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i.
Shamrock has always known his husband’s eye to stray.
He knew they were fated to be together despite the circumstances of their destined meeting: a marriage decided upon by their fathers to merge some aspects of their families’ wealth. The moment he laid eyes upon the haughty, weary Mihawk, Shamrock felt Cupid’s brutal arrow pierce his own frigid heart. After several months of several lawyers hammering out the details of their marital and business union, well, the rest was history.
Wedded bliss was more like a curious visitor peeking into the wrong function hall before scurrying away meekly, as opposed to a beloved guest invited into the warmth of their home. Shamrock didn’t mind being the initiator of the romance that always felt tentative, and he was not easily discouraged when his new husband put in an effort to reciprocate half-heartedly at best. At the very least, they seemed to be compatible in bed. There was a hedonism that Mihawk bought into their intimacy that both scared Shamrock in its temptation to wander from the proper Catholic upbringing that he had, and made him crave more.
Surely, Mihawk upheld his part in the marriage, aside from the lack of amour. They easily slipped into their respective roles of breadwinner and homemaker, and Mihawk knew how to keep a pristine and well-oiled home. He was a fabulous host and a stringent master to the staff of 31 working the grounds. Unused to the concept of a budget cap, Mihawk spent money like it was going out of style, but this was something Shamrock was only happy to indulge him in. He liked watching Mihawk adorned in precious gemstones and metals, and the scraps of intricate lace intimates he wore, as Shamrock railed him onto the dozens of feathery pillows on their bed, the picture of debauchery.
Did Shamrock ever want more? Sure. Man existed purely due to the practice of such quiet greed: to live a better life than yesterday’s. God knew that Shamrock didn’t ask for much: just for Mihawk to keep his eyes on him and not flinch away from Shamrock’s touch.
Yet, God punished him for his avarice. Mihawk didn’t seem particularly choosy with who he let bed him. It became an unspoken understanding that the bounds of their marriage didn’t extend into what and who Mihawk chose to do while his husband was at work. The night was sacred for their family, but the day was for a feast of sin. On a good day, Shamrock thought that he didn’t mind it so much as long as Mihawk welcomed him home with a warm meal, the hearth burning, and his body willing.
ii.
But if Shamrock was in the mood to be honest with himself, it did bother him a lot. Often, in the middle of another meeting, his thoughts would drift to what his precious, beautiful husband would be doing. Perhaps he speared himself on the gardener’s cock, or kneeled for the cook’s apprentice. His Mihawk seemed to prefer the blue-collar workers. Or Crocodile, when he visited the office. Or his brother, Shanks, during family reunions. Indulging the rapacious demon in his ear, Shamrock thought, anyone but me.
He had the feeling that he wasn’t ever allowed to object to it. There was something faulty in Shamrock’s wiring since he imagined that if he did so, Mihawk would leave, and he’d rather be lonely in their marriage than lonely unmarried. At least like this, he still had Mihawk at the end of the day. He wished Mihawk would keep it out of the family, though.
Shamrock had long suspected that Mihawk felt like he’d been promised to the wrong brother. Shanks was everything Shamrock wasn’t: fun, free, and happy. There weren’t any pressing obligations in Shanks’ life, being second-born, a spare occupant in their shared womb, an afterthought in their parents’ orbit. No one gave much of a shit when Shanks asked for a motorcycle on their eighteenth birthday, and only a minuscule-sized shit was given when he ended up totaling it 3 weeks later, costing him his left arm above his elbow. Shanks had been free to take a gap year that turned out to be the same amount of time it would take to finish a Bachelor’s Degree and a couple of Master’s Degrees, all while Shamrock collected accolades in his education, and at the same time, being groomed by his father to take over the estate. By the time Shamrock graduated and assumed his place at the company’s board, Shanks ambled back home, a sheepish smile on his face and a toddler in his arm. His daughter, he said, his tone a strange mix of proud and bemused, as if he couldn’t quite believe it himself.
(Shamrock didn’t know what he’d do with such a life– no chains, no accountability. Maybe he’d be happy, maybe he wouldn’t be content with the empty look Mihawk gave him, as if he was looking at a stranger he didn’t care to know.)
