Chapter Text
Six weeks later, Vex's key had barely turned in her brother's lock when something whistled past her ear and thudded against the wall. A single oxford shoe lay on the entryway carpet.
"For god's sake, Vax!" Percy's voice carried from the living room, tight with restraint.
"What would you prefer, Percival?" Her brother's voice dripped venom. "Should I write you a thank-you note for going behind my back? Perhaps just bend over for you in exchange for your financial charity?"
"I'd prefer a conversation that doesn't involve projectiles!"
Vex edged around the corner just as a matching oxford sailed through the air. Percy sidestepped it with practiced ease.
"Your ammunition is finite!" Percy called out, glasses askew, his normally perfect posture crumpled with what Vex recognized as the particular exhaustion that came from loving her twin.
“So you know our father cut him off unless he comes home for Winters Crest then?” She asked as she smiled with a raised eyebrow.
Percy—shirt rumpled, cuffs rolled halfway up his forearms, the skin at his wrists ringed with blue printer ink—pinched the bridge of his nose. He’d spent most of the morning reviewing Vex’s chem thesis, marking up her margins with a mechanical pencil (he’d used blue, because red was for sociopaths), and his own brain was still running on patch notes and error messages. The last thing he wanted was a confrontation. But here it was, a living, breathing, high-octane fuckup, manifesting in the form of the twin siblings he could never quite outmaneuver.
“I was only trying to help,” Percy said, not looking at Vex. He spoke into the whorl of chaos between them, directing his words at the shoe on the floor as if it might jump up and defend his honor. “He was going to lose the apartment. I didn’t think—” He cut himself off, ran both hands through his hair.
“I’m not your courtesan Percival!” Vax yelled from the depths of the living room and threw a handful of tiny blue 3d printed plastic skulls.
“He’s obviously taking it very well. Percy, sweetheart, over the past few weeks have you ever shown off the fact that you obviously come from money?” Vex asked gently.
Percy could name, with humiliating clarity, every time he’d let his credit card do the talking. The first week, after their argument at Molly’s kitchen table, he’d squared the tab for everyone at the Turkish place down the block. Vax hadn’t noticed until the check had already been whisked away, leaving him blinking dumbly at an empty bread basket. The next morning, Vax had woken Percy with a blowjob so enthusiastic Percy was still seeing halos at noon. There’d been the time he’d picked up Vax’s appointment at the tattoo parlor, “just because,” and Vax had spent the ride home daring Percy to tell him where else he should get inked, then had him pinioned to the floor of their own living room within minutes of unlocking the door. And the time he’d quietly paid the overdue balance on Vax’s phone plan, then been rewarded with a week straight of Vax’s cooking—if it could be called that—a disaster casserole of toast, eggs, and whatever leftovers he could scavenge from the fridge shelves. Percy had let it happen. It was easier than saying, “You don’t have to repay me for every nice thing,” or, “My parents were just as controlling as yours, and I don’t know how to exist without a credit limit.” It was easier because it was transactional, and never lasted longer than the food or the bruises.
But standing here, watching Vax’s jaw muscle twitch through the kitchen pass, Percy realized—like a cartoon anvil to the skull—he’d been letting Vax treat him like a sugar daddy. Or worse, he’d picked up the bill without noticing he was treating Vax, beautiful, proud, complicated Vax, like a kept pet.
He’d never wanted that. He didn’t even like the phrase; it made his skin crawl, imagined himself in a smoking jacket, dispensing largesse and emotional neglect in equal measure. He didn’t want to own Vax, or fix him, or keep him. He just wanted to share space, to be wanted, to have someone to be with. Another shoe hit the wall.
“Do you want me to take this one?” Vex asked kindly, a whole lifetime of twin drama in her smile.
Percy felt his whole body lock up, a clamp at the base of his ribs, something raw and shallow trying to rise in his throat. He did not want Vex to take this one. He wanted to say, “No, let me handle it,” but he had no idea how to handle it except with the same currency that had just detonated the fight in the first place. He glanced at the shoes on the carpet, blue ink haloed around the left toe, and wanted to say something meaningful, something real. Instead, he followed the scatter of 3D skulls into the living room.
Vax was hunched on the sofa, arms folded tight, chin nearly sunk to his chest. He looked like he’d been through a car wash, hair sticking up every which way, cheekbone stamped with a pillow crease. The air between them was thick, and Percy’s heart drummed out a quick, panicked rhythm.
Vex trailed behind, her boots silent on the hardwood, but Percy cut her off with a sharp gesture, his ink-stained fingers splayed in warning. His glasses caught the afternoon light as he turned to face the living room.
"Vax, you love me. You loved me before you knew I had money—" Percy's voice was soft but certain, like he was stating a fundamental law of physics.
"That's not true." Vax perched on the footstool like an angry cat, knees drawn to his chest, long dark hair falling across one eye. "You had fancy beer and even fancier shampoo. Maybe I'm a gold digger. I'm probably hoping you'll get me pregnant so I can ruin your whole college career." The words were bitter, but his eyes followed Percy's every movement.
"You're a man. You lack the anatomy for baby trapping." Percy said, moving closer, his shoulders relaxing slightly as he navigated the battlefield of discarded shoes and tiny plastic skulls.
