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When Greg hugs Tom is isn’t like hugging the Roys. The shudder they emit and their awkward reciprocation. Tom accepts the embrace like he’s been starved of it because he has been. The Roys don’t even know what hunger is. Being in their inner circle has Incased Tom in ice, and every time Greg touches him it defrosts parts of him he forgot existed. And then burns him. Tom grips Greg under his arm, running his fingers along the seam of his starched shirt.
God, he’s so fucking weak. He can’t help but be putty in Greg’s stupidly cruel hands. He can’t help but fend off the growing disgust he feels towards himself. He wants to want to say no.
Instead, he nuzzles into the crook of Greg’s long neck like a clingy child. He feels like one. Greg’s hands tighten around his waist and it is truly the most violent act thrust upon him. He breathes in Greg’s scent: cheap cologne—Tom needs to take him shopping—mixed with sweat that came from either the vast amount of alcohol they both consumed or just from Greg’s constant state of anxiety.
”Hey, man, are you okay?”
”Hard to say, Greg,” he whispers as his lips brush against his neck slightly, sticking to his skin on some syllables due to their wetness. Greg doesn’t even flinch. It’s disgustingly domestic. Too familiar.
”Yeah, I, um, I get that. If you do wanna say—if you can say, that is—if you wanna talk about it I’m all ears.” Greg pulls away from the hug and holds Tom by his shoulders. At an arm’s length. He’s a little hunched over to be on level with Tom, and he’s got that concerned look on his face that makes him feel small. Tom feels the sick and rabid urge to assert himself.
But Greg has already sunk his fangs into Tom’s veins and his venom has already made its way through his bloodstream. All the fight he has left would not be dissimilar to the twitching leg of a rodent. He knows he’s at Greg’s disposal.
Tom is giving off such a volatile energy that Greg lifts his hand to see if he’s shaking. Greg presents Tom’s hand like a grand scientific discovery: if this, then that. Tom gulps and unravels himself from Greg’s grasp only to grab his hand in return. His unrestrained, frenzied eyes stare up to his friend’s shining ones without wavering. His fingers dance only slightly frantically to Greg’s middle in search of the silver ring he usually wears there when he decides to be fashionable. He takes hold of it and slides it off slowly, if only so that Greg can feel his skin. The warmth of it. The want radiating off of him.
Greg quickly raises his other hand in an attempt to cup Tom’s face, but Tom swiftly intervenes by catching it before he can even physically sense it’s presence. Tom guides Greg’s hand to his mouth slowly, manipulating his fingers along the way to a more curious position. It’s Greg that actually touches his lips. His fingers softly pressing and dragging up and down like shards of thin glass. Dainty and delicate all while leaving little lines of scarlet. Once he reached Tom’s chin, he lets his hand fall to his side.
Tom won’t beg. He won’t beg this man to decapitate him and give him everything he wants on a silver charger. He won’t voice his desire for something he doesn’t deserve. He will just stew in his craving that cannot be sated.
But he will pull his own lip between his teeth and peek from underneath his damp eyelashes. He is wounded and needs Greg to pull out the dagger so he can finally bleed out.
Greg seems dazed as he leans down. What a gentleman. Tom watches his pathetic, sad, hopeful eyes close. He seems to take in a nervous breath before he presses lips tenderly against Tom’s. Tom’s vision goes for a moment and he’s unsure if it was just him blinking or if he’s been standing like that for seconds because when he comes back he just sees Greg’s smug expression. Of course, laced with uncertainty.
At the sight of Tom’s flustered reaction at a simple peck on the lips, Greg feels emboldened. He drags his pointer finger from the top of Tom’s lips to his Adam’s apple, eliciting a shaky gasp through parted lips.
Tom feels like he’s boiling his own organs in his blood from his seething rage. He refuses to call it anything but anger. Angry that he wants this. Angry that Greg wants him. Angry that he feels more human and less chum bucket when he’s with Greg.
