Baptism - Jaeris/Linkara fanfic
Title: Baptism
Rating: NC-17, for sex
Word Count: 2,916 (aprox.)
Characters, Pairings: Linkara, Jaeris, mentions of Maragert and Jaeris’s wife
Disclaimer: I own nothing, only socks.
Warnings: Mention of suicide, threats, depression, extreme vulnerability, degrading talk, mentions of judicial corporeal punishment, mentions of sex toys.
Summary: Linkara goes over to Jaeris’s ship, only to find Jaeris curled up in the fetal position in a breakdown. Linkara tries to help him out.
A/N: Written for this Kink Meme prompt, posted at my journal. Jaeris’s HAIR. My god. That is all.
The house isn’t quite a mess, but nothing looks like it’s been touched in a while. Except for the bottles scattered around on the tables and floor. Bottles that Linkara can’t read the labels on, but from the smell he can guess the identity of their former contents.
Linkara heads down a hallway. There, in a nest of blankets in a corner, is Jaeris. The magic guns are around him in a semi-circle, and a framed photograph is clutched in his hands. He’s curled up in a fetal position, shuddering every now and again, but it doesn’t sound like he’s crying.
Linkara pauses, startled by the tableau. He is acutely aware of his status as an intruder into this place, that he shouldn’t be seeing Jaeris like this. Nobody should.
He approaches slowly, making sure Jaeris can hear his footsteps. Jaeris doesn’t react.
Linkara reaches down and touches Jaeris lightly on the shoulder.
Jaeris twists around, scrambles back, gun leveling at Linkara’s chest. His hand is steady, his eyes are bloodshot and look hollowed out from the deep bags beneath them.
Linkara takes a step back, holds his hands out to the sides - empty - and doesn’t move.
Jaeris looks down at his gun, at the photo clutched in his other hand, back to the gun, and then holds both close to his chest, rocking back and forth. He’s been crying, Linkra can tell from the redness in Jaeris’s eyes - it’s not just from the alcohol.
Linkara waits.
Slowly, Jaeris stops rocking. He holsters his gun, stares at the floor.
Linkara makes a decision and cautiously approaches Jaeris, crouching down and stopping about a foot away from the man.
Jaeris flings himself at Linkara, tackling him to the ground. For a horrible moment Linkara thinks he’s attacking, then he realizes that no, Jaeris is clutching at him like a drowning man to a raft.
Then Jaeris begins sobbing.
Linkara puts his arms around the other man, holds him tightly, makes soothing, wordless noises.
Eventually Linkara realizes that Jaeris has fallen asleep clinging to him. He shifts slightly, trying to find a most comfortable position for his legs, before giving up and laying very still. There are damp patches on his jacket and shirt from Jaeris’s tears - Jaeris’s people, apparently, cry orange tears, not clear like humans from this universe. Linkara tries to focus on what would cause something like that as opposed to the fact that Jaeris has cried enough in the past few days to tinge his face an unhealthy sheen from his orange tears.
After an hour or so, Jaeris wakes up, blinking, looking at Linkara in confusion.
Linkara sits up, still holding Jaeris, who slumps in his grip.
“You need rest. Proper rest. Bed’s in there?”
Jaeris nods.
“Good. But first you need to get cleaned up. Do you … shower? Take baths? Got a waterfall somewhere in here?” Linkara remembers Linksano shrieking about the shower the first time he tried to use it, more accustomed to baths or a kind of steam room from his universe. Explaining how to use a shower was both mortifying and hilarious, for the both of them.
Jaeris jerks his head towards a door down the hall.
“Ok then. I’ll help you there.”
Jaeris leans on him, rests his head on Linkara’s shoulder. Linkara leaves him in the bathroom and shuts the door, waits outside.
He hears the sounds of water running, the lap of water trapped in some kind of bathtub, soft splashing sounds. The image of Jaeris, stripped naked, submerged in a warm bath, springs to Linkara’s mind unbidden and leaves him flustered, confused.
A knock on the door startles him from his moral quandary.
“Linkara?” Jaeris asks, voice raspy.
“I’m here.” Linkara stands up.
“I … could you help me?”
Linkara opens the door. Jaeris is sitting by what looks like a bathtub of some kind, a towel around his waist, hands shaking slightly as he toys with the end of his braid.
“The drinkin’ … makes my hands…” he looks away. “I can’t …” he gestures to his hair.
