Disclaimer: If they were ours . . . No, actually John would probably suffer less overall.

The following contains scenes that may prove disturbing for some readers.
 

It's Nevada, and it's day, and it's the kind of heat that makes John wonder what the bloody fuck inspired people to settle here. Not that he's going to spontaneously combust so much as lose that ever-underrated third dimension, winding up a vaguely Constantine-shaped biscuit on the desert hardpan.

Still, it's a door, and he's bored, so he might as well figure out what makes the place interesting.

Some low, flat building on his side of the horizon. Right. He can do obvious.

It doesn't have anything like an obvious handle, but neither is it guarded by anything beyond this world, as far as he can tell. Otherworldly things beyond it, but just contained and waiting, like someone's forgot what they were for. And when he lays his hand on the metal and chants softly, the whole thing clicks and moves out of his way, and the air that hits him from the other side is startlingly, almost horribly cold.

Moment where he flashes on Thatcher's first days in office and where, exactly, he was, hanging by his heels, while the bitch came in. Agony and fire of it. Not just the smell in here, though it's vile, but that edge of uncaring hostility. Little whiff of brimstone, but he walks deeper and by the time he's a half-mile inside he knows that's just from the demons locked up in these glass-walled cells.

Grotesque, and he shouldn't pity the fuckers, because he knows what they do if you set them loose on a city, but the other part of him howls that nothing should live like this. Even a quick, bloody end with an axe is better. Vampires in crouched half-animal poses watch him and hiss. Curling, low howl from a Graeling demon that recognizes him. It makes him start, but no one comes, and none of the other cellies look, and he understands that this isn't uncommon. Wonders what exactly the did to the Graeling to make it so vocal. He held it in the circle half an hour before it'd give him the time of day, and even then it was like tearing fingernails.

Stops and turns and stares into the end-cell, trying to figure out what it is. Who and why. Because unlike the others, it's human. Not even vampire. He's got so he can tell; the shreds of his soul sort of reach towards vampires, loving the half-state of them. This man, whatever he is, and sod 'im but he's thin, is still alive.

Greyish eyes flash open and focus on him, and for a minute in the back of John's mind there's the howl of Chaos, and he understands.

"Got yourself into a right one here, haven't you?"

"Were you planning to help?" Sharply upper-class, and probably London. Out of place in the messy whiteness of this underground America. John shrugs. "Let me out." Pause. "Please."

John shrugs again.

The Chaos Lord rolls to his knees and gets up. Skinny gracefulness to him. It make a sharp contract to the hamburger of his back. Like someone's worked him over with a very thin cane, and some kind of liquid fire. It hasn't healed decently, and John wonders if there's something about this place keeping him from easing his own bruising. When he keeps just staring, the Lord turns his arms outward and shows surgical slits horizontal across each big vein. More burns on his upper arms.

"Let me out."

"Gimme a good reason to."

"Because you'll own me."

John looks him over. "Yeah, you'd be a lot of use."

The Lord snorts softly. "My, we're high and mighty. Think you're Constantine himself, do you?"

"Funny you'd put it that way."

Longer look, this time, and cooler. No attempt in the Chaos Lord to hide his nakedness, though there's something disturbingly fragile about him. "I see. Well."

And for no better reason than that, maybe, John lays a hand on the door's code-lock and mutters softly, keeping the palm against it while the door springs open.

The man doesn't so much shudder as pass a sense of a shudder through the air that John politely pretends to ignore. Then he straightens and walks out, making no attempt to hide the pain of motion, or, perhaps playing it up.

A play for sympathy? Not likely from a Chaos Lord. More likely some half-formed and Byzantine plot to get John to think that he was trying to play for sympathy, when in fact he's just in pain, only not really. Trying to hide the arrogance he'd shown before, or make John think he's trying to hide the arrogance, and.. Chaos Lords.

Bloody Hell, he needs a fag and they haven't even been properly introduced.

"So how much trouble for me are you likely to be, Mister . . . ?"

"Rayne. Ethan Rayne, at your service." Mocking bow as he moves toward something like a large control panel. "As for how much trouble I'll be . . . hmm. You might want to move just a little to your left?"

John complies warily, briefly wondering if he shouldn't have just gone and freed two or three vampires, instead, or even that strangely ginger-coated werewolf, and then a large metal wall slams down right about where he'd been a moment before, blocking off the prison area.