There was something alien about Shanks’ happiness that was especially intriguing to Mihawk. There had been many times, early on in their engagement, when Shamrock would find his betrothed and his brother sharing cigarettes in some quiet space of the house, away from every other miserable aristocrat, and in the short time between Mihawk being blissfully unaware of Shamrock in the vicinity and then Shanks’ loud greeting for his brother, Shamrock would find a glint in Mihawk’s eyes, excited and hungry, in a way it never was for him. That would sting, and to indulge himself, to be petty in return, Shamrock wound his arm around Mihawk’s waist and drew him close. He felt Mihawk drown his wine in one swig.
There had been very unsubtle hints here and there of Shanks coming over on times and days when Shamrock wasn’t around. It didn’t take much to deduce what his husband and brother would be up to in his absence, but again, Shamrock didn’t think he minded. Mihawk wasn’t a man you could demand chastity or commitment from. Still, Shamrock, the fool, hoped for it anyway.
iii.
By fall, tragedy rocked Shamrock’s household. News of Shanks’ daughter’s sudden passing came on a quiet morning, just as Shamrock was getting ready to leave for work. Shanks had been hysterical on the phone, saying Uta just didn’t wake up, and he hadn’t even been worried lately because she hadn’t been sick in a while, and she must have had a heart failure when she was asleep. Shamrock managed to soothe his brother over the line, but the way Shanks wailed and sobbed would haunt him forever. By the time he hung up with the promise to be there soon, Shamrock’s hands were shaking and his throat was swollen.
Shamrock gave himself a minute to breathe and mourn his niece. Sweet Uta, who once took home a three-leaf clover she saw on her walk home from school and demanded her father immediately take her to see Uncle Shamrock so she could give it to him. When she was younger, freshly introduced by Shanks after years of being away, Uta used to wind her hand in Shamrock’s long hair, twisting a lock of it around her meaty wrist. Shanks would always try to get Shamrock to play a prank on her, since she used to be confused about why her dad was sometimes two people at once, but Shamrock always refused to give her any grief. Uta had been a light in the family. She had Shanks’ exuberance and eagerness that thawed even the glacial heart of her grandparents, and Shamrock often wondered if a child he and Mihawk raised would be as she was, and add joy and insouciance to his unhappy marriage. Probably not. Mihawk was not fond of children, although Uta had managed to make him smile. It would be hard for everyone not to miss Uta.
It had always been at the back of everyone’s minds, especially a year prior, when Uta mostly lived in the hospital for a series of complications from a heart defect she was born with. Shanks had been a resilient beacon, keeping his and his daughter’s spirits up despite the deluge of grim news. Somehow, they came out of the ordeal better than before. Uta’s surgeries were successful, and the minor causes for alarm did not indicate that they would lead to something this bad. Shamrock felt the almost telepathic ache his brother must feel, though perhaps dulled, a blunt stiletto digging into the thin skin of his ribs, unable to puncture into his heart but just as painful.
With his chest tight and his head a little bit foggy, Shamrock stopped putting his tie on and ambled out of the giant closet and approached his husband, still deeply asleep in their bed. Mihawk was a vision; looking at him always stunned Shamrock with a gut punch of awe and longing. Shamrock thought that he would happily let Mihawk break his heart over and over again as long as he got to bask in his splendor. Now, though, he felt none of that noxious yearning– all he knew was that he wanted comfort from his husband.
He sat beside Mihawk’s sleeping form, unsubtle enough to purposefully jostle Mihawk awake.
“Mihawk,” Shamrock’s voice croaked, a foreign, agonized sound. He could see Mihawk come to awareness with a brilliant quickness. MIhawk sat up, alarmed, cautious. Shamrock tried again. “Mihawk, Uta is dead. Her heart failed last night, and the doctors pronounced her dead. Shanks is devastated. I have to be with him right now.” Shamrock’s breath caught in his lungs, sorrow eroding the membranes within his chest like caustic fumes.
There was something to be said about Shamrock, martyr that he was, to have been betrayed and gulled by his brother and still grieve for his loss. Saint Shamrock, he’ll pretend to be alright just to be polite, even if it makes him look like a fool.
“I’ll come with you,” Mihawk volunteered. What Shamrock heard was, I need to be with him, too.
