Divided Loyalties

A hand sidled into the Captain's greatcoat. Muffled voices wafted in from the adjacent war room, but they were easily drowned out by the sharp pop of buttons releasing their grip on heavy fabric. The werewolf had entered this vacant antechamber on the heels of his superior, seemingly en route to another part of the vast rigid airship. However, if this particular delay was unplanned, it didn't register on the Captain's countenance. Bluish eyes calmly lowered to meet amber ones. The Major's omnipresent smirk melted away, exposing cool focus as he presented a single gloved finger up to his taller companion.

It was an old tell to an even older game, but one the werewolf slid back into easily. He kept their gazes locked, taking the offered digit into his mouth and biting down firmly. The Major responded by pulling his hand free of the form-fitting cloth.

You might not be able to teach on old dog new tricks, but those already mastered were not easily forgotten.

Follow any and all direction, but no matter what, show no emotion, not even the slightest reaction – those were the rules. Back in the day when boundaries needed to be set and bonds formed, this exercise had helped tame a monster.

A gentle tug on the empty glove held fast between his teeth brought the Captain to his knees. The Major lazily brushed a heavy coat from broad shoulders, then plucked away the exposed suspenders. When naked fingertips drifted lower to caress a bare chest, the Captain's world contracted. All that mattered were those pads of skin and what they did, what they wanted.

Sensation twirled around one nipple, teasing it stiff, then dipped lazily to find the werewolf's breastbone. That was followed to the hollow of a strong throat, where the Captain's chin lifted so a continuous line could be traced up and around the curve of his jaw. From there everything quickly disappeared into a spread of fingers sifting through ashen hair, washing his cap away in their wake. The grazing touches broke through the hairline again at his forehead, willing eyes to close and feathering pale lashes. They followed the peaks of the lycanthope's face before twisting the slack glove still trailing from his lips. The Major wrapped the wound cloth around two fingers and used it to pull the Captain's head to one side. A single finger blazed a path back down the taut expanse of neck, followed by a swath of wetness as a familiar tongue licked up the line of the werewolf's pulse.

Many wondered why the Major, given his condition, kept such a hot-blooded creature underfoot. No one questioned the lycanthrope's usefulness. But if the Major was indeed suffering from some sort of repressed vampirism, as rumors suggested, there were certainly less "distracting" adjunct choices available. Of course, they missed the point. Good bodyguards were awfully hard to find. And ones who had no annoying scruples about sharing their canine-high body heat with a superior suffering from occasional bouts of undead chill, were understandably, even rarer.

Yet more importantly, temptations are like enemies. You must keep them close.

The Captain felt thin lips curl against the softness just beneath his jaw, mere seconds before fingernails dug into the nearby windpipe. As stealthier caresses wandered ever lower, the grip tightened, roughly pushing the werewolf into a bulkhead and to his feet. He obediently heeded the strangling command by sliding up the wall, hands lax and tangled within the mess of heavy cloth that was his coat. The Captain reached full height just as closures were unfastened below, and what was already straining against fabric tumbled out.

The Major knew his bodyguard's flesh, and after years of practice he could make it thrum with ecstasy or scream in searing agony. Today it fell somewhere in-between, but horribly close to the latter. Regardless, the Captain couldn't go limp – that was also one of the rules. However, the Major's expert hand had no intention of letting that happen. The sensations were cruel, so intense they tortured, dangling the illusion of exquisite release around each wicked bend. Every stroke, every tweak and touch, drilled down into all the right places.

The end came quickly. A violent explosion of sensation that brought flashes of light to the backs of the werewolf's eyelids as pleasure was ripped from his body. Steely composure left little to mark its passing though, besides the obvious throbbing mess and some twitching muscles. He quelled the latter easily. Be it from forces external or internal, if you act in control, you are. The Major had taught him that, and insisted it be heeded, as well a mastered.

Fingers at the werewolf's throat slackened, but he didn't pull away from the cool metal at his back, or draw a gasping breath. The hand below also released its grip, and migrated to the Captain's stomach. As the Major wiped his skin clean against firm musculature, each gesture seemed to linger slightly, in the way only parting contact can. The touch was coolly distant though, and thus the closure decidedly one-sided. True affection is a uniquely human emotion. The best a monster can hope for is a rare case of loyalty.

"Captain?"

The werewolf's eyes opened and he dropped his gaze reflexively. A gloved hand had been extended up to him expectantly, waiting. The Captain craned towards the hand and released the cloth finger still in his mouth, reuniting the pair.

"Clean up and report for duty at the aft hatch," the Major said as he walked away, hand flexing inside the replaced glove. "We must not keep our valkyries waiting."