#i wrote um... some death threats under the scribbling

[spitvalve]

been playing overwatch a LOT recently.. I hate it!!!

[talesofzero]

La Douleur Exquise - Ch. 7

AU; Chapter 7 - The Case of Yellow

Rated E for Eyy boys actually bang in this one. As per request, contains some casual Bulge/Zero. 

~4100 words

I wasn’t sure if Harlock wanted to make it obvious that he was avoiding me. But it was obvious.

He would only stay in the same room with me if everyone else was with us. Even then, he wouldn’t make eye contact, wouldn’t speak to me. I tried to think what I could have done to bring on this kind of behavior, but I’d never made much sense of Harlock or the rest of his family.

I was fine to leave Harlock to his devices. I didn’t need his approval. Didn’t need him meddling all the time. I didn’t care if he was avoiding me.

But I didn’t like being ignored for no damn reason.

“Alright, what is it?” I asked once I’d shut the office door. He’d been spending more time than usual in there in his quest to avoid me.

“What’s what?” he asked, his eye locked on his computer. I doubted there was anything to see on his monitor.

Stalking up to him, I slammed my hands down on the desk to finally draw his gaze. “You know what’s what. What happened that’s got you all moody? You’re like a little kid again. Did I do something that upset you? If I did, you’ll have to explain. I can’t read minds.”

Rather than respond, his glare matched mine. We were at our usual deadlock. Childish as I felt, I refused to let him win. He always made me like this. Always had.

The day I was introduced to him, he stared up at me with those big brown eyes, framed by unbrushed curls. Poor kid was in desperate need of a haircut. After a minute spent watching me, he pointed up between my eyes and yelled, “Your nose is real big!”

“Phantom!” Wataru scolded as my hands shot to cover my nose. “Don’t be rude!”

“It’s true?” the kid shot back.

Wataru eyed Phantom the same way my moms looked at me when I did something they didn’t like. “Excuse my brother, Warrius. He has no manners. He’s been spending too much time around my father.”

“He’s a lot younger than you,” I said as I glanced around the house. They lived downtown, and it showed. The placed seemed to be held together by yellowing wallpaper and wobbly linoleum. There were mismatched, chipped dishes stacked in the sink, much like all the different chairs at the kitchen table where we sat.

“Phantom’s thirteen years younger than me, just a few years younger than you, really.” He returned to skimming over my homework, tapping his pencil against the tabletop. “He’s my half brother, though,” he added.

I glanced between them, Wataru with his calm brown eyes and strong jaw, and Phantom with his wild hair and squishy cheeks. If not for the age gap, though, they would have looked identical. There was no sign they had different parents.

Phantom returned to scribbling crayons around some copy paper with a vengeance. His tongue stuck out to the side as he concentrated on his work. I tried to make sense of what he was drawing, but it just looked like a blob to my eyes.

“This is fine,” Wataru said with a smile as he slid the papers back to me. “I’m not sure why your moms insist on me tutoring you. You’re plenty smart, Warrius.”

I could feel my heart hammering in my throat, my cheeks burning. “Thank you,” I mumbled.

He usually came to my house to look over my work, and when he’d leave, Mom would laugh. It wasn’t her or Ma who asked for his help. It was me. He was way too old for me to have a crush on. I was just some kid to him - a high-schooler. Even back then, I knew that. I didn’t ever expect anything of it, but I would make any excuse to be around him.

After Phantom’s mom got sick, our after-school tutoring sessions moved to his house. That first day, Phantom climbed into my lap without asking and showed me his picture. “Um, it’s nice,” I said.

“Dad’s spaceship!” he said.

“Your dad has a spaceship?”

“Yes! He’s cool!”

Wataru made a noise of displeasure as he opened the fridge. “Don’t go around advertising Father,” he said. “Now do you want potatoes?”

“No! No potatoes! Macaroni!”

Wataru leaned on the fridge door as he looked back at Phantom with dull eyes. “We had macaroni yesterday.”

Phantom reached up and smacked his hand against my face. “Warr’us wants macaroni!”

