Chapter Text
“You want me,” Jace declares loudly, cupping a hand over his mouth so that his voice will carry above the music and the crowd as he slides up next to Cregan, a frisky glimmer in his eye.
“Uh, yeah,” Cregan agrees, half-shouting to be heard as he eyeballs his boyfriend’s scant attire. “Big time.”
Cregan is wearing a pair of rainbow J-Crew shorts and a loose, unbuttoned shirt cut from a soft, breathable material that feels like underarmour, something Jace found for him. He’s got his sunglasses perched upside-down on the back of his head, and somehow, has ended up with Jace’s little fanny pack tied around his hips—the belt on it stretched all the way out to fit his much wider waistline.
It’s a wild outfit for Cregan, but it’s nothing compared to what Jace is wearing.
Or rather…isn’t wearing.
Cregan’s boyfriend has on a bright pair of rainbow-colored ‘shorts’ that look more like a mix between a Speedo and a jockstrap, like a pair of those cheeky panties that girls wear, with the material cutting a line up the lower third of Jace’s ass so that the soft jiggle of each cheek bulges on either side. His pale skin is covered in a sheen of sweat, making him look like he’s just stepped off of a runway and is all oiled up or something, and Cregan can’t stop staring.
Jace is hot. Holy hells is he hot.
Cregan wants him bad, and the fact that Jace is prancing around with his semi on display for all to see does nothing to help placate Cregan’s jealous streak—but then again, neither does the rest of his outfit. He has on a tight baby tee that barely dips past the middle of his flat abs, a harness around his left thigh that has a little holder for his phone but looks obscene somehow, and rainbow platform boots that come up past Jace’s knees, ones that accentuate the long line of his lean legs.
He’s utterly indecent.
It makes Cregan’s dick hard and his brain fuzzy.
But it’s not even just what he’s wearing. Cregan is used to Jace’s scantily-clad body. They were frat brothers before they were boyfriends, after all, and Jace never held any mercy for Cregan back at Win-U. In fact, Jace has been Cregan’s undoing so many times that he stopped keeping track months ago—but festival Jace?
Ridiculous.
Absurd.
Scorching, burning, searing hot, like wow.
And again, Cregan isn’t referring to the outfits.
At school, Cregan was still getting to know his boyfriend, and looking back on it now, he realizes that he was spot-on about Jace holding back. That he was going easy on Cregan, not showing his full hand quite yet. Things changed a little in King’s Landing, but for the most part, Jace was fairly uptight and uncomfortable in public. Proper and polite around company. While they were in Harrenhal, well, Jace was a bit of a wreck.
But now? Surrounded by people their age, music, alcohol, and nothing but time to spend fucking around for a week, one that everyone is doing their best to make sure is memorable?
Not only has Jace wrapped himself around Cregan a dozen times a day already, grinding his cock against Cregan’s bulge, whispering filthy promises into the bigger man’s ear between making out with him in front of everyone else…he’s also, for a true lack of a better word, happy. Wild and free—bubbly, and not just because of the addy and the alcohol. It’s like he left all of the weight that he packed around all year behind and has let the music become his full focus.
It’s the sole reason Cregan hasn’t high-tailed it out of there with his boyfriend, because seeing Jace nearly naked as he dances, writhing his sweaty body in tangles of other limbs and arms and flesh that aren’t solely Cregan has been quite the test in control for one Cregan Stark. Makes him want to wrap Jace up in a thick puffy jacket and squirrel him away in his family’s off-the-grid-cabin up north so that nobody else can see him.
But he doesn’t, because as hard as it is to see other people glancing down at his boy’s package, he wouldn’t give up this bright, gleeful version of his Jace for anything.
“I want you, too,” Jace shouts, laughing. He slides closer, planting his palm on the center of Cregan’s chest. “You should take this off.” He tugs on Cregan’s shirt, pulling it off of the bigger guy and tucking it beneath the fanny pack strap, moving it to rest on Cregan’s hip. Then he starts dancing again, swaying his hips and dropping down a little lower to the ground—
—low enough that his thick, plush lips are nearly level with Cregan’s half-hard cock.
“Fuck,” Cregan mutters.
Jace makes him feel insane.
When his boyfriend is standing straight up again, Cregan wraps his palms around the Jace’s slim hips and holds him still, ducking down to press a sloppy kiss to the boy’s jaw—which is closer than usual, on account of the enormous boots.
“You knew exactly what you were doing when you put this on,” Cregan growls.
Jace laughs, looping his arms around Cregan’s neck, and the bigger guy picks him up effortlessly. “Did I?” He kisses Cregan once, twice, a third time with a hot, open mouth and far too much tongue to ever be acceptable anywhere else, before pulling back and grinning. “I suppose I did.” He licks his lips, his glossy eyes looking not into Cregan’s, but down at the bigger man’s own swollen mouth.
They’ve done a lot of kissing over the past few days.
“Back to camp?” Cregan asks. “It feels like lunchtime.”
“Yeah, alright,” Jace agrees, easily before ducking down to kiss Cregan’s stubble lightly. “I could eat,” Jace giggles, bucking his hips forward a little.
Cregan chooses to ignore the double entendre because he’s already losing his mind as it is. “Brat,” he mutters. He presses his lips to his boyfriend’s temple and then turns away from the group they were dancing with. He doesn’t set Jace down, keeps his big palms cupped around Jace’s round asscheeks as he turns away from the crowd, and Jace is content to be carried—resting his chin on Cregan’s shoulder and tightening his thighs around Cregan’s hips, humming softly to the music rippling out over the enormous group of festival-goers.
“Are you having fun?” Jace asks, his lips moving softly over Cregan’s neck and earlobe, making Cregan’s cock swell even more where it’s trapped in his own shorts.
“I am,” Cregan responds, slipping between groups of people dancing, most of them wearing hardly more than Jace is. Cregan slides his thumb beneath the line of spandex that cuts across Jace’s ass and kneads the cheek there, wondering if Jace would be down to fuck around a little after lunch, before they rejoin the crowd. “Not as much fun as you’re having teasing me, though.”
Jace laughs, wiggling a little in Cregan’s arms, and doesn’t deny it.
It’s the third day of the week-long music festival, and both Jace and Cregan are a little tipsy beneath the hot sun of the riverlands. They aren’t actually doing molly until the night that Glitternyx headlines, but that doesn’t mean they’ve sat around. The festival grounds are nestled along the south bank of the Trident in the riverlands and they’ve done a shit ton of lazing about in the river—but mostly, they’ve been partying. They’ve been dancing, sweating, drinking, snorting addy, and staying up until dawn, fucking around with their friends by the campfire. Just a bunch of shit that dehydrates the body, but that they’ll look back on with fond memories in the years to come.
Today, they woke up earlier than usual so they could catch the 10am performer, Raymont. He’s a friend of one of their frat brothers, and Jace is obsessed with his music, but that set transitioned into another awhile ago, and Jace doesn’t seem particularly attached to whoever it is that took over. Ergo, the lunch idea. If Jace is willing to stop for a moment, Cregan wants to be on the safe side, wants to make sure his boyfriend is fed and watered before they spend another four hours out in the crowd while Cregan tries to pretend like he doesn’t have an erection.
(Not that anyone else bothers hiding theirs… no, this festival has been full of people getting it on out there in the open, and if they tried it, nobody would bat an eye.)
What can he say? The festival has been a trip.
When they get back to camp, Garibald’s friend Liza is there, munching on a salad. “There’s food,” she says, gesturing to the grill. “Edric roasted a bunch of chicken earlier.”
Jace squirms against Cregan until he’s released, and then peers over Liza’s shoulder. “Sour cream for dressing, again?”
“I’m not making you eat it, am I?” Liza points out.
Jace says something snarky in reply, and Cregan just makes a face at the idea before he moves over to the grill. There is, indeed, plenty of lunch being kept warm on it. He makes a plate for himself and one for Jace, and then manages to convince his twink of a boyfriend to eat at least half of it before giving up and finishing Jace’s plate in addition to his own. By the time they’re done, Liza has wandered off to join the rest of the crowd and Jace is sprawled out on the canvas camping chair next to Cregan, his eyes drifting shut.
“Nap?” Cregan asks, putting his paper plate and the scraps of their lunch into the big compost bin.
“Mhmm,” Jace mumbles, holding his arms out like a child. “Up.”
Cregan laughs, picking his boyfriend up easily, and carries him into their tent, zipping it up tight. It’s cool inside, a tiny little battery-operated fan perched on the top of one of their bags, but it’s still hotter than the seventh hell out here in the riverlands, so Cregan drags another fan away from the common area, propping it up near the door of their tent, then strips down to his bare ass now that they’re alone.
Ignores his half-hard cock.
Jace sits on the edge of their air mattress and leans back on his palms, eyeballing Cregan the same way the bigger man has spent the week looking at Jace and suddenly looks a little more… awake than he did before. “Hey, daddy,” Jace purrs, and then giggles. “I don’t think I’m tired anymore.”
Cregan rolls his eyes. “It’s hot,” he mutters, neck heating.
They’ve slept naked every night they’ve been here, despite the fact that it’s probably a terrible idea, considering that they’re surrounded by other people, but in all honesty, Cregan doesn’t think Jace would mind if they got caught in the nude. He’s learning that Jace is even more comfortable in their relationship than he was back in Winterfell, and as a result, is so much more… well, vulgar isn’t the right word, but confident rings close.
Jace is constantly provoking Cregan, with quiet words and tiny gestures, little brushes of his fingertips over the top of Cregan’s cock when they’re all sitting around the campfire at night—pressing his ass into Cregan’s bulge when they dance.
And the outfits. Fuck, the outfits.