"There, thank you. Now, let's see . . . Ah, yes. How quaint that it's the red button. The delicious, shiny, candy-like red button that one musn't ever, ever . . . press."

One long, tapered finger down and the brief scream of an alarm and suddenly, a chorus of growls and keening and wet sounds from behind the wall.

"Now, Mr. Constantine. It won't really be that long before our friends' combined efforts breach the wall . . . shall we?"

Bugger him. John's tempted to leave him there, 'cause he knows Rayne can't run. But the skinny wanker keeps up pretty well, in spite of the nakedness, in spite of the bare feet and the bruises and the little aching noises he makes. Two more doors come down behind them, and John wonders whether it's coincidence or Rayne's doing. Or if the mess of monsters on their heels is really that close.

They get outside and it's suddenly bright and hot, and for a second John slinks like a vampire back into the shadows. Stands in the half-dark and watches the Chaos Lord unfold towards the Nevada brilliance. There's a little rumble under his feet. He wonders, almost idly, what kind of damage that many vampires could do in a contained space. Decides he's grateful he's not the one cleaning up the mess that's going to be on those nice, white floors by sundown.

Nobody's been near the car. The dust he raised in driving's settled back down, and it's a thin layer now on the paint. Small tracks of some desert insect streak across it.

In the light of day, just as bright but quite a bit purer than the underground illumination, he gets an understanding of how bad of shape Rayne's actually in. Still naked and barefoot, and the ground's all broken rocks and small, sharp plants. Almost as tall as John, but skinny, and it's not that hard to just pick him up in a half-fireman's carry and drag him across the intervening ground. Still, he's panting by the time he drops him by the car, and he doesn't do it gently. Once he's down, Rayne staggers, and his back hits the sun-heated metal of the car's body.

Instantaneous howl of almost liquid pain. John twists in time to see Rayne's eyes cloud in irritation, and he understands that whatever else he might have seen, that reaction was a true one. It's more powerful than you'd think. He files it away, the moment and the sense of it, as an added layer of control.

In the car's boot, he finds a moderately clean shirt and pants that he throws to the other man. Not feeling generous, particularly, but they're going to need to stop somewhere, and it'll be easier to get a room if the bloke with him isn't naked.

And driving, later, he looks at Rayne without turning and sees those long, delicate hands twitching towards him.

Slams a shield up immediately, but Rayne does nothing but brush his fingers over John's worse-than-useless trenchcoat and smile knowingly.

"Testing the material?"

"You're very powerful."

A tester, too. Or at least someone who knows how to pretend. The man had to know how John would react to the reaching. Right. Motel, let Rayne make a phone call, make his exit.

When he's far, far away, he'll sleep. John lets the silence stretch, wondering how many lies were in that last thought. In the end, there's only one reasonable question -- Just how bored is he?

Finds himself smiling into all the bright and heads west instead of back east. The answer is, of course, bored enough.

"I didn't know the military had moved into the paranormal." Which is a lie -- he hadn't known they'd done it officially. Ah, that American ingenuity.

"Yes, well, I was . . . a bit late on the uptake, myself. You meet the most interesting people in white rooms."

"There are always interesting people. I find it best to avoid most of them."

Rayne snorts. "What a dull existence."

"I didn't say I was good at avoiding them."

"Just escaping . . . You'll have to teach me."

"No, I won't." Remembers the half-empty pack in the glove compartment and reaches over to snag it, carefully noting the way Rayne remained perfectly still until he's moved back into his own space.

Clues and clues, and at least half of them cheerful misdirection. Wonderful.

When all else fails, John, be quiet and drive. Hot as fuck in the car, the air conditioning's a sad corpse of its former self, and the swirl of dust they get whenever he cracks a window is enough to discourage him. He glances once at Rayne when they hit the blacktop, but the man's settled against the seat's vinyl as though he doesn't believe he'll ever be warm. And as long as Rayne's still non-threatening, John's content to sweat in his shirtsleeves.

Motel at sundown like the shell of a prehistoric animal. He pulls into the gravel lot and stares across the now-still car at Rayne. Considers and then digs a bungee cord out of the back seat and binds the too-thin wrists with it. What he casts on it isn't even really a spell, just a fragment of his voice and enough power that if Rayne tries to get loose, he'll feel it.

