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saiyuki_wk_auSo, I've been talking about this for a while but in the end its not all that porny and there's hardly any lap dancing in it, which was the supposed point to start with but oh well. It is a little vampire-y at least. Guess this is what happens when you mix up the Hakkai-loses-Kannan-and-goes-crazy part of Saiyuki with Gojyo, parts of the Burial arc and Chin Issou and then throw in some feeding kink, some noir violence and some Vampire the Masquerade (sort of).
Title: Family Matters
Fandom: Saiyuki (85)
Rating: R
Words: 5600 approx (unbeta'd. Sorry)
He knows where they are. He can taste their scent in the back of his throat, an acrid burn so sharp it knocks out all the other scents around him, leading him straight to them - a nondescript door in a nondescript building in a derelict industrial suburb. People disappear in places like this.
Since the Families started rising up, there are a lot of places like this.
On the doorstep, there's a nondescript gate-keeper. He's the only living soul Howie's seen for the last nine blocks.
"What the fuck do you want?" the not-a-bouncer sneers, stepping in front of Howie when he tries for the door. If he'd been a regular bouncer he probably would have been flashing the firearm in the holster under his jacket by now. He's not carrying a firearm. No need, really. There are only two things on this earth that he needs to fear; his expression says that Howie is definitely not one of them.
Howie stops and steps back and smiles up at him.
"What do you think I want?" he says.
The not-a-bouncer gives him the once over, taking in his dark trench coat, the black shirt underneath it, his tie, his slacks, his scuffed leather shoes. His gaze travels back up to his face and he stares hard into his eyes, at the black heavy-rimmed glasses on his face, the piece of tape holding them together in the middle, his slightly greasy hair. He sniffs the air a little, like that'll tell him anything other than the fact that Howie's personal hygiene has probably been somewhat neglected in the last little while.
"Your blood's too thin for this joint, little man," he declares, less hostile now that he's decided he's got Howie's number. He leans back again with another sniff, more of a personal opinion this time, and crosses his arms over his chest. "Why don't you move on before someone decides you look tasty. Ain't no place for you here tonight."
Howie smiles again. It's less pleasant than the first one.
"Maybe," he agrees. "But there's someone I need to see. So, if you'll just let me in..."
Predictably, challenging gatekeeper authority pisses the guy off a little. He steps in front of Howie again as Howie reaches for the door handle, puts his hand on Howie's chest and gives him the tiniest of shoves. It sends Howie flying backwards into the street where he lands in an ungainly heap. Howie doesn't mind. He would have been disappointed if it hadn't happened. He takes his time getting up again and the bouncer waits. Either his mama brought him up well or he just likes to be real clear on where other people stand.
"You ain't hearing me, white boy," he growls when Howie deliberately places himself in front of him again, and he's showing his canines in a clear display of hostility and dominance. "I said, get lost, or I will break you in half and feed you to the Eaters."
Howie stares up into the bouncer's face.
"That's not actually what you said," he disagrees. "Please at least get your facts straight."
The bouncer opens his mouth to make some sort of retort. Howie never hears it, just the gurgle of blood flooding the man's torn throat as he teeters, reaching for the wound that suddenly appears there. That's the problem with the carotid artery, though; lack of blood supply to the brain overrides pretty much all other haemodynamic concerns. The not-a-bouncer is dead before he's even finished falling.
Howie steps over the still twitching body – leftover bioelectrical activity, nothing to be terribly concerned about - turns the door handle and pushes the door open, then slips inside and closes it neatly behind him.
From inside the barrier of the door, music throbs up through the stairwell from the floor below like the beat of a heart, a heart that Howie has all intentions of driving the proverbial stake through.
++++
Gray is pretty sure the only thing that's keeping him going anymore is the music. The heavy throbbing rhythm of it is like some kind of 90 decibel pacemaker reminding his heart when to contract, when to relax, regular and automatic. His entire world has long since narrowed down to just that, that unending thump of sound and the strobing flashes of colour in his vision – fitful blues and sickly greens and jaundiced yellows. It's like a drug in his veins, like the worst and the best trip he's ever been on, and there's a part of him that knows it's probably going to kill him.
But he can't stop. Like the girl in the little red ballet shoes, he just keeps on going. His muscles are trembling and every action is an effort. His brain is running mostly on autopilot. He might have wanted to escape before but there's no connect between the idea and the reality anymore; he's had too much V and the up-down of each little taste has become his entire focus. He doesn't even flinch at the hands on him anymore, the mouths. They stopped feeling bad hours, days, weeks ago; stopped making him feel like something foul was crawling across his skin, the cold, spidery brush of fingers like the legs of insects, dry, desiccated, brittle. Now he doesn't feel anything much at all, or can't care if he is; one of the two. Nothing reaches him, not their hands on his ass or their teeth in a vein or their fingers knotted in his hair as he grinds in their laps and listens distantly to the feral growl of their breath hissing in and out, like snakes, a nest of them, writhing, devouring, ever hungry. Eventually they're going to devour him. He's being passed around like a joint, or a bottle of good wine and sooner or later someone is going to take too big a draught.
Probably it'll be Illiya, and it won't be by accident. Illiya always looks starved, sharp edges and bleached white like someone's already drained him of everything he's got and he just hasn't noticed yet. He's been knocking back the Warmers tonight like they're going out of fashion, like there aren't laws about these things. If his goons hadn't been dragging the bodies off, probably feeding them to the Eaters Gray knows are somewhere down there in the deeper, darker places under the club's floor, he'd be sitting on a pile of them by now; a throne built on the dead. Illiya would probably like that. He always was a sick fuck. The oozy way he smiles as Gray gets shoved off the latest lap towards him where he's sitting centre of the best booth in the house would make Gray's skin crawl if he wasn't so out of it.
"Ah. Back for more. There's a good little boy..."
Illiya's voice goes with his looks, sharp and hollow and hungry sounding and Gray wants to tell him that he's neither good nor a boy, but Illiya's never been interested in anyone's voice but his own.
"Sit," Illiya tells him, and grabs an arm and swings him around and pulls him down, Gray's legs spreading over his lap, ass planted right on his groin and Gray forgets he's being kept alive for a second and instinctively tries to jerk away. Illiya's hand around his throat from behind, squeezing, reminds him pretty quick.
"I see it's wearing off again," comes Illiya's slick murmur in his ear, and then his other hand appears in front of Gray's face. Gray watches, can't do anything but watch, as the long, sharp nail on his thumb drags across the tips of his first two fingers, drawing a line of deep, dark red across Illiya's white skin. Gray tries to swallow under the grip of Illiya's hand, mouth suddenly dry as the unfamiliar thirst grips his guts and twists and Illiya laughs.
"I know you want it, little boy. Open up."
Gray makes a sound he hopes translates as "fuck you", but he can't drag his eyes away from the way Illiya's thumb is lazily smearing the blood trickling down his fingers.
"You think you can lie to me?" Illiya whispers against the shell of his ear and Grey can feel the cool lick of his tongue. "A halfie like you? You want it. You want it all. I can give you what you want. I could make you all the way. How would that be? Bring you into the Family. All the way in." He punctuates this with a thrust of his hips, his cock, hard underneath Gray's ass, spelling things out in more ways than one.
