Chapter Text
Dito’s no stranger to men. Old Blubber Bags had seen to that every time she’d dragged in yet another slave or prisoner and told them they would earn their freedom if they put on a little show for her. Then she’d point right to Dito, bound and gagged on her bed with his bare ass stuck in the air like it was some sort of prize, and grin. Sometimes she’d drag in two, three, and then he wouldn’t even need the gag. She’d always made a point to prepare him first, her manicured talons ripping him apart as she cooed and babbled about how pretty he was, and the only thing Dito hated more than that was when she’d pass the bottle of oil to him and “suggest” he do it himself. Her prisoners were never any gentler. Big, muscle-bound freaks with cocks like clubs and hair all over their bodies. Disgusting.
That first look at Decadus is enough to drag all those memories screaming back, flashing and racing behind Dito’s eyes no matter how hard he tries to claw them away. Decadus is just like all the others, all shiny and golden on the outside and rotting and putrid on the inside. A perfect match for Five, just uncanny. Dito feels like he’s gonna yack and tells himself that he’s not hiding when he stumbles back behind a snow-crusted boulder and watches Zero’s newest prize from afar.
How little would Five have to push him before he’d climb up onto that bed? How little would Five have to say before he’d strip down and mount up and take a ride on the day’s entertainment? Not much at all, Dito thinks, and he almost spits right in Decadus’ face when the latter marches up and sticks out a meaty slab of a hand to introduce himself. Dito stomps back and crosses his arms, hand on his spear even if some small part of him doubts he’ll need it. Decadus stiffens. Probably in more ways than one, the freak.
“The hell’s your problem?” Zero asks over the campfire, but Dito only glares. Decadus can pretend to be nice all he likes. He’ll still see right through him. Plenty of men had pretended to show horror or disgust when Five had offered Dito up to them, but every one had marched up and climbed on and ripped him to pieces all the same, acting like it was some great struggle to fuck their way to freedom while Dito kept his chains even after Five untied him from the bed. Dito leaves Decadus pouting in the snow and goes off to find something to kill, angry enough to only mostly ignore the terror beginning to creep up on his insides.
By nightfall, that terror has devoured him completely. He makes a point to huddle far, far away from the campfire, shivering in a pile of blankets like a caterpillar in a cocoon. He waits for Decadus to stir and nearly bolts when he hears a rustling of cloth. It’s just Zero. Only Zero. And the raw relief that floods through him when he sees Zero and her latest boy toy get down to business without so much as a glance his way nearly causes him to black out right there. Zero’s loud, but Decadus is louder. Dito still thinks he prefers it to Five’s little piggy squeals.
There had been a time, not too long ago, when Dito had almost been in that freak’s position. Dito had expected as much, knowing at the end of the day that he’d still have to swap one sister for the other, and hell, it was gonna happen anyway, so why not try to make the best of it? Zero isn’t exactly unattractive—at least, that’s what he tells himself—and if he was gonna be forced into it no matter what, he’d at least have something to look at with that missing arm and that flower in her eye. He’d nearly said as much that day on the mountain, somewhere between “Maybe you and me could have some fun” and “If anyone’s gonna get crushed, I hope it’s me!” and gods, what he wouldn’t have given to go back in time and kick himself in the teeth before he’d ever planted that seed in her head. With Five, he just had to keep her distracted, jingle those keys in front of her face before she’d start going on about how hungry she was and slam him into the wall. It didn’t always work, but it’d saved his ass more than a few times. With Zero, he’d had no idea where to even start, and by the time she’d kicked off her blankets and marched over to straddle him that first night, opening the battle with her lips on his throat, Dito had just closed his eyes and silently begged for her to get it over with.
At least until Zero had stopped somewhere around his navel. “Hey,” she’d said. She’d slapped him when he hadn’t moved. “Look at me, damn it.” Dito had opened his eyes. Apparently, she hadn’t liked what she’d seen. “Forget it.” She’d pushed off of him. “I’m not into this shit.”
Dito hadn’t relaxed when she’d stomped off back to her bed, much less when her hands had started to wander. With all that noise she’d been making, that was all it could have been. He hadn’t even relaxed when she’d fallen back in a shudder and gone silent. Five had liked her games, liked to “tease” him with a show before waddling over to let him pick up where she’d left off. Why would her sister have been any different? So Dito had sat there, waiting for Zero to move, waiting for her to say something, and when she finally had, he’d flinched hard enough to make something twinge in his back.
“We’re moving at dawn,” she’d muttered in the shadows. “Your ass better be rested.” She’d rolled over. From then on, the only time she’d ever touched him was when she’d kick him awake in the mornings. Decadus takes a lot longer to get used to, but eventually, Dito falls back into the pattern, even if he never risks turning his back on the guy. Octa takes almost no time at all, even if Dito has to start sleeping with a pillow over his ears.
And then there’s Cent. Stupid, smug, empty-headed Cent. Dito knows his type. Pretty little airheads who think they can coast by on their charms and “rugged” good looks. Five’s first captain of the guard had been one of those, some perpetually grinning fruitcake who’d thought it’d been a bright idea to ask if Lady Five had looked as good out of those clothes as she had in them, and Dito had told him no, no she hadn’t, and the prettyboy had laughed right in his face and told him that his cock may as well have been made out of cold cuts and cream cake, maybe then she could actually get some use out of it. He hadn’t been laughing when Dito had torn him open and forcefed him his own guts.
