Work Text:
Wreath allowed himself a smile as he watched Valkyrie disappear into the supermarket. He’d been passing by an associate’s a few streets over when he had felt her presence, seen her shopping with her mortal mother. What harm could a little observation of his favourite one-time student do? A millisecond before he readied himself to shadow walk back to his waiting car he registered something moving towards him. But a millisecond wasn’t enough to escape. Skulduggery Pleasant’s oncoming fist provided instant unconsciousness.
Wreath woke up in a nondescript basement. It was clean enough; suburban-looking. There were several cans of WD-40 and a few stacks of National Geographics dating from what looked like 1940. Wreath was sat in a creaking wooden chair; his cane was gone. He sighed.
“So kind of you to invite me into your home,” Wreath said out loud. He couldn’t see Skulduggery, but he knew he was there. His head was throbbing dully. Not as bad as it usually was after one of the Detective's assaults, though.
“Shut it, Solomon,” a voice growled by his ear. Wreath avoided jumping, but only just. Damn the Detective and his soundless movements. Were those suits Bespoke made whisperproof as well as bulletproof? Wreath smirked, knowing that even behind him Skulduggery would hear the snick of his lips against his teeth (God, his mouth was dry. How long had he been down here?).
“You’ve been here for four hours,” Skulduggery said, as Wreath heard him stand up behind him. He walked to face Wreath, gloved hands clenched into tight fists by his sides -- ready to punch at a moment's notice.
"If I didn’t know you so well, Skulduggery, I’d swear that you could read my mind,” Wreath replied, keeping the smirk and a light tone. He could read Skulduggery’s annoyance even on that grinning skull of a face. But he was going to hurt Wreath anyway. As far as Skulduggery was concerned, Wreath had been stalking Valkyrie, or even planning to abduct her. Why bother snivelling?
Skulduggery punched so quickly the air hissed, hitting Solomon squarely in the chest. You missed, Wreath thought, but then he felt the sickening lurch of lost balance as the chair tipped backwards. Skulduggery shot a foot out and stopped the chair from crashing down completely, leaving Solomon almost parallel to the floor, then tipped him back up.
“Very mature,” Wreath said. Skulduggery punched him in the stomach, and didn’t stop the crashing that followed the second time.
“Why were you following Valkyrie?” he asked, moving over to inspect Wreath. His elbows had jolted and deadened unpleasantly where the chair’s arms had hit the concrete. He couldn’t wiggle so much as a wrist. Wreath got his breath back before answering.
“I ran into her,” he said. Skulduggery put one long black brogue onto Solomon’s chest and stepped down deliberately over where he'd punched him. Wreath couldn't stop him. He didn’t weigh much, but the pain was sharp, and raced all across Wreath's torso like flash fire. Wreath suspected that there would be a nasty bruise in in the morning.
“I’m going to ask you again.” Skulduggery lifted the foot a fraction.
“As much as it pains me to admit it--” Skulduggery pressed down again and Wreath wheezed slightly, struggling to breathe-- “I was on my way... to pay someone a visit. I just sensed her presence.”
Skulduggery’s foot was gone. Wreath barely had time to suck in a lungful of air before Skulduggery’s fist grabbed his labels and pulled him into the air. The chair, caught in his legs, clattered to the floor. His feet dangled in a most undignified manner.
“Like hell you did,” he growled. His voice, usually smooth as cashmere, was rough with emotion. For his partner? Wreath knew that there was something going on between those two. He decided to inflict a little pain of his own.
“Maybe I felt like paying her a visit. After all, she’s really grown, hasn’t she? Surely you’ve noticed,” he quipped. Skulduggery headbutted him in the forehead and dropped him back to the floor. The impact of his body falling onto the abandoned chair rattled Wreath’s teeth in his jaw.
“You can’t just beat me up forever,” Wreath said, vision spinning. He went to sit up and flexed his arms. His joints were protesting already and his arms were on fire from pins and needles, but at least the nerves were waking up.