The fat, sweating man behind the desk in the office might never have discovered shirts, except that his sunburn only rises to his upper arms, then vanishes into a sea of pallid flesh. The look he gives John suggests that in his particular world-view, the British have slid into the worst kind of ass-fucked, baby-eating degeneracy possible. John gives him crumpled bills of undistinguished American money and the smile he usually reserves for bluffing his way out of hell. Draws both lips and gums away from his teeth and edges the whole thing with traces of blood off his cracked lips. Walks out into the suddenly relieving dry heat of the night.

Rayne hasn't moved. He doesn't ask to have his hands untied, either, only follows John into the room he got them.

He stands in the middle of the room while John wards it. His posture perfectly submissive -- shoulders curled in around the thin frame of his chest, eyes down. Sliver of a smile playing around his mouth that makes John's teeth grind.

Too much power in this room for him to be comfortable. Too much air. He's not used to this lack of humidity, or to the low-key magical crackle of the air in the desert. Doesn't know whether it comes from the government-sanctioned pit they just walked out of, or whether it's something older and the location of that particular white pit was just. Fortuitous.

He wonders whether he could have left Rayne there and walked away.

Comes across the room and drags his fingers down the front of the shirt, unbuttoning rather than ripping only because the shirt's his and he wants it back after. Pulls it off Rayne's shoulders and lets the material drag both scarred wrists in. Extra layer of bondage that's as important as the nakedness he's just recreated.

"So. What the fuck are you going to do for me, Chaos Lord?"

"Anything you want."

"And if I can't think of anything I want?"

"Then I will owe you." Very clearly enunciated, public-school accent leaking through the clipped, seductive fringes of his voice.

John gets very close to the side of Rayne's face. Up close, he smells like soft aftershave, which shouldn't be possible but somehow is, and thin skin, and brimstone. "My mark on you."

"Yes."

"You consent?"

"I do."

"Right."

His knife, the one he likes to use and therefore usually doesn't, is at the bottom of his rucksack. Rayne doesn't move while John retrieves it and comes back to stand at his shoulder. Pulls the shirt over his head so that it hangs like a dampened ghost from Rayne's bound wrists.

The process of carving his sigil into Rayne's shoulder is one he tries to make as brief as possible. The bloodiness startling, reminding him that the last body he did this on wasn't mortal, therefore didn't bleed. Just a few quick, shallow gestures with the blade, though, and when he's finished, he whispers over the damaged flesh. White fire runs up it, sealing the wound and scarring it and making it as permanent as he knows how.

There's blood in the creases of his palm when he's finished, and while he's looking for somewhere to wipe it, he leans in and whispers in Rayne's ear, "That won't come off as easy as the one on your arm."

And then looks. Because he was expecting impassivity, but Rayne's eyes are huge, and he's breathing like drowning. Gasping and shaking and needing something so obviously, but John doesn't understand what that is until Rayne bends halfway back and locks his mouth over John's and kisses him.

Which is about as far away from the reaction he got from the demon as reactions can be. Can't help but notice the torturous stretch of strained muscles, the burgeoning erection at Ethan's groin. Shock and stilled until he can finally work the man's tongue out of his mouth and pull back.

Rayne nearly falls as he gets back to his feet and then --

"Master." Low and rough and needful as if it came out of some S&M handbook.

The conviction, undeniable, that this is all real.

One more time, Johnny, say it with me: I will study my powers before I use them. That's right, keep saying it . . .

His very own slut of an aging Chaos Lord. Wracking his brain now, trying to figure out something like a next move, something like an explanation of what he's done, and Rayne standing there like a dog at the end of its tether. Right. Do something. "Kneel and wait."

Rayne does, more gracefully than he has a right to, eyes still firmly focussed on him.

"You're mine." Not so much a question as a confirmation.

"I am."

"For how long?"

"You really have no idea, do you? What have you been doing out there, Constantine? Binding fast-healing demons? That's it, isn't it."

"There are often necessities." Catches himself falling back on cold civility, but much too late.

"Oh, yes. Necessities. And what would you have then, Lord? Shall I suck your cock? Shall I summon all those demons back for their second chance at you?"

"Lots of pride for someone who'd be stuck on their knees for eternity if I left you there."

"I take pride in what I do best, don't we all? Besides, I rather thing eternity is . . . pushing it."

"Really? How much time do I have, then, Rayne?"

Watching him struggle with it, rush of rightness and power inside him that he's too fucking sick of optimism and pap to feel guilty about. His now and his for . . . how long? Doesn't lower himself to ask so much as lower himself to the battered chair to wait. And watch.

