[ easily, candidly. wash is used to being the one relatively normal man among people who could snap him in half. somehow, he keeps up, sometimes more than that, adaptable, resourceful, resilient, clever and willing to pay costs and go distances that many would not. pietro grabs his wrist to press the blade more firmly against him, and wash resists it. not afraid of hurting him, but he's in control of this. pietro could kill him, certainly, hit him so quick that his bones would shatter on impact, but that quiet confidence he has is completely unaffected and unshaken by it. pietro is handing that over to him, however reluctantly, and however easily he might forget it when he's not being pushed against a wall.
its not a confirmation that he doesn't have tricks up his own sleeve, but wash prefers to be underestimated, as much as possible -- which is just half of the reason he's doing this. keeping pietro held close to his side, heated, possessive, but a dominant and submissive among many doing the same thing. there's always a little thrill to doing something like this in public, not on display but just carefully hidden, a use for a skillset that wash has and no longer has much opportunity to flex.
he twists the knife, just once, and the way he can manipulate the blade so precisely without even the full use of all of his fingers on that hand is a sign to his skill with it, and now he actually does break the skin, one sharp, bright red line just over pietro's hip, not deep enough to draw any blood past that single line. he turns to tuck his chin against him, murmuring into his ear, voice rumbling low in his chest. ]
I asked you a question.
[ it may have sounded like a threat ( entirely intentionally, wash is absolutely a man for whom danger and sex blend and blur together ), but it was also an actual question he expected an answer to. all this intentional, too: pietro doesn't seem like a man who'd particularly enjoy having to put things off in order to even start to have a conversation about lines and limits. so instead, they'll talk like this. walking in public, making him wait, wash's voice in his ear and a knife pressed to his skin. ]
[Pietro's eyebrows knit together as he frowns, just once, a very quick movement, surprised that Wash would pull against that action and not immediately go along with pressing the knife harder. It throws him off. The offhand way Wash agrees to his proclamation doesn't, though. He knows, he knows what Pietro can do, and he doesn't care. Pietro huffs irritably, squirming slightly in Wash's hold until he moves the knife and breaks skin, a slow drag of a sharp sensation that isn't quite pain. Pietro hates himself for shuddering with it, for making a quiet mewling noise in the back of his throat, and mostly for wanting more.
Wash is being oppressive again, and Pietro feels just as trapped beside him as he did up against the wall. His stomach tightens hard and he has a visceral need to defy and not answer that question simply because Wash wants it answered. Pietro twitches and sucks in a snippy little breath through his nose, fighting with himself before he does address it. It still bothers him greatly that he squeezed Wash's arm that time, an admission that he couldn't deal with something. It bothers him more that Wash expects him to again, why else would he ask such a question?]
If I say no, you will stop. If you do not, I will hurt you.
[ he likes those little mewling noises -- and since he first heard them, when they were on the rooftop and he manages to draw an actual desperate please from him to when he had pietro spread out beneath him with his tongue in his ass, wash is angling himself to get more of them. ]
We all say no to things we want, sometimes.
[ not that wash would question or push that that ( except he absolutely, definitely has ). but limits are in themselves freeing. knowing where lies a line that he absolutely cannot cross means he's free to push every other line. and sometimes that's messy. especially for someone like pietro, he can tell, pushing into something without an understanding of what he wants. its unreasonable to expect someone to know everything. a lot of this is discovery, messy and raw, and wash is very, very willing to lean into that.
wash pulls pietro a little as they're walking, closer to his side to neatly sidestep someone they're passing on the street. a slight shift to his hand at pietro's side, and with it another purposeful upward drag of the knife, another bright little spark of surface-level pain. a reward, for staying close, for continuing to talk. ]
You hold back. [ his voice is even lower, quieter, murmured almost straight into his ear with his chin tucked against his hair. pietro may not be pressed against his chest but that rumble, that almost-growl is still clearly audible, clearly felt. ] You're afraid, sometimes.
What of?
[ he doesn't expect fully honest answers from pietro, especially not like this. but he will start to prod at them. ]
[He snorts quietly at that. If Wash wanted this discussion, he should have done it on the roof. This is belated and unnecessary and Pietro's restless energy is building over it, agitated at having to think about any of it. As Wash pulls him aside so someone can pass them on the sidewalk, Pietro glares after them with misplaced anger. He can stand in anyone's path if he wants to, and having Wash take it upon himself to control him in that way has his fingers shaking violently for half a second at Wash's wrist. He's distracted from that soon enough with another small cut across his hip, and he swallows another noise that threatens to leak out of his mouth, because he knows Wash likes it and right now, Pietro doesn't want to give him the satisfaction of hearing it. Not with that voice rumbling those words into his ear. Pietro's response is immediate and acerbic, and he digs his fingers into Wash's wrist while he gestures emphatically with his free hand.]
Oh, now you want me to be chatty?
[Pietro stops then, abruptly, refusing to take one more step. If Wash wants to continue walking he'll have to drag him down the street.]
You need a line? You just crossed it. I contacted you for a reason. If you are not here for that, you can leave. We are not talking, understand?
[There are questions he's not going to answer, subjects he's not going to talk about.]
[ pietro stops and wash moves with it, turning around. he doesn't keep dragging him forward, instead just fits his free hand against the other side of his waist as he faces him fully, and pushes him back, moving forward with it until pietro's back hits the glass wall of some cafe around the corner from the public up apartments. the glass rattles in place, it draws some attention, wash doesn't pay it any attention. ]
I'm not asking for a life story, Pietro.
[ getting to know each other outside of this isn't a requirement of this relationship. that knife is still tucked against his forearm and wrist under his sleeve, and he shifts to that the flat of the blade is pressing against pietro's skin, instead. not cutting, in the way he knows pietro would want, and just like that, wash is bearing over him again. ]
You want to let go? You want to stop thinking? [ his other hand is gripping tightly over his hip, now, sliding into a familiar place, old bruises and marks and how he held him when he'd lifted him fully into his arms, away from the wall down in that back room, forcing him to hold onto nothing but him. the hand with the knife hidden in his sleeve lifts -- curling his fingers just under his chin. there, very purposefully within pietro's sightline, is the flash of the blade, how much wash is holding his forearm in line with his wrist a hint to how long it is. its heavier, a darker steel, guided with his thumb against his palm until the tip is pushing right underneath pietro's chin. ] You're the one holding yourself back.
I can take you there. Push you as far as you want and even further. [ a glint of that quiet hunger in his eyes -- he wants that. craves it. ] A few lines in the sand will make that easier for yourself to find, but if you're too proud for that?
[ his arm tips. the tip of the knife just barely knicks pietro's skin, a tiny cut under his chin where it starts to meet his neckline. its smaller, but this time he lets it reach deeper, enough to leave more than a lingering red line, enough for blood to bead to the surface, for it to drip, for that tiny bright pinprick of pain to start to ease into something deeper, leaning forward with it until his lips brush against pietro's own. ]
I'll find them myself.
[ knowing someones limits helps him know where to push and where to hold back and where to push even further until someone breaks. he's already started to learn a good deal about pietro without him telling him anything, and frankly, working with pietro with is hardly unfamiliar. felix was like this, too. and much, much worse.
and then he steps back, lets his arms fall except for the one still at his waist. he gestures with his head. ]
We're here.
[ it really is just the next building or two over, and wash pulls away completely. he lets the knife slip from his sleeve, and this is -- much larger, heavier. not designed to throw, but designed cut straight through metal and armor and still pierce a beating heart beneath it. he twirls it easily between his fingers just like he did with the other knife, even with that difference in weight, and he'll move on ahead and head straight into the public apartment building. ]
[He can feel the glass shake under his back, a slow undulating movement. People on the street are looking, and unlike Wash, Pietro's focus is on it, on them, on being watched. It fuels his irritation and his arousal and he squirms. Wash's voice draws him back, and he rolls his eyes again. He knows he wasn't asked for details of his entire life. Wash had one simple question, and Pietro will not answer it, will not tell him what he's afraid of, what he's apprehensive about. It's simplistic, to him, and he doesn't understand why he needs to. Wash crowds him again, looms, and the same sort of oppressiveness returns, that blade against his skin, and all Pietro wants is to grab Wash's wrist and turn it, to have the sharp edge of the blade slide across his skin, feel that sharp pain and heat of arousal he knows he can achieve. Ororo hadn't wanted to cut him, had been forced to, but Wash does want to, and it could be so much better with him because of it.
