Smoke

by Jane St. Clair

Rating: NC-17
Pairing: Wesley Wyndham-Pryce/Ethan Rayne
Spoilers: *snerk* no
Feedback: makes me arch with pleasure: janestclair15@hotmail.com
Disclaimer: They aren't mine. And Joss is, like, God. Call this worship. Only the story is mine. If you steal it, you'll wish you hadn't.

Sex disclaimer: Never ever have I ever done it in the mess of wrapping paper, surrounded by the shredded remains of dozens of mandarin oranges.

Notes: For Te, who took me through it. And gave me words and passages when I needed them, and led me into Ethan. She's always in the corners of this story, with the music on quietly, holding Ethan's belt.

Smoke by Jane St Clair

He comes down to London. Thatcher-grey; everyone who can flee the city has. Cheap housing rows going up on the old greens. Wesley's down from Cambridge, a too-pale schoolboy in his leather jacket, running up against skinheads on the underground and angry-looking Pakistani boys in St Pancras station. Nothing like his family's version of the city.

Hugging himself, though he knows it makes him look the victim. Shoulders his bag a little more firmly. Fiercely doesn't think about the fact that no one knows where he is. That his family thinks he's at school and the dons think he's with his family, and that he came down for the express purpose of ruining himself as much as is fundamentally possible.

Lily-white boy in a street so covered in soot that it hardly seems habitable. Derelicts curled up and sleeping on the pavement. Newspapers and bin liners of possessions around them. Black plastic enough to smother a person in his sleep. Big, abandoned hotel like a madman's castle on one side.

And starts walking. He couldn't get a cab here anyway.

"Hello, lovely." Whisper in his ear, crawling down his spine like small, sharp wires. And a hand on his shoulder, too heavy for him to shake off.

More who step in around him. Ripped army dress, some thin t-shirts. Primitive carvings of hair, bleached chemically to frightening paleness. Union Jack shirt on his left. The hand on his shoulder has a swastika carved into it, hideous and badly scarred. Walking him up to the wall.

And he should have known better, he really should have. Even his jeans are stiff from the laundry. The nails on the hand he's got up now, to protect his face, are perfectly symmetrical. He's white and he's rich and the moment he speaks, he's a dead man. They're going to find him tomorrow crucified in one of these warehouses, ripped open and his blood not so much ceremonially relished as bathed in. And he's afraid.

Every fragment of Watcher training gone. Only the litany of monsters available to him, explanations of how to defend himself against creatures of other worlds.

Whereas those of this one ... He knows he's shaking, but he really didn't need this. Just a night in the Smoke, a fuck, smack if it came his way, for the sheer oblivion of it. That was all he wanted. He wonders how most Watcher children manage not to fracture, how they balance the studied elegance of the training with the horror of the knowledge that they're given. They are, for reasons likely both arcane and traditional, not encouraged to mingle as children.

He looks around, across the street at others lurking. A half-dozen, perhaps a dozen derelicts. A gang of boys who might be Bangladeshi or Pakistani as easily as Indian. Glittering dark eyes on him, and all the rage of poverty, and he should have *known* .

"They won't help you mate. Fucking Pakis not gonna save your lily ass." Ground out like stone through a snarl that's probably trying to be a smile.

The grip now on his shirt collar. Holding him against the wall, almost off the ground, and Wesley wonders, were he to kick the man now holding him, would the others kill him instantly, or elect to torture him first?

In the bag that hits the street, there are six books, a clean shirt, a belt and syringe, a fair number of condoms, and two hundred pounds. No one even notices it.

Pushing him back into the alley.

There will, of course, be a backlash. The Metro Police will come in after, and collect all those they can find who might be responsible. Depending on which group they decide to blame, there may be riots. Stones, trash barriers. Perhaps the odd molotov cocktail flying towards the Met behind their shields. None of which will mean anything to him.

Pushing him down in the alley.

On his back, propped on elbows staring up at them. And he isn't even sure *why*. Not a question of race, but perhaps his wealth is enough. The belt sliding off the big man in the front is military-issue -- wide, rough, sharply buckled. It wraps around his hand with a satisfying slide.

The first lash of the buckle across his face nearly blinds him. Lays his cheek open, lets him see blood for an instant before the instinct to cover his head drives forward and he rolls up. Trying to pull his thoughts together for a spell. Anything. A shield. A distraction. Any of the half-dozen curses strong enough to drive these ones away.

Drives his hand into the packed earth for enough soil to start the spell.

Rolls the wet earthen ball into his fingers and huddles. Blow on his shoulder, blow on his arm. He collects blood from his face, water from the puddle he's lying in, water from the rain suddenly falling on him. Bright-clear and smelling of a dozen toxins. Holds both hands cupped in front of his lips and whispers into them, holds the ball until it flares.

