[Adult] The shape of my disgrace

[Ambrose Wilkes]

The arse plunked on Rosie's lap did not so much as shift even as he leaned back with his hands well out of the way. This had been a gambit he'd expected to lose — Mouse hadn't fought being tugged down onto him, but maintained a constant aura of being beset by the demon of Rosie's mere presence. That he remained precisely where Rosie had placed him sent a jolt of arousal to the previously indifferent curve of his cock — Enough to be felt under Mouse's obliging thighs, despite that Rosie had already set his mind to not fucking the little prick again today.

"I know both of your names," Rosie answered, and let his gaze linger on the resentful set of Mouse's mouth. "Let's not pretend you don't know mine." Even had he not tipped his hand at the Goose, there was no member of Greenstreet, however long removed, who didn't know the name of Ambrose Wilkes. Rosie reckoned at least half of the anger burning off the Irishman had to do with that fact alone.

Hands dutifully held alongside his own thighs, Rosie now leaned in, his voice a low rumble along Mouse's cheek. "Have you been fucking yourself with your fingers? Not quite the same, is it?"

[Timothy Anderson]

It was impossible to miss the feeling under him; it would be impossible not to feel almost anything that oversized prick did. Tim shifted at first for the unease of it – and then again, ever so slightly, just for the feel of it beneath him. It was awkward, this position, but he wasn't about to straddle Wilkes.

It had been easy to guess that the gangster had been able to find out at least some about Tim. The location of his apartment could've been written off by the tail from two weeks prior. The involvement with Greenstreet could've been an educated guess, for the tattoo on his thigh. Confirmation, though, prompted a singular, soft thought: Shit. He wasn't afraid of his falsified backstory being found out. It had been the work of months, and if there was any true concern in the other man Tim didn't fancy that this is where they'd be – no matter how enamored (the word caused an unpleasant shift in his stomach) the man seemed to be with him.

The indignation of the nickname paled, though, in the sheer physical presence of Wilkes. Just his damn laugh had been enough to cause Tim's cock to stir; now, feeling the other man under him, feeling his breath when he spoke, he found himself already painfully hard. If there was to be any consolation, it was that it would be more difficult to tell, for how he sat and his own hands kept pointedly loose in his lap, away from Wilkes' body.

"No," Tim denied honestly through a dry mouth. His tongue darted out to wet his lips. "I haven't." Because Wilkes was right; it wouldn't be the same. Besides, he'd not needed it. The memory of the event, of the press of Wilkes' body, of that damned low voice growling its ownership, had prompted each messy finish far before Tim could even think to replicate any of it further than a rough hand on his cock.

[Ambrose Wilkes]

Their faces were close enough now that Rosie could only just manage to focus on Mouse's profile as he watched him, watched the visible discomfort in the admission. To answer in the negative and mean it ought not have proven so difficult, but Rosie could see the shame burning alongside arousal in the shift of dark eyes and anxious flick of his tongue. He wanted, with a sudden desperation that felt like an ache low in his groin, to touch again. To tug the smaller man around into a straddle and let him recall a little better their last meeting. Still, he'd managed patience through worse, and his hands stayed beside his thighs.

"But you thought of it," he suggested, gaze cool but curious as his focus shifted from lips to eyes. "I thought of it." Nearly every night since, fingers pumping hard over the hot length of himself, picturing the precise moment when the pleasure became so intense that Mouse could only yield to being pounded open.

"Tell me what you thought about," he prompted, fingers curling hard over the edge of the chair's seat. "Tell me what made you come."

[Timothy Anderson]

Hands that had been so forward last time now seemed entirely devoted to staying away, and Tim was certain that was the game for the day: Denial of some kind, proving some kind of point. (Not some kind – he knew exactly the point to be proven here.)

He remained stock still, hardly feeling like he could breathe for the tension in every muscle. The easy admission from Wilkes made it that much worse; made his cock ache and had his teeth finding his lip to bite into as some poor attempt at a distraction. "Yes." An admission so quiet that he could barely hear it in his own ears.

He wouldn't – couldn't – be honest with his answer. For all the shame and humiliation he'd felt, and still felt, he couldn't imagine admitting that it was those simple words that echoed still in his mind. Closing his eyes, he took a slow and shaky breath, hands forming fists and pressing his nails into the flesh of his palms. "Being pushed against the wall. Not–" He swallowed the words back again, spat them out anyway: "Not being given any quarter. You looking at me, after."

[Ambrose Wilkes]

Rosie's breath stuttered out across Mouse's cheek on a sound that was more astonishment than any real mirth — The part of him yet capable of stepping back from this situation could only find the whole of it absurd, but the overriding sensation was that of awestruck breathlessness. What a perfectly contrary pillow boy he'd found: The virgin and the whore, the antagonist and the obeisant, wrapped up in a single compact body that wanted to snipe at him in the same moment he presented his arse for fucking.

It was enough to make even someone like Rosie a little dizzy with the possibilities.

For a moment, he had to look away. The enthusiasm of his cock could not be denied, but the rest of him needn't fall at this little molly's feet, particularly not when it was apparently the rougher treatment that got him off. Rosie pulled in a slow breath through his nose, his attention sharply focused on a bulge left in the bottom of the far wall from some ancient leak. "And who told you that you could come?" he asked, and then looked back, eyes sharp as they stared down Mouse's profile. "Who gave you permission?"

