#I'll practice and I'll get the hang on it | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

compress1repress · 3 days ago

Note

patrick loses a bet w art and ends up wearing a cute lil tennis skirt for a practice match, but it backfires horribly bc patrick is feeling his oats and art cant fucking focus for shit. like hes WHITE KNUCKLING the racket

"patrick. please stop"

"what? this is so breathable i should wear this every time 😋"

[the most deliriously horny hes ever been in his life] "please for the love of god STOP"

tashi walks by appreciatively and is like hey zweig. good form [nice ass]. maybe it gives her ideas and she goes online lingerie shopping. idk i just think his thighs would look good in garters. smudge some eyeliner on him while youre there idk. im just spitballin here boss

Woah. Clearly this got to me bc i received this five days ago and now I've written a 12k word fic that is only a part one. Like this doesn't even get into the eyeliner and garters of it all yet. I took some liberties but hopefully got the essentials :D hope it's okay!!

thank you for this ask <3 the part 2 will be started soon

-> AO3 VERSION

cw: nsfw, mdni, i think you can tell from the ask what might come up, just general filth, light feminisation, 12k word count

im sure I'll have more to say tomorrow but for now here it is:

“She won’t be back until this evening,” Art calls out to Patrick after hanging up the phone.

“Why not?” Patrick’s laid flat on his back along the length of the couch, taking up a very unnecessary amount of space.

“Lily wanted to sleep over so Tashi’s going to stay for dinner before she comes back,” he explains, joining Patrick in the sitting room.

Tashi had taken Lily to her cousin’s, she had two children, one Lily’s age and one a little older. Usually Art would go too, and he’d sometimes have to play with Lily because she got too shy. They’d send her off with the other kids but she’d come back ten minutes later, pulling at Art’s sleeve and he couldn’t say no. That’s probably why Tashi had even agreed to this last minute sleepover, it’s a pretty big deal that Lily actually wanted to stay over. It’s also why she’s staying for dinner, just in case Lily changes her mind.

Art hadn’t gone because Uniqlo was sending over some outfits for their brand deal, and he had to sign for the delivery. That was the reasoning they gave Patrick at least. Really it was because it felt strange leaving him in their house alone, not because they didn’t trust him there.

They couldn’t exactly drag Patrick along with them to every event, they knew that, and he must know that too, but every time he’s left alone for a while he gets weird. He gets sad. Art and Tashi don’t explicitly talk about it, but there’s a shared understanding between them.

“So, we’ve got like four hours of an empty house?” Patrick muses, clearly trying very hard to keep his face neutral.

“We’re not fucking,” Art smiles down at him.

“I wasn’t suggesting anything,” Patrick tries but Art raises an eyebrow at him, “alright, why not?”

“Tashi said so,” and she’d been very clear on the phone to Art about it.

“Okay, no fucking,” Patrick nods, a smirk growing on his face, “but she didn’t say anything a-”

“No blowjobs, no hand stuff, and no touching under clothes,” Art cuts him off, moving to sit on the armchair since Patrick is taking up all the space on the couch.

“Well, we don’t have to take our clothes off to have a good time,” Patrick sits up, looking at Art with a hopeful grin.

“No dry humping either,” Art can’t help but snort at the disappointment on his face.

“Jesus, she really thought this through,” he flops back down, sighing, a look of both frustration and admiration on his face.

“I think she just knows that you’ll be trying to find any possible loophole,” Art snorts, and he can tell Patrick is still brainstorming solutions, “c’mon, she just wants us to wait until she gets back.”

“Fine,” Patrick relents, “but if I do come up with an ingenious loophole, we’re taking it.”

If Art’s being honest he had also hoped Patrick would find a way around it, then he could probably get off now and just blame it on Patrick later. That way Tashi would probably punish Patrick and he’d get to fuck her while Patrick watches.

Instead he decides to exercise some restraint, because he wants to be good for Tashi. It’s not like she was being mean, she just didn't want them to use up all their energy before she got home. Plus, he’s not that manipulative, not all the time.

Although, really, if he knew for a fact that Tashi would believe that it wasn’t his fault, he’d start riling Patrick up now, get him to think he was the one seducing Art into breaking rules.

Unfortunately, he’s pretty sure both Tashi and Patrick would see right through him.

“Sure, but how about we just watch a movie for now?” Art suggests.

“Yeah, alright, movie mashup?” Patrick asks.

It’s this thing they used to do when they were young, a tradition that had come back now they lived together again. If they wanted to watch a movie they’d both just name the first one that came to mind then try to find a middle ground between the two. It was their way of assuring they didn’t have a fight because technically they’d both equally chosen the movie. Some days it worked better than others, and occasionally they named the same film anyway.

Although, once when they were fourteen, Art had picked A Bug’s Life while Patrick had wanted Weird Science; they decided The Fly sounded like a mashup of the two (insects + eighties science? They never said the method was flawless), which ended up being a little traumatising. Art still has a slight fear of fingernails.

“Okay, I’ll count down,” Art waits for Patrick’s nod, “3…2…1…”

Art says, “E.T.” at the same time Patrick yells, “Sharknado.”

“Sharknado?” Art questions through a laugh.

“It’s fun,” Patrick defends.

“What’s the mashup, then?” Art asks.

It only takes a few seconds, because they had so much practice, and because this one is easy. Spielberg and sharks, duh.

They smile at each other, both getting it at the same time, “Jaws.”

“That might be the most satisfying mashup yet,” Patrick grins, “but are you sure it’s not too scary?”

“We’ve both seen it before,” Art rolls his eyes.

“I’m just saying, maybe we should sit as close as possible, just in case,” Patrick is so obvious.

“Patrick, we’re not fucking,” he warns, again half-wanting Patrick to keep pushing.

“Fine,” he groans, “just innocent cuddling then, for old time’s sake?”

He guesses that is what they used to do on movie mashup nights, pressed up against each other in one of their single beds. Sometimes one of them would have an arm around the other, because it was comfier that way, and neither of them ever really thought twice about it. It was hardly the height of their physical affection with each other, they’d done more on tennis courts in front of everyone.

Art hasn’t answered so Patrick adds, “seriously, I don’t have a sexual ulterior motive.”

“I know, but now I have a feeling you’re trying to lure me out of the comfy armchair so you can take it for yourself,” Art’s lying, he just wants to see what Patrick will do.

“You’re so cynical,” he gets up walking over, “guess we’ll just have to share.”

“You won’t fit,” Art shakes his head, letting him try anyway.

Patrick attempts to sit in Art's lap but he’s so tall, and the armchair is pretty small. He sits on one of Art’s thighs, his legs curled up the best they can.

“There we go,” Patrick reaches an arm around the back of the chair to keep himself steady.

“You do realise your entire body weight is on my left leg,” Art complains.

“You want a more even weight distribution? I can do that,” he shuffles, bringing himself to sit directly on his lap, his back against Art’s chest.

Art’s hands immediately wrap around Patrick's torso without even thinking, “I’m not watching this entire movie with your ass directly on my dick.”

“It’s not my fault if you can’t control yourself,” Patrick shrugs, not so subtly pressing himself further against Art.

“I’m not worried about myself,” he bites lightly at Patrick’s shoulder, “but also, I won’t be able to see the screen with you sitting like this.”

“Okay, final offer,” Patrick moves again, attempting to find a position that is less compromising and also doesn’t involve crushing Art with his body weight.

Patrick's legs now hang uncomfortably over the edge of the chair, and when he tries to adjust by resting his feet on the arm, he practically knees Art in the face.

"Maybe if I try the other side," Patrick shuffles again, on his way to switch sides, he swings one leg over Art's thighs, facing him as he straddles him.

"This isn't working," Art grabs Patrick's waist to hold him there, "your legs are too fucking long."

Patrick can't hide his grin at the position they're in but he tilts his head towards the couch, "yeah, we're gonna need a bigger boat."

Art laughs, "you know that's one of those misquotes, like it's actually 'you're gonna need a bigger boat' not we're."

"Who fucking cares," Patrick teases, "and if you're going to correct me, you should at least be right."

"It's true," Art says with a little more passion than necessary.

"No, you're thinking of the Star Wars quote," Patrick's also getting genuinely into it, "where Darth Vader doesn't actually say Luke, I am your father or whatever."

"Yeah, that's another famous misquote, doesn't mean I'm wrong about the Jaws one," Art's hands squeeze tighter.

"Alright, let's bet on it," Patrick suggests.

"I'm not betting about a stupid movie quote," Art snorts.

"Because you know you're wrong," Patrick's got this smug look on his face that always works on Art.

"Fine, I bet you $100 that it's you're not we're," he shrugs.

"I'm not betting $100 dollars."

"Exactly, because you know that you're wrong," Art grins, satisfied.

"No, I'm not betting that because it's got no stakes for you," Patrick explains, then leans in a little closer "and it's boring."

It successfully pisses Art off enough that he needs to prove a point. He can be creative and interesting.

Suddenly it hits him.

"Give me a second," Art's reaching his hands around Patrick at his thighs, one hand below his ass and the other at the small of his back, standing up bringing Patrick up with him.

He briefly lifts him up, turning around and then depositing Patrick back onto the armchair where he lands with a bounce.

Art watches the way his legs slightly spread as Patrick looks up at him, his eyes a little darker.

"What are you looking at?" Art asks, acting like he has no idea.

"Nothing," Patrick regains composure, smiling, "stop stalling. What's the bet?"

“I have the perfect thing,” Art walks to the corner of the room, where an opened package rests, “you know that delivery I signed for?”

“Yeah?” Patrick confirms, curious.

It was the Uniqlo delivery he had signed for earlier, and whether it was because they had just sent the whole new line, or if it had been intended for Tashi he wasn’t sure, but part of the order had been a tennis skirt. It was too big for Tashi, and not her style either way so he wasn’t sure what to do with it - until now.

“This came in it,” he holds up the skirt, it’s white and pleated so it flares out slightly, a tasteful logo embroidered at the hem.

“A skirt,” Patrick sits up, clearly Art’s got his attention, “what are you thinking?”

“I’m thinking that the loser has to wear this skirt while we play some tennis,” Art watches Patrick grin in response, he examines the skirt, “looks about your size.”

“Really, I think it’s more your size,” Patrick seems thoroughly amused, walking over to Art with a hand outstretched, “so, loser has to wear this the whole time, one set?”

Art shakes his hand, “deal.”

“Honestly, Art, I wouldn’t worry, your legs will look great in that,” Patrick points to the skirt.

“I don’t have to worry, because I am 100% certain that I’m right,” Art is actually probably 90% sure at this point, but no way is he backing down from a chance to get one over on Patrick.

“Alright, pull up the clip and prepare to eat your words,” Patrick grins, eager.

They use Art’s phone, eyes glued to the little screen, skipping to the crucial moment. They watch him, terrified look, cigarette in mouth, turn to captain Quint and then: ‘You’re gonna need a bigger boat.’

“Fuck off,” Patrick knocks Art’s phone out of his hand, but Art doesn’t even care. Victory feels so sweet.

Art musters up all the condescension he can, smiling at Patrick, “honestly, Patrick, I wouldn’t worry, your legs will look great in that.”

Patrick just flops down onto the couch groaning.

Art laughs again, “what do you think you’re doing? We’ve got tennis to play.”

Patrick looks up at him, eyebrows raised, “what? Right now?”

“When else are we going to have a free house?” Art shrugs.

"Fine," he gets up again, "bet I'll still beat you anyway."

"Not sure you're in a position to be making any more bets," Art grins

They both get changed, Art lets Patrick get dressed in the bathroom, joking about ‘giving him some privacy’. Patrick goes reluctantly, but he doesn’t complain, one thing about Patrick is he’s very loyal to the rules of a bet. Art is having too much fun, it’s maybe a little childish but it’s leftover from when Patrick would always win these type of things, so he thinks he’s allowed to gloat just a little. Patrick would be doing the same in his position.

