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Heavy footsteps sound outside Mannimarco’s cell, drawing him from an uneasy sleep. He sits up on the pallet that serves as his bed and sets his feet on the floor. As the hulking, armored figure of the Vestige comes into view, Mannimarco straightens his spine and tips his chin up. He’s come to gloat, no doubt. That, or he’s decided to continue where Molag Bal left off.
The Vestige pauses just in front of the cell door. In his armor and helm, there’s no way of knowing what he truly looks like—at a guess, he’s a Nord, considering the few scant inches he has on Mannimarco. Or perhaps a half-giant like Titanborn. Mannimarco probably saw his face at some point, but it’s impossible to know which of his sacrifices it was that later escaped Coldharbour and took up the mantle of Vestige.
The dungeon is silent for a long moment until Mannimarco’s impatience gets the better of him.
“Well? What’s it to be? Torture, or execution?”
“Neither,” the Vestige says at last. His voice is deep and rough, slightly echoing from inside the helm. The overall effect is quite striking, though it would take a good deal of torment to pry even so basic a compliment from Mannimarco’s thoughts.
“Then what?” he snaps. “Reveling in your victory? Tharn dropped by earlier, so I’ve already had my fill, thank you.”
“Thought we might talk.”
Mannimarco resists the urge to roll his eyes. “I have nothing to say to you.”
“Really. Seem pretty chatty to me.” There’s a note of dry amusement in his otherwise flat voice. “C’mon, humor me. Not like you’re gonna get any other entertainment down here.”
And that’s true enough. Mannimarco glances around the cell with distaste. Aside from the sleeping pallet, there’s a chamber pot, a rough wooden table, and a simple chair. Nothing more intellectually stimulating to do than work at that one loose flagstone and pretend he has any hope for escape.
The runed cuffs around his wrists keep such thoughts in the realm of idle fantasy: two daedric iron shackles enchanted to suppress his magicka. It feels like a constant high-pressure atmosphere bearing down on him, and he can’t rid his mouth of the taste of ozone.
Mannimarco leans back against the wall with a long-suffering sigh. “Fine. Ask your inane questions. I can’t promise I’ll have any interest in answering.”
The Vestige grunts in response. To Mannimarco’s surprise, he takes out a ring of keys, unlocks the cell door, and steps inside.
“Before you get any stupid ideas,” the Vestige warns, closing the door behind himself “the keys to your shackles are elsewhere.”
Mannimarco clicks his tongue in irritation. “I surmised as much. Not even you would be foolish enough to bring them with you.” Still, he eyes the door briefly, weighing the option. There are guards, he knows, but perhaps if he could get his hands on a weapon...no, the Vestige isn’t wearing any. Why would he, when he can create an Aedric spear out of pure willpower?
Resigning himself to an uninteresting conversation, Mannimarco lets his head tip back against the wall. Waits.
“You braided your hair.”
He blinks. That was not what he expected the Vestige to be interested in. He glances away, scoffing. “Really, that’s what concerns you about the necromancer chained up in your basement?”
“No. But it looks weird.”
“Perhaps because I was forced to do it with my hands bound.”
The Vestige takes a seat in the wooden chair by the table. It creaks ominously under the weight of his armor. “Huh. Liked you better with the loose look.”
Mannimarco arches a brow. “I wasn’t under the impression you liked me at all.” It’s not...entirely the truth. From the start of their encounters, the Vestige has always acted a little strangely. He’s talkative in battle, always ready with a quip or a taunt. It was a challenge to fight him, to maintain concentration on spellcraft and conversation at the same time. Easily the most thrilling opponent Mannimarco has had the recent pleasure of facing.
During one of their battles, he’d demanded to know if the Vestige was trying to fight or flirt—to which the Vestige responded with a deep, almost manic laugh before stabbing him in the shoulder.
When he healed himself later, Mannimarco decided to keep the scar.
Now, glaring up at his one-time rival, Mannimarco can’t help but notice things about him that he never had the chance to observe in battle—the way his chest fills out with the depth of each breath, the broad, powerful shoulders made broader still by heavy pauldrons, the way his eyes gleam with intensity from the depths of his helm. Much as he’s loath to admit it, Mannimarco finds much to admire about his archenemy. And after days on end with nothing to do but count stones in the wall, he longs for the thrilling complexity of their battles against one another.