Rayne's biting his lips now, eyes wide but focused inward, turning more and more of his considerable power to saying silent. Muscles tense and . . . yes, trembling.

John wonders if he'll gnaw his lower lip open. If he'll pull something truly painful, but finally he settles. Fixes his pose, flattens his expression admirably. "It will last until I figure out a way to alter it, if not taken away."

"Nicely danced, ye fucking arse. Now give me the number."

"Five years, give or take a few months." Spat, and pure venom in Rayne's eyes. "I'm going to make it very, very interesting for you."

And John has to laugh. Really and truly laugh. Head back and near gasping with it. A viper. Oh, a pit viper for his birthday. Mum, you're too bloody kind. He can leave it to sit and plot, or he could keep it under close watch.

Right at the foot of his bed. Not a viper, not anything but a rabid dog just waiting for its chance. And no, he is not, in any way bored. "So why don't you start then. Suck my cock. Make me like it."

And regretting those last words is just as hysterical as the rest.

Rayne crawls over to him on knees that should have given out years ago. Lays back on his heels and looks up, hands chest-high and asking.

"Go ahead."

Unzips him. Pulls him out, still soft but getting interested in the way that a body that hasn't gotten anybody for a bloody dog's age is always interested. Licks up to his pubic hair, very deliberately, and rests there a minute, chin against the hardening length of him. Oddly stubble-less and cool. Some edge of him not quite human but the magnetism still undeniable.

John doesn't actually touch him. Just flicks his fingers in the direction of that skull, but Rayne stiffens. Opens his mouth and sucks the root for a minute, then drops the angle and takes in the whole half-hard stretch. And blows him.

Shouldn't be as good as it is. Aging prettiness of the Chaos Lord kneeling between his feet both off-putting and arousing. Long fingers slide up John's still-trousered thighs and tease him. Fast, uncareful rub against his balls that makes him hiss and thrust, and he isn't sure quite how long he's been hard but he is, and he's getting a bit wide around the eyes. Never could keep a straight face doing this. Nothing like his casting face, and it's just a little too intimate for him to actually not care. Dangerous, this is dangerous even with his mark on the wanking viper.

"Thought I said 'make me like it.'" Stupid. Playing with fire, even. But suddenly Rayne's throat opens and there's a mouth pressed against his body and his cock's somewhere tighter and wetter than any body he's ever been in in his life, and the slinking, dangerous fingers are in his pants and rubbing hard behind his balls.

He's fucked. He really is. This is way too good, and Rayne knows he's slipping. Wet and hot and slick around him, sucking hard. Slick and sweet and fuck yes. Somehow-wet finger pushing against his asshole and knuckles against his prostate through the skin and he comes groaning. Cradling Rayne's head between his hands and whispering things that sound suspiciously and irrationally like love.

Makes the mistake of focussing on the man before he's back in control. Eyes an untrustworthy blue-grey, and, yes, the creamy smile.

"I see you've had a bit of practice at that."

"It couldn't really have been a surprise . . . John."

His name, hanging there in cheap motel gloom, distinctly naked of power. Promise and threat. He makes a point of smoking his fag down to the filter before saying another word. Of holding Rayne's gaze.

"Get up."

He stands, long snake-body rolling up to John's and holding there, an inch from his eyes, close enough for John to smell himself on the man's face. Tiny little tilt that John barely registers before Rayne leans in and kisses him again.

Whip-thin against him, the thigh pushing between his more of a tease than he would have believed. Ache of his still half-hard cock through the cloth and it hurts and he still growls into it.

Bites the smile he gets in return and grabs Rayne by the hair and takes the kiss. Slips in his tongue and fucks Rayne's mouth as brutally as he can. Not much -- the man knows precisely how to give it up. One more victory, over and above making this about sex, power dynamics helpfully limited. John whispers a Word and can feel the heat of his mark burn through Rayne's skin to touch him.

Heal him in some nasty, fundamental way even it as it weakens the other man. Better to have gasps to work with, a shudder in the helpfully pliant body.

Stills his tongue just long enough for Rayne to get used to playing with it before breaking the kiss with a yank. Can't bloody wait to shake out greying hairs when he lets go. Eventually.

"Who raped you first, Ethan love?"

Not even a hitch. "I didn't know her name."

"Did she hurt you."

"Badly."

"What did she do?"

