A pebble stacked on many pebbles notes

title is invented wholesale which is why it sucks

so this is my favorite fic i've written for genrex. fucking knix. it's also arguably the least in character of all my genrex fic but i think i get to take a little liberty with pre-canon six because ... i want to? i want to.

White Knight started the fight, but Six won it, easy as pulling Knight's arms up behind his back and pinning him to the bed.

this is kinda the dynamic in general to me. wk is the big talker, all this loud brazen confidence, and six has the analytical cool to be able to back him up on his big stupid swings. neither of them are quite as much of a perfect expert as they'd like to imagine themselves. both of them are stupid in love with one another and will never acknowledge it.

The game was that whoever won the match got to take charge, which Six only really knew because of the few times he'd intentionally lost, just to give Knight the chance - but Knight threw himself into losing each other time with such enthusiasm that Six had started to suspect that he was doing it on purpose, too

he's doing it on purpose. white knight knows perfectly well that six will almost always beat him in a hand-to-hand fight. he's doing it on purpose. he will not be explaining

He kept one hand cinched around Knight's wrists, just to give him something to tug against, and sat back onto Knight's thighs, unlatching his belt with his free hand.

i got a little too deep into 'how the fuck do their clothes work' here. if they're WEARING clothes they have to COME OFF. Ugh. trying to make sense of their weird providence outfits was a little nightmarish. and then i got kinda in the weeds about writing it... no one even cares about this part! they just want the cock

He pulled Knight's shirt out from its tuck just to get a hand on his broad back, skin on skin, palm rough over the ripple of muscles.

i also kind of got a little too deep into wk being hot & ripped.

"You want it already," he commented, squeezing his grip on White Knight's wrists. Knight huffed a breath, jerking his shoulders at a last try for freedom.

so part of the goal in writing this was that i wanted to write six being mean & crass. i just think it's really fun to imagine the stoic sunglasses guy talking heinously dirty, and doing it specifically because white knight can only BARELY handle it. i also wanted to have an excuse to push knight around physically and six can do that. yippee!

Six finally let them go, but he shifted to plant a knee in the center of Knight's back, back foot hooked around his thighs. ... He waited there, his own breath carefully even, until the moment he knew that Knight would start moving again, impatient under Six's stillness, and then he straddled Knight's thighs again, reaching down to haul him up with an arm barred across his thick chest, pulling him up onto his own knees.

wanted to contrast the explosive outward-facing power of young white knight's style against six's reserved patience. i have this kind of set not too terribly long before promises promises, so six is a little relaxed - not quite the obnoxious shithead he becomes in six minus six, but certainly not the totally serious six that we see in most of the show. so six is tapped into being quiet and still until the exact right moment, and he can use it against knight even despite them knowing each other so well. or maybe because they know each other so well

he's also very practiced at redirecting wk's movement and strength to suit his needs. i'm sure that came about in a very normal and heterosexual way

Six dropped it off the side of the bed to hear White Knight click his tongue with irritation.

so in promises promises there's a line about white knight not liking going around the medical wing, even back before he had his reason to be terrified of nanite exposure. it kind of painted this picture of tough masculine wk having a fastidious and germophobic side - the sort of guy who gets a little miffed about his bed not being made right or people not using coasters. the contrasts are just really good. six folding his own clothes but dropping wk's stuff off the side of the bed is just him poking fun at wk for that. he knows knight so well as to know this will piss him off

He'd fucked Knight in the shirt before, for novelty's sake, watching it ruck up over his stomach, catching inevitably on his chest.

this is again me thinking about big dudes in tight shirts. whatever. but it's also just a very quick blink-and-you-miss-it mention that whatever six and knight have going on has been going on, an established relationship with no name. something almost too casual and comfortable to be casual sex.

