Archive of Our Own

Would you judge me for my prayers

If I said them on my knees?

But I am flesh and blood

And this flesh has needs

He should have gotten used to this by now. This maddening closeness and intoxicating heat. The give of the bed beneath him, his legs hanging over the edge, feet grazing the floor. Elbows bent — Holding himself up, but only just. Held more than anything else. A strong, handsome man stands between his legs. Keeping his knees apart, arms caging him in. Looming over him, tangling their breaths together. Not touching him quite yet, but wanting him, despite.

This is far from being the first time Sunday has found himself in such a… compromising position with Aventurine, and yet the shame that curls in his gut seems to burn with fresh kindling. Lust, as novel as ever. A flame stoked anew, scorching a path up his spine until guilt tugs at his brain stem, forcing his thoughts into disarray. Silent pleas for mercy scatter the moment Aventurine leans closer into his space, fine leather beckoning the soft baby feathers along his nape to stand on end as he lifts a hand to cup Sunday’s chin, tilting his head up. At a glance, his touch is tender, but his rings dig into Sunday’s skin. A bite of pain to ground him, keep his attention from wavering. The deliberate absence of his halo allows Sunday to relish in it, pressing his face further into the other man’s hand. Hoping his rings will leave a mark or two.

“You’re sure about this?” Aventurine checks.

The Stoneheart’s crystalline gaze glows in the dim light of his room with nothing but the meager bedside lamp illuminating them. Sunday would prefer total darkness, a curtain falling on his sins to afford himself even the slightest chance of hiding from THEM. 

Though, he doubts he could ever hide from Aventurine even if he tried.

Rather than answering him, Sunday challenges, “Are you? It seems you’ve forgotten a rather crucial step in this process. I am, after all, still clothed.”

(It’s an exercise of his own self restraint not to buck Aventurine off altogether so that he could, at the very least, change into some clothes not sullied by an entirely different star system. The other man had hardly afforded Sunday a moment to breathe after they’d finally returned to the Express, immediately accosting him and steering him to his room. He’d much prefer the order and cleanliness of his own room, but —

For whatever reason, he deems the matter unimportant enough to allow Aventurine to have his way. Just this once, of course.)

Aventurine’s eyes narrow into irritated slits at the retort, a click of his tongue tugging the coil in Sunday’s gut even tighter. “It isn’t always such a delicate process, though, birdie. You’re asking me to do a little more than just fuck you to sleep, in case you’ve forgotten.”

The subtle fluster warming Sunday’s cheeks erupts into a full flush, heat licking all the way down past his collar bone, slipping between his ribs. He furrows his brows at the other man’s wording, muttering, “Don’t be so crude,” even as his thighs try to close around Aventurine’s knees. 

Forgive me, he implores desperately to whichever God will listen, and casts his gaze away from the one between his legs. While he’s obviously not so much a deity in the traditional sense, the power Aventurine seems to hold over him could have him easily mistaken as one and the same.

Above him, the blond chuckles roughly, turning Sunday’s head back to face him, forcing their eyes to meet. “Don’t dodge the question, my dear Sunday.”

It’s a trial in and of itself to evade Aventurine’s arresting gaze even during normal, casual conversation, let alone as vulnerable a situation as this one. But once it’s sucked him in, Sunday knows he’s lost. His pupils are blown wide, bottomless black holes eclipsing rhombic rings of amethyst and aquamarine. His lips are no less distracting, dusky plump flesh stretched into a lopsided smirk. 

Sunday knows the shape of that grin intimately, has felt it earnest against his own mouth, gentle over the pulse point at his jugular, ravenous and menacing against the second heartbeat between his legs. He craves it now, wants that pretty mouth all over him.

He’s helpless to his want, yearning for that unwavering attention he knows he’ll never deserve. Overwarm, he sweats through his shirt, the collar damp against his nape, nearly suffocating him. His fingers flex and clench in the sheets, satin wrinkling in his grip. His cunt pulses pointedly against the seam of his pants, hole fluttering beneath his already soiled nether-wings that only grow filthier the more he fidgets.

“You seem distracted,” Aventurine hums, the tip of his thumb stroking along the edge of Sunday’s bottom lip. That, just that, is enough to make his breath tremble and his head-wings quiver in anticipation. Selfish, he chides himself. Insolent, unbecoming, weak —

“Would you like me to remind you just what it is you’ve asked me for, angel?”

That title, cradled in that husky, saccharine voice, beckons a whimper out of him. Instantly, Sunday rolls his lips behind his teeth, stifling any further noise as he shakes his head. Wretched thing, hisses through his mind. Aventurine leans impossibly closer, swinging a leg over Sunday’s hip, mattress shifting under the press of his knee as he settles his weight across Sunday’s lap. Pinning him. Aventurine strokes his thumb over the whitened skin of Sunday’s chin, pulled taut with how insistently he keeps his mouth clamped shut. 

Then, Aventurine’s thumb curves and dips, pressing and tugging until he pries his bottom lip free, the bounce of swollen flesh stilled by the gloved digit. Sunday can feel the Stoneheart’s nail through the leather. He swallows back the hot saliva pooling beneath his tongue, swallows back the urge to tilt his head, drop his jaw, suck Aventurine’s thumb in. The image of it is so clear in his head, burrowing into his brain matter just as unforgivingly as the rest of his deviant thoughts.

“Won’t you say it, then? For me.” Aventurine’s request is quiet, spoken in the same sort of hushed voice that filters through a confessional booth, floats along the dust motes that dance through the latticed screen. Aventurine may be the one on his knees presently, but he hovers over Sunday. Looking down at him, rather than casting his gaze up. 

Confessions have already been exchanged between them, and none of them Aventurine’s. A good gambler knows to hold his cards close to his chest, after all. But a sinner like Sunday has nothing to lose, for he forfeited the luxury to anything the moment he allowed himself to indulge in his vices. It’s up to Aventurine now to witness his penance.

Their brief, stilted conversation from a few weeks ago burns fresh in Sunday’s mind. It’s all he’s been able to think about, really. Stuffing his head up with smoke. Obsessing over every turn of phrase, replaying it again and again to pore over the inflection behind Aventurine’s every word. It’s no trick question the Stoneheart’s posing to him now; Sunday knows very well what he’s asking the other man for.

Aventurine just needs to hear him say it. (Again, for whatever reason.)

“Punishment,” he answers after a weighted pause, voice breathless and feathers quivering, fanning out briefly before his wings curl in, hiding the too-honest flush in his cheeks, covering his traitorous mouth. 

“Punishment?” Aventurine echoes a beat later, voice strained as he forces a chuckle. “Mister Sunday, I’m flattered, but I’m no Aeon. Turn your pleas for forgiveness and retribution to THEM. I’m afraid I can’t help you.”

Sunday keeps his gaze lowered, bashful. Ashamed. “I’m afraid you can, actually — And only you. This is not something I could even think to ask of THEM. It is an impossible request that, even if feasible, THEY would not grant me.”

“…Alright, now you’ve lost me, birdie.”

He swallows roughly, the click of it loud in the ensuing silence. He fidgets with his hands, tweaking and straightening out his gloves until each seam is perfect, aligned. Twisting his rings around his fingers once, twice, thrice before he readjusts them back to their center-line. 

“I seek punishment not entirely out of a desire for any atonement, but for more… Ah.”

Sunday squeezes his eyes shut, thumb tap-tap-tapping away at the pulse point of his wrist as he mutters, “Please bestow this lowly one with the courage to confront myself… Forgive me, forgive me, forgive —”

“Sunday. Would you spit it out already?”

He clenches his fist, uttering out three complete pleas for forgiveness before allowing himself to blink his eyes open. Aventurine’s own seem to look through him, right into his tarnished soul. His gaze burns with concern, and a touch of panic. Sunday can not have that.

He unsticks his tongue from the roof of his too-dry mouth, wetting his lips before he continues, “This request is… It is a personal one, Aventurine. A selfish request, befitting our already, ah, unique arrangement. It is not punishment solely for punishment’s sake that I seek. It is gratification, in its ugliest form. Mutual, if you’re amenable to it, of course. Otherwise, please cleanse your memory of this entire conversation and I’ll be on my —”

“You want me to punish you? As in, during sex?”

Sunday’s jaw snaps shut, a strained, gurgling sound rising in his throat as his head-wings curl inwards, concealing the lower half of his face. He averts his eyes, heart galloping wildly in his chest as he tugs at the straps on his gloves. After an age, he finally nods, short and stiff.

“…Won’t you at least look at me when I give you my answer?”

Aventurine’s voice carries a touch of exasperation, yet somehow it is warm with fondness all the same. Sunday inhales, his breaths as shaky and dewy as a newborn fawn’s legs. He finds a smile matching that warmth when he finally musters up the courage to look back at Aventurine. The sight of it makes Sunday’s heart kick against his ribs, desperate to escape.

“Tell me your terms, angel.”

And Sunday had. Painstakingly so, feathers perpetually curtaining his mortified expression from Aventurine’s surprisingly earnest gaze when he asked him to make a list, of all things. How embarrassing it had been to put all his shameful fantasies to paper. His hand shook with every stroke of his pen, yet Aventurine made no comment on his wavering script when Sunday finally pressed the tiny folded square of paper into his palm three days ago. 

Truthfully, he hadn’t expected such an… immediate development. It was difficult to glean just how much this all seemed to intrigue Aventurine, if at all, since he hadn’t spoken a word about the ghastly things Sunday had penned on that list. What if they weren’t compatible in this context? Then, that would mean Sunday was truly, irredeemably helpless. A dissonant key in what was otherwise a simple, harmonious arrangement.

He isn’t quite sure what he’d do if Aventurine were to reject him. Their current positions suggested a very different outcome, but what if he was trying to let Sunday down easy? That would truly be humiliating. 

A sharp spark of pain ignites in the center of his forehead, and he utters an undignified yelp, nearly going cross-eyed as he blinks and tries to focus on the sight of Aventurine’s hand retreating from his face.

“Did you just flick me?”

“Well, it worked, didn’t it?” Aventurine smirks, half-shrugging. “At least, I think it did. Have you finished overthinking quite yet?”

Sunday splutters, face aflame. “I beg your par—”

Aventurine leans in, silencing him with a firm, chaste kiss. A whine swells and withers in Sunday’s throat, shoulders tensing as the other man pulls away far too soon. His exhales puff against the Stoneheart’s mouth in warm bursts, unaligned with Aventurine’s steady, deep breathing.

“I thought you weren’t meant to think,” Aventurine muses, words ghosting across his lips in a gentle murmur. “‘Empty my mind.’ You wrote that at the end of your cute little list, after all.” The surprise must be obvious on Sunday’s face, because the Stoneheart’s smile only widens, emboldened. “Did you really think I wouldn’t be able to decipher it if you scratched it out?”

Sunday purses his lips, embarrassment twining with the arousal in his gut and only serving to soak his pants through even further. He’s grateful that Aventurine hasn’t called attention to his unseemly state just yet, but still, he wishes his attention wasn’t on him just as much as he craves more of it. He wants to turn his face away, but Aventurine keeps his chin in a firm, assured grip. Thumb pressing into the center of his bottom lip.

Rather than address the gambler’s discovery, Sunday turns over a particular word choice in his mind, as bewildered by it as he is flustered. “‘Cute?’ That list was disgusting. I still can’t believe you even made such a request of me. Is it not sufficient enough to show you what I want, or are you really so callous that you’d deliberately humiliate me like this?”

“Ah, but if your list is to be believed, you want me to humiliate you, birdie,” Aventurine reminds him, amusement glittering in his voice as he slides his hand up from Sunday’s chin to graze leather over down, thumb stroking his wing joint. Sunday inhales sharply, fingers tightening in the sheets as he presses his thighs together, bites back the whimper that slithers up his throat. That gemstone gaze goes hooded, darkening with satisfaction and intent alike. “And when I say ‘cute,’ I’m referring to the rather meticulous way you conveyed those filthy little fantasies of yours.”

Sunday’s brows furrow in confusion. “What’s so wrong with what I wrote?”

“Nothing wrong, songbird. Just…” Aventurine bites his lower lip, seeming to hold back laughter. “‘Kiss me less, strike me more…’ ‘Do not treat me kindly…’ Really?”

At that, Sunday finally turns his face away, blustering with embarrassment. His head-wings flutter and puff up, snapping shut over the lower half of his face. Aventurine’s hand slides to cup his nape, fingers gentle against the down there but thumb present against his pulse point as his tittering laughter reverberates through them both. 

“I ought to kick you out,” Sunday hisses, muffled against his feathers.

“Oh? Out of my own room?”

“I’ll leave, then.”

Aventurine tuts at that, nipping at the high point of Sunday’s cheek, just above his wing. His head tilts, silken lips brushing over Sunday’s sensitive covert feathers as he promises him in a hushed voice, “You’ll go nowhere, little dove. You entrusted the key to your cage to me, didn’t you? I’ll decide when you fly free.”

Sunday’s next inhale hitches in his throat, catching on a quiet moan. His entire body tenses, held taut. It’s as if he can feel his individual muscle fibers weaving themselves tighter together. Even his back-wings, which he holds so stiffly day-to-day, give an uncharacteristic twitch beneath his coat, feathers ruffling in agitation. 

Aventurine’s shuffled a bluff into his words. Sunday’s well aware that the man’s bedroom door is unlocked — a bold choice, considering the Express isn’t quite so empty tonight — and beyond that, Aventurine had insisted on a safe word. Something to trigger a full stop, zero questions asked.

“Oh, and come up with a code, birdie. Something to really kill the mood for both of us, should you need to stop.”

