Fiction: A Hard Day's Knight part 3
Oct. 24th, 2009 10:42 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
kethniName: A Hard Day’s Knight part 3
Pairing: Matt/Mohinder, Matt/Nathan, Matt/Audrey, Mohinder/Peter
Rating: 18
Warnings: Sexual content, language
Part 2
Note: Huge thanks to everyone for their suggestions and help throughout this.
Poor Hiro. I’m not sure if he’s more embarrassed, confused, or heartbroken. He’s certainly finding it difficult to look at Mohinder. Not that I blame him for having been attracted; Mohinder did make a pretty woman.
But a better man. Not better looking exactly, but without all the awkwardness and jarring discordances. Now he’s oozing confidence and charisma but it’s a little too much, exaggerated as if he’s ramping it up. Angela’s amused herself by seating Mohinder opposite me.
The newly royal brothers are sitting on either side of me; Peter the younger, a former dunnikin diver and Nathan, who I think, had been working as a sword for hire over in Lille. Nathan’s what mama used to call a rake; all charm, good looks, and absolutely no ability to keep his cock in his pants. Everywhere he goes he leaves a trail of broken hearts and pregnancies. The thing with rakes though is that they do it with such style. If I tried that, I’d end up being arrested or lynched.
And he’s good at what he does. Holy shit is he good; he’s completely relaxed chatting to his mother as his right hand massages my thigh and rubs my groin. Guess he must’ve already worked his way through the maids and the guards.
On my other side, Peter is fluttering his eyelashes at Mohinder to little or no effect. No idea what sect Mohinder subscribes to; I’m Chathan like the Petrelli boys, Hiro’s a Solran and they’re boringly strict. For Solrans there’s no naughties out of marriage, no marrying people of the wrong caste, the wrong sect, the wrong kind of reputation, and absolutely no fun with members of the wrong sex. Officially, at least. He’s sat up the table opposite Luke and passing by all the food he’s not allowed to eat. Bennet is sat on Mohinder’s other side, looking as if he’s trying to remember which of the food he poisoned.
“You certainly have a great many guards,” Mohinder says, glancing at me. “Fortunately for us.”
Angela takes a bite of her soufflé and makes a gesture with her free hand. “We maintain a low crime rate generally.”
“Generally?” I ask. “They seemed a little... on edge to me.”
She smiles coldly. “How kind of you to notice. There has been some small difficulty with a female warrior and her compatriots. Not that she’s created any direct problems in this city. However, as a member of the union of cities we are of course only too happy to support our fellow cities.” She makes another small gesture. “We know that she’s in the city and we will find her very soon.”
“What’s she supposed to have done?” Mohinder asks.
Angela raises her eyebrows. “Rarely important Prince Mohinder,” she says with a small smile. “Whichever city claims her can worry about what she’s done.”
“Or if she’s done it?” Mohinder asks with a frown.
“None of our concern,” Angela says airily.
Nathan’s hand works down my hose and strokes my balls. Something flashes in front of my eyes and when it passes Mohinder is sitting up and glaring at me.
“That’s enough,” I murmur.
“Spoilsport,” Nathan mutters and removes his hand. “Later.”
Nathan sips his champagne and smiles. “Ma, didn’t you have something to ask Prince Mohinder?” he prompts.
Angela lolls back in her chair and crosses her legs. “Prince Mohinder, are you sure you won’t stay here? I’m sure the palace will be more comfortable as well as more fitting than a... tavern.” She waves a hand that encompasses Hiro, Luke, and I. “Of course I’m sure there will be some suitable quarters for your entourage in the servants’ quarters.”
Servants’ quarters, whoo fucking hoo. Although, I could sneak down to the kitchens and steal leftovers...
“No thank you,” Mohinder says quickly, giving Nathan a filthy look for no obvious reason. “We’re going back to the tavern.”
“Brandy?” Nathan suggests, and rubs his leg against mine.
“No, I think we should be going now,” Mohinder says shortly.
“I have not yet finished my sweet dish,” Hiro protests. He quails under the glare he receives in reply.
“Ten minutes, Prince,” I say firmly. “There’s no rush is there?”
He glares at me, and it’s exactly the same glare as before. Less aggressive from a tiny woman though.
“Ten minutes,” he says coldly.
It’s crisp outside, our breaths freezing in the sharp air as we climb into the carriage. If I didn’t know this was a magically created city the sweet scent on the breeze would tell me. Cities don’t smell sweet; they stink of sewage, unwashed bodies, the meat rendering district, and the alchemical tang of the street of artificers.
It’s cold inside the coach; even when Mohinder drags Luke out of the open window and slams it shut. Hiro huddles inside his cloak, blowing on his fingers. The cold seems to radiate off the smooth, black wood filling the air with sharpness. It’s just beginning to hail outside and the regular rat-a-tat drums off the roof and walls all the way back.
So returning to the tavern is like walking into a furnace. Over the open roaring fire, a spit of chicken and venison haunches is turning slowly and the scent fills the room, mixing with the ale and the brandy.
“Dear sir perhaps a drink to warm, in this night of cold and hailstorm?” Luke suggests hopefully.
“Good idea...”
“Strong drink is a mocker,” Hiro protests but he’s looking around the room, eyeing the tavern maids when he thinks nobody is looking.
“Nothing wrong with a good mocking, as long as you’re careful,” I say. He just looks confused; I’m wasted on him.
“I really think we ought to retire for the night,” Mohinder says curtly, folding his arms, and looking for all the world like a particularly attractive, and annoyed, angel of sobriety. Sobriety generally being a good reason for annoyance in my experience.
“Did you cancel Bennet’s room?” I ask. An especially buxom maid brushes against me as she passes. There’s alcohol, roasting meat, a fire, and attractive women all in one room, does Mohinder really think I’m toddling up to bed like a good little boy?
“Yes, why?” Mohinder asks suspiciously, holding himself up straighter as if pulling away from the incipient drunkenness around him.
“Because you’ve got that money saved haven’t you?” I say, holding out my hand. “So I’ll thank you for a few pieces of silver in advance on the reward money. Hiro, you can please yourself but if you stay here stick with us, Luke what do want to drink?”
Mohinder is already shaking his head. “Oh no, I’m not leaving you here to drink yourself into a stupor. I’ll stay here and keep hold of the purse strings, thank you very much.”
“What’re you, my mother? I’m all out of gin money, ma, sorry.”
One more thing to note about goblins, they drink like fish and then sing dirty songs with increasingly dubious rhymes. Luke’s currently hanging upside down from one of the beams and singing about a little girl, with a little curl, somewhere that’s baffling Hiro.
A small hand with a vice-like grip squeezes my shoulder. “Can’t you get your monkey to sing something we can all enjoy?” drawls a familiar female voice. I look up into eyes so world-weary that the owner should be older than most of the gods, and salute with my beer. “Hello Audrey, still rampaging?”
Mohinder returns from the privy and throws himself down onto the bench. He looks over at Audrey, now sitting on the table, and pulls a face. “Shortage of seats is there?”
Audrey looks over Mohinder with a professional, appraising glance. “Who’s the mark?”
“Mark?” Mohinder asks coldly.
Audrey gives Hiro A Look until he shuffles along the bench enough for her to sit down. She drains her flagon and waves for another round.
“You’re the money ain’t you?” she asks, groping my leg in clear view of everyone. “Is he rescuing someone for you?” She takes a big gulp of ale. “Keep your eye on him, Matt’s a terrible one for wandering hands with rescued princesses.”
“Is that so?” Mohinder asks, freezing the drinks solid in the flagons.
“I’m off the princesses,” I say firmly. “No princesses.”
“Not off the girls are you?” Audrey asks, draining another flagon. “Never known you that out of sorts.”
I squeeze her knee and she grins and shifts my hand to her thigh. “Just royalty.”
Audrey looks past me and raises an eyebrow at Mohinder. He’s red in the face and sounds like he’s grinding his teeth.
“I’m royalty,” he grits out.
“And a royal pain in the ass you are too,” I say.
Mohinder folds his arms and glares at us. “You’re aware of course that this drunken slut is the warrior that the queen was talking about?”
There’s a blur of silver and a small, worn and very sharp looking dagger is at his throat. Fuck. I grab her arm with both hands and slam it down onto the table. She brings around her other hand and slams her fist towards the side of my head. I duck out of the way and slam her hand against the table until she drops the knife. Her other hand scrabbles for my sword but I spin her over against the table and yank her hands behind her back.
“Yield.”
“You’ve been practicing,” she pants. She twists suddenly, yanking her wrists free, and spinning onto her back. She smashes a beer bottle and swings it at my throat. I catch her hand and slam her wrist against the tabletop, there’s a nasty cracking sound and she howls in pain. Then in slow motion, I see her fist heading straight for my face.
