[POLITICAL AIDE AU]

[homosexuals]

AKA MATT BOMERCEPTION

a diplomat is a person who can tell you to go to hell in such a way that you actually look forward to the trip.

Comments

[hymen]

[ he shouldn't be having jovial fucking conversation with his aide, not when he still gets flashes of his rough hands pressing bruises into his skin, fingers curling into his hair and pulling, wringing every ounce of pleasure out of him and then some. embry had been fucked up over ash then, too, the predictable pattern of his life, drunk and high and desperate to be rubbed the right way and getting a whole lot more than he'd signed up for.

not that he'd minded. in his inebriated memories, it was fucking good. he thought he might actually die, which had only made it better.

they haven't talked about it. it feels like the right decision to just let it sit between them instead, simmering, building. why address anything when you can ignore it? it's not like he's going to fuck his aide. ]

I can interview your longest fuck about your endurance, if you'd like. I'll present the data to you on a spreadsheet.

[ thank god for gin. the servers bring both of their drinks at the same time, and hawk's hand looks good around a scotch, just as it had looked good around his cock, and embry wishes he had the whole fucking bottle instead. ]

I stopped smoking when I started campaigning. I was advised to cut out all the vices I could. [ smoking was the least of them. ] I used to have to walk a mile to the nearest village to get smokes when I was on base.

[ hawk does... something, wherein he silently dismisses the woman and gets in embry's space in a fluid movement, and he despises how his body reacts, how he feels hot and itchy and too tight all at once. his cock stirs like it's never gotten an ounce of attention before. a flush creeps up his neck, peeking out of his collar. he feels almost dizzy with need, like being back at lyonesse puts him in the kind of space where he'd let anyone do anything to him. where he has let ash do unspeakable things to his body until his mind quiets into blissful, silent peace.

only ash had understood the specific lines to cross to break him, and embry would fight and complain and always, always lose. he misses his losses now. ]

I'm already here. We're already here. [ he wants to stick to his resolutions, be the big fucking asshole this time and feel powerful. isn't that how ash got everything he wanted? he knows it's a spiteful thought, because ash doesn't have a shitty bone in his body, when embry is all shitty. with his drink already almost empty, he takes hawk's cigarette again, this time just plucking it from his fingers. with smoke curling from his mouth — ] Just pick someone.

[homosexuals]

[sometimes hawk wonders if embry even remembers that night - but then he must if these are the digs he sustains when he's actually trying to do his job and care about his fucking well-being. there'd been a very long string of one-nighters hawk been in the midst of pushing himself through post-tim that embry had gotten mixed up in, and if he had any idea the pretty face he'd watched contort every which way as hawk utterly ruined him was going to be the future vice president and his boss - well, he might have thought twice.

(is that what his life is destined to be reduced to? life before and life after tim laughlin? the center of it all, the boy that made him break both their hearts? so much for all the milestones of a career in washington.)

the undercurrent of tension that highlights each of their interactions has just enough of an unpleasant zing that hawk knows there's no way embry has forgotten that night. which means they're both just trying to be professional about it - as they should. and yet: working as an aide, for all intents and purposes, is the equivalent of being administrative assistant, therapist, blackmailer, maybe hitman, and then some all rolled into one extremely close and personal role that often veers farther left than the only democrats left with bite in the senate. this is bound to come out at the worst possible time, or blow up in both their faces if they don't deal with it somehow. what that means and how they do it - hawk doesn't have a goddamn clue.]

I'd really rather you didn't.

[because it would be tim, and with the way embry nearly downs his gin and grabs for his cigarette again he cannot get mixed up thinking about that right now when something self-destructive is in their midst.]

Besides, I think you'd have some trouble tracking them down, on account of the fact that I haven't got a clue who they were.

[rolls off the tongue easily, and maybe a little smugly - convincing to anyone but himself as his chest tightens thinking about the memory of soft kisses against his ear and a warm body curled in his arms. hawk takes a good swig of his own drink, still more measured than embry's because at least one of them needs their wits about them tonight, christ, and it doesn't look like it's going to be the younger man.

especially not when he practically tenses up as hawk enters his space, just shy of impropriety, and notices that despite the mood lighting, there's a pointed flush against pale skin that looks good enough that hawk might like to lave the flat of his tongue hot against it before opening his mouth and biting hard. something tells him this is absolutely not his first rodeo, nor is it hawk that's the one making him outright nervous or jittery or whatever the hell this is - so maybe it's someone he's expecting? a bad experience he's trying to conquer? or is it who or what he'd been chasing away that night they first met?

far be it for him to kick a man while he's down - at least, not this one - so instead he just watches the plume of smoke out from his lips, wondering what those other vices might have been and who else on the base got to see them, and glances around the room again as if he's actually making a stab at surveying it for them.]