Pietro knows where Wash's hand is, when it had been there before, and that both annoys and excites him. Wash makes those same statements, what he could do for Pietro, and he starts to form a response, to be belligerent about it and say something along the lines of Wash promising those things, not delivering, and lecturing him instead, but the first word is only half formed before Wash's fingers are under his chin, the knife visible, and Pietro just wants again. The point of the blade presses right to his skin, on the edge of sinking in. You're the one holding yourself back. Is he? He fights when he doesn't want to, he knows this, it's a compulsion, ingrained in him so hard, he'd needed that so long just to survive that giving that up, giving in so completely, seems impossible. He thinks of it that way, pointless to try because he will wrench control back every chance he gets if it starts to feel like it's slipping away to a degree he can't tolerate.
He doesn't see the way 'lines in the sand' help with this, all of this sort of experience far out of his wheelhouse as someone who hadn't touched kink or even thought about it before arriving in this city. His experience fairly vast, but narrowly focused. And he is too proud to admit how clueless he is. He just knows what he wants for an endgame and the means of getting there don't matter to him. Wash pushes the knife into his skin, finally, only a little, a hint of that deeper pain Pietro craves and desires, and it stops him from considering just running home, which he hadn't quite realised he had been. He savours that feeling, the crackling nerves, the bloom of blood that starts to trickle down his throat. Wash's lips brush his, then he pulls the blade away and gives Pietro his space back, and he's only frustrated and agitated about it. He glares and huffs as Wash just starts for the apartments, playing with his knife in a way Pietro interprets as mocking. Wash expects him to follow, he knows this, and he hates himself for doing it. Once the door closes behind them though, and they're halfway through the lobby, Pietro finally speaks again, voice quiet, toneless, and with that same half-awareness over whether he's actually saying it, like his utterance of 'please' there on the roof weeks ago, he issues something of a limit.]
[ wash is careful to give pietro choices. opportunities. chances for him to figure out what he wants and for him to show that he's ready for what he's asking for. he's dealt with worse, in terms of terribly stubborn insufferable men ( he's drawn to them for better and for worse ), and pietro's defiance is something he can entirely work with, even thrive with. he's entirely ready for pietro to decide to run out from him, to have bolted and left him in the alleyway. but instead, pietro follows, and not just that. he answers. its quiet, almost unnaturally even, almost like pietro doesn't quite know what he's saying, but it's an answer.
that's more than what wash was expecting. he can work with that. and while he won't say that out loud, he'll reward pietro for this sliver of cooperation, as much as he can. ]
Alright.
[ simple acknowledgement, no judgment, no teasing. for a man built on movement, needing to move makes sense. this is the first line pietro is choosing to draw, and that gives wash a few ways to go: it tells him that this is a limit he cares about more than pain or anything else, that when its needed he can offer him a moment of solace by letting him move a little more. it tells him about where he can redirect his efforts, where it would be better to focus on. it tells him that if he does want to emphasize something, that binding him might affect him more than it does other people.
and for some people, wash would treat that line as solid, immovable, immutable. but for someone like pietro. it tells him, too, that if he ever does want to truly break him, it almost definitely would be here, driving him to the point where he'd entrust himself into his care, completely bound and motionless. a thing to note for the future. perhaps to push towards someday.
most importantly for now, it tells him that pietro wants this. that he listened, heard him, and however reluctantly, is trying to meet him at a halfway point, knowing that he needs to do it to get what he wants.
wash has lived here for almost two years, now, and staff in the lobby acknowledge him and pietro both, watching pietro with more curiosity as wash moves to the elevator. ]
Eighth, if you want the stairs.
[ another choice, and a simple one. the elevator doors slide open, and wash watches him for a moment, his gaze clearly lingering over pietro's body, to small trickle of blood from his chin down over the curve of his bruised throat. the knife spins again between his fingers, and he turns to moves inside. ]
[Alright. Wash has nothing else to say but that, and it both confuses Pietro a little, and irks him, spoken like he needs that confirmation, as if being placated. He lets out a heavy exhale from his nose, crossing his arms and half nodding in acknowledgement that this 'line' has been established. It makes his skin itch to have stated it. Pietro doesn't want to take that out given to him because of it, doesn't want to admit to further weakness by avoiding the elevator. He hates them, always had even before he'd been given abilities that make it worse. Elevators were death traps, hardly worked, got stuck between floors where people starved to death if the building was bombed and no one could get to them, or the whole thing plummeted and crumbled upon striking concrete rubble. Stairways collapse too, he knows this, knew people who died in them, but he feels less trapped in them, where at least there's a chance to get out.
He'd used this elevator in this building all of once, the first time Steve brought him here. They'd been on the 21st floor, and Pietro never opted for the elevator even once after that the entire time he lived in this building. Once he'd discovered the cave system during the blackout, he's traveled that way every time he needs to go to the Down, the ten minute elevator ride there feeling like an agonisingly slow descent that fueled nothing but panic and agitation. The pinging noise as the elevator doors open bring all his thoughts into sharp focus and makes him reconsider his determination to not look weak. Wash is watching him, studying him, the knife glinting in the overhead light as it slides effortlessly between Wash's fingers. Pietro's cock twitches, he fidgets and debates with himself, and then disappears, zipping off for the stairwell. When Wash arrives on the eighth floor, he'll be pacing the hallway a little or having settled down to lean against the wall, palm flat against it and drumming his fingers incessantly.]
[ wash meanwhile, likes stairs, likes to keep himself moving and keep his wits about him always, and there's something he always dislikes about small, enclosed spaces. but he's learned to curb that instinct over many, many years, or at least restrain it, quiet it. he hardly has the same relationship with movement that someone like pietro must, though, and he watches pietro fidget, shift, react to the sound of the elevator -- and then disappear in a blur. interesting.
when wash steps out of the elevator, he's still spinning that knife. its' an idle action, completely habitual. he likes knives, is good with them, overlooked by many of his peers back home but he tends to do better than even them at anything that's a little more down to earth, simple, practical. he feels at home with a knife in his hand and a pistol in his grip. the eigth floor really is so much more quiet without south and sombra here. pietro's there, impatient, drumming his fingers against the wall, and wash will go ahead to his apartments door and gesture pietro inside.
its plain, in here. simple, spartan. for a man who's lived here for two years the space doesn't look lived in at all, hardly changed from the default that he was given when he first showed up to the city. pietro wouldn't be blamed ( or even entirely inaccurate ) for assuming that he's been taken not to wash's home but to just an extra apartment he's still keeping for reasons like this. really, wash is just concerned with simple practicalities -- and after two years still hasn't really learned how to see this place like a home.
once they're inside, though, with wash locking the door behind them. ]
Thanks.
[ just the single word. thanks for following him here, putting up with him even though pietro clearly is mostly concerned with immediate satisfaction, for giving him that one line in the sand even hen he clearly didn't understand the point of it. wash's focus is already locked back on pietro. narrowed, focused, that familiar predatory shift in his eyes, and they've not even stepped very far into his apartment but his hand is gripping over his waist again, fingers sliding into place over old bruises, hooking a little into the belt loops of his pants to draw him closer. he doesn't crowd all of his space just yet, keeping himself at arm's length, but this is, after all, his space. its like he's looming over him anyway.
one more twirl of the knife in his other hand, and he doesn't hesitate. a bit of his own impatience, a bit of wanting to give pietro a reward for being here with him, and the motion really is the same as if he was about to plunge the knife into pietro's chest. but instead the edge of the knife is suddenly pressed against pietro's chest with the tip digging ever so slightly into the corner of one collarbone. finally in full sight and held close its clear this knife is a hell of a difference from the lighter throwing one, a full eight inches, the metal dark and glinting in a way that might show its more than simple steel. more pressure, the knife cuts in, almost too easily, designed to cut into so much more than just flesh. not too deep, yet, just enough to draw blood, and wash draws a line across his chest. watching him. just to see pietro react.
calmly, conversationally, at the exact same time, even with that clear hunger burning in his eyes as he glides the blade across one collarbone. ]
Do you heal?
[ he doesn't know the depths of what pietro can do, after all. and he's seen what's possible, out there. ]
[Pietro's eyes are on the elevator the moment it opens, and he watches every twirl and movement of that knife as Wash heads for his apartment. He steps inside without any hesitancy, a little impatiently even, despite the pause in the flow of things down in the lobby. He spares a glance around the apartment, and it's much like his own. Pietro only has a few things set out in his, practical items that keep his hands busy, clothes here and there, and far too many pairs of shoes, but no decorations or keepsakes that didn't come with the place. He's only had his own apartment for a month, but rarely uses it, spending more time elsewhere, and doesn't consider it his home. Here in this building with Steve, it had been the same. He was another practical man whose apartment looked like he'd just moved into it when he'd been here a year. Every home is temporary, it's still the way Pietro thinks for the most part, though he doesn't want to. He wants to think there could be come permanency to what he's found in this place, but the moment he starts to live as if it is, he knows it will be taken away.
