In the Palm of My Hand

[ Sky – Master Post ]
Title: In the Palm of My Hand
Fandom: Sky
Characters: Baron, Severen, Arkady, Sin
Rating: M
Warnings: Implications, expletives, and the power of suggestion
Notes: Baron wanted to challenge Sin, to prove that he could score girls who weren't just desperate fans… Instead, he proved that he's not entirely straight and Sin's a lot more dangerous than he looks.

Baron was hellbent on proving that he didn't just get the easy girls. Severen had told him to challenge Sin, if he wanted to prove he could catch something other than squealing fans, and now they stood in the kitchen of Severen's house, discussing the terms of that challenge, while Severen and Arkady tried to ignore them, from the living room.

"So, you're straight, right, Barry?" Sin had a devilish look in his eye.

"I'm all about the tits, man. There's nothing better than tits, at the end of the day. Fat chicks, skinny chicks, I don't care. As long as there are curves to grab on to and tits to squeeze, I'm in." Baron raised his beer, and Sin met the bottle with his own.

"Excellent. I have just the thing." Sin grinned mischievously and headed for the stairs. "I'll be right back."

Baron figured he'd gone to get a photo or a phone number and wandered out to park himself on the other couch, in the living room. "I dunno, Sev. I think I'm going to whip his ass, on this one."

"His ass and whips are well acquainted. I think whipping his ass might count as losing, in this case," Severen offered, tartly.

"Seriously? You guys are into that?" Baron nearly choked on his beer.

"Not really. He likes to do crazy shit, sometimes, and I can usually be talked into it." Severen shook his head. "Don't ask. I'm not talking about it. You want kinky, talk to Betty."

"Liz isn't that —" Arkady stopped mid-sentence and thought about what he was saying. "No, you're right. To him, she probably is. Whips and chains. You should see what she keeps in her closet, if you haven't already."

"She said if I looked in the closet, she'd break my fingers," Baron complained.

"She wasn't kidding." Arkady grinned.

Sin shouted down the stairs. "Hey, Evan? I need some help up here…"

"So, why aren't you asking for Severen?"

"Because he won't do it, but I know you will. It's nothing weird, I just need some help closing this."

"He means I won't displace his liver, if I'm not mistaken. And he's right. There's only one way I'll displace his liver, and you don't need to hear about it, and it isn't what he wants, right now," Severen clarified, under his breath.

"Liver? I don't want to know, do I?" Arkady looked momentarily dismayed.

"Lacing," Severen explained.

"Oh." Arkady got up. "Yeah, sure! On my way up!"

Severen shrugged at Baron. "Don't ask."

"Shoes, Sin." Arkady closed the bedroom door. "Boots before corset, because I'm not lacing those for you, too."

"Nah, I'm doing this shoeless," Sin demurred, adjusting the half-tightened corset around his midsection.

"You sure? If you're about to do what I think you are, I'm pretty sure you want the tallest heels you own."

"Evan, I'm six foot three. The last thing I need is heels."

Arkady shook his head. "It's an ass thing. Changes the way your hips sit, and you're going to need all the help you can get, with this one."

"I could do this without even shaving. I just prefer to cause as little trauma as possible, in the aftermath." Sin crouched and pulled a pair of black four-inch heels from under the bed, slipping them on and buckling them around his ankles.

"I still think you're out of your mind," Arkady insisted, as Sin grabbed the bedpost and handed over the laces. "He's so straight, there are shortest distances between two points that look bent next to him."

"No, I don't think so. His only anatomical specification was breasts, and those can be appropriately faked." Sin breathed out hard as Arkady's knee pressed into his back and the laces tightened. "Lir. I wouldn't try this with Lir."

"Okay, you might have a point. Lir's just so quiet that I forget to consider him in the same sentence with sex." Arkady knotted the laces and cracked his knuckles. "You okay?"

"Will be in a minute," Sin panted.

"Tell me if I pull too tight. I can do twenty-two, if Liz does my laces, so I may not be the best judge." Arkady studied Sin's face and patted the exposed parts of his chest, checking for cold spots.

"Where do you start?" Sin asked, still breathing hard.

"Thirty-two. Ribs are a little bigger than they look and the hips are a little smaller, but it still evens out a little wide." Arkady ran a hand down his own side.

"Okay, I'm smaller than you are. Twenty-nine. Twenty was still cozy, last spring, and if you really want to put your back into it, I can do seventeen and a half, before it hurts."

"Seventeen and a half? You're six foot three! You'll break in half!" Arkady gaped. "Severen would kill me."

"He would. So let's go for twenty." Sin grinned and braced his feet, again. "Tape's on the dresser, behind you."

Arkady unwound it and measured. "Twenty-five. Two more, I think, and you'll be done."

By the time Sin was dressed, Arkady caught himself getting catty, in his own head. He wasn't used to seeing drag done so well, by someone who was handsome, but not pretty, when it all came off. But Sin was six and a half feet of smooth-skinned Amazon beauty, and his impossibly long violet hair offset the ankle-length green sheath dress stunningly. All at once, he understood everything Severen had ever said about Sin's implausible conquests.

Sin reached out and closed Arkady's mouth with one finger. "You'll catch flies," he said with a bewitching smile.

Arkady stuttered like a fool for a few seconds, before just nodding and giving a thumbs up. He headed down the stairs, as Sin checked the mirror one last time.

"Severen, we're going to the bar. Right now. Immediately. You need a beer. I need three." Arkady leaned over the back of the couch and grabbed his keys off the coffee table.

"But, we have beer in the fr —" Severen looked back and caught sight of Sin, descending the stairs. "You're right. I do need more beer than we have in the fridge. Have fun, Baron. Don't break anything."