Maybe that’s why Dito’s eyes start to wander in battle, drawn up by the memory while the blood of One’s soldiers burns over his skin. He hasn’t failed to notice Cent’s scars, wonders what the story is behind each of them as their group carves a bloody trail through the outskirts of Cathedral City. Cent’s unexpectedly brutal in battle, something that’s almost worthy of Dito’s admiration, and even when night comes, when Dito shuffles awkwardly off to the side while the rest of their merry band goes to form a tangle of limbs somewhere on the cusp of the firelight, Dito still can’t keep his eyes away.
Cent’s a gentle lover. Dito feels as bored watching it as Zero seems to be receiving it, up until she takes Cent by the throat and starts riding him like she has places to be. Cent gasps out a “My lady” before Zero tells him to shut up, and then there’s just the sound of skin against skin, Cent biting back moans as his pretty little face grows redder and redder. He comes on a broken gasp, shuddering in the firelight as sweat beads over his many sutures and scars. Zero just moves on to the next willing body, but Dito’s eyes stay on Cent. There’s a gash on Cent’s side, still raw from their last day of fighting. Dito wants to bite it and lick it and grind against it until he forces it open, until he can feel Cent’s muscles quivering over his bones. Cent looks good bloody, looks better on his back, and Dito imagines himself on top of him, moving and gasping and laughing at the prettyboy’s pain until oh no.
Dito waits for everyone to fall asleep before he starts punching his pillow. Why feel ashamed when he can feel angry? He didn’t ask for this. He didn’t ask for any of this. He ought to just cut Cent open right now and be done with it. Ruin the mystery so he can go on living his life and kill anyone who has anything to say about it. But morning still comes, and he’s still expected to serve his new Intoner in battle, and so he charges into the carnage like he has no other care in the world, losing himself in guts and gore while he tries to ignore that constant throbbing somewhere in his chest. It works, for a while. Cent? Cent who? Dito’s never heard of the guy. And then the idiot has to go off and get himself injured, right where Dito can see it.
They get ambushed around noon. Zero’s off with Mikhail somewhere in the skies, and so her band of merry men is left down in the gutters to clean up the stragglers, picking off anyone unlucky enough to have survived Mikhail’s fire. They think they’re alone, wandering the ruined streets while Cent dabs the sweat from his brow with one of his many handkerchiefs and Octa mumbles something about needing a good long soak, and then Cent’s suddenly sprouted two arrows from his chest, and Dito nearly sprouts one from his face if not for Decadus and his swift hands. Dito goes flying before hitting a wall. There’s a river somewhere close. He can hear it over the ringing. Dito watches as Octa bounds over to the archers and Decadus rips Cent down to the grass. By the time Dito’s on his feet again, they already have one arrow out. Cent is screaming. Dito is gasping. And yeah, it takes a lot to actually get him off these days, old Blubber Bags had used that well to her advantage, but it’s never taken much to get him up. He nearly drops his spear when heat hooks his groin, pulse pounding in a way that’s both sickening and sweet, like those chocolate-covered cherries Five used to eat by the fistful back before he’d carved her little piggy face right down the middle. He’s suddenly so hard that it hurts. An arrow whistles past his ear as he stumbles over to a break in the concrete, clutching at his chest like he’s about to keel over of a heart attack, and he realizes he’s not just angry, he’s terrified.
Dito kickstarts his heart with a sob of breath, sleepwalking over to the break in the earth as the last archer gets carved in half. The river looks cold. He doesn’t know how deep it is. He stands there on the bank, shaking as the spray bites at his ankles, and he clutches at his face with bloodstained hands, squeezes, anything to make it stop. Five wouldn’t care if he’d had no control over it. Five wouldn’t care if his body had betrayed him. And all those men, none of them had cared, either. He wants to hide, don’t let her see, and of course Decadus is the one who walks up and ask if he’s all right, if he needs help. Dito can kill him right here, just let the freak go out with a spear in his throat and a tent in his pants. But he doesn’t. He just flops forward and spasms at the cold as water burns up his nose. When he scrambles upright, it comes licking at his hips. Decadus is staring at him like that’s somehow a cause for concern, but Dito doesn’t care. He’s hidden, he’s safe, crisis averted. He can feel the cold tearing the heat out of him. It hurts, and Dito can’t remember the last time he’s smiled so big.
“The archers are dead,” Decadus says softly, creeping forward on those invisible eggshells with more of that fake worry plastered on his stupid meathead face. If he takes another step, someone is going to bleed. “We’re safe.”
Dito giggles, slamming a fist down into the current. Nothing to worry about. Nothing at all. Why would he ever expect Decadus to be smart enough to figure it out? He pulls himself from the water as his squeaking laughter tears from his lips, and by the time Cent’s got a couple potions shoved down his throat and two beautiful new scars blooming on his chest, Dito’s back on the streets, savoring what’s left of the archers. A brick comes up to catch his foot. He nearly slips on Cent’s stupid silk handkerchief and almost kicks it aside when he’s seized by a thought. No one’s looking. No one would care. He stoops forward and scoops it up and feels his mouth watering at the sight of the blood. He takes a whiff, gasps. It smells like sweat and blood and Cent.