"I don't –" Gray gasps, because he doesn't. Until Illiya and his gang showed up – when? Tonight? Last night? The night before? Gray honestly can't remember – he'd never even thought about it. He was fine with who he was, no Family to lay claim to, no rules but his own to live by. He was fine lurking around the edges, supplementing his more or less normal diet with the occasional sip of Warmer. He likes being able to get around during the day. He never wanted to be Family – and if he had it wouldn't have been Illiya's. That way led madness and ruin and he might not be the most upstanding member of society, he might grind laps for money, but he wasn't some V addict or a killer.
"Liar," Illiya croons, as if he can hear him, as if he's making mockery of that statement, as if he knows Gray has killed. His grip loosens a little on Gray's throat, his fingertips stroking against his jugular vein as the bloody fingers of his other hand press against Gray's lips. "Pretty, pretty liar. Come on. Suck. You can even bite if you want."
I'll bite them off, Gray thinks, but the second Illiya shoves his fingers into Gray's mouth and the blood hits Gray's tongue, the thought drowns, swamped by the heady rush of sensation, of every nerve coming awake again, of every capillary, every cell in his body responding to the hit, every sense sharpening. Suddenly he's panting, groaning, grinding in Illiya's lap for real as he sucks harder, trying for more, and he hates it and loves it and Christ, why don't they just kill him, please let them just kill him....
But they won't. Because that's what Illiya's Brood does, strings people along, plays with them like a cat plays with a mouse. Hunger has nothing to do with it. Even with Illiya's goons laughing at him, even with Illiya's hand now moving from Gray's throat to his groin, massaging him roughly, pressing him back down on Illiya's lap, it's all about the entertainment value. He's just a show, a sex toy, and the blood merely overrides any shame he might have felt about it. He's arching into it, bending like a bow between the cock against his ass and the fingers thrusting slowly in and out of his mouth and any second now, Illiya is going to stop laughing. He's going to reach between them and pop his fly and get his dick out and he's going to fuck Gray right here in front of his goons, fuck him raw and bleeding, and as long as he keeps feeding Gray his blood, Gray knows he's going to let him, God help him.
"That's right," Illiya croons, licking up the side of Gray's neck and then sinking his teeth into the space just under Gray's ear. It should hurt, but it's just one more blaze of sensation, and Gray shudders, stars bursting in his vision, little black spots of blindness that are pretty soon going to drag him back under to where he doesn't care, where he can't feel it, can't feel anything. If he's lucky, he thinks hazily, it'll be for the last time.
"Illiya."
Gray takes a breath around Illiya's fingers, blinking at the sound of someone other than Illiya talking, and Illiya growls, his lips peeling back from Gray's neck even while his teeth are still sunk deep. Gray feels the vibration of it all the way down to his toes, chokes on a moan and runs his tongue thickly between the fingers still in his mouth as Illiya pulls off and breathes once, hard, across Gray's slick skin.
"Who the fuck are you and what do you want?" Illiya growls.
Gray forces his eyes open, and standing right there in front of them is a guy. Where the hell he came from, Gray has no idea, but he definitely doesn't belong here. He looks like an insurance salesman, for fuck's sake, or an office worker, except he's standing there like it's the most natural thing in the world. He's staring at Illiya and smiling. It's not a nice smile.
"Funny how people keep asking me that today," he says mildly, and for a second the tableau is surreal, like an out of context Caravaggio: Framed left and right, looming out of the darkness across the sickly cuts of coloured light, members of the meanest, most brutal Brood this side of the Pacific. Falling away in the background shadows, the bar's patrons and the other dancers, all crammed together like cattle, all trying to make themselves as small as possible while Illiya's men pick them out of the herd one by one. And frame centre, the focus of pretty much everything, some grungy looking guy in a rumpled trench coat and a shirt and tie and trousers and thick rimmed glasses with tape keeping them together across the bridge of his nose.
"You've got five seconds," Illiya says, and he's not paying attention to Gray anymore other than with the idle stroke of his fingers on the soft, hot skin of Gray's inner thigh, right next to the erection he can't help or hide. "After that, I'm going to take this interruption poorly."
The guy's eyes flicker to Gray, and Gray expects him to take a good look – not because Gray's so hard to resist but because he's on display, because he's property for as long as he continues to amuse Illiya and everyone here knows it – but the guy just stares at his face and something about his smile goes tight and hard.
"Yes, I can see you're quite busy, you reprehensible little man," he says coldly, gaze fixing back over Gray's shoulder at Illiya. "But so was your father with my sister right before I ripped out his heart and made him eat it."
It's like the entire room just freezes. Nothing moves, nothing breathes, the music even stops, the lights. Gooseflesh crawls abruptly over every inch of Gray's skin from the soles of his feet to the roots of his hair.
And then all hell breaks loose.
Gray's not sure – and ultimately doesn't actually want to know – how it is he ends up on the floor at Illiya's feet and not as dead as a doornail and adding his blood to the muck covering the floor, but as far as he's concerned he's making the most of it while he still can. He scrambles away, expecting Illiya to drag him back but there's screaming all around now, and the savage snarl of a pack of animals fighting, the sickening sounds of things being torn and broken and he really doesn't want to know what, he really doesn't. He just keeps going, all the way across the booth to the end of the couch. There's a door back there; he's never been beyond it, and maybe it leads down to the Eaters but anything's better than staying here, and if he's lucky it will eventually lead outside. There has to be an exit so the club can dispose of what's left of the bodies after the Eaters are through, and as long as it isn't through the Eaters, as long as whatever luck he's suddenly been served holds out, he might be able to get out of this in one piece after all. He used to think his life wasn't worth living, but he surprises himself by wanting to get out of this in one piece.
His shaking legs propel him across the room, and he's almost clear, he can see the door, when something smacks into him and he goes down, a dead, heavy weight slopping wetly across the back of his thighs. He doesn't try to see what it is, just kicks and kicks again and keeps scrambling.
He almost there when one of Illiya's goons looms from out of nowhere in front of him – or he's pretty sure it's one of Illiya's goons but there's a good deal of blood and there's very little left of his chest. His mouth is working silently, his fangs distended, claws out and he's staring at Gray with feverish intent. In a flash of prescience Gray knows suddenly that before this bastard goes he intends to take someone with him and that someone is about to be Gray. Gray reaches for a weapon, something, anything, and his hand closes on a glass pitcher on the table next to him. He lifts it and swings. It catches the side of the goon's head, smashing in his grip. Glass sprays like confetti - what bits of it don't embed themselves in the goon's face - but it hardly makes a dent. The guy is walking dead; he's gone, he just hasn't realised it yet, and as he reaches for Gray, Gray can only pray the goon's brain catches up with the rest of him before those claws reach him.
It's not the fucker's brain that catches up. One second it's just the goon and Gray and the darkness and the bleed of the club lights, the next it's the goon and Gray and the lights and the insurance salesman and Gray has... Holy Mother of Ever-living Mercy, Gray has never seen anyone move that fast.
Or disembowel someone so easily.
