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Evander is out working on something he has not trusted Rowan with, and Somerled hasn’t shown his face all day. Rowan is nearly, but not entirely, able to relax. He’s in his own room, and he can almost, almost feel safe. That’s why he doesn’t hear the door open.
He’s left his head on a table, idly watching himself idly clean, blind to half the room. He only knows Somerled is there when he feels hands on his head: one on top, twisting into his hair, and the other low and to the side, its ragged nails biting into his cheek. Rowan knows it must be Somerled from that—knows the infuriating way he picks at and bites his nails—and from the smell of stagnant water that clings to him constantly.
Somerled lifts Rowan’s head to his chest, tucks it under his chin, and in the same moment Rowan turns on his heel and crosses the room, blocks out his own vision until all he can see is the space between their bodies. He finds his own head with one hand, grabs a handful of his hair to make sure he won’t fall if Somerled decides to let him go, and manages to say, “Stop it.”
Somerled is laughing; Rowan can feel the way his chest shakes with it against the back of his head. “You can’t just leave things lying around,” Somerled says in a mock-chiding tone that might be meant to evoke Evander. His next words confirm it: “Have a little respect, Rowan. Put that away.”
Rowan finds Somerled’s shoulder with the hand that isn’t in his hair, and before he has had a single thought he has driven Somerled back to the door and slammed him against the corner of the frame, meaning for it to hurt.
Somerled keeps laughing around a little sound of pain. He shifts his hands, and his fingers slip from Rowan’s cheek to the bottom of his head, to the place where it’s split from his neck. Those ragged nails scrape over raw muscle, find the hollow of his trachea.
In something even closer to Evander’s voice, Somerled asks, “Do I sound enough like him if you can’t see me?”
It makes something in Rowan’s stomach twist so horribly that all he can do is pull back and punch blind. He makes contact with Somerled’s jaw, and it makes a satisfyingly organic sound, a crack of skin on skin and hurt animal noise. Rowan’s stomach twists even tighter.
Somerled surges forward, until there’s no distance between them, until Rowan’s face is pressed to his own chest between them and he can’t see anything at all. It becomes obvious that Somerled is, once again, half dressed in just a shirt that falls nearly to his knees. Also obvious: his erection against Rowan’s thigh.
Rowan is reeling so much from that, and from the burning need to harm, to beat Somerled until he’s a bloody, whimpering mess, that he is entirely unprepared when Somerled digs two fingers into his throat from the bottom up. It’s a raw, rough, burning sensation, like choking but not. Rowan can’t help but think that Evander’s fingers are more slight, with nails neatly kept, and would sting differently. It is all that he thinks.
Somehow, Rowan finds himself pressing forward against Somerled, pushing him against the doorframe, his hand jumping from Somerled’s jaw—he knows his strength, knows there’ll be a bruise there soon enough—to his throat. He can feel Somerled’s pulse skittering and the hitch in his breath, knows he could close his hand and squeeze and Somerled might even let himself die.
“Come on,” Somerled whines, all his own voice again. “You want to kill me or fuck me or whatever. Do it.”
Reason strikes all at once, and Rowan realizes what he’s doing. He’s standing here in his room in Evander’s apartments, with Evander’s wild cousin half naked and hard against him, fingers up his throat, and he wants—
Rowan wants a lot of things he doesn’t get to have, and here is Somerled.
Rowan is probably going to ruin his own life, right here and now, because there’s no way Somerled will keep his mouth shut about this. Rowan can’t justify it or explain it, and he can’t—he can’t stop it.
Somerled, still pressed hard against Rowan’s thigh, untangles his hand from Rowan’s hair. Rowan keeps his own grip, well aware that Somerled could still decide to drop him, but he lets Somerled shift him, turning his head up and around so he can see part of Somerled’s face.
Somerled’s pupils are huge, and he’s biting his lip so hard that Rowan suspects he’s bleeding. His jaw is red where Rowan’s fist landed. His hair is a mess, damp and lank and thankfully not muddy, falling in his face and around his shoulders.
His fingers are still in Rowan’s throat, and with his free hand he finds Rowan’s mouth. He presses past Rowan’s lips, runs fingertips over Rowan’s teeth, and, when Rowan lets him, hooks his fingers behind them. Rowan bites, hard enough that he tastes blood, hard enough that Somerled gasps and laughs and closes his eyes, bucks his hips against Rowan and crooks the fingers in his throat. Rowan gags, and Somerled’s eyes flicker open to stare down at him.
Rowan finds Somerled’s cock through his shirt—let him get his own clothes filthy, and leave Rowan’s clean—and Somerled makes a terrible sound. Rowan isn’t gentle about it, isn’t any nicer than Somerled is with his nails digging into Rowan’s throat, the soft spot under Rowan’s tongue. Somerled starts to say something, so he bites down again, leaving another bleeding wound on his fingers and making him gasp.
Rowan experiments with swallowing to feel the way his throat constricts around Somerled’s fingers, works his cock rough and fast, watches his face. There’s still some of the smug delight that he always has when he’s destroying something, but also a little amazement. Maybe he didn’t expect this to work.
Somerled comes quickly. Rowan doesn’t let him linger, doesn't let him enjoy it too much. He comes, and he shoves his fingers deeper into Rowan’s head—could he make his fingers meet in the middle?—and Rowan gags harder, hard enough that it forces him forward, draws everything tight in his body.
