FicWad

Repeatable Results

They figure -- they being the first six, because yeah, they're all in this together but a few of them have known each other longer than the rest, and how many of their new recruits have scientific backgrounds, anyway? -- that Xigbar should be the one to test the new guy out. Because they've finally got someone who seems to have an affinity for time magic. It took them damn well long enough. Sometimes it kind of makes Xigbar wonder if the worlds in general, personified, have a weird sense of humor. In the order in which they lost their hearts, they've gained mastery over such totally random things as nothingness, space, wind, ice, earth, and darkness. And then they tracked down some new guys, and none of them repeated, which kind of makes Xigbar hope they have a run of good luck at finding more high-grade Nobodies, because he'd like to see the worlds try to come up with two dozen elements that aren't totally ridiculous.

Of course, there are probably still a few good ones to come; they don't have anyone who does electricity, for example, and it's not until now -- at number Ten -- that they've finally got somebody who does time.

Not just time. Chance.

"Ready to go?" Xigbar says, ducking into the new guy's room, upside down, behind him.

To his credit, Ten doesn't jump. "Any time," he says, with a little faint smile, and tucks a whole hand of cards up his sleeve somewhere. Cool, Xigbar thinks, someone else who doesn't take it all too seriously.

"Well, come on, then," Xigbar says, landing on the floor and opening a path they can both walk through.

When you travel the dark pathways between worlds, as opposed to within a world itself, there seem to be only a few spots where you can come and go. Where you're close enough to the world's heart, or whatever. From there you can go just about anywhere else you'd like, but there are only a couple entrances and exits. The part of him that holds onto Braig's memories has always kind of worried at that idea, trying to figure out how the heart of a world connects to the rest of it, whether there's some kind of metaphysical circulatory system and if so what it's doing being full of darkness.

The part of him that's already coping with being Xigbar, not Braig, doesn't think about it and just steps out of the dark into the town of Port Royal. Where it always seems to be the middle of the night. Just like home.

"Harbor town, mm?" Ten asks.

Xigbar shrugs. "It was either that or the Land of Dragons, and you don't really seem like the snow bunny type."

Ten smiles again, understated and almost a smirk. "No, indeed. Shall we go, then, so you can put me through my paces?"

Number Ten has decided to call himself Luxord, which Xigbar likes the sound of. He doesn't have the background that Xigbar has, to make him really get the theory behind elemental manipulation, but he's sharp, and quick to pick things up. They practice, in the endless night, until Luxord has gotten the hang of opening gates and closing them behind himself, and then for a while longer until he's come up with a decent plan for using his power in combat. It's unorthodox, but it'll work. Xigbar thinks about making that the entire text of his report to the big guy: he's unorthodox, but he'll work.

"So," Luxord says, his cards disappearing up his sleeve, "have I learned my lesson, teacher? Shall I run along and play?"

"Nah," Xigbar says. "You're a big boy, right? You should come down to Tortuga with me, and have a drink."

Luxord raises an eyebrow. "Tortuga?"

Xigbar grins. "Yeah. Tortuga."

Tortuga is probably one of Xigbar's favorite places in the known worlds -- it's one long party, where the girls are cheap and the rum's cheaper, and there's always a game or a fight if you're looking for one. Luxord turns out to dice like a pro -- no surprise, that; Xigbar wouldn't be surprised if his other was one. He also turns out to drink like a pro, putting down the harsh bootlegged rum like it's water, with nothing to show for it but a little more laughter and a little more daring at the dice table.

He's loading the dice, Xigbar realizes after he's watched the play for a few minutes. It's subtle, but Luxord is messing with the way time happens to the dice, so they're more likely to land one way than another. Well. Two can play that game, more or less.

Xigbar claims a spot across the table and lays his bet against Luxord's call for sixes. And he can feel the second when Luxord is messing with time over the table, so he suspends gravity right there for a second, too -- the dice seem to pause in mid-throw, before they clatter to the table in an uneven spill with no sixes at all.

The pirates and sailors around the table cheer, probably for the excitement of watching the fancy bastard's luck fail him, but Luxord just smiles and drops a few more coins on the table. So Xigbar antes up again, and this time Luxord out-feints him, doing something odd that makes the dice speed and then slow and then speed again after Xigbar lets them go. He rolls all three sixes.

"You know, a guy might be tempted to call that cheating," Xigbar says.

Luxord smiles. "Only if he couldn't keep up."

Xigbar drops more munny on the table.

This time the dice don't even come down. Neither one of them will let go for long enough. So instead the dice are suspended in midair, with the light bending around them and the prickle in the air as the laws of nature get broken, and a hush falls around them as even the drunkest pirates realize that something is deeply not right here. Luxord rises to his feet slowly, the look on his face admiring and almost hungry. His face doesn't show any sign of the strain of keeping his dice frozen in that one instant despite the seething pull of gravity that Xigbar has dragging them down.

"Maybe we should take this outside," Xigbar says.

"Maybe we should take this upstairs," Luxord counters.

That's a good kind of challenge, too. Xigbar reaches over the table. The dice fall as he gets a hand fisted in Luxord's coat, but neither of them has a chance to see how they land before Xigbar is twisting space and warping them out of the tavern and into one of the private rooms above.

Sort of private, anyway. The whore already in the room shrieks, and the pirate with her scrambles up, reaching for weapons, and Xigbar summons a gun.

"Get out," he says, firing a warning shot into the wall about an inch from the pirate's head. "Both of you."

"You're so forceful," Luxord purrs, as the unlucky pair retreat. It sounds teasing, like an invitation, so Xigbar leans in and kisses him, good and hard. The close-cropped hair of Luxord's goatee is rough against his mouth. Xigbar remembers the one time Dilan tried to grow a full beard, and the way Braig complained about that until he shaved it off.