[Timothy Anderson]

It was difficult to know what to make of that sound; impossible not to bristle at it, cheeks burning with the embarrassment of his honesty being met with... What? Mocking? After he was the one who had asked the question? And clearly Wilkes liked it; the cock under Tim certainly hadn't flagged. If anything, it seemed harder now than when he'd first been pulled down into the man's lap.

"You asked," he muttered, defensive in spite of himself. Now he was certain that he had made the right choice in lying, or at least not being as honest as he could've been.

And then came that impertinent question, and his spine stiffened even as he shifted to better be able to glare at the other. "I don't need your permission," Tim hissed, and it hardly mattered if he wasn't sure which time Wilkes was talking about; then, when they'd been together, or every night (and sometimes the mornings) since. Finally he stood, turning in part to quaff his cooled tea, and partially to hide the suddenly much more obvious tenting of his trousers. If this was how Wilkes was going to act – aloof, demanding in the most demeaning of ways – then Tim would just as soon put more space between them, the better to hopefully think a bit more clearly about the entire situation.

[Ambrose Wilkes]

Rosie heaved a sigh as his pale gaze tracked Mouse up and away, far away from the source of his ire and ecstasy. Stretching long legs out beneath the little table, Rosie leaned forward and considered the cold tea left in his cup.

"No, but you wanted it," he guessed. Or perhaps it was more hope than guess, fueled by his dick rather than his mind, as he considered Mouse's retreating arse.

"Shall I tell you what I thought of?" he asked, bracing muscled forearms atop the table. The chair issued another low creak, and he watched as he thumbed against the chip in the cup's rim. "I thought about that moment when you got angled just right, when you begged me not to stop. You had to have been hurting, but you were hard as a rock." He lifted his eyes back to the man across the room.

"I wasn't laughing at you, Mouse. Come back and tell me more so I know what to picture when I can't sleep tonight."

[Timothy Anderson]

It was a guess as much to Tim. He barely seemed to know his own mind and desires better than Wilkes, it seemed. He couldn't afford to bind himself to this man any more than he already had. Once was a mistake. Every second passing that he allowed this new farce to continue was nothing less than self-sabotage. He could recognize that much, even as he breathed slowly in an effort to drive his arousal away.

A losing proposition, though, with Wilkes' words hanging so clearly in the air between them. Tim's grip tightened on his cup until he almost worried he would break it. Setting it carefully aside, he kept his back turned. It was a poor mummery; he was certain that Wilkes knew that he was as hard now as he'd been then, but at least it gave him the barest dignity and deniability.

"Is that why you're here? To prove how clever you are, and find some new fantasy for your insomnia?" He shouldn't have felt so resentful; he hadn't wanted Wilkes here at all. But he was here, and if it had simply been to prove a point about his control over the East End, it would have been tolerable. But the rest of it, whatever it was supposed to be, was entirely unnecessary and unprofessional of them both.

[Ambrose Wilkes]

Now, Rosie laughed, proper and full-throated. All right, then. All right. If this was the way his mouse was going to insist upon this happening, Rosie could easily oblige him. God knew he had nothing to prove.

He stood with care, mindful of the old chair, and tucked it away beneath the table. Wordless, he plucked up his cup and carried it dutifully into the kitchen, where he deposited it upon the sideboard. Deft hands smoothed the front of his suit jacket and coat as he returned. Detouring on his way to the front door, he stepped up behind Mouse and tugged him back hard, back to front. One arm strapped across his chest as the other cupped possessively over the erection straining against the front of his trousers.

"I told you, Mouse," he murmured, cheek pressed to the smaller man's temple, "that belongs to me." His hand lifted to grasp hold of Mouse's jaw. "You come on my cock or you don't come at all, hmm? You know where to find me." And as abruptly as he'd taken hold of him, he let him go and turned toward the front door.

[Timothy Anderson]

More laughter, and Tim was left biting the inside of his cheek while he counted to thirty – and then onwards, until he tasted copper and his counting was interrupted by the arms wrapped around him once more. A bolt of longing so intense it verged on painful shot through him, and his breath caught, some indescribable noise swallowed back as he teetered on the brink merely from that rough embrace and simple touch. There was little doubt that if he had dared shift against that hand, if Wilkes had deemed fit to so much as squeeze his cock through his trousers, he would've messed his drawers immediately.

Instead there was just that voice, and the hand on his jaw, and the impossible order. He couldn't show his face at the Gun. Even if he weren't trying to gain access to Greenstreet again, there were plenty of those with long memories, and it wasn't so long ago since he was making enemies among Wilkes' men. Besides, what was he to do? Waltz up to the mistress of the house and tell her that he was there for Wilkes?

"Wait." It took a moment to find his breath once he'd been released once more, but then he was reaching for his pocket, to take a few coins from it. These he held out to Wilkes, jaw again set and dark gaze heavy with his frustration. There was also a hurt, mixed in with the painful arousal twisting his stomach, but it was not something he could begin to put a name to, least of all while staring up at those pale eyes. "For Lucinda, at the Goose. I forgot to pay." Silly of him, maybe, but it mattered to Tim. The woman was a whore doing her job, but in spite of himself there was a fondness there borne of familiarity. Besides, he knew that she had a bastard to feed, and whether or not he ever returned to the brothel, he hardly wanted to be known for not paying his bills.