For me?

[a pause, to let him think he's gotten away scot free.]

Or you?

[he leans in again, gaze deliberate as it falls down the narrow bridge of his nose onto the delicate profile before him.]

Because there's only one person here you can trust right now, and I doubt you're ready for that conversation.

[hymen]

I have the CIA at my disposal. I can track them down for you, if you'd like.

[ it's not a threat, just another funny joke that earns hawk a wiggle of embry's brows over the rim of his glass. the cia keeps his secrets, too — like all the times he's shown up at ash's door to get flogged and fucked and tenderly kissed, or the fact that they're outside lyonesse right now. who'd have thought he'd be a whole ass adult and still doing the walk of fucking shame.

but he is. ashamed. he's ashamed of how he's reacting to hawk's close proximity, ashamed of what he still wants now that ash is effectively gone. he's fed himself the lie that ash is the only man who could treat him that way, that what they had was just special and different, that they fed each other's needs in a way no one else could, but now ash has someone so much better suited to serve him, and embry still has the same itch, the same ugly voices in his head that need to be silenced. he's not special. he's just the same bad, empty person he's always been.

he replenishes his drink, as if a fresh glass can keep him from drowning. ]

This is a private club. Why're you so skittish? [ better to answer his questions with more questions, as embry moves away, shotting his entire drink and grimacing as he sets the glass on a passing server's tray. ] You're right, I'm not ready for any kind of conversation. Go find somewhere to put your dick.

[ he walks briskly down a dimly lit corridor lined with rooms, the lights tinted a purple hue, and stops short at one, a flash of silvery blonde hair catching his eye. a wig, probably, but he doesn't care, because the woman he locks eyes with looks enough like greer to his gin-addled mind that he's happy to step inside. none of the rooms have doors, just a lavish bed, and it's the last thing he's concerned with, on the greer lookalike in seconds, kissing her against the wall while she yanks at the front of his trousers, loosening his belt to slip her hand around his hardening cock. embry groans, turning his head while she licks her hot tongue down the side of his throat, and his eyes flutter open, half-expecting ash to be standing there, but despising the little part of him that hopes that hawk followed. ]

[homosexuals]

Oh I couldn't possibly put them out any more. I'm sure these excursions are the highlight of their week.

[it's not meant to be judgmental, because god knows these men are trained and have seen much worse than a cocky kid half their age getting his dick sucked dry in some 50 shades enthusiast's wet dream. but the longer he can keep him from doing something stupid, the better - not just because this isn't exactly how he pictured spending his evening, but because hawk is old school even for his in between age and genuinely doesn't trust the likes of a place built on trading secrets. doesn't matter how secure their vault is - anyone can be bought. servers can be hacked. hard evidence can be infiltrated and stolen.

but right now he's focused on the likelihood that embry knows how to hold his liquor in the same way all pretty rich boys learn to do by fourteen, sixteen so they don't embarrass mommy and daddy at the estate during family holidays. but maybe tonight's an exception - making it more and more palpably clear this is drinking to forget, drinking to lose himself in something. drinking in a way that's surely going to end with hawk dragging or carrying him out of here, and fuck if that doesn't bring back some uninvited memories about a boy gulping scotch just to try and understand why hawk liked it so much, sitting in a joint not that much hazier than this looking for affection in all the wrong places. christ, they're nothing alike, and yet he still feels haunted by it all the same.

hawk steals back the cigarette while embry has his little tantrum, sucking down the rest of it and giving him a few seconds to storm off and confirm he does in fact want to be chased before he stubs it out into good baccarat crystal and rises in one fluid motion. the hallway beckons with just enough light to illuminate every misdeed happening inside the doorless rooms. men and women stretched out on the beds, on the floor, some on their knees - is that the ambassador from finland? huh. but embry's lithe figure is impossible to ignore even as he's plastered himself against a blonde in some shitty wig, looking like the kind of dreamed-up fantasy that any good old american boy would fall prey to.

of course he followed. not least of all because it's his fucking job and he considers himself still on the clock, but because maybe he's tired of watching embry run. so he steps inside too, setting his drink on top of an ornate dresser that must contain a multitude of sin in its drawers with a clink and folding his arms in casual observation.]

