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Andy’s eyes clear, just for an instant, and in his own voice he begs, “Do it!”Marcus pulls the trigger, but the gun doesn't go off - a misfire. Andy screams, “No!”Yes! crows the demon in Tomas, throwing his head back in a mockery of ecstasy. Oh, ye- wait. It lifts his head, looking confused. Wait, what? It pats Tomas’ stomach, his chest, as if searching for something.Marcus’ hand was already none too steady as he tried to bring the gun to bear on Tomas. Now he takes his finger off the trigger and lowers it to point at the floor. Mouse cocks her head, her posture ready to fight but just watching for now.The demon isn’t paying any attention to them at all, repeating, What? What? in increasingly frantic tones, until it’s gasping for air like a person having a panic attack. It snaps Tomas’ head up and looks right at Marcus, and says, Oh, no. Then it falls to the floor, convulsing.Marcus puts the safety back on the gun and sets it down. “Hold his head,” he tells Mouse as he goes for Tomas’ shoulders - his shoulders, not his wrists.“What's happening?” she demands.“It's like an allergic reaction, an incompatibility. I think. I've only seen it a few times.” Tomas goes rigid and screeches in a much higher pitch than his throat should be capable of. It's like watching an exorcism in fast-forward. “I haven't seen it!” Mouse has to shout to be heard over the racket.“A few times, out of over a thousand cases!”Tomas goes quiet and starts to convulse again, hyperventilating. His skin flushes beet red and starts to steam. Mouse swears. “Bloody hell, he's almost too hot to touch!”Marcus wrestles Tomas’ arm, the one further from Andy, across his body. “Be ready to roll him away from Andy. When we do, stay away from his mouth and hold your breath.”When Tomas starts to gag, Marcus snaps, “Now!” and they heave him onto his side. Tomas retches, coughs, retches again, and then roars out a billowing cloud of smoke and ember-bright ashes. It splashes across the floor of the cabin like a fluid, heavier than air despite being so hot Marcus can feel it on his face. The glowing flecks of ash find no purchase on the damp, mossy ground and flicker out, the smoke dissipating.The cabin seems suddenly quiet after, the only noises the rain on the roof, the distant sound of helicopters, Tomas sobbing hoarsely for air (and also just sobbing), and - an ominous, bubbling wheeze.Marcus turns, not letting go of Tomas’ shoulder. “Andy.”He smiles weakly at Marcus. “Rose- pitchfork- got me good.” Without the demon's reinforcement, a patch of blood is spreading on his tshirt. Mouse rips it open to reveal a row of puncture wounds, one of which is whistling. She seals her palm over it.“Do we have any plastic?” she asks Marcus. “A bandage wrapper or anything?”“Tomas- okay?”“I'm okay,” Tomas rasps, rolling back to face him. “I don't know how, but I am.”“Remember- told you.”“You'll tell them yourself.”Andy coughs a short laugh, and blood flecks his lips. His eyes roll back into his head and he slumps.“Signal those choppers!” Mouse barks at Marcus, who digs a torch out of his backpack and then runs outside. Back in the cabin, he can hear her talking Tomas through trying to find her a sheet of plastic in their first-aid supplies and helping her untie Andy, which presumably means Tomas is conscious enough to comply.Not that Marcus would expect anything less, if his theory about what just happened back there is true.It's horrible, but a tiny part of him is grateful for the emergency of trying to keep Andy alive, because it pushes some extremely difficult questions to the back burner.Andy is still in the ICU by the time they've all been debriefed and Tomas has given Andy's messages to the kids and Rose. Mouse had dragged Marcus off early, presumably back to the motel to grill him about what the hell happened back on the island. Tomas would like to do the same, don't get him wrong, but there's something he needs to take care of first.Rose sees him fidgeting, anxious to catch up with his friends - or so he's led her to believe. “Give me your number. I'll let you know what happens.”“I- might not be able to keep it much longer. Our situation is, um, complicated. Better if you give me yours.” She does, and he commits it to memory. One last round of thanks, and he goes. They think he's catching up with Marcus and Mouse. Marcus and Mouse think he's taking his time saying goodbye and then going for a walk - and he is. That's just not all he's doing. He sniffs the damp coastal air, soothing on his burned-raw throat (and hadn't that been fun, explaining why only he needed treatment for smoke inhalation). He takes several long, deep breaths through his nose, turning this way and that, and then he picks a direction and sets out.He turns onto a quiet residential street shaded with trees, and Marcus pops up at his side, like a dandelion sprouting from a crack in the sidewalk but faster. Tomas jumps about a foot in the air. “¡Mierda! You scared me.” His eyes narrow. “Have you been following me?”“Mm-hmm. Keeping an eye out for anyone else following you. Mouse says she's had demons or their flunkies tailing her off and on since Chicago, and it was very much on when she caught the ferry to Nachburn.”“Where is Mouse now?”“On her way back to Spokane to check on Bennett.”“I thought she wanted to question you.”“She did, but I don't know much more than what I said in the cabin - not that I was ready to share with her, anyway. I haven't seen or spoken to her in twenty years.”Tomas keeps walking, the pull of his destination becoming palpable. Marcus falls into step beside him, long legs keeping pace easily. “You said - you think it's like an allergy?”“Sort of. Maybe. Kind of like blood types: you transfuse the wrong type of blood into someone and all their blood turns to wet coffee grounds in their veins. Like that, but in reverse; it's the demon who dies when the host body rejects it.”“But it must be less common than blood types.”“Much less. I might have embellished to Mouse to reassure her. I've actually only seen it happen twice.”“...Is that counting me as the second?”“Yeah.”“Why are you so sure it's the same?”“Your reaction was identical. But I have a few questions for you that can help me confirm it.”“Like what?”“What can you tell me about your father?”Tomas turns up another street. “There's not much to tell. He was a gutless wonder. Disappeared as soon as he and my mother split up, and none of us heard a word from him since.”  “Do you know why they split up?”“Not exactly, but - I think he cheated. Possibly many times. What does this have to do with anything?”“Do you look like him?”“Yes, very much. Sometimes I think that’s why Mamá sent me to her mother in Mexico, so she wouldn't be reminded of his face.” He turns again, the blocks going by faster as agitation quickens his pace. Marcus bumps their shoulders together gently, and Tomas leans hard into him, sighs and tries to shake off some of his tension. Not far now. “Did you ever meet your paternal grandparents?”“No. They were dead before he met my mother. No other family on his side either; that was going to be your next question, right?”“Very good.” In his current state, the warm approval in Marcus’ voice is enough to make Tomas have to stifle a gasp.“How many more questions, Marcus? I really need to be alone soon.” He's still leaning into Marcus like a horse against a fence post.Marcus responds to both halves of the mixed message, rubbing Tomas’ lower back and answering him at the same time. “Not many. Getting to the good stuff now, like: where are you going?”Tomas gut clenches. “That's none of your business.”“You're my partner and my friend, and if I'm right it's relevant to my line of inquiry. Will you tell me if I guess correctly?”Tomas laughs shortly. The homes are starting to blend into parkland, and there's a thickly-wooded hill up ahead: his destination, it has to be. Relief is so close. “Knock yourself out.”“Are you going cruising?”He stops moving. “What?” The wobble in his voice is probably a dead giveaway, but Marcus reiterates patiently, almost gently:“Are you going looking for casual sex, the more anonymous the better? Are you disappointed that this town's hotspot looks to be open-air, instead of a peep-show house with gloryholes between the booths? Almost like a confessional- mmph!” Tomas claps his hand over Marcus’ mouth and propels him into the relative safety of the woods.“Keep your voice down!” he hisses. Marcus’ eyes above his hand are soft and knowing. Defeated, Tomas releases him and slumps against a tree. “How did you know?”“The same way I know two more things: you knew where this place was before you knew what it was, and you aren't planning to so much as unzip your trousers tonight. It's not about getting yourself off.”  Tomas slides to the ground. “You’re right,” he admits, and the relief of saying it is worth more to him right now than finding out how Marcus knows, how he could possibly know. “It’s - I don’t know why but it’s just something I have to do sometimes.”“You don’t even think of it as breaking your vows, do you? Not if you try to enjoy it as little as possible. Ideally you don’t even see each other's faces.” Tomas curls his fingers into the dirt and nods.“I tried, sometimes, not to do it, but - bad things happen, Marcus. I can’t control myself, I go for - anyone, anywhere, make them come. It’s like I’m starving. It’s better if I just do this when I know I need to.” He knocks his head lightly against the tree trunk. “And I need to now. I almost left it too long again, on that damn island. Just - let me go do this, and we can talk about it after, okay?”“Hold up, love. I’m nearly done. Did you still have this need while you were with Jessica?”“Of course not. She liked how much I could get her off, and I could-” touch, taste, smell, kiss, even get off himself. It was the most sated he’d been in years, except for the way he felt more and more lost and miserable every day. “I could do- all the other things, at the same time. I love those things; I just don’t need them the way I need, um.”“Orgasms,” Marcus finishes for him, and Tomas shudders at the shape of the word in his mouth. “Specifically, other people’s orgasms. Your own are nice, but others’ are like food to you, is that it?”“Yes,” he whispers.“Last question: did you need it less often while we were on the road together?”Tomas’ brow knits. “Yes, actually. I’m not sure why. Maybe because you touch me so much.” It’s been a bizarre inversion these last six months, the glut of casual physical affection dwindling his need to a fraction of what it once was. He’s probably needed to go out less than once a week, instead of the every two-to-three days he’d averaged in Chicago. Which is good, because it’s been much harder to sneak around now that he isn't living alone in a city of three million people.“Well then,” Marcus says briskly, “I should think a better solution was obvious: use me instead.” “What?!” If Tomas wasn’t already sitting down, he would fall over.“You heard me. All this anonymous sex is incredibly dangerous, and it can’t be good for you - emotionally, spiritually. I’m here and willing, I understand your predicament, and - I care for you, Tomas. Let me help you with this.”Tomas squeezes his eyes shut. “You can’t be serious.”“‘Course I’m serious. I’d do a great deal more for you, you know. You’re probably the dearest friend I’ve ever had.” Twigs crack and leaves rustle as he moves closer; Tomas is acutely aware of the heat of him crouched at his side, like he can see in infrared. “I do have a requirement.”Tomas pries an eye open and looks at him. “What’s that?”“You let yourself enjoy it,” Marcus says seriously. “The full meal deal. I'll not be anybody's - space-age nutrient block.” “Madre de Dios,” Tomas groans. “You're a virgin.”