“It’s ok.” Linkara sits down beside him. The orange sheen from Jaeris’s cheeks is gone, at least.
Jaeris turns around and leans over the edge of the tub, hardly looking at Linkara.
Linkara gulps, staring at Jaeris’s pale shoulders, his back …
… there are scars there. Faded, but long diagonal stripes that can only mean one thing.
“You’ve been whipped.”
Jaeris sighs. “Talk later,” he grips the edge of the tub with white-knuckled hands. “… please.”
Linkara doesn’t have to be told twice. He removes the tie from Jaeris’s braid and slowly begins to unravel it.
Jaeris makes a small whimpering sound when Linkara begins to wash his hair, almost moans when Linkara gently pushes Jaeris’s head down slightly to get it all soaked. Linkara hesitates, but Jaeris says nothing, so he continues, guessing with the bottles he finds on a shelf near the tub and rubbing greenish goop through Jaeris’s hair. The smell is unfamiliar to Linkara, a kind of minty strawberry, perhaps. He wonders where Jaeris found it, bought it, if it’s from his homeworld or some far-flung galaxy. He wonders whether Jaeris likes it or just uses it out of necessity.
Linkara pretends not to notice that as he rinses Jaeris’s hair, that the water has started to take on an orange tinge, pretends not to hear Jaeris snuffling slightly. He rinses Jaeris’s hair, finds him another towel, and drains the tub.
“Do you have a hair-dryer or …?” Linkara has vague recollections of past girlfriends drying their hair with blow-dryers, and some letting it air-dry.
Jaeris shakes his head. “I just …” He wrings it out and pats it down with the towel halfheartedly.
“Clothes in your bedroom?” Linkara asks.
Jaeris nods.
“Ok, if you can, you go get dressed by yourself. I’ll get you something to drink. Not booze.”
Jaeris stands up shakily and makes his way to his bedroom, leaning on the wall for support. Linkara goes to explore the kitchen.
He finds a glass, fills it from the tap, and opens a jar covered in dancing green blobs. He spreads the paste inside over a slice of bread, and brings it to Jaeris’s room.
Jaeris is sitting on the edge of his bed, damp hair cascading over his shoulders and down his back. He’s wearing loose long pants and a baggy shirt covered in letters Linkara can’t read. Without his coat and hat, he looks very small, skinny and vulnerable.
“Brought you some water, and I hope this is food,” Linkara holds up the bread.
Jaeris accepts the bread and water wordlessly. Linkara watches awkwardly as Jaeris eats the bread, drinks down the water.
“Well, I’ll leave you to your sleep -”
Jaeris catches his wrist. “Stay.” It’s not a question.
Linkara freezes. “Jaeris …” he says slowly.
“’M always alone … fer years an’ … not now.” Jaeris’s grip is like iron but his eyes are soft, brimming with silent pleas.
Linkara thinks of the team of heroes who died trying to save Jaeris’s world. He imagines the reviewers and friends Jaeris must have left behind. He thinks of the look on Jaeris’s face in the video logs, when he talked about his wife.
Jaeris may never be able to avenge them, rescue those who are still alive. All because of Linkara.
And yet Jaeris is tugging Linkara into his bed, curling against his body. He’s utterly defenseless, half blinded by his damp hair, too weak to even untangle a braid, and his gun is on the other side of the room.
It takes a long time for Linkara to fall asleep, but Jaeris is out within minutes, snuffling softly, face relaxing in slumber, lines and creases fading away.
The pure, undiluted trust is half horrifying, half humbling, to Linkara. Until very recently he’d considered Jaeris his enemy, and Jaeris had been doing his best to make him angry enough to unlock Margaret’s potential. Now, here they are, asleep in the same bed.
Linkara dreams of a watch screaming in agony, and a shadowy woman fading from sight. He dreams of kneeling in front of Jaeris with Jaeris’s gun pressing just underneath his hat. He dreams of Margaret being pulled from his arms. He dreams of Jaeris bound to a post in a prison courtyard, shirt ripped open, red lines crisscrossing his back.
~*~
When Linkara wakes, he’s alone in the bed. He can hear the whistle of a tea kettle down the hall. He rubs his eyes, retrieves his glasses from the bedside table, puts his jacket and shoes back on, and heads for the kitchen.