Sunday huffs a dry laugh, thumbing the half-finished list in his trouser pocket absentmindedly. “What about you? What if you need to stop?”

“I think you’ll find my limits to match yours, Mister Sunday. I’ll stop if you need to.”

He frowns, wanting to press the matter a little more. Surely, Aventurine’s comfort is of equal weight in this arrangement; after all, Sunday’s the one asking him to — to —

“I’ve thought of something,” he blurts, voice stiff.

“Oh? That fast?”

“Mm. I’m sure you’ll agree that it would be most… effective in sullying that particular mood you wish to cultivate.”

Aventurine sputters, indignant, “I’m sorry, that I wish? Wasn’t it you who —” He cuts himself off abruptly, a muscle jumping in his jaw as he waves a hand in Sunday’s direction, as if shooing him away. “Never mind. I don’t know why I bother arguing with you.”

Sunday allows himself a small, triumphant smile at the irritation tensing the Stoneheart’s pretty features, and then bites his tongue lest he let that compliment slip.

“Well?” Aventurine clicks his tongue, impatient. “Go ahead. Say it, then. Since you’re so confident.”

“‘…Family.’”

Sunday doesn’t dare speak the word now. Doesn’t dare to make a sound, or do so much as glance at the door to double, triple check the lock. Aventurine’s offering him an out that he refuses to take, and if that isn’t proof of just how far down he’s fallen, he doesn’t know what is. His gaze flits, lashes fluttering in acquiescence as he wills his tense muscles to unwind, arching his neck until Aventurine’s within his line of sight again. Catches his gaze and doesn’t let it go. 

His wings remain stubborn over his face, muzzling him, so Sunday lets his eyes speak for him. He only hopes they can convey his heart’s true intent instead of his mind’s needless turmoil. 

I trust you, spelled out in liquid gold. His script may be a little shaky still, but Aventurine reads him easily enough.

“Good boy, Sunday,” he breathes over his wing joint, the praise sending Sunday’s feathers aflutter. “You know exactly where you belong, don’t you, songbird?”

Yes. Sunday all but melts at the words, at the Stoneheart’s rough, honeyed voice keeping him captive. Petting the jagged, frenzied edges of his headspace into something soft and cottony until it absorbs every touch and breath he laves over him, Aventurine’s ardent affection upending his train of thought entirely.

He’s in freefall, unaware of his own eyes slipping shut until something warm and wet brushes over the primaries folded over his mouth. Vertigo slams into him, thoughts lurching back onto a half-cognizant track as his mind races to catch up with the sensations trembling through his wings.

Sunday’s eyes fly open, and he finds Aventurine staring back.

Aventurine’s mouth moves over his wings as if they weren’t even there, as if they were actually lip-locked instead. Every brush of his lips and swipe of his tongue over Sunday’s primaries sends an electric current through his veins, a smite he welcomes with open arms and a wanton moan. The piercing that sits in Aventurine’s tongue rolls over his feathers as his kiss grows bolder, dirtier. Sunday unclenches his hands from the sheets, haltingly raising them to any part of the other man he can reach, only to be intercepted. Aventurine’s palms press against his own, leather to silk. 

Their fingers interlock, hands shifting in sync. The Stoneheart’s rings dig into the webbing between Sunday’s fingers. Mismatched, jagged puzzle pieces shoved together to form an imperfect picture Sunday doubts he’ll ever stop marveling over. The details of their arrangement are still fuzzy to him (and how they fell into it even moreso) but it’s becoming increasingly difficult for him to imagine their back and forth without the absentminded brush of Aventurine’s hand against his or the fervent kisses they share away from the gazes of the other crew members — despite him still not being used to the affection.

Aventurine gives Sunday’s hand a short squeeze before he carefully pulls his own back, but not away. With a gentleness that doesn’t match the intent of his lips over his wings, he twists the rings snug over each of Sunday’s gloves off, dropping them to the bedspread. His ring and middle finger then slip underneath the fabric, pushing it up as they trail down Sunday’s forearm, firmer against his pulse point and then featherlight over his heartlines. 

Slowly, he peels the glove off, still mouthing over his wings all the while. Sunday feels the slight disturbance in the air as it drops to the bedspread, hears the whisper of satin kissing silk. 

He flinches back with a gasp, blinking blearily as his head-wings finally unfold and expand, fanned out in alarm. He can feel where they’re damp at the tips, weighed down by the other man’s saliva. He glances fervently at the sad little crumple of silk on the sheets, but then Aventurine is right there, distracting him with a proper kiss. Heady with the promise of what’s to come.

“Don’t worry your pretty little head about that,” rumbles against his lips. Sunday’s brows scrunch in frustration and his mouth parts to argue, but Aventurine takes that chance to slip his tongue inside, running the hot muscle behind his teeth, sliding it over his own. Titanium rubs firmly over the roof of Sunday’s mouth, effectively silencing his protests. Aventurine pulls back briefly, tugging at his bottom lip with his teeth before he promises, “I’ll take care of everything. Trust me, Sunday.”

An anxious trill passes between them. Aventurine swallows it down easily, already slipping the other glove off, and Sunday finally allows himself to drown. 

Every time his eyes flutter open, distracted, Aventurine tugs him back into his current, hot mouth pressing insistently against his as he peels his clothes off layer by layer. Naturally, his scarf is the next to fall, a spiral of silk atop his gloves. His tailcoat goes next, Aventurine’s deft fingers pushing it off his shoulders, guiding his arms out of the sleeves until the garment pools around his waist. The wings on his lower back ruffle frantically, fanning out through the slits in his shirt with a gust of air. There’s a spot of soreness at the base of each wing, and Aventurine, terrifyingly attuned to his body, trails his hands down to slip into his shirt, rubbing at the tender skin around the protrusions. 

A sound, broken and wanting, warbles out of Sunday’s throat. When he reaches for Aventurine again, he isn’t met with any resistance. He’s far less careful in undressing him, hasty hands shoving off his jacket and making quick work of his vest. He sputters and stalls once they both fall to the floor, pulling away from the Stoneheart’s mouth with a wet, feverish noise. “‘Turine,” he calls, voice ragged and nerves frayed.

Aventurine shushes him gently, smearing a kiss at the edge of Sunday’s mouth as he starts to untuck his shirt from his pants. “Told you I’d take care of everything, and I meant that. What — Don’t you believe me?”

There’s a retort on the tip of his tongue, but it’s muffled by his shirt being tugged over his head. It joins their messy pile with a rustle, and Sunday’s left head-wings flicks with agitation, back arching at the slight chill that meets his exposed torso. His nipples pebble in the air, pert. Aventurine presses one last searing kiss to his mouth, parting with a wet smack and a ragged little groan, as if he can’t help but indulge himself, and then leans away. He presses a hand to Sunday’s sternum, right in the valley of his chest, and pushes until he falls onto his back.

“Just lie back, angel.”

Sunday adjusts, shuffling up the bed to make more room for the other man. His back arches slightly to let his lower wings stretch and fan out as Aventurine kneels between his spread thighs, still fully clothed. Sunday had somehow managed to unfasten his choker, leaving his collar loose and open. The peek of golden skin through his shirt cutout glows with a rosy flush, Aventurine no doubt feeling just as affected as he is. Champagne blond waves no longer hold their carefully tousled style, and now look properly mussed instead — like Sunday had been running his hands through them. Funnily enough, he doesn’t remember doing such a thing. 

The brand on his neck is always stark. Sunday never allows himself to linger on it for longer than it takes to make his throat tighten up with an impossible emotion. He looks away.

Somehow, Aventurine’s gloves are still on. Sunday’s gaze snaps to his hands as they deftly unfasten his cufflinks, rolling his sleeves up past his elbows, watch and bracelets clinking with every shift. The maneuver draws Sunday’s attention even lower, to where the Stoneheart’s erection tents his pants. Obvious, obscene. He craves the weight of it in his palm, on his tongue, wants its heat carving him open —

A chuckle interrupts his foolish, feverish line of thought. His gaze snaps up to find Aventurine smirking down at him, leather-clad fingers raking through his hair to push his bangs off his forehead. “If I didn’t know any better, Mister Sunday, I’d think you were trying to undress me with just your eyes. Quite the honest little coins, aren’t they?”

Sunday’s eyes narrow, and he opens his mouth to bite out a scathing remark about Aventurine’s asinine turn of phrase when the other man reaches over, plucking the first piece of clothing from the pile and beginning to fold it. Sunday’s mouth snaps shut with a loud click of his teeth, face alight in mortification and… delight?

It’s usually Sunday, reaching for their clothes with furrowed brows and a tense mouth while he tries to ignore the Stoneheart’s gaze, heavy with intent and affection alike, boring through him the entire time. He’s surprised at the role reversal now, to say the least. Struck dumb and speechless.

Aventurine simply arches a brow at his silence, smirk softening into a teasing little smile as he starts a neat little pile on the nightstand. “What? Something you wanna share?”

“…No.”

The blond shrugs, faux-casual even as he meticulously folds each article of clothing. Quickly, but not hastily. Sunday watches him all the while, the searing heat between his legs quieting to a dull throb. As Aventurine sets his rings down atop his gloves, smoothed of any wrinkles, he alights as if he’s only just noticed that Sunday’s still halfway dressed.

“My, my — It seems I’ve forgotten something after all.”

“Forgotten yourself, as well.”

“Ah, but I haven’t, my dear Sunday.”

Aventurine flashes him a coy smile as he shuffles off the bed, dropping to one knee at his feet to gently tug his boots off. He rises to set them aside, arranging them neatly at the foot of the bed, and then reassumes his earlier position standing between Sunday’s legs. He smooths his palms up his thighs, settling his hands over his hips with an appreciative hum, eyes raking over his bare chest hungrily. 

“Aren’t you a pretty little thing,” he rasps, hands ascending to his waist, over his ribs, before finally cupping a side of Sunday’s chest in each hand. “I could eat you right up.” He gives his tits a gentle squeeze, pushing them together, and then dips down suddenly, mouth relaxed and tongue dropped to lap at his meager cleavage.

Sunday jolts underneath him, gasping high in his throat as Aventurine harshens his assault, lewd as he licks his way to his left nipple and sucks it into his mouth, flicking his piercing against the nub. He pinches the right one, rolling it between his thumb and forefinger. His name forms on Sunday’s tongue and melts just as quickly, a ragged moan dripping from his lips in its stead.

Aventurine’s other hand skims back down his chest, scratching over his happy trail, thumb pressing into his belly button as he grazes his teeth around his areola, nipping sharply. He trails his hand lower, pushing against Sunday’s abdomen when he bucks at the brief flash of pain, fingers slipping beneath the waistband of his pants. It’s a tight fit with them still being done up, but Aventurine finds his cunt easily enough, dragging the pads of his fingers between slick folds and dripping plumes, rubbing lazily over his clit.

An unsteady string of sound continues to leak out of Sunday, gasps and whines interspersed with the filthy slurping noises coming Aventurine’s mouth as he practically drools over his nipple. He doesn’t know how much time passes with the other man hunched over him like this, suckling and plucking at his chest, tuning his body until Sunday is helpless to sing. He goes dizzy and flushed with how urgently his orgasm begins to build, snuffing the light at the edge of his vision and muddling whatever needy sounds leave his mouth the closer he gets.

The sensations overwhelm him to the point it feels like his head is going to split in every direction. Aventurine’s mouth, his hands, his weight, his breaths, his body heat. It’s all so much — too much — but somehow not enough at the same time. He wants to be completely undone, ribboned in Aventurine’s hands, nothing but an afterimage of pleasure. 

Shakily, Sunday unclenches his hands from the sheets and lifts them up to rest atop the Stoneheart’s crown, trembling fingers threading through his hair as his hips roll down against his hand. He pushes at Aventurine’s head, a silent plea for more more more — 

Abruptly, Aventurine pulls back. A loud, sucking sound snaps through the air like a rubber band. He lets go of Sunday’s other nipple, drags his hand out from his pants and smears slick all over his stomach, the shine of it catching on his happy trail. All at once, Sunday’s devastatingly whole again, the absence of pleasure leaving him reeling, squirming and gasping on the bed.

“What —” He tries to speak, but his mouth and throat are bone dry, stripping his voice down to a rasping whisper. His hands drop from Aventurine’s hair, arms limp at his sides once again. “‘Turine? Why’d you stop?”

“You were getting greedy, angel,” he answers huskily. His voice alone is enough to pull another whimper from Sunday’s throat, beckoning slick to pulse from his cunt.

“…It felt good,” he admits quietly, heat steady in his cheeks. Bashful as he feels, Sunday’s mind is quiet of any lingering reservations. No pesky pleas for deliverance to distract him from the temptation right in front of him.

Aventurine makes a low, humming noise in his throat at his response, gaze hooded as he appraises the state of his chest. Palms still cup his tits, jiggling them slightly as he thumbs over the ring of teeth marks over his left nipple. His tongue clicks in disapproval as he regards the right side, just as pert and puffy, but noticeably missing that glistening sheen of saliva. Sunday watches his tongue poke at his cheek, watches the roll of his lips over his teeth, the bob of his throat working, and then —

Aventurine spits. Right on his nipple.

Sunday jolts with a broken cry, slapping the back of his hand over his mouth to muffle its echoes. The impact isn’t harsh or painful by any means, and yet it feels just as electrifying as if he were actually struck. Aventurine ducks down again, skipping over any buildup to bite right over the bud, digging his teeth in until Sunday is shaking and muffling mewls into his hand. 

