Sark lifts away his hand and the excruciating fire stops; but pain still twists like live electricity under Vaughn’s skin, inside his muscles. His shoulder blades ache terribly and his arms are almost numb; he closes his eyes and tries to soak in the cold, wet misery, funneling it deep within himself so the rest of him can also forget how to feel.
It doesn’t work, because at that same moment Sark steps forward. Reaches out and deliberately trails a finger down his chest, smearing blood and sweat and water in a random stroke that only he can make appear measured and abstract. Vaughn holds his breath, not just because his ribs are on the verge of cracking.
Sark’s touch doesn’t leave his skin — and it’s a marvel, Vaughn thinks detachedly, how the feather-light caress burns more than the white-hot voltage did, bleeding him in an entirely different way.
"I’ve always wondered, Mr. Vaughn," Sark finally says, "What it might've been like if we weren’t the way we are now." His voice is lower than usual, and he takes a step back and looks at Vaughn, a certain pensiveness glazing his features. "If you weren’t CIA and I wasn’t Covenant — if we first met in a bar, for instance, and you’re Michael and I’m Julian —"
He breaks off, and his other hand flashes up, holding Vaughn’s face so their eyes meet.
Sark smiles. "Would you come over and ask me to dance?"
Even in his blood-soaked haze, Vaughn raises his chin incredulously and glares at Sark.
"Not in a million years," he spits.
Sark’s expression doesn’t alter; he moves closer, so close that Vaughn can smell the faint musk fragrance on his shirt.
"Would you let me buy you a drink?" Sark says, and then leans in to brush his lips ever so lightly against Vaughn’s neck.
"No fucking way," Vaughn hisses. His voice is hoarse and strained, and his hands clench tightly into fists. "You and I will always be different, Sark, and nothing in this world is going to change that."
Sark draws back slightly; he tilts his head and his brow furrows a little as he looks at Vaughn.
"Really," he says matter-of-factly, and continues, "then would you let me give you a blowjob?"
Vaughn stares at Sark; and this time Sark doesn’t wait for his answer.
In a single movement Sark gracefully slides to his knees on the wet floor in front of him. And it’s not horror that makes Vaughn squeeze his eyes shut, grit his teeth and desperately grind out the word No, over and over again.
It’s not horror that paralyzes him as Sark yanks his soaked pants and boxers down his thighs and takes Vaughn’s hardening cock into his mouth. Vaughn makes a choked, anguished sound, deep in his throat; he arches against the heat of Sark’s mouth around him, helplessly caught on the edge of denial, in a place he isn’t prepared for, a place called realization.
The tension in his cock spirals through him, urged on by the artful swirl of a hot, wet tongue, trapped by Sark’s hands on his hips holding him firmly — and finally Vaughn can’t take it any longer.
He comes inside Sark’s mouth, gasping and shuddering and utterly broken.
When it is finally over, Vaughn slumps in his restraints and hangs his head. He keeps his eyes closed as he feels Sark’s hands turn his face, brushing his lips against Vaughn's ear; and Sark’s voice is like a blade beneath silk as he whispers the words not so different after all.
- fin -