Cregan has stared at his boyfriend’s dick for the past three days straight, and he isn’t even the only one. The little piece of spandex that Jace has pulled over the length right now clings to it, and even when he’s flaccid, the shape and outline of Jace’s prick is on display for anyone who cares to look.
(Lots of people have cared to look.)
All in all, it’s been a ton of little things that, aside from his dick, might not be discernable to others, but that Cregan can’t ignore. And sure, maybe Cregan should be irritated, but he’s not. He’s turned on. He’s aroused. He’s constantly catching himself staring at Jace and thinking about how fucking hot his boyfriend is.
It’s making Cregan realize why his boyfriend’s dad is so overly flirty with his wife.
How the fuck else is anyone supposed to handle this kind of behavior?
Even as he stands there in front of Jace, considering all of this, the boy adjusts his package; moves the fabric around until the little tip of his prick pokes out the top of his ‘shorts.’ He’s hard and flushed, leaking just a little dribble, and Cregan has the distinct feeling that Jace inherited this sort of teasing, because it’s not something you could just learn one day… it’s an inherent sort of thing that pulls at all of Cregan’s most primitive instincts. And right now? It’s driving him mad.
“Gods, you’re such a tease,” Cregan mutters.
Jace bats his eyelashes. “We can nap,” he offers. “I don’t mind.” He drags his thumb over the wet slit, lifting it to his plush lips, humming a little as he laps at the droplet of precum with his pink tongue.
“Seven hells,” Cregan groans. “You know I’m never going to say no to fucking you, baby.”
Jace giggles, reaching for his boots, but Cregan stops him. “Leave them on.”
Then he shoves Jace up on the air mattress, tugging the rainbow ‘shorts’ down over his thighs, pressing a kiss to the inside of Jace’s leg as his mouth waters at the perfect cock that pops up between them. Gods, he’s got it so bad—but he wouldn’t have it any other way. “I’m gonna fuck you so hard,” Cregan decides. “Think you can wait to come until it’s in my mouth, though?”
Jace throws his head back with a dramatic groan so loud, were anyone outside of their tent, they would for sure hear it, and then laughs. “I guess two can tease, can’t they?” His cock twitches, much to Cregan’s delight.
And despite the fact that they have to drive an ATV a few miles to find a shower, Jace packed bottles of lube for them, so Cregan spares nothing as he drenches his fingers. He works his boyfriend open easily, his lips teasing Jace’s flushed cockhead just enough to take Jace to the edge, but not enough to push him over it, and pulls out after three, slicking himself up, too.
When he slides into Jace’s ass, it’s incredible—delicious. So fucking good that he thinks his head might explode from the sheer pleasure of it. Jace spurs him along, digging the heels of his platform boots into Cregan’s hips, dragging his nails down the bigger man’s back.
Marking him, something that makes the big man preen.
And so it doesn’t take long for Cregan to come, to fill Jace up with seed and drop his forehead to Jace’s neck, panting into the sweat there as Jace soothes the scratches he made with his fingertips, squeezing a little around Cregan’s cock as his own rests between them.
Of course, the transcendental afterglow does not last, because it isn’t long before Jace starts squirming. “C’mon,” he says. “My turn.” He’s playful, batting at Cregan’s chest, and it makes happiness swell up inside of Cregan that Jace can be so fucking carefree after the summer he’s had.
Still, Cregan opens his mouth and bites his brat’s neck, digging his teeth in enough to leave his own mark before finally sliding down Jace’s body. “Yeah,” he decides. “It is your turn.” He reaches into the little bag that Jace brought and digs around until he has the small bullet vibrator.
“Oh my gods,” Jace whines. “Really?” He gestures to his hard length, the way it twitches against his lower belly and leaks from the flushed tip. “I’m so ready for you, daddy. Please don’t make me wait.”
Cregan shrugs. “You’re the one that insisted on packing toys… I’m only making sure it wasn’t in vain.” He presses his thumb against Jace’s wet opening, where his seed is leaking, and then pushes it inside. “Don’t you want to play?”
Jace clenches the sleeping bags in his fists and doesn’t respond.
Cregan bends low, pressing a kiss to his boyfriend’s shaft, and then presses the cold vibrator up into Jace’s ass, not bothering with adding more lube because of how slick he already is. Then he closes his mouth over the tip of Jace’s cock.
“Fuck,” Jace hisses, bucking up, but Cregan uses his massive palm to hold Jace down on the air mattress.
He suckles, reveling in the salty taste as the vibe sits motionless inside of Jace, and his impatient boyfriend clenches desperately around it and starts begging quietly, a littany of pleas spilling from his plush lips. Cregan ignores it and focuses on the cock between his lips. He drags his tongue back and forth beneath the head, keeping the cool vibe right where it is.
But when Jace reaches down and tangles his fingers into Cregan’s hair, tugging as he pleads, Cregan gives in and turns the vibe on to the lowest setting.
“Holy gods,” Jace keens, bucking up into Cregan’s throat. “Fuck fuck fuck fuck,” he whines. “Fuck, that’s so good, daddy.”
Cregan just came, but it’s so arousing watching Jace get all worked up like this, he thinks it’s nearly as satisfying as another orgasm—so he drags it out. Turns the vibe off despite Jace’s warbling, bobs his head up and down a bit, and then flicks it back on, turning it up to a higher setting so that he can watch Jace buck and thrash as he cries out with pleasure, begging Cregan for more, needing just a little bit more to reach the edge and tumble over it.
But see, the thing about the Butcher’s Ball—the weeklong festival in the riverlands—is that they have nowhere to be. Most of the people here spend an equal amount of time fucking as they do listening to the music. It’s like one giant rave-slash-orgy that people call a festival so that it seems more…sophisticated or something.
He doesn’t fucking know.
What he does know, is that were he single, if he gave a rat’s ass about a cock that wasn’t Jace’s, he would probably be tangled up in a pile of sweaty limbs right now, fucking and sucking without abandon. In fact, some of their brothers are doing exactly that—or were, seeing as Edric re-appeared at some point this morning.
So it’s not like Jace and Cregan holing up to get it on with a drawn-out, hedonistic sex session is unusual or unexpected. And this won’t be the last time it happens. They’ve got four more days of this, four more days of greedily seeking pleasure from one another in a campsite with plenty of food and alcohol and toys and drugs to occupy them for even longer than that, so Cregan does not give in.
He keeps teasing, taking Jace to the edge of an orgasm and then pulling away. Keeps pushing, keeps pulling, until there are real tears streaming down Jace’s cheeks to match the ones Cregan has from deepthroating his boyfriend, until Jace is earnestly begging Cregan for release, promising anything and everything if he can just come.
But then, a voice rings out through their tent.
“Seven hells, you guys can’t keep stealing the fan from the common area.”
Jace’s eyes widen and he reaches for a blanket, pulling it over their naked bodies; covering Cregan’s legs, but not quite managing to cover himself, nor Cregan’s head.
In the same moment, Cregan presses the ‘off’ button on the vibrator so that the sound can’t be heard, but it’s too late for anything else, because the sound of the zipper splits through the tent and Garibald’s voice becomes more clear as he says Jace’s name.
Jace glances down, panicked. “Move,” he hisses.
Cregan can’t.
His mouth is still full of cock.
If he pulls off, now, Garibald will see his head bob up above the line of the cooler blocking Jace’s hips and Cregan’s face from sight. He’ll know exactly what they’re doing in the tent while everyone is raging outside of it, a thin canvas of material separating the filthy blowjob from their friends.
And while it’s common knowledge that everyone here is fucking, it feels different to be caught in the act by someone who, well, wasn’t invited to join. To be caught by Cregan’s little and one of Jace’s best friends—someone they have to look in the eye after the festival and pretend like everything is normal.
So despite Jace’s panic, Cregan holds as still as he can, knowing that if he moves, the air mattress will wobble beneath the shifting of weight and give them away. And as Cregan’s mouth waters around Jace’s thick length, his lungs beg for air and his eyes start to blur with tears from the denial, but he can’t move. Can’t speak. He certainly can’t slurp at the saliva gathering in his mouth, and so as Jace turns his attention to Garibald, Cregan is forced to remain in place; throat plugged by his boyfriend’s cock as a combination of spit and pre-cum leaks from his mouth down Jace’s shaft and into the curls at the base of his dick.
But it’s thrilling.
And if he’s honest?
Even more thrilling than the time Arra sucked Cregan off on the balcony of the frat, because this is somehow more primative; like they’re so gone for one another that they couldn’t stand to be alone without sucking on one another. Like they’re so obsessed with the carnal pleasure of the flesh that they needed to fuck. Needed it or they might’ve died, despite knowing full well that the campsite would soon be flooded with their friends hunting down a bite to eat.
“I can hear it,” Garibald says, referring to the fan, but Cregan—well, Cregan isn’t paying attention to that.
The EDM music grows louder when the flap of the tent opens, the pulse of the music thrumming through Cregan’s mouth and Jace’s dick, linking them on an even deeper level than they were moments ago as Garibald lets himself into their space, and Cregan can’t help it. He has to suck.
Just a little.
Jace whimpers, his abs rippling as Cregan swallows around his length, and Garibald joins them. “There it is,” he says. “Hey, have you seen my big anywhere? He owes me a shot. Edric bagged those two hotties from Delta Gamma that Cregan said he wouldn’t be able to get with.”
“No,” Jace squeaks.
Garibald makes a sound of disbelief. “Really? You two are like attached at the hip.”
“Oh,” Jace responds, his cock jerking in the back of Cregan’s throat, a movement so subtle but so firm that it catches Cregan off-guard. Makes the big man, who is barely getting away with his quiet sucking, gag.
It’s the softest of sounds, but Jace glances down and his eyes widen, as if he’s registering that he’s choking his boyfriend out on his cock. He uses the cooler for leverage, tries to push himself up further, but he slips on the wet surface and it has the inverse effect of lodging his cock deeper into Cregan’s throat, somehow. Ticks it right past that tight ring of muscle that Cregan uses to breathe.