“Liked fighting you,” the Vestige says, as though reading Mannimarco’s thoughts. He leans forward on the chair, resting an elbow on his knee and perching his chin in his hand. “Bit cracked, isn’t it? After my first few deaths, started learning to love combat. The adrenaline, the rhythm, the power.”
Mannimarco licks his lips. “The strategy,” he adds. “And the triumph, of course.”
“Yeah,” the Vestige says, and though Mannimarco still can’t see his face, he can tell the man is smiling. “You were the best, you know. Never knew what to expect from you, always kept me guessing. Felt just as good getting hit as it did to hit you.”
“I’m flattered,” Mannimarco says, and it’s only half a joke. He gets to his feet and offers his shackled wrists with a friendly smile. “I’d welcome the opportunity for another bout.”
The Vestige almost hesitates before shaking his head. “Nah. Lyris’d pitch a fit.”
Mannimarco does roll his eyes this time. “Oh, we couldn’t have that. ” He glances down at the cuffs again, deflating slightly as he thinks about everything he’s lost. If he’d taken the safer option and not gone after the Amulet in Sancre Tor, instead waiting until the Companions brought it to Coldharbour, he might have pulled off his original plan. But the temptation of fighting the Vestige again had proven one straw too many, and so instead he finds himself here—a prisoner instead of a god.
Still, there are manners in which he might find his situation improved.
“I do have to say,” he drawls, leaning against one wall. “You’re a better host than Molag Bal. Aside from Tharn and Titanborn’s insufferable moral screeching, there has been far less torment. Though would it kill you to put in a bookshelf down here? I haven't gone this unstimulated since I took Vanus as a lover.”
The Vestige’s laugh is a low rumble that Mannimarco feels more than hears. “You wanna be stimulated, huh? Been missing me?”
Mannimarco smirks. “Like an ox misses the gnat in its ear. I suppose all this Vestige business had to go to your head at some point. Someone,” he adds, examining his nails, “ought to remind you where you came from, little gutter rat.”
It’s a shot in the dark, purely based on the fact that most of his sacrificed victims were taken from places that wouldn’t miss them. But from the way the Vestige falls suddenly still, Mannimarco’s hit the mark exactly. His smile widens. “Come now. It’s quite obvious. Despite the fancy armor, despite the grand powers, despite all the training Tharn must have given you for those political events, you still reek of the slums.”
He pushes off the wall and comes to stand in front of the Vestige, still smirking. It’s a different kind of battle than their usual fare, but he certainly isn’t going to pass it up. “No fortune, no family, no future...until I came along. I made you. All the success, all the fame—that’s nothing but a twist of fate, provided by my knife. Without me, you would have died alone and nameless, mourned by no one, an insignificant mongrel from a line of equally insignificant—”
The Vestige stands abruptly, drawing himself up to his full towering height. Somehow, the cell feels even smaller than it did a moment ago. But Mannimarco would be lying if he said the thrill running through him was entirely fear. A fight at this point would be hilariously one-sided, but even still, there’s a spark of excitement in the idea of bearing witness to the Vestige’s brutality once again.
A gauntleted hand seizes the front of Mannimarco’s shirt, scraping the skin beneath. The twinge of pain is electric as the Vestige hauls him in close, close enough to count the fine, dark lashes around those blazing eyes.
“And you, ” the Vestige growls, so low and deep that Mannimarco shivers, “will never be more than a dropout and a failure. You say you made me, well, how’s it feel to know you fucked yourself over?”
“Opposing me was your choice.”
“You fucking killed me.”
“And I’ll never forget it,” Mannimarco breathes, leaning closer. “Knowing I had you completely at my mercy, powerless...knowing I was the one who twisted that knife in your heart...”
A low sound issues from deep in the Vestige’s throat—a growl? A laugh? “You’re a sick fuck.”
“And you’re not?” Mannimarco presses. “Look at you, throwing around a helpless prisoner. You’re getting off on this, aren’t you?”
“You know what?”