The lock clicks shut, and Pietro eyes the door once, scoffing to himself at that 'thanks'. It sparks the tiniest thread of regret, because he doesn't want to get more involved than what this is. There doesn't need to be pleasantries. Wash's hand is at his side again, pulling him close, looking down at him in that same way, like a raptor ready to strike, and a wave of arousal pulses through Pietro's abdomen and down to his twitching cock. His breath comes more rapidly as Wash brings the knife to his chest, pricking at the corner of his collarbone. It doesn't glint the same way most of the knives he's familiar with do. It's a different sheen, and he briefly thinks of Logan's claws, some unknown metal springing out from between the man's fingers, sharp and different, and Pietro had wanted then too, before he even realised it. The pressure deepens, a flash of just the taste of the pain he wants, dragging a bloody line across his chest, and Pietro makes a soft noise in the back of his throat, a wanting, needy sound that isn't quite a whine.
Pietro looks up sharply at that question, and he considers lying, pushing. Ororo had carved a design into his torso, all over, her small knife going too deep for a normal person's easy recovery. She'd known a version of him in her own world, one who had more advanced abilities, one who healed quickly. She'd gone harder on him because she'd made the assumption he could heal fast enough too. Pietro never stopped bleeding, and she needed to have a healer come in at the end. It's why he has no marks there, no deep jagged lines in the shape of a lightning bolt in between the puckered circular scars that mar his chest. He runs a finger around the edge of one of them near his naval, biting his lip. There's a hint of disappointment in his simple answer.]
No.
cw: references to eroticized violence, and also belatedly there's knifeplay in here, whoops
[ most of wash's life he's shuffled from place top place, living wherever he's sent and posted and wherever the moment brings him. he's resourceful, adaptable, able to fit himself anywhere, but he's always known better than to believe anything he has would last. the city is no different.
he watches the way he runs his finger around one of those scars -- wash could map them all out by now, whether pietro likes that or not, marks he recognizes as bullet scars. he can hear that disappointment in that answer, but something else has his attention, instead. its that pause before he answered, the sharpness in the way he'd looked up at the question, along wth his tone. considering. for a moment, he'd thought of lying.
wash moves almost immediately. pushing pietro back against the nearest wall, some shelves nearby rattling from it. the knife is lifted to pietro's throat, the flat of it pressed just underneath his chin and jaw to force his head up so he's meeting wash's gaze, hungry, wanting, seeing everything. ]
You don't know me. So understand this.
[ he tips the knife, pressing right into that nick he'd made before in the street just outside the apartment building, still wet with blood. just a little more pressure, and he deepens that wound, ever so slightly. he's keeping a bit more distance between them than he has so far, but it doesn't stop him from pressing in, pushing his knee between pietro's thighs, pressing up, his voice easing even lower on a quiet rumble. ]
I've hurt people, doing this. Broke bones. Choked into unconsciousness. Stabbed them. Killed them. [ while fucking them. giving them what they want. it does not come with the tone of regret, like he's believes he's a monster who needs to be restrained -- he does struggle with that. often. all the time. but here, he's focused, and he's using that example to prove a damn point. sometimes he wants to do terrible things. sometimes people want terrible things done to them. and maybe sometimes it'd be better to not indulge that, but sometimes no one wants better. ] You don't need to lie to me because you think I'll go easy on you.
The more you lie to me, the less you tell me, the more careful I have to be.
[ he turns the knife, angles his grip. he doesn't press that one wound any deeper, and instead starts to trace the metal down from under his chin. lightly grazing over skin, only a whisper-soft pressure from that too-sharp metal, following the curve of his throat. down over a trickle of blood left there from before. over fresh bruises, already forming from his hand locked tight around his throat in the alleyway. ]
[Wash shoves him against the wall hard like he was unsatisfied with that answer, and Pietro doesn't know why, not immediately. He whines quietly as the knife is pressed flat under his jaw, keeping his head tilted up. The way Wash regards him hasn't changed, he still wants him, wants this, but he's lecturing again. Pietro glares even as he squirms slightly and swallows thickly when Wash presses the knife into the same place, that still open wound, enlarging it. His knee is back between Pietro's thighs, something so familiar now Pietro all but expects it. He grinds slowly on instinct. Wash rambles on in that rumbling voice, the timbre of which sends shivers down Pietro's spine, but the words make him roll his eyes and gesture animatedly, but awkwardly, with one hand while keeping his shoulders and head still, words spat out in a clipped and bitchy tone as Wash drags the knife down his throat.]
You choked me unconscious. I am already dead, you know that, yes? So, what, you think I expected to be treated nicely here? And I did not lie.
[That gets emphasised, because he doesn't know Wash is accusing him of just thinking about it.]
[ he didn't know that pietro was dead, actually. to his credit he doesn't falter, but there is a small flicker in his gaze. its not like it matters here, anymore, his closest friend here is dead back home too.
the bob of pietro's throat just talking as wash drags that knife down his throat is enough for that too-sharp knife to cut a little deeper. wash can't help but watch that, for a moment, clearly getting some visceral satisfaction from it the same way he makes some quiet, pleased sound when pietro almost automatically starts to grind against his thigh. the words, though. ]
You thought about it.
[ pointedly. that hesitation was clear. but he's less trying to accuse pietro of something and more trying to give him some assurance, another attempt to guide him a little further down that pietro doesn't quite seem ready for, but he'll make the attempts anyway. the more pietro can relax, can open himself up to letting wash work, the easier what he wants will come to him. the more he's willing to set lines, the more he frees himself up to let his body react and struggle and fight as much as he instinctively needs to while sill havng a way to escape. and wash isn't a stranger to just crossing every line, to not even attempting to find out anything, but pietro always seems to have just enough give, just enough awareness that he always seems to want to try. ]
I'm not going to go easy on you. You don't heal, doesn't matter. If it gets you off to have a knife in your gut and a gun down your throat, I'd still give it to you.
[ but alright. enough of that. his hand moves up slightly from his waist -- to where he'd cut those lines before, when they were walking side by side on the street. he lets his fingers press against them, tracing those lines, drawing back that same sting -- even as he turns the knife again. this time the tip is pressed against his shoulder, just the faintest pressure. he leans close, finally closing that distance between them again, his chest brushing against pietro's, breath warm against pietro's lips, close enough for that rumble to be felt. ]
You're going to tell me how deep.
[ and slowly, steadily, as carefully controlled and deliberate as he always is, he starts to press that blade down, the metal is so sharp it almost doesn't have that bite, simply starts to slide through as it pierces his skin. ]
[It's a small flicker, but Pietro catches it. Wash hadn't known, hadn't assumed, and considering he asked that question about whether or not Pietro could heal, he probably had never thought about it. Pietro likes to think it's obvious from his scars, but he rarely says those words. Wash might be the first one who hadn't known Pietro in his own world that has confirmation he's dead back there. He hasn't even told Eloise, and she knows far more about his past than even those from his world, than anyone else but his sister. Fuck. Pietro shakes that thought from his head immediately, still unable to stop coming back to her. Wanda. Wash hasn't pushed him far enough since the alley, and Pietro's getting more and more restless about it. He tries to focus on the sharp slide of the knife over his throat, where it had pressed in slightly deeper while he spoke.
He shoots a quick glare at Wash for pointing that out, his hesitation that betrayed him, how he'd struggled in those precious seconds to tell the truth, thinking he might be setting another limit inadvertently. Wash hits on that too. His words, Pietro thinks, are supposed to be stating something important underneath their straightforwardness, but he doesn't grasp it, and he doesn't believe them either.]
No you would not.
[Pietro mutters that to himself under his breath. Wash wouldn't go that far, not if he needs to talk at length about limits and lines. The thought Pietro held previously with their last encounter, that Wash might be able to break him, it no longer holds. He can't. Push Pietro far, yes, make him uncomfortable in a way that might let him drift for a while, but break him? No. No, Wash doesn't stand a chance.
Wash's fingers slide over the the singing cuts on his hip, press down, and Pietro hisses. He shifts slightly against the wall as Wash brings the knife to his shoulder, closing in on him and taking up all the space and air until Pietro feels suffocated for a moment. His abdominal muscles tighten reflexively at the rumbling he can feel through his chest, but the words do nothing but irritate him. He waits until the blade has sunk in a few millimetres before he speaks, and he's sure it's nothing Wash wants to hear, pointed and frustrated.]
If I wanted to choose how deep, I would do it myself.
