Work Text:
DOTH THEE BETHINK IT QUEER
THAT WE DOTH PROWL AT DARK?
A LEOPARD WITH A SILVER'D EYE
BETWIXT AN EVER RESTLESS BOAR?
DOTH THEE BETHINK IT FAIR
THAT WE DOTH PROWL AT DARK?
A GLINT AND GLEAM OF BLADES AND BRONZE
CONCEALED WITHIN SELENE'S DARK-HAIR
DOTH THEE BETHINK IT WISE
THAT WE DOTH PROWL AT DARK?A WHISPER ON A ZEPHYR WIND
AND LAUGHTER ON A PURPLED VINE
A KISS UPON YOUR TANN'ED SKIN
A BITE UPON YOUR SWOLLEN LIP
DOTH THEE BETHINK IT SWEET
THAT WE DOTH PROWL AT DARK?
The amphriskos had once decorated a wooden vanity; a small, golden vial that belied the wealth of the perfumed contents inside. It had reflected back that radiant face of Helios which smiled upon his sword; thus, Diomedes had seen it, and recalled it even after he had slain the master of the house and lashed his wife, and daughters, and young, unblooded sons with twine. The polished surface of the vial had not dulled in the journey between the burning city and the Achaen camps, and at present, it reflected his silver-eyed gaze with as much luster as it had afforded his sword when it first captured his interest.
“I have heard from your men more stories of impatience than patience,” the king of Argos remarks. His flanks quiver, but the consternation does not reach his clinquant eyes. “They must not know you like this.” Still, his imagination harks to hot-breath’ed life as though laughter-loving Aphrodite herself were pressed against his back.
Odysseus does not watch him to know how he shivers, near-moans, at just the vision of Odysseus amongst his men—a king of the hedonists, a king of the cowards (as decadent, leopard-pelted Paris Aleksandros glimpses into mind, white-armed Helen just beside him). But, the corner of his lip twitches, and he seems intentionally slow to stopper the amphriskos and set it aside.
His hands smell of perfume, but drip of liquid gold—honeyed, almost ambrosiac in nature and idea. He warms the oil between his palms; Diomedes watches it soak into his callouses and across his blunt, work-worn fingertips. For Odysseus is a man well-aged and well-worn; he wears his years in his face and his figure, and this is what makes it simple for Tydides to crawl before him and throw himself belly-up. Odysseus has wisdom as much as he does cunning, and with him, Diomedes feels a comfortable depth of experience, though a firm familiarity in consciousness.
“Of course not, Diomedakis.”
“Who is it they know, then?”
He who would suit for beautiful Helen, but sell her for her sister and the petitions’ end.
He who would throw his wife upon their marriage bed afore the feast came to its close.
Odysseus does not answer. But his hands smooth up the line of Diomedes’ strong thighs—his thumbs pressing firm and hard, working the muscles effortlessly in hands.
The king shudders beneath him, but still, he holds his gaze. There are nights when Diomedes comes to this tent still covered in the blood of the Trojans, and in those evenings, lust blows his eyes dark, and black, and his body seems alive with their spirits and their blood and their desire to live a vivacious little death beneath Odysseus’ capable hands. Odysseus, he has found, prefers nights more similar to the one at hand. Diomedes is most radiant cast like bronze and platework, rigid and tough and unwilling to submit more than he must.
He runs his knuckles against the underside of his companion’s cock.
“Ah-” Diomedes sighs, then chews the inside of his lip. He is not so debauched as to bite it swollen. Not yet. “Ah, is that all I have earned?”
“The king of kings divvies out the treasures.”
