[ yachts are only nice until you remember you can't easily leave them. the exceptional privilege of being wealthy enough to be stuck on a floating ornament of music and light is one that he'd rather pass on tonight, even if they've fixed the error of the drinks — there is an open bar now, and he does have a fresh drink in his hand, though it's tragically in a glass, since there are eyes on him now. it would be intensely pathetic for him to be seen literally hitting the bottle. that'll have to wait until he's back in his hotel room for the night, away from prying eyes and loose lips, where he can be miserable in peace.
he's already peeled away from ash and greer, having done a few turns with them feeling like an unstable third wheel. ash isn't trying to make him feel that way; it just is. he and greer look perfectly suited to each other, and embry looks perfectly suited to be america's most permanent bachelor despite his constant rotation of dates — and his current one for the night is presently nowhere to be found despite the fact that they'd boarded the ship together.
johanna is not the sentimental or the clingy type, but they can hardly be photographed together if they aren't actually existing in the same space together (and neither can they explore any of the intriguing options discussed beforehand, which embry thinks might be the only way to salvage the night), so embry sets off to look for her, switching his empty glass for two flutes of champagne from a passing waiter. that looks better. it looks like he's an attentive date this way, at least.
she's harder to track down than he expects, and he finishes both of their glasses before he hears her voice as he's escaping a conversation with one of their donors. he passes down the narrow hallway and realizes her voice is coming from inside a storage closet, wrung tight with tension. embry twists the knob without hesitation and immediately wishes he hadn't. ]
Johanna — [ he hisses her name, his hopes of their hands mutually down each other's pants dissipating at the sight of a man bound tightly to a folding chair, johanna standing before him. discreetly — because he has a lot of fucking practice with that — he lets himself in and locks the door behind him. ] What the fuck are you doing? This isn't Lyonesse.
[ really, a poor excuse, because if she wanted to tie someone to a chair — he's right here. ]
--sedüctor, plene omni dolo et falläcia, virtütis inimice--
[ The low, urgent flow of Latin breaks off as the door opens, and Johanna turns to Embry in surprise. Why didn't she lock the door, fuck.
A beat. ]
All right, I'm not going to tell you this isn't what it looks like.
[ There isn't a whole lot of room in here with the two of them standing and the junior senator from Ohio tied to a chair. Now that Embry's inside and right up in her business, a few more details might start to come to notice. For instance: Johanna came onto this boat with her hair artfully tousled and her blouse neat as a pin. Now one sleeve has ripped at the shoulder seam, and her hair looks more "got in a tussle" than "beachy waves." She's holding a small book bound in black leather, with her finger holding her place in the middle of it. For instance: over the smell of chemical cleaners, there's an aroma like burnt charcoal, even though nothing in here appears singed.
Also for instance: the junior senator from Ohio was growling through the makeshift gag Jo's got on him. (His tie. It's not very effective.) He's stopped now that Embry is here, switched to muffled pleas for help, but the sound was more like a Rottweiler than a human. ]
[ fuck. she's got ohio tied to a chair. this is definitely not normal and definitely not something that anyone on his staff needs to see. ]
I'm calm. [ no longer does he feel any sort of remorse for the line he did in the bathroom, because clearly it was necessary to prepare him for this moment. he gestures to her torn clothes. ] Did you really beat up a senator?
[ presently, the sounds coming from the senator sound less than human. embry isn't completely ignorant of what this looks like. however, ash is the devoutly religious one, not him. embry is only concerned with how many areas of sin he can cover on any given day. ]
You're a terrible date. [ or a wonderful one, because whatever this is, it's gotten him away from the crowd in a very decisive manner. he finishes off the dregs of her champagne and places both empty glasses precariously on a shelf beside a bottle of bleach. ] Christ. We have to untie this man.
[ Sharp: ] We do not. Embry, listen to me, you untie him now and the best case scenario is we get the Coast Guard called on us, yeah? That's not a scandal you want.
You want to help, you go get me a pen and an empty bottle I can stopper--
[ Ohio tries to yell something that sounds a lot like "she's crazy!" and Johanna give him a sharp kick in the shins. ] You could make this a fuck of a lot easier on all of us if you just fuck back off to Hell on your own, you know!
[ he flinches internally for the man's poor shins, open to assault from her pointy shoes. yeah, it should definitely be ash in here dealing with this, because embry rarely deals well with anything, considering his track record that's riddled with evidence of his past fuck-ups. not that johanna needs to know that.
not that johanna seems that much better at dealing with things.
hissing once more — ] There's CIA already on the ship. And no, that's not the scandal we agreed on. What happened to sex in the bathroom? This is a utility closet.
[ still, he hands her a pen from the inside of his jacket, and then starts rummaging through the shelves for a bottle, finding a cleaner that doesn't look as noxious as the rest and dumping it out in the corner. ]
Why does it look like you're trying to perform an exorcism? [ he hands over the empty bottle and screw top. ] Is this why you wanted to be my date?
[ She's dealing fine!! She's dealing with it! She's improvising, she's thriving, her skin is clear! ]
No! Christ, no, if I knew you had a possessed senator onboard I'd've come better prepared!
[ She grabs the pen, tucks the bottle under her arm, and starts scribbling a seal on it. ]
It looks like an exorcism because it is a bloody exorcism. I don't know who's gotten into our friend here but I'm going to try and get it out. You're welcome.
Better prepared with what? On second thought, don't answer that. I'd like plausible deniability in this case.
[ the case being the kidnapping of a junior senator to perform an exorcism on him. ash is about to lose every ohio voter he's ever had. ]
This guy's gonna talk, Johanna. He's gonna tell the world you stuck him in a closet and tried to assault him. That's not most people's idea of a good time. Give me a chance to make this go away.
[ is it sarcasm? unknown. she has, successfully, kidnapped and assaulted a senator, in the technical sense that it's happening right before his eyes. too bad the staff won't deliver drinks to the closet. ]
I'm not leaving you alone until we dock. [ under different circumstances, one might consider him chivalrous for such a statement. as it stands, he just needs to make sure she doesn't kidnap anyone else. he also needs to make sure ohio here makes it out alive. ] Ten minutes. What do you need me to do?
