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It’s been a long time since Erik saw a real storm. Two hundred years plus, he thinks with a wry grin as the first droplets of rain splash the back of his neck. Now the sky’s overcast, a boiling mass of grim grey that blots out the sun and casts a chill in the damp air. Hancock shivers beside him, grumbling as the wind whips between the abandoned buildings and tugs at the fabric of his shirt. He’s left his coat at home at Erik’s suggestion – no point ruining it in the blood and rubble of the wasteland – and the faded jeans and loose white t-shirt he’s accepted instead won’t do much to keep him warm when the storm hits. Erik smirks, watching a raindrop bounce off the top of Hancock’s hat – at least he’ll stay dry.
“Cold, love?” It’s come easy moving from friends to this – easy intimacy Erik hadn’t expected to find in the wasteland.
“Not really a cold weather kind of ghoul.” Hancock squints up at the sky, already lined skin around his eyes creasing further. “Or an any weather kind of ghoul. Never realised traveling with you would involve so much traveling.”
“We’ll head back to Sanctuary tomorrow.” Erik sighs and tilts back his head as another raindrop hits his arm. “How radioactive is the rain?”
“Less than the river. Less than a lot of things.” Hancock chuckles and shakes his head, smirking despite another shiver. “Not like you to be picky about gettin’ a little contaminated.”
“What does it feel like for you?” Erik grins as a few more scattered droplets hit his skin, staring up into the sky as the water streaks his face and the first roll of thunder cracks above him. “Just like water, or can you feel the radiation?”
“Mm, tingles a bit. Be nice if it wasn’t so damn cold.”
Erik closes his eyes and runs his fingers through his hair, ignoring Hancock’s grumble as the wind picks up. It’s still only a fine mist of droplets in the air, soft for now but chilly, but after a day’s walking in dust and sweat and the same clothes he’s worn for a week, it feels damn good to have clean water running over his skin. Clean-ish, he supposes, hearing the warning click from his wrist. Ah well. A little more can’t hurt.
He shakes his dampened hair with a groan, opening his eyes as he wipes the water from his face – and stops dead. Hancock’s face is cast in shadow by the brim of his hat, and the thick cotton of his shirt has kept him mostly dry for now – but his arms are bare, a fine mist of water clinging to his leathery skin – and it’s glowing.
“You never seen 252 contamination before? I’ll tell you all about it someplace dry.”
Hancock gives another chuckle, and reaches for Erik’s hand. The flex of his wrist shifts tendons under wiry muscle, twisted flesh stretched over bone in the way Erik thinks he might have once found disturbing, but now finds as oddly, bizarrely beautiful as everything else Hancock. The water’s beaded on his skin, and as Hancock’s arm moves the droplets shimmer, shiver, and the first of them trickle slowly down over his outstretched fingers. It’s no trick of the light – the water gleams and sparks as it moves over him, refracted azure fire in every tiny, fluid crystal. Erik catches Hancock’s inhumanly warm fingers – breathless, speechless – and the drops trickle onto his smooth, unmarked skin. And they’re just water again.
“How are you doing that?”
“Sweetheart, I’m radioactive. Enough to kill you in days without those chems keeping your innards on the inside. You didn’t expect anything freaky?”
“May I?” Erik squeezes his fingers and with his free hand, gently nudges the brim of Hancock’s hat up. The hat doesn’t come off often – when it does it’s usually unplanned, knocked rolling under the bed with Erik’s teeth in Hancock’s shoulder, and Hancock’s short, ragged nails raking down his back.
“Go on.” Hancock gives a small smile – just enough arrogance to spark a flush of heat in Erik’s skin, just enough shy uncertainty to make him melt. He tilts the hat back, letting the cool grey light and the first blue-white flicker of lightening illuminate Hancock’s face, and above them, the heavens open.
Rain whips in the wind, cold and heavy but Erik barely feels it. Even Hancock doesn’t complain – he’s going to be wet through in minutes, the faded white cotton is already contouring damply to the slender torso beneath, but Erik’s calloused fingers are caressing his jaw and his thumb is tracing the thin curve of his lower lip as the rain drenches them both. It’s distraction enough. Where the rain hits Hancock’s skin it bursts into life – it’s more than fire, more than radiation’s glow – it is starlight. Every bead of water on his skin is a pinpoint of brilliant blue, and when Erik’s fingertips catch the water, where it trickles in rivulets over the ripples and lines of Hancock’s skin, it smears the fading ghost of light in its wake.