"Beat me."

"With what?"

"A whalebone stay from her corset. Very flexible. Quite pale."

"Show me where."

Rayne extricates himself and curls forward, rolls down to his knees. Shows the shaded white line of an old scar network running through from his shoulder blades down to his hips.

John traces them. Breathes through it. He never gets used, really, to the damage people do and knows beyond all reason that if anyone ever asked for it, this one did. Teasing and tempting and too much power in him, too ruthless too willing to break his own hands to get the shackles loose.

He scrapes the rough side of his thumb across one pale streak. Measures the answering shudder as a function of subjection and pain and

"Get up."

Bends the thin body back from the knees onto the natty roughness of the bedspread. Scrapes his ribs and his navel and bites once at the flesh between navel and cock, hard until he draws a blood edge out of the imprint of his teeth, and offers it on his thumb to Rayne's mouth. Skins the trousers off.

Skins off his own. Trousers first, and shoes. Pants after. Shirt last, opening it and leaving it on and coming to stand between Rayne's elegantly long feet. Aware somehow of the desert burning outside but thinking of London's grey wetness.

"Pull your knees up."

Grey, grey . . . yeah. Perhaps the only place and time for something like this. Two old, too old, and nowhere near done.

Scratches at a burn inside the left knee and suddenly Ethan writhes like something boneless, electrocuted and too brassed to die. Oh yes.

"Who did it?"

"Fuck off." Savage and icy cold. Fog curling, or not, at the edges of the room.

"Tell me who did it."

"You wouldn't know him."

John lets the mark do its work, stroking his cock in what he hopes seems an absent manner, but inside . . . he would've thought it would've taken longer to get this. Rayne's Words battering at the mark uselessly, power flooding the small room and putting up John's back hairs. Burning at his bare feet and making his fingers twitch and his cock ache.

"Ripper."

Power flow cut off with a snap, slamming into both of them, but Rayne's the one with blood on his chin. As it should be.

Playing in silence. Late afternoon light coming through the fig tree by the window.

He leaves it to Rayne to lick it off. Sits on the edge of the bed and picks up one long foot from the spread. Plays with it absently, rubbing the arch first hard, then gently enough that Rayne twists in his grasp and hisses, shaking against the touch and into it, and from the energy of the Mark running through him.

John scoots up the bed, eventually. Sits cross-legged and mostly naked and stares down at the Chaos Lord. Thinks about questions he could ask. Power and knowledge. Not quite as good as a djinn, but close. Almost as much trouble.

He imagines pouring the man into a bottle and keeping him stoppered on the shelf. Losing it in the depths of the sofa for months at a time. Having him sit guardian on whatever summonings need more security than John can easily provide himself.

Lays both hands on the narrow chest and presses down. Feels heart and lungs and radiant power coursing just under the surface. All down a little, pulled towards Rayne's back and the mark there.

"You want to open yourself up for me?"

"No. Yes." Interesting, because it wasn't a compulsion question. Just a query to state of mind.

"Open yourself up for me."

"You're a fool."

One last smile and Rayne's eyes on his own and his eyes on Rayne's, rolling themselves back up into his head, smooth as water until there is only the dulling white of the sclera. Blue and red veins.

Blue, then indigo then

which first?

The woman is familiar, planes and angles and what used to be a soft mouth, withered thin with age and whatever prosaic wickedness. Something Romany about her, though not in her simple sixties clothes. Her hands reached out toward him, toward Ethan, bloody palms first and a wide, wide smile.

Mama. He doesn't know her name and never will.

A flood of images and impressions, beatings and the first stirrings of power. The feel of his mark from the other side the most incredible feeling he's ever had, knowing himself from top to bottom, unable to do anything but love. Gone in an instant, but the small part of John that is somehow away from this knows that he'll crave it forever.

Knows what could come from burying himself in this man just to get it.

Addiction and addiction, and a tall, strikingly plain man with a put-on East End accent and a wicked backhand and perfect control of their shared soul.

Ripper. Ripper.

Demons and dreams. Living his own memory through another's eyes, harder and harder to separate, flashes of the two of them in the real world, Rayne splayed out and writhing, the perfect sacrifice.

John, cross-legged and moaning aloud, sweating and swaying and chanting and praying to gods whose names he's purposely forgotten and the power rising and rising between them, his own soul cracking and burning itself out of its shell, just in retaliation and it has to end has to end has to end won't

stop

can't

please.

