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Just like everything else about Millions Knives, the July Tower chapel was overkill.
It had taken years to build, or so he was told. Masses and masses of bone-white stone had been quarried from the ground and hauled up here to pave the floors and walls in its quiet sterility. It called to mind the ancient Earth republics, the kinds of societies who were obsessed with their pantheons, because those were the ones he liked best, of course. Columns along the walls wrought from the same, everything inlaid with mother of pearl and gleaming gold, and if Wolfwood had half a chance, he’d dismantle the entire thing and feed all seven cities for a month. Such ostentatious, obnoxious waste. Between the columns rose reliefs of angels, terrible and glorious, set high above groveling, weeping, dirty little humans.
It was beautiful.
He fucking hated it.
His loafers were looking a little extra gross as they scuffed along the mirror-perfect sheen of the floor, reflections of the worn, dirty soles underneath reminding him that he wasn’t worth even half the care and attention that was put into polishing this fuckin’ place. The closer he got to the altar, the closer he got to throwing up his lunch. That iridescent sheen in the Holy Water… Just enough worm venom to add guided hallucination to the worship. Even with his tolerance, it was a struggle to keep his head on straight. Lots of memories and none of ‘em good. He’d just as soon be anywhere else, but this was Legato’s favorite haunt when he wasn’t up Knives’s ass, so. Here he was. Waiting.
Waiting to hear the words “good boy” so he’d get let back out in the yard again. Sure, coming back to HQ was always nice for a few days–real food, real tobacco and a hot shower with water pressure that could blast your nuts off? That’s good shit. But long-term city life didn’t sit well with a guy like Wolfwood, and while he wanted to pretend it was because he was such a bonafide lone ranger that all he needed was open skies and open road, it fuckin’ wasn’t.
These tiny rooms, thick steel walls, dizzyingly tall buildings creating rat-maze alleys you couldn’t climb out of. These people didn’t know they were tagged and numbered, that their decorated apartments were cells, that their movements were recorded and their conversations tapped. They didn’t know that when a door closed behind them, it might not ever open again.
Too many eyes. Too many Eyes. So how come nobody saw it?
This whole goddamn city was Conrad’s laboratory and the longer Wolfwood stayed inside it, the more he felt like he wasn’t gonna make it out this time. Not as himself. He wasn’t afraid of what the old man could do to him anymore, nah, what scared him to death was what he was capable of becoming if the last of his self-control was flayed away. Not a shred of humanity left. Only the molten core of his rage, burning, burning, burning until everything was ash.
See, this was what happened when your “boss” was late and you had all the time in the world to hear yourself think. He needed a job. He needed to be running, jumping, moving. He needed his hands and his teeth to be full. Before he left July, he’d find the meanest motherfucker in the barracks to fight him or fuck him or both, get thrown around a little. Absolutely wrecked, in any sense of the word. Nothing emptied the brain quite like violence. Decades spent drowning in it, it was the only language he knew anymore.
Restlessness dug under his skin and plucked his nerves like fingers on overtightened strings, a fitful accompaniment to his pulse. He didn’t notice the tremor in his hand until he was lifting a smoke to his lips to light. It danced between his knuckles, like even with its ass on fire it was having a better night than he was. It was his eighth of the day. He’d suck the fucking life out of it like some freak nicotine vampire and move on to the next–and, as if in a last ditch surge of self-preservation, the cigarette rammed itself into the back of his throat.
Wolfwood pitched forward, coughing up the traitorous thing between his feet. The cherry burned the shit out of his lip before it ashed itself out on his tongue, and even hocking up a wad of bile couldn’t get the taste out of his mouth. He panted for breath, hands braced on his knees, and the reflective marble under his feet served him back a reflection of his shock-wide eyes and his stupid, gasping face.
A lean silhouette in the shadow stretched out from behind him. Christ, but that prick could move quiet.
“I’ve warned you about smoking in here,” came the voice, smooth as silk and not half as fucking soft. “I grow tired of repeating myself.”
“No the hell you don’t, you love hearing yourself talk.” Wolfwood straightened up and dusted off his slacks before turning around to face Legato with a vicious grin. Well, well. Speaking of a mean motherfucker to throw him around… he couldn’t ask for a meaner one. King Cunt, High Priest of the Knives cult, big man on campus himself. “Bluesummers.”