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

Tomas is clearly less than enthused about deflowering Marcus, but given how he lets Marcus turn him around and steer him back toward the motel, he still prefers it to whatever he'd been death-marching towards on that hill. Dispensing handjobs or blowjobs, presumably, letting himself be used by uncaring, faceless strangers, and using them in turn to - feed himself somehow, but just barely. The thought makes Marcus’ throat hurt. He looks at Tomas’ profile in the gathering dusk and thinks, even knowing nothing, I can take better care of you than that. Even so, when their motel comes into view down the road, his heart is in his throat, as if suddenly aware that he's climbed to some great height without a safety rail.“Where's the truck?” Tomas says suddenly.“Gave it to Mouse. Hers was compromised.”“But how are we going to get around now?”“There's enough left on Bennett's credit card to fix ourselves up with another beater, not to worry. Or, depending on what Mouse finds in Spokane, we might hop a bus and meet up with her again.”Tomas shakes his head, a small smile stealing onto his face. “The Lord will provide?”Marcus shrugs. “Poverty's one vow I took to like a fish to water; born in it, and never had to learn anything else.”“Apparently chastity was easy for you too,” Tomas says, and if he sounds a trifle bitter over that, well, Marcus thinks it's understandable. “So, does that make sobriety the ‘more or less'?”“Got it in one. Between the job and the genes, I've had my share of misadventures - and hangovers that resemble the ten plagues of Egypt in miniature.”Tomas laughs - soft and brief, but a real laugh. Progress.Marcus continues, emboldened, “One time, in Zambia, I couldn't turn down the local homebrew without offending the villagers’ hospitality - and it turned out to have some local additives. I lost two days. Bennett has video footage of me licking a live leopard and singing Soft Kitty.”This time Tomas snorts and breaks down into giggles, looking at Marcus with real affection. Much better. Marcus jostles him with his hip as they enter their motel room. It's been theirs since arriving in town with Harper and Rose, but they've barely spent a single night in it. Now, with a lock and a Do Not Disturb sign between them and the outside world, he stares at the two double beds and swallows hard.“Marcus,” Tomas says quietly, “you don't have to do this.”“I don't,” Marcus agrees, “but you do. And I’d rather it be with me than with someone who doesn't-” love you “-who doesn't even know you.”“Your first time should be for a better reason than me being a-”“Oi! None of that! You're not to blame for your biology.”Tomas looks at him curiously. “What do you mean?”“It can wait. Setting you right is more important.” It's going to be a hard thing for Tomas, hearing what Marcus is now certain of; better to make sure he's shored up in every other possible way first.He looks at Tomas, and thinks of how dear he is, how much he's changed Marcus’ life for the better. He looks at Tomas and lets himself really see how beautiful he is, and the way hardship and sorrow are beginning to weather him into something beyond beauty, something piercing and precious. A glint in God's eye, reflected.“Come here,” he murmurs, and he takes hold of Tomas’ shirt and tugs him close, into kissing range. This much he knows how to do. He leans in and covers Tomas’ mouth with his own. This close, he still smells faintly of smoke.Tomas really has left it too long.Marcus’ kiss is a little more confident, a little less chaste than he might have predicted - though he should have predicted it. It's Marcus: long and lean and careworn, yet brightly mischievous as a child, one of the most effortlessly attractive people Tomas has ever met; of course he's been kissed, enough times for him to kiss like he has at least some idea of what he's doing. But some idea and a little confidence still leave plenty of room for this kiss to be one of the sweetest and most innocent Tomas can remember. He's offering himself, wholeheartedly as he does everything, and Tomas is weak with hunger. The groan that boils up out of him and into Marcus’ mouth feels like it starts at the base of his spine and leaves him melting-hot all along its path, tremulous and panting. “Marcus,” he says, the desperation he's been leashing ever since he stepped out of the hospital starting to thunder through him in a way that would be dangerous in his usual haunts, but this is Marcus and so he is safe, safe to want, safe to be weak. “Marcus, I need- need you, need something…”“Anything, love. Whatever you need, just ask. In-” Marcus laughs breathlessly, “-in layman's terms, mind.”“Fuck my mouth,” Tomas blurts out, “please.” Marcus exhales hard. “Well, that's clear enough. Alright. How do y- okay!” he all but yelps as Tomas falls to his knees and yanks open Marcus’ pants, taking his entire mostly-soft cock into his mouth at once with a shaky moan.He. Tastes. Delicious . They've been up for days, and Marcus’ smell is intense down here, battering Tomas with its presence in the best way. His cock is a gorgeous mouthful, hard to take even as a soft, sweet bundle, and Tomas can just tell that it’s going to swell until it stretches his throat, long and thick and just exactly what he needs. He hums to it and suckles tenderly on it and listens to Marcus’ shattered moans as his cock grows in its new, warm, wet home. And grow it does, until the root escapes Tomas’ lips along with a flood of saliva. He opens wide and swallows with a wet click to get it back, chase that little bit of cock that isn’t already in his mouth, until his nose is flush with Marcus’ groin and all of his hot, heavy, wonderful flesh is inside Tomas.He settles a little then, throat stuffed with cock and head full of Marcus’ scent, holding him there for as long as he can before he has to back off to breathe, a rapid ventilation and dive back down like a marine mammal. It’s not what he needs most, not the bright orgasm he can already see sprouting its first glowing tendrils in Marcus’ belly, but knowing it’s on its way helps him be calm for a moment. And with calm comes a brushing frond of rational thought, the recognition that he’s taking Marcus’ virginity here, so maybe he should check in. He flicks his eyes up to Marcus’ face.Marcus looks - flabbergasted. His eyes are wide, his mouth hanging open. “So,” he quavers, “no gag reflex, then?”Tomas bats his eyelashes and swallows around him. Marcus shudders, running his fingers over Tomas’ face like a blind man. Tomas can feel a faint tremor in them, and hugs the backs of Marcus’ thighs in comfort. Marcus laughs breathlessly, and his touch on Tomas’ face becomes firmer, warmer, more the kind of grounding affection Tomas is used to from him.“Tomas,” he says, and Tomas’ insides do a complicated clench as he realizes it’s been a very, very long time since someone said his name with their cock in his throat - and that he really likes the sound of Marcus’ voice saying his name like that. “Tomas, I think I could - move, now, if that’s still what you want.”Tomas backs off to breathe again, and says, “Yes,” before sliding Marcus back home.“Okay,” Marcus whispers, and tries a tentative rocking of his hips. Tomas helps him, encouraging him with his hands on his hips, guiding Marcus' hands into his hair, and valiantly staying put when Marcus pulls away so he has somewhere to go when he pushes forward. The feeling of being filled again is almost as good as being filled the first time. Even better, he can see Marcus’ orgasm starting to grow, light coalescing into the beautiful shape that will be unique to Marcus and to this moment.He’s glimpsed Marcus’ arousal before, from a distance: dim red in his belly, flickering lazily like banked coals right before Marcus takes a long shower (or just goes to bed and lets it slowly fade and die); and just recently in the last several days on the island, shy lavender sparks around his mouth from time to time (presumably the ‘Peter’ the demon in Andy had talked about). And he's had enough virgins to recognize the nervous, twitchy responsiveness of the energy coiling in Marcus’ abdomen now, like an aquatic creature darting to and fro.Most of the virgins Tomas has been with were in their early twenties at the oldest, and their first shared orgasms were strands of glittering amber or gold, honey-sweet. Marcus is fifty-three, and Tomas wonders if that's why his oncoming climax is blue-white, as bright and hot as a gas flame, and why the serpentine shape of it keeps raising wings that spread all the way up to his chest. Tomas watches it, enchanted, as Marcus’ hips speed up and it grows stronger; even if he weren't on the brink of starving he'd be beyond eager to taste it.It doesn't occur to him - not until Marcus tightens his fingers in Tomas’ hair and utters a series of short, sharp cries - to wonder how taking in something so intense might feel. But by then it's too late; the light-serpent flares its wings wide, strobes briefly up and down Marcus' body, and then pours itself into Tomas through Marcus’ pulsing cock and clutching hands, streaming directly from its home at the base of Marcus' spine.As it turns out, it feels like being shoved under an electrified waterfall, if the water and the electricity were both made of pleasure. Tomas locks his jaw open and flings his arms around Marcus’ thighs, hanging on for dear life as the incredible flow of energy goes on and on. He's vaguely aware of coming in his pants, despite being nowhere close only moments ago.“My God, Tomas,” Marcus says, his voice cracking.Tomas can’t quite remember how to move after it ebbs, frozen there on his knees except for the way he’s starting to shake. Just as his vision starts to fill with starbursts, he hears Marcus’ voice, faintly as if from a great distance, saying, “Surely you need to- Tomas? Tomas!” and then Marcus’ hands are pushing his head back, dragging the cock out of his throat as Marcus hisses and flinches, his hamstrings twitching under Tomas’ hands. When it slides free with a slick noise Tomas gasps and coughs, and then he can’t stop coughing, heaving air into his chest like - well, like he’s narrowly escaped suffocation. He starts to topple forward, and Marcus catches his shoulders, kneels in front of him and pulls him into his arms.“There you are, love, I’ve got you. Just breathe.” He rubs Tomas’ back, up and down like he might soothe a distraught child, crooning reassuring nonsense as if he wasn’t just unceremoniously parted from his virginity. Tomas hadn’t even managed to get him to the bed. Marcus reflects, “Probably shouldn’t have let you go that route after a dying demon scorched your lungs earlier today.”“Maybe not,” Tomas wheezes, “but I wanted it.” He brushes Marcus’ waist. “So beautiful, Marcus.”“Beautiful,” Marcus echoes dubiously. Tomas nods. He hasn't tried to explain what he sees since he was a child; it occurs to him that he can probably trust Marcus to believe him, and to be interested, but he's not up to that much talking right now.“Is it always like this for you?” Tomas shakes his head. “You said you waited longer than you should have. Is this what happens?”Tomas shakes his head again. He doesn't like to so much as think of how he behaves when he loses control; he definitely doesn't want to talk more about it, and especially not to Marcus. “Shower?”“God, yes.”It's been a long and mostly terrible day for them both. It feels like laying it to rest as they peel each other out of their clothes while the shower heats up, filling the bathroom with steam.Marcus gets Tomas’ pants off and looks surprised at the damp mess he finds. “You came?”The wet air makes it easier for Tomas to talk. “I was surprised too. You just gave so much, it kind of overflowed.”Marcus squints. “That doesn't sound right, but I don't know enough about sex to dispute it.”They step into the shower. “Marcus? How come you know as much about sex as you do?” Never in a million years would Tomas have expected Marcus to know the word ‘gloryhole’.Marcus shrugs, scrubbing his armpits. “Demons. They’re surprisingly thorough at explaining things when you don't even know enough to be shocked by what they're saying.”“That's horrible.” He can see it: Marcus’ big blue eyes in a skinny kid's face, listening to a demon gleefully describe the filthiest acts it could think of when he probably hadn't even kissed anyone yet, barely touched himself.“Not as horrible as the sex ed provided by nuns in the ‘70s.”“Fair enough.”“If I'd had only that curriculum to go on, I probably would’ve ended up pregnant somehow.”That finally gets a spluttering laugh out of Tomas, and he finishes washing himself with a lighter heart. Marcus has forgotten more about resilience than any ten other people ever knew. Just being around him makes Tomas feel stronger.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