( the lake house always feels empty thanks to its grandiose size, but now that it's actually empty it's a bit like a ghost town, without even hired help to pick up their bags from the foyer into their respective bedrooms. no little toddler feet smacking the ground in fat, baby steps, thank god — nothing really, but the rush of crashing water when morgan goes outside and sticks her pantyhosed feet into the wet sand, letting the sea salted air scrub away her expensive perfume on a rough breeze. it is, a little, like its own world, wide enough for the both of them and three vintage cars currently gathering dust in the garage morgan lost her virginity in. right. memories live in these awful rooms — shitty holidays with rich politicians owning alcoholic wives and wandering hands. in this house, she passed a baby lyr from her arms to nimue's, and signed the paperwork sealing the deal. somewhere upstairs, she kissed her brother for the first time, a year back.
probably the weirdest thing about it is that nothing ever really changes between them. she isn't in love with embry, she isn't that much of a royal, but she does love him more than she's ever admitted to. unfortunately for her, despite her general anger at the world for her mother's death, she was a victim to embry moore's charms at a young age — back then his dimples were just dimples on the sunny eyed disposition of a little prince who hadn't yet learned all the ways one person can disappoint the earth. well — he and morgan aren't that far in age, so it's not like she remembers him being born, but she does know there was awhile when he was more sunshine than not, a happy boy, and then he became a lot more like morgan. sad and mean. so. sometimes looking at embry is like looking in the same silver platter mirrored back at you — they only share a father, but it was enough to make the structural base of themselves all the same. rich, beautiful, and broken.
easy enough solution to that. morgan walks through the house on a cloud, happy not to have vivienne moore in the vicinity, so she can walk without her heels on, and drink without using a coaster, and fuck her brother without having to shove her underwear into his loud mouth. upstairs, she finds embry already in place in their mother's room, using a razor to chop up the xanax into little dust piles. morgan laughs at what a bad job he's doing, and fixes it like a good sister should, cutting the snow with cocaine fetched from her bra, which she was lucky (or wealthy) enough the drug dogs before the plane didn't pick up. in any case — the rules of polite society detail ladies first on the ski slopes, and the drugs feel like a punch in the face, her head rushing with the thrill of it, fingers sliding through the curly hair at the back of embry's neck, feeling him take the hit same as her. shared trauma. she snorts. )
Embry. ( she eases him onto his back, sliding the tray further up the bed. one line isn't enough for either of them to be drooling idiots, but they can take their time with it — no one's here, and no one really cares, anyway. story of their lives. almost hypnotized, her fingertips stroke over his mouth, gliding down his throat, toying open the first buttons on his shirt. it's all cleverly done — morgan doesn't even know it's a seduction until she feels the silk of her blouse press against her breasts, clenching her thighs together, because her brother looks pretty, white residue under his nose like he's eighteen years old again, keeping watch while morgan rifles through their mother's underwear drawer in search of loose valium. taking charge, she slides into his lap, pencil skirt lifting up her thighs. ) Are you happy, little brother?
[ thank god morgan's the responsible one and had the foresight to bring cocaine. all embry brought was his xanax and his broken heart, which stirs a little at morgan's touch, all the jagged pieces rattling around like a box being shaken in well-manicured hands. ash will get drunk with him (and god, he lives for those evenings when he can steal him away for a few hours before he has to go home to jenny, when ash has one glass too many and his complicated green eyes get a little darker, a little glassier, and his hands start to wander over embry's stubbled jaw like just morgan's doing now), but he won't snort anything with him, because ash has morals and embry doesn't, and that's just how it is. ash wouldn't be caught dead in anyone's mother's house, his stepsister in his lap.
that's the difference between the two of them. embry is awful, and ash is not. real fucking simple.
morgan is also idiotic for asking that question, and he almost says so. ]
Of course I am.
[ he's never been so fucking miserable in his life. he'll be dead before he stops loving ash, and watching him every day with jenny is killing him. he never knew how bad being in love could be until this. all he has to sustain him are the accidental brushes of their hands and the quiet bumping of their shoulders. no kisses. no furtive touches behind closed doors. he hasn't heard the words little prince since ash used love in the past tense and embry wanted to cry in a goddamn restaurant.
that, and morgan. he's given up on other people, on strangers in his bed that make him feel even more hollow than he already does. morgan has the same eyes, and the same mouth, and the same spill of black hair that falls over her shoulder, silkier than her six-hundred dollar, actual silk blouse — currently showing off the outline of her tightening nipples. ]
That skirt looks uncomfortable.
[ and sexy. but still uncomfortable, so he fumbles with the sides until his fingers latch onto the world's thinnest zipper, recklessly tugging it down. there's no practical way to do this, so he grips one satiny, panty-hosed thigh, and shoves her off so she bounces down beside him, then starts shimmying her skirt like snakeskin down her legs. his body presses up against hers in the process, breath warm against her skin. ]
Are you happy?