Jaeris is dressed in black pants and a red shirt. His hair has been loosely braided, not as tight as his usual style but enough to hold it out of his face.
Linkara hesitates, then cautiously sits down.
Jaeris brings over tea, pours it into two mugs and slides one to Linkara. He sets down a plate of toast and begins spreading a blue glaze over a piece for himself.
Linkara waits, sips the tea, and then takes a piece of toast.
“You’re in my house. Again.” Jaeris says, so suddenly that Linkara almost drops his tea.
“I … I couldn’t contact you on any of the channels. I was worried about you. So I … beamed up here.” Linkara shrugs helplessly.
“Hmmm,” Jaeris grunts and eats his toast.
Linkara tries the blue glaze. It tastes like oranges and cinnamon.
“Why’d you stay, last night?” Jaeris asks, just as suddenly.
Linkara thinks it over, briefly. “Because you asked.”
“You didn’t have to stay.”
“Yes, I did.”
“Afraid I’d use one of the guns on myself?”
The question catches Linkara off-guard. The half-eaten toast slips from his fingers onto his plate.
“Were you … did you …” Linkara doesn’t know what to say, where to begin.
Jaeris shrugs. “Thought about it. After you destroyed my watch. Came back here, got acclimated … thought about it. Was thinkin’ about it, last night.” He stares at Linkara. “I might never make it back home.”
Linkara opens his mouth to offer platitudes about hope, the power of love, something. Instead he stares into his tea. “No, you might not.”
Jaeris stretches. “I’ve been alone for years. I’m always alone. And I miss … people.”
Linkara straightens up. “Last night, why did you trust me?”
Jaeris looks up at him, eyebrows raised. “You coulda cut m’ throat last night. Drowned me when you were doin’ my hair. Shot me. Poisoned me, with that bread last night. You’ve taken … everything … from me.” Jaeris spreads his hands from side to side. “What else could you do to me?”
“That’s not trust.”
“No, but it’s as close as you’re gonna get from me.”
Linkara sighs heavily: he’ll have to accept this.
“I didn’t invite you here,” Jaeris drawls, toying with his mug. “They got tresspassin’ in this universe?”
Linkara nods. “Yes.”
Jaeris grins; it’s painful to look at. “Well, where I’m from, somebody trespasses on yer land, you get to do whatever you want with ’em.”
Linkara blinks. Then, slowly, he nods. Apparently, now that Jaeris is up to speaking in complete sentences, whatever understanding they’d reached last night has been broken. “Ok. I … I deserve it. What I’ve done to - mmmmph!”
He’s cut off by Jaeris kissing him.
It isn’t a loving kiss; it’s not soft or intimate. It’s rough, sloppy, Jaeris invading Linkara’s mouth with his tongue and claiming him. Jaeris bites Linkara’s lip and draws blood.
When Jaeris breaks the kiss he leans back, a lopsided smile on his face, licking his lips. “You gonna let me go farther?” he tugs on Linkara’s collar gently. “I’ve got a yearnin’ … but there’s other ways we could do this, if you ain’t … inclined.”
Linkara gulps. “What about your wife?”
Jaeris’s smile only grows. “She’s an understandin’ woman. Just like I’m an understandin’ man. We’re married, but we can have other partners.” Jaeris tilts his head. “That wasn’t a ‘no’ …”
Linkara leans forward and kisses Jaeris, pulls him closer, reaches up and runs his hands through Jaeris’s hair, already starting to unravel the braid.
“You like that, hero?” Jaeris drawls, shaking his head slightly, letting his hair cascade free. “You pretendin’ I’m a lady?”
“Of course not,” Linkara slides off his chair and onto the floor, resting his hands on Jaeris’s thighs. “Not that I’m not a tad concerned about what I’m going to find between your legs when I pull down your pants, but I’m willing to work with whatever you’ve got.”
Jaeris laughs. “Tackle’s same as yours, I promise.” He hooks a leg around Linkara’s shoulders and glances down meaningfully. “Dare ya.”
Linkara unzips Jaeris’s pants, pulls them down, and the striped underwear: two balls, one half-hard human-looking cock … no tentacles or spines. So far, so good.
The sound Jaeris makes when Linkara swallows the aforementioned cock is very satisfying. The hand he uses to push Linkara’s head down further is less so, to Linkara at least. Linkara gags a bit, slows down to find a steady rhythm, feels his eyes water as Jaeris twists his hair insistently.