“Punisher.”
“Sure took your sweet-ass time gettin’ here, sugar.”
There was a little bulge of muscle in his jaw that told Wolfwood exactly how he felt about the pet name. “Is that any way to speak to your superior?”
“Superior? Tch.” Wolfwood leaned against the altar behind him. Legato’s power descended from on high: a familiar buzz in his bones, in the back of his teeth. At this level, it always gave him goosebumps all over. Not unpleasant, but impossible to ignore. A gentle weight on the back of his neck in warning. Legato approached with silent, deliberate steps, a curtain of blue hair ever-hiding one of his lifeless yellow eyes. Predator eyes. Nightmare fuel. Even a smile couldn’t soften that face–and if you caught him with one, run. It meant he was about to hurt you bad, and he was gonna do it without even lifting a finger.
Wolfwood’s grin twitched wider.
It was so fucking hot.
Pissing Legato off was quickly becoming one of his favorite pastimes. There was something about this clean cut, buttoned to the collar, smug elitist prick that made him want to tug at the threads and make him unravel. So stoic. So sophisticated. Such a stony presence, he might as well have been carved out of the marble of the chapel itself, inheriting all of its steadfast faith. He’d seen the temper under there, though. It was tough to drag out, but not impossible. Not for Wolfwood.
It was just enough of a puzzle for him, a little enrichment in the enclosure. His jobs never really needed a strategy more complex than “shoot ‘til dead”, after all.
Legato’s eyes narrowed the longer the silence stretched on. Look, he’s already annoyed! Might’ve even beat his best time. “Have I not also spoken to you about the dress code?”
He looked down at himself with an expression of exaggerated shock, making a show of inspecting his clothes, “Collared shirt, blazer, slacks. What the hell’s the problem? Sure they ain’t been pressed in a while, but y’know, travel’s rough on the gear.”
“Does travel prevent you from tucking in your shirt?”
“Oh, yeah, wind’s awful out there, just fierce. But wouldja believe I just keep on tryin’?”
“And I expect the wind blew your socks out from under your shoes, somehow?”
“Nah, fuck socks. Hate ‘em.” Wolfwood flashed him a wicked smile, reaching out to brush his fingers over the other man’s arm, “But if you wanna talk about blowin’ your socks off…” His hand was slapped away. By his own, other hand. “Ow. C’mon.”
“Report.”
Every word he spoke felt like it was only allowed out of his mouth because he was bored of it. As usual, the guy was a block of ice. He’d never been able to put a crack in it. He sighed, rubbing the tension out of the back of his neck. Stretched it one side, then the other, until he felt the vertebrae pop. “Not much to report, sugar. Y’wanted ‘em dead, so they’re dead. Now gimme the next one so I can get the hell outta here.”
“Always in such a hurry to leave home.”
The comment had his teeth clenched tight as a vise, but he powered through for a dig of his own. “Well, you want me to stay so bad, maybe you should put that prissy mouth to w–”
His body dropped to hands and knees before he realized what happened. All of the wind knocked out of him. It was like a starfaring ship dropped out of orbit and onto his back. That buzzing in his bones intensified, the ringing in his ears going from mild tinnitus to eldritch opera.
“How many lines will you cross today, Punisher?”
He did his damnedest to keep the strain out of his voice, struggling to push himself upright. Wolfwood could withstand a lot more than this from Legato before he broke, but the only reason he could move at all right now? Because Legato was letting him. Still, his rotten heart and worse attitude had him feeling less than grateful about it. The undertaker wrenched his head up to sneer at the man. “Look at you! So eager to get me on my knees. You wanna fuck me so bad it makes you look stupid.”
“Projecting, are we?”
Maybe he was. So sue him, the guy was fuckable. Nah, it was more than that. He was exquisite. Every part of him looked intentionally designed to be captivating, coveted, and his cold regality demanded worship. Sure, Knives was beautiful and terrible like the strike of a lightning bolt four feet from your face, but Legato deserved the title of “angel” more. Something so out of reach that it had to be holy. How could it not be, after the years of receiving the desires of everyone whose eyes alighted upon it, begging, pleading–look my way. Turn those hateful eyes on me.