[ her skirt finally comes free, which he tosses aside, and then it's just her in her silken blouse and pantyhose, and embry feels desire that isn't wrapped up in ash for the first time in years (yes it is). it's the same thing he felt when he kissed her last year in this same house, devastated by her eyes and her mouth and thinking there wasn't anyone prettier than her, ever. she's still so goddamn pretty, in a way that makes him want to die a little, which isn't different from how ash makes him feel, so. well. fuck.
at least he's on a level playing field with her. he knows she's a viper. and she knows he's no better. ]
( she says, as obvious a lie as his was. how many ways to say i haven't been happy since your best friend impregnated me, and you both left me in a burning church to die, but for a change of pace morgan doesn't feel vindictive of it. sometimes, rarely but occasionally, even her own venom feels poisonous to her. plaguing herself with thoughts of that day does nothing but make this vacuous space inside her feel deeper, less whole. she never really forgave embry for it, but she loves him, which is her own cross to carry. he and lyr are the only people in the world she feels anything loving towards and, well.
one's a kid, and the other one sometimes behaves like one. poor, sad embry. his life is very hard.
probably, the same could be said about her. anyone could look at morgan leffey and see the endlessly spoiled daughter of two politicians, who can take weeks and weekends off work to go fuck her brother in some remote mansion in the family's name, and they'd be right enough that it wouldn't matter that morgan walks through life like a ghost, like she really did die in carpathia a hundred years ago. a buttery, stocking-clad foot presses up the center of embry's chest and gives him a gentle kick back, making room enough for morgan to ease her blouse up and over her head with a kitten stretch. life is months of walking dead on her feet, interrupted by brief, shimmering moments when she remembers she is alive and she does have feelings, dark and tarry as they are. this is one of those good moments — when she can look up and see embry, her baby brother, affected by her. yearning echoed back in her own expression.
her mouth twists up in a grin, sitting up so she can meet him, one hand cinching around his throat while the other palms through his hair, morgan leaning it to press her mouth to the corner of his, matching his breaths until the air leaves him. they hold. then, she lets him go, feeling his panting mouth against hers as she kisses him, undoing the leftover buttons of his shirt, and yanking the tails from his pants.
she was wrong, the first time she told embry he couldn't keep up with ash. as it turns out, he's as much of a masochist as morgan is a sadist, which she's sure lead ash and embry to have a very normal relationship, that neither of them want to talk about. the lucky thing — embry reminds morgan of ash, and morgan hates ash with a fire that can only come from a place of loving, longing, and what ifs. it makes being rough on him as easy as breathing, the exact thing she wishes she could do to ash. )
Want me to go easy on you? ( they could, after all, be normal siblings having normal sibling sex together? she snorts, fumbling embry's belt, just opening his pants enough for her to lay her palms flat on his cock, the heel of her hand meanly grinding into him. ) Why do I bother asking? I'm the older one, I'm supposed to convince you to do what I want.
[ the wonderful thing about morgan is that she knows him better than anyone else, except for ash. or maybe that's not even true anymore. ash had been so close to understanding him, so fucking close to cracking him open fully and getting to the truth. an absurd part of embry is resentful that ash hadn't disassembled his lie, that he breaks him until he's kneeling at his feet over everything else — except when it'd come to this. it's the worst thing to hate ash for, because it's exactly what he wanted. and yet even when embry gets what he wants, he's not happy. there's a flaw somewhere in his design that stops him from ever being fucking happy.
and morgan understands that. she doesn't pity him the way ash does, because while they both know embry will eventually die drunk and alone because he's read brideshead revisited too many times, morgan doesn't try to make him feel better for it. she doesn't tell him it's okay. she doesn't weaponize her big, sad eyes on him unless it's to get her way, which rarely has anything positive in it for him. he knows what he's getting, which is her biting mouth and acerbic tongue, and it leaves him wanting and breathless and fucking pissed about it every time. ]
Convince me better.
[ it's all for show, to put up the front that he isn't easy when they both know he is, to pretend that he doesn't want to be choked and ridden and bruised by his own goddamn sister — stepsister, still an important distinction. he groans deep in his throat, his hips pressing into her hand. on some level, he loves this. he loves her.
his fingers dig into the mesh fabric of her hosiery, tearing a hole right at the crease of her thigh. widening it takes no effort, exposing the little strip of fabric from her lacy black thong, soaked through and doing a poor job of covering up her swollen pinky cunt beneath. the first touch feels like heaven, no hesitation in sliding into her wet folds, slick and warm and waiting. he thumbs at her clit in a quick rhythm, because isn't that what she's doing to him? sibling revenge. ]
Give me another hit. [ it's better when it's served up by his sissy. ] I've been on good behavior and I'm starving.
( convince him better? a smile curves up on morgan's lips, the same colgate commercial grin as ash, except both of them rarely express themselves via a smile, and when they do it means inherently different things. flipped coin mannerisms and all — ash is inherently good, and morgan is inherently a born and bred, silver spoon sucking prodigal infant of a political tycoon in the republican party, who was raised on the caviar of may-december relationships. ash grew up eating toasted ravioli in the city center of kansas city missouri which, shocking everyone in the midwestern united states of america, actually does have multiple streetlights. morgan was born bad. wrong. or something like that.
she wasn't born as self-sacrificial as either of her brothers, but she has moments nearing their levels of self-loathing. reflecting on what a good, good person their gilded president is, how infallible, how he never makes a wrong choice, alongside the gutting reality that he chose to let her and their unborn child burn up in a church, where she wouldn't have even been, if he bothered to see her. embry's god, his forlorn love, his one that got away, the person he always, always chooses over morgan. bubby left her in that church, too.
the point is — she smiles, a smile that says you can't make me do anything and fuck you a hundred million times over. if he wants a hit, then morgan flattens her hand and reels back, slapping him hard across the face with a satisfying crack, her fingers lingering on his cheek to sink into his mouth, dragging him back to meet her like a fish caught on a hook. the red impact mark on his cheek almost looks like a blush, which would be far more novel on embry than a hand print. )
Who wants you on good behavior? You're so much more fun the other way.
( she tosses him to the side with some effort, wriggling out of his grasp and getting the silver platter, cutting up a bump for him that she sets up on the flat part of her thumb. she's almost maternal about it, almost sisterly, presenting her hand and pinching embry's nostril for him while he snorts, crawling into his lap and laving her tongue over his prickly upper lip, his pronounced cupid's bow, to taste the lingering residue. )
Coke dick is a real thing, bubby. Don't go where I can't fuck you.