"We'll be back in a few hours," Arkady promised, slamming the door behind them and setting off a string of expletives from Severen, about why doors should not be slammed.

Hours later, and significantly drunker, Arkady and Severen returned, leaning heavily on each other and giggling like schoolgirls at a sleepover. Severen fumbled the lock three times, before getting the door open, and they stumbled into the living room, to be presented with a sight they both could have lived their entire lives without. Baron slept on the living room floor, wrapped in the afghan from the end of one of the couches, lipstick smeared across his cheek. His suit was draped across the back of the couch, in place of the afghan, and as far as one could tell, it was all there. Sin sat at the dining room table, wrapped in a bathrobe, drinking tea, and reading a book. He looked significantly less amused.

Severen's face paled just a bit, and he softly closed the door. Something wasn't quite right. "Did you win?"

Sin looked up and rolled his eyes. "Did you honestly doubt that?"

"No. I guess I didn't." Severen crossed the room, Arkady following close behind him. "You're not looking so good."

Severen pulled out a chair and Arkady sat on the back of the couch, as they waited for Sin to say something — anything. It was a distressingly long wait.

"Yeah, I won. Had a pretty good time, too. So did he." Sin flipped the book over, on the table, to keep his place. "But, I cheated. It wasn't a fair challenge, from the start, and I don't think any of us told him that."

"He wouldn't have believed either of us. No one believes it, until they see you do it, and even then most of them need reassurance that it's you, not them," Severen reminded him. "He'd have thought you were weaselling, or I was being possessive. Which, incidentally, I am. I hope you're up for another round."

"When have I ever said no to you, Sebastian?" Sin smiled, self-consciously.

Arkady raised a hand. "I have no idea what the two of you are talking about. Sin, Barry's twenty-six. If he decided to sleep with you, that's his decision and his own problem. I'm not seeing where you're to blame for anything but offering an opportunity."

"That's right," Severen mused, "you haven't seen him do it…"

"Shit. Fine. I'm sorry, Evan. I mean that." Sin looked Arkady in the eye, as he apologised, and then closed his eyes, for a few long seconds.

There were some subtle shifts in Sin's posture, a wicked smile that hadn't been there, before, and when his eyes finally opened, a sudden swooping, twisting sense, in the air, as if even the furniture had turned to look at Arkady. Sin had become a presence in the room, and he could not be ignored.

"We both know that you are an embodiment of ideal beauty that few people will ever come close to imitating, Mr. Newkirk." Sin held out a hand, like a queen. "I find myself enraptured. Surely you would be so kind as to give me a kiss, to set that astonishing image in my mind…"

Arkady slid off the back of the couch and took Sin's hand, bending down to passionately kiss the historian. During the kiss, Sin stopped radiating glamour, and after a few seconds, he pushed Arkady back. "Stop. Evan, consider what you're doing."

"Jesus." Arkady stepped back, wiping his mouth on the back of his hand, and bumped into the wall. "Holy fucking Christ."

"That's why it's cheating," Sin clarified.

Arkady sat down, on the carpet, looking unsettled. "I'm not gonna lie. You're not the first man I've kissed, and you're good to look at, but I would never… It's not really my thing."

Severen leaned down, toward Arkady. "You're not exactly firm on that point. If you were, he wouldn't have been able to do it."

And then Arkady looked ill. "What about you, Sev? You're … I mean, what, twenty years?"

"Doesn't work on me. I'm too stubborn, or something." Severen sat back up. "Show him."

Sin focused on Severen. "Sebastian, dearest, get me a beer."

"Shit, no. Get your own beer," Severen replied, with a faint smile. "See?"

"You're some scary shit, Sin. That's really … I'm not… … Jesus." Arkady rubbed his face.

"No, Evan, you're not Jesus. If you were, that probably wouldn't have worked," Severen joked.

Arkady laughed quietly. "So, you can't do it to someone who knows better?"

"I can't do it to someone who's firm in their beliefs. I used to go screw with the Catholic house, on campus, just to see how strong their beliefs really were. It's nice getting turned down, sometimes. Barry's got a body-part fetish and you're not completely straight. You guys are pretty easy targets, because you're not entirely averse to what I'm proposing, to begin with." Sin shrugged. "I usually only do it at work. It's really good for convincing the board that I'm not a bad teacher, just because I'm a little eccentric. I swear they pull that shit, every other semester…"

"Ever considered a career in politics?" Arkady asked.

"Regularly. Then I remember that I'd destroy the world, if I went around exposing other politicians for what they really are. Nobody takes kindly to that." Sin shook his head. "No, I like teaching. I like to think I keep people from becoming the kind of shits you see in office, around here."

"Everyone's got impossible dreams," Severen quipped, with a slim smile.

"You're lucky I can't fuck with your head, Batty."

"You're lucky you can't fuck with my head."

"Yes, I am." Sin finished his tea and stood. "I'm also going to bed."

"Do you guys mind if I crash on the couch?" Arkady craned his neck to look up at Sin. "I'm pretty shitted. I shouldn't really have driven this far."

"There's another blanket under the coffee table," Severen pointed out. "I get cold."

Arkady yawned, and Sin helped him to his feet. "Just so you know, Sin, you're still terrifying."

"Good. I always knew you weren't stupid." Sin headed for the stairs and Severen followed.

A warm smile crept across Arkady's face. From Sin, that was much more of a compliment than most people would imagine.

"Make it to the couch, before you pass out. I don't want to trip over you, before I've had tea, in the morning," Severen called down, from the stairs, and Arkady just gave him the finger.