Releases it into a bright wave of colour.

He has a few moments, after that, to collect himself. He's crying, but it's less significant than the pain in his ribs and the dizzying release of power.

Crawls to his knees and stares at them.

Most of the men are still picking themselves up. One is curled against the wall and bleeding. He did that. His power. Flare of ecstatic pride in him at the thought, blunted by the pain in one wrist. And he hasn't driven them away, not really. He could try to run past them, get out into the street, but he wonders who else would come. A mile and a half to the nearest road in which a cab will pick him up. And he isn't strong enough to cast again.

One fat, shaven-headed punk is crawling towards him. There are rings in his nose, and most of his teeth are missing. Cursing him. Cursing Lady Thatcher. Cursing the greyness of the world and the sale of their country and the ever-present cold and the filth and the death and the Pakistanis and the Jamaicans and the Irish and the fires and every rich fucker who ever went to public school.

Wesley wonders whether he can get a clean death out of this by just dropping his head and waiting.

Except. Crackle along his spine and out from his skin and the toothless bastard is staring at the very thin, very well-dressed, utterly public-school man in the alley's mouth.

"Well. What's this?"

A wizard, this one, full. Undoubtedly drawn by Wesley's flare of power, and there's an absurdist urge to pick himself up and wait for the inevitable critique of his methods, despite the -- quite literally -- bloody skinheads and a chance to escape.

Or ... to watch.

Surely he's being saved now? Wesley doesn't recognize either the voice or the face, but London has always had its share of witches and warlocks and those who styled themselves such. One mustn't miss out on any opportunity --

"Another bloody poofter! The night's just getting better all the time, innit?"

-- to learn.

He looks over at Wesley. "Are you coming?"

"I -- I think I might still not be able to?"

"What, them?" Wave at the resurging bodies. Shoulder to shoulder like a rugby scrum and coming at Wesley. Giving him time to contemplate what it's going to be like at the bottom of that pile. The sheer brutality of what's coming. "Ignore them."

Wesley gives him an incredulous look. Backs up.

Sigh. "You're not listening, boy. *Ignore* them." Fierce little hand gesture.

"You know that old poof, lily-laddy?" So close he can nearly feel them. Longing for the smoked windows of his parents' Mercedes and the crackle of his father's negligent power. The little murmur of *filth* before they slid by. Impotent threats and thrown trash that blew off before they stopped. The London of car rides and the family house in Kensington and the visits to Westminster before their next retreat. Silver and glass and fortunes and magic. Magic slick.

"Who are you?"

"No one you know. Now remove yourself or I shall leave you to them."

Wesley closes his eyes. Centres himself and reaches for the enchanted shell he knows is there. A trick like his father's, to walk in and out as though unseen. Visible and unremarkable.

And walks out.

Falls on his knees on the street and gags. There's still the pain of every stroke they gave him, and that with the fear and the tea he missed in his rush to catch his train is more than enough to make him sick.

A hand descends onto the back of his neck. "Come on, boy."

Wesley can't think what else to do, so he goes. Gathers his bag and as much of himself as he can and follows. Through this mess of slum streets to one of the impossible towers that the city built for public housing. All over the isles, even in Ireland. He remembers seeing a horse in a lift in Dublin. Gypsies and their horses camped around oil-can fires in the lots beside. Graffiti on the walls. Heroin addicts crouched and watching through hollow skulls. Horrified queer priests trying to minister to the dying.

One hand on his back pushes him up the stairs. He can't imagine where he's going, and he isn't sure he'll manage even to climb the stairs. Keeps going anyway and only drops to his knees when the man stops him at a door and pulls out keys. Slide of the cheap lock, and a series of soft whispers releasing the more important wards. Enough to keep out, and perhaps kill, the most desperate of burglars.

At the end of the hall, someone has painted PLAGUE JUNKIE across a door in vividly red letters.

Wesley isn't sure, afterwards, how he makes his way inside without getting up. But he finds himself crumpled into a chair like the one in his aunt's front room in Surrey, even the same disturbing purple velveteen upholstery. He's got a cup of tea and by all rights he should have stopped crying long ago.

The man's sitting opposite him, on the edge of a darker chair that combines the aspects of pre-Norman throne and electric chair with chilling precision.

"Now then, who are you?"

He hesitates. Runs through all of his father's instructions for this first exchange. Gathers enough concentration to weave the thinnest of wards around himself before answering. "Wesley. Wesley Edward Wyndham-Pryce."

"You're down from Cambridge."

"Yes."

"Where were you before that?"

"King's Field."

"Where did you start?"

"Eton."

"What were you expelled for?"

"Adonery."

