[A curt nod from Zoro, a beat of silence following. Not quite hesitation, but a man navigating unfamiliar terrain – the landscape of expressing his inner world.]
Pushing my limits. Empties the noise. [A beat.] ...Helps me sleep.
[It's a utilitarian approach, perhaps harsher than most. His self-reliance borders on the austere. Integrating a partner wouldn't exactly be seamless. But for Zoro, it's served him well so far.]
[Is that all it's for? Vrenille wonders. Pure utility?
As austere as it is, emptying the noise means that there is noise, noise which otherwise might irk, might disrupt. So it's a formula for keeping a disturbance at bay, maintaining the sort of strict self-discipline that certainly appears to rule Zoro's life through and through. Sex, or at least his body's need for release, takes shape as something that he's found a way to put into its place in the ordered regimen of life.
It's all rather divorced from desire like that, granted. But it's not Vrenille's place to question or challenge that--certainly not now or like this. You can't go around disrespecting people like that, believing they ought to live a different way, as if you know what's "good" for them, as though you could live their lives better than they are doing themselves. That's pure hubris.
And frankly, Vrenille being here at all, in context that's a pretty big step--he's being given a chance to meet Zoro on his own terms, understand his outlook. When someone offers you that, you honour it. So what he asks next, though his voice shifts a degree more sultry, the tone for secrets and words of collusion, is all about being with Zoro where he is, accepting a welcome and extending an invitation in return, accompanying, proposing maybe, but not disrupting.]
Do you edge yourself? Bring yourself right to the point where you couldn't stop yourself cumming and then back off 'fore you do. Wait till it ebbs, and then bring yourself that close again. See how many times you'll hold out for?
[Vrenille's sultry voice paints a clear scenario, but Zoro doesn't fully lean into it, opting to remain cautiously anchored for now. Still, there's a subtle shift in his posture. Curiosity, maybe. At the very least, it's not a dismissal.
Even if this seems to be an invitation, Zoro hasn't dismissed the possibility that it's also a test. So he studies Vrenille with the watchful focus of a tiger encountering a new element in its territory.]
[Vrenille's not going to pretend for a minute that he doesn't appreciate that sound Zoro makes, subtle though it might be. And he doesn't mind letting that be known either, because here's the thing: with anything sexual, as soon as a second person is involved, an element of risk is introduced.
It's a craps shoot, ultimately, especially on a first encounter. One can maximise their odds in any number of ways, but no matter who's topping or bottoming or domming or subbing, it's always impossible to be sure in advance whether your partner will satisfy or disappoint (or frustrate, or embarrass, or hurt you). And some guys don't like that. Everyone has their own appetite for risk with sex just like anything.
So that watchful look Zoro is giving him? Vrenille's not phased; he's not even particularly surprised. What he is is very well practiced at handling sexual risk. And what experience has taught him is that there's a lot of value in taking the step to make himself vulnerable first.
He does it now simply by letting his teeth tug the edge of his lower lip, letting the expression in his eyes shift a degree closer to want, and handing Zoro the power to turn him down, shut him down, rebuff the advance.]
You ever do it with someone? Matching each other. Leading each other. Finding a rhythm, and telling 'em when to wait, when to go?
["With someone?" Those words stir up the memory of a night in some backwater bar, long before he'd developed a tolerance for booze. A marine man, objectively handsome in his clean-cut way, had sidled up beside him. The next few hours were a blur of clinking glasses, swirling smoke, and the warm press of another body. Eventually, Zoro woke up with a splitting headache and the chill of rented sheets. He can't remember much else...probably because it was something he could've easily done alone.
(And anything worth remembering wouldn't have ended with the marine, whoever he was, disappearing without a word.)
In hindsight, it was pretty stupid. But it was a learning experience, too. That kind of intimacy simply didn't serve him. As his reputation as "the demon" grew, so did Zoro's vigilance. Rebuffing advances became second nature — a curt word or a stare cold enough to extinguish anyone's interest.
A flicker of that reflex ignites in his gut at Vrenille's suggestive look. But this time, a hitch in his breath, Zoro holds it, observing his own reaction. In that sliver of self-awareness, he realizes something: The stakes with Vrenille are laughably low.
So, Zoro exhales slowly, nostrils flaring.]
Not really. But with someone worth the effort, maybe the steps wouldn't be so damn tedious.
[Leaning closer, a challenge glints in his eyes as he adds in a rough voice:]
[Oh, there he is. There's that competitive spark, the linking up of how Zoro is in the world with how he is--or could be, could explore being--sexually. It's that degree to which finding a spark, an object, something to pique one's interest is always, in a sense, re-finding it in a new manifestation, a new form.
