Archive of Our Own ^beta

The big problem with Haircut is that he talks too much.

He wants to know everything. What everyone around him is thinking, how everything works. And sometimes, sometimes he just wants to fill the silence so it doesn't get filled up with the stuff he doesn't like.

Mick has no patience for that. So he fixes it. He's learned that the best way to keep Haircut from running his yap is to keep him too out of his mind with lust to come up with the words to say.

"Mick," Ray chokes out on a gasp. He won that word fighting for breath for minutes while Mick tortured the sensitive flesh of his neck with the edge of his teeth. And that was far too close to coherency for Mick's purposes.

He rolls his hips against Ray's, grinding the ridge of his cock against the hardon Ray had been trying to hide for a good hour before Mick had pinned him to the bulkhead. That hard-won syllable, that plea that had fallen so sweetly from Ray's too-pretty lips devolves into wordless murmurs. Consonants and vowels that are devoid of meaning.

His eyes are glazed, pupils blown wide, stretching inky blackness so thoroughly Mick almost can't see the ring of his iris around them. His lips are red, swollen, shiny and well-used, showing signs of bruising beneath the soft skin. He looks good, out of his mind like that. He looks like he's not remembering he should be uncomfortable.

And there's nothing like the way he falls apart for Mick.

Haircut's neck will be a wreck in the morning, and the thought makes Mick's lips pull into a raw grin. Every damn person on that ship will know that Mick had Haircut against his wall, whimpering and moaning because he can't help it.

Mick makes it so he can't help it.

Ray's legs are falling open, he's hitching his hips against Mick's in helpless little thrusts, and the skin on Mick's palms itches to get wrapped around Ray's body. Ray's probably chafed all to hell by now, cock rubbing against the inside of his briefs, pushed down by his jeans and the cold metal teeth of his zipper. Mick might feel bad, if he didn't know how Ray likes it to hurt. How the first time Mick had gotten a little careless with him, had bitten harder than he meant to, Ray's eyes had rolled back into his head and he'd keened like he'd been whammied with something, like he was suddenly a goddamn cat in heat.

Only bad part about it had been the embarrassment on his face right after.

Mick doesn't have a lot of rules in the bedroom. He's flexible, likes taking his partner apart the way they like to be taken apart. But the one thing he won't accept is shame. Oh, he'll humiliate someone if they want it. He'll embarrass someone until they're so wound up the littlest touch makes them come all over themselves. But that wasn't the look on Haircut's face. There was no pleasure in that shame.

And Mick won't have that. So, he sets about fixing that too. He pushes Ray until he can barely remember his own name, let alone anyone else's. Then he hurts him. Just enough. Just a little. Just enough to get that electric current of pleasure through his perfect body so he can't remember the part that comes after.

Mick's hips drive hard against Ray and the taller man practically chokes on his tongue, sobbing and gasping and begging wordlessly all at the same time. His skin's gone slick with sweat, his hands are flexing convulsively in Mick's shirt, and Mick knows that he could have anything he wanted from Haircut right now. Probably let him push inside dry. Probably even like it.

The thought sends shockwaves through Mick's body, sympathetic pleasure that nearly shakes him apart as easily as Ray.

But no, not yet. Right now he wants to see if he can make Haircut cry. Those pretty, helpless, wordless tears that mean Ray's finally so far out of his head that he can't remember to feel ashamed.

Mick's fingers dip below Ray's waistband, finding the button and the catches with ease, pulling them open without care, without finesse. Ray likes Mick to be careless with him, and Mick doesn't have the heart to tell him he's always careful, even — no, especially — when painting Ray's skin with bruises. The other man's cock pushes, ruddy and slick and so damn hard that Mick could probably pound nails with it, through the open flies and Mick's got a heavy, callused hand around it between one breath and the next.

"Hnnghhh," Ray groans, and Mick knows it was supposed to be a word but it isn't one, and that feels like victory.

Haircut's always felt good in his hand. Hot. Almost searing. Like he keeps his eyes, his words, his smiles warm so that he can save all his real heat for the way he pushes into Mick's loose fist. Like he wants to kiss Mick’s skin with another burn. Mick swipes his thumb over the weeping head of it, spreading slick and shine across his fingers and Ray's cock. The tip of his thumb digs in a little, catching on the slit and pushing, rough, harder than he would on his own body, because he knows what this body likes.