“You arrogant … impatient … stubborn … ahhhhh …” Jaeris moans, fingers twisting Linkara’s hair roughly. “You wrathful man … if you’d just … auuuuuuuhhhh … listened for five fucking seconds …”
He yanks Linkara’s head back, glaring down at him.
“Changed my mind, hero,” Jaeris sneers slightly. “Ever been fucked? An’ I mean proper fucked, not playin’ around with yer girlfriend’s toys when no one was at the house.”
Linkara shrugs.
“That a ‘yes’ or a ‘no,’ boy?” Jaeris demands, dragging Linkara up and pulling him towards the bedroom.
“Yes, but he wasn’t as big as you are.”
Jaeris’s angry expression melts away, and he almost laughs, face flushing slightly. Before Linkara can completely register it, Jaeris’s anger is back and they’ve reached the bedroom. He throws Linkara onto the bed, steps out of his pants and pulls off his shirt. Linkara can’t help but stare at Jaeris’s reflection in the mirror, at the scars on his back.
“You gonna strip, or are you gonna make me strip you?” Jaeris asks, crawling up onto the bed.
Linkara frantically gets out of his own clothing. Jaeris watches him, a hand drifting down every so often to stroke himself.
“You got scars too,” Jaeris notes, staring at the collection of lines and old burns on Linkara’s chest, upper arms, and legs.
“Not as bad as being whipped.”
Jaeris’s hands clench. “No, I wouldn’t think so.” He smirks, leans down, clamps down on the spot where Linkara’s neck and shoulder meet and bites. Linkara yelps, struggles, grabs fistfuls of Jaeris’s hair and wills himself not to pull.
“You’re not … a vampire … are you?”
Jaeris sits up, tilts his head to the side. “What’s a vampire?”
“Blood-drinking monster?”
Jaeris grins. “No, nothin’ like that.” He flips Linkara over, pinning him to the bed. Linkara can see into the mirror, can see Jaeris - his hair a mess, his face sweaty, his hands reaching …
“I want ya ta watch. Every second o’ this. You hear?”
Linkara nods. “Yeah, I hear.”
~*~
“It was in prison.”
Linkara rolls over, stares at Jaeris. “What?”
“The whip-scars. I said we would talk later. It’s later.” Jaeris sits up in bed, back against the headboard. “You got questions: I’ll answer ’em.”
Linkara finds his glasses and puts them back on. He’s naked otherwise, even his hat is lying by the door. “Why were you whipped?”
“Stabbed a man for tryin’ ta stab me. He got Solitary fer three cycles. I got a whippin’ in front of everyone. It was even televised.”
Linkara shudders. “That’s awful.”
“Not really,” Jaeris grins. “My wife was watchin’ … she likes whips. It was painful, not like the toys she used, but I was actin’ like the man was givin’ me the time of my life. I kept yelling ‘more!’ and ‘I love you!’ and ‘one more time!’ Passed out, eventually. Still, made a helluva a lot of people laugh. Includin’ my wife.” Jaeris smiles softly, staring up at the ceiling in recollection. “Called me a damn fool, for makin’ it worse for myself.”
Linkara imagines a woman, faceless and shadowy, alone in a room in front of a television, watching her husband being whipped.
“Anythin’ else, hero?”
Linkara straightens up. “What’s your wife’s name?”
Jaeris’s brow furrows. “Why you wanna know that?”
“I want to know the name of the woman whose husband I’m fucking.”
Jaeris raises an eyebrow. “If you’ll recall, it was me doin’ the fucking. Unless I fucked you so hard your mind’s gone a little loopy?”
Linkara snorts. “Hardly. But I want to know. I think I should know.”
Jaeris bites his lip, considers it. “Alright, but you gotta give me somethin’ in return.”
Linkara nods.
“What’s the name of the girl in yer gun?”
Linkara freezes.
“Fair trade, hero,” Jaeris says. “Unless you don’t trust me after all?”
“Names have power -”
“I know. An’ a sorcerer like you should know better than to ask someone for a name without givin’ up a name just as valuable in exchange.”
For a moment, Linkara considers leaving. But they’ve gone too far now to end this … what is this? Friendship? Relationship? Partnership? Alliance?
“… Margaret.”
Jaeris nods. “Thank you.”