He stays like that, holding his nipple between his teeth for a good moment before leaning away again, tugging at it as he retreats. Sunday keens, back arching when it’s finally released, his tit falling back into place with a light bounce.

When he looks down, there’s a new angry set of teeth marks to match the other side of his chest, his nipple shining with saliva. Aventurine thumbs over the nub again, rubbing his spit into his skin and smiling.

“There you go,” he sighs, satisfied, far too content for how Sunday is panting, chest heaving with every breath. “Now they match.” 

Aventurine’s hands trail a torturous path downwards, stopping to thumb Sunday’s fly open. “Let’s see if you’re just as wet under these, hm?”

Skin-warm leather hooks into his waistband, deceptively tender. Aventurine yanks his pants down to his knees in one rough movement. Sunday’s hand flails out to clutch at the sheets once more and his head thrashes to the side. He digs his teeth into his bottom lip, swallowing back a sob and failing to hold back his shudder at the cool air hitting his sensitive, dripping cunt. His soaked nether-wings flutter with relief, finally free from their uncomfortable restraint. 

Aventurine peels his pants the rest of the way off at a much more languid pace, humming idly under his breath as he does. As soon as they’re past his ankles, Sunday crosses his legs, crushing damp down between his thighs. The recognizable rhythmic rustle of fabric tells him that his pants are folded just like the rest of his clothes and set aside.

“Perfect,” Aventurine declares with another content little sigh when he’s done. His hands smooth over Sunday’s knees, fingers tracing circles over every knob and bump before sliding up and in, prying his thighs apart. He drags him even closer, lifting his hips unto the cradle of his own. Sunday’s legs wrap around Aventurine’s waist of their own accord, ankles crossed at his lower back. His erection nudges against him, hot and insistent between his spread legs, making his clit twitch and his wings flutter. Sunday whimpers, hands diving between his legs as a barrier, desperate for a modicum of modesty. 

“Don’t hide from me, now, little dove.”

Slick leather encircles his wrists, tearing his hands away from his cunt and pinning them to the bed on either side of his head. Sunday’s head-wings snap over his eyes and mouth in tandem, but he can still feel Aventurine looming over him, the shadow of his frame bleeding through the gaps between his primaries.

“Won’t you look at me, angel? Or should I play rough with these, too?”

A hot tongue traces the bend of his wing, teeth nipping at bone, grazing just around the edge of his piercings. Tingles pass over his ear as their respective studs bump and clack together, Aventurine’s tongue unrelenting. Sunday mewls at the electric sensation, the feathers covering his cunt quivering for similar attention. 

Slowly, he unfurls his head-wings, but they remain slightly curled inward, feather-tips brushing his jawline. He blinks misty eyes open to find Aventurine’s hungry gaze burning into him, wet tongue darting out to swipe at his bottom lip.

Sunday’s heart thumps weakly against his ribcage, bird of prey with a clipped, useless wing. “You could,” he admits quietly.

Aventurine stiffens above him, eyes going wide. “Huh?”

“They’re not… off-limits.”

A beat passes. Aventurine blinks at him, mouth agape. “You — That was not on the list, birdie.”

Sunday glares at him for a moment and then turns his face away, cheeks burning with shame. “It seems that there’s a point where my limits surpass yours, after all.”

“That’s not —” Aventurine huffs out an exasperated sigh. “Don’t be ridiculous. I’m not turning my back, I’m merely… Surprised.” His gaze takes on a curious glint, raking over Sunday’s wings as he releases one of his wrists in favor of taking one of his primaries between his thumb and forefinger, rubbing gently. “Pleasantly surprised,” he amends in a distracted murmur, rubbing over the soft overshaft close to the root of the feather. “Almost feels too good to be true.”

Sunday doesn’t deign him with a response, afraid of how much his voice might give away if he were to try to speak. Aventurine seems content with his silence, stroking down the edge of the vane reverently, breath damp and hot across his cheek.

And then he tugs. A quick, sudden movement, deliberate enough to strain the quill but not so harsh that he’d actually remove it. All of Sunday’s feathers fan out in alarm, shuddering at the shock of pain. His eyes roll back in his skull, a ragged whimper torn from his throat. His one free hand scrabbles for purchase against Aventurine’s chest, fingers digging into the exquisite material of his shirt. Wrinkling it, no doubt.

Aventurine pulls on it again, and Sunday’s hips flex, wet down and slick folds sliding over the bulge in the other man’s pants. It feels good, shamefully so — that swing between pain and pleasure — so he does it again. Rolls his hips up, grinding his clit over the line of his fly and making a mess of Aventurine’s crotch. Above him, the Stoneheart clicks his tongue, winding the feather around his finger and giving it one last tug before his hand retreats, pushing at Sunday’s hip to still his movements.

“Needy little dove,” he chides in a raspy voice, stroking circles over his hip bone. “This wet from a little pulling? I wonder what might’ve happened if I actually plucked it out.”

Sunday’s trapped hand strains, fingers flexing as he presses his wrist further into Aventurine’s palm. “I’d love to see you try,” he answers, voice far too breathless to carry the full weight of such a challenge.

Bright laughter dances around them, tugging at his heartstrings just as well as it fans his arousal. Aventurine’s eyes crinkle and glitter with mirth, and he gives Sunday’s wrist a squeeze. “You make it sound like you’d put up a fight.”

“And why wouldn’t I?”

“Because you’d like it.” Aventurine’s gaze darkens, and he releases Sunday’s wrist in favor of trailing his gloved fingers down the column of his throat, slipping over his clavicle and dancing over his sternum. Gooseflesh erupts across his skin, a full-body shudder wracking through him at the sensation. His nether-wings quiver the closer Aventurine’s touch approaches, but the other man stops just shy of his mound, ring finger dipping into his belly button.

“I think,” Aventurine continues, voice featherlight and eerily calm, “that you’d snap your own wings off for me if I did so much as ask.”

It’s an absurd concept. Sunday knows that if Aventurine ever dared to pose such a question, he’d have no issue telling him no. He doubts Aventurine truly wants something like that, but his confidence falters the more the other man’s starving gaze bores into him.

But the idea of it… The very notion that Aventurine could relish in delivering the same pain that Sunday so shamefully seeks has him melting further into the bedspread, a quiet whine falling off his ragged breath like a dewdrop off grass as he nods, head-wings relaxing. 

“You wouldn’t even have to ask.”

That confident, domineering mask across Aventurine’s face fractures and true awe bleeds through the cracks. His smile slips, mouth slackening in shock and eyes going wide, pupils so dilated that his eyes might as well be entirely black.

“You…” He huffs out a quiet, disbelieving little laugh and shakes his head, hand sliding to encircle Sunday’s waist and squeeze. “You’re going to be the death of me, angel.”

I’d sooner kill myself, Sunday doesn’t say, swallowing back that nauseating truth. “Are you quite done making a fool of yourself?” he asks instead, arching a brow. “I’m not sure how much more of this needless teasing I can take. I could still leave, you know.”

“What a funny way to confess just how badly you want it.”

“Aventurine.”

The other man laughs, the bright sound at complete odds with the dark expression that curtains his face once more. “Don’t worry, songbird — I'll tangle that proper, pretty tongue of yours until the only words you can say are my name and ‘please.’”

Sunday gnaws at the inside of his cheek to keep himself from answering Aventurine with something embarrassing and damning — like, Promise? His hips flex in a shivering circle, the movement drawing Aventurine’s gaze down to the apex of his thighs. His hands begin a slow, torturous descent, beckoning goosebumps with every stroke of leather against Sunday’s skin.

“There is one thing I’m still curious about, birdie. If you’ll indulge me?”

Sunday’s brows furrow, his feathers tensing in anticipation. “What?”

“You’ve shared all the delicious ways you’d like to be punished,” Aventurine continues, his tone far too lackadaisical and casual for how deliberately humiliating his words are. It immediately sets off alarm bells in Sunday’s head. 

“But you’ve yet to tell me — Just what am I punishing you for?”

Sunday stiffens for only a moment, crumbling under Aventurine’s heady, assessing gaze.

Of course, there is something — Sunday just never intended to loop Aventurine in on it. The other man had all the opportunities in the world to sate his curiosity before this. But he hadn’t, so Sunday had assumed he was safe.

Safety had been something of a pipe dream for Sunday throughout his life, and that it might be achievable now — around Aventurine, of all people — terrifies him more than anything. Perhaps he’s gotten too comfortable, let his guard down too much. Let a man who has every reason to abhor him into his bed, under his clothes. Exposed his own underbelly and trilled at the gleam of a knife.

Sunday knows that, logically, Aventurine poses no real threat against him — Not anymore, at least. Not after everything they’ve both been through, all the quiet nights they’ve spent skin-to-skin, exchanging hushed truths by moonlight. 

But why should he trust that? He should be hiding what few ugly parts of himself he hasn’t exposed yet, not putting them on display. 

Just as Sunday opens his mouth to deflect, the Stoneheart’s hand shoves itself between his thighs, palm flush to his mound, flattening the baby feathers there. He chokes on the half-formed lie, attempts to close his legs again, but Aventurine’s other hand sears itself to his inner thigh, fingers digging in as he snaps it open, wrenching it from around his waist and pinning it to the bed. His rings are sure to leave dents in his skin.

Sunday’s other leg slackens, falling open in tandem to hang limply off the edge of the bed. His nether-wings tremble, betraying him as they curve around Aventurine’s wrist, keeping his hand against his cunt. Gloved fingers crook and slide between his puffy folds, the leather wet again. The heel of Aventurine’s hand drags against his clit as he spreads Sunday’s lips, exposing the drool of his hole. “Won’t you answer me, little dove?”

Sunday’s back arches off the bed, wings flaring out and gut coiling tight as he gasps, “It — ah — isn’t so elaborate. Just a fantasy. N— ngh — N-Nothing more.”

The blond quirks a brow up, making a low, inquisitive noise in his throat as his ring finger circles the sensitive entrance of Sunday’s cunt, swirling through his slick. “Your pussy’s dripping this much over ‘nothing?’ You’re a terrible liar, Mister Sunday. What should I do with you, hm?”

His eyes squeeze shut at Aventurine’s words, chin trembling as he struggles to keep his hips still. They twitch against his will, cunt trying to catch on Aventurine’s finger, suck it in. The digit disappears altogether in the next broken breath, the Stoneheart adjusting his hand to bracket his swollen clit between his thumb and trigger finger, his touch careful for only a moment.

Then, he pinches it. Sunday’s eyes snap open, head tossing back as a wanton cry tears from his throat. His hand flies down to clutch at Aventurine’s forearm, digging his nails in, yet his nether-wings only seem to circle his wrist even tighter. Aventurine tugs at his clit, never letting up on the pressure. Pleasure boils Sunday’s blood so quickly that he worries he’ll overheat, the pain of it making his brows pinch together, making him wince. Tearing him apart.

“This is all you’re getting from me if you keep the lie up,” Aventurine warns him, tone cold and detached with a gaze to match it. “So, let’s try this again: What am I punishing you for, angel?”

It could be any number of things, really. Sunday’s mind is quickly slipping away from him though, so it latches onto his most recent transgression — And possibly, definitely the most mortifying.

“T-Touching, mmh, touching m-myself.”

Aventurine’s brow raises, his eyes flashing with an emotion Sunday doesn’t have the mental facilities to name presently. Is he surprised that he engages in something like that in his downtime? Or could he be disappointed with Sunday’s answer altogether? Whatever it is, it finally makes Aventurine take pity on him, releasing his clit in favor of trailing his fingers back down between his folds.

“Now, why would I punish you over that, sweetheart? I’m only annoyed that I didn’t get to see it. Invite me over, next time.”

Sunday’s head shakes from side to side, wings beating once, twice before they settle over his mouth, hovering. “Y-You… You were away, and I was —”

Lonely, he almost says, swallowing the word up and whispering a feeble, “…needy,” instead. As if that were any better.

Aventurine’s features soften, but his eyes retain the same hungry, bottomless gaze as he coos at him. “Poor boy. You were thinking of me, then? Is that what’s got your pretty feathers all ruffled?”

He nods, biting his lip to stifle some of his whimpers, already missing the brutal squeeze of Aventurine’s fingers around his clit. Just as soon as the thought passes through his head, Sunday flinches, seething at himself. Not only needy, but greedy, too.

“None of that,” Aventurine tuts at him. “Tell me, how d’you do it?”

The question evades him, Sunday’s brows furrowing as he makes a questioning sound.

“Touch yourself, I mean,” Aventurine clarifies, fond exasperation in his voice. “I’ll save you the humiliation of telling me what you were thinking about for another time. But, indulge me just a bit more, angel — Do you touch yourself like this?” Aventurine’s hand shifts, the pads of his fingertips rubbing fast and sure circles over the chubby head of Sunday’s clit, making him cry out. “Bet you soak your feathers through trying to get it to be as good as me, don’t you?”

Sunday shakes his head, squirming as his arousal builds and builds. He can feel the wet spot under his ass growing, can feel the steady drip of warm slick from his hole. He can’t find it in himself to waste any energy on feeling embarrassed, not when the truth sits on the edge of his tongue, dangling its feet — waiting to jump. “I-I — Ah, I don’t — N-Not like this —”

“No?” Aventurine’s voice brightens, gleeful. “How, then?”

The words trip out of Sunday’s mouth, uncoordinated. “No fingers,” he admits. “I don’t — I don’t like to touch. It’s dirty.”

“What does that make me then, hm? For touching you. Aren’t you doubly dirty now?”