Gray tastes bile in the back of his throat. It might be the sight but more likely it's the sound of intestines hitting the floor a couple of long seconds before the body, definitely dead now, follows. Gray stares at it a moment, feeling his heart pound, and wonders why the hell he hasn't thrown up already. He wants to, when the insurance salesman turns to look at him, all teeth and claws and the feral light of his eyes; really wants to.
"Are you all right?" the guy asks him after a moment.
"I... " Gray tries, and looks around him, at the bodies of – well, he guesses they're Illiya's men, and oh, Christ, oh fuck he shouldn't have looked because there's… parts everywhere, and without being able to stop himself he's trying to identify them. Right until his gaze catches on something lying just at the edge of the visible space, a white, round thing; open eyes, a nose, a gaping mouth, and there's something... there's something in it, in the mouth, something red and meaty and about the size of a fist...
Oh crap. Oh crap, oh crap, oh crap...
"I said, are you all right?" the guy repeats like Gray's been hit on the head or something and Gray sucks in a shuddering breath. The mundane ridiculousness of the question completely derails his panic attack. He blinks, and thinks blankly, All right? Am I?
"I..." he tries again, but all that comes out next is, "Yeah. Thanks."
The guy smiles. Smiles. Gray stares, open mouthed.
"I'm glad," he tells Gray and it sounds as if he actually means it. "Now, if I might make a...well, a request, actually. Would you mind very much burning the premises to the ground before you leave?"
And his eyes roll back in his head and he drops like someone just cut every single one of his strings.
Guy stares, open mouthed and it's only then that he realises not all the blood on the insurance guy's coat was Illiya's.
++++
It's the breathing more than anything that makes him focus. It's distracting, strange. Air keeps gusting across his throat, tickling him, and the sluggish seep of blood in his mouth, as exquisite as it is, isn't quite enough to override the annoyance.
That's when he realises several things at once – one, he's alive. There's a development he hadn't really planned for, and he's not entirely sure how he feels about it. Two, he's alive because there's a human – actually, not quite human but not wholly Brood either – with his wrist shoved against Howie's mouth and Howie's canines are dragging languidly against the holes he must have made when he bit down. That's where the blood is coming from. It's warm and delicious.
But it must hurt, so Howie stops, drawing back and running the flat of his tongue across the blood that wells, and that's when he realises something else - he is lying on a bed in an unfamiliar apartment and the half-human is lying on him, keeping him in place as if he'd had to force him to drink. He also has an erection that he is pushing rather mindlessly against Howie's hip and when Howie licks at him, he groans and shudders and Howie's own erection seems to rather like that. Compulsively, Howie does it again but it's not like the fellow seems to need the encouragement.
"I..." Howie rasps, but he has no idea what to say, or what he wants to say.
"Please," the fellow gasps, and shivers again, rolling his hips without the trigger swipe of Howie's tongue. "Shit."
Somehow the lost, desperate sound of it – almost a sob – compels Howie to move. Maybe it's that he sounds like Howie has felt, this past four days, and the answering ache in Howie's chest makes it impossible to ignore the need he can hear. Or, maybe Howie's just an opportunistic prick – Karen had always said he was a smiling bastard, but she'd always said it laughing herself and he always figured that made her as bad as him. Either way, he reaches up. His hands encounter: the rough weave of twill sitting crooked over the bony protrusion of a shoulder, bunched fabric and the graceful curve of spine, and then the supple warmth of bare flesh where whatever garment the fellow is wearing has ridden up, exposing what he isn't. After that discovery, Howie gets a little greedy, one hand gripping and kneading one muscled globe of the fellow's exposed buttocks while the other tangles in startlingly long, soft hair at the back of his head.
"Oh, fuck," the fellow says, in the kind of tone Howie's increasingly feverish brain interprets as encouraging.
"Indeed," Howie agrees a little roughly. "I suggest you get up now, while you can."
Instead of moving, the fellow groans and grips Howie back.
"Don't want to," he manages, fast and uneven. "Seriously don't. That bastard had me, had me doped up on V for- I think it was three d-days, and I don't know what- I've never been this out of, out of control before, and it- I just need... Fuck, come on, please."
"You have no idea what you need," Howie argues, but it would take a much stronger man than he to push this man away at this point. Instead he cranes up and buries his face in the curve of the fellow's neck, where the feel of broken skin against his mouth and the faint odour of dried blood and Family taint reaches into his hindbrain and makes his lips curl back in an expression he knows he's glad neither of them can see.
"Fuck, fuck, fuck," the fellow stutters as Howie very slowly and deliberately licks across the wound. "Bite me, yeah. Go on. I want it."
He wants to also. He has in fact only ever wanted one thing more – recently, the death of every single Brood associated with the Hundred Eyes Family. He argues with himself that he's likely taken enough blood from this fellow already and he shouldn't repay kindness – even misguided kindness – with more death, but he's attached himself to the fellow's throat, not biting, merely sucking, and he's not sure he can let go.
"God Almighty," the fellow moans, and suddenly the decision is taken out of Howie's hands; suddenly he's being kissed, messily and forcefully and rather wildly. It's not quite what he wants, but it will certainly do, so he kisses back, his tongue penetrating the fellow's mouth, his left hand forcing his head where he wants him while his right hand grips the fellow's hip and tries to keep the pressure of the fellow's frantic thrusts where he needs them. They kiss like they're trying to devour each other, until Howie reaches blindly between them and slides his hand against the fellow's barely covered cock. The fellow moans high and helpless into Howie's mouth and Howie feels the convulsive throb of his release against his fingers and the wetness that soaks through the briefs to dampen Howie's skin. But it's the smell of his release that abruptly does Howie in. The harsh snap of the man's hips and the hitching rasp of his breath merely speeds things along, until Howie is lying limp and gasping and staring at the unfamiliar ceiling over the fellow's trembling shoulder.
"Well," he says after a long moment to no one in particular. "Can't say I expected Hell to be quite like that."
"Holy shit," the fellow groans, and does some complicated move involving his weight and very little in the way of muscle effort in order to flop down on the mattress beside him. Howie's own muscle control having temporarily deserted him, he's in no position to object.
"I apologise," he says after a minute. "If I'd been more myself, that would have never have happened."
"Seriously?" the fellow says after an equally long pause, and Howie can feel the warmth of his body even while they're not touching. "That's probably the best thing that's happened to me all week. Hell, who am I kidding? That's probably the best thing that's happened to me all year."
Howie isn't sure whether he should laugh or cry at that.
"Actually?" he confesses instead. "Me too."
The fellow snorts out a laugh, and the sound of it is unexpected, bringing with it a sense of relief Howie didn't know he was waiting for. He turns his head, and there's the fellow, leaning up on his elbow, staring down at Howie and he's... Actually, he's rather incredibly attractive.
"Oh," Howie says, blinking. "You're..."
The fellow smiles a little wryly. He looks drawn and bruised but there is a light in his eyes that makes Howie want their mouths together again.
"Yeah," he says. "The showpiece from tonight's performance. Glad you remember. So, you probably didn't expect to live past today, I take it?"
Howie sighs. "No, not exactly."