The handkerchief doesn’t come out again until the entire party is down for the night. The moon tells him it’s around midnight, but Dito can’t sleep a wink. The bloodstained silk weighs like a stone in his pocket. He rolls it in his palm, running his fingers over the crust of blood as Octa mumbles something in his sleep. That sickening-sweet heat is back. But Dito isn’t about to fight it. Not really. None of these jerks are light sleepers. He can take care of himself. And even if they were, what’s it matter? Every night he’s been forced to listen to them, and it’s not his fault Cent keeps making that noise, so what does he have to worry about, huh? Dito’s hand wanders down to unbuckle his shorts while the other hand drags the handkerchief to his mouth. But he doesn’t move. Another thought has come. If anyone wakes up and gets the wrong idea, he’s screwed. Probably in more ways than one. And once one of them starts, all of them would want a turn. He’s seen what happens when Zero grabs one and the rest fall over themselves to get to her. They’re even worse than Five’s goons on those nights where she’d dangle Dito in front of them with the implication that they could have her afterward. None of them had ever made it that far, but it had sure never stopped them from taking turns on him. Sneering, Dito wriggles out of his blankets and crams the handkerchief back into his pocket. The moon and the last embers of their campfire reduce everyone around him to dark, twitching lumps. It’s some time before he pushes up and squeezes himself through a crack in a nearby skyscraper. That’s one good thing about being so small. He’d like to see Decadus try to cram himself in here, the freak.
The inside of the skyscraper is even darker than the outside, but Dito doesn’t mind, even as his breath whistles in his nose and he stumbles around like his legs are made of wood. Even if someone managed to squeeze their way in here, they wouldn’t find him easily. His breath has a slight echo when he squeezes himself under a dusty staircase. He coughs. And then the handkerchief is out, and everything else could be on another planet entirely for how little he gives a shit. Dito grimaces as he touches himself. He’s doing this for himself. Not Five. Not Cent. He doesn’t have to be afraid.
Dito keeps his eyes open as much as he can, even as his gasps start to break and sweat starts to line his brow. Closing his eyes calls back other places, other nightmares. He sees the ceiling above Five’s bed when he isn’t focusing on the shadows. Dito presses the handkerchief to his nose and strokes faster, gasping, anything to make her go away. He’s been holding everything in for so, so long. But even as his hips jerk and his breath tears and his feet scrape helplessly over the stones, Dito can’t come. He hasn’t been able to in a very long time. Not until he drags the handkerchief over his lips to savor every crust of blood. The day comes back to him in a mist of heat and gore, and there’s Cent, bleeding and screaming and covered in scars. Beautiful.
“Ugh. Fuck.” And then it’s done. Finally. Dito lies there until his heart stops pounding and his thoughts restart and he rolls over to hide from something he can’t name. He feels like punching someone. Maybe Cent. Maybe himself. He can’t remember ever doing this without an audience. He thinks he likes doing it alone. So why does he still feel like he’s going to puke? Clean up is as simple as a scrape of his shirt and a short trek down to the river cutting through the streets. But he can’t sleep. Not now. Dito lets his eyes wander and doesn’t realize they’ve stopped on Cent until the idiot mumbles something in his sleep. He looks good sleeping. He looks better bloody. Was there a scratch on his brow this morning?
No, Dito snaps at himself, digging his nails into his thighs. Stop it. He rolls over and buries himself in cloth and pretends to be asleep until Zero gives him his wake-up booting. Cent’s washing his face in the river. His sleepy expression and pillow-tossed hair make him look just a little less punchable today.
Dito finds a ritual somewhere in the chaos of the next few days. The city never seems to end, but Zero insists they’re getting closer, and who is Dito to complain when he has this many of One’s hapless meat sacks lining up for a butchering? He keeps his blood pumping in the day and lets it all come out in the night, the handkerchief never far from his fist as he drags out a release that seems to go longer and longer with every stretch of pleasure. He dreams for the first time since he’d cut Five down. Dreams of flying and clouds and skies that never end. One night he wakes up laughing, and it isn’t until the next day that he remembers why. Back in that other place, back with her, Dito had come very close to kicking open her balcony windows and climbing up onto the railing, more than once. For years he’d imagined twirling with a flourish and cooing her name until she’d finally come out to watch. A smile. A wave. A cheekily raised finger. And then he’d fly. And the thought of her face upon seeing her favorite toy go splat is enough to drive him back into a fit of helpless giggles.
“Tryin’ to fuckin’ sleep,” Zero snaps from the darkness. That just makes Dito laugh harder. Octa and Cent are still awake. Cent’s looking at him like he’s cracked. Real rich coming from a guy who’s currently bent over a thread and sewing needle like some toothless old granny. For someone who’s always bitching about how unrefined they all are, Cent sure has a lot of patches in his clothes. It’s almost as bad as the patches in his skin. Dito makes some muttered excuse about needing to take a piss and takes that little shred of release for himself before returning to his blankets. And then he has the sweetest dream of all, the one where he’s somehow strong enough to pin down dearly departed Blubber Bags and cinch his chains around her throat, mash his thumbs into her eyes until he finally goes deep enough to stop her screaming, and then he takes a knife and entertains himself with a few new holes while the maggots squirm and writhe around his cock. She’s so pretty on the inside, all rotting and putrid, and when he finally goes deep enough to take out her heart, he finds it exactly as he imagined it: black and hard and oozing with pus. He comes in his sleep that night, not for the last time.
“Trivia time!” Cent sings the next time Dito bothers to listen. The only reason Dito hasn’t rolled his eyes and told him to shut up is because Cent’s doing some very interesting things with that needle tonight. There’s a gash on Cent’s arm that needs closing. Cent doesn’t even flinch as he pierces the skin and slowly stretches it back into place. “Did you know that the first sewing needles were made from fairy bones? It’s true, it’s true! You’d run the thread through the skull and pierce the cloth with the sharpened edge of the tailbone. That’s why they call it the eye of the needle!”