"I'll grow a womb out of spite!" Vax hissed back, but his body betrayed him—he didn't flinch away when Percy's arms encircled him, his fingers instinctively curling into the rumpled fabric of Percy's shirt. Vex leaned against the doorframe, one eyebrow arched in barely contained amusement, her smile knowing and fond.
Vax curled tighter, arms locked. The urge to snap something back—something that would start a new, safer fight—buzzed up under his skin, but it stuck in his throat and turned to acid instead.
Rent wasn’t even due until tomorrow. He’d told Percy that, made a whole bit out of the countdown, marked it in red sharpie on the kitchen calendar next to a drawing of a tombstone that read “RIP Vax’s Credit Score.” He’d said it didn’t matter if the transfer came a day or two late, that he’d talk to the landlord, work it out, maybe pawn the old camera he’d been pretending not to care about since Freshman year. He’d meant it. But in the end, he’d sat on the edge of his own bed at two in the morning and stared at the empty checking account, and the next morning when Percy had kissed him and told him it would ‘all work out’ Vax had felt a sick feeling in his gut.
Vax buried his face deeper into Percy's cashmere cardigan—the obnoxious burgundy one with leather elbow patches that he'd mocked relentlessly but secretly loved for how it smelled like Percy's sandalwood cologne. "I don't want your money," he mumbled, his words vibrating against Percy's chest. "I'm already a disappointment to everyone in my life. I don't want that list to include you." His fingers twisted nervously in the soft fabric, knuckles white with tension.
Percy's lips quirked into that infuriating half-smile. "I could withhold sex until you get a job?" he suggested, one eyebrow arched as he traced the shell of Vax's ear with his thumb.
Vax jerked his head up, dark eyes flashing. "I will break up with you and move in with Molly, Scanlan, and Pike out of spite. Their couch has seen worse."
"Molly won't sleep with you, dearest," Percy countered, adjusting his glasses with that scholarly precision that made Vax want to simultaneously kiss and strangle him.
"No, but one of his boyfriends probably would," Vax shot back, a defiant smirk playing at the corner of his mouth even as his grip on Percy's cardigan tightened.
“No they won’t. And you aren’t leaving, or breaking up with me or throwing anymore shoes. Vax I love you, you love me right?”
Vax’s hands balled tighter, nails slicing half-moons into his own palm, but he kept his arms cinched around Percy’s neck, as if losing physical contact would mean losing the argument by default. He squeezed harder, jaw grinding, and for a second he couldn’t even look at Percy. He stared down at the couch cushion, at the tiny plastic skulls scattered like caltrops across the floor, at the old coffee stain that mapped out a continent of defeat on the upholstery. His own voice, when it came, sounded shredded and small, but he forced it out anyway:
“You’re so fucking logical, like you think you’re above it, but you’re not. You’re doing the exact same thing as my dad. You think if you just calculate hard enough, everyone will fall in line and be grateful.”
He didn’t let go. Instead, he twisted his body even closer, like he wanted to fuck the frustration out of Percy’s bones by proximity alone.
“I’m not something you can fix or take care of. We’ve been together for five fucking minutes. I don’t even know your full name!” Vax said scowling.
Percy blinked. “You do,” he said, and then, as if to punish them both for the truth of it, “You want to know? You’re sure?” Vax stared, face set, cheek pressed to the deep V of Percy’s shirt, and didn’t answer. Maybe there was nothing else to say, not when Percy’s hands bracketed the back of Vax’s head, not when Vex hovered just close enough to catch him if he bolted.
Percy said it with a clarity that made Vax want to curl up in a grave and not come out: “It’s Percival Fredrickstein von Musel Klossowski de Rolo III.”
Vax’s mouth twitched. Then twisted, then split into a feral, unhappy grin. The laughter came out broken, high, punched through with a wind that Vax usually reserved for funerals or final exams. Vex, in the corner, cackled, the sound big and bright.
Vex doubled over, her dark braid swinging as laughter shook her shoulders. "You're nobility then?" she managed between gasps, eyes glittering with mischief.
"I do technically have an estate and a family empire, yes." Percy's fingers fidgeted with his glasses, pushing them higher on his nose.
"Then you should know we're bastard elven nobility." Vex straightened, gesturing grandly with one ringed hand. "Hence why my dear brother is having a bitch fit. We're trust fund babies without the fund or trust." Vax shot her a furious glare, his angular features sharpening like a blade being drawn.
"I'm obviously alive and not getting kicked out of my house," Vax growled, voice low and dangerous as he curled deeper into Percy's cardigan. "Can you please fuck off?" The tips of his pointed ears burned crimson, mortification radiating from every tense line of his body.
Vex gave her brother a look of such pure exasperation that it actually managed to knock some of the fight out of him, his head dropping forward to rest on Percy’s shoulder. The weight of it was full and deliberate, almost a dare for Percy to support it, and Percy did, just circling his arms a little tighter around Vax and letting him slouch there like a ragdoll whose stuffing had all gone runny. He could feel the heat of Vax’s ears through the cardigan, the sweat at the hairline, the tiny tremor that worked through him with each breath.