[ wash is trying to set lines, and maybe in that sense pietro is right, just not for the reasons he thinks. wash isn't convinced that pietro knows what he wants yet. all arrogance, all talk, thinks he can handle everything thrown his way, wants more and more and more without knowing what he's asking for. with felix, they never had a single damn conversation, for better and for worse, but they both knew ( sometimes, depending on which of them you asked ) what they were getting into. with pietro, he wants proof. proof that he understands the depth of what he seems to think he wants.
but over their time together so far, wash is coming to understand that he won't get that. because pietro doesn't understand it. there are flashes of how he's trying to ( felix would never have answered him, would never have tried ), no matter how reluctant, but his pride is in the way of anything more. especially at that answer, the little mutter under his breath. wash has been pushing him, but pietro is pushing wash, too, and he makes a decision, there and then, and pietro might be able to see it. a flicker in his eyes. ]
You're going to have to.
[ this is one way to try and teach something. he can't draw those answers out of pietro because he simply doesn't have them, and so it becomes about finding those answers with him, as messy as that might be.
he knows by now that pietro is always impatient, seems to literally perceive things differently, lives his life at the speed that he can move in. wash doesn't change his own pace. he keeps pressing that blade in, sinking, millimeter by millimeter. it moves easily, too easily, like it's gliding through water more than flesh, and the only reason it's that slow is because of how well wash is able to control that pressure, that movement. precise, persistent, relentless, like a machine. he watches him. hungry. wanting. a trickle of red blooms around the wound. he'd chosen deliberately; shoulders aren't the safest place to get stabbed, and wash knows almost exactly the right depth to hit some nerve bundles that might be dangerous. the exact spot he'd chosen avoids that, but there's still some real risk if pietro doesn't make up his mind.
because he's not stopping. that becomes clear. there's a look in his eyes, not just that hunger and that predatory need, though that's still there, too -- but just a different kind of focus. a quiet fixation. watching pietro's every response, every twitch of his facial muscles, every instinctive tic and shift of his body in response to the pain. ]
[Something shifts in Pietro's eyes then too, and what Wash is actually saying, what he meant, falls more into place. He won't stop, and Pietro knew this, but didn't fully comprehend the spectrum of what it applies to. No matter Pietro's other reactions, obvious pain or distress, even if he blacks out again, Wash isn't going to stop whatever he's doing at any point. If Pietro doesn't say no, he'll keep going, and if Pietro lets himself get to the point where he's too far gone to say no, he's fucked. Shit. That's a revelation somehow, and still, he's not sure if he won't just let it pass him by, the moment he knows he should stop. He won't know that until he gets there, unable to make these kinds of decisions ahead of time.
Pietro has so much time to think about it, processing it in the back of his mind while his most immediate thoughts and focus are on the knife at his shoulder, the incredibly slow push of the blade further into his flesh. He whines and writhes slightly once it gets a little deeper, through the layers of skin and pressing against muscle, the type of writhing where he's indecisive, wanting to both push himself forward from the wall and drive the knife in quickly, and where he wants to tear himself out from under it to get away from that incessant and continual pain, now beginning to pulse deeper as Wash pushes the knife through the first threads of muscle relentlessly, but excruciatingly gradually from Pietro's perspective. It changes from something that brings arousal and the heightened crackling nerve endings with shallower cuts to a more overwhelming sensation of broad, profound, and unbroken acute and vivid pain that sparks behind his eyes. Pietro twitches, his fingers shake almost violently, suddenly, and a keening noise that isn't quite pleasure builds up in volume.
It hurts. It hurts. The sort of pain Pietro hasn't felt since he'd died, was dying, felt it all over, as every bullet drove into his flesh so slowly and all at once at the same time, digging deeper and deeper like the knife. It will cut right through the entirety of his muscles, tendons, to the bone if he lets it. He can't breathe, but somehow keeps making that noise he can't quite hear himself over the rushing blood in his ears, panic building and his instinct to live flipping like a switch. Pietro grabs Wash's wrist quickly, forcefully, to tear that blade from his shoulder.]
[ there we are. pietro is still more stubborn than wash gave him credit for, and the blade goes deeper than it really should, but he sees the way his muscles start to twitch to move and pull him away. wash does try to react, to pull the knife back, but pietro is faster, grip vice-like around his wrist as he tears the blade back. pietro applying the force instead of wash means that he doesn't have quite as much of the control, but he was already adjusting, at least, and so the knife slides right back out without cutting any more.
he doesn't wrench his wrist from pietro's grip, lets him hold onto it. he moves his other hand, instead, lifting it to the wound in his shoulder, immediately pressing down. it will hurt, but that hand is there mostly to keep pressure and stem the bleeding, red blooming under his hand. wash does immediately feel like he went further than he should have, that there are better ways to handle pietro's sheer arrogance and gall, that he'd let himself get goaded there, even slightly. and he really should know better than that. he should've known better the other night, too, in that back room.
but he'll think back on that later. now, as always, his focus is on pietro, honed in on him, his body, his racing heart. ]
Pietro. [ it's an attempt to steady him, whether or not pietro will take it. for that clear panic he can see in him -- that isn't just a reflex or fear of pain but that deep, driving instinct, a desperation of clawing to survival. wash is still here, solid, grounding, steady and in control. the knife never went deeper than wash wanted it to, for better and for worse. ]
[He knows the knife is out of his shoulder, that he'd ripped it away, still holding tightly to Wash's wrist, he can see the end of the blade, his blood on it, but it's not inside him. It still feels like it's there. Pietro becomes more aware of things when Wash presses his hand over the wound and it brings a different sensation that shifts the echo of the knife until his body catches up with his brain and understands the blade is no longer embedded there. Wash speaks, and Pietro hears it, but doesn't react right away, it takes him an entire two seconds. His breathing is heavy, but shallow, and he looks away from Wash and the knife, staring somewhere down at the floor as he tries to control the shaking. His voice isn't much more than a whisper, an uncomfortable admission.]
[ wash turns the knife slightly, slowly, carefully, always within pietro's sightline. not letting go of it, shifting it in his grip enough to let the blade turn away from him. he listens to his breathing, feels it under his palm, all through the shaking. he'd hit something deep, there, wash can tell, and he doesn't mean the muscle even if he knows that too. the bullet scars, the visceral fear and panic. he didn't mean to hit quite that far, quite that deep, and somewhere at the back of wash's mind is a quiet irritation at himself for it, out of focus but present.
pietro shifts, looking away, his voice whisper quiet. and that even now he can hear discomfort in his voice, like after this he still hates to have to admit it, steels a thought in his mind. this had to be messy. pietro doesn't have any goddamn idea where his own lines are.
slowly then, wash moves his hand. he doesn't wrench it out of pietro's grip, and pietro can keep holding onto him, coul even stop him if he put a mind to it. he turns the knife, tip now wet with blood, and in a familiar motion to before, turns the flat of it to tuck under pietro's chin and jaw. forcing his head up, surprisingly gentle but firm, guiding him back until wash can meet his eyes again. ]
Okay. [ his voice is still low, quiet. rumbling deep. his eyes watching him carefully, memorizing every shaking breath. ] Now we both know that.
[ he'll wait a little, there. he honestly expects that pietro might just bolt -- again, while the mess is necessary, he still believes there were better ways for him to do this, that he'd let pietro goad him too much. and so he waits, his other hand still pressed firm to his shoulder, stemming the bleeding. ]
[Wash moves his hand, and after one fraction of a second where his grip tightens, Pietro doesn't direct it away from him. Once the flat of the knife is back underneath his chin, he drops his hand, pressing his palm hard against the wall instead. His stomach twists and his muscles twitch in agitation, but he moves his head with that knife, where Wash wants him to look. Pietro's eyes are dark, but not with arousal.
That rumbling voice strikes hard in his chest and Pietro hates it, hates that it's getting to him even now when he should be running away and avoiding Wash entirely from this point on, the way he avoids Tony Stark, just pretends he doesn't exist. He could do it. Wash's tone is indiscernible to Pietro, and he can only assume it's meant to be patronising, mocking him for not knowing what he wants, an "I told you so". Pietro shifts uncomfortably, not quite making eye contact, he's looking that way, but it's unfocused, and when he does get words out, they're hissed and far too venomous to cover the underlying pain in them.]
[ the venom in that voice. wash can't blame him for that, he supposes, given that he has just driven a knife into his shoulder, given that he's seemed to assume that many things wash says are meant to mock him, make him feel weak. there's little he can do about that to change pietro's mind. perhaps with time he might understand what he's been trying to do better.
for now, though, pietro isn't running away, or trying to get away. still trapped there against the wall, shifting uncomfortably, looking back at him but not at him. he makes some quiet sound, his other hand finally lifting from his shoulder after one last squeeze, the bleeding mostly stemmed, his palm and his fingers wet with pietro's own blood as he lifts them to skirt along his jawline. his thumb brushes over his lower lip, bruised and bitten from their time in the alley, still an echo of the time before, and wash shifts his weight enough to ease that thigh up between his legs again, knee still pushed against the wall. the flat of the blade is still tucked under his chin, metal cool to the touch but slightly warmed from blood and body heat. ]
Do you want to go?
