Chapter Text
“Spread your legs. There you go. You gotta relax.”
Arin does as they’re told, but they still feel sort of strange and exposed like this.
“Good,” Lash says. “Now hit me.” Their punch smacks into the padded palm of Lash’s glove. “Sucked less than the last one, but you still need to loosen up your shoulders. Elbows in.”
They adjust, and they try again. Between their own problems, whatever business Abrams may have embroiled them in, and the upcoming Maelstrom, it seems inevitable that they’ll have to defend themself once more. They knew some things coming in, but if Lash is an expert in anything, it’s this. They’d be a fool not to accept his help.
“Again,” he commands. They keep at it until they’ve broken a sweat and their hands begin to ache from the repeated strikes. He offered them gloves, but nobody trying to hurt them in real life is going to wait politely while they put their gloves on. They compromised by letting him wrap their hands, at least.
As good as they feel about the progress they’re making, Lash easily reminds them of the work they still have to do. On their last punch, he sidesteps, grabs their forearm, and pulls them down for a quick kiss. It’s insultingly easy.
“Time’s almost up,” he says. The owner of this boxing gym has made a lot of money betting on Lash, so he was more than happy to honor their request to use it privately, if only for so long. It’s nice, even if the space feels too empty with just the two of them in here.
They’re already sweaty and their heart rate is already up, so they ask, “How long do we have?” and go in for another kiss.
“This is a sacred place, babe.” Lash sounds scandalized. “I can’t take you to pound town here.”
“Wait, really?”
“No.” Lash laughs like he’s told a much funnier joke than he has. “But I can’t guarantee all those stains are blood.”
Arin looks down at the rust brown spots that litter the floor, nose wrinkling. “Never mind. The mood is gone.”
Lash’s hand slides over their ass, deceptively gentle until his fingers press into skin that’s still bruised. Those bruises send signals directly to Arin’s cock, and Lash has figured out the precise pressure required to make heat curl slow and lazy in their belly. “Think it’ll come back in the showers?”
They try to keep their voice even, but they’re fighting a losing battle. Lash has already pulled them close enough that he can feel the effect he’s having. “There is no privacy in there.”
“Anything’s private if we lock the door.”
It’s a thin excuse to concede, but Arin does. They’re rewarded with Lash going down on them in the shower, cold tile at their back contrasting with the molten heat of his mouth and the steaming water racing down both their bodies.
Shacking up with him isn’t much different than the last time they did this, but the small changes make it more pleasant by far. It’s probably not possible to truly domesticate Jacob Lash, but with appropriate feedback and the knowledge that he likes them, even the worst things he says are, if not socially acceptable, then at least sort of funny.
Arin doesn’t miss their father, but they do miss a great deal of their life before. The creature comforts of exceptional wealth are self-evidently better than Lash’s cramped apartment, which is nonetheless a remarkable improvement on some of the other places Arin’s slept before. But they also have family who aren’t entirely irredeemable. Sometimes they let a flight of fancy take them back there, constructing the life they may have had if not for the attempted filicide of it all. They get a perverse joy out of imagining their father’s reaction if they brought Jacob Lash over for dinner. It is a not-insignificant part of his charm.
Arin has learned over time that Lash is not unself-aware. He knows exactly how abrasive he is. He certainly doesn’t treat the grocer or the baker the way he does his opponents in the ring, and so far he’s only mentioned his dick when they’re in private. So he understands social niceties; he simply doesn’t care about most of them. It’s almost admirable.
They have come to terms with liking him. He makes it surprisingly easy.
They do feel the occasional pang over Abrams, but it is quickly suppressed by their general capacity for denial, as well as the specific sense of fairness learned from being the eldest child: miscommunications aside, Lash got here first. Besides, Arin has several reasons to be irritated with Abrams, all of which swarm in any time they entertain notions of guilt on his behalf.
Absence does not make their heart grow fonder. The opposite, in fact. Every day that they’re left wondering when they might see Abrams again and explain how the situation has evolved, they grow more annoyed that he abandoned them on Lash’s doorstep. It made sense at the time, but the more space they have to think about it, the more fault they find.
