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By the time they get into the inn room, anticipation has grown in both of them, albeit not quite the same kind of anticipation. Childe is gnawing on his lower lip and as soon as the door is shut behind them he gives Thoma a light push toward the nearest wall, wanting to do more but giving him a chance to object.
Thoma takes a voluntary step back to place himself against the wall, staring Childe in the eyes with blatant thirst. He lifts a hand close to his own chest and beckons with two fingers.
Childe moves as if to slam his body onto Thoma's but instead he catches himself with his hands on the wall above Thoma's shoulders and takes a second or two to study him. He'd liked it when Childe nipped his ear, so... Leaning in without touching Thoma's body anywhere else, he dives into mouthing at the man's neck. He tastes the salt of sweat. He feels Thoma swallowing under his lips, feels the startled grunt of pleasure in his throat. He wants to bite the soft flesh, wants to bite hard, wants to draw blood, but again he holds back and lets his teeth merely be felt on Thoma's skin.
At first Thoma doesn't touch him, keeping his hands on the wall too, down by his sides. But after a moment of that, of passively enjoying Childe's exploration of his neck, he reaches out and ventures a light grasp of his hips.
Wanting to suck Thoma's skin between his teeth but not daring to, Childe whispers in his ear like he did yesterday. "Clothes off?" He's impatient to get any kind of movement and activity going.
"Mine or yours?" Thoma chuckles.
"Both."
Thoma's hands leave his hips and he next feels them searching for his jacket's clasps. Childe encourages him with a nip at his ear, a lick around its edge, and a wet scrape of his teeth, all the way down from where the firmness of the sternocleidomastoid muscle begins below the ear, to where the collar of Thoma's jacket stops him from following it to his clavicle.
The clasps are figured out in short order. Childe takes his hands off the wall to let Thoma pull his jacket down his arms, cooperating to ensure his 'scarf' comes off with it.
"What's this?" Thoma asks, looking at his chest with interest.
"A sternum strap? It's for carrying...things. Attaching things to."
"Carrying what, contracts and bills?" Thoma grins and hooks a finger under the leather. "Right now it's giving me ideas, if you know what I mean?"
Childe leans in again, returning his hands to the wall. He turns and tilts his head (his eyes more smoky than dull, smoldering with curiosity and undirected appetite). "Let's say I don't. Tell me. What would you do with it?"
"I could use it to pull you into different positions. For example...pulling you upright while I'm fucking you, so I hit your prostate every time. Is it okay with you when I call it fucking?"
"Mmhm. Tell me more." He doesn't know what Thoma is talking about, about his prostate. He knows it's an internal organ but he's never stabbed one before so he's unclear on what it does or precisely where it is. Definitely not one of the vital organs.
"I could use it to tie you up, too. If we had some good rope."
Childe tries to imagine that. As restless as he is, right now, it's hard to picture anything except for turning this into a bloodbath. He wishes he had a better distraction. "...Hmm." He pushes off the wall once more and takes the strap off, dropping it onto his jacket on the floor. "You'll have to make do with your hands."
"I'm not complaining," Thoma says with a smile, pushing off from the wall as well and slowly walking Childe backward toward the bed as he unbuttons his shirt.
Childe is very willing to move things along. He interrupts Thoma's unhurried unbuttoning when he efficiently tugs the other man's jacket off his shoulders and down his arms. It too is left on the floor. Thoma's shirt follows, and Childe's burgundy button-up joins them a moment and a meter later.
The only light in the room is from a papered window. Neither of them took the time to light a lamp. As a result, not all of Childe's scars are clearly visible to Thoma yet, but he can see enough to gather that Childe earned his previously displayed skills from a long history of frequent and reckless fighting. As for his most recent injuries, Childe covered them with small bandages last night. He notes how Thoma's eyes flit from place to place on his chest, shoulders, arms, and midsection, and he feels pride. He is proud of every scar he has, even the ones he got doing stupid things, because every one of them represents a lesson learned, a step on his path to power. He realizes he's smirking at Thoma a little, his eyes waiting to be met again by Thoma's.