( testing, her hips swivel on him, happy to find him still hard. she's wet. these things find each other — his weeping erection feeling hot and swollen against her slick, messy folds. it doesn't take effort to arrange him at her entrance, to sink down on him and gasp at the pleasurepain of the first stroke. her body clenches around his, hands sinking into his renaissance curls, pulling hard to yank his head back. her teeth catch on his chin, nipping. )
Don't come, either. Not until I say so. Not until you beg for it. ( she bites his jawline all the way down, until she's biting at his ear, pressing her tongue into the shell, hips grinding down on his in the same motion. ) Or else I'm gonna beat you black and blue, bubby.
[ fucking shit. the slaps brings his cock to attention but also pisses him the fuck off, and for a moment he wants to tie her up with her own goddamn pantyhose. sometimes he doesn't believe morgan cares about him at all, like she took whatever love and affection she held for him and splintered it the moment he hadn't come for her in carpathia. he believes her when she says she won't forgive him. but he idiotically still wants to try to make her, even with every reminder that she won't.
his anger fades as quick as a spark, as quick as a snort of cocaine and the warm lick of morgan's lips. embry has a lot of anger that never goes anywhere except back into himself, and more so now that ash isn't fucking all the bad thoughts out of him. he thinks about saying something, about maybe opening up a little now that the drugs are settling in and loosening his tongue, but then he's enveloped in morgan's hot, wet cunt, and all he can do is whisk a drawn-out moan from between his clenched teeth and hope to fucking god she's on birth control. pregnancy is a touchy topic and he doesn't want to get slapped again — at least not for that, because that won’t be fun. ]
You can't make me beg. [ his sooty lashes flutter against his cheeks at his big boy proclamation, his eyes dropping to the flushed outline of her nipples through her lacy bra. ] This is nice.
[ his fingers ghost along her back, sliding beneath the band and pulling it away from her skin, making like he's going to unhook it and free the titties, but he just stretches it a good few inches and then snaps it back so it leaves a satisfying little mark against her perfectly porcelain spine. he never gets these chances with ash, never gets to sneak little moments of mischief in, because with ash it’s like his head is being held underwater while he fights to stay within an inch of his life, but with morgan — she’s a prowling wildcat that likes to play with her food. it’s a dangerous game, a different kind of losing than when he kneels at ash’s feet. a part of embry feels like he owes her this.
he owes her a lot, for leaving her in that church. for trusting ash’s lead. for not regretting the choice even if he’d wanted to die the second the doctors told him she’d never regain full motion in her shoulder again.
he squeezes the curve of her ass, wrapped up tight in her hosiery, and presses his hips tighter into hers. no coke dick here, because he’s shuddering into her heat, ready to blow his load like he’s a teenager fumbling around in morgan’s panties while one of vivienne moore’s christmas parties rages downstairs. morgan, sometimes, would bring an annoying date, someone who oozed money and followed her around like a pathetic dog. embry would just show up alone, a habit that’s followed him into his thirties, and make out with the prettiest person there. ]
Shit. [ he lifts her so his cock just barely touches her entrance, then pushes in again, sinking into her body’s blissful heat with a groan. how could she tell him not to come? he feels compelled to bind himself to her stupid commands, to the poor, sad detriment of his cock. ] Morgan, I haven’t — shit, I haven’t fucked anyone in —
[ forever, it feels like, because he’s been too busy being hopelessly fucking sad about ash and jenny, following them around like the permanent bachelor he is. he twists to tip morgan onto the bed, so that they’re facing each other and he can nip hungrily at her bra, licking right through the rough lace, as he reaches down to lift one of her legs so he can fuck all the way inside of her. ]
( with a tone of voice that says haven't you looked in a mirror lately? i own you too regardless of how much of a lie it is. there's a similar sting to the lie as there is the snap of her bra strap — a comfortable, familiar pain like pressing a thumb into a bruise or the soft part of a fruit, feeling it concave and fragile in your hands. not that she, morgan leffey, is fragile. not that it's ever been an option for her. maybe once she was a little girl with lofty ideas about romance and love, her promised million dollar house in upstate new york, a politically interesting husband with idealist morals to compliment her rigid pessimism, two and a half perfect kids and a cat, or something. obviously it's not how it went down. the end goal is never love anymore — it's just the bitter heartbreath seconds of feeling momentarily whole and alive, not feeling full but feeling passably content. morgan takes those moments when they come, breezy and ephemeral. it hasn't been a long time for her — not when america is riddled senseless with billionaire tycoons, and senators with wives, and wives with house of representatives seats. not when lyonesse is there, full of perfectly acceptable people who might take a glance at her and say sure, i'll can try out white, skinny, and bruisable for the night.
it's not embry's point, obviously, but none of his words are load bearing in that sentence — not anything he actually wants to say, not anything close to what he means. it's always ash, with him. ash in the newspapers, ash on the dancefloor, ash getting married, ash on a train that's always headed in a direction away from him. being a whore runs in the family, and embry hasn't been holding up his end of the moore-leffey bargain of biblical self-loathing. their little secret, knowledge from the great beyond — they're both so full of wanting, despite how loathsome they are. only, morgan doesn't find embry loathsome. lovesick and cruel, sometimes, a perpetual circle of endless hope and battering disappointment, but not unlovable. morgan shivers, full to bursting with her brother's cock, pinned on her back. it's hard to imagine him holding a gun, despite having visited him in carpathia, in his ugly fatigues, in his dangling dogtags — like this, he's just her boyish little brother, charming girls with his dimpled smile and pretty cock. nothing's ugly about embry, not one single thing. )
Hold.
( she presses a fist against his belly, keeping him from thrusting back inside her, so she can lift up on her elbow and find their silver tray. it puts an unfun amount of pressure pain on her bad shoulder, but once she flinches and sinks her teeth into her lip she's fine, cunt fluttering on his cock like a happy cunt should, ducking to the side and snorting a too fat line, but it doesn't matter because worst case scenario she has an overdose and dies, and that is hardly anyone's worst case anything. resetting her position underneath him, a catlike grin curves up the corner of her lips, a sharply pointed acrylic nail pressed against her pink tongue as she wets her pointer finger, eventually arching up until her mouth is back against his ear, hand skating around his hip. )
Are you saying you're tight like a virgin for me? ( she maneuvers her hand into his wrinkled pants, fingers dropping down the curve of his ass until she pressing against his hole, teasing with the idea of pushing in. ) I remember virgin Embry. I might be the only one who does. ( her pussy seizes tightly around him, muscles working hard to clamp him in, to cut off blood flow, to make his dick hers and hers alone. ) If you fill up my cunt, I'll fill up yours. But you have to ask nicely. You know the score.