Lights flash in front of my eyes. When they clear Mohinder, with my sword, and Hiro have Audrey at sword-point. Luke is swinging upside down and waving two broken beer bottles. Unfortunately, the rest of Audrey’s gang are on their feet and they have their swords out too.
“Draw?” I suggest.
“You broke my fucking wrist,” Audrey growls.
“You threatened my mark.” I shrug. “You know the code, Audrey. Got to protect the money.”
She shrugs and holds out her hand. One of her gang puts down his sword and binds her wrist up. “He insulted me.”
“You want recompense, we’ll talk,” I offer. “You want blood, we’ll have a bloodbath.”
“Big talk,” she sneers, “but we both know you never fight when you can talk or fuck your way out of it.”
I shrug and hold my hand out to Mohinder, keeping my eyes on Audrey. “My sword, and don’t stab me.” I hear him snort an angry breath and then the hilt of my sword slaps into my palm. I put it carefully on the table and hold up my hands. “What’s it going to be then, talking or fucking?”
She straddles me and waves her uninjured hand at her gang. There’s a long moment and then the scrape of swords being sheathed.
“Hiro, Luke, disarm please,” I ask.
“You’re not going to...” Mohinder bursts out.
“Shut up, you’ve said enough.”
There’s a clatter of hooves outsides and the tavern boy runs over.
“Guards are outside!”
Audrey’s gang scatter and I stand up, carrying her with me.
“You’re not going up to our room with her,” Mohinder snarls.
Oh, for the love of the goddess, is he trying to get us all killed?
“A pox on your room,” Audrey says, darkly. “A plague on your bed.” She tosses her hair over her shoulder. “Are you going to stand here all night?”
I swing her up onto my shoulder and she cackles as I walk past Mohinder. “Don’t wait up.”
Her bare thighs are against my shoulder and her buttocks against the side of my face. She gropes my back and ass as we walk into the stables. It’s dark inside, lit only by the dim light coming in through a hatch, and filled with animal warmth and scents.
“Throw me down and fuck me,” Audrey growls. “Hard and rough.”
It’s a difficult job, but someone’s got to do it.
Itchy, itchy, itchy! Damn hay gets everywhere. Hopping back all the way into the tavern trying to dislodge it from here and there, and ohhhh most of all from... from the other place. It’s not as bad as sex on the beach, I’m finding sand in my clothes for months after that.
I hammer on the door until Prince Foot-in-Mouth opens up, glaring at me as if I’m the one who almost got us into a blood feud.
“Finished fucking have you?” he asks, saying the word like an old lady regarding someone else’s dirty underwear.
He’s taken off the doublet and the tunic is rumpled and creased. His hair is ruffled and his beard growing in; he looks furious and exhausted.
“For the night,” I say, taking off my armour. “Go to sleep.”
“Excuse me?” he demands, staring at me with too-bright eyes. “You don’t get to...”
“Shut up,” I say flatly as possible. I can’t lose my temper, no matter how much he annoys me, not matter how dangerous his mouth is. “Just stop talking. You have said more than enough tonight, a hundred times over.”
He stalks over and shoves me. “Don’t tell me to shut up! Who the hell do you think you are?”
“I think I’m the person who stopped you getting your damn fool throat cut! You called a mercenary killer for hire a drunken slut! Are trying to get yourself killed? Are you trying to get me killed?”
“She was a drunken slut,” he retorts.
“She was just having some fun. But you just had to say it didn’t you?” I demand, stepping forward. Too angry, too angry. “You should be damned grateful that your father is paying as much as he is or I’d have let her.”
“I don’t have to take this!”
“You don’t have to dish it out either but you can’t help yourself can you? That damn mouth of yours going on and on. You nearly got us killed tonight!” I snarl. “Do you even realise how close we came to us all being killed because of your stupid damn mouth!”
He looks disgusted and shakes his head. “I can’t believe you’d... lower yourself to tarry with someone of that sort.”
“I’m someone of that sort! What the hell is your problem?”
He’s in my space, in my face. “I’m not the one with the problem.”
“Did you alert the watch? You did, didn’t you?” My voice is running on without control. “You pompous prick! Who the fuck are you to do that?”
He shakes his head disbelievingly. “The way the woman carried on everyone in the tavern knew who she was. Anyone in the tavern could have...”
“Anyone didn’t! You did,” I erupt, shoving him back. He stumbles back a few steps. “Self-righteous bastard!”
“I didn’t!” He screams into my face. “I wish I fucking had, just to wipe that smug look off her face.”
“What is your problem?” I demand.
Mohinder shakes his head. “You, you’re my problem.”
“Well snap, because every time you talk you make another problem for me.”
I pull off my clothes and climb into bed.
“What’re you doing?” he demands.
“Sleeping,” I say, pulling the covers up over my head.
A cold wave washes over me as he tugs the covers back. “I paid for this room!”
That’s all the fucking top tier care about, money, money, money.
“And again, I saved your life!” I snap, lying down and pulling the covers up. “Sleep in the bed, sleep on the floor, I don’t give a shit. But stop talking and let me sleep.”
I can’t sleep. He’s on the other side of the bed, not nearly far enough, and every movement, every sound grates across my nerves. The soft breaths, the slightly snuffle, the scrape of his skin against the rough cloth as he rolls over. I open my eyes and look over. He’s caught in a beam of moonlight where he’s thrown back the covers, the silvery gleam making his skin look coppery and strange. I thought he was going to be a bag of bones but he’s got a good body, athletic and lean. Some men, some women, are designed to have a little meat on their bones and don’t look right thin, but Mohinder’s body is just right. Fat lot of good it does me but there’s no price for watching his bare-assed self, sleep. At least this way I don’t have to listen to him talk. Damn but I think he does it on purpose. Maybe he gets off on creating so much chaos.
Scritch, scritch.
I lean over the bed and reach for my sword.
“Mohinder?” someone whispers through the door. “Mohinder, are you awake?”
I light the taper and climb out of bed just as Mohinder bolts awake.
“Wha...?”
“Shush!” I press a finger to my lips and move to the door.
“Mohinder?” the voice whispers plaintively.
The man himself gets out of bed and pulls on his tunic, pausing to give me A Look. I’ve got a sword, I’m dressed enough.
“Who’s there?” I ask through the door.
“Peter, is Mohinder there?”
I look across at Mohinder and he rolls his eyes. “What does he want?”
“I don’t know!”
Peter’s a moron, but a good-natured one or so I always thought. With a mother like Angela and a brother like Nathan, he’s like the baby the fairies swapped or something.
I open the door carefully and the moron himself smiles at me, and then looks me up and down, eyes widening.
“Are you coupling?” he asks hopefully. “Can I join in?”
Well if it was up to me...
“What do you want?” Mohinder demands, hand around my arm to tug me away from the door. “It’s the middle of the night!”
I walk off to get my tunic and when I turn around Peter’s in the room, sucking Mohinder’s face and groping his ass.
Mohinder turns to smirk at me and then drags Peter over to the bed.
Well, that’s just rude
“Where are you going?” Mohinder asks, as I get my hose, my tunic, and the blankets from the bed and head out of the door.
I yank my tunic over my head as I walk downstairs and lean back against the wall to pull on my hose. If I have to sleep outside I’m at least not going to freeze to death doing it.
“What the hell are you doing?” drawls a male voice. “Are you running away from home?”
It’s Nathan smirking as he looks me up and down.
“Peter and Mohinder are fucking,” I explain. “Why they couldn’t do that at the damn palace I don’t know.”
He stretches out, completely blocking the corridor. “Someone’s bitter,” he murmurs. He stalks over, takes me by the lapels, and pulls me into a kiss. “Doesn’t suit you.”
“I’m not...”
“Peter’s going to be gone soon enough,” Nathan says soothingly. “Then the Prince-pretty will be yours for the taking.”
“What? No. It’s not like that.”
Nathan scoffs. “Sure, it’s not like anyone with eyes can see the way you two look at each other.” He pushes his hand down my hose and helps himself while kissing me. “No reason to go without while he’s enjoying himself.”
He leads me out into the quiet moonlight, his hands warm all over my body.
Mohinder’s lean and muscular body sprawled across the bed as he sleeps.
Nathan’s mouth sucking my neck and my hands sliding down his back.
Mohinder turning to see my expression as he and Peter kissed and groped.
He doesn’t look at me any ‘way’. I don’t look at him any ‘way’.
Oh my god, teeth... teeth biting my stomach.
Mohinder spoiling for a fight because Audrey was flirting with me. Screaming in my face about her.
Fuck.
“Shit, I can’t do this.”
“What?” Nathan asks confused. “What’s wrong?”
“I can’t do this, I’m sorry.”
Peter comes steaming down the stairs in his underwear, carrying the rest of his clothes.
“Have him!” he snarls at me.
“What?”
He turns and waves a fist up the stairs. “Damn cocktease!”
Peter shoves past me and stomps away.