[ a direct question. there isn't any mocking in his tone, though wash knows pietro might hear it that way, anyway -- but while wash might prefer to think otherwise, he knows there's a bit of a challenge in it. wash's quiet concern here is genuine, but there's still that flicker of arousal, hunger, want in his eyes. he certainly wouldn't blame pietro from just wanting to leave, now. but he's here. ]
[Like the knife, Pietro still feels Wash's hand once it's gone from his shoulder, a lingering hot press of his palm against that wound, where each finger curled, and now they're at his jaw, wet and tacky with his blood, and it doesn't excite him like he thought it would, not after that. He furrows his eyebrows in confusion, and he makes a soft disgruntled sound when part of him considers the notion that he got off on the threat more than the pain, the fear of it, but not once it became actual pain. Pietro might have felt that same way with Ororo too, when he'd first entertained the idea of that pain, even as she carved into him, not as deeply as this, and he'd only kept challenging her, it might not have been deeper pain he'd wanted out of it. But there's still something here, something he wants, and his tongue flicks out of its own accord when Wash runs his thumb over his lip, to taste his own blood, and to press hard against the healing bite. Pietro whines softly as Wash pushes his knee up further, and his fingers scrape at the wall with the effort to stop himself from grinding.
No. Pietro's internal answer to that question is immediate. If he had wanted to leave, he would have. But he stayed, even if he doesn't know why entirely. Pietro snorts then, and blows out a huffy breath. He doesn't know what he's doing, and Wash knows that on some level, maybe even more than Pietro himself does.]
No.
[His tone holds less bite to it, only guarded and seemingly dragged from him unwillingly, if such a things were possible.]
[ learning things about himself today and being willing to voice them out loud to wash, no matter how unwillingly. wash will consider that progress. significant progress, honestly. and for as much as wash still thinks there were better ways for him to try and force that lesson, when something works, it works. he makes some soft, quiet sound as at the feel of his tongue flicking out over his thumb.
he twirls the knife again, just another motion, clearly more out of habit than anything else, but then he leans away to set it aside on some nearby countertop. not just that, too, but he pulls his shirt ( lightly stained with blood, now ) up and over his head, letting it fall behind him. no other knives hidden on his body, apparently -- except the lighter knife he's already shown pietro before, hidden somewhere near his belt from the movement pietro may have felt in the alley. wash will remove that, too, if pietro asks him to. another choice he will let him have.
once that's done, wash turns his full attention back to pietro. pressing a little closer, his hand now settled back against his waist, thumbing again over those thinner lines and cuts -- down to the loops of his pants, slowly following them to the front of his pants even as he lets that thigh slowly rock up against him. ]
For now.
[ he echoes, just agreeing, affirming. a promise, too in an indirect way: they can always return to this a different time, it isn't a test that pietro failed or some challenge he couldn't meet. if anything it's a clear enough sign that it's something wash would like to return to in spite of pietro's response to it, then. ]
[Pietro keeps his eyes on the knife, slowly shifting between Wash's fingers, glinting in the light, until it's finally set aside, and he lets out a breath he hadn't realised he was holding. A hot flush of relief pools in his chest, and Pietro closes his eyes for just a second, shaking his head as if to dismiss everything that just happened. When he opens his eyes again, his gaze is on Wash removing his shirt. He licks his lips as it slides up slowly and reveals Wash's hard muscles and broad chest, and fuck. Pietro still want this, wants him, and the other things he can do. It doesn't have to be about driving him to the absolute brink of something, not yet, and he understands that now, even if patience is hardest thing for him to gather.
Wash crowds him again, thumb running roughly over those thin lines at his hip, the ones that barely cut, and still Pietro feels the tiny sting of them, shivering underneath that touch, cock twitching, arousal sparking through his abdomen. Pietro starts to grind again, slow and steady against Wash's thigh. For now. For now. Keeping one hand on the wall, Pietro brings the other to the front of Wash's pants, fingers picking at his belt.]
Fuck me. That is what I want.
[His tone is confident, a little demanding now that the offending weapon is gone form his sight. He swallows thickly, starts to say something else, stops, makes an irritated noise, and then blurts it out quickly.]
I like the other knife. Shallows cuts. That is fine.
[He manages not to let his voice waver, though his skin burns with the uncomfortable sort of heat that makes him feel flayed and exposed.]
[ pietro looks visibly relieved when wash sets that knife aside -- and the way he looks at him, the arousal in his eyes. gratifying, arousing in its own way, but also all things wash note with quiet satisfaction. good. he knows he hit something deep, there, something deeper than he may have wanted to hit without knowing it was there, something that pietro didn't know was there. but for as much as it may have jarred him in that moment, he's far from of reach, and pietro is here again, present, feeling.
and arrogant, by the sound of that confidence and demand in his voice. but wash doesn't mind, a heat twisting through him at the words -- and it only turns hotter and brighter when pietro keeps talking. the distinct discomfort, trying to say something, not quite managing it, and then forcing it out. that's nice. that's good. pietro is starting to talk, even if only a little, and wash almost purrs in response, his eyes lidding, rubbing his thigh up against him even as pietro grinds steadily back. he starts to pull open the front of his pants, fingers deft and quick, and just as he's slipping his hand past the material to touch him, wash leans forward. close, until his chest is pressed against pietro's, until that rumble in his chest is not just heard but felt. ]
Good.
[ pietro's never responded particularly well to praise before. but it's still good, half-murmured against his mouth, and wash catches his mouth in another kiss. his free hand moves up to tangle through his hair, pulling sharply, the kiss immediately harsh and bruising, devouring, possessive. back down between them, wash's calloused fingers ease into place around the now-familiar heat of pietro's cock, squeezing over him nicely, a ripple of steady pressure running trough his fingers along the length of his shaft. ]
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[ easily, candidly. wash is used to being the one relatively normal man among people who could snap him in half. somehow, he keeps up, sometimes more than that, adaptable, resourceful, resilient, clever and willing to pay costs and go distances that many would not. pietro grabs his wrist to press the blade more firmly against him, and wash resists it. not afraid of hurting him, but he's in control of this. pietro could kill him, certainly, hit him so quick that his bones would shatter on impact, but that quiet confidence he has is completely unaffected and unshaken by it. pietro is handing that over to him, however reluctantly, and however easily he might forget it when he's not being pushed against a wall.
its not a confirmation that he doesn't have tricks up his own sleeve, but wash prefers to be underestimated, as much as possible -- which is just half of the reason he's doing this. keeping pietro held close to his side, heated, possessive, but a dominant and submissive among many doing the same thing. there's always a little thrill to doing something like this in public, not on display but just carefully hidden, a use for a skillset that wash has and no longer has much opportunity to flex.
he twists the knife, just once, and the way he can manipulate the blade so precisely without even the full use of all of his fingers on that hand is a sign to his skill with it, and now he actually does break the skin, one sharp, bright red line just over pietro's hip, not deep enough to draw any blood past that single line. he turns to tuck his chin against him, murmuring into his ear, voice rumbling low in his chest. ]
I asked you a question.
[ it may have sounded like a threat ( entirely intentionally, wash is absolutely a man for whom danger and sex blend and blur together ), but it was also an actual question he expected an answer to. all this intentional, too: pietro doesn't seem like a man who'd particularly enjoy having to put things off in order to even start to have a conversation about lines and limits. so instead, they'll talk like this. walking in public, making him wait, wash's voice in his ear and a knife pressed to his skin. ]
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Wash is being oppressive again, and Pietro feels just as trapped beside him as he did up against the wall. His stomach tightens hard and he has a visceral need to defy and not answer that question simply because Wash wants it answered. Pietro twitches and sucks in a snippy little breath through his nose, fighting with himself before he does address it. It still bothers him greatly that he squeezed Wash's arm that time, an admission that he couldn't deal with something. It bothers him more that Wash expects him to again, why else would he ask such a question?]
If I say no, you will stop. If you do not, I will hurt you.
[His words are fast and clipped, dismissive.]
It does not need to be more complicated.
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We all say no to things we want, sometimes.
