Work Text:
Archer may be golden-haired and golden-edged but his tongue is all silver--- silver tongued glib that pools out slippery words which goad and mock and wrap around his mind like a strangling vine. The only way to break free is to lash back and that is what Kirei does. When the red haze recedes, he is sprawled above with his hands around Archer’s neck, glorious heat beneath his palms and a jumping pulse that makes the body beneath his feel almost mortal. Archer is laughing; short, delighted choking gasps and this reaction causes Kirei to falter. Long enough for a knee to his midsection that sends him to the cold floor and now Archer is the one looming above him like the vengeful King he is, traitorous snake eyes sparking ill will and bad luck that Tokiomi had chosen not to heed.
Kirei wonders whether they had looked like this before Archer had sent his previous Master to his death. They’re cold and hard from this angle, almost like rubies, and Kirei feels the irrepressible urge to rip them out just to make sure that they’re not. But his hand is trapped beneath Archer’s, flexing like a pinned butterfly while Archer leans forward.
“Red looks good on you,” he hisses, and it is only then that Kirei realises he is bleeding when Archer swipes a hand roughly down the side of his face and draws back with blood on his fingertips. “Such an interesting colour, yes? Fury and lust and sssiiin,” Archer curls the last word around his tongue, as if savouring it, before doing the same to his fingers. He makes a show of licking it off, a slow and easy glide of tongue against skin, the red smearing into the corners of his lips.
Kirei feels the fingers around his wrist relax by the tiniest bit and he surges up, crashing his head against Archer’s, an unrefined move that still manages to send the other flying back. When Archer springs back up, a lithe motion reminiscent of a cobra striking, Kirei is already moving in to land a blow.
They’re circling each other now, each trying to inflict as much hurt as possible without edging over the line into outright murder. They are both too invaluable to each other at this point in time for that, no matter how much Kirei yearns to sink his hands into flesh and see whether Archer’s blood is painted the same colour as his eyes. Kirei snatches up a long wooden splinter, shooting it out with a lethal precision at Archer’s throat. It is blocked by a silver-scrolled plate, fine and no doubt costly. It ends up shattering into the wall beside his head when Archer flicks it out and Kirei tilts his head to avoid it.
They’re parrying and feinting, bruises and cuts blooming in between, crashing into wood and stone and fabric. His back is against the wall now, securely pressed against it by Archer whose slighter body has always belied the sort of strength that could kill in the blink of an eye. Kirei tenses, waits for the inevitable jolt of pain while he searches for an opening. Neither comes to pass.
The sharp tang of copper floods his mouth when something smashes against it. There is the feel of a tongue slipping inside, stabbing forcefully to lay claim to its wet heat, the scrape of teeth. When it is over, Kirei swipes a sleeve across his mouth, his own lips now blood-stained like Archer’s.
“I did say red was a good look on you,” Archer purrs.
“Stop it,” he says.
“Is that a command?”
Kirei lurches forward, intent on getting Archer to stop, this new game that he is playing which ignites a low curling heat in his stomach. Archer does not resist though, body entirely slack so that the momentum results in the both of them sprawling onto the floor. Archer looks entirely far too comfortable beneath him, eyes hooded with pleasure and a smirk gracing his face.
“You want to rip and tear and hurt don’t you,” Archer continues. “Go ahead. There’s no need to deny yourself the pleasure. I allow you to.”
I allow you to.
The indulgent words of a King secure in his power to a lowly groveling subject.
Something inside Kirei snaps.
“You allow me to?” he says, low and dark, pressing in. Archer’s legs have fallen open and Kirei can feel the unmistakable hardness in between. “With the amount of seals I have, I can command you to do anything I want whether you would allow me to or not.” The command seals on his arm flare as if in response to his words.
“I could have you open yourself up willingly, submit you to every degradation you could think of, and not only would you love it but you would beg for it. Have you aching and desperate without any sort of relief for days on end. Have you spreading your legs for anyone I damn well wish to.”
The filth pours from his mouth with an ease that surprises him. He has learnt long ago to keep his responses to Archer short and blunt if he did not want them to be twisted into a weapon against him. But Kirei knows that Archer had always been able to urge that side of him, the dark one that lurked at the edges and found sadness not in his own father's dying breath, but that he was not the cause for it.