Thoma meets that smug gaze and sort of shrugs his eyebrows before smiling again. They've reached the bed; Childe can feel the side of the mattress against his calves. He flashes a grin and throws himself onto it, sprawling out, leaving Thoma to get the remainder of his clothes off while Childe unabashedly rids himself of his. He sits up halfway to pull his boots and socks off, then turns onto his side in order to shove the rest down and kick it off without hitting Thoma. His belt is still in most of its loops, and his Vision is still on it. His Delusion is safely hidden in a snap-closed pocket inside his jacket.
As Childe flops onto his back again, Thoma's smile warms with both arousal and a kind of affection. He's standing in the full light of the window, affording Childe a good look at his body. There are very few scars, which is disappointing, but the few he has look like they were all earned in fights, so...at least there's that. Peripherally Childe notices the tent in Thoma's underwear right before he bends over to take that last item of clothing off. The freed erection looks to be about...seven inches long? Six? Seven? Whatever, all Childe cares about is that it works. His own would be about six if it weren't soft. Childe cares even less about that.
Thoma puts one knee on the bed, kneeling between Childe's legs. Looking him in the eyes he asks, "Do you remember the signals? Show me where you're at right now."
Childe holds up an index finger, not pointed at Thoma, and attempts a coy smile to affirm its meaning. The attempt must be good, because Thoma grins and leans forward, placing his weight on one hand so he can touch Childe's abs. He traces them with fingertips that meander slowly downward.
"Good," he grades Childe's memory. "And if you wanted me to stop, what would you do?"
Five fingers held up, Childe answers, "This, or I'd say that safeword, 'bubble tea.'"
"Good! Aaand if you wanted to slow down?"
Childe glances at his hand while trying a couple different ways of holding up only three fingers.
"Four works too," Thoma reminds him.
"Ah, right." For four he can simply tuck his thumb in.
"Great! Is there anything you wanna talk about before we go further? I know it looks like I'm, uh, raring to go, but I'm not in a hurry."
"I'm in a hurry. Fuck me."
"Already? Are you sure?"
Childe repositions himself on the bed so that Thoma's knee doesn't stand in the way of him flipping over onto his front. Folding his arms under his chin and looking at Thoma over his shoulder, he stares expectantly. "Yes, I'm sure." The restlessness is manifesting as something like an unpleasant tingle underneath his skin, prompting him to flex his toes as a means of fidgeting.
"Well, okay! One sec'." Thoma stands up only to crouch over the pile of half his clothes and do something Childe can't see past the mattress's edge. He pops back up with a tiny jar and a handkerchief in hand. "I brought lube. It's made of oil and Hydro slime condensate. Unless there's something else you want to use that you brought?" He's also holding his shirt for some reason.
"That's fine. I didn't bring anything."
Thoma crosses the bed on his knees to get between Childe's legs again. When he leans over him, Childe feels...something. The faintest stirring of...interest. Laying his head on its side, he can watch Thoma a tad more comfortably than if he kept it raised. He pays keen attention to every sensation; he's here for a physical experience and he's starving for something, anything, to happen to or with or within his body.
Before doing anything else, Thoma grabs a pillow, lays his shirt over it, and, with Childe's slightly puzzled cooperation, stuffs it under his pelvic region. The result is that Childe's ass is propped up and it's easier for him to spread his legs, and that makes it pretty self-explanatory.
Thoma pours viscous liquid from the jar into his hand and dips two fingers in it. As Childe is watching him, so too is he watching Childe, letting his eyes roam but regularly meeting his gaze. His subtle expression reads as one that's intently wanting but also...caring, in that he's being mindful of Childe's every reaction, especially when he gently pulls one cheek of his lean ass aside with a thumb and touches lubed fingers to his—
—surprisingly sensitive anus? Once, a long time ago, Childe tried fingering himself. It didn't feel like much of anything, so he never did it again. Maybe it's because it's someone else doing it; maybe he's hyped up, or the lube is a tad cold, or it's because he's paying such close attention, but he's shocked to feel a tiny thrill. With minimal pressure, Thoma's callused fingers massage one of the few parts of his body that's never been injured, letting him get used to that before starting to increase the pressure gradually.
"This good, so far?" Thoma asks in a soft undertone.