[ not that wash would question or push that that ( except he absolutely, definitely has ). but limits are in themselves freeing. knowing where lies a line that he absolutely cannot cross means he's free to push every other line. and sometimes that's messy. especially for someone like pietro, he can tell, pushing into something without an understanding of what he wants. its unreasonable to expect someone to know everything. a lot of this is discovery, messy and raw, and wash is very, very willing to lean into that.
wash pulls pietro a little as they're walking, closer to his side to neatly sidestep someone they're passing on the street. a slight shift to his hand at pietro's side, and with it another purposeful upward drag of the knife, another bright little spark of surface-level pain. a reward, for staying close, for continuing to talk. ]
You hold back. [ his voice is even lower, quieter, murmured almost straight into his ear with his chin tucked against his hair. pietro may not be pressed against his chest but that rumble, that almost-growl is still clearly audible, clearly felt. ] You're afraid, sometimes.
What of?
[ he doesn't expect fully honest answers from pietro, especially not like this. but he will start to prod at them. ]
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Oh, now you want me to be chatty?
[Pietro stops then, abruptly, refusing to take one more step. If Wash wants to continue walking he'll have to drag him down the street.]
You need a line? You just crossed it. I contacted you for a reason. If you are not here for that, you can leave. We are not talking, understand?
[There are questions he's not going to answer, subjects he's not going to talk about.]
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I'm not asking for a life story, Pietro.
[ getting to know each other outside of this isn't a requirement of this relationship. that knife is still tucked against his forearm and wrist under his sleeve, and he shifts to that the flat of the blade is pressing against pietro's skin, instead. not cutting, in the way he knows pietro would want, and just like that, wash is bearing over him again. ]
You want to let go? You want to stop thinking? [ his other hand is gripping tightly over his hip, now, sliding into a familiar place, old bruises and marks and how he held him when he'd lifted him fully into his arms, away from the wall down in that back room, forcing him to hold onto nothing but him. the hand with the knife hidden in his sleeve lifts -- curling his fingers just under his chin. there, very purposefully within pietro's sightline, is the flash of the blade, how much wash is holding his forearm in line with his wrist a hint to how long it is. its heavier, a darker steel, guided with his thumb against his palm until the tip is pushing right underneath pietro's chin. ] You're the one holding yourself back.
I can take you there. Push you as far as you want and even further. [ a glint of that quiet hunger in his eyes -- he wants that. craves it. ] A few lines in the sand will make that easier for yourself to find, but if you're too proud for that?
[ his arm tips. the tip of the knife just barely knicks pietro's skin, a tiny cut under his chin where it starts to meet his neckline. its smaller, but this time he lets it reach deeper, enough to leave more than a lingering red line, enough for blood to bead to the surface, for it to drip, for that tiny bright pinprick of pain to start to ease into something deeper, leaning forward with it until his lips brush against pietro's own. ]
I'll find them myself.
[ knowing someones limits helps him know where to push and where to hold back and where to push even further until someone breaks. he's already started to learn a good deal about pietro without him telling him anything, and frankly, working with pietro with is hardly unfamiliar. felix was like this, too. and much, much worse.
and then he steps back, lets his arms fall except for the one still at his waist. he gestures with his head. ]
We're here.
[ it really is just the next building or two over, and wash pulls away completely. he lets the knife slip from his sleeve, and this is -- much larger, heavier. not designed to throw, but designed cut straight through metal and armor and still pierce a beating heart beneath it. he twirls it easily between his fingers just like he did with the other knife, even with that difference in weight, and he'll move on ahead and head straight into the public apartment building. ]
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Pietro knows where Wash's hand is, when it had been there before, and that both annoys and excites him. Wash makes those same statements, what he could do for Pietro, and he starts to form a response, to be belligerent about it and say something along the lines of Wash promising those things, not delivering, and lecturing him instead, but the first word is only half formed before Wash's fingers are under his chin, the knife visible, and Pietro just wants again. The point of the blade presses right to his skin, on the edge of sinking in. You're the one holding yourself back. Is he? He fights when he doesn't want to, he knows this, it's a compulsion, ingrained in him so hard, he'd needed that so long just to survive that giving that up, giving in so completely, seems impossible. He thinks of it that way, pointless to try because he will wrench control back every chance he gets if it starts to feel like it's slipping away to a degree he can't tolerate.
He doesn't see the way 'lines in the sand' help with this, all of this sort of experience far out of his wheelhouse as someone who hadn't touched kink or even thought about it before arriving in this city. His experience fairly vast, but narrowly focused. And he is too proud to admit how clueless he is. He just knows what he wants for an endgame and the means of getting there don't matter to him. Wash pushes the knife into his skin, finally, only a little, a hint of that deeper pain Pietro craves and desires, and it stops him from considering just running home, which he hadn't quite realised he had been. He savours that feeling, the crackling nerves, the bloom of blood that starts to trickle down his throat. Wash's lips brush his, then he pulls the blade away and gives Pietro his space back, and he's only frustrated and agitated about it. He glares and huffs as Wash just starts for the apartments, playing with his knife in a way Pietro interprets as mocking. Wash expects him to follow, he knows this, and he hates himself for doing it. Once the door closes behind them though, and they're halfway through the lobby, Pietro finally speaks again, voice quiet, toneless, and with that same half-awareness over whether he's actually saying it, like his utterance of 'please' there on the roof weeks ago, he issues something of a limit.]
I need to move.
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that's more than what wash was expecting. he can work with that. and while he won't say that out loud, he'll reward pietro for this sliver of cooperation, as much as he can. ]
Alright.
[ simple acknowledgement, no judgment, no teasing. for a man built on movement, needing to move makes sense. this is the first line pietro is choosing to draw, and that gives wash a few ways to go: it tells him that this is a limit he cares about more than pain or anything else, that when its needed he can offer him a moment of solace by letting him move a little more. it tells him about where he can redirect his efforts, where it would be better to focus on. it tells him that if he does want to emphasize something, that binding him might affect him more than it does other people.
and for some people, wash would treat that line as solid, immovable, immutable. but for someone like pietro. it tells him, too, that if he ever does want to truly break him, it almost definitely would be here, driving him to the point where he'd entrust himself into his care, completely bound and motionless. a thing to note for the future. perhaps to push towards someday.
most importantly for now, it tells him that pietro wants this. that he listened, heard him, and however reluctantly, is trying to meet him at a halfway point, knowing that he needs to do it to get what he wants.
wash has lived here for almost two years, now, and staff in the lobby acknowledge him and pietro both, watching pietro with more curiosity as wash moves to the elevator. ]
Eighth, if you want the stairs.
[ another choice, and a simple one. the elevator doors slide open, and wash watches him for a moment, his gaze clearly lingering over pietro's body, to small trickle of blood from his chin down over the curve of his bruised throat. the knife spins again between his fingers, and he turns to moves inside. ]
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He'd used this elevator in this building all of once, the first time Steve brought him here. They'd been on the 21st floor, and Pietro never opted for the elevator even once after that the entire time he lived in this building. Once he'd discovered the cave system during the blackout, he's traveled that way every time he needs to go to the Down, the ten minute elevator ride there feeling like an agonisingly slow descent that fueled nothing but panic and agitation. The pinging noise as the elevator doors open bring all his thoughts into sharp focus and makes him reconsider his determination to not look weak. Wash is watching him, studying him, the knife glinting in the overhead light as it slides effortlessly between Wash's fingers. Pietro's cock twitches, he fidgets and debates with himself, and then disappears, zipping off for the stairwell. When Wash arrives on the eighth floor, he'll be pacing the hallway a little or having settled down to lean against the wall, palm flat against it and drumming his fingers incessantly.]
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when wash steps out of the elevator, he's still spinning that knife. its' an idle action, completely habitual. he likes knives, is good with them, overlooked by many of his peers back home but he tends to do better than even them at anything that's a little more down to earth, simple, practical. he feels at home with a knife in his hand and a pistol in his grip. the eigth floor really is so much more quiet without south and sombra here. pietro's there, impatient, drumming his fingers against the wall, and wash will go ahead to his apartments door and gesture pietro inside.
its plain, in here. simple, spartan. for a man who's lived here for two years the space doesn't look lived in at all, hardly changed from the default that he was given when he first showed up to the city. pietro wouldn't be blamed ( or even entirely inaccurate ) for assuming that he's been taken not to wash's home but to just an extra apartment he's still keeping for reasons like this. really, wash is just concerned with simple practicalities -- and after two years still hasn't really learned how to see this place like a home.
once they're inside, though, with wash locking the door behind them. ]
Thanks.