And Ray doesn't disappoint.

The sound he makes is feral, desperate. His hips stutter up into Mick's fist, and if Mick didn't have all the leverage — big fingers pressing bruises into Ray's hips, thighs trapped — Haircut might've thrown him off. As it is, Ray's lips fall open, his eyes roll back, and he jerks at Mick's shirt like he wants to tear it to pieces. Probably does.

A smirk quirks the corner of Mick's mouth. Haircut had ruined more than one of Mick's shirts, always looked like a fire hydrant once he scraped his brain back into his skull, embarrassed at losing control. Mick fights back a snort. Like Haircut could do something to him he didn't want.

That pretty mouth closes, opens, and closes again. Ray's tongue swipes at his lips and Mick can see him trying to shape words with it, so Mick swallows the attempt. His mouth crashes against Ray's, manhandling his tongue just as surely as he's manhandled his body, pinning him where he wants him. He tugs hard at Ray's cock, pushing against the slit with the edge of his nail and riding the bucking of those hips like a mechanical bull in a god damn honky-tonk.

Haircut's breath is lost in a helpless series of grunts and moans and his palms skid over Mick's chest and shoulders like he can't remember how to make them work.

Good.

"That's it, Haircut," Mick growls, low and hot against Ray's neck. His thumb on Ray's cock is punishing even as the rest of his grip soothes and coaxes Ray even closer to his inevitable finish.

"P — lea — ungh," Ray groans, snagging his fingers on the waistband of Mick's pants and pulling him closer, as though Mick were in any danger of trying to get away. Why would he leave? What, at any point in time or space — and Mick's gotten to be something of a connoisseur by now — could be better than doing this to Ray?

He presses in below the flared head of Ray's perfect cock and feels the frantic yelp from Haircut's throat like a tongue on his own skin. Close. He's getting close. Close to Ray's finish, and close to what Mick is waiting for. He can be patient. No one would think it to look at him, but he can be patient when the payoff is worth it.

And Haircut has always been worth it.

Suddenly, cruelly, Mick lets his grip go slack and the sound Haircut makes is like he's been punched in the gut. Wordless pleading, rocking his hips as best as he can away from where Mick has them pinned to the wall, and there it is. The first tear slides down Ray's cheek like the first warm wind in spring and Mick chases it with his tongue.

"Good, Haircut." The praise earns another tear, another whimper, and Mick finally, finally lets himself spin the hyperactive genius around to face the bulkhead, setting off an entirely new wave of whimpers and moans.

Ray's back is arched at an obviously painful angle as he pushes his ass back against Mick as hard as he can. There's a rhythmic grinding that is a kind of begging all its own, and if Ray could beg so sweetly with his words without feeling embarrassed, Mick would never let him do anything else. But he can't, so Mick takes it from him this way. And then he just takes him.

Ray's pants slide down his hips like they're as eager to get off as Ray himself, and Mick dips a rough finger between those perfect, muscular cheeks to push against Haircut's hole, testing his tension. Given the bow-string tight arch of his spine and the thrumming of those muscles, Haircut should've been closed up tighter than a bank vault, but he practically melts against Mick's callused finger.

“Good boy,” Mick growls.

Ray’s core is hot, yielding and sweet and pliant like Ray always is once Mick gets past his hang-ups. Mick thinks the kid would be happier if he could be that way without being pushed so hard, but he can’t. So Mick is happy to push.

“Hu — nnfff —“ The sounds are halfway between a grunt and a whimper and they match the rhythm of his hips twitching back against Mick’s touch, pushing and straining to get something inside him.

“You look so fucking good like this, pretty,” Mick presses the words to the sweat-slick skin on the back of Ray’s neck while he fishes lube out of his pocket.

The whine in Haircut’s throat is like bourbon — thick and sweet and sharp and everything Mick wants from him. And the first slick press of fingers against his hole makes him fucking keen. It’s wordless and desperate and aches with how good it is. Mick’s chest goes tight, his breathing a little ragged, and he handles the sudden disorientation by getting Pretty’s neck between his teeth and biting down until the genius’s cock drips onto the floor.

