#if you ever were curious whether i think terzo would happily have his back blown out as much as he would be an absolute powerhouse in bed

[revelisms]

At it again with these two being insufferable, ridiculous, and giving me more Thoughts than I know what to do with.

It's been a long time since I've written anything in this vein, and I'm a little 🫣 but. Giving it a shot. Gah. *runs away*

More Terzo x Sibling of Sin goofiness ahead. This is not explicit, but quite spicy. Please mind the CWs 🌶️🖤

WC: 1.5k | Suggestive content, language, established relationship, bantering | CW: Casual discussion of kink, collaring kink, leather kink, light D/s undertones (AKA: the switch energy has been brought to the function), negotiation, verbal consent, UST through the roof

It had started innocently enough. 

He had never been shy about his collections, even from well before his Cardinal days—and Ale was nothing if not curious. 

Sometimes, though, their snooping got the best of them: like how they'd found his stacks upon stacks of poetry books (Digging through my brooding antics now, are you?), or the shoeboxes of bottle caps he'd hoarded since he was a child (Bought enough Chinottos to fill a museum, darling)—or, now, this.

Angelica, pink-cheeked from hiking across the grounds, had dropped off a new shipment from one of his tailors, and Ale (per usual, when left with his ever-piling to-do list) was just trying to get ahead of the mess—which, apparently, meant finding wherever he stashed his damned storage boxes for his gloves.

It wasn't their fault he had a set of cuffs hanging on the door. 

Or a bundle of treated hemp by his sweaters. 

Or a shelf chock-full of lingerie.

They'd felt like a bull in a glass museum. So many beautiful, delicate, delicious things, that he had often mentioned with as much flippancy as he droned through his touring schedules.

These were just par for the course. Nothing out of the ordinary, for him.

But for them—doe-eyed in front of so much artistry, cotton-mouthed in fascination, sorely sheltered in their past years from any explorations of the sort—it's an apple-bitten Eden.

They don't hear the door to his suite swing open and closed, punctuated by a husky sigh. Don't hear the heel-toed sidling of his boots across the carpets, silk rustling at his steps. And when he finds them—vestments slung over one arm, fingers already at his collar, clearly ready to strip to his skin and shower off the stress of yet another day of their clergy yapping up his ass—they all but plow him over.

He jolts on his heels like a spooked cat. "What in the Hell—"

"Sorry," Ale blunders, jerking to their feet, "sorry, I was just—"

"Satan, you scared the shit out of me—"

"Sorry!"

Terzo pinches his fingers into the skull-paint over his eyes. Huffs a dry laugh. "My love," he grumbles, soft with exasperation, "why do you have the lights off? Fuck's sake. Those archives have done a number on you." He flicks on the switch, squinting quickly. "What are you..." And then he sees the cuffs in their hands. "Oh."

The downpour of apologies is halted before it can even spill: nothing more than a slow-bloomed smile and a shrewd stare. He always has an uncanny way of weeding out their shame by the root—and he does it here, again.

"I see," he murls, playfully scolding, and leans his hip against the doorframe. "So you have gone snooping again, eh? Must I lock every drawer in sight, to keep you out?"

Ale burns red as a beet. "I—"

"Shh—shh. I tease." He smirks, a dimpled shadow through his paints. Wanders closer. "You are intrigued, no? I suppose I have, ah...talked about these things, but not shown. Here..."

Simple questions turn to equally simple offerings; to him standing shoulder-to-shoulder with them in the half-moon of his suite's closets, frankincense and fresh air and remnants of his cologne still sticking to his clothes, clicking back the hinge of one of several nondescript containers.

Tucked amongst the vines of rosaries are belts and chains; between the silks of his vestments, a rainbow of restraints; and here, in their own little box (Can't have them drying out, of course—helps to, eh, maintain conditioning), an assortment of leather collars.

His gloves alone were enough to set them off, on a good day. But these—

These were something else, entirely. Simple and studded and ringed and lovely: black and blood-red and plum: silver-gold glittering.

Mirroring their owlish stance, hands at his back and breath quiet, Terzo quirks a brow. A wry smile plays at his mouth. 

After a moment, he drawls into his usual ramblings. "Got this one in Mexico City," he says, plucking one from the set. "The shop was gorgeous—you should have seen the harnesses, all of them inlaid with silver like this. The detail, alone—I must've spent two hours in there."

Ale lifts their brows. "It's beautiful," they say simply, eyes round.