"Mm... It is." Childe wouldn't go that far, really. It's not 'good' as in exciting or delightful, it's just interesting, but even that is more than he expected. It's alright, though, and he wants it to continue.
Thoma obliges him by sinking one fingertip through the tight ring of muscle. There's only brief resistance before the abundance of lube lets it slip past. Again, Childe feels a tiny spark of something that finds its way to his chlen.
"And this?" Thoma has paused again.
Childe closes his eyes. "More," he mumbles.
With his eyes closed and him bringing all his attunement to his body into focus like a magnifying lens, the sensation of Thoma's finger sliding in is fascinating. That novelty is quick to fade, though, and the loss leaves him antsy. It takes real effort to be patient while Thoma massages him from the inside to prepare him for the second finger. (Childe, accustomed to pain, is severely underestimating how tight he actually is and how much his increasing tension isn't helping.)
"Is there anything I can do to help you relax?" Thoma inquires, without ceasing the slow in-and-out and circular side-to-side motions.
"I am relaxed." He's not jumping up and looking for something to fight, so, obviously he's as relaxed as he can be while yearning to do just that. (The kind of relaxation he'd started to experience while he was in the Traveler's teapot doesn't cross his mind as an option, still too alien to his mind, too impossible to've been genuine.)
"...So...you're always this tense?"
Childe huffs, opening one eye to look at Thoma. "I guess?" More of a dismissal than an answer. "I just—... The longer this takes the more I want—..." Another huff and then he all but whines, "Thoma, please, just fuck me."
"I'm not— I can't do that until you're more relaxed. Will you let me give you a massage? Back, shoulders, all that?"
Childe's sigh at that is vocal and petulant. "If you must."
"I'm pretty sure I must." Thoma slips his finger out and wipes it on his handkerchief. The remainder of the lube in his palm becomes impromptu massage oil. Spreading it across Childe's upper back segues seamlessly into the massage. And what a massage! Thoma knows what he's doing, not that Childe has ever—literally, ever—had another massage to compare it to. What Thoma does to his muscles with just his hands and elbows is a revelation that changes Childe's mind about the delay.
It's a mix of relief, discomfort, pain, and more relief. Tensions he hadn't known he could be rid of, knots in his muscles he took for granted: Thoma zeroes right in on them and works on them until they start to loosen. Childe is silent except for, whenever Thoma makes a breakthrough, some grateful noises he doesn't bother to suppress.
Aside from the pain-adjacent discomfort that comes with getting his first massage after years of living the way he lives, he still has some strains and aches from the Onmyou Chamber that there are no longer any external signs of. When Thoma encounters them it feels like being kicked by an Anemoboxer, but Childe doesn't allow that to show. He luxuriates in the pain like it's the seasoning necessary for a good meal.
Bit by bit, he goes limp under Thoma's ministrations. His breathing slows and deepens.
When he yawns, he realizes it's been a while and he should probably say something. His mind is blank, though, so he just raises his hand a feeble few inches to hold up one finger, then lets it fall back down.
Thoma leans lower to whisper from behind his shoulder, audibly smiling, "I won't say I told you so."
"Merciful of you," Childe mutters. Drawing the breath to speak prompts him to sigh it back out and yawn again.
Some more time passes. How many minutes it is, Childe can't be sure. He notices that Thoma has stopped the deep massage and is wiping the lube off his back now. His eyelids flutter as he opens them; he hauls in a revivifying breath.
"If you want to sleep, you can," Thoma offers. "We can pick up where we left off later."
Childe considers it. ...He'd rather wear himself out as much as possible before sleeping. "No, that won't be necessary. I want to pick up where we left off, now~" He arches his back so that his ass bumps into Thoma's thighs.
"Message received!" Thoma sits back and Childe hears the lube jar being opened. He keeps his eyes open, because he is somewhat sleepy, but he rests his gaze on the bed's black-lacquered headboard rather than looking back. It's the next best thing to having his eyes closed. Less to see means more to feel.