“I could live for a thousand years and never understand you, Vax’ildan.” Percy’s voice was almost a whisper, soft as the word itself. He let his hands move, slow, gentle, up and down the bump of Vax’s spine, until the tension in his boyfriend’s body bled out in little shivers. “You could burn down my entire life and I’d probably thank you for it. I don’t do your dishes because you’re good in bed, I do them because I love you and don’t want either of us to die because of the mold.”
Vax's shoulders slumped as the truth finally spilled out, his voice cracking like thin ice. "He's cut me off. It's not just about the rent—it's groceries and coffee and tuition—and he's done it all because I won't go back to his marble mausoleum of a house for Winter Crest!"
Percy's fingers traced the curve of Vax's jaw, thumb brushing against a day's worth of stubble. "What if I came with you?"
Vax let out a hollow laugh that didn't reach his eyes. "Oh yeah, that would be amazing, me bringing home a college boyfriend, even one with a fancy family name." His lips curled into a bitter smile. "Yeah, I'd maybe get him to pay the insurance on my beat-up Honda."
Percy's blue eyes glinted behind his glasses, something ancient and aristocratic flashing across his features. "What if you brought home the heir to Whitestone?"
"That's adorable, but they're all dead apart from Cassandra de—" The words died in Vax's throat. Percy watched, heart hammering against his ribs, as realization dawned across Vax's face like a sunrise—first confusion, then disbelief, then a stunned clarity that left his mouth hanging slightly open.
Vex leaned against the doorframe, eyes bright with amusement as she watched the scene unfold like her favorite telenovela. "Darling," she drawled, pressing manicured fingertips to her lips to suppress a laugh, "are you genuinely saying you didn't know?"
Percy's glasses caught the afternoon light as he tilted his head, the gold rims flashing. "Vax," he said, voice velvet-soft despite the tension crackling between them, "did you honestly not make any connection whatsoever?"
"I thought you might be a distant cousin!" Vax's hands flew outward in a wild, desperate gesture that nearly knocked over Percy's half-empty teacup. "Not—" his voice cracked, "YOU! The actual heir! Oh my god." His face crumpled into horrified realization. "I licked our artisanal cheese from the farmers' market..."
"While that's actively disgusting," Percy replied, adjusting his cardigan with precise fingers, "you've licked far worse things in the past few weeks." His aristocratic mouth quirked into a smirk.
Vax's ears flushed crimson to the pointed tips as he shot Percy a look sharp enough to cut glass. "You," he hissed through clenched teeth, "are the one who said don't mention our sex life in front of other people."
Vax buried himself deeper into Percy's cardigan, nose pressed against the delicate weave of cashmere that smelled faintly of gunpowder and expensive cologne. "We're breaking up. Not now, but before you propose," he mumbled, voice muffled by fabric. "The night before, you'll find my bags packed and a note on your pretentious mahogany desk. I'm not being a trophy husband with a collar of Whitestone diamonds." His words hissed into the soft wool, hot breath dampening the expensive fibers.
"Does this mean I can keep paying our rent?" Percy asked, one eyebrow arched above the rim of his wire-framed glasses. Vax made a noise like a furious teakettle coming to boil and lunged forward, grabbing fistfuls of the cardigan's sleeves as he attempted to wrap the luxurious garment around Percy's perfectly coiffed head.
Vex leaned against the doorframe, shoulders shaking with barely suppressed laughter as she watched her brother attempt to smother Percy with cashmere. "You obviously have him in hand," she said, wiping a tear from the corner of her eye. "See you both for dinner tomorrow? Assuming there's anything left of you by then."
"If—" Percy tried to wrestle the flailing half-elf off himself while simultaneously adjusting his glasses with his free hand, his expression a peculiar mixture of exasperation and utter adoration, "—I live that long. Eight o'clock?" He yelped as teeth sank into his forearm. "Vax, stop fucking biting me!" The words came out more fond than furious, his eyes softening even as he winced in pain. Vex's delighted cackle echoed down the hallway as she left them to their lovers' quarrel.
“Vax stop or I will burn your hoodies!” Percy said even as he pinned his boyfriend to their shitty couch. Vax paused.
“I’m not your pet. Since we’ve been together you’ve been feeding me and buying the good coffee and YOU PAID MY RENT!" Vax squirmed again but couldn’t shift his stupidly built boyfriend.
"You want to take away my hoodies? Fine, take your own damn sweaters off the coat rack and see if I care. You think you can just buy everything and no one will ever say a word?" Vax wriggled, fighting not to give in to the heat crawling up his cheeks, but the effort to sound angry made his voice break, guttural and ugly, and in the space where he should have kept his mouth shut, he said, "You can't love me out of this, Percy! It's not a fucking movie, this is just—" The thought fell apart, dying on the sharp edge of his own breath. "This is just the part where you realize I'm impossible and you get bored and you find someone who wears actual shoes and can spell your last name."
"I'm not bored. I'm never bored. I'm so deeply, physically incapable of getting bored of you that it's actually a problem," Percy said, and that was so annoying it made Vax want to try to start a new fight, but Percy didn’t even flinch—just held him there, breathing heavily, waiting out the tantrum like a storm.