Shamrock shook his head. “I’ll bring him here. He’s not well. We’ll take care of him. Stay,” he said, not a demand, but a plea. Please don’t give me another reason to suffer right now. Let me have this for myself, and don’t wedge yourself between me and my brother for now. “Make arrangements for his stay here. Call the office and get them to clear my week.”
For a moment, Mihawk looked annoyed, like he was about to say something so incredibly hurtful. Then, he watched his husband, so close to total collapse, haggard in his anguish. Marriage was all about give and take, so with all Mihawk took, this he would give to Shamrock. If he felt no love for Shamrock, he at least felt camaraderie for his fellow prisoner in this marriage. For that, at least, he could show compassion.
Mihawk smoothed a hand down Shamrock’s back, and that was all it took for him to let the fissures in his composition widen and overtake him. Shamrock wound his arms around Mihawk, burying his face into Mihawk’s sleep-softened neck, littered with possessive marks of bites and bruises that Shamrock put there last night when their world was still whole. There, he shook, his pain making no more space for the resentment he felt for his brother and his husband, even at a time like this.
Briefly, as transient as a burst of fright, Mihawk felt some remorse for being such a stranger to this man crying in his arms. Maybe if they were better allies in this marriage, things wouldn’t be built up for him like this. Maybe if they were even just friends in this life sentence, Shamrock would cry more often, so it wouldn’t make him detonate like this.
Just minutely ashamed, sympathetic, Mihawk carded his fingers through Shamrock’s brilliant hair, the texture of it so similar to that of whom Mihawk truly wanted to hold like he did now. To comfort, an empty absent gesture, Mihawk pressed his lips to the crown of Shamrock’s head.
And he wondered about the days to come with his home filled with the lethal smoke of a burning house.
iv.
It has been days since Shamrock bought Shanks home.
Time blurred together in the face of such tragedy. For Shamrock, his responsibility extended beyond just himself. Aside from leaving his work in the hands of many acting leads, he also had to make sure his house was not indisposed. Mihawk’s despondence was worrisome. He moved about the estate listlessly, a beautiful spook haunting the edges of Shamrock’s periphery. He had been a steady partner in the beginning when Shamrock came back with Shanks, who’d been and still is near catatonic with grief, present while Shamrock tried to bathe, feed, and eventually medicate Shanks when he had a bout of hysteria.
Shamrock could remember the petrified look in Mihawk’s wide eyes when he saw the state of the room Shanks had torn apart in his sorrow-induced frenzy. He’d been jittery when Shamrock yelled at him for help in subduing Shanks, then he’d looked nauseous once they got a sedative into the man, as if he’d just seen Shanks murdered in front of him. And in a way, maybe he was. Mihawk probably put two and two together and arrived at the conclusion that the soul he fell in love with had left behind this shell of a man, and that now, he was truly all alone in this world, chained by marriage to a mockery of the man he actually loved. Shamrock noticed Mihawk fade away after that, too. In the span of a week, the body count of his family increased to three, with two of them still breathing, but really, just as lost.
No more did Shamrock fear that Mihawk would slip into Shanks’ guest room the way he did on the second night of Shanks’ stay. They’d probably made tear-filled love while Shamrock tried to sleep in the opposite wing, Mihawk giving all the sympathy and comfort in his body to Shanks. Now, on his own accord, Mihawk gave Shanks’ side of the house a wide berth.
It did mean that Shamrock was now the sole caregiver of his bereaved brother. After the nervous breakdown, Shanks was on a steady stream of medication monitored by a doctor who came to the estate twice a day. It was easier to get him to bathe and eat when he was placid from the medication. For a while, Shamrock tried to decompress by talking to Mihawk about his anxiety about his brother’s condition, but seeing it make Mihawk upset taught Shamrock to just swallow it down like a fat, bitter pill.
At the very least, Mihawk now seemed more receptive to non-sexual contact similar to the comfort he gave Shamrock in the morning of Uta’s death. At night, after Shamrock’s marital duty of giving his husband pleasure, Mihawk would hold him close until he fell asleep, chaste kisses and soothing caresses accompanying the closeness. Foolishly, Shamrock thought he could get used to it, a dog starved of care and affection finally finding a good home. Foolishly, he thought that he was finally getting the love from Mihawk that he deserved.