Sunday’s lips twist and he shakes his head. Aventurine’s voice has a cruel, dark edge to it; he can see his leering smile clear as day in his mind’s eye. “It’s d-different,” Sunday insists. “When it’s you, it’s… mnh, better.”

“…So, then — How do you ever manage to get off without me? Don’t tell me you’re hiding toys from me, birdie.”

His face pinches with mortification, wings fluttering up to cover his eyes instead. He doesn’t want to look at Aventurine when he says this. Blessedly, the other man doesn’t seem to lose patience in the face of Sunday’s stalling. Granting him what little mercy he has left before the well dries up and he decides to just take and take.

Sunday will happily let Aventurine take as much as he wants from him. Mutual gratification, and all. He swallows roughly, every feather on his body aquiver as he finally confesses, “N-No toys. I — I used your pillow.”

Aventurine’s fingers still against him, and the air in the room seems to follow suit. Sunday holds his breath for good measure, chewing on the inside of his cheek as the ensuing silence starts to suffocate him. Aventurine’s hand leaves his cunt altogether shortly, smearing slick over his hip.

Then, only after what feels like an age, his clean hand unsticks from his thigh, leaving aching buds of pain in its wake where Sunday knows bruises will form. Fingers gently trace over the bend of his head-wings in the next moment, coaxing them down from his eyes. Sunday lets them droop but keeps his gaze averted, his chest depressing with a shaky exhale.

“Look at me.”

He doesn’t flinch, but it’s a close thing. The full-body tremor that crashes through him leaves him feeling slightly cold. Or, maybe it’s the absence of Aventurine’s touch.

“Sunday.”

Right. Aventurine wasn’t asking him, that time. 

It should frighten Sunday, how easily he finds Aventurine’s gaze again, how quickly he seems to melt under it. He’s nothing but a puddle of melted wax and a pile of feathers under the other man’s hands — Whether he reshapes him into candlesticks or fashions him into quills matters very little so long as Aventurine keeps touching him, using him.

The Stoneheart’s face is carefully blank, a touch of mania keeping his eyes alight. “Say that again for me,” he orders in a calm voice.

Sunday’s breath shudders out of him. Aventurine all cold like this shouldn’t be such an attractive sight, and yet he finds himself canting his hips up, hoping for any sort of relief as he easily repeats, “I used your pillow.”

“…You were in my room?”

“Yes,” he confirms, cheeks aflame. “I was.” I missed you, he doesn’t say. He’s vulnerable enough as it is; no need to give Aventurine a clear shot at his jugular.

“You were in my room,” the other man echoes, halfway to disbelief. A thread of anxiety weaves itself around Sunday’s heart valves, his chest constricting as he holds his breath once more. Aventurine lifts his hand, bracing his palm right beside Sunday’s head, jerking his own in the direction of the bedpost where his pillow rests innocently. “Was it that one?”

Meekly, Sunday nods.

“The one I sleep on.”

He nods a second time, eyes stinging with unshed tears. “It — It smells like you,” he whispers.

Aventurine’s face twitches, mouth pulling up into a half-smirk, half-snarl. “And you just had to make sure it smelled like you, too — Didn’t you?”

His head bobs a third time, brows scrunching together with embarrassment. When Aventurine puts it like that, he makes Sunday sound like some… some pervert.

The other man sways just a breath closer, their cheeks brushing together as he leans in to whisper by his ear, “That’s disgusting, birdie.”

Sunday’s breath hitches. Shame pours over him like hot wax, molding a cast of his mortified face and wanton body. “I-I washed it,” he insists, “Several times — The sheets, too —”

“What, so we should pretend it never happened?” Aventurine barks out a dry, mean laugh, shifting his weight off of his hand to cup Sunday’s cheek instead, deceptively gentle in how he caresses his skin. “Just how dirty did you get in here while I was gone, hm? Was it just the one time, or did you come back for seconds? Maybe I should strip the bedding entirely and check for stains.”

Sunday whines, distressed. He tries to turn his face, turn his cheek to Aventurine’s callous gaze and menacing grin. The hand on his face is no longer so kind, holding him in a firm, almost bruising grip, Aventurine digging his fingers into his cheek. 

“It was only once, I swear —”

“Lying again?” Aventurine shakes his head, tutting at him. “I figured you’d know better by now, but it seems you’re really asking for it, huh, angel?” 

“I’m n-not lying,” Sunday attempts to argue. A pathetic attempt. His words lack any bite or edge, voice rubbed raw with pleasure, slurring slightly.

Aventurine chuckles, and the sound goes right to his cunt. Burrowing into it the way Sunday wishes his cock, or even his fingers, would. Anything to feel full of him. 

“Let’s see you prove it then, hm?” The Stoneheart digs his thumb into the soft, hollow point beneath Sunday’s cheekbone, a cruel little farewell before he pulls away, straightening up. His hands grab Sunday’s hips, shoving him up on the bed before they retreat.

Aventurine pats his hand against his own thigh, not unlike how one would beckon a pet. Inviting and demeaning all the same.

“Show me.”

At this, Sunday falters, uncertain as he glances furtively between Aventurine’s hooded gaze and his proffered leg, eyes catching on his bulge as they trip back up to his face. 

Just what exactly is he expecting Sunday to do here?

Aventurine sighs, eyes rolling slightly as he wraps a hand around Sunday’s ankle, yanking him forward until his ass is halfway over the edge of the bed and his cunt smushes against the bulk of his thigh. Clarity parts the fog in Sunday’s mind with a clean cut, his eyes going wide as he realizes what Aventurine wants from him. 

“I’m sure you can figure the rest out,” he purrs. “Better not keep me waiting, angel.”

Sunday has… options here. He could put up a pitiful fight against Aventurine’s request — no, his command, and beckon forth what might (hopefully) be an even more demeaning reaction from the other man for his defiance when he inevitably fails. 

Or he could do as he says. Mortifying as it might be, it would offer him relief — Maybe even release, if Aventurine was feeling kind by that point. (A part of Sunday hopes he won’t be.)

The choice is a simple one, in the end. Sunday’s head-wings fold over the lower half of his face, and he miraculously manages to hold Aventurine’s gaze as he curls his fingers into the sheets, arches his back off the bed. The first roll of his hips is stiff, short, belying the stubborn shame that twines with his arousal. Beyond that, the sensation itself is electric; Aventurine’s slacks aren’t cheap, the fabric heavenly soft against his cunt. Probably far too expensive for Sunday to be doing this to them at all, but Aventurine doesn’t take his eyes off him for even a moment — doesn’t even seem to blink as he watches him move, grinding weakly against his leg — so, he keeps going.

He doesn’t pick up his pace too much, a part of him still deathly afraid of baring the depth of his need. Aventurine can be a patient man where it counts, but in this moment, he becomes agitated.

“Is that it?” he drawls, arching a brow. Sunday glowers up at him, lips pursed petulantly behind his wings. “This is pathetic, angel. You’re barely leaving a stain. Ah, and here I thought I was missing out on all the filthy things you got up to in here while I was gone… Are you sure you even needed to wash my bedding at all?”

The words should irritate Sunday. He should be snapping back at Aventurine, meeting him bark for bite and shoving him off before he can make an even bigger fool out of him. Yet, all they manage to do is spur him on. He arches his back further, his wings beating against the bed out of sync as he urges his hips into a deeper, dirtier grind, dragging clit-to-hole over the expanse of Aventurine’s thigh. He can feel every slick shift of his folds, can feel the wink and pulse of his cunt every time his clit rolls against the other man’s leg. It’s a heady, addictive feeling, and soon enough, Sunday isn’t thinking too much about fast or slow, needy or demure. 

He just moves.

It feels so, so good. Too good. Magma dripping down his spine, heat roaring behind his navel as his hips speed up and his legs wrap around Aventurine’s thigh for leverage. He’s practically humping Aventurine’s leg like some needy animal. He’s making noise — He has to be, if his throat feels this sore, but he can’t be too troubled with what sort of sounds must be bouncing off the thin walls of Aventurine’s room right now. Not when the other man is answering his deprived wails with his own litany of filth —

“That’s it, angel — Just like that — Such a good boy, making yourself feel good —”

Not when Sunday is so, so close to coming.

“So pretty when you’re needy, dove,” Aventurine groans, his branding touch trailing up from Sunday’s hips, hands leaving a blistering blush in their wake. His fingers trip over Sunday’s rib cage before they settle back on his chest, clutching the supple flesh in a mean grip. Sunday moans, tossing his head back as Aventurine tweaks at his pert nipples, rolling each one in a rough circle under his thumb. “No wonder these’re so sensitive,” he muses breathlessly. “Played with them, too, did you?”

Sunday nods fervently, whimpering out a broken little uh huh in reply, too far gone to form any real words. He’s not sure he remembers how to speak. But, regardless, one word he wouldn’t forget —

“‘Turine,” he pants wetly, no real rhythm to his twitching hips. By now, there’s a definite damp patch on the other man’s pants, but Sunday can not find a semblance of remorse amidst all the ecstasy pouring into his mind. His pussy squelches obscenely with every grind, creamy slick smearing bubbling between his lips when he squeezes his thighs around Aventurine’s leg. 

He’s forgotten the proper words to ask for forgiveness, to pardon his own shame — but why would he need those words, anyway? 

“Aventurine, I — hah — I’m — I’ll —”

“Sweet thing,” Aventurine purrs, tugging at his nipples harshly. Sweat beads across his forehead, glistens across his chest through the window in his shirt. “Sweet, perfect Sunday. So easy for me, darling. You want to come?”

He nods, moaning helplessly as the edge rushes up to meet him. His hips stutter and pulse feverishly, movements erratic and uncoordinated, but he feels himself only getting wetter, pressure building behind his navel.

“Yeah? You want to be fucked?”

“P-Please, want to, need to, ah, n-need you —”

Aventurine’s eyes flash, crystals under a looking glass, as his grin sharpens into something feral, frightening. 

“Aww. That’s too bad.”

His hands leave Sunday’s chest with one last mean yank to each nipple, gripping the backs of his knees instead and pushing up, pushing him away and effectively stilling Sunday’s desperate rutting and pressing his knees to his chest. Relief slips between Sunday’s fingers, replaced by a burning ache in the backs of his thighs. 

Aventurine had been cruelly dangling Sunday over the edge of the cliff only to yank him back by the collar before the fall could claim him. Sunday thinks he would rather take death over this. The sudden absence of stimulation is visceral, hurts deeper than the first time, and tugs pitiful, confused whimpers from his chest. His face crumples, feet kicking uselessly against the other man’s arms and chest.

“No, no, no, no, no — Why?”

“Stay still,” Aventurine scolds. “And hold these up for me.”

Sunday shakes his head, glaring up at him with tearful eyes. “No.”

Aventurine quirks a brow up, half-amused, half-bored. “Don’t be like that,” he simpers. “I’m doing what you asked, aren’t I?”

“How is dragging this on and on ‘doing what I asked?’”

“Well, it’s no fun if I just give you what you want that easily, is it? Denial is a punishment in its own right.” Aventurine thumbs over the sensitive skin of his inner knee, returning his scowl with a sharp smile of his own. “Now, don’t make things difficult for yourself, angel. Hold your legs up.”

Sunday’s fingers hook over the edge of the bed, arms stiff and straight and hands stubborn. He holds Aventurine’s gaze, watching in real time as it frosts over with impatience and agitation.

“Sunday,” he tries again, sweetening his voice as he leans in close, bearing down on him, crushing his legs to his chest. Their noses bump, breaths intermingling as Aventurine ghosts his mouth over his.

Sunday turns his head, lips flattening into a thin line. Aventurine freezes above him, breath hitching quietly at the staunch rejection. 

He stays suspended over Sunday like this, unmoving, for what feels like an eternity. His heart thumps wildly in his chest — whether out of fear or anticipation, Sunday isn’t sure. There’s pressure against his lungs with his legs against his chest like this, turning his breaths reedy and shallow. It’s the furthest thing from respite, being held in this position; it calls to attention just how bare he is, and just how much Aventurine isn’t. There’s very little control for him to grasp onto, but this — denying Aventurine in his own petulant way — is close enough. 

Aventurine’s fingers press deeper into his kneebend, squeezing meanly before he finally straightens up. “Fine,” he says, hushed and full of dark promise. “I have a better idea.”

Sunday’s brows furrow, and he hiccups a quivering inhale when the pressure on his legs disappears. He doesn’t get a chance to lower them properly before Aventurine’s manhandling him once again, hands unforgiving as he adjusts him how he sees fit. His hips twist, leaving him halfway on his side with his knees crossed, feet tugged behind Aventurine’s back. A gloved hand keeps Sunday’s legs firm against Aventurine’s waist, fingers drumming an idle rhythm against his knees. 

Sunday’s cunt is partially exposed like this, wings folded over his puffy lips as his thighs press them together. He gives in to curiosity, gaze flicking to the side to try to catch the other man’s eye, and finds a serene smile already waiting for him.

“Since you’re so hellbent on defying me, let’s raise the stakes a little, shall we?”

A questioning sound gurgles up in Sunday’s throat, promptly swallowed into silence when Aventurine reaches for his belt, deftly undoing the buckle singlehandedly. The drag of leather through his belt loops is loud in the quiet, the slide of his zipper even louder. Sunday holds his breath, canines tearing through the inside of his cheek until iron spreads across his tongue.

Aventurine raises his hand, bringing it to his mouth. He bites at the tips of his glove, dragging it off finger by finger with his teeth, and shoves it into his back pocket once it’s off. He tugs his pants down, then, just enough to pull himself free from his briefs, tucking the waistband underneath his heavy sac. His cock sways under its own weight, fattened up and purpling at the tip, the vein along his shaft bulging. He moans with relief when he finally wraps a hand around himself, a salacious smirk darkening his face as he tugs a few quick strokes over his length. He’s already wet, pre dripping from his slit and beading anew with every drag of his foreskin over the head.