Art waits for him by the back door, both of their rackets in hand, eager to get going. When Patrick emerges, Art doesn’t even look, not properly, all he can concentrate on is teasing Patrick.

“It’s actually pretty comfortable,” Patrick comments.

“Yeah, I’m sure you’ll get a nice breeze,” Art just jokes back, “c’mon.”

He holds an arm out, gesturing for Patrick to go out first.

Patrick slips past him out the door, snorting and grabbing the racket from Art’s hand on the way, “chivalry isn’t dead.”

“I pride myself on being a gentleman,” Art watches Patrick give an uneven curtsy.

“Or maybe you want to walk behind so you can look at my ass,” Patrick calls over his shoulder, walking towards the courts.

Art chuckles again but once Patrick has fully turned around and he’s not focusing on being as smug as possible about winning the bet, he finally actually looks. At first he just notices how mismatched the outfit is, the black sleeveless top not going at all with the white of the skirt.

Once his eyes reach the skirt though, he can’t stop looking. It’s something about the way the hem brushes against the back of his thighs, just barely long enough to keep everything covered. If there was a gust of wind or if Patrick bent over, even a little, he would probably be exposed. Something swirls in Art’s stomach.

Nope. This is not going to be a thing. It’s just because he knows they’re not supposed to fuck, and anything forbidden becomes instantly hotter. Or maybe it’s a power thing. Yeah. He’s just getting horny over Patrick losing a bet and being forced to do what Art said. Still, to be careful he avoids looking the rest of the walk down.

He’s concentrating so much on not thinking about it that once they get to the courts he obviously doesn’t hear Patrick asking him a question.

“Hello, Earth to Art,” Patrick’s waving his racket, then smirking, “anything in particular making you so distracted?”

“Nothing, I was just wondering if I should take pity on you,” Art keeps his eyes firmly at Patrick’s face, “how about we just do one game instead?”

Patrick looks at him suspiciously, “oh no, a deal’s a deal, I’ll play the whole set.”

“It’s your funeral,” Art shrugs, mustering up the best performance he can but Patrick is still eyeing him. He forgot how good Patrick is at reading him. It’s really fucking annoying.

Art serves first which should be good because he plays better that way and his serve is a strong point. His first serve is strong, and Patrick has to move quick to hit it back, lunging sideways to reach it. The movement makes the muscles in his thighs tense, fully on show for Art to see.

“0:15,” Patrick calls out.

Art has entirely missed his return. It’s so stupid and it doesn’t even make sense. He’s seen Patrick’s thighs before. He’s literally seen him naked. He’s always worn shorts whilst playing, often incredibly tiny shorts that showed just as much skin as this, and sure the sight of it sometimes turned Art on but never like this.

It’s just new, that’s why, he hasn’t seen Patrick in this before so it’s a little distracting that’s all. It’s fine. This is meant to be Patrick’s punishment for losing.

Art ignores Patrick, just focusing on the ball in his hand and the service box. It works, he hits the ball hard and fast into the top left of the box and Patrick tries and fails to hit back.

“Shit,” Patrick grumbles, swinging his racket in annoyance. He does a quick turn to head back to baseline and the speed makes the fabric of the skirt float up a little. What the fuck is that?

“What the fuck are you wearing?” he can’t help but yell.

“Um, do you have amnesia or something?” Patrick calls back.

“I don’t mean the skirt, I mean,” he gestures with his racket, “what’s underneath it?”

“Oh, yeah, well my boxers were longer than the skirt so I thought I’d just borrow some of your panties instead,” Patrick sways his hips, “much more fitting, don’t you think?”

“They’re not panties, they’re briefs,” he defends, “and you can’t just steal my underwear.”

He doesn’t care about that, he’s just mad about how much it’s getting to him and it’s not like he can yell at Patrick for being too fucking hot right now. No, that would give Patrick too much satisfaction. But really, it’s unfair. The skirt and now the underwear, Art’s underwear that look even tinier when Patrick’s wearing them.

“It’s not stealing, it’s sharing. We already share a toothbrush so I figured it wouldn’t matter,” Patrick shrugs.

“We don’t share a toothbrush,” he snaps but then Patrick’s got this amused look on his face, he’s messing with him, “fuck off.”

“Hey, if it bothers you this much I can always just take the underwear off,” Patrick suggests.

“No,” Art replies quickly, because he wants him to keep wearing the underwear or because he’s scared about what would happen to him if Patrick was fully naked under the skirt, “let’s just keep playing.”

They do keep playing, and Art loses the first game, badly. 15:40. He just can’t focus. His eyes drawn to Patrick, the way the skirt fits, the hem at his legs. This delicate floaty material, and the thick expanse of his thighs, the dark hair against the white of the skirt. He keeps looking, making sure that he’s still covered whilst also desperately hoping to get another glimpse underneath. The game is both slow torture and incredibly quick, he’s not sure he’s ever lost one so fast.

It’s Patrick’s turn to serve now, which is even worse. He throws the ball too high so he has to jump to hit it, which is definitely on purpose. It makes the skirt float up, revealing the tight black underwear again, the bulge definitely bigger now, the fabric straining more. Or maybe Art’s just projecting. Either way he can’t react in time. 15:0.

“Art, you do know you’re supposed to hit the ball back, right?” Patrick mocks, “have you forgotten how to play or is there something on your mind?”

“I’m just tired,” Art gets back into ready position, “probably getting bored because you’re taking so long to serve.”

Patrick grins especially wide and Art gets the sense that he’s messed up, only encouraging Patrick further.

Patrick throws the ball up to serve, but ‘accidentally’ throws it backwards so it lands behind him, rolling to the back of the court, “oops, I better go pick that up.”

For his own sanity Art should look away but he’s not thinking clearly anymore, just watching Patrick reach for the ball. As he bends over the hem rises, first just brushing lightly, exposing a few more inches of skin. Then a brief moment when he fully bends over that Art can see his entire ass, his own underwear against Patrick’s skin.

This is the problem, it’s the perfect in between. Showing enough skin that Art can’t help but be turned on, but also covered enough that Art has to use his imagination. Imagining standing behind him right now, Patrick trying to pull the material back over himself but Art would push it back up, ripping down the underwear and just fucking into him.

“I hope I didn’t show too much, I’d be so embarrassed if you saw my ass just now,” Patrick’s laughing, and Art hadn’t even realised he was stood up again.

“I wasn’t looking,” Art insists and it just makes Patrick chuckle harder.

“Nice grip,” Patrick comments, looking at Art’s hands.

Art looks down himself, both hands on his racket, gripping so tight his knuckles have gone white. He loosens the grip, has to actually shake his hands with how stiff they are from holding that tight.

“Just serve,” Art orders, and Patrick does.

Art loses this game even worse. 40:0. Not a single point.

Patrick tries to serve again, “it’s my fucking serve,” Art snaps, not wanting anything to prolong this stupid bet any longer than necessary. Maybe he should just give up, lose on purpose so it can just be over.

“Oh, my bad, that game was so quick I didn’t realise I’d already won,” Patrick knows exactly what to say to keep Art playing, there’s no way he’s throwing a game against Patrick.

Art tells himself that he’s going to play better this game, and he actually manages another point before he loses his concentration again.

Patrick’s prancing around, enjoying himself too much, talking about how he has “so much more movement in this skirt,” or how it’s just “so breathable.”

It wasn’t supposed to go like this. This was supposed to be humiliating for Patrick. It should be him embarrassed, and distracted while Art won the set with ease. Patrick unable to hit back, spending the game self-consciously pulling the skirt down and begging Art to take mercy.

Instead, Art’s the one stood all flushed and embarrassingly hard, unable to get more than a couple points. It’s 15:40, and Art’s just hit his first serve into the net. If he misses his second, Patrick will win yet another game.

Patrick is swaying his hips, twisting side to side so the skirt flies up a little, “honestly, I don’t know how people who wear skirts don’t spend the whole time twirling around.”

“I need to serve,” Art tries to say but Patrick either doesn’t hear or just ignores him.

“This is so great, only downside is I can’t tie my shoelaces without giving everyone a show,” he starts to bend down, as if testing out how much he can without the entire skirt riding up.

The side profile is just as bad as being behind, the skirt slowly slipping up, showing more and more of the meat of Patrick’s thigh. Before it can get any higher, Art cuts in.

“Patrick,” he’s aiming for stern but it comes out all pleading, a borderline whine as if begging him to stop.

“Problem?” Patrick is so pleased with himself, but he stops bending over.

“Just get into position,” he just about manages to not add a please to it.

“Which position would you like?” Patrick asks, dripping his words in suggestiveness.

It’s so stupid and so completely the opposite of subtle, even for Patrick’s standards, but it’s like opening Pandora’s box. Like giving permission for his imagination to run wild.

Art can’t take it, all these thoughts rushing to flood his brain. He wants Patrick on his knees, skirt fanning out all pretty across his thighs, eyes all glassy as Art fucks into his mouth. He’d stroke at Patrick’s curls, he’d swipe a thumb under his eye collecting the tears that form when Art pushes down his throat and he starts gagging. Art smiling down at him repeating, ‘it’s okay, I know you can take it’.

Maybe he’ll order Patrick to bend over, hands on the net, and Patrick will be so smug about getting him to finally crack until Art spanks him with his racket, wiping that smirk off his face. The black of Art’s underwear on him, the white of the skirt pushed up, then the pink of his ass. The visual makes him a little dizzy.

Fuck, he could sit in the chair on the sidelines, have Patrick in his lap like earlier. Art would pull himself out of his shorts, push Patrick’s underwear to the side and split Patrick open on his dick. Art would keep a tight arm around him, Patrick’s back pressed tight to Art’s front, holding him up straight as Patrick’s body goes weak with pleasure.

He wouldn’t even fuck him, not properly, he’d just keep him held there, tight and warm around him. The skirt would drape over them both, covering it all, so they could pretend like Patrick was just innocently sitting on his lap. Only they would know that Art’s cock was actually inside him, pressing up against that bundle of nerves. It wouldn’t fool Tashi, not for a second, but maybe she’d get so horny she’d forgive them for breaking her rules.

Or, most humiliating is the way Art kind of just wants to push him down on his back and kiss him all over. Especially his legs. He wants to lick all the way up them, he wants to bite at his thighs, he wants to savor it all. Because Patrick always pisses him off, and Art often gets the urge to shove him down and teach him a lesson. He’s still pissed off now, but this time he’s got this need to make him feel good. Make him moan all pretty as Art shows off his skills, and Patrick’s thighs would be right on either side of his head.

It’s the least filthy idea he’s had this whole time and yet it feels the most embarrassing. This thought swirling in his head where he’s not even thinking about getting himself off. Not right away at least. Just focusing on having Patrick, skirt and all, underneath him, pink all over from pleasure and Art’s the one making him feel that good.

Art’s at his breaking point, he doesn’t care if Patrick is actually ready, physically can’t look at him to check, instead he just serves. The energy thrumming throughout him makes him hit too hard, the ball soars past the service box and Art loses the third game.

“Double fault,” Patrick calls out, overjoyed, “I guess you are tired? Maybe we should take a break?”

“Perfect,” Art mumbles out, making a beeline for one of the chairs at the sidelines.

He slumps down, taking a sip of water and staring straight ahead. He’s aware of Patrick moving next to him but he doesn’t turn, not until he feels Patrick get to the floor out of the corner of his eyes. He’s too curious, and when he looks he sees that Patrick is on all fours. Of course he is.

Instead of sitting on his chair like he’s supposed to, Patrick’s on his hands and knees reaching underneath it.

“What the fuck are you doing?” Art has to ask.

“Can’t find my water bottle,” Patrick reaches further under the chair, his back arching making his ass stick out further, skirt riding up. Art’s jaw clenches.

He’s pretty sure Patrick hadn’t even brought a water bottle, and either way, they can both clearly see that there is absolutely nothing under that chair. He can’t even bring himself to yell all this at Patrick.