In the room, the taper is out and Mohinder is just a dim shape under the covers.
“Are you okay?”
“Yes!” he snaps.
I yank back the covers and he grabs for them.
“Leave me alone!” he snarls.
The flickering light glints off the tear tracks down his face. Some people cry as if they’re being watched, oh boo hoo, oh woe is me, all composed because they know how to make it look vulnerable and attractive. Their tears trickle serenely down and they bat their wet eyes so perfectly... Bunch of assholes. Then there’re people who cry as if their lives depend on it, great gulping sobs that have them struggling to breathe, streaming eyes, and gobs of snot. They hardly notice if people are watching because they’re so wrapped up in their misery and wretchedness.
Mohinder’s eyes are red as a slapped ass and swollen. He’s all snotty too, and trying to sniff it back rather than blow his nose. Which, frankly, is completely disgusting. BLOW YOUR DAMN NOSE.
So, I guess we know what kind of a crier he is. Of course, I can’t say anything about him having been crying, that’d be... you just don’t.
“What’s your problem? I’ve rescued some bitchy, whiny, pain in the ass types before now but you’re the gold standard. Did Peter not have a big enough dick? Too hairy a sack, what? You know what, I don’t care, you don’t get to have a pissy time with him and take it out on me.”
He climbs out of bed and stamps over to shove me. Quit with the damn shoving!
“My problem is you,” he hisses, eyes glinting in the light.
“Look pal, I’ve been doing this a long time and I’m good at it.” I poke his shoulder and he stares at my finger. “I’ve rescued more heirs and other ransomed hostages than you can count. I’ve scaled mountains, fought giants, found treasure, and defended kingdoms. I rescued you, I got the spell taken off you, and tomorrow I’m taking you home. If you can’t be grateful then you can at least treat me with the respect appropriate to a professional.”
“Respect! When you whore and drink and...”
“That’s none of your damn business what...”
Then there’s a confusing blur of shouting and heat and violence and we’re on the bed. His hands are in my hair and scratching my back and he’s groaning, “I hate you, I hate you, I hate you”.
He curls under the covers after and bats me away when I try to move closer.
“I’m going to sleep,” he says in a strange voice, pulling the covers right up over his head.
Selfish bastard. Some people like to have a bit of cuddle afterwards, and it wouldn’t exactly kill other people to indulge them would it?
“Are you okay?”
“I’m going to sleep,” he repeats, his voice muffled and soft.
I wait a while to see if he changes his mind but he doesn’t. He’s not asleep, his breathing is all wrong for that, but he just stays hiding in the bed like that.
Maybe he’s a Solran. Might explain the horrendous mood he’s in this morning. Everyone’s got to make their own way but I never met a Solran who wasn’t miserable because everything he did, or wanted to do, was a damn sin and an offense. Should have thought of that before instead of... I’m Chathan; I’m affectionate by religious order as well as inclination. There was no need for him to bite my head off for trying to show him some friendliness this morning. I wish he’d make up his damn mind if he hates me or wants to sleep with me or what.
Whatever Mohinder’s problem is, he’s taking it out on Hiro and Luke too. With a face as pretty as his, you’d figure it’d take some work to make people avoid looking at it but this morning he has it perfected.
“Do you think the warrior princess safely escaped?” Hiro asks, looking wistful. Little Hiro, lusting after Audrey, I’m so proud.
“That drunken whore was not a princess!” Mohinder snarls.
Hiro gulps but doesn’t back down. “She was a princess of the Hanar, she is known and respected for her prowess with sword and bow.”
“He’s right,” I agree.
Mohinder snorts and rolls his eyes. “No wonder you let her ride you then. Anything to add another princess to your scoreboard eh?”
Another... what?
“Good knight indeed to defeat, and to roundly beat, the honoured foe, landing so many a blow,” Luke says. Asskisser, but at least he’s not growling and threatening, unlike some people.
“Caught her by surprise,” I say, cutting a hunk of bread. “Good lesson there, Hiro. Attack can come from anywhere.”
Hiro nods sagely and eyes Mohinder meaningfully. “I have noticed sir that those who should be most loyal comrades can be least honourable.”
Mohinder just glares until Hiro reddens and looks down, and then hacks a piece of cheese with a blunt knife.
We part ways with Luke at the city gate.
“I hope you find your people.”
“Your kindness will not be forgot, though returning it I fear I cannot,” he says, surprising me by scrambling on the horse and hugging me. He bows low to Hiro, pulls his tongue out at Mohinder, and scampers away.
“I fear it will not be the same without him,” Hiro says shaking his head.
“He was working for Sylar,” Mohinder says sharply, tossing his head and geeing up the horse.
“He was under a spell you ass,” I reply. Two can play at behaving like spoiled children.
The city guard line up to watch us go as if making sure we don’t try to sneak back in. It’s always nice to make a positive impression.
Hiro’s stubby little legs get tired after a couple of miles so we stop and I let him have my horse. As I get down, I feel Mohinder staring at me, but when I turn around, he’s looking down at his hands. I never seen anyone so pissed off after a good lay and it was a good lay! It was a damned good lay.
It shouldn’t be bothering me so much. It obviously didn’t mean anything to him or only bad things anyway. I had a great time with Audrey and a lousy time with Nathan but I’m not thinking about them.
Mohinder laughing at something stupid Hiro said. Sharing gossip with Angela about some other royal family.
Stop it. Don’t start with that kind of thing. It was just sex and you’re just pissed off he’s behaving like a brat. You’re just feeling sorry for yourself is all. Cry baby.
We stop at noon for food and ‘etceteras’. Hiro and I are both dusty from walking so he bathes while I make a fire. Mohinder skulks by his horse until Hiro wanders back shaking water out of his hair.
“Cook some of the ham and cheese would you?” I ask Hiro, ignoring Mohinder and heading for the river.
My stomach is rumbling as I strip off by the riverbank and leap into the cool, frigid water. The sudden cold burns like a torch but the shock is glorious. It clears my head of everything but the dancing silver fish, the bright hummingbirds darting here and there, and a huge, ragged-eared rabbit hopping through the brush.
These are the moments to remember, not being paid, not fights and flights, and not a meaningless fuck with someone who doesn’t even know my name. The rabbit, which looks like it’s seen off a fox or two in its time, stares at me before turning and bouncing away.
Always look animals in the eye. Not for any ‘establishing-your-domination’ thing, although that can be an issue, but because the one thing that magic can’t change about a person are their eyes. Even if they’ve been transformed into an animal, which happens more than you’d expect, their eyes will still be human.
It’s as creepy as all get out too. Sometimes it’s a witch or wizard having wild, crazy fun times and sometimes it’s some poor sod trapped inside a bunny against their will. At least Mohinder was still able to talk, was still human.
Stop thinking about Mohinder. It was just a screw and he obviously regrets it. Keep your mind on the job.
A twig snaps behind me. Mohinder is standing on the riverbank staring at me. Not angry, not lustful – as if, but something else, something... I don’t know.
“Hiro says the food is ready,” he says finally.
“You’re supposed to stay with him, not go wandering off.”
Fish zip through the water as I clamber out of the river and up the bank.
“Wouldn’t want the ‘money’ getting stolen would we?” he sneers, but his gaze drops and then raises slowly back up to my eyes.
“Are you going to tell me what’s bothering you or am I supposed to guess?”
He shakes his head and shrugs. “I don’t like being one in a long line.”
Question, answer, is that so damn hard really? “A long line of what?”
“People that you’ve rescued and slept with,” he snarls bitterly. “Did you negotiate it as part of the payment?”
That’s what he thinks of me? “Right, because I couldn’t possibly get laid unless I pay for it.”
“That is not what I said!” Mohinder says sharply. “I’m nothing to you. Just one more notch on the bedpost, one more dim royal who got kidnapped and paid for rescue with their body. I should count myself lucky we’re not getting married.”
“That happened a half a dozen times in thirty years!” I protest, wiping water out of my face. “I don’t meet that many people who aren’t trying to kill me and rescues can be... intense.”
“Thirty years?” Mohinder echoes. “You don’t look that old.”
“I was apprenticed when I was eight.”
“Oh.” He looks off into the distance. “So it’s more like a half dozen times in twenty years then.”
“Whatever.” I try to walk past but he catches my arm.
“I don’t like that I’m just another lay. I like you and you barely notice me,” he says quietly, dark eyes fixed on my face. “Bennet said you’ve normally had the princess on her back before you reach the camp.”
Bennet, I knew I should’ve left him to burn in Sylar’s castle. “Normally is a hell of an exaggeration.”
Mohinder’s grip tightens unpleasantly on my arm. “But you’re not saying it’s untrue.”
“It’s happened, sure, especially when I was young and pretty and horny as all get out. I don’t owe you an apology for that.” I pull my arm free. “Just like you don’t have to apologise for whoever you’ve sporked in the past.”