“It’s called Cherenkov Blue,” Hancock says quietly. It must be mundane to him, but Erik’s enraptured, and Hancock doesn’t reject that kind of attention easily. Erik captures the beaded water from Hancock’s chin, watching the light fade as it slides from Hancock’s body to his, then paints damp fingertips down his arched throat and watches the phosphorescent glow left in their wake. Hancock groans, gasps, and Erik can tell he’s won him over to the storm. “If you’ve got to kill anything you touch, might as well do it in style.”
“What is it?”
“Fancy lightshow for something that’ll turn you ghoul, if it doesn’t kill you first.” Hancock licks the water from his lips with a grin. “One of the isotopes in the chem that made me this pretty. Californium 252. It’s dangerous as hell, but damn it looks good.”
“Sounds familiar.” Erik leans in a little closer, letting his hand drop from Hancock’s hat to trail down the back of his neck, over the raised bumps of his spine to the clinging wet fabric of the shirt, lower and lower until Hancock’s hips buck against his, breath catching in a shallow rasp as he brushes against Erik’s hardening cock through layers of thick denim.
“Funny,” Hancock says, eyes flicking to Erik’s lips, then up to meet his as he slowly, deliberately, rocks his hips again. “I was thinking the same thing.”
Erik barely feels the rain drenching his skin, and although Hancock shivers in his arms, he seems to have forgotten it too as Erik leans in and kisses him. His skin is softer than it looks – supple leather yielding to the urgent press of Erik’s lips as Hancock gasps against his mouth. He’s so responsive – Erik hasn’t got used to it yet and hopes he never does, the little desperate groans he can suck and nip from Hancock, the way Hancock’s hands slide under his shirt, nails biting into the skin, clinging helplessly to him as Erik’s tongue darts between his lips and his broad hand settles at the nape of his neck. Through his closed eyes, Erik can see the flicker of the light – and he knows it’s deadly, knows the inhuman heat of Hancock’s fingers on his back and the faint hum in his lips are worse than toxic, and he doesn’t care. Everything is blue heat and Hancock’s cracked whimper as Erik drives him back against a crumbling wall, thick thigh pressed between his legs. Erik draws Hancock’s lip between his teeth – and tugs.
“Fuck,” Hancock gasps against his lips.
“That’s the plan.”
Hancock is never passive for long, and his dry, hot nails dig into Erik’s back as he pulls him closer with a growl. One hand fists in Erik’s hair to hold him in place as Hancock’s lips crush against his, demanding and rough. He ruts shamelessly against Erik’s thigh, panting raggedly every time their lips break apart, before he’s on him again with a graze of teeth and a teasing flicker of tongue. He’s soaked – they both are, clothes clinging to heated flesh as Erik squeezes the small, firm curve of Hancock’s ass and feels the heat of him through the soaked denim. He’s burning and radiant, wet clothes gleaming where they contour to his flesh – and when Erik pulls back gasping he can see every whirl and ridge off Hancock’s torso lit in blue through the soaking white cotton.
“We should get you out of those wet clothes.” Erik grins, hooking his fingers under the wet t-shirt and peeling it up over the ridge of Hancock’s hip. The fabric shimmers blue where it clings to his skin, and the light fades as it peels away, leaving it nothing but wet fabric again.
“Worried I’ll catch cold?”
Hancock chuckles, and sets his hat on Erik’s head for safekeeping before raising his arms. Erik peels the shirt from his slender body, pulse racing as Hancock’s chest is revealed inch by inch. It’s easy to think of him as skinny – he’s dwarfed by Erik’s bulk, and every time Erik’s lifted him he’s been shocked by how little he weighs – but there’s muscle there too. He’s lithe and wiry, and the blue fire of the rain lights every glistening contour. It trickles, gleaming, over his shoulders and chest, down to the ripples and whirls of flesh stretched across his ribs and lower, to trail wet, sparkling outlines over the jut of his hips.
“You’re staring.”
“If it bothers you…”
“It doesn’t.” Hancock wriggles free of the shirt and lets his hands fall to Erik’s shoulders, clenching in the soaked fabric of his shirt. “Just got a long, long list of better things you could be doing than looking.”
He grins, and snatches his hat back before Erik can object – right now, Erik wants to see him with nothing between him and the rain, but this isn’t half bad. Hancock shimmers with every rise and fall of his chest – he’s beautiful, and deadly, and snarling against Erik’s ear as he grips a fistful of his shirt and reverses their positions with ease.