Cregan has never felt more in-tune with his boyfriend’s body than he is in this moment as his brain struggles for oxygen and his throat starts to convulse around Jace’s thick length, and so although he’s choking, he’s obsessed with it. Fuck, he’s so gone, his own cock is starting to chub up again. It’s so primal, somehow, being caught like this. So excessively wanton, and it makes him even greedier for the boy between his lips.
And he tries to hold back, he really does, but his body floats to another level of high while he drools over Jace’s dick and he thinks he might be projecting into the astral plane of gods because he’s never in his life been able to take a cock this deep. Drool slides down his chin and starts to drip onto the mattress, starts to make even more off a mess as the hair at the base of Jace’s shaft tickles his nose.
Cregan tightens his lips around Jace’s length, tries to keep some of the wet slick from spilling out, but all that does is inch him down a little more—all that does is ensure that he’s entirely gagged on Jace, that Cregan’s lips are pushing against the wet curls at the base of Jace’s cock and his nose is pressing against the skin of Jace’s lower belly as Jace’s balls push up into his chin and he really, truly cannot take the boy any deeper.
It’s pure bliss.
Jace is the one who ruins it. He makes the quietest of moans when Cregan chokes again, the tiniest little sound as his eyes flash to Cregan’s again.
Garibald releases a strangled cry. “The fuck, guys? You didn’t even put a sign up!”
Right, they were supposed to leave a sock outside the tent if they were hooking up.
Cregan really doesn’t give a fuck about that, though. The gig is up and his dick is so hard he’s about to nut all over again, this time onto their air mattress, so he pulls up off of Jace’s cock, not even bothering to wipe the spit that connects Jace’s flushed head to his own lips as he turns to Garibald and says, “I love you, but get the fuck out, man.” His voice is so gravelly, so hoarse, that it makes his blood thrum with rich arousal because it’s Jace’s dick that did that.
Cregan’s worship of Jace’s dick.
He doesn’t wait to see if Garibald is gone before he flicks the vibrator back on, and opens his mouth to Jace’s cock again, swallowing it down into the back of his throat.
Jace finds release moments later, his hips bucking up into Cregan’s face as he loses control of his body and comes harder than Cregan has ever made him come in their time together.
Cregan drinks it down with glee, hollowing out his cheeks and sucking as hard as he can, bobbing his face down all the way again—because now he knows he can do that. He pushes until his nose is pressed against Jace’s lower belly and the thick head of Jace’s cock has pushed past the tight muscles of his airway again, constricting his breathing over and over again as Jace shatters on his tongue and in his mouth as he moans Cregan’s name while coating his throat.
It’s complete bliss.
Cregan is lightheaded when he lifts his head up to meet Jace’s fucked-out gaze, the boy’s flaccid cock falling onto his belly with a wet slap. A combination of spit and seed drips down from his lips and Jace whimpers before lunging forward, rolling Cregan onto his back and caging him in; licking into his mouth with such savage strokes that Cregan knows it’s more than just making out.
Jace is tasting himself on Cregan’s tongue, chasing the salty, musky flavor of his own seed as he rocks his hips against Cregan’s, his soft cock pushing up against Cregan’s hard one. He shoves one hand up into Cregan’s hair and tugs. Hard. It’s not like the supple, gentle pull of a lover tilting one’s head, it’s the harsh, painful yank of a boy pushing a man over the edge.
Jace breaks for air and demands more as Cregan quivers beneath him. “Come,” he groans into Cregan’s mouth. “Come right now, you kinky fucker.” He squeezes Cregan’s cock as he says it and the bigger man doesn’t resist when the sparks flare at the base of his spine and ripple through him, release washing through his system as he floods his boyfriend’s hand.
Waves of pleasure roll over Cregan as Jace jerks him through his orgasm, biting at Cregan’s swollen lips, moaning into Cregan’s wet mouth, repeating Cregan’s name like a mantra, and by the time they’re done, Cregan is so fucked out that he doesn’t think he can move.
“You are so kinky,” Jace groans into his neck. “I am never living that down.”
Cregan laughs, unable to speak because his throat is too sore.
“Shut up,” Jace mutters, kissing him senseless again. “Shut. Up.”
Happily, he thinks.
— AZ —
Unfortunately, the entire festival does not pass without incident.
In fact, they don’t even get through the next day without incident.
Jace is in another ridiculous outfit, and despite being a mostly-black ensemble, it’s definitely the gayest one yet. He has on fishnets for gods’ sake, another pair of thigh-high boots, another pair of those shorts that aren’t shorts—the ones that look like a jockstrap, and a leather harness that makes Cregan want to fuck Jace right out here on the dance floor because it makes his dick so hard.
Some asshole comes over and puts his palm on Jace’s back, and Cregan loses it.
“Back the fuck up, man,” Cregan growls, shoving the bastard back. “Keep your hands off him.”
The guy, some big, stocky fucker laughs. “This twink? He’s asking for someone to grind up onto that pert little ass, why the hells would I back off?” He reaches for Jace again, and Cregan shoves him away, despite the fact that Jace has caught on and is tugging at Cregan’s arm, telling him to leave it alone, saying they should go back to camp.
“Back the fuck up,” Cregan repeats.
The stranger does not back up.
Cregan shakes Jace off and steps closer. “Walk away and I’ll forget this happened.”
“Forget? Forget what? I didn’t do anything, and even if I did, what’re you gonna do about it?” the stranger grins with such cruelty that Cregan’s blood boils. “That kid is asking to be fucked right out here on the dance floor.”
Cregan cracks his knuckles. One, two, three. Crack, crack, crack. Tries to remember how mad Jace was when he went after Aegon despite the fact that he’s ignoring his boyfriend’s pleading.
The stranger has no such reluctance. “Oh, I see how it is,” he says, openly checking Jace out again. “Does he scream all pretty when you fuck him? Is it a one-off, like you’re letting a twink suck your dick just because we’re at the Ball? Or are you also a fa—”
The next word doesn’t make it out of the stranger’s mouth, because Cregan sends his fist right into the guy’s face. The man is so shocked that he flies backwards, but immediately starts punching back, and he isn’t a small fucker—he’s roughly the same size as Cregan, so he gets a few hits in.
But Cregan played college hockey.
He knows how to take a punch, how to move with it, how to use it to fuel his next one, and the stranger is on his back on the ground, his face making a home for Cregan’s fists within seconds. Blood flies everywhere, maybe a tooth or something, and by the time that Cregan is successfully pulled off of the stranger, the man’s face is fucked up beyond comprehension.
People have gathered in a circle around them, but despite the loud music pumping through the air, it’s mostly silent.
“Cregan,” Jace says, quietly, his sunglasses dropped over his eyes as he tugs on Cregan’s arm. “Come on, let’s go.”
A girl moves through the crowd and looks down at the bloodied mess of a man. She seems more annoyed than upset as she crosses her arms and looks around the circle of people, eyes landing on Cregan’s bloodied knuckles. “Alright, who the fuck beat up my boyfriend?”
People start shouting, then, and it isn’t until she realizes why, exactly, the man was pummeled, that she starts shouting, too—but not at Cregan.
After that, the crowd starts to disperse, because nobody wants to be associated with a casual homophobe who threatened to assault a boy in this day and age.
Jace, however, is livid.
They make it back to the tent and Cregan thanks the gods, both the old and the new, that Garibald and Edric somehow get everyone cleared out of the campsite.
He’s in for it, he knows it.
“What the fuck,” Jace asks, the moment they’re alone.
“The one thing I’ve asked you not to do, and you do it in the middle of a fucking festival?”
Cregan shrugs. “I didn’t see any phones out.”
“Cregan!” Jace shouts, his voice sounding shrill. “You can’t just beat the shit out of people for, like, looking at me or insulting me! I’ve been gay my whole life, this isn’t anything new and it’s not something that is going to stop just because I have a fucking bodyguard-sized boyfriend. That’s not how you handle things!”
Cregan finds a wet rag and cleans his knuckles, but doesn’t say anything. He lets Jace get it all out, lets Jace yell and shout, and then, once his boyfriend is done, clears his throat. “Did you ever wonder if maybe it isn’t just you that these people are insulting?” He doesn’t look at Jace, and his neck heats as he admits the vulnerable truth. “Yeah, I punched that fucker even harder because he put his hands on you and threatened to assault you, but Jace, baby, you’re not the only gay man in this relationship.”
That stops Jace in his tracks. He exhales all heavy and doesn’t say anything for a few moments, and when Cregan finally looks up at him, his eyes are big and round and devastating.
“Hey,” Cregan says, reaching for him. “No, don’t get upset. Come here.”
“I’m sorry,” Jace whispers. “I didn’t even think about that.” He shoves his hand through his curls and shakes his head. “I still— you shouldn’t be hitting people, Cregan, but fuck, I—”
Cregan wraps his arms around Jace, tugging the smaller boy into his chest, and hugs him tight. “It’s okay,” he says. “It’s not like I meant to hit him, I just kind of lost it, but baby, it’s not— I mean, of course I’m defending your honor. But I’m defending myself, too.”
Jace nods into his chest, sniffing quietly as he cries a little, and they stay like that for a little while. “Is that why you went after Aegon?”
Cregan releases Jace, moves over to their air mattress and sits down, tugging the boy down beside him and reaching for a water bottle to share. “Part of it,” he decides. “I mean, I know that I seem like this big, unflappable guy, but it’s not— I don’t like hearing that shit, either, Jace.”
Jace accepts the water bottle, drinking some of it down, and then picks at the label. “Well, I never said you shouldn’t defend yourself, or— or us,” he decides. “But maybe next time instead of punching him, you could, like, let me know and we can leave.”