“You barely looked at me!” he snapped. “You only slept with me last night after I... I threw myself at you.” His Adam’s apple bobs up and down his throat. “You’ll sleep with any number of princesses and, and, Bennet said that you were known for seducing guards and vestal virgins as a way of getting into the villains or evil kings lair.”
Generally, the vestal virgins are more vestigial virgins by the time I got there anyway. Anyone who thinks you can keep a woman ‘pure’ by surrounding her with other women and castrated men, needs some lessons in the ingenuity of sexually adventurous young women.
“You’re mad because I didn’t throw you down on the grass and screw you?”
He actually looks hurt. “I wasn’t that unattractive was I? I don’t think I’m that unattractive now.” He shrugs and kicks the ground. “I like you, a lot, and, at best, you’re indifferent to me. It doesn’t feel very nice, that’s all. It feels horrible, if you must know.”
I will never understand royalty as long as I live. Does he think I can read minds? “Mohinder, I don’t know what you’ve been told, but I never... ravished anyone. If I did bang someone before we got halfway to the camp then she’d given me some pretty strong encouragement!” I shake myself of the water and pull my tunic back on. “You didn’t give me any encouragement, at all. Not in the slightest. Not until you leapt on me last night, that was pretty clear.”
“I... I gave you looks,” he says weakly. “I know you saw me.”
“Well your looks didn’t look like the kind of looks to make me try my luck.”
His mouth opens and closes silently.
“Plus I’m sworn off princesses, which is what I thought you were,” I say more gently. He’s looking completely wrong footed, not something he’s used to I’m sure. “Two divorces tend to put a man off them.”
“But I’m not a princess,” he says, shaking himself. “And I’m not unattractive.”
“No, you’re not,” I agree, and he preens, just a little. “But you weren’t giving me any encouragement either. Bitching, complaining, and trying to start a fight with a mercenary aren’t come-on’s where I’m from.”
He rolls his eyes and looks at me with undisguised contempt. “I was jealous. She was all over you!” He watching pull on my hose and then tucks his hands in his pockets. “I only went with Peter to make you jealous.”
“Come on, the food’s going to be getting cold,” I suggest, pulling one of his hands free and taking it in mine.
“Is that it then?” he asks quietly, looking at his hand nestled in mine.
“No, unless you want it to be, but I’m a guy and I’m hungry.”
Hiro cautiously watches Mohinder riding along the road and then sidles up to my horse. “Sir!”
“What’s up?”
“I think the prince has been bewitched,” he confides.
“Why’d you say that?”
If Mohinder grew horns and a tail, I wouldn’t count on Hiro to catch it.
“He’s singing!” Hiro says. “And smiling. Not glaring or complaining at all!”
It’s compelling evidence, right enough.
Mohinder’s horse stumbles over something in the road and nearly throws him.
“Are you alright?” I ask, as Hiro runs forward to examine the road.
“I fear she’s thrown a shoe,” Mohinder mutters, climbing down.
I pull my horse to a halt and tether her to a tree. “Hiro, what is that thing?”
He wanders over holding a shard of pottery as big as my fist. “A broken piece of statue, sir,” he says, blushing.
It’s a cock and balls, literally, and wow, someone believed in realism. What happened to artistic license in making the subject more attractive than they really are?
“What is it?” Mohinder asks, walking over.
“You were taken aback by very small dick,” I say, handing it over.
“Not the first time.”
Hiro blushes more deeply and scurries away grabbing up pieces of broken statue. He follows the trail into the trees at the side of the road.
Mohinder brushes his hair behind his ear and looks at me. “I’ve heard there are sects which prefer small... portions. They believe they’re more aesthetically pleasing.”
“I’m pretty sure none of them are works of art. But I do like a man with a big paintbrush.”
He laughs and relaxes a little. “Good, provided one knows how the appropriate techniques.”
“Well I’ve studied widely, you?”
“I fear I need tutorage,” he says sadly shaking his head. “Do you think you might consider teaching?”
“Well...”
“ARRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!”
Hiro comes pelting out of the trees, waving his arms, and screaming like a banshee.
“What the hell is the matter with you?” I ask.
“Medusa!” he shrieks.
Mohinder looks at the calcified cock and balls he’s holding in his hand and hurls it into the bushes.
“Too rough,” I wince. “Way too rough,” I say to Mohinder before turning back to Hiro. “Besides it can’t be Medusa, she got her head cut off by some moron over in Seriphos who wanted her head as a gift.” Poor cow got raped by Poseidon and turned into a gorgon, then just when she’s minding her own business some bastard comes along and cuts her head off. It’s people like that give heroes a bad name.
“We have to kill the gorgon!” Hiro says staunchly. “I saw her slithering around with snakes for hair.”
“Why do we have to kill her?”
“It is rather the done thing,” Mohinder says mildly.
“There were many, many men she had turned to stone,” Hiro says. “She is a menace.”
Is it me? Am I the only one who thinks that anyone who deliberately throws themselves into danger has only their own fool self to blame if they get killed.
“Defending herself is not being a menace. Damn Hiro, I thought you’d learnt that already.”
His shoulders slump and he kicks his toe into the ground. “Sorry sir.”
Someone claps behind us. Oh fuck. I shove Mohinder and Hiro down to the ground and throw myself down after them.
“Close your eyes!”
“Oh, don’t hide,” moans a soft accented, female voice. “It’s so rare someone comes by who does not want to kill me.”
“Well, we don’t, so let us go and that’ll be it,” I say.
“But they do,” she whispers, and I feel her fingers stroking my face. “I won’t kill you, I like you. If I blind you then you can stay safely.”
“Just for my squire’s education, you’re not Medusa,” I say, aware that the hilt of my sword is pressing against my back.
“Cha! No, that sagging old whore! No, my name is Maya.” She kisses me and I hear someone get to his feet and draw a sword.
She turns with a hiss as I kick out desperately and knock Mohinder back down.
“Keep your eyes shut!” I leap to my feet and swing my sword round, just as she turns to me and...
She puts her hands on her hips. “Why do you not turn to stone?” she pouts.
“Sweetie, I’ve seen far worse things that you.” My first ex mother-in-law for one, same poisonous hissing though. Maya’s surprisingly young looking; the face is quite sweet although she needs to grow into it. I’m wondering how many curses got put on her, because as well as the snake tail and the snakes for hair she also has breasts that are luscious and large and... solid. Those babies are like someone carved them out of stone, sheesh.
“You cannot tell anyone that it did not work!” she threatens. “You cannot tell anyone that one drew a sword on me and lives.”
“Believe me; we’d all prefer to forget that you and Mohinder ever happened.”
The castle is in view now and Mohinder’s horse is lagging further and further behind. The sun is just barely setting and we could easily make it before it got too late or too dark.
“Shall we stop for the night?” I suggest.
“But we are close enough to...”
“Shut up Hiro,” Mohinder says quickly. “Yes, let’s stop. Then we can be fresh in the morning.”
Mohinder sits so close that I can feel the heat of him through his clothes.
“I suppose you’ll be moving on after you take me back to the castle,” he says quietly.
“Depends on your father,” I admit. “I’d much rather live in a city and travel as needed. Sleeping under the stars stops being romantic pretty quickly.”
“Would you stay, if you could?” he asks, sipping mead.
“Yeah, I would. Your city does have some... unique attractions.”
Mohinder smiles and then kisses me.
Hiro blunders back into the clearing. “Oh, forgiveness please.”
“You were a long time, you’ll have to eat more roughage,” I suggest.
“Can we hear a tale, to pass the time?” Hiro asks,
“Sure, what about... oh, there was this one girl I knew. Shacked up seven dwarfs.”
Mohinder narrows his eyes. “Why was she living with seven dwarfs?”
“One for every night of the week,” I explain. “Plus woodcutters, hunters, passing princes, god she was insatiable.”
“Really,” Mohinder says archly. “And did you sate her?”
“Well, she did call me Gluttony.”
End
Pairing: Matt/Mohinder, Matt/Nathan, Matt/Audrey, Mohinder/Peter
Rating: 18
Warnings: Sexual content, language
Part 2
Note: Huge thanks to everyone for their suggestions and help throughout this.
Poor Hiro. I’m not sure if he’s more embarrassed, confused, or heartbroken. He’s certainly finding it difficult to look at Mohinder. Not that I blame him for having been attracted; Mohinder did make a pretty woman.
But a better man. Not better looking exactly, but without all the awkwardness and jarring discordances. Now he’s oozing confidence and charisma but it’s a little too much, exaggerated as if he’s ramping it up. Angela’s amused herself by seating Mohinder opposite me.
The newly royal brothers are sitting on either side of me; Peter the younger, a former dunnikin diver and Nathan, who I think, had been working as a sword for hire over in Lille. Nathan’s what mama used to call a rake; all charm, good looks, and absolutely no ability to keep his cock in his pants. Everywhere he goes he leaves a trail of broken hearts and pregnancies. The thing with rakes though is that they do it with such style. If I tried that, I’d end up being arrested or lynched.