Please.

Yes.

Wet. John pulls himself together, piece by piece, and finds the hot of the room and the slick of his semen on the inside of his thigh and his belly. Shaking. Harder than last time, more like it's been pulled out of him. Controlling in a way he doesn't like, but. But still.

Rayne's eyes are closed. Small movements of the eyes underneath shifting the lids.

Still hard. Violet-purple under the skin's translucence, and John closes his hand around it almost absently. Nothing like a violation -- Rayne moans into the first scrape of a nail along his length. Leaks messy and wet onto John's palm, enough to slick things, enough to fulfill the bodily fluid needs of most spells. He could, he supposes, banish the man from this plane forever. Mark out the room's dark floor in desert sand, light the emergency candles in the car's boot, blow the pre-ejaculate into the fire and rid the world of someone who's undoubtedly done enough harm to deserve it. He's seen a little.

But aching, still aching, for the connection again. Rayne's body, Rayne's contained selfness, Rayne's contained memory of the slumming Ripper and the delicate frames of his glasses. Little crackle of want that flares through him at the thought.

But instead he says, "That wasn't what I meant."

Spits in his palm and mixes it with the slickness already there and lays it into the long hand open on Rayne's belly, getting the fingers wet.

"Open yourself up for me." Give me what you gave him yes I want that again

Hazy moment while Rayne's eyes open, and the look he gets then is deadly. But Rayne gives a long, spine-cracking body-arch, drops back to the mattress, and does as he's told.

Finger in himself, making it terribly visible, and John knows he won't be able to get it up again, but some other brand of arousal is making a hot pool in his belly and spreading upwards and he wants. Wraps his hand around Rayne's nearest thigh and forcibly lays it down so he can see this happen. Sick and perverse but hasn't his sex life always been, really? And there are no innocents here, at least.

"You were very pretty," he offers conversationally.

"I was beautiful."

"Do you miss it?"

"Do you want it?" Shimmering of power, brief illusion of fuller, softer lips. A body pale and lean, without scars.

"If I wanted a boy I'd take one."

A smile as Rayne adds another finger. "Men, in the end, can be infinitely more entertaining."

"Do you want me to break you?"

"I don't know."

It's . . . soothing, somehow, to be here like this. Rayne is so hard, teasing brightly against the edges of John's satisfaction. Peaceful. Power to power. "You were born to Chaos."

It isn't a question, and Rayne doesn't answer. Arches a little, opens his mouth as he pleases himself. Beautiful in the way certain ruins have. "Stop. Arrange yourself for me."

"So soon? Why John, I didn't realize --"

Shuts him up with fingers in his mouth, fingertips grazing teeth, sliding wildly over the man's tongue for a few seconds before he pulls out. Shifts back a bit to give the man room to settle back against the stiff little pillows. Pull his knees up and start again, two fingers.

And while he watches, Rayne slides a third finger in and keens. Tighter than he pretends to be, and it has to hurt some, but this was never meant to be painless. Necessary domination. Needing this as a channel for the power and all the nervous energy he's been building.

Pulls Rayne's hand away by the wrist and strokes his fingers across the opened hole and watches the man twist under his touch.

"Give me your hand."

Rayne does, and John traces it. Suppresses the urge to lick it clean . . . that's not the game this time.

"Give me oil."

A brief shudder -- John's going to have to get the man fed very soon -- and Rayne does, his own too-hot fat and the power. Slick and bright and looking not at all like its origins. Familiar disgust at the pure filth at the heart of the power. Blood and bone and fat and shit and come and spit. Beautiful.

And when he plunges in with his own three fingers Rayne arches and bites off a scream, muscles tensing and flexing, all in offering. No boy could give him this. Not with so much meaning. . .

The ripple of muscle against his hand, the heat, nothing at all like being inside. The fever for knives and blood just under the surface and John's not sure if he's grateful or not for being in control of himself at this moment. But Rayne . . . .

John twists and rocks, the motions of preparing, though he has nothing to prepare the man for but more of this. It's good. Everything silent but the pound of their blood and all of Rayne's sounds, gasps and curses falling gently against the shield of John's mark and he can finally classify the strange feeling as affection for this man.

This bonded danger to him, this perfect honesty that deserves . . . more.