Laughter. "Poor boy. You might have had the fortune at least to meet someone tonight who didn't know what that meant. How lovely. Boys, then. From 'Adonis.' You were expelled from Eton for fucking boys and finished your public schooling at King's Field. Which means, I suppose, that Jesus College wouldn't have you. What are you at?"

"King's." He's numb by now. He'd confess to burglary or buggery or treason. Easily.

"Ah, well. Not so bad, then. And you are a lovely boy." Kneeling in front of him, though Wesley has no idea how he moved so quickly. "I think your face will heal, and you can tell your father you had a scrap at school. Tell him it was over theology, that should please him. Did they have you confirmed?"

"Yes."

"At Westminster, I wonder?"

"Yes."

"Ah, you and the Prince's brats. You were mad to go to St Pancras, I hope you know?"

"Yes."

"Tell me who taught you magic."

He resists this one. It has the ring of an important question, and the rhythm that built to it is familiar enough. The man asks it again, with and edge of compulsion.

"Tell me who you are, first." Fierce as he can manage through his split lip.

"I'm Ethan Rayne."

"Oh. Bugger."

"Ah, heard that one before, have you? I would have thought the Watchers would have hushed it up, when Ripper returned to the fold."

"My father sat on Rupert Giles' tribunal."

It's the wrong thing to say. He's suddenly aware that he's going to bleed for that confession, one way or another. There's nothing of his father in him, face or soul, and it's public knowledge, but he doesn't imagine that this will change the murderous fascination that Rayne trains on him now.

Under his skin, under everything else, there's the crawling heroin-craving that dragged him down here in the first place. It was never so insistent before it realized that he would most probably deny it.

"Oh dear, little love. Daddy punished Ripper, did he? And where --" tap on the chin "-- would Ripper be now?"

"I don't know."

Rip of pain through his chest that he thinks at first is magic. Has to look down to realize that it's only nails dragging through the damage and ground-in gravel from earlier tonight.

"Oh, now, tell the truth and it will be so much simpler. Lies involve the exotic so easily. Wild tangles of things that you hardly need in that damaged little head of yours. Have you ever let anyone fuck you while you were dosed with your favourite opiate, or have you confined your little acts of sodomy to the realm of true love?"

Up his arms, up his back. Whole-body craving for the needle in his arm. Stronger than magic, stronger than the faceless male bodies he dreamed of on the train. Better even than the stillness of his studies and the protected, personal realm of his room in the College.

Rayne's fingers tap up his chest to his shoulders, then trace down his arms. Push Wesley's sweater sleeve up and rub absently at the few damaged, over-prominent veins there.

Leans in and bites the scar of the last needle. Teeth so sharp they cut with the rough-pained edge of a dull knife. Then withdraws, smiles a bloody smile up at Wesley, and rubs the damage with his fingertips.

"Do you believe the old tales, boy?"

"My name is Wesley." Gratifying to have it come out sterner, steadier, *colder* than he actually felt. It was beginning to sink through the fog he hadn't even realized was there that this was becoming a Bad Night.

Rayne ignores him just the same. "I've saved your life..."

"And now you're responsible for me."

"And now I *own* you."

"Doubtful, that." Fingernail, just that slightly, foppishly overlong, tracing closing spirals around his nipples.

"Truly? I've poisoned you."

"I'm not a child."

"And I'm more than dear old Ripper's testimony could ever tell you."

"You're a low-level Chaos Lord with an obsession."

Rayne's mouth twists and Wesley's left to sit. Not so much a compulsion as a particularly sensible-feeling suggestion. Subtly done, and he has time to consider how much of his own power the man is draining to do this while clever fingers rummage through his bag.

The small, neatly sewn inner pocket is found quickly, the remains of his stash in the palm of a recently hennaed hand.

"Have rebellions truly become so petty?"

The packets dropped into what Wesley had taken for a chalice of oiled wine, but now sees for what it is -- a small, contained rip of chaos. A steaming ghost of his screaming self sinks into the thing, a parlour trick for a child which nevertheless makes his veins ache.

He's not going to cry. Less because he needs the apparent strength than because he lacks the energy at the moment. Rubs the small, bloody place on his arm instead.

Watches while Rayne lifts the chalice and drinks.

Rayne comes back, smelling like Chaos. Smoke and ozone and something very pure. Wizard-smell under that, childhood-familiar. It's the smell of the homes of all the branches of his family, mixing the aristocratic knowledge of the Watchers with the barely-restrained power of master wizards. Even the kitchen herbs were charged.

When he was seven, he went into the kitchen of his aunt's house in Surrey when the maid was out and his aunt was at work in her study upstairs. Dragged a chair in and stood on it to reach all his ingredients. Mixed the contents of jars with tap water and raspberry cordial, all in a bowl, until the smell and texture satisfied him. Then drank.