Lash somehow escapes their ire, despite having similarly handed them off. It may have something to do with Arin’s residual guilt over how badly they misunderstood him, but it could easily be that he is very, very good at distracting them, mostly with his body or the things he can do to theirs.
It could also be that Lash is willing to help them prepare for the Maelstrom rather than obstruct it, and not only by helping with their fighting form.
When they say they still hope to recruit Wraith, he doesn’t stop them, but he does offer a warning: “You might have trouble. She kinda hates me.” He says it like he’s observing the weather.
“Doesn’t that bother you?”
“Makes it inconvenient sometimes, but nah. Most people don’t give me a reason to care what they think.” His sideways glance makes them feel warm all over, like he’s confessed something illicit. “Anyway, she has a weekly poker game. Easier to meet with her there than ringside.”
“You think she’ll still work with you?”
“Probably. She knows an opportunity when she sees one.” If Arin weren’t already looking, they might miss the small tic in his jaw.
Their window to recruit allies is closing, but some of their father’s business lessons had value. A Lash in the hand is worth two Wraiths in the bush, or something. Besides, that tic might be their fault. “If she won’t, there are other people I can ask.” They kiss him with a hand on either side of his face, and they don’t stop until he’s smiling.
Whatever his feelings on the matter, Lash follows through on helping them. Wraith is, as expected, not entirely pleased by their presence, but she hasn’t tried to shoot anyone, so that’s probably a good sign.
Abrams, however, is not so expected. Arin racks their brain for any memory that should have prepared them for this, and the most they’ve got is that he mentioned poker in passing. It’s what he was doing the night he stayed out late, before he came back to find them—
Well, he could have been playing poker with any number of people in this city. Names didn’t really come up.
“You know these two, Abe?” Wraith asks, perfectly casual like she couldn’t have them riddled with bullets before they could react.
At least Abrams has to stop staring at them to address her. “You could say that,” he answers after a moment.
Arin clears their throat. “Don’t be mad at Lash. I asked him to bring me.”
She looks amused and perfectly in control. Arin would like a fraction of that self-assuredness. “Now, why would you do that? This game’s invitation only, and I don’t see you on the guest list.”
“I wanted to speak with you. It’s a business proposal.”
“Don’t take it personally if I don’t trust Lash’s taste in company.”
“Then trust mine,” Abrams says. “Hear them out. It’s right up your alley.”
“Is that so?” Wraith purses her already pouty lips while she thinks. “Alright, but make it quick. And just you. Lash can sit in the corner and think about what he’s done.” She walks away with all the confidence she’ll be obeyed. When they hesitate, watching some goon of hers ushering Lash back toward the bar’s entrance, she barely glances back. “He’ll be fine. I don’t have all night, kid.”
In the back room, Wraith leans against the edge of a table, propped up by the strange wooden arms she wears. She uses the original models to light a cigarette. She radiates the sort of effortless cool they’ve never been able to pull off. Even if it’s a performance, they’re a little envious.
“You’re taller than I thought you’d be,” she says.
Anxiety squirms in their gut, but it doesn’t have to mean anything. She clearly loves to ruffle feathers. Their best chance of getting through this is to remain as unruffled as possible. “I wasn’t aware you’d thought about me at all before now.”
“God knows I don’t understand why, but you took Jacob Lash off the market. That’s gonna cause a stir around the Bear Pit. From what I’ve heard, I expected someone sort of waifish. Delicate. Maybe capable of smiling.” She smirks, inviting them to share a secret. “Between you and me, it looks like you’ve got him wrapped around your finger. It might be cute if it were anyone else.” Her affability fades a bit. “Like seriously. Anyone.”
“Surely you didn’t invite me back here just to gossip.”
“Gossip’s part of the business. I always know what’s going on in my city.” She looks like she’s about to tell them who got caught kissing behind the school when she says, “You wanna know something really juicy? Max Fairfax has put a bounty out on his own son — the one that’s supposed to be dead already. For those in the know, there’s a lot of money in turning Junior in.” Arin can’t breathe for a moment. Their fingers flex on the case’s handle, tingling with power already. There’s a trick to unlatching it quickly. They might be able to do it before she grabs a gun. “Bet Lash could use the money.”
