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Richard makes Jacob feel again.
That isn't to say he has forgotten how. He doesn't think he ever could, because even after all this time, it seems impossible to clean the dirt of his anger - his bitterness - from the inside of his skin. That is a lingering thing.
Instead, it is the way his body twitches when Richard touches him. The way his fingers itch to cling at him wherever he can reach. The need to breathe him in, feel his heart beating.
It is the fresh humanity of it all.
Maybe that is the most unusual part. Because Jacob has done it once, the feeling. All hard edges and feverish hot bubbling under your skin. The kind of thing that makes you throw your brother to the river rocks and let his blood flow.
Nowadays, feeling is more like digging through compacted layers of old dirt. Aged and weathered and cracked with the dry heat. There's water if you go far enough, but you have to break the surface first.
Richard, then, feels like rain.
Or, perhaps, more specifically; fucking Richard feels like rain.
In the end, maybe it is Jacob’s long, long lifetime of nothing but a passive acknowledgement of pleasure's existence that creeps up on him. Weathering requires something to age, but Jacob has never known touch like this himself, so when Richard puts his hands to his skin it strikes him like lightning. Electric surging under the dirt with nothing to cage it. No concept of his past to tether it down like everything else.
It feels. Sharp and fresh and new.
Even the simplest press of hands or their shoulders is hot. A warmth of skin-to-skin he remembers only with a buried grief, now. But Richard presses his lips to his and Jacob can't help the way his breath gets caught underneath it all. It's too human, almost, when Jacob for a long time has come to understand himself as something not quite that.
He tries to hold it. Tries to capture the surging, crackling want between his ribs and keep it between his fingers. He knows that Richard is searching for something simpler than that. Something only a century lost. Something Richard knows how to dig for.
So Jacob is pliant and easy. He follows the push and pull of their lips as Richard's heat bleeds into him. Their weight as Richard tips forward until Jacob is on the floor beneath him, stone of the statue chamber cold through the woven rug.
Usually he doesn't notice the temperature at all.
Richard pulls back, arms trembling where they are caging his head. His eyes are wide and his jaw loose. He seems afraid, or something close to it, and when Jacob looks he sees him on the beach once again, questioning the devil.
Jacob tries to subtly gather his composure. Knows he should be steady when Richard is rocking like this. Looking for someone to lease his emotions on, whatever they may be.
His hands are loose around Richard's face, barely a pressure at all, and he goes to pull them back but Richard's eyes shift. His brow lowers and he breathes again like his lungs are settling into place. Not rocking anymore, somehow. Even without Jacob’s words.
Strangely, it feels different when Richard presses fully against him again. Hands sliding under loose cotton at his shoulder and his stomach. Legs fitting against the back of his thighs. Lips working hard against his like they're begging. Like they're worshipping.
Jacob wants to curl into it. He's already so hard his body feels like a coil ready to snap at barely anything at all. His fingers are wringing into Richard's hair with a need to ground himself. His feet moving to plant themselves flat against the floor. Feeling the island beneath him still.
(It isn't like Jacob has never tried to reach this by himself. It was simply such a long time ago when desire had ever tried to reach him. Before that outer, fresh feeling had died out with time like everything does eventually.
Except himself, of course.
And Richard, now, too.)
The younger man begins actually pushing up his shirt. Bunching the fabric by his shoulders. Both hands dragging against the skin of his chest, up toward his collarbone, seeking for something.
Tragically, Richard's lips pull back from his again. Barely a centimetre away, hot breath fanning over him still. "Could you- um," he starts with a shaky inhale like he has forgotten how to use his tongue, fingers grabbing at the edge of the shirt. Jacob can't help the smile that tugs at him. Richard opens his mouth again as if to finish speaking, but Jacob rises up enough to pull his shirt off before he can.
It's only when he lowers himself back to the ground that he notices how Richard's eyes drink him in, despite how he used to have such trouble looking at him fully for so many years. How he licks at his lips even though they aren't dry. Instead still wet from their kissing. How there is an awe to him that Jacob is used to - has been used to for a long time from many, many people that have called him all things under the sun - but, also, how it has shifted. No longer an awe based in fear or the unknown, or the belief in greater than yourself, but simply an awe that one might pass to someone over a cup of wine. An awe that says you have lived. I have lived with you.