“I didn’t say that,” I said as I tried to pry his hand away.

He turned around and pinned me with the angriest glare I’d ever seen from a four year-old. “Yeah-huh.”

I glared right back until Wataru startled us both with a laugh that made my face burn again. “Not a lot of people challenge Phantom like that. You can’t win. You’ll just be stuck staring at him, but I’ll give you points for trying.”

He was right. I never really won. Even now, my eyes tore from Harlock’s as he yanked open a desk drawer. I could feel him still watching me as he pulled something out and tossed it on the desk. I recognized my own handwriting, but I couldn’t recall the envelope at first. The last time I’d written any letter to Harlock was…

“My uncle dropped a stack of those off when he was here last,” Harlock said.

Ah, so it was those letters. “Hm, I wouldn’t have expected him to keep them all these years,” I said as I picked up the old, frayed paper. The top had been sliced open. I doubted Franklin was the type to read others’ mail, meaning Harlock had read through them.  “So you finally got them then?”

“Why didn’t you tell me?” Harlock’s tone was accusing, like I’d wronged him somehow.

“What did it matter? You never got them, so it didn’t change anything. It was stupid anyhow, writing to an outlaw. Could have gotten me in so much trouble.”

As I removed the letter, I glanced up to see Harlock glowering at the wall. “I thought you hated me all that time,” he said. “I thought you wanted nothing to do with me.”

“I’ve never hated you, Harlock,” I sighed.

He jolted as though I’d slapped him. Once again, he was that wide-eyed child staring at me as I unfurled the letter.

Dear Harlock,

I hope this letter finds you well and all that. See past letters for proper formalities. I’m too tired for them right now.

The last few weeks have been rough. I’ve been missing home more than ever. We lost seven men in one battle, three in another. We’ve struggled to maintain repairs while the government keeps sending us on new missions.

I don’t begrudge them for it. There aren’t enough ships. They have to send us out to meet any oncoming threats, but I haven’t gotten a proper night’s sleep in ages. We’re all starting to lose it a bit. I’ll be fine, but I really need some sleep and a good day where things aren’t on fire. I love this ship, but something is always on fire.

I’m not really cut out for my new position. It’s becoming more and more apparent that we all get promotions based on how long we’re able to stay alive out here while everyone around us dies. I wasn’t trained for the position of First Officer, so I’m always two steps behind, having to check manuals. I just hope I don’t get anyone killed because of it.

Sorry to talk so much about myself. It must get boring to hear me complain. How are you? How’s Tochiro? I hear the Deathshadow made a mess of some space wolves a while back. Some of the crew here would probably like you if you didn’t also shoot at government crafts. Seriously, stop that. We need those.

We should have a leave on Earth in two months. I’ll likely sleep through the whole thing, but I’m looking forward to it. I’ll drink some cheap wine for you while I’m there, just like old times. Take care of yourself. Don’t do anything too stupid.

Sincerely, Warrius Zero

“I remember this,” I said. “Things were awful. We were low on supplies, and I ran on coffee until I passed out at my station. I wouldn’t recommend that. You feel like death.”

“I’m sorry,” he said like the wind had been knocked out of him. “I would have written back had I known.”

I wasn’t so sure. “No need to apologize. You never got the letters, so it doesn’t matter. I’m sort of embarrassed you read them now. I did do a lot of whining.”

At least that answered one thing I’d questioned since meeting him in that infirmary. When I was on the Karyuu, I imagined he did receive everything I wrote, but I didn’t know if he read them. Why should he? In my mind, he hated me. Some letters had sentences or paragraphs scribbled out to remove my apologies over how I had let us end things.

But when I saw him in that bed, almost as pale as the bandages, he looked up at me with sorrow in his now-lone eye. “I thought you’d given up on me,” he murmured in that drugged haze.

“Believe me, I tried,” I said. “But you’re a hard man to ignore.”

His eye searched me for answers, still sharp despite the fog over it. “Why are you here now? After all this time?”