Which was worse. It was so much worse than a counterattack. The softness of it made Vax want to crawl out of his own skin.
“You could stand to be a little more fucked up,” Vax said. “Just so I don’t have to feel like I’m the only one.”
Percy’s voice, when it came, was still annoyingly steady. “I am. I’m so fucked up that I only know how to care for people by algorithm. I love you in a way that’s going to get us both institutionalized.” He said it with that maddening, dead-serious calm that made Vax want to throw something far heavier than a shoe. “You can try to burn this down, Vax, but I promise you—I catch fire faster than you do.”
Vax relaxed, like he loosened his jaw; he let himself flop back into the couch, all the fight gone out of his limbs. There was a bad taste at the back of his throat, like the ghost of every argument he'd ever lost, every time his father had cut the legs out from under him and made it his own fault for falling. He sucked in a shallow breath, blinked the ceiling into focus.
Percy shifted his weight, not letting go, not even pretending this wasn't a hostage negotiation. Vax felt his own hand move, less a decision than a nervous system reflex, scrabbling at the side of Percy's neck until he could catch the edge of a collarbone, dig in, make contact. The silence rolled, clinging and close as a wool blanket.
Vax's voice emerged as barely a whisper, the words so faint they seemed to dissolve in the stale apartment air before reaching Percy's ears. "I don't want to go," he mumbled, his dark eyes fixed on a water stain in the ceiling that vaguely resembled Tal'Dorei. "I don't want to see him. I don't want to parade you around like some prize stallion while he inspects your pedigree with those cold, calculating eyes." His fingers traced absent patterns on Percy's forearm, leaving goosebumps in their wake. "You're not some trophy to be shown off. You snore like a bear with allergies, you fall asleep with your contacts in despite my nightly reminders, and our apartment is littered with those macabre little plastic skulls. They're everywhere—watching me from bookshelves, lurking in the bathroom cabinet. Why are you still making them? It's been months! I found one in my cereal bowl yesterday!"
Percy's lips quirked into that infuriating half-smile. "They're for my sister."
"Cass?" Vax's eyebrows shot up, disappearing beneath his disheveled hair. His mouth fell open, revealing the chipped incisor he'd earned in a bar fight three years ago. "Why would she—" The realization hit him like a thunderbolt, making his pointed ears flush crimson. "Oh gods, your sister is Cassandra de Rolo. Actual Cassandra de Rolo. I am the most spectacular idiot in two continents. How did I even get accepted to college?"
"You're a Drama Major," Percy replied, adjusting his glasses with an elegant finger, blue eyes twinkling with barely contained amusement. "They probably saw a video of you dramatically overreacting to something trivial and thought, 'Perfect—there's our male lead for the next four years.'"
Vax attempted to glare, but his traitorous lips twitched upward at the corners.
Vax reached up, twining a lock of Percy's stark white hair between his fingers. "It used to be brown," he said softly, his voice barely audible over the hum of the ancient refrigerator.
Percy's eyes grew distant behind his glasses. "Yes. Chestnut, actually. It went white in patches, then completely, over the course of three nights during the trial. I was 16." His jaw tightened, a muscle flickering beneath the pale skin.
"I'm sorry." Vax's fingers stilled against Percy's scalp.
Percy's lips quirked into something not quite a smile. "Why? You've said multiple times you like running your hands through it when we—"
"I'm sorry your entire family was murdered, you fucking moron." Vax's dark eyes flashed, his fingers tightening slightly in Percy's hair.
Percy caught Vax's wrist, thumb brushing over the pulse point. "You're terrible at comfort, you are aware of that right?" His voice was gentle despite the words.
Vax's voice softened to a whisper against Percy's collarbone. "I love you," he said, the words hanging in the dusty afternoon light filtering through their crooked blinds.
Percy's fingers traced the sharp line of Vax's jaw. "I know. Can I please just take over paying our rent? The leak in the bathroom is getting worse."
Vax pulled back, dark eyes narrowing beneath his mess of black hair. "If you're that loaded, why the fuck are you living in this shitty student accommodation with me? The ceiling literally drips onto my head when I shower. You could be in some fancy townhouse with actual water pressure and floors that don't creak like they're haunted."
"I don't advertise who I am, Vax." Percy's thumb brushed over Vax's lower lip. "And Whitestone is miles away from Emon. I figured it would be easier and nicer to just live under the radar for a little bit, away from all the... expectations."
"Fine." Vax sighed, his breath warm against Percy's palm. "You can pay the rent. And you can come home with me. But you seriously need to stop wearing contacts even when it's raining. You never take them out and I love your slutty little glasses." The last words came out as a grumble, but his fingers were gentle as they traced the dark circles under Percy's eyes.
“My glasses are not slutty.”
“They are on you, slut.” Vax said and grinned, the first proper smile he’d worn in three days. Vax clawed at the back of Percy’s neck, hauling him in by the collar until their mouths crashed together—messy, desperate, all teeth and wet. He twisted, digging his feet into the couch like he could brace himself against the oncoming tide of Percy’s intent, but Percy just followed, muscled arms caging him in, one knee wedged up between Vax’s thighs. The pressure was immediate, stupidly good, and Vax rolled his hips up, grinding hard against the front of Percy’s jeans, chasing the friction. Percy groaned, hands locking tight around Vax’s wrists, pinning them to the armrest over Vax’s head.
