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This, Haumeric thinks as Mercy shifts in closer, close enough for one of her bare thighs to press against his own thankfully-clothed thighs, was a terrible idea. He closes his eyes and takes a deep breath to ground himself, but quickly finds that doing so does nothing at all to help, and instead only draws the scent of her perfume deep into his lungs and further clouds his mind in the process. He keeps his eyes closed, however, desperately thinking that perhaps he'll wake up any moment to find that this is simply another dream much like the ones he's been having near-nightly since she had first offered him her hand in greeting upon arriving from Ul’dah. Several agonizing moments pass and nothing changes; the warmth of her body beside his on the sofa does not dissipate. Halone help him, he pleads, because he can feel the swell of her breasts against his side as she leans against him, the softness and warmth enough even through his robes to cause an unpleasantly pleasant stirring low in his gut.
Questions, Mercy had said with a beaming smile as she looped their arms together and led him to the study, so as to get to know each other better, what with her being so new to Ishgard and him being left behind at the free company estate belonging to the Warriors of Light while the rest of the former Heavens’ Ward was assigned to the Diadem (so as to lessen the risk involved by all twelve of them being in the same place at once, or at least that was the logic presented to them). That had been almost a bell ago now, and it is still just the two of them in this study, undisturbed and gravitating ever closer and closer towards each other and with what little remains of his sanity swiftly fraying at the edges.
“I believe the next round is yours,” she says with a coquettish little laugh, drawing him back to the present, and he opens his eyes and looks downwards to find her already looking up at him, biting her bottom lip as their eyes lock. Momentarily, that is, as he finds himself unable to keep his gaze from dipping downwards. He's scarcely able to recall what she had asked him, what he had answered and what she had said in turn, just that it was something innocuous, about his favorite novel or food or color or some such thing that he shouldn't have let himself be this distracted from.
Mercy, he silently pleads, though even he isn't sure if it's for her or from her, and has his question begin to form in his head. Finally, Haumeric tears his gaze away from that glossy bottom lip and those little white teeth, returning his gaze to hers as he clears his throat and manages, “Would it be untoward to ask about your name?”
“Mm, I don't blame you for being curious. It's rather an uncommon name for a moonie, after all. But! My mother named me Mercy because she wanted me to be a good girl,” Mercy says, voice turning soft and breathy at the end as she leans in to nip at his ear. One of her sharp little teeth catches him, pulling an embarrassing sound from deep in his throat, and just when he thinks he may actually die, her little manicured hand slides from his thigh to rest atop the bulge embarrassingly prominent even through his robes.
“My turn,” she says, little more than a sinful whisper, but she's close enough that he can hear and feel every word as she continues, “What about you? Are you a good boy?”
Haumeric blinks, unable to believe his ears, and his inhale feels like a punch in his gut as her words truly sink in. He had once thought of himself as a good man, or at least had tried to be one, but that was before the Archbishop had gotten into his head and made him violate all of his once-inviolable principles. Although…he may not have done the same share of flirting that Ser Adelphel had, but he doubts that Mercy’s question is one of morals, not truly. Realizing that he's been silent for a moment too long, he finally stammers out, cheeks and ears burning hot, “I-I fear I don't know.”
“Do you want to be one? For me?” Mercy asks as she pulls back, undoing all the little ties and buttons holding his robe shut. He could resist, take her little hands in his much bigger ones and push her away, right his clothes, flee the study, and leave her here, but he doesn't. Instead, he sits there and lets her, even as his robes gape open and her nimble hands dip lower. He watches, somehow both detached from himself and torturously present, as she undoes the ties of his trousers and tugs down the front of his smallclothes so that his hidden arousal is no longer hidden. She glances back up at him, dark brows raised under the lighter fringe of her hair, and he gives her a weak nod as he chokes out, “Yes.”
She leans back in and up, pressing a sticky kiss to his cheeks, and then takes one of his hands, limp and clammy, in both of hers and guides it to wrap around his—
Fury help him, he can't even—
“Really? Why don't you show me by letting me know how you like it, then?” Mercy asks, shifting to rest her chin atop his shoulder, her face close enough to him that he can feel the tickle of her grey-and-cream curls against his bare neck and every warm exhale against his overheated skin. He holds himself in hand, half-hearted and loose in steep contrast to the raging hardness in his grasp. If it weren't for her hand around his, he’s certain he'd slip away from this part of himself completely.
