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Valius felt deliciously hyper-alert, the way he did in combat, but better, as he knelt beside Vespasius in the Reclusiam. Incense perfumed the air as much as it clouded it, taking the light of candles and casting it into broad haloes of light, making the golden ornaments that crowded the walls, or that normally glinted on Vespasius’s armor, look softer and brighter. He’d been so flustered when the older man had invited him here, that he’d nearly lost his footing on the ruined roof tiles of the temple on Avarax. He had recovered his footing, if not his composure, swiftly. Swiftly enough, he hoped, that his little stumble had gone unnoticed by either of the other men.
Unlikely.
Vespasius had been leading him through a litany, the other man’s deeper voice resonating against Valius’s belly, as he humbly accepted the corrections to his pronunciation or tempo. Vespasius was exacting, and precise. That was how he was so good in battle and if Valius could learn any of that from him, he would listen, and be corrected a thousand times.
Besides, it was an honor to be invited to share this, an intimacy he could not quite see he had earned, but would do his best to live up to.
After two hours, he had finally recited the litany to Vespasius’s satisfaction, earning a pat on the shoulder, as the older man went to return the prayer book to its protective box. As he watched with admiring eyes, Vespasius opened the ornately carved and gilded wooden box, and spread open the silk fabric within, to wrap around the book, laying the book reverently inside. One day he might feel worthy to handle such a holy book himself.
“You did well,” Vespasius said, folding the cloth over the book, nestling it in four layers of silk. Valius could have glowed. He was so caught up that he replied, earnest and fervent, “Thank you, brother-mine.” The slight semantic shift, that slid from respect into intimacy, a thrill on his tongue to presume so much.
Vespasius paused, looking at him and Valius could feel the augmetic in his eye measuring him, the rest of his head catching the candlelight, and then he snapped the book box closed, striding toward Valius, catching him by the heavy collar of his armor and dragging him nearly to the threshold.
The warm pride Valius had felt, the soft, tremulous intimacy, shivered at this sudden change, and he tried to brace himself to be censured, for having somehow sullied the sanctity of the reclusiam. Vespasius shoved him back against the lintel, the liminal space that was neither the holy sanctuary or the ship proper, both and neither; and then he pushed his mouth against Valius’s in a kiss that started out bruising, crushing his lips against his own teeth, but gentling towards the end, ending with an almost gentle nip at his lower lip. Valius felt breathless, his pulse pounding in his ears, barely able to hear Vespasius’s hoarse whisper as he broke the kiss, the words warm against Valius’s mouth. “My quarters. Compline.” And then he was gone, and Valius found himself leaning against the lintel, mouth tingling, lightheaded, with his hearts pounding from something he could not name.
[***]
Valius swallowed his nerves before tapping on the frame of Vespasius’s room. He had no idea what to expect, or why his belly had been electric with excitement since earlier. He’d pulled one of his chapter robes out of storage, because Vespasius did outrank him and deserved his respect-–it felt wrong to face him like an equal.
In combat, they were peers. Here, they were not.
Vespasius nodded in greeting, gesturing him inside: the back wall, facing the door, was an entire icon of the Emperor, candles picking out gold flecks in the paint, making it seem to glow with unearthly light. Valius was fascinated, and he could feel Vespasius’s approval, as he studied the icon. It was hard not to feel unworthy, looking at the Emperor–-resplendent, magnificent, perfect=–when your own face was mangled with scars, your ears thickened from grappling.
“Remove your robe,” Vespasius said, a command, but a gentle one. Valius felt his hearts hitch in excitement, as he reached behind his head to grab a bunch of fabric behind his neck and haul the robe over his head.
Vespasius circled him–he could feel the other man’s heat and presence moving beside and behind him, feel his gaze taking in Valius’s scarred body, his muscles still whipcord tight with youth, not broad and thickened with age like Vespasius’s own.
Vespasius rested his hands on Valius’s shoulders. “Close your eyes,” he said, and then Valius felt him lean in again and he tipped forward, eager for another kiss, but the hands held him back. It was harder this way, only able to imagine where Vespasius’s eyes were going, and Valius licked his lips and swallowed his nerves, before Vespasius’s hands left his shoulders, one trailing over his deltoid. There was some sound he couldn’t figure, behind him, and then something touching, wrapping around his waist. Valius dipped his head down, curious, to look.
“Eyes. Closed.” Vespasius admonished. Valius straightened, closing his eyes again, his breath tight and chastened in his chest.
A soft brush of something at his hips, and then Vespasius was in front of him again. And this time, he did lean in and Valius felt his lips–-warm, elastic, demanding–-against his.
A sound from deep in his throat, a soft whine, as he felt his mouth pushed open, Vespasius’s tongue exploring his mouth, yielding against the older man. When he stepped away, Valius rolled forward onto his toes, chasing the kiss, blind and wanting. He did not think of himself as desirable: his augmented eye, white and cataracted, scars scraping his face. But here was Vespasius, kissing him, wise and pious, as though he were worthy and wanted.