Knuckles aching at the tightness, four fingers now and some dim, dead John of five, ten years ago is hard again and growling for blood but now . . . The moments stretch and flow into each other, sweat pooling at the base of John's spine, beads of it tickling his flexing wrist as he pushes and twists and has Rayne.

The man clutching at the sheets, faintly trying to escape, cock alternately flagging and filling. So dark with blood. John's always understood the vampires at times like these, all the killers and all their passions. The simple amazement of having this for himself.

All his, even beyond the mark. John knows Rayne now. Enough to know he'd sooner purge himself of all power than run from this.

"Tell me it hurts."

"Ahhhh . . . it hurts, you fuck."

"Are you going to come for me?"

"Yes . . ."

"Just for me?"

Broken laugh. "Never, never . . ."

Last resistance broken from deep within John, slipping out just enough to curl his thumb under and push. Just a little blood, just enough, and he's in, buried to the wrist, warm and held to the sound of Rayne's falling cry. Last of the struggle lost to trembling pliancy. No escape, no possible escape and John studies the peace with real envy.

Knows he'd never allow himself that freedom.

And punishes Rayne for it.

Takes him hard, vicious. Flexing his fist and pushing, tickle of the slight blood over his wrist. Just watching it now. Not the body, not the man, but that harmless little hole he's brutalizing.

Sweating freely now, both of them, and they'll have to turn the mattress. Doesn't trust the man anywhere but in his arms. On his arm, and wasn't there a song about this? Trust the Americans, thinking themselves bored and decadent, thinking themselves insensitive.

They don't know shit.

Almost punching in now, and Rayne cries and thrashes, thighs trembling with the effort not to close around his arm, muscles clenching, cracking and pushing at John's knuckles and it's only the strain that makes him speak. Command voice, tendril of power flowing from between his teeth to the mark, to the man's filthy little slow soul.

"Come."

The scream makes John feel more alive than he's ever been before.

In the end, they collapse where they are on the damp, soiled sheets. Rayne loses consciousness when John pulls out, so John simply hefts and arranges the man to his liking, effort triggering his own weariness. Curled around his prize, he sleeps, long and deep.

And awakens to the sound of the shower. There was rain in his dream, so there probably won't be any hot water left when Rayne finally stumbles out as clean as he can get. No question as to what John must do, though he aches madly as soon as he moves, left arm quite useless for the time being.

The shower is small, and John is more lathered by shifting and moving against Rayne's body than anything else. His cock shows, at best, vague interest. They're both drained, but John wouldn't bet someone else's money that Rayne was as worn as he tries to look. The water begins to cool.

"Outside the shower. Now. You may use a towel to lean on."

"As you say, John." Easy and low.

John grits his teeth against the barely lukewarm water and scrubs down as best he can. He feels . . . not so much wired as beloved by some old thunder god, running with current and power. He knows it's probably the only thing allowing him to keep his feet.

He wipes Rayne down himself, checking at wounds that are already healing, if slightly off center. Examines the man's face and wonders how many beatings it took for it to heal into the current mass of lines and angles. Son of Chaos, allowing it to have its way with him. And what would Chaos do with a favoured son mastered by another?

It doesn't bear thinking on, certainly not more than his finger in the man's mouth, being lazily sucked and worshipped. Still there could be danger, there. What form does Chaos use to manifest?

Does it manifest?

Or was this all part of Chaos' most determinedly non-plan? What trouble would they cause?

What new demon would try to claim his soul before the five years were out?

"Open yourself to Chaos."

"I'm too weak at the moment."

"You will always tell me the truth."

"Now what fun is that?"

Giddying, really. Christ, he had to eat. . . "Tell me the truth now. Why don't you want to open yourself to Chaos?"

"Oh, just being an arse about things, really."

Kneeling to kiss that smile, biting it and using it and reaching for the mark within the man and

there

A reflection of necessary confidence, of pure unadulterated need and John is hard again. "You make me young."

"Is that a command?"

"No. This is: Open yourself to Chaos."

An aura of all colors and none, noise and pain and the brink of orgasm and he will remember not to share this with the man next time.

Or not. "Where does it wish you to go?"

"I could've told you that ten minutes ago. The answer is always the same."

"And what is it?"

"El Boca del Infierno. Have you been?"

Hands on his chest now, thumb pressed to his nipple and circling and Ethan's teeth on his earlobe and his own thumb tracing the man's raw cleft, body twitching at the long, slow hiss.

"I do know the way . . . Master."

"Show me."
 

janete
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