Do you want the truth? You would be extremely popular at raves. Trust me. I know. It wasn't traumatizing. It was lifesaving information that you should be thanking me for passing on. Even if it was traumatizing, you should still be thanking me.
Like how I'm asking follow up questions? And you're answering them, and not immediately turning to dust?
[ filed under: things he will not tell ash that lyr said, because he feels extremely fucking guilty about their stalled relationship. ]
Presidents are people too. People who happen to like going to raves when they're not changing diapers.
Lyr. I've never seen someone want to be asked about their plans so badly. You know I'm not going to tell anyone, right? Not Nimue or Vivienne or Morgan. Do you think I willingly want to initiate a conversation with any of them?
They don't need gifts. I can't even see the floor anymore because of all their toys.
I tell them things because I trust them. I'd trust them with you, too. But what don't you want them to know? As your uncle, I have several offshore accounts to hold your secrets. One for the promiscuous ones, one for everything else.
You think Galahad will let me do that? He'd start throwing those wooden apples at my head.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
— JOHANNA.
he's already peeled away from ash and greer, having done a few turns with them feeling like an unstable third wheel. ash isn't trying to make him feel that way; it just is. he and greer look perfectly suited to each other, and embry looks perfectly suited to be america's most permanent bachelor despite his constant rotation of dates — and his current one for the night is presently nowhere to be found despite the fact that they'd boarded the ship together.
johanna is not the sentimental or the clingy type, but they can hardly be photographed together if they aren't actually existing in the same space together (and neither can they explore any of the intriguing options discussed beforehand, which embry thinks might be the only way to salvage the night), so embry sets off to look for her, switching his empty glass for two flutes of champagne from a passing waiter. that looks better. it looks like he's an attentive date this way, at least.
she's harder to track down than he expects, and he finishes both of their glasses before he hears her voice as he's escaping a conversation with one of their donors. he passes down the narrow hallway and realizes her voice is coming from inside a storage closet, wrung tight with tension. embry twists the knob without hesitation and immediately wishes he hadn't. ]
Johanna — [ he hisses her name, his hopes of their hands mutually down each other's pants dissipating at the sight of a man bound tightly to a folding chair, johanna standing before him. discreetly — because he has a lot of fucking practice with that — he lets himself in and locks the door behind him. ] What the fuck are you doing? This isn't Lyonesse.
[ really, a poor excuse, because if she wanted to tie someone to a chair — he's right here. ]
no subject
[ The low, urgent flow of Latin breaks off as the door opens, and Johanna turns to Embry in surprise. Why didn't she lock the door, fuck.
A beat. ]
All right, I'm not going to tell you this isn't what it looks like.
[ There isn't a whole lot of room in here with the two of them standing and the junior senator from Ohio tied to a chair. Now that Embry's inside and right up in her business, a few more details might start to come to notice. For instance: Johanna came onto this boat with her hair artfully tousled and her blouse neat as a pin. Now one sleeve has ripped at the shoulder seam, and her hair looks more "got in a tussle" than "beachy waves." She's holding a small book bound in black leather, with her finger holding her place in the middle of it. For instance: over the smell of chemical cleaners, there's an aroma like burnt charcoal, even though nothing in here appears singed.
Also for instance: the junior senator from Ohio was growling through the makeshift gag Jo's got on him. (His tie. It's not very effective.) He's stopped now that Embry is here, switched to muffled pleas for help, but the sound was more like a Rottweiler than a human. ]
I need you to stay calm.
no subject
I'm calm. [ no longer does he feel any sort of remorse for the line he did in the bathroom, because clearly it was necessary to prepare him for this moment. he gestures to her torn clothes. ] Did you really beat up a senator?
[ presently, the sounds coming from the senator sound less than human. embry isn't completely ignorant of what this looks like. however, ash is the devoutly religious one, not him. embry is only concerned with how many areas of sin he can cover on any given day. ]
You're a terrible date. [ or a wonderful one, because whatever this is, it's gotten him away from the crowd in a very decisive manner. he finishes off the dregs of her champagne and places both empty glasses precariously on a shelf beside a bottle of bleach. ] Christ. We have to untie this man.
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You want to help, you go get me a pen and an empty bottle I can stopper--
[ Ohio tries to yell something that sounds a lot like "she's crazy!" and Johanna give him a sharp kick in the shins. ] You could make this a fuck of a lot easier on all of us if you just fuck back off to Hell on your own, you know!
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not that johanna seems that much better at dealing with things.
hissing once more — ] There's CIA already on the ship. And no, that's not the scandal we agreed on. What happened to sex in the bathroom? This is a utility closet.
[ still, he hands her a pen from the inside of his jacket, and then starts rummaging through the shelves for a bottle, finding a cleaner that doesn't look as noxious as the rest and dumping it out in the corner. ]
Why does it look like you're trying to perform an exorcism? [ he hands over the empty bottle and screw top. ] Is this why you wanted to be my date?
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No! Christ, no, if I knew you had a possessed senator onboard I'd've come better prepared!
[ She grabs the pen, tucks the bottle under her arm, and starts scribbling a seal on it. ]
It looks like an exorcism because it is a bloody exorcism. I don't know who's gotten into our friend here but I'm going to try and get it out. You're welcome.
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[ the case being the kidnapping of a junior senator to perform an exorcism on him. ash is about to lose every ohio voter he's ever had. ]
This guy's gonna talk, Johanna. He's gonna tell the world you stuck him in a closet and tried to assault him. That's not most people's idea of a good time. Give me a chance to make this go away.