A finger-tip slides into Ray’s body easy like slipping into clean sheets — it isn’t enough, Mick knows that. Knows that if Ray could remember how, he’d be begging Mick to push in without any of his careful preparation. He’d say the lube was enough, he was ready.

Ray Palmer, that turned on? Is a god-damned liar.

Besides, if Ray’s thing is being used, Mick’s is taking damn good care of his things. It doesn’t hurt that opening Ray up slow on his fingers makes him make the best noises in the whole fucking timeline. Mick stretches out the ring of muscle in careful, measured strokes and worries the skin between his teeth to keep Ray’s wrecked whimpers coming in a constant stream.

“Pl — fu — “

A second finger turns those disjointed syllables into something like a squeak, and Mick’s mouth curves into a wicked grin at Haircut’s neck. He moves his hand faster, plunging in and pulling out in a pale imitation of what Ray wants, and his body clings to Mick in a soft, hot slide of skin.

“Wanted you all day, Haircut,” Mick whispers, catching the edge of Ray’s ear with the sharp points of his teeth.

A shudder ripples down Ray’s back and he clenches hard around Mick’s fingers.

“Just waiting for you to come find me, admit what you needed.” He punctuates ‘needed’ with a vicious twist of his fingers, moving to press hard against Ray’s prostate, and the effect is immediate: those broad shoulders shaking, salty tears pouring down his cheeks, and short, gasping breaths about a heartbeat from turning into hiccups.

He’s ready.

Mick likes to take his time and he’s taken it, and he knows when the right time is to rush. It’s three heartbeats until his cock is out of his flies and slicked with the same lube dripping from Ray’s twitching core, two more until the weeping head is lined up with that loosened ring of muscle, and just one to go from ready to home.

Pushing into Ray’s body is the sweetest thing Mick gets to do on a regular basis. He always opens for him. Always. That slick, tight muscle parts and yields and those sobs he let out become quiet, desperate moans while sweat slides down the genius’s back. His grip is tight and hot and welcoming and Mick dreams of it when he can’t have it — like he needs to make someplace where it’s always his, even if Ray doesn’t come back again.

Mick shakes the thought from his head and wraps his hands around Haircut’s hips hard enough to leave purple swathes of bruises for the dark-haired temptation to find in the morning. Ma always told him to bring a gift.

Ray’s arms shake where he’s propping himself up against the bulkhead and he’s pushing back into each of Mick’s thrusts like he might wander off in the middle, like he might leave Ray alone in the mess he’s made of him.

Fat fucking chance.

Mick’s hips snap forward in the staccato rhythm of semi-automatic gunfire, just enough to wind Ray up, just enough to tighten the bow-string of his arched back and set him up to sob in relief when the next stroke is hard and slow and deep.

Mick sinks into him like coming home. Like a score lifted, a job finished — burning buildings and hot ash on his skin, but none of his own blood on the ground. Pulling out is a necessary evil before sinking back into Ray’s heat, his tight body.

Ray drops one of his hands from the wall, presses his forehead against the other one, and tangles his fingers with Mick’s on his hip.

The move almost startles the fire starter into stopping, but he doesn’t let the rhythm break for long. He adjusts his grip, gets Ray’s hand under his own, then grinds in and in and in until Ray is letting out one last sob and clutching even tighter around Mick’s cock.

“Mick,” Ray moans and the word should sound like failure, but Mick can’t regret hearing his name in that voice. Can’t regret that it’s enough to push him over the edge right after the boy scout.

He comes in long, shuddering pulses, filling Ray with a part of him that will slip out and off in the shower when he’s cleaning himself up. It’s the part Mick gives him at the end, and it’s the first to go. No, the only things that linger will be the bruises on Ray’s skin. Those will stay for days.

The problem with Haircut is that he talks too much.

He’ll look at those bruises in the mirror, press his fingers over them, and he’ll talk. He’ll talk to Mick. To Sara. To every damn person on that boat. He’ll talk enough that he’ll think his way around the reality of who it is he’s letting put hands on him.

Mick lets him talk when it’s work, when it’s anything other than slick bodies coming together in his bunk. He lets Ray talk and talk and talk until that well is drained and he’s run out of ways to avoid what he’s trying not to know.

But a tank like that needs refilled.

And the problem with Mick is that he’ll never talk enough to keep what he wants.