Finally clean, and dry, and buzzing with a euphoria fifty-three years (and one very startling blowjob) in the making, Marcus has nothing more on his mind than crawling into bed and going to sleep. That is, until Tomas touches his arm and says, “Um. Actually…”Marcus stares. “You want to go again?”“Can we?” Tomas asks hopefully.“I would, darling, but I don’t know if I can so soon.”“Oh,” Tomas murmurs, “that’s not a problem.” There’s a very peculiar note in his voice that Marcus has never heard from him before; it sort of reaches into his body and caresses his insides. At the same time he steps right into Marcus’ space, and despite being freshly-washed he definitely smells like - something. Spicy, sweet but not sugary - more earthy. Warm and inviting. He touches Marcus’ hips and his hands are fever-hot, despite both of them having been under the same shower water just minutes ago. The heat radiates out onto Marcus’ skin, and incredibly, his cock starts to fill with blood again.He kisses Marcus and his mouth is slick, the flavor of his toothpaste eclipsed by the same spicy sweetness he smells of. His tongue curls lewdly around Marcus’, enticing it into his mouth; his moan is almost relieved when Marcus gives it to him.Marcus supposes, given what he knows about Tomas’ nature, that he shouldn't be surprised at how much he seems to be oriented around - consumption, being filled. But it's one thing to know, and quite another to experience. He burns to be inside him again, aches for it; he would crawl entirely under Tomas’ skin if he could, and Tomas would welcome him there. Suspecting the feeling isn't one hundred percent his own idea makes no difference at all.He shocks himself by gripping Tomas’ arse (round, wonderfully firm handfuls) and pulling him close. Tomas squirms against him, the edge of a whine on his breath. “You'll get what you need, love,” Marcus promises, “just say the word.” “Cógeme,” Tomas gasps, “fuck me, Marcus.”Marcus swallows. That's a hell of a word. “We'll need-”“I have everything,” Tomas says eagerly, leaping away in a scramble of fragrant brown limbs.He does, in fact, seem to have everything; the most private depths of his luggage turn out to be reserved for a dizzying array of small bottles, tubes, and packets, both recognizable and arcane. Marcus gets as far as reading the label on the largest package (one pair elbow-length surgical gloves, size 9) before he sets it down gingerly, feeling faint.On the bed, Tomas is grinning at him. “It’s hard work being easy.”“You didn't have all this in your pockets when you set out tonight.”Tomas shrugs. “I never take all of it, but sometimes I have a better idea where I'm going, and what I'll need to get the best results.” He flicks two packets onto the foot of the bed (lubricant and - a large condom? flatterer) and gets onto all fours.Marcus clambers onto the bed behind him, back into the waft of that enticing scent. Tomas looks impossibly alluring, sculpted arse displayed to its best advantage, and he is fully on-board with the plan of getting inside him, but- “Remember, I’m all theory, no practice.”“It’s not complicated,” Tomas assures him, “I’ll help you.” And he does, and it isn't, although Marcus has a lot of complicated feelings about seeing his slicked-up fingers move in and out of Tomas' hole, softening the ring of muscle until Tomas hangs his head between his arms and begs for Marcus’ cock. “Ahora, Marcus, cógeme ahora, por favor!” Luckily the condom package has a helpful little diagram showing which way to roll it on, and what do you know? The large size still feels like a snug fit. Marcus would preen, but Tomas is bent over and spread wide, keening wordlessly, and so everything else takes a backseat. He lines himself up and starts to push in, and Tomas pushes back against him harder and yells as Marcus slides into him. “Cóger, fuck, fuck, it's been a long time,” he pants, after he's taken Marcus to the hilt.It's been never for Marcus, but he holds his tongue. “You okay?” Tomas looks so vulnerable like this, soft flesh gaping wide around him, and the knowledge of just how far up inside him Marcus is lodged makes Marcus quake internally.Tomas nods. “I don't try to get this unless I know the area,” he says in a small voice. Which means not since Chicago, probably.“You know me.” Marcus hardly recognizes his own voice in such a deep register. He chuckles  “Heh. Getting to know me better by the second.”Tomas’ laugh is bright and innocent. He looks back at Marcus with his usual dazzling smile. “That's true!” His smile softens. “I'm glad you're here.”“Me too.” Marcus feels the most baffling mix of tender protectiveness and the desire to shove into Tomas over and over, fuck him until he screams, until he cries, until he comes so hard he forgets his own name - and somehow the tenderness also leads to that, like it's all a circle. “Do you want me to move now?” “God, yes.”Marcus hadn't thought he could feel more eagerly enveloped than he did earlier tonight, but Tomas’ arse is even tighter and smoother than his mouth, and possibly hotter. Even better, he can hear Tomas the whole time, which is reassuring after Tomas nearly lost consciousness before, as if he forgot how to breathe.And is there ever a lot to hear. Tomas responds to his thrusts with enthusiastic grunts and sighs, and curses in garbled English and Spanish. At one point Marcus tries to reach around to give his cock some attention, but Tomas shakes his head and plucks his hand away, setting it on his hip instead. Marcus takes the hint and braces his hips with both hands, and the subtle change in angle and increased force provoke a deep, shuddering moan from Tomas that Marcus hasn't heard yet.“You like that?” he says, breathing fast - this is a lot of work. “Being held tight, made to take it?” He slams in hard on the take, and Tomas’ arms collapse and he howls into the mattress. “No, no, let me hear you, Tomas.” Tomas rolls his head to the side. “Is it good?” “¡Sí! So good, Marcus,” and Tomas’ voice breaks as he says it.Marcus grins, all teeth, his mean streak and his enormous fondness for Tomas working in tandem. “I'm glad, because you take it so well, so beautifully,” he pants, fucking in every time he stresses a word, and Tomas starts to sob in reaction - but he's grinding back against Marcus at the same time, trying to take even more, so Marcus keeps going. “Sweet boy, so needy. It's good for you to get what you need, Tomas. We should've - hngh! - been doing this all along.”Tomas nods vague agreement, his face wet, eyelids fluttering every time Marcus bottoms out just right.“Gonna do this from now on,” Marcus gasps, feeling the first swoop of his inevitable peak. “Gonna take care of you, Tomas.”Tomas is staring back at him, not at his face but at where they're joined, eyes wide with something akin to terror. “Oh Jesus,” he moans, “blue again.” Which is bizarre enough Marcus would stop if he could, but he can’t. “Wha- shit!” His orgasm seizes him and drives him one last time into Tomas, who rears up against Marcus, jerking like he's been electrocuted. Marcus clutches reflexively at him, hugging him to his chest and gasping through the pleasure singing in his blood while Tomas comes untouched (again), spending messily all over the bedspread and screaming at the top of his lungs. As Marcus starts to come down, Tomas’ legs give out and they both topple to the bed.“Oof.”“Sorry.” Marcus moves to get up.“No!” Tomas flails a hand behind him and clutches at Marcus’ hip. “Stay.”“Okay.” Marcus molds himself to Tomas’ back, slowly kissing his nape and then his mouth when Tomas twists his head to meet him, humming at the last lazy pulses of his cock inside the condom. When it starts feeling a little less snug in there, he says, “I should probably-”“Yeah,” Tomas sighs wistfully. He shows Marcus how to hold onto the base of the condom while pulling out, and lets Marcus figure out removing it, throwing it away, and washing his hands before returning and nudging Tomas into the other, clean bed, pulling the blankets over them both.“Tomas, what did you mean when you said, ‘blue again'?”“Oh,” Tomas says sleepily. “When you came, it was bluish-white both times. Most people are more orange or red.”That - doesn't make any sense. Marcus wonders if it’s something to do with what Tomas is.“Marcus?”“Yes, love?”“How come you know so much about me? About - the way I am?” Tomas’ voice is small. “I tried so hard to hide it.”“Shhh.” Marcus shushes him and kisses the back of his neck again. “It's a long story. Get some rest and I'll tell you in the morning.”“Okay.” Tomas seems to simply drop off at that. The implicit trust makes Marcus’ breath catch, somehow as moving as the way Tomas had spilled his most dangerous truths and shown Marcus his most vulnerable self without hesitation. He kisses Tomas’ bare shoulder and tightens the arm he's thrown over his side.The feeling of so much warm skin against Marcus’ own would have a drugging effect even without whatever little something Tomas is still exuding, that seems to be helping Marcus over his transition to being fully naked with another person (far from his biggest transition of the last twelve hours; they already had very little modesty around each other). He follows Tomas down into sleep.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