"Mnh, yes. Thought the little etchings in these were a nice touch," he continues, thumbing one of the rings. "They feel very nice, too." 

He slides the collar lazily through his fingertips, weighted and jingling, and they could kick themself at how audibly they swallow. 

In their periphery, he's tilted his head. His hair is too slicked back to fall out of place. Too much the image of perfection they love to dishevel off him. 

After a pause, he ticks his tongue off his teeth. "You can...touch it, you know," he murmurs, with a coy flash of teeth. Softly, flushing, Ale glares. "Che—they're not just here for display, sweetness," he prattles on. "Though, I will admit: some of them are almost too pretty to wear, no?"

They bite their lip through a smile. Bump their shoulder against his. "Almost."

But not this one. Crimson and sheened with metal, the leather soft as sea glass and heavy as stone, each ring pebbling a cool caress across their fingertips. 

Their head feels like mush. They know they've blushed to their ears.

The way he hums doesn't help.

Terzo drags his fingertips lingeringly along their palm, calluses feather-light and familiar; hooks through one ring to trade the piece in their hand for another. "Ah—and this one," he continues: blue as midnight, adorned with tinkling charms and chains. "Very fun. Lots to play with here, huh? This was, ah...Amsterdam, I think? That little Eastside place? Can't remember it, now—it was years ago. I got a few custom made, on one of the tours, and some other gloves, too. The leather they use is sensational."

"Terzo."

"Mh?"

The collar stings like a brand on their skin. A tether barely keeping them on their feet.

"I, uh," they muddle, their tongue useless. "Um." Swallow, again. "These are..."

"Doing it, for you?" Unblessed beneath, his voice. His smile creases at one side. "Oh, I know." 

Their eyes stutter, heat buzzing through them. He lifts a lax hand, brushing through the mess of their fringe. "They would fit you," he muses on, slowly tracking his thumb from the shell of their ear to their neck. His skin is always so warm, so addictive. The touch all but sends them into overdrive. "Very adjustable, most of them." 

He pauses, making unneeded effort to find their eyes. Green-white and ancient and endless. His thumb slips over their jaw, again. "But you..." He tilts his head back, taking them in like an editorial print; a model in need of one finishing touch. "No, no...you like the simplicities, don't you?" 

They only half-feel the collar sliding out of their hands, replaced with yet another: black as death, buttery-smooth, glossed with a natural sheen. In its center sits a plain golden ring. 

His eyes follow the stuttered plummet of their own, steady as a panther tailing prey. Raise just as easily again, lashes heavy on mismatched eyes.

"You...want to see this one on you?" he suggests, little more than a breath.

Ale can't manage a thought, can barely get a word off their teeth. Too lost in his stare, mossen and moonlit. In his lips, cattish at the corners.

Slowly, fingers itching against that cool ring, heavy around their knuckle, they let their eyes slide down, down.

The bloom of his pupils is slow to come. But, oh, once it does—

"...On me?" he hushes.

It takes them an age to lick their lips. To breathe, "Yes," like the word is eating them through.

The heat in his eyes could burn them.

Terzo's lashes flutter, an unhurried sweep from their hands to their mouth. He's given them the reins more than enough times; relished in it, as much as he took heady satisfaction in leaving them in a puddle of breathless, brainless-smiled bliss on the sheets. But this—

"Well." His thumb is still on their jaw: sliding again to nestle behind their ear. With it, a drag of his knuckles, soft down the nape of their neck. "You are welcome to do that." Up again. "More than welcome," he says, toeing that slow, soft-growled line that never fails to devolve them into some shaky little thing, desperate to blend the edges of them together, bone for bone.

Their hands are already tangling in his sleeve.

"Ah," Terzo tuts. "We wash up, first."

"But—"

A soft squeeze on their nape is all they need to settle down, spitefully as they may concede. His eyes simmer on them. "Wash, first," he says again, voice low. "Believe me—this is...not a quick process. Not when you get into this headspace." His touch trails over their cheek, catching slow at the corner of their lips. "I'll tell you what I like," he murls, lifting his lashes again. "And you tell me what you like too, mh? Before." His knuckle cusps beneath their chin. "And after."

Dazedly, their brain somewhere far, far past their feet, Ale blinks. "Okay," they whisper. The word kisses against his skin.

His stare is searing, electric, starved. "Good," he whispers back.

And it's almost enough to get them to behave. Almost.

But then he leans closer, just enough—brushes his nose over their cheek, tucking a chaste kiss beneath their jaw, just to gravel, "Good," again—and, well.

They barely make it to the shower.