"Yeah. Well, sorry about that."
"You don't look particularly sorry."
"Might be because I'm not."
"I killed a lot of people," Howie points out.
"You're Brood," the fellow says, rolling his eyes a little. "So what?"
"The entire Hundred Eyes Family," Howie adds, deliberately and evenly. "Down to the youngest blood."
That little revelation is followed by silence, but the fellow isn't exactly jumping out of bed to grab the nearest sharp piece of wood so perhaps Howie's just feeling overly sensitive about the whole thing.
"Huh," he says after a long moment. "That so? Well, did people all along the Eastern Seaboard a favour, then."
"That's me," Howie agrees blandly. "Doing random good and fucking men I don't know."
"Gray," the fellow says.
"Pardon?"
"My name. Gray. See? There, you know me."
"Oh," Howie says. "Gray."
"Yup."
"That's... not a very accurate name." He doesn't mean to, but he reaches up and sifts a strand of Gray's soft red hair gently through his fingers. He could be mistaken, but for a moment, Gray seems a little surprised.
"Guess my mom was trying to be ironic," he says dryly.
"I'm Howie," Howie says. "Howard Church, actually."
Gray looks surprised again. "Church? Seriously?"
"I suppose my parents were trying to be ironic too."
Suddenly, Gray laughs. Howie blinks. It's the most open, the most unreserved and genuine sound he can remember hearing... in a long while. He would in fact like to hear more of it.
"You know," Gray muses, and there's still laughter in his expression as he looks at him. "Even if it wasn't for the whole saving my ass tonight thing, I think I'd probably like you."
Howie frowns a little at that. He's not entirely sure he likes that idea. He's not entirely sure he hates it either.
"Well, perhaps you should get to know me better, then?" he suggests drolly, and Gray laughs again.
"Yeah? I'd say we know each other pretty well already."
Howie tries not to smile at that obviously lewd reference to the fact that they both just came in their pants – or in Gray's case the small measure of material passing for pants – but he's not entirely successful about it, judging from the smirk on Gray's face.
"Not that well," he says pointedly, and Gray's smirk becomes a little sharper, a little hungrier. This new expression does something to Howie, makes his teeth ache and his hands twitch and his stomach twist and his cock start to fill again.
"Dear Lord," he mutters, a little shocked at himself. He's never had what one would call a overt sex drive. "Is this normal?"
Gray glances down, and grins, and then Howie feels his fingers against the fastening on his trousers.
"Well, yeah, what kind of question is that?"
Howie keeps himself still while Gray works. "Well, up until four days ago, I was human," he explains, watching Gray's face.
Gray freezes and his eyes snap to Howie's face. "You were- Jesus fucking Christ."
"So you see," Howie continues evenly. "It's all a little new to me."
"No fucking kidding," Gray says hoarsely, staring at him. "Okay. Change of plan." And instead of exposing Howie, he starts refastening his trousers. Howie ignores the pang of mild disappointment at the gesture. "I'm taking you to see Father Graham."
"A priest?" Howie says. "I'm not entirely sure that's a good-..."
"No. No, it's an excellent idea. Trust me."
The thing is, Howie actually does. He just has no idea why. He watches as Gray climbs over him and rolls out of bed, getting to his feet a little unsteadily and stripping off the coat he'd been wearing – it's stained in places with things that Howie feels just at this moment are possibly better not mentioning.
"Up, up," Gray tells him stripping off his very small briefs as well, in no way self-conscious even though Howie is staring. His body is slender, bruised and bitten in almost all the soft, fleshy places. Seeing him like that, imagining what Illiya and his Brood were doing to him, makes Howie feel just a little territorial again, enough to start pushing himself up out of bed with the absolute intention of making those marks his.
"But slowly!" Gray says, darting forward to catch Howie when he tries to get to his feet and the room tilts and all his strength seems to drain to his feet. "You're probably not completely healed yet, yeah?"
Gray's hands around Howie's arms are strong and sure and Howie leans on him as he gets his equilibrium back.
"I suppose I need a little more to eat," Howie remarks. "Perhaps you shouldn't stand so close."
Not only is Gray standing close, he's quickly and efficiently stripping Howie of his soiled clothing.
"I'll be fine," he dismisses, and Howie grips his shoulder as he obligingly steps out of his trousers and pants. "See?" Gray says with a quick grin down to where Howie's erection has quickly flagged out of sheer lack of resources. "You couldn't jump a coma patient right now. There's no way you'll manage in the shower on your own, and anyway, we both need a good scrub, believe me. There's... uh, I think there's stuff in your hair that I really don't want to think about."
There's very little to say to that that won't sound either disturbing or flippant, so Howie says nothing.
"I should have some clean clothes that will fit you too," Gray continues. "And then I need to eat, and then we'll go see Father G."
"I'm still..." Howie says cautiously, more from trying to concentrate on standing on his own than any real concern regarding Gray's plan. "Priests are trained to kill creatures like me," he states blankly. "And I'm not entirely sure I'm interested in dying anymore."
"After all the trouble I went to, I'm glad to hear it," Gray comments. "But Father Graham's different. He's the only priest you'll ever meet who won't want to put a stake through your heart, for a start."
Howie quirks a smile at that. "I don't know. He hasn't met me yet."
"Hey, he's puts up with me," Gray laughs. "He can put up with you too." He hooks an arm around Howie's neck and presses a moist smack of a kiss against the side of his head, and when he lingers, Howie brings his arms up and wraps them around Gray's naked torso and just holds him. It's more for Howie's benefit than his.
"Thank you," he says finally, holding Gray just a little tighter, and for a moment he is human again.
"Hey," Gray says, a little more softly, and he's holding Howie back like he doesn't care what Howie is as long as he's himself. "You saved me; now I'm gonna save you too."
Howie refrains from saying he thinks he already has.
Title: Family Matters
Fandom: Saiyuki (85)
Rating: R
Words: 5600 approx (unbeta'd. Sorry)
He knows where they are. He can taste their scent in the back of his throat, an acrid burn so sharp it knocks out all the other scents around him, leading him straight to them - a nondescript door in a nondescript building in a derelict industrial suburb. People disappear in places like this.
Since the Families started rising up, there are a lot of places like this.
On the doorstep, there's a nondescript gate-keeper. He's the only living soul Howie's seen for the last nine blocks.
"What the fuck do you want?" the not-a-bouncer sneers, stepping in front of Howie when he tries for the door. If he'd been a regular bouncer he probably would have been flashing the firearm in the holster under his jacket by now. He's not carrying a firearm. No need, really. There are only two things on this earth that he needs to fear; his expression says that Howie is definitely not one of them.
Howie stops and steps back and smiles up at him.
"What do you think I want?" he says.
The not-a-bouncer gives him the once over, taking in his dark trench coat, the black shirt underneath it, his tie, his slacks, his scuffed leather shoes. His gaze travels back up to his face and he stares hard into his eyes, at the black heavy-rimmed glasses on his face, the piece of tape holding them together in the middle, his slightly greasy hair. He sniffs the air a little, like that'll tell him anything other than the fact that Howie's personal hygiene has probably been somewhat neglected in the last little while.