It tasted like the kiss Rayne gives him now. Ragged charge and danger and craving. Like this kiss, it knocked him back. Not only from his chair, but across the room. Leaving him stunned. And he can almost imagine, now, lying against the wall, the slowly-arriving footsteps of the maid and the crackle of his skin when she touched him.

For two days, everything was luminous.

For the two after that, everything was dark. And he had rather a lot of time to think about things, and wonder whether his father was ever going to let him out.

Instead of the maid, though, it's Rayne. Again. Still. Crouching over him and then straddling him, bending in to kiss again. Bloody and ragged and painful and wanted. All up and down his body. *Arches* into the kiss, eventually, tasting both the power and the opiates and wanting.

On his back, on the floor, with his shirt off, staring up at the slender man holding him down. Lighter even than Wesley is himself, but charged with something vivid enough to make bodily strength a non-issue.

Against his lips, Rayne whispers, "Did they never tell you that magic and heroin tend to have disturbing results in combination?"

"I'd noticed, thanks." Laces his fingers behind Rayne's head and pulls him back down. Kisses him harder and *feels* him, all down his own body. Not exactly sure when his sweater and the thin shirt underneath were shucked, but they're off in a corner, and Rayne feels so good against him. Enough that he's prepared to simply stay like this all night.

A fuck and a dose. And wasn't that what he wanted? A little taste of oblivion, the loss of responsibility, the chance to be. Wanton. Daring. Greatly daring to have the infamous Giles' aging catamite in his arms, hot and strange enough that he *can* believe the old tales of wizards poisoned by their own blood -- even if that had never been enough to keep assorted demons from eating them.

Eating, yes. Rayne's spit in his mouth, and Wesley bites hard enough to open the man's tongue, and sucks, Rayne's cock a long slim bar of iron, perfectly sensed through thin clothing.

A moment to wish for something like adolescence, when he'd have to go *home* after something like this, when there'd be the dank must of a cupboard, a closet to bury himself in the memories and sparking sensations.

Ripper. He would meet the man someday, and he would be cool and collected, just that slightest bit superior to the black sheep of the fold, magicogenetic sport of a rebel, brought to heel. And Rayne? Nothing but a useful, annoying, easy fuck.

Throws them over so that he can be on top, grind ruthlessly against the man, trace half-completed runes over cheek and throat before ripping the man's silky shirt open.

Scarred, lean chest. Sparely muscled, as hard as a man should be, though this isn't necessarily what Wesley wants.

Rakes his fingers over the scars. "Ripper's?"

"Yes."

Bends down and bites across a rough line that must have been done with a knife and something alcoholic. Or perhaps fire. And chews. Bites and gnaws and mauls the thin, translucent skin. All the time grinding himself down, working strictly for his own pleasure. Not quite the habits he's instilled in himself, but certainly appropriate. He can't imagine this as a soft, romantic tangle of mouths and fingers and safe, soft lubricants, and morning sheets, and tea.

Clamps the narrow wrists down on either side of the man's body and bites seriously. Tugs on the skin until it gives and there's blood in his mouth. Full of the knowledge of how dangerous this is, both magically and on the strict level of biohazards, and still unwilling to give it up. Chaos and power and rage pouring onto his tongue, singing along his nerves.

Releases the wrists and works instead to free the man of his clothes. Shirt off his narrow shoulders, belt and socks, pushing them off with his feet. Trousers and pants and then just naked underneath him. Hot flesh against his own still-trousered legs. Vulnerable and belonging.

Fragment of a nasty smile. "You *are* a stupid boy, aren't you?"

Wesley glares at him. Hisses, "Mine," and dives in again. Not going to rise to the insult. He's heard worse from his father, from his teachers, from everyone at school. Something bitter in that the expulsion charge had come from town, and not from one of the other boys, or from any of the staff. Or the groundskeepers.

Determined to own this act, at least.

Never anyone quite like this, though. His latest craving's been for the slender, glittering boys he finds at warehouse parties. Throbbing German industrial music and hallucinogens and happy desire. Kisses from everyone who touches him. Water better than anything he's ever tasted. Messy, affectionate fucking in flats and cars and at least once in a bedroom next door to two sleeping solicitor parents.

Some sick part of his brain wonders whether the punks tonight would have raped him before they killed him. Whether any of them would have considered it.

Angry. Raging and forcing the aging man under him down. He must have been lovely. Unholy. Refugee from a near-east myth, consigned to the realms of underground water and summer. Ripper's.

He remembers sitting in one huge chair and staring over the pages of his book at Rupert Giles on the penitent's bench, waiting for the tribunal to recall him. He wasn't old enough, Wesley thought, to have frightened his father so badly. Crackling in spite of the quiet of his suit and the stillness of his hands. Something in him settling while Wesley watched.