He feels Thoma rub fresh lube onto and into his anus, and as he tests him with one finger again, he can tell there's a difference. He is more relaxed now. The stretch doesn't sting this time. He'd taken that aspect of the sensation for granted, and he'd enjoyed it. This is...farther away from having a chance at exciting him. But it's not bad. It's nice, in a way. It's nice, in hindsight, that Thoma went to all that effort to get him to this point.
It also means Childe finally gets another finger in him without much more delay. This doesn't sting either, it just feels...peculiar. In a good way. As Thoma ever so carefully finger-fucks him, he amuses himself by rocking back to chase or meet his fingers. Matching the rhythm so it's consistently the latter, he then surprises Thoma with a backward shove. It doesn't make for a painful impact, but it's a tantalizing sample of harsher friction. His own trick makes him smile and chuckle under his breath.
Thoma chuckles too. "How does it feel?"
"It's all well and good, but I'm ready for more. Aren't I?" He wags his hips slightly to make his point.
"You're greedy is what you are!" Thoma teases him, withdrawing his fingers almost all the way. Rather than depriving him of them, though, he fits a third in alongside and buries them in Childe's ass again.
Childe surprises himself by gasping quietly and uttering an unsteady "mm" in the back of his throat. "Good," he hastens to clarify.
"I'm almost ready again," Thoma lets him know. For the duration of the 'almost,' he lets Childe fuck himself on his fingers as he pleases while stretching him wider.
In his eagerness to get more active, Childe experiments haphazardly with different ways of moving without getting up on his hands and knees. Even so, the novelty is already wearing off again, and his movements start to become tinged with frustration.
Thoma stills him with a hand on his hip. Childe bites the inside of his lip as the other man's fingers retreat. He lets himself slump sulkily limp while he waits for what sounds like Thoma slathering himself with lube. It doesn't seem necessary to Childe, though part of him reluctantly guesses that if Thoma believes it is he's probably right. He's been right so far, or at least not wrong.
His eyebrows rise abruptly as he feels something new nudge against his hole. Finally! Yes! Come on! To preempt any hesitation on Thoma's part, he waves a finger.
He hears Thoma take a deep breath. "Okay. I'm going to go slow. Let me know if it hurts."
"I want it to."
Thoma hesitates.
Childe shoots a look over his shoulder.
"...I can be a little rough for you once we really get started, but if you're asking me to just...go from zero to seven right away, I...would rather not do that. I just can't be comfortable with it. Call it a personal boundary."
Childe bites back a sigh. When it's put like that, he can't conscion trying to insist. "Aaalright. As rough as you're comfortable with as soon as you're comfortable with, and no sooner."
"Thank you." Thoma smiles and gives his ass a little pat that provokes Childe's most unexpected reaction yet: a blush. There's just enough light on him that Thoma sees it, and he sees that Thoma sees it, and whatever expression that puts on his reddened face makes Thoma's smile brighten like he just saw something cute. "Hmm!"
Childe hides his face. Nothing more is said as Thoma lines himself up and begins pressing inward so slow that it would be boring if it weren't for how the qualitative and quantitative difference of that sensation from even three fingers rekindles Childe's fascination. He's almost glad for the slowness, because it gives him plenty of time to study this sensation. Being penetrated, hm? Mm! Recalling that word makes his chlen take notice. It's being rubbed against Thoma's shirt on the pillow beneath him by the pressure at his rear, so once that spark flies in his mind, the fire starts in his body: he starts getting hard.
At two or three inches deep, Thoma pauses before pushing any further, exerting only enough pressure to maintain that depth. He has a hand free now, and with it he touches feather-light fingers to Childe's right buttock, stroking a line and then a circle.
Childe is mildly confused. Why—? "Ah!"
All Thoma had to do was rub just a little harder—just enough to take it from delicate tracery to a caress—and a faint jolt of arousal awakens something in Childe. Faint though it may be, it's a lot for him. "Mmh?" he questions, not knowing what question he's asking or whether he's asking Thoma. Shyly he looks back at him again, even though his cheeks and ears are warm.
Thoma beams at him softly. "Seems like you're turned on by this kind of touch."
I am?... Childe admits to it with a small nod.