And he’s good at what he does. Holy shit is he good; he’s completely relaxed chatting to his mother as his right hand massages my thigh and rubs my groin. Guess he must’ve already worked his way through the maids and the guards.
On my other side, Peter is fluttering his eyelashes at Mohinder to little or no effect. No idea what sect Mohinder subscribes to; I’m Chathan like the Petrelli boys, Hiro’s a Solran and they’re boringly strict. For Solrans there’s no naughties out of marriage, no marrying people of the wrong caste, the wrong sect, the wrong kind of reputation, and absolutely no fun with members of the wrong sex. Officially, at least. He’s sat up the table opposite Luke and passing by all the food he’s not allowed to eat. Bennet is sat on Mohinder’s other side, looking as if he’s trying to remember which of the food he poisoned.
“You certainly have a great many guards,” Mohinder says, glancing at me. “Fortunately for us.”
Angela takes a bite of her soufflé and makes a gesture with her free hand. “We maintain a low crime rate generally.”
“Generally?” I ask. “They seemed a little... on edge to me.”
She smiles coldly. “How kind of you to notice. There has been some small difficulty with a female warrior and her compatriots. Not that she’s created any direct problems in this city. However, as a member of the union of cities we are of course only too happy to support our fellow cities.” She makes another small gesture. “We know that she’s in the city and we will find her very soon.”
“What’s she supposed to have done?” Mohinder asks.
Angela raises her eyebrows. “Rarely important Prince Mohinder,” she says with a small smile. “Whichever city claims her can worry about what she’s done.”
“Or if she’s done it?” Mohinder asks with a frown.
“None of our concern,” Angela says airily.
Nathan’s hand works down my hose and strokes my balls. Something flashes in front of my eyes and when it passes Mohinder is sitting up and glaring at me.
“That’s enough,” I murmur.
“Spoilsport,” Nathan mutters and removes his hand. “Later.”
Nathan sips his champagne and smiles. “Ma, didn’t you have something to ask Prince Mohinder?” he prompts.
Angela lolls back in her chair and crosses her legs. “Prince Mohinder, are you sure you won’t stay here? I’m sure the palace will be more comfortable as well as more fitting than a... tavern.” She waves a hand that encompasses Hiro, Luke, and I. “Of course I’m sure there will be some suitable quarters for your entourage in the servants’ quarters.”
Servants’ quarters, whoo fucking hoo. Although, I could sneak down to the kitchens and steal leftovers...
“No thank you,” Mohinder says quickly, giving Nathan a filthy look for no obvious reason. “We’re going back to the tavern.”
“Brandy?” Nathan suggests, and rubs his leg against mine.
“No, I think we should be going now,” Mohinder says shortly.
“I have not yet finished my sweet dish,” Hiro protests. He quails under the glare he receives in reply.
“Ten minutes, Prince,” I say firmly. “There’s no rush is there?”
He glares at me, and it’s exactly the same glare as before. Less aggressive from a tiny woman though.
“Ten minutes,” he says coldly.
It’s crisp outside, our breaths freezing in the sharp air as we climb into the carriage. If I didn’t know this was a magically created city the sweet scent on the breeze would tell me. Cities don’t smell sweet; they stink of sewage, unwashed bodies, the meat rendering district, and the alchemical tang of the street of artificers.
It’s cold inside the coach; even when Mohinder drags Luke out of the open window and slams it shut. Hiro huddles inside his cloak, blowing on his fingers. The cold seems to radiate off the smooth, black wood filling the air with sharpness. It’s just beginning to hail outside and the regular rat-a-tat drums off the roof and walls all the way back.
So returning to the tavern is like walking into a furnace. Over the open roaring fire, a spit of chicken and venison haunches is turning slowly and the scent fills the room, mixing with the ale and the brandy.
“Dear sir perhaps a drink to warm, in this night of cold and hailstorm?” Luke suggests hopefully.
“Good idea...”
“Strong drink is a mocker,” Hiro protests but he’s looking around the room, eyeing the tavern maids when he thinks nobody is looking.
“Nothing wrong with a good mocking, as long as you’re careful,” I say. He just looks confused; I’m wasted on him.
“I really think we ought to retire for the night,” Mohinder says curtly, folding his arms, and looking for all the world like a particularly attractive, and annoyed, angel of sobriety. Sobriety generally being a good reason for annoyance in my experience.
“Did you cancel Bennet’s room?” I ask. An especially buxom maid brushes against me as she passes. There’s alcohol, roasting meat, a fire, and attractive women all in one room, does Mohinder really think I’m toddling up to bed like a good little boy?
“Yes, why?” Mohinder asks suspiciously, holding himself up straighter as if pulling away from the incipient drunkenness around him.
“Because you’ve got that money saved haven’t you?” I say, holding out my hand. “So I’ll thank you for a few pieces of silver in advance on the reward money. Hiro, you can please yourself but if you stay here stick with us, Luke what do want to drink?”
Mohinder is already shaking his head. “Oh no, I’m not leaving you here to drink yourself into a stupor. I’ll stay here and keep hold of the purse strings, thank you very much.”
“What’re you, my mother? I’m all out of gin money, ma, sorry.”
One more thing to note about goblins, they drink like fish and then sing dirty songs with increasingly dubious rhymes. Luke’s currently hanging upside down from one of the beams and singing about a little girl, with a little curl, somewhere that’s baffling Hiro.
A small hand with a vice-like grip squeezes my shoulder. “Can’t you get your monkey to sing something we can all enjoy?” drawls a familiar female voice. I look up into eyes so world-weary that the owner should be older than most of the gods, and salute with my beer. “Hello Audrey, still rampaging?”
Mohinder returns from the privy and throws himself down onto the bench. He looks over at Audrey, now sitting on the table, and pulls a face. “Shortage of seats is there?”
Audrey looks over Mohinder with a professional, appraising glance. “Who’s the mark?”
“Mark?” Mohinder asks coldly.
Audrey gives Hiro A Look until he shuffles along the bench enough for her to sit down. She drains her flagon and waves for another round.
“You’re the money ain’t you?” she asks, groping my leg in clear view of everyone. “Is he rescuing someone for you?” She takes a big gulp of ale. “Keep your eye on him, Matt’s a terrible one for wandering hands with rescued princesses.”
“Is that so?” Mohinder asks, freezing the drinks solid in the flagons.
“I’m off the princesses,” I say firmly. “No princesses.”
“Not off the girls are you?” Audrey asks, draining another flagon. “Never known you that out of sorts.”
I squeeze her knee and she grins and shifts my hand to her thigh. “Just royalty.”
Audrey looks past me and raises an eyebrow at Mohinder. He’s red in the face and sounds like he’s grinding his teeth.
“I’m royalty,” he grits out.
“And a royal pain in the ass you are too,” I say.
Mohinder folds his arms and glares at us. “You’re aware of course that this drunken slut is the warrior that the queen was talking about?”
There’s a blur of silver and a small, worn and very sharp looking dagger is at his throat. Fuck. I grab her arm with both hands and slam it down onto the table. She brings around her other hand and slams her fist towards the side of my head. I duck out of the way and slam her hand against the table until she drops the knife. Her other hand scrabbles for my sword but I spin her over against the table and yank her hands behind her back.
“Yield.”
“You’ve been practicing,” she pants. She twists suddenly, yanking her wrists free, and spinning onto her back. She smashes a beer bottle and swings it at my throat. I catch her hand and slam her wrist against the tabletop, there’s a nasty cracking sound and she howls in pain. Then in slow motion, I see her fist heading straight for my face.
Lights flash in front of my eyes. When they clear Mohinder, with my sword, and Hiro have Audrey at sword-point. Luke is swinging upside down and waving two broken beer bottles. Unfortunately, the rest of Audrey’s gang are on their feet and they have their swords out too.
“Draw?” I suggest.
“You broke my fucking wrist,” Audrey growls.
“You threatened my mark.” I shrug. “You know the code, Audrey. Got to protect the money.”
She shrugs and holds out her hand. One of her gang puts down his sword and binds her wrist up. “He insulted me.”
“You want recompense, we’ll talk,” I offer. “You want blood, we’ll have a bloodbath.”
“Big talk,” she sneers, “but we both know you never fight when you can talk or fuck your way out of it.”
I shrug and hold my hand out to Mohinder, keeping my eyes on Audrey. “My sword, and don’t stab me.” I hear him snort an angry breath and then the hilt of my sword slaps into my palm. I put it carefully on the table and hold up my hands. “What’s it going to be then, talking or fucking?”
She straddles me and waves her uninjured hand at her gang. There’s a long moment and then the scrape of swords being sheathed.
“Hiro, Luke, disarm please,” I ask.