“You know,” he pants against Erik’s ear, quick fingers making short work of the buttons of his shirt, “you look – pretty fuckin’ incredible wet. No glowing required.”
“Yeah?” Erik bites his lip to hold back a moan as Hancock’s nails rake over his shoulders, then drag the wet fabric down over the taut bulge of his biceps. “See – I have all the best ideas – ah…”
Hancock’s answering moan hums against his neck, and his sharp teeth dig deeper into the bruised skin, tugging until Erik yelps and shudders against him. It’s almost too much, but Hancock knows just where the line is – can read every gasp and moan and plea and turn Erik’s body into pure, mindless bliss. Another nip – at his collarbone this time – and Erik’s whimpering, helpless against the heat of Hancock’s wicked tongue and the rasping graze of his teeth. He gives up keeping track of Hancock’s hands and mouth, head thrown back against the wall as he pants and arches into his touch. Everything is blue, and heat, and bursts of white-hot pleasure that leave him panting. A sweep of tongue over a stinging bite, a drag of roughened nails over his waist that leaves him squirming, a pinch at his nipple that hurts – enough that he flinches, but it only makes it all the better when Hancock’s lips wrap around the stinging, stiff bud and Erik feels his urgent groan rumble through his tongue.
There are quick, clever fingers unzipping his jeans, and Erik’s panting before Hancock’s fingertips brush his length. He’s never known anyone get under his skin like this – a look, a touch, and he’s helpless against the onslaught of raw need. Hancock’s skin is dry, a little rough, and it’s so familiar and so different all at once. The thickened pads of his fingers run up the underside of Erik’s cock, drawing a line of pleasure that leaves him groaning and thrusting into his touch, and when they reach the head Erik tightens his grip on Hancock’s shoulder with a ragged shout. The touch is everything he’s craved for – god, has it been hours? Every moment is too long, an endless Jet high with no release, and as Hancock’s fingers smear the beaded fluid across the tip of his cock, Erik’s voice cracks into a broken, desperate whimper.
“Needy.” Hancock laughs, one hand on Erik’s chest pushing him back firmly against the wall. Erik’s stronger, but as long as Hancock keeps touching him like that, he can push him anywhere he pleases. Against a wall, face down on the ground, bent over the nearest solid object and fucked into incoherence. Erik thinks he should tell him so, but all he can manage is a strangled groan as he thrusts against the torturously light sweep of fingertips.
Hancock’s black eyes reflect the blue fire beaded on his skin – it’s caught in the creases of his eyelids, on the curve of his lip, and on the sharp outline of his jaw. He’s otherworldly – his deep, dark gaze pinning Erik more than his hands ever could, his own breath shallow and hoarse as Erik gropes for his belt and unbuckles it with fumbling, urgent fingers.
“Ah – yeah…” Hancock growls, and his hips jerk as Erik wraps his palm around his length.
His pants slip down to catch on his parted thighs, exposing him to Erik’s touch and to his gaze. The rain follows the bony outline of his hips and the light chases every falling droplet, descending in a gleaming blaze as Erik sweeps his thumb over the slit – making Hancock hiss – and gives a slow, firm stroke of his rigid cock. The water sparks and dances over every newly exposed inch, trickling down shaking thighs and beading on Hancock’s cock, smeared and swept away with every slow glide of Erik’s hand.
“Let me…” Hancock leans in closer, his hat knocked crooked as he tucks his head against Erik’s neck and his teeth graze over his skin. There’s a growl in his breath and heat in his touch as his hand replaces Erik’s, brushing his fingers aside as he rocks forward and lets his cock press against Erik’s own. His hand alone was good – but this is better, and Erik’s nails dig into Hancock’s shoulder as he bucks and shudders, biting back a whimper.
He’s leather and heat, he’s raw desire and utter filth, teeth nipping at Erik’s ear as the languid rolls of his hips leave both of them panting. Erik’s vision is a haze of blue and his pulse is thunder in his ears, flushed and gasping, his hips bucking helplessly. Hancock thrusts against him, fingers firm against his shaft as Hancock’s length slides over his own.
“Maybe I could get used to this.” Hancock chuckles, groans, and bites – hard. “The rain. The cold. You practically begging…”
“Says – says you.” Erik slides his hands down Hancock’s back, feeling the rise and fall of skin that his pre-war mind would have called ruined but now feels just like home. “You’re shaking…”
“I’m freezing.”
“How’s the rain feel here?” Erik covers Hancock’s hand with his, running his damp thumb over the head of his cock, and Hancock whimpers, muffled against Erik’s neck as he sinks his teeth into his skin.