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Rather think I successfully assaulted him, mate.
We both want the same thing. Give me ten minutes. Please. You can stay here and make sure I don't do anything else crazy.
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[ is it sarcasm? unknown. she has, successfully, kidnapped and assaulted a senator, in the technical sense that it's happening right before his eyes. too bad the staff won't deliver drinks to the closet. ]
I'm not leaving you alone until we dock. [ under different circumstances, one might consider him chivalrous for such a statement. as it stands, he just needs to make sure she doesn't kidnap anyone else. he also needs to make sure ohio here makes it out alive. ] Ten minutes. What do you need me to do?
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im sry about my slowness work has ended me
omg no worries! very happy to backtag
cw: halfsibs, drugs
probably the weirdest thing about it is that nothing ever really changes between them. she isn't in love with embry, she isn't that much of a royal, but she does love him more than she's ever admitted to. unfortunately for her, despite her general anger at the world for her mother's death, she was a victim to embry moore's charms at a young age — back then his dimples were just dimples on the sunny eyed disposition of a little prince who hadn't yet learned all the ways one person can disappoint the earth. well — he and morgan aren't that far in age, so it's not like she remembers him being born, but she does know there was awhile when he was more sunshine than not, a happy boy, and then he became a lot more like morgan. sad and mean. so. sometimes looking at embry is like looking in the same silver platter mirrored back at you — they only share a father, but it was enough to make the structural base of themselves all the same. rich, beautiful, and broken.
easy enough solution to that. morgan walks through the house on a cloud, happy not to have vivienne moore in the vicinity, so she can walk without her heels on, and drink without using a coaster, and fuck her brother without having to shove her underwear into his loud mouth. upstairs, she finds embry already in place in their mother's room, using a razor to chop up the xanax into little dust piles. morgan laughs at what a bad job he's doing, and fixes it like a good sister should, cutting the snow with cocaine fetched from her bra, which she was lucky (or wealthy) enough the drug dogs before the plane didn't pick up. in any case — the rules of polite society detail ladies first on the ski slopes, and the drugs feel like a punch in the face, her head rushing with the thrill of it, fingers sliding through the curly hair at the back of embry's neck, feeling him take the hit same as her. shared trauma. she snorts. )
Embry. ( she eases him onto his back, sliding the tray further up the bed. one line isn't enough for either of them to be drooling idiots, but they can take their time with it — no one's here, and no one really cares, anyway. story of their lives. almost hypnotized, her fingertips stroke over his mouth, gliding down his throat, toying open the first buttons on his shirt. it's all cleverly done — morgan doesn't even know it's a seduction until she feels the silk of her blouse press against her breasts, clenching her thighs together, because her brother looks pretty, white residue under his nose like he's eighteen years old again, keeping watch while morgan rifles through their mother's underwear drawer in search of loose valium. taking charge, she slides into his lap, pencil skirt lifting up her thighs. ) Are you happy, little brother?
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that's the difference between the two of them. embry is awful, and ash is not. real fucking simple.
morgan is also idiotic for asking that question, and he almost says so. ]
Of course I am.
[ he's never been so fucking miserable in his life. he'll be dead before he stops loving ash, and watching him every day with jenny is killing him. he never knew how bad being in love could be until this. all he has to sustain him are the accidental brushes of their hands and the quiet bumping of their shoulders. no kisses. no furtive touches behind closed doors. he hasn't heard the words little prince since ash used love in the past tense and embry wanted to cry in a goddamn restaurant.
that, and morgan. he's given up on other people, on strangers in his bed that make him feel even more hollow than he already does. morgan has the same eyes, and the same mouth, and the same spill of black hair that falls over her shoulder, silkier than her six-hundred dollar, actual silk blouse — currently showing off the outline of her tightening nipples. ]
That skirt looks uncomfortable.
[ and sexy. but still uncomfortable, so he fumbles with the sides until his fingers latch onto the world's thinnest zipper, recklessly tugging it down. there's no practical way to do this, so he grips one satiny, panty-hosed thigh, and shoves her off so she bounces down beside him, then starts shimmying her skirt like snakeskin down her legs. his body presses up against hers in the process, breath warm against her skin. ]
Are you happy?
[ her skirt finally comes free, which he tosses aside, and then it's just her in her silken blouse and pantyhose, and embry feels desire that isn't wrapped up in ash for the first time in years (yes it is). it's the same thing he felt when he kissed her last year in this same house, devastated by her eyes and her mouth and thinking there wasn't anyone prettier than her, ever. she's still so goddamn pretty, in a way that makes him want to die a little, which isn't different from how ash makes him feel, so. well. fuck.
at least he's on a level playing field with her. he knows she's a viper. and she knows he's no better. ]
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( she says, as obvious a lie as his was. how many ways to say i haven't been happy since your best friend impregnated me, and you both left me in a burning church to die, but for a change of pace morgan doesn't feel vindictive of it. sometimes, rarely but occasionally, even her own venom feels poisonous to her. plaguing herself with thoughts of that day does nothing but make this vacuous space inside her feel deeper, less whole. she never really forgave embry for it, but she loves him, which is her own cross to carry. he and lyr are the only people in the world she feels anything loving towards and, well.
one's a kid, and the other one sometimes behaves like one. poor, sad embry. his life is very hard.
probably, the same could be said about her. anyone could look at morgan leffey and see the endlessly spoiled daughter of two politicians, who can take weeks and weekends off work to go fuck her brother in some remote mansion in the family's name, and they'd be right enough that it wouldn't matter that morgan walks through life like a ghost, like she really did die in carpathia a hundred years ago. a buttery, stocking-clad foot presses up the center of embry's chest and gives him a gentle kick back, making room enough for morgan to ease her blouse up and over her head with a kitten stretch. life is months of walking dead on her feet, interrupted by brief, shimmering moments when she remembers she is alive and she does have feelings, dark and tarry as they are. this is one of those good moments — when she can look up and see embry, her baby brother, affected by her. yearning echoed back in her own expression.