Zero tells him what they’re all thinking. Cent just laughs it off, but Dito can’t tear his eyes away. The blood. The exposed muscle. The scars. He drags the tip of his tongue over his lip before pushing up and ducking into a maze of stone and steel. No one stops him. Not that he expects them to. He finds a nice quiet spot in the ruin and wastes no time whipping himself into a frenzy. The sight of Cent’s wound is burned into his eyelids. He barely even needs the handkerchief. Dito lies there a moment, panting. The next thing he knows, he’s jerking awake on a pile of concrete dust and sticking his head out to catch a glimpse of a sinking moon. Dito curses, dragging himself up to stumble to the nearest stretch of water. A quick bath in blackness, cold and biting. He feels a hundred years old when he finally makes it back to the camp. Cent is up. And only Cent. He arcs an eyebrow at Dito before miming a glance at a wristwatch.
“Shut up, Cent,” Dito snaps, clothes wrinkled, hair in his eyes, and flops down into his blankets to catch the end of a dream he can’t remember.
“And here I’d thought you’d run off,” Cent says anyway.
Dito growls into a pillow. “Don’t tempt me.”
“Perish the thought! Do you know how much I’d miss that hateful stare? I haven’t felt such love since the day Two drew me into her arms for the very first time. And the vulgarity! Why, I didn’t think my vocabulary could grow any more!”
Dito gallantly refrains from stabbing him.
“You look like death warmed over,” Cent says, softer.
“So will you if you don’t shut up.”
A rustle of cloth. “Fine. Fine.” But of course he won’t listen. “I don’t suppose you found anything interesting out there, while you were away? This city hides so many secrets.”
Dito drags his head up just enough to glare at him. “What do you want, Cent?”
Cent just smiles at him. But not with his usual smile. “That handkerchief you stole from me would be a nice start.”
Dito freezes.
“Ah. So it was you.” Cent rubs at the corner of his eye and flicks away some invisible crust, another bit of acting. “I didn’t think an animal like you would appreciate fine silk, but I’d recognize Two’s stitching even if it was covered in your… effluence.”
“I don’t have your damn rag.”
“No? Then you won’t mind if I check your pockets, will you?”
“For fuck’s sake,” Zero roars. A large rock comes flying out of the darkness and misses Cent by a hair, just in time for Decadus and Octa to scramble up from where Zero’s left them. “Go the fuck to BED!”
“My lady?” Decadus stammers out.
“My lady,” Cent says, different.
Zero slams her fist into a rock. “God, both of you shut up! If I hear a goddamn cough out of any one of you for the rest of the night, I’m chopping off your balls and wearing them as earrings!”
No one makes a peep. Not until Decadus lets out a shudder.
“Don’t you start!” Zero rolls over and slams a pillow over her head.
Octa glances at Decadus. Decadus looks to Cent. Cent is staring at Dito. Quietly, on tiptoe, Decadus and Octa settle back into their blankets. But Cent stays right where he is.
Tomorrow, Cent mouths. He eases himself onto his back and doesn’t say another word.
Dito lies there in the darkness, sweating despite his chill. His fingers are still pruny and his hair is plastered to his face. Even with a bath, he feels dirtier than he has all day. He wrinkles his nose when he hears the slightest dribbling of liquid, and that’s before the smell hits him. That stupid dragon has pissed himself again.
The morning doesn’t make them any friendlier with one another, but Dito has an excuse to stuff himself with bread and keep the nausea down for just a little longer. Cent actually seems to be keeping his distance. Not like Dito’s complaining. They’re all a little too quiet this morning. He falls back onto his pillow, glancing up at a skyscraper as the dawning sun splashes gold across its exposed beams and a dove kites from window to window. The air almost feels damp. He jerks when Cent clears his throat just behind him.
“Oh, good!” Cent says, false cheer sharpening his words down to a point. “You’re awake. Now, if we could continue our conversation…?”
Dito glares, doing everything he can to not look down where he’s hidden the handkerchief in his bag. “I already told you, I don’t have anything.”
Cent’s smile only grows. “Then surely we can find something else to talk about? The skies, the weather, that spark of envy that lights in your eyes every time I grace you with my presence?”
Goddamnit.
“Don’t tell me you’ve suddenly taken a vow of silence?” Cent asks, taking a step forward. Dito tenses. “How nice. I never took you for one so spiritual.” He actually bends to meet Dito’s eyes, like he’s talking to a child. Dito makes the increasingly stupid decision to hold off from strangling him. Cent stares at him, close enough to bite. Gawd, even his breath smells disgustingly sweet. It’s like the guy rolled around in a flower garden and chewed up whatever he could pick off of his clothes. “Perhaps we could talk about it in private?”
Dito would have something to say to that, but his thoughts go somewhere far, far away the moment his eyes catch on something more interesting. Cent’s hair is still wet from his morning bath, his skin white and damp and clean. A water droplet slips from a wayward strand and glides over a scar as long as his little finger. Dito wants to lick it dry and then bite off whatever’s left behind.
“Nothing to say to that?” Cent asks.
Dito stays silent.
“Then perhaps you’ve misunderstood me,” Cent says, voice sinking into something low and dangerous, and that shouldn’t make Dito tense up, but here he is, feeling a chill where there is none. “You’ve taken something very important from me. I’d like it back.”
Dito scowls and shoves his pillow into his bag, shouldering it as he takes up his spear and jerks to his feet. “Got a better idea.” He points the spear at Cent’s face. “You shut your mouth, and I don’t carve you a new one.”
The tip of Cent’s tongue slides between his teeth, his hand curling just enough to betray his anger, and goddamnit, Dito shouldn’t be staring at his mouth like that, but the moron is making it so hard to concentrate that he just wants to scream.
“Hey, idiots,” Zero snaps from across the camp. “Either take that out to the streets or kiss and make up before I smash your heads together.”