[ just the single word. thanks for following him here, putting up with him even though pietro clearly is mostly concerned with immediate satisfaction, for giving him that one line in the sand even hen he clearly didn't understand the point of it. wash's focus is already locked back on pietro. narrowed, focused, that familiar predatory shift in his eyes, and they've not even stepped very far into his apartment but his hand is gripping over his waist again, fingers sliding into place over old bruises, hooking a little into the belt loops of his pants to draw him closer. he doesn't crowd all of his space just yet, keeping himself at arm's length, but this is, after all, his space. its like he's looming over him anyway.
one more twirl of the knife in his other hand, and he doesn't hesitate. a bit of his own impatience, a bit of wanting to give pietro a reward for being here with him, and the motion really is the same as if he was about to plunge the knife into pietro's chest. but instead the edge of the knife is suddenly pressed against pietro's chest with the tip digging ever so slightly into the corner of one collarbone. finally in full sight and held close its clear this knife is a hell of a difference from the lighter throwing one, a full eight inches, the metal dark and glinting in a way that might show its more than simple steel. more pressure, the knife cuts in, almost too easily, designed to cut into so much more than just flesh. not too deep, yet, just enough to draw blood, and wash draws a line across his chest. watching him. just to see pietro react.
calmly, conversationally, at the exact same time, even with that clear hunger burning in his eyes as he glides the blade across one collarbone. ]
Do you heal?
[ he doesn't know the depths of what pietro can do, after all. and he's seen what's possible, out there. ]
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The lock clicks shut, and Pietro eyes the door once, scoffing to himself at that 'thanks'. It sparks the tiniest thread of regret, because he doesn't want to get more involved than what this is. There doesn't need to be pleasantries. Wash's hand is at his side again, pulling him close, looking down at him in that same way, like a raptor ready to strike, and a wave of arousal pulses through Pietro's abdomen and down to his twitching cock. His breath comes more rapidly as Wash brings the knife to his chest, pricking at the corner of his collarbone. It doesn't glint the same way most of the knives he's familiar with do. It's a different sheen, and he briefly thinks of Logan's claws, some unknown metal springing out from between the man's fingers, sharp and different, and Pietro had wanted then too, before he even realised it. The pressure deepens, a flash of just the taste of the pain he wants, dragging a bloody line across his chest, and Pietro makes a soft noise in the back of his throat, a wanting, needy sound that isn't quite a whine.
Pietro looks up sharply at that question, and he considers lying, pushing. Ororo had carved a design into his torso, all over, her small knife going too deep for a normal person's easy recovery. She'd known a version of him in her own world, one who had more advanced abilities, one who healed quickly. She'd gone harder on him because she'd made the assumption he could heal fast enough too. Pietro never stopped bleeding, and she needed to have a healer come in at the end. It's why he has no marks there, no deep jagged lines in the shape of a lightning bolt in between the puckered circular scars that mar his chest. He runs a finger around the edge of one of them near his naval, biting his lip. There's a hint of disappointment in his simple answer.]
No.
cw: references to eroticized violence, and also belatedly there's knifeplay in here, whoops
he watches the way he runs his finger around one of those scars -- wash could map them all out by now, whether pietro likes that or not, marks he recognizes as bullet scars. he can hear that disappointment in that answer, but something else has his attention, instead. its that pause before he answered, the sharpness in the way he'd looked up at the question, along wth his tone. considering. for a moment, he'd thought of lying.
wash moves almost immediately. pushing pietro back against the nearest wall, some shelves nearby rattling from it. the knife is lifted to pietro's throat, the flat of it pressed just underneath his chin and jaw to force his head up so he's meeting wash's gaze, hungry, wanting, seeing everything. ]
You don't know me. So understand this.
[ he tips the knife, pressing right into that nick he'd made before in the street just outside the apartment building, still wet with blood. just a little more pressure, and he deepens that wound, ever so slightly. he's keeping a bit more distance between them than he has so far, but it doesn't stop him from pressing in, pushing his knee between pietro's thighs, pressing up, his voice easing even lower on a quiet rumble. ]
I've hurt people, doing this. Broke bones. Choked into unconsciousness. Stabbed them. Killed them. [ while fucking them. giving them what they want. it does not come with the tone of regret, like he's believes he's a monster who needs to be restrained -- he does struggle with that. often. all the time. but here, he's focused, and he's using that example to prove a damn point. sometimes he wants to do terrible things. sometimes people want terrible things done to them. and maybe sometimes it'd be better to not indulge that, but sometimes no one wants better. ] You don't need to lie to me because you think I'll go easy on you.
The more you lie to me, the less you tell me, the more careful I have to be.
[ he turns the knife, angles his grip. he doesn't press that one wound any deeper, and instead starts to trace the metal down from under his chin. lightly grazing over skin, only a whisper-soft pressure from that too-sharp metal, following the curve of his throat. down over a trickle of blood left there from before. over fresh bruises, already forming from his hand locked tight around his throat in the alleyway. ]
Got that?
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You choked me unconscious. I am already dead, you know that, yes? So, what, you think I expected to be treated nicely here? And I did not lie.
[That gets emphasised, because he doesn't know Wash is accusing him of just thinking about it.]
I do not need your lectures.
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the bob of pietro's throat just talking as wash drags that knife down his throat is enough for that too-sharp knife to cut a little deeper. wash can't help but watch that, for a moment, clearly getting some visceral satisfaction from it the same way he makes some quiet, pleased sound when pietro almost automatically starts to grind against his thigh. the words, though. ]
You thought about it.
[ pointedly. that hesitation was clear. but he's less trying to accuse pietro of something and more trying to give him some assurance, another attempt to guide him a little further down that pietro doesn't quite seem ready for, but he'll make the attempts anyway. the more pietro can relax, can open himself up to letting wash work, the easier what he wants will come to him. the more he's willing to set lines, the more he frees himself up to let his body react and struggle and fight as much as he instinctively needs to while sill havng a way to escape. and wash isn't a stranger to just crossing every line, to not even attempting to find out anything, but pietro always seems to have just enough give, just enough awareness that he always seems to want to try. ]
I'm not going to go easy on you. You don't heal, doesn't matter. If it gets you off to have a knife in your gut and a gun down your throat, I'd still give it to you.
[ but alright. enough of that. his hand moves up slightly from his waist -- to where he'd cut those lines before, when they were walking side by side on the street. he lets his fingers press against them, tracing those lines, drawing back that same sting -- even as he turns the knife again. this time the tip is pressed against his shoulder, just the faintest pressure. he leans close, finally closing that distance between them again, his chest brushing against pietro's, breath warm against pietro's lips, close enough for that rumble to be felt. ]
You're going to tell me how deep.
[ and slowly, steadily, as carefully controlled and deliberate as he always is, he starts to press that blade down, the metal is so sharp it almost doesn't have that bite, simply starts to slide through as it pierces his skin. ]
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He shoots a quick glare at Wash for pointing that out, his hesitation that betrayed him, how he'd struggled in those precious seconds to tell the truth, thinking he might be setting another limit inadvertently. Wash hits on that too. His words, Pietro thinks, are supposed to be stating something important underneath their straightforwardness, but he doesn't grasp it, and he doesn't believe them either.]
No you would not.
[Pietro mutters that to himself under his breath. Wash wouldn't go that far, not if he needs to talk at length about limits and lines. The thought Pietro held previously with their last encounter, that Wash might be able to break him, it no longer holds. He can't. Push Pietro far, yes, make him uncomfortable in a way that might let him drift for a while, but break him? No. No, Wash doesn't stand a chance.
Wash's fingers slide over the the singing cuts on his hip, press down, and Pietro hisses. He shifts slightly against the wall as Wash brings the knife to his shoulder, closing in on him and taking up all the space and air until Pietro feels suffocated for a moment. His abdominal muscles tighten reflexively at the rumbling he can feel through his chest, but the words do nothing but irritate him. He waits until the blade has sunk in a few millimetres before he speaks, and he's sure it's nothing Wash wants to hear, pointed and frustrated.]
If I wanted to choose how deep, I would do it myself.
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but over their time together so far, wash is coming to understand that he won't get that. because pietro doesn't understand it. there are flashes of how he's trying to ( felix would never have answered him, would never have tried ), no matter how reluctant, but his pride is in the way of anything more. especially at that answer, the little mutter under his breath. wash has been pushing him, but pietro is pushing wash, too, and he makes a decision, there and then, and pietro might be able to see it. a flicker in his eyes. ]
You're going to have to.