“You’re not going to...” Mohinder bursts out.
“Shut up, you’ve said enough.”
There’s a clatter of hooves outsides and the tavern boy runs over.
“Guards are outside!”
Audrey’s gang scatter and I stand up, carrying her with me.
“You’re not going up to our room with her,” Mohinder snarls.
Oh, for the love of the goddess, is he trying to get us all killed?
“A pox on your room,” Audrey says, darkly. “A plague on your bed.” She tosses her hair over her shoulder. “Are you going to stand here all night?”
I swing her up onto my shoulder and she cackles as I walk past Mohinder. “Don’t wait up.”
Her bare thighs are against my shoulder and her buttocks against the side of my face. She gropes my back and ass as we walk into the stables. It’s dark inside, lit only by the dim light coming in through a hatch, and filled with animal warmth and scents.
“Throw me down and fuck me,” Audrey growls. “Hard and rough.”
It’s a difficult job, but someone’s got to do it.
Itchy, itchy, itchy! Damn hay gets everywhere. Hopping back all the way into the tavern trying to dislodge it from here and there, and ohhhh most of all from... from the other place. It’s not as bad as sex on the beach, I’m finding sand in my clothes for months after that.
I hammer on the door until Prince Foot-in-Mouth opens up, glaring at me as if I’m the one who almost got us into a blood feud.
“Finished fucking have you?” he asks, saying the word like an old lady regarding someone else’s dirty underwear.
He’s taken off the doublet and the tunic is rumpled and creased. His hair is ruffled and his beard growing in; he looks furious and exhausted.
“For the night,” I say, taking off my armour. “Go to sleep.”
“Excuse me?” he demands, staring at me with too-bright eyes. “You don’t get to...”
“Shut up,” I say flatly as possible. I can’t lose my temper, no matter how much he annoys me, not matter how dangerous his mouth is. “Just stop talking. You have said more than enough tonight, a hundred times over.”
He stalks over and shoves me. “Don’t tell me to shut up! Who the hell do you think you are?”
“I think I’m the person who stopped you getting your damn fool throat cut! You called a mercenary killer for hire a drunken slut! Are trying to get yourself killed? Are you trying to get me killed?”
“She was a drunken slut,” he retorts.
“She was just having some fun. But you just had to say it didn’t you?” I demand, stepping forward. Too angry, too angry. “You should be damned grateful that your father is paying as much as he is or I’d have let her.”
“I don’t have to take this!”
“You don’t have to dish it out either but you can’t help yourself can you? That damn mouth of yours going on and on. You nearly got us killed tonight!” I snarl. “Do you even realise how close we came to us all being killed because of your stupid damn mouth!”
He looks disgusted and shakes his head. “I can’t believe you’d... lower yourself to tarry with someone of that sort.”
“I’m someone of that sort! What the hell is your problem?”
He’s in my space, in my face. “I’m not the one with the problem.”
“Did you alert the watch? You did, didn’t you?” My voice is running on without control. “You pompous prick! Who the fuck are you to do that?”
He shakes his head disbelievingly. “The way the woman carried on everyone in the tavern knew who she was. Anyone in the tavern could have...”
“Anyone didn’t! You did,” I erupt, shoving him back. He stumbles back a few steps. “Self-righteous bastard!”
“I didn’t!” He screams into my face. “I wish I fucking had, just to wipe that smug look off her face.”
“What is your problem?” I demand.
Mohinder shakes his head. “You, you’re my problem.”
“Well snap, because every time you talk you make another problem for me.”
I pull off my clothes and climb into bed.
“What’re you doing?” he demands.
“Sleeping,” I say, pulling the covers up over my head.
A cold wave washes over me as he tugs the covers back. “I paid for this room!”
That’s all the fucking top tier care about, money, money, money.
“And again, I saved your life!” I snap, lying down and pulling the covers up. “Sleep in the bed, sleep on the floor, I don’t give a shit. But stop talking and let me sleep.”
I can’t sleep. He’s on the other side of the bed, not nearly far enough, and every movement, every sound grates across my nerves. The soft breaths, the slightly snuffle, the scrape of his skin against the rough cloth as he rolls over. I open my eyes and look over. He’s caught in a beam of moonlight where he’s thrown back the covers, the silvery gleam making his skin look coppery and strange. I thought he was going to be a bag of bones but he’s got a good body, athletic and lean. Some men, some women, are designed to have a little meat on their bones and don’t look right thin, but Mohinder’s body is just right. Fat lot of good it does me but there’s no price for watching his bare-assed self, sleep. At least this way I don’t have to listen to him talk. Damn but I think he does it on purpose. Maybe he gets off on creating so much chaos.
Scritch, scritch.
I lean over the bed and reach for my sword.
“Mohinder?” someone whispers through the door. “Mohinder, are you awake?”
I light the taper and climb out of bed just as Mohinder bolts awake.
“Wha...?”
“Shush!” I press a finger to my lips and move to the door.
“Mohinder?” the voice whispers plaintively.
The man himself gets out of bed and pulls on his tunic, pausing to give me A Look. I’ve got a sword, I’m dressed enough.
“Who’s there?” I ask through the door.
“Peter, is Mohinder there?”
I look across at Mohinder and he rolls his eyes. “What does he want?”
“I don’t know!”
Peter’s a moron, but a good-natured one or so I always thought. With a mother like Angela and a brother like Nathan, he’s like the baby the fairies swapped or something.
I open the door carefully and the moron himself smiles at me, and then looks me up and down, eyes widening.
“Are you coupling?” he asks hopefully. “Can I join in?”
Well if it was up to me...
“What do you want?” Mohinder demands, hand around my arm to tug me away from the door. “It’s the middle of the night!”
I walk off to get my tunic and when I turn around Peter’s in the room, sucking Mohinder’s face and groping his ass.
Mohinder turns to smirk at me and then drags Peter over to the bed.
Well, that’s just rude
“Where are you going?” Mohinder asks, as I get my hose, my tunic, and the blankets from the bed and head out of the door.
I yank my tunic over my head as I walk downstairs and lean back against the wall to pull on my hose. If I have to sleep outside I’m at least not going to freeze to death doing it.
“What the hell are you doing?” drawls a male voice. “Are you running away from home?”
It’s Nathan smirking as he looks me up and down.
“Peter and Mohinder are fucking,” I explain. “Why they couldn’t do that at the damn palace I don’t know.”
He stretches out, completely blocking the corridor. “Someone’s bitter,” he murmurs. He stalks over, takes me by the lapels, and pulls me into a kiss. “Doesn’t suit you.”
“I’m not...”
“Peter’s going to be gone soon enough,” Nathan says soothingly. “Then the Prince-pretty will be yours for the taking.”
“What? No. It’s not like that.”
Nathan scoffs. “Sure, it’s not like anyone with eyes can see the way you two look at each other.” He pushes his hand down my hose and helps himself while kissing me. “No reason to go without while he’s enjoying himself.”
He leads me out into the quiet moonlight, his hands warm all over my body.
Mohinder’s lean and muscular body sprawled across the bed as he sleeps.
Nathan’s mouth sucking my neck and my hands sliding down his back.
Mohinder turning to see my expression as he and Peter kissed and groped.
He doesn’t look at me any ‘way’. I don’t look at him any ‘way’.
Oh my god, teeth... teeth biting my stomach.
Mohinder spoiling for a fight because Audrey was flirting with me. Screaming in my face about her.
Fuck.
“Shit, I can’t do this.”
“What?” Nathan asks confused. “What’s wrong?”
“I can’t do this, I’m sorry.”
Peter comes steaming down the stairs in his underwear, carrying the rest of his clothes.
“Have him!” he snarls at me.
“What?”
He turns and waves a fist up the stairs. “Damn cocktease!”
Peter shoves past me and stomps away.
In the room, the taper is out and Mohinder is just a dim shape under the covers.
“Are you okay?”
“Yes!” he snaps.
I yank back the covers and he grabs for them.
“Leave me alone!” he snarls.
The flickering light glints off the tear tracks down his face. Some people cry as if they’re being watched, oh boo hoo, oh woe is me, all composed because they know how to make it look vulnerable and attractive. Their tears trickle serenely down and they bat their wet eyes so perfectly... Bunch of assholes. Then there’re people who cry as if their lives depend on it, great gulping sobs that have them struggling to breathe, streaming eyes, and gobs of snot. They hardly notice if people are watching because they’re so wrapped up in their misery and wretchedness.
Mohinder’s eyes are red as a slapped ass and swollen. He’s all snotty too, and trying to sniff it back rather than blow his nose. Which, frankly, is completely disgusting. BLOW YOUR DAMN NOSE.
So, I guess we know what kind of a crier he is. Of course, I can’t say anything about him having been crying, that’d be... you just don’t.