That's something Vrenille knows how to work with. That's something he likes to work with.
His own memories from long before he ever set foot in Duplicity already involved enough encounters with enough men to blur one into the next--there were some he saw again and again who stood out, figures in bas-relief against the background homogeneity of quick blowjobs behind the Ebon Vanguard barracks and hired rooms above the tavern more memorable for the soft bed and hot bath he could leverage than the company he kept.
The faces of those men may blur, and mostly he never knew their names only the colour of their coin, but that doesn't mean there was no care or intimacy between them, albeit in a nonstandard sort of way. It doesn't mean he didn't learn from them--the sum total of them, each taken one by one.
He learned how to listen, how to hear (and say) "no," but also the more complicated and subtle versions of "yes," the guarded versions of it, the ways that "yes" gets couched as a challenge, or a dare, how it wants sometimes to flirt with danger, rivalry, opposition. And importantly, he learned to tell the difference between the kind of risk that plays and the kind of risk that genuinely threatens. He wouldn't be alive or whole now if he hadn't.
So he's neither lying nor exaggerating when he cocks his head at Zoro, a rakish grin and his voice breathy, low.]
Years of practice and experience.
[He shifts to lean on his side, settling in and getting comfortable, with just a slight note of disbelief and playful counter-challenge coming into his tone.]
Nah. Just bores the hell outta me with someone who makes it a chore.
[Zoro flashes his teeth in a way that could be generously called a grin, his dark eyes hardening like polished obsidian. The gap in experience would intimidate some people, but he remains unfazed.]
[It's not exactly the highest bar to reach, though it does leave quite a lot of room for damning with faint praise later. Vrenille's not worried about taking his chances though. Zoro's warning just wins a snort of laughter.]
Ugh, good, don't. Sir's for nobles and Pact captains. I ain't fancy. [There are particular occasions and scenes in which Vrenille has accepted being called 'sir.' He doesn't prefer it though. Mostly it's just a concession he makes to those who enjoy the word when it happens. But that's not the most salient point.]
Will you follow my lead though, touch when 'n how I tell you to touch? [That's his only ask for this, that Zoro let him guide them, that he cede enough control for that, just for now.]
[That's when Zoro absorbs Vrenille's question, its weight settling in his gut. Does it lodge like an unwelcome splinter, or click into place like a missing puzzle piece? He takes a measured beat before answering with an audacious request of his own:]
... Only if we make this interesting. Blindfold yourself. You call the shots, but you won't see anything unless I say so.
[It certainly is audacious and it throws Vrenille for so much of a momentary loop that there's a huff of a laugh of disbelief--at the request, at the fact he didn't see it coming, at the way it turns everything he thought would happen right on its ear.]
What, seriously? [That's rhetorical though, because even though he's shaking his head, he's also already moving to get up from his bed and find a blindfold.]
Well all right, if you're shy. [He favours Zoro with a teasing, daring look before he disappears from the screen for a moment, and the view of the camera shifts, his hand momentarily in view adjusting the angle and propping the phone in place to show a wider angle of the room: a salvaged chest of drawers that he rummages through from the bottom drawer up, a few items picked up and then discarded before he finds what he's after.
Zoro asked for a blindfold and Vrenille dangles the one he has from a forefinger for approval. He definitely won't be peeking.]
[He is, deep down. But that's not the game he's playing. Zoro simply isn't in the business of making things easy for LIERs who hold the reins. Thankfully, Vrenille's swift presentation of the blindfold elicits a slow nod of acceptance. This challenge goes both ways, though, so he clarifies:]
Curiosity's fine, and you can always ask to take it off. But the view is on my terms. [A subtle tilt of his head.] ...I wanna see how good you can be. Sound fair?
[To be fair, if Vrenille believed that Zoro really was, primarily, shy, he wouldn't tease him about it. But whatever degree of gentleness genuine shyness brings out in him, that's not at the forefront here.
Here they're playing, testing each other, seeing how the other will rise to a challenge and how he'll navigate it. There's strategy, and in that they're on much more even ground than the disparities of experience might imply. So Zoro gets a very cheeky grin as Vrenille returns.]
[Zoro may be the picture of stoicism, but it makes Vrenille laugh--free and warm and untroubled in that way people can be when they've made an art of not taking themselves (or sex) too seriously. He's not even trying to hold it in.]
Yeah, I'd say the chances of that are low.