“And you would not pretend to be him?” Diomedes arched, a sigh seeping from his supple lips as Odysseus’ grip firmed and took his length in hold. He stroked him lazily, watching as Diomedes quivered and bucked—a picture of virile youth. Sweat beaded in the divot of his collar and began plastering his short, coiled hair to his forehead and his nape. Odysseus would suck it free of its salt-laden moisture later, if only to prove to them both that he had mastered him in a way few others ever would. “Who is it that slayed the Thracians, cunning Odysseus?” Diomedes’ thighs flex, just as they had whilst creeping crouched through the moonlit camp. Now, it is pleasure that cords them and not war-sweetened adrenaline (though perhaps, desire had also twined with that back then). “Do you not think that man deserves more than a hand on his cock?”
Odysseus smiled, but it was a grin like a wolf’s—a too-sharp teeth and little humor. “Tell me, Tydides: what does that man deserve.” The hand not preoccupied petting Diomedes’ length roves between his oiled thighs, dragging the honeyed perfume to the place that would unman him. The sound that leaves Diomedes throat is both stricken and pleased. A sound like a maidenhead broken and Odysseus has not done more than make a silent suggestion. “A war-bride? Or better, a night back home with his wife?” Penelope would unman him did she know how he mimed at love with this silver-eyed soldier; this Odysseus knew well. Still, it did not stop him from heeding Diomedes’ call. He wondered (and it was a fleeting thought, considered only because Diomedes’ did finally throw his head back and close his gleaming eyes) if his companion bore similar guilt for expecting continence of Aegiale. And quickly, he dismissed that he should even wonder. Diomedes did not partake in guilt.
Diomedes opened his mouth, a clever quip upon his tongue, and it was then that Odysseus pried him open with two, thick fingers.
Instead of wisdom, Diomedes keened out pleasure and pain, both. His breath came quick, rabbit-hearted; but his expression loosened with supreme contentedness. His thighs shook, and flexed, and would have threatened to close did Odysseus not pin them open with his thick frame. “You have little in common with Aegialaki,” Diomedes manages, a breathless laugh wheezing from his tongue. “Though perhaps you did not wish it so.” He scrapes his foot against Odysseus’ flank; the motion soothes what ire his words do threaten to rouse. “Were you a woman, hotheaded Odysseus, you would never have found yourself on these beaches.”
“Wishing you could take me to wife, Tydides?” He humors his compatriot, even as his fingers work Diomedes open—the oil making the slide smooth, debauched. “You wouldn’t miss this?” He slides his fingers out, tracing a wet mark against the crease of Diomedes’ thighs, and grinds his cock against the cleft of his ass. Together, they moan, relishing in the rough drag of their sex. “Or would you have me work you open on an olisbos even then?” He anticipates Diomedes’ buck, knows he flirts close to a humiliation Tydides would not bear (not even from him). So, he plants his hand on the middle of his chest and shoves him back down into the furs and linens—listens as the cot creaks beneath them. “Will you go home and beg it of your beautiful Aegialaki?”
Diomedes shakes his head, thrashing in Odysseus firm grip.
He need only push him harder, ride him harder. He thinks he can break him.
Turn metallic, harsh Diomedes into a pool of molten material ripe for the shaping.
“Will you tell her cock maddens you?” He reaches for himself, guides the head to Diomedes entrance, and thrusts in. It is a singular stroke—heavy and slow—that grinds into Diomedes. And the boy-king gasps soundlessly, his hands scrabbling for purchase amidst the sheets. He differs from Pēnelopsion—a hawk to her duck, more fierce but perhaps not more deadly than Odysseus’ own owlish nature. Clever all the same; the three of them. Odysseus could imagine stringing Diomedes out between he and she, and also knows it belongs best in fantasy. But how remarkable it would be. “That you gag and drool for it?”
Diomedes rolls his hips, finally managing to meet Odysseus’ slow thrusts. His smile, lopsided but no less sharp, glints: “You put my mouth to work only in your dreams.” His back arches from the bedding, and Odysseus chokes on his spit watching as each muscle ripples and stretches with the motion. The hand anchored on the back of his thigh slides up to his waist. His thumb digs into the segment of his abs. “And you are the one who drools—ever a dog.”