Cregan snorts. “And when your uncle does it again?”
Jace shrugs and works his jaw, and Cregan gives him the space to think. When he finally speaks up, he clears his throat first. “Maybe I’ve been too lenient,” Jace admits, pink blooming on his cheeks. “I didn’t really— well, I’m just so used to Aegon being a dick to me that I didn’t think about how it might effect you, too. So yeah, I guess, like, if it happens again, you could tell him to cut it out and I won’t be upset, but I still don’t want you to get, like, arrested for assault or anything.”
Something tight in Cregan’s chest releases and he reaches for his boyfriend, tugging Jace into his lap. “You mean it? You’re gonna let me tell him to fuck off if he tries that shit again, as long as I don’t punch his lights out?”
Jace gives Cregan a very stilted nod. “Yeah,” he agrees.
Cregan’s heart seizes up and he tucks a knuckle under Jace’s jaw, tilts the boy’s face up so he can press a soft kiss to Jace’s lips. “Thank you, baby.”
Jace cups Cregan’s jaw, sliding his fingers back and forth along the stubble there, and then bites his lip. “I still don’t agree with the violence, but thank you for defending me. I’m sorry I didn’t really, um, get it.”
Cregan grins, and hugs him tighter—which is when he realizes that his boyfriend is half-hard.
Upon realizing that Cregan has located his hard-on, Jace tries to push backwards, but Cregan does not release him.
“Something you want to tell me?” Cregan asks, voice rough and low, a little scratchy as the adrenaline from the fight flares back up; makes him feel like a man as he holds his much smaller boyfriend in his arms and realizes that Jace’s dick is not even close to flaccid.
Jace flushes bright red. “No,” he lies.
Cregan drops his forehead to Jace’s. “I won’t tell anyone that it makes your cock hard to see me defend your honor,” he murmurs, slipping a hand between them, gently tugging at the black leather covering his boyfriend’s dick until the head of it is revealed and he can tease a single fingertip down the fishnet-covered length.
Jace bites back a moan. “It’s not my fault,” he protests. “You’re— well, you’re you, and I know it’s wrong, but it’s…yeah, it’s kinda hot.”
“Wanna do something about this?” Cregan asks, squeezing the tip, making Jace shudder. “Want me to suck you off, baby?”
Jace shakes his head. “Um,” he says, “no. That’s not what I want.”
“What do you want, then?” Cregan asks.
Jace snorts and doesn’t respond, though he sets his water bottle aside and tangles his fingers in Cregan’s chest hair. “Um, well, it’s kind of—” his gaze trails over Cregan’s red knuckles and he licks his lips.
Cregan gets it then, boy does he get it. “You want me to fuck you?”
“Yes,” Jace says, face still red, but voice very certain.
“But that’s not all,” Cregan decides. “You want me to fuck you a little harder than usual, baby?”
Jace clears his throat, but his words still come out quietly. “Well, don’t you want to? Don’t you want hold me down and work out the adrenaline? Punish me for not understanding or something?”
“No,” Cregan says. “I would never punish you for not understanding.” He cups Jace’s jaw reverently. “Though I’m thankful you get it, now.”
“Me too,” Jace murmurs. “But what about staking your claim? Don’t you want to wreck me a little? Make me so sore that I can’t walk straight? Suck hickeys into my neck so that everyone knows who I belong to?”
Seven fucking hells, Cregan is not going to survive this boy, not with such a hard flip like that. It’s like Jace has decided that he’s not only okay with Cregan defending their unified honor, but that the thought of it holds a certain appeal, now that they’re together.
“I’ve thought about it,” Jace admits in a whisper. “You fucking me the way you threatened to do, back when we first met.” He licks his lips. “I like domming you, daddy, but I still have some fantasies.” Jace trails his fingertips down Cregan’s chest and gazes up at him with wide Bambi eyes.
Cregan doesn’t respond, because he can’t deny the appeal of that, even though he’s reluctant to, uh, throw Jace down and fuck him senseless, so to say. “I don’t not want you right now,” Cregan finally decides on, reaching for Jace’s hand, dragging it over to the bulge between his legs so that his boyfriend can feel just how true Cregan’s words are.
Jace gets that glimmer in his eye, squeezing softly. “Call it what you want,” he breathes, licking his swollen lips again, as if he knows exactly what it does to Cregan to watch. “But I kinda feel like I could go for some rough, possessive handling right now.” Jace reaches over to his bag, next, and pulls out a little container of something that Cregan recognizes but had no fucking idea his boyfriend brought along on this trip, despite the numerous toys that are, indeed, in that bag. “And maybe we could get it in before the next set.”
“You didn’t,” Cregan murmurs, eyeing the poppers. Laughter bubbles up in his chest, but Jace is not joking around.
“You can even rip my fishnets,” Jace murmurs, opening the container up, holding it between them.
“By the gods,” Cregan mutters.
“We don’t have to,” Jace says, but he wiggles out of Cregan’s arms and tugs his sorry excuse for shorts off, strips down so that it’s just the fishnets and the harness and the boots. They can both see his cock—hard and flushed, dripping where it’s trapped beneath the netting, and Cregan’s isn’t much better. It doesn’t matter that they’ve fucked every night they’ve been here, that they were just fighting a moment ago, they’re both still young.
Both still desperate for one another at every fucking hour of the day.
Still, poppers is kind of a big step.
“I don’t mind opening you up,” Cregan says, trailing his fingers over Jace’s length slowly, leaning forward to place a kiss on the head as Jace whimpers, clearly able to feel every ripple from the netting. “You don’t have to use those.”
“Yeah but what if I want to?” Jace bites his lip. “Kind of seems appropriate, really. You can slide in, fuck me hard and fast… maybe even put a plug in to hold your seed tight inside of my ass while we go out for the Luen set?” He opens his thighs a little more, rocks forward so his cock brushes up against Cregan’s mouth again. “Don’t you want to claim me, daddy?”
Cregan groans, so weak when Jace relies on words like that. “You sure?”
“Yeah,” Jace whines, his voice low and strained, like he’s already debauched despite the fact that they’ve hardly started. “Want you so bad, don’t wanna wait.”
And Cregan is only a man.
“Fuck,” he growls, “yeah, I want you, too, baby.”
He tugs Jace down onto the air mattress and kisses him hard; all tongue and teeth and spit as Jace mewls and whimpers like a needy slut, each sound going straight to his dick. Then he pulls Jace around so that his boyfriend’s back is pressed against his own broad chest and sucks a hickey into his neck as he scrambles around, searching for one of the many bottles of lube.
Jace is relentless, rubbing his ass against Cregan’s front, and Cregan doesn’t have it in himself to even strip. He just shoves his shorts down so that he can tug his cock and balls out, groans at the sensation of his boyfriend’s ass and the netting sliding down his length.
“So fucking sexy like this,” Cregan growls, biting the bruise he’s just made. “Need you, baby.”
“Take me,” Jace breathes, shoving his ass into Cregan’s groin again. “C’mon, rip my fishnets.”
Cregan does exactly that, making a hole for himself, and then slips a single lubed-up finger into Jace’s tight heat. “So tight,” he groans, working it around, but Jace has the solution, doesn’t he?
Jace pushes the little container up against one nostril, presses the other one shut, and as Cregan holds a single finger inside of his boyfriend’s body, Jace inhales. His ass relaxes in seconds and Jace moans, his body shivering where he’s leaned back into Cregan’s chest, his cock twitching, leaking against the netting pinning it to his lower belly.
In the same moment, Cregan’s lube-drenched finger slips even deeper inside of Jace’s body, and the bigger man groans. “Seven hells,” Cregan mutters, his cock twitching with need. “You’re so open, Jace.”
Jace clenches around Cregan a little, and then makes a sound of discontent when Cregan presses a second finger up inside of him. “C’mon,” he whines, desperation clinging to his tone like never before. “I don’t want your fingers. I want you. Fuck me, daddy.”
And, well, Cregan sure as hell isn’t gonna say no to that.
Jace does another hit before setting the poppers aside, but otherwise, they don’t really move. Jace remains kneeling in front of Cregan, his ass in Cregan’s groin, and Cregan remains where he is behind his boyfriend, but uses his big hands to angle his boy’s body so that he can drive himself up inside—and fuck, does it feel good.
Jace hisses, sliding one arm up around Cregan’s neck, arching his back and resting his head on Cregan’s shoulder. He drags Cregan’s palm up to his neck, too, and in the kinkiest shit he’s ever done, cups Cregan’s fingers around his throat. “C’mon,” he murmurs. “Hold me.”
So Cregan does. He keeps one hand on Jace’s bony hip, the other on his boyfriend’s neck, and he fucks up into Jace’s body fast and hard and without mercy, the lube and the poppers making it so easy to bury himself balls-deep inside of the boy that he loves more than anything. Each stroke is pure bliss, and the mewls spilling from Jace’s throat make Cregan well aware of the fact that his boyfriend is feeling the same thing.
“Fuck, you’re so sexy,” Cregan grunts, wishing he had something better to say. “I love being inside of you, love fucking you, love being with you like this, baby.” Each thrust pulls him deeper, each stroke making him more insane for the boy he’s filling up, and eventually, they lose their balance, falling forward so that as Cregan drills into him harder, Jace’s face is smashed into the pillows—
Which is when he stops holding back.
He cries out Cregan’s name, finding Cregan’s fingers with one of his own hands, and tangles them together as he pants into the air mattress while it wobbles, moaning and squirming, trying to meet Cregan stroke-for-stroke. They’re so loud that someone outside of the tent shouts at them to shut up, but Cregan doesn’t give a single fuck who hears.
He’s with his frat brothers, and around them, he’s king—and the boy whose ass his cock is buried inside of? Even more of a king, if Cregan is being honest.