Wolfwood’s gaze dropped longingly to Legato’s uncovered hand. Hands that so rarely touched anything. They must be so soft. They must be so sensitive. He imagined getting his mouth on them, dragging his lips over his palm, the nooks between his fingers. He imagined sucking each finger, one-by-one, letting it press into his tongue like communion until the angel deigned this pleasing enough to let him pay service to the rest of his body.
A sudden intake of breath above him pulled his attention back to the man’s face. Legato’s eyes were heavy-lidded, hazy, mouth parted just so. The hungriest parts of Wolfwood latched onto that look. Was he in his head? Was he seeing what Wolfwood wanted to do to him? He gave him more. Flashes of him laying a chaste little kiss on every inch of his creamy skin. Were his nipples rosy or dusky in color, would they harden under the tip of his tongue, would his spine arc upward for more? Legato’s lashes fluttered, chin tilting up almost imperceptibly to expose his throat.
In his mind, Wolfwood laid claim to it.
His mouth watered. It consumed him like flame to parchment, the thought of what he must look like in divine repose, all his sharp edges softened by pleasure. What did his voice sound like when that tight rein of control was released? Would he stubbornly keep his moans locked behind clenched teeth, or was he loud, would he scream his name when Wolfwood spread his ass open and rammed his dripping cock inside–
Unbearable pain, core-of-the-planet pressure. In the same moment that his bones screamed for mercy, so did the rest of him.
Whoops. Legato wasn’t the pillow princess he expected, huh? “Sorry! Heh… Really thought you’d like that one…!”
“Behave yourself.”
“Why don’t you make me, then?”
Legato stepped a little closer, the quiet grace of his movements belying the brutal force weighing Wolfwood down. His head tilted, such a controlled, measured movement. One side. Then the other. Like the undertaker was a fly caught in his web and his struggle was creating the most delightful thrum throughout the gossamer strands. Was there a ghost of a smile on his lips, or was Wolfwood just delirious from counting which ribs were about to snap? “It’s been quite some time since I’ve had to subdue you like this. One might even think you’ve finally been domesticated, Punisher.”
This time, he couldn’t hold back his bitter fury. He wasn’t fucking playing nice, he was surviving. “Y’think I’d let ya get away with this shit if ya weren’t holdin’ my leash!? You sons of bitches make one wrong move and I’m ripping your throats out with my bare hands!”
“I don’t hold that leash. You do.” No. Not this again. Wolfwood had heard it all before, but Legato was already starting in on his sermon. “Release those attachments that tether you to this mortal realm. The unclean. The unworthy. Bring me their heads, and I will baptize you in their blood. Then you can finally have what you really want.”
“The fuck would you know what I want!?”
“Do you think I can’t hear it? The beast howling inside of you?” Wolfwood heard it. Wolfwood felt it every minute of every day. That rage inside him stoking red-hot coals under his heart. One of these days, it would char it black. At that point he might really be too far gone, and this prick knew it. Legato’s jaw inclined, one lifeless yellow eye looking down at him from on high. “I want to help you see the Light, Punisher. If you continue down this path of heresy, you’ll be expunged from this world with the rest of the sinners.”
“But not you! Right!?” It was no simple thing to force himself upright from under the ten-ton yoke around his shoulders, but he managed. Legato doubled down, down, until he ripped a strangled shout out of the undertaker. Sweat drenched him. The buzz under his skin seizing his muscles, an ultrasonic tone he could just barely hear over the desperate drum of his own pulse. “You think he’s gonna keep you around so you can play house with y’all’s freaky test tube baby!?”
That predator eye twitched. His jaw bulged, fury just behind the door of that pristine fortress. But his control over his anger was more advanced than Wolfwood’s. For now. “Baseless provocation. Emotions are–”
“Useless?”
Legato had the gall to look surprised. Did he really not know how often he threw around that old chestnut?
“Bluesummers,” he cooed, “so good at fooling yourself that anger and pride aren’t emotions.” Wolfwood couldn’t hold back the wicked grin that stretched over his face. Like breaking your teeth on hard candy–the shards would cut, but it was gonna taste so sweet after. “You get that from Knives.”
The floor became the ceiling.