“Just, take mine,” he snaps, holding it out, “and stop fucking doing that.”

“Thanks, I’m really thirsty,” he gets off all fours, leaning back to rest on his knees instead as he takes the bottle from Art.

Art doesn’t know if this position is better or worse than the last. Patrick tilts his head back, holding the water bottle above himself and squirting it into his mouth. Art watches the movement of his throat as he swallows, and the way some of the water misses his open mouth, dripping past his lips and down his neck. Worse. Definitely worse.

“Can you just sit normally,” Art watches Patrick put down the bottle and start to change position, but Art dreads what would be next so he changes his order, “or actually, how about you don’t sit on the floor at all?”

Art had meant for Patrick to go sit on his own chair, so that Art can just stare ahead and not think about him, and then maybe he can actually calm down. That’s what Art had intended, so of course that’s not what Patrick does.

"Fine, I should stretch anyway," he gets up, walking over to Art and putting a foot up on his chair.

"Patrick," he warns, his hands clenched tight at his sides, trying to ignore how close Patrick’s thigh is to his face.

"I need to put my foot somewhere sturdy," he shrugs, "my hamstrings get tight if I don't stretch."

"Nobody has ever stretched like that," Art's words are lost on Patrick, who ignores them, lunging deeper.

The expanse of his thigh is right next to him, Art’s practically drooling, he wants to get a mouth on him so badly, to just bite at his flesh. He can’t be the one to actually give in, he doesn’t want to give Patrick the satisfaction and he needs to be able to shift the blame for breaking Tashi’s rules.

From this angle it would be so easy to slip a hand up the skirt, feel at Patrick’s crotch, see if he’s as hard as Art is.

Speaking of that, Patrick looks down, “Jesus, no wonder you were playing so bad, that thing looks painful,” he eyes the way Art’s dick strains in his shorts, “I could help with that.”

“You need to stop,” Art’s hanging onto his last threads of restraint.

“That’s another thing about this skirt, it’s great for hiding a boner,” Patrick removes his leg and Art, foolishly, thinks he might actually be relenting.

Instead he returns, this time a knee on either side of Art’s thighs, straddling him. He sits up, hovering above Art's crotch, nothing actually touching Art’s dick yet.

“No grinding, remember,” Art reminds Patrick, so that he can tell Tashi, ‘I told him the rules, he just didn’t care’.

“I’m not,” Patrick says, but he lowers himself so that their crotches are now definitely pressed together.

Art’s hands snap up to grab his waist, holding him still, “don’t.”

“I’m just helping you cover up, look,” he tilts his head down, his skirt draped across both their laps, “perfectly innocent now. Nobody would know any different unless…”

Patrick trails off, his hand reaching for the hem, slowly dragging the fabric of the skirt upwards. It reveals that underneath Patrick definitely is just as hard as Art is, both of them pressed up together.

“Considering breaking any rules yet?” Patrick teases and Art is officially finished.

He moves one hand to the back of Patrick’s upper thigh, just below his ass, and the other to his lower back. Standing up, he once again lifts Patrick with him, and his legs instinctively wrap around Art’s waist.

“Where are we going?” he asks into Art’s ear.

The answer is: not very far. Art is beyond desperate, he makes it a few steps before lowering Patrick down onto the court on his back. Art drapes himself on top, hips fitting between Patrick’s open legs. He finally, finally, brings their mouths together, kissing sloppier than usual.

Patrick just follows, happily licking into Art’s mouth, pulling back briefly to ask, “are we allowed to kiss?”

“Yeah, kissing’s fine,” he says into his mouth.

“You could’ve told me that before,” Patrick bites at his lip.

“I knew you’d take advantage,” Art bites back, a hand slipping up the side of Patrick’s thigh, up under the skirt. Fuck.

“Thought we weren't allowed to touch under clothes?” Patrick asks.

“It’s not like I’m trying to undress you, it’s not my fault if my hand accidentally slips underneath a little,” Art can’t help himself, his hips pressing forwards against Patrick.

“Fair enough,” Patrick chuckles, then adds, “but you definitely said no dry humping.”

“It’s fine as long as we don’t finish,” Art’s making it up as he goes and Patrick nods in agreement, happy to go with however Art wants to bend the rules, as long as he’s the one bending them. Patrick’s pretty much off the hook now and Art can’t even bring himself to care.

He only pulls back when he realises he’s already getting close, and he just said they couldn’t get off like that. It’s fine though, he has other plans. He moves down Patrick’s body, everything speeding up and his mouth is at his knee, licking up and up his leg, stopping before his crotch. He does the same at the other side, then goes for the inner thighs, biting at the flesh. Patrick takes in a sharp inhale.

“Surely that’s not part of the rules,” he comments, propping himself up on his elbows, looking down at Art.

“You’re still dressed aren’t you?” Art just raises an eyebrow at him like it’s an obvious point.

“Yeah, I guess it’s fine,” Patrick breathes out.

Art goes further up the thigh, his head now underneath Patrick’s skirt, those thighs either side of his ears. Exactly where he wanted to be. The fabric covers him so that Patrick can’t see when Art suddenly licks a stripe up his dick, over his underwear.

Patrick gasps, “fuck,” then, “what about the no blowjobs rule?”

“It’s not a blowjob. As long as it’s through the underwear, technically my mouth isn’t actually touching you,” Art reasons, and it isn’t a particularly sound argument but neither of them care.

“Makes sense to me,” Patrick agrees.

Art licks again and he feels Patrick relax, laying flat against the court again. God, this is fucking ridiculous. His head up Patrick’s skirt, licking him over his (Art’s) briefs, on the fucking tennis court.

He moves more vigorously, tonguing all over, from his balls up the shaft to the head. He lets himself drool, getting the underwear all wet so it slips against Patrick’s dick even smoother. Patrick’s moaning quietly, shifting his hips, trying to push himself more against Art’s face. He lets Patrick essentially hump his face, keeping up his tonguing movements, occasionally sucking instead.

Then Art sucks at his tip through the material and Patrick gasps again, “shit,” he props himself up, pulling the skirt back to look at Art all desperate, “can’t you just blow me for real?”

“We’ve been following the rules so well, no point stopping now,” Art smiles.

“I know, but I need something more,” Patrick bargains, “c’mon, what about a little fingering? Just slip in one finger, she’ll never know.”

“She’ll be able to tell if we lie,” Art argues, “so if we behave now, then when she asks if we followed her rules we can say yes, and it will be true.”

Well, truer than if Art actually did suck Patrick off properly.

“I know, I just-” Patrick cuts himself off with a moan as Art licks at him again.

“We’ve been so good,” Art keeps licking between speaking, “as long as you keep the underwear on it’s fine. You can finish like this, can’t you?”

“I don’t know,” Patrick breathes out.

“Shouldn’t even be doing this, I just couldn’t help myself, you looked so good,” Art rambles, “the skirt was driving me fucking crazy.”

“Art, please,” not asking for anything in particular, just wanting more.

Art starts sucking through the fabric again, close to the head but not quite. Patrick whines, his hips bucking up.

“You need to be good,” Art reminds him, “you can cum like this.”

This time it isn’t a question, it’s an order, and Patrick manages out an “okay.”

Art presses harder with his tongue, swirling it around the most sensitive part. Patrick’s groaning, breathing quickly.

“I’m close,” he gets out, strained.

Art’s about to praise him but he can feel Patrick bringing a hand down, trying to get into his own underwear and touch himself. Art intercepts it, grabbing it and holding it down against the court.

“What happened to being good?” Art asks.

“I’m almost there, I don’t know if I can,” he’s squirming, trying to get friction.

“You can,” Art assures, sucking again, “tell me you can.”

“I can.”

Art focuses on licking at the tip again, it has Patrick thrusting up against him uncontrollably, and moaning louder. He switches to sucking, hard, directly at the head and now Patrick whines.

“Fuck, Art, shit,” his hips trying to move away from the intense feeling at the same time they try to press further into it, “I’m so close, I’m there, I’m going to-”

“You gonna cum?” he asks, a little smug, “you gonna be good, and finish in your panties for me?”

“Yes, yeah,” Patrick nods furiously, “for you.”

“Good girl,” spills out of Art, and then he’s bringing the tip back in his mouth. He sucks and swirls his tongue around it, and Patrick is moaning, his hips stuttering as they thrust up in sudden shock and pleasure.

Art feels a wet warmth spread across the fabric as Patrick orgasms.

He pulls back, observing his work. Patrick's chest rising up and down, quickly. He's flushed all pink, hair sticking to his forehead. He can see the way Patrick's underwear are damp with his own cum and Art's spit.

The sight is almost enough to make him forget what he just said. Almost. He feels himself turn pink, hot all over.

"What the fuck," Patrick flings an arm over his face, still breathing heavy, and Art's slightly worried he's crossed some sort of line.

Then Art watches a smile spread across his face, Patrick peaks out from behind his arm, grinning, "so you admit they're panties?"

Art laughs in relief, "fuck off," then looks Patrick up and down, "they are when you wear them."

He lifts himself up to sit properly, staring at Art's lap, "want me to help you get off?"

Art considers for a second, but if he rambled that embarrassingly just from getting Patrick off, he's scared of what he'd say if he was about to come himself.

"I shouldn't," he decides, "and you should probably shower, get rid of the evidence."

"Why do I need to hide anything, I thought you said this was all above board?" Patrick smirks.

"It was," Art defends, standing up and reaching a hand out to help Patrick, "but it's not going to look very innocent, that's all."

Patrick takes it, letting Art drag him into a standing position, laughing, "didn't feel very innocent either."

Art shrugs, feeling a little more relaxed now he's at least partially got it out of his system. He's still hard but once he has a cold shower he'll calm down.

They decide to use the shower in the clubhouse next to the court. It's a small building, basically an oversized shed, with a few lockers, a bench, and a smattering of spare tennis equipment. It only has one shower, and they usually just head back to the house to clean up.

It feels more convenient to use it this time, to get Patrick cleaned up and Art calmed down before they grab all their stuff to head back to the house.

Patrick tries to lure Art into the shower with him, "it's so much more efficient to do it together, and better for the environment. Do you even care about the polar bears at all?" but Art knows it's a test of temptation that he would definitely fail.

Maybe if he can go without an orgasm he'll be able to twist the blame on Patrick still. If the need arises. Hopefully they can head back to the house and be waiting innocently on the couch when Tashi returns, so neither of them will have to take the blame for anything.

Patrick hasn't mentioned what Art said, maybe he didn't hear it and Art's certainly not going to ask him about it.

He sits on the bench, facing away from Patrick showering because he's meant to be calming down. Except now he's thinking about it. Good girl. And Patrick coming right after. Where the fuck did that even come from?

Art had almost finished himself, his hips pressing against the rough of the court. It was kind of humiliating, that he got off on it so much. He hadn't even intended to say it. A familiar combination of shame and arousal swirl together in his stomach.

That fucking skirt.

He never should've made that bet.

It's just he didn't anticipate getting so worked up. He can't let Patrick wear that again. He also can't go without it. He got one thing out of his system but his head is still brimming with ideas.

He's supposed to be calming down but his dick strains as hard as ever against his shorts. Jerking off should be fine right? If he has no contact with Patrick whilst he's doing it? It might be bad for his health to hold it in, Tashi can't be mad at him for caring about his health, right?

Yeah, it makes enough sense in his head that he's already bringing a hand over his crotch, sighing in relief.

Patrick turns the water off, and Art hears him step out.

Patrick could always help out as visual aid, as long as he doesn't touch Art. The skirt is still here, and really it's only fair Art gets to cum too.

"Maybe I should get off," he voices, "it might be suspicious if I'm hornier than you are."

Patrick snorts like he knows it's bullshit, but he indulges nonetheless, "I wish you'd said this before I showered but sure, that sounds right to me. What can I do for you?"