They can be as loud as they want.
Cregan keeps one palm wrapped tightly around Jace’s hip, and the other one tangled with Jace’s fingers. Keeps his mouth at Jace’s neck, whispering the filthiest things that come to mind without filter, and when Jace comes untouched in the mattress between them, the orgasm punched out of him with a greedy cry, it satisfies something primal in his chest. Cregan isn’t long to follow, the wet gasps spilling from Jace’s throat as he rides out his orgasm all that Cregan needs to be pushed over the edge with him, and as they tumble together, Cregan wonders how they could ever possibly beat this moment.
Knows one thing is for sure—he’ll never be as close to someone else as he is to Jace, because when he fills up his boy’s ass with his seed, it makes something carnal in his chest roar with satisfaction.
“Mine,” he growls, not letting Jace wiggle out from beneath him.
“Yeah,” Jace agrees, letting Cregan trap him between his arms.
Cregan rolls them onto their sides, not pulling out of Jace’s ass, not planning to until he can locate the plug. “Let’s just—”
“Yeah,” Jace says again, cuddling back into Cregan’s chest. “Let’s just.”
— AZ —
The next morning, someone starts a fire early on, and they crawl out of bed together, Jace wearing Cregan’s shorts and no shirt, Cregan wearing his own pants, but holding Jace so tightly in his lap, it’s like they’re fused together.
They’re making out in one of those canvas camping chairs that says ‘WINTERFELL’ on the back when Garibald shoves coffee at Jace. “Here,” he grunts, chewing on a piece of bacon. “You guys are fucking loud, you know that?”
A pretty red blooms up the back of Jace’s neck, and Cregan presses his lips to it. “Don’t be jealous,” Cregan tells his little.
“Uh,” Garibald laughs. “Trust me, I’m not the one with a jealousy issue.”
Cregan could argue, but he just shrugs, because the plug in his boyfriend’s ass is pressing against his dick and he’s fairly certain he might need to fuck Jace again before they join reality.
Yeah, he’s gone on the kid.
— AZ —
“You really like this music shit, don’t you?”
They’re in the middle of a crowd and Jace has his arm looped around Cregan’s neck, is dancing on him with slow, languid movements that make Cregan insane, and it isn’t lost on Cregan just how perfectly Jace moves to the music. It’s like he’s a fluid thing, the music pushing waves of sensation through Jace, pulling him this way and that, rolling over him like a wave; and it’s more than arousing, it’s intriguing, too.
Cregan has to lift Jace’s jaw and repeat himself to pull the boy out of his trance.
Jace nods. “Yeah,” he admits.
“You ever think about doing more with it?”
Jace shrugs, but it’s the carefully calculated movement that Cregan knows is hiding the truth—that Jace has definitely thought about this. More than once.
— AZ —
“You should pursue it.”
“I would,” Jace admits, just drunk enough to not even hold back. “My mom would be so disappointed.”
“Baby, I’ve never even heard you talk about those career paths your mom brought up. Sure, you’ve mentioned business school… but law school? The fuck are you gonna do with a law degree?”
“Politics,” Jace answers, dully.
Cregan laughs. “C’mon, Jace. You don’t want to spend your life miserable. You’re not your mother. You don’t have to be.” He lifts Jace’s chin and goes in for the kill, because if not now, when? “Not to be crass, because I respect your mother, but you saw what happened the last time she tried to force something onto one of her kids… what makes you think she would be so unwilling to hear you out about this? I don’t pretend to know her very well, but I do think she’s had her eyes opened this summer. It might be worth a conversation at the very least.”
Jace doesn’t respond, but he does press his mouth to Cregan’s.
(And they do, indeed, get frisky out in the crowd without a single person batting an eye.)
— AZ —
The last big performance is upon them in the blink of the eye.
It’s the Hour of the Wolf, a major blow-out set, headlined by Glitternyx. It’s the final real night of partying. The next day will have some music, but for the most part, people will spend it recovering and then head home the following morning—or even that evening, if they have somewhere to be.
It’s a big deal, something Cregan sees rather than learns, because they shut the main stage down sometime after lunch and when it’s opened back up, there are massive glass pillars dotted throughout the crowd, surrounded by cement blockades and security guards.
On stage, there’s a huge red doghouse with the word, ‘GLITTERNYX’ written across it in the same lighting material, and rather than watch the opener, the Alpha Zeta crew sits around their campfire and waits for it to get dark out—eating, hydrating, hanging out.
Around sunset, the atmosphere shifts.
Liza conjures up a ton of paint from out of nowhere, and puts it all on the fold-up table that usually holds their food, and everyone pairs off with some of it—including Jace and Cregan, who retreat into their big tent.
“I brought you something,” Jace says, chewing on his thumb as he stares at a garment bag that Cregan just kind of assumed was another one of his outfit options. “You don’t have to wear it, okay? But I… well, I’ll just show you.”
“Okay,” Cregan says, slowly, putting his bag back onto the ground.
“Let me just— um, let me put mine on, first,” Jace says, quickly. “Then if you hate yours, you can wear what you planned.”
Cregan’s stomach does a little backflip as Jace unzips it the bag.
Inside, there are two outfits.
The first is obviously Jace’s. It’s tiny. A jockstrap, really, there’s no use pretending otherwise anymore. It’s made of silver spandex, but the straps are silver plates, and when Jace strips bare and pulls the jock onto his body, the silver plates dig into his hips and make the flesh spill over the sides—make Cregan’s mouth water. A single chain pulls tight across his chest, from his shoulder to his hip, showing off his flat belly, and he adds silver vambraces that Cregan already knows he’s going to tug off of his body and lose when he overheats. Then, he tugs on a pair of silver boots, and when he turns around, Cregan sees the bow on his back and realizes what he’s dressed as.
A hunter.
A grin toys at Cregan’s lips when Jace reaches for a quiver, next, and straps it to his thigh. It, too, is silver, and looks far more indecent than any quiver Cregan has ever seen.
Suddenly, the huge fur cape in the garment bag makes sense.
“I’m a wolf,” he says, rubbing his palm down his jaw. “And you’re my hunter.”
Jace grins, pleased that Cregan got it. “Do you like it?”
Cregan grabs his boyfriend around the center and gives him a big, sloppy kiss. “I love it,” he purrs. “Of course I’ll wear it, baby.”
Jace flushes, though. “Well, um, so she didnt’ exactly get the memo—” Jace says, pushing Cregan back and flushing. The ‘she’ he’s referring to must be the woman who designed some of his outfits, and Cregan sees why.
He, too, has a jockstrap.
“Seven hells,” Cregan barks. “You really want me to wear that?”
It’s the same material as Jace’s, but instead of metal around his waist, it’ll be fur—but tight leather over his cock, for certain. There’s a fur cape and a leather harness that Cregan assumes will criss-cross over his chest… and a thick, wide metal collar.
Jace touches it reverently and then shoves it aside. “Um, only if you want.” He scratches his jaw. “We’re going to paint each other, so, like, the cape is going to get ruined anyway. So maybe—”
Cregan grabs him around the waist. “Will it make you happy to flaunt my dick for everyone to see?”
Jace laughs, embarrassed. “Cregan,” he protests. “It’s not that.”
Cregan raises his eyebrow.
Jace rubs his face and shakes his head, laughing, still. “Okay, maybe I don’t hate the idea. I mean, it’s— you’re really hot. I don’t know, it’s kind of fun to show you off.”
And it doesn’t feel like any of the times before that Cregan’s partners have tried to show him off… it feels more right. Fun. Exciting.
Like Jace is claiming him the way that Cregan has wanted to claim the boy from the day they met.
“I’ll wear it,” he murmurs, pressing his lips to Jace’s.
“Are you sure?”
“Jace,” Cregan says. “C’mon. Before I change my mind.”
The smaller boy bites his lip and then must decide that Cregan is serious, because he helps the bigger guy dress quickly, and when he steps back, he’s grinning. “You look so fucking good, daddy.”
“Don’t think I didn’t notice,” Cregan says, gesturing to the pile of the garment bag on the floor. He bends down and shoves his hand in, pulling out the silver metal collar. “I know what you want.”
Jace flushes, covering both of his eyes with the heels of his palms. “That was, like, a joke. I didn’t think she’d actually make it!”
Cregan holds it out to Jace and kneels. “If it fits…”
Jace moves his hands and looks down at Cregan, lips parting, and then he’s on Cregan—kissing him, biting his lip, moaning and licking into his mouth with such fervor that Cregan has to separate them before their outfits are ruined. “You’re so— fuck, you’re so hot when you’re like that— when you’re—”
“Submissive?”
“Yeah,” Jace breathes. “But it’s— I mean, I like both sides of you.” He backs up a little bit, taking the collar in his hand and holding it, looking at it analytically. “Um, I called my parents this morning.”
“Oh?”
“I’m changing my schedule,” Jace admits. “Music is— yeah, it’s important to me. So… yeah, I told my mom I’m taking that class.”
“How’d she take it?”
“Well, Dad was there and he— he said that I needed to follow my heart. That I should do what I want and I don’t know, he just made it seem like maybe it would be fine even though mom was clearly a little upset. So I’m— I’m gonna do it.”
Cregan grins. “I’m so proud of you,” he says. “Now are you going to collar me, or…? We still need to put on the body paint.”
Jace snaps the metal around Cregan’s neck and when the bigger man stands, tugs on the loop, pulling his head down, making the metal cut into Cregan’s windpipe, all to press a kiss to Cregan’s lips.
It makes Cregan’s dick swell being manhandled by his baby like this, but he doesn’t even care.
Fuck it.
He’s in it, now.
— AZ —
The blacklights and the fluorescent paint make everything look like a dream; especially the handprints all over his little hunter’s body, the ones that Cregan’s palms fit over perfectly.