“Just a gentleman’s disagreement, my lady,” Cent calls, back to that airy, braindead lilt that just makes Dito want to drive the spear home. “Nothing to worry over!”
“Uh huh. How about you two take a walk before I shove my foot up your asses?”
“… The fair lady has spoken.” Cent turns to Dito with a smile so tight it could tear a hole in his face. He waves his hand expectantly. “After you.”
Dito drags his feet as he stomps out into the sunlight, going up and over a hill as he refuses to let Cent out of his sight. The guy’s still keeping up that pretense of a smile. Dito ought to tear it off his face and shove it down his throat. He doesn’t make the conscious choice to stop on the edge of a ruined plaza, but it seems as good a place as any, and he’s not about to duck into some side street where a guy as tall as Cent could just pin him to a wall. Dito needs room to move, room to stab. It’s better when they see it coming.
“I’d rather not fight you,” Cent starts, running his fingers through his hair in a way that just makes him more infuriatingly pretty. “I’ve only just had my bath, or whatever passes for a bath this far from civilization, and I favor myself a man of words rather than violence. But I can’t expect a Neanderthal like you to understand that, can I?”
“You done?” Dito tosses aside his bag and brandishes his spear. “Because I’m getting real sick of your mouth, Professor.”
Cent’s face darkens. Good. Maybe he still has at least a couple of brain cells still rattling around in there like pebbles in a can. But he doesn’t go for his swords.
“Don’t tell me you’re going to wimp out?” Dito saunters a little as he circles around Cent, his smirk wide and sharp. The spear feels right in his hands, never far from a good goring, and Cent’s way less annoying when he isn’t running his stupid mouth. Dito thinks he likes him like this. Shame he might have to kill him. He comes to a stop in the shadow of a crumbling fountain, the sun on his back and the breeze in his face. Cent still hasn’t taken up his swords. Or taken his eyes off Dito.
“Well?” Dito says, grinning ear to ear.
Cent says nothing. Cent just goes on glaring.
Dito huffs. “Well at least now I know how to shut you up. You really are pathetic. That’s the problem with you freaks, always pining after your Intoners like sad little puppy dogs when all you ever were were sacks of meat they kept around to warm their beds. Did she tie you up, too? Or was she too busy being a drooling whack-job to even—?”
The sword swings down directly for his face. Dito just barely draws his spear up in time. He can feel the clang of metal in his entire body. He finally looks up, gasping.
“I wouldn’t,” Cent growls through his teeth.
Dito sits there panting, heart hammering, shorts tightening, and then he grins, breaking into the first real laugh he’s had in days. Yes. Yes. He pushes up and darts back until he has the spear held properly. No one else in this trainwreck of a journey has given him a decent fight. Everyone always has to scream and beg and die too quickly. He can finally see what Cent looks like inside. Then he can have his fucking snot rag. Dito twists and goes for his guts.
Cent’s quicker than he looks. Stronger, too. But the thing about wielding two swords is you need the coordination and the concentration to actually put them to work. Cent might have one of those things on a good day, and he can’t have much of it left once Dito charges forward and sends him stumbling backwards. Dito’s no brainless drone. It’s going to take more than a few sword swipes to bring him down. But Cent isn’t going in for a hit. Why isn’t he fighting back?
“Hey, idiot!” Dito snaps, feeling too hot for comfort. “Stop gawking and get over here! Finish what you started!”
Cent glares at him in silence, fingers curled so close that they’ve gone bone white. Dito snarls and lunges. This time, two blades swing up to nick his spear. Dito tumbles back with force of the blow and scrambles to reclaim his weapon. One sword goes to his fingers. The other drapes across his throat. Dito freezes.
“Empty your pocket,” Cent rumbles.
Dito offers up some strangled excuse, but that’s kinda hard to do when the sword presses hard enough to cut. Dito swallows. The knot in his throat bobs as a bead of blood goes trailing over his collar. He stuffs a hand under his hip and pulls out one pocket to show it empty. Then he opens the other, turning it inside out.
“Your bag,” Cent rasps.
“I just told you—!” Dito yelps when the blade cuts deeper. They’re standing in the middle of an open city, and it’s like he’s got him backed into a corner. He needs to move. He needs to get Cent away. He knows what happens any time someone’s got him pinned. “I can’t grab it if you’ve got me stuck here, idiot.”
Cent’s eyes narrow as a spark of something lights them up. Without looking away, without moving his sword, he drags a leg over and kicks Dito’s spear under his heel. He jerks an elbow toward the bag, somewhere off in the opposite direction. “Go get it.”
Dito throws out a leg and kicks Cent’s feet out from under him. Dito scrambles to his own, bowing forward, taking back his spear. He catches one sword, swings out, draws blood, and then Cent slams a shoulder into him so hard that it sends him rolling. He’s halfway under an overpass when he loses his spear again. Dito crashes into a rock with a crack and groan. He tastes copper. He thinks his nose is broken.
“I knew it.” Somewhere in the sun, Cent cracks a smile, gasping. He throws down Dito’s bag and shakes the handkerchief at him like it’s his prize. “We’ll…” Cent winces, clutching at the bruises painting his stomach. “We’ll consider this my victory, then.”
“Like hell we are!” But Dito is barely on his feet again when his legs twist and he takes another hard fall. He groans.
Dito lies there a while, barely aware of the breeze, the birds, the river. He can hardly hear anything with the ringing back in his ears. Cent’s footsteps startle him. He tenses up when Cent draws closer and is practically in a ball when Cent’s standing over him.