Skulduggery leaned over him and pushed him back onto the floor, reached out his hands to squeeze Wreath’s neck. The leather of his gloves creaked deliciously as they creased and Skulduggery's grip tightened. Wreath dragged in another breath while he still could, deep and slow, then breathed in again. His mouth dropped open in reflex and his eyes were wide, staring into Skulduggery’s dark sockets above. The pressure of Skulduggery’s thumbs over his adam’s apple when he swallowed sent heat to pool low in Wreath’s belly.
“Don’t ever speak of Valkyrie again,” Skulduggery threatened, voice guttural. He almost spat the plosives at Wreath.
“Or…. what?” Wreath asked, before the words were choked off entirely. He relaxed his head back against the cool concrete and closed his eyes for a second, then opened them again when the slide of leather against leather brought him out of his oxygen-deprived reverie. Skulduggery was still looking down over at him. Wreath could smell the hide of Skulduggery’s gloves, the warmth bringing out the scent of the oil he used to keep them supple. He could see the dark, dark holes of his eye sockets.
With a half-dead arm, Wreath reached up to grab Skulduggery’s wrist. His fingers slipped in between the shirt cuffs and gloves and met cool hard bone. He walked his fingers up the bone slowly but surely as Skulduggery continued to choke him, then scratched as deep as he could in one of the joints, digging his manicured fingernails in. Skulduggery groaned in pain, a low bellow that had Wreath’s dick twitching interestedly before he’d registered that Skulduggery had rolled away from him and he could breathe again. And then Wreath was scrambling to stand up, his head still light from being choked half to unconsciousness.
“You’re obsessed with her, Pleasant, admit it,” Wreath croaked triumphantly, rubbing his neck. Skulduggery still hadn’t gotten up. “You think we don’t all see through your charade of teacherly affection. But I’ve seen the way you look at her…”
Skulduggery crashed into him. They slid across the floor together, limbs flailing purposelessly for a moment before they both remembered what they were doing and started trying to punch each other. There goes another good suit, Wreath thought ruefully, then poured his full concentration into blocking the blows raining down upon him. He locked his knees around Skulduggery and levered himself on top of him, rolling them both and trying to pin the Detective underneath his body.
“Give up. I’ve crossed the Rubicon now, Skulduggery,” said Wreath, relishing the feeling of the Detective helpless under him, at least for the moment. He’d managed to trap the man’s arms surprisingly easily. How the tables had turned.
“Oh, do shut up, you pretentious cockbag,” Skulduggery muttered, his face pressed into Wreath’s chest. And then he jabbed his elbow into a cluster of nerves on Wreath’s inner thigh, and Wreath’s knee lock sprang open as his legs turned to so much jelly. He shoved Wreath away from him and got to his knees, pinning Wreath’s collar to the floor with his hands before Wreath could collect his wits. Damn, but he was fast. Skulduggery sounded like he was breathing heavily - or would be, if he had lungs.
“Out of everything you do to annoy me,” he said, straddling Wreath’s waist, continuing to pin him, “The stupid history book quotations really annoy me the most. Why, Solomon?” he asked slowly, gaining non-existent breath back. “Why do you think that any of us would be impressed?” He slapped Wreath when it looked like he was going to answer back.
“We were all around when those books were written.” He leaned in. “It’s not impressive,” he said, almost gently. Wreath’s cheeks were tingling where Skulduggery had open palm slapped him. He could feel the heat in them. It matched the heat in his groin, where his trousers were starting to feel tighter by the minute.
“Says the man dressed like a Raymond Chandler character,” Wreath replied. “What, you think we didn’t all read the pulp detective novels?” His breath was coming faster now. Surely Skulduggery could feel it beneath his legs, phantoms though they were?
“Here we go. Boasting about how bloody well-read you are again.”
“I’m not the one who didn’t learn to read until I was - what? Fifty, I heard,” Wreath all but panted. Skulduggery leaned in closer and grabbed a fistful of Wreath’s dark hair, forcing his head back. Wreath’s breath came in shallow gasps, and his legs kicked uselessly, searching for friction. All Wreath could see was Skulduggery’s gleaming white head.