And the molly… the molly makes it feel like he’s immersed in honey, moving slow and languid as he appreciates the sights and the sensations and the boy caged in by his chest, the one whose fingertips keep dancing up Cregan’s throat to tug gently on the collar around his neck so that they can kiss for the thousandth time.
The entire experience feels so wildly self-indulgent, but it’s also incredible. The best night of Cregan’s life, if he had to choose. And although it’s Cregan’s first music festival, he knows it’s going to be impossible to beat.
They dance for what feels like hours, rolling through the air itself, their sweat blending with the particles on the wind and the touch of a lover; a soft, sensual sensation glossing down Cregan’s arm every time Jace reaches out to touch. Cregan can feel everything, really—even the music, threading through his body like a tangible thing. It’s like all of the little atoms that make up the world around them touch every single nerve; stroke their senses as they writhe together on the dance floor and melt into the music pumping from Glitternyx’s speakers.
It’s so dark and the blacklights the only guidance, so the paint on Jace’s body is most of what he sees, but he can feel the pulse of his boyfriend’s heart and the sweat on his skin and the rough brush of Jace’s lips across his chest and his throat and his mouth and he never, ever, ever wants it to end.
Jace, the social butterfly that he is, drags Cregan all over the crowd—dancing and laughing and partying with all of their friends, ones from school and ones they’ve met this week. And Cregan follows. He’s not really interested in the rest of the world the way that Jace is, but Jace doesn’t push him away or ask him to stop trailing hickeys down his collarbone, and so Cregan just follows him, dancing behind Jace—dancing in front of him during the songs Jace deigns worthy of twisting around to focus on Cregan for.
It feels like hours and a lifetime, but Cregan never wants it to end. He finally gets it, gets why Jace loves music so much, because it moves him—his lungs, his fingertips, even his heart, pulsing in his chest is doing so to the tempo of Glitternyx.
As a deep cut that Cregan recognizes from their summer at Harrenhal comes on, Cregan presses his chest up against Jace’s back, slides his hands around his boyfriend’s slutty little waist, and attaches his mouth to Jace’s neck. The dark-haired twink continues dancing, swaying his hips and grinding shamelessly against Cregan’s dick, which is flaccid because of the molly, but still pulsing and twitching and really, earnestly trying to get there.
It won’t, but Cregan doesn’t care.
Fuck, does he not care. All he cares about is Jace. Cregan loves him so godsdamned much he thinks he would actually stab himself in the chest if Jace ever decided that he was through with Cregan. This… relationship, for lack of a better word, is that serious to him, that important. And for some reason, in this moment, the word ‘relationship’ feels like some sort of insult. It’s so underwhelming, so much less than the reality of the passion and trust and love shared between the two of them that it pisses Cregan off.
It’s not enough, it’ll never be enough.
‘Relationship’ is so fucking mundane and there’s nothing mundane about Jace and Cregan, or even just Jace by himself.
Jace is oblivious to Cregan’s thoughts, laughing and smiling as he sings aloud with Garibald and Liza and the other dark-haired girl that Cregan recognizes but can’t remember the name of. He leans into Cregan’s touch even as he’s talking to the others, though, his long fingers wrapping around Cregan’s, tangling through Cregan’s, as they sway with the music, and so Cregan takes it as invitation to continue doing what he’s doing.
He can’t keep his hands still; soothes them over Jace’s sharp hip bones and tugs on the metal so that Jace whimpers against him, strokes over the tight skin that stretches across Jace’s belly, a thrill racing through him at the way his fingertips touch in the center. Then he pulls Jace back, pulls his boyfriend so tight against his own body that there’s nothing but skin against skin and sweat dripping between.
He can’t hear what his boyfriend is saying, can’t make out what Jace is singing, but he can feel it; can feel the words and the sounds reverberating between them—almost like their souls are communicating even though Jace is facing someone else. And Cregan really, really likes that concept, loves the idea that they’re somehow bound through a base, carnal instinct—one that’s so powerful that they’ve become intertwined with one another, indistinguishable in such a way that they can speak without words even when Jace’s attention is elsewhere. So he closes his eyes and continues pressing against Jace, letting his boy move their bodies to the rhythm of the music while the set plays on into the dark night around them and the blacklights shine down on them and the world blends into something so erotic that Cregan can’t even describe it.
The music is low and hypnotic and Cregan feels each moment just as much as he doesn’t and when he’s pulled back into his thoughts, the only thing that he’s sure of is that the flesh beneath his fingertips is just as much his own as it is that of his boyfriend’s; that the boy beneath his soft lips and wet tongue is hishishis just as much as Cregan belongs to Jace.
Jace twirls around in his arms, snakes his hands up around Cregan’s neck and says something for only him.
Cregan doesn’t hear the words so much as he feels them press through his skin and into his spirit when Jacaerys tugs his head down and whispers, ‘hey,’ again, but this time, against the bigger man’s lips. “Hey,” Cregan murmurs back, his mouth brushing against Jace’s. “Missed you.” Want you. Need you. Love you.
Fuck, Cregan loves him.
It’s so true that it hurts. And he knows that they’re high, that they’re rolling and completely out of their minds, but it doesn’t make the fact any less real; doesn’t make the emotion invoked in his chest any less powerful. Tears spring from his eyes, and with the release, a surge of euphoria twists through Cregan; a pure feeling of ecstasy that Cregan knows is tied intricately with the passion he feels for the boy between his palms. He’s never loved anyone before, not in his twenty-two years of existence—not like this. But fuck does he love Jacaerys more than anyone or anything that he’s ever come in contact with throughout his entire life. He loves him so godsdamned much it feels like his chest is splitting open so that the shape of his lover can fit just inside, part and parcel of his heart; of his soul, of his being.
“I’m right here,” Jace laughs, breathless and gorgeous and gods, so all-consuming. “Right here, Cregan, don’t cry.” His soft palm cups Cregan’s jaw, his fingertips pressing in that spot that belongs to the boy, and it pulls a deep, guttural groan from the depths of Cregan’s chest. “Cregan?” Jace murmurs against his lips. “Are you okay?”
In lieu of responding, Cregan parts his lips wider and presses his tongue between Jace’s plush ones. They’re plump and swollen from how much time they’ve spent pressed against Cregan’s throughout the festival, and yet his lithe little twink dosn’t deny Cregan what he wants; he opens his mouth and accepts the bigger man’s tongue, twisting his fingers in Cregan’s hair and pulling from the root. And fuck—fuck, it feels so good that he moans because it’s like Jace’s fingers are massaging every nerve ending on Cregan’s scalp while his tongue is doing the same to the wet muscle in Cregan’s mouth, and even though his eyes are closed and his mind is occupied and his hands are busy touching the body of the boy he loves, Cregan can see every strobe of the blacklight flickering through the sky because they flicker through his veins. He can feel the touches Jace graces his body with because they’re touches that reach to bone. He can feel the gentle squeezes on his hip, on his ass, on that sensitive spot at the top of the back of his thigh where Jace curls his fingers into Cregan’s skin and presses down lightly like he’s trying to pull them even tighter together. Their bodies are mostly naked and so with every smooth slide of skin against skin, blatant desire bleeds between them and licks up Cregan’s spine, all-consuming and overwhelming.
And the music.
Fuck, the music is so, so good.
It pounds through Cregan’s veins as Glitternyx transitions from the song Cregan recognized into one he doesn’t but one that is so deep and hynotic that each thump of the bass shudders through their bodies, like their hearts are in-tune with the song as much as they are with one another. A seductive cadence curls through the air, as thick as smoke from a fire, but instead of choking them it gives them life. It pushes a sixth sensation through Cregan’s veins: love. It sharpens the fervor and the reverence he feels for Jacaerys, making him need more, more, more.
And when Cregan does open his eyes, all he can see is beauty. The lights dim until the only part of the night that is visible, aside from the red stage itself, are the bright flourescent colors of everyones’ bodypaint as the sigils and the patterns and the swirls all come to life. It’s moving art so entrancing that it’s as haunting as it is enchanting, and right there in front of him, is Jace—his own body highlighted from Cregan’s touch, his own body twisting so tightly into Cregan’s arms that it’s like Jace is trying to get inside of Cregan just as much as the bigger guy is trying to suck him in somehow.
“Cregan,” Jace moans, his body vibrating against Cregan’s, and the desire is so clear that Cregan pulls Jace even tighter, pulls him up against his chest until Jace is climbing his body, wrapping his thighs around Cregan’s waist and his arms around Cregan’s shoulders and forcing the bigger man to brace him by his ass so that he doesn’t fall to the floor; one nearly-bare cheek for each palm to rub, to massage as they kiss and fuck one another with their tongues while the world rotates around them, spinning as though they’re the center and the axis and the only thing that matters.
Cregan doesn’t stop moving, and neither does Jace, and as the smaller man writhes in his arms, tucking a finger into the loop attached to Cregan’s collar and pulling the metal tight, as if he’s leading Cregan by the throat—and Cregan goes, will always go, and it isn’t long before they’re alone in the crowd; away from the friends and the distractions and in an alcove of strangers, with eyes and lips and words for only each other.
Fuck, this is the most erotic evening Cregan has ever experienced.
They’re surrounded by strangers, but nobody seems to care that they’re practically fucking with scant clothes on; Jace’s hands never stopping as he touches every part of Cregan he can reach—and Jace is rocking his hips, rolling his pelvis up into Cregan’s belly while he moans into Cregan’s mouth and sucks on his tongue and somehow throughout it all, keeps on beat with the song.