The Vestige turns, tossing Mannimarco against the table. His chained wrists prevent him from fully catching himself, and the wooden edge drives into his stomach with a burst of pain and a whoosh of lost breath. For a moment, he struggles, hands braced against the surface while he fights to draw air back into his lungs. Before he can recover, the Vestige steps up behind him, and a clawed gauntlet grabs the back of Mannimarco’s neck to shove his face against the table. He hears that sound again, and this time it’s definitely a laugh.
“I really am.”
Mannimarco should be frightened, maybe, to be so roughly manhandled—never mind the implications of being forcefully bent over a table by a man who just admitted to being aroused by violence—but this is easily the most enjoyable rush of adrenaline he’s felt since the Vestige dragged him out of Coldharbour. It pounds through his veins, heightening the sensation of the Vestige’s armor digging into his neck, his back, his thighs. It’s a harsh and unyielding touch, but it’s touch nonetheless, and fuck it’s been so long. He laughs breathlessly.
“You’re fun when you’re angry.”
“And you’re a much nicer sight when you’re bent over,” the Vestige informs him. Mannimarco bites the inside of his cheek to prevent himself from making a shameful noise as the Vestige rocks his hips forward. “Bet you’d look real good moaning on my cock, too.”
The tiniest groan escapes from between Mannimarco’s lips. “Insolent filth. Do your worst.” Please.
The Vestige laughs again, and the hand not pinning Mannimarco to the table reaches around to tease his hardening cock. “Knew you’d like this kinda thing,” he says smugly. “The way you’re always talking shit—had to be compensating for something.”
Mannimarco’s spine straightens. “First of all,” he snaps, then loses the entire rest of that thought as the Vestige yanks his breeches down around his knees. The cold air of the cell hits him in a rush, and for just a moment he wonders what in Oblivion he’s doing. Then the tide of lust washes back over him as the Vestige’s clawed gauntlet squeezes his ass. Fuck it, he’s got nothing left to lose.
Then both hands lift from him, replaced by a none-too-gentle elbow in the small of his back. There’s a series of clinks, and one gauntlet is tossed onto the table next to him.
“You’re damn lucky I carry all these fucking potions around,” the Vestige says, and before Mannimarco can demand to know exactly what kind of potion he’s messing around with, two slick fingers press inside him without warning.
He hisses, arching his back as much as the Vestige’s weight on his spine allows. The rumble of laughter behind him is almost as maddening as the sudden intrusion. The Vestige runs hot, his hand feverish against Mannimarco’s skin.
And he seems to have no compunction against immediately targeting that spot, crooking his fingers just right to tear an expletive from Mannimarco’s lips. He’s not prepared for the shock of pleasure, or the one that immediately follows, or the one after that. It feels like being repeatedly slammed by ocean waves with no time to find his footing in between. His nails dig into the old wood of the table as he tries not to tremble beneath the onslaught.
“Been a while for you, hasn’t it?” the Vestige says, and Mannimarco seethes at the lofty arrogance in his tone. “No one in your cult willing to fuck you over your stupid throne?”
It has been a while, because up until a week ago Mannimarco had been languishing under the tender care of Molag Bal, and before that he’d had more important matters to tend to. None of which he cares to dwell on.
“You’re an irredeemable savage,” he sneers instead. “At least have the courtesy to shut your whorish mouth while you violate me.”
The Vestige laughs again, leaning his head down next to Mannimarco’s ear. Gods, he hasn’t even bothered to take off his helm. What a pitiful sight this must make—the calamitous Worm King, chained and stripped and fucked by his fully-armored adversary.
“Oh, I think you want this,” the Vestige murmurs in his ear. He slows his pace, and somehow that’s even more tortuous than the relentless tempo from before. “Think you’ve been craving this since our first fight.”
“You’re the one with the— nngh... obsession,” Mannimarco gets out. Just because he had one or three dreams about putting the Vestige on his knees doesn’t mean he ever aspired to this particular arrangement. Although he wouldn’t have passed up the chance to play it out with the roles reversed. “You chased me at every opportunity. Like a pathetically jilted lover.”
“You wanna talk about pathetic?”
The fingers withdraw, and Mannimarco’s legs tremble at the sudden emptiness, the unfulfillment. Still, he clenches his jaw and doesn’t make a sound—right up until the Vestige’s hand curls around his fully-hardened cock.