Didn't know you were much for blondes. [hawk tosses a mock-sympathetic look to the woman in question when she looks up in mild surprise at the visitor, shaking his head slightly.] No offense, I'm sure you're a doll.

[the only available seating is across the room, and he's waiting to gauge embry's reaction before making any additional moves inside and wondering if he's lost the plot himself here. call it a hunch, but fucking this faceless girl doesn't seem like it's going to get him what he's looking for. nothing in here probably is, and maybe it's the traitorous twitch of his own dick or the memory of what embry looks like splayed out for the taking - but hawk would like to think maybe he'd at least get a little closer than this.]

[hymen]

[ this should be the easiest thing in the world. it's the most familiar, to be sure — falling into a random but willing pair of arms, the push and pull, the give and take. sex is easy. or at least sex was easy before he met ash, before that tenuous door inside of him had been unlocked, before he realized just how much he wanted and needed. now his string of meaningless fucks are the joyless, desperate search of a hollow, ruined man. he thought, stupidly, that coming here might reignite something, might shove some broken piece of him back into place, but instead he has a greer lookalike pressed against his body and ash tormenting his mind.

and hawk across the room, watching it all. resentment abruptly wells in him like a freshly bleeding cut. hawk had fucked him when he was just like this, once, years ago. same song, different refrain. still pathetic.

he untangles himself from the girl, his dick throbbing in his trousers, feeling restless and spent all at once. she gets the hint, casting him an almost pitying glance before leaving the room in a haze of gold, and embry's chest tightens at how much she looks like greer in that moment, proud and strong and so perfectly able to follow instructions — everything suited to ash's tastes, and everything embry failed to be.

he stumbles to the bed and drops onto the pillows in a miserable heap, his liquor-guzzling abruptly hitting him. he feels too warm, his clothes trapping heat against his flushed skin, and when he slides his hand into his trousers to wrap around his cock, he finds his fingers slick with pearly wetness leaking from his tip.

maybe there's something about being drunk and sad that makes him horny. ]

You're gonna have to tell me your type. [ he watches the smoke curl from hawk's lips with a shameless stroke of his hand. ] My type is everyone. Life's easy for me.

[homosexuals]

[huh. maybe he's a little surprised - expecting embry to be ever the brat and fuck this woman in front of him like it was something to prove, to buck against the expectations he imagines everyone including himself has on the vice president. hawk tips his head towards the flash of synthetic, silvery platinum - in the kind of way that acknowledges a presence but isn't really looking out of interest so much as politeness. note to embry: buxom blondes, apparently not his type. christ, he wishes there was a fucking door here. but hawk doesn't budge an inch until she's gone, still leaning casually at the threshold as if he hasn't wholly decided if he's coming in or just going to remain a casual observer.

somehow embry manages to make even a drunken stumble look effortless and begging for debauchery, flopping unceremoniously in a heap of expensive fabric and tousled hair that hawk knows is asking for trouble, yet does nothing to discourage his own cock from slowly starting to fill out. hawk pushes up off the doorway, hands loosening as he takes the few steps forward with the own easy swagger and hips jutting forward in his stance at the edge of the bed. it's a real shame he can't see that gleaming wetness at embry's tip with his pants hanging loose around his waist and fly still buttoned up - but hawk still offers a lazy smirk, eyes glittering with the game of all this.]

So easy you're here playing with yourself. That part of your preference too?

[nothing to say about his own preferences, but he reaches forward in one smooth motion, slow enough that embry could stop him at any moment to circle around his wrist and bring it up to his lips, the flat of his tongue laving hot against embry's palm and tasting the salt and sweat with a low hum as he licks against it, wetting it even more as a courtesy for him. he lets go, tipping his head towards the tent underneath the finely woven wool of his fly.]

Go on. Get yourself out. You can thank me later.

[hymen]

[ he's aware of a few things. one, the fiery drag of hawk's tongue across his palm. two, the fact that hawk hasn't actually left yet, even if he's still fully clothed, still upright, still not sharing the bed. three, that it's an objectively bad idea if hawk does get in bed with him.

in this moment, he doesn't care. tomorrow, he might. ]

For the record — [ his breath huffs out of him as his wet hand wraps around his yearning cock, dark hair disheveled as he squirms erratically on the bed to wiggle his pants just so, freeing himself. ] I'm not listening to you. I was doing this anyway.