But that might be the easiest part, because the ambiance of the music is so dense around them that it feels like audible honey; a thick tempo so evocative that it’s become visceral and real as it pours through the sky and into the crowd, melding with the bodies dancing to the beat. It drowns out all sound and thought and flushes through their bodies, becomes nearly indistinguishable from the very cells of their shared being and it isn’t until Jace is climbing down out of his arms, forcing Cregan to let go of him that he realizes they’ve made it back to the campsite.
“Jace,” Cregan breathes, the boy’s absence like a knife to his chest so sharp that it feels like his chest is fracturing without the bare skin of his boyfriend against his own. “Jace, c’mere.”
“Yeah,” Jace says, his voice hoarse from all of the singing as he reaches for their tent and unzips it; a sound Cregan hears like a harsh fracture cutting through the molten rhythm still pounding around them. “Come on,” he agrees.
Cregan follows him into the tent, and as soon as it’s closed behind them, Jace presses something cool into Cregan’s palm.
“Drink,” he murmurs, turning away from Cregan.
It’s a bottle full of Liquid IV mixed with water, and Cregan doesn’t even hesitate to unscrew the lid and drink the entire thing down in one go. He loves taking care of Jace, but loves it when Jace is looking out for him, too.
While Cregan guzzles water, their eyes adjust to the darkness and Cregan can see Jace moving things off of their air mattress, clearing a spot in the middle of it before he strips himself bare, tosses his armour aside once and for all, and lays down in the blankets for Cregan. “C’mon.”
“Oh,” Cregan says, “yeah. Yeah, okay.” He follows suit, and in moments, he’s laying side-by-side with his boyfriend; nothing in the way of their bodies, save for the metal around his neck, as their hands roam each others’ skin and their sweat drips down into the blankets that are so soft Cregan swears they were sewn from real mink fur instead of fake.
Their campsite is so near to the main stage that the music is hardly muted in the little tent that they share, and so although the world is shut out from their space, it’s still, at the same time, loud and rhythmic and swirling around them.
Cregan rolls Jace onto his back and covers the smaller boy, caging him in and pressing their mouths together all over again, his forearms resting on the air mattress as he licks into Jace’s mouth. Jace tangles a single finger in Cregan’s collar and Cregan presses his palm between them, reaching down for his boyfriend’s cock; following his hand with his mouth until he’s kneeling between his little hunter’s handprint-covered thighs.
“I can’t get hard,” Jace mutters, pink flushing across his cheeks like he’s been kissed by his own blood. It’s so dark in the tent that Cregan can hardly see him, but the embarrassment is there and Cregan is suddenly overwhelmed with the desire to make it go away.
He can’t form the words, can’t make his tongue work or get his brain focus without losing himself first in the smooth slide of his fingertips against Jace’s thigh and his hip and the soft flesh beneath; but he knows, he knows he can show Jace instead of explain just how much he needs the boy right now—just how much he doesn’t care about things like hard cocks and tight sacs and actually chasing down release the way it’s traditionally found.
All he wants is Jace.
Jace’s skin, Jace’s touch, Jace’s whimpers and his moans and the soft flesh of his bare cock, whether it’s full of the boy’s blood and as hard as thick iron—or as flaccid as it is when he’s tired and it’s late and he’s crawling into the shower without anything close to sex on his mind.
“I don’t care,” Cregan murmurs, darting his tongue out to lick up the side of Jace’s dick so that he can taste the salty, musky flavor of Jacaerys’ most sensitive body part. But it’s truly not enough. His blood pulsing in his veins with an urgency he’s never felt before. He needs Jace in his mouth. Needs to hold his boyfriend’s soft length on his tongue and suckle like a babe even if it won’t result in an orgasm.
Needs to nurse from Jace’s prick even if there’s no actual peak involved that he can have a mouthful of the man that he loves. He’s burning with such a sharp, ardent need to show Jace how much he loves him—to worship Jace’s body in the best way he knows how—that he really doesn’t give a fuck about mundane things like making Jace come. He’s on a completely different level of thinking and the hedonistic desire to touch and kiss and make Jace feel good isn’t something that should be restrained by the type of natural ending that comes with an orgasm anyway. Cregan wants to suck on Jace’s cock until he’s blue in the face and Jace is so tender and sensitive, that he’s shoving the bigger guy away because Cregan has dragged his tongue over every single nerve in his boyfriend’s length, has touched on every bit of sensation possible and dragged Jace to a high as strong as Cregan’s is.
“Cregan,” Jace murmurs, rubbing his hand through his curls. “I can’t… this isn’t… c’mon. I’m— we can just make out some more, it’s okay. I’ll— maybe you can get hard and I can suck you off instead.”
“No,” Cregan growls, sounding like a man but feeling like a petulant child. “That’s not what I need.” And it’s not how the drug works, anyway. Neither of them are getting hard tonight, but that doesn’t mean they can’t fuck.
His neck is hot and his brain is hazy and although it’s so fucking difficult to focus on any one thing because all of the sensations are fighting for his attention all at once, Cregan knows without any sort of doubt that the throbbing, pulsing yearning in his blood isn’t because of the set still cascading through the air around them like a waterfall of tangible song, but because if he doesn’t get his lips around Jace’s soft prick, he might actually lose his godsdamned mind for real. “C’mon,” he murmurs, pressing a kiss to the thin skin of Jace’s lower belly. “Just for a little bit.”
Jace’s cock twitches a little, but he’s still watching as though he’s embarrassed, looking down at his soft length like he’s mad at it for not getting hard; like it’s betrayed him somehow. “Cregan—” Jace trails off, though, and that’s the only opening Cregan needs.
“Jace,” Cregan murmurs. “I really, really don’t care if you’re soft. Please, baby. Just let me—” Cregan rubs his cheek against Jace’s soft length, and both men shiver as the stubble of Cregan’s week-old beard slides against the velvet-smooth expanse of Jace’s prick.
Jace gasps, crying out. “Fuck,” he sobs. “Fuck, that should— fuck that should hurt, but fuck.”
And Cregan gets it, because Jace’s bare length against his face feels even better than silk, feels better than any sex they’ve ever had as his whole body vibrates with something more all-consuming than arousal; a sensation so pure and thick and seductive that Cregan needs to—
He does it again and doesn’t hold back his moan.
Jace makes an unearthly sound, a whimper and a gasp and a hiss of pleasure that Cregan feels in the nerve endings along his jaw where they’re connected, and then Jace is reaching down and scrambling; sliding his fingers into Cregan’s hair and the loop around his collar and pulling, panting the words, ‘yes, yes, yes,’ and moaning with such passion that Cregan swears the boy’s body is thrumming with a liquid blaze of something hotter than the dragonflame of eras past as he begs Cregan to follow through with the offer. “Please,” he moans, his eyes rolling back, and Cregan stops waiting.
He unhinges his jaw and takes Jace’s soft, supple prick into his mouth; not stopping until his nose is against Jace’s stomach and his lips are tightening around the base of Jace’s shaft and the fat, flaccid cock of the boy that he loves has made a bed on his tongue as Cregan moans around it.
Jace’s cheeks are pink, his soft length twitches slightly with an effort that goes unfulfilled, and Cregan hums with satisfaction at the way they’re finally connected because it’s so fucking good.
Cregan sucks gently on the flaccid cock, languidly mouthing at it as he gazes up at Jacaerys and thinks about how much he loves this boy, thinks about how his entire life has meaning because of this boy, thinks about how insane he would be if Jace ever decided to leave him.
Jace sits up, then, reaching for a bag to prop his back up, and then slips one of his hands down Cregan’s head, sparks tingling along where his fingernails drag against Cregan’s scalp. At this angle, he’s easily able to reach the collar, too, and he loops a finger through it—holding Cregan in place.
“Yeah,” Jace breathes, relaxing into the bag and the pillows, but keeping his half-open gaze on Cregan. “Gods, that’s good, baby. You’re so beautiful like this, Cregan. So gorgeous for me on your belly while you warm my cock.”
Cregan hums to acknowledge that he’s heard Jace’s praise, his body floating a little higher at the revelation that he’s doing something he never in a million years thought he would do—cockwarm—and he slips one hand up Jace’s thigh to clutch his boy’s hip where the metal was pressed into his skin all night. Holds him in place as he takes Jace’s soft length deeper, as he presses his lips to the soft skin and the wiry hairs at the base of Jace’s prick and suckles around the flaccid length as he swallows in the back of his throat to make the sensation even sweeter for his boyfriend.
And Jace does the same, meaning, he makes it sweeter for Cregan, too. Jace holds Cregan in place with a palm cupped around the back of Cregan’s head, fingers tangled in his hair, the fingers of his other hand looped through the ring on the collar; anchoring the bigger man in reality even as Cregan’s eyes flutter shut and the saliva in his mouth builds up a little more, Jace’s cock pressing in all the right spots to ensure that Cregan is drooling around him, despite the relative dryness of his mouth from of the drugs.
And for awhile, they simply float like that.
Together.
Connected by a low-level thrum of steady, unwavering arousal that seems as endless as the love that Cregan feels for his boy and the music whispering through the air and their veins. It plays loud outside of their tent, and people are singing and dancing and laughing as the world continues on—but in their little bubble, time slows. He isn’t tired, but he’s content.
Happy.
Fuck, he’s so happy.
“Never thought this would happen,” Jace breathes at some point, breaking the silence, his soft dick still twitching a little, but still flaccid.
Cregan releases it and hums, wondering what Jace means, but more invested in getting his lips around his boyfriend’s balls than asking out loud. He gently pushes Jace’s knee up into his chest for better access, and Jace moves it easily, spreading his thighs, opening himself up.
“Never thought you’d be mine,” Jace whispers.
That gives Cregan pause. He releases his boyfriend’s sac. “Am I?” Cregan asks, sliding up a little ways so that he can press a kiss to Jace’s swollen lower lip. “Yours?”