He doesn't mind the feel of it, Xigbar decides, shaking off the memory. It's a good contrast to the wet rum-laden heat of Luxord's tongue sparring with his own. The thing about being a Nobody is that it's hard to really feel anything, so a little extra sensation kind of helps.

Luxord's apparently already come to that conclusion himself. He kisses hard enough that his teeth click against Xigbar's, and his hands tug impatiently at the zipper of Xigbar's coat.

"What's your hurry?" Xigbar asks against Luxord's mouth, as he pulls Luxord's coat down off his shoulders. "You got all the time in the world, don't you?"

He's too close to really see it, but he'd swear Luxord's grinning. "Some things are just better when they're rushed a little."

It only takes about ten seconds after that for both of them to strip. They fall into bed together and Xigbar doesn't even bother to use his unnatural advantage, so he winds up on his back with Luxord on top of him and he thinks, yeah, sure, what the hell. It's been a while.

"Go ahead," Xigbar says. "Show me what you got."

"Still a test, is it?" Luxord asks. He rocks his hips, good hard friction against Xigbar's cock.

"Better get used to that," Xigbar warns him with a grin. "You've fallen in with a crew of rogue scientists."

Luxord smiles. "Does that mean you'll be upset if I don't produce repeatable results?"

Xigbar twines his legs with Luxord's so he can get the leverage to really push back. "Depends whether you prove my hypothesis, doesn't it?"

"And I don't suppose you'll tell me what this hypothesis is, will you." Xigbar didn't even see the sleight of hand that got something slick on Luxord's fingers, and that's saying something.

"What, and compromise the integrity of the experiment? I don't think so." He lets out his breath in a low groan as Luxord pushes two fingers into him almost but not quite too fast. "Fuck."

Luxord smiles again. "Getting there," he says. "You'll want a little more time than that, won't you? I wouldn't think you were in practice, when you feel this tight." His fingers press upward as he finishes the sentence, right where they'll do most good, and even though Xigbar can tell it's a ploy, it still works.

Xigbar growls, and doesn't try to fight the shudder that runs up his spine. He reaches for his cock, rocking onto Luxord's hand so he can take it just how he wants it. Dilan used to tease Braig about that, used to laugh when Braig would grab hold of his hand and force him to go faster. Luxord just purrs, taking the hint and moving roughly, relentlessly, until Xigbar is panting and snarling and almost ready to demand it.

"Now," Luxord says, not asking, pulling his fingers free and shifting forward so the head of his cock nudges at Xigbar's ass.

"Your fucking timing is impeccable," Xigbar says.

Luxord nods, a little abbreviated bow. "I should hope so," he says, and pushes.

"Yeah," Xigbar says, when it burns, "fuck, there you go." He raises his knees, pulls Luxord down with his free hand. "Don't fucking hold back now."

"Wouldn't dream of it," Luxord says, and Xigbar almost points out that as far as he knows none of them can dream anymore at all. But then Luxord starts to really fuck him, rough ragged thrusts, and Xigbar loses interest in being morbid. Under the careful grooming and the swank manners, Luxord is just like the nine who came before him, a set of instincts and drives too stubborn to give up. It works well, need matched to need, pressure and friction and sweat. Luxord shifts his weight, reaches for the tie holding back Xigbar's hair. "May I?"

Of all the things to go all polite about. Xigbar turns his head and nips at Luxord's arm. "I don't care," he says. He shakes his head when Luxord pulls on the tie, so his hair comes loose. Luxord runs his fingers through it, and that feels kind of good, and then his hand tightens and he pulls, and that feels better, makes Xigbar arch his back and snarl.

"Son of a bitch," Xigbar says approvingly. "Harder."

Luxord makes a low, needy sound, barbaric, almost a growl of approval. His strokes get faster, rougher, his hand fisted tight in Xigbar's hair and pulling hard. Xigbar rocks into it, jerking himself off, letting each stroke push more hungry sounds from his throat. It doesn't feel quite /right/, but nothing does, ever, and at least it feels /intense/, and that's about the best they can do. This is good enough, Xigbar thinks. There's no such thing as a bad orgasm.

This one's no exception, and maybe better than most -- maybe, he's distracted so it's hard to tell, but just maybe Luxord draws that moment taut for him, so that he feels it for a little longer than he should.

He's not about to be bested on that, either, so he doesn't let himself relax when he's done, arching his back and driving himself hard onto Luxord's cock. "Good," he pants, "good, yeah, come on," and his body still gets more sensitized after he comes, and he can remember not liking that but he doesn't feel the dislike anymore, just feels that rhythm and friction and it's still a good fuck, all the way to Luxord's final hungry thrust and the shuddering moan that comes afterward.

"Not bad at all," Xigbar says. Luxord shifts, pulling free, and Xigbar lets him go. "Next time we'll have to see how you do in zero gravity."

"Planning on further testing, are you?" Luxord asks. He looks around the room like he's trying to find something he could use to clean up. He's going to be disappointed there. Clean is one thing this world is not. "Your hypothesis must have received some support, then, professor."

Professor, huh? Damn if that doesn't take him back a few years. Luxord messes with time in more ways than one. Xigbar sits up, and his hair spills loose over his shoulders. He opens his mouth and discovers that even with memory this close at hand, it's still easy to say, "I hope you're prepared for some pretty exhaustive research, after that."

Luxord smiles. "Always a pleasure to contribute to significant discoveries," he says.

Well. That does it, Xigbar thinks. Next time, he's going to have to get /creative/.