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Patrol on Nessus. Public event on Nessus. Bounty on Nessus. Patrol on Nessus. Track down some Cabal Legionary defector.
On Nessus.
Last week it was Neomuna; maybe next week it’ll be the Cosmodrome. Fucking hell, Ayres hopes it isn’t the Cosmodrome. He’d take a full month doing bounties on Nessus over the Cosmodrome.
He sprints up the trunk of one of the huge trees in The Tangle, dodging out of the way of a blast from a Minotaur’s Torch Hammer that leaves the wood scorched where he’d been moments before. This patrol isn’t so bad, really, just beating back some Vex who have been getting a little too cocky. Ayres leaps onto one of the broad branches overlooking the gully below and spins around with his hand cannon, only to find that the Minotaur who’d been harassing him is now a pile of sparking scrap.
A decent patrol partner also keeps things interesting, of course. Such as, say, a Solar-running Warlock with a penchant for stabbing things to rival a Hunter.
“You should watch your ass better,” Munin tells him from down below, slinging his glaive over his shoulder and swapping it for his scout rifle. He’s so busy being self-righteous that he doesn’t notice the lone Fanatic creeping up behind him, and Ayres is too amused by the irony of it all to call out a warning in time.
The telltale stagger-step of the Fanatic evidently registers in Munin’s ear just before it’s too late, because he manages to dodge its explosion. He does not, however, manage to avoid getting doused in radiolarian fluid.
“You should watch your ass better,” Ayres retorts. “Too busy staring at mine.” But then Munin’s standing there all stiff rather than throwing down a healing rift, even though Ayres knows he has one ready since he hasn’t used any over the course of this patrol, and yeah, maybe he’s a little worried. “You okay?”
“Ye-eah,” Munin says, a little out of breath. He shudders as an electric current runs through him. “Fuck.”
Based on the patrol debrief, there should only be a few hostiles left in this area; Ayres would rather have them gone before he attends to whatever’s going on with Munin. He can see the remaining Vex from his perch, a trio of Goblins huddled around the base of the tree he’s in, probably about to start taking pot shots at the discombobulated Warlock standing out in the open. Ayres slides down the side of the tree, springing off the trunk and using a second, boosted hop to keep himself in the air while he tosses an arcbolt grenade that takes out two of the Vex. He wings a knife at the third Goblin, catching it in the core, and it crumples easily.
Ayres’ blade is coated in radiolarian fluid when he pulls it out of the Goblin’s still twitching frame. He doesn’t bother wiping it off before hop-skipping over to Munin, who’s stepped out of the Fanatic’s residual puddle of radiolarian fluid and shaken himself off a bit but still looks unreasonably tense.
“Please, just continue to stand there in the line of fire,” Ayres snarks, grinning. He cocks his head and watches the Warlock, flipping his knife in the air and catching it by the hilt each time. “So what’s up with you?”
“I’m fine,” Munin insists, and if ‘fine’ meant shifty-eyed and on edge then he’d be telling the truth. But then a last aftershock of the radiolaria contact jolts through him, drawing out a whimper. And they’ve been in each other’s beds (metaphorically, that is; sleeping bags is usually more accurate) too many times for Ayres not to recognize that whimper for exactly what it is.
He scans Munin, eyes lingering around his groin. “Oh my god, are you hard?”
Munin stares at him for a moment. Ayres assumes that he’s glowering at him from behind the faceplate of his helmet. “…I’m going to fucking kill you.” There’s a bit of Solar energy flickering around his gauntlets, so maybe he’s not even bluffing.
Ayres cackles. “Fine, go ahead. But I’ll be back. And we’re still going to talk about it.”
“I hate you.”
“You don’t.” Ayres says it all sing-songy. He waves his knife in a wide arc, flicking at the sleeves of Munin’s long robes. “I told you to wear that other gear – you know, the set you spent all that time modifying last week? You look awfully pretty in this, but that armor would’ve better insulated you from Arc energy.”
Munin scoffs. Now him being all out of sorts makes perfect sense. But even out of sorts he’s still susceptible to Ayres’ wiles – soon he has the Warlock all pressed up against the stone wall of the gully they’re in, feeling him up between the thighs for the signs of arousal he already knows are there.