They wet their lips before they can speak. “Why share this?”
“What do you think your boyfriend would do if he knew? Maybe he likes you enough that it wouldn’t change anything. We could find out together if you want.” Her smile turns razor sharp; so much for pretty and pleasant.
They square their shoulders against the threat and keep their chin up, even if their insides feel like lead. “I’m already here to make a deal. What are you getting out of this?”
Wraith tilts her head. They don’t know if she sees in the typical way or if there’s magic involved, but she’s studying them for sure. “Just letting you know that whatever you got better be good.”
“I want your help in the Maelstrom.”
She barks out a surprised laugh. “You’re asking for a favor?”
“I’m giving you an opportunity,” they say with all the confidence they can muster. “You get our help summoning a Patron.” Surely even if she hates Lash, she’s reached the same conclusion they did the first night they met him: he’s exactly as good as he claims. Arin’s own skill set can remain a mystery, but the promise of money and a Patron’s favor will hopefully carry them a long way.
“And all that that entails. Alright, I see where you’re going. And what are you gonna ask for? Wait, wait. Let me guess. You want the keys to the kingdom.”
“I want what it takes to get peace.”
“So many ways you could get that, but you’re gonna pick the one that lets you take what Daddy has. Freud would have loved you.”
Arin flushes, but they stand their ground. “It’s better off in my hands than his.”
“Entirely altruistic, I’m sure. Lucky you, Abrams vouched for you, and the Tunnel Rats told me to keep an eye out for their favorite urchin. I can see the investment potential here. See, your boyfriend owes me some money, and I know you won’t have a problem paying it with interest if we do this thing. That’s of course on top of my retainer’s fee, as well as payment for services the day of, and depending on how much Lash annoys me, a surcharge for not shooting him.”
“How much?”
“I understand you’re not exactly flush at the moment. I’ll invoice you.”
They wince. God knows how many zeroes are going to be on that invoice. And she answered terribly fast, like she was prepared for every part of this meeting.
None of that can be allowed to matter; they knew coming in the cost would be steep. If they stop their father, they get to claim everything that should have been theirs, and maybe the profits from Fairfax Industries’ future ventures. “You know I can’t pay it if we don’t succeed, right?”
“Then you better make sure we don’t fail.”
“We’ll need more than the three of us.”
“You don’t have Abrams on the hook yet?” Her smirk says she knows — or has guessed — way too much.
They don’t feel like clarifying that they’re the one complicating it. “Not exactly.”
She scoffs. “We’ll have to work on that. I love a good gamble, but I’d rather stack the deck for this kind of thing.”
“And you won’t tell anybody about… you know?”
“Nothing but the truth. I’ve never met Fairfax’s son.”
Outside the office, Abrams is waiting. She gives the two of them a look that makes Arin’s arm hair stand on end. Whatever she has or hasn’t guessed already, there’s no way she doesn’t think something of the strange tension in the air.
Abrams looks like he’s trying to make himself smaller when he asks, “Could we get a moment?”
Wraith’s expression doesn’t get any less intrigued, but she stands aside. “Game starts soon.”
With that, they’re shut in the room with Abrams. For an instant, he stares with that same starved expression from before.
Then he surges into motion, mouth descending to capture theirs. They gasp and he sucks the air right back out of their lungs. For a moment their head spins, an effect magnified by the taste of scotch on Abrams’ tongue. It’s all they can do to stay on their feet, even with his arms winding tight around them.
It takes longer than it should for their brain to catch up. They push gently on his chest and back away, ashamed by their own reluctance to stop it. Their breaths come too quickly.
“Sorry, I shouldn’t have—” Abrams starts.
“It’s okay.” Arin sucks in air, then corrects themself. “Well, no, you shouldn’t have. We’re not— you can’t do that.”
Abrams looks exactly as wounded as they knew he would, like the world’s largest, saddest puppy. “You’re right. I made that weird. And I suppose you have to keep up appearances with Lash.”
Ah, there’s the irritation that’s been plaguing them lately. It certainly helps keep the effects of Abrams’ big sad eyes at bay. “I’m not just keeping up appearances.”
“You can’t be serious.”