[ he is not taking orders from hawkins fucking fuller. in fact, he's not taking orders from anyone ever again, because he'd tried with ash and failed spectacularly. he isn't meant to be anyone's submissive. he isn't meant to be anyone's anything. ash had clocked him with scathing accuracy that night so many years ago in prague. he's sebastian flyte, meant to die drunk and alone. it seemed romantic at the time, and now it just seems sad.

his free hand snakes out, clumsily landing at hawk's hip. the heel of his palm drags down, past the neat folds of his trousers, right to the fork of his thighs, where he confirms his suspicions. ]

You can probably still go find that girl. [ he digs a blunt nail down the seam of hawk's fly, tracing the line of growing hardness he feels there. ] You can't have me.

[homosexuals]

'Course you were.

[it's the kind of placating tone one uses with a delusional child - sure you'll be president one day honey, yes santa claus is real. embry's not taking an order, jacking off alone and bitter was always the plan coming to the most elite sex club this side of the us, if not the world. even the most well behaved of boys have their slip-ups, though hawk is trying desperately not to think about the perplexed fissure between tim's brows in confusion the first time he'd given an order before realization sunk in and he'd scrambled to comply. this is decidedly not that - something tells him embry would sooner bite off his dick than jump at an order without proper incentive.

you can't have me, and that just makes hawk's dick twitch harder, gaze harder as he lets embry take his time feeling him out without more than a lazy flutter of his lips in another amused smirk.]

You know, blondes aren't really my thing.

[they're absolutely not. dark hair, pretty faces, boyish builds and corded muscle - he'll take that any goddamn day of the year. but having embry now would be a colossal mistake for their personal and professional relationship. not to mention he's drunk and might have some feelings about that in the morning - not exactly the kind of predicament hawk needs in his life now or ever. risk mitigation already failed in coming here, he might as well kiss his future promotion somewhere sunny and european goodbye if he sticks around now.

and yet.

he takes a step back to keep embry's wandering hand at bay, instead leaning down and reaching to wrap around the hand still lazily stroking at his cock. very carefully he moulds his own around it, slowing it down and applying more pressure with a torturous twist of his wrist at the tip. his voice is low, a molten murmur that would be better pressed against the shell of his ear to watch him shudder with it.]

Wouldn't dream of it.

You're just playing with yourself, that's all.

[hymen]

[ it's confusing in his bitterly dreamy haze of liquor and lust, the sudden absence of hawk's dick combined with the sudden pressure at his own. maybe hawk really does remember only exactly as much as embry does, a powerful but fragmented impression of violently stellar sex. maybe it really was just a slip. maybe hawkins fuller wishes for the past to remain just that, and embry should take a page out of his terrible book and stop flaying himself on the memory of ash's malice and love.

a breathy moan whispers past his teeth, the dark stain of his lashes fluttering shut as his hips rock into hawk's palm. it feels like nothing is separating them, like his own hand isn't even there. he imagines his straining cock squeezed right in hawk's unforgiving fingers even as he squeezes himself tight to prolong the fantasy, his other — now empty — hand curling into the sheets when it would rather be unzipping hawk's fly. ]

I know.

[ his mind is wandering to all sorts of carnal, filthy places, like hawk crawling between his legs and taking him into the serpentine heat of his mouth. ash used to make him really, really work to get his dick sucked, but god, it was fucking worth it every single time, and he hates that he's thinking about it now, because he's pathetically hard and practically weeping into his palm over absolutely nothing as if he's never, ever had sex before in his life. he loosens his grip on his cock and curls his fingers, hawk's hand like a shell around him. ]

Can you — [ he chest rises around a breath, his thumb stroking the edge of hawk's finger before slowly sliding back, damp fingers circling hawk's wrist. he holds him there for a tenuous moment, embry's heartbeat hammering in his ears but somehow only feeling the barest flutter of hawk's pulse against the pad of his thumb. his mouth stubbornly refuses to form the word please without being beaten, bitten, or ridden into submission. ] Hawk —

[ he switches their places, curling his trembling fingers over hawk's, tension spinning through him when he presses hawk's palm against his aching cock. a little mewl escapes him before his throat bobs in a hard swallow. ]

Harder. [ christ, even when giving an order it sounds like he's fucking begging. his fingers slide down to hawk's wrist again, the ghost of a touch, unsure and tender at once. ] You know how. The way you like it.