Then he tells Linkara his wife’s name.
Rating: NC-17, for sex
Word Count: 2,916 (aprox.)
Characters, Pairings: Linkara, Jaeris, mentions of Maragert and Jaeris’s wife
Disclaimer: I own nothing, only socks.
Warnings: Mention of suicide, threats, depression, extreme vulnerability, degrading talk, mentions of judicial corporeal punishment, mentions of sex toys.
Summary: Linkara goes over to Jaeris’s ship, only to find Jaeris curled up in the fetal position in a breakdown. Linkara tries to help him out.
A/N: Written for this Kink Meme prompt, posted at my journal. Jaeris’s HAIR. My god. That is all.
The house isn’t quite a mess, but nothing looks like it’s been touched in a while. Except for the bottles scattered around on the tables and floor. Bottles that Linkara can’t read the labels on, but from the smell he can guess the identity of their former contents.
Linkara heads down a hallway. There, in a nest of blankets in a corner, is Jaeris. The magic guns are around him in a semi-circle, and a framed photograph is clutched in his hands. He’s curled up in a fetal position, shuddering every now and again, but it doesn’t sound like he’s crying.
Linkara pauses, startled by the tableau. He is acutely aware of his status as an intruder into this place, that he shouldn’t be seeing Jaeris like this. Nobody should.
He approaches slowly, making sure Jaeris can hear his footsteps. Jaeris doesn’t react.
Linkara reaches down and touches Jaeris lightly on the shoulder.
Jaeris twists around, scrambles back, gun leveling at Linkara’s chest. His hand is steady, his eyes are bloodshot and look hollowed out from the deep bags beneath them.
Linkara takes a step back, holds his hands out to the sides - empty - and doesn’t move.
Jaeris looks down at his gun, at the photo clutched in his other hand, back to the gun, and then holds both close to his chest, rocking back and forth. He’s been crying, Linkra can tell from the redness in Jaeris’s eyes - it’s not just from the alcohol.
Linkara waits.
Slowly, Jaeris stops rocking. He holsters his gun, stares at the floor.
Linkara makes a decision and cautiously approaches Jaeris, crouching down and stopping about a foot away from the man.
Jaeris flings himself at Linkara, tackling him to the ground. For a horrible moment Linkara thinks he’s attacking, then he realizes that no, Jaeris is clutching at him like a drowning man to a raft.
Then Jaeris begins sobbing.
Linkara puts his arms around the other man, holds him tightly, makes soothing, wordless noises.
Eventually Linkara realizes that Jaeris has fallen asleep clinging to him. He shifts slightly, trying to find a most comfortable position for his legs, before giving up and laying very still. There are damp patches on his jacket and shirt from Jaeris’s tears - Jaeris’s people, apparently, cry orange tears, not clear like humans from this universe. Linkara tries to focus on what would cause something like that as opposed to the fact that Jaeris has cried enough in the past few days to tinge his face an unhealthy sheen from his orange tears.
After an hour or so, Jaeris wakes up, blinking, looking at Linkara in confusion.
Linkara sits up, still holding Jaeris, who slumps in his grip.
“You need rest. Proper rest. Bed’s in there?”
Jaeris nods.
“Good. But first you need to get cleaned up. Do you … shower? Take baths? Got a waterfall somewhere in here?” Linkara remembers Linksano shrieking about the shower the first time he tried to use it, more accustomed to baths or a kind of steam room from his universe. Explaining how to use a shower was both mortifying and hilarious, for the both of them.
Jaeris jerks his head towards a door down the hall.
“Ok then. I’ll help you there.”
Jaeris leans on him, rests his head on Linkara’s shoulder. Linkara leaves him in the bathroom and shuts the door, waits outside.
He hears the sounds of water running, the lap of water trapped in some kind of bathtub, soft splashing sounds. The image of Jaeris, stripped naked, submerged in a warm bath, springs to Linkara’s mind unbidden and leaves him flustered, confused.
A knock on the door startles him from his moral quandary.
“Linkara?” Jaeris asks, voice raspy.
“I’m here.” Linkara stands up.
“I … could you help me?”
Linkara opens the door. Jaeris is sitting by what looks like a bathtub of some kind, a towel around his waist, hands shaking slightly as he toys with the end of his braid.
“The drinkin’ … makes my hands…” he looks away. “I can’t …” he gestures to his hair.