"You can't touch me but maybe I can just look at you?" Art suggests, uncertain, still pressing himself over his shorts.

"You want me to just stand here while you stare at me and jerk off?" Patrick laughs in amusement, "oh, Art, I'm flattered."

"Not just stand there, I thought maybe you could put it back on?" He asks, hopeful and trying to hide his shame.

"Put what back on?" Patrick plays dumb.

Art groans, "the fucking skirt, and you know that's what I meant."

Patrick grins, reaching for the skirt where he'd chucked it on the floor unceremoniously.

"Well, I'm not putting those panties back on, so it will have to be commando this time," Patrick tells him, stepping into the skirt and pulling it up, zipping once it's around his waist.

"That's fine, that's, yeah, fine," Art struggles out, rubbing harder at himself and he needs more, "it's fine to touch ourselves, don't you think?"

"You know the rules, you do what feels right," Patrick just shrugs, not giving Art the easy way out.

He tries to just keep touching himself over the fabric but Patrick is there, only in the skirt and it's setting him alight again. For some reason the skirt feels more scandalous than just staring at him fully naked.

Art finally pulls himself out of his shorts, precum dripping from his neglected dick. Patrick eyes it appreciatively.

"Should I be posing for you?" Patrick asks, half joking.

"Stand with your hands against the wall," Art says too quick, knowing exactly what he wants.

Patrick looks delightfully surprised at how fast he answers, and about how specific he is. He follows the order with a grin, turning to the wall of lockers, resting his hands against them, slightly bent as he sticks his ass out.

Fuck. That was a bad idea.

Before his brain catches up, Art finds himself behind Patrick.

"I'm still not touching," Art reassures, even though Patrick hadn't asked.

He stands an inch behind him, dick in hand, staring at the way the skirt falls over his ass. He strokes himself slowly, trying to keep his distance. God, he wants to push the skirt up and jerk off until he comes all over Patrick's skin and the skirt at the same time.

He slides his hand up and down his shaft a little faster, “want to cum all over your ass like this.”

Patrick hums, “and that’s allowed?”

“It’s not like we’re doing anything to each other. You’re standing and I’m jerking off, two separate things,” Art explains, “if when I cum, it accidentally lands on you, we can’t blame ourselves. You want it don’t you?”

“Yeah,” Patrick breathes out, “still wish you hadn’t made me shower first.”

“Hmm, you are really clean right now,” Art looks him over, skin still damp from the spray of water.

“And you want to dirty me up again, right?” Patrick teases.

Art does. Badly. He wants to get him all filthy. He also wants something else. Art's mouth is watering again. And Patrick had just showered. He's so clean right now.

He moves a little closer.

"You just said no touching," he smirks at Art over his shoulder.

"I won't," Art promises, "not with my hands."

He lowers himself to his knees, slowly.

"What are you doing?" Patrick's breath hitches.

"It's fine, I'm only using my mouth, and you already came so you're not getting off," Art justifies, reaching a hand to push the skirt up.

"Right," Patrick nods, "except you are literally using your hands right now."

"It's fine as long as I'm not touching your dick or fingering you, and you've got the skirt on so you're basically dressed," Art's definitely waffling at this point.

"I'm starting to think you might not actually understand these rules," Patrick teases, "the excuses are getting real flimsy, dude."

"Who fucking cares?" Art finally gives in, bringing one hand to his own dick as his other goes to Patrick's ass, spreading him open so he can get his tongue at Patrick's rim.

Patrick moans in shock, swearing under his breath. Art swirls his tongue around his hole, jerking himself off at the same time. He doesn't know what it is about the skirt, but it makes him have this crazy urge to get his mouth on Patrick any way he can. Suddenly becoming the hottest thing he can imagine, just pushing the skirt away as he rims Patrick underneath it.

“Fuck, you never do this,” Patrick sighs.

“Yes, I do,” Art pulls back to reply, a little indignantly.

“Not like this,” and Patrick’s sort of right.

Art has done this a few times, got his mouth on Patrick’s hole, but usually as a way to tease him. To get Patrick worked up before he fucks him, if he’s feeling like he wants to drag it out. If Tashi wants to make Patrick squirm, she’ll direct Art into it as she touches Patrick everywhere except where he really wants.

This is different. He doesn’t even have a goal in mind. It’s not like Patrick's going to get that desperate since he already finished recently. It’s just Art couldn’t fucking help himself. Without thought he just wanted to sink to his knees and taste him, make Patrick feel good just because.

“You don’t have to,” Patrick tells him, “might be a while before I finish.”

“I know,” he does, and he doesn’t care, “I just want to, need to.”

He licks fervently, a circle around then presses in with the tip of his tongue.

“Fuck,” Patrick gasps out, not quite hard yet but Art’s sure he’s on his way.

Art keeps going, tonguing in and out, pushing past the tight ring of muscle.

“Art,” Patrick is shaky, “I don’t think we can justify this one to Tashi.”

“It’s fine, it’s fine,” Art repeats, giving him a bite to the ass, “she won’t know.”

“I think that’s the wrong answer,” a voice calls out and Art falls backwards trying to move away from Patrick, tucking his dick back in his shorts even though it’s too late.

“Shit,” Patrick removes his hands from the wall, turning to the doorway, “Tashi.”

She’s standing there, hands on hips, looking fucking gorgeous, obviously. She’s got a navy dress on, it’s one of the more casual ones in her collection, it buttons down the front and the hem sits just below the knee.

“Who’s responsible for all this then?” she glares between them both.

Patrick doesn’t say anything but Art immediately defends, “it was Patrick.”

He turns to look down at Art, “you fucking snake.”

He can’t feel too guilty, it’s not like Patrick had been silent out of loyalty to Art, it’s just that he was never as bothered about defending himself, never really trying that hard to get out of trouble. Often wanting to do the opposite, in fact.

“Snake, yes,” Tashi speaks slow, looking at Art, “and a fucking liar too.”

“I’m not,” Art tries and it makes Tashi laugh.

“Really, because from where I was standing it seemed like Patrick was the one who had enough sense to think about the rules, even with your tongue in his ass,” Art can see Patrick grin a little at Tashi’s words, “meanwhile, you were the one saying ‘who fucking cares?’”

Shit. Had she been standing there that long?

Art can’t even say anything, just sitting there, boner tenting his shorts still.

“Although, I’m sure he’s not entirely innocent either,” Tashi walks over to Patrick, feeling at the skirt, “why are you wearing this?”

“I lost a bet,” Patrick shrugs at her, amused now that the surprise has worn off.

“Why do I get the feeling that you made a bet that you would purposely lose, because you knew he’d cave seeing you in a skirt?” Tashi says to Patrick.

He smirks, “no, I wish I'd thought of it but this was also all him.”

Tashi for a moment seems impressed, looking at him vaguely proudly before her face shifts back to stern.

“That’s two strikes, Art. You’re not doing very well today, are you?” she tilts her head at him, “what did you think you were going to achieve by intentionally sabotaging yourself?”

“I didn’t mean to, I thought it would be funny, I didn’t realise it would make me so…” he trails off, “I just wanted to embarrass him.”

“Right, because Patrick is famously easy to embarrass,” she snorts, and she’s absolutely right, he doesn’t know what was going through his head to think that Patrick would actually feel any type of shame from wearing a skirt, “and you seriously thought you wouldn’t get turned on by it? Are you stupid or just lying again?”

Art just ducks his head, face flushed.

Patrick laughs, “I think he was genuinely surprised about how horny he got.”

She looks down at the skirt again, thumbing the fabric, “so, what exactly were the rules for this punishment?”

“Loser has to wear it for one full set,” Patrick informs, letting her play with the material.

“And how far did you get?” Tashi asks, knowing that there was no way they actually managed it.

“Three games before Art was shoving me down on the tennis court and having his way with me,” Patrick grins, and Tashi’s eyes light up too.

She eyes Art again, “so you can’t even follow your own rules, huh?”

Art still doesn’t know what to say other than, “I tried.”

Tashi ignores it, “and you’re telling me that you’d already disobeyed me by fucking before that little scene I walked in on.”

“We didn’t technically fuck,” Patrick starts.

“We were good, we followed the rules,” Art interjects.

Tashi looks to Patrick for confirmation, he nods, “yeah, we were fully clothed, no touching, just his mouth.”

“I’m pretty sure I banned blowjobs,” she raises an eyebrow.

“It wasn’t a blowjob, I had underwear on the whole time,” Patrick smiles wide, “and Art didn’t even cum.”

“Jesus Christ,” she pinches the bridge of her nose, and looks over at Art, “and you still haven’t cum yet?”

He shakes his head and she nods in approval.

“That’s good,” Tashi thinks for a moment, “I think you should both finish the bet.”

“What?” Art asks from the floor.

“A chance for you to redeem yourself, prove that you can stick to your word,” she watches his blank face, “c’mon get up.”

He scrambles up quickly, still uncertain, “are you sure?”

“Yep,” she says, curtly, turning to Patrick, “you get dressed, and then both of you get out there and finish playing the full set.”

Patrick grabs the shirt he’d been wearing earlier, putting it on immediately, “alright.”

Tashi eyes his skirt, “when I say ‘get dressed’, that includes underwear.”

“Well, mine are kind of ruined from earlier,” he looks way too pleased with himself, “I’m happy to go without.”

She shakes her head, biting her lip, “no, you really should wear underwear with a skirt like that.”

Then Tashi does something which makes Art’s entire brain short circuit. She reaches under her dress, pulling down her panties, stepping out of them gracefully as she takes them off. She holds them out to Patrick, “here, you can borrow mine.”

What the fuck.

Art gets at least some satisfaction from the way Patrick seems just as affected as he is, Patrick stumbling on his words, “I, how, what?”

“Go on, you put them on the same as any other pair of underwear,” she’s smiling big, extremely pleased with their reactions, slightly condescending in her tone.

“Are they going to fit?” Art asks, and it feels like his ears are ringing with how dizzy it’s making him.

“It doesn’t matter,” she faces Patrick, “you’ll make it work, yeah?”

He nods at her, still in a slight daze. Taking the pair and stepping into them, he’s not as graceful as Tashi, needing to put an arm against the wall for balance. He manages to get them on but the skirt covers them before Art can get a proper look.

“Show us,” Art can’t stop himself saying.

“Not yet,” Tashi orders, and Art sighs.

He tries to imagine it. The pair isn’t Tashi’s tiniest or the most lacy in her collection, they’re what she would consider casual, but Art would still call sexy. They’re navy, matching her dress, the front is made of cotton which is a good thing, much more forgiving to stretch over Patrick’s cock. God, he must be straining against it still. The material covering his ass is lace, just about see through. Art can’t fucking do this.

Tashi is walking to the doorway, Patrick following, but Art just stays planted still.

“Tashi,” he pleads, “I can’t.”

She looks back at him, not giving him any pity, just smiling at him, “you can, and you will.”

In other words: you made your bed, now lie in it.

Standing on the other side of the net from Patrick feels even worse than before. He was already horny beyond belief before even stepping foot on the court and now he’s got Tashi sat on the sidelines watching them both. Patrick seems to have recovered from the shock and is now back to moving around the court like he fucking owns it. Like he’s never felt hotter.

Art feels like he blacks out the entire first game, Patrick is serving and he’s trying to hit back but honestly he’s not sure he’s even on the planet anymore. He keeps getting glimpses of the blue lace under the skirt. It had felt impossible when it was Patrick wearing his briefs, but it being Tashi’s panties is infinitely worse.

Again he needs to bend Patrick over, push the panties to the side and fuck him. He needs to get under Tashi’s dress and eat her out. He can’t work out the logistics of it, how he can fuck Patrick whilst also having Tashi in his mouth. Maybe if he lays down on his back, Patrick could ride him and Tashi could sit on his face? But then he wouldn’t be able to see Patrick in a skirt falling apart on his dick. He wants and needs and can’t have.

