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Praxis watches Abel walk past, the flash of yellow in his fringe teasing him with its boldness beneath white fluorescent lights. The flash of colour amongst the icy blonde entices him nearly as much as the innocent unconcerned expression the young man wears. The smooth line-less forehead, the wide unseeing eyes that speak of his ignorance to the dark possession that hovers over him and of the tail he’s picked up ever since he stepped onto the Selipnir.
On cue Deimos creeps past not even bothering to look casual, though how casual can one look when their default is a variation on a sneak?
Too busy keeping Abel in sight he doesn’t notice the taller man lying in wait until Praxis extends a hand and snags him by the back of the collar into the alcove. Deimos grunts in protest – more of an audible exhalation actually but he doesn’t cry out. It’s unsettling to think that he is so used to being ambushed he’s realised the futility and potential to do nothing but goad more trouble if he speaks out or puts up more than the obligatory struggle.
When he sees it’s Praxis he relaxes somewhat as though judging the occurrence to be a hiccup at worst but he doesn’t stop struggling. In fact, he takes it up anew and tries to push him off but despite suffering from some depth perception problems Praxis has considerable bulk behind his body and he pins the slighter man easily against the wall. Deimos glares up at him but without the ability to reach for his knives he’s no more dangerous than an angry cat in this moment.
“Get off me.” He hisses, his heavy accent makes the word sound like ‘git’.
“Stop following Abel.” Praxis snarls, “It’s getting creepy.”
Deimos stops glaring and a far more dangerous glint comes to his eyes. Amusement. “Jealous?” He taunts.
Praxis snorts his denial but the lingering amusement in the silent stalkers eyes tells him he isn’t convinced. That’s not Praxis’ problem, he’s not here to prove himself to Cain’s spy. “What do you want with him?”
Deimos doesn’t answer.
Praxis pulls him away from the wall only to slam him back into it. “Answer me!” Deimos still doesn’t answer. Praxis opens his mouth to repeat himself when a series of voices approaching their hiding spot interrupts him. He tries to push them both further into the shadows to avoid a scene but the voices are already upon them. They all stop at once and Praxis looks over his shoulder to see four men peering into the shallow alcove. He narrows his eyes ready to bark at them to keep moving but when they realise who it is, or rather who has control in the situation they take up chatting again and walk away like they’d never seen anything. Praxis turns back in time to catch Deimos’ scowl surprisingly not aimed at him but at the space where the four men once were almost like he was…upset. He feels that settle in his gut like food on the turn.
Still Praxis waits until the voices vanish completely before asking, “Why is Cain having you follow Abel?”
“Fuck you pussy!” Deimos spits right in his face, in his good eye. Praxis curses and slams him harder into the wall. Deimos wheezes as his breath escapes him.
“I know he’s the one commanding you. Everyone knows he’s obsessed with his navigator and you’re his errand boy.”
Deimos growls and struggles with more fervour than before. Clearly he doesn’t care for that title. The flinty eyed fighter has feelings after all or at least spots sore to the touch. “Stop.” Praxis is overcome with what can only be labelled as pity for this other man. He doesn’t understand Cain’s appeal. He’s a braggy piece of shit but he understands the longing and loyalty someone like that can inspire. “Stop-“ Deimos’ bids for freedom are furious enough to make Praxis fight to restrain him. “Will you jus- stop! I’m sorry- I’m sorry okay?”
Deimos freezes looking up at him like he recognises the words but doesn’t quite believe he’s heard them. Had the apology stunned him? Jesus where did this guy come from?
More voices echo down the hall in greater numbers. People on their way to the mess hall. Praxis wonders if they’ll stop and intervene or if they’ll just do what the last four guys did and walk on. It’s only after he’s shoved him down the hallway towards the elevators that Praxis realises he doesn’t necessarily want to see the humiliation on Deimos face when he finds out just how unpopular he is on this ship. Deimos catches his toe on the lip and stumbles but when he rights himself he whirls on Praxis knife glinting in his hand as the doors slide shut.