“Fuck off,” Munin says, halfheartedly. “Gotta call that patrol in.”
“Oh right, of course,” Ayres says, grinning again. He tunes his comms to the global channel long enough to announce, “Fireteam Sunbird calling in patrol as complete. Vex cleared.” He switches smoothly to their private fireteam channel without pause and continues, “Now if everyone would please leave us the fuck alone, I’ve got a very needy Warlock to attend to –”
“Ayres,” Munin hisses, his Solar flaring again before he registers that Ayres did not, in fact, just announce to the whole planet that he was planning to get frisky in The Tangle. “Asshole.”
Ayres keeps petting at the crease of his thigh like that’ll make him spread his legs any sooner. “Munin, my Light, I wish you’d have told me you liked a bit of a shock to the system, because I would have done something about it.”
“You don’t need to do anything about it.”
“It’s nothing to be ashamed of. You’ve got to remember you’re talking to the man who almost came in his pants when he got cracked in the jaw by Shaxx.”
“Fuck’s sake, Ayres.” But he’s laughing now, softening under the press of Ayres’ body.
“Best sparring session I’ve ever had. And what better time to experiment with a new kink than –”
“In an active combat zone?” Somehow the helmet manages to portray the same skepticism Ayres is certain is on his face.
“To be fair, my darling, the whole solar system has been an active combat zone for years now.” Munin’s skepticism does not abate, so Ayres continues, “But point taken, fine. Come here –”
He half drags him up into the towering tree he’d been roosting in earlier. Now they’re out of immediate reach of any passing hostiles, even if not exactly out of sight; the fiery foliage doesn’t start until higher up in the branches, where there’s no flat place for them to stand. They’ll just have to hope that no other Guardians come by (or that they don’t look up if they do).
He pushes Munin back against the bulk of a branch that curves up abruptly, a fair replacement for the rocky wall of before. The moss growing atop the tree’s bark provides some padding, at least. “Better?”
The Warlock mutters something that doesn’t exactly sound like an affirmation, but he protests no further when Ayres returns to rubbing the heel of his palm into the heat between his legs.
Ayres is about to bring his other hand in on the groping action when he realizes he’s still holding his knife, which is still dripping radiolarian fluid from the Goblin he’d skewered. And that gives him a brilliant idea. “Take off your helmet.”
Munin cocks his head. “What?”
“Nobody’s shooting at us right now. Just take it off.”
“Yeah, and you’d better hope that no one starts shooting at us,” Munin says, complying even as he complains, “because you’re the one who’ll have to explain to our Ghosts that we died doing a sex thing.”
“A sex thing,” Ayres snorts, but then Munin’s helmet is off and he’s shaking out that lovely plum-dark hair of his. “Ah. Hello there, beautiful.”
Munin tries to hide his smile but the spark in his silvery eyes betrays him. He taps on Ayres’ helmet. “You going to take this off?”
“Oh, no.” Ayres squeezes him one last time between the legs – he runs hot enough on Solar that Ayres can feel the heat of him even through the double layers of armor and gloves – and then brushes Munin’s hair back. The hand with the knife stays to the side, for the moment. “Only your helmet needs to come off.”
He catches a flicker of something across Munin’s face – alright, this is also a great reason to have the helmet off, to be able to read his expressions as they get on with things. Not that the rest of his body isn’t very expressive once he starts feeling good.
“What, are you disappointed?” Ayres cups his cheek before Munin can turn away. “Thought I was going to kiss you?”
“Shut up,” Munin mumbles, his cheeks flushing a brighter shade of pale, shimmering purple, and now Ayres kind of wants to kiss him with how cute he is.
The Warlock tilts his cheek out of his grip, but Ayres grabs him by the chin and jerks his face up and to the side. He’s more than a little turned on by the breathy gasp it elicits from Munin. “I have something that’ll give you a kiss, if you want.”
Carefully – because yeah, sure, they could call their Ghosts up if anything catastrophic were to happen, but why do that before the real fun’s even begun? – Ayres brings his knife up and touches the flat of it to Munin’s bare neck. The leftover radiolarian fluid crackles against his skin.