“My ship’s gone too. My family...” The Machine Men’s all-out attack had taken everything. Even if I could have brought myself to work under them, they kept insisting I get a machine body. Either that, or I had to accept the mission to capture Harlock. I accepted to keep my humanity, and because I needed to know why Harlock hadn’t protected the Earth. The answer was that he had. He’d tried to, but he never got that far.

“We’re in the same boat,” I said as I brushed a few strands of hair from his face. “I’m an enemy of the government now. And your father asked me to look after you.”

His expression darkened at the mention of his father, the same way Wataru’s used to. “If you’re just doing this for him, why avoid me for so long? I wasn’t worth looking after then? Just now that I don’t have other people to look after me for you?”

My mouth was left partially open as I stopped myself from asking about the letters. I’d never abandoned him, but then, maybe letters weren’t enough. So I said nothing, unaware he’d never received them.

We stuck together because we were all we had left. He sulked for a while, missing his ship, his friends. I couldn’t say I was any better. I didn’t spend a single day sober for months.

If I’d been sober, he wouldn’t have come up with this stupid, insane brothel idea in the first place. I woke up to a raging headache, a spotty memory, and him sitting naked in bed beside me ranting about this amazing idea he had.

I had so many regrets in my life that I could have amassed an army out of them, but that night would have been one of my generals.

Perhaps everything would have turned out differently if he’d received my letters. Likely not, but the way he looked at them made me wonder. When I handed the envelope back to him, he took it as though it might crumble in his fingers.

“Well, with that out of the way, you can quit getting all anxious around me,” I said, still not sure why he’d reacted so oddly to receiving them. “Get some rest too. You look like you could use some sleep.”

He didn’t say anything as I turned and walked out, but I took a quick glance at him as I closed the door, still holding the letter, looking even more exhausted than before.

We were both so young then. Just stupid kids, too young to be fighting wars, too young to see so much death. I wished he would forgive himself, that stupid kid he used to be. That kid didn’t deserve all the blame Harlock placed on him. Just a boy trying to fill his father’s shoes. I couldn’t blame him for that.

But I could and would blame him for this terrible brothel filled with too many kids. Even Manabu was much too young for this, but Daiba and Tadashi were hardly teenagers! And I didn’t even want to think about Monono.

As I started back toward my room, I heard chattering from down the hall. Manabu’s door was open. No one was supposed to be alone with Manabu, so I had to check, even if it was a stupid rule.

“Manabu, please stop,” I heard as I neared. The voice definitely did not belong to any of our boys. No, it sounds like… Schwanhelt. Poor man was probably doing Wataru’s bidding again.

“But I’m attractive, right?” Manabu asked.

“S-sure. I mean- I don’t know, Manabu!”

“If you didn’t know me or my dad, you’d sleep with me, right?”

“I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t know you!”

“Well, that wasn’t a no.”

I turned at the doorframe to find Schwanhelt standing with his face in his hands beside the doorway. Manabu sat cross-legged on the bed. He’d undone his bowtie and the top button of his shirt. Subtlety was not this boy’s strong suit.

“Manabu, you know you’re not allowed to be alone with other men,” I said.

He flashed a grin. “Of course. Only you, Mr. Zero.”

My unamused glare only made his eyes shine. He’d been spending too much time around the other boys. They were bad influences.

“But the door was open,” he continued, “So I wasn’t really alone.”

“That’s not how it works,” I said as I grabbed Schwanhelt by the arm. “Sorry, Manabu, but...good attempt, I guess.”

That was enough to keep him from pouting as I dragged Schwanhelt away. The poor man still had a hand plastered to his face. “Ah, thanks, Warrius. I just need to...sit down somewhere for a while. If I could just…”

Schwanhelt lied about as well as most of the SDF - poorly. “Come here,” I said through a sigh, pulling him into my room. “God, you have it hard-up for that boy, don’t you?”

“I don’t. I don’t. I don’t.”

“Convincing,” I drawled. “Do you use this same method on Wataru? I’m sure he really falls for the part where you hide your eyes.”