It puts his empty neck closer to Somerled, and even panting, fucked up, still shaking with it, Somerled is Somerled. He darts forward, quick as a snake, and bites down hard. Too-sharp teeth sink into cleanly severed muscle, and Rowan remembers that Somerled eats people.
He shoves Somerled against the door frame again, and Somerled doesn’t resist. He also doesn’t resist Rowan’s hands on his, pulling his fingers out of his throat. Rowan takes his head back and tucks it under his arm like nothing strange is happening, like his throat isn’t raw, like he isn’t hard in his breeches. He steps back. It feels vital that he put some distance between them, that he doesn’t let Somerled touch him anymore. He wants to turn his back or squeeze past Somerled out of the room. He wants to leave.
He is frozen in place by Somerled saying, “Fuck my mouth, Rowan, let me help.” He sinks to his knees, arranging his shirt hem like he’s arranging his skirts. “I promise I won’t bite,” he says, voice deceptively light. “Not even a little bit, not even a nibble.”
Rowan swallows hard, feels the burn in his throat, the ache in his neck. He manages to say, “No,” and is surprised by how raw his voice is. “You would bite.”
Somerled pouts, and Rowan wants to knock the expression off his face. He wants to beat him until he’s a mess of blood and spit and fractured bone. He wants to break his knuckles on Somerled’s hard skull.
He doesn’t. Another terrible thing rising up inside him brings his free hand to his breeches’ lacing instead, compels him to hitch his head a little higher so he can look down his nose at Somerled, debased on the floor. Somerled forgets he’s supposed to be pouting when he sees Rowan’s cock in his hand. Instead he looks—hungry. It’s an uncomfortable description, on someone with Somerled’s proclivities, and it shouldn’t make Rowan ache to think it.
Somerled tries to lean forward, and Rowan, moving without thinking, shoves him back with a soft kick to the stomach. He plants his foot on Somerled’s thigh.
“No,” Rowan growls. Tries to growl. It comes out more of a gasp. He tightens his grip on his cock, starts moving his hand. “Stay where you are.” Digs his heel into Somerled’s thigh.
Somerled looks deliriously delighted, and he sounds it when he asks, “You were thinking about Evander, weren’t you?” He licks Rowan’s blood off his teeth and grins, looking up at Rowan through his eyelashes. “Thinking about his hands, he’s got pretty hands, and he’s so good with them—”
“Keep talking,” Rowan says. He means it as a threat, intending the implied, “and see what happens.” Instead it comes out pleading, broken, desperate.
Somerled’s grin widens, sharp teeth and wet tongue darting out. “You want him so much. Why don’t you just do something? Just shove him against a wall like you did me.” He shifts on his knees, arches his back, buries his hands in his shirt between his legs. “You’re so much bigger than him. You could just take what you want.” Licks his bottom lip where he bit it bloody. “He wants you. He might even let you.”
The idea makes Rowan’s cock jump in his hand. It shouldn’t. He shouldn’t be thinking about Evander beneath him, looking up at him like Somerled is. Shouldn’t imagine how hot Evander’s mouth would be, how he could trust Evander not to bite down.
“Or maybe you want to be the one on your knees. You already get down on your knees for him all the time. Do you want to be where I am?” Somerled pulls one hand out of his shirt, wraps it around Rowan’s ankle. He’s visibly already hard again. “On the floor under his boot?”
That’s easier. He does get down on his knees for Evander. It’s easy, comfortable, to imagine himself going down to one knee, a straightforward show of devotion and loyalty; easy to imagine offering Evander—anything he wanted. His head, his mouth, his neck on his shoulders, where there are two holes Evander could pick from. Rowan would let him have any of them, happily. It would be a better burn, to have things that shouldn’t stretch around Evander’s fingers, Evander’s cock. Better than Somerled.
Like he can hear Rowan’s thoughts, Somerled says, “You’d give him anything, wouldn’t you? He’s really the only thing you want. Would you fuck me if I weren’t his cousin? If he didn’t fuck me? I could make it almost like fucking him. I know how he moves.” He does that thing to his voice, makes himself sound almost but not quite like Evander even if the words are all wrong: “I’m the closest thing you’re gonna get.” He laughs, all himself, but then lets out a pretty sigh in Evander’s voice: “Oh, Rowan.”
Rowan comes across Somerled’s mouth and cheek, over his eyes and hair. Breathing hard, trying to get himself in control, he can’t look away from Somerled. He watches as Somerled licks his lips clean, shifts his head so his hair falls further over his face. There is—it’s in Somerled’s hair in nearly the same place Rowan’s braid is, and it’s the worst thing Rowan has ever seen. Somerled has the gall to look smug and satisfied, to look like all he wanted this whole time was to be ruined just like this.
Rowan feels hollowed out and vulnerable standing there with his dick in his hand. He feels like Somerled has gotten the better of him, somehow, even though Somerled is the one kneeling on the floor with come in his hair. His stomach goes sour with fear and disgust. There’s no way he can keep Somerled quiet about this. It’s too much to even expect Somerled to clean himself, to wash the mess out of his hair. As soon as Evander is home, as soon as Somerled opens his mouth, Rowan is ruined.
Rowan steps back, nearly stumbling.
Somerled just smiles and smiles at him.