Sunday feels like a sinner just looking at him; what does craving him inside him make of him?

A devil, perhaps. Human — more likely.

“Careful,” Aventurine rumbles, shuffling closer, fat cockhead nudging at the plush of Sunday’s thighs where they squeeze together above his cunt. His nether-wings unfurl as much as they can, compressed like this, feathers ruffling, shaking out his slick in anticipation. “You’re drooling, little dove.”

Sunday’s mouth snaps shut. He hadn’t even realized it’d been hanging open. His eyes blow wide with mortification as he sucks at his teeth, swallowing back the saliva pooled under his tongue. Frantically, he lifts a shaky hand to his cheek — Surely, Aventurine’s only messing with him. There’s no way he’d actually been —

His fingertips graze the corner of his mouth. They come away wet.

Sunday makes a high, whimpering noise in his throat, rubbing furiously at the spit trail with the back of his hand. Aventurine laughs at him, warm in his cruelty. Practically preening in the face of his humiliation. As much as it burns through him, Sunday doesn’t hate it — Not completely. He doesn’t have the heart to be truly upset. Not when he asked for this. Not when his blood is frantically pumping his primary pulse between his legs.

Still, he lacks enough self-preservation to utter a weak, “I really don’t like you, Aventurine.”

“And yet here you are, drooling for my cock. From both your pretty lips,” he quips. Sunday glares blunt daggers at him, biting back a whine at the drag of Aventurine’s cockhead over the seam of his thighs, down to his swollen cunt. “Look at you. Trying so hard to keep yourself together. C’mon, angel — I promise you’ll feel so much better if you just let go. Stop thinking so much.”

“Give me something to occupy myself with, then,” Sunday snaps. “Aren’t you supposed to fuck me?”

Both of Aventurine’s brows fly up to his hairline, eyes aglow with glee at how freely the swear leaves him. “And why would I do that?”

Sunday sputters, mind stalling on an answer. Because it’s — it’s right there, prodding at his slit.

“…Wh…Why wouldn’t you?”

“It’s what you want,” Aventurine answers him calmly. “And I’m not in the business of giving you what you want — Only taking what I want.”

All of Sunday’s breath expels from his lungs in a shuddering rush. This has veered so far beyond mere want, he wants to argue. It’s need, base and instinctual. His cunt throbs with it, nether-wings flapping weakly as Aventurine presses his hips forward, breaching the clutch of his thighs with a punched out groan. Sunday can only watch, frozen, as the head of his cock pushes between them, smearing precum into his skin. He doesn’t do so much as graze even an inch of his cunt, shaft hovering dangerously close to his clit but never touching it. The only contact he allows is his sac flush to Sunday’s swollen labia, sweat and slick rubbing together. 

“Aven—” Sunday tries to call his name, but is cut off by his own reedy gasp when the other man drags his hips back. Aventurine’s foreskin rolls over his head as more pre drips from the slit, and then he drives himself forward again, fucking into the squeeze of his thighs.

Aventurine grunts, brows furrowed as he tightens his hold on Sunday’s kneebend, building up a steady rhythm. His balls smack wetly against Sunday’s cunt as his pace begins to quicken. “A little tighter for me, angel.”

Sunday keens, jolting with every impact. He squeezes his eyes shut, hugging his arms around himself as he shakes his head, wings aquiver around his face. “J-Just fuck me,” he gasps. “Ngh, wh—why?”

“You look good like this,” Aventurine tells him, already breathless with exertion, and it takes Sunday a moment to realize he’s actually given him an answer. “Pretty, needy thing. Beg properly, and I might just give it to you.”

When he opens his eyes, his vision is blurry with hot tears. They spill down his temple in furious waves, trickling down to his wing joints. His head’s starting to go fuzzy again, and this time, he thinks there’s no hope in sharpening it back into shape. Distantly, past the heavy storm cloud of lust circling his thoughts, he knows doing what Aventurine says means nothing. There’s no guarantee that he’d actually get what he wants. He doesn’t have that sort of control — not here, not now.

And still, his lips form the word. 

“Please.”

Begging not for relief. Not for mercy. But for purpose.

“Please,” he utters again, the word loose in his mouth, slurred. He presses his legs tighter together, stomach flipping at the sight of Aventurine’s furrowed brow, the sweat above his lip, the vein along his arm, his rosy cockhead slipping between his thighs, his name moaned from his mouth. His bare hand grips Sunday’s hip, bruising, greedy as it trails up, gropes at his chest. Aventurine hastens his pace, hips slamming against the backs of Sunday’s thighs.

Using him.

Pleas continue to bubble up from his throat, spilling past his lips, thick and cloying like blood. He does feel gutted, but in the best way. Hollowed out of all his vital organs, skull scraped clean. Nothing but a warm body for Aventurine to use, a cocksleeve to sink into.

Sunday’s head lolls to the side, eyes fluttering shut as he lets himself relax completely, conserving all his strength in the clutch of his thighs. Aventurine moans above him, the hand on his chest sliding up, trailing over his throat to cup his cheek, running his thumb over his lips. Almost immediately, Sunday’s jaw goes lax, mouth falling open to suck the digit in. He coos happily around it, deep from his chest. His cunt drools at the taste of Aventurine’s bare skin, of salt and sweat and something so uniquely him. He laves his tongue over his thumb, lips sliding past the knuckle. Up and down, up and down, just as he would if he had the weight of the other man’s cock stuffing his mouth instead. 

“Fuck,” Aventurine rasps, thrusting faster. Hard enough to jostle Sunday up the bedspread, forcing himself to kneel onto it in order to brace himself properly. “Aeons, Sunday, you’re fucking perfect. Feels almost just as good as your cunt, angel.”

Sunday preens at that, wings flapping happily as he moans around the thumb between his lips. Good, he’d probably purr if his mouth wasn’t full. He flexes his thighs, clenching and unclenching them around Aventurine’s scorching length, rocking his hips for a bit of extra friction. The Stoneheart keens at the stimulation, pressing down on his thumb enough to make Sunday gag slightly before popping it free from his mouth, knuckle bumping the back of his teeth. The firm grip on his face shifts, hand slipping lower to cradle the high part of his throat, fingers pressed beneath his jawline, thumb digging into his pulse point. 

He exhales a whimpering, broken sound. Maybe ‘please,’ maybe Aventurine’s name — It’s not like he knows much else. Even his own name is slowly becoming lost to him.

“Ah, fuck,” Aventurine swears again, his words muffled as if he’d dragged him underwater. “You’re, hah, gonna make me come, sweetheart — That’s what you want, yeah?”

He shudders, nodding quickly. Aventurine presses a little more of his weight into the hand against his throat, delicious pressure right over his artery liquefying his thoughts. “Finally accepted it, have you? Doesn’t matter what you want, little dove. Just what I can take from you.”

He nods again, the movement slightly restricted by Aventurine’s bruising grip. The other man’s movements have turned erratic, rhythm devolving into something greedy, punishing. The bedframe shifts and creaks beneath them, and every harsh slap of Aventurine’s sac against his cunt is a bolt of pleasure down his spine, magnetizing in the pit of his stomach. His eyes roll back in bliss, admiring how the emptiness in his skull rapidly begins to fill with light. His body ignites with it, spasming and twitching as his thighs all but crush Aventurine’s cock between them. Wetness gushes from his cunt in powerful pulses, drenching them both and turning the crack of skin–on-skin lewd. 

The pressure against his throat disappears in a dizzying instant, ripping the blanket over his senses off with it. Aventurine groans roughly, desperate noise puffing hot and heavy over his wing joint. He turns to nip at his cheek, dragging his tongue over his tear tracks, licking at the edge of his lashline before he presses their temples together. “Needy slut,” he hisses at his ear, “coming before me. Don’t blame me for what happens next, angel.”

Ah. That must be his name, then.

He doesn’t dwell on that too much, too overwhelmed with ecstasy to do much more than moan hoarsely in reply. Aventurine’s own noises pick up in tune with his thrusts, pitchy and feverish before finally, he cuts off on a gasp, hips slamming flush to his thighs one last time. His release dribbles onto Sunday’s stomach, pooling in his belly button. Slow at first, and then spurts of it shooting across his abdomen, arcing up as high as his chest, striping over his sensitive tits and adorning the divot of his clavicle with a pendant of the Stoneheart’s essence. 

Aventurine’s shuddering over him, panting sharply with every twitch of his cock, throbbing hotly in the cracked cradle of his soiled thighs. He always comes so much, choking him with it whenever he uses his mouth, ballooning the condom when they fuck properly. He often finds himself wishing for the rubber to stretch and snap, break inside him so that Sunday can actually —

Oh, he thinks blearily, lashes unsticking from one another as he peels his eyes open to the world swimming around him. Found you.

He isn’t lucid enough to examine the gravity of forgetting his own name too closely. He’s not so confident it’s entirely back in his grasp at all, but it feels like such an inconsequential thing to concern himself with. Why should he need a name, when he’s marked all over with Aventurine’s touch, his spend, as good as branded the other man’s name — his real name — across his heart and etched it into his ribs.

It’s the only name worth carrying in his throat. The only one that tastes right on his tongue.

“‘Vasha,” Sunday murmurs, weak legs finally falling and arms rising to wrap around the other man’s shoulders. Aventurine jolts above him as if he’s been struck, a noisy exhale gusting out of him as his cock gives one final twitch, dribbling the last of his release into Sunday’s navel, pearlescent fluid pooling in his belly button. He shivers at the warmth of it, cunt clenching with want. “Kakavasha…”

To say that it is disorienting when Aventurine straightens up is an understatement. It sends a violent shudder down Sunday’s spine, dousing him in frigid confusion. His grip is weak, so his arms fall back to the bed uselessly, hands clenching into the sheets as he stares up at the blond with stinging eyes. He can’t help himself: he rakes his needy gaze down the other man’s body, noting all the places along his torso where the fabric of his shirt has darkened with sweat. His cock hangs heavy out of his pants, not entirely soft yet. Sunday feels his chest rumble with another desperate coo, thighs squeezing together, his cunt squelching loudly between the supple flesh.

Gemstone eyes glitter, tracking the source of the sound in a heartbeat. Aventurine’s stare is simmering, assessing as he pries Sunday’s thighs apart, hands sure and warm — one bare, one still covered. He resituates himself, shuffling out of the apex of Sunday’s legs to perch by his hip instead, his left hand bare and branding as it keeps one of his legs open. Preventing him from shutting his thighs completely, should Sunday even try.

He can’t imagine even thinking of barring himself from Aventurine’s touch at this point. He moans with relief when it returns, dominant hand methodical as it spreads his folds and rubs over his hole, palm dragging featherlight against his clit. Slick coats the leather, no doubt smearing over his rings, too.

“Don’t remember saying you could use that name tonight,” Aventurine says, voice dropped to his true pitch. Dark and far, far too calm. Sunday knows begging for forgiveness would be a waste of his breath. He tenses in anticipation, breath quivering in his lungs as Aventurine’s bare hand reaches to tug at the hood of his clit, exposing the swollen nub. His other hand peels away from his cunt, the muscles in his forearm taut as he draws it back. 

Sunday whimpers, eyes squeezing shut. His head-wings have barely begun to fold in when a firm, “No,” burrows itself into his bones. His eyes flutter open, misty and hot, to find Aventurine staring down at him with foreboding intent.

A drop of fear disturbs the already turbulent current of his thoughts further, staining his murky mindscape scarlet. What does it say about him, that he relishes in it? That he lets it paint over his brainmatter in striking scarlet and drag harsh brushstrokes over his bones? That arousal twines with his terror in the very same breath?

(Frankly, Sunday doesn’t care.)

“You’re going to look at me when I ruin you. You asked for it, after all.”

That’s all the warning he gets before Aventurine snaps his wrist forward, striking his cunt.

White-hot pain throbs from his core outwards, rippling through every nerve. Sunday’s clit smarts at the slap, twitching feverishly. His legs try to snap shut, but Aventurine is quick, hooking one of his own over Sunday’s thigh and forcing it open — keeping him exposed. His hole had been clenched before the hit, tight from anticipation and neglect alike, but now it unclenches, pulsing open and dribbling creamy slick against Aventurine’s fingers. Honest in its need. Sunday writhes, a high keen streaming out of him.

“That was for the attitude,” Aventurine says. “And this —”

His hand retracts, and Sunday barely manages to suck another breath into his lungs before another slap cracks across his skin, harder than the first.

“— That was for coming before me.”

The sound the impact makes — an unmistakable wet smack — is drowned out by the near-scream that tears itself from Sunday’s chest, swiping its claws over his vocal chords. Aventurine doesn’t go very far after the second hit lands, keeping his hand flush to Sunday’s stinging, tender skin, rubbing over his puffy cunt as he shushes him softly, bare hand cupped harshly around his hip to hold him down.

“Quiet now, birdie,” he murmurs, “before Stelle barges in here thinking I’ve murdered you.”

Good, Sunday thinks, beyond delirious with pleasure. Let her. Let her see — Let everyone see what Aventurine’s made of him.

Aventurine makes a short, amused sound, laughter petering out in his chest before he kisses his teeth. “Kinky. Not sure how I feel about anyone else seeing you like this, though.”

Sunday’s brows furrow, hips squirming to try to push his sex further into Aventurine’s hand, feeling his rings dig against his folds. “What?”