“I’m serious.”
Abrams scoffs. “Seemed to me you thought Lash was a little easy come, easy go.”
“But you didn’t think that, did you? You knew it was real to him when you told me to go back there. You wanted me to manipulate him. It was cruel, and you wanted me to be cruel, and I was and—”
“I want you to survive.” It cuts through their rambling like a knife. “I’d do a lot worse than hurt Jacob Lash’s feelings to make that happen.” Abrams’ nostrils flare with frustration, but he softens rapidly. His words are harsh but his tone isn’t when he says, “If you’re gonna come out of the ritual on top, you better get comfortable with a little ruthlessness.”
“I know that.” They’re fighting a losing battle with their own exasperation. Of course they know these things. They don’t like thinking about it, but they understand. The price they would pay to wrest Fairfax Industries from their father’s hands might be higher than they’re entirely okay with, but it’s for the greater good, isn’t it? “I know it’s going to get ugly. Maybe… maybe I’ll have to get ugly, but I never want it to be comfortable.”
“I know you don’t.” An enormous hand reaches for theirs. “One of a lot of reasons why I want you safe.”
“But the Maelstrom isn’t here. I don’t have to do any of that yet.” It’s easy to see that his heart was in the right place, even if his methods weren’t very nice. It doesn’t absolve him, but it does make sense. Still, they pull their hand free of Abrams’ grip.
Abrams laughs without any humor in it. “That’s a lot of angst over a guy like Lash.”
“It’s for my sake, not just his. But I don’t want to hurt him.”
There’s another of those laughs. “Did he get a full personality transplant? Get possessed, maybe?”
“No, but he doesn’t treat me like I’m breakable.”
Purple stains Abrams’ cheeks when he flushes. “I’m twice your size. You are breakable. Easily. Most humans are.”
“You don’t always know better than me either.”
Abrams’ mouth opens then closes silently. Then he says, “Not exactly how I was hoping this would go, if I’m being honest.”
“Then you shouldn’t have left me on his doorstep.”
“Seems like the best thing I could have done, if you’re so happy now.” His tone is dry and dark and still disbelieving.
Even Arin’s ears feel too hot. Their arms have crept in around their body like they can hold themself together in some literal sense. They don’t even know why they’re so upset. They told Lash he wasn’t second place, and they meant it. But Abrams never really was either.
They are happy, or as close as someone like them can get anyway; they don’t know what that feels like in any undiluted form. They know they got damned close with Abrams too, though. Maybe that’s why they somehow still feel like he betrayed them — abandoned them. No amount of reason can quite shake that feeling.
“Don’t mock me,” they say, voice small.
“I’m not. I wouldn’t. I do want you to be happy, just—” It hangs there for a second, then Abrams sighs. “Did it have to be a guy who talks about himself in the third person?”
Their own laugh surprises them, but they’re grateful for the way it unspools the tension in their chest. “Would you believe that’s one of the first things I said to him?”
“Did it make him stop?”
“You know it didn’t.”
That makes Abrams smile, even if it seems a little sad. “You ask Wraith what I think you asked her?”
“Of course.”
“And what did she say?”
“Yes.” They can’t quite look him in the eye when they say, “She wants you to help us.”
He laughs, disbelieving again. “You made up your mind about that?”
“I think so. If we don’t tell Geist I’m involved until the day of the ritual, my dad won’t find out until it’s too late.”
“You know that means Wraith and Lash are gonna know too, right?”
“She already knows. Let me worry about Lash.” Abrams’ bitter little laugh says plenty. There’s no reason this should be so difficult, but Arin’s chest hurts. “Is that going to be a problem?”
“I’m working with Jeanne Geist. I’ve developed a tolerance for unsavory types.”
There are a thousand things they could probably say next, but none of them seem willing to come out. “I’ll see you soon then.”
They leave Abrams behind in Wraith’s office, feeling strangely lighter and heavier at once. He lets them go, but his gaze on their back feels like a real, weighted thing.
Everyone else’s gaze does too. They can feel it with every step they take. Lash really is seated in a corner by the door like a child who’s being punished, but he stands as they approach. He looks them over, jaw tight and brow drawn, like he’s expecting something horrible to fall.