“Someone overestimated their abilities,” Cent says, sounding half as haggard and twice as smug. Dito gets a peek through his grimy hair and sees why when Cent takes another drink from a bottle of potion. He looks so damn punchable. If his spear weren’t halfway down the street, Dito would… Dito would…
“Go away,” Dito wails, and it is a wail, however much he hates it. He flinches when something hits the stone a scant inch from his nose. It’s the potion, just a little more than half empty.
“Drink it,” Cent says. “I took it from your bag, anyway.”
Dito does. But not because Cent tells him to. He’s got the bottle mostly drained when he realizes it’s still warm from Cent’s lips. He chokes. Heat’s coiling between his legs again. Dito trembles with more than desire.
“Why did you take my handkerchief from me?” Cent asks.
Dito flings the empty bottle at him and misses by a mile. It explodes on the stones with a musical shatter. Cent looks unimpressed. Dito seethes. Half a potion isn’t enough to knit him back together, but Dito can stand, however shakily. Dito glares at Cent with hot, wet eyes, hating himself for every betrayal his body heaps on him as the tightness in his shorts starts to become unbearable. He forces himself to think about Five. It’s the only way he can take care of this problem. Dito teeters on his feet, tensing as Cent takes another step closer, and whatever threat he has lined up on his tongue withers the moment he sees just how much of a beating he’s managed to lay on Prettyboy.
The stitches on his arm have popped open.
“Nothing else to say?” Cent asks. He flips his hair, preening with a smile that couldn’t be more forced. “Don’t be shy. You’re not the first to be stricken dumb by my beauty.”
Dito barely hears him as his eyes trail the wound. Like a dream, he pictures himself reaching in and grabbing flesh and pulling Cent inside out. So close. So damn close. His mouth waters as that painful tightness cinches in a knot below his navel.
“Well?” Cent coos, loathsome and pretty and hideous and perfect. “Are you just going to sit there all day and do nothing?”
Dito blinks, looking up just long enough to catch the challenge gleaming in Cent’s eye. He lifts a hand only to stop and let it drop to his side. His lip breaks under the weight of his teeth. He tries to pretend it’s Cent’s blood he’s tasting.
“I thought so.” Cent smirks, swaying a little as he bends down to meet Dito’s eyes and pulls in even closer. A drop of blood has slipped from the tear in his arm. There’s a bruise on his cheek that brings out the blue in his eyes. He’s warm. “But I suppose we all couldn’t be as smart and beautiful as yours truly. I know I couldn’t have expected anything less from a charity case like—”
Dito’s hand snaps up, snatching Cent by the wrist. Cent tenses before stumbling back with a sharp gasp through his nose, but Dito is already matching his step, anticipating his every move as Cent’s poor prettyboy pea brain struggles to catch up with the rest of him. Dito half expects to see smoke come pouring out of his ears when Dito finally gets his lips to Cent’s arm. He slips his tongue over the skin, fine and white and broken, and sucks. Cent goes utterly still as the handkerchief flutters from his fingers.
“Tastes good,” Dito mumbles, head in a fog and blood sticky on his lips. He gives another slow, savoring lick, his face hot and his body scorching. He laughs when he sees that Cent’s face has gone deathly white. He finally pulls his lips away, rests his chin on Cent’s palm, digs his nails in. “Think I can have more?”
Three things happen in the next flicker of a heartbeat. First, Cent drives a knee up into his stomach with enough force to choke him, sending him reeling back with a bruise already beginning to form just under his ribs. Second, Cent cinches one hand around his throat and the other around his wrists before kicking his feet out from under him and slamming him into the dirt.
And third, Dito goes completely, shamefully, and unwillingly still.
Cent may be paste-eating stupid, but he isn’t blind. The rage evaporates from his face the instant he sees Dito’s, eyes stretching wide to mirror Dito’s own, and he freezes like that, half on top of him with his knee on his balls and his hand on his throat. Air rattles through Dito’s swollen nose once he finally remembers to breathe. He tries to tear his mind off of other things, can’t.
“Get. Off,” Dito says, very softly, very calmly, like he wouldn’t gut him under less crippling circumstances.
Cent, at least, doesn’t need written instructions. He pulls away like he’s been ripped back by an invisible hand, and he stands there awkwardly on his feet, staring down at Dito as the latter begins to shake. Cent flinches when Dito finally pushes up and draws his legs in close, and neither of them seem keen to break the quiet outside Dito’s harsh breaths.
“Do I have to hurt you?” Dito asks after the longest minute of his life, hearing his voice tremble and hating himself for it. “Go. AWAY!”
Dito keeps his eyes closed for the longest time, trying to find his breath, trying to escape from Five’s bed. Everything’s gold and shiny and ugly and putrid. Five leers at him on the shadows of his eyelids, and he can feel her hands on him where Cent’s grip has left its mark. Her teeth. Her breath. Her tongue. It hurts to open his eyes. It hurts more to keep them closed. The tears don’t come immediately, but when they do, Dito’s vision is turning black and he’s past the point of words. He throws out an arm with an inhuman howl, rips up the first rock he finds, flings it straight into a skyscraper and watches the window smash to splinters. He keeps the rhythm going with several more throws, and it isn’t until he’s dizzy with breathlessness and his shoulder’s on fire that he notices Cent is long gone. Good. Good. Maybe he won’t have to gut the moron just yet. Dito collapses in a shivering heap, his teeth chattering as his eyes finally start to cool, and he realizes that he’s still hard as a rock. And Cent has left the handkerchief right where he dropped it.
Dito draws in a breath, shakes, chokes, and then the city is ringing with shrieking laughter far shriller than any scream.