He reached back to grab at Six's hip but Six caught him before he could, pulling his arm back up behind him and pushing him forward with it so he had to scramble to catch himself, flat on the mattress again. Knight shouted, or maybe laughed

this is a game, they are having fun, this is play. they are playing. they are finding a moment in a global disaster to themselves to laugh and be intimate and have fun. i'm NORMAL about this

"But every time you do, I'm going to spend another sixty seconds just opening you up. Sound fair?"

despite my intention of making six talk nasty i was still a little scared. you can tell i resolved to make it nastier because the very next paragraph i write

One of his favorite parts of this was taking long minutes with his fingers deep in the soft heat of Knight's ass, spreading him out, listening for his noises to shift from grumbling impatience to forced-out moans. But Knight, needy, cock-hungry -- Six had called him that once to his face and he'd gone red down his neck and chest, but he'd never actually denied it -- could barely stand it. It left him half-hazy and strung out.

yeah six calling wk a cockslut. can we get a ROUND OF APPLAUSE

anyway wk 'hates' it so much when six fingers him for ages because he likes it too much and it empties out his brain. the lack of control entices & scares him. but also six is the safest possible person he can imagine handing that control over to

When he came back with it, Knight had shucked off the shirt and was kneeling up to take off his briefs, looking a little smug for having made such quick work of it, as though being caught with his clothes off and his cock filling against his thigh was him getting a win against Six.

that's what's happening here a little too. he's still not committing to giving six all the reins. part of the game is the push and pull, giving and taking. he's giving six an inch, but he's still trying to take the mile - but he's doing it because he knows six will get him back for it

Like this Six could take him in: White Knight was built wide and dense, wrapped with muscle, none of Six's lean grace, and it used to set Six's teeth on edge that someone this size had been closer to killing him than anyone else ever had. He should have seen Knight from a hundred paces. But he'd learned the quiet way White Knight could wield his own body if he wanted to, and the blunt instrument he could be, too, and now when Knight turned to grin at him over a shoulder Six's eyes caught on the twist of his waist, the chiseled line of his hip bones, the soft heft of his chest.

my outline for this fic is a bit vague, mostly single moments i had to string together, but i had a whole bullet point for how six used to get kind of pissed off about wk being big but still being able to move with a lot of control. also the ol classic bamboo knowledge special of 'six and wk first met trying to kill each other' bc that rules. the potency in that relationship. but. again these two are a relationship of contrasts. physical contrasts personality contrasts. reaction to trauma contrasts

Six wanted to grab it out from under him and make him sprawl flat on the mattress again, but he eased Knight down instead, onto his knees and elbows.

ok so. six being mean. again. i think he has an interesting internal relationship with his own predilection for cruelty & violence. which is what you get when you are kind of raised as an assassin or whatever. it becomes a natural reaction to the world around you to treat it unkindly. six has by now worked through a bunch of that - maybe not as much as he will when rex comes around, but he's learned how to hone it and redirect it.

and sometimes you hone and direct your violence onto your not-boyfriend while having gay sex

He always went quiet and concentrated at first, almost inside himself, so Six jolted him out of it by leaning in and spitting down onto his hole for good measure. Knight gave a startled gasp and his cock twitched fitfully.

this fic is kind of about getting white knight to relax and it's also kind of about white knight being the most embarrassed and flustered he's ever been in his life. it can be both. the sudden intimacy of six's touch dropping him out of his head vs six being deliberately nasty with him to make him jump and shiver. he likes it but every time six does something like this it freaks him out a certain amount. six just knows him well enough to know exactly how much to freak him out without crossing a line. for instance six would be totally down to rim him but there's a 0% chance that wk would let him do that and six doesn't wanna get kicked in the face

Maybe there was no one else who knew that White Knight kept himself shaved, another private secret that only Six had access to.

shouts out to my buddy wk enjoyer number one

"You-" White Knight started in, which of course was when Six opened him up with two fingers instead, Knight cutting himself off with a broken groan. ... This is how Six wanted him, open, needy, no longer playing cocky.

wk is too innately tight-assed (lol) to let himself actually make noises without six startling them out of him. six knows this however and it is his sworn duty :)

"You're dripping," Six said ... "Is your hole that hungry for it?"

THERE it is. six doesn't even care about talking like this too much he just knows it's so easy to make knight tense up and whine by doing it. and that is his end goal amen

He'd gone outside of himself a little, all the complaints dropped away off his lips, malleable under Six's touch. Six could have kept going, tucked his pinky and his thumb into him, used up all the time into the night just widening him out. Next time, maybe.

this fic is about knight letting go for once. it's about white knight having a night that is kind and pleasurable and easy for him. and it's about six considering fisting him during the nebulous 'next time' because for all that they are just partners, just colleagues, just letting off steam, they are dedicated to one another enough to have a next time every time, they know each other so deeply they can just casually imagine these more extreme acts, they are pushing each other's boundaries and coming back from it laughing ... whatever ......