“You’re so dramatic,” Percy said, breathless, mouthing the words straight into Vax’s jaw. He sounded more delighted than pissed, even when Vax tried to wrench free and failed, which only made him want to fight harder.
“Says the guy with three middle names and a family crest,” Vax shot back, and twisted his wrists in Percy’s grip until the bones ground together, just to see if he could make his boyfriend let go. The pressure on his arms was absolute, terrifying in its precision, and it made Vax want to start another fight just to see how far he could push it.
But Percy just leaned in, mouth hot at the corner of Vax’s jaw, and said, “You really want to pick a fight with someone twice your size and three times your self-control?” He nipped Vax’s earlobe, slow and deliberate, and the shiver that ran through Vax was so obvious it felt like a privilege.
Vax wanted to say, “Fuck you,” but what came out was a low, involuntary moan, so needy it made him want to punch himself in the face. He tried to get his arms free, but Percy’s grip only tightened. The moment was electric, a slow sizzle of anticipation that crawled up his arms and down his back, every inch of contact a livewire.
Percy dropped his weight, pinning Vax with his hips, and the grind of denim on denim was obscene. Vax’s cock was already hard, pressed tight against the seam of his jeans, and the pressure made his head swim. He writhed, bucked up to meet Percy’s motion, managed to get a leg free and hook it around Percy’s waist, pulling him in like a vice. Percy grunted, the sound ripped out of him, and Vax bit down on the inside of his own cheek to keep from laughing.
It was a fight, and it wasn’t. They were both too good at this, too good at reading the shift of weight, the way a wrist could torque out of a grip. Vax wanted to see what Percy looked like when he finally lost control. He wanted to know if he could shatter the ice, crack open what was underneath.
He bucked up, hard, and managed to hook a heel against the back of Percy’s knee, toppling him onto the couch with Vax riding high. A split second of weightlessness, and then Vax’s knees were bracketing Percy’s hips, hands braced on either side of his stupidly handsome, infuriating face. He grinned down, teeth flashing, hair wild. “Now who’s dramatic?” Percy asked, but his voice had gone low, almost reverent.
Vax rocked his hips. The heat of it, the friction, was enough to erase every thought that wasn’t right here, right now. He chased the feeling, grinding against the thick line of Percy’s cock, pinned perfectly beneath him. Percy’s hands found his waist, dug in, not even pretending to steer. Vax set the rhythm, slow at first, dragging his hips forward and back, letting the friction build and build until his thighs trembled with it. Percy tried to catch his breath, but Vax rolled his hips again, and again, and every time Percy tried to get a word out, it got lost in the static.
Vax leaned down, hair curtaining them off from the world, and nipped at the hollow of Percy’s throat. Percy’s hands flexed on his hips, bruising, and Vax laughed, a mean, delighted sound, and did it again, grinding down until Percy arched up desperately, chasing every drop of contact.
“You gonna let me?” Vax said, voice pitched just above a whisper, breath hot in Percy’s ear. “Or do I have to pin you to the floor and fuck myself on you until you can’t remember your own name?” He rocked his hips again, slow and grinding, leaned in, bracing his palms on either side of Percy’s head, arms taut with the electricity running up his spine. Percy’s eyes glimmered up at him, pupils blown wide and hungry, every slow inhale tugging his shirt and cardigan tighter over a chest Vax had mentally catalogued in about a thousand ways, but never got tired of mapping again. He wanted Percy out of it, right now, wanted all of him, skin to skin, nothing left in the way.
He gripped the hem of Percy’s shirt, hauling it up over his head in one practiced motion. Glasses went askew, hair even worse, but the look on Percy’s face—half dazed, half lit like a crime scene—made every wasted second worth it. Vax ran his hands down the exposed skin, not gentle, tracing the curve of ribs and the faintest trail of hair down the line of Percy’s stomach. He liked the way Percy shuddered under him, the way his pulse hammered under the skin, how easily he could read the hunger in the way Percy’s hands scrabbled up his sides. He wanted to see how far he could push before Percy lost it completely.
He rocked down again, slower this time, and Percy’s cock strained against the fabric of his jeans, an iron bar beneath Vax’s ass. Vax let himself drag back, then forth, savoring the friction. “Bet you want me to ride you,” he said, voice a low, ugly purr. “Bet you want me to put on a show, just for you.” He nipped at the hinge of Percy’s jaw, teeth blunt and deliberate, and Percy’s breath shuddered out in a ragged pulse. Vax grinned, wide and mean, and did it again, grinding down harder this time, just to see if he could make Percy snap.
Percy got his breath back, just, and ghosted his hands up from Vax hips, digging his short nails in, leaving half-moons and red welts. “You’re obscene,” Percy said, voice half-broken, barely audible over the wet slick of their bodies grinding together.