Tomas wakes up sweaty and almost too warm; this turns out to be because he’s entangled in long, pale, freckled limbs, of which Marcus now seems to have about eight.“Marcus.” He tries to lift the arm around his ribcage, but it goes from limp to rigid. This is like being trapped in the bed by a bony octopus. “Marcus, I need the bathroom.” Marcus grumbles and reluctantly lets Tomas pry himself loose.Tomas looks at himself in the bathroom mirror: bedhead, slight blotches here and there on his skin where he's been grabbed (and some actual faint bruising on his hips), a particular softness to his mouth that’s more than just the puffiness of being well-used. Some of these things he used to associate with Jessica, but he doesn't feel like he's losing himself now. He feels more grounded in himself than ever. At least one demon was allergic to me, and Marcus knows I'm a freak and didn't turn away, he thinks. Credit where it’s due: Marcus did a hell of a lot more than not turn away. Marcus recognizes something about him, something bad or he wouldn’t be putting off telling him what it is, but it didn’t stop him from helping Tomas. Just to save Tomas from having to feed himself in a setting that wasn't his favorite, Marcus offered up the chastity he carried with a vow for decades and without a vow for months. Tomas is still tingling with the electricity of Marcus’ energy inside him, the second orgasm just as overwhelming as the first.When he leaves the bathroom and slips back into bed, Marcus winds himself around Tomas like he never left. Tangling their legs, arms creeping around him like friendly human ivy. Of course a man so tactile would turn out to be a cuddler; Tomas isn’t the least bit surprised.He is a bit surprised when Marcus grinds his erection against the backs of Tomas’ thighs and rumbles, “Morning.”“Good morning,” Tomas says.“Care for breakfast in bed?”Tomas is also surprised at the want that throbs through him at the suggestion; he's already more than replete by his usual standards. But then, nothing has ever been usual with Marcus. He swallows. “Alright.”Marcus purrs his approval and his hands start to roam up and down Tomas’ body, seemingly aimless except for how Tomas can feel his cock twitch behind him whenever he finds a spot that provokes a reaction. He hums rich approval back every time Tomas so much as squirms, and Tomas gets the alarming impression he’s cataloguing everything with that fearsome intelligence, scaling the learning curve of this new skillset at breakneck speed.The impression gets stronger when Marcus, seemingly no longer satisfied with groping Tomas from behind while sucking kisses all over his neck and shoulders, clambers on top of him and starts to work him over again. He revisits every place on Tomas’ body that got a response before, watching Tomas intently as he varies his touches, feathery caresses and firm squeezes.When Tomas blurts out, “Harder,” at a light brush to his nipples, Marcus’ eyes actually twinkle.“How much harder?”“Um- oh!” Tomas shivers all over when Marcus squeezes them, and pants, “a, a little harder, ahhh…” Marcus does as he asks, pinching in earnest, and he throws his head back, squeezing his eyes shut. “Good,” Marcus croons, “very good, Tomas.” The praise, and the use of his name, make Tomas flush even hotter than the perfectly-too-tight pressure at his chest. “My God, Tomas, you are a delight.” Marcus blankets him suddenly, covering his mouth with his own and nipping at his lips. Tomas moans into the kiss, and again when Marcus curls his tongue inside. He can feel Marcus delighting in him, and something about that cracks him open in a way sex hasn't for a long time, if ever. He doesn't know what to do with it, other than clutch at Marcus' back and let Marcus learn him, know him - cherish him.Marcus moans back, like the way Tomas is responding is affecting him too. He rolls his hips, dragging his leaking hardness across Tomas’ belly, and then reaches down and grips Tomas’ cock in his broad, warm hand.Tomas stiffens. “Wait, stop, stop.”Marcus freezes. “What is it?”“I don't - want to be touched there.”Marcus lets go immediately, then looks down. “Really?” His confusion is understandable; Tomas is so hard he has no doubt his cock is verging on purple. He looks into Tomas’ eyes, studying him for a moment, and then his face clears. “Is this about your vow?”Tomas’ face burns. “I know it's stupid-”Marcus interrupts him with a kiss. “Hey, no, no, it's not stupid. It’s your body; what you say goes.” Tomas has to grab him and kiss him for a long time for that, long enough for the heat between them to build again. Marcus’ breath is coming fast when he finally lifts his head up. “Only, help me understand, Tomas; you didn’t seem to mind either time when you came last night.”Tomas tries to explain. “I guess - it’s fine if I can’t help it?”Marcus furrows his brow, thinking this through. “So, you’re okay with coming,” he says slowly, “so long as it isn’t from having your genitals touched?”Tomas nods gratefully. “Yes, that’s right.”Marcus’ smile is sly. “I can work with that.” Tomas gulps and wonders what he’s gotten himself into.As it turns out, most of what he’s gotten is Marcus into him . He hunts up more lube - not that Tomas needs much, still a bit slick from last night - and fingers him open slow and relentless, watching Tomas’ face whenever he isn’t sucking bruises into his hips and ribs and the insides of his thighs. Tomas is well aware of where his prostate is and what it can do; in short order that knowledge belongs to Marcus also, and he can reach it without half-dislocating his wrist in the process.The first time he sinks three fingers deep into Tomas’ ass and right into his sweet spot, rubbing him with tender ruthlessness, Tomas comes almost as unexpectedly as he did last night. He just sucks in a breath and rolls up on a single huge swell of pleasure and comes all over his own belly, his sighs echoing off the walls of the motel room. “Perfect,” Marcus tells him, rubbing his thigh soothingly with his free hand and - and not backing off with his fingers inside him at all. Tomas whimpers, no other word for it, and grabs for Marcus’ free hand, interlacing their fingers and squeezing hard.“Is it still good, Tomas? Shall I keep going?” Tomas covers his eyes with his other arm and nods. Marcus rewards him with a particularly deep thrust of his fingers and an, “Oh, good boy.” Tomas feels like laughing and crying and screaming and, yes, maybe coming again very soon. He’s created a monster.He is sort of crying by the time Marcus drags a second orgasm out of him, kneeling up and leaning forward with his face hidden in the crook of Marcus’ neck, all but sitting in Marcus’ lap with Marcus just fucking - coring him with his fingers while he talks. He calls Tomas beautiful and good, ‘sweetheart’ and ‘darling’ and ‘love’, and over and over he calls Tomas by his name.Tomas has been fucked plenty of times for all that it’s comparatively a rare treat, but it’s never been like this. He’s never been like this with anyone, never felt so cared-for or so coddled. And his hunger has never felt like this either: a yawning, hollow, specific ache to have Marcus come for him, no one else. “Cógeme,” he manages when he can speak at last, shaking so hard his teeth are chattering, “Marcus, por favor, I need you inside me.”Marcus jerks at that, and Tomas can see the now-familiar blue-white coils of his energy shifting eagerly. Already he’s beginning to crave its intensity as specifically as he craves Marcus himself. He suspects he may be ruining himself for anyone else but he can’t bring himself to care, not when Marcus sucks air through his teeth and rolls on a condom without delay (he’s going to have to buy more magnums, a rational sliver of Tomas reflects smugly). He lays Tomas down carefully, with a hand behind his head, and when Tomas has the presence of mind to hook his knees over Marcus’ upper arms he gives Tomas a wolfish grin and fucks into him in one long, slow, delicious plunge. “God, Tomas,” he groans, “you feel incredible. So hot,” he starts to thrust, “and soft,” Tomas rakes his fingernails down his back, “and open for me, like inside you is where I was always meant to be.” “Sí,” Tomas moans. All he can feel is the strength of Marcus’ body as he moves, the burning fullness of his cock in Tomas’ ass. Marcus’ eyes seem as bright as the blue fire rising in his lower body, already starting to flicker all over; he’s held himself back for Tomas’ pleasure and is hovering on the edge now. “Do it,” Tomas begs, “I need to feel you come inside me.” He runs his hands up Marcus’ chest, stroking over his nipples, and even a light touch sends tremors through Marcus’ long, powerful frame.“As you wish,” Marcus says, and gives Tomas a series of deep thrusts, gaining in speed and force until Tomas feels like his eyes are rattling in their sockets, and then he bottoms out particularly hard and throws his head back, and his orgasm crashes into them both. Tomas is learning to expect the force of it, and this time it’s less like being slammed under a waterfall and more like being swept up by a huge, pounding wave; he lets it lift him and tumble him, and shouts his exultation.He lies on the bed like a beached starfish after, damp and panting, looking up at the ceiling and waiting for the room to stop spinning. He feels a pang of regret as Marcus deals with the condom, and for the first time he thinks that if Marcus decides he wants to keep doing this, maybe Tomas could go through the testing to dispense with barriers. He thinks about feeling Marcus’ bare, hot skin against his inner walls, about Marcus leaving his come inside him so he can feel it trickle out slowly, and he flushes with want. It feels huge to contemplate; he’s been more diligent about safety than he has about honoring the last scrap of his vow. Something to think about, for sure.When Marcus comes back and sits on him, he makes a pitiful whimper. “No more, please. I can’t move.”“Good,” Marcus says quietly, still with a small smile, but his eyes are serious. “Because it's storytime.”