The other man tuts at him. “Nothing,” he sighs loftily as he drums his fingertips against Sunday’s entrance. Idle, playful. Like Sunday’s nothing more than something for him to fidget with. A toy.

The hand on his hip leaves, reappearing as a brand on his cheek in the next breath. The Stoneheart is warm against Sunday’s side, the taut expanse of his torso making his mouth dry up. Aventurine’s thumb presses into the thin skin just beneath Sunday’s eye, tugging at his lower eyelid. Sunday’s lashes flutter as he blinks in quick succession, vision dark and fuzzy at the edges. 

The clearest thing in his line of sight is Aventurine: gilded and glittering. Warm skin gleaming with sweat, champagne blond hair darkened to gold and curling against his temple and the high parts of his flushed cheeks.

There’s an ache in Sunday’s chest just from looking at him. Lungs alight and heart afloat, lodged in his throat where his pulse chokes out anything else he might’ve wanted to say. Conversation is meaningless, anyway. He could allow his heart to do the talking, but he swallows it back down. Terrified of what it might confess.

Aventurine swipes his thumb below his lash line, callused skin catching warm tears. He looks down at Sunday with an unreadable expression — or rather, Sunday chooses to skim it — that sends heat to boil his blood just as well as pool behind his navel. Sunday, inexplicably, is almost afraid to come again. Is he allowed? Is he meant to?

Does he even need to anymore, at this point? 

Aventurine taps his thumb below his eye, gentle with his touch but pointed in his intent. Grabbing Sunday’s attention in a vice grip. 

“Are you watching?”

Sunday stares up at him, holding his gaze as his chest rises and falls unevenly with his sporadic breaths. It’s been too long of a lull; the sting of the slap has begun to fade to a dull throb, and now he’s inching towards being too aware of all the sweat and cum soiling his skin. He feels too warm, the sheets sticking to his skin from the heat, weighing his feathers down with humidity. So hot he shudders from it, goosebumps rising across his skin. 

Part of him wants to curl in on himself, hide all his filth from the Stoneheart’s piercing gaze, but it’s far too late for that. He’s had all his compulsions stripped from him, quieted to a droning hum in the back of his mind. He might as well flay his own skin, split the flesh open and part his ribcage for Aventurine to scrutinize his heart. 

He wonders if he’d call it pretty, like he does with the rest of him. He thinks he might believe him, if he did.

Slowly, Sunday raises himself up. It’s easy enough; he feels weightless. No burdens or ideals holding his shoulders down. He perches himself on his elbows, the softer parts of his stomach bunching together. In this position, his lower back wings have room to expand, fanning out languidly before relaxing around his hips. 

And like this, he has a clear view of himself. 

His legs spread, the inside of his thighs shining with slick. The way his feathers clump up with it, sticky tendrils stretching between each plume when he tries to flap his nether-wings. The movement is weak, nonsensical, and achieves little else beyond flicking his own spend into the air. He has a clear view of Aventurine, of his tense forearm, the expensive jewelry hanging off his wrist, the gleaming rings making contact with his cunt.

He’s whimpering before he even realizes it, breath whiny and wanting as Aventurine trails the hand on his cheek down to pinch his chin between his thumb and forefinger, tilting his head up until their eyes meet.

“Good boy, Sunday,” rumbles from the Stoneheart’s chest. “Do you like what you see?”

Sunday bites his trembling lower lip between his teeth, exhaling a soft, shaky mhm as he nods. 

“Mm,” Aventurine intones in agreement, eyes going hooded. “Quite pretty once I’ve fucked you up a bit, aren’t you?”

The words send a surge of pleasure rocketing through him, his cunt leaking against Aventurine’s hand. “You haven’t, though,” he murmurs, plucking up whatever courage he can still find in himself to talk back. “Not yet, anyway. Not really.”

Aventurine’s eyes narrow further, lips stretching into a lopsided smirk. “‘Haven’t?’ Haven’t what, angel?”

Sunday scowls up at him, trying to turn his face out of Aventurine’s grip only for him to grip his chin even tighter. “You know what,” he grouses. “Messed me up.”

“Aw, but that’s not how I said it. What happened, little dove? You were so keen on swearing at me earlier. Don’t tell me you’re back to playing innocent.”

Sunday attempts another retort, brows furrowed and lips curled in disdain, but Aventurine chooses that moment to dip his middle finger past the tight circle of his entrance — rings and all — slipping it in to the last knuckle and swapping Sunday’s counter for a sharp moan. He tosses his head back and clamps around on the intrusion, hips rocking down to seek any bit of friction he can get.

“Would someone so innocent be fucking himself on my finger like an easy whore?”

He doesn’t shy away from the taunt. He refuses to. No, instead Sunday hastens his movements, uncaring of the filthy squelching noises his cunt makes around the digit. Uncaring of anything beyond the feeling of Aventurine finally, finally inside him. Not quite how he needs him, but beggars can’t exactly be choosers. 

Aventurine’s fingers aren’t very thick — and definitely nowhere near as thick as his cock — but even just the stretch of one has a whole new maw of hunger yawning open in the pit of Sunday’s stomach. The drag of leather against his fluttering walls, the press of real, heavy gold indenting his insides. Sunday’s starved for it: feeling full, being fucked, being used.

Aventurine rips his hand away from his chin, fisting it into the hair at his crown instead, yanking his head back down so he can watch. Sunday grasps onto his forearm, feeling the way the muscles there tense and relax in time with Aventurine crooking his finger against his sweet spot. All the air in his lungs drains in a long, pitiful moan, his entire body quaking in ecstasy.

He doesn’t care whether he’s allowed to or not — whether he’s earned it or not. He can taste his next climax, the peak of it rising sweet and hypnotic, melting on his tongue and dragging his eyes backwards into his skull.

And then, Sunday is abruptly empty once again, just a breath away from finishing. The denial makes him clench his jaw, a frustrated groan gusted out through clenched teeth as his hips twitch and spasm, legs kicking at the bedspread. Faintly, he can hear Aventurine shushing him, can feel the strain on his scalp from his hair being pulled, shakes from the vibrations of his own begging ricocheting throughout his throat. 

It feels like he’s a half-step out of his body, barely cognizant of the way every last one of his feathers seems to tremble in anticipation or how his nether-wings stretch out to seek Aventurine’s touch again. His vision blurs in and out of focus, a twinge in his chest when he stares down at his poor, neglected cunt.

He’s sat in a pool of his own sweat and cum, and rather than squirm away in discomfort, Sunday only seems to melt further into the bed, angling his legs open wider and canting his hips up. He’s forgotten just what it is Aventurine is punishing him for (and distantly, he recognizes this as the entire goal of his little request) and yet —

“Please,” he gasps, casting his gaze up, imploring. “‘Vasha, I, nnh, n-need you. Need you to fuck me up. Ah, please —”

Sunday can’t help but beg for more.

Aventurine grins down at him, sharp and hungry. Not quite unlike a predator stalking its prey. Sunday will happily bow his head to him, let himself be torn apart and devoured, if it means he’ll get to keep feeling like this.

Utterly helpless — free.

His heart lurches in his chest as he watches Aventurine’s tongue dip out to wet his bottom lip, skipping a beat in time with the next spank to his cunt. Sunday doesn’t see it coming, sucked into the Stoneheart’s hypnotic gaze as he is. He jolts at the impact, a shrill squeak leaving his lips as his free leg tries to close only to collide with Aventurine’s leg still holding his thigh down. Aventurine’s hand is smothered in the middle, Sunday’s nether-wings wrapped around it messily.

“That one was for soiling my blessed name on your filthy tongue,” he says close to Sunday’s ear, voice ragged and breathless from his own want. His command from earlier lingers at the back of his mind, burrowing into his psyche and making his head drop, neck stiff under the tension against his scalp. Sunday watches as Aventurine shoves his leg open without any courtesy or tenderness, delivering the next strike as soon as he has access to his cunt again.

He doesn’t wait for Sunday’s wings to unfurl from around his folds, striking them in tandem with no regard for their fragility. Pain and pleasure dance up Sunday’s spine in an uncoordinated, violent tango, entwined in a bloody embrace. He digs his fingers into Aventurine’s arm, blunt nails carving red crescents into his skin as whine after whine drools from his mouth. Pressure builds and builds in his core, tightening into a turbulent coil. Any more strikes —

“And these are for coming in here while I was away and making a mess of my things. And for every other time you’ve managed to piss me off, just because.”

— and the coil would snap.

The next slap lands directly on his clit, Aventurine’s heavy rings smarting against the swollen, oversensitive nub — Again, and again, and again, and —

A weighted, dangerously soft sigh falls over Sunday’s temple. 

“You’re meant to be counting them out, sweetheart,” Aventurine says. 

What?

Sunday blinks furiously against the tears welling along his lashline, feeling them spill over his cheeks in hot, branding streaks. 

When did — What?

“Figures you weren’t paying attention.” Aventurine sucks his teeth, tutting at Sunday in disapproval as he rubs his fingers over his stinging folds. “Doesn’t matter. Let’s start over, shall we?”

CRACK.

He wails, head lolling until his forehead rolls into Aventurine’s chest. His hole clenches after the hit, slick dribbling out of it with a wet, bubbling sound.

“One,” Aventurine demonstrates in a simpering, sickly sweet voice.

CRACK.

Sunday lets out a shrill, broken cry, legs spasming wildly. His cunt might as well have its own pulse now, jackrabbit quick and loud enough for the entire Express to hear. 

“Two,” Aventurine continues, a touch more impatient than before. “Try to keep up, Angel. Or have you forgotten how to count?”

CRACK.

His fingers curl, blood beading where his nails have broken the skin along Aventurine’s forearm. The Stoneheart gruffs a frustrated sound, breath hot and oppressive by his ear. 

“Three,” he all but growls.

CRACK. CRACK. CRACK.

Even if Sunday had actually been keeping up with him, he’s definitely lost the count now. 

Aventurine doesn’t stop, nor does he soften his strikes, even as Sunday’s hoarse cries devolve into messy, heaving sobs, his entire body wracked with tremors. If anything, each spank seems to land harder than the last. 

Maybe Sunday’s just oversensitive. All that pain compounding into something almost unbearable, a direct line from his clit to the ouroboros of ecstasy in his gut that finally, finally chokes on itself. Or, maybe Aventurine’s finally done holding back, selfish in his eagerness to push Sunday to his limits, taking and taking from him until he has nothing left to give.

He doesn’t stop even as a torrent of wetness begins to pour from Sunday’s cunt. Sunday goes boneless against him, breaths gasping in and out of his stuffy lungs as he pulses out stream after stream of squirt. Aventurine maintains a steady assault on his clit all the while, rumbling what’s good as nonsense into Sunday’s ear — something filthy, no doubt — as he urges him to keep squirting with each hit. Sunday can hear the sound it makes when it hits the bed, soaking the sheets.

Forget turning the mattress over; they’ll have to burn the whole room down once Aventurine’s done with him, which doesn’t seem to be anytime soon. He seems to grow bored of spanking him after a while, though, relaxing his fingers into a curl over Sunday’s clit, rubbing into the bundle of frayed nerves at a frenzied, furious pace. Sunday writhes, heels digging into the mattress as his back arches, a lewd litany of ah-ah-ah-ah spilling from his lips as orgasm blurs into overstimulation, a stream rushing out of him in a high, violent arc that drenches his chest, mixing with Aventurine’s cum still smeared across his skin.

He should feel disgusting, maybe. Perhaps he is. But Sunday doesn’t think he’s ever felt any closer to divinity than he does in this present moment. The highest form of his self, cradled in Aventurine’s cruel, indulgent embrace. His flesh and bone are an afterthought — What’s a couple bruises on an already broken man? All that matters is the pleasure firing off of every synapse, lancing through his mindscape until it’s all he knows. Until Aventurine is all he knows. He’s the only real, solid one between them. He’s the only one that needs to be. Sunday feels like he could just melt into him, Aventurine absorbing all of his fractured pieces until they’re one whole.

“You’ve been so good for me, songbird,” Aventurine whispers breathlessly, leather sticky and dripping as he slides his fingers down from his clit, gliding through his folds until they meet Sunday’s winking entrance, teasing. “You can hang on just a little more, can’t you?”

For Aventurine, he could probably do anything. He nods absently, exhaling some slurred, delirious affirmation that has the other man chuckling down at him. Sunday swears he feels lips along his hairline, quick and affectionate, but the sensation is overshadowed in the next moment by Aventurine sinking three fingers into his cunt, immediately curling and pounding them harshly against his sweet spot.

Sunday’s voice breaks around one last breathless, wrecked moan, nerves lighting up at the stretch, before his mouth goes agape around a silent scream. His body trembles stiffly, elbow slipping on the bed until he collapses onto his back once more. Aventurine’s hand tightens impossibly further in his hair, yanking Sunday back up and holding him there like a ragdoll.

He balances himself with one shaky, unstable hand planted onto the bedspread, blinks the tears out of his eyes, and watches.

The jump and twitch of that angry, reddened clit as Aventurine bullies those nerves from the inside, the jostle and glint of his watch and bracelet as Aventurine’s wrist shifts with the movement. The gush of clear fluid from this ruined, swollen cunt, spurt after spurt soaking Aventurine’s hand. 

It doesn’t quite sink in that this is his body. He can’t reconcile it, like he’s watching everything happen from beyond the material plane and unable to recognize himself with his sweaty, disheveled hair and all his feathers in disarray. The tears that still run down his face, the sweat that beads across his already tacky skin, the bruises blooming so prettily across his skin.