“Only for you, baby,” Vax spat, and then he kissed Percy, mouth open, teeth scraping. Percy’s hands slid lower, found the waistband of Vax’s jeans, and yanked. Vax wasn’t sure if he’d ever get tired of how single-minded Percy went in these moments, the way he stripped away all the logic, all the calculation, and just wanted. He let Percy undress him, helped when it got stuck at the knee, peeled himself out of the jeans and let them hit the floor. Percy’s hands mapped his thighs, palms hot, and when Vax reached for Percy’s own fly, he wasn’t gentle. He wanted it now, wanted Percy’s cock in his hand, wanted to see if he could make him lose every ounce of decorum he thought Percy might still be hiding. He got Percy’s jeans off, and the boxers with them, and the sight of Percy’s cock—full, flushed, leaking—made Vax want to laugh, or bite, or both. He licked his thumb, ran it up the length with a practiced flick, and watched Percy’s face the entire time, cataloguing every twitch and shiver.
He dragged his tongue up the length once, just for the taste, then bit the head, not enough to hurt, just enough to make Percy jerk and curse. “You want me to ride you?” Vax said, and there was no way to pretend it didn’t sound like a challenge.
Percy just nodded, shallow, eyes gone dark and wanting.
“Say it.” Vax grinned wide, teeth on display, the bastard.
“Want you to ride me.” Percy’s voice split, two notes at once, so hoarse it sounded like it might hurt to say it again. “Want you to ride me.” Percy’s voice was sand, jaw grit against the edges of restraint. The need in it didn’t sound like Percy at all—it sounded raw, stripped to wires.
The noise Vax made was closer to a purr than a laugh. He lined himself up, the lube already out of the side table (because planning ahead was his only real superpower, and he’d been accused enough times of being a “walking crisis,” he might as well live up to it). The lube was cold and shocking on his skin, and Percy’s hands on his hips were hot, dragging him down slow, so slow Vax wanted to slap him. Every inch stretched, stung, then burned delicious all the way through, and Vax let his head fall back, hair a black halo around his face.
He didn’t look at Percy—not yet. He wanted to feel it first, to sink in, to let the heat in, to feel every pulse, every millimeter, to let Percy split him open and savor the ache that lingered in the space between breaths. He let the stretch burn, rode it slow, and the first time Percy slid in all the way Vax almost blacked out from the shock, the pressure, the perfect, brutal fit.
Percy’s hands were iron, braced at the points of his hips, and Vax could feel the shudder working through every muscle in those arms. He could hear the catch in Percy’s breath, could taste the weird, bright snap of pain and pleasure mingled at the edge of every thrust. Percy was so deep inside him already—so big, so much—and still Vax wanted more, wanted to see how far he could go before either of them broke.
He rocked his hips, slow at first, finding the rhythm that made both of them gasp, then built it, relentless, quick and mean and so fucking good Vax thought he might die for joy.
“Vax, fuck stop, you’re so fucking tight. We need more lube or something-this is going to hurt you.”
Vax was pretty sure this counted as emotional whiplash but he wasn’t about to contradict the only person on earth who actually gave a shit about whether or not Vax’s body was hypothetically rentable next semester. He wanted to protest—he could take it, he was fine, he’d done worse for people who didn’t even bother to remember his last name—but when Percy said it like that, with the voice all stripped and urgent, it made Vax’s head go fluffy.
He laughed, a sound that broke off into a moan as soon as Percy shifted his hips, still so deep it felt like it was elbowing out a space in Vax’s chest cavity. “I like it,” he gritted, riding back against the brace of Percy's hands, “I like it almost as much as you do, so don’t—” a hard snap of Percy’s cock made him lose the sentence. The burn in his ass was just on the right side of exquisite to make him see stars.
“Vax stop. Sweetheart stop.” Percy’s hand snapped up to Vax’s hip, stalling the tilt of Vax’s pelvis with a grip that bordered on painful. “No, really—stop, stop, I mean it.” Percy’s voice had gone ragged with effort. Sweat slicked the furrow of his brow and the bones of his jaw jutted sharp, blue eyes wild and terrified. He shoved at Vax’s thigh, trying to ease him off, but with Vax riding down, stubborn and grinning, it became a contest of leverage. Percy’s hands went to Vax’s ass, cupping, then pushing up and out, like he could physically force distance between them by sheer will.
“Percival,” Vax said, trying for a smile, but what came out was a choked whine, half pleasure and half the ghost of a pain he was determined to ignore. Percy’s cock was a fucking battering ram; every time he bottomed out, it felt like a punch to the inside of his skull. He wanted to ride it out, wanted to show he could take it, but Percy’s panic was real—Vax could feel it in the stutter of his hips, the icy sweat blooming on his palms, the way Percy’s hands trembled.
“Hey,” Vax wheezed, the word barely making it out, “it’s fine, I’m good, just—"
But Percy was already easing him off, careful and slow, cradling Vax’s weight like he might shatter at any second. The tenderness should have been a humiliation, but what Vax felt instead was this dull, weirdly sweet ache in his chest, like he’d just been given a gift he didn’t know how to open.
Percy held him just above the point where their bodies joined, one hand braced under Vax’s thigh, the other stroking slow circles around his hip. “I can’t—” Percy started “—do this to you, not ever. You hear me?” His voice was all wreckage, a bare whisper, and Vax’s chest twisted so tight it wrung the air out of him.