A keening groan builds in Mannimarco’s chest as those hot, slick fingers drag down his length. He tries to stifle himself by burying his face in his arms, but the Vestige doesn’t allow him such privacy. The pressure on his back vanishes as a gauntleted hand twists around his braid and yanks, forcing his head back and baring his moan to the open air.
The Vestige releases his hair, allowing his head to fall back onto the table. But the damage is done.
Mannimarco’s ivory hair falls around him, unbound once more. It’s cool and silken against his skin, providing some scrap of relief to his burning face and ears. Shame twists in his gut, even as the Vestige continues to work his drooling cock with a slow, steady hand.
“Wish your followers could see you now. Their great Worm King, twitching and moaning for me.”
This is, perhaps, the most thoroughly humiliated Mannimarco has ever felt in his life. Even the depravities of Coldharbour pale in comparison—what shame is there in losing to a god? But here, drowning in pleasure and pain at the whim of a mortal man, he knows at last that he is thoroughly, utterly defeated.
And, Divines help him, it feels good.
Perhaps Molag Bal broke him in some irrevocable way, or maybe the Vestige is right and he’s always wanted this. But more than anything else right now, he wants to give in, to ride the line between shame and pleasure until he comes completely undone. And he knows exactly how to get what he wants.
“At least,” he pants, lifting his head from the table, “I was a king. Unlike a certain jumped-up street rat who was handed all of his victories by far more powerful forces.”
The Vestige’s gauntleted hand seizes a fistful of Mannimarco’s hair and slams him back down. “The fuck did you say to me?”
Mannimarco laughs, feeling light and free despite the weight bearing down on him and the steel bars in his periphery. “Come now, you wouldn’t have gotten anywhere at all without Varen leading you around by the hand. You would have rotted away in Coldharbour if not for Titanborn, Tharn struck the final blow against me, and it was Meridia who truly defeated Molag Bal in the end.”
A low, almost animalistic growl issues from behind him. The hand in his hair tightens until he gasps in pain.
“You’re gonna take that back.”
“Am I, now?” Mannimarco grins against the woodgrain. “I’m afraid you’re going to have to make me.”
There’s a moment of hesitation where the Vestige no doubt realizes exactly what he’s angling for—but nevertheless, he can’t seem to help himself.
A thrill of triumph flares in Mannimarco’s chest as he feels a cock head notch into place at his entrance.
“Don’t care what you think,” the Vestige decides. “Gonna fuck you ‘til you’re a drooling wreck.”
Mannimarco can’t even get out a proper barb in response before the Vestige pushes forward, pinning his hips against the table and forcing him to take it as the thickest cock he’s ever had slides into him. It hurts, it fucking hurts, and at the same time feels so sinfully good dragging over his sweet spot.
His mouth falls open with a gasp as the Vestige fully seats himself, and for a moment there’s nothing in the world but the hot, throbbing cock stretching him to his absolute limit. Sweat traces down his temples as he tries and fails to catch his breath.
“Gods,” he mumbles, already feeling dizzy and senseless.
“Yeah,” the Vestige breathes. He pulls back, nearly all the way out, before slamming his hips forward again.
Mannimarco cries out, scrabbling at the table beneath him as the Vestige seems to spear him straight through. He doesn’t even receive the courtesy of a full breath before the Vestige does it again, picking up an absolutely ruthless pace and driving himself exactly into Mannimarco’s sweet spot over and over.
Mannimarco finds himself falling mostly limp, hips held up by the Vestige’s steady arms. His face drags against the rough wooden table top with the force of each thrust, and it isn’t long before his eyes start to roll back in his head.
“You really are a proper slut, aren’t you?” the Vestige grunts. “Look at you, takin’ me so well. Made for my cock.”
It’s with equal parts irritation and gratitude that Mannimarco drags himself up from the depths of madness to answer in a rough, faltering voice. “And as— ah! —as predicted, you rely on sheer brutality over— fuck —over technique. Every bit the—the crude performance one would expect from a man of lower birth.”
“Lotta flowery words from a common whore, sweetheart,” the Vestige hums, tugging on his hair again. “Rather hear you say my name instead.”
“ Nngh. Bite me.”
“Don’t tempt me on that.”