Easy to think that, perhaps, it had all simply been the drugs and the undoubtedly ungodly amounts of liquor imbibed. The quiet suit had done nothing to disguise bloodshot eyes and the hints of premature *age* in them. At the time, it had been easiest to simply remember that a man had died, that a proto-Watcher had been partially involved, that the Council would do what was best.

Wesley thinks he understands that age now, understands that there was no way Rupert Giles would have been *allowed* to leave the organization, not with his power and potential. They had broken him instead, and kept him for whatever reasons they needed to use, and covered up the whole thing.

Amazing to think that Rayne had escaped the almost ritualistic cleansing that had followed. Perhaps they had thought it best to simply bribe the man and collectively forget he existed. None of it important in the face of flesh.

Flesh. God yes. Something powerful in simply taking what he wants from this man, yes. Jacking him roughly and precisely, drowning out Rayne's laughter in the rush of blood behind his eyes, the confused visions and denied languor of the blood, the drug, and chaos.

Laughter even as the man ejaculates, stilling only when Wesley collects the fluid and shoves two fingers inside as rough as he imagines the skinheads might have been.

Vicious tug of want inside him buried and reborn in perfunctory preparation, in the snug of cockhead to anus. Adonery.

Perhaps then, but not now. Nothing so civilized.

Inside with one brutal thrust, drowning in the arch of Rayne's body, the tight heat, the hallucinatory sense of more blood skimming his cock as he moves, as he pushes, as he *fucks*. Eyes open and staring into Rayne's own, glaring for control and getting only pleasured mockery.

Shocking pain in his knuckles and *then* he realizes he's backhanded the man, and the glint of mockery turns mean before disappearing into the blankness of searing pleasure. Yes. This is what he needed. Some undeniable proof of his own ... his own ... manhood?

A joke he can share, but it's an uneasy rush of need when Rayne joins in.

Laughing. Cracking too sharply at moments, but too intrusive to block out. As though Wesley weren't the one on top. Fucking. Hurting him as viscerally as he can manage, all hard-wired to his groin and his power. Slim legs around his hips, holding him in while he fucks, hard and rough, tearing and driving and it should fucking *hurt*, it's supposed to hurt. Hurt him, ease some of this night's humiliation, some of the ache in his veins and at the base of his skull.

Rage and struggle and finally some foreign insight that he can't beat it out of him. That he could drive the man's teeth down his throat before he'd give.

Bends instead and kisses him. Fucks viciously through the kiss, making sure Rayne feels it, riding the body's trembles and pushing as deep as he can. But kisses. Licks the inside of his mouth. Reaches for the power and chaos under his skin, sucks on his tongue, licks his lips and his throat.

And he's still laughing, but the tenor, at least, is different. Something more like recognition. Almost like affection in the thumbs rubbing against the damaged veins of his forearms.

Twists finally off to the side. Pulls roughly out and twists around behind Rayne, pulls a long thigh back over his hip and thrusts again, in from behind. Fucks him, deep and hard and half on top of him, holding him down and mouthing a white-line rune on his shoulder. Almost sucking. Like he could drink his own power and all of this man's back.

Finally in long, gasping pushes, Rayne nearly on his stomach and Wesley nearly on top of him, both struggling for a better angle and sticky-wet where they join. Nothing pleasant about it, and yet. Mutual. Rising towards this so tangled that Wesley can't begin to pull himself loose and can't focus far enough to be afraid.

Just spurts, gasping, into that tiny, brutalized hole, keeps thrusting long after he's finished. Then rips himself out and rolls onto his back, pulls Rayne with him and jacks the man off, one hand across his chest and one around his cock.

Crackling reach of power in the moment that Rayne lets go.

Whatever breaks, breaks then. Chaos swirling loose, then retreating into its chalice, leaving the two of them tangled on the room's thin carpet. Sliding aluminum windows naked and staring out at London. Wesley can't see the city through them, but he can see the reflective sky, and he knows what the city looks like.

And perhaps at some point he's weakened, because he can remember when he didn't need to touch, after. When he could just roll to his feet and straighten his clothes and stalk off. Nothing like evidence beyond the contents of his mouth and the touch-memory of his skin. While his partner just stared at him. And that, perhaps, had kept him in the school his father wanted him in as long as anything else.

Whereas this. Holding Rayne against his shoulder while they both pant down is less revealing than the kiss he lays against the man's temple.

It gets him a look. Raggedly impenetrable, but Rayne rolls onto his stomach and stares Wesley down.

"Poor boy." Brushing his lips.

Wesley pushes Rayne off and sits up. Lays his back against the wall and stares at the slender man sprawled propped up across the floor. "I'm not a boy."