“It’s ok.” Linkara sits down beside him. The orange sheen from Jaeris’s cheeks is gone, at least.
Jaeris turns around and leans over the edge of the tub, hardly looking at Linkara.
Linkara gulps, staring at Jaeris’s pale shoulders, his back …
… there are scars there. Faded, but long diagonal stripes that can only mean one thing.
“You’ve been whipped.”
Jaeris sighs. “Talk later,” he grips the edge of the tub with white-knuckled hands. “… please.”
Linkara doesn’t have to be told twice. He removes the tie from Jaeris’s braid and slowly begins to unravel it.
Jaeris makes a small whimpering sound when Linkara begins to wash his hair, almost moans when Linkara gently pushes Jaeris’s head down slightly to get it all soaked. Linkara hesitates, but Jaeris says nothing, so he continues, guessing with the bottles he finds on a shelf near the tub and rubbing greenish goop through Jaeris’s hair. The smell is unfamiliar to Linkara, a kind of minty strawberry, perhaps. He wonders where Jaeris found it, bought it, if it’s from his homeworld or some far-flung galaxy. He wonders whether Jaeris likes it or just uses it out of necessity.
Linkara pretends not to notice that as he rinses Jaeris’s hair, that the water has started to take on an orange tinge, pretends not to hear Jaeris snuffling slightly. He rinses Jaeris’s hair, finds him another towel, and drains the tub.
“Do you have a hair-dryer or …?” Linkara has vague recollections of past girlfriends drying their hair with blow-dryers, and some letting it air-dry.
Jaeris shakes his head. “I just …” He wrings it out and pats it down with the towel halfheartedly.
“Clothes in your bedroom?” Linkara asks.
Jaeris nods.
“Ok, if you can, you go get dressed by yourself. I’ll get you something to drink. Not booze.”
Jaeris stands up shakily and makes his way to his bedroom, leaning on the wall for support. Linkara goes to explore the kitchen.
He finds a glass, fills it from the tap, and opens a jar covered in dancing green blobs. He spreads the paste inside over a slice of bread, and brings it to Jaeris’s room.
Jaeris is sitting on the edge of his bed, damp hair cascading over his shoulders and down his back. He’s wearing loose long pants and a baggy shirt covered in letters Linkara can’t read. Without his coat and hat, he looks very small, skinny and vulnerable.
“Brought you some water, and I hope this is food,” Linkara holds up the bread.
Jaeris accepts the bread and water wordlessly. Linkara watches awkwardly as Jaeris eats the bread, drinks down the water.
“Well, I’ll leave you to your sleep -”
Jaeris catches his wrist. “Stay.” It’s not a question.
Linkara freezes. “Jaeris …” he says slowly.
“’M always alone … fer years an’ … not now.” Jaeris’s grip is like iron but his eyes are soft, brimming with silent pleas.
Linkara thinks of the team of heroes who died trying to save Jaeris’s world. He imagines the reviewers and friends Jaeris must have left behind. He thinks of the look on Jaeris’s face in the video logs, when he talked about his wife.
Jaeris may never be able to avenge them, rescue those who are still alive. All because of Linkara.
And yet Jaeris is tugging Linkara into his bed, curling against his body. He’s utterly defenseless, half blinded by his damp hair, too weak to even untangle a braid, and his gun is on the other side of the room.
It takes a long time for Linkara to fall asleep, but Jaeris is out within minutes, snuffling softly, face relaxing in slumber, lines and creases fading away.
The pure, undiluted trust is half horrifying, half humbling, to Linkara. Until very recently he’d considered Jaeris his enemy, and Jaeris had been doing his best to make him angry enough to unlock Margaret’s potential. Now, here they are, asleep in the same bed.
Linkara dreams of a watch screaming in agony, and a shadowy woman fading from sight. He dreams of kneeling in front of Jaeris with Jaeris’s gun pressing just underneath his hat. He dreams of Margaret being pulled from his arms. He dreams of Jaeris bound to a post in a prison courtyard, shirt ripped open, red lines crisscrossing his back.
~*~
When Linkara wakes, he’s alone in the bed. He can hear the whistle of a tea kettle down the hall. He rubs his eyes, retrieves his glasses from the bedside table, puts his jacket and shoes back on, and heads for the kitchen.