“The flesh is entirely too willing,” Archer drawls, shifting a knee against his groin and Kirei finds that he is just as hard as well, “but the mouth speaks too much. Go on then. Fuck me.”
There is that tone again, the one that makes him feel like a dog being given scraps by its master (good boy, good boy, go on then) and the need to hurt overwhelms. Archer doesn’t make it easy because Kirei knows that Archer knows that nothing else makes his own blood sing like – well --- a little bit of blood and pain.
Red spurts out from his nose to colour his mouth from the sharp bracelet that had smashed into it, a retaliating strike from him swathes another layer of blue-black to a previous bruise. They’re too close to inflict any sort of lethal damage and most of his attention is channelled towards trying to keep a grip on Archer, to pin him down as he writhes like a snake.
All the while, Archer is murmuring a steady stream of scorn and derision as they struggle, lowly mongrel plebeian is this how you would entertain. It gets too much, the words filling his head along with the cloying scent of blood and the stifling heat that presses in. Before he knows it, the smooth familiar handle of his throwing knife is in his palms, fingers curving around it like a long-lost lover. He has restrained himself from using it so far, knowing that bringing anything sharp near the King of Heroes would be a terrible idea.
Now, mid-turn, he slams it down with a vengeance. The transition of Archer’s voice from its languorous, mocking pace to a guttural scream sends his hips grinding forward, a moan swelling involuntarily from his throat. Archer’s hand twitches helplessly beneath the point of his knife and Kirei’s seals glow, the command to prevent Archer from slaughtering him for this transgress flickering at the back of his mind.
The only move that Archer makes is to wrap his legs around his waist like a vice.
“Here. Do it do it do it,” Archer says almost gleefully, flexing his other hand invitingly.
“Far be it from me to deny the King of Heroes what he wants,” Kirei answers before pinning the other hand beneath steel as well.
Archer is laughing in between his wheezes and groans, as if nothing else has ever amused him more.
“Now, if you would-- kindly crucify me with your---“
Kirei does not let him finish his sentence. Their clothes are in no better state than they are and it is an all-too-easy task to tear-shove the snakeskin pants down to thrust in. The blinding, wet heat that encases him nearly has his eyes rolling back. Kirei is driving into Archer with such vicious ferocity then that the snap of his hips actually slides Archer an inch or two upwards despite the knives.
It is blood and sweat and madness, the sound of their ragged breaths harsh in the room as Kirei discovers that in this, this act that affords the same sort of pleasure from Emperor to serf, even the King of Heroes cannot stop himself from shuddering and gasping.
White-hot pleasure maps itself through his veins, his thrusts rough and uneven, not allowing Archer any chance to adjust. They’re rutting really, no better than animals in heat within a tableau of destruction that is painted an intoxicating mixture of crimson, spilled wine and grunting, carnal sin.
In the end, what tips Kirei over isn’t the helpless clenching around him, nor the sounds wrung out from Archer’s throat; no, it is the look on Archer’s face when he feels the Servant’s pleasure drawing near and immediately sneaks a hand down to curtail it.
Archer’s eyes fly open then, molten rage that also manages to encompass everything from incredulity to disgust.
“To whom would you lower yourself for,” he murmurs, “to whom would you debase yourself to.”
The thing that gets him light-headed, that still provokes an interested twitch from his cock despite having just came, is the fact that Archer is so far gone that he doesn’t do anything. Oh, he growls and curses mightily, but the both of them knew that if he truly wanted to, it would be fully within his power to put an end to this.
Instead, Archer lies there silently once he has run out of breath, twitching and unfulfilled and too damned proud to say anything about it. It only takes a tiny squeeze from where his hand is wrapped around the base of Archer’s cock for Kirei to get what he wants.
“You,” Archer snarls. “To you, you goddamned hell-begotten whore of a priest.”
Kirei releases his hold and savours the moment when Archer comes undone in a very loud and messy way.
He had talked to Archer once, about the meaning of joy and pleasure and his distinct lack of it.
Here and now, with Archer’s body collapsed beneath him amidst the wreckage of the room, Kirei thinks that he might very well have found something close to it.