"Your blood's too thin for this joint, little man," he declares, less hostile now that he's decided he's got Howie's number. He leans back again with another sniff, more of a personal opinion this time, and crosses his arms over his chest. "Why don't you move on before someone decides you look tasty. Ain't no place for you here tonight."
Howie smiles again. It's less pleasant than the first one.
"Maybe," he agrees. "But there's someone I need to see. So, if you'll just let me in..."
Predictably, challenging gatekeeper authority pisses the guy off a little. He steps in front of Howie again as Howie reaches for the door handle, puts his hand on Howie's chest and gives him the tiniest of shoves. It sends Howie flying backwards into the street where he lands in an ungainly heap. Howie doesn't mind. He would have been disappointed if it hadn't happened. He takes his time getting up again and the bouncer waits. Either his mama brought him up well or he just likes to be real clear on where other people stand.
"You ain't hearing me, white boy," he growls when Howie deliberately places himself in front of him again, and he's showing his canines in a clear display of hostility and dominance. "I said, get lost, or I will break you in half and feed you to the Eaters."
Howie stares up into the bouncer's face.
"That's not actually what you said," he disagrees. "Please at least get your facts straight."
The bouncer opens his mouth to make some sort of retort. Howie never hears it, just the gurgle of blood flooding the man's torn throat as he teeters, reaching for the wound that suddenly appears there. That's the problem with the carotid artery, though; lack of blood supply to the brain overrides pretty much all other haemodynamic concerns. The not-a-bouncer is dead before he's even finished falling.
Howie steps over the still twitching body – leftover bioelectrical activity, nothing to be terribly concerned about - turns the door handle and pushes the door open, then slips inside and closes it neatly behind him.
From inside the barrier of the door, music throbs up through the stairwell from the floor below like the beat of a heart, a heart that Howie has all intentions of driving the proverbial stake through.
++++
Gray is pretty sure the only thing that's keeping him going anymore is the music. The heavy throbbing rhythm of it is like some kind of 90 decibel pacemaker reminding his heart when to contract, when to relax, regular and automatic. His entire world has long since narrowed down to just that, that unending thump of sound and the strobing flashes of colour in his vision – fitful blues and sickly greens and jaundiced yellows. It's like a drug in his veins, like the worst and the best trip he's ever been on, and there's a part of him that knows it's probably going to kill him.
But he can't stop. Like the girl in the little red ballet shoes, he just keeps on going. His muscles are trembling and every action is an effort. His brain is running mostly on autopilot. He might have wanted to escape before but there's no connect between the idea and the reality anymore; he's had too much V and the up-down of each little taste has become his entire focus. He doesn't even flinch at the hands on him anymore, the mouths. They stopped feeling bad hours, days, weeks ago; stopped making him feel like something foul was crawling across his skin, the cold, spidery brush of fingers like the legs of insects, dry, desiccated, brittle. Now he doesn't feel anything much at all, or can't care if he is; one of the two. Nothing reaches him, not their hands on his ass or their teeth in a vein or their fingers knotted in his hair as he grinds in their laps and listens distantly to the feral growl of their breath hissing in and out, like snakes, a nest of them, writhing, devouring, ever hungry. Eventually they're going to devour him. He's being passed around like a joint, or a bottle of good wine and sooner or later someone is going to take too big a draught.
Probably it'll be Illiya, and it won't be by accident. Illiya always looks starved, sharp edges and bleached white like someone's already drained him of everything he's got and he just hasn't noticed yet. He's been knocking back the Warmers tonight like they're going out of fashion, like there aren't laws about these things. If his goons hadn't been dragging the bodies off, probably feeding them to the Eaters Gray knows are somewhere down there in the deeper, darker places under the club's floor, he'd be sitting on a pile of them by now; a throne built on the dead. Illiya would probably like that. He always was a sick fuck. The oozy way he smiles as Gray gets shoved off the latest lap towards him where he's sitting centre of the best booth in the house would make Gray's skin crawl if he wasn't so out of it.
"Ah. Back for more. There's a good little boy..."
Illiya's voice goes with his looks, sharp and hollow and hungry sounding and Gray wants to tell him that he's neither good nor a boy, but Illiya's never been interested in anyone's voice but his own.
"Sit," Illiya tells him, and grabs an arm and swings him around and pulls him down, Gray's legs spreading over his lap, ass planted right on his groin and Gray forgets he's being kept alive for a second and instinctively tries to jerk away. Illiya's hand around his throat from behind, squeezing, reminds him pretty quick.
"I see it's wearing off again," comes Illiya's slick murmur in his ear, and then his other hand appears in front of Gray's face. Gray watches, can't do anything but watch, as the long, sharp nail on his thumb drags across the tips of his first two fingers, drawing a line of deep, dark red across Illiya's white skin. Gray tries to swallow under the grip of Illiya's hand, mouth suddenly dry as the unfamiliar thirst grips his guts and twists and Illiya laughs.
"I know you want it, little boy. Open up."
Gray makes a sound he hopes translates as "fuck you", but he can't drag his eyes away from the way Illiya's thumb is lazily smearing the blood trickling down his fingers.
"You think you can lie to me?" Illiya whispers against the shell of his ear and Grey can feel the cool lick of his tongue. "A halfie like you? You want it. You want it all. I can give you what you want. I could make you all the way. How would that be? Bring you into the Family. All the way in." He punctuates this with a thrust of his hips, his cock, hard underneath Gray's ass, spelling things out in more ways than one.
"I don't –" Gray gasps, because he doesn't. Until Illiya and his gang showed up – when? Tonight? Last night? The night before? Gray honestly can't remember – he'd never even thought about it. He was fine with who he was, no Family to lay claim to, no rules but his own to live by. He was fine lurking around the edges, supplementing his more or less normal diet with the occasional sip of Warmer. He likes being able to get around during the day. He never wanted to be Family – and if he had it wouldn't have been Illiya's. That way led madness and ruin and he might not be the most upstanding member of society, he might grind laps for money, but he wasn't some V addict or a killer.
"Liar," Illiya croons, as if he can hear him, as if he's making mockery of that statement, as if he knows Gray has killed. His grip loosens a little on Gray's throat, his fingertips stroking against his jugular vein as the bloody fingers of his other hand press against Gray's lips. "Pretty, pretty liar. Come on. Suck. You can even bite if you want."
I'll bite them off, Gray thinks, but the second Illiya shoves his fingers into Gray's mouth and the blood hits Gray's tongue, the thought drowns, swamped by the heady rush of sensation, of every nerve coming awake again, of every capillary, every cell in his body responding to the hit, every sense sharpening. Suddenly he's panting, groaning, grinding in Illiya's lap for real as he sucks harder, trying for more, and he hates it and loves it and Christ, why don't they just kill him, please let them just kill him....