Jace nods, tugging on the metal collar that suddenly feels like it has so much more meaning than it did when Cregan first let Jace put it on him. “Mine,” Jace murmurs, allowing Cregan to push his other leg up. “All mine.”
Cregan grins, liking the sound of that, and as Jace hooks his arms beneath his knees to hold his legs back, Cregan slips back down his body to press his lips to the sensitive place between his boyfriend’s sac and his hole. “Good,” Cregan murmurs. He puts his lips back to Jace’s perineum, drags them down the delicate skin and teases him for awhile before moving further down; before setting his hot, wet mouth over the tight wrinkle of Jace’s hole.
“Oh,” Jace breathes, melting back into the nest of blankets and pillows and the bag propping him up as he watches like he’s completely enthralled by the performance Cregan is putting on. “That feels good.”
Cregan hums, pressing his tongue into his boyfriend’s body, pushing saliva into the sensitive spot, then mouthing at Jace’s soft balls while he presses a single, blunt fingertip up into Jace’s ass, as if they have all the time in the world—because they do.
“You’re so pretty when you’re eating me out,” Jace purrs, releasing one of his legs to stroke his fingers through Cregan’s hair. Every scrape of his fingernail is like static electricity, making heat thrum across the nerves on Cregan’s scalp and down through his body. The low tone of Jace’s praise makes Cregan’s heart beat faster, the catch in his breath makes Cregan’s own flaccid cock twich just the slightest, pushing Cregan on even more, and he eats Jace out for so long, he loses track of what he’s even doing; mind still floating, body still floating, his only anchor, his boyfriend, the one he’s devoted to pleasuring.
And in all honesty, Cregan hadn’t been planning on it, had just been planning on worshipping his boyfriend, but once Jace is soft and open and sobbing, Cregan’s fingertips nestled so deep in Jace’s ass that he can feel the swell of his prostate, his lips over the boy’s perineum and the rhythm steady and unyielding, it happens.
Jace cries out, thrashing on the air mattress, sobbing as his prick squirts the tiniest bit of cum, without even having been hard—and Cregan… fuck, Cregan transcends space and time.
He pulls his fingers out of his boyfriend, laps up the mess, and then shoves the bags off the bed—cages Jace in and kisses him so hard, he thinks he might die. “Fuck,” he moans, lips pressed to Jace’s. “Fuck, baby, that was the hottest thing I’ve ever— you are so fucking sexy, you are so fucking perfect, you are so— gods, I can’t live without you— fuck. Marry me, baby. Marry me.”
“Cregan,” Jace whines, pushing him off. “Cregan you can’t— fuck, you can’t—”
“Please,” Cregan begs. “Baby, I can’t live without you.” He slides off the bed so that he’s down on one knee, and somewhere in the back of his mind, he thinks it’s ironic—would laugh if it wasn’t so serious—that the great Cregan Stark is down on his knees on the bank of the Trident, bending the knee to one Jacaerys Targaryen-Strong.
“I don’t have a ring, but I— baby, I’m going to buy you the biggest ring imaginable,” he says, taking Jace’s palm in between his. “Jace, I thought I was a king, but I was wrong. So fucking wrong.”
Jace is still crying, but he says, “gods, shut up, you are a king and you know it.”
“Maybe I’m a king of winter, but you’re the king of my heart,” Cregan reasons. He kisses Jace’s wrist, right over where the armour was all night; the armour he shed for Cregan. “Marry me, Jace. Please?”
And Jace is crying and laughing, but he shakes his head, and Cregan’s heart sinks. “No,” he says, tugging on Cregan, pulling the bigger guy up as Cregan feels like maybe he’ll just kill himself, because—
“What?” Cregan intones.
“No, seven hells, Cregan— I’m not saying no forever, but— gods, would you get up here?” Jace asks, giving up on pulling Cregan and covering his face with his hands as he laughs hysterically. “Fuck you are so dramatic, holy fuck— what’s wrong with just admitting you love me, like a normal fucking person?”
Cregan frowns, climbing up onto the bed, only resisting offing himself because Jace said, ‘I’m not saying no forever.’ “What do you mean?” He scratches his chin.
“Cregan,” Jace whines, moving his hands. “Fuck, you haven’t even told me that you love me and now you’re proposing marriage?”
“Yes I have,” Cregan says, immediately.
Jace looks him dead in the eye. “No, um, you have not.”
Cregan racks his brain because surely— surely he— they’ve been out here for a week! He told Harwin weeks ago. There is no way he hasn’t said it. He tilts his head. “Are you sure?”
“Yeah, Cregan,” Jace says, laughing. “I’m— yes, I would remember that.”
“Okay, well I do,” Cregan responds. “It’s true. Baby, I’m so in love with you,” he adds, helplessly, feeling idiotic all of the sudden, and desperate for Jace to understand. “I can’t— I love you so much that it’s like my heart is going to explode with it, like I would die without you, like— fuck— I just— fuckfuckfuck, don’t you get it?” He reaches for Jace’s hand, drags it up to the collar still locked around his neck. “You put this on me before we started rolling.”
Jace’s lips part and his already dark pupils seem to expand even more, but he stops laughing.
“I would never— baby, Jace— Jacaerys— gods, you’re everything to me,” Cregan says. “I would never let someone else put a— fucking— a collar on me, Jace. By the gods, of course I love you. I’m so sorry I didn’t say it sooner.”
Jace starts crying again, but this time, it’s different. The tears silently stream down his face and he loops his arm over Cregan’s neck and tugs, making the air mattress whoosh and wobble. He wraps his legs around Cregan’s hips and holds him steady and says, “Cregan Stark, I love you, too.”
Cregan groans with relief, meeting Jace’s mouth with a kiss so deep that he can feel his soul all over again, but when they part, he has to ask— needs Jace to know— “I’m serious,” he murmurs. “Marry me. I’ll buy you the most expensive diamond, the most ridiculous ring ever. I’ll support you with this DJ stuff, I’ll literally stand between you and anyone who tries to insist you do anything different. I need you, Jace, and I want you, too. Please, baby, please marry me?”
Jace lays his head back, a grin on his lips, and shakes his head. “Cregan, I’m not even a sophomore yet.” But he presses a soft kiss to Cregan’s mouth before the bigger man’s heart drops out of his chest. “You can propose to me when I’m a senior— like, after fall term, okay?”
“Why not now?” Cregan asks, confused and a little upset, if he’s being honest.
“Well, for one, you don’t have a ring, and I deserve a ring— which you just admitted,” Jace says, a mischievous grin on his face. “For two, I want a real proposal. Like, not a public one or anything, but you better cook me dinner and light candles and make it special or I’ll say no again. Three, I want you to have a job, like, not just the guarantee that your father will employ you, but a job. Hopefully one you like. Four, I have no plans of ever breaking up with you, but babe, I’m not gonna be that frat guy during homecoming who is married. Five, I don’t— yeah, five, maybe you could take me on vacation or we could live together during the summers or something… spend some time as a couple without all of the fanfare and extra people around, first. Don’t you think that would be nice?”
Cregan is still panicking a little, but his heart softens, because even though he does not want to wait… like, at all, he gets it. He gets what his boyfriend is saying. And if he’s honest, it wouldn’t be their relationship if Jace wasn’t pushing him to a higher standard. So he drops a kiss on Jace’s jaw. “As you wish. Anything else, your highness?”
Jace pretends to think, but as he does, he rolls Cregan over onto his back, caging him in, pressing kisses up and down Cregan’s throat and the collar, shaking lightly with his laughter. “A dog,” he decides, sitting up. “A direwolf. And I want him when he’s a puppy.”
Cregan tugs Jace back down, wraps his arms around the boy and agrees. “That, I can do,” he says. “Anything for you, my love.”
And he means it, he truly does.
Jace reaches up and softly undoes the metal collar around Cregan’s throat, setting it aside and tracing his fingertips over the red skin as he makes them equals once more. “I love you a lot,” Jace whispers into the tent. “You know that, right? I have for awhile.”
“Yeah,” Cregan agrees. “I do.”
“It’s different with you,” Jace continues. “I know— I know things were rocky at first, but I think that they had to be. It’s never been anyone but you for me, but I don’t think we would’ve worked a year ago. It sucked, but I’m grateful for all that we went through.”
Cregan laughs. “What, you’re saying I was a fuckboy when we met or something?”
“Uh, yeah,” Jace says, pointedly.
And he’s not wrong.
A year ago, Cregan was a fuckboy, but he’s changed. Grown. Become a man, truly—and the boy in his arms? The one that became his brother against Cregan’s wishes, but then stormed into the big man’s heart and took it for himself? Well, he’s everything to Cregan now. Everything and more.
“But now, it’s like, we’re not just— we aren’t just lovers, but we’re friends, too. I like that,” Jace reasons. “I like that we understand each other and can communicate and stuff.”
“You’re my best friend,” Cregan says, seriously. “And my brother—”
“Despite the fact that you didn’t want me in AZ?” Jace teases. “Edric told me.”
Cregan flushes and makes a mental note to murder his friend. “Well, it worked out,” he mutters.
“Yeah,” Jace agrees, cuddling closer, hitching his leg up over Cregan’s hip. “Now we share love and a brotherhood.”
“Who would have thought?” Cregan ducks his head and kisses his boyfriend soundly. “I love you so fucking much, and I’m going to love you all the same tomorrow and the day after and the day after that. You’ve changed me forever. I— you’re the king of my heart, baby. That’s not changing, no matter how long you make me wait to propose.”
“Fine,” Jace says. “But we can both qualify for that, because you— you mean the same to me, Cregan. This summer was the hardest one I’ve ever experienced and I don’t think I could have done it without you. So— same. Yeah.”
Cregan’s chest swells with fondness for the twink pressed against his chest. “A brotherhood of kings, then?”
“A brotherhood of kings.”