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

Tomas looks up at Marcus uneasily, body gone still but hopefully too relaxed to get very tense. Marcus prays it was the right decision to tire him out before talking about this.“Before I begin, Tomas, I want to remind you that everything that lives is loved by God, and no one is ever to blame for the circumstances of their birth. Do you agree?”“Well, yes, but what-”“Say it.” They did this in the early days of Tomas’ apprenticeship, drilling him on the key litanies of exorcism. Tomas obeys him now out of sheer force of habit, repeating:“Everything that lives is loved by God, and no one is ever to blame for the circumstances of their birth.”“Very good.” Marcus is too old to do this entire thing straddling Tomas’ legs, however delightfully muscular; he moves to sit against the headboard, tugging Tomas until his head is in Marcus’ lap. Stroking his hair, he begins.“In 2003, I was playing whack-a-mole with a demon in San Loguina, Nevada. The town was dying by inches ever since the closing of the mine; hundreds of families were desperately poor, dozens of people were ripe for the picking, and the demon just kept jumping from host to host like some vile frog.The priest who made the call was - how did you put it? A gutless wonder. My main ally was one Inge Asper, the madam of the local brothel.” Tomas startles Marcus by laughing. “What?”“My life is a series of rooms, demons, and coffee that tastes like pond-water,” he quotes, grinning up at Marcus. “You're such a liar.”“Look, do you want to hear this story or not?”“Of course. Please, tell me the very boring story about hunting a demon with a lady pimp.”“Inge was more lady than pimp. She was the kind of icy beauty men could dash themselves to pieces against - and did. She vetted every customer who came to her house; most left looking like they’d had their stuffing plucked out, run through the wash, and then tucked back into their skins. Her, um, ladies and gentlemen were some of the only ones in the state who liked their jobs, for all that she called them her cows - what now?” Tomas is smiling up at him again.“Ladies and gentlemen,” he echoes. “You're adorable.”Ears hot, Marcus soldiers on. “And she had a nose for the demon, maybe literally - again and again she was able to pin down its location faster than I could. She hated the damn thing, kept saying the town was her territory and the people in it were under her protection. We chased it all over; I spent more time blessing and sanctifying the hosts it left behind than I did shouting the Rituale at it.Inge had a teenaged daughter, Iris, even lovelier than she was: warm where her mother was cold. She entertained an endless string of boyfriends and girlfriends, all of them madly infatuated with her, but the penultimate host of the demon was, to my understanding, one friend she wasn't having sex with. Didn't stop Iris from inviting it to leave the boy and take her instead, just as we were catching up.Oh, the demon was so gleeful at Inge’s horror. That is, it was gleeful - for a few seconds. Then it became extremely alarmed, went into convulsions, and Iris vomited it out as a massive plume of smoke and burning ash. It died then and there. Iris was very upset and suffering from smoke inhalation, but otherwise unharmed. I'd never seen anything like it before and I've never seen anything like it since. Not until yesterday.”Tomas is staring up at him, eyes wide with pent-up questions. Marcus brushes his fingertips over his lips, a thank-you for staying quiet and a promise answers are coming.“When it was all over, Inge invited me into her office, shut the door, and offered to relieve me of my virginity. I thanked her and said I would rather she relieve me of my curiosity. Did she know how she and her daughter could do the things they did?The look she gave me then, Tomas. I think in some ways I've never been closer to death than when she was measuring me with those shark-eyes of hers.” Marcus has goosebumps just recalling it. “But, whatever sum she came to - and was I ever glad we'd just spent several weeks working closely together - added up in my favor, and she started to talk.She said her name wasn't always Inge Asper, and that when her daughter was grown she would move on and have another name again without ever looking like she'd aged a day. She said she'd been around a long, long, long time. She said she wasn't sure if she counted as Fallen, since she left the Host voluntarily, and out of fondness for humanity instead of hatred for us.”“And you believed her?”Marcus nods. “She - she described God's face to me, Tomas. I wish I remember the words she used, because I've never managed to explain it to anyone. But I knew. I heard her words and I knew she was telling the truth because what she described is what I saw when I was young.Much of the writing about her kind is pure masturbatory drivel, but she said it still wouldn't be grossly inaccurate to call her a succubus, and Iris a cambion.” Marcus looks down at Tomas, who has not moved; in fact he is absolutely motionless. “Breathe, Tomas. Breathe for me, love. Would you repeat the words I asked you to say earlier?”“...Everything that lives is loved by God, and-” Tomas swallows hard, “-and no one is ever to blame for the circumstances of their birth.”Marcus slides his fingers into Tomas’ thick black hair, rubbing small circles on his scalp. “Good lad.”“My sister Olivia is not like me,” he says abruptly, “I would know.”Very gently, Marcus says, “I think she’s most likely, technically speaking, your half-sister. From a different father.”“You think my father was a - an incubus.” Tomas falters over the word.“I do. Inge said she was unusually territorial and parental; most are more detached, or form attachments only briefly. That fits what you told me about him.”  Tomas is silent for a long minute, then: “Am I immune to demonic possession?”“If you can call traumatizing your soul and nearly needing to be hospitalized for smoke damage to your lungs ‘immune’, maybe, but let's not go testing it.”“...You think I have a soul.” The tremor of doubt in his voice is hideous.Marcus’ grip on Tomas’ hair tightens until Tomas’ eyes water; he tries to relax his hold and fails. “Tomas Ortega, you are more full of love than anyone I have ever met. Demons can't stop talking about what a nummy treat you are, and they don't mean your symmetrical fucking face!” He realizes he’s yelling, clears his throat, and tries to calm down. “Obviously you have a soul; it just has - antibodies. An angelic streak that recognizes another angelic being and repels it when it gets too close.”Tomas glares up at him, jaw clenched, but he is looking at Marcus. Not looking away, not refusing to listen. “Angelic? I think you mean monstrous.” “Both kinds of beings are of angelic descent, and are the way they are today because of their choices - their free will, which is the gift of God to all sentient life. No one is a monster by their nature, but by their actions. Inge was strange and frightening, but she wasn’t evil. She wasn’t harming anyone. She was just one more different type of creature with which we share the earth.” He spreads his hands over Tomas’ skull like if he concentrates he can burn the truth into his brain. “And her daughter was an innocent, as much a child of God as anyone else.”  Tomas pounces on something Marcus had hoped he would let pass. “Just one more. Have you met other - creatures?”“None so friendly or forthcoming. Many were very bad encounters, and no name was given for what I saw at the time, nor could I find anything that fit when I tried to research later.” Marcus pauses. “I think one might have been a vampire, but. I don't know if I'll ever be ready to tell that story.”Tomas finds his hand and squeezes it. “If you ever change your mind, I'll listen.”Marcus squeezes back. “Your hair is turning white fast enough as it is; I'll not hasten it.”Tomas rolls his eyes at that, then lets his gaze drift in thought. Marcus strokes his hair and lets him process. This is already going much better than he feared; Tomas is still physically in the room.“I liked it better when I thought I was just a hallucinating slut,” Tomas announces eventually.“Is that the colours you mentioned? Would you tell me about them?”“When people feel arousal, desire, I can see it in them. Patterns of coloured light in their bodies, or parts of their bodies. It's most obvious up close and when they're feeling it for me, but it's always there.” He reaches up and traces Marcus’ mouth with a finger. “I knew you were seeing someone on the island before Andy's demon said anything, because you kept coming back with pretty lavender sparks around your mouth.” He frowns. “I'm sorry I cut all that off with my- everything.”“Don't be. Peter is a lovely, kind man, but it was my everything that would have ensured it never got off the ground.” Marcus is too fascinated to feel more than a brief pang of regret. “What else can you see?”“I know when you need to jerk off - and how often you pretend you don't.” Tomas pokes him in the stomach. “You’ve got some nerve, lecturing me about getting my needs met and taking that sad red glow to bed all ignored.”“At my age it's usually even sadder to not ignore it,” Marcus protests. “What else?”“It's brightest when someone's close to orgasm; I guess this is exactly the same as how food looks best when it's fully-cooked,” Tomas reflects ruefully. “Anyway, it builds and builds, all coiled up down here,” he rubs Marcus’ abdomen, “until it flows into me and I feel better. Usually bright red or orange, like fire, except for virgins who are more gold, and except for you.” “What about me?”“I've had sex with a lot of people, and I've never seen energy like yours. It's bluish-white, and so intense I completely lose control every time it comes into me.”Marcus winces. “That sounds unpleasant.”“Then I am not explaining well. It's not pleasant; it's amazing.” Tomas’ pupils are dilating just talking about it, and Marcus catches a whiff of that smell he was putting out last night. He sits up and turns to face Marcus, kissing him hungrily. “Here, let’s go again and I’ll tell you about it.” He reaches down and cups Marcus’ balls, stroking his cock with his warm, sure grip.Incredibly, Marcus feels himself stirring like he really could go again. “Pop question, love: how often can a man come?”Tomas tilts his head. “As often as he wants? Same as a woman.”“I think that might be as often as you want them to.”Tomas blinks. “Huh. This is the kind of thing you miss when you never spend more than an hour or two with someone, I guess.” And also why Jessica was panting after you for so long, Marcus thinks, the only mystery is why she ever let you go. I won’t make that mistake. “Let me be clear: I am not complaining,” he growls, and kisses Tomas back with equal fervor. He went without for far too long for a single night and morning to tap the watershed of his longing.Tomas blooms in his arms, scent rolling off him in almost-palpable waves as he opens his mouth to Marcus’ tongue, working Marcus’ cock to hardness with eager skill. Marcus is so dazed with desire that when Tomas pulls back he chases his mouth for more.“Shh,” Tomas chides, “I was going to do something, remember? Lie back, cariño, and let me tell you what I see.”“I can’t not touch you,” Marcus protests, and they work out a compromise: lying facing each other, Marcus more on his back and Tomas propped up on one elbow, eyes roving over him as he jacks Marcus’ cock. Tomas’ cock lies thick against his thigh, and Marcus’ hands itch to hold it, but it’s the one line Tomas has drawn himself among the narrow choices his biology and calling have given him. Marcus won’t push, especially not when there is a wealth of warm brown skin he can touch.“You have such a nice cock, Marcus,” Tomas says, “I wish I had it in my mouth right now. Next time,” he mutters as if promising himself. Marcus groans and kneads at his arms, already feeling the delicious tension starting to rise.“Right, there it is.” Tomas smooths his other hand over Marcus’ abdomen. “Such big, bright loops - usually it looks like string or rope, but yours makes me think of - a serpent, maybe. A winged serpent? I don’t know, it’s just very alive.” He drags a fingertip from Marcus’ navel up to the hollow of his throat, and Marcus gasps, feeling it like a line of fire. Tomas chuckles. “So responsive, like dangling string for a cat.”It’s crazy, but if Marcus closes his eyes and focuses on the feeling, he can almost visualize it: the shifting arousal in his belly, flickers of sensation fanning up over the rest of his body from time to time like, yes, like wings; the way it jumps and flares on his skin wherever Tomas touches him. “I can feel it,” he tells Tomas, “but I think some of it is your doing.”“Maybe,” Tomas says, “but I’m not in any hurry to let you go testing that with anyone else. You gave this to me, Marcus.” He changes his hold on Marcus’ cock somehow, a twisting slide that rolls over the head, and Marcus bites off a shout. “You trusted me to be your first.”“I told you,” Marcus says unsteadily, hips starting to twitch, “I’d do a great deal more.”“Even knowing what I am?” There’s a definite growl in Tomas’ voice, the same one that appears when he’s angry, but he doesn’t sound angry now.  “M-makes no difference at all, Tomas, truly, none,” Marcus is starting to stutter, head tipping back. He feels Tomas’ heat as he bends close over him to lick a stripe up his neck. “Only- only changed what I knew you needed.”Tomas bites his earlobe, tugs on it, releases it. “Why? Why does it make no difference?”“Because I know who you are,” Marcus grits out, and then he’s coming, the clench and release of orgasm with a partner - with Tomas, for Tomas - still shattering in its power. He’s dimly aware of Tomas blanketing him with his body, pulling him with a hand on his cheek into a messy kiss so he can drink up Marcus’ moans and sighs, still cupping his other hand around Marcus’ cock - protectively, Marcus realizes. He’s protecting Marcus’ tender flesh from being crushed by Tomas’ body on top of him, uncoordinated as he shudders through a sympathetic orgasm of his own.“I know who you are, Tomas.” Marcus repeats when he can speak again, rubbing Tomas’ broad back until he relaxes onto Marcus, smearing the mess of come between them.“That makes one of us,” Tomas sighs, but he tucks his face into Marcus’ neck, and winds his hand around his hip, and doesn’t let go. Marcus supposes that's good enough for now.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