“O-oh,” Munin gasps, jerking underneath Ayres, nearly hard enough that the blade’s kiss breaks his skin.
“How’s it feel?” Ayres asks. He holds Munin’s face steady and then traces the edge of his knife down his cheek. Just the slightest shock, but the Warlock tenses up beneath him, his hips twitching forward. There he is.
“Cold.” Munin moves his head like he’s trying to get more of the knife against his skin. His intent focus on a pursuit of curiosity briefly outweighs his arousal. “Sharp, like your blade. Not as painful in small quantities, or when I’m expecting it.”
“Interesting.” Ayres steps back abruptly, and the Warlock slumps back against the branch. “On the ground.”
Munin gives him a questioning look, but sinks down until his ass is flat on the broad branch beneath him. After prompting him to spread his legs, Ayres kneels between them; he shoves Munin’s robes out of the way and yanks his pants down, just enough to bare his thighs. With a glance up at the Warlock, he asks, “Shall I?”
“Not going to tell me what you’re planning?” Munin asks in turn, spreading his legs as wide as he can with his pants around his knees. He really looks good like this, a little helpless with his clothes and armor all askew, more hindrance than protection at this point. Shit, maybe they need to play around in the field more often – usually Ayres likes to shuck off as many clothes as necessary and then get going in these kinds of situations, but he’s getting a high off of being in full armor when Munin’s not.
“Don’t act like you’re not smart enough to figure it out, Warlock.” Ayres squeezes his thigh with a gloved hand, relishing the give of muscle and soft fat beneath his fingers. Moments like these remind him he enjoys the feel of flesh in his hands as much as he does the metal of a gun or blade.
“With your level of unpredictability I’d need a statistical model of Vex proportions,” Munin mutters, but his eyes follow Ayres’ knife intently as it dips between his legs and almost skims over his bare skin. Ayres enjoys watching the battle underway in his body – he craves the sharp, cold shock of the blade, but fights to stay still, to not let on how much he wants this. Sure, Munin’s a disciplined guy. He’s a Warlock, after all.
That doesn’t stop his hips from twitching forward again, just like before.
Ayres lets him sit in it – the wanting – for but a moment longer before giving him what he’s been waiting for.
Munin whines through gritted teeth when he finally drags the radiolaria-coated blade along the inside of his thigh. His muscles spasm in response to the current sparking along his skin, the fine hair on his legs standing on end. The radiolaria leave a pale, shimmering residue behind. It looks enough like a very pretty, sparkly sort of cum that Ayres is momentarily distracted by thoughts of what Vex cum would look like (theoretically, of course) until Munin says, insistent, “Ayres.”
But now they face a conundrum, because what’s left of the radiolarian fluid is smeared across Munin’s face and neck and thigh. And while – judging by the Warlock’s trembling breath – what’s on his skin will likely flood his system for a little while longer, Ayres hasn’t even made it to Munin’s most sensitive bits yet.
“Not much Vex milk left,” he says aloud, scraping the tip of the knife up Munin’s thigh to the edge of his underwear. It’d be so easy to cut it up and bare that pretty cock and hole of his.
Munin’s nose wrinkles at Vex milk, as if he hasn’t said it himself dozens of times before.
“I could fetch some more.” Go take down some Vex, he means, or dip the blade in one of the rivers of radiolarian fluid that cut into Nessus’ surface. “Or –” And this idea’s been percolating in his head from the start: he presses his free hand to Munin’s bare thigh and lets a trickle of Arc cross between their bodies.
Munin makes a soft, needy sound and grabs at Ayres’ wrist, his head snapping back to hit the tree trunk behind him.
Ayres grins. “Yeah, that’s what I thought.”
The Warlock shudders for a moment before he can get a handle on himself again. “It’s different when it’s you,” he says, a note of curiosity in his voice alongside the breathiness. “Different from radiolaria, from Arc weapons, but it’s…” His fingers go to Ayres’ elbow, plucking at the clasps and buckles that keep his gauntlets in place. Ayres allows him to take off the glove and then he’s touching Munin directly, skin to skin – and after battle, after days of keeping this armor on, the sheer vulnerability and intimacy of feeling another living being’s flesh beneath his own sends a flare of heat into his stomach.