It feels.
Richard's hands suddenly place themselves on the planes of his stomach like they're aching to press into him. The way Jacob almost jumps at the touch is unfortunate, but Richard doesn't seem to care or notice in how he leans down to kiss under Jacob's jaw.
He's expecting only the chaste press of lips, seeking skin.
Richard, instead, opens his mouth to suck at his neck, wet and electrifying, and Jacob’s hands find themselves clutching onto his arms tightly as he hisses through his teeth.
Strangely, Richard only seems to press harder into him for it. Fingers curling into the sides of his stomach, grip harsh and tight in return. Hardness pressing against his thigh. Teeth catching against his neck. It is almost painful. But.
"Richard." He breathes without thinking first. Digging his nails into the skin of those arms. Shifting his hips up into Richard's weight.
And Richard. He tilts his head to kiss a different part of Jacob’s neck. Sucks against the blood under his skin till it pulls sharply at him again. Slides his hand underneath the cotton of his trousers now too, a cautious thing.
It's a worship that Richard gives him, here, when his fingers wrap around Jacob’s cock. With his hands and his lips and the weight of him. A worship Jacob is not used to. Heavy and pleading.
It consumes him all too quickly and Jacob finds himself clenching down his jaw to hold the surging feeling in his chest once again. It is- too much. Too much to feel, when even despite the drink and the casual talking and the feeling of- comradery -that he has missed, if he ever knew it at all; there should still be a distance he can't cross. A line, somewhere. It is-
Those fingers pull upwards, thumb swiping over the tip of his cock to smear the wetness that has gathered there. His thoughts smear with it. The motion is a little clumsy, or perhaps just a little unused to the angle or the act of moving against someone else, but the warmth of Richard's skin is addicting. It coils the inside of him tighter still. Tension spreading from the base of his abdomen to the tips of his fingers.
Richard must feel the taughtness of his muscles, because he unlatches his mouth from Jacob's neck with a slick sound and uses his other hand to prop himself up again.
It's only when he says Jacob, though, like a blasphemous whisper under his breath, that Jacob even realises he has to pry open his eyes to look back at him. Unsure when they had even clenched shut.
"Yes..?" He says, though the sound gets caught at the end with his breath as Richard tightens his grip and slides his fingers against him a little harder.
There's something about Richard's expression that turns a little bashful, like he had forgotten Jacob would open his eyes to look at him. He tilts his head down and tries to keep his gaze down with it, and his breathing is a heavy, heaving thing. Jacob doesn't think about it when he moves his hand to press under his jaw, tilting his face back up towards him. Holding him there.
"Yes, Richard?"
Amazingly, his entire being seems to stutter a little at the action. His hand makes a sudden jerk against Jacob that sends a rush down his spine. His hips almost buck against Jacob’s, too, leaning forward with his weight. His breathing hitches, like he forgets for the briefest moment how to work his lungs.
Jacob is a little entranced by the whole thing.
Beautifully, Richard's skin also turns a deep red when he meets Jacob’s eyes, now. Though he presses his neck further into Jacob's hand, still. Fingers fisting against the rug by his head and other hand twisting wonderfully around Jacob’s cock again, working faster against him.
Jacob tries to hold the noise that builds in his chest with every touch of Richard's hands. Coiling tighter with the feeling in his stomach. Doesn't know if he has fully succeeded. But Richard's eyes flutter a little, and he says "You look good like this," in a whisper. A worship with his tongue, now. And there's a grunt that escapes with Jacob’s breath.
He's rocking his hips up into Richard's hand. Aching for a feeling he isn't even sure he remembers anymore. Richard leans with him anyway as Jacob slides his other hand up to curl into the hairs at the back of Richard's neck, one still under his jaw. He can feel how Richard swallows. How he breathes. How, when he whispers Jacob’s name again, his throat moves with the sound.
"Yes?" Jacob says again, a tight thing on the cusp of snapping.
"You.." He starts, though it's shaking. "You need this.. right?"