Patrick in panties. Patrick in Tashi’s clothes. Patrick in lace. Tashi sat with nothing on under her dress.

He can’t breathe. He needs to be put down.

The score is 40:0, and Patrick’s throwing the ball up to serve.

Art tries, he really does, he actually manages to hit the ball but it sails right into the net. Patrick wins another game.

“Nice form,” Tashi is calling out at him.

“Thought you hated my serve,” Patrick raises an eyebrow at her.

“I do,” she very obviously rakes her eyes up and down Patrick’s body, biting her lip as part of her performance. It’s a stupid innuendo. Art’s dick twitches.

They both grin at each other. How can they be so playful about this while Art feels like he’s going to bite a hole through his cheek.

“You’re a real pervert, you know that?” Patrick points his racket at her in a joking accusation.

“I don’t know what you mean,” she shrugs, slouching back in the chair, spreading her legs wider, keeping her eyes on Patrick.

“See how she objectifies me,” Patrick’s addressing him, but Art can’t possibly respond, he just stands there looking between them like a deer in the headlights. It makes them both laugh.

“Woah, it really is that bad,” Tashi tilts her head at him in amusement, “it’s your serve, Art.”

He nods, taking a ball from his pocket. He can do this. He clings onto the guise of playing a tennis match like a lifeline. Just think about tennis. Nothing else.

He plays minutely better, but still loses, 30:40 this time. He probably only gets those points because now Patrick’s distracted too, trying to catch a glimpse up Tashi’s dress.

Patrick’s up to serve again, and if he wins this game it will all be over. Art will be put out of his misery. He’ll also lose to Patrick, six games to his zero.

Again he tries to pull it together, and Tashi’s been calling out to him too, encouraging him. Except it doesn’t work because everytime he looks over at her he just starts thinking about how she doesn’t have any panties on. Then when he looks away he’s got Patrick in front of him, making him think about how Patrick does have panties on. It’s honestly torturous.

He manages to get it together for one second, remembering Patrick’s backhand is a little weaker than his forehand. He hits a ball to Patrick’s left, and it works because his backhand isn’t precise enough, and the ball flies out as he hits it too hard. 40:15.

Tashi must notice what he’s done, she gives him a little nod of approval.

“Patrick, I want you to win on a backhand,” she calls out to him, “you’ll get a treat if you do.”

Fuck, okay. If Patrick wins the next point, he’s won the set. If he wins it with a backhand, he’ll also get a reward. Art has to at least try to stop it.

Patrick serves, and Art puts all the will he has left into hitting it back. It’s a powerful shot, it flies towards the back corner on Patrick’s right. He’d have to run pretty fast to get it anyway, and he’ll definitely have to be fast if he wants to make it a backhand.

Inexplicably, Patrick manages it, darting sideways quick enough to get on the other side of the ball, hitting a backhand. The speed of his movement and the force of him skidding to a stop makes the skirt fly up. Art is fucked. The ball soars towards him, just about making it over the net, landing in before bouncing right past Art. It’s over.

He watches Patrick drop his racket, turning to face Tashi, bowing to her. She grins, beckoning him with her finger. Art just watches.

Patrick stands in front of Tashi, she smiles at him, “give me a twirl.”

He snorts, but does it, spinning around so the skirt fans out, “cute,” Tashi comments.

Cute is one word for it. Art has the urge to start gnawing at Patrick’s leg.

“So what’s my treat?” Patrick asks, and Tashi spreads her legs wider, pulling up the material of her dress a little further.

He gets the idea, lowering himself to his knees. Art watches Patrick kiss up Tashi’s legs, pressing his lips at the soft brown of her inner thigh. He doesn’t know who he wants to be more. To have his lips against Tashi or to have Patrick’s against his own thighs. Or maybe he wants a secret third thing (to plow into Patrick from behind and watch as he eats Tashi out).

Art grinds his teeth, making himself ask, “can I?”

He doesn’t ask for anything specific. Doesn’t know what he’s allowed. Just wants something.

“You can watch, for now,” Tashi gestures for him to come closer.

For now. He can work with that.

Art doesn’t know where to stand, next to Tashi so he can look down at the sight of Patrick on his knees? No. He moves behind, getting to look at Patrick’s ass, and to see Tashi’s face.

Patrick adjusts his position, leaning forward into Tashi so he’s more on all fours than just his knees, except his hands grab at her outer thighs pulling her cunt closer to his mouth. When he finally gets a tongue on her, her eyes flutter shut for a second, before opening to look at Art. Again he’s paralysed with making a decision. He can’t pick where to look.

He eyes Tashi’s face, relaxing with pleasure. Then trails down to Patrick’s head buried between her thighs, and then down again. The whole reason he’s in this predicament in the first place.

The skirt does nothing to cover him up now, and Art stares at the lace clothing his ass, also not doing much to keep Patrick’s skin hidden. From this angle he can see the way Patrick’s dick spills out of the fabric.

Art’s fists clench at either side, not allowed to do anything but stare. He enjoys watching a bit, it’s an infuriatingly arousing view, but that’s the problem. His patience has already been worn down to knife’s edge, he’s spent all afternoon inundated with arousing views.

Tashi must see the desperate look on his face but she doesn’t say anything, she just puts a leg over Patrick’s shoulder, and a hand on the back of his head. She sighs at the new angle.

It’s Patrick who takes pity on him, without even seeing his face.

He pulls back from Tashi to ask, “can Art join?” and when she hums uncertainly he adds, “he did come up with the skirt idea.”

Tashi looks at Art, then down at the skirt, then up again, “yeah, alright, he can join.”

Art moves quick, getting to his knees behind Patrick. He’s about to pull his shorts down when Tashi stops him

“What are you doing?” she asks and he just stares at her blankly. He doesn’t really know, other than that he needs his dick to touch something right fucking now, “did you think you were going to fuck him? We don’t even have any lube. And did you think you’ve earned that?”

“I don’t know,” he sounds desperate but he’s given up caring.

“Keep it in your pants,” she orders, “you’re allowed to dry hump and that’s it.”

He furrows his eyebrows at her, and she gets stern, “don’t give me that look. You’re lucky I’m allowing anything.”

Fine. It’s something at least. And he can grab Patrick’s ass as much as he likes. He does just that, rubbing his hand over it, feeling the lace, and the warmth of his skin. He brings his hands to Patrick’s hips and presses his crotch against him. Sighing in relief at the pressure against his dick, imagining that he was actually sinking inside him right now.

He can hear the sounds of Patrick’s tongue lapping at Tashi’s pussy, it makes him thrust his hips forward. The movement pushing Patrick forward too, and Art can’t stop thrusting against him.

“Art,” Tashi scolds, “stop that.”

“I can’t,” he scowls and she glares at him, he slows down, “fine.”

He grips Patrick’s hips tight, probably leaving fingerprints, keeping Patrick still as he rubs against him. Still thrusting but now Patrick doesn’t move with him.

He could probably cum like this, could do it very easily. It just doesn’t feel fair. Yes he broke some rules but he never even got to finish from any of it, so really, doesn’t he deserve a bit more than to pathetically hump at Patrick’s ass.

Tashi’s letting out more and more sighs, and he can hear Patrick moaning against her, trying to push back against Art, fighting against his strong grip.

“C’mon Tashi, he clearly wants me to fuck him,” Art pleads.

“And whose fault is it that you can't?” she asks with an arched brow, “if you had prepared then maybe you would’ve brought lube down here.”

“I’ll go and get some now,” he bargains, although he’s not sure he could pry himself away.

“No, you don’t deserve it, you broke the rules,” she smiles, mean, “if you had behaved then maybe you would be inside him right now.”

“If I had behaved, we wouldn’t even be in this position in the first place,” he snaps.

Tashi doesn’t say anything back because it’s sort of true. If Art had been good there would be no skirt. No tennis court sex at all tonight.

Patrick pulls back, “just one finger, I need something.”

“Fine,” Tashi relents, bringing his head back against her.

She gives Art the go ahead with her eyes, and he’s sucking at his own finger, wetting it. He stops humping to pull the blue panties to the side, circling the damp finger before pushing in.

Patrick groans, and the vibration of it makes Tashi moan quietly too. Art keeps pumping the finger in and out, still humping at Patrick, but just more at his thigh now rather than his ass. It’s better than how he pictured it, Patrick dressed like this, clenching around his finger and moaning into Tashi’s cunt.

Patrick doubles his efforts, licking at her faster, and Art can tell she’s getting close. He’s just so good like this, taking Art and pleasing Tashi. He can tell that Patrick wants more from the way he’s pushing back on Art’s finger. Tashi’s eyes flutter shut from pleasure, and Art takes the opportunity to slip another finger into Patrick. He would've gotten away with it if Patrick didn't let out this loud, surprised, moan.

Tashi’s eyes open, first looking down at Patrick, then at Art. He smiles at her innocently, but she notices the two fingers now pumping inside Patrick.

“Did I say you were allowed to do that?” she asks, rhetorically.

“He just looks so good, he deserved it, I could tell he needed it,” Art defends, not stopping his fingering.

Art’s a little shocked when Tashi laughs.

“God, what is it about this skirt? It’s got you misbehaving, and it’s got Patrick being good,” she strokes a hand through his curls.

Art raises an eyebrow, because Patrick hasn’t exactly been good. Just better than Art.

Tashi smiles, correcting herself, “alright, well it makes you want to treat him like he’s good anyway.”

Yeah. Yeah that’s exactly it.

Patrick must start sucking at her clit because she’s making these telltale signs that she’s close, her hand gripped tight in his hair.

She grinds her hips up against his face, “fuck, makes you want to call him a good girl,” then she’s shoving Patrick’s face against her, trembling as she comes.

Oh fuck. It takes everything in him not to come too. Tashi breathes out, slumping against the chair, almost boneless.

Tashi pulls Patrick away from her before she gets overstimulated, resting his head against her thigh. Patrick grins, “you guys really are similar.”

“What?” Tashi looks between them both, this alert searching look she gets when she’s missing information, Art stays silent so she looks down at Patrick again, “I don’t get it.”

Art fucks his fingers into Patrick faster, hoping to stop him talking, he moans but carries on.

“Art called me that too,” he says all smug, “turned bright red after.”

Art flushes.

“Yeah, he looks pretty red right now too,” Tashi gives him this delighted look, “this skirt thing really has you fucked, huh?” which is unfair considering she’d also said the same thing.

“Patrick’s the one who came immediately when I said it,” Art argues.

“That’s not a shock, I’m only human,” Patrick chuckles, “what’s interesting is how much the two of you apparently want me to be your good girl.”

He wonders if Tashi feels as embarrassed as he does. Probably not.

“Art you can take your dick out,” Tashi’s telling him, and he wastes no time removing his fingers from Patrick and pulling his shorts and underwear down at once.

“Look, I can take a lot, but there’s no way I can take Art’s dick right now without some lube or a hell of a lot more stretching,” Patrick jokes.

“He’s not going to fuck you, I just want him to come on you,” both boys moan a little, “knew you’d like that.”

Art doesn’t know what to do with himself now he can actually touch his dick against Patrick, he just grabs his hips rubbing his length on him. Already so close.

“You can touch yourself too, Patrick,” Tashi strokes at his hair, and Art watches Patrick reach into his underwear, pulling himself out.

He starts stroking himself quickly, “I’m almost there, already.”

“That’s okay, you’ve been so good already,” Tashi says sweetly and it makes Art shiver when she says good, on edge and full of shame, “I think Art’s close too.”

She just keeps talking, “look how pretty Patrick is for you, how he presents himself for you,” she says to Art, “what else can he do to get you to come?”

“I don’t know,” Art can barely think, reaching a hand around himself now.

“Arch your back a little more, Patrick,” she orders, and Patrick does, sticking his ass out even more, “and do you want him to come at the same time as you?”

Art nods frantically, not really understanding why Tashi's giving him what he wants all of a sudden.