[He moves his phone on its tripod to the mattress, positioning it so that it should keep him well in shot, and then without another word or the slightest hesitation, he strips off his shirt and pulls on the blindfold. When he lies down, again on his side, the camera captures him from just below his eyes to about mid-thigh, the soft material of his track pants showing a hint of contours, but not too much. The frame centres muscles and smooth skin with no major scars, a light dusting of hair below his navel. He can't see how he looks though--he has to trust his eyes to Zoro.]
You're gonna have to tell me if the view's all right.
[That laugh earns a faint twitch at the corner of Zoro's lips. It stirs a memory - an echo from a time before the city swallowed him whole, when his world stretched beyond the crow's nest, and the company he kept was warm and easy.
Zoro watches as he adjusts the camera. Vrenille's physical appeal is undeniable, much like the Marine man before him. His build speaks of someone who keeps himself in shape. But the absence of scars leaves his combat experience, if any, a mystery.
As he secures the blindfold, Zoro shifts on the cot, a subtle release of tension seeping from his own muscles. When he speaks, his words are low and quiet, giving no hint of his internal evaluation.]
[Vrenille is starting to learn how in Zoro-speak 'No issues here' could just as well be a glowing endorsement as ambivalence or apathy, and without the benefit of sight, he has even less basis to gauge which it is. He chooses to hear it, therefore, a bit like the classic comeback to 'How's your head?' ('No complaints.') And he'll take that, ambiguous ironic understatement and all.
So that only leaves him to get started, and at this point a lot of people might balk or equivocate with nervous laughter and embarrassment. Vrenille just runs his fingertips along his midline, from his clavicle down to the centre of his chest and back again, a relaxed opening on self-stimulation.]
Good. So I thought, I'll just show you what I like to do--tell you. And you can--[His fingers trail lower, to his navel and the top of his waistband]--join me.
[Zoro can't help but track Vrenille's movements, his gaze tracing the confident lines of his body. Even blindfolded, Vrenille exudes an unshakeable certainty. Other men in Zoro's position might feel overwhelmed, his own experience dwarfed by Vrenille's. But a familiar calm washes over him as he mirrors the other man's posture, settling deeper into the cot.
His gaze snags on the dip of Vrenille's navel. A low hum leaves his throat, a sound that hangs in the air, open to interpretation. This may be a game, a dance matched to Vrenille's rhythm, but for now, Zoro lets himself be led.
You're 'bout to be in your own. [It's a playful purr of a drawl right back, Vrenille's hand sliding down over the front of his track pants, fingers playing against himself.]
Start rubbing yourself through your pants, just easy, slow. Not in any rush. Let your body relax.
[The fabric stretches a little beneath his fingers, the view of an outline just fleetingly, only semi-hard. He adjusts himself and the material around him as he hardens, and it's probably obvious he's got no underwear on beneath, especially when he pauses to trail his fingers back up.]
Touch your nipples. Could be through your shirt, or maybe you wanna slide your hand inside, touch your skin like I'm doing. But don't pinch or pull 'em. Just slow, gentle.
[With one hand he touches his own, forefinger tracing carefully around the nub of skin, a light friction that tugs and rolls beneath his fingertip. And then, languid touch running the span of his chest, he teases that same touch against the other.
A little sigh of pleasure, and his cock throbs, untouched, a visible pulse that lift the fabric of his pants for a moment as he hardens further.]
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
no subject
Pushing my limits. Empties the noise. [A beat.] ...Helps me sleep.
[It's a utilitarian approach, perhaps harsher than most. His self-reliance borders on the austere. Integrating a partner wouldn't exactly be seamless. But for Zoro, it's served him well so far.]
no subject
As austere as it is, emptying the noise means that there is noise, noise which otherwise might irk, might disrupt. So it's a formula for keeping a disturbance at bay, maintaining the sort of strict self-discipline that certainly appears to rule Zoro's life through and through. Sex, or at least his body's need for release, takes shape as something that he's found a way to put into its place in the ordered regimen of life.
It's all rather divorced from desire like that, granted. But it's not Vrenille's place to question or challenge that--certainly not now or like this. You can't go around disrespecting people like that, believing they ought to live a different way, as if you know what's "good" for them, as though you could live their lives better than they are doing themselves. That's pure hubris.
And frankly, Vrenille being here at all, in context that's a pretty big step--he's being given a chance to meet Zoro on his own terms, understand his outlook. When someone offers you that, you honour it. So what he asks next, though his voice shifts a degree more sultry, the tone for secrets and words of collusion, is all about being with Zoro where he is, accepting a welcome and extending an invitation in return, accompanying, proposing maybe, but not disrupting.]