“I didn’t need to read! I was a slow learner, and I was born was before print!”
Wreath forced a chuckle.
“You’re so easy to goad.”
“Mark of an insane man,” Skulduggery murmured. He pulled Wreath’s head back further, exposing the pale skin of his throat.
“I wouldn’t test that right now… Would you?” He asked. He sounded almost calm. Wreath’s heart was beating in overdrive. He slowly drew his knees up behind Skulduggery, searching for purchase, something to push against - anything. A pleasant fog of of lust was making it difficult for Solomon Wreath to think of any good reasons not to antagonise the other man right now.
“You’re a dirty fighter,” Wreath said, into where the Dead Man’s ears might have once been.
“Is this what you taught Valkyrie? Is this how you taught her?”
Skulduggery yanked Wreath’s head so far back he heard various bones pop and crack, nearly tore the fistfuls of his hair out of their follicles. With his free hand Skulduggery pressed a thumb and index finger under Wreath’s jaw and pushed further. He ground Wreath’s face into the hard flooring, leant so far over that he was nearly laying on top of the man. Into his ear, Skulduggery’s deep voice sent rumbling vibrations that seemed to bypass Wreath’s eardrums and sink straight down to his cock.
“Do you think I’d fall for those transparent jibes, Solomon? Please,” he all but purred. “Tut tut. I’m disappointed that you’d bring Valkyrie into this, really. Especially since I can tell that your heart isn’t in it. You’re just all het up. Which is pathetic, by the way,” he added.
No matter how much Wreath wanted to punch his smug face for the insult, his cock had other ideas. It strained at the sound of the smooth bass voice. “I can feel your erection,” Skulduggery added in a conspiratorial tone of voice. It was a mark of how far out of hand that this interrogation had gotten that Wreath didn’t even slightly die inside at that remark, only smirked up him.
“Don’t think I can’t tell that I’ve had an effect on you too, eh, Skeleton?” Wreath asked between shallow breaths. Fuck it, he thought. Not much point concealing the fact he was all but panting like a dog in heat now at the thought of the delicious pressure on his suit slacks being relieved.
“Playing your sadist one-man 'bad cop, worse cop' show. I know you’re a maverick, but interrogations don’t usually get this… body to body.”
“Maybe I’m just unhinged,” Skulduggery mused, but he sounded more like an amused man than a deranged killer.
“Maybe the insults to my partner tipped me over the edge.”
“Your words, not mine. You’re the one…. bringing her up again, my old friend.” Wreath was starting to have trouble stringing sentences together. He tried to find some purchase under the Skeleton Detective’s thin frame. What had become of him? “Maybe this is what’s gotten you so… excited…”
All good humour vanished from Skulduggery’s tone.
“Don’t you mention her. Not now. Not when you look like that.”
“Ah, so… I’ve found a sore spot.” Wreath shuddered. He wasn't sure how much more witty repartee he was going to be able to exchange at this point, he really wasn't.
“You want me to batter you a bit, Wreath? Is that what you like? A bit of pain to go with all the death you feed off. Well, you’re welcome to it. Just don’t mention her.”
“I was her teacher too,” Wreath reminded him. He felt like he was going to explode. “Only, I didn’t buy her a ball gown like some other men I could mention…. You rather played your hand there, Pleasant…”
Skulduggery Pleasant roared in frustration, and threw his hands up into the air. Wreath saw his chance and bucked up his legs, hoping to push Skulduggery off him and free his hands or whatever else would make a change from being teasingly trapped beneath the other man. He didn’t even care about dignity at this point. But Skulduggery had other plans. He grabbed Wreath around the waist and threw him into the wall of the basement, collapsing some shelving and scattering the decades-old Geographics around him. He stalked towards Wreath as he gathered himself and got to his feet.