“Kneel,” Vespasius said, his voice rough, his hands pushing Valius back on his heels, but gently.
Valius folded, almost falling to the ground in his eagerness to obey, to know what came next. His body was tingling, electric already, as though catching ions from the candlelight.
A rough hand, hard callouses in firm contact, tracing the patchwork of scars on Valius’s scalp, brushing through his close-cropped hair, sending shivers through Valius’s stilled body.
Vespasius moved behind him again, and he felt a sudden tightness around his hips, his thighs. It felt like a binding.
“Hands,” Vespasius said, simply. “Behind your back.”
A quiver of barely contained energy, of a yet-unshaped longing he had no way to express, as he obeyed, moving his hands behind him, feeling how exposed he was, belly, chest, and throat, as Vespasius caught his wrists with the rope, binding them tighter together.
Then the tension grew, as he felt his arms bound, higher and higher up his forearms, till the tension of it pulled on his deltoids, a slow, dull ache, at first.
A gloss of rope over his shoulders: he could feel the light contact, barely registering on his hardened skin, but enough, and he felt the heat from Vespasius’s body as he leaned closer, and the other man’s hands brushing his thigh, up near the binding. He felt a slide–-Vespasius sliding the rope under the binding of his thighs, back to front, his touch intimate and yet chaste. A soft whimper escaped Valius’s lips, wanting more contact, more…something.
“Bow,” Vespasius said, but it was not imperious, not a command, just a direction, of one who knew best. He tugged on the ropes he had been binding Valius with, and he felt his shoulders pulled forward and down, toward the cool metal floor beneath him. He risked unlidding his eyes, just to see heat halos of his body against the floor’s cold grating.
“Good,” Vespasius’s voice was breathy, the praise rare but all the more precious because of it, and Valius sucked in a breath, closing his eyes again lest he be caught in disobedience. He waited, almost shivering with anticipation, for what came next, feeling a thrill of fear at being so vulnerable, helpless.
Vespasius took a seat behind him, slightly off to his left, and Valius reasoned that it meant Vespasius was sitting, at least halfway, on his bed. He began reciting scripture, in that deep voice of his, sonorous and serious. From memory, Valius realized, because he had not heard any sound like opening or turning pages of a book, or powering on a pict screen.
He tried to concentrate on the words, aware that the Emperor’s visage was looking down at him and his display of submission, humility, holding himself as nothing before the Emperor’s greatness and perfection, bound by ropes and loyalty and submission; aware of Vespasius’s gaze on him as well, gauging him, watching him for…something.
Valius felt a fine sweat break out over his skin, roughening the ropes around his arms, so they bit into his muscles. His shoulders ached, and his back, bent and trying to hold the entire weight of his upper body at an unnatural angle, was starting to sear him with pain. Beneath him, the cold of the floor was sucking away the heat of his body, the tops of his feet burning with the cold. He felt a hot spasm across his back, his low back muscles protesting at the angle, the duration. Valius shifted, trying to roll his shoulders first one way, then another, looking for relief, a moment of respite; trying to twist his back, lay it along his thighs, but that pulled the rope against his wrists. Trying to straighten up sawed the ropes painfully against his groin.
Vespasius fell silent, watching him shift and twist, trying to find some small change that would hurt less, chafe less, pull less. He was aware he must look like a frantic animal, no matter how badly he tried to control himself, trying to escape some inescapable snare, and that sent a flare of shame over his body, his face.
“Stop trying to flee it.” Vespasius’s voice, gentle but firm. “Stop seeking escape from pain. It is not our way.”
Valius took a deep breath--as deep as he could manage in this position--at his words, as though he could inhale the wisdom and calm, and forced his body to settle into stillness. He tried to confront the pain, the discomfort, the part of his brain and body that was desperate to flee, to find some iota of comfort, of lessened distress, at least. He gritted his teeth into it, as it seemed to swell against him, his body turning against him, trying to tear at him.
He started breathing through gritted teeth, panting, more accurately, feeling his belly press against his thighs with each breath, feeling his back spread with each heave for air, as though if he could just breathe deeply enough, he could endure. Everything hurt, and while he had endured pain before, and the record of that was written on his body, inch over inch, this was different, somehow, the pain bringing up other discomforts, tendrils of memories, of those older injuries, and shame, and horror, and all the emotion he was not supposed to have.
A whine pulled itself from his throat, and he felt wetness on his face: tears, unbidden, snot, mucus from his nose and he was crying, ugly and wet, his back heaving into sobs, feeling the rope cut into him with each sob.
He didn’t hear, hadn’t heard, Vespasius moving, until the man was in front of him a shadow falling over him, and he felt a warm wetness on the back of his neck, and caught the scent of an anointing oil, as it trailed off his neck, sliding around his throat, tracing the line of his jaw.