Jaeris is dressed in black pants and a red shirt. His hair has been loosely braided, not as tight as his usual style but enough to hold it out of his face.
Linkara hesitates, then cautiously sits down.
Jaeris brings over tea, pours it into two mugs and slides one to Linkara. He sets down a plate of toast and begins spreading a blue glaze over a piece for himself.
Linkara waits, sips the tea, and then takes a piece of toast.
“You’re in my house. Again.” Jaeris says, so suddenly that Linkara almost drops his tea.
“I … I couldn’t contact you on any of the channels. I was worried about you. So I … beamed up here.” Linkara shrugs helplessly.
“Hmmm,” Jaeris grunts and eats his toast.
Linkara tries the blue glaze. It tastes like oranges and cinnamon.
“Why’d you stay, last night?” Jaeris asks, just as suddenly.
Linkara thinks it over, briefly. “Because you asked.”
“You didn’t have to stay.”
“Yes, I did.”
“Afraid I’d use one of the guns on myself?”
The question catches Linkara off-guard. The half-eaten toast slips from his fingers onto his plate.
“Were you … did you …” Linkara doesn’t know what to say, where to begin.
Jaeris shrugs. “Thought about it. After you destroyed my watch. Came back here, got acclimated … thought about it. Was thinkin’ about it, last night.” He stares at Linkara. “I might never make it back home.”
Linkara opens his mouth to offer platitudes about hope, the power of love, something. Instead he stares into his tea. “No, you might not.”
Jaeris stretches. “I’ve been alone for years. I’m always alone. And I miss … people.”
Linkara straightens up. “Last night, why did you trust me?”
Jaeris looks up at him, eyebrows raised. “You coulda cut m’ throat last night. Drowned me when you were doin’ my hair. Shot me. Poisoned me, with that bread last night. You’ve taken … everything … from me.” Jaeris spreads his hands from side to side. “What else could you do to me?”
“That’s not trust.”
“No, but it’s as close as you’re gonna get from me.”
Linkara sighs heavily: he’ll have to accept this.
“I didn’t invite you here,” Jaeris drawls, toying with his mug. “They got tresspassin’ in this universe?”
Linkara nods. “Yes.”
Jaeris grins; it’s painful to look at. “Well, where I’m from, somebody trespasses on yer land, you get to do whatever you want with ’em.”
Linkara blinks. Then, slowly, he nods. Apparently, now that Jaeris is up to speaking in complete sentences, whatever understanding they’d reached last night has been broken. “Ok. I … I deserve it. What I’ve done to - mmmmph!”
He’s cut off by Jaeris kissing him.
It isn’t a loving kiss; it’s not soft or intimate. It’s rough, sloppy, Jaeris invading Linkara’s mouth with his tongue and claiming him. Jaeris bites Linkara’s lip and draws blood.
When Jaeris breaks the kiss he leans back, a lopsided smile on his face, licking his lips. “You gonna let me go farther?” he tugs on Linkara’s collar gently. “I’ve got a yearnin’ … but there’s other ways we could do this, if you ain’t … inclined.”
Linkara gulps. “What about your wife?”
Jaeris’s smile only grows. “She’s an understandin’ woman. Just like I’m an understandin’ man. We’re married, but we can have other partners.” Jaeris tilts his head. “That wasn’t a ‘no’ …”
Linkara leans forward and kisses Jaeris, pulls him closer, reaches up and runs his hands through Jaeris’s hair, already starting to unravel the braid.
“You like that, hero?” Jaeris drawls, shaking his head slightly, letting his hair cascade free. “You pretendin’ I’m a lady?”
“Of course not,” Linkara slides off his chair and onto the floor, resting his hands on Jaeris’s thighs. “Not that I’m not a tad concerned about what I’m going to find between your legs when I pull down your pants, but I’m willing to work with whatever you’ve got.”
Jaeris laughs. “Tackle’s same as yours, I promise.” He hooks a leg around Linkara’s shoulders and glances down meaningfully. “Dare ya.”
Linkara unzips Jaeris’s pants, pulls them down, and the striped underwear: two balls, one half-hard human-looking cock … no tentacles or spines. So far, so good.
The sound Jaeris makes when Linkara swallows the aforementioned cock is very satisfying. The hand he uses to push Linkara’s head down further is less so, to Linkara at least. Linkara gags a bit, slows down to find a steady rhythm, feels his eyes water as Jaeris twists his hair insistently.