“Yeah?” Ayres prompts, shifting to lean closer to the Warlock.
Munin presses his hand harder against his thigh. Again, he means. More.
“Ah, come on.” Ayres drums his fingers lightly along Munin’s thigh, a little bolt of Arc jumping from the tip of each finger. Munin spreads his legs wider in response, tilting his hips up like he’d really like Ayres to touch him again. Always demure until he’s not. “Don’t let your wise Warlock words fail you now. You like that feeling of another Guardian’s Light running through you, don’t you? You can’t control your body’s reaction when someone else is in charge of how much you’re given.” He squeezes Munin hard, letting pure electromagnetic energy flood into him until he cries out. “How much you have to take.”
“Fuck,” Munin pants, his eyelids fluttering as the current of Arc courses through his veins and dissipates. “Ayres –”
Ayres rubs Munin’s thigh until he’s stopped trembling again. Static crackles between them as he pulls his hand away, staring at the Warlock’s underwear – part of the fabric is a slightly darker, wetter black than the rest. “How’s it feel having my Light inside of you?”
The way that Munin can switch from debauched and whorish to soft and adulatory in an instant deserves studying. His eyes are all big and dark, silvery irises small, shimmering rings around his pupils. “There’s an intricacy to it,” he says, voice rasping. “A warmth. Sets me tingling toes to tip. I can feel you being gentle even when you’re trying to hide it.”
Ah, but he’s also sweeter when he wants something. “I don’t have to be gentle,” Ayres says, and – with a grin the Warlock can’t see – flicks his knife over Munin’s other thigh, leaving a shallow cut behind. Munin hisses. “You want me to touch you?” Arc leaks from Ayres’ blade as he leaves another cut alongside the first, so fine that it barely breaks skin. “Or my knife?”
And there go those eyes of his again, softness falling into want. Ayres simply can’t help himself. He trails his knife up along Munin’s thigh to the hem of his boxers, and then with another few flicks of his wrist said boxers are mere scraps of black cloth falling away from his groin – except for the piece that clings between his legs with the sticky wet of his arousal. That part Ayres takes great pleasure in pulling away to reveal Munin’s swollen clit, flushed a darker purple than the rest of him and stiffening further as the air hits it.
“Bastard,” Munin mutters under his breath, as if it’s really any trouble for his Ghost to reconstitute another pair, and as if he’s not all wet and twitching being naked like this in the middle of the Tangle.
Ayres ignores him. “A kiss to say hello,” he coos, and tilts the blade so it lays flat and cold against Munin’s exposed cunt.
He’s got the tap nearly shut on his Light, not certain Munin could handle a direct shock to the cock. But the air grows heavy with static, the sort of pressure that warns of storms, and then a sudden surge of Arc energy crackles around the knife as Munin’s head falls back. And for a moment – with a current of Arc coursing up his blade, up his arm, catching in his chest and forking off to leave the whole of him jittery and tingling, ozone on his tongue – Ayres understands exactly why his charged touch has kept Munin breathless and wanting for more.
He pauses as condensation collects on his knife from the sheer heat emanating from between Munin’s legs, fogging up the blade’s shiny surface.
“Did you just switch to Arc, Warlock?”
“Oh, I…” Munin jolts upright, practically crackling at the edges. He looks kind of embarrassed about it. “Didn’t mean to.”
“Don’t go Stormcaller on me, darling,” Ayres teases, pressing the knife against Munin’s pulsing cunt, almost hard enough to nick the tender skin of his outer folds. “Only room for an Arcstrider right here.”
Immediately, the tension in the air fizzles out and warmth blooms in its place, radiating off of Munin in waves. The Warlock’s face is flushed as bright a purple as his cunt.
This isn’t the first time something like that has happened. It’s like his body is trying to adapt to whatever’s flooding through it, or maybe sync up with his teammates, although it’s only ever happened around Ayres. The inadvertent switch doesn’t indicate a lack of control so much as an abundance of comfort, which he finds both terribly sweet and almost unbearably adorable.