He’d never seen Percy like this—not even the time Vax had nearly cracked his wrist (again) falling off a table at Pike’s birthday, not even the night he’d wandered home with Molly and a black eye three weeks ago that made him look like a glam rock panda. Percy’s hands trembled at Vax’s skin, gentle but insistent, and for a second Vax couldn’t say anything. He just let himself hang there, knees buckled at either side of Percy’s hips, cock gone soft with the shock of being looked at with that much fear. Not even love—just fear, old and raw, like Percy had seen this before and it never ended well.
“Hey,” Vax said, and the word came out so soft it hurt his own ears, “I’m made of strong stuff de Rolo.”
“You do not fucking do this again okay? Prep is sexy.” Percy said, eyes soft and wounded behind his (slutty) glasses.
Percy adjusted his grip so Vax was half-suspended in his lap, awkward and embarrassing, dick just hanging in the moment. “We’re doing it right or not at all.” His voice was a rasp, and the look he gave Vax was pure problem-solving panic. He didn’t let go, even when Vax tried to push him off, just reached behind to the side table, popped the lube open, and squirted a cold, shocking glob onto two fingers. He worked it in, slow, and Vax could have punched him for the patience of it.
“Don’t make a scene,” Vax spit, but Percy just fixed him with that blue stare and said, “Do you want to walk tomorrow, or do you want to see if you can outdo your own record for drama in the ER?”
Vax wanted to say both. He wanted to say, just fucking do it. He wanted to say, ruin me, I can take it, I’ll prove it. But Percy was immovable, hands steady at Vax’s hips, thumb kneading in tight little circles that sent weird, electric sparks up the back of Vax’s thighs. He worked the lube in—two fingers, then three, slow and methodical, nothing showy about it, almost clinical in the way he watched Vax’s face for every wince and twitch. Vax wanted to bite down on the urge to argue, but it was hard, especially with a thumb circling his rim and another hand splayed wide over his shaking leg. Percy pressed in a little deeper, stretching him, and the burn vanished under a slow, rolling wave of want.
“See?” Percy murmured, voice pitched just above a whisper, “Let it get easy first.” His glasses had slipped down his nose, glinting with kitchen window light, and the look in his eyes was all stubborn, embarrassing care. It made Vax’s stomach go weird.
Vax was going to die of embarrassment, except it was also getting him hard again, which was just unfair. Percy had his number in every way, and worked him open so slow and sweet it made Vax want to crawl out of his skin. It was a weird, steadying ache, one that built and built until even the sick burn around the rim was replaced by a slick, humming pleasure. Percy curled his fingers just right, found that spot inside that made Vax see stars, and Vax moaned, honest to god moaned, loud enough that if their neighbors hadn’t been tipped off already, they’d be filing a complaint by morning.
“Is that better?” Percy asked, voice gone rough, and when Vax looked down between his own knees, he saw Percy watching him like he was the most important experiment in the world.
He let it happen. Let Percy fold him open, let the prep go slow, let it get easy before Percy lined up again and pulled Vax down onto his cock.
“Relax,” Percy said, soft, like he was coaxing a cat out from under the radiator. The gentleness of it was somehow worse than any of the usual bickering. Vax felt his face go hot with something like gratitude—immediately disguised as a full-body scowl.
“Don’t tell me to relax,” he muttered, but Percy was already slipping inside, his cock thick and long and perfect. He liked the feeling of Percy inside him—not just the stretch, but the way his body remembered the shape of Percy’s cock, like it was designed for him and him alone. The glide was easy now, slick and deep, and the dull ache from before faded to a heat that made his knuckles curl tight around Percy’s biceps. He could feel all the way up, somewhere behind his navel, every thrust just the right side of rough to make his toes tingle. He let his weight settle, thighs braced around Percy’s hips, nails digging in for leverage.
“Better,” Vax grunted, voice hoarse. He rocked, slow at first, then built up, chasing the friction until Percy’s breath hitched with every motion. The rhythm was clumsy, more collision than coordination, and Percy got loud—little whimpers at the back of his throat, each one a small victory. Vax watched the way Percy’s mouth parted, the tremble of his jaw, and the string of “fuck, fuck, fuck” that hit the air every time Vax broke rhythm for a sharp grind. It was music. Vax let himself ride the tempo, letting go of every impulse to control it, and let the hunger pull the words out of him. “You’re so good,” he gasped, “you’re perfect, you’re going to make me—” and then he lost the plot entirely, rocking so hard the couch bumped the wall behind them, and Vax found the place he wanted to live for the rest of his life.
The whole thing could have lasted forever, but Vax could feel himself getting close—already, gods, after everything, it was going to be over so fast, pathetic—and tried to slow it down, dig his nails harder into Percy’s shoulders to brace for a last stand. Percy must have felt it, the way Vax’s thighs started to tremble, the way his whole body tightened with sudden urgency, the tremor building at the base of his spine and radiating up with each snap of Percy’s hips. The friction was relentless, the heat gathering in his cock enough to make Vax nearly whimper at how close he was. He steeled himself, jaw locked, trying to hang on for a few more seconds. Every time Percy drove in, that stretch hit him perfectly, throbbing deep and electric, and Vax couldn’t decide if it was better to slow down or just let himself go to pieces and see what Percy did with the aftermath.
