just surrender and it won't hurt at all
Title: meet me where lady mercy goes when she's gone from home
Fandom: Homestuck
Characters/Pairings: Bro/Mr. Egbert/Mrs. Lalonde
Ratings/Warnings: R, graphic descriptions of injury, sexualization thereof, pre-threesome
Written for:lathyrism
Wordcount: 940
A/N: Please, please, please let the coding work this time...
He finds her first, in the depths of a faded dream-alley that looks a little too much like his personal Hell for comfort, but he’s got to say that she improves the sight of it a lot: all silhouetted shining heels and crisp cream-colored lines and buttons, perfectly-painted lips crooking just a little at the sight of him.
“Well, don’t you look a dreadful mess,” she observes, gliding along the cracked stinking concrete; he sheathes his sword with a showy little flick to his wrist that he never let the kid pick up - it’s a waste of energy, a weakness, but damn does it look cool, and here it’s just close enough to safe that he can pull it off.
“Picked a fight with a demon dog,” he drawls, flicking at the edge of his ripped-down shirt to make sure she gets a damn good view of the bruising and the crusting blood, though for whatever reason the wound is gone; she doesn’t look, just steps in and slides her fingers to the wrecked-up skin of his face like she’s appraising the damage to see if he’s fucked-over enough to prove he made a decent showing.
“I lost a similar fight,” she points out, pressing against the edge of his swollen eye just hard enough, pain firecrackering under the skin for a breath before she lightens up, and it might be an accident except for the millimeter-growth of her smirk like she still knows what she does to him. “And you’ll notice, I manage not to look like a reject from Fight Club.”
“Some of us can afford not to look like solid class,” he murmurs back, tugging his voice to the octave-deeper husky echo that he hasn’t used a damn long time. Her fingers slide along his swollen lip, blood flecks catching on her gleaming skin, and he switches the coolkid act out for the killer as easily as changing a record, smiling with a threat in his teeth; she flashes her own grin back, matching him moment for moment, and there’s something comforting unfolding along with the heat sliding along his spine. “Some of us can pull off the beat-up badass look.”
“Sometime you should get a look at me with a gun,” she says, digging a raw-red fingernail into the corner of his mouth, and he catches his breath a tiny bit; turns out studies currently suggest that you can still get it up when you’re dead, at least if you’re as good at this whole dance as he is.
“Sounds like a good time,” he breathes, leaning down to her; she smiles and stretches up for a murderous practiced attack on his mouth, teeth scraping across the tender-bruised skin and tongue teasing up the flaking blood, the soft waxy taste of her lipstick coming off against him, and she still tastes like gin and whiskey and he wishes he’d said something about that nine years ago, but he’s damned if it’ll hurt anyone now. She scratches a fingernail along his throat, sinks her thumbnail into his collarbone the instant the shiver ripples through him; he brushes a thumb just below her breasts, skims his hands down her ribcage to hook them into the belt of her trench, wonders how much filth he’s getting on the previously-pristine wool. The thought sparks under his skin, keeps crackling even as she breaks the kiss with a last nip at his mouth, leans back just enough to look at him. The moment hovers.
“So what’re you doing with the afterlife?” he asks, deciding sudden and too-foreseen death is a decent enough excuse to cut the bullshit down a little. “Killing time until your loverboy kicks it?”
She breaks his gaze a second, a tiny glance to the side before those gray eyes that would look dull on anyone else slide back to him, steel-cool as ever. “Unfortunately, that won’t be necessary.”
The footsteps at the end of the alley are just enough warning for him to look; same old clever man, hat settled perfect on his head, nodding at the two of them as politely as could possibly be, and Bro’s willing to bet he’s got the same old death-edged muscles tucked away under his suit. Bro weighs the situation, the calm in Lalonde’s steadiness, and simply nods as if his hands are nowhere near the woman who’s loved Egbert for years.
“Sup.”
“That might be more for you to say than I,” Egbert says, doing that gracious little nod to his head that always makes it impossible to tell whether he means to be filthy until you catch the glint to his eye, “but I gather you’re not joining us in your dreams.”
“Be a damn nice dream,” Bro admits, because they’ve died in the same fight and he owes them a little honesty for that, though not enough that he doesn’t throw in a hint of a leer, “but ‘fraid not. You’re stuck with me.”
“Whatever shall we do,” Lalonde sighs, slipping her fingers along his chin again as she glances back to Egbert. “Just the three of us here and alone.”
“I’m sure the good Mr. Strider has a few suggestions,” Egbert says, toying with the top button of his jacket as he steps closer to them. Bro grins, counts, one two three and Lalonde’s hand flies to Egbert’s tie, leaving flecks of Bro’s own blood on the pale blue silk.
“I’m sure,” she purrs, pressing the very tip of her finger between Bro’s lips again, and he smiles without a taunt or a threat for the first time since too damn long ago to remember.