It is a desperate, wanting thing that taints Richard. Has been from the moment he came ashore. Clinging to safety in heaven and hell.
Jacob, then, is not desperate by a mile. Maybe he was, once, but now the closest thing is the aching of regret under his skin. A want for something long past.
Or, maybe that was the closest; but Richard's skin against his feels like fresh rain in the dry heat. It coils him tighter, sprouting all those little seeds he had forgotten had buried themselves under the surface. A want. A need. A desperate feeling.
So he says "Yes," and Richard makes a lovely little whine that Jacob wants to hear again suddenly.
He pulls the other man closer until their foreheads touch and Richard closes the rest of the way to press their lips together. Heat sliding against him again. Though now, when Jacob tilts his head to fit like before, Richard presses his tongue along the seam of his lips and inside when he opens them. It makes for something infinitely messier, as Jacob tries to learn the way Richard moves with his own tongue. Trying to breathe through his nose, though the air gets caught when Richard swipes his thumb over the tip of him again. Pressing, pressing.
It's wet and warm and Richard seems to put all his effort into getting Jacob there. With his fingers and his mouth and how he whines beautifully again when Jacob first squeezes the hand at his neck unconsciously. Curling with the pleasure.
(After that it's a much more deliberate thing.)
When Jacob finishes, though, it is still a silent break in comparison. Pressure imploding on him from the inside of his nerves, holding onto his lungs. Like a fissure that Richard creates. Only when the pressure starts to leave him does Jacob make a sound. Barely anything at all. Richard pulls back from his lips to breathe, to say there like he's found something he's been wanting for, to continue moving his hand against Jacob. Now a slow, purposeful motion.
Strangely, Jacob feels a little loose after. Like his muscles have remembered how to relax after tightening for so long. He hums, strangely, when Richard presses a kiss to his cheek and props himself up on his elbow again.
It shouldn't surprise him when Richard reaches down to open his own trousers, but it does. Fingers fumbling against his button, now a little covered in Jacob's cum. It's filthy, how Richard doesn't even hesitate to put his hand around himself with it. To pull himself out of his trousers and slide his fingers against his own cock when they're still tainted by Jacob’s.
Jacob likes it. He runs his fingers along Richard's skin. Pressing hard enough he wishes it would imprint. One hand sitting against one side of his neck now, cupping under his ear, and the other sliding under the shirt at his shoulders.
He gets to feel when Richard breathes and when he moans; even though he only has to listen to know. Because Richard, in comparison to him, can't seem to hold the little hitches and whines and grunts inside him: while Jacob can't seem to get them out.
He sighs like it's cold water on a hot, fresh wound the first time he touches himself. Moans when Jacob whispers his name and digs his fingers into his skin, squeezes his hands in a soft pressure, feeling the muscles growing taught under his fingers. Almost whimpers when Jacob shuffles their legs around so that Richard is straddling his thigh: which he presses upward into Richard easily.
"Can I- ah." Richard cuts himself off with a much more practiced pull of his hand. Trying to stifle the noises by biting his lip. It makes Jacob think of when he must do this himself, working to the edge. What he thinks of. Who he thinks of.
He grabs at Richard's waist. Sliding his fingers under his shirt and against the smoothness of his skin, where his hand fits comfortably at the divet of his hips. Richard begs at the touch. Keens into it.
"Please."
Like a desperate man. Breathing a high, noisy thing.
"Please, Jacob. Can I- I want to- on you-" He stutters like he can't say it. Begging on his knees over Jacob, pressing into his thigh with his cock flushed and leaking, fisting the rug into his hand again like he wants to cover his mouth, but can't without collapsing his weight. He's already half-using Jacob’s hand to hold up his head anyway, though. Tilting to the side.
Jacob understands the appeal of worship, of begging, more from the last half hour than he thinks he has in over 2000 years.
"Anything you want, Richard." He answers serenely, still a little loose from his own release, gripping Richard's waist and the side of his neck a little tighter- never too much.
Unfortunately, Jacob can't keep his eyes away from Richard’s cock, though. The slight curve of it and how it fits so neatly into the other man's palm. He can't help himself from skimming his hand down Richard's hip until he can reach him. Though he has to hold back his hand there, fingers twitching at the closeness and how he catches himself at the last second. Always the offer.