[ this is one way to try and teach something. he can't draw those answers out of pietro because he simply doesn't have them, and so it becomes about finding those answers with him, as messy as that might be.
he knows by now that pietro is always impatient, seems to literally perceive things differently, lives his life at the speed that he can move in. wash doesn't change his own pace. he keeps pressing that blade in, sinking, millimeter by millimeter. it moves easily, too easily, like it's gliding through water more than flesh, and the only reason it's that slow is because of how well wash is able to control that pressure, that movement. precise, persistent, relentless, like a machine. he watches him. hungry. wanting. a trickle of red blooms around the wound. he'd chosen deliberately; shoulders aren't the safest place to get stabbed, and wash knows almost exactly the right depth to hit some nerve bundles that might be dangerous. the exact spot he'd chosen avoids that, but there's still some real risk if pietro doesn't make up his mind.
because he's not stopping. that becomes clear. there's a look in his eyes, not just that hunger and that predatory need, though that's still there, too -- but just a different kind of focus. a quiet fixation. watching pietro's every response, every twitch of his facial muscles, every instinctive tic and shift of his body in response to the pain. ]
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Pietro has so much time to think about it, processing it in the back of his mind while his most immediate thoughts and focus are on the knife at his shoulder, the incredibly slow push of the blade further into his flesh. He whines and writhes slightly once it gets a little deeper, through the layers of skin and pressing against muscle, the type of writhing where he's indecisive, wanting to both push himself forward from the wall and drive the knife in quickly, and where he wants to tear himself out from under it to get away from that incessant and continual pain, now beginning to pulse deeper as Wash pushes the knife through the first threads of muscle relentlessly, but excruciatingly gradually from Pietro's perspective. It changes from something that brings arousal and the heightened crackling nerve endings with shallower cuts to a more overwhelming sensation of broad, profound, and unbroken acute and vivid pain that sparks behind his eyes. Pietro twitches, his fingers shake almost violently, suddenly, and a keening noise that isn't quite pleasure builds up in volume.
It hurts. It hurts. The sort of pain Pietro hasn't felt since he'd died, was dying, felt it all over, as every bullet drove into his flesh so slowly and all at once at the same time, digging deeper and deeper like the knife. It will cut right through the entirety of his muscles, tendons, to the bone if he lets it. He can't breathe, but somehow keeps making that noise he can't quite hear himself over the rushing blood in his ears, panic building and his instinct to live flipping like a switch. Pietro grabs Wash's wrist quickly, forcefully, to tear that blade from his shoulder.]
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he doesn't wrench his wrist from pietro's grip, lets him hold onto it. he moves his other hand, instead, lifting it to the wound in his shoulder, immediately pressing down. it will hurt, but that hand is there mostly to keep pressure and stem the bleeding, red blooming under his hand. wash does immediately feel like he went further than he should have, that there are better ways to handle pietro's sheer arrogance and gall, that he'd let himself get goaded there, even slightly. and he really should know better than that. he should've known better the other night, too, in that back room.
but he'll think back on that later. now, as always, his focus is on pietro, honed in on him, his body, his racing heart. ]
Pietro. [ it's an attempt to steady him, whether or not pietro will take it. for that clear panic he can see in him -- that isn't just a reflex or fear of pain but that deep, driving instinct, a desperation of clawing to survival. wash is still here, solid, grounding, steady and in control. the knife never went deeper than wash wanted it to, for better and for worse. ]
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Too deep.
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pietro shifts, looking away, his voice whisper quiet. and that even now he can hear discomfort in his voice, like after this he still hates to have to admit it, steels a thought in his mind. this had to be messy. pietro doesn't have any goddamn idea where his own lines are.
slowly then, wash moves his hand. he doesn't wrench it out of pietro's grip, and pietro can keep holding onto him, coul even stop him if he put a mind to it. he turns the knife, tip now wet with blood, and in a familiar motion to before, turns the flat of it to tuck under pietro's chin and jaw. forcing his head up, surprisingly gentle but firm, guiding him back until wash can meet his eyes again. ]
Okay. [ his voice is still low, quiet. rumbling deep. his eyes watching him carefully, memorizing every shaking breath. ] Now we both know that.
[ he'll wait a little, there. he honestly expects that pietro might just bolt -- again, while the mess is necessary, he still believes there were better ways for him to do this, that he'd let pietro goad him too much. and so he waits, his other hand still pressed firm to his shoulder, stemming the bleeding. ]
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That rumbling voice strikes hard in his chest and Pietro hates it, hates that it's getting to him even now when he should be running away and avoiding Wash entirely from this point on, the way he avoids Tony Stark, just pretends he doesn't exist. He could do it. Wash's tone is indiscernible to Pietro, and he can only assume it's meant to be patronising, mocking him for not knowing what he wants, an "I told you so". Pietro shifts uncomfortably, not quite making eye contact, he's looking that way, but it's unfocused, and when he does get words out, they're hissed and far too venomous to cover the underlying pain in them.]
You have made your point.
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for now, though, pietro isn't running away, or trying to get away. still trapped there against the wall, shifting uncomfortably, looking back at him but not at him. he makes some quiet sound, his other hand finally lifting from his shoulder after one last squeeze, the bleeding mostly stemmed, his palm and his fingers wet with pietro's own blood as he lifts them to skirt along his jawline. his thumb brushes over his lower lip, bruised and bitten from their time in the alley, still an echo of the time before, and wash shifts his weight enough to ease that thigh up between his legs again, knee still pushed against the wall. the flat of the blade is still tucked under his chin, metal cool to the touch but slightly warmed from blood and body heat. ]
Do you want to go?
[ a direct question. there isn't any mocking in his tone, though wash knows pietro might hear it that way, anyway -- but while wash might prefer to think otherwise, he knows there's a bit of a challenge in it. wash's quiet concern here is genuine, but there's still that flicker of arousal, hunger, want in his eyes. he certainly wouldn't blame pietro from just wanting to leave, now. but he's here. ]
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No. Pietro's internal answer to that question is immediate. If he had wanted to leave, he would have. But he stayed, even if he doesn't know why entirely. Pietro snorts then, and blows out a huffy breath. He doesn't know what he's doing, and Wash knows that on some level, maybe even more than Pietro himself does.]
No.
[His tone holds less bite to it, only guarded and seemingly dragged from him unwillingly, if such a things were possible.]
... Put the knife away. For now.
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he twirls the knife again, just another motion, clearly more out of habit than anything else, but then he leans away to set it aside on some nearby countertop. not just that, too, but he pulls his shirt ( lightly stained with blood, now ) up and over his head, letting it fall behind him. no other knives hidden on his body, apparently -- except the lighter knife he's already shown pietro before, hidden somewhere near his belt from the movement pietro may have felt in the alley. wash will remove that, too, if pietro asks him to. another choice he will let him have.
once that's done, wash turns his full attention back to pietro. pressing a little closer, his hand now settled back against his waist, thumbing again over those thinner lines and cuts -- down to the loops of his pants, slowly following them to the front of his pants even as he lets that thigh slowly rock up against him. ]
For now.
[ he echoes, just agreeing, affirming. a promise, too in an indirect way: they can always return to this a different time, it isn't a test that pietro failed or some challenge he couldn't meet. if anything it's a clear enough sign that it's something wash would like to return to in spite of pietro's response to it, then. ]
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Wash crowds him again, thumb running roughly over those thin lines at his hip, the ones that barely cut, and still Pietro feels the tiny sting of them, shivering underneath that touch, cock twitching, arousal sparking through his abdomen. Pietro starts to grind again, slow and steady against Wash's thigh. For now. For now. Keeping one hand on the wall, Pietro brings the other to the front of Wash's pants, fingers picking at his belt.]
Fuck me. That is what I want.
[His tone is confident, a little demanding now that the offending weapon is gone form his sight. He swallows thickly, starts to say something else, stops, makes an irritated noise, and then blurts it out quickly.]
I like the other knife. Shallows cuts. That is fine.
[He manages not to let his voice waver, though his skin burns with the uncomfortable sort of heat that makes him feel flayed and exposed.]
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and arrogant, by the sound of that confidence and demand in his voice. but wash doesn't mind, a heat twisting through him at the words -- and it only turns hotter and brighter when pietro keeps talking. the distinct discomfort, trying to say something, not quite managing it, and then forcing it out. that's nice. that's good. pietro is starting to talk, even if only a little, and wash almost purrs in response, his eyes lidding, rubbing his thigh up against him even as pietro grinds steadily back. he starts to pull open the front of his pants, fingers deft and quick, and just as he's slipping his hand past the material to touch him, wash leans forward. close, until his chest is pressed against pietro's, until that rumble in his chest is not just heard but felt. ]
Good.
[ pietro's never responded particularly well to praise before. but it's still good, half-murmured against his mouth, and wash catches his mouth in another kiss. his free hand moves up to tangle through his hair, pulling sharply, the kiss immediately harsh and bruising, devouring, possessive. back down between them, wash's calloused fingers ease into place around the now-familiar heat of pietro's cock, squeezing over him nicely, a ripple of steady pressure running trough his fingers along the length of his shaft. ]
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