It takes no time to get to his floor but with the weapon thin and sharp between them it feels like an eternity. Praxis can’t stop looking at it. It isn’t fancy, overly decorative or even rusty. It looks utilitarian with its hole punched metal handles but that only serves to make it look that much more lethal. This knife is not fancy because it’s functional and it functions well. There’s a rumour that men who carry knives give them names but this one looks too stubborn for a given name. It looks like the kind of knife that chooses its own which is ridiculous because it’s an inanimate object.
He keeps his eye on it as he says, “You could stab me here and risk a disciplinary, or worse an automatic discharge.”
Deimos swallows. He doesn’t want that, obviously.
“Or,” Praxis continues, “You could stop following Abel.”
Deimos rolls his eyes.
Praxis frowns “You know Cain is a psychopath, right? He thinks he owns Abel. Who thinks like that?”
- - - -
Deimos wants to laugh at the older man’s naivety. He wants to tell him a lot of people think like this but clearly this is not Praxis’ experience. He hasn’t grown up in a town where paupers and orphans are indistinguishable from livestock and tradeable goods. Instead he pulls his glower back into place.
When they reach the fifth floor Praxis motions for him to exit. Deimos circles him knife still between them and steps out. Praxis follows and Deimos raises and questioning brow.
“What now?”
Praxis grabs his arm in reply and hauls him towards a vacant room. Deimos suspects it’s his, it’s neat and orderly and free from any personality. Just like Praxis.
“It won’t make him like you.”
“Likewise pirate.” Deimos sneers.
The one-eyed man flushes, “It’s not like that.”
Deimos can hear the ring of the lie clear as the first time he told it. His grunt of disbelief is for Praxis’ benefit and it gets him shoved against the wall, again. He’s growing tired of this dynamic, always being cornered, always being shoved and threatened. He is not a rag doll!
“You know nothing.” Praxis snaps. His fingers like pincers dig into Deimos’ flesh but the only sign of discomfort he’ll allow himself is a brief flare of his nostrils. ‘Don’t let them see you bleed, don’t let them hear you hurt’ his mantra on repeat. He focuses on Praxis rather than his pain. He’s never seen him so close to the edge. He’s a fighter like the rest of them aggressive and ready to go but he doesn’t just look pissed he looks…desperate. Deimos wonders what Abel would think of his concern. Deimos wonders what it feels like.
But it doesn’t matter how much Praxis cares about the little angel navigator because Deimos’ mission is more important to him than this behemoths feelings. This dark guardian angel trying to protect him without getting involved, afraid it might tip his hand. It’s pathetic this unnecessary push and pull Praxis has going inside of him.
“Or what?” Deimos croaks with a grimace. The worst he can do is hurt him and pain is not what he fears. Pain is only temporary.
Praxis leans so close to him Deimos could turn and nuzzle him, bury his nose in the hollow of his neck and inhale to unsettle him. The hunted getting a whiff of its hunter, turning the tables ever so slightly to make Praxis question who the real predator is here. He surges forwards only he misjudges the distance and catches Praxis’ lips.
The other man rears back so quick he could have imagined the contact but the expression on his face, the furious shock is proof. “What are you doing?”
I don’t know.
Praxis is a lot of things; a fighter, a survivor, a friend. But he is first and foremost an obstacle to Deimos mostly because he is an obstacle to Cain. Every time he hears Praxis say Abel’s name he can feel Cain’s fingers pinching his chin, can see the snarl that cruelly twists his lips as he spits,
“What do I protect you for huh? I watch your back and in return you watch Abel and warn me of others watching him. I don’t pay you to fawn over me or to let Praxis corner me in rooms to lay claim to my navigator like some pride Lion. If you can’t do your job you can find someone else to watch your back. Think you can do that huh? Think anyone on this ship will have your back for anything other than target practice?”
Deimos had stared at him unblinking and silent because the answer was obvious. Deimos had nobody since he’d hitched his wagon to Cain’s ride.