“You make for a beautiful bitch,” Odysseus snipes, ever-mean.
Diomedes reels back his hand, and Odysseus sees it coming, but doesn’t stop him. The backhand connects hard enough that he gasps, stars in his vision, and moans a shuddering noise of abject pleasure against Diomedes’ sternum. “Caution, now, Odysseus. Take not for granted that which is freely given.”
“As though I could not take it.”
He is slapped again; this time, his hips jerk deeper into Diomedes searing heat. Both of them sigh, moan, and then, Diomedes flips their positions. His weight is heavy on Odysseus’ lap. His visage even more unignorable.
The Argive has always been a ribbon of muscle—lean and ever-starved, but corded with muscle and grace. Atop Odysseus, his hair plastered to his forehead and nape, the rush of blood and desire deepening the color on his shoulders and cheeks, and with those silvered eyes staring down… he’s striking. “I think I’ve had enough of your goading,” Diomedes remarks, lifting himself up and dropping back down with a wanton moan. “As though you’d not turn belly up for your own wife.” He braces himself with a hand on one of Odysseus’ thick thighs. His blunted nails scrape the tanned skin. “You would weep were I to indulge your fantasy and truly play the woman.”
“Would I?”
“Without a doubt,” Diomedes murmurs, slitted eyes falling shut with pleasure. He hums, satisfied with the grind of their hips, with the wanton expression beginning to advance over Odysseus. “Such is the nature of the lovelorn.”
Odysseus decides that perhaps he has sparked to light a dangerous fire, what with the twinge of homesickness in his chest. “I thought we debated making a woman of me?”
“That was the question,” Diomedes agrees. “You misguided it; as you are ought to do, clever Odysseus.” He swivels in Odysseus’ lap. “A foolish conversation, for we are men, and neither do we wish otherwise. Unless you would pray to be like a reverse Iphis?”
“No, I am pleased with my manliness.”
“Of course, then it is as I said: a foolish dialogue.”
“You complain that I talk too much.”
“I would not be talking if you put any effort into fucking me,” Diomedes quips, sharp and quick.
Odysseus laughs, the sound catching in the back of his throat, and braces his feet. When Diomedes drops back down, he thrusts to meet him. And Diomedes sings his pleasure—the moan that floats from him a soft, wanting thing. Together, they find a rhythm, both of them chasing a release now that the foreplay (goading) is over. Finally, Odysseus returns his hand to Diomedes’ heavy cock. He wraps his calloused fingers around the base and offers him a tantalizing stroke from root to tip, pausing to swirl his thumb about the weeping head, to dig his nail into the slit.
For Diomedes, it is enough. His gaze snaps to Odysseus’ hand on his cock, then, rolls back into his head. He shakes as he comes, spilling his seed across Odysseus knuckles and onto his wooly stomach. Not a sound escapes him as his body quivers; he rides his release strung as tightly as a bow. Then, when the pleasure ekes from him, he crumples.
It’s the weight of him pressing Odysseus down into the bedding; the pulse of him around Odysseus’ hard cock; the hot wash of his breath against Odysseus’ throat that does him in. Within a few more thrusts, he groans out his own release.
For a moment, the tent is quiet.
Then, Diomedes pushes off of him.
Odysseus lets his eyes slip closed.
Diomedes watches him, gaze critical but knowing. He wipes himself clean, then wraps his perizoma back around his hips. All the while, Odysseus is silent apart from the quiet puff of his breath. “Your men deride your covert operations,” he says finally. “You ought have their tongues before their derision becomes a poison on your name.”
“Of course, Tydides. And what will you have done with your men? Will you split open their skulls and eat that which thought such rancorous things?”
Diomedes’ lip twitches.
He grins in the next moment.
“Until the next time, Odysseus.” He sweeps the golden amphriskos from the place Odysseus had discarded it. It belongs in his tent, amongst his treasures. Though, perhaps Odysseus belonged there too.