"I'm getting sick of you fucking me half-dressed like you have somewhere to be afterwards."

yeah man it's just whatever. it's just whatever. where would six have to be that isn't with wk anyway. whatever

It cracked over Six like waves against the rocks -- nudged him a little close to an unspoken cliff -- not now.

letting himself acknowledge this desire would be a very dangerous prospect. six, here, will always choose to skirt around it instead. for the sake of safety

"You make a habit of fucking your coworkers, partner?"

this is just. a lot of knight pushing against the edges of this 'casual' relationship they've built because he wants something he can't name and six wants something he won't name and knight thinks he's just joking around but he's touching on something that's very very real.

Outside of rooms like these they were sharpened knives and pointed guns, so much that even Six almost forgot how responsive and open Knight got when Six folded him up and fucked into him;

insert my usual rambling about the weaponization of every single character in genrex

they're professionals. they're hired guns. they're murderers. and then they go into hotel rooms and laugh and touch each other and get so soft that six gets afraid of it

He went so suddenly tight around Six that it hooked a noise right out of Six's throat.

anyway, the sex and the relationship aside, the fucking pronoun fighting in this goddamn fic. would one of you transition and make my life easier? god. i had to edit this fic more than i usually do just to try and adjust the amount of name usage vs pronouns because i had erred wildly on the side of names and it was so stilted to read

If he had to see Knight's cocksure expressions he may as well do it this way, taking him in fully, and with free access, all his broad body laid out for Six to touch, his pecs just barely quivering with the force of Six pushing into him, thighs wrapping around Six's waist. Six tested the give of a heavy pectoral, then rolled a nipple between two fingers. ... Something about this fucked with him, Six knew, something about groping at his chest like this.

first of all six very heterosexual and detached of you to think about your partner's body that way. second this was the other major goal of this fic was to mess around with white knight's tits. who up love men with big tits. this is another instance of thing wk loves that freaks him out bc of how much he likes it and also the associations. sorry he's a little bit of a misogynist. but it makes things like this so heady for wk. a really very acceptable taboo.

Six realized he was grinning now, something a little wolfish.

six wants to sexually beat the hell out of this guy

This had been trained out of him. Hadn't it -- working with a partner, putting his trust into another body, expecting them to come back every day still alive and still loyal -- he had spent years learning not to put stock into any of it, but he was here, smoothing his hands over White Knight's chest to nudge his thumbs high on Knight's ribcage, bent close. Knight's mouth had gone open again and here was Six staring, wondering, almost wanting. He almost wanted to put his mouth to Knight's neck, to leave a round bite mark on his full chest. He felt himself teetering on the edge of that cliff again. He was there more often than not, these days.

so can i admit something? I did not set out to write this to be a romance. i intended this to be almost entirely just smut. a few moments of tension here and there, sure, but almost all smut - and then it ended up hugely about the razor-thin wire they were walking on with this relationship. so much awful yearning. you're meant to be having anal sex stop thinking about kissing each other!

He grit his teeth and pounded in where Knight was going lax and soft, not meeting the heavy burning gaze he knew Knight was giving him, the embers after a house fire, only chasing the building tension and the thought of White Knight taking him so fucking willingly. Wanting him, Six, the person.

like knock that shit off!

He wanted to stay.

FINE. so the fic is ACTUALLY about them being in love. FINE. the smut is just flavor text to six wanting wk and wk wanting six and neither one of them having the means to understand that or make it real. god! fine!

six say something to take us away from the unbearable throbbing tension of your mutual adoration

"Your cunt is drooling," he said, deadpan

attaboy

Knight, who was stretching out over the bed, fingers swiping through the crisscrossing pattern of come over his chest, half smiling to himself. Taking up space, easy and relaxed.

my outline for this part: "wk made kind of lazy by it. this is what the fic is secretly kind of about. wk relaxing."

apparently this fic is about a lot of things.