“Keep Praxis off my back. Keep him away from Abel. Got it?”
Later, in the mirror Deimos admired the red marks from Cain’s fingernails as he’d dragged his face away to nod his understanding.
He cannot physically overpower Praxis. He can’t kick his ass and he won’t risk court martial by stabbing him. Praxis knows this. But he also doesn’t know what boys like Deimos have had to do to survive, he doesn’t know what the men they become will do to survive. He might not be a master manipulator like Cain (though is he really a master when his subject is so malleable?) but he does know one very important thing about the one-eyed man before him.
He knows he wants Abel and Deimos knows the ache of a desire impervious to rejection. He’s made enough passes at Cain to know just what the other fighter thinks about that but it's still his face he sees when he closes his eyes alone in his bunk and grabs his cock. It's the thought of Cain sliding into him that makes him come. He knows he can’t have him but Deimos can still feel the burn from that stubborn flicker of hope deep inside.
He suspects Praxis feels his own too.
Fantasies are fine but pretending with your hand gets old quick. Something else Deimos knows but maybe all Praxis needs is to get it out of his system. Maybe he needs a moment to pretend with another.
“Pretend I am Abel.” He commands on a low hiss.
"What?" Praxis looks disgusted but it lacks the aggression of an attack. This is not directed entirely at him. Deimos wonders how this man has any energy to fight their enemies when he's always fighting himself. "No! I told you-"
Deimos' look cuts him off. Yeah right. He moves to kiss him again but Praxis leans back. He's starting to annoy him. "I know." He snaps forcing himself to use words that the idiot is too blind to see in his eyes. "Everyone knows but Abel does not know. Never will know. So kiss me, and see Abel da?"
Praxis hesitates, words of protest no doubt ready on his tongue but Deimos has had enough of his lame denials. He's taken a chance and he won't be turned down a third time.
He surges forwards and kisses him.
Praxis hesitates for a full second before groaning and pushing back, fighting, proving his worth with his tongue, lips and teeth. He surrenders to his need and fights for control at the same time. Deimos distantly thinks that Abel would be in trouble with Praxis if he ever manages to get out of trouble with Cain. This man doesn't just have strength behind his build he is also a strong kisser, punishing Deimos, or Abel, with his mouth. His grip on Deimos' shoulders eases and he starts to smooth his hands over the blades.
Slowly, cautiously Deimos places a hand on Praxis' chest, to push him back should he choose to do so, but the other hand curls over his hip staying him.
They continue like that. Praxis kisses Deimos like he's got something to prove but it's hard to tell if the teeth biting his bottom lip or the tongue seeking his are denials or admissions. It's not about Praxis, it's not about Deimos, it's about the men they can't have in life. It's about how they found themselves doing things for no reward. It's about how altruism is not the boon it promised to be. At the end of everything Praxis must know that Abel will not turn to him. Praxis thinks exposing Cain's ugly truth will force Abel into his arms but Deimos has seen this sort of thing enough times to know that when people spin out they do so alone and far from friendly reach.
Nobody likes the messenger that’s why they shoot them.
His mouth is going numb from the way Praxis is assaulting it so he breaks off to trail kisses down his neck. He kisses and licks and bites before settling in to suck. Praxis jerks back. "No marks!" He commands. Deimos gives him a long stare but nods. Satisfied Praxis moves back and lets him resume kissing. The hand Deimos has curled around Praxis' hip moves to his groin and he enjoys the way the other man’s Adam’s apple bobs up and down with a nervous swallow when he palms him through the material of his pants.
"Oh." Deimos hisses against his chin. "I thought you liked Abel." He rubs the hardening shaft through the thick material. Praxis can probably barely feel it but the suggestion seems enough to have him growing. "This could be perceived as punishment."
Praxis glares down at him. He doesn't appreciate the smirk? "When did you get so chatty? I thought you specialised in cold invasive looks and speaking glances?"
Deimos gives him one of those speaking looks, an unmistakable fuck you and he stops his delicious rubbing his eyebrows going up in question.