On the morning of Uta’s funeral, seven days after she went back to her maker, Shamrock found Shank’s room empty but for a note on the bed.
Leaving town. I can’t watch them bury my baby. Sorry for being a coward again.
Shamrock did not allow the sharp knife of resentment to twist up inside of him. This was exactly like when they were younger, both suffering from the extreme demands of greatness from their parents, and just like that, Shanks left for his “gap year” and never came back. He’d just laughed it off when Shamrock called him a coward for leaving him to be the receiving end of all that pressure and burden. So no, this wasn’t new. It’s exactly the spineless, idiotic thing Shamrock expected of his brother.
When he alerted his husband of this, Mihawk had pursed his lips, given him a meek half-hug to placate him, and reminded him to get ready because they had to be at the chapel in an hour.
When they got to the chapel, Shamrock and Mihawk separated to receive condolences from extended family, shareholders, acquaintances, and friends. While Shanks never took an active role in the family business, there were many who were obligated to pay their respects because Uta had been Shamrock’s niece. The modest chapel was filled, and before the mass could even start, Shamrock was already tired. Once he got a signal from the minister that the rites would begin, Shamrock looked around for Mihawk, absent among the mourners.
With a sinking feeling in his gut, Shamrock whispered a few instructions to his mother and father, then left the hall to find his husband.
v.
Shamrock finally found Mihawk in one of the small rooms on the side of the chapel used for counseling. There was something in the way he cried, quietly and privately, that pushed Shamrock over the edge. Here was another thing Mihawk would not let him be privy to because perhaps he might not want the comfort that Shamrock would impart to him.
“You’re hiding here; you should be inside.” Shamrock tried to be calm as he approached. He sat on the narrow pew beside his husband and tried to swallow his irritation when Mihawk tensed, recoiled.
“I’ll be out there soon. Leave me alone for now.” Mihawk’s throat was raw from the strain of holding himself together.
“No, I won’t.” In contrast, Shamrock’s voice was ice cold, the rage simmering under it barely detectable except for Mihawk, who lived in the same burning house as him.
Shamrock slid closer to his husband, using a finger to tip Mihawk’s chin up. There, Shamrock saw annoyance in the cloud of grief. The annoyance was for him, the husband, and the grief for Shanks, the lover. He prayed to a merciless God who sent him such a cold spouse as penance. “You’re so beautiful, Mihawk. It makes me forget how fucking ruthless you are.” Shamrock pressed his lips to Mihawk’s, tasting the salt of his tears there.
“What the fuck is wrong with you—” Mihawk jerked his head away, but Shamrock was faster, using his hand to grip Mihawk’s jaw, his fingers digging into the hollows of Mihawk’s cheeks.
“You’ll deny me this, my love? You can comfort me before you go to the next room, then fuck my brother, but you won’t let me comfort you?” Shamrock pressed more kisses to the apples of Mihawk’s cheeks, feather-light gentleness in contrast to the way he gripped him. He felt Mihawk’s gasp against his chin, and felt his hands against his chest, not pushing him away but welcoming more .
Shamrock drew back. Mihawk’s body was honest and eager, but at this point, Shamrock would be hard-pressed to take that as a compliment since anyone with the right equipment had received the same. When Shamrock dove back in to kiss Mihawk again, Mihawk was a willing participant, opening his mouth and jamming his tongue against Shamrock’s.
Somehow, Mihawk ended up astride Shamrock's lap, back arched, grinding down on his husband’s growing hardness, delicious impetus. Shamrock felt no patience today, needing more and wanting to hurt. He unbuckled Mihawk’s belt and unfastened the hook on his pants. He saw Mihawk’s panicked look around the room, then to the entrance.
“Shamrock, the door isn’t bolted–”
“Oh, I don’t care, sweetness. God already sees everything, and I think you’re not really conscious of who you let see you so compromised, no?” Shamrock, annoyed with the tightness of Mihawk’s pants, gave his ass a sharp slap. “Get up. Take your pants off.”
Mihawk stumbled back up, his legs a little unstable. He watched his husband watch him, saw the malice there. Mihawk knew Shamrock was capable of it, that explosive fury that was aimed at anyone but him. It only scared him minutely, but it did make him cautious of the recklessness he saw along with it. And it made him want. Obedient when his husband was a person he didn’t recognize, Mihawk pushed his pants down.