He crashed upward, colliding into what could very well be more marble, but he wasn’t in the mood to investigate beyond the moment the back of his skull whacked against it. No sooner had he gotten his bearings than the pressure released and sent him plummeting to the floor. He gagged on blood, spit a spray of red across glistening tile. Something definitely broke. If he was honest, he preferred bullets.
“That’s more like it–”
Invisible hands slammed him into the wall so hard the marble shattered under him. Whatever wasn’t broken before must be in pieces now. As graceful as a dog taking a shit, he collapsed to the floor once more. It was always annoying to make your limbs move where you wanted them when they were bent funny, but he’d had lots of practice. Under Legato’s vitriolic stare, his hands and shoulders shaking with what was left of his restraint, Wolfwood sucked down meds and laughed his ass off as bones reset and wounds healed.
Use me. He looked him right in the eye. A challenge. Chew me up and spit me out.
Something dark and venomous settled over his face. “Try saying what you want instead of wasting my time.”
His crass laughter became a choked shout as he was forced to his knees, both arms wrenched behind his back so hard that his joints begged for forgiveness, held under pressure right at the point of snapping. Legato was stalking towards him now, as fearsome and resplendent as the Angels in the reliefs behind him, and–to Wolfwood’s great victory–he was undoing the button on those crisp white slacks.
Finally.
Not made of stone at all, are you?
Even under his indomitable will, Wolfwood couldn’t help grinning when the priest grabbed him roughly by the jaw and hauled him across the floor with strength he didn’t know the guy had.
Except… he didn’t go any further than that.
Legato’s control of his muscles hadn’t relented, the grip of his hand on his chin was fierce, his cock half-hard behind soft black smallclothes, and yet, he didn’t cram it down his throat. Weird. Why stop now when he was trussed up all pretty for the taking? He tilted his head, craning to look up at the other man, find some kind of answer on his face. What he wasn’t expecting to see in his golden eyes was fear.
He had never seen fear on this man’s face. Even Knives couldn’t instill fear in Legato–fear could only grow from the absence of trust, and he trusted his Angel completely. In fact, even if the next thing Knives did in his crusade was slice’n’dice Legato to pieces, Wolfwood believed the guy’s last thought would simply be gratitude for the brief focus of his attention.
So what the fuck was this?
Wolfwood was an idiot, yeah, but he did still have one braincell knocking around his skull. His eyes swept coolly over Legato’s frame, every muscle coiled up and ready to bolt. He thought of how, despite looking like that, it was all but forbidden to speak of his body, of the surreal shade of his hair, of his perfect face. How he covered up nearly every inch of skin. His need for total control and awareness, to the point that he never slept. Even Knives touched him only sparsely, as though he knew it would lose its welcome if he granted it too often. And now here he was, right in front of him, nearly catatonic at merely the thought of giving Wolfwood what he’d been gagging for.
It wasn’t the undertaker that scared him. Nah, Legato could tear him apart with the bat of an eye. It was something else. Something more like, he couldn’t stop thinking about what it was like to be on the other end of a facefuck.
He pushed the guy too far.
The fire of his self-destructive rage dimmed. Smothered. Inwardly, he sighed… but, goddammit, if there was one thing Wolfwood loved, it was a kicked-puppy kind of man.
The strong line of his nose nestled against the bulge in Legato’s briefs, gentler than moonlight touched a dune. A slow inhale, breathing him in; he smelled expensive. Frankincense and myrrh. Exhale, now: the heat of his breath warming his skin through the fabric in preamble. His lips parted and traced the shape of him before dipping lower, ghosting over his sac. Legato trembled again, but it wasn’t fear this time. The hand on his jaw eased its grip and Wolfwood looked up to see the priest looking down at him with a confused, almost adorably disarmed expression. Christ, hadn’t anybody ever sucked the poor guy’s dick before? Well. He’d better make a good first impression.
That hand came to rest hesitantly on the top of his head as he let his tongue play over his length in little laps. Sucking, kissing, until the cotton was wet with his spit and Legato’s precum. His hands were still locked behind him, so he used his teeth to grab the waistband and drag it down until his prize was bared. It snapped under his balls and the priest startled, the persistent hum in his body heightening to a fever pitch.
“Easy, now,” he rumbled, letting the words dance over his flushed skin. He pressed soothing little kisses on the tender flesh in apology until Legato’s held breath hissed out through his teeth and the tension left his thighs. “I got you.”