her mouth twists up in a grin, sitting up so she can meet him, one hand cinching around his throat while the other palms through his hair, morgan leaning it to press her mouth to the corner of his, matching his breaths until the air leaves him. they hold. then, she lets him go, feeling his panting mouth against hers as she kisses him, undoing the leftover buttons of his shirt, and yanking the tails from his pants.
she was wrong, the first time she told embry he couldn't keep up with ash. as it turns out, he's as much of a masochist as morgan is a sadist, which she's sure lead ash and embry to have a very normal relationship, that neither of them want to talk about. the lucky thing — embry reminds morgan of ash, and morgan hates ash with a fire that can only come from a place of loving, longing, and what ifs. it makes being rough on him as easy as breathing, the exact thing she wishes she could do to ash. )
Want me to go easy on you? ( they could, after all, be normal siblings having normal sibling sex together? she snorts, fumbling embry's belt, just opening his pants enough for her to lay her palms flat on his cock, the heel of her hand meanly grinding into him. ) Why do I bother asking? I'm the older one, I'm supposed to convince you to do what I want.
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and morgan understands that. she doesn't pity him the way ash does, because while they both know embry will eventually die drunk and alone because he's read brideshead revisited too many times, morgan doesn't try to make him feel better for it. she doesn't tell him it's okay. she doesn't weaponize her big, sad eyes on him unless it's to get her way, which rarely has anything positive in it for him. he knows what he's getting, which is her biting mouth and acerbic tongue, and it leaves him wanting and breathless and fucking pissed about it every time. ]
Convince me better.
[ it's all for show, to put up the front that he isn't easy when they both know he is, to pretend that he doesn't want to be choked and ridden and bruised by his own goddamn sister — stepsister, still an important distinction. he groans deep in his throat, his hips pressing into her hand. on some level, he loves this. he loves her.
his fingers dig into the mesh fabric of her hosiery, tearing a hole right at the crease of her thigh. widening it takes no effort, exposing the little strip of fabric from her lacy black thong, soaked through and doing a poor job of covering up her swollen pinky cunt beneath. the first touch feels like heaven, no hesitation in sliding into her wet folds, slick and warm and waiting. he thumbs at her clit in a quick rhythm, because isn't that what she's doing to him? sibling revenge. ]
Give me another hit. [ it's better when it's served up by his sissy. ] I've been on good behavior and I'm starving.
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she wasn't born as self-sacrificial as either of her brothers, but she has moments nearing their levels of self-loathing. reflecting on what a good, good person their gilded president is, how infallible, how he never makes a wrong choice, alongside the gutting reality that he chose to let her and their unborn child burn up in a church, where she wouldn't have even been, if he bothered to see her. embry's god, his forlorn love, his one that got away, the person he always, always chooses over morgan. bubby left her in that church, too.
the point is — she smiles, a smile that says you can't make me do anything and fuck you a hundred million times over. if he wants a hit, then morgan flattens her hand and reels back, slapping him hard across the face with a satisfying crack, her fingers lingering on his cheek to sink into his mouth, dragging him back to meet her like a fish caught on a hook. the red impact mark on his cheek almost looks like a blush, which would be far more novel on embry than a hand print. )
Who wants you on good behavior? You're so much more fun the other way.
( she tosses him to the side with some effort, wriggling out of his grasp and getting the silver platter, cutting up a bump for him that she sets up on the flat part of her thumb. she's almost maternal about it, almost sisterly, presenting her hand and pinching embry's nostril for him while he snorts, crawling into his lap and laving her tongue over his prickly upper lip, his pronounced cupid's bow, to taste the lingering residue. )
Coke dick is a real thing, bubby. Don't go where I can't fuck you.
( testing, her hips swivel on him, happy to find him still hard. she's wet. these things find each other — his weeping erection feeling hot and swollen against her slick, messy folds. it doesn't take effort to arrange him at her entrance, to sink down on him and gasp at the pleasurepain of the first stroke. her body clenches around his, hands sinking into his renaissance curls, pulling hard to yank his head back. her teeth catch on his chin, nipping. )
Don't come, either. Not until I say so. Not until you beg for it. ( she bites his jawline all the way down, until she's biting at his ear, pressing her tongue into the shell, hips grinding down on his in the same motion. ) Or else I'm gonna beat you black and blue, bubby.
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his anger fades as quick as a spark, as quick as a snort of cocaine and the warm lick of morgan's lips. embry has a lot of anger that never goes anywhere except back into himself, and more so now that ash isn't fucking all the bad thoughts out of him. he thinks about saying something, about maybe opening up a little now that the drugs are settling in and loosening his tongue, but then he's enveloped in morgan's hot, wet cunt, and all he can do is whisk a drawn-out moan from between his clenched teeth and hope to fucking god she's on birth control. pregnancy is a touchy topic and he doesn't want to get slapped again — at least not for that, because that won’t be fun. ]
You can't make me beg. [ his sooty lashes flutter against his cheeks at his big boy proclamation, his eyes dropping to the flushed outline of her nipples through her lacy bra. ] This is nice.
