Chapter Text
Right as the fish got cold, Olly accepted Rugan wasn't coming back. Drowned in the bath, hopefully. Olly ate both plates and went to bed. Woke the next morning, stretched without feeling like anything was tearing, peed only what was expected, then went to the spring.
Not drowned.
Pity.
Rugan lay splayed in the shallow end, face up. Olly clenched his teeth, staring down at him. Sloppy. A washed up old mess. Hadn't shaved in a few days, from the look of it. To think he'd looked up to Rugan, before all of this. Thought Rugan had everything figured out.
Just a mess.
Not going to clean it up, no saer. Let Rugan handle this. He always did.
Olly shifted his weight, then cursed under his breath. Stripped off his shirt, rolled up his pants and climbed in.
"Rugan," he said, squatting awkwardly. "Rugan. Wake up."
Nothing. Olly was starting to think maybe he'd been too quick diagnosing him as "not drowned."
Olly pulled him to sitting. Shook him. "Wake up, you old bastard. You can't leave me here. You can't put a target on me and then piss off."
Nothing.
He shook harder. "Come on, you snake. I got nothing outside the Zhents, and now I don't even have them. You owe me. Owe me!"
Rugan's eyes cracked, then he snapped awake, kicking Olly off and reaching for a dagger he didn't have.
"What's the matter, lad? Back for more?" he scoffed.
Wasn't that how it always went? The accusations. The lewding of everything. Olly couldn't just care, no, there had to be a transaction for it. A tit for tat.
"Bought better than you down the road," Olly lied, standing up.
"Thought of me the whole time, did you?" Rugan's lip curled. "Told you lad. Don't lie to me. I can always tell."
"Aye, I did. Thought of your bony arse and how you don't kiss, and why you bothered saving me when you was happy to use me to save your skin."
Rugan's cheeks, red from heat, went a little pale. 'Course that was what bothered him. Knowing Olly knew what he really was. Knowing that he didn't have little Olly wrapped around his finger anymore.
"You told them I did it. Told them I sold the chest. Threw me under the cart."
"What of it? Want me to beg your forgiveness?"
"Wouldn't give it, anyway. Not until you're sorry. Not until you realize what you've done. Bellar—he—you—" Olly twisted, showing the massive chunk missing from his art. The best part, a shrike that had stacked skulls on the thorns. One for each member of the crew, sporting red hair for Brem and braids for Vol. A tribute, Olly's tribute to all of them. Gone now. Not that he'd want it, after what they did to him, but it was his skin, his to do with as he pleased.
"Zhentarim owns you, lad," Rugan had told him. "Take whatever freedoms you get."
"Did you a favor, didn't he?" Rugan sneered, kicking one leg out and propping the other arm on his bent knee, fingers bent just enough to aim the eye. Like he was asking Olly to look at his dick. Disgusting. "You were dead, lad. We both weren't walking out of there. Figured one of us ought to."
"Yet here we both are."
"What can I say? I'm lucky." Rugan said lucky like a curse. "Don't act like you wouldn't do the same. You're a Zhent, too. You can play soft and innocent, you can play stupid, but I've seen you, seen what you've done with your bow, what you'll do to get coin. Those shrikes? They're you."
Olly nodded. No matter how he washed, his hands were stained with blood. Once a Zhent, always a Zhent. 'Til death do we part.
Rugan stood up. Held his arms out. "Clear you want a fight, lad. Come at me. One hit, we call it even."
Water sloshed over the floor. Olly stood, panting, fist still raised. Stared at it, still not sure he'd done it, even as pain bloomed on his knuckles. Hit Rugan, he'd actually hit Rugan. Laid him out, even!
With a groan, Rugan pushed himself up, hair plastered to his face. Felt his jaw.
"Nice swing. Now help me up, there's a good lad."
That might've been the end of it, but as Rugan stood, he put an arm over Olly's shoulder. Pulled him close and murmured, "If it's any consolation, I regret it."
"Not enough," Olly said.
Then the bastard kissed him. Shit kiss, too, cracked, chapped lips and stubble and the dry-wet of water. Too hungry, too bossy. Olly caught the back of his neck, dragged him out of the spring.
"Cold," Rugan said.
"Cause you've ate nothing but booze for the last three days," Olly snapped, shoving him against the table. With a kick he got the stove door open, washing them in heat.
"We're doing this, here? Where we eat?"
"I eat," Olly corrected.
"Have to respect business at the dinner table. How do you want it, lad?"
Olly dragged a chair up and sat. Took a moment to consider returning to sanity, but Rugan was leaning back on the table, with his smirk and his lad. Standing there like a rose about to give a lap dance, and Rugan still thought he was the one in charge.
"You, on the table."
"Ha!" Rugan glanced around. Took the bottle of oil off the table, drizzled it on his finger and propped a leg on the chair. "Let me show you how it's done."
Olly snatched the bottle up, too, with a, "No need," but Rugan was already easing his way inside, years of smuggling who-knew-what giving way to a quick, smooth stretch. Rugan barely reacted until Olly worked a finger up besides his.