“What’s your problem? I’ve rescued some bitchy, whiny, pain in the ass types before now but you’re the gold standard. Did Peter not have a big enough dick? Too hairy a sack, what? You know what, I don’t care, you don’t get to have a pissy time with him and take it out on me.”
He climbs out of bed and stamps over to shove me. Quit with the damn shoving!
“My problem is you,” he hisses, eyes glinting in the light.
“Look pal, I’ve been doing this a long time and I’m good at it.” I poke his shoulder and he stares at my finger. “I’ve rescued more heirs and other ransomed hostages than you can count. I’ve scaled mountains, fought giants, found treasure, and defended kingdoms. I rescued you, I got the spell taken off you, and tomorrow I’m taking you home. If you can’t be grateful then you can at least treat me with the respect appropriate to a professional.”
“Respect! When you whore and drink and...”
“That’s none of your damn business what...”
Then there’s a confusing blur of shouting and heat and violence and we’re on the bed. His hands are in my hair and scratching my back and he’s groaning, “I hate you, I hate you, I hate you”.
He curls under the covers after and bats me away when I try to move closer.
“I’m going to sleep,” he says in a strange voice, pulling the covers right up over his head.
Selfish bastard. Some people like to have a bit of cuddle afterwards, and it wouldn’t exactly kill other people to indulge them would it?
“Are you okay?”
“I’m going to sleep,” he repeats, his voice muffled and soft.
I wait a while to see if he changes his mind but he doesn’t. He’s not asleep, his breathing is all wrong for that, but he just stays hiding in the bed like that.
Maybe he’s a Solran. Might explain the horrendous mood he’s in this morning. Everyone’s got to make their own way but I never met a Solran who wasn’t miserable because everything he did, or wanted to do, was a damn sin and an offense. Should have thought of that before instead of... I’m Chathan; I’m affectionate by religious order as well as inclination. There was no need for him to bite my head off for trying to show him some friendliness this morning. I wish he’d make up his damn mind if he hates me or wants to sleep with me or what.
Whatever Mohinder’s problem is, he’s taking it out on Hiro and Luke too. With a face as pretty as his, you’d figure it’d take some work to make people avoid looking at it but this morning he has it perfected.
“Do you think the warrior princess safely escaped?” Hiro asks, looking wistful. Little Hiro, lusting after Audrey, I’m so proud.
“That drunken whore was not a princess!” Mohinder snarls.
Hiro gulps but doesn’t back down. “She was a princess of the Hanar, she is known and respected for her prowess with sword and bow.”
“He’s right,” I agree.
Mohinder snorts and rolls his eyes. “No wonder you let her ride you then. Anything to add another princess to your scoreboard eh?”
Another... what?
“Good knight indeed to defeat, and to roundly beat, the honoured foe, landing so many a blow,” Luke says. Asskisser, but at least he’s not growling and threatening, unlike some people.
“Caught her by surprise,” I say, cutting a hunk of bread. “Good lesson there, Hiro. Attack can come from anywhere.”
Hiro nods sagely and eyes Mohinder meaningfully. “I have noticed sir that those who should be most loyal comrades can be least honourable.”
Mohinder just glares until Hiro reddens and looks down, and then hacks a piece of cheese with a blunt knife.
We part ways with Luke at the city gate.
“I hope you find your people.”
“Your kindness will not be forgot, though returning it I fear I cannot,” he says, surprising me by scrambling on the horse and hugging me. He bows low to Hiro, pulls his tongue out at Mohinder, and scampers away.
“I fear it will not be the same without him,” Hiro says shaking his head.
“He was working for Sylar,” Mohinder says sharply, tossing his head and geeing up the horse.
“He was under a spell you ass,” I reply. Two can play at behaving like spoiled children.
The city guard line up to watch us go as if making sure we don’t try to sneak back in. It’s always nice to make a positive impression.
Hiro’s stubby little legs get tired after a couple of miles so we stop and I let him have my horse. As I get down, I feel Mohinder staring at me, but when I turn around, he’s looking down at his hands. I never seen anyone so pissed off after a good lay and it was a good lay! It was a damned good lay.
It shouldn’t be bothering me so much. It obviously didn’t mean anything to him or only bad things anyway. I had a great time with Audrey and a lousy time with Nathan but I’m not thinking about them.
Mohinder laughing at something stupid Hiro said. Sharing gossip with Angela about some other royal family.
Stop it. Don’t start with that kind of thing. It was just sex and you’re just pissed off he’s behaving like a brat. You’re just feeling sorry for yourself is all. Cry baby.
We stop at noon for food and ‘etceteras’. Hiro and I are both dusty from walking so he bathes while I make a fire. Mohinder skulks by his horse until Hiro wanders back shaking water out of his hair.
“Cook some of the ham and cheese would you?” I ask Hiro, ignoring Mohinder and heading for the river.
My stomach is rumbling as I strip off by the riverbank and leap into the cool, frigid water. The sudden cold burns like a torch but the shock is glorious. It clears my head of everything but the dancing silver fish, the bright hummingbirds darting here and there, and a huge, ragged-eared rabbit hopping through the brush.
These are the moments to remember, not being paid, not fights and flights, and not a meaningless fuck with someone who doesn’t even know my name. The rabbit, which looks like it’s seen off a fox or two in its time, stares at me before turning and bouncing away.
Always look animals in the eye. Not for any ‘establishing-your-domination’ thing, although that can be an issue, but because the one thing that magic can’t change about a person are their eyes. Even if they’ve been transformed into an animal, which happens more than you’d expect, their eyes will still be human.
It’s as creepy as all get out too. Sometimes it’s a witch or wizard having wild, crazy fun times and sometimes it’s some poor sod trapped inside a bunny against their will. At least Mohinder was still able to talk, was still human.
Stop thinking about Mohinder. It was just a screw and he obviously regrets it. Keep your mind on the job.
A twig snaps behind me. Mohinder is standing on the riverbank staring at me. Not angry, not lustful – as if, but something else, something... I don’t know.
“Hiro says the food is ready,” he says finally.
“You’re supposed to stay with him, not go wandering off.”
Fish zip through the water as I clamber out of the river and up the bank.
“Wouldn’t want the ‘money’ getting stolen would we?” he sneers, but his gaze drops and then raises slowly back up to my eyes.
“Are you going to tell me what’s bothering you or am I supposed to guess?”
He shakes his head and shrugs. “I don’t like being one in a long line.”
Question, answer, is that so damn hard really? “A long line of what?”
“People that you’ve rescued and slept with,” he snarls bitterly. “Did you negotiate it as part of the payment?”
That’s what he thinks of me? “Right, because I couldn’t possibly get laid unless I pay for it.”
“That is not what I said!” Mohinder says sharply. “I’m nothing to you. Just one more notch on the bedpost, one more dim royal who got kidnapped and paid for rescue with their body. I should count myself lucky we’re not getting married.”
“That happened a half a dozen times in thirty years!” I protest, wiping water out of my face. “I don’t meet that many people who aren’t trying to kill me and rescues can be... intense.”
“Thirty years?” Mohinder echoes. “You don’t look that old.”
“I was apprenticed when I was eight.”
“Oh.” He looks off into the distance. “So it’s more like a half dozen times in twenty years then.”
“Whatever.” I try to walk past but he catches my arm.
“I don’t like that I’m just another lay. I like you and you barely notice me,” he says quietly, dark eyes fixed on my face. “Bennet said you’ve normally had the princess on her back before you reach the camp.”
Bennet, I knew I should’ve left him to burn in Sylar’s castle. “Normally is a hell of an exaggeration.”
Mohinder’s grip tightens unpleasantly on my arm. “But you’re not saying it’s untrue.”
“It’s happened, sure, especially when I was young and pretty and horny as all get out. I don’t owe you an apology for that.” I pull my arm free. “Just like you don’t have to apologise for whoever you’ve sporked in the past.”
“You barely looked at me!” he snapped. “You only slept with me last night after I... I threw myself at you.” His Adam’s apple bobs up and down his throat. “You’ll sleep with any number of princesses and, and, Bennet said that you were known for seducing guards and vestal virgins as a way of getting into the villains or evil kings lair.”
Generally, the vestal virgins are more vestigial virgins by the time I got there anyway. Anyone who thinks you can keep a woman ‘pure’ by surrounding her with other women and castrated men, needs some lessons in the ingenuity of sexually adventurous young women.
“You’re mad because I didn’t throw you down on the grass and screw you?”
He actually looks hurt. “I wasn’t that unattractive was I? I don’t think I’m that unattractive now.” He shrugs and kicks the ground. “I like you, a lot, and, at best, you’re indifferent to me. It doesn’t feel very nice, that’s all. It feels horrible, if you must know.”
I will never understand royalty as long as I live. Does he think I can read minds? “Mohinder, I don’t know what you’ve been told, but I never... ravished anyone. If I did bang someone before we got halfway to the camp then she’d given me some pretty strong encouragement!” I shake myself of the water and pull my tunic back on. “You didn’t give me any encouragement, at all. Not in the slightest. Not until you leapt on me last night, that was pretty clear.”