Do you edge yourself? Bring yourself right to the point where you couldn't stop yourself cumming and then back off 'fore you do. Wait till it ebbs, and then bring yourself that close again. See how many times you'll hold out for?
no subject
...Yeah. Sometimes.
[Vrenille's sultry voice paints a clear scenario, but Zoro doesn't fully lean into it, opting to remain cautiously anchored for now. Still, there's a subtle shift in his posture. Curiosity, maybe. At the very least, it's not a dismissal.
Even if this seems to be an invitation, Zoro hasn't dismissed the possibility that it's also a test. So he studies Vrenille with the watchful focus of a tiger encountering a new element in its territory.]
no subject
It's a craps shoot, ultimately, especially on a first encounter. One can maximise their odds in any number of ways, but no matter who's topping or bottoming or domming or subbing, it's always impossible to be sure in advance whether your partner will satisfy or disappoint (or frustrate, or embarrass, or hurt you). And some guys don't like that. Everyone has their own appetite for risk with sex just like anything.
So that watchful look Zoro is giving him? Vrenille's not phased; he's not even particularly surprised. What he is is very well practiced at handling sexual risk. And what experience has taught him is that there's a lot of value in taking the step to make himself vulnerable first.
He does it now simply by letting his teeth tug the edge of his lower lip, letting the expression in his eyes shift a degree closer to want, and handing Zoro the power to turn him down, shut him down, rebuff the advance.]
You ever do it with someone? Matching each other. Leading each other. Finding a rhythm, and telling 'em when to wait, when to go?
no subject
(And anything worth remembering wouldn't have ended with the marine, whoever he was, disappearing without a word.)
In hindsight, it was pretty stupid. But it was a learning experience, too. That kind of intimacy simply didn't serve him. As his reputation as "the demon" grew, so did Zoro's vigilance. Rebuffing advances became second nature — a curt word or a stare cold enough to extinguish anyone's interest.
A flicker of that reflex ignites in his gut at Vrenille's suggestive look. But this time, a hitch in his breath, Zoro holds it, observing his own reaction. In that sliver of self-awareness, he realizes something: The stakes with Vrenille are laughably low.
So, Zoro exhales slowly, nostrils flaring.]
Not really. But with someone worth the effort, maybe the steps wouldn't be so damn tedious.
[Leaning closer, a challenge glints in his eyes as he adds in a rough voice:]
What makes you think you can handle me, Vrenille?
cw: implied sex work
That's something Vrenille knows how to work with. That's something he likes to work with.
His own memories from long before he ever set foot in Duplicity already involved enough encounters with enough men to blur one into the next--there were some he saw again and again who stood out, figures in bas-relief against the background homogeneity of quick blowjobs behind the Ebon Vanguard barracks and hired rooms above the tavern more memorable for the soft bed and hot bath he could leverage than the company he kept.
The faces of those men may blur, and mostly he never knew their names only the colour of their coin, but that doesn't mean there was no care or intimacy between them, albeit in a nonstandard sort of way. It doesn't mean he didn't learn from them--the sum total of them, each taken one by one.
He learned how to listen, how to hear (and say) "no," but also the more complicated and subtle versions of "yes," the guarded versions of it, the ways that "yes" gets couched as a challenge, or a dare, how it wants sometimes to flirt with danger, rivalry, opposition. And importantly, he learned to tell the difference between the kind of risk that plays and the kind of risk that genuinely threatens. He wouldn't be alive or whole now if he hadn't.
So he's neither lying nor exaggerating when he cocks his head at Zoro, a rakish grin and his voice breathy, low.]
Years of practice and experience.
[He shifts to lean on his side, settling in and getting comfortable, with just a slight note of disbelief and playful counter-challenge coming into his tone.]
And sorry, did you just call jerking off tedious?
no subject
[Zoro flashes his teeth in a way that could be generously called a grin, his dark eyes hardening like polished obsidian. The gap in experience would intimidate some people, but he remains unfazed.]
By the way, I'm not calling you 'sir' either.
no subject
[It's not exactly the highest bar to reach, though it does leave quite a lot of room for damning with faint praise later. Vrenille's not worried about taking his chances though. Zoro's warning just wins a snort of laughter.]
Ugh, good, don't. Sir's for nobles and Pact captains. I ain't fancy. [There are particular occasions and scenes in which Vrenille has accepted being called 'sir.' He doesn't prefer it though. Mostly it's just a concession he makes to those who enjoy the word when it happens. But that's not the most salient point.]