Cambion. Tomas even remembers reading the word in some paperback bestiary, under his blankets with a flashlight in the middle of the night. The offspring of an incubus or a succubus. Marcus is right that most of it is fairy-tale nonsense. Tomas knows he breathed and had a pulse before he turned seven; he has many memories of running or playing so hard he threw himself onto the ground to recover, reveling in the feeling of being winded with his heart hammering in his chest (truth be told, he has often thought he probably qualified as hyperactive when he was a boy). And somehow he doubts he would have been able to fly to Mexico at age six if he was too heavy to be moved by a horse.But still. He’d been reading about himself.“I can’t believe I became a priest,” he complains abruptly, rolling to look at the ceiling.Marcus pats him. “It does speak to how stubborn you are; you had to have an inkling your sexual needs were going to pose a challenge.”“There is also that. But I was talking about trying to serve God as a d-” Marcus actually claps his hand over Tomas’ mouth.“I will ask you to think very carefully about how you want to end that sentence,” he says - mildly, but Tomas is touching enough of his body to feel his tension. “A demon is a spirit possessing a human being. Throwing the title about willy-nilly disrespects the suffering of their victims. I’ve gotten in more than one bar fight with other clergy about this; don’t think I won’t fight you.”Tomas glares and licks Marcus’ palm, drooling as much as he can. Marcus just flips to lie on top of him again, heedless of the congealed mess on their bellies. “I’m serious,” he says, “you may share a common ancestry with demons but that common ancestry is angels, and the ones in your bloodline left Heaven because they liked humanity so much. If anything, I bet it was a factor in your becoming a priest.” He removes his hand. “Say what I made you say before. I don’t care if you don’t feel like it.”Tomas sighs and recites, “Everything that lives is loved by God, and no one is ever to blame for the circumstances of their birth.”“Would you hesitate to say that to anyone else? Anyone at all?”“...No.”“Well, you don’t get a special exemption.” He kisses Tomas swiftly. “God loves you. Don’t be stupid. Now let’s get cleaned up and figure out our next steps.” He springs out of bed and into the bathroom, leaving Tomas behind running bemused fingers over his lips.“That was very motivational,” he calls out. “If you get tired of being an exorcist you could give speeches. You’re Not Special, So Get Over Yourself: a lecture series by Marcus Keane.”“Ha! Passing on Mum’s pearl of wisdom to the masses. Just the one pearl, mind.” The shower comes on. After a minute Tomas remembers that means Marcus is in there, all wet and soapy and probably agreeable to scrubbing Tomas’ back where he's not bendy enough to reach on his own, so he does get over himself and goes to join him.He calls Rose once he's dressed, stepping out of the motel room so he can listen to her without being distracted by Marcus’ voice as he checks in with Mouse.“Andy's still in the ICU. It was touch-and-go for a while there, but they say he's stabilizing.”Tomas breathes out hard, sagging against the siding. “That's good,” he says, offering up a silent prayer of thanks.“It is, but it makes everything a lot more complicated. Even if Andy does the predictable thing and makes a full confession, what he says won't make sense. Investigators could be combing the island for years trying to understand what happened.”Tomas winces. “I don't think there's much we could do to help things make sense.” Not to mention their need to stay off the grid. Even if the Vatican wasn't trying to kill or turn them, he's not sure Marcus is in the country legally - in fact he probably isn’t.“Probably not,” agrees Rose.“What's going to happen to the kids?”“Back into the system, but-” she lowers her voice, “-I'm applying to be an emergency foster parent for them, and then a permanent one. Try to keep them together.”“That's really great, Rose.”“It's not a done deal yet, but I'm hoping.”“We’ll pray for all of you.”“That - means more to me today than it would have not so long ago. You guys take care.”“You too.” He goes back inside, where Marcus is muttering tersely, sounding somehow even more British than usual. At last he hangs up, looking troubled.“What did Mouse find in Spokane?”“Bennett's missing, there was ash under his hospital bed, and a nurse was decapitated.”“Oh, God.”“Yeah. My guess, the summoning picked up a demon who don't want to play with the Vatican crowd, because that weren't exactly a subtle move.” Marcus freezes. “Doesn't. Wasn't. Fuck.” He pinches the bridge of his nose.Tomas squeezes his shoulder, then remembers they're lovers now; there’s no propriety to stop him reeling Marcus into a proper hug. Marcus tolerates it stiffly, then cracks and holds onto him, arms tight around Tomas’ ribs. “We can get him back,” Tomas swears.“Ash-summoned demons -aren’t- generally strong enough to possess someone. They integrate or they dissipate, and this one -doesn’t- look like it dissipated.” Marcus bites off the words like he’s trying not to fall back into his parents’ dialect again.“Angela Rance came back from integration.”“She was a special case.”“We can still try. And if we fail, we can put down the thing defiling him.”Marcus forces a few fast, deep breaths. This close Tomas can hear him grinding his teeth. Then he nods. “Right. Spokane it is. Let’s get moving toward the bus station.”It isn't until they're there, tickets bought and waiting for their departure time, that Marcus asks, “What did Rose say?”“Andy is probably going to live, and she’s trying to get the kids assigned to her.”Marcus mutters, as if to himself, “And that is, after all, not nothing.”“I would fight you if you implied otherwise.”Marcus actually laughs - just once, and it's sad and exhausted, but Tomas will take it. “Touché.”In Marcus’ line of work, sleeping where and when you can is as important a skill as being ready to dodge someone lunging for a bite (the former improves the latter, actually). A reclining seat on a rumbling bus, warm under his coat with Tomas beside him - not to mention his unaccustomed exertions lately - is enough for him to sleep virtually the entire ride, despite his worries. He wakes to Tomas jostling him. “We're almost there.” “Almos’ there ain’t there,” Marcus slurs, “I coulda slept longer.”“You can’t find your face with both hands when you first wake up. Trying to get off a bus would be a disaster.”“Insolent whelp.” Marcus bats feebly in Tomas’ general direction and misses. Tomas doesn’t even have to duck, looking at him with such fondness Marcus’ heart clenches. He can’t believe it took knowing Tomas needs sex to survive for Marcus to finally kiss him.Tomas’ words next words clear away the cobwebs in a hurry, though. “You didn’t want to tell Mouse I’m a-” he swallows and forces the word out, “a cambion, before. What do you want to tell her now?”“Dunno that we need to tell her anything else unless we end up doing another exorcism together,” Marcus says thoughtfully. “Only a demon in the possession phase would be able to pull the knowledge from our heads. And even then - my gut says they’d leave it alone.”Tomas looks down. “I’m not at peace about it, Marcus. I don’t even know exactly how I feel about it.”“Even so… The last time, in Nevada, the demon was really uneasy around Inge. I think that was part of why it kept jumping ship so often. Same origins, different decisions: that’s a wrinkle most demons can’t wrap their petty little minds around. Even a generation removed and surrounded by lots of tasty emotional turmoil, I think they’d go for lower-hanging fruit.” Marcus tilts his seat back up and turns his jacket around and over his head, shoving his arms into the sleeves. “Like how Mouse got possessed because of me and then I couldn’t exorcise her. That’s a much simpler and sweeter morsel,” he says bitterly. Tomas leans their foreheads together, and Marcus closes his eyes. Twenty years he’s been able to keep Mouse behind him; perhaps this is the bill coming due at last.Like a dog with a bone, Tomas persists. “A demon might still use the fact that we’re having sex now to shock Mouse. We need to tell her something.”“We might need to tell her something if we’re going to do another exorcism together. One thing at a time.” Marcus touches his cheek and drops his voice. “That bit, though, I’ll have you know I’m only keeping quiet because it’s your business. If I had my way I’d shout it from the rooftops, dip and kiss you in the centre of town.”Tomas’ cheek is hot under Marcus’ fingers. “Part of me wants to let you,” he whispers.Marcus snatches a quick kiss, just a peck, nothing that will draw more attention than their body language already is, then settles back to watch as the bus pulls into Spokane.Mouse is waiting for them at the bus station. It feels strange to Tomas, for him and Marcus to pile into the truck as passengers, as if it's become their old truck, now Mouse's truck, in just one day.“I learned something else,” she says, looking straight ahead as she drives. “Two men, ostensibly priests, were also found dead. They were employed by the Vatican.”Marcus whistles. “Whatever demon answered the ash-phone must really not want to play ball.”“So what does it want?” asks Mouse. “Beyond murder and mayhem.”“That's a good question. If all we're following is a trail of bodies we'll always be behind him.”Mouse liberated as many of Bennett's personal effects as she could from the hospital - Marcus looks obscurely proud - but once they’re spread out in her motel room there's nothing personal about any of them.“He couldn't do the considerate thing and keep a scrapbook of nightmares?” Tomas complains, elbowing Marcus.Marcus’ eyes widen. “That's brilliant!” He leans toward Tomas like he's going to kiss him, then checks himself with a glance at Mouse and scrambles for his bag. Mouse looks from him to Tomas, eyebrows climbing for her hairline. Tomas smiles blandly at her and shrugs, as if to say, It’s Marcus, what can you do? - but it grates on him. If they’re going to spend any time together he’s going to need to tell her something; he’s given up too much to not be himself. So has Marcus, for that matter.Marcus comes back with his terrible book. He flips rapidly through the pages, a forty-plus-year career reduced to snapshots of horror. Tomas sees Mouse’s eyes widen at some of what she glimpses. “How long have you been keeping this?”“Since the first time I forgot someone,” Marcus says absently. Many pages have a corner devoted to just a column of names and dates, sometimes with a single word attached. “The book remembers for me. Ah, here we go.” Casey Rance has an entire half-page dedicated to her, including - an expired bus ticket? Marcus gently detaches it and flips it over. On the back is a written list titled ‘Friends’ in a tidy copperplate hand - definitely not Marcus’ mildly insane scrawl.“I only ever managed to meet the Sisters of Mercy and the Regos,” he says. “Howard Kurtzman, Windy City Lock and Key; J. S. Donnelly, Lawndale Sporting and Surplus; Giuliana Nora, St. Matthew's Rare Books. Three more of Bennett's contacts.”“I suppose it's too much to ask that they all know each other and the rest of his network,” Mouse sighs.“We won't know until we try,” Tomas argues, “and at the very least we should warn them. I'll take Donnelly.” Because the person who sounds the least white should probably call the Lawndale location, he thinks, then feels ashamed of himself; Bennett's black, speaks like the queen of England, and was Donnelly's associate - is, he admonishes himself, and will continue to be, because we will get him back. Tomas and Mouse search out some likely phone numbers (Marcus’ refusal to upgrade from the cheapest possible flip-phone is the most old-man thing about him - in Chicago he'd been using the phone book to find people) and they split up to call them.Someone picks up for Tomas on the fourth ring: a man. “Lawndale Sporting and Surplus.”“Hello, I'm looking for a J. S. Donnelly?”“Speaking.”“Mr. Donnelly, my name is Father Tomas Ortega.”Donnelly drops his voice. “Ortega?” A door shuts in the background. “From St. Anthony’s, right?”“That’s right.”“Well, nice to hear from you, Father. How's your sabbatical going?”“My-” Tomas chokes, hastily clears his throat, and tries to recover. “Please excuse me.”Donnelly chuckles. “Just as I thought; this is the first you're hearing of it. One minute you’re being fêted as the rising star of the diocese, the next you’re off finding yourself someplace until your new and improved return.” His emphasis on this last is grim.Tomas says weakly, “I’m not new or improved, aside from having learned a few things. But, Mr. Donnelly, Father Devon Bennett has been - subjected to what some might call improvement.”Donnelly blows out a long breath. “Well, shit.”“I don’t know if he - if it - will go after his former contacts, but you’d do well to protect yourself. Yourselves; my friends and I only know of you and two other people in Chicago. Can you tell me if you’re in touch with anyone else who knew - who knows - Bennett?”“I could tell you that.” He says nothing for a long moment.Tomas sighs. “But you won’t.”“Bingo.”“Well, if you are in touch with anyone, will you please pass on the warning?”“If I was,” Donnelly says carefully, “I might do that. If someone else wanted to get in touch with you, would this number be a reliable way to do it?”“Not in the long-term, but I can give you an email address.” He spells it out while Donnelly writes it down, then adds. “Bennett was last seen out west, in Spokane.”“Good to know.”“Please be careful.”“You, too.”Tomas goes back to check in with Marcus and Mouse; they both had similar conversations with the other two contacts. They look grimly at one another. “What do we do now?”“Before my source in Rome died, I learned Chicago is still a hotspot for the conspiracy,” says Mouse.Marcus nods. “In the absence of a counter-conspiracy reaching out, or reports of Bennett running down the road in a backless hospital gown waving a pair of hedge clippers, we might try heading back east.”“That truck is on its last legs, and doesn’t exactly fit three easily,” Mouse points out. “We should trade it in before we head out. Tomorrow?”“Tomorrow,” says Tomas. “Marcus and I will get a separate room for tonight.”Mouse's eyebrows climb even higher. “How gentlemanly,” she mutters.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