But they won't. Because that's what Illiya's Brood does, strings people along, plays with them like a cat plays with a mouse. Hunger has nothing to do with it. Even with Illiya's goons laughing at him, even with Illiya's hand now moving from Gray's throat to his groin, massaging him roughly, pressing him back down on Illiya's lap, it's all about the entertainment value. He's just a show, a sex toy, and the blood merely overrides any shame he might have felt about it. He's arching into it, bending like a bow between the cock against his ass and the fingers thrusting slowly in and out of his mouth and any second now, Illiya is going to stop laughing. He's going to reach between them and pop his fly and get his dick out and he's going to fuck Gray right here in front of his goons, fuck him raw and bleeding, and as long as he keeps feeding Gray his blood, Gray knows he's going to let him, God help him.
"That's right," Illiya croons, licking up the side of Gray's neck and then sinking his teeth into the space just under Gray's ear. It should hurt, but it's just one more blaze of sensation, and Gray shudders, stars bursting in his vision, little black spots of blindness that are pretty soon going to drag him back under to where he doesn't care, where he can't feel it, can't feel anything. If he's lucky, he thinks hazily, it'll be for the last time.
"Illiya."
Gray takes a breath around Illiya's fingers, blinking at the sound of someone other than Illiya talking, and Illiya growls, his lips peeling back from Gray's neck even while his teeth are still sunk deep. Gray feels the vibration of it all the way down to his toes, chokes on a moan and runs his tongue thickly between the fingers still in his mouth as Illiya pulls off and breathes once, hard, across Gray's slick skin.
"Who the fuck are you and what do you want?" Illiya growls.
Gray forces his eyes open, and standing right there in front of them is a guy. Where the hell he came from, Gray has no idea, but he definitely doesn't belong here. He looks like an insurance salesman, for fuck's sake, or an office worker, except he's standing there like it's the most natural thing in the world. He's staring at Illiya and smiling. It's not a nice smile.
"Funny how people keep asking me that today," he says mildly, and for a second the tableau is surreal, like an out of context Caravaggio: Framed left and right, looming out of the darkness across the sickly cuts of coloured light, members of the meanest, most brutal Brood this side of the Pacific. Falling away in the background shadows, the bar's patrons and the other dancers, all crammed together like cattle, all trying to make themselves as small as possible while Illiya's men pick them out of the herd one by one. And frame centre, the focus of pretty much everything, some grungy looking guy in a rumpled trench coat and a shirt and tie and trousers and thick rimmed glasses with tape keeping them together across the bridge of his nose.
"You've got five seconds," Illiya says, and he's not paying attention to Gray anymore other than with the idle stroke of his fingers on the soft, hot skin of Gray's inner thigh, right next to the erection he can't help or hide. "After that, I'm going to take this interruption poorly."
The guy's eyes flicker to Gray, and Gray expects him to take a good look – not because Gray's so hard to resist but because he's on display, because he's property for as long as he continues to amuse Illiya and everyone here knows it – but the guy just stares at his face and something about his smile goes tight and hard.
"Yes, I can see you're quite busy, you reprehensible little man," he says coldly, gaze fixing back over Gray's shoulder at Illiya. "But so was your father with my sister right before I ripped out his heart and made him eat it."
It's like the entire room just freezes. Nothing moves, nothing breathes, the music even stops, the lights. Gooseflesh crawls abruptly over every inch of Gray's skin from the soles of his feet to the roots of his hair.
And then all hell breaks loose.
Gray's not sure – and ultimately doesn't actually want to know – how it is he ends up on the floor at Illiya's feet and not as dead as a doornail and adding his blood to the muck covering the floor, but as far as he's concerned he's making the most of it while he still can. He scrambles away, expecting Illiya to drag him back but there's screaming all around now, and the savage snarl of a pack of animals fighting, the sickening sounds of things being torn and broken and he really doesn't want to know what, he really doesn't. He just keeps going, all the way across the booth to the end of the couch. There's a door back there; he's never been beyond it, and maybe it leads down to the Eaters but anything's better than staying here, and if he's lucky it will eventually lead outside. There has to be an exit so the club can dispose of what's left of the bodies after the Eaters are through, and as long as it isn't through the Eaters, as long as whatever luck he's suddenly been served holds out, he might be able to get out of this in one piece after all. He used to think his life wasn't worth living, but he surprises himself by wanting to get out of this in one piece.
His shaking legs propel him across the room, and he's almost clear, he can see the door, when something smacks into him and he goes down, a dead, heavy weight slopping wetly across the back of his thighs. He doesn't try to see what it is, just kicks and kicks again and keeps scrambling.
He almost there when one of Illiya's goons looms from out of nowhere in front of him – or he's pretty sure it's one of Illiya's goons but there's a good deal of blood and there's very little left of his chest. His mouth is working silently, his fangs distended, claws out and he's staring at Gray with feverish intent. In a flash of prescience Gray knows suddenly that before this bastard goes he intends to take someone with him and that someone is about to be Gray. Gray reaches for a weapon, something, anything, and his hand closes on a glass pitcher on the table next to him. He lifts it and swings. It catches the side of the goon's head, smashing in his grip. Glass sprays like confetti - what bits of it don't embed themselves in the goon's face - but it hardly makes a dent. The guy is walking dead; he's gone, he just hasn't realised it yet, and as he reaches for Gray, Gray can only pray the goon's brain catches up with the rest of him before those claws reach him.
It's not the fucker's brain that catches up. One second it's just the goon and Gray and the darkness and the bleed of the club lights, the next it's the goon and Gray and the lights and the insurance salesman and Gray has... Holy Mother of Ever-living Mercy, Gray has never seen anyone move that fast.
Or disembowel someone so easily.
Gray tastes bile in the back of his throat. It might be the sight but more likely it's the sound of intestines hitting the floor a couple of long seconds before the body, definitely dead now, follows. Gray stares at it a moment, feeling his heart pound, and wonders why the hell he hasn't thrown up already. He wants to, when the insurance salesman turns to look at him, all teeth and claws and the feral light of his eyes; really wants to.
"Are you all right?" the guy asks him after a moment.
"I... " Gray tries, and looks around him, at the bodies of – well, he guesses they're Illiya's men, and oh, Christ, oh fuck he shouldn't have looked because there's… parts everywhere, and without being able to stop himself he's trying to identify them. Right until his gaze catches on something lying just at the edge of the visible space, a white, round thing; open eyes, a nose, a gaping mouth, and there's something... there's something in it, in the mouth, something red and meaty and about the size of a fist...
Oh crap. Oh crap, oh crap, oh crap...
"I said, are you all right?" the guy repeats like Gray's been hit on the head or something and Gray sucks in a shuddering breath. The mundane ridiculousness of the question completely derails his panic attack. He blinks, and thinks blankly, All right? Am I?
"I..." he tries again, but all that comes out next is, "Yeah. Thanks."
The guy smiles. Smiles. Gray stares, open mouthed.
"I'm glad," he tells Gray and it sounds as if he actually means it. "Now, if I might make a...well, a request, actually. Would you mind very much burning the premises to the ground before you leave?"
And his eyes roll back in his head and he drops like someone just cut every single one of his strings.
Guy stares, open mouthed and it's only then that he realises not all the blood on the insurance guy's coat was Illiya's.
++++
It's the breathing more than anything that makes him focus. It's distracting, strange. Air keeps gusting across his throat, tickling him, and the sluggish seep of blood in his mouth, as exquisite as it is, isn't quite enough to override the annoyance.