"Yes, yes."
One Richard always takes, nowadays.
So Jacob coaxes Richard's fingers away and wraps his own around him. He's more than a little unused to the action, but he tries to mirror how Richard was moving. The pace and the twist of his wrist. Richard makes a truly broken sound above him, like a piece of him has slotted out of place. Or maybe into it.
Jacob simply feels Richard's weight against one hand, thumb rubbing circles into his skin, and coaxes every little hitch and plea and whine he can with the other.
He's always liked using his hands for things. Simple, humane things that make him feel less- out of touch with reality. Weaving and farming and fishing. Surprisingly, making Richard come seems to be another one.
He almost curls against Jacob with it, in fact. Letting out a sudden, deep sound from his chest that he tries to capture between his lips, though Jacob is close enough to feel it ripple through him. He paints Jacob’s abdomen with his cum, too. A little filthy in a way Jacob isn't used to, though he can't say he dislikes the feeling of being tainted in this way.
Only after does Jacob tilt his head back to look at Richard's face: flushed a deep red, jaw loose, eyelashes still fluttering against his skin. Pretty. When he catches Jacob’s look, he seems to grow bashful again and leans down to press his head against Jacob’s collarbone now, no longer holding his own weight on his arm.
"Careful." Jacob says, a low hum Richard must feel through his chest. "You'll get it on your shirt."
At that, Richard springs up, sinking fully back onto his knees. "Sorry." He says after the movement leaves him loose again, still with that hard edge to his voice from all the noise. He checks quickly that nothing is caught on the fabric of his shirt, and when there isn't any, he lets out a quiet relieved huff.
Jacob- he can't help the little bit of laughter that leaves him. He holds his hand in a fist over his mouth to hide the smile, but Richard's eyes snap up to his at the sound. He tries to bury it, knows he can because Jacob hasn't laughed in longer than he can count. But he feels loose in an unusual way. Skin of his chest exposed and hair sticking to his forehead with the warmth of everything.
Richard looks like he's seeing something spectacular, rather than the mundanity of laughter.
Jacob supposes it isn't very mundane for him at all.
Eventually the moment leaves him, and when his limbs finally feel less weighted, he pulls himself up to stand. He stretches his limbs and doesn't bother tying the string of his trousers, considering they're still resting at the edge of his hips.
"Thank you." He says to Richard, who is still on his knees. He seems startled at the words when Jacob looks at him. Eyes wide and doe like. Pretty.
"Um.."
"I think I should go for a swim. Wash this off." He gestures at himself. Richard is a deep, deep red in the face. "You're welcome to come." He continues easily, and offers Richard a hand. Richard, as he always does, takes it and levers himself of the ground. Only, when Jacob opens his fingers to let go, Richard clings on tighter. A striking warmth again.
There is just a moment where they are stood in the statue chamber, hands pressed against each other's in simple silence. It feels a bit like deja vu, especially with how Richard is looking at him like he's working up toward something.
Jacob can take a guess, but he always likes letting Richard get there himself.
Though.. he says that, but Richard seems to be curling into himself with the silence like he tends to do, and in the end his fingers go loose like he's going to let go. Jacob is the one to hold on longer this time.
A little nudge never hurt anyone.
"Anything you want, Richard." He says again, simple and easy. A low hum on his tongue. He squeezes Richard's hand with it, and sees when the other man let's his shoulders relax again. Sees when his eyes stop hiding and instead look straight at Jacob. When he lets out a breath and steps forward to pull Jacob into a kiss again.
It's a simple thing, this time. But Jacob still sinks into it and moves to hold Richard's face again. Richard holds onto his wrists in return, and when they pull apart, he is the one that whispers thank you against Jacob’s lips. Just a wisp of a thing.
They both know what they mean when they say it, so Jacob simply hums. He lets go of Richard again, and the other man lets him, this time.
Jacob, the following day, still feels loose and more settled than he has in a long while. He walks to a part of the beach he doesn't often visit anymore. Sets up little nets and fishing boxes near the shore and spends a few hours cooking the fish he catches with them over a flame.