“I don’t, I mean, I have never,” he manages to sputter, earning the sight of her lips turning into a round pink O, sharp teeth glinting behind the softness. He isn't completely unfamiliar with pleasure, of course, as the times he has awoken from delirious dreams to the mortification of finding he had spilled into his smallclothes can attest, but he has never consciously taken the next step and put hand to flesh. He deflates (or at least most of him does) as he looks away in shame and continues, quickly, “This is all rather new for me.”
“Aw, how cute,” Mercy says with another girlish giggle, one of her hands trailing up to circle around his tip, catching and spreading the liquid across his overheated flesh. He wants to look back at her, see what expression lies on her devious little face, but he doesn't dare.
“It’s sinful, to give in to the wants of the flesh,” he insists, weakly, biting back a whine and watching every movement of her finger, but it sounds unconvincing even to his own ears. True, there had been no outright commandments against self-pleasure in the Enchiridion, but even so, it had been discouraged by the clergy as promoting weak wills and weaker morals. Her hand pulls away from him and he finally turns his head to look at her. He watches, hardly daring to breathe, as she brings her finger up to her mouth and licks it clean with her little pink tongue, before returning her hand to rest around his own with its twin as she replies, “Don't you think you deserve to sin, even once? You've been through so much, dear Ser Haumeric.”
He was never a knight, not truly in the way Zephirin was and is, but hearing her address him as such is enough to make what little remains of his resolve crumble. There is a beautiful girl beside him whose hands are soft around his and who wants to see him like this, the first time he's ever let anyone, and so he lets her arrange his hand so that his grip around himself is tighter, and does not even protest as she begins to guide his fist up and down his—
His—
His cock, he finally concedes, tipping his head back with an audible thunk against the wall. He earns a dull ache in his skull for his effort, but can't bring himself to care, not with the way the pain is swiftly eclipsed by the pleasure growing low within him. She guides him through the motions, keeping his grip tight and his strokes slow. His cock jerks in their hold, the slide made slick by the leak of his excitement, but thankfully for the sake of his life, she does not make to taste it again. His free hand gropes and grasps the sofa’s cushion so hard he fears tearing it, but he doesn't know what else to do with himself. He wants to touch her but he doesn't know how, and absurdly feels like it would be untoward to grope at her thighs or breasts besides, in spite of their present circumstances.
“If you get any on my clothes I shall be very disappointed with you, Ser Haumeric,” Mercy whispers into his ear before chasing her words with another nip. The sternness of her voice makes his heart skip, but then her words sink in and he calms. At this point, his ear is certain to be bruised, he notes morosely to himself, but he can't find it in himself to be mad at her, especially not with the way her fingers slip past his hand to fondle his testicles. She toys with him in time with their hands on his cock, but the sensations blur together and all he can focus on is how much it feels like he's been set alight and how much he doesn't want her to stop.
She must recognize the signs sooner than he does, because after a moment her hand trails back the length of his cock, passing over her other hand and his own, before coming to form a protective shield over his tip. He can feel her lips against the skin just underneath his ear and then lower, leaving a torturous trail of kisses down the length of his neck. One of her kisses turns sharp, teeth scraping against his pulse, and everything goes hot and white.
Haumeric spills into her hand with a pitiful cry of her name, hips jerking upwards as pleasure unlike any he has ever let himself experience courses through him. She nuzzles into his neck as he gasps for air, giving him an apologetic-yet-pleased little lick that makes his spent cock jerk once more. Some part of him despairs at the order of things, wishing that she had kissed him properly, shiny pink lips to his own chapped ones, but if this much was a step too far then that's surely one further.
“Go on, Ser Haumeric. Be good and clean me up,” Mercy says, bringing her sin-stained hand up towards his face. Haumeric’s vision blurs and then refocuses as his cheeks burn somehow impossibly hotter. He looks down at her, at the smile on her pink lips and the mischief in her pale yellow eyes, and then to the white beads and streaks painted across her impatient fingers. His own lips part and Halone have her, there's nothing for it but for him to comply.