Thoma does the thing for a few more seconds as he resumes introducing Childe's insides to his length one slow centimeter at a time. Shifting his hand, he makes the sensation new again by fingering circles around his hipbone instead. Childe shivers. It's so light, so gentle, so tender...
Soon, another pause. Thoma pulls out partway, then delves back in, this time not as slowly. Several times he does this, going a little deeper each time, until Childe feels full of him. Between that and Thoma's caress visiting the back of his thigh, he feels like a plucked string on a lyre. His breath is shallow and irregular, and his leg muscles are turning to jelly. All over such simple things! Over sensations so painless and unthreatening they should barely register!
Thoma seems to be trying to keep himself quiet for whatever reason, but sometimes all he accomplishes is reducing his would-be moans to tiny, cute noises verging on whimpers.
Turns out he's not quite filled by Thoma yet, not until one more impeccably controlled mini-thrust. The other man's groin is pressed down fully against his ass, and a slow but firm roll of Thoma's hips arrests Childe's breath with the satisfaction it brings. He feels his hipbone being stroked again, and part of a quiet whine escapes from him into the audible range.
That stroke is brief. Thoma opts to lie down atop him, supporting himself on his elbows. He touches his lips to the nape of Childe's neck, lets him feel the heat of his breath, and, with the tentativeness of sought permission, places his hands over Childe's.
Childe unfolds his arms and extends one finger. His hands are slightly shaky, but he means it. Thoma twines his fingers in between his, loosely holding his hands from behind. With the other man's weight on him, Childe feels held all over. The solid, living heat of Thoma's length inside him adds something to that as well.
Using only his hips, Thoma begins fucking him gently. Before each languid thrust he pulls out no more than an inch, and on the return he grinds into him to make up for how sparse the back-and-forth is. Where his entrance clenches around Thoma's shaft and at the depth where his tip makes him feel pleasantly impaled, that's where the grinding gives him friction and stretch. It also keeps his own genitals rubbing against the shirt-clad pillow. He's so hard the entrapment of his erection almost hurts from time to time, but it doesn't really.
He's not feeling any pain. None that isn't washed away by whatever all this arousal is pumping into his blood, at least. It seems comparable to adrenaline, but only distantly similar to the way he normally experiences adrenaline. It had been beneath his notice the other time he tried sex.
He hadn't trusted that woman at all, didn't know her, didn't think of her as a friend, doesn't even remember her name. He hadn't sparred with her, either. Thoma, on the other hand? A friend he's gotten to know a little, trusts more than he should, and has crossed weapons with.
Childe extends a finger once again. Thoma can surely feel it next to his own. "Forget what I asked for bef— 'efore, just keep...doing it like this, or something like this," he requests, his voice coming out so husky it's scarcely more than a whisper.
"Gotcha," Thoma chokes out. Childe glances back. If it wasn't obvious from his voice and its occasional noises that the other man, too, is enjoying this quite a lot, it's obvious from the pleasured grimace on his face. It occurs to Childe that Thoma's gratification has been even more delayed than his.
Thoma doesn't change anything for a minute. Childe notices him twice starting to pick up the pace but immediately reining himself in, until finally his own needs win a little ground and he adjusts their positions. He raises his chest up off Childe's back, putting more of his weight on their joined hands. That feels good to Childe, and he signals so. There's something intriguing about having his hands pinned down. Meanwhile, Thoma nudges his legs with his knees, guiding him to move his own knees forward. It alters where the pressure lies inside him.
"Mmmh," Childe sighs, pleased by the change.
Thoma has more room now to widen his stance, so to speak. Leaning down close to Childe's back but not resting on it, he uses the gained leverage to lengthen his thrusts. He keeps the pace slow, but not as slow. Childe has an urge to stretch and curl his fingers, but that could be misinterpreted, so he does it with his toes instead. The constant sawing motion, still so lubricated by the condensate-oil that he can hear its slickened slide in and out, stokes an incipient heat he has no word for other than pleasure. It builds slowly but steadily.
Oh, right, this is...how it goes. But it feels good this time instead of boring... How can it be so different? The answer to that is a foregone conclusion but he's still in awe of it.
"You good?" Thoma checks in, between quickened breaths.
Childe opens his mouth to reply and just moans.