But Percy must have noticed. He always did. The drag had slowed, just a little, as if Percy could sense the difference between “about to blow” and “hanging on by a thread.” His hands stayed tight on Vax’s hips, knuckles white, but when Vax tried to push harder, Percy just held him steady, a low wordless sound breaking in his throat. Vax tried to recapture the sensation, to get himself that close and stay there, but Percy slowed the rhythm with iron patience and fucked Vax through it instead—cooling him off, never losing a millimeter of depth, building it all back up from scratch. The effort of it was annoying and humiliating and so sweet Vax wanted to scream.
He tried to talk, dug for the meanest, raunchiest thing he could spit out, but all that made it out was, “You’re so good, fuck, I can’t—” and then he was back at it, the whole world shrunk down to the ache inside him and the way Percy’s cock filled it. He hated the weakness. Loved it. Hated that he loved it.
Percy held him steady at the point where their bodies met, thumbs digging into the bones of Vax’s hips so hard he’d have bruises for a week. He moved with a stubborn, relentless rhythm, every thrust measured and deliberate, taking Vax apart one controlled stroke at a time, never giving him the velocity he wanted except in small, calculated doses. Vax tried to draw blood with his nails, tried to break the stalemate with force of will, but Percy just smirked at the challenge and dragged it out, shameless and infuriating. He wanted to cuss. He wanted to beg. The fire behind his eyes was exquisite torture, and Vax realized that maybe he did want this—this control, this patience, this sense that someone actually cared if he fell apart.
He snapped at it, anyway. "You gonna edge me until I drop dead here, or is this a new kink you forgot to mention?" The words came out slurred, crushed flat by the tension in his gut.
Percy groaned, forehead pressed hard into Vax’s shoulder, the shiver in his body not so much holding steady as vibrating like a taut wire. "I want you to fuck me forever," so Vax laughed, loud and wild, until Percy dragged his mouth down to kiss the sound straight out of him.
Vax’s hands roamed—there and gone—over every inch of Percy he could reach, mapping the sweat and shiver, tracing the twitch in his neck, the bite-marked shoulder, the way his chest heaved like he was running for his life. He wanted to eat up all the little tells, every tiny microexpression, the way Percy’s mouth always wanted to break into a smile even when he was grinding his teeth to keep a lid on it. Nothing had ever felt this good—right, easy, like every scrape of skin was proof that he could actually survive loving someone who didn’t want to destroy him first.
He let himself get carried, let the rhythm build and break, let go of any pretense that he was in control, and when the pulse snapped up his spine and burned behind his eyes, he shouted for Percy, and he saw stars. The world went white, every nerve burning, his whole body tensed and shaking as his orgasm hit—hard, all at once, like the last tether snapping. He came with a spatter, hot and slick between them, and the aftershocks sent him half-limp against Percy’s chest. The edge of pain from a second before was drowned in the slow, rolling shimmer of relief. Every muscle uncoiled at once and left him loose, legs barely bracketing Percy’s hips.
He wasn’t even off the high before Percy gripped tight, letting the tension coil in both hands and maybe everywhere else, and moved him faster, rougher, chasing his own finish now. He wanted to say, “Don’t stop,” but couldn’t make the words. Percy chased the heat up, snapped Vax down onto him hard, and the rhythm made Vax’s vision blur, cock throbbing even as he came again, this time less a punch than a pulse, a molten shock with every grind of Percy’s hips.
The next seconds blurred. He felt Percy’s cock pulse, a spasm so deep it hit something he’d never known he had, and the heat of it, the slam of wet and heavy inside, set Vax shaking again, whole body wrung out and, yeah, ruined. Percy rode it out, slow and clumsy, then just held Vax there, cock buried deep, hands not letting go. Vax felt the tremor through Percy’s arms, the almost-worry that he’d snap Vax in half if he loosened his grip. He liked it. Liked the ache, liked the knowledge that his boyfriend was all but out of air, barely holding together himself.
He let his weight fall forward, slumping heavy onto Percy’s chest, legs still bracketing him in a loose, obscene tangle. Percy’s breath was loud in his ear—hot, wet, a little desperate, both of them too tired to move.
For a minute neither of them said anything. Just the dumb, soft sound of sweat-damp skin peeling apart, the little huffs and sighs that filled the cooling air. Vax tucked his face in the curve of Percy’s neck, breathing in the salt and the hint of that dumb, expensive cologne, and let himself get anchored by the solid thud of a heart he could feel through their ribs. Thought about how weird it was that you could fuck someone this raw and still feel like you were about to pass out from the shock of being this close to another person.
Vax’s head buzzed, endorphins still twitching in his fingertips. The only thing left in his skull was the steady, stupid certainty that he could do this for the rest of his life—just keep chasing the next shiver, the next laugh, the next day where he didn’t get left. It was a revelation. “We should shower.” Percy mumbled. Vax hummed lightly but made no effort to move.