That's when he realises several things at once – one, he's alive. There's a development he hadn't really planned for, and he's not entirely sure how he feels about it. Two, he's alive because there's a human – actually, not quite human but not wholly Brood either – with his wrist shoved against Howie's mouth and Howie's canines are dragging languidly against the holes he must have made when he bit down. That's where the blood is coming from. It's warm and delicious.
But it must hurt, so Howie stops, drawing back and running the flat of his tongue across the blood that wells, and that's when he realises something else - he is lying on a bed in an unfamiliar apartment and the half-human is lying on him, keeping him in place as if he'd had to force him to drink. He also has an erection that he is pushing rather mindlessly against Howie's hip and when Howie licks at him, he groans and shudders and Howie's own erection seems to rather like that. Compulsively, Howie does it again but it's not like the fellow seems to need the encouragement.
"I..." Howie rasps, but he has no idea what to say, or what he wants to say.
"Please," the fellow gasps, and shivers again, rolling his hips without the trigger swipe of Howie's tongue. "Shit."
Somehow the lost, desperate sound of it – almost a sob – compels Howie to move. Maybe it's that he sounds like Howie has felt, this past four days, and the answering ache in Howie's chest makes it impossible to ignore the need he can hear. Or, maybe Howie's just an opportunistic prick – Karen had always said he was a smiling bastard, but she'd always said it laughing herself and he always figured that made her as bad as him. Either way, he reaches up. His hands encounter: the rough weave of twill sitting crooked over the bony protrusion of a shoulder, bunched fabric and the graceful curve of spine, and then the supple warmth of bare flesh where whatever garment the fellow is wearing has ridden up, exposing what he isn't. After that discovery, Howie gets a little greedy, one hand gripping and kneading one muscled globe of the fellow's exposed buttocks while the other tangles in startlingly long, soft hair at the back of his head.
"Oh, fuck," the fellow says, in the kind of tone Howie's increasingly feverish brain interprets as encouraging.
"Indeed," Howie agrees a little roughly. "I suggest you get up now, while you can."
Instead of moving, the fellow groans and grips Howie back.
"Don't want to," he manages, fast and uneven. "Seriously don't. That bastard had me, had me doped up on V for- I think it was three d-days, and I don't know what- I've never been this out of, out of control before, and it- I just need... Fuck, come on, please."
"You have no idea what you need," Howie argues, but it would take a much stronger man than he to push this man away at this point. Instead he cranes up and buries his face in the curve of the fellow's neck, where the feel of broken skin against his mouth and the faint odour of dried blood and Family taint reaches into his hindbrain and makes his lips curl back in an expression he knows he's glad neither of them can see.
"Fuck, fuck, fuck," the fellow stutters as Howie very slowly and deliberately licks across the wound. "Bite me, yeah. Go on. I want it."
He wants to also. He has in fact only ever wanted one thing more – recently, the death of every single Brood associated with the Hundred Eyes Family. He argues with himself that he's likely taken enough blood from this fellow already and he shouldn't repay kindness – even misguided kindness – with more death, but he's attached himself to the fellow's throat, not biting, merely sucking, and he's not sure he can let go.
"God Almighty," the fellow moans, and suddenly the decision is taken out of Howie's hands; suddenly he's being kissed, messily and forcefully and rather wildly. It's not quite what he wants, but it will certainly do, so he kisses back, his tongue penetrating the fellow's mouth, his left hand forcing his head where he wants him while his right hand grips the fellow's hip and tries to keep the pressure of the fellow's frantic thrusts where he needs them. They kiss like they're trying to devour each other, until Howie reaches blindly between them and slides his hand against the fellow's barely covered cock. The fellow moans high and helpless into Howie's mouth and Howie feels the convulsive throb of his release against his fingers and the wetness that soaks through the briefs to dampen Howie's skin. But it's the smell of his release that abruptly does Howie in. The harsh snap of the man's hips and the hitching rasp of his breath merely speeds things along, until Howie is lying limp and gasping and staring at the unfamiliar ceiling over the fellow's trembling shoulder.
"Well," he says after a long moment to no one in particular. "Can't say I expected Hell to be quite like that."
"Holy shit," the fellow groans, and does some complicated move involving his weight and very little in the way of muscle effort in order to flop down on the mattress beside him. Howie's own muscle control having temporarily deserted him, he's in no position to object.
"I apologise," he says after a minute. "If I'd been more myself, that would have never have happened."
"Seriously?" the fellow says after an equally long pause, and Howie can feel the warmth of his body even while they're not touching. "That's probably the best thing that's happened to me all week. Hell, who am I kidding? That's probably the best thing that's happened to me all year."
Howie isn't sure whether he should laugh or cry at that.
"Actually?" he confesses instead. "Me too."
The fellow snorts out a laugh, and the sound of it is unexpected, bringing with it a sense of relief Howie didn't know he was waiting for. He turns his head, and there's the fellow, leaning up on his elbow, staring down at Howie and he's... Actually, he's rather incredibly attractive.
"Oh," Howie says, blinking. "You're..."
The fellow smiles a little wryly. He looks drawn and bruised but there is a light in his eyes that makes Howie want their mouths together again.
"Yeah," he says. "The showpiece from tonight's performance. Glad you remember. So, you probably didn't expect to live past today, I take it?"
Howie sighs. "No, not exactly."
"Yeah. Well, sorry about that."
"You don't look particularly sorry."
"Might be because I'm not."
"I killed a lot of people," Howie points out.
"You're Brood," the fellow says, rolling his eyes a little. "So what?"
"The entire Hundred Eyes Family," Howie adds, deliberately and evenly. "Down to the youngest blood."
That little revelation is followed by silence, but the fellow isn't exactly jumping out of bed to grab the nearest sharp piece of wood so perhaps Howie's just feeling overly sensitive about the whole thing.
"Huh," he says after a long moment. "That so? Well, did people all along the Eastern Seaboard a favour, then."
"That's me," Howie agrees blandly. "Doing random good and fucking men I don't know."
"Gray," the fellow says.
"Pardon?"
"My name. Gray. See? There, you know me."
"Oh," Howie says. "Gray."
"Yup."
"That's... not a very accurate name." He doesn't mean to, but he reaches up and sifts a strand of Gray's soft red hair gently through his fingers. He could be mistaken, but for a moment, Gray seems a little surprised.
"Guess my mom was trying to be ironic," he says dryly.
"I'm Howie," Howie says. "Howard Church, actually."
Gray looks surprised again. "Church? Seriously?"
"I suppose my parents were trying to be ironic too."
Suddenly, Gray laughs. Howie blinks. It's the most open, the most unreserved and genuine sound he can remember hearing... in a long while. He would in fact like to hear more of it.
"You know," Gray muses, and there's still laughter in his expression as he looks at him. "Even if it wasn't for the whole saving my ass tonight thing, I think I'd probably like you."
Howie frowns a little at that. He's not entirely sure he likes that idea. He's not entirely sure he hates it either.
"Well, perhaps you should get to know me better, then?" he suggests drolly, and Gray laughs again.
"Yeah? I'd say we know each other pretty well already."