“You are almost there,” Vespasius said, and the approving note in his voice was something Valius clung to, desperate for an anchor, as the oil dripped off him, warm and scented like some exotic herb from a planet he had never known, making rayed spatters on the floor.
Vespasius moved behind him, tracing a line, from that well of oil he had poured on Valius’s neck, down his spine, the oil warm and tingling, a light touch of comfort in all the pain and heaviness. And as the line slid its way down his back, down the central channel between the heavy cables of his erector spinae, somehow, he fell…
…through.
It felt like that: falling, suddenly, dropping out, into a place that was dark and hollow, but, no, he wasn’t falling he was floating, weightless, and it did not matter that he couldn’t move his body, because that was something else, somewhere else, and he was here, a point of consciousness, like a tiny star, a seed, and everything felt still and peaceful and there was no pain, or sadness, or anxiety (not even the good anxiety of wanting to live up to the brothers you fought beside), but just a sense of the present moment, blown up huge, a barbiturate eye, where you just were. No past, no future, not even a name, just pure existence, blessed consciousness, a deep unrendable freedom.
Valius came out of it like a man from underwater, gasping for air, throwing his head back, feeling sweat and oil and tears spray off him as he reared up. The ropes tightened against him, and then they were gone and Valius felt the cold bite of a knife: Vespasius, behind him, beside him, slicing through the ropes, shredding the things that had held Valius down, forced him to stay, forced him deeper within himself than he had ever gone, could ever go.
Valius collapsed forward, his muscles failing from the strain he had put on them, until Vespasius bent down, hands under his arms, and hauled him up to his feet.
Valius trembled, every muscle weak as new born, unable even to bear his own weight. He felt sweat drying on his back, the slick oil sliding and pooling in the hollows above his collarbones, and Vespasius’s arms, around him, holding him upright.
[*]
Vespasius took Valius’s weight, easily. Unlike the younger man, his muscles had thickened with age and use, and holding him up took no effort at all. Valius had been so good, so obedient, so devout. It had been beautiful to watch, the whole time, as Valius struggled with himself, his desire to free himself, his thought-need to free himself from pain instead of simply allowing it–not surrender, but acknowledgement. He had seen the ropes bite into his skin, watched the younger man’s muscles ripple across his back, twitch along his thighs, and heard the soft whimpers and then the rough, wracking sobs. Breathtaking, truly, beautiful.
And Valius’s weakness right now showed merely that he had used everything he had, spent every effort he had in him, given it all under the flickering candlelight and the Emperor’s approving visage. It had been an offering of pain, of restraint, of struggle and suffering, a kind of death beyond what they pledged every day before the Chaplain. The kind of death that made one lose one’s fear of the other, made one lose one’s fear of everything, because knowing that that blessed hallowed presence was always within one, floating and free, took away all dread of death.
He pulled Valius against him, watching his eyes slowly unlid–the candlelight picking up the silvery shine from his augmetic left eye. Vespasius lined him up carefully against him, feeling his sweat-damp skin like suede against him as he lined up as many of the armor communion ports as he could, pressing the ports on his forearms and hands against ones on Valius’s back, just for good measure.
For this to work, one needed enough contact points.
And he wanted it to work.
Valius had earned it.
Aligned, perfectly and close, Vespasius blinked his own eyes–real, augmetic–and cued the armor communion ignition from his Carapace. Current fuzzed from the ports, seeking a circuit, seeking contact and connection. Normally the armor–- this time, the matched ports on Valius’s skin. The current sought some sort of circuit, intimacy and connection, amperes pushing into resistance, building to a hard, pulsing, electrical release.
Valius cried out, loud enough that it echoed out of Vespasius’s room and into the corridor beyond, his body arching so hard against Vespasius that his feet left the floor and Vespasius was holding him against him like an angel pulled from heaven.
It was ecstasy, physical and ionic and coming in hard, long pulses, wracking through Valius’s body, pleasure after pain, bliss after suffering, contact after solitude.
Vespasius knew what it felt like from that end–-fuzzing waves of current, triggering every nerve that sought contact, warm and pleasurable, almost too much to bear, like a light so bright it blinded the eyes.
He relented, eventually, rheoing down the current, before breaking the contact, sliding Valius just off the communion points. Valius shivered, in waves, as the current slowly faded, triggering against his carapace, again and again, weaker each time, but still feeling of heaven and exultation.
Still unable to stand, Vespasius decided, and carried him the step or two to the narrow bed shelved against the wall, laying him out tenderly, even as Valius continued to quiver from the aftercurrents, his eyes still half-lidded, mouth parted in ecstasy, as though shaping a prayer.
“Good,” Vespasius said, kneeling next to him, turning Valius’s face toward his, so the warm light of the candles cast blissful shadows on his skin, kissing him gently, tasting the devotion and worthiness he had proved on himself. Good. Holy. Blessed.