His traitorous body shivers at the thought of teeth against his skin. Since when has the thought of pain been so appealing? Gods, he’s become infected with the Vestige’s obscene masochism. Well, with his dignity in tatters already, he may as well accept it.
His hips cant back to meet the Vestige’s strokes, putting more force into each thrust and lighting up his senses with the roughness he’s craving. Another moan slips free, and he doesn’t even care.
The Vestige, of course, takes notice.
“ Hahh... You want it harder, huh?”
A stirring pressure has begun to mount deep inside him, and Mannimarco almost slips up, almost breaks down and asks for what he wants. But he manages to swallow down the temptation, baring his teeth instead. “I sincerely doubt...you’ve started caring about what I want...in the past thirty seconds.”
A low, rumbling laugh meets his ears. “Might be surprised.” And suddenly the Vestige is putting more force behind every stroke, pounding into him without the faintest shred of mercy. Pain and pleasure blur together, unbearably heightened by the presence of the other. It’s brutal and uncontrolled. It’s ecstasy.
Mannimarco loses himself. He forgets where he is, who he’s with, and lets himself begin to come undone. Garbled words and noises fall from his tongue in a litany of nonsense, something half-praise and half-insult. But it doesn’t matter, nothing matters, because he’s about to crest the peak that’s been building inside him this whole time.
Suddenly, the Vestige’s motions slow, becoming sedate and restrained. Mannimarco cries out, fighting to hold on to the victory that’s so close but falling away from him by the second.
“N-no, no, I need— I need...”
“Go on,” the Vestige murmurs, petting his hair. “Beg.”
He’s clinging to the last, desperate shred of his pride, and the Vestige knows it.
“In...y-your dreams,” he gasps. His body writhes without stimulation, searching for something, anything, to tip him over the edge.
Another laugh. “Oh, you do a lot worse than begging in my dreams, sweetheart.” A single, gentle stroke rocks against him, and it’s almost enough—
“Please.”
The word slips out without his consent, hanging in the air between them like a beacon of shame. It feels horrible, and incredible, and with one last shudder, Mannimarco lets go.
“Please. Please let me...” A noise like a sob wracks him, and he hates this, loves this, can’t bear this balancing act a moment longer. “Please, fuck, Vestige— Make me come.”
“Fuck,” the Vestige hisses, and slams into him with unchecked ferocity.
Mannimarco comes with a scream, blinded by the intensity. For one glorious moment, he cares about none of it—not his failure, not his capture, not even this humiliation. For a single, white-hot instant, he is a king once more.
He comes back to his senses slowly, dazed and limp as the Vestige pounds his sated body in pursuit of his own fulfillment. Soon enough, a low, helpless groan issues from behind the helm, and he pulls free to come over Mannimarco’s back.
For a long moment, the cell is quiet, save for the sound of two men catching their breath. Mannimarco is the first to break the silence, grimacing in effort and discomfort as he stands and refastens his pants.
“You better not have gotten anything in my hair.”
The Vestige lets out a heavy breath, almost a laugh. He sinks into the wooden chair again, and Mannimarco just knows he’s smirking behind that helm. “Think you’re shit outta luck on that front.”
Running his hand through the sticky tangle, Mannimarco scowls deeply. “Your death will be slow.”
“Yeah, yeah.”
Unable to stand for long without shaking, Mannimarco reluctantly returns to his sleeping pallet, where he perches at an odd angle to minimize the discomfort. He starts to fuss with his hair, only to look up sharply as the Vestige pushes open the door to the cell.
“Really, you’re just going to leave?”
“Would you prefer I stay to cuddle?” the Vestige asks, closing the door behind him. “Unlike you, I got other shit going on.”
Mannimarco isn’t entirely sure, not without seeing his face—but from the way the Vestige’s hands tremble and fumble with the keys as he locks up, he’s not as unaffected as he pretends.
Maybe, Mannimarco thinks with a smirk, it’s been a while for him, too.
Soon enough, he’s alone again, nursing his regrets in the dim, guttering torchlight. As he lies back down on the pallet, though, he wonders if this changes anything at all. It was just a quick fuck—might as well have been a very bizarre, very intense dream. He doubts either of them will dwell on it for long.
When he wakes again, there’s a new stack of books on the table.