"Okay." Praxis breathes hips bucking. "Do what you want. Talk, don't talk, just keep touching me."
Deimos feels a sense of satisfaction in that and chooses to ignore the commanding tone in favour of holding onto it. It continues like this for agonising moments. As Praxis gets stiff his kisses get sloppy, his tongue traces wet trails over his cheek down his neck and to the exposed skin at his neckline and there’s no skill anymore just movement. Deimos thinks he could be into the way the other man completely loses all sense of decorum but as he reaches his ear with intent to bite the lobe he whispers a name.
"Abel."
Deimos slows almost completely to a stop. It doesn’t sting. It doesn’t. They’re pretending. He told him to and yet the idea of being so easily mistaken for that naïve little angel child chafes against a long buried pride. He is better than Abel. He is infinitely worldlier.
Of course they are pretending but the idea of using it as a moment to prove to Praxis that this saccharine child is nothing more than unnecessary trouble appeals.
Emboldened by this wish he sinks to his knees pulling the band of Praxis’ trousers with him. His cock breaks free angry and red, eager to be pleased. Deimos takes a breath. He swears it was involuntary and he didn’t check his widening eyes quick enough but who could blame him? He wasn’t wrong.
Praxis is hung.
“Do you think Abel would do this for you?” He finds his words falling easy from his lips, lubricated by his need to prove his superiority, “Do you think he would look at your dick with wide eyes and gasp at its impressive length?” It pulses its pleasure at hearing the compliment. Deimos takes it in hand and Praxis hisses in pleasure pain. “I am not surprised.” He runs a hand up and down, soft enough to be teasing but not so soft so as to be ineffective. “There’s a certain walk for a man who has a big dick. You have that walk.” He bets Praxis is afraid of Abel’s reaction to it. He bets he’s afraid that if he ever gets far enough to see it he’ll declare it too big to take on.
Fear is not what Deimos feels when he looks at it. He’s looking forward to scaling this peak.
He rubs his cheek against it hearing Praxis’ soft swear above. He tightens his fist pumping once, twice, three times, running his thumb over the tip as he goes. Praxis breathes heavy and his cock gives up a bead or precum that Deimos smooths around the head. He leans in and kisses the soft base. The hairs tickle his nose and he inhales the warm scent of arousal. Praxis bucks in his grip. It’s quite the rush to have this power over someone. To know that at this point he could do anything.
It’s the sort of control he usually only feels when he’s palming a knife.
There is not knife in his hand now. He feels it all the way down to his groin.
- - - -
Deimos presses a soft kiss to the soft silken skin underside his cock and Praxis groans like he’s been waiting for it for years. Technically he has, just not from Deimos. But what does it matter whose mouth it is when he’s so close to getting lips around it, to having a tongue swirl and stroke him to orgasm? It doesn’t. He realises this the moment Deimos puts his mouth around the head and laves his tongue all over it. Praxis fights the urge to cup the back of his head though it would be the least he deserved for having the gall to suggest this ridiculously pleasurable but still very bad idea.
Any minute now he’ll remember who he is, who the man sucking his dick like a pro is, where they are.
Or maybe he will after he comes.
He closes his eyes and Abel flashes behind them but it bats the image away because it’s too much. It’ll end him before Deimos even manages to get his lips halfway down. And boy is he trying. Deimos slides down until they both feel the head at the back of his throat, and then he swallows. The vice of his muscles clench so deliciously that Praxis grunts and bucks involuntarily.
Deimos gags roughly and breaks away. “Warning.” He gasps.
“Sorry. Accident.”
The other man seems to easily accept this and then swallows him back pushing his head down again until Praxis can feel his tongue pressed firmly against him.
“Fuck.” He groans. Of all the things he thought he would experience on the Sleipnir in Colteron space he’d have put losing an eye in combat above getting deep throated by a morally dubious spy. Now both have happened and all he can do is gasp and moan and try to fight the urge to move every time Deimos draws him in deep.