[ his fingers ghost along her back, sliding beneath the band and pulling it away from her skin, making like he's going to unhook it and free the titties, but he just stretches it a good few inches and then snaps it back so it leaves a satisfying little mark against her perfectly porcelain spine. he never gets these chances with ash, never gets to sneak little moments of mischief in, because with ash it’s like his head is being held underwater while he fights to stay within an inch of his life, but with morgan — she’s a prowling wildcat that likes to play with her food. it’s a dangerous game, a different kind of losing than when he kneels at ash’s feet. a part of embry feels like he owes her this.
he owes her a lot, for leaving her in that church. for trusting ash’s lead. for not regretting the choice even if he’d wanted to die the second the doctors told him she’d never regain full motion in her shoulder again.
he squeezes the curve of her ass, wrapped up tight in her hosiery, and presses his hips tighter into hers. no coke dick here, because he’s shuddering into her heat, ready to blow his load like he’s a teenager fumbling around in morgan’s panties while one of vivienne moore’s christmas parties rages downstairs. morgan, sometimes, would bring an annoying date, someone who oozed money and followed her around like a pathetic dog. embry would just show up alone, a habit that’s followed him into his thirties, and make out with the prettiest person there. ]
Shit. [ he lifts her so his cock just barely touches her entrance, then pushes in again, sinking into her body’s blissful heat with a groan. how could she tell him not to come? he feels compelled to bind himself to her stupid commands, to the poor, sad detriment of his cock. ] Morgan, I haven’t — shit, I haven’t fucked anyone in —
[ forever, it feels like, because he’s been too busy being hopelessly fucking sad about ash and jenny, following them around like the permanent bachelor he is. he twists to tip morgan onto the bed, so that they’re facing each other and he can nip hungrily at her bra, licking right through the rough lace, as he reaches down to lift one of her legs so he can fuck all the way inside of her. ]
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( with a tone of voice that says haven't you looked in a mirror lately? i own you too regardless of how much of a lie it is. there's a similar sting to the lie as there is the snap of her bra strap — a comfortable, familiar pain like pressing a thumb into a bruise or the soft part of a fruit, feeling it concave and fragile in your hands. not that she, morgan leffey, is fragile. not that it's ever been an option for her. maybe once she was a little girl with lofty ideas about romance and love, her promised million dollar house in upstate new york, a politically interesting husband with idealist morals to compliment her rigid pessimism, two and a half perfect kids and a cat, or something. obviously it's not how it went down. the end goal is never love anymore — it's just the bitter heartbreath seconds of feeling momentarily whole and alive, not feeling full but feeling passably content. morgan takes those moments when they come, breezy and ephemeral. it hasn't been a long time for her — not when america is riddled senseless with billionaire tycoons, and senators with wives, and wives with house of representatives seats. not when lyonesse is there, full of perfectly acceptable people who might take a glance at her and say sure, i'll can try out white, skinny, and bruisable for the night.
it's not embry's point, obviously, but none of his words are load bearing in that sentence — not anything he actually wants to say, not anything close to what he means. it's always ash, with him. ash in the newspapers, ash on the dancefloor, ash getting married, ash on a train that's always headed in a direction away from him. being a whore runs in the family, and embry hasn't been holding up his end of the moore-leffey bargain of biblical self-loathing. their little secret, knowledge from the great beyond — they're both so full of wanting, despite how loathsome they are. only, morgan doesn't find embry loathsome. lovesick and cruel, sometimes, a perpetual circle of endless hope and battering disappointment, but not unlovable. morgan shivers, full to bursting with her brother's cock, pinned on her back. it's hard to imagine him holding a gun, despite having visited him in carpathia, in his ugly fatigues, in his dangling dogtags — like this, he's just her boyish little brother, charming girls with his dimpled smile and pretty cock. nothing's ugly about embry, not one single thing. )
Hold.
( she presses a fist against his belly, keeping him from thrusting back inside her, so she can lift up on her elbow and find their silver tray. it puts an unfun amount of pressure pain on her bad shoulder, but once she flinches and sinks her teeth into her lip she's fine, cunt fluttering on his cock like a happy cunt should, ducking to the side and snorting a too fat line, but it doesn't matter because worst case scenario she has an overdose and dies, and that is hardly anyone's worst case anything. resetting her position underneath him, a catlike grin curves up the corner of her lips, a sharply pointed acrylic nail pressed against her pink tongue as she wets her pointer finger, eventually arching up until her mouth is back against his ear, hand skating around his hip. )
Are you saying you're tight like a virgin for me? ( she maneuvers her hand into his wrinkled pants, fingers dropping down the curve of his ass until she pressing against his hole, teasing with the idea of pushing in. ) I remember virgin Embry. I might be the only one who does. ( her pussy seizes tightly around him, muscles working hard to clamp him in, to cut off blood flow, to make his dick hers and hers alone. ) If you fill up my cunt, I'll fill up yours. But you have to ask nicely. You know the score.
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can you tell greer and maxen i'm sorry i have to miss our phone call this week? i'm flying out to london.
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Are you going to a rave? Did you bring condoms?
Don't snort anything I would snort. Seriously.
You could text them, you know. Although I don't take issue acting as their hot secretary.
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you already gave me the safe sex talk. multiple times. it was traumatizing.
i don't want to bug them.
plus, they'd ask follow up questions.
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Trust me. I know.
It wasn't traumatizing. It was lifesaving information that you should be thanking me for passing on. Even if it was traumatizing, you should still be thanking me.
Like how I'm asking follow up questions? And you're answering them, and not immediately turning to dust?
[ filed under: things he will not tell ash that lyr said, because he feels extremely fucking guilty about their stalled relationship. ]
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how are you the president again? presidents don't go to raves.
you're not asking what you really want to know, because you know i won't tell you.
( the why are you going to london and not calling your apparent family and making it a big deal you can't call them on any other day question. )
tell the littles i'm sorry too, please. i'll bring back gifts.
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Lyr. I've never seen someone want to be asked about their plans so badly.
You know I'm not going to tell anyone, right? Not Nimue or Vivienne or Morgan. Do you think I willingly want to initiate a conversation with any of them?
They don't need gifts. I can't even see the floor anymore because of all their toys.
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if i want you to ask, it's only so i can tell you i'm not going to tell you.
i don't want maxen or greer to know either. you tell them everything.
then i'll bring gifts, and you can throw them away. like a monster.
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But what don't you want them to know? As your uncle, I have several offshore accounts to hold your secrets. One for the promiscuous ones, one for everything else.
You think Galahad will let me do that? He'd start throwing those wooden apples at my head.
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( awkwardly tense, making nervous ticks that are all maxen colchester in nature. )
i just met someone. that's all.
sounds like your only option to expand new camelot, then. to make room for more toys.
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