He takes his time making his way back to camp. Not because of his injuries—anger keeps him standing a lot longer than any potion—but because he thinks that if anyone tries to ask questions, he’s going to bury his foot in their neck. The campfire is the slightest curl of smoke on the horizon, and he’s come to a stop on the river, watching Zero as she glares down at the edge of the water. The flower, the stump of her arm, those scars telling of countless battles and regenerations. Dito lets go of a breath he doesn’t realize he’s holding and draws his fingers in tight. His heart is still pounding, for more than one reason. That problem still hasn’t gone away. She isn’t Five. She isn’t Cent. She’s the only one who’s ever made any goddamned sense in this traveling circus. And she’s the only one who has enough sense to grimace and curse when she peels off her dress and buries herself waist-deep in freezing water. Dito sinks his spear into the mud and stomps into the river, clothes soaked, boots and all, and he waits for her to turn to him before he says anything else. Or at least tries to.
“What happened to you?” Zero snaps.
Dito sneers at her. “Thought I’d get dressed up.” He peels off his shirt so violently that he nearly pops the seams. Zero seems more surprised by the sudden bare skin than the blood jetting from his nose. Dito closes off one nostril and blows a stream of red snot into the water. “That do anything for ya?”
Zero just stares at him.
Dito takes a step closer, deeper, hissing as the water runs over where his blood runs hottest. She has to have noticed by now, and even if she hasn’t, he doesn’t bother to hide anything when he finally works up the courage to strip down to nothing. They stare at each other. Water runs over them until they’re both covered in gooseflesh.
“You up for it?” Dito asks, soft and low and with the slightest skew of a smile as he tells himself that his shaking is just from the cold.
Zero looks at him like he’s just suggested they take a quick detour to the moon. “Seriously?”
Dito takes her arm, the real one. “C’mon, Z. I’m dying here.” He yelps when she shoves him off. But she doesn’t scream at him like he expects her to.
“How much do you actually want this?” Zero asks.
Dito snarls. “I just told you—!”
“—Because I’m not gentle.” She searches his eyes. “And I know you aren’t either.”
Somewhere in the shadows, he hears Five.
Dito snorts, a sound not as forced as his smile, but that little bit of acting makes it easier for him to take another step forward, sink in closer. The water’s not so bad, now that he’s practically drowning. “You seriously think I expected anything else?” His grin folds into a smirk, a real one. He never thought he’d see her hesitate. “You’re cute, Z.”
Zero takes another long look at him. She finally rolls her eye, like she’s the one doing him a favor, and then she’s close enough to maim, her chin level with the crown of his head. “No biting,” she says. “No kicking, no scratching, no punching, no stabbing—”
“Thought you said this wasn’t going to be gentle.” Dito says it lightly, but it takes a bit of effort to reach under the water and stroke her hip as his eyes fall level with her breasts. He’s now so hard that he can barely remember what it feels like to be afraid. “You’re practically vanilla, Z.”
She twists his arm. He grits his teeth. That’s enough to throw the match on the powder keg, and they’re flinging themselves at each other, fighting in the current as the dull morning sunlight slips over their heads and under a passing cloud. He finds his teeth, she finds her nails. Neither of them want to be pinned, and so they’ve eventually got each other tangled halfway on the bank, face to face and their sides sinking into the mud. Zero has boundaries, but that’s okay. Dito makes sure she knows he has boundaries, too.
“This good enough, Chuckles?” Zero asks.
Clear-headed at last, Dito bites off a cackle. She slips him inside. He finally lets go. It’s violent in a way it never was with Five, and here, now, he finally feels like he’s in control of his own body. Dito draws shapes in the swell of her breasts, the curve of her hips, the scars on her flesh and the hole in her eye. She looks nothing like her sister. She’s everything Five isn’t. She’s rotten. She’s beautiful. Every mark on her tells the most wonderful story, and when he finally comes, lightheaded and breathless, he sees Cent behind his eyelids and a valley of bloody, broken skin, still waiting to be uncovered.
Water. Breathing.
“Great,” Zero pants. She’s just as breathless as Dito, but he’s not one to brag. “Now I have to take another bath.” She stomps back into the water and disappears over the swell of a broken hill. Dito waits for her footsteps to recede before he slowly pushes up. He’s alive. He’s in one piece. Nothing hurts. Nothing’s violated. He rubs his wrist on reflex, like he’s expecting to find a chain there. He’s tired and filthy and he just can’t stop smiling. A bath in icy water has never felt so good before. He finally drags himself back to his clothes, finding them even dirtier than before, but he throws them on loose and tells himself he’ll change at the camp, and he almost loses the handkerchief in the river when it’s nearly shaken from his pocket.
Dito stands there on the riverbank, hardly feeling it as the wind comes with a hint of a looming rainstorm. The handkerchief sits bunched in his palms. It’s crusted with mud and blood and dust and debris. Dito takes a sniff, not even thinking as he presses it to his lips. He can still smell Cent, but there’s something else there now, something rotten, and not in the beautiful, putrid-sweet way he thinks of every time he remembers carving Five in two. He doesn’t need Cent. Zero’s been here all along. He ought to just throw this rag into the river and wash his hands of the whole situation. Dito bites his cheek and holds his breath. He can still taste Cent’s blood on his tongue.
The camp is quiet when he finally makes his way back. Mikhail’s fallen asleep like the big baby he is, Decadus and Octa are discussing their stock over the buried firepit. Zero is nowhere to be seen. And Cent. Cent is lying off in his own little world.