“Stop. And turn around,” Shamrock commanded.
Mihawk left his pants pooled around his calves and turned so he could face the benchend of the pew. Mihawk gasped when he felt Shamrock’s cold hand at the base of his spine, urging him to bend over. “You’re so docile today, my little pet.” Shamrock gripped the cheeks of Mihawk’s ass and kneaded them before spreading them apart obscenely. He spat right on the winking hole there, revelling in the low moan from his husband. “You often make it difficult for me to breach your heart, but your body isn’t as hostile, is it?” Shamock pressed his thumb against Mihawk’s hole, pushing the glob of spit inside. Forgoing tenderness, knowing his husband dislikes it, Shamrock fucked his thumb in and out, pressing down hard enough to hurt, hoping it would bruise long enough that the next occupant would see it. When Mihawk’s knees shook and a louder moan ripped out from his throat, Shamrock was encouraged to replace it with his longer fingers. The uh, uh, uh, that punched out of Mihawk’s lips in time with the harsh scissor in and out of Shamrock’s fingers were delightful, maddening. Did the mourners in the next room hear the way Mihawk keened over the heavy aria of the church organ?
When Mihawk was sufficiently dumb off the pleasure, Shamrock removed his fingers. Mihawk’s head slowly craned back to see what the disturbance was. Shamrock was unbuttoning his pants and taking his thick cock out. It needed no further stimulation, but Shamrock was determined to see it rammed so hard down Mihawk’s throat that it would make a fresh batch of tears flow, not for Shanks this time, all for Shamrock, finally.
As if it were instinctual, Mihawk fell to his knees right on the padded kneelers, his mouth ready to accept Shamrock’s girth, a farce of the Eucharist. Shamrock looked down upon Mihawk’s depraved look and thought that God would weep if he, too, was tempted by such a sinful beauty. The way Shamrock held Mihawk’s jaw was gentle now, compared to earlier, and the way he swiped his clean thumb onto the red finger mark on Mihawk’s chin was almost reverent, regretful. But he needed to hurt more, humiliate more, so he held his cock by the base and clapped it against the side of his husband’s face. Whore that he was, Mihawk groaned, his dick leaking at the tip and his hole clenching on nothing, impatient. Laughing humorlessly, Shamrock directed the tip into Mihawk’s waiting, gaping mouth. Mihawk bobbed his head back and forth, expert suction unrivalled.
“Oh, my love. You were born to suck cock, weren’t you? You do it so well. I don’t fear Hell’s flames if that would be my punishment for reveling in such sin.” When Mihawk groaned deep, his mouth making obscene, wet noises, Shamrock smoothed his hand up to dig his fingers into Mihawk’s hair and yank on it painfully, making his nose flush with Shamrock’s navel. For a while, Shamrock just lost himself in the pleasure of it, ignoring the harsh squelch and gag from Mihawk, the desperate way Mihawk gripped his thigh.
Before the pleasure could burst into a release, Shamrock shoved Mihawk off his cock. “Enough of that for now, my sweet. Turn around again, and show me that tight little hole.”
“Fuck, Shamrock,” Mihawk cooed, just as hot. “I need it.” He obeyed, making a show of bending over the benchend of the kneeling pew and gripping one cheek of his ass to show just where he needed it. “Please.”
Restraint made Shamrock’s body nearly overheat. It was suffocating in his dress shirt and blazer. Hell would be hotter, anyway. Shamrock spat on his dick, slicking himself up with the viscous spit Mihawk already left it slathered with. He lined up the tip of his cock to MIhawk’s hole and teased the bulbous head in and out, drinking in the annoyed warning sounds from his husband. Mihawk’s hand snaked back to grab Shamrock and draw him closer. Chuckling, Shamrock indulged him and slid in fully, sweat breaking out at the way Mihawk’s tightness practically rejected him.
“God, fuck, fuck. You’re so big. I love it,” Mihawk cried. If the congregation heard them, that was none of his concern now. “Please, baby. Fuck me. Fast and hard.”