Working their way back east turns into literally

working

before they’re even a quarter of the way there, when Tomas abruptly stops pestering Mouse for details of what Marcus was like twenty years ago, and goes rigid as his eyes roll up into his head. Marcus feels a little bad for giving Tomas such a hard time before; he clearly isn’t seeking the visions so much as getting assaulted by them. He’s also resolved to never let Tomas drive ever again; holy or unholy, this is basically a seizure disorder.

The vision diverts their course south into Idaho, to a farm, where the family’s teenaged son Steven greets them with rivulets of black drool from where he’s perched on the ceiling like a spider. There’s a good barn for once: not so big they can’t empty it of equipment, and with no glass windows. In this summer heat it’s cooler than the house. They move a mattress out there, anchor Martin’s bonds to a bolt in the concrete floor, and get to work.

It’s different, with Mouse there. Marcus had felt the potential for a new rhythm when she was helping with Andy, and they fall into it in a couple of days. It’s a little like when they worked with Mother Bernadette, although Mouse is far more stern and aggressive. And having a third person makes it possible to sleep in shifts without leaving anyone alone with the demon for long, a tremendous luxury.

But this new Mouse is also unfamiliar to Marcus, and he hesitates to be overly familiar with Tomas in front of her. By the third day Tomas is looking pinched and hollow, more than just fatigue can account for, and Marcus remembers what he said about needing to feed less when Marcus touched him more. He tries to compensate with as much innocuous contact as he can, brushing Tomas’ hip or thigh with his own when he moves past, or briefly gripping his upper arm or the back of his neck. Tomas leans hard into almost every touch; Marcus can’t see him shuddering, but he can feel it.

Late on the fourth day, Mouse asks Tomas, “Why don’t you do what you did on the island?”

“One demon was allergic to me; that doesn’t mean they all are.”

“No, God no!” She looks appalled. “I didn’t mean

that

part; I meant the bit where you go into the person’s head.”

“I knew how Andy got possessed before I went in, and Cindy before that.” Tomas looks down at Steven, who leers up at him (demons don’t know how to smile without leering). “I don’t understand Steven yet. What I’ve seen doesn’t make sense.”

Take your time,
rasps the demon,
I’ll just take more and more of him while you scratch your tiny head and do nothing.

Marcus flicks it with holy water and warns over its snarls, “Don’t listen to it, Tomas. We’re doing it plenty of damage with this alone.” Under the guise of sidling back to circle the mattress some more, he palms Tomas’ waist.

Tomas’ nostrils flare. “I need to speak to Marcus privately,” he tells Mouse, “will you be alright alone in here for a little while?”

Mouse snorts. “Of course.” She turns back to Steven and resumes praying.

“You were right,” Tomas says, dragging Marcus out of the barn and behind it, out of sight of the farmhouse.

“Often am. ‘Bout what this time?”

“The demon, it won't talk about us having sex. It must not want to get into what I am.”

“Come to think of it, it's not talking about sex at all-

mmph!”

He knew, of course, that Tomas wasn’t really bringing him here to talk, but he’s still taken aback by how Tomas shoves him against the wall and crushes their mouths together. Tomas’ need-smell swamps him, his hands burning-hot right through the fabric of Marcus’ shirt, and Marcus gets hard so fast he feels dizzy.

“God,

God,”

Tomas groans, taking a deep huff at the crook of Marcus’ neck and then biting it, on the edge of too hard and too high. “I hoped I would last longer after you gave me so much, but I think it’s worse than

ever.”

He molds his body to Marcus’, muscles strung tight, fine tremors wracking him.

Marcus has had neither time nor opportunity to see to him properly since they were led here, and he can’t now either, not the way he’d like. But he’ll do what he can. He welcomes Tomas in, holding him as tightly as Tomas presses against him, and strokes his hands down Tomas’ back, digging hard into the muscles. “I’ve got you,” he says, “you’ll get what you need.”

