[The answer that Set gives him is as good as any Liem could have hoped to receive from him. Certainly it is more permissive than one he might ordinarily have expected for the borderline-impertinent remark he’d offered — perhaps especially given the war god’s temper. We will work on it.
Good. Liem isn’t afraid of work.
Set’s follow-up makes him more uneasy, for all that he’s already agreed to the other half of this bargain. Much as he wishes that drinking the man’s blood could be entirely transactional, there has always been an inherent vulnerability for him in this kind of intimacy, more so than for others. Anticipation skitters in his chest, uncomfortably eager. His mouth feels very dry.]
Very well. Since it is your wish.
[His eyes flick over Set, from his face and down, then back again, restless and feverishly intent. There is really nowhere safe to look, considering the desert god’s manner of dress. He is indecent with exposed skin coyly hiding lush veins, and all of it in inviting places. How did he let this man into his kitchen looking like this? If any of his neighbours saw him receive his guest, they must have formed interesting notions about the purpose of his visit.
Because it is easiest, and because it does not require him to drink with his face in Set’s full view, he leans forward until his neatly-garbed chest brushes the god’s, tilting his mouth with a soft breath toward the pulse at the side of his throat. Cool fingertips alight on his bare waist like perching birds.
Set’s heartbeat drums loud against his ears; the heat of his skin burns beneath his hand. It scorches his lips, too, when he brushes them tentatively over his pulse. Too hot; too alive. He smells like sun-baked desert, but he feels like flesh and blood: too good to resist.
So Liem presses his teeth to Set’s throat, sharp points pricking pale flesh — and he doesn’t resist at all.]
no subject
Good. Liem isn’t afraid of work.
Set’s follow-up makes him more uneasy, for all that he’s already agreed to the other half of this bargain. Much as he wishes that drinking the man’s blood could be entirely transactional, there has always been an inherent vulnerability for him in this kind of intimacy, more so than for others. Anticipation skitters in his chest, uncomfortably eager. His mouth feels very dry.]
Very well. Since it is your wish.
[His eyes flick over Set, from his face and down, then back again, restless and feverishly intent. There is really nowhere safe to look, considering the desert god’s manner of dress. He is indecent with exposed skin coyly hiding lush veins, and all of it in inviting places. How did he let this man into his kitchen looking like this? If any of his neighbours saw him receive his guest, they must have formed interesting notions about the purpose of his visit.
Because it is easiest, and because it does not require him to drink with his face in Set’s full view, he leans forward until his neatly-garbed chest brushes the god’s, tilting his mouth with a soft breath toward the pulse at the side of his throat. Cool fingertips alight on his bare waist like perching birds.
Set’s heartbeat drums loud against his ears; the heat of his skin burns beneath his hand. It scorches his lips, too, when he brushes them tentatively over his pulse. Too hot; too alive. He smells like sun-baked desert, but he feels like flesh and blood: too good to resist.
So Liem presses his teeth to Set’s throat, sharp points pricking pale flesh — and he doesn’t resist at all.]