“C’mon Patrick, you’ve got to hurry up if you want to come at the same time,” she leans down to whisper, but Art can still hear, “I know Art’s the one losing his mind but don’t think I haven’t noticed how much you get off on it too.”

"I get off on the fact that me wearing a skirt and panties gets you both off so much," he insists.

"Right, you get nothing out of this," She smirks down at him, "doesn't affect you at all to think about Art coming on you while you're in my lacy underwear, and a fucking mini skirt."

Patrick moans pressing his face into Tashi's thigh.

"I should buy you your own set, I think you'd like that, maybe get Art to pick it out" she then looks up at Art, "Patrick would wear it for you, he'd be so good."

And Art gets what Tashi's doing. She's trying to get him to say it. Art's not going to, he has a different idea instead.

"You guys are fucking obsessed with getting me in girls underwear," Patrick manages to say, "think Art would die if I had a whole outfit on."

"No, I'd be ready next time," Art keeps jerking himself, now determined, "I'd fuck you properly, and Tashi would get her strap and she'd fuck you too."

Patrick groans again and Tashi's eyes snap up to meet Art's, an understanding passing between them.

"I think you're the one that's obsessed, Patrick," Tashi looks down at him, "we could do it just like this, except I'd shove my dick down your throat while Art takes you from behind."

Patrick bites at Tashi's thigh.

Art lets go of himself, reaching around to replace Patrick's hand with his own, jerking him off. He can't bite at her anymore, his mouth falling open.

"We'd ruin you, ruin all your outfits and keep buying more," he leans himself over Patrick, jerking him off and grinding at his ass again, "and you'd let us, wouldn't you?"

"Yeah," Patrick moans into Tashi's lap, "gonna come."

"Art are you close too?" Tashi checks.

"Yeah, just want him to finish first, won't come on him until he does," Art keeps stroking.

"Patrick, you want to come?" She asks him.

"Already fucking said I did," Patrick grumbles out.

"Come on, don't be rude, I know you want to be good," she strokes his hair, "say it to me."

Patrick keeps his mouth shut.

"Patrick I'm going to stop touching you if you don't say it," Art warns, slowing down his movements.

"Want to be good," he mumbles into Tashi's thigh, it's a start but not quite what they want.

Art speeds up again, looking at Tashi, she whispers to Patrick, "a good what?"

He groans, shaking his head as much as he can in this position.

"C'mon Patrick, I know you want to finish, I can get you over the edge if you just tell us what you are," he squeezes Patrick's dick not moving his hand.

Patrick still doesn't speak, so Art swipes a thumb over his tip, it's too sensitive and Patrick moans but he won't come from it, not without Art jerking him at the same time.

Tashi watches with a grin, as Art swipes again making him whine. It's too much.

"What are you?" Tashi asks, and Art thumbs the head once more.

Patrick whimpers, then "I'm a good girl," he gasps out, and Art immediately resumes jerking.

Patrick thrusts forwards, spurting all over Art's hands, drooling in Tashi's lap as he trembles with it.

Art brings the hand, covered in Patrick's fluid to his own dick. He pushes up the skirt a little, then it only takes a few swipes and he's coming. White ropes shooting over the skirt, the lace underwear, and Patrick's ass.

"Fuck," Art gasps out, the sight of it all sending another wave of pleasure through him, a little more dripping out of him onto the blue panties.

Art falls back catching his breath, and Patrick just stays with his head against Tashi. Probably hiding his face. There are some things which still embarrass him.

Him and Patrick both breathe deeply for a while, Tashi looking pleased with her work.

She eventually breaks the silence, "what was the bet even about?"

Patrick mumbles out, "I don't remember anymore."

Art laughs, "it was about Jaws."

"Movie mashup?" Tashi asks.

"Yeah," Art smiles, "honest to God, we were just going to watch a movie while we waited for you."

Tashi laughs too, "we should watch one now."

"Mashup on three?" Patrick lifts his head up finally, then counts down, "1...2...3..."

Patrick picks Rocky, Art goes for Little Shop of Horrors, and Tashi lands on Bride of Frankenstein.

It's a weird selection, with a somewhat perfect mashup.

"Rocky Horror Picture Show?" Tashi suggests.

"It is on theme," Art snorts.

"Yeah, maybe we can get some inspiration for Patrick's next outfit," Tashi teases and Patrick groans.

"This is unfair, does nobody remember how embarrassing it was that Art got so horny he forgot how to play tennis?" Patrick complains.

"No, all I remember is you calling yourself a good girl and drooling in my lap over a handjob," Tashi jokes.

Art enjoys the fact that the teasing is off him for now, even though he knows he's probably never going to be able to live down the worst set of tennis he's ever played in his life.

All because he thought it would be funny to force Patrick to wear a skirt.

They put on the movie, but end up falling asleep on the couch before it's over. Patrick goes first and before Art drifts off himself he can practically see the cogs turning in Tashi's head, plotting something.

He can't help but feel they've both given her a secret weapon, a cheat code to get them under her thumb. He smiles to himself as he's pulled into deep sleep.

----

an: um. idk what the hell just happened guys. sorry about this one, hope you enjoyed :) part 2 with tashi buying patrick some proper lingerie.... I will start working on that

#truly cannot understand the length of this one!!!#im starting to overthink this so im just posting it. can't look at it anymore #i did have a lot of joy writing this though... of course i did it's patrick in a skirt #and i love art's insane brain yayy #challengers #throuple #smut #fic #starts out artrick then ends throuple #don't worry. i would never leave out tashii

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cellarspider · 2 days ago

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Star Wars: The Old Republic, and the Return of the Weirdest Guy

I've done a couple of tounge-in-cheek analyses of SWTOR backstory recently, and frankly, it was mostly an exercise in nostalgia: finding old drawers in my brain full of dusty old factoids, and dumping them out into essay-shaped monstrosities. Bioware released SWTOR on the 20th of December, 2011. There are kids who were born that day who'll be entering 8th grade this year. There was only one version of Skyrim when it came out, and it was only just over a month old!

SWTOR's development team has since been rehomed at Broadsword Online Games, which has meant a reduced budget while allowing the lights to stay on, and story updates to slowly continue. I've been content to keep splashing around in the base game, vaguely planning on getting a character or two through to the current storylines, but never actually getting there.

And then Star Wars: Celebration happened last week, and I am now forced to consider the unthinkable: getting my ass in gear and playing the new stuff, because I saw this.

This appears to be Darth Jadus. It's been thirteen real, actual years since he was last seen. Follow me below the fold, and find out why I'm obsessed with this man who once faked his death to get out of attending work meetings, and because his coworkers weren't reading his manifesto.

Content warnings before we begin: much as I love Jadus as a villain, he is a villain. He's a cult leader and he's in the running for Worst Dad of SWTOR, which is saying something when his competition includes a guy who had 1,300 years of practice to perfect being a really terrible dad.

Note that there will be additional jokes and analyses in the image alt text, which is where wild tangents build their nests.

Spoilers for the entirely of the Agent plotline, Act 3 of the Jedi Knight plotline, and various moments throughout the expansions. Assume Wookieepedia links contain unmarked spoilers for literally everything. I'll be covering the context of Jadus among the Sith, his plotline, some of my own speculations as to his motivation, and how things may go, now that this SWTOR cryptid is crawling out of the ductwork to be spooky in person once again.

Just to give you the flavor of this guy, I'll sum up his plot as succinctly as I can, right at the top: Jadus anonymously funds and arms a terrorist group and sends them to attack himself, seemingly dying in an extremely extra fashion. He's also outfitted them with undetectable biomechanical death satellites, and while those are finishing up their unholy maturation, he's taking a vacation to drive two hundred of his followers face-meltingly insane. His daughter will keep anyone from noticing this by being such a galaxy-class disaster that Jadus can just hang out for a few months.

He plans to return from the dead on the day the superweapon satellites are unleashed, taking control of then to wipe out the terrorists and simultaneously destroy his rivals' power bases, forcing them to acknowledge him and his horrible invisible space-laser children. He will then lead the Empire in whatever weird direction he feels like, while making sure not to piss off the immortal, eldritch Sith Emperor too much.

If he's allowed to win, he'll give the Sith Empire a light dusting of eldritch cult vibes before he realizes the game has entered Act 3: as an ambitious secondary villain, he's a prime target for the role of "gets killed by the end boss to show how serious the situation is". He evades this fate by simply leaving the game entirely. He then proceeds to lurk for thirteen real life years, and twenty-three Star Wars ones, before showing up to jumpscare the galaxy again. If that's actually him, we don't have it totally 100% confirmed yet. It could just be someone with a similar taste for being gigantic and wearing that one mask.

I intend to describe the hows, whys, and WHY?!?s of Jadus in a tasteful yet unhinged essay below.

So.

Let's take a moment and step back, to look at what made the Sith into compelling villains in the first place: Darth Vader. Growing up with the original movies, there was barely any detail about him, just electrifying little glimpses of a deeply scarred body and mind beneath the mask.

Really, when you set aside everything else that's come after, what do the originals tell you? I mean, in the original movie, "Darth" was clearly intended to be Vader's first name, and by the end of the trilogy nobody actually knew what a Sith was, or why Vader was Dark Lord of them. There was almost a timeline where the Sith ended up as little lizard assassin commando guys that thought Vader was a really cool dude.

What made Vader special was the experience of witnessing him on screen, brought to life by the physical performance of David Prowse, and the vocals of James Earl Jones.

The two of them combined created a performance with a gravitas that has yet to be matched by anyone else who's put on the suit or done the voice. There's a subtlety to the body language of Prowse and the restraint Jones employs in creating the image of Vader.

And let's be clear, Vader is still the untouchable standard, and attempts to recreate him are doomed to fail. But what about making something new and transfixing in other ways? Well, SWTOR has been quite good at that.

The core of SWTOR, anyway.

The voices and designwork do, anyway.

SWTOR is a Bioware game, and back in this era, that meant one thing: characters moving and gesturing in ways no human would ever attempt, unless they were imitating a malfunctioning animatronic.

These are stock animations that they'd used for years, and they're a cost-saving measure. Each game, storyline, and scene has an animation budget. That's because building a moving piece of art is hard, and doing so inside a computer means you either have to build literally everything from scratch, or you reuse assets that are already available. SWTOR is a game with literal thousands of voiced characters, in a new setting they couldn't reuse art assets for. Writing for the game began in 2006, while the first Mass Effect and Dragon Age games were also in development. There was no way you were getting custom animations outside of key scenes.

And so that leaves you with a good old Bioware tradition: what's your favorite stock animation? The ones I'm most fond of are "person exits a conversation by calmly taking two steps backwards before turning around, like they're a car pulling out of a parking spot", or "person kind of spins both their hands around in front of them, like they're at a loss for words on how to describe watching their buddy walk like an automobile".

So, those are the ground rules for experiencing a Bioware game of this era: everybody looks like a dork in the in-game cutscenes, but the voices and writing carry the day, so eventually you tune out the wiggles. If a character's really lucky, they'd get actual cinematics. If they're Darth Malgus, this is so he can get repeatedly kicked in the face and still look cool doing it.

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[Video Description: The Disorder cinematic trailer, in which Malgus forces a Jedi padawan to confront how her master made the choice to abandon her brother, leaving him to an unknown fate. I've shown this before in other essays, and damn it, I'll show it again. This shit is fantastic. Malgus is in fine form, in terms of combat, manipulative villain behavior, and getting smacked into walls. You have no idea how often that happens to him. It appears to be one of his hobbies at this point.]

Malgus is the closest SWTOR strays to Vader, and the main point of comparison for all other Sith in the game. Voiced by Jamie Glover, he's a seething menace who's maintained a strong presence throughout much of the game's thirteen year run. He rebels against the Sith orthodoxy, making a play to rule them, and eventually rejects them entirely. He's even taken on more of the Vader cybernetics over time, as his life of conflict has broken more and more of his body, while leaving his mind intact. His vocal performance is very distinct, but in tone is probably closest to Vader's early portrayal in A New Hope: more open malice and contempt.