Tight, gods, it was tight, and then he clenched. Olly swallowed hard, spilling oil before he set it down.
"Waste not," Rugan said. "Ought to focus on yourself."
Heat flashed across Olly's cheeks. He shoved his finger to one side, finding a limit. Testing it. Debated adding more.
"Put another in," Rugan said, and now that he'd asked for it, Olly didn't want to. No, now that there'd been a new demand he could take himself up, work himself, fully hard. Then, only then, did he add a finger.
"There's a good lad."
Olly spread his fingers wide. "Not lad. Quit it, with the lad."
Rugan's foot hit the floor, thighs clamping around Olly's hand, his balls resting on Olly's wrists. He stepped forward, somehow still the leader. Dug his fingertips into Olly's shoulders, forced Olly's fingers deeper as he lowered himself onto Olly's knees. Pain shot up Olly's wrist, the angle bad, and he finally pulled out. Reached around, yanked Rugan closer, until his head pressed against Olly's stomach, until Olly could feel delicate skin against his tip.
Pale eyes bored into Olly's, unblinking. Olly stared back. Anything to keep what little ground he'd gained.
Rugan leaned close.
"Lad."
Olly lurched up. Slammed Rugan back against the table—and Rugan laughed. Hooked a leg around his hip. Laughed again as Olly pressed against him, forced his way inside. For a moment he though maybe he ought to wait, ought to let the old man adjust, but Rugan kicked him like he was a horse, scoffing at him.
Fine. Rugan didn't think he could deliver?
Let him see how wrong he was.
He curled over Rugan, forcing his hips down, not caring about angles or how much oil he had on him. Rutted into him, impaled him, like one of the birds on his arm, like Rugan was a prize on a thorn.
There, inside, heat, like a furnace after the chill of the cave. It wrapped over his shaft, clung to his length, nearly molded him to Rugan's shape. For all that the old man acted dead inside, here, there was life.
"Looks like you're not cold all the way through," Olly mumbled. He pounded into that furnace, ready to pump his own heat up there. Fill Rugan with himself, leave a mark that would never come off, a memory even the hardest liquor wouldn't erase.
"Say it," Olly ordered. "My name. Say it."
With an air of doing Olly a favor, Rugan said, "Olly."
He smacked the table. Lifted Rugan a little higher, canted his hips. Swallowed down every desire to screw him into the table and focused on slow, rolling thrusts. Searching.
Judging by Rugan's raised eyebrows, by the red rising in his cheeks, finding.
Olly stared into his eyes, watching the black slowly swallow the blue, Rugan's breathing going heavier, deeper. Winning, he was winning, he was making the bastard want this.
Slowly, he said, "Say my name."
"Olly." Softer this time. Barely hanging onto boredom.
Olly rolled again, holding Rugan's gaze.
"Like you mean it."
With a breathy laugh, Rugan said, "What does that mean, lad?"
"It means—" In. "—like you want me." Out. "Like you need me." In. "Like you—" Out. "—will never—" In. "—fuck with me—" Out. "—again."
Rugan shook his head, brows coming together, his whole face a bit shocked looking. He licked his lips. Tried to wrestle his features back into a devil-may-care smirk, but it all crumbled back to confusion. One hand reached for his dick. Olly caught his wrist, pinned it to his side. Kept working him.
"Olly?" Rugan said, faintly.
Olly closed his eyes. Bit his lip, tried to keep it together. Damn it, he couldn't.
He yanked Rugan up, Rugan's arms wrapping tight around his shoulder, one hand around his waist, the other on Rugan's dick. Pathetic sounds were spilling out of Olly's mouth, not at all the casual, cool way he wanted to ruin Rugan, but none of it mattered, because Rugan was gasping in his ear, over and over, Olly, Olly, Olly, and in his tone, not love—too much to ask from Rugan—but respect, at least, the knowledge that Olly had taken him for once.
Gods, it was far better than Olly imagined.
Olly moaned. Bit Rugan's shoulder hard enough for him to cry out, hard enough to leave something to admire over the next tenday. Held him tight.
Then, slowly, he let go.
Rugan's hips cracked as he slid off the table. He let out a long, shuddering sigh. With a wry look, he said, "Just thought of one part of you that we haven't confirmed is working."
Olly nodded, then stopped. Don't agree. Don't fall back under his charms. Rugan wasn't his boss anymore, Olly wasn't a lackey. They were equals. Partners.
Except, no, they could never be that. Rugan was a harpy, he was quicksand, he was a rock around Olly's ankles, always pulling him down, always bringing Olly to his level. Molding him into another Rugan. Leave. Now. While the spell was broken. Before he ended up old, tired and alone.
Olly pulled on a shirt, jacket. Picked up his bag. Looked around for his boots.
"Heading off, lad—Olly?" Rugan's voice was a bit too cheery.
Yes. Yes! Get out of here, move on. Out there was sunshine, birdsong, roses and warmth. A new life. One with less stabbing.
In here, the dark, a cold snake, a vision of his future.
"Going to town. Got an idea to fill in my arm." A snake, hung on thorns. A shrike, half swallowed by it. "I'll be back."
"Aye. Know you will."