"Signal?"
One finger. Some of Childe's muscles are tensing up again, particularly in his abdomen and thighs, flexing uselessly (as far as he knows) in time with Thoma's movements. But it's the way they tense when they're being utilized in exercise or combat, not the annoying pent-up kind of tension he develops from a lack thereof.
"How do you want to cum?" is Thoma's next question. "I can—hh. Touch you. If you want. Or—. Do something after I... Ah... I'm getting close, is what—nnh, what I'm saying." He slows almost to a stop, his thighs trembling against Childe's.
"Hhmm... I don't—... Mm, do the thing that you were doing earlier!"
Thoma releases Childe's hands and leans on one of his in order to try softly rubbing Childe's whole flank, from side to hip to thigh, with his palm.
"Ohhh," Childe embarrasses himself by moaning open-mouthed again. It's just so startling to hear that type of thing come out of his own mouth.
Thoma starts moving again. Childe whimpers, covers his traitorous mouth with a hand, then parts his fingers and speaks through them: "Harder. I do...want it...harder now. Don't stop the...other thing."
Mindful that he wasn't asked to go faster, Thoma maintains the same tempo but adds emphasis to the last couple inches of each thrust: a slight shove, a bit of impact. His clenched teeth do nothing to stifle his groans.
The combination of being touched tenderly and being thrusted into with some force is even better than Childe intuited it would be. He notices a wet spot on Thoma's pillow-protecting shirt; his chlen is leaking from the unprecedented pleasure.
"Mm!" Thoma exclaims as if he has realized something; it's not just another abbreviated moan. "Ah, fuck! I—" He laughs. "I'm balls-deep in you and I n— never asked your— name. I'm sorry, I've been so r-ude!"
That makes Childe laugh too. It's absurd on so many levels.
"What's your name?" Thoma asks in a softer voice.
Childe...was the name he chose when he joined the Fatui. Tartaglia was the name he was awarded when he became a Harbinger. He can't tell Thoma either of those names.
He can't think of an alias.
"Ajax," he blurts out.
It's so, so strange hearing himself say it after all these years.
"Ajax," Thoma moans.
It's disorienting, hearing it from someone else in that tone. But maybe not in a bad way.
"How close are you?"
"I don't know... Don't wait for me."
Thoma wraps the arm he's supporting himself on around Ajax's chest and pulls him up as he sits back. The change of angle hits a spot that makes Ajax yelp. It suddenly feels like his penis is being fucked from behind, not just his ass. It's a bizarre sensation, and it's amazing.
Reflexively gripping Thoma's arm with both hands but holding it in place rather than pulling at it, he lets his head tip back. It bumps into Thoma's headband. He barely notices, but Thoma does and he makes deft use of Ajax's head to nudge the headband off. A toss and it's gone; a tilt and Thoma is burying his face in Ajax's neck.
"Where do you—mh!—want me to cum? On, or in, or off?"
"Don't care. In!" Ajax wouldn't mind in any case, but when Thoma is consistently hitting that spot that's making him see stars behind his eyelids, he could not care less. He's so close himself now.
Thoma slides his hand from Ajax's hip to his abdomen and strokes a circle from there to just above the base of his chlen. He thrusts upward rapidly on the strength of his thighs and with some help from the arm he has around Ajax's chest, no longer holding back.
Ajax's voice breaks on an exclamatory moan when he ejaculates. He can feel himself wringing the same out of Thoma, his loins spasming as if they were made to milk his partner. "A-ah, ahh," he pants through his orgasm—and the enjoyable discovery of what it feels like to have liquid warmth spilled deep inside him by pulsing flesh.
He sags back against Thoma's chest, and a second later Thoma lays them both down, pulling out as he does so. The difference between laying them down and just falling over is that Thoma turns so they end up spooning on their sides.
Thoma's arms wrap around Ajax fully, then, and Ajax sighs his lungs out before refilling them with deep, relaxed breaths. And he is relaxed. His head is empty. All is quiet and still and that's actually okay.
"How're you feeling?" comes a murmur by his ear.
"Shh," he responds.
He feels Thoma press a smile to the back of his neck.
Sleep envelops him.