And if you're lured into the supplementary material like tie-in novels and such, you get his whole backstory, and it really doesn't improve things. You don't need to know who he was, or hear his inner monologue. His outer monologue gives you what you want without ruining the mystique.

Then there's the Sith Emperor himself, whose transcendent evil is brought to life by the voice of Doug Bradley, an actor best known for his lead antagonist role in the Hellraiser series. I'll admit I've only ever personally heard the Emperor in full form once, due to my meandering path through the game. But when I did? Every ridiculous thing about the game fell away, because his restrained performance carried the moment so well.

And when expansions and books start explaining more of what his deal is, it's often subtractive to his menace. Thanks in no small part to how much of that is tied up in Revan, a figure beloved by fans in Ye Olden Times, whose SWTOR-era canon is more of a "we don't talk about him" kind of affair. If you want the blow-by-blow, just check out the fifty-thousand word Wookieepedia page for Revan and feel your soul slowly shrivel up over the course of an hour or so.

But when you meet the Emperor again after Revan's dead, now manifesting in another body and with a different voice, you might hear him refer to Darth Jadus as "the finest Sith my empire ever produced."

And when you encounter Jadus, should you make the very good decision to try the Imperial Agent plotline, you might see why the Emperor thought that.

Darth Jadus is voiced by Stephen Rashbrook, who's mostly done narration and voiceover for documentaries. I'd guess that the most popular things he's been in have been this game, and the Black Mirror episode Bandersnatch, where he also does narration for something. The only credit that made me sit up and say "Oh shit! He was in that?" was the PBS/Channel 4 documentary series Secrets of the Dead, which careens between sensational goofiness and actually some of the best damn portrayals of archaeology on TV.

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[Video Description: Season 2, Episode 2 of Secrets of the Dead, featuring Stephen Rashbrook's narration about a skeleton found near Stonehenge. For those who haven't heard his voice before, this is your baseline that will make things even weirder in a minute. If you do know Jadus already, this itself feels weird as hell. I keep waiting for him to wander off into a sermon on the spiritual benefits of existential terror. It's quite good at digging into the details and techniques used in archaeology, circa 2000. There's a few bits eyebrow-raising bits in the narration, But this particular skeleton has not been reexamined since this same analysis, fitting with theories still accepted today. Also, fun bonus fact in these papers: the previous carbon dating they mention in the documentary was paid for by a dentist who thought the skeleton was King Arthur's. /Description]

I've no idea if Rashbrook will be returning to the role for this surprise return, but he contributes a lot to making Jadus a transfixingly strange figure among the Sith. As with Doug Bradley, restraint is the key element, which wanders between menace and ardent, trance-like conviction.

And sometimes he says just the strangest, most unhinged things you've ever heard.

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[Video Description: From YT user Armored Productions. The second time you encounter Jadus, wherein he basically opens with a Dark Side tone poem, reveals the outline of his entire secret plan in such a cheeky way that it just sounds like the worst salvia trip in the universe, mentions his flagship is named the Dominator, and then cranks up the BDSM vibes to maximum by ordering you to kneel for some sort of ritual purposes. And no, that last bit is never explained. We don't know why he wants you to kneel, or if it was supposed to change something in you. What I do know is that if you refuse to kneel, he gives you a chance to change your mind. If you remain defiant, he hits you with so much Force lightning that the game kicks you out to the menu that asks "you got your ass kicked, do you want to revive here or slink back to the nearest med center?". As far as I can recall, this is the only cutscene that can do this. Jadus hits you so hard you stop being cinematics and start being game mechanics. /Description]

And here's where I let up on the (slightly) serious tone. Because I love this performance dearly, but wow. Wow. He really just says all those things, doesn't he.

"I believe in the democratization of fear," the giant space-gimp tells you, and you believe he believes that, whatever the ass that means.

Because at that point, you really don't know. He's not slowing down to explain this to you, because you are, as far as he's concerned, unimportant. He's not yet aware that you're the main character of the plot line. No, really, I'm only barely joking. He figures it out eventually, but at the moment he's got something else on his mind: screwing over his coworkers.

As I previously described, the Sith Empire largely runs under the control of twelve unhinged cybergoths known as the Dark Council: turnover is often quick and violent, as rival lords vie for Council seats. Those that survive longer than a few years are uniformly the most powerful and canny among the Sith. They are the most competent at foiling their rivals, maintaining their influence, and administering their respective spheres of influence that underpin an interstellar Empire.

And most of them hate at least one part of that job description, and are constantly scheming on how to undermine the others so they can be left alone to do the parts they actually want to do. How dare everyone else make this difficult for them. How dare Darth Vowrawn be having a good time doing all of this.

Darth Jadus, when the story begins, is one of these Dark Councilors, and he doesn't hate it as much as the rest. He hates it more. He hates it weirder. And despite never engaging in the weekly backstabbery of the Council, the rest all know he's got something long-term cooking. It's just that nobody's been able to figure out what it is. They are correct, but nobody seemed to realize how seriously he was committed to sparkle motion.

I already previewed his invisible biomechanical laser satellites at the top, but withheld any of his reasons for doing that. So... why is he doing that?

Jadus has gotten fed up with the Dark Council, and with Sith in general. For years, he's been something of an outcast among them for radical ideas like "aliens and slaves are also people" and "Sith aren't the specialest little critters in the universe" and "we should stop fighting each other all the time", and the actual radical ideas like "everyone regardless of circumstance or ability should experience the benefits of the Dark Side, such as its limitless abyss of hatred and terror".

Yes, this man is a socialist, but specifically for the redistribution of bad vibes.

So far, his attempts to convince other Sith have been a failure, but he's done surprisingly well among certain parts of the general public. He runs Imperial Intelligence, which is the only part of the government where aliens can find employment, and Force-blind people can rise to the top ranks.

In fact, all of Jadus' personal advisors are Force-blind. He's completely purged both Intelligence and his retinue of Sith. He's known to select slaves and aliens for special roles, specifically because everyone else has overlooked their potential for their entire lives—their loyalty will be uncompromised. He's deeply involved in the affairs of Imperial Intelligence, on a level that other Sith don't usually engage.

And so nobody really notices when he has the Imperial Science Bureau try and implement a funky new technoorganic design, especially when it was quietly shut down because they wouldn't be efficient for the war effort. Did Jadus make any copies of their data? Don't worry about it! Worry about what else Jadus might be doing.

Because over the years, his philosophy and absolutely awful personal vibes have created a literal cult following for him. While that's not unheard of for Sith, Jadus takes it to a higher level. He probably has several manifestos published by this point.

And so nobody really thinks twice when Jadus declares he's going to take a thousand of his followers away on his flagship, spreading his philosophy across the Empire. That's normal Jadus stuff.

If you're me, you'll be sitting there hung up on the fact that his flagship is named the Dominator, because the BDSM vibes are hilariously unsubtle.

What none of them know at this point is that Jadus has packed the Dominator full of explosives, which the player character's starter missions actually were responsible for securing. But we're talking about destroying a massive ship here, surely someone suspected help from the inside?

Well, with how utterly awful Jadus was to be around, nobody who knew him really found it odd that a well-connected, traditionalist, isolationist terrorist group would try to blow him up. Jadus himself says they have aid from within the government. Hilariously, I'm not sure if anyone asked him who, because the answer is him.

But in their defense, everyone in Intelligence was kept distracted because Jadus made the utterly unhinged demand that placed the defense of the capital city's power grid in the hands of the player character, a newbie who hasn't even gotten a cool codename yet.

So when the Dominator blows up with Jadus on board, that's surprising, it means the terrorists are an imminent threat to the Empire, but really, what's so bad about getting rid of Jadus?

Enter Darth Zhorrid, his daughter, sole apprentice and heir, and oh boy she's already electrocuting people

We don't know who's to blame for Zhorrid's zhorrible name—it could be Jadus, it could be one she chose for herself. But we know Jadus is the one responsible for why she's Like This. Or rather, we learn, during what's frankly one of the most distressing scenes in the Agent plotline, which is saying something.

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[Video Description: A video I took of Zhorrid's last scene before you enter Act 1's endgame, and content warning. Content warning. She's not in a good way, mostly because of a lifetime of mental health problems brought on by Jadus. Skip it if you need to, it's summarized below. /Description]

Jadus used some literally operatic cruelty to break Zhorrid's mind, but the results evidently weren't what he wanted—when she became irrationally destructive and impulsive as a result, he essentially abandoned her. She mentions that he was always ruthless with himself, identifying and attempting to eliminate his own faults whenever he failed at something. That included Zhorrid herself.

When she takes over her father's Dark Council seat, she's an unprepared mess, and she knows it. She can't keep a hold of Jadus' resources, which the rest of the Council are quick to start stealing from her. To Imperial Intelligence, her top priority is to find out who killed her father, because she wanted to do it first.

Jadus, meanwhile, used his own monstrous strength in the Force to not be incinerated in the destruction of the Dominator. In fact, he held together a large enough portion of the ship that two hundred people were saved with him, covertly transported to another capital ship running silent in deep space.

And because breaking people isn't just something you do with family, Jadus spends the next couple of months driving them all insane.

It's no wonder that years later, when an ancient, eldritch Sith collective encounters the Agent player character, they attempt to recruit the agent on the sole basis of "you were once in the vicinity of Darth Jadus, and we like his vibes."

With Zhorrid's flameout keeping the Council and Intelligence distracted, Jadus's terrorist underlings—who are still pretty sure they actually did kill him—can continue production of these cool technoorganic death satellites he gave them the plans for ages ago. Pay no attention to the fact that this sort of merging of machine and unnatural flesh is usually an ancient Dark Side thing! Everything seems to be going great, and hey what's that player character-shaped person doing over there

The agent, now sporting the very cool codename Cipher Nine, manages to take out a big chunk of the terrorist group's organizational structure, and steal half of the control codes for the death satellites. Jadus didn't see this coming, but he has a solution: bring them to his horrorfest vacation spot and offer them a promotion.

And here's where he starts to start getting uncomfortably close to the fourth wall: Jadus basically states that he didn't realize Cipher Nine was important before, but he won't make that mistake again. Come be his herald. The Hand of Jadus, which is a very cool title for Star Wars folks of a particular age, because it makes you feel like Mara Jade. Give him the command codes, and he'll functionally take over the Empire, and overturn the old Blood Purity laws that kept aliens and slaves from becoming citizens, and also he'll improve their spiritual lives by beginning an 'Epoch of Terror'—

youtube

[Video Description: A Cthulhu Mythos parody Christmas carol, "Joy To The World" replaced with "Death To The World, Cthulhu's come. Let Earth! Abhor! This thiiiing!". I don't get to pull these out very often, so here's my excuse. Let me tell you, there are carols that I cannot get through without accidentally falling into singing these instead. "God rest ye merry gentlemen, let everything dismay, remember Great Cthulhu shall rise up from R'lyeh—" /Description]

One of the most delightfully maddening things about Jadus as a character is that he mixes perfectly reasonable and even laudable ideas with pure eldritch nonsense. If Cthulhu were about to rise from the depths of R'lyeh, to awaken the Great Old Ones and drive the world mad under the crushing weight of their very existence, Jadus would be messing with labor laws so everyone could take time off work for the holiday.

At this point, the player has a choice. One of the most impactful in the entire game, actually: Do you let him win? Because you can actually take this deal. Maybe your character believes the Empire is so moribund that it needs to be pushed into collapse. May they've been pushed to madness themself by what they've experienced to get there. Maybe they earnestly believe Jadus's mix of structural reform and transcendental religion is good and necessary. You can give him the control codes, and allow him to ascend to even greater power, upon a tide of destruction that shall henceforth be known as Eradication Day.