It was not out of love that Shamrock complied, but he let his own greed and lust possess him when he started fucking into Mihawk so hard the pew he was bent over started rattling under them, the noise off wood on stone in the lascivious beat of sex. Because alerting the church of their illicit activity would put a stop to it, Shamrock reached around Mihawk to grab his neck and draw him back so he was flush against Shamrock’s front, careful not to disrupt the steady, punitive tempo of his thrusts.
“Shut your fucking mouth, darling, we’re in a church.” Shamrock hissed when Mihawk’s loud moan threatened to give them away to Uta’s funeral attendees next door.
“It feels so good, baby,” Mihawk replied, cockdrunk and foolish in his pleasure.
“I know, love.” And as if to prove it, Shamrock sped it up, angling his hips in a way he was sure would hit that tender spot inside Mihawk that made him see sparks behind his eyelids. Shamrock walked back until he could sit on the pew again, the impact of the action driving him deep up into Mihawk, making him cry out. To quiet him down, Shamrock pushed his face to the side to face him. He saw wetness on Mihawk’s chin, drool that Shamrock licked up before licking into Mihawk’s mouth. Mihawk groaned into the kiss as he felt Shamrock’s busy hands unbuttoning his shirt, slipping his hand inside to stoke his sensitive chest.
“You’re so beautiful. You’re my curse, Mihawk.” Shamrock gasped when his husband’s hole squeezed down on him. The chafe of it was addictive, and he was sure–he hoped– that Mihawk would bleed. “You’re here, grieving a child my brother lost, not because you were close to the girl, but because my brother owns your heart, and his happiness and his grief are half yours. What will it take for me, the man you married, to get the same treatment? You wear my wedding ring, you sleep in my bed, you let me fuck you, but shall I cut off my arm and my hair, and be a slave to my grief and my ennui and my vices for you to surrender yourself to me completely?”
When Mihawk’s only answer was a pathetic whine, Shamrock pinched the buds of Mihawk’s nipples.
“S-s-sorry, fuck, I’m sorry!” Mihawk finally tossed back. “Please, Shamrock, fuck me harder, I’m so close.” Mihawk pushed his husband’s waist down so he would stay seated. Then, Mihawk, energized by the release on the horizon, bounced up and down on Shamrock’s thick cock, quick like palpitations, until he gasped and cried out from the violent, warm eruption of his orgasm, his dick twitching and spurting onto the belly of his half-undone shirt.
When Shamrock felt Mihawk’s rhythm slow, he took his hand back from Mihawk’s nipples and gripped his hips so he could thrust up into him again. Mihawk sobbed, overstimulated, tired, pained. Feeling ravenous, Shamrock swiped his tongue onto the side of Mihawk’s neck before biting into it.
“Christ, Shamrock! That hurts!”
Shamrock panted. “I’m coming, my love. Will you take it inside, or shall I mark your face with it?”
Mihawk was only mildly ashamed to say, “Inside, please. Hurry. Wanna feel it inside of me.”
Shamrock groaned as he chased the high, feeling a heat that was frightening wash over him when he finally came and doused Mihawk’s insides. “Ah, fuck. Get up, love. Show me the mess I made inside of you. Push it out.”
Mihawk felt no shame in doing so. He was only just coming back to awareness when he felt his husband swipe his handkerchief against the mess of cum marbled with blood.
“Clean yourself up. I left Mother in charge of the ceremony before I came here. You and I are going home.” Shamrock’s tone was loaded, guilt, embarrassment, and remorse, making him sound like the pathetic man Mihawk married and loathed and not the beast who had just fucked him in a church. With his hands and legs shaking, Mihawk watched his husband stick his softened, wet cock back into his slacks, slick his hair back into the half tie it was in. Mihawk fixed his pants, feeling the soreness now that the adrenaline had died down.
Shamrock noticed Mihawk’s difficulty in buttoning his blouse back up. He came closer to help, sighing in relief when Mihawk only glared at him instead of slapping his fingers away. When he reached the top button, he smoothed down the disheveled collar. That was what made Mihawk growl before slapping him on the face.
“I deserve that,” Shamrock said. “I apologize.”
“I don’t care if you’re sorry. I don't fucking care if you die.” Mihawk turned on his heel, gathering his coat from the end of the pew. “Get the car. I want to get out of here.”
vi .
Later, in the closed-off back seat of the chauffeured car, Shamrock wept. Beside him, Mihawk sighed, pretending not to hear.
end.