Smile. "Did you like that?"

Wesley shakes his head.

"I thought you might. How old were you when you tasted power the first time?"

"Seven."

Something like surprise. "And you're still only a child-wizard at." Pause. Assessing look. "Twenty?"

"Twenty-one. I'm not sure quite where that's any of your fucking business."

Rayne sits up, then pushes himself into a crouch. Pushes Wesley's knees down out of his way and sits more or less in his lap. Pulls him forward a little and rubs him exploratorially. "Did they beat you?"

"Fuck off." Not part of his accent, barely part of his vocabulary. It sounds strange coming out of his mouth.

"They beat you. They locked you in the dark. You are --" The mouth brushes his lips in a parody of affection. "-- frightening to them, I think."

"If they're so frightened, why do they leave you loose?"

"You think they could come and take me?"

"I know they could." He remembers Giles after the Tribunal. Shattered. The kind of transformation that leads to delicate health and a gradual loss of the senses. Already swallowing his accent, containing his knowledge. He burned his books publicly.

Ethan kisses him. Shallow and hard, crushing his lips. And then he's on the other side of the room, making tea with his shirt on, open around his otherwise naked body.

"They might find it difficult. They have been defied before."

"And you slip under their radar."

"Indeed so." Blue-veined hands offer him tea in translucent china that doesn't have any place in this mess of a slum.

"Then why fuck me?"

Pause in which Rayne looks him over. "You fucked me, boy. I'm sure your memory extends that far."

Wesley shakes his head. "Why any of it? You could have let them kill me. I know you hate my father."

"Rumour has it that Lord Wyndham-Pryce is disappointed in his youngest. Bit of a border case. Bit of a poof. Bit of a tart, for that matter. One that the Council would be rid of if he weren't burning with contained potential."

"You knew who I was when you took me."

"Yes."

"*Why?*"

"It will make the Council furious. I expect that it will be entirely entertaining."

"Chaos. You're making Chaos."

"Well, they never said you weren't clever. Drink your tea."

Wesley takes it, and drinks sitting on the floor. Watches the man across the room from him with something like fear. Wondering how much he's given up, and what it will cost him, in body and in face. Who will sit on the Tribunal that strips him down.

"How's your little rebellion? Bothering you again yet?"

The wounds in his arms start to itch again as if on command. It shouldn't bother him. It isn't quite an addiction, not yet. Not in the sense that the human shells haunting St Pancras have addictions. He lives without it for weeks at a time.

Wesley shakes his head to clear it.

"Ah. Perhaps we had better do something about that."

He crosses the room, still naked except for his shirt. Pulls a book from the shelf and cracks the cover, withdraws the plastic and white flattened inside. And then crouches over Wesley's bag. Rayne moves efficiently, a master of lighter and spoon and syringe. He boosts Wesley into the armchair, wraps the belt around his bicep, finds the vein. Both of their hands tangling on the needle while it goes in.

Cradles his head while he slides out. Kisses him in the infinitely extended moment before he's gone.

It's something like falling asleep for Wesley, if only in the sense of the way his mind works just after the drug enters his bloodstream.

The sense, like the more innocent descent, that yes, *now* it was in him, and the journey would begin, the thought and the feeling coming again and again with each breath, each hazy vision behind his eyelids until there was the silence of the high and words were both unnecessary and impossible.

Rayne's apartment fades in and out of his awareness, a rolling landscape, tidy only in the sense that Nature itself is tidy, neatly cluttered, primly ... chaotic.

The fear rises to strangle him, and Wesley thrashes within the prison of his limbs. There are sounds that may or may not be of his own making, his eyes are drawn again and again to the chalice, the drugs and the magic not allowing even the container to retain any sort of consistency and he knows.

Something.

Knows something with the heartbreak of Truth, and knows it boils within the chalice, the galloping horse, slithers down and around the body of his mother.

Crawling towards it from a distant, distance, distanced symphonies and the flickering sense of being observed. Remembering that he's neither alone nor surrounded by the lithely dim boys of his supposed preference. The fear this time is intense enough to make him giggle, clutch loosely at his own clothing.

He's being moved but it only lasts a moment before strong, lean hands that go on for miles over the vastness of himself settle him back. Warmth, musk surrounding him. Words of Meaning dropping like rain, blood, come, *something*. Vital and lost.

No room for fear. Wesley lets himself go.

Not quite numb, but neither is he fully aware of the edges of himself. Stretched flat on his belly, head pillowed on his arms, as if he were still at school, staring over the edge of his bed at the strange, prim world around him. In spite of his current nakedness, it feels a little like that. Not Eton, but maybe at King's Field, during one of the school's periodic lapses into Puritan austerity. Marred a little by the tangle of electronics around the penitents' beds and plain grey bedding, but still enforced.