Breath caught in his throat, Sunday watches himself reach down shakily, grasping the underside of his knee in a slippery grip and hefting his leg up. The movement lifts his hips slightly, exposing more of his cunt — Giving him a better view of Aventurine’s fingers driving into his hole. The other man groans at the sight, peeling away from Sunday’s side and releasing the harsh hold on his hair to resituate himself, keeping his fingers sheathed inside his greedy cunt all the while.

He kneels between Sunday’s legs once more, and without needing to be told, Sunday reaches for his other knee, bringing it up to his chest. He looks on, enraptured, as slick leather and gleaming gold disappear into his sloppy hole again and again, pistoning against his sweet spot. Squirt flies from his sex, drenches Aventurine’s wrist and forearm with every powerful pulse. 

Not unlike the break of dawn over the horizon, Aventurine’s voice illuminates his thoughts once again, and Sunday basks in every filthy word that drips from his lips.

“Look at you, Sunday. Never seen yourself this wet before, have you? You just can’t get enough. Greedy whore. Hear how nasty your pussy sounds around me? Maybe I should record this. Keep something for myself for when I miss you. You’d let me, won’t you, angel? You’ll let me do anything to you — You’re mine to ruin, aren’t you?”

“Yes,” Sunday finds himself gasping out, amazed that he still has a voice at all. “Ngh, Aeons, ‘Vasha, yes, pl-please —”

Aventurine barks out a sharp, mean laugh. “‘Aeons?’” he mocks. “And just what do you think you are doing invoking THEM, little dove? You don’t need Gods. I’m the only one you call out for.”

Pleasure bolts through Sunday like lightning. He stammers out a desperate mix of a name and an apology, his voice slurring when Aventurine harshens the grind of his fingers inside him. He slides his thumb up, pressing it to Sunday’s clit in bruising little circles that threaten to have his head falling back.

Aventurine is quick to hold him up again, only this time, he doesn’t grasp his hair. Instead, he reaches for Sunday’s left head-wing, bare hand wrapping around the base in a firm, bruising grip. Sunday wails, shoulders hunching up at the deluge of pain that cascades throughout his body. His cry only seems to spur Aventurine on, who groans raggedly and tightens his grip as he fingers speed up.

If he really wanted to, Aventurine could break it. Squeeze until there’s nothing but bloody plumes and cracked bone in his palm. Make sweet carrion out of him. He’s always said Sunday would look good in red, after all. He wants to prove him right.

“Fuck,” Aventurine moans, sweat beading above his lip and his brows furrowed tautly. “Can’t believe you’re letting me…”

Sunday never quite figured out what the Stoneheart had been trying to say, his voice overtaken by a shrill ringing in his ears as his nerves collapse under their limit once again. He doesn’t think he ever managed to come down from his first orgasm, and Aventurine’s only pushed him further and further with each subsequent peak. True ascension in its purest form.

He comes with a trembling, drawn out whimper — Weak and pitiful and at complete odds with how roughly and suddenly his cunt squeezes Aventurine’s fingers out. A strong stream of fluid pulses out after them, shooting up in a high arc. Again, and again, and again, and again, completely drenching him until Aventurine slips his cock through his lips, rubbing over his folds and suppressing the torrent into a dribbling deluge. Sunday cries at the sensation, overwhelmed beyond belief as his climax is dragged further away from its descent, up into the heavens. 

Aventurine keeps one hand on his wing, the other wrapped around his shaft as he smushes the head of his cock to his clit, tips kissing wetly. He groans deep in his chest, slapping the head against Sunday’s folds and urging him to soak him even more.

“C’mon,” he rasps, rubbing his glans over his clit desperately. “Just a little more, ████. Almost —”

Sunday sucks in a sharp, reedy gasp, eyes blowing wide open and heart stalling and kickstarting in his chest in the span of two breaths. Aventurine is none the wiser to his turmoil, eyes scrunched shut as he strokes himself, thumbing his length down until he’s prodding against Sunday’s entrance.

Sunday’s mind races. ████?

The head catches, slipping inside easily. 

“There,” Aventurine moans, eyes fluttering shut at the feeling. He strokes himself once, then twice, before his cock twitches inside Sunday and warm come spills into his waiting hole.

He clenches around the cockhead, gasping out a mewl as he’s filled up, spurt after spurt of Aventurine’s spend coating his walls. His eyes roll back at the feeling and his cunt clamps down tighter, not wanting to waste a single drop. 

He’s never felt this before. Aventurine’s always been so careful about using protection, not wanting to take any chances. Sunday’s never really challenged him over it, despite how shamelessly he wants it — and now that’s finally gotten to experience this, he doesn’t think he can ever go back to having safe sex. 

It feels too good — How is he ever meant to go back? Aventurine’s impossibly hot without a barrier, even if he’s barely inside him. Selfishly, Sunday wants him deeper, as deep as he can go. He wants to take his chances and roll his hips up, but Aventurine pulls out with a wet pop in the next moment, shooting the rest of his release over his folds and feathers. 

Sunday whimpers forlornly, trembling nether-wings folding inwards to cover his hole as his cunt clenches, trying to keep Aventurine’s cum inside. Some of it still leaks out, trickling down to his crack. It’s such a filthy, alien feeling yet at the same time it feels so completely right. Like Sunday was made for this: to be filled up and marked and remade under Aventurine’s touch. 

Moments ebb and flow into a seamless blur, and Sunday’s mouth is already parted in waiting well before Aventurine slips his fingers behind his teeth, pressing on his tongue and softly scolding him for dirtying his gloves. He hums absently, eyes fluttering shut as he sucks the leather clean of his own spend. He swears that underneath the heady blend of expensive hide and sour musk, he can taste Aventurine: his bare skin still concealed beneath his glove, the creases of his knuckles and the whorls of his fingerprints. He rolls his lips over each ring, feeling the indented flesh underneath. He has half a mind to suck those onto his tongue, too, let them slide down the back of his throat so that he might become of equal value to the gems that the Stoneheart covets.

Aventurine drags his fingers back, gone for a moment that feels like an eternity before they return, fingertips resting just along the edge of Sunday’s front teeth. A single word sinks into Sunday’s mind, quiet command pillowed by the soft buzz still lingering underneath his skin. 

Bite.

So he does, clamping the tips of Aventurine’s glove between his teeth. No more than the two fingers he’d just been petting over his tongue with, but it’s enough to peel the entire garment off once Aventurine starts to tug his hand back. Sunday’s neck arches, collared and leashed to the other man’s every move. The glove falls whisper-soft over his bottom lip and chin, hanging limp between his teeth. Aventurine pries it from his mouth gently, and Sunday doesn’t spare a thought as to where it ends up. 

That is, until he feels the unmistakable kiss of leather over his clavicle, down between his chest and trailing over the soft swell of his stomach. Dragging through their releases and undoing his half-hearted cleaning job. 

His nether-wings fan out lazily, plumes heavy and dripping with cum, almost as if anticipating the presence that returns between his thighs. Aventurine trails his glove over Sunday’s mound, featherlight, and then it’s gone.

The air parts with a soft whooshing sound as he snaps it forward. The crack of leather over Sunday’s cunt feels more like a caress with how wrung out he is, but he still gasps at the strike, biting his lip and frowning as more cum bubbles out of him. His thighs cant inwards, squeezing, but Aventurine is quick to part them, pressure returning at his slit.

Here, drips down his brain stem. Let me help you out.

Aventurine collects what’s leaked out of him, methodical against his entrance as he coaxes it back inside. Sunday opens up for it easily enough, keening softly at the feeling of being full again, walls fluttering around the familiar stretch of Aventurine’s fingers. Aventurine curls them deep, some of his cum dislodging around the digits with a messy squelching sound. He gives a few shallow thrusts, and Sunday’s brows furrow, his brain finally beginning to catch up to the other, foreign sensation of something else inside his cunt.

Just as soon as he starts to become aware of it, Aventurine slips his fingers out, and that full feeling doesn’t quite follow after them, something left behind inside. He prods at his entrance, pushing it further in. Sunday squirms, panting shallowly as his cunt squeezes around the intrusion, damp feathers ruffling in agitation. 

Whatever it is, it isn’t very firm, because one brief clench of his walls has it slipping back out along with a dribble of cum. Aventurine shushes at him, gentle as he guides it back in, fingers still comfortingly warm past the mysterious barrier.

“‘Vasha…?”

“Just helping you save it,” Aventurine answers in a quiet, muffled voice that almost convinces Sunday’s he’s drowned and left this plane entirely. “That’s what you want. Right, angel? For it to take.”

He whimpers, nodding before he even realizes he’s doing it. It’s all the acknowledgement he needs to finally relax completely, the walls of his cunt all but melting around Aventurine’s fingers, opening up to accept anything, everything he wants to give. Whatever last barriers he had up are washed away by Aventurine carding his hand through his mind and easily finding his deepest, darkest desire. Grasping it in a gentle but possessive grip as if it is his own — and it is. Anything of Sunday’s belongs to him, too. He has little left to this stage name aside from his addled mind and humble body (and even less attached to his given name, now long forgotten), but he’d happily turn all of himself over into Aventurine’s possession regardless. 

His eyelids feel too heavy to lift, but he wants to look. Wants to see what sort of face Aventurine is making right before he brushes his lips over the corner of his mouth, wants his face to be the last thing he sees before what’s sure to be a deep slumber finally claims him. It could be death in disguise darkening the edges of his consciousness, and still, Sunday fights to blink his eyes open just to get one last look at him. Nothing but a hazy kaleidoscope of violet and gold and turquoise dances across his vision. His mouth is slack when Aventurine’s meets it, and yet his heart swells at the contact anyway, eyes slipping shut in blissful surrender.

A confession kisses his cupid’s bow, dreamlike in the way it settles into the recesses of his mind and dissipates just as quickly. Too honest to be anything more than a figment of his imagination — Too good to be true, otherwise.

What better punishment could I give, than caging myself in with you?

When Sunday finally comes to, he’s beyond disoriented. Night-and-day is irrelevant on the Express, but he has no way to tell how long he’s been out. The ever present hum of machinery seems deafening in these first moments, and he groans quietly, burrowing himself further into the blankets.

…The very fresh, very clean blankets.

It takes a few moments, but eventually he is able to piece together that he is alone in his own bed. Curled up on his side and swathed in nothing but a cool silk button-down shirt that he knows doesn't belong to him. There’s a fiery pulse between his legs, a dull ache in his lower back, and the base of his left head-wing throbs pointedly, deliciously sore. His studs rest innocently on the nightstand — no doubt removed to avoid any further irritation. When he shifts to stretch, he finds that he’s able to move his back-wings freely, and the realization makes him freeze. 

Aventurine had to have gone and cut these slits into his own shirt, specifically for Sunday. Ruining his own things for something as inconsequential as his comfort.

All at once, Sunday’s eyes are hot and misty, a bone-deep misery lodged tight in his throat. He rolls over onto his stomach and buries his face into his pillow, absent of Aventurine’s unique scent, in an attempt to muffle his pathetic cries.

These clean sheets don’t lend to any of the things that happened before he passed out. There’s hardly a drop of sweat or spend to be found on him, every feather silken and spotless, his skin soft and fragrant with his usual body wash. He wishes it were Aventurine’s aroma enveloping him instead — Not his cologne, not his body wash, but him. His sweat and musk and natural scent.

Sunday’s too clean. Almost as if none of it had ever happened. And that, somehow, only serves to make him feel dirty all the way down to his bones. Polluting his very marrow with whatever dreadful emotions were responsible for him waking up alone in the first place.

In a fit of panic, he works a hand between his body and the bed, rucking up the borrowed shirt to skim down his abdomen. His fingers shake as they slip behind his wings, too-hot over the stinging skin of his mound. They slide frantically between his folds, harsh as he pushes them against his entrance.

Forgive me, he insists to a vacant audience. 

THEY can see right through his cheap attempts at repentance, after all, and turn THEIR back to him — Whether out of disappointment or for the sake of discretion, he doesn’t know.

And then, begging to only one God, Sunday shuts his eyes. 

Please.

When he finally forces past the resistance, he bites down around a mouthful of his pillow, sobbing as he finds himself dry and empty. What sort of cruel dream is this? His heart feels withered in his chest without its tether to pump it back to life. He rocks his hips desperately, uncaring of how it hurts. He’s not trying to make himself feel good. He’s, selfishly, trying to take back what’s his — No, theirs.

“Sunday?”

He freezes at the voice, just for a moment, and then his eyes fly open. He tugs his fingers free of his cunt, wincing slightly at the dry drag. A line of drool tracks from his mouth to the pillowcase when he unlatches his teeth to lift his head, turning to the source.

Aventurine stands in the doorway of his room, a troubled look on his face and what appears to be a small jar of ointment in his hands. He’s dressed only in his briefs — a fresh, clean pair. No evidence of what they’d done staining the fabric.

At the sight of him, Sunday pushes onto his hands and knees, breathing harshly through the sharp stab of pain in his back and refusing to flinch at the burning ache that flares between his legs with every small movement he makes. “‘Vasha?”

The name croaks out of him, thick and raspy with tears. Aventurine is across the room in an instant, kicking the door shut behind him as an afterthought. He deposits the jar on the nightstand hastily, glass clattering round-and-round the surface for a moment before it goes still, and then settles himself on the bed beside Sunday. 

Aventurine’s hand on his skin, cupping his cheek and thumbing away his tears, is a relief Sunday never quite believed himself capable of feeling. He sags, tilting his face into Aventurine’s palm and closing his eyes as another wave of tears cascades over his cheeks. The tightness in his chest unspools, an overwhelming surge of ████ dragging his thoughts underwater.