He isn't surprised when a voice carries out of the jungle.
"Look who's come out of hiding!"
Jacob doesn't even look back when he says "Hello, brother."
The man simply walks down to stand over where Jacob is sat, turning his fish over the fire. Again, it feels eerily familiar.
"What happened? Bored of wherever it is you're secluding yourself nowadays?"
Jacob hums and looks up at him, squinting against the sun. He shrugs. "Sure. You want some fish?"
"No." His brother never hides the emotions on his face around him. Now, it is an easy confusion, eyebrows tight, when Jacob makes himself easy to find after spending years hiding behind the island at this point. Jacob blames the fresh feeling of saltwater spray on his skin that he's missed.
(It's easier than admiting it is because of some clinging thing he still holds. A love for the only person he's ever had as a friend, a brother. The only one who has seen Jacob at his lowest, at his newest, at his freshest, still growing in the womb.)
"I can always make you an extra." He says, and knows how it turns his brother's confusion into annoyance.
"No. You-" He says again, a curl to his lips now. Then, he seems to pause abruptly.
The suddeness of it sets Jacob’s nerves alight.
"Wow," He starts, something between sarcasm and genuine suprise on his lips. "I never thought I'd see the day."
Jacob doesn't answer, simply trying to study his brother's face, now. Trying to discern what has displaced them so quickly without trying to give him the upper hand.
"I mean, the poor boy is obvious with it. But you. That's new, Jacob. When did that start? After the last batch that kicked it?" He considers, then tilts his head like he's agreeing with his own question. "They were particularly open in their... experimenting."
Jacob's jaw is a tight clench, now. Eyes squinted no longer for the sun. "What?" He says, not really a question. His brother just grins with it, a sardonic, dangerous glint of his teeth in the light.
He turns his head further and taps at the side of his neck. "I suppose Ricardo is a nasty little thing when he wants to be, huh?" It's almost joyful, how he says it, and Jacob tries not to give in by pressing his hand to his neck like he wants to. Tries not to let the fast beating of his heart show through his skin.
Jacob isn't sure if he knew that there were marks there at all. He supposes it makes sense, with how Richard had almost bitten at him, but it is still-
"Wow." His brother says again with a laugh. "Just- wow." He puts his hands on his hips and looks up toward the sky, laughing again suddenly like he can't keep it in. "What happened to all your little- rules and whatnot? Though, I guess you've been breaking them from the start with him."
"He needed it." Jacob says, a small thing. And then regrets it when his brother looks back down at him with disbelief. At his words or his entire being he can't be sure.
"Did he?" He raises his brows, and when he starts again, there is a sudden, deep rooted anger in his laughter. Newly burst again. "Or did you?"
Jacob lets the silence sit after that one, a bitterness to the inside of his mouth, clenched shut. He suddenly feels too naïve and too seriously chastised for all his mistakes. Like he's ten and he's telling his mother all the things he promised to keep hidden under the dirt. Like he's holding a fist to his brother's face, bloodied and bruised. Like he's sat at the island's light, wondering why he has to protect it at all.
He turns his fish over and feels much more taught than before: all his freshness gone. "Is there anything else, brother?" He snaps, anger peeling from his skin like it always does in the end with them.
"No. I came to see why you'd came out of your cave. I see now it's because you're delusional." He inhales sharply through his teeth. Tone back at the sombre deadpan that Jacob has come to know well. "This doesn't end with you living a nice idyllic life, Jacob. It ends with you dead." He finishes like an end point. Purposeful like he knows.
And it was always him that knew things anyway, wasn't it. Not Jacob. Never Jacob.
"So don't get attached, brother." He says like a reminder, and turns around to go back to his forest by foot. Pretending to be human himself.
ImLostForever Sun 08 Jun 2025 10:29PM UTC
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auxinue Sun 08 Jun 2025 11:03PM UTC
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emxcrt Sat 14 Jun 2025 10:54AM UTC
Last Edited Sat 14 Jun 2025 10:55AM UTC
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auxinue Sat 14 Jun 2025 12:35PM UTC
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emxcrt Mon 16 Jun 2025 08:30AM UTC
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