[homosexuals]

[sometimes it's good to take a moment and celebrate when his intuition pays off. he'd been 50/50 if embry would sock him in the face for a brazen assumption or mouth off in his favor. instead he gets something unexpected altogether - like the flip of a switch from that fiery, defensive and stubbornly self-destructive defiance to something that much more luscious, docile almost in the way he realizes he craves what hawk is offering after all. quite frankly, maybe he even needs it. and who would hawk be to deny him when he's asking so sweetly? the memories of that night aren't as hazy for him as they might be embry - no he wasn't stone cold sober, but he wasn't strung out on top of pleasantly blitzed from too much whiskey to drive away the pictures of tim's broken heart cracked in half between his hands.

he remembers the way embry bit at him, vicious enough to make hawk work for it. slamming that lithe body up against the pretty penny of wall paneling in some expensively convenient hotel, feeling those legs wrapping around him and the swell of his ass goading him with every grind to get his dick out and fuck him into submission. done and done - hands fisted in his hair, pretty face pressed up against filigree patterns with embry bent in half and fucked hard enough to leave bruises against his slim hips. he'd broken his own rule that night - not satisfied with just one round, another in the bed that had sheets with a sinful thread count. his clean exit was a little muddied that night, and at the time he'd just chalked it up to more stress to blow off, the loss of something that had been the most consistent thing in his life second only to his own hand.

his attention is rapt on the way the change envelopes embry - the softness of his touch, as if unsure, and christ, the noise spilling from his lips - his thumb lifts in a moment of exceedingly rare fondness to stroke against his wrist lightly from where he's reversed their positions.]

Yeah, I know exactly how. I gotcha - c'mere.

[his fist squeezes around embry, neither hard nor light nor rewarding - a wordless command, just wait as his other arm lightly pushes him upwards into a brief upright position, only so he can knee up onto the bed and replace the pillow, propping embry up against his chest. it gives him that much better of a view - his face, his leaking cock, and it lets him nose in hot against that perfect jawline and up against the shell of his ear, a warm exhale against it as he settles in comfortably. much better.

slowly his thumb shifts again, pressing firm against the tip and dragging the blunt edge of a nail through the pearly stickiness of his slit and down the tender line of his sensitive frenulum. there's a breathy laugh, enough of a bite to it that he's not gone totally soft as his fist finally curls against his thick shaft with just the right amount of pressure and pumps him in quick succession without warning.]

Christ, look at you. So fucking wet already.

You know, if you think I'm gonna let you cum easy, Embry - think again.

[hymen]

[ it's not what he's expecting, but then hawk vacillates between steady and surprising so often that maybe he should have been. he's a solid weight at his back, their clothes rustling, the heat of hawk's breath soaking his hair. it's better like this, hawk's grip more intimate, more relentless, though embry doesn't feel less vulnerable in this state, even if he's had plenty of practice being held by another man.

it's not hawk's maleness that bothers him, but the mysterious fucking unknown of all of this, that embry talks to all of his other partners and specifically works out who's going to be fucking who, and it's usually embry on top — except for when it came to ash, who toppled him into the dirt and has kept him there ever since, but that's not relevant right now. what's relevant is hawk's torturous touch, dragging a shudder out of him, that hawk is jacking his sensitive cock hard enough that he could spill in under a minute — but everything that comes out of his mouth makes embry remember that he's a goddamn asshole. ]

Shut up. [ embry squirms, caught like a fucking rabbit in a trap. it's impossible to miss the gleam of wetness slicking hawk's fingers, or his wrenching desire to lick them clean. ] You didn't even want to come here.

[ the accusation is leveled in a strained voice, between puffs of breath. he didn't want to come here and he sure as hell hadn't given much evidence in the way of wanting this before this precise moment. maybe it's all a game to hawk, and unfortunately his fingers feel too good for embry to care.

he tilts his head back, nestling in the crook of hawk's shoulder, throat bobbing in a hard swallow. should he beg? christ, he wants to, he just wants to fucking cum, but instead of speaking he tilts his mouth to lick a hungry stripe along the side of hawk's throat. ]

The faster you let me — [ his breath comes damp and hot against hawk's skin, his pleasure-addled brain trying to strike a bargain. ] The faster I can get you off, too.