It's like that. Stripped. Not so much luxury unavailable as luxury deliberately avoided, something between self-flagellation and external punishment.

On his belly. He's face-down, or nearly, and stretched far enough to put a kind of low ache into his spine. And hands on his spine, slowly spreading him thinner and thinner. Rubbing along, down to his thighs, pushing them wider.

Not ever quite touching him, not threat so much as arrangement, and it seems somehow less than important. He's travelling and painless, staring half-awake at the wall. Cinderblock behind the rough paint job.

Single kiss in the centre of his back, one that he presses against, riding the soft pleasure of it without really thinking. Joy and numbness in the unabashed affection of that touch.

And then weight on him. All along his back, and between his legs. Mouth on the back of his neck, whispering filthy nothings to him, neither affectionate nor quite hateful. So familiar that he can't not surrender to it. Put his head down and offer the back of his neck and accept.

He *is* a stupid little whore, mind blanking and body rising and shifting to accept every touch, every slide of flesh, the scrape of simple cotton on the head of his cock. Coming down and he can be anything, anyone, and by the end he'll be scrambling to pull the shreds of Wesley Wyndham-Pryce into something passable to wear before it's too late.

Now, though, he's everything Rayne tells him, this strange and kindly man saving life and virtue for himself. Purest of motives, magic, and whatever spells surround them are irrelevant. Somehow, as always, his personal wards are in place, leaving nothing but his body to be plundered.

Warm, faintly bitter oil on his back, lower, sliding inevitably off the points of his hips and into his cleft. Rayne. *Ethan*, faintly gypsy with two fingers inside, stretching and thrusting with infinite patience. Opening him, but not satisfying. It cuts through Wesley deeply, breaking him into sweat and consciousness.

He forces himself not to push back against Ethan's hand and beg for something better, even though he can't remember why it's important. Hand on the back of his neck, pushing him down and holding him there. Quietly dominant, a learned lesson in subtlety that Wesley will remember for next time.

Ethan stops, slips out, still holding Wesley down. Wesley waits for it, the catch of cock to hole, the slide and the taking. Would Ethan be brutal? Shivering at the thought. No one has ever really done that to him before. For him. Ready, so ready to surrender to it, hips in motion again, but nothing comes.

Offered like that. Head down, hips up and tilted in offer. One of the half-dozen trains of the night slams by outside, shaking the building and Wesley with it. Breaking up the exterior light. Grey in here like it's grey out there and he wants Ethan. To hurt him.

"Do you, now, boy?" Whispered delicately in his ear.

He's missing even the barest fragments of language, but he understands, and he can just manage a nod. Remembers fear in himself while he was backed against that filthy wall. The other Wesley, who's afraid and looks over his shoulder a great deal, who bends over the sink in his college room and stares into the mirror for long minutes every day, looking for whatever redeeming feature will make him the wizard he's supposed to be. A version of himself locked into the warmth and protectiveness of his parents' world, in which the boys who crowd their car in London are more alien than the demons they summon. An enormous distance between ceremonial fires and fires in dustbins.

He pushes his hips back. Just once. Making it obvious.

Ethan curls in behind him. Leans over and lays his own weight forward, putting the mass of both their bodies onto Wesley's forearms. Bigger man than Wesley thought he was. Rubs his cock once over the hole Wesley's offering, slow and deliberate. Then lines it up and drives in with all the weight of his too-thin body behind the thrust.

He hasn't got the breath to scream. And he's too numb. No lungs in this haze, just the twist of Rayne's flesh inside him, shifting his belly and driving him down flat onto the mess of a bed.

Words and exclamations gathering in the back of his throat, no time to figure out how to utter them before Ethan is gathering him back up onto his knees. Another thrust, another, finally forcing a gasping sob from Wesley and he rests his head on his forearms.

The pleasure is a buzzing thing just outside his consciousness, waiting for a way to break into his mind. Ethan's fingers dig into his hip bone with bruising force, though the man shows no signs of having lost control. Tracing patterns on Wesley's back now, stilled inside him and buried to the root.

"Of necessity, boy, this spell requires a certain proximity, a carnality you like to believe you possess ..." Ethan's voice changes, lowers into something full of command, "you will remember this, mind and flesh, patterns and Words."

Something liquid and thick on his back now, warm but not-quite body-warm. Patterns shape themselves into runes, words burn themselves into him somewhere deep. His body throbs with the invasion, his cock arches toward his belly.

A moment to Know the truth of the spell before it hits him. Something between the flu and his first and last acid trip, body helplessly alive and tender to every sensation, awareness on a nearly cellular level of the cock inside him, the sheet beneath his knees, the cool air thick with the deceptively small strangeness of Chaos.