Will you follow my lead though, touch when 'n how I tell you to touch? [That's his only ask for this, that Zoro let him guide them, that he cede enough control for that, just for now.]
no subject
[That's when Zoro absorbs Vrenille's question, its weight settling in his gut. Does it lodge like an unwelcome splinter, or click into place like a missing puzzle piece? He takes a measured beat before answering with an audacious request of his own:]
... Only if we make this interesting. Blindfold yourself. You call the shots, but you won't see anything unless I say so.
no subject
What, seriously? [That's rhetorical though, because even though he's shaking his head, he's also already moving to get up from his bed and find a blindfold.]
Well all right, if you're shy. [He favours Zoro with a teasing, daring look before he disappears from the screen for a moment, and the view of the camera shifts, his hand momentarily in view adjusting the angle and propping the phone in place to show a wider angle of the room: a salvaged chest of drawers that he rummages through from the bottom drawer up, a few items picked up and then discarded before he finds what he's after.
Zoro asked for a blindfold and Vrenille dangles the one he has from a forefinger for approval. He definitely won't be peeking.]
no subject
Not shy.
[He is, deep down. But that's not the game he's playing. Zoro simply isn't in the business of making things easy for LIERs who hold the reins. Thankfully, Vrenille's swift presentation of the blindfold elicits a slow nod of acceptance. This challenge goes both ways, though, so he clarifies:]
Curiosity's fine, and you can always ask to take it off. But the view is on my terms. [A subtle tilt of his head.] ...I wanna see how good you can be. Sound fair?
no subject
Here they're playing, testing each other, seeing how the other will rise to a challenge and how he'll navigate it. There's strategy, and in that they're on much more even ground than the disparities of experience might imply. So Zoro gets a very cheeky grin as Vrenille returns.]
You want me to call you 'sir'?
no subject
Nah. Wouldn't want anyone mistaking me for your personal jerk-off waiter.
[The mere thought of following orders is enough to make him chafe; Vrenille's tone better not sound like a request for tea.]
no subject
Yeah, I'd say the chances of that are low.
[He moves his phone on its tripod to the mattress, positioning it so that it should keep him well in shot, and then without another word or the slightest hesitation, he strips off his shirt and pulls on the blindfold. When he lies down, again on his side, the camera captures him from just below his eyes to about mid-thigh, the soft material of his track pants showing a hint of contours, but not too much. The frame centres muscles and smooth skin with no major scars, a light dusting of hair below his navel. He can't see how he looks though--he has to trust his eyes to Zoro.]
You're gonna have to tell me if the view's all right.
no subject
Zoro watches as he adjusts the camera. Vrenille's physical appeal is undeniable, much like the Marine man before him. His build speaks of someone who keeps himself in shape. But the absence of scars leaves his combat experience, if any, a mystery.
As he secures the blindfold, Zoro shifts on the cot, a subtle release of tension seeping from his own muscles. When he speaks, his words are low and quiet, giving no hint of his internal evaluation.]
No issues here.
no subject
So that only leaves him to get started, and at this point a lot of people might balk or equivocate with nervous laughter and embarrassment. Vrenille just runs his fingertips along his midline, from his clavicle down to the centre of his chest and back again, a relaxed opening on self-stimulation.]
Good. So I thought, I'll just show you what I like to do--tell you. And you can--[His fingers trail lower, to his navel and the top of his waistband]--join me.
no subject
His gaze snags on the dip of Vrenille's navel. A low hum leaves his throat, a sound that hangs in the air, open to interpretation. This may be a game, a dance matched to Vrenille's rhythm, but for now, Zoro lets himself be led.
The leash, after all, isn't one-sided.
Words unhurried, he drawls:]
... Alright, then. Show me what you've got.
I'm in your hands.
no subject
Start rubbing yourself through your pants, just easy, slow. Not in any rush. Let your body relax.
[The fabric stretches a little beneath his fingers, the view of an outline just fleetingly, only semi-hard. He adjusts himself and the material around him as he hardens, and it's probably obvious he's got no underwear on beneath, especially when he pauses to trail his fingers back up.]
Touch your nipples. Could be through your shirt, or maybe you wanna slide your hand inside, touch your skin like I'm doing. But don't pinch or pull 'em. Just slow, gentle.
[With one hand he touches his own, forefinger tracing carefully around the nub of skin, a light friction that tugs and rolls beneath his fingertip. And then, languid touch running the span of his chest, he teases that same touch against the other.
A little sigh of pleasure, and his cock throbs, untouched, a visible pulse that lift the fabric of his pants for a moment as he hardens further.]