He’s been sitting here listening to them say God knows what to him. He brought Arin here, to a place where he knows people don’t like him, and there’s no way he didn’t see Abrams enter the back room. Wraith’s words still ring in Arin’s ears, and maybe they’ll worry about that later, but here in the moment, only one thing feels right.
They kiss him in front of everyone, hands cupping either side of his face like he’d pull away if they let him go. It’s not a harsh kiss or even particularly passionate, but it feels… heavy, like everything else suddenly does. When they’re done, Arin is slow to pull away.
“Take me home?” they ask, and they’re rewarded with a smile that is shockingly sweet and almost shy, which doesn’t suit Lash in the slightest. They pretend not to notice when he flips off the whole room behind their back.
Lash drags them bodily into the apartment, pressing them against the door as it closes. Whatever sweetness he displayed when everyone else was around has disappeared now. His mouth and stubble scrape down their neck, and his hands feel like they’re everywhere, and Arin is going to burn alive.
Lash feels like he’s trying to devour them. He tugs at their clothing, and with every bit of skin exposed, his mouth follows. Arin can barely keep up with shrugging out of their coat and shirt, working their shoes off, dropping their trousers. They don’t get to the underwear before Lash is hauling them off the ground.
Their thighs clamp around his hips and the full weight of his body crushes them against the door. “You’re so fucking…” Lash trails off, like he’s finally run out of words. His cock digs in just beneath their ass. They’ve never done it this way, but Arin thinks he could probably fuck them right here without even breaking a sweat. They clutch at his huge arms and bite into his mouth and rock against him the best they can in this position.
If he’s not going to speak, maybe they can do it for him. They’re feeling generous. “Get these clothes off and fuck me. I want to feel the Lash’s cock.”
Immediately, everything stops. He stares at them, hands suddenly frozen at their waist. “Why would you say it like that?”
“You’re joking, right?”
“It’s weird when you do it.”
Arin stares at him for too long, then they’re laughing. It’s so stupid, but all the stress of the evening seems to float away. Bemused, Lash hauls them to the bed while they sag against him in helpless laughter. They land awkwardly, but he is already swarming over them, looking unbearably proud of himself.
“I don’t understand,” Arin says. “I thought you would love to hear how much I want the Lash’s huge, throbbing cock.”
“When did you turn into such a menace?”
The question catches them off guard, if only because they realize they’ve been smiling for several minutes now. It feels like maybe getting something back that they had forgotten they lost in the first place.
“I don’t know. Maybe the Lash rubbed off on me.”
He groans, “Stop it,” and buries his face in their neck. He can complain all he wants; his hands haven’t stopped moving. One of them inches up into Arin’s shorts and along the meager curve of their ass, fingertips just managing to brush dry over their hole. They shudder, hooking that ankle over Lash’s hip to give his hand more room. “Feel free to keep telling me how big it is though.”
Arin wants to laugh again, but instead they moan softly when Lash’s hand circles around to stroke their cock through their shorts, coaxing enough precome from the tip to saturate the fabric.
“So big. I love it. Like it feels so good I could cry sometimes.” They have cried, actually, but for all his rudeness, Lash is at least polite enough not to mention that.
“Not the biggest you’ve had though, is it?”
They freeze. “What?” How are they supposed to answer that? Lash is still teasing their cock, and he doesn’t stop when their hand lands on his, because all the strength has left their fingers.
“Is his bigger?” Arin’s breath catches in their throat, and they don’t have any answer save the color flooding their face. “You let him fuck you, right? No way you didn’t. I know you.” Somehow the words fill them with the same hot spike of shame and desire they feel when Lash used to call them a slut. They never thought they could miss that. “No way you felt that guilty over a handy or something. You let him have this, didn’t you?” His hand has moved again, squeezing one of Arin’s ass cheeks like he owns it.
It takes them a moment to find their voice again. “I thought you were over it.”
“I am. But I still wanna know: is it bigger than mine?”
He’s too heavy to move, but they can avoid looking at him out of sheer spite if they have to. “No one’s is bigger than the Lash’s,” they say flatly in the direction of the wall. “Never, in the whole of human history, has there been a bigger dick.”