“I... I gave you looks,” he says weakly. “I know you saw me.”
“Well your looks didn’t look like the kind of looks to make me try my luck.”
His mouth opens and closes silently.
“Plus I’m sworn off princesses, which is what I thought you were,” I say more gently. He’s looking completely wrong footed, not something he’s used to I’m sure. “Two divorces tend to put a man off them.”
“But I’m not a princess,” he says, shaking himself. “And I’m not unattractive.”
“No, you’re not,” I agree, and he preens, just a little. “But you weren’t giving me any encouragement either. Bitching, complaining, and trying to start a fight with a mercenary aren’t come-on’s where I’m from.”
He rolls his eyes and looks at me with undisguised contempt. “I was jealous. She was all over you!” He watching pull on my hose and then tucks his hands in his pockets. “I only went with Peter to make you jealous.”
“Come on, the food’s going to be getting cold,” I suggest, pulling one of his hands free and taking it in mine.
“Is that it then?” he asks quietly, looking at his hand nestled in mine.
“No, unless you want it to be, but I’m a guy and I’m hungry.”
Hiro cautiously watches Mohinder riding along the road and then sidles up to my horse. “Sir!”
“What’s up?”
“I think the prince has been bewitched,” he confides.
“Why’d you say that?”
If Mohinder grew horns and a tail, I wouldn’t count on Hiro to catch it.
“He’s singing!” Hiro says. “And smiling. Not glaring or complaining at all!”
It’s compelling evidence, right enough.
Mohinder’s horse stumbles over something in the road and nearly throws him.
“Are you alright?” I ask, as Hiro runs forward to examine the road.
“I fear she’s thrown a shoe,” Mohinder mutters, climbing down.
I pull my horse to a halt and tether her to a tree. “Hiro, what is that thing?”
He wanders over holding a shard of pottery as big as my fist. “A broken piece of statue, sir,” he says, blushing.
It’s a cock and balls, literally, and wow, someone believed in realism. What happened to artistic license in making the subject more attractive than they really are?
“What is it?” Mohinder asks, walking over.
“You were taken aback by very small dick,” I say, handing it over.
“Not the first time.”
Hiro blushes more deeply and scurries away grabbing up pieces of broken statue. He follows the trail into the trees at the side of the road.
Mohinder brushes his hair behind his ear and looks at me. “I’ve heard there are sects which prefer small... portions. They believe they’re more aesthetically pleasing.”
“I’m pretty sure none of them are works of art. But I do like a man with a big paintbrush.”
He laughs and relaxes a little. “Good, provided one knows how the appropriate techniques.”
“Well I’ve studied widely, you?”
“I fear I need tutorage,” he says sadly shaking his head. “Do you think you might consider teaching?”
“Well...”
“ARRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!”
Hiro comes pelting out of the trees, waving his arms, and screaming like a banshee.
“What the hell is the matter with you?” I ask.
“Medusa!” he shrieks.
Mohinder looks at the calcified cock and balls he’s holding in his hand and hurls it into the bushes.
“Too rough,” I wince. “Way too rough,” I say to Mohinder before turning back to Hiro. “Besides it can’t be Medusa, she got her head cut off by some moron over in Seriphos who wanted her head as a gift.” Poor cow got raped by Poseidon and turned into a gorgon, then just when she’s minding her own business some bastard comes along and cuts her head off. It’s people like that give heroes a bad name.
“We have to kill the gorgon!” Hiro says staunchly. “I saw her slithering around with snakes for hair.”
“Why do we have to kill her?”
“It is rather the done thing,” Mohinder says mildly.
“There were many, many men she had turned to stone,” Hiro says. “She is a menace.”
Is it me? Am I the only one who thinks that anyone who deliberately throws themselves into danger has only their own fool self to blame if they get killed.
“Defending herself is not being a menace. Damn Hiro, I thought you’d learnt that already.”
His shoulders slump and he kicks his toe into the ground. “Sorry sir.”
Someone claps behind us. Oh fuck. I shove Mohinder and Hiro down to the ground and throw myself down after them.
“Close your eyes!”
“Oh, don’t hide,” moans a soft accented, female voice. “It’s so rare someone comes by who does not want to kill me.”
“Well, we don’t, so let us go and that’ll be it,” I say.
“But they do,” she whispers, and I feel her fingers stroking my face. “I won’t kill you, I like you. If I blind you then you can stay safely.”
“Just for my squire’s education, you’re not Medusa,” I say, aware that the hilt of my sword is pressing against my back.
“Cha! No, that sagging old whore! No, my name is Maya.” She kisses me and I hear someone get to his feet and draw a sword.
She turns with a hiss as I kick out desperately and knock Mohinder back down.
“Keep your eyes shut!” I leap to my feet and swing my sword round, just as she turns to me and...
She puts her hands on her hips. “Why do you not turn to stone?” she pouts.
“Sweetie, I’ve seen far worse things that you.” My first ex mother-in-law for one, same poisonous hissing though. Maya’s surprisingly young looking; the face is quite sweet although she needs to grow into it. I’m wondering how many curses got put on her, because as well as the snake tail and the snakes for hair she also has breasts that are luscious and large and... solid. Those babies are like someone carved them out of stone, sheesh.
“You cannot tell anyone that it did not work!” she threatens. “You cannot tell anyone that one drew a sword on me and lives.”
“Believe me; we’d all prefer to forget that you and Mohinder ever happened.”
The castle is in view now and Mohinder’s horse is lagging further and further behind. The sun is just barely setting and we could easily make it before it got too late or too dark.
“Shall we stop for the night?” I suggest.
“But we are close enough to...”
“Shut up Hiro,” Mohinder says quickly. “Yes, let’s stop. Then we can be fresh in the morning.”
Mohinder sits so close that I can feel the heat of him through his clothes.
“I suppose you’ll be moving on after you take me back to the castle,” he says quietly.
“Depends on your father,” I admit. “I’d much rather live in a city and travel as needed. Sleeping under the stars stops being romantic pretty quickly.”
“Would you stay, if you could?” he asks, sipping mead.
“Yeah, I would. Your city does have some... unique attractions.”
Mohinder smiles and then kisses me.
Hiro blunders back into the clearing. “Oh, forgiveness please.”
“You were a long time, you’ll have to eat more roughage,” I suggest.
“Can we hear a tale, to pass the time?” Hiro asks,
“Sure, what about... oh, there was this one girl I knew. Shacked up seven dwarfs.”
Mohinder narrows his eyes. “Why was she living with seven dwarfs?”
“One for every night of the week,” I explain. “Plus woodcutters, hunters, passing princes, god she was insatiable.”
“Really,” Mohinder says archly. “And did you sate her?”
“Well, she did call me Gluttony.”
End
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Date: 2009-10-25 12:28 am (UTC)The Maya and Mohinder show reference was hilarious. Audrey was fantastic as a kick ass warrior princess.
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Date: 2009-10-25 09:03 am (UTC)The Maya and Mohinder show reference was hilarious.
I didn't really earn it but the chance was too good to pass up :)
<333
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Date: 2009-10-25 04:11 pm (UTC)First off, I love jealous!Mohinder. The way he basically threw a fit when Nathan and Audrey where coming on to Matt!! Oh, and Nathan rubbing Matt at the dinner table right in front of everyone, including a pissed off Mohinder!! Guh, that was the hottest thing ever!! <3<3<3<3
And I agree with Dragon; the Mohinder/Maya reference was hilarious!! And I feel sorry for the poor guy who’s cock they found! “You were taken aback by very small dick” LOL!! Oh, Kethni, this is why I love you!!! :D
Another great fic!! <3
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Date: 2009-10-25 05:10 pm (UTC)Jealous!Mohinder is tons of fun and gives him an excuse to use his bitch!face :P
Oh, and Nathan rubbing Matt at the dinner table right in front of everyone, including a pissed off Mohinder!! Guh, that was the hottest thing ever!! <3<3<3<3
Mmm, Nathan's a go-getter, the exact opposite of Mohinder really :) I do like him and his wandering hands.
Thanks hon! <333
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Date: 2009-10-25 06:10 pm (UTC)As much he bitches about being outdoors you know he won't be happy under a roof or behind four walls for very long. Or tied down to one person male or female for that matter there's too much of that rabbit in his blood.
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Date: 2009-10-25 06:41 pm (UTC)I'm so glad that worked for you, I wasn't sure if it would be picked up. Matt's been living that life a long time, he's tried settling down at least twice before without success.
Or tied down to one person male or female for that matter there's too much of that rabbit in his blood.
Anyone in a long term relationship with him would have to accept his job and a certain 'what happens in Vegas approach' to his quests. His sexuality is a part of his arsenal and he might struggle without that tool.