Knight wiped the come off his front, but shoved the towel off the bed instead of using it for anything else. "Don't see why you're bothering. You said five hours, right?"

again: this is fastidious germophobe white knight. six doesn't notice it actively here but this is akin to white knight saying 'i'll experience something i hate in exchange for time with you.' dude

"Come on. Loser blows the winner," Knight said, grin spreading wide.

easy to imagine young wk talking like this; hard to imagine him a few years later talking like this. all the joy and silliness got bleached out of him huh.

anyway this conversation was pulled directly from the outline, but there i had wk tell six to 'go fuck yourself' which i thought was a little too on the nose, all things considered

Six wasn't so stupid as to ask why someone who was inclined to avoid even the medical wing at Providence because he was germ-shy would be so eager to fit his mouth around a cock.

first of all, this is clumsy wording. second, that's love baby. he'll put himself through this for six. he'll enjoy it for six

Knight nosed against him, still-soft, mouthing there gently.

this is when i knew i fucked up. there is something so deeply horribly intimate about giving someone head when they're still soft. white knight the mercenary is intentionally choosing softness & gentleness for six's pleasure here. he is holding himself quiet and still to keep from bringing six harm. come on man. i had to put the fic down a few times writing this paragraph. it wasn't originally in the outline that six was soft in the start of this but here we are

But the parts of him that weren't self-satisfied and pleased were sharpened with attention, his eyes dark points, the expression he got when he had been knocked down onto the training mat for a third time but he was figuring it out, the puzzle of how his opponent was winning.

this is six seeing the parts of knight he loves most. the bright controlled perfect match of an ally. the person who's using his mind as well as his body. the man who almost killed him once and chose to extend him a hand. also he's sucking six's cock

Eventually Knight lost the eye contact, and Six thought he would be thankful for that, the relief of the weight, but when Knight looked away he went serious about it, head bobbing unselfconsciously, down so far that he choked a little on Six's cock, a sudden needful focus, all of it pointed at Six, all the skill and honed strength and open lust in White Knight turned out onto his partner.

in my outline: "it's something abt the way wk focuses in on it. he loses eye contact with six at one point and starts taking it real serious and despite wk not looking at him it's so much attention that six kinda doesn't know what to do with it. a form of devotion."

i don't know if that shit makes sense. but ummm dude trust me.

anyway then six loses it

"Six, fuck, Six," his head bent down so close to Six's that he could feel the shape of Knight's words coming out hot against his cheek. They were so close they could share breath. Six teetered on that cliff edge. Not now. This was a mistake. He could handle it, shake himself loose, make himself usable all the same, maybe with the facade cracked -- Knight tensed, grasping at Six's shoulder, his forehead tipping down to the crook of Six's neck.

desperately clawing at the part of him that lets him carry on being remotely normal while actively fucking the guy he wants to keep. wanting, wanting, wanting. six's whole shtick of being aloof and untouchable means all these moments of emotion welling up to the surface boil that much hotter. he has no idea that white knight is going through the same desperate no homo panic as he is. neither of them will acknowledge this until it is wildly unbearably too late. years of gay torment, gentlemen? anyone?

"Why is it that I'm the only one who ever ends up with come on him."

i just like doing this to him

"Whether you take a nap like a civilized person or stare at the ceiling for thirty minutes, I don't care, but for God's sake, Six. Take a break for a second."

i don't really know that white knight would be the 'chill out, man' guy here, but i think it has to do with it being specifically six. he wants to see six relaxed and rested. he wants to see six healthy and safe. he selfishly wants that half hour of sharing space with six with no danger, no tension. warmth and kindness. he wants that bad

And he did sleep this time, Six was sure of it, could see his breathing go deep and slow, the tension in his muscles release. The door was triple locked, and Six was there with him, and it was safe, even though Six had three knives in his vest just on the other bed and there were two more in Knight's vest on the floor and Six could trace the steady rhythm of his pulse in a dozen different places where he could cut right through the skin and kill White Knight before he ever woke.

when you meet someone by trying to kill each other it sort of colors how you interact with one another for forever. i think it takes a long, long time for six not to instinctively analyze wk for the quickest way to dispose of him if need be. he still does it without really thinking even after the show's canon

How odd, to make a mistake time and again and have no inclination to fix it. To be in a situation where he wanted so keenly to make that mistake with intention.

then kiss him or something asshole

anyway, i had a really hard time figuring out how to end this fic, which is probably very obvious by how abrupt it is. i couldn't decide on an elegant way to wrap it up when the actual meat of the fic was already wrapped up. so instead we get two dude pretending so hard that they're just buds, and then white knight light up by a sunset. a little cliche