won't like it. It will be crushing. But he'll live with it. Because he's been allowed so few choices in his life that he can't find it in him to even try to take that choice from someone else.

Jedao's reflection is different now. The black and gold uniform is rumpled, and his hair is a tousled mess. His shoulders are hunched even as he leans toward the frame, toward Fives, and the look on his face is pinched, miserable, aching. But he listens, and he doesn't look away.

Sometime around finding something good, the reflection starts to cry. Silently, without moving or gasping, a trickle and then a steady stream, his eyes blinking quickly. If Jedao couldn't see the reflection as well, he would have no idea he was doing it.

"I want to," he says, voice thick with tears he can't feel on a face he doesn't have. "I want to so much. Fives, Fives, I've never wanted anyone the way I want you." He's strained, in the mirror, more than his voice shows, clenching and unclenching his fists on the edge of the sink, swallowing, biting the inside of his cheek. He doesn't know how to control his reactions when he isn't performing them consciously, can't even feel them; he never had to learn before.

"It wasn't safe," he says suddenly, recalling one of the first things Fives said to him, months ago, struggling with his own shame that Jedao could only half understand, hoping the echo carries something of the ingrained nature of the aversion, a different quality of risk than death on the field of duty. "Not for me or anyone I might - I know that's not a reason, I know you've faced so much, defied so much. I just -"

The Jedao in the mirror shudders, bites his knuckles, wipes his face. Breathes.

"I've never been good for anyone, before. You're going to have to remind me." Another echo, another deliberate one. Please, Fives. The choice he'll make on his own isn't the one he wants to make, is a lifetime of caution and fear choosing through him. Help him.

Edited 2017-08-23 21:33 (UTC)

Fives reaches out with one broad, blunt-fingered hand and settles it on the reflection of Jedao's chest. It's not the same as touching, of course, but it's... something. The closest thing to contact he can make. Something to do when there's no way to give in to the almost overwhelming urge to reach out and brush those tears away, to cup his jaw, to kiss him. And even if Jedao was physically there he couldn't do any of that anyway, not until (unless) they work this out.

His own eyes are suspiciously bright when he nods silent understanding. He knows what it's like for is this safe? to be a constant refrain in the back of your mind, for the answer to come back constantly, frustratingly, agonizingly, no. Having to balance the possible cost against the weight of want, or need, and how much more heavily the safety of a brother weighs in that balance than your own.

He doesn't think he's even capable of crying anymore, it's been too much of a risk for too much of his life, weakness he couldn't afford, but he feels the sharp ache of Jedao's almost instinctive fear and aversion, and he leans in over the sink, presses his forehead to the cool glass without taking his eyes off Jedao's reflection. "You are absolutely the best thing that has ever happened to me, ori'vod," he answers, quiet and solemn and utterly certain. "You've given me hope." Which might be a two-edged sword in a life of pain and fear and crushing powerlessness, but he's clinging to it with both hands, and he's not letting go. Of it or of Jedao.

It isn't quite the same feeling; different things were not safe with the Kel than with the Shuos, with Khiaz - not to mention the ever-watchful Vidona - and he could never be entirely sure which rules he was dealing with. Even ensconced within the Kel, long before fraternization was the shooting offense it rightfully became under formation instinct, the lines between not safe and not right were braided tightly and intricately together. But the instinctive recoil, the yearning, the agonizing consideration - that part was similar enough.

The reflection presses its forehead against Fives' forehead, spreads its hand against Fives' hand. There's no decision to do it; or if some part of him is deciding, it's a part of him he doesn't have access to. But he would; he wants to, and barely realizes until he sees his image doing it, is soothed by the sight. There's also vertigo mixed in with the comfort, like realizing he's had a blackout. It feels like walking along the precipice of madness, knowing he's divided so deeply within himself; at least this isn't against himself.

He makes a sound, when Fives says hope, involuntary and stricken, not entirely unlike the sound he might make after getting stabbed. Hope has always felt so far away for him, and yet so essential; people didn't know how to hope for better under the Hexarchs, and so they asked only to serve well while the world got slowly and inexorably worse. He knew he had to teach them, but after generations of watching, it was so hard, so hard to find the strength to keep reaching for unknown possibilities even as he always, always believed.