“I told you.” He brought his fist down onto Wreath’s back, driving him to his knees. He punched the other side of Wreath’s back, the merciless blows felling him. Wreath’s hands dropped to the floor, and still the blows rained, punches and open-palm slaps around his spine, his arm, his chest and legs. He arced a final slap into Wreath’s ribs and he collapsed onto his side. Skulduggery loomed over him, ready for the final, lights-out rabbit punch, but Wreath latched his legs onto Skulduggery and brought him crashing to the floor, holding grimly on all the way. The slick plastinated magazine pages underneath them crinkled and ripped as they rolled, punching, scratching and biting all the while.
“Face it, Detective,” Wreath said between the grunts and gasps, “You’re incredibly attracted to me.”
The low answering chuckle from around Skulduggery’s teeth, embedded in Wreath’s arm, nearly made him come there and then.
“A narcissistic Poe fan. Who would have thought it,” he gargled around the arm. Very dignified. Wreath tried to reach around to punch him in the jaw, but Skulduggery grabbed his wrist. Then he was smoothing out his balled-out form, relaxing the aggressive clawed fists and reaching to capture Wreath’s other wrist, holding them both above his head as Skulduggery pinned him to the floor almost gently. Hip-to-hip, Wreath’s dick strained at the thin layer of woollen suiting separating it from freedom. Skulduggery grabbed both wrists in one hand and used the other to roughly push Wreath’s jacket away from his shoulders, unbuttoning his black shirt and yanking until it became untucked from his trousers.
“Has no-one ever told you that wearing black on black makes you look like a mummer?” Skulduggery asked, grabbing Wreath under the jaw once more when it looked like he was opening his mouth to answer.
“No, no. I didn’t tell you that you could speak, did I?” He caressed Wreath’s throat for a moment, moving Wreath’s head to the side again . He slid his hand to the nape of his neck and rubbed it for the barest moment before moving up to the crown and grabbing the longer hair above. He ghosted his jaws along the line of Wreath’s now-exposed collarbone and neck before nipping at his clavicles, the soft flesh of his throat, and the lobes and shell of his ear.
“My trousers,” Wreath tried to say, but it came out more like a moan.
“Shh,” Skulduggery rebuked, moving the hand trying to unfasten his trousers up to slap each of Wreath’s cheeks, hard. He massaged the red skin for a moment, leaving the lingering smell of spicy leather and rich mink oil under Wreath’s nose before going back to his task. He inhaled deeply, savouring the scent as his cheeks bloomed with heat.
“Impatient.” Eventually, Skulduggery managed to push Wreath’s trousers down below the erection he’d been nursing that had tented the material. His cock sprang eagerly from the confines of trousers. Skulduggery continued to pull and twist Wreath’s hair as he looked over his shoulder to regard his manhood almost lazily.
“Black boxers. So predictable,” he observed, sounding bored. But the way his fingers tightened unconsciously as they tangled in Wreath’s hair betrayed his interest. All Wreath could do was make agreeable noises at this point, however. Even the thin cotton standing between him and the cool air was too much at this point. He couldn’t control himself as he pushed helplessly into the palm of Skulduggery’s hand as it skated over the mound in his underwear.
“Fuck,” he hissed, unable to resist continuing to pump his hips slightly. Skulduggery ground his palm in a little, giving Wreath more of that delicious contact, then moved his fingers to the elasticated waistband of his underwear.
“I rather think that since we’ve gotten this far, that’s the idea,” Skulduggery said ruefully.
“Shut up… Smart-arse detective,” was all that Wreath could manage. For that he got the painful sensation of his underwear being ripped off him and a yank from the hand still enmeshed in his hair.
“So rude,” Skulduggery hummed, dipping his head toward Wreath’s throat as his hand curled around the shaft of Wreath’s dick. He bit Wreath countless times, snapping his jaws together slowly and pinching the skin between his teeth as he worried it slightly before moving on to another patch of Wreath’s and shoulders. Meanwhile, his fingers started up a merciless rhythm using the perfect pressure around Wreath’s shaft. Wreath’s eyes rolled up in the back of his head as he gave up consciousness for a second to the bliss that was the two points of pleasure at his neck and groin. He was floating above himself at the same time that his breath came in shallow gasps and his heart raced.