His world tilts, Aventurine guiding him back down to lay on his side with soft touches and impossibly softer words. The calluses on the pads of his fingers stroke over Sunday’s cheekbone, trailing past to tuck his hair behind his ear, thumbing over his wing joint in the process.

“…I thought you’d be asleep for a little longer.”

Sunday drags in a shaky breath, snuffling quietly as he opens his eyes to look at Aventurine. “This… isn’t a dream, then?”

Aventurine’s gaze grows turbulent with worry, brows furrowed as he looks Sunday over. “Do I not seem real to you, birdie?”

He hums, raising a hand between them to mirror Aventurine and hold his face. His skin is warm, slightly dewy to the touch and a little tacky with sweat. Sunday shuffles closer, tilting his head and dropping his mouth to drag his tongue across Aventurine’s cheek.

The other man sputters, speechless and wide-eyed when Sunday pulls back. Not too far, of course. Nose-to-nose, still. He nuzzles his against Aventurine, uncaring of the snot that glistens above his lip. 

“Taste real.”

His other hand finds Aventurine’s hip easily, sliding in to palm him over his underwear. The Stoneheart jolts, hissing out a surprised groan as a flush rises to his cheeks.

Sunday’s mouth quirks up, eyes hooded and saliva pooled under his tongue. He toys with the waistband, hooking his thumb underneath it and scratching his nail through the trimmed thatch of hair at the base of Aventurine’s cock. He squeezes, feeling his heat twitch into his hand.

“Feel real.”

“You,” Aventurine rasps, reaching down to wrap his hand around Sunday’s wrist but making no move to actually pull him away. “You are a menace, little dove.”

He shrugs halfheartedly, a yawn cracking his mouth open. Belatedly, he retracts his hand from Aventurine’s face to cover his own, gaze flitting away in embarrassment.

“An exhausted menace,” Aventurine amends wryly. “Can I at least get some water in you and put some of this ointment on before you black out again?”

Sunday wrinkles his nose, arm flapping down to swat at Aventurine’s chest. “Is that necessary? I’d rather not be sticky.”

He feels the force of the other man’s shit-eating grin before he hears it in his voice. “You had no complaints about being sticky a couple hours ago, birdie.”

Heat rises to his cheeks. Too tired to properly keep his expressions under control, Sunday pouts. “That was different,” he insists quietly. “Not… Not dirty, or uncomfortable.”

When he glances back at Aventurine, there’s an edge of uneasiness in his gaze that makes Sunday’s stomach turn. It’s still a novel thing to see Aventurine wear even his most unpleasant emotions so plainly in front of him. Sunday isn’t quite sure what he’s done to earn this level of trust from him.

“I should have asked. Before doing that. I —”

Sunday shakes his head, shuffling closer and cutting him off with a chaste but bold press of his mouth. Aventurine makes a short, shocked sound behind his teeth, eyes wide when Sunday pulls back.

“What’s that face for?”

Aventurine exhales a short, shivering breath, shaking his head. “Nothing. Just… Didn’t expect you to be so affectionate after everything I did to you.” He huffs out a wry chuckle, the curve of his mouth almost sheepish. “I’m surprised you’re even letting me be this close.”

Sunday furrows his brows, turning his words over and over in his head as he swallows past the lingering lump in his throat. There’s no casual way to express how just the thought of Aventurine being even a breath out of touching distance right now makes him feel cold all over. “I didn’t complain. Remember?”

“You couldn’t complain about anything even if you wanted to. You weren’t in your right mind.”

“Does it matter? I’d have asked for it all sane, too.”

Aventurine pulls back, lips flattened into a thin line as he rakes his gaze across Sunday’s face, assessing him. “But you never have. Why?”

“You know why,” Sunday replies, exasperated. “Do you really have to ask?”

Crystalline eyes narrow for a moment before Aventurine’s expression relaxes a fraction. He sighs, sliding his arm around Sunday’s waist to pull him even closer. Sunday’s lower-back wings curl around him in their own imitation of a hug as Sunday cups Aventurine’s face in his hands. Their lips slot together like it’s second nature, tongues slipping against one another lazily. Aventurine is so warm, almost scorching against him. His body heat makes Sunday dizzy. Thoughts rubbing up against one another until static stuffs up his head. Sunday hooks their legs together, shamelessly rocking his hips forward.

Aventurine grunts softly into his mouth, drawing back for a moment. Sunday sways closer, a broken astral body finding home in his orbit. Their mouths brush together, sticky with spit, and he confesses into Aventurine’s parted lips, voice slurring slightly, “I wish you’d have kept it in.”

A shocked laugh puffs against his face, and Aventurine stills the movement of his hips with a steady hand on his waist. “Are you trying to trap me with a child? I thought we were past manipulating each other.”

“If I recall correctly, you helped —”

“La-la-la-la-la,” Aventurine sings over him, a grin dimpling his cheek. “At least take me out to dinner first, birdie.”

“Mmn. Alright,” Sunday agrees easily in the face of that smile. This close, Aventurine’s eyes are impossibly bright. Almost blinding. He can see the different hues speckled through his two-toned gaze, could count each eyelash if he wanted to. But his head’s too fuzzy with affection to string more than three coherent words together. “It’s a date.”

Sunday feels the drag of air across his lips, wicking away his spit, as the other man sucks in a gasp. “…You’re still not in your right mind, I think.”

“An’ whose fault s’that?”

Aventurine sighs, laughter kissing Sunday’s cheek as he peels them apart. Unaware of himself, Sunday whines not unlike a wounded dog, eyes tearing open in time to see Aventurine sit up. There’s a petulant protest perched on the tip of his tongue, but he clicks his mouth shut, caging his complaints in favor of watching the other man twist around and reach for the jar on the nightstand.

Sunday drags his bleary gaze over the taut muscles along the Stoneheart’s back, a pleased coo warbling in his chest as he watches them ripple with his movements. Aventurine pauses over something, attention fixated on the nightstand. He goes still for a moment, and then seems to shake himself out of it. 

He listens to Aventurine screw the lid of the jar off and then back on, and when he turns around, there’s a dollop of cream scooped onto his fingers and a focused look on his face.

“It’s unscented,” he assures him, hand aloft. “Purely medicinal. Not too tacky, I tested it. Won’t numb you or anything but it should at the very least relieve a good chunk of the discomfort. It might be a little cold at first — But I’ll try to be quick. On your back, angel.”

Sunday’s head-wings flutter and fold in, embracing the bashful heat in his cheeks as he rolls over. Clumsily, he undoes the first few buttons up from the hem of his sleep shirt, just enough to part it around his stomach, letting it fan out onto the bed. He drags one leg up, knee bending outwards to give Aventurine access. His nether-wings uncurl gingerly, expanding outwards to expose his swollen, reddened cunt.

Aventurine falters at the sight, hand hovering between his legs. “I’m —”

“Don’t apologize,” Sunday interjects, wing flicking to the side as he scowls at him.

Aventurine mutters an unrecognizable profanity under his breath, left eye twitching minutely before his expression smooths out into one of his business smiles. “Of course. Forgive me… Father.”

Sunday bristles at the title, wings puffing up as he sputters over his words. “You’re so ridiculous,” he ends up grumbling, face aflame as Aventurine’s grin only widens, tip of his tongue poking from between his teeth. “Just get on with it.”

“So bossy,” Aventurine purrs, lowering his hand. “Whatever you say, da—”

“Aventurine.”

“Alright, alright, calm down.”

Sunday flashes him one last tired glare before he sucks in a sharp breath, holding it tight in his lungs as the first swipe of ointment glides over his lips. Aventurine goes quiet, cupping his dry hand around his knee. He’s gentle in his ministrations, methodical in how he spreads the substance over the tender area. The relief melts into his skin gradually, cool waves tempering the residual aches still blooming from the night before. 

Sunday’s breath leaves him in an unsteady rush, hands curling into the sheets and eyes scrunching shut. There’s nothing remotely sexual about this, he knows that, and yet heat pools in his groin anyway. Maybe he is a pervert, so easily riled up from a few innocent touches. Or maybe it has more to do with the man touching him than anything else. Perhaps it’s the very notion of Aventurine caring for him with such quiet confidence that’s got him all bothered in the first place. 

And isn’t that pathetic?

Aventurine’s hand stills, cupped palm hovering against his heat. Is he really done so quickly? Sunday blinks, eyelids already heavy again. Aventurine holds his weary gaze for no more than a moment before he turns, pulling his hand back and plucking a tissue off the box on the nightstand with his clean one. Once he’s deemed himself clean enough, he flips over onto his side, shuffling downwards until his head rests on the other half of Sunday’s pillow. Sunday rolls over to mirror him, tucking a hand beneath his head.

Callused fingers brush over his hip, hands uncertain as they smooth over the subtle dip of his waist before Aventurine wraps his arms around his back with surety, tucked beneath his lower-back wings. Sunday’s drawn in close, until they’re practically cheek-to-cheek. He feels just as well as hears Aventurine inhale deeply, nosing into his head-feathers, pressing the lightest kiss to the base of his left wing. He’s almost afraid to breathe himself, lest he miss a single moment of this. He can feel Aventurine’s heartbeat through his shirt, and thinks that if he were to peel their skin back, he’d find their ribs slotted together perfectly. Sunday’s own heart seems to have come to a standstill in his chest, as if just the sound and sensation of the other man’s pulse is enough to sustain him.

“You know,” Aventurine murmurs after a pause. “I’ve been meaning to ask you something.”

Ba-bump. “…Mm.”

He remains silent for some time in lieu of any response, hand slipping beneath his own borrowed shirt to trail his fingers up and down the slope of Sunday’s back, right in between his wings. His breaths are deep, steady, lulling Sunday into a doze. He’s just a moment away from slipping into a true slumber by the time Aventurine finally asks, “Just what do you get out of this?” 

It takes him a moment to place exactly what Aventurine is inquiring after, and when he does, it beckons a furrow to his brow. He’s quiet, words melding together with exhaustion when he answers, “Thought I already told you that.” 

Aventurine’s hands slow their waltz up and down his back. “…An empty mind? Is that it?” His voice dips, forced levity turning it wry and wobbly. “Trying to craft your own little dreamscape in our bed, are you?”

Sunday’s heart lurches weakly in his chest, sputtering back to life.

Our. What could Aventurine mean by that? They have separate rooms.

“But my bed’s just as much yours as it is mine — and vice versa, I like to think.” 

Sunday blusters, wings fluttering in embarrassment as more heat rises to his cheeks. “Did I say that out loud?”

“That you did, little dove,” Aventurine answers sweetly. There’s no trace of mockery in his tone, but maybe Sunday’s only hearing what he wants to hear. Clearly, he’s far from being fully cognizant. “You haven’t answered my question, though,” Aventurine prods gently.

Sunday’s lips twist into a frown, and he presses his face between Aventurine’s neck and shoulder. The raised skin of his brand brushes over his temple, and Sunday has to swallow a few times before he’s able to speak past the tightness of his throat. “…No more dreamscapes.” 

“Alright,” he accepts easily. “Then what is it you’re really after?”

He squirms in Aventurine’s arms, burrowing further into his neck. Shutting his eyes, breathing him in. Warm. “I told you when I asked for it,” he stifles into his skin.

“What do you m… Oh.” Aventurine’s hold tightens briefly, fingers trailing down to rub over the base of his wings. “You don’t really think you still deserve to be punished for everything, do you?”

Sunday melts under his touch, his sensitive wing-joints singing with sensation as he arches his back slightly, pushing himself further into the warm caress. It softens his voice, cancels out the gravity of his words. “Does it really matter what I think I deserve?” Aventurine stiffens against him, but Sunday barrels on. “I should be punished. If not me, then who else? And who better to drag down with me than you?”

Silence wraps itself around them, a cold embrace enveloping them both. Unease settles into Sunday’s bones, but exhaustion is already buried deep into his marrow. He doesn’t have the energy to examine the sudden shift in the atmosphere too closely.

“Let me ask you something else,” Aventurine ventures, what might be minutes or hours later. “Please.”

Huh. How novel. Aventurine isn’t one to beg so easily. It almost feels blasphemous for Sunday to hear the word fall from his lips, unfit as he is to answer anybody’s pleas. He isn’t so important that the Stoneheart should feel he needs to seek permission from him. Despite that, Sunday hums his assent, humoring him as he turns his face, pressing his cheek against the curve of his clavicle, nose flush to the thrum of Aventurine’s quickened pulse. 

“Go on.”

“…Just what do you think I’m getting out of this?”

Ba-bump.

It’s quiet for a long moment, Sunday’s brows furrowing as he fights sleep and wills his tongue to work. He doesn’t have to rack his brain too hard to find the answer to Aventurine’s question, because it’s the simplest truth of the entire matter. Neither of them have given voice to it yet, but Sunday knows it all too well. Trusts in it, because if he doesn’t have this from Aventurine, then there might as well be nothing between them at all.

“You get to be cruel to me, of course.” 

He’s fully sunken into unconsciousness before he can feel Aventurine’s arms stiffen around him or hear the hitch in his breath. But the next time Sunday wakes, he is still warm, and he is not alone. His back is to Aventurine’s chest, now, but somehow, there is even less space between them than before. Aventurine is still wound tight around him, hands tucked under his shirt and palm splayed over his heart. His face is tucked against Sunday’s nape, deep breaths ruffling his hair as he slumbers on. This closeness, too, is an act of cruelty all on its own.

And Sunday shuts his eyes, sinking back onto the knife with a contented sigh.