It brings him back. Stone cold and sickeningly sober. As though every vein's been burned clean. Wide-eyed and entirely himself in the heart of this fuck, in the heart of the spell twisted around him.

Rayne leans forward. Wraps both arms around Wesley's stomach and pulls him back onto his cock. Brutal and deep. Demanding. Giving him no part in it, just the sheer, slick closeness of the fuck and his new, startling awareness. Some extra touch from Rayne to let the spell impress itself on his mind. He isn't clear of it, not really; the heroin fog's a wall just beyond his thoughts. Less important right now than the bone-grinding thrusts into him.

Hissed in his ear, "Learn it."

Wesley whimpers.

"*Learn* it, boy." Deeper thrust, shaking him from heart to knee, tearing every loose, soft part of him away from the bone and pushing it down.

Presses it on his brain. Every trick he ever gained for the purpose of learning brought into play in this gifted instant of lucidity, driven by the cock inside him and the brutal grip on the root of his own cock. Entirely his. He *knows* this.

And the heroin wall slams back through his brain. And he screams.

"Oh, wonderful boy ... it's going to be a pleasure to send you back home ..." Clear and easily spoken even through the pounding thrusts. Control. Is something Wesley hasn't asked for. Has he?

The spell's stolen clarity and the remains of the drugs slamming back and forth, an epic battle for control of his body just behind his eyelids. Screams taper off into moans, whimpers. Fucking himself back on Ethan but utterly unable to catch the rhythm of it until it suddenly stops.

Harsh breath from above, but Wesley has no power to savour it.

"Are you ready for the next, m'shai?"

"I ... I'm not your student --"

"Yes, you are. *This * spell requires control in the face of ... adversity. A bit more Watcher repression and you'll be just fine. *Too* much more and ... well."

One hip released, hand in his hair. Not stroking so much as looking for a good grip that, when found, leaves Wesley open for a throat-slitting.

The other hand traces his Adam's apple, the sharp edge of a fingernail leaves a crooked welt, traced over and over until it bleeds. Whatever liquid is on Ethan's fingers enters him with a solid thrust, and Wesley's knees tremble with the man's weight and the raw excruciation of the wound, the scratch of dust in the air on it, *in* it. The words gargle from him mindlessly, seemingly endlessly --

"Remember it."

The burn, the hectic throb of it through the remaining heroin haze and Wesley sobs, begs silently.

And only then, finally, Ethan finishes him. Pushes him down flat and drives his legs hugely far apart, making him stretch to accept every thrust. As brutal as anything he's ever had and nothing on his cock but the bed's rasp.

He comes anyway. Raw and sobbing, desperate for air and tangled in the sensation that Ethan's dragging out of him. Hurting and vague. Wet between his legs from their sweat and the slick of their fucking, and wetter after Ethan drives in, hisses quietly, and comes. Holds there, pressing on the hard, brilliantly sweet place inside his body, holding Wesley in place. Watching him with a teacher's cool eyes, so obvious he can feel them without ever looking around.

Already without any clear idea what it is he's learned.

When Ethan lets him, he rolls onto his back. Just a moment to see the room and orient himself, get the sense of space he needs to keep from fainting. Trembles while Ethan lays a hand over his heart and presses down gently. Whispering Chaos and other profanities. Licking his shoulder and armpit and the cage of his ribs.

Sits back, finally, cross-legged and more djinn than human, and whispers. Magic beyond Wesley's comprehension, beyond his father's capability. And after it flares there's the tiniest of soft bodies in Ethan's palm. Wings and delicate legs and fur, beating wildly the moment it's released.

This instant of the moth beating against his chest like a heart on the outside. Flash of it striking the window glass and then vanishing through the opened pane.

Ethan straddles him. Takes his pulse with a kind of clinical coolness. Whispers, "Well, lad, you seem to be nearly returned to us."

Returned.

Return. To.

This.

And he wonders where Ethan is. Still wrapped around him. In his mouth and under his skin, his power all over the compartmentless efficiency of this particular train, the one he only knows is the 12.55 because it says so on the end of his ticket. North. Cambridge's tangle of architecture in the far distance, and the nausea of the heroin draining from his system tangling his brain.

He gets up as carefully as he can, finds the nearest toilet, and vomits into it. Then gets up and rinses out his mouth. Stares into the mean, reflective square of mirror over the sink and takes stock of himself. The cut on his cheekbone is taped shut and carefully bandaged. There are bruises all over his throat. On his chest. On his arms and belly when he pulls his sweater off and washes down.

He dresses and walks back out.

Curled up in his seat and the two vacant ones beside him. Night train and a craving for a drink that he'll shortly have to deal with. Staring out in the meantime. He licks Rayne's echoes out of his mouth.

Thinks about it.

End

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