“Fuck.”
It’s all he can say. His brain is too busy feeling the sins of Deimos’ mouth to dedicate any time to forming coherent thought or speech.
His belly tightens, his ass clenching and his balls grow tight anticipating release. “I’m gonna come.” He warns.
Deimos slides off with an audible pop and Praxis comes in thick ropey spurts all over his face. It should be disgusting seeing the way the pearly white paints his face but it’s the hottest fucking thing he’s ever seen.
He hates him just then. He hates how Deimos has managed to expose this dirty part of him. He’s rooted out all his secrets first with Abel and now with just what exactly he’d want to do if he ever got hold of him.
Is nothing sacred? This ship has never felt so small.
He pushes Deimos and he falls onto his heels panting a darting tongue out to clean his lips. If there was any blood left in his dick Praxis know it would love that. Without anything to occupy them – Deimos sucking him off Praxis closing his eyes desperately trying to chase himself off a cliff – they look at each other. Really look. Praxis can see nothing in Deimos’ eyes but it’s an artful mask, a shutter rather than an empty hole behind his gaze. There is a deep deep pit behind that wall and he suddenly feels afraid because all this time he thought that Deimos was the victim, the poor stupid Cain slave but perhaps he is not such a victim. Perhaps if he ever lets it that darkness could consume him and turn him into something dangerous.
Praxis realises this is why he's stayed out of his way. It was the knife to the kidney the first time they met sure but after that it was his weirdness, his not quite right and the way he didn't care. If he was feeling less charitable (a post orgasm glow makes it easier to be nicer he remembers it isn't Abel on his knees) he would find it repulsive how he scuttles from place to place, ducking beneath eyelines and slipping into the dark corners of room. But then that's survival and it isn't always pretty.
- - - -
Deimos lets Praxis look his fill but whatever he’s trying to figure out with those narrowed eyes he won’t. The walls are down, they are always down and they are too heavy to lift by accident. They are too strong to break. His emotions are encased in steel within him where they are safe from himself and everyone else. Praxis surprises him then by extending a hand. Deimos takes it hesitantly and allows himself to be guided – not pulled- to standing. Then Praxis tucks himself back into his trousers and sinks to his own knees. Deimos steps back but Praxis reaches for his waistband.
“Let me.” He says popping the button and sliding the zipper down.
Praxis on the cold floor of his room has silently declared them equals in a game so easily played for power. It's astounding to see a man on his knees before him that has had no knife to his anatomy, no blade point snuck between them and pressed to pulse points. Praxis has not been commanded or coerced by the threat of violence to sink to the ground and touch him. Willing worship, or at least a willing hand job, Deimos never thought he'd experience it for himself.
The room is quieter this time. It is not full of kisses, there is no obscuring the room with their cheeks and noses. Deimos can see everything, he can see the way Praxis' thighs spread as he sits on his heels. He can see the way his hand clumsily works to draw him out of his trousers. He can see the heavy breath he takes when he finally has Deimos in hand.
It feels unbearably good to be touched. He’s been trying not to think about it, has spent a lifetime telling himself it was better this way but he is starving for the tender touch of another. He almost speaks. He feels like he might cry. He bites down hard on his lip and exhales harsh through his nose as he hardens impossibly in Praxis' grip beneath his hungry stare.
"Do you think Cain would do this for you?" He asks, his question a variation on the one Deimos asked of him.
Deimos looks down at him. You care?
He ghosts his palm down his length. The younger man sucks in a breath choking when Praxis fits his mouth over it and works his tongue right unto the ridge just beneath the head. The frenulum - he saw it in a biology text once - it's so sensitive it makes him keen. "Blyad."
"I am superior to him. It doesn't take a big man to be an asshole." Praxis says. So this is a power play just not over Deimos. He shouldn't be surprised. Offer yourself as a pawn and you should be expected to be treated like one.