Howie tries not to smile at that obviously lewd reference to the fact that they both just came in their pants – or in Gray's case the small measure of material passing for pants – but he's not entirely successful about it, judging from the smirk on Gray's face.
"Not that well," he says pointedly, and Gray's smirk becomes a little sharper, a little hungrier. This new expression does something to Howie, makes his teeth ache and his hands twitch and his stomach twist and his cock start to fill again.
"Dear Lord," he mutters, a little shocked at himself. He's never had what one would call a overt sex drive. "Is this normal?"
Gray glances down, and grins, and then Howie feels his fingers against the fastening on his trousers.
"Well, yeah, what kind of question is that?"
Howie keeps himself still while Gray works. "Well, up until four days ago, I was human," he explains, watching Gray's face.
Gray freezes and his eyes snap to Howie's face. "You were- Jesus fucking Christ."
"So you see," Howie continues evenly. "It's all a little new to me."
"No fucking kidding," Gray says hoarsely, staring at him. "Okay. Change of plan." And instead of exposing Howie, he starts refastening his trousers. Howie ignores the pang of mild disappointment at the gesture. "I'm taking you to see Father Graham."
"A priest?" Howie says. "I'm not entirely sure that's a good-..."
"No. No, it's an excellent idea. Trust me."
The thing is, Howie actually does. He just has no idea why. He watches as Gray climbs over him and rolls out of bed, getting to his feet a little unsteadily and stripping off the coat he'd been wearing – it's stained in places with things that Howie feels just at this moment are possibly better not mentioning.
"Up, up," Gray tells him stripping off his very small briefs as well, in no way self-conscious even though Howie is staring. His body is slender, bruised and bitten in almost all the soft, fleshy places. Seeing him like that, imagining what Illiya and his Brood were doing to him, makes Howie feel just a little territorial again, enough to start pushing himself up out of bed with the absolute intention of making those marks his.
"But slowly!" Gray says, darting forward to catch Howie when he tries to get to his feet and the room tilts and all his strength seems to drain to his feet. "You're probably not completely healed yet, yeah?"
Gray's hands around Howie's arms are strong and sure and Howie leans on him as he gets his equilibrium back.
"I suppose I need a little more to eat," Howie remarks. "Perhaps you shouldn't stand so close."
Not only is Gray standing close, he's quickly and efficiently stripping Howie of his soiled clothing.
"I'll be fine," he dismisses, and Howie grips his shoulder as he obligingly steps out of his trousers and pants. "See?" Gray says with a quick grin down to where Howie's erection has quickly flagged out of sheer lack of resources. "You couldn't jump a coma patient right now. There's no way you'll manage in the shower on your own, and anyway, we both need a good scrub, believe me. There's... uh, I think there's stuff in your hair that I really don't want to think about."
There's very little to say to that that won't sound either disturbing or flippant, so Howie says nothing.
"I should have some clean clothes that will fit you too," Gray continues. "And then I need to eat, and then we'll go see Father G."
"I'm still..." Howie says cautiously, more from trying to concentrate on standing on his own than any real concern regarding Gray's plan. "Priests are trained to kill creatures like me," he states blankly. "And I'm not entirely sure I'm interested in dying anymore."
"After all the trouble I went to, I'm glad to hear it," Gray comments. "But Father Graham's different. He's the only priest you'll ever meet who won't want to put a stake through your heart, for a start."
Howie quirks a smile at that. "I don't know. He hasn't met me yet."
"Hey, he's puts up with me," Gray laughs. "He can put up with you too." He hooks an arm around Howie's neck and presses a moist smack of a kiss against the side of his head, and when he lingers, Howie brings his arms up and wraps them around Gray's naked torso and just holds him. It's more for Howie's benefit than his.
"Thank you," he says finally, holding Gray just a little tighter, and for a moment he is human again.
"Hey," Gray says, a little more softly, and he's holding Howie back like he doesn't care what Howie is as long as he's himself. "You saved me; now I'm gonna save you too."
Howie refrains from saying he thinks he already has.
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no subject
Date: 2011-10-30 12:19 am (UTC)Yowza!
This is perfect and wonderful and HOT and violent and kick. ass.
I wish I could be more coherent about my love for this. I adore partyfavor!Gray. I adore ferocious!Howie. I ADORE IT ALL, omg I'd have to quote it all back at you.
**THANK YOU** so much for writing this and sharing it!! *showers you with WIN*
no subject
Date: 2011-10-30 02:17 am (UTC)I am rather in love with ferocious!Howie as well. I can see him turning into a kind of Charlie Huston-esque Vampire vampire-hunter, living with Gray in blissful domestic sin and getting into all sorts of trouble that he has to kick ass to get out of. He'd look good doing it too. Naturally!
no subject
Date: 2011-10-30 02:39 am (UTC)Oh, please don't apologize for time taken! Things finish when they're ready to be finished. (She said sagely from atop her mountain of WIP art. ♥ ) I think your timing is impeccable! And I am so excited to read about these two.
*g* I am so curious--someday I would love to read your director's cut behind-the-scenes outtake DVD special feature of the editing-room-floor middle chunk that went away!
no subject
Date: 2011-10-30 02:36 am (UTC)Ahhhhh! A new story from you! This day just did a 180 in its last hours!
I really liked the way that this unfolded. And the disturbing gore-covered sex scene was very effective.
no subject
Date: 2011-10-30 03:34 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-10-30 02:46 am (UTC)This is the most awesome piece of fanfiction I've read in years. I could see, hear and smell every bit in my head, it was like watching a movie. This was so great words fail me.
"That's me," Howie agrees blandly. "Doing random good and fucking men I don't know."
My God. Please, marry me.
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Date: 2011-10-30 03:35 am (UTC)I'm really glad you enjoyed it! Funnily enough, it probably played like a movie in my head so I'm glad that's how it read.
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Date: 2011-10-30 03:06 am (UTC)Just-- WOW. Holy shit, this is completely awesome, from start to finish -- it's so visceral and brutal and vivid and fantastic, and there's no way I could possibly like it any more than I do. It's perfect, absolutely perfect.
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Date: 2011-10-30 03:37 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-10-30 03:34 am (UTC)Nicely done!
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Date: 2011-10-30 03:38 am (UTC)Thanks so much! I'm really happy you enjoyed it.
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Date: 2011-10-30 08:04 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-10-30 11:09 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-10-30 03:11 pm (UTC)squeeeeeeeee
incoherent
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Date: 2011-10-30 08:17 pm (UTC)Yay!
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Date: 2011-10-30 09:43 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-10-31 03:37 am (UTC)Thanks! I'm so glad you liked it!
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Date: 2011-10-31 11:18 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-10-31 11:48 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-11-03 11:20 pm (UTC)It does feel like the climax of a story that is about to move on to the next part of its tale. (hint, hint)and one of my favourite lines because I so love a possessive Hakkai was '...makes Howie feel just a little territorial again, enough to start pushing himself up out of bed with the absolute intention of making those marks his.'
Yum yum on my tum!
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Date: 2011-11-04 12:46 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-10-09 02:44 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-10-09 10:48 am (UTC)