Free Web NovelChapter 34: The Game Goes Both Ways
ORION’S POV
Orion can say for sure that he’s only ever seen Adrien cry once. Not for lack of trying on his part to induce such emotions, but because Adrien had chosen not to give him the benefit of ever seeing his tears.
His finger brushes the underside of Adrien’s eye and comes away wet. With tears. His rage dials down to a minimum immediately.
"You’re crying...?"
He stares at the man crying in his grip and then glances at his wet finger with morbid fascination. Adrien is crying in his hands.
Quietly, he opens his mouth and places his finger on his tongue. It should taste like normal tears, salty and wet, but maybe because it’s Adrien’s, it tastes exquisite.
Orion genuinely considers slapping him to see if he could get more of this. But then he realizes that he doesn’t have to, because Adrien is indeed still crying.
He watches with wonder, as his face scrunches up with each heaving breath, and the tears— the glorious tears— drip down his face.
"Why are you crying?" He flicks off another tear and sucks lightly on his finger. Then repeats the action again.
The only response he gets is a shuddering breath.
"Is this a breakdown? Are you breaking down on me?" He asks calmly, tapping on Adrien’s cheek to make him open his eyes.
It isn’t until Adrien flinches from his tapping fingers that he realizes that something might be wrong. His gaze turns to his hand on his wrist, holding him above the ground.
He hadn’t even realized he was doing that. Why is Adrien so light?
He releases him and watches him cradle his hand to his chest, eyes still closed. He watches him for two minutes straight, doing nothing to ease the tension or stop his tears.
Then, Orion sighs.
He sits back down in his chair, pulling Adrien down with him. He ignores the way Adrien trembles at his touch and cradles him on his lap like a child.
"You can open your eyes, Adrien. There are many things I want to be to you, but your father isn’t one of them, believe me." He says coldly as he plays with the strands of hair at the top of Adrien’s head.
He wants to play with him and break him. He wants to smile with him, then kill him, but what he doesn’t want is to be someone that Adrien can compare with others in his life.
For some strange reason, Orion wants to be the only unique entity in Adrien’s mind. In his world. He could choose to hurt him physically, but he’s not going to do that, because that would place him in comparison with Adrien’s father.
Orion must simply be just Orion in Adrien’s head.
"J-Just do what you w-want," Adrien responds shakily.
His eyes are open now, but his gaze is fixed on his hands. He’s still trembling, but he’s at least not choosing to stay there and take it.
"Don’t I always do what I want?" He feels a sharp spike of irritation when he sees the bluish-purple bruise already forming on Adrien’s wrist.
He picks it up gently, ignoring the way Adrien seems to hold his breath at his touch. Looking at it, he can tell that he really almost snapped it.
That is unforgivable. His duckling is not something that should be lashed out in a state of anger. That is not why he’s keeping Adrien with him.
"Does it hurt?"
He gets no answer for that question, except for Adrien’s body tensing subtly. At least he’s not crying anymore.
Now, Orion is confused. He clearly likes it when Adrien cries, and he even loves the taste of those tears, so why is he feeling relieved that Adrien isn’t crying anymore?
"You’ve done that to a lot of people before, haven’t you?" He asks as he turns Adrien’s abused wrist over in his hand.
"What are you talking about?" The stammer is gone, now he just sounds exhausted.
"Sexual exchanges." Just saying the words kickstarts the itch.
"What does that have to do with you?" How he manages to sound snide while being visibly exhausted, Orion doesn’t know.
"You’ve already made it clear that you don’t want that." He adds, wriggling his injured wrist to prove his point.
"Who says I don’t?" He doesn’t know, does he?
He thinks it might not be bad to have Adrien’s mouth on his dick, it might be pleasurable even. It did feel pleasurable at first until he...lost it.
"If you want something, Orion Vassilis, then take it." He says, voice gruff with tired annoyance. "I’m tired, so I’m not going to play your games and keep getting hurt because of it."
"Since you don’t want me to be willing, then force your dick down my throat or up my ass if that is what does it for you."
What Orion wants from Adrien is banter and entertainment. A relationship so poisonous, it slowly kills both sides. Though, there has been some line-crossing at some points in their past, but they’ve both made a subconscious agreement not to speak about it.
Or Adrien’s chosen not to speak about it and Orion decided to go along with it.
But now, hearing and realizing that there might be other options makes him curious. He did enjoy having Adrien’s mouth close to his dick, what would it be like if more happened?
What would bending Adrien over be like?
"Leave the rapist characterization for Niko." His thoughts unnerve him so much, he chooses to deflect instead. "I have much more interesting things to do with my time than pound a bloody hole."
He’ll leave those empty-brained activities for fools without any self-control.
"Then what the fuck do you want?" Adrien lifts his head off his chest and gazes up at him with dark, tired eyes.
"What do I have to do for you to keep my people safe? I’ve offered you what I have, Orion. If you’re not going to take what you already can, then there’s nothing I can do, can I?"
"Am I not one of your people too?" He asks, instead of answering Adrien’s question. "I’ve known you longer than you’ve known these people. Do I not qualify to be one of your people too?"
"They’re people that care about me, Orion, and you’re not one of them." He responds, head drooping with the weight of his exhaustion.
"Who says I don’t care about you?" The taste of his tears on Orion’s tongue is still quite vivid to him.
Somehow, he’s not really craving it again.
"You care about me as much as you care about your nails." Adrien gestures weakly at his well-kept nails. "You keep them cut bluntly because they’ll affect the way you handle your weapons otherwise."
"If I bore you too much, you’ll cut me down too."
Normally, he’d applaud his duckling for being as self-aware as possible, but now he doesn’t feel that Adrien is completely right.
There’s something wrong with his statement.
"Who knows?" He hums. "I might just end up surprising you."
"By what? Putting a bullet through my skull if I act out?"
He chuckled tiredly. "You like it when I act out and hate it when I do. You try to paint this as a relationship where I have to depend on you to survive, but tell me, Orion..."
"What is the use of depending on you if you are more dangerous to me than every single person who wants to hurt me?" freewebnoveℓ.com
Orion doesn’t move.
"Wouldn’t it be better if I just died so I don’t have to ever worry about being hurt by the next person?"
There are many things Orion wants to say. Things that he’s not exactly sure how to articulate, because the way he speaks is different from the way Adrien is used to hearing others speak.
So, he just says the next best thing. ƒree𝑤ebnσvel.com
"If you die, I’ll kill every last person who cares about you. So, don’t do anything too stupid."
He feels, rather than sees Adrien stiffen against him. Then he lets out a shuddering breath and pulls himself off Orion, rising to his feet.
"You know, it’s a good thing that you’ll never change. It’s good that you’ll never try to be even the slightest bit good to me, do you want to know why?"
"Why?" Orion asks, biting the bullet.
"Because it makes it easier for me to hate you," Adrien whispers, looking right at him with eyes filled with hatred. "It makes it easier for me to regret none of my actions. In fact, I’m starting to appreciate them more and more."
"And so do I," he smoothly counters. He rises to his feet, looking down on Adrien with an intensity that would make even the largest man feel small.
"Though, I now regret not taking enough time to teach your best friend about all the things I appreciate about you."
They glare at each other, one gaze burning with hate, and the other with something not easy to name, and Orion’s smile widens even further.
"You’d better sheathe your claws puppy, before I decide to do something about it."