“Where did you learn….” The fingers of Wreath’s freed hand fluttered impotently at his side, arms, forgotten. Skulduggery lifted his head and started on the other side of Wreath’s throat, talking as he did so.
“I’ve been busy, even since I lost my flesh. You didn’t think I was celibate all these years, did you?” The buzzing of his words against Wreath's bite-raw skin was a riot of sensation. Was there no way to shut the man up? Solomon thought of that mouth put to other uses… Best not to risk those snapping jaws. Under the onslaught of teeth and hands pulling and stroking him everywhere, Wreath knew that he wouldn’t last long. He clutched Skulduggery to him with the last of the strength in his free hand, seeking for everything to be harder, rougher, deeper. He even pressed Skulduggery’s skull toward his shoulder in an effort for him to savage him properly, though all that earned was a halt in the proceedings.
“Skulduggery…” he pleaded. His cock was dark and weeping almost full fat droplets of precum now, almost ready to explode. “I-“
“You what? What do you want?”
“I need you to try a bit harder, you idiot,” Wreath said, some of his usual lucidity returning to him. He punched Skulduggery in the ribs, before his hand spasmed vainly towards his dick to finish the job. “Or can you only get hard when I insult your intentions toward your partner? Meta… Metaphorically speaking.” Wreath wasn’t sure he’d ever used such full sentences that close to an orgasm. He’d never really had anyone to impress before. Nor someone that exasperated him so much.
“Ha bloody ha,” Skulduggery growled, surging toward Wreath again. But he wasn’t denying anything, Wreath noted with possibly the last full thought left in his head. Skulduggery positively savaged his neck as he moved from his throat to ears, leaving impossibly hot impossible real-feeling breaths that made Wreath shiver and his body hair stand on end whilst Skulduggery worked his way up towards his head.
The pressure and tugging on Wreath’s earlobes alone was almost enough to undo him, but not quite, nor was Skulduggery’s worrying of his lower lips, even in conjunction with the new and frenzied pace of the attack on his cock. It was only when he bit down, deep and hard, and reached up a further hand to press Wreath’s neck into the floor that all the sensations crystallised into pure pleasure and Wreath finally spilled across the fingers of Skulduggery’s gloves. Wreath gasped in a long, drawn-out ‘Ahhhh’.
Skulduggery worked him through the aftershock, continued to pump his dick and held a thrashing Wreath beneath him as the flesh under his jaw bruised and threatened to break. After what could have been an eternity, the haze of Wreath’s pleasure resolved itself into reality. He was damp and lying on a cold floor underneath a dishevelled bag of bones threatening to sever his shoulder muscles. Wreath summoning reserves of strength he’d never known he had to prise his shoulder from between Skulduggery’s jaws and disentangle himself.
“Ugh,” he said, trying to make himself presentable. “There’s blood everywhere.”
Skulduggery sat up and mopped at his mouth with the single clean glove.
“You’re the pervert who asked for it,” he replied. He looked down at the once-pristine gloves.
“These are ruined. They’re disgusting now.” He pulled at the fingers one by one until the gloves were loosened and then threw them down at Wreath’s feet. The smell of leather and mink oil mixed with the bitter salt of semen and the copper tang of blood.
“You’re the one who savaged me at the thought of me trash-talking your student,” Wreath retaliated, buttoning up his trousers. “My suit is ruined.”
“Mine is too,” Skulduggery said, in the tone of someone who would rather be doing anything than agreeing with Wreath. He stared at Wreath. “That's your fault, that is.”
“Thanks for the fuck,” Wreath sneered back at him. “You don’t need to kidnap me next time - a phone call would suffice.”
Skulduggery seemed unabashed by Wreath’s vulgar tone.
“I’ll see you out,” he said, tone unreadable. He brushed some dust pointlessly from his ruined trousers, and pointed the way to the lower level door. Wreath couldn’t stop himself from gathering up the discarded gloves before he left.