That got him to look at me. “You can’t tell him! Oh God, I’ve done enough to hurt that family. I can’t have feelings for Manabu after everything that’s happened. I can’t.”

There was no point in treading old waters and trying to convince him what happened wasn’t his fault. He had to work that out on his own. But I wasn’t so bad a friend as to let him go so anxious and, well…

“Schwan, just sleep with me,” I said.

He froze. I could almost see the sirens spinning around in his head. “W-what, Warrius, I can’t-”

“It’ll relieve some tension,” I said. “Come on, Schwan, when’s the last time you had an orgasm?”

He blushed from his neck to his ears. Honestly, Schwanhelt was adorable. The uniform didn’t help. I was a sucker for those uniforms.

But coming right off from dealing with Manabu, he was a mess. “I-I can’t afford- I’m sorry-”

“I won’t charge you,” I said. “If you’re not up for it, it’s okay. I’ll leave, and you can hide out in here for a bit. It’s up to you.”

He stood in silence, a war behind his eyes. When he moved, it was for the door. Manabu really had his work cut out for him if he wanted to catch this one, I thought until Schwanhelt locked the door.

“Okay,” he said in a whisper.

He’d obviously never done this before. “You’ll have to be more explicit than that.”

His cheeks tinged red again. “Explicit? God, what do I need to say? Can’t we just get on with it?”

I shrugged. “That works.”

His back hit the door as I pushed up against him, locking our lips. He whimpered his contentment against me as I pressed my leg between his. Manabu had been more successful than he may have realized, and Schwan was quick to grind himself against my thigh. His hands locked onto the arm loops of my vest, pulling me in closer.

He tasted of strong coffee and desperation. His movements were all quick but strong. I let him take over the kiss, his chest heaving as he toyed with my tongue. By the time he pulled back for air, there was a line of saliva running from the corner of his mouth.

I breathed a laugh into his neck, peppering kisses up to his jaw. “Poor thing,” I said. “You have been neglecting yourself.”

“Warrius,” he groaned, now clawing at my back. “God, I need you.”

“How would you like this to go?” I asked before placing a gentle bite to his ear.

He stuttered a gasp. “I-I don’t know. Damn, don’t make me think now.”

I decided to make it easy for him. “Fast or slow?”

“Ahh, damn. F-fast. I can’t wait.”

“So impatient,” I laughed. “Do you want to go all the way, or do you just want me to suck you off?”

His hand returned to his face. “Fuck, don’t make me answer that.”

“So you want to go all the way.”

The stressed sound he made was enough of a confirmation.

“Top or bottom?”

“I-I don’t know!”

Again, I couldn’t help but laugh. “Go ahead and top this round.” Preparing him to bottom would add time, and he was suffering enough.

He whined his agreement as I pulled him back toward the bed with one hand and unbuttoned my vest with the other. By the time the back of my knees hit the bed, I had my shirt halfway undone as well. As I fell back, I pulled him down with me. He caught himself, his face flushed as he hung over me. His eyes fell to my bare chest, and he swallowed.

“You still doing okay?” I asked.

He did manage a smile then, if a shy one. “Yes, sorry. I’m not very good at this.”

“You’re doing fine,” I said as I placed my hands to his cheeks. “You will have to take something off to make this work though. Condoms are in the nightstand, of course, unless you want to fool around some more.”

“Ah, I wish I could,” he said, standing back up to take off his jacket while I finished removing my shirt. I went ahead and took off my shoes, pants, and boxers too while he fiddled with whatever weird undersuit came with those uniforms.

“Sorry-sorry,” he mumbled, as he partially tried to cover himself. His boxers really couldn’t hide anything, not that he had any reason to be so stressed. I was more exposed than he was.  

“It’s fine. I like a good show.” With him all flustered, I reached over and fished a condom out of the drawer myself, tearing it open with me teeth. “Come ‘ere,” I said around the plastic.