Praxis takes his cock back into his mouth and moans. "You taste good." he sounds surprised. Deimos grunts faintly insulted and completely turned on. "I knew you would." He covers trying to save it. His mouth swallowing him down serves as an adequate apology.
Deimos throws his head back staring at the grid pattern of the bolted ceiling but when Praxis’ tongue works itself into the slit he has to look down because it’s not enough to feel the wet suck of his mouth he has to see the way his lips circle it. And they’re stretched so obscenely around his girth that it makes his knees weak. Deimos could be mistaken for thinking that Praxis is enjoying himself too with the way his moans vibrate around his cock.
“Ah.” He whines through clenched teeth. He’s trying not to come too quickly but it’s all he wants to do. He wants to explode in the other man’s mouth. He wants to watch him swallow. He wants to know what that really looks like. He knows what it feels like, he knows what the faces of the men he did it for looked like but he’s never seen it for himself. He knows what it looks like on his face, bitter and angry and humiliated. Will it look the same on Praxis’?
Can it ever look any different?
He wonders what Abel looks like when he swallows Cain’s but the thought chases his orgasm away so he banishes it.
Praxis’ fingers dig into the back of his thighs the nails creating blunt half-moons in his muscle. He pulls him closer, he pushes himself further until his nose brushes his belly. He gags immediately and Deimos almost comes to the sound. It feels so different to hear it coming from another. It doesn’t feel dirty or frightening it feels…empowering.
The line between monster and victim gets thinner and Deimos would throw himself over it if he wasn’t so disgusted by the thought of turning into the bullies who made his life hell before training.
“Can you imagine Cain on his knees for you?” Praxis gasps diverting his conflicted thoughts. A line of saliva stretches out between his bottom lip and the head of his cock. “I bet he’d make you kneel for him.”
Deimos knows he would. Deimos has offered.
“He makes Abel kneel for him.” Deimos sneers because if Praxis is going to try and tease him Deimos isn’t just going to stand back with his dick out and take it.
“Men like him know no other way.”
Deimos arches a brow at him, “Know many men like Cain?”
But Praxis hesitates too long to have any lie he’s about to tell sound credible and he doesn’t want to debate who had the worse upbringing. He doesn’t want to see the look on Praxis’ face when he realises that some people don’t get to be children, he doesn’t want to see judgement, or worse pity.
Deimos doesn’t need anyone’s pity. Pity is a useless self-indulgent emotion.
Grabbing a chunk of Praxis’ hair he draws him back to his groin in a wordless command for him to stop nattering and resume sucking. A beat later his belly clenches and his orgasm rushes towards him so fast he couldn’t warn Praxis even if he wanted to. With an agonised cry, he comes.
Praxis’ mouth moves around the head as he swallows. When he lets Deimos’ now softening cock go cum leaks from the corners of his mouth and drips down his chin. Praxis doesn’t look ashamed or disgusted, humiliated or afraid but he does look surprised and for five laboured breaths they stare at one another in mutual disbelief.
All the reasons this was a bad idea fall into the space between them. As the serotonin drains from their brains the cool air arranges the timeline of events that lead them here and when they step back they do so together with caution on their faces. Suddenly Deimos is aware of the cum drying on his face and he wipes it away furiously that dirty feeling niggling at the back of his brain. He doesn’t feel empowered anymore.
As far as forgetting Cain went it worked but now his head is filled with Praxis. Now he fears that when he closes his eyes it will not be Cain he sees on his knees but Praxis.
Praxis who stands and crosses to the sink. Deimos doesn’t turn. He hears the swirl of water and when he returns his shoulders are bunched beneath his ears and his glare is back.
“You should go.”
Deimos nods.
At length Praxis asks, “I don’t need to say it, do I?”
Deimos shakes his head. They both know neither one will mention this. Praxis because he's in denial about his most basic truth and Deimos because he's allowed himself to get subdued and lose sight of Abel. If Cain finds out he's going to hit him, hard. No, neither man is going to admit to their mistakes today and so without anything further to say, without wanting to risk any more Deimos leaves the room and walks back to the mess hall.