“Got a little carried away, did you?” Satisfied that Munin is solidly back in Solar mode (even his eyes seem to flicker with some internal fire, a faint tinge of gold to the silver), Ayres drags the flat of his knife across the Warlock’s cunt. He uses the tip to prod at Munin’s folds and spread them; slick drools out from his hole the moment he does. “Needy.”
Munin tenses at the feeling of the blade pricking at his cunt. He’s no doubt thinking of how delicate the flesh there is, yet how much punishment it can take.
Ayres easily passes his knife from one hand to the other. Logic would suggest using his ungloved hand to grope Munin’s pretty tender bits. Lust counters with the knowledge that the rough metal and fabric of his grasps will do the job much better. He runs two fingers none too gently up Munin’s slit, scraping over his hole and delicate inner lips, and smears the glob of arousal that had dripped out of him over his clit – letting his Arc spike with his eagerness and take Munin by surprise with stray sparks.
Munin swears and shudders when Ayres strokes down the sides of his cock, forcing it to jut out from the safety of its hood and the padding of his folds. It can’t be comfortable sitting spread as he is with the scratch of bark along his thighs and ass, particularly since with every micro-thrust of his hips, his back inches further down the branch behind him and bunches up his robes around his stomach.
“Just do it, Ayres, holy shit,” he says, breathless. His whole body is drawn taut in anticipation, cock throbbing with such eagerness that Ayres swears he can feel it through his gloves.
“Do you think you’re in any position to be giving orders right now?” Ayres leans in close, massaging the base of his clit between forefinger and thumb. “I’m the fireteam leader, after all.”
Munin’s expression changes to incredulity so quickly one would think he forgot there’s a knife grazing his cunt. “Fireteam leader my ass. You’re – fuck –”
His thighs spasm as Ayres taps his clit with the flat of his knife, sending a spark of electricity through the vulnerable bud.
“You make a fine point though,” Ayres says. “A leader worth his salt must be wary of what his team can handle, but…” And with another, harder hit to his cock, Ayres skims the blade over to rest at the crease of Munin’s thigh, holding his legs open, and slips two crackling, gauntleted fingers into his hole. “… should also allow them to take on challenges for which they deem themselves fit.”
A choked off moan tears out of Munin’s throat. He jolts so violently at the unforgiving Arc-charged press into the hot, wet clutch of his hole that Ayres’ knife slices his inner thigh open, a dark rivulet of blood trickling down to join the arousal pooling under his ass. Ayres curls his fingers to get at that sweet spot on his inner walls and a burst of Solar whips around them, drying out the air. Blackened burn marks appear alongside deep scores in the bark where the Warlock scrabbles helplessly at the tree beneath him.
“That what you want?” Ayres rubs at Munin’s cock with his thumb while fingering his cunt with shallow thrusts. Depth means little with the overwhelming waves of sensation flooding his lower body, Arc no longer skimming over his skin or flitting through the veins just beneath the surface but spearing him from the core.
“I’m – ah –” His cunt clenches and spasms, trying to milk more Light from Ayres’ fingers as it would milk cum from a cock. “I’m so close, Ayres. Stop holding back, you –”
He grabs at Ayres’ bare hand, his gauntlet so hot with unexpressed Solar that it scalds him, but Ayres laughs through the burn. Any pain is secondary to the knowledge that Munin is desperate, falling apart, and all for a bit of blood and sparks and rough handling. His Warlock, his partner, his Arc-slut. And Ayres is getting carried away on the high of being a closed circuit of Light with him – he’d let Munin burn him alive if it pleased him, because he knows it’d feel so damn good to be briefly filled with all that his Light can give – yeah, he gets it. He knows why Munin wants it.
So he cuts all restraint and Arc flows free and eager from his body to Munin, lightning arcing between them, crackling and popping as it carves up into the Warlock’s cunt alongside his fingers. Munin comes keening out his name, the rush of cum from his hole keeping him slick as Ayres fucks him through it. There’s so much that it soaks the scraps of his underwear littered on the tree branch around him and wets Ayres down nearly to the elbow.