“Don’t be a shit.”
“Why would you even want to know?” If their roles were reversed, no way in hell would Arin ask for the details. They would stuff the whole thing in the same mental box where they keep things like the insults from their father and what it feels like to be really, really hungry, and they would shove it into a far corner to collect dust.
“He’s huge everywhere else. Hard not to wonder if it’s proportionate.” His hand hasn’t stopped roaming, and they’re trying not to writhe beneath him. “Come on,” he wheedles.
They want to argue, because surely there’s no way he means this as anything but a punishment, but he’s pressed up close to them, close enough they can feel the rigid line of his cock. “Wait. Are you turned on right now? Still?”
He laughs, hums an affirmative as his teeth sink in between their neck and shoulder.
“Pervert,” they say, which he doesn’t argue with.
“Come on,” he says again. “Humor me.”
He’s staring them in the face now. They want to look away, to do anything but humor him, but instead they meet his eye. They suck in a few breaths. It feels prickly and strange and like they’re doing something terribly illicit, but that makes their neck hot and their heart thud in their chest too. Shame cleaves their tongue to the roof of their mouth. In lieu of speaking, they grab Lash’s hand and guide it slowly, inch by careful inch up their abdomen, refusing to break eye contact lest they lose all their nerve.
Lash’s eyes widen when he catches on, then again when they finally stop his hand — right where they’re sure they felt Abrams’ cock when he bottomed out inside them.
His fingers dig into their side at exactly that height. “Holy shit,” he mumbles. He wets his lips, gaze flicking from their eyes to his hand and back.
They suck in a shaky breath, every moment wondering if he’s going to turn angry or sad or jealous, but he only presses his palm in, curls his fingers, hips twitching against them like he can’t help himself.
He studies their face a moment longer, brows drawn down in a silent question, like maybe he’s as worried as they are about how fragile this might be. Then: “I’d pay money to see that.”
“What?”
“You, taking a cock that big. I bet you loved it, didn’t you?”
Their face can’t get any hotter than it already is, but the relief that he’s not upset makes everything feel too light and bubbly and strange. “Yeah,” they admit, voice going quieter. “Almost too big.”
Lash doesn’t seem upset at all, if the stiff jut of his cock is anything to go by. He peels off their underwear and then his own, and when he returns, it’s with slick fingers prying at their hole.
“What else did you do with him?” Lash asks, digging his fingers in and up, stroking with more patience than he ever usually shows.
Arin holds off for a moment, some last ditch effort to be stubborn even as they lift one knee to make more room for Lash’s fingers. But Lash doesn’t stop rubbing, pressing, circling until their hole pulses involuntarily, hot and sensitive. They can only do so much in the face of that, and he knows it.
Soon enough, they cave, describing what they can remember of their stay with Abrams: the magazines, the way he ate them out first before burying that huge cock inside them, the way he coaxed their desires out of them with clever hands, not so different from what Lash is doing now. The whole time, Lash’s fingers move, and the warmth inside them spirals outward from that one spot, flooding their chest and their limbs, until they’re struggling to form the words.
By the time Lash hitches their knees up to slam his cock home, they’re already trembling, and it’s all they can do to hold onto him, riding the wave of that building heat, growing with every thrust. They cling to him with weak arms, drawing Lash’s weight down onto them while they shake apart on his cock.
When the wave finally crests, they can’t move, can’t think, can’t even see, paralyzed and blinded by the power of that orgasm. Lash fucks them through it, just as overwhelming as anything happening inside their body. When he finally finishes, he barely avoids crushing them.
They both lay panting, sharing the same air, before Lash lets go of their legs and carefully eases out of them. Arin strokes a hand down his face to keep him close, watching his eyes come back into focus after all of that. They catch their breath, then ask, in a voice barely louder than a whisper, “I don’t know what that was. Are you sure it’s okay?”
Lash sounds just as breathless when he smirks and says, “I’m not worried about it. I know whose name you say when you come.”
It’s embarrassing and hardly romantic, and they’re not even sure they’d want romantic anyway, but Arin’s heart tries to pick up speed again, and they’re laughing when they pull Lash down into another kiss.