Or you could not do that. I'll get back around to the above option in a second, but, y'know, most people who aren't me probably don't say "I like your vibe, let's see where this goes." This is a madman. Even if your character believes the Empire needs change, does it need him? Probably not! You've seen what he did to his daughter, and to the survivors of the two hundred he brought with him for his Deluxe Event Horizon Experience. They're not doing so great.

But how to deal with him? Jadus is generally acknowledged as the second most powerful Sith in the Empire, after the Emperor himself. The Emperor is, essentially, a god. Your character is a covert operative with a cool spaceship and some James Bond gadgets.

And because the game's power balance has been altered so completely over its long life, allowing players to just focus on the story if they so choose, you can pretty easily win his boss fight. Welp.

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[Video Description: From YT user FemaleKay IsBest, beginning at the decision point and skips over the boss fight because really it's perfunctory anyway. I always find it somewhere between funny and unnerving, how quickly Jadus goes from audibly pissed off to calmly biding his time while he waits for his chance to escape. He's still angry enough to bite someone if he had the mask off, but he's devastatingly practical for a mandman. /Description]

In story though, you don't kill him. A fleet's on the way to back you up, you just distract him long enough to trap him in a place where he can't escape their bombardment. If it actually happened. Because at that point, Jadus surrenders.

Huh. So he's still alive. Headed for execution at the hands of the other Sith, but that's the last you hear. They never actually confirm if they killed him or not.

Or, alternatively, you can give him the command codes to distract him, then sabotage the ship, rigging it to explode. Jadus escapes, but without the command codes—he can't maintain control of his superweapon deterrent against his foes. Again, that's the last you hear of him.

Or or, extra-alternatively, you can simply convince Jadus that he's lost. No really! You can give him a full tactical assessment of his situation, how you've got all the angles covered, and shoot down his counter-arguments. He'll push you hard. He'll actually start to sound angry, the first and last strong emotion he'll ever show you.

And then he just calms down and declares that you've won, and he's leaving now. He hates you, but respects you.

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[Video description: From YT user Invisible Shadow, talking Jadus into giving up. You can skip a few bossfights in the game by talking your way around them, but this ends an entire third of the game. I've never done this route, but I won't deny, it is extremely satisfying to watch. /Description]

Everyone is left wondering what in the fine flying fuck just happened.

No matter what you do, Jadus survives, something that many players actually missed—if they chose the most bog-standard, videogame-y path, they assumed he died off-screen. I've seen some of them actually misremember killing him personally. Nope! His survival was implied from day one, it was teased a bit in the expansions, but now it's been (pretty much) confirmed: Jadus is alive, like the biggest, most unkillable cockroach in the galaxy. Good for him! And gooder for him, if you let him win.

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[Video Description: From YT user xLetalis, featuring their Agent joining Darth Jadus. Content warning again, because you do get a boss fight in this version: it's Zhorrid. Other decisions end with her dead offscreen, but in this one, Jadus orders you to go kill her. Again, worst dad of the game. /Description]

Because this isn't an empty choice. SWTOR is limited in how much it can show differences visually, because unlike later titles such as Elder Scrolls Online, it can't do visual alterations to game maps shared with other characters. What it can do is alter dialog, and quite a lot of characters have something to say about the new regime, and your place in it.

And off in special little instanced corners of the game, you can actually get special scenes that nobody else does. This is where Jadus lurks. What's he doing? Stuff.

No really, we don't actually hear much about his overarching plans. There's cult rituals going on in the streets, he's successfully traumatized an entire Empire, but he's not derailing the overarching plot of the game, because he's made a strategic decision: he can't fight the Emperor. That would be suicide. And the Emperor wants a war with the Republic and the Jedi for some reason, so Jadus won't stop that. If it was up to him? Doesn't seem like it would happen! Jadus never actually mentions the Jedi. He only makes passing mention of the Republic.

Let's note that at this point in Star Wars as a piece of fiction, the one thing the Sith had always been so down for was destroying the Jedi and toppling the Republic. The fact that Jadus manifestly did not give a shit about either is part of what made him so strange.

What he does care about is why the Emperor is doing this. While most of the Agent plot proceeds as normal through its second act, you do receive an order partway through: steal encrypted data from the Emperor's guards. Help Jadus determine the Emperor's plans.

And at the start of Act Three, Jadus declares that he's discovered what the Emperor's doing. He also declares that he's leaving the game.

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[Video Description: from YT user The Youtube Acolyte, playing as an Agent named Thrauw'n because everyone who plays Chiss, including myself, has a crush on Thrawn. Anyway--Man just fuckin! Leaves! Absolute skeleton meme behavior. Also, Jadus can mention here "I see the shape of the galaxy as only five others can", which is a line that is NEVER explained. His closest philosophical match is found in the Dread Masters, but there's six of them. Candidates I've seen include the Emperor, Lord Scourge, Revan, Kreia, the Exile, the Jedi Knight and Consular player characters, Darth Malgus, Darth Acina, the Shroud, the First Son, and the list goes on because nobody is even sure what Jadus MEANS here about 'the shape of the galaxy'. Do I think this line will be followed up on? Absolutely not! I firmly believe it will continue to stand as a goddamn mystery. Tune back in after his storyline updates to find out if Jadus decided to mess with me specifically. /Description]

No, really. Jadus just abandons the Empire and leaves. Sure, he leaves you with enhanced authority, though he cautions you that it does paint a massive target on your back, and gives you his blessing to continue trying to unravel a massive conspiracy—possibly because he's realized the conspirators could accidentally help trigger the end of all life in the galaxy. Whoops.

Because what Jadus doesn't actually tell you is what the Emperor is up to. The Emperor is working on a ritual that makes use of death on a massive scale to trigger a chain reaction that will kill everything and feed its life force into himself, becoming a truly transcendent and eternal being. In fact, if you're playing the Agent plot, you never get explicitly told about this. You just show up to work one day and the rest of the Sith have collectively declared Fuck That and no longer acknowledge the Emperor's authority.

Why didn't Jadus reveal this? Well, he's not exactly popular among the Sith, given how he's a weird nerd who has orbital death lasers pointed at their house. They probably wouldn't believe him. His dialog also gives off the hilarious vibe that he knows this is the start of Act Three and that he's a second-tier villain, this is the point at which the plot would traditionally kill him off to show how serious the situation is. He's not a fan of that, so he elects to go find somewhere sufficiently off-screen that the plot can't touch him. This maniac is somehow the most genre-savvy villain in the game.

Also, he does make the very concerning comment that "whether [the Emperor] succeeds or fails, I grow stronger." I have no idea if he's lying or not, but most of his dialog is at least his truth to some extent or another. Does he believe he could hijack the ritual as a last resort? Maybe! Who knows! No matter what you as the player have done up until this point, Jadus has reacted in whatever way he thinks will ensure maximum success and his own survival. He obviously wasn't planning on just dying in the Emperor's ritual, so he had something he was working on to avoid that.

We never find out what that might be. Frankly, I'm not sure the writers truly knew what that was, because they didn't need to. His arc was done, and he could leave just as strangely as he'd done everything in the first place.

And that was the end of Jadus for a very long time. In the first few expansions, you could continue to invoke your title as the Hand of Jadus, if that was the path you chose. After that, the plot folded together in a way that smoothed out the differences between player characters in many ways. Oh, sure, people with history with you will react differently. If you're playing an Agent, you alone can continue to hang out with one of your former companions: a nice young man who's packed full of ants, who's possibly your lover and is good friends with a secret agent doctor were-zombie.

I really will have to ramble about the Agent companions at some point.

But one thing that was consistent for everybody: when an extremely weird crisis strikes the galaxy, one of the people considered as a culprit is Darth Jadus.

For those who haven't played the Agent plot, this is a "Who?" moment. He never appears in any other plotline. He is only the sleep paralysis demon of folks at Imperial Intelligence, in part because his potential plot ramifications are too large to account for. Canon probably defaults to him failing in his takeover, but most Dark Side-aligned player plots make all the Dark Side choices canon, and it's hard to get Dark Side-ier than allowing tens of thousands to die so that "all people will revel in fear and degradation. These prizes will no longer be hoarded by Sith."

I cannot stress enough how unhinged this man's goals are.

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[Video Description: The new trailer, which gives us the one glimpse we have of New and Improved Jadus so far. Fun fact, Malgus is 77 and Jadus is 65 here, because the Sith are just inherently incapable of retiring from their shenanigans, ever. Vowrawn is 93 at this point and entirely powered by shenanigans alone. I was mixed on Jadus's new look, until a friend pointed out he looks like some sort of emerging plant, and I realized the collar reminded me a bit of a Rafflesia. Parasitic, grows to titanic proportions, and smells like rotting meat. So I've come around on it, obviously. Malgus' voiceover is cut to be vaguing about "corrupt doctrines" in regards to Jadus, which I find hilarious. He did technically embezzle Imperial funds to research his superweapons, but the rest of that was all outsourced. Unless we're talking about "corruption" in terms of "messing with people's brains", in which case, yes. He do be out there, corrupting the minds of the youth. And everybody who isn't youth. Possibly even some rocks, if they're smart enough. /Description]

So, that's where we are at this point. I have no idea how things will go from here. My hope is that Jadus will return as the highly strategic, transcendental weirdo he always was before. It's actually been fun having him just out there somewhere, because it's meant the mystique couldn't be messed with. I'd actually accept it if they brought him back to kill him, but ideally if it happened in such a baffling fashion that you're left uncertain if he intended for that to happen.

But before the game potentially expands on him and his motivations, I want to get out a couple of my own interpretation of what we've seen: Jadus is unique among the Sith. Among the Empire. And he is not yet perfect. And he wants both to change.

Something happened in his past that pushed him deep into the Dark Side, something that broke his world apart and reformed it into something new. Since then, he's tried and failed to explain it to others. He doesn't have a perfect understanding of what happened to him, how to lead others to the same state, or how to push himself further. As a result, he tried to raise his daughter in such a way to induce the same revelations he experienced, and failed. That failure took years, and he couldn't afford such a costly loss again.

So instead of the personal, controlled approach, he would mass-produce the shattering of minds. The whole point of the drama and wanton destruction of his plan was to traumatize billions, trading precision for sheer quantity. The vast majority would fail, becoming fuel for his continued growth in power. But surely, someone would react as he had.

This obviously isn't a selfless enterprise on his part. He is a ruthlessly practical lunatic, and when he reaches the limits of his capability, he abandons the project. We don't know if he succeeded in what he wanted from his takeover. We don't actually know if he took anyone with him when he left. He made it clear that his Hand would not follow him where he was going, though we know some in Intelligence kept sending him reports that received no reply, and we have some potential indication that he was still actively monitoring his Hand's activities. Which at that point mostly involved getting the stuffing knocked out of them by the entire galaxy all at once, which Jadus probably considered character-building.

Do I have any idea whether these are intended reads on the character? No. I'm not privy to the authorial decisions made during the writing of Mr. Darth "Under my rule, all people will revel in fear and degradation" Jadus. I don't know if the original intent will be preserved either, thirteen years down the road.

But man. Man. What a transfixingly weird guy they've created here. Jadus is memorable because he twists so much of what we've come to expect from Sith into something different, with enough left unexplained to keep you wondering. Or at least, keep me wondering. Let's be real, Jadus as a villain probably appeals most to a very specific subset of people with goth tendencies and spicy brains, who look at HP Lovecraft and think "what if these cosmic horrors were more inclusive in the worst way possible?"

I'm glad to see him back. I'm afraid of what might happen with him. He's poised to drive me insane, no matter what happens. And that's precisely how he'd prefer it.

#star wars #star wars: the old republic #swtor #swtor meta #legacy of the sith #darth jadus #everybody's got at least one Weird Critter they get attached to in star wars and Jadus is one of mine #he's not as PHYSICALLY weird a critter as some of the Weird Critters out there but he makes up for it in spirit #absolute cryptid mindset from this man #Youtube

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