Ayres halves the current between them the moment Munin crests his peak but then cuts it slowly from there, little sparks dragging out moans as Munin’s pleasure ebbs and all the tension drains from his body. The Warlock sags back against the tree, only his hips still moving in response to the fingers rubbing at his cunt and cock. This poor tree, Ayres thinks, will remember them taking refuge in it for a long time yet: scorched, drenched in cum and blood, witness to two Guardians sharing a storm between their bodies.
“That was,” Munin says, when he’s caught his breath enough to create words, “a horribly, ridiculously good orgasm.” His voice is scratchy and raw like the lightning had crawled up his throat.
Now that it’s no longer needed as a deterrent for Munin not to close his legs, Ayres wipes the blood from his knife on his thigh and slots it into his holster. Already the cut’s started to clot so they shouldn’t need to worry about that. Though Munin does look awfully pretty streaked with blood.
“Why do you have to qualify it with a word like horribly?” Ayres starts, still energized by all the Arc racing just beneath his skin that hasn’t dissipated yet. But before he can properly piss Munin off again now that he’s come, they’re both startled from their little bubble of post-orgasmic contentment by the sounds of gunfire and raucous laughter echoing nearby.
“Shit –” Munin jerks upright, silver eyes going wide. He kicks out at Ayres to get him to move back and attempts to hurriedly yank his pants up. “Ruined a perfectly good pair of boxers,” he grumbles, pausing only to peel the remnants of his underwear from where they cling to his ass and throw a scowl Ayres’ way. The smell of burning fabric overtakes the cloying scent of his arousal as Munin incinerates the evidence. “And now I have to walk around without anything on underneath my damn pants…”
Ayres rocks back on his heels, out of foot-to-the-chest range. “What happened to that horribly, ridiculously good orgasm?”
“I don’t want to get caught with my cunt out, asshole –” Munin’s legs tremble when he raises his hips to slide his pants under his ass. Even if his cunt isn’t out, it’s still obvious something happened to him, from his wrung-out demeanor and flushed features. But he untenses just a bit when he looks back at Ayres, his face softening. “That was something else, Ayres.”
“You’re something else.” Ayres pops up to his feet, shaking his limbs out. He offers Munin a hand to help him up – a hand that’s still burnt, he realizes with a wince as Munin’s grip brings a dull, stinging ache.
Munin loosens his grip immediately upon noticing his expression and inspects the scalded skin along his palm and wrist. “Oh, shit, I’m sorry. Let me –”
Ayres shrugs him off with a grin. “Ah, come on. I’ve had worse burns.” His eyes flicker over Munin, not missing that he’s holding himself more than a little oddly. Sore, fried, cut up. “Besides, if you’re not going to use your rift on yourself…”
Now Munin shrugs, sheepish. The sound of approaching Guardians grows louder; they’ll definitely be spotted now that they’re both standing, depending on which direction the Guardians are coming from.
“Maybe you don’t mind going without underwear as much as you say.” He bumps Munin with his shoulder. “Maybe you like being reminded of what I did to you.”
Munin stumbles back a step, catching himself against the tree. His mouth twists in that way it does when he’s biting back a smile and trying, unsuccessfully, to frown at the same time.
“Dripping blood and cum into your pants,” Ayres wheedles. He buckles his gauntlet back into place and then it’s like nothing happened. Apart from the slick soaking his other hand, and the knees of his greaves, too, he finds now that he’s standing up, and the dull ache between his own legs.
Munin must be thinking the same thing, because his gaze flits between Ayres’ face and his groin. “Are you –” The Warlock glances over his shoulder. The Guardians are visible at the far side of the gully, explosions of Void and Solar erupting between small groups of Vex. He straightens his robes and slips his helmet back on before stepping closer to touch Ayres’ waist. “Suck you off tonight at camp?”
“Deal.” Ayres gently knocks his helmet against Munin’s. “Now let’s go join our destructive friends over there. I’ve got some excess energy to work off.”
And if some of that excess energy is pure arousal, that’s between him and Munin alone.