“F-fuck…”
“Good?”
“You’ve no idea.” Hancock growls, his free hand clawing at Erik’s ass as he thrusts, panting, his breath hot and quick against the bruised skin of his throat. “Radiation’s just a word to you – take your meds and forget it – when you’re a ghoul it’s – fuck…”
Hancock groans, his rough nails digging into Erik’s ass, kneading and groping. His hips jerk, his cock thrusting into the circle of their hands, slicked by rain and pre-come. Erik bites his lip, buries his face in Hancock’s neck and bites the thickened skin until Hancock whimpers, and for a long moment the only sound is the whisper of the falling rain and the rasp of their breaths.
“It’s alive,” Hancock breathes, ragged and pitching higher, his breath shaking against Erik’s ear. “You touch me – it touches me – it burns so – damn – good…”
Hancock’s on the edge of breaking – an urgent shudder in his thighs and a shake in his voice that Erik knows so well. But Erik’s closer, racing to his peak with every roll of Hancock’s hips and every rasp of his breath in Erik’s ear. He moans open-mouthed against Hancock’s skin, rainwater on his lips and the warm, familiar, not-quite-human taste of Hancock’s skin beneath it. Hancock’s drenched, and the light glints and glares through Erik’s closed eyes, burning as bright as the overwhelming wave of pleasure scorching through his flesh. He whimpers, groans, and grips the taut curve of Hancock’s ass with a ragged grunt, falling apart with every stuttering thrust as the slick spill of his come coats his twitching length.
“Fuck yeah,” Hancock gasps, stroking him through every last searing flicker of pleasure. “Got a bit of a – nngh – radiation kink yourself, huh?”
“Just with you.” Erik laughs weakly, glad of the wall at his back stopping his knees giving out. He lets his head fall back against the solid brickwork, breathing hard. “Bad influence.”
“That’s me.” Hancock’s grin reflects the glow from his lips, teeth glowing, eyes ablaze, as he lets his hand drift from Erik’s ass to grip a fistful of his hair. “Get on your knees, I’ve got a bit more for you.”
“God.” Erik snorts, letting himself be pushed down. Only Hancock could stay this damn hot after a line like that, and he’s torn between a laugh and a whimper as Hancock growls and tightens his grip on his hair.
Erik is twisted back, arched and gasping, watching breathlessly as Hancock strokes his cock inches from his upturned face. His face is all angles, blazing blue and inky shadows in the ragged lines of his scarred skin, gleaming droplets lining the ridged edge of where his nose used to be and catching on the curl of his lip. His chest heaves, shoulders shake, and the descending rivulets of water twist and dance and flare across the rise and fall of prominent ribs and coil down his slender thighs.
Hancock’s wet, glowing hand is wrapped tight around his cock, stroking firmly, quickly, drawing urgent moans from Hancock’s lips as he hunches over Erik’s kneeling body. A final buck of his hips and he’s there – thrusting into his fist with a snarl as his come streaks across Erik’s flushed cheeks and parted lips.
Maybe Hancock’s right, maybe this is a kink – because god it feels good. The near-painful heat, the curl of arousal in his gut as he laps the salty trails from his lips and feels the snapping sting of it on his tongue. It’s filthy in all the right ways, Hancock’s seed thick and clinging to his tongue and scalding in his throat as he swallows, gazing up into wide black eyes and leaning into the firm hand coiled in his hair. His throat feels stripped raw and his stomach lurches, and he knows Hancock knows what this does to him – the good and the bad, the soaring high and the vicious comedown – and he holds his gaze as he raises his hand, sweeps the sticky fluid from his skin, and sucks his fingers clean.
“Show off,” Hancock growls.
“I know my audience.” Erik licks his lips, and lets Hancock encourage him to his feet. The heat of the moment’s fading, and Hancock’s shivering visibly as the wind sways his body and tugs at his hat.
They make it into the house – to Hancock’s grumbling of finally and Erik’s eventually admitted relief. As they peel off the remains of their soaked clothing, the cold sets in, and the chilly fingers of the wind slipping through the cracks in the walls are enough to leave Erik shivering. But there are blankets in Erik’s pack that the storm didn’t reach, and before long, a fire. There’s body heat and shelter from the storm, and the golden-orange flames glow in stark contrast to the remaining gleam of blue. Erik traces the last of the fading light, fingertips ghosting over Hancock’s skin, watching until every flicker dries, dims, and disappears.