Fucking hell, even his dick was angelic. His lips worked along the underside of the shaft until he reached the pretty pink head, dragging his tongue over it in lazy circles. Gaze drifting upward, he watched his face as he wrapped his lips around it. Legato’s eyes slipped closed, lips parting in a silent ‘o’. When he sucked, that ice didn’t crack, it melted. Color painted his flawless face and brought it to life. His head bobbed shallowly over him, slow and languid, until Legato’s hastening breaths hitched an octave higher, dangerously close to keening.
Finally, he pulled off and rested the side of his head against the priest’s hips, dark eyes holding nothing but invitation.
“Gonna take what you want or not…?”
Legato’s eyes fluttered open, fixing onto Wolfwood’s in perplexity. He caught on fast. His features hardened back into the icy mask of his inviolability, but not before the undertaker saw a flicker of gratitude and relief there. Taking the gift of control without hesitation and clinging to it, never to let it go again. “I haven’t got all day,” he purred, the gentle hold of his hand now tangling into a fistful of Wolfwood’s dark hair.
With a knowing grin, his lips fell open and welcomed the velvet weight of him back onto his tongue. Oh, he wasn’t so shy anymore, the guy was making up for lost time. His first movements were like testing the surface tension of water, cautious, even clumsy. But that one firm thrust when his balls slapped against Wolfwood’s chin was one drop too many; his cup runneth over. A haggard breath tore out of Legato’s disciplined lips and that was the only warning the undertaker got before he was pounding ruthlessly into the back of his throat. The sounds of this golden boy’s control unraveling were intoxicating. Who else but Wolfwood had ever heard him like this? Who else but Wolfwood had the good looks and the smartass mouth to make a guy so angry he just had to fuck him?
That’s it, sugar. You wanna nut in my whore mouth?
That earned him a groan, sweetest sound he’d ever heard the bastard make. Still reading his thoughts, huh? The sole of the priest’s immaculate white boot found where his dick strained against his slacks and ground down on it hard. Wolfwood gagged on his length, recovered, encouraged him with a groan of his own and hoped the guy felt it all the way up his spine. His knees opened wider for the leverage to jerk his hips upward into the cruel pressure. That–unhh–that bite of pain stoked the fire in him twice as high. Spittle dribbled down over his chin as Legato dragged his head down flush with a nest of blue hair, probably wanted him to choke on it, the sick fuck.
He let Legato have a preview of what else was waiting for him, Wolfwood bent over a perfectly made up bed, ruining those never-used sheets with beads of slick dripping from his heavy cock while he let the priest absolutely rail him into oblivion. Let him use his hole as vigorously as he used his mouth, the both of them chasing yet another orgasm until they had nothing left to give..
You wanna fuck this ass like you own it?
The thing that he didn’t imagine in this scene was Legato’s hand snapping closed around his bicep, hauling him upright–
“F-Fuck, oh, Christ!” Suddenly, here was there, the future was the past, time and space and possibility stretched infinitely. Molten heat pumping through his veins and pooling between his hips. He was so full–too full–not full enough. His appetite fed, but never satisfied. Every mutant cell in his body needing it again, more and more, so fucking hungry he was sick with it. Wolfwood found himself on his back with his feet in the air, toes curling in total euphoria. He was covered in sweat, in seed. His? Legato’s?
Legato.
The priest was bent over him, hands under his knees, folding him in half like he was nothing. A curtain of blue hid his eyes, swaying with the force of his thrusts. The vicious-sharp grin on his lips was the curve of Death’s own scythe, and he was inside him. He was powerfully, relentlessly inside him as the heft of his own cock slapped out a goddamn SOS against his stomach to the rhythm. Exactly as rough as he liked it. Exactly the perfect angle for that brutal drag against the very core of him. Stars burst white-hot behind his eyes and it was all he could do just to breathe.
“Please!” It took Wolfwood too long to realize that the desperate begging and the eager, pleading little whimpers that resounded through the room were coming from himself. His voice rasped out, throat hoarse from use and misuse, “One more, please one more!”
Where had his pride gone?
Did he care?
Beyond Legato, a mirror was fixed on the ceiling. Wolfwood saw himself. Naked, hair plastered to his face and matted in the back from his writhing. Something glinted in the light, transfixed his gaze: a collar. He was wearing a collar. A silver coin engraved with the Eye of Michael’s sigil bounced on his sternum, keeping time with the pace of his thoughts getting fucked right out of his body, and that’s when he understood that he had always been here, in this bed, and always would be. That his purpose was to serve at the pleasure of his master and be speared on this cock until he came two, two dozen, two thousand more times.
“Please, pleasepleaseplease!”
“I see.”
That voice. Wolfwood’s head wrenched to the side, eyes blown wide open. Beside the bed, clothes pressed and pristine as always, Legato stood. How could–no. Two of them!? Alarm spiked through his addled mind tas he tried to reconcile the sight, but all he could think was that he hoped to god this new arrival was about to fill his lonely mouth with his dick. Instead, the priest neatly folded his hands behind his back, gazing down on his prey with cold amusement. He leaned over Wolfwood, not a hint of emotion, not a bead of sweat, and murmured against the shell of his ear:
“So this is all it takes to make you behave.”
His hands gripped the sheets and the sheets gripped back, the sheets were hands, too, a thousand gloved hands were his mattress. They tugged and pulled him further down into their embrace. Grabbing his hips. Pulling his hair. Fingers forcing his jaw open and pressing into his mouth and squeezing his tits and–yes, finally, yes–wrapping around his aching, weeping cock, working him over until his spine arched and he screamed, cried out to a god he didn’t believe in..
PLEASE
The return to reality was so abrupt, so cruel, it nearly broke his fool brain in half. Wolfwood found himself doubling over, coughing up semen and spit. He was quaking like a fucking grand worm slithered under his skin. Gone was the heat of flesh and the embrace of hands, replaced by the sharp pain of hands and knees spent too long in prostration. His clothes were soaked with sweat and rapidly cooling to a level of prickling discomfort, and that’s not even mentioning the stupidly large wet patch on the front of his slacks. Like waking up from a wet dream. Everything was sticky. Legato’s cum had dried on his face along with the trails of his own tears of cockdrunk ecstasy.
Words failed him. He could only swallow air to revive his burning lungs.
He wanted to go back; shame erupted along his spine at the thought, but Christ, let him go back.
And Legato, wiping his spent cock off on his blazer before tucking it back into his clothes, had the balls to say, “Good boy.”
“Y-You…!” he croaked. Those words. That collar. Domestication. His hackles raised, but the noise in the back of his throat landed on something less than dignified.
What.
The fuck.
Was that!?
The blue son of a bitch had gotten him twisted up and wrung him dry without laying so much as a finger on him. How many times had Legato gotten him off, or himself off? How long had he been in there? Minutes? Hours? The image of himself stuck on his knees in a trance with his mouth hanging open for cock flashed across his mind. A sudden paranoia squeezed his heart in its ruthlessly cold grip. Was he still trapped inside his head and only thought he was free?
He fought the weight of his fatigue to pry his chin up defiantly, only to find Legato looking down at him, so serenely buttoning his trousers back up, admiring his handiwork. There was a little twitch at the corner of his pale-moon lips that unfolded before his eyes into a sharp grin of smug satisfaction. Fuck. Humiliation seared him from the inside, white-hot. Did he really look so fucking broken!?
Wolfwood bared his teeth, tried for a snarl, but all that left him was a helpless, needy whine. Pathetic.
“You’re nothing more than an animal…” came his voice, measured and composed. Almost musical. He hated that the other man was so put-together, so unaffected, while Wolfwood trembled at his feet, slackjawed in his stupor. He wanted to bite his beautiful face off. “...but we have use for animals here. Don’t we?”
Legato caressed the line of his jaw. Wolfwood’s brows scrunched up in confusion. No. Did he? His hand didn’t move, but Woflwood swore he could feel the ghost of pressure there on his cheek. He stepped back from the undertaker and turned, briskly walking away and leaving him in the chapel to be battered by the storm of his own thoughts. With every step stretching the distance between them, the hum of his control slowly faded until he was alone in his own skin again.
He felt strangely empty without it.
“Rest well,” the way Legato’s voice laved over his mind made him shiver, “dear Punisher.”