His brow furrows as he attacks Greg’s dumbly pretty face. He feels like he’s in crashing into Greg’s orbit. Tom buries his hands in Greg’s silky hair made stiff by his gel. He wants to swallow Greg whole, make sure he cannot escape and that this secret will die in this room. That Greg can be absorbed through his stomach and nourish him like a vitamin supplement. That Greg can provide him the piece of the puzzle that he knows he won’t find anywhere else. That Greg can be apart of Tom fundamentally, but unbeknownst to everyone.
He imagines his hands wrapped around Greg’s neck, wringing all the life out of his already pale complexion. He wants the standard Roy cruelty to possess him and allow him to be everything he’s meant to be.
In his vision, Tom is strangling him on the floor while he shoves his tongue down his throat. The acrid scent of cold sweat hitting his nostrils and spurring him further into viscousness like a shark to blood in water.
It’s so fucking depraved, but somehow his desire feels more revolting. He’s tried so hard to kill his past self only for it to be reincarnated. Variation on a theme. He feels the human instinct to eliminate a doppelgänger.
Tom’s thought process is cut short when Greg presses a firm hand against his chest. It feels so reminiscent of the ball and he feels the same rage bubble in him from Greg’s lack of subservience to his abuse.
He expects to let his emotions take over, to start hitting and screaming. He wants to let his savagery steer the wheel, but it’s not even in the trunk. Tom looks to the driver’s seat and sees his pulpy and exhausted heart. He thought he got rid of that. Thought he left it beaten and broken before he arrived in New York. Thought he ripped out every undesirable part from his cadaver and allowed himself to be the husk of a man that was so typical for the Roys. Typical for Shiv. Someone that she could position and puppeteer. Gladly sing and dance to her tune just to feel her pull his strings.
Tom takes a moment for himself. He breathes deeply while his eyes are clenched shut. When he opens them, Greg is looking at him like he’s something to be cradled and held. He so badly wants to be held. Greg’s lips are a little swollen and his cheeks are flushed red. The way Tom is looking at Greg is not unlike rolling over to expose his belly without shame.
”Greg,” he mumbles. He internally chastises himself as if Logan is in the room with him. He’s moving forwards cautiously so as to not spook Greg away from him. He can’t stand not being in his arms right now. He can’t be in his own skin unless he’s touching his skin. “Please,” he croaks when he’s within holding range.
Greg’s crooked smirk disarms him further. “Please what, Tom?” Greg tilts his head to the side. It’s his turn to be cruel.
Not too cruel, though.
Greg leaves himself open as Tom trudges into his space. Tom slouches over and buries his face into his clothed chest. He takes in his scent while wiping his sweaty and tear-crusted face on his shirt. Greg raises Tom’s face by his chin, and Tom can’t help but let his eyes fall to Greg’s lips and linger for a beat too long.
Tom doesn’t ever predict Greg correctly. He can’t see past those glassy eyes of his. That isn’t to say that Greg is exactly a master manipulator of Tom’s opinion or that he’s really reserved in any manner of the word. It’s just that he constantly surpasses his expectation. He politely erases any lines in the sand and crosses them to meet Tom. He’s worried one day he’ll just walk past him to a new line to stamp out with his savage heel.
”Kiss me,” Tom orders in a low, serious voice. Greg flashes his teeth in a smile that makes Tom think of a predator about to dine on a bloody platter.
And dine he does.
Greg wraps Tom in his embrace—one hand on his lower back, the other cradling the back of his head—and swoops down to meet his lips in a passionate kiss. Tom lets his arms rest on Greg’s shoulders as he tries to squeeze their bodies as close as possible.
Tom doesn’t think he can be satisfied with all the places they’re touching, with their level of closeness. Maybe he can only be sated when he unzips Greg and crawls inside. He wants to live there.
He didn’t realize how long it’s been since he’s made out with someone until Greg starts doing this thing with his chin that makes him moan from the sheer pleasure of being reminded of the small details of intimacy. He can feel Greg’s lips twitch upwards. “Shut up,” Tom growls without bite. Greg takes advantage of Tom’s open mouth to slip his tongue inside coyly.
It feels monstrous to feel this good. To feel good without the sting that follows. Like he’s dining and dashing. He keeps waiting for the bill to make itself known, but it never comes.