“You arrogant … impatient … stubborn … ahhhhh …” Jaeris moans, fingers twisting Linkara’s hair roughly. “You wrathful man … if you’d just … auuuuuuuhhhh … listened for five fucking seconds …”
He yanks Linkara’s head back, glaring down at him.
“Changed my mind, hero,” Jaeris sneers slightly. “Ever been fucked? An’ I mean proper fucked, not playin’ around with yer girlfriend’s toys when no one was at the house.”
Linkara shrugs.
“That a ‘yes’ or a ‘no,’ boy?” Jaeris demands, dragging Linkara up and pulling him towards the bedroom.
“Yes, but he wasn’t as big as you are.”
Jaeris’s angry expression melts away, and he almost laughs, face flushing slightly. Before Linkara can completely register it, Jaeris’s anger is back and they’ve reached the bedroom. He throws Linkara onto the bed, steps out of his pants and pulls off his shirt. Linkara can’t help but stare at Jaeris’s reflection in the mirror, at the scars on his back.
“You gonna strip, or are you gonna make me strip you?” Jaeris asks, crawling up onto the bed.
Linkara frantically gets out of his own clothing. Jaeris watches him, a hand drifting down every so often to stroke himself.
“You got scars too,” Jaeris notes, staring at the collection of lines and old burns on Linkara’s chest, upper arms, and legs.
“Not as bad as being whipped.”
Jaeris’s hands clench. “No, I wouldn’t think so.” He smirks, leans down, clamps down on the spot where Linkara’s neck and shoulder meet and bites. Linkara yelps, struggles, grabs fistfuls of Jaeris’s hair and wills himself not to pull.
“You’re not … a vampire … are you?”
Jaeris sits up, tilts his head to the side. “What’s a vampire?”
“Blood-drinking monster?”
Jaeris grins. “No, nothin’ like that.” He flips Linkara over, pinning him to the bed. Linkara can see into the mirror, can see Jaeris - his hair a mess, his face sweaty, his hands reaching …
“I want ya ta watch. Every second o’ this. You hear?”
Linkara nods. “Yeah, I hear.”
~*~
“It was in prison.”
Linkara rolls over, stares at Jaeris. “What?”
“The whip-scars. I said we would talk later. It’s later.” Jaeris sits up in bed, back against the headboard. “You got questions: I’ll answer ’em.”
Linkara finds his glasses and puts them back on. He’s naked otherwise, even his hat is lying by the door. “Why were you whipped?”
“Stabbed a man for tryin’ ta stab me. He got Solitary fer three cycles. I got a whippin’ in front of everyone. It was even televised.”
Linkara shudders. “That’s awful.”
“Not really,” Jaeris grins. “My wife was watchin’ … she likes whips. It was painful, not like the toys she used, but I was actin’ like the man was givin’ me the time of my life. I kept yelling ‘more!’ and ‘I love you!’ and ‘one more time!’ Passed out, eventually. Still, made a helluva a lot of people laugh. Includin’ my wife.” Jaeris smiles softly, staring up at the ceiling in recollection. “Called me a damn fool, for makin’ it worse for myself.”
Linkara imagines a woman, faceless and shadowy, alone in a room in front of a television, watching her husband being whipped.
“Anythin’ else, hero?”
Linkara straightens up. “What’s your wife’s name?”
Jaeris’s brow furrows. “Why you wanna know that?”
“I want to know the name of the woman whose husband I’m fucking.”
Jaeris raises an eyebrow. “If you’ll recall, it was me doin’ the fucking. Unless I fucked you so hard your mind’s gone a little loopy?”
Linkara snorts. “Hardly. But I want to know. I think I should know.”
Jaeris bites his lip, considers it. “Alright, but you gotta give me somethin’ in return.”
Linkara nods.
“What’s the name of the girl in yer gun?”
Linkara freezes.
“Fair trade, hero,” Jaeris says. “Unless you don’t trust me after all?”
“Names have power -”
“I know. An’ a sorcerer like you should know better than to ask someone for a name without givin’ up a name just as valuable in exchange.”
For a moment, Linkara considers leaving. But they’ve gone too far now to end this … what is this? Friendship? Relationship? Partnership? Alliance?
“… Margaret.”
Jaeris nods. “Thank you.”
Then he tells Linkara his wife’s name.