"You - Fives - you've given me -" He chokes. There aren't words for it, not simple ones. It sounds so small and awkward and stupid in his head, when I'm with you I mostly don't want to die. "I love you. Stars and sable, I love you so much."

Fives presses his hand more firmly to the glass, until his palm and fingertips go white from the pressure, and wishes he could feel the warmth of Jedao's skin against his. That he could reach his other hand up and curl it at the nape of his neck and hold him there... and tip-tilt his head just enough to catch Jedao's lips and kiss him breathless. He wants to know his taste, his touch, push his hands through that unruly hair not just in comfort but in passion.

He's loved so many of his brothers--intensely and unreservedly--and lost almost all of them, but that's never stopped him from giving his heart. But this... his love for Echo has come closest to this fierce, wild, achingly desperate thing he feels for Jedao. "You're mine," he whispers, and means it in any and all possible ways. "My ori'vod, my General, my Jed'ika. And I will never not love you."

He feels a striking, terrifying certainty, wordless and thoughtless, that he will outlive Fives just as he has outlived everyone else, that someday he will be a gibbering splintered thing at the end of the universe, all eyes and teeth and shadow amid the corpses of ancient stars. He will have willingly forgotten his own name, he is certain, that he was ever a thing like human, but he will remember Fives.

"You saved me," he whispers, "From madness and despair. You are the best thing that ever happened to me, too." He thinks Fives might be the best thing that could have happened to him.

Unless something can be done about Fives' aging (or Jedao manages to somehow, after all this time, get himself killed), he almost certainly will outlive him, even without Jedao's terror of an eternity of solitude and insanity. Even with his aging slowed to normal the odds of him living long in war are... slim. He doesn't want to die, he never has and never will, but when it comes to it his deeply ingrained instinct is to give no thought to his own life if sacrificing it will further his cause.

"I was going to ask for the chips to be removed, then go back and let them execute me," he confesses quietly. Because he couldn't imagine a life without his brothers, and he couldn't imagine any way to have a life with them. You saved him too, Jedao.

"No one gets to kill you but me," Jedao growls, reflexive and immediate, although it's a conception of death and possessiveness that includes war, includes getting him killed. Fives is his soldier and that makes his life Jedao's to spend, and Jedao's to hoard.

Fives sucks in a sharp breath at the growl, the intensity of it. The absolute, possessive conviction of it. It probably shouldn't be comforting.

"I'm yours." His voice hasn't risen, but it's gone rougher, a little choked. "Use my life well."

"I will, I promise," he says, still growling, but a little smoother now, steady and deep. "Vor'aka, vod'ika." I accept a mission - not the same as a debt, but no less solemn, no less seriously sworn.

Fives huffs out a quiet, choked laugh, and his eyes squeeze tight shut for a moment as a weight he hadn't fully realized was lifts from his chest. He was made to be a tool. A weapon, trained and honed and deployed against an enemy, for a cause. It's all he knows. But he's chosen the enemy he'll fight in a cause that's worth dying for... and the hands that will wield him.

None of those are choices he'd ever thought to have. And he absolutely believes, bone deep, that Jedao will spend his life if it's necessary, but that he'll never throw it away.

"Haat, ijaa, haa'it, ner'alor," he answers, quiet and solemn and with a burning intensity that could easily be terrifying.

"Haat, ijaa, haa'it, ner'verd," he murmurs, soft and unshakable. They've made promises before, when they first decided to go to war together, when the Mando words were still sharp-edged and new in his mouth. This time, it feels different. This time it means more.

In the mirror, Jedao's reflection pulls back a little, rises up - as though on tiptoe, though of course his feet are out of view - enough to press a silent kiss to Fives' forehead where it's still resting against the glass, the image slightly smudged on the other side by steam that doesn't exist.

Edited 2017-08-25 06:35 (UTC)

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject