LOG: BEAKER VILLA MEDIC BAY, HARTFORD, LATE SEPTEMBER
Basil doesn’t actually lose more than a scant inch of tissue in his impromptu re-amputation. The Hastings medic that Commander Bane gets to treat him transparently thinks he’s an idiot, but he’s also very used to cleaning up messy wounds and infected stumps, and he does a careful, competent job of unbolting all the connectors and debriding anything that got too nasty.
Basil watches it happen from a strange, grim, quiet place he’s occupying more and more these days. He has to be awake to talk the medic through the bioprosthetic parts of the job, so he lets the man shoot him with a nerve block and watches his arm come apart one piece at a time. It goes into a glass jar full of fungicide, and fizzles into curls of useless, nonfunctional trash.
The most high-tech, most articulated prosthesis Basil can get, even in a fairly advanced landside city, even with Madam Beaker’s high-class patronage, is still a basic, clumsy thing compared to the arm he’s used to. It's sturdy, sealed airtight, with no delicate plates where mold could get in; matte black metal alloy, with rugged polymer padding at the knuckles and fingertips. It comes out of the box just dexterous enough to hold a pen and type slowly but coherently, with barely any sensory input, but it’s made to stand up to the dirt and the strain of landside, and there's access for self-modification, so. Basil's just going to have to put some extra work in. Customize.
Even if he couldn't, this is what he has to do, so. He’s going to do it.
All he can think, as he watches it go on, is that he wouldn’t have to if he’d just been smarter in the first place. If he’d made sure to take time for himself like Mitch, if he'd been careful and methodical like Rich. Mitch keeps his own body tuned up so he can take care of everyone around him, and Rich takes things step by step instead of rushing in: he checks his work, checks the manuals, and doesn’t assume he already has all the answers. Rich would never have ignored maintenance time for a delicate piece of biotechnology, and Mitch would never have forgotten.
Basil has always been careless and slapdash in comparison. He throws himself into a project and skims over unimportant details and expects to be able to figure it all out on the way, and the thing is it always works, because that's just how life goes for a smart kid.
Until it doesn’t. Until he's stupid. And then he loses a hand to a machine he didn't check was turned off first, or finds himself alone and scared in Connecticut territory, losing pieces of himself again and hurting as badly as the first time.
“I have to do better than this,” he tells Lee with hazy certainty, right after the surgery when the Hastings-sized dose of relaxants is wearing off. “I have to. I can’t just let the details coast anymore because I’m focusing on the big picture, I have to—be an adult. Take care of things, the details and the, the other stuff.”
“Well, maybe,” Lee says uncomfortably. “But like. I’m also an adult. I could help? I know you weren’t expecting help with your arm, before, but I didn’t even know you needed it. I didn’t know it could be a problem like that. And I should’ve known,” they go on right over Basil trying to dismiss this, “I should’ve figured that much or at least asked. We’re partners, out here, we ought to have each others’ backs. I didn’t… do great at that, I’ve never been a team player, no one's ever kept up with me before. But I’ve never really given a fuck, either. So. If you're gonna be some hot-shot perfect adult out here that takes care of everything that needs caring about, then. Me fuckin’ too.”
Basil’s mouth opens and stays that way, and then he closes it and swallows. His arm hurts and he feels stupid and vaguely sick and touched and overwhelmed, and his eyes are stinging. He blinks and focuses hard until it goes away.
“Okay,” he says, and if his voice is hoarse Lee doesn’t say a word. “Cool.”
“The work goes faster when we help each other out,” Lee says, quoting Brenda Beaver from Family Fleet in what's probably supposed to be a squeaky voice, only it comes out in a sort of flat deep honk instead, and Basil’s helpless fit of laughter helps shake loose the aching tightness of his chest. Rich can never manage a squeak, either, the best he can do is a sad trombone.
"I'm so glad you're here too," Basil says, and Lee goes pink and awkward and pleased, and holds his organic hand like it's a mission.
–
Scene 26: Banquet hall.
The largest dining room is lit with low golden lights that give Carraway’s early guests masks of hazy shadow. Rafael pauses at a side-entrance to take in the lay of the land; across the room there's a fine-boned young man in cuffs and a collar playing soft, skillful piano music—Omar, if Rafael is remembering his briefing from Connor correctly. Over by the passage to the mansion's foyer, there's a vaguely familiar figure that must be Domingo, with an old man's hand on the small of his back and an expression of muted distaste.
Sol's distaste is anything but muted; he's far enough away for most of his words to be lost in the low murmur of conversation, but he seems to have found a gathering of men near a window smoking long pipes and expensive-looking cigars, and by the ferocity of his gestures he has opinions of blistering condescension about both. The men who he's attempting to lecture look considerably relaxed by whatever they're partaking in, and are laughing and spurring along his ire with every sign of enjoyment.
Rich falters at the sight of the crowd—and, Rafael must assume, at the sight of Carraway’s looming form, moving from visitor to visitor, slapping backs and shaking hands and bending down to make murmured conversation. Rich’s hand rises, as it so often has over the last few days, to glance an anxious touch over the fresh, dark imprint of Carraway’s fangs, and the whole strong tower of his body shudders as though struck by an earthquake.
“No fear, brave heart,” Rafael says, and squeezes his elbow. Rich swallows hard, and then takes a gusty, bracing breath and straightens up, giving a tight, painful nod.
“If every single guy at these parties went over the rail, everybody’d be better off,” he says, and Rafael has to laugh a little.
“From your lips to the ears of whatever power might care to listen. You’ve little to fear from them, though—the men who Carraway brings to his fold aren’t inclined to bother with those of your… stature.”
"Yeah, no," Rich says, and his expression darkens thunderously, a warring combination of grief and rage and a starkly-remembered humiliation. "They just, they fuckin', haul me around on a leash like some kinda freak show monster, make me fuck Liam like it's—" He tenses abruptly, eyes round in sudden panic. "And, you're here insteada Liam, Raf, fuck, Carraway asked who I wanted instead, I didn't think—it'd hurt you, I'd hurt you, if they made me—If I hadta—"
"Rich," Rafael says, before the man can work himself to growling, tears, or both. "Rich, shh. They had you—?" Damnation, they haven't the time. Rafael made assumptions, that Rich would be above these men's interests, a curiosity and nothing more—assumptions he should have checked, and didn't, and he will simply have to change his blocking accordingly. Hell's bells.
"Alright," Rafael says quietly. "We've more work to do than I thought."
"Work?" Rich repeats, bewildered, and gives a painfully bleak laugh. "Man, what work?"
"My work," Rafael says, and swallows his frantic heart, wearing certainty and courage like a golden mask. "You've taught me your screens and your data and your rings and so forth; it's time I returned the favor. There's no respect in the role they've written for you, so we will seize you a new one. You've color and size on your side..."
"What, like, acting?" Rich gives a telling grimace. "Raf, I'm not, uh."
"You needn't tell any lies," Rafael says quickly. "Only grant them all the respect they've done nothing to earn and ask for some small portion in return. I will supply such confabulations as either of us may require." He grips one of Rich's broad hands, and brings it up to kiss the raw knuckles. "I've no intention of letting these venal old fools make you hurt me. Do you believe me?"
"…Okay," Rich says. He takes a deliberate breath, eyes searching desperately across Rafael's face. "Okay, I. Yeah. I do."
The self that Rafael must take on to survive these parties is intimately familiar and innately flexible; still, this time in the mutable act there’s a shining new core of diamond certainty. Whoever he becomes, and whatever he must do, Rafael will protect this boy from whatever—and whoever—he can. As he knows Rich will in turn, stepping stubbornly to the fore with his clumsy tongue and pleading eyes, despite any reassurance Rafael might give him.
“Stay with me and follow my lead,” Rafael reminds him, and his voice emerges smooth and measured, confident and light. “We’ll get through this in good order.”
Rich sets his jaw, and his enormous shoulders straighten with determination. “Okay. I can do that.” He manages a wan shade of a smile. “You’re the star.”
“And the show must go on,” Rafael agrees, and leads the way forward into the dining room as a man delighted to court the attentions of the rich and powerful; ready to flirt and be seen, to be decorative, complimentary, a living accessory, a status object. A beautiful mask on a puppet body, biddable and lovely.
He doesn’t recognize many of the men who have arrived yet—so much can change in only a few years, and Carraway’s inner sanctum has shifted notably from what he remembers of it— but he heads toward a face he recognizes with a confident stroll, feeling Rich trail silently and uncertainly along behind him.
“Mr Fisher, how wonderful to see you again,” Rafael says, and places a hand delicately on the man’s arm, wearing a sweet and guileless smile. “A pleasure to have you this afternoon—you seem well.”
It’s a lie—Fisher’s face shows the particular strain of many of Carraway’s ‘friends,’ the marks of stress and paranoia only thinly hidden by a veneer of ease and luxury. In the two years since Rafael saw him last, he seems to have aged by ten, his pale skin gone nearly grey and his hairline in full retreat. But he seems pleased by the compliment regardless, puffing himself up under Rafael’s attention.
“Oh, it’s you—I thought Arthur handed you off ages ago,” is the first thing he says. Rafael lets the sting roll through him without touching his smile. Fisher adds, with a sneering nod towards Rich, “You rate a bodyguard now, boy?”
Rafael laughs dutifully. “Nothing so martial,” he says. “Rich is Mr Carraway’s new secretary, you know, and I’ve been detailed to make sure he fits in around here. You know how Mr Carraway likes things to go smoothly! I seem to recall you operate a number of distilleries in the Breckinridge territory—this year’s found you well, hasn’t it?”
Fisher blinks, visibly reassessing Rich and Rafael’s presence here at the party, and Rafael doesn’t let himself look around to see who’s listening in, barely breathing, smile warm and steady and fearless. He doesn’t blink.
“Yes, very well,” Fisher says after a moment. “Arthur’s men have been doing a damn fine job at keeping our distribution lines secure.” He glances to Rich again, this time assessing. “Suppose a big fella like you would know about logistics, eh?”
“Oh, well, uh,” Rich says, and then quite clearly recalls Rafael's instruction and straightens his spine to some approximation of attention. “Sir, yes, sir.”
“He’s still not used to fine company,” Rafael says confidingly. “We’re working on his manners.”
“Things just aren’t as fancy where I’m from,” Rich says in bashful apology. “Sorry. I don’t mean to be rude or anything, sir. I remember Fisher Distilleries, though, we were just working through the invoices for you this Tuesday. You’re opening up that new manufactory, right? To do your own glassware. I wanted to ask, actually, if you'd considered partnering with a city recycling program. You'd get your stock silicates delivered for free if you found the right partnership, I think. Lotta broken glass in cities.”
Rafael doesn’t remember any such thing, but it’s no surprise that Rich does, and Fisher seems delighted by it.
Rafael looks as admiring as possible through a droning explanation of profit margins and overheads and municipal politics. Rich listens and nods, green eyes sharply focused, then proceeds to take notes on a datascreen, which has Fisher so puffed up with self-importance it’s a wonder he doesn’t pop.
“Fisher, there you are, man! What are you doing with Arthur’s dancing bear? I didn’t hear we were having him perform this early.”
The interruption comes from a man Rafael doesn’t recognize, but Rich clearly does: he tenses and draws back, all his attentive ease turned to the frozen knife-edge of fight and flight. Fisher glances over, annoyed at the challenge.
“Discussing economics, Grant,” he says frostily. “Not that I’d expect you to—”
“Economics? With this creature?” Grant scoffs. “My god, you’ve been out of the loop. Arthur just has him around for the novelty. He’s got a cock like an elephant’s, it’s quite a show when he’s set on the regular boys.”
Rich is going slowly red, shrinking in place as much as a boy his size can. Fisher glances up at him doubtfully, then to Rafael, considering whether or not he’s been played for a fool.
Rafael says, arch and unconcerned, as if Grant was simply misinformed, "Oh, didn’t you hear, sir? Rich was acquired by Mr Carraway to take care of whatever Mr Carraway asks of him. His boys, yes, but also his paperwork, and his honorable reputation!” He gives Rich a look, a pitch-perfect shy awe, lingering to shade into heated desire before pulling away abruptly as though remembering himself. “I certainly haven’t minded how he’s performed so far. Have you, sir? You simply must let Mr Carraway know if so, I’m sure he would be interested to hear your considered critique.”
Rich puts in, his deep voice roughened to just short of that deadly Hastings growl: “I think everyone here would do a lot to keep Mr Carraway happy.”
Fisher chortles, and reaches out to pat Rich’s elbow familiarly. “Damn right, boy! Grant, put a cork in it. Arthur hasn’t gotten this far by being stupid—if he’s taken this smart young man on, I’m sure it’s all for the best.”
Grant scowls, eyeing Rich dubiously. “For paperwork? A secretary should be a cute little thing you can pull onto your lap, not some cross-bred hulk of a Hastings.”
“But Arthur’s lap is bigger than yours, now, isn’t it?” Fisher smirks.
Grant rolls his eyes. “Enjoy your little chat,” he says, and stalks away again. By Rafael's side, Rich breathes out, soft and trembling, and shoots Rafael a disbelieving smile.
“Grunwald, come over here and meet Arthur’s new secretary!” Fisher calls, and a bony old man saunters over to join them.
A lot of things have changed while Rafael was out of favor—a lot of things have stayed the same. The faces and names are different, in many cases; younger brothers and sons of Carraway’s older friends, or new players entirely in the complex political web the man has woven for himself. But they’re all just as venal, as self-important, as cruel and sadistic, as eager to strut and boast and preen and tear into one another. As proudly entitled to the admiration of a pretty, powerless young man in tight pants and an open shirt, flattered in equal and alternating measure by Rafael’s flirtation and by Rich’s sincere, earnest attention now that he has a chance to give voice to it. Rich takes notes, makes connections, asks careful questions that show he’s actually listening to them—unlike the obsequious mask of a boytoy at his side.
The circle of men preening and posing and holding forth at tedious length and volume ebbs and flows, and Rafael smiles and nods and flatters and fawns and directs their petty egos with a returning, familiar ease. Placidly he leans into every glancing touch against his waist or the small of his back or the nape of his neck, conducting himself like a spoiled cat ready for attention. None of the men try anything worse—not yet, not before dinner. The evening has barely begun, after all, the liquor and drugs have barely had a chance to circulate, the illusion of propriety is still in place.
Difficult though the re-acclimation might be, the act itself is rendered almost unnervingly simpler tonight. As hateful and degrading as Rafael remembers, certainly, but… there's an ease, an interplay. The raw material of Rich's intelligence and clumsy charisma shaped by Rafael's hand into a character who these jaundiced old fools will allow into their circles. For Rich's questions and notes to flatter, they must allow that Rich matters, even as a far lesser man in the company of betters. And if he is a pale shade of an equal to them, it would be the height of rudeness to interrupt his wide-eyed respect with a grope or sneer, or to make allusions to whatever torments he was forced to on nights gone by.
Beneath Rich's watchful eye and enormous doting arm, Carraway's guests let Rafael speak; allowed room to speak, he uproots Rich's old role with a delicate and merciless hand. Gasping and wincing in scandal at crude assumptions, snickering or scoffing behind a hand to defang attempted mockery. When bolder men attempt to remind their fellows of the artifice, to see a bridled and slavering beast, Rafael presents instead an extension of Caraway's hand, a powerful young man set to pleasure the man's pretty toys for him with skill and impressive…might. And it is no question at all which version of the character the old bastards would rather have spent their time strutting and preening and lecturing to.
By the time Carraway makes his inevitable appearance, Rafael is hanging on Rich's arm in a circle of city officials, perfectly impersonating a man breathlessly attracted to power, even when it comes in the form of bitter white men old enough to be his grandfather. Rafael’s only warning is the soft noise Rich makes, the smallest bitten-off sound of shock before a clawed hand settles on the back of Rafael’s neck, turning him in place like a marionette.
“Well, now, you cleaned up nice, didn’t you, sugar?” says Carraway.
Rafael gives a smiling bow when he's released, hands flourishing an invitation to look even further, and Carraway chuckles absently, already looking past him.
A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.
“As for you, treasure… made a few wardrobe adjustments, didn’t you?”
“Yessir, sorry, sir,” says Rich, shrinking back. Pink-faced and bashful, he admits, “I couldn’t just come out in just the gold sash, sir, I’d feel—you told us to look appropriate, sir, and it didn’t cover… anything. I didn’t want to be, you know, too forward? To your important guests.”
For a moment, Rafael's heart stills in his chest; if Carraway intends to force the issue, to make a show of Rich's humiliation despite all Rafael's scene-setting to the contrary, there will be very little to turn him aside. But Carraway only laughs again, a king secure in his court, and it’s echoed by the gathered company. There are gilded claws on both his hands when he grandly and indulgently waves Rich's worry away, but the vicious, bloodthirsty tension of eariler in the day seems to have dissipated.
“You’re fine, sweet thing, you still look a treat,” Carraway pronounces graciously. "Your little shadow's doing you a world of good, seems like."
He looks down at Rafael, and the benevolent approval creases the corners of his eyes and warms his smile and Rafael's soul quails and founders within him, even as his body stays obediently still and sweetly smiling. That warmth, that brief spark of considering interest—If Rich’s attentive care was like water to a parched desert, the hunger in those golden eyes is the first hit of a relapse, something desperate and wracked with wanting, clawing and crying for more. When Rafael tears his eyes away, he doesn’t even know if he manages a mask of retiring shyness, but he can’t meet that smiling look anymore. He can’t.
“Why, I could almost think you were enjoying yourself, treasure,” Carraway is saying over his head, and the attention is gone from him again. Rafael closes his eyes for the briefest moment, breathing. There is a man who is desperate to the pit of his soul as he feels Carraway’s eyes turn from him. But Rafael is not, cannot be that man. Not now.
“Oh, yes, sir, I really am,” says Rich, and Rafael jumps as the huge body standing by him shifts closer and rough knuckles brush against one of his arms, catching delicately to tug at one of his sleeves. Rich catches his eyes with a passing glance and the hand on his arm twitches— “It’s okay,” signed as subtly as Rafael could have hoped, barely the flick of a few fingers. Then Rich is going on as if he never paused, all earnest and bumbling assurance. “Raf’s been great, sir, he’s helped me with so many introductions, I’m really, I mean, I’m actually—I’m having a good time, sir, thank you.”
Rafael’s tired hatred of Carraway clashes in the most ugly way with his fierce, shy pride. He raises his eyes to give Rich a smile that’s entirely too genuine for the part he’s playing. Rich smiles back down at him, fondness writ large across his face, and Rafael has to drop his gaze from that look as well, hiding behind a meek and smiling mask as the sunlit glow of honest regard and affection turns Carraway's poison counterfeit to the pale shade it always was.
He’s aware, heart-sickeningly aware, that Carraway is watching them; unlike many weaknesses that Rafael has contrived to show for the man, that moment of tenderness, of vulnerability, was all too real. But he wouldn’t have Rich stop looking at him like that, either, not for the world.
“Introductions, hm?” Carraway gives Rafael a thoughtful look. “And what’ve you all been up to with my guests? I hope my sweet boys haven’t been stepping out of line with you gentlemen,” he says, raising a smiling eyebrow at the circle of men, and there’s a heartening round of demurrals.
“Goodness, no, Arthur,” one portly older man says, chuckling, and waves a hand at Rich. “Why, your secretary’s just been going into the minutia of production with us, asking excellent questions! He’s certainly got a better head for numbers than your usual decorations.” He reaches out to chuck Rafael under the chin, and Rafael ducks his head self-effacingly and smiles back.
“I should’ve known,” Carraway says, casting a long-suffering look at the ceiling. “Here he is at a nice dinner party and instead of relaxing and enjoying himself, the boy’s putting in overtime!”
“I do enjoy it, though, sir,” Rich protests cautiously in the midst of the amusement. “I’m learning a lot!” One of the men nearby claps him on the back.
“There’s no harm in a boy this keen to make something of himself!” he says. “You’ve got a damn good thing going for you with this one, Arthur.”
“Wish my assistant was this attentive,” says someone else. “I can’t ax the spoiled little brat because she’s my newest wife’s niece but if she doesn’t have one eye on the clock all day, it’s because she’s got both eyes on the damn thing. Half the damn time I give her something to file and she sighs at me! When I was her age and all the cities were bleeding out I would have killed to get to a position half as advantageous, but try telling kids these days to be grateful and they look like you just pissed yourself.”
“You can’t just expect young things to be grateful for anything,” Carraway says. “They’re too young to have the proper experience to appreciate what they have. It’s on us to teach them.” He reaches out and drags the backs of his claws up Rafael’s neck again. “You learned, didn’t you?”
“Yes, sir,” Rafael says, through a dizzying swell of rage. He arches into the touch, looks up at Carraway through his eyelashes. “I assure you, sir, I don’t take for granted anything you’ve done for me.”
“Good boy,” Carraway says, and pats his head. “You see, gentlemen, it really just takes a firm hand and a bit of patience—that old carrot and stick routine, but you really can’t forget the carrot. Why, even Rich here kicked and fussed a bit when he was settling in, you know, testing the boundaries, but with the right discipline he’s shaped up to be an absolute treasure.”
“Thanks, sir,” Rich says quietly. His eyes are fixed on Carraway’s claws where they toy absently with Rafael’s collar over his many dark bite-scars. When Rich adds, “Glad you think so,” there's the slightest burr on the words, like a growl not quite given voice.
“Of course, sugar. Now, gentlemen, I’ve got to keep making the rounds, but I’m glad to hear everyone’s getting on so well. I’ll just leave you to it.”
With another benevolent smile for the guests and a wave of his gleaming claws, Carraway takes his leave. Rafael watches him go through a smiling mask, pressing down the seething hatred, tempering it, numbing it as best he can—when a big hand cups the small of his back, it takes him a second to realize it’s Rich, drawing him gently closer.
“You’re doing great,” Rich tells him softly. “I meant it, you’re amazing, this party’s so much better with you here.”
“I’m very glad,” Rafael murmurs, and leans gratefully against Rich’s side, taking brief, selfish comfort before one of the guests captures Rich’s attention with a question. Rich turns to answer, but his hand stays where it is, solid and protective.
Networking with the sort of men that Carraway prefers to invite is, to Rafael’s mind, rather like walking a tightrope—if the tightrope delighted in shocking your feet at random in an attempt to unbalance you, and there were rabid beasts prowling below it. But there's a familiarity in the strain of holding steady, the satisfaction of perfectly maintaining balance no matter what—and as reward, he can map out the treacherous landscape which he overlooks; which young men speak too boldly, how many of the elderly ones thoughtlessly include Carraway in their own number. Rich asks his questions on financial overheads and manufacturing and takes his notes, while Rafael listens and takes silent notes of his own.
When everyone is finally called to dinner, the conversations shift. Rich kneels silent and thankfully untouched to one side of Carraway’s seat, while Rafael busies himself with Omar, Domingo, and Sol in pouring drinks, cutting patches, and handing around the pipes and pills. Good food and expensive drugs loosen even the most guarded tongues, and the secrets grow less petty, the conversation more intent; there’s a rival lykoi clan courting companies at the borders of the territory for their own security operation, Rafael learns as he flits from seat to seat, balancing drinks and drugs and wandering hands. There’s a new conflict in Chicago, and it’s making trade difficult for miles around. There are alliances here, within the party. There are new faces who aren’t trusted yet, there are old faces growing restless, aware they’re being shunted out of the inner circle to make way for their heirs, or worse: their rivals. The old men may consider Carraway one of them—but he, it seems, is far from ready to count himself part of their number.
Rafael smiles adoringly or shakes his head sympathetically or giggles prettily as he’s required to, takes dainty bites and sips of whatever is forced on him, does his level best not to pick up an unmanageable contact high, and plays his role as though his life depends on it.
Rich tracks the other toys with his face twisted into an un-masked expression of pained resignation. The men are getting bolder now, glutted on decadent food and sinking into the careless hedonism of intoxication. More than laughing touches, or casual manhandling; Omar and Domingo are caught and drawn down for patches and pills until Domingo is finally caught in a man's lap and Omar is giggling and manic, the elegance of his pianist's hands turned frantic.
Sol is the newest of Carraway's toys behind Rich and Liam, and with his lovely face, his dramatic cosmetic mod and his ferocious pride, it's little surprise that the men around him delight in his utter destruction. He's compelled to shotgun some inhalant drug down at the end of the table, passed from one guest’s hungry mouth to the next in thick clouds of purple smoke until he’s hazy-eyed and lop-eared, iridescent hair pulled out of its braid and spangled with powder. The proud, fierce man is still beautiful, this thoroughly undone, and it’s horrifying.
Rafael is… coping, though he’s had to apply enough patches that his fingers are electric-sensitive and every light source in the room is haloed in kaleidoscopic rainbows, and his hot, ready dick’s squeezed distractingly against his thigh by his tight pants. At the very least, Rich still sits untouched, and Rafael has some measure of his wits yet about him. A humble victory, and yet…
“You,” says a voice, and Rafael turns smoothly, already wearing his sweetest smile. The man beckoning him is one of Carraway’s older ‘friends’: a Mr Kurtz, Rafael recalls after a brief, frantic uncertainty, a link in the wide-spread chain that bolsters Carraway’s endless supply of intoxicants. The sight of him brings an uneasy, rolling dread to Rafael’s stomach, although through the chromatic haze he can’t recall why. Not that it matters when the man is waving him over.
“Yes sir?” says Rafael brightly, and steps quickly to his side only to be tugged ungracefully down into the old man’s lap. He smells strongly of bourbon and the inside of one withered arm has a sky blue patch large enough to stretch halfway around his gnarled wrist, a dose that even a man Rafael’s age might have trouble with. Rafael fervently hopes behind his warmly-smiling mask that the withered old monster has a sudden and massive stroke.
“Thought it was you, boy,” Kurtz says, and nudges a bony knuckle under Rafael’s chin, examines his face when he turns it cooperatively one way and the other. “I didn’t know you were still kicking around the place. What’d Arthur always call you? Songbird?”
“He called me his starling, sir,” says Rafael evenly, and at the corner of his eye, Rich frowns uneasily as one of the man’s hands settles on Rafael’s throat, and the other burrows under the open front of his shirt to pinch mercilessly at one of his piercings. “But I’ll, ah! I—I’ll answer to anything that makes you, mm, happy, sir.”
It’s hardly an original line, but for a man both drunk and high at a precarious age, it does the trick. Kurtz gives a graceless guffaw of flattered laughter and works Rafael’s piercing more intently, rolling it between his fingers. Rafael shudders and gives a cooperative moan, tired of this already. Kurtz was a central player of the game at one point, a major piece of Carraway’s operation. Even before Rafael was discarded, though, he was losing influence, decentralizing his operation to a number of other much more important men that Rafael has already been duly groped by.
He also remembers, in short order, why he dreaded the man’s attention. Those withered fingers on his neck caress him like a lover, and then press with deft cruelty at the hollow of his throat, cutting his breath to a wheezing trickle as Kurtz’s other hand teases and torments the piercing he’s gotten hold of. Struggling will only encourage the bastard, Rafael knows, he knows that. But his mind is a bright, throbbing haze and Kurtz doesn’t release the painful pressure until his vision begins to darken at the edges, and Rafael gasps for a breath and then gives a graceless, ragged cough that cracks into a moan as Kurtz rolls and tweaks at one of his nipples with relentless glee.
At the noise, Carraway finally turns to look; Rich is looking too, has been looking, wide-eyed and alarmed, half-risen from where he’s knelt at Carraway’s side. Carraway’s gaze is almost as sharp, but with no hint of care behind it. Only the faint, impatient disapproval of a man watching one of his toys bent to breaking.
“Louis,” he says, warmly chiding. “You know I’m happy to share, but I’d hate to have to remind you whose boy you’re playing so rough with.”
“Just teasing the stupid little thing,” Kurtz says comfortably, and hooks a few fingers through Rafael's collar. Rafael manages to suck in a deep breath before the polymer weave is pulled taut around his throat. He’s aware, through ringing ears, of Kurtz saying, “This one’s got those big, dark eyes, he tears up so pretty… You do know how to pick a boy who takes a licking and makes it look good, Arthur, I wouldn’t mind taking this one off your hands,” and Rich’s wide, panicked eyes, and Carraway—and Carraway—
“Let go!” Rich says, a sudden whipcrack of an anguished growl under his voice, and Kurtz’s hand jerks and loosens its grip. Rafael sags against the man’s bony chest, lightheaded, feeling his heartbeat pound against the inside of his skull like a drum as he struggles to catch his breath.
“Mind your manners, treasure,” Carraway says, sharp in turn. Rich goes still, eyes flickering from the hand on Rafael’s throat to Omar sprawled half-insensate in Carraway’s lap—the golden claws tracing his body, a moment’s motion from fatal injury. Back again to Rafael.
Carraway says, “What’re you offering, Louis?” and Rafael’s heart leaps into his aching throat, leaving only jagged ice in its place. “He always had a pretty way with words, but there’s no more play in him, if you like your boys spirited. And you can hardly hear him, any road…”
“Sir,” Rich says, small and tight, almost panicky. His voice is too low, the men don’t even seem to hear him, and Kurtz’s hand is on Rafael’s thigh, rubbing slowly and possessively over the trapped length of his dick, threading pleasure through the frozen terror until Rafael is sick with it.
“I’d be more than happy to take him off your hands, if you’re bored with him,” says Kurtz. “My last boy was too defiant, I think I’d like something a mite more biddable—and I remember this one’s pretty poems. Although he’s at least as much fun when he can’t manage, I think...” His gnarled hand comes to Rafael’s face, and it takes every inch of Rafael’s quailing spirit not to sink his teeth in all the way to the bone as a palm presses over his mouth and nose.
Kurtz says, “Pretty little cock, too,” and squeezes, and Rafael makes a soft, high noise and tries to twist away from the hand over his face before he can stop himself. He doesn’t want this, he can’t do this, he was just starting to piece himself back together—“I have a few bottles of something stored away, if you’re interested in a trade.”
“Sir, please,” Rich says again, urgently now, and hunches in apology when Carraway raises warning eyebrows at him. “Sorry, but, please, I—I thought you were happy with his, uh. He’s been really helpful in the office, lately, I thought you liked him there with us.”
There’s a complicated ripple in the attention of the men all around them. Rafael’s heart leaps into his throat and pounds there like a drum, first in instinctive alarm and then in wild, desperate hope. There’s a way forward in front of him, a path out—not one he would have thought to dare if Rich hadn’t so clumsily broached it first, but… he would dare a great many things to keep his grip on the shreds of joy he’s gathered here.
Kurtz doesn’t seem to notice the silent, deadly shift in attention; he just laughs crudely and squeezes his handful again, allowing Rafael enough mercy to gasp in a breath and moan. Not as he should, not pretty and perfect. A man mortally wounded, ragged and desperate.
Kurtz takes no notice, just says, “Oh, yes, this pretty little seat-warmer's been playing secretary’s stress toy, hasn’t he? I wouldn’t mind—”
“He’s my assistant,” Rich says, and Carraway actually growls at that, a shockingly reflexive sound.
“No, sweet thing,” Carraway tells him, even as the huge young man cowers down as far as he can. “You’re both mine.”
Rich has done the work to open the way, but it’s increasingly evident he mustn’t be allowed to keep stumbling along it.
“I’d never forget that, sir,” Rafael puts in, his voice high and strained with Kurtz’s hands right where he’s still so damnably sensitive. But he has to think, has to get control. He gasps, as loud and lovely as he can manage, and finishes, “You know I’d never tell—aah!” and he gives a showy, desperate little shudder.
“…Tell?” Kurtz repeats, not so stupid and drunk as to completely miss his cue.
“Nothing,” Rafael gasps, so sweetly. Helplessly. “Nothing, sir. I’m, I just help hhha, help Rich, I, I type, I put in whatever I’m told, sir...”
“I’m sure you do,” Kurtz says, and fondles greedily. “Not a thought in that pretty little head of yours, eh?”
“No, I’d—please, I’m—sir,” Rafael moans, plaintive and very nearly authentically desperate now, and Carraway is watching: when Rafael catches that hard golden gaze, he lets his own eyes widen in abject terror that even the dullest and most drunk of Carraway’s cutthroat allies couldn’t hope to miss.
“Come to think of it, my own office could use a little decoration,” says a vaguely unfamiliar man across from Kurtz. He leans forward, pretending poorly at casual interest. “Especially a pretty boy with a good head for numbers. What all did you have him doing, Arthur? Besides the obvious.”
“The—” Rich says, and breaks off into a low rough whine when Carraway clamps a hand down on the back of his huge bull neck. “Sorry!” he whispers, hoarse and wretched, and freezes into rigidity when the claws dig in.
But it was enough. Carraway can’t just call Rafael some disposable little dickwarmer at this point—the lady doth protest too much—and by his tense ears and cold glare everyone knows it. Whether or not they care a whit about Rafael, the rare opportunity to get a nip in at Carraway’s normally well-defended heels is the perfect treat to tempt any number of his circle. Already, there’s murmurs up and down the table, sly smiles, wicked speculation, and Carraway has never been a witty or graceful man when a scene strays too far from his preferred script…
“You could erase it,” Rafael offers into this poisonous susurration. As if he, too, is trying to dodge the assembled teeth. High and frightened, earnest and foolish, he blurts out, “Sir, it’s not—I mean, I’ve only been working in your office a week or two, right? You could—isn’t there something for that? A potion, a process? You have a doctor. He could make sure I’m not any sort of—business liability for you.”
Another stir of the brewing pot, a ripple of cruel laughter and crude suggestions. Because of course, the price of even a short-term memory redaction is probably worth more than what Carraway would get chopping Rafael open and selling off every organ in his body, pretty little cock included. To say nothing of the recovery period, or the possible side effects of nanoscale brain surgery.
“Kind of you to offer, doll,” Carraway bites out. Playing for time. Dangerously irritated.
“Oh, don’t drag this out into a whole opera, Arthur,” says Fisher from a seat significantly closer to the head of the table than Kurtz. “If you’re really trading out your office staff, I’d like to put in a bid myself. Your big red buck up for grabs, or what?”
There’s a general rumble of malicious interest, and Carraway’s expression goes tight, tighter, until he gives a forced bark of laughter and settles performatively back in his seat, patting the back of Rich’s bent neck with a harsh, heavy hand.
“Sorry, gents. As much as I hate to turn down a few bottles of Louis’s special selection, I think it’d take a little more than that to cover all the hassle of cleaning him out before I ship him off to anyone. Unless you’d like to foot the bill, Louis—?”
“I wouldn’t mind,” Kurtz says, all clumsy agreeableness. “I could take him home tonight and arrange the redaction myself, easy.”
“And promptly?” Carraway asks, archly. There’s a round of mean-spirited laughter, the concentration of malice in the room swinging around to a new focal point, and Kurtz protests increasingly weakly as to his own honor and forthright good will. Finally, he breaks down and laughs too.
“Alright, alright,” he sighs. “You do like teasing a man, don’t you, Arthur? Show him just what he’s missing and laugh at the poor fellow when he grabs for it, that’s you all over.”
“It’s one of life’s true pleasures, I do admit,” Carraway says, mollified now. “I like to think a man’s never better than when he wants something. It’s good for the soul.”
“Well, consider mine improved,” Kurtz says, and slips his hand over Rafael’s mouth and nose again, teasing him with smothered sips of air and stroking the terrible ache of his arousal through a head-spinning and sickeningly irresistible climax.
Kurtz sighs, gropes for a stray napkin, and wipes Rafael down with slow and unpleasant thoroughness as he breathes once again, trembling from head to toe, a stripped nerve. “Ah, damn me, these pretty little boys. Well. I hope you’ll think of me some time in that dusty office of yours, eh?”
“Yes, sir,” Rafael gasps, dizzy with relief and nauseated with revulsion. “Thank you, sir.”
“Thank you, sir,” Rich murmurs as well, touching Carraway’s knee with a huge, cautious hand.
“Yes, well, I expect you’ll put him to use well enough,” Carraway says, and pats Rich’s head as if he were a loyal mastiff. Rich leans into the touch with every indication of relief, his enormous shoulders relaxing fractionally with each deep, careful breath.
Finally he glances up at Rafael, lips twitching upwards in a tentative smile. Signs again, as he had before, “It’s okay,” with wide, wet eyes and trembling hands.
Rafael is still staring at him, eyes burning and throat thick and chest so full of disbelief and light it’s hard to breathe, when Carraway looks back over at him, like an afterthought, and says, “Louis wasn’t wrong about your poetry, though, it was a treat in its place. What was that poem you did, all those years ago?”
Rafael knows—he knows it’s too obvious when he twitches, off-balance and stunned. Like a fool, like a stripling actor in some background part, allowing the mask to slip just because the spotlight turned away.
“Venus and Adonis, sir,” he says, steady and sweet and—and worth keeping.
“You still remember your lines?”
God, whenever he thinks the man can have no further way to hurt him. Rafael doesn’t allow himself to sob, to shake his head, to beg for mercy. He isn’t that man. A pretty piece of poetry holds no horror for the man he’s wearing now.
“Yes, sir,” he says. “Yes. Perfectly.”
“Why don’t you give us a read?” Carraway says. “Go on. Spin some pretty words for us, doll. Give our poor love-struck Louis a little somethin’ to remember you by.”
There’s a round of drunken cheering as Rafael untangles himself from Kurtz’s bony lap and pawing fingers, and steps up onto the long tabletop, placing his bare feet with delicate concentration between the dishes.
He comes to a halt only a few paces from the head, and looks around at all of them; men he knows and men he doesn’t, Rich watching him in silent worry, Sol and Domingo’s grim regard, Omar already too far gone to care. Carraway, paying him no mind at all in favor of pouring himself another glass of wine, as Rafael’s heart grinds itself to glass splinters against the insides of his white-hot ribs.
For a terrifying moment the words won’t come and the only thing Rafael can find within him is a howling scream, long-repressed and only tenuously leashed. On the mask of his face, only a teasing pause, a proud, smiling assurance that every eye is watching him. Then he swallows the scream to the pit of his chest, locks it away, and speaks.
Smashwords as well as your (but not Amazon yet except for After the Storm), under the series title, Stories From The Michigan Fleet. If you missed book one, After the Storm, you can . And check out our !