He leaned in as I spit the wrapper away, and I wrapped my hand around the back of his head to pull him in for another kiss. Clients didn’t kiss much, so it was more for me than him. He hummed and moaned sweetly into the kiss as it deepened. It also made him sink closer toward me, until I could yank down his boxers.

His breath hitched as I pulled from the kiss and moved to his neck. WIthout the collar of his shirt in the way, I could press soft love bites to his shoulder as I rolled the condom over his cock.

“Warrius,” he whimpered. His arms trembled as they held him up over me.

“Relax,” I breathed as I reached back over to my nightstand. “You feeling good?”

“God, yes. You’re amazing, Warrius.”

That sent a pleased shiver up my spine that made my toes curl. “Thank you. Now don’t lose yourself yet, alright?”

What started as a confused hum ended with him choking in surprise as I worked some lube over his cock. “Fuck,” he hissed. Before his arms could give out, I released him and leaned back, wiping what was left of the lube on my own half-hard cock. I was going to ask if he wanted me to turn over, but it seemed not. Grabbing my hips, he put one knee on the bed and lifted me up. I pulled one leg up to rest over his shoulder. Rare to have a client who didn’t want me face-down, but then again, he wasn’t a proper client.

Even rarer to have a client suddenly look so concerned. “A-are you prepared?” he asked.

I bit my lip to stifle a laugh. “Schwan, babe, I do this every day. As long as there’s lube, I can handle it.”

Still looking a bit nervous, he leaned in enough to kiss me somewhere between my eyelid and my nose. He must have missed wherever he’d intended to kiss me because he was too busy trying to hold himself together while pushing his cock inside me.

“Fuck,” he groaned, his fingers pressed tight to my hips.

Unlike him, I gave in with a gasp and a sigh, grasping for the sheets. God, he was so hot inside me. It made my whole body pulse. I needed him to let go too. I needed the rush and the heat. “Schwan,” I said as I fought to keep my hips from rolling. “Please fuck me.”

He choked as he tried to suck in air, but he was quick to give me what I asked. His hips pulled back and rocked into mine as he gasped my name. Then again. Again. Always with my name.

“That’s good,” I purred as my eyes rolled back. My body writhed without my permission, but I let it for once. “More, Schwan. Harder.” My chest rose and fell with each of my gasping breaths. “Faster.”

He gave a growl as he picked up his pace, as lost as I was in the pleasure. Only years of habit kept me talking.

“So good,” I moaned, gnawing my lower lip. “So hot.” It felt so damn close to heaven to be filled like that, and so damn close to hell to be on fire from the inside out. My back arched toward him as his pace became frantic. I loved drowning in his power, feeling the bed shake just like I did.

Through half-lidded eyes, I admired his smooth shoulders and chest. His muscles strained with every snap of his hips. Damn, he looked good. He could have moonlighted at the brothel if he wanted.

His voice was ragged when he finally strung together something coherent. “Oh god, Warrius. Fuck, I’m going to come.”

“Go ahead,” I panted. Before I could wrap my hand around my cock for my own release, his hand took my place, his thumb circling the head until he had me melting with weak whimpers, my hands fisted in the sheets. “Schwanhelt, more,” I begged.

Sweet as he was, he pumped my cock as his thrusts became erratic. I felt his whole form tremble as he came, riding out his orgasm with a few shallow thrusts. Only then did I let myself fall over the edge. The writhing pleasure in my gut became pulses of ecstasy as I came across my stomach. “S-Schwan,” I said through fragmented gasps.

As the pleasure faded, my body went slack. I bathed in the feeling of exhaustion and contentment, listening to Schwanhelt catch his breath. “Fuck, Warrius,” he said as he pulled out. “That was good.”

I hummed in response. I hadn’t had two rounds in one day in a while. I only had five clients a week, so I was pretty well worn out.

“Is this the part where I leave?” he asked.

My body shook with a silent laugh. “You’re welcome to join me for a shower,” I said. My body protested as I sat up, though I’d never listened to its complaints before, and I wouldn’t now. “And thanks, Schwanhelt, that was nice.”

Even then, he blushed. “M-my pleasure.”