Tomas whines wordlessly and twitches his hips. Marcus brings one hand up and cups the back of Tomas’ neck to kiss him firmly, hold him in place while Marcus sweeps his tongue around the inside of Tomas’ mouth like he owns the place. He breaks for air and slides his hand a little higher to take a fistful of Tomas’ hair. Tomas sighs out a long, shaky breath and then stills, seeming to settle.

“Take your dick out,” Marcus directs, “not to touch, just to save your clothes,” and when Tomas does so,

“good.

Now onto your knees and take

me

out.” Tomas kneels and unzips Marcus’ trousers, looking up at him wide-eyed. It’s funny; if you wrote down Tomas’ abilities on paper, he would sound frightening, predatory - and he could be, were he not

Tomas:

the gentlest, most compassionate soul Marcus knows. He supposes the vulnerability Tomas projects when in need could be an additional trait to help him survive, but if it is, well - it certainly

works.

Tomas’ breath speeds up as he fumbles Marcus’ cock free of his pants, holding him reverently, still looking up at Marcus’ face even as his pupils dilate wide.

“Go on, then,” Marcus tells him gently, scratching Tomas’ scalp where he hasn’t let go of his hair. “It’s for you.” Tomas’ eyes fall shut, lashes black fans against his cheeks, and he licks one long stripe from root to tip before opening his shining lips and sliding the whole of Marcus’ cock into his hot, wet mouth. There’s a slight resistance at the back of his throat, but Tomas just shifts a little, the muscles of his neck working visibly, and then he makes a strangled noise as he engulfs Marcus all the way to the hilt.

Marcus has to strangle a noise of his own, and does so by biting his free hand, the one not buried in Tomas’ hair. Mouse is just inside the barn, and so is Steven and the demon in Steven, and while it’s been oddly avoiding sexual references in its obscenities thus far doesn’t mean it won’t

start

if given sufficient provocation.

Tomas swallows around him over and over, making cut-off little grunts, moaning every time he starts back down after coming up for a gasp of air. It can’t be more than a minute before Marcus’ hips start to rock back and forth helplessly, urged on by Tomas tugging his waist, hands still radiating that compelling heat. The arousal in his belly pulls tight.

“Mm, mm, oh, Tomas! Tomas,” Marcus says desperately, looking up at the sky to avoid looking down and coming on the spot, “I know you don’t like to, to touch yourself like this, oh! God! But if you still want to be discreet, you- you’d better aim for the ground, soon, now, fuck,

Tomas!”

he manages to hiss this last instead of shouting, coming just as he feels one of Tomas’ hands drop away from his hipbones. He drops his gaze and meets Tomas’ eyes staring up at him, mouth still open wide and pressed flush against his groin as Marcus spends down his throat. He could swear he almost sees something crackle between them in that moment, an invisible lightning, some bolt soul-to-soul. Certainly Tomas has gone utterly rigid, as if electrocuted.

Marcus remembers the aftermath of the last time Tomas took him in his mouth, and disengages as gently as he can before his cock has even completely stopped pulsing. Tomas whines and chases him, but that’s okay; at least he’s breathing. Breathing like he’s just run a race, licking up the last sluggish drops of come from Marcus’ cock and kneading Marcus’ thighs like a cat making biscuits. Marcus brushes the hair off Tomas’ forehead and strokes his cheek. “Better now?”

Tomas hums and nods, then clears his throat and says, “So much better, Marcus, thank you.” Marcus tries not to wince; Tomas’ voice is noticeably hoarser than it was a few minutes ago. Maybe if Tomas says nothing for the rest of the exorcism and they stay on the opposite end of the barn so they can’t be smelled, Mouse won’t guess what they were doing. Who is Marcus kidding? She

has

to know, and is doing them the courtesy of not bringing it up. They’ll return the courtesy by maintaining plausible deniability, but only until they’ve finished this exorcism and have a moment to talk.

“Well,” he says at last, “can’t let my boy go hungry.” God knows he skipped plenty of meals to make sure Tomas had enough when they were on the road together. This is more fun than that. “Feeds something in me too, maybe.” It’s a comfort he’s never known, to have his body touched like this, to touch another’s body more than fleetingly, with more than his hands, in a way that’s more than chaste. And for it to be

Tomas,

well.

“Feed the hungry,”

Tomas says slowly, like he’s quoting someone, and presses his forehead and eyes into Marcus’ still-clothed hip.

“Tomas?”

“Shh, a moment, I’m thinking.” Tomas rolls his forehead and thuds it into Marcus’ hipbone once, twice. After another long moment he straightens up and puts his cock away (Marcus spies a small mess in the weeds between his feet and congratulates himself on his foresight). “I have an idea.” He hurries back into the barn, Marcus hot on his heels.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

Once more into the breach, chortles the demon, holding your nerve up like baggy pants with the belt cut. I wonder how long you can hold on before you break again? Mouse gives them an arch look. “Welcome back. Sort what you needed sorted?” That thread of something in her voice - that’s her amusement, drier than old bones in the desert now but still recognizable to Marcus. Yeah, she absolutely knows, and she isn’t making an issue of it.Tomas doesn’t appear to notice, or if he does he pays it no mind. “We did, and I thought of something. Mouse, when you were speaking to Sharon alone, did she mention Steven's relationships? His romantic ones.”Marcus opens his mouth to point out they already asked about this, part of their standard probing for the demon’s point of ingress - they’d been told he’d had several girlfriends, the breakups unpleasant but not remarkably so for teenagers - but before he says anything, the demon thrashes and howls, I will unscrew your heads and shit down your necks! Marcus holds his tongue, thrilling like a hound to the scent of quarry.Mouse tilts her head. “There is something she didn’t want to say in front of the two of you: she got the impression they all ended because the girls wanted to go farther than her son did. And by go farther she meant do anything at all.”
Babbling bitch! I’ll eat her tongue! I’ll eat her eyes!
Marcus squints. “Isn’t that all the rage with these American evangelicals? True love waits, all that rot? Make all those bright young things keep it in their pants just long enough to get married off and start popping out babies before they’re old enough to think hard about it?” Not that he can talk; he kept it in his pants for fifty-three years. But that doesn’t mean he thinks it was a good or healthy idea; he doesn’t recommend it to anyone else. He was just indoctrinated too early to be willing to risk jeopardizing his God-given purpose, and then after he was old and jaded it was already baked-in.Baby, the demon jeers, the other other white meat. Ignoring it completely, Mouse says, “I think that’s applied much more rigorously to the girls. And it’s supposed to be an ideal, something to strive for, not something that’s easy. Especially for the boys. She’s worried he’s gay.”Tomas shakes his head. “I don’t think that’s it. That doesn’t fit with what I saw. But something else does.” He looks at Marcus. “I’m ready.” He crouches down - and Marcus only notices now, with some chagrin, that there are obvious clods of dirt on the knees of his trousers - and starts double-checking Steven’s bonds.The demon flinches. What are you doing? Keep away from me, filthy thing. “I’m coming in to have a talk with Steven,” Tomas tells, “and then he’s going to help us destroy you.”He won’t talk to you, slut! “We’ll see about that.” Tomas crosses himself and then reaches for Steven’s forehead.No no n-! The black in the demon’s eyes blows wider than Steven’s natural irises, fixed and unseeing, while Tomas’ roll back into his head until only pearly pink-white sclera are visible.“When this is over,” Mouse says to Marcus, “I think I’m finally going to collect on that offer to go to a pub and get drunk as skunks together.”Marcus slumps. “That’s the best idea I’ve heard in a long time.”“What should we do until then?”“Pray for them. Tomas can still hear it, sometimes. Maybe-” he swallows, feeling horribly uncertain in this his workplace of more than forty years, “-maybe it helps him find his way back.” Mouse reaches out a tentative hand and lays it on his shoulder. Marcus rolls his neck and adds more briskly, “It can’t hurt, anyway. All holy widows and virgins, pray for us. All holy saints of God, intercede for us.” Mouse takes up the refrain. “All holy angels and archangels, all holy orders of the blessed spirits…” And it’s good - it’s good to still have someone praying with him. Six months he's had Tomas backing him up, and already it feels jarring and wrong not to hear him. How quickly he's become accustomed to not being alone.Tomas stays down for what feels like a long time, certainly longer than he took with Cindy or Andy, but he also went in sooner this time, before things reached a breaking point. He twitches a few times, and Steven usually twitches in concert. At one point they both start to weep, silently, unmoving. Marcus dries their tears with his stole, first Steven, then Tomas.“I hate this, Mouse. I hate that I can't do more.”“It's always hard for the family outside the room.”“Family.” He smooths his thumb under Tomas’ eye, over his cheek. “Whoever dwells in the shelter of the Most High,” says Mouse, “will rest in the shadow of the Almighty.” Marcus sighs and responds, “I will say of the Lord, ‘He is my refuge and my fortress, my God, in whom I trust’.” And they continue.It has to have been an hour if not two when Tomas starts to stir; it feels like days. Marcus switches to the litany of the saints, and Tomas mumbles, “Pray for us,” along with him and Mouse. Steven arches his back and yanks on his bindings and makes a horrible, bubbling shriek that goes on for much longer than he should have breath for.At last he collapses, and Marcus’ ears pop as the air pressure changes so quickly the barn shudders. Tomas’ eyes roll back to normal, and he reaches for Steven's shoulder and shakes him. Steven sucks in a huge whoop of air and opens his eyes, staring at all of them like strangers and panting as if he's just woken from a nightmare. Which he has, really.“Welcome back, Steven,” says Tomas.Steven tries to move, pulls up short, and looks at his wrists and ankles. “Aw, hell,” he says in a small voice. “It was all real?”“Not all of it. What the demon showed you was a lie. But it really happened, yes. These are my friends, Marcus and Mouse. Maybe you heard them praying for you.” Tomas keeps talking, wrapping his warm and gentle