Dito approaches him on tiptoe. Just because Cent’s eyes are closed doesn’t mean he’s sleeping. He draws up the handkerchief from his pocket, still sopping wet and filthy. “Hey, idiot,” Dito says, and he waits just long enough for Cent to open his eyes before unceremoniously dropping the handkerchief onto his face. Dito goes off and finds a nice secluded spot on the cement. The day is a bloody one.
The suns shrink and pass. It never feels like they’re getting any closer to One. The nights are spent on the edges of the fire, and Dito finally finds a place in whatever this group becomes once the weapons are down and the stars come out. He keeps his eyes and his hands on Zero, only Zero. If he happens to catch a glance of Cent in the action, it’s coincidence. Nothing to worry over. And no matter how pretty that man looks pinned down and gasping, all it takes for Dito to hate him again is to see him staring at him in the daylight. Cent’s been quiet lately. Eerily quiet. Dito would make fun of him for it if that didn’t run the risk of getting him to run his stupid mouth again.
“There,” Zero says, maybe a week after Dito has finally started to dream about things other than Five. Her Disciples wait for an explanation, but she’s already charging straight ahead, sword drawn and at the ready. It takes a moment for Dito to realize. There, on the horizon, he can see the stark outline of One’s cathedral. He stands there and stares. If he’d known the end was this close, maybe he—
“Dito.” Cent walks up to him as Octa and Decadus scramble after Zero. His voice is quiet, clipped. Dito refuses to look at him. “Why did you—?”
Dito breaks into a sprint. His spear finds its place in his hands. Zero’s managed to stumble her way into a battle with a cerberus. He’ll follow her wherever she goes. It’s his duty as her Disciple. Dito grits his teeth and tells himself he’s smiling.
The cerberus is in pieces by the time Dito finds his breath again. They’re walking in a line, Zero leading the way with a frown, and Cent, thank whatever god will listen, is keeping his lips shut.
“Well,” Zero says, coming to an abrupt stop, “this is it.”
There’s a scuffle from the other Disciples. Dito refuses to say a word.
“It’s what, my lady?” Octa.
Zero stares straight ahead. The cathedral doors loom over them like the discarded shields of giants. “I won’t be needing you anymore.”
A pause from all of them. Dito’s finally listening.
“I can handle the rest by myself,” Zero says.
Of course Decadus is the first to object. “M-my lady, please, if you’re worried about us, we—”
“No.” Zero finally turns. “It’s unavoidable. Disciples can’t remain in human form without an Intoner’s power.”
A memory. A life. A sun overhead and a sea of clouds below.
“Sooner or later,” Zero goes on, “you’ll disappear.”
Dito doesn’t move. He doesn’t breathe. An Intoner’s power. How could he ever…?
“So before that happens…” Zero raises her hand. “I’m giving you your old forms back.”
Dito blinks.
“Goodbye.”
And then he’s gone.
There’s one bird that’s smaller than the rest, jumpier, angrier, violent. His only joys are shredding bugs in his beak and tearing the feathers from any other bird that ventures too close. That taller bird with the scars just never seems to take the hint. But the skies above Cathedral City are the bluest he’s ever known, the world below them so open and free, and he can fly for miles, no fear and no cage to hold him in chains. The sea is so far away. He’s forgotten what it looks like. But he dreams, he dreams, and life can be so much more than this now that he’s finally found his flight.
He dreams.
He dreams.
Dreams.
Dito snaps awake under a tree crawling with ivy. The forest can get pretty creepy at night, but he’ll take it over the sea and the waves and the stink of fish shit and salt. It’s quieter out here, at least. Maybe Three isn’t completely nuts if this is the place where she chose to set up shop. Dito almost doesn’t want to hunt her down. He glances around the smoldering embers of the campfire and tries to pick faces from the shadows. Zero. Decadus. Mikhail. Octa.
Cent.
“What’re you still doing up?” Dito asks.
Cent shrugs into the darkness. “Is it a crime to watch the stars?”
“You weren’t looking anywhere near the sky, buddy.”
“Hmm.” Cent tilts his head up. “Better?”
Dito rolls onto his stomach with a huff. Ever since Cent had shown up with Octa a few days ago, he’s been acting weird, even for him. Pretending not to know who Two is? Why would a guy like him have to play dumb? Dito glares at him as the realization settles in. “Were you watching me sleep?”
But Cent is in his own little world. “Did you know the sky is naturally red?”
“Did you know you’re a natural idiot?”
“Mock me all you like. One day you’ll learn to appreciate these little gifts.”
“I’ll add it to my notes, Professor.” Dito cracks his neck with a wince.
“Dito,” Cent says, eyes still lost in the sky, “I don’t suppose you’ve seen my handkerchief?”
Dito furrows his brow. “It’s in your pocket, stupid.”
“Oh.” Cent stares off into space, not even bothering to check.
“Did you hit your head or something?” Dito drags his pillow under his body. “Like, harder than usual?”
“I don’t know.”
“Well here’s a rock.” Dito kicks it over. “Get cracking.”
Cent actually picks it up. He turns it in his hands, fingers twitching, eyes unfocused. His hair is a mess, for how much he fusses over it. There’s a new tear in his jacket. Cent stops and stares and twists his hands so tightly that Dito expects to see blood.
“Seriously,” Dito says, “what is with you?”
Cent doesn’t answer. Maybe it’s better that way. The night is quiet, the breeze is gentle, and somehow, some way, Cent has finally learned to shut the hell up. Dito scoffs and burrows back down into his blankets. If Cent wants to keep cooking what’s left of his brain on gibberish and bullshit, Dito isn’t going to stop him. Cent’s so much more tolerable when he’s just something to be looked at.
But Cent still has one more thing to say. “Something’s… wrong.”
Dito opens his eyes.