bucking bronco
(ˈbʌkɪŋ ˈbrɒŋkəʊ)
noun
US informal
an untamed horse that cowboys try to ride in a rodeo
A wanted, vigilante swashbuckler stumbles upon a fellow adventurer tending to his own wounds in a natural hot spring deep in the forest... a gruff, angry adventurer who does not take kindly to anyone witnessing his body for what it shouldn't be. The vigilante manages to settle the bull long enough to get something truly good out of it.
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I've been doing some psychological work to try and cope + seethe + mald about my body. However, there is very little porn about men like me that doesn't set me off. The solution to this problem is to write it myself.
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Magic projectiles arc through gnarled branches and thorny brambles, singing their shrill warnings of pure energy as they narrowly miss Varin's retreating back. Adrenaline dulls the pain of plant hooks grabbing onto his skin through several layers of clothing as he bounds through towering pillars of trees. He grabs onto a thin one and vaults himself forward, then throws his shoulders sideways to dart between two others. A crackling white ball flashes through the space between his ear and shoulder; fingers of electricity branch out and latch onto his skin for the nanosecond it's within range, uploading heat into his muscle fibers. It smashes against a dark tree trunk ahead of him, splattering into static, angry particles and instantly searing the bark into blackened char with a glowing, orange center.
Varin leaps past the tree as they shout after him and completely unleash the pack - you forget how terrifying barking is until you hear it all around you, hear them talking to each other, a bloodthirsty note in their echoing calls that shake your brain back to a primordial state.
The forest floor isn't flat. This part least of all. It's a myriad of topsoil being pushed up by spiderwebs of root systems and sudden drops into micro valleys and fairy creeks as the entire landscape troughs and crests steadily downward, like wrinkles in a massive bed sheet. The crumbs in this bed sheet are massive boulders covered in moss and lichen. Dead trees lie as logs where they had the privilege of falling all the way to the forest floor, unlucky others had their antlers caught in the living trees and are stuck on a diagonal. More obstacles he needs to get past without a second to lose.
He leaps again, lands poorly, and rolls his ankle with a wounded shout. The barking grows sharper; he sees shapes darting through the leaves. He runs for two, three, five more paces, just long enough for him to pull yet another surge of magic from his origin muscle. On the next footfall, he lets himself collapse into a splattering of moss around and on the base of a tree.
Varin's moss is black, which would give him away if these woods weren't so dim and dark. He blends right in with the dark green moss his faux imitation fell on - everything looks black or dark green this far in. The men and their dogs come immediately; they were that close behind. The dogs snivel at the ground, but not in any particular direction because his scent does not carry over to this temporary form. They can't hear his thundering footsteps anymore, so they know he pulled some funny business, but the range of possibilities is uncountable. The seconds tick by slower than Varin would like them to, and even though he isn't hurt by their heavy boots and rough paws stepping on his moss, he hates the alien, out-of-body, third-person view that is granted to him in this form. His "eyes" are fixed an inch or so above the mean center point of his moss spread. It makes him nauseous, derealized. He wishes he could generate a sound off to the side so they'd leave, but he can't cast additional magic in this form. He technically has no origin muscle to cast with.
Eventually, they spit at the ground in defiance and slink back from whence they chased. The forest is rot with bandits and hooligans; they don't belong here. When their noise fades and silence has more than a moment to settle in, Varin reforms. Immediately, all soreness, aches, and pains overtake him, and he groans softly in slight anguish. He got a shallow gash from a sword across the upper abdominals in the preceding fight, not enough to injure the muscle, but enough to stain his white, linen undershirt red and the surrounding skin also red from rubbing the open wound while running through untamed woods. His arms and legs spill pinpricks of blood and souvenirs of thorns, his clothing bears spurs, and there are leaves and spiderwebs and an actual spider in his hair. He flings it from himself with a dignified level of terror.
He feels like shit. His stomach heaves as he catches his breath.
After gulping, licking his lips, and returning to normal intensities of breathing, he instinctively turns towards where he knows there is a natural hot spring.
The fairy creeks trickle down through the land, coming together like strands of a braid in a larger river. Varin slinks along through the foliage, keeping to the shade and avoiding the scatterings of warm sunlight penetrating through the canopy. Sweat collects on his forehead and his neck; he feels beads seep past hair follicles on his scalp. Pulling aside a rudimentary curtain of woody vines reveals the wide expanse of the hot spring basin. Steam curls up from warm, cloudy water which is enchanted to ward off water striders and other bugs from coming near. Relief floods his body as he licks his dry lips and shucks his dirty, ripped, bloodied clothing and lightweight armor in the bush. Once completely naked, he places his hands on his pile of belongings and generates more magic from his origin muscle. The fibers of his serratus anterior thrum as warmth spills down his arms and through his fingers, turning his pile into an inconspicuous rock. No thief wants a rock.
Varin grins and turns back to the water eagerly. He unravels the tight string that kept most of his long, brown hair from getting in his eyes while running. It's tangled from the action and the humidity, and he can feel the flyaways. He props his hands on the flat slab of rock and slides his lithe, injured body gingerly down into the water. A shaky, relieved moan punches out of his throat when the heat engulfs his cock and balls, then stings the shallow slash on his abdomen.
He hears a gruff sound.
Through the swirling, opaque clouds is the body of a man, hard with muscle and a head of short black hair. His face is gritty and handsome, but his expression is like that of a territorial wild animal that has caught a trespasser. Varin's eyes follow a sweat trickle down from the man's jugular, over collarbones and rippling abs, down the v-line to...
"Oh." Leaves his lips in an aroused whisper. Varin isn't displeased. Quite the opposite. But the man's pupils shrink and he lunges violently through mid-thigh-deep water. Wrong response.
Varin does not have the brainpower - or the grappling skill - to sufficiently defend against the onslaught of strength that charges through the water and pins him to a large, flat rock that lies only an inch below the water's surface. "Stop, stop! I mean you no harm!"
Heat water sloshes around their bodies as a forearm is shoved under his jaw, pinning his head and throat to the rock. Black forearm hair tickles his nostrils as he gets a proper look at the handsome stranger's face.
Fearful. Guarded.
The man's voice is cagey, low, and rough. "You have seen my shame. That's harm enough. I'll burn you into-"
He stops when he feels Varin's hard cock rise to greet his, bumping the underside of the head. The man glances down at where he is hovering over Varin's pelvis, then back at Varin's nervous grin.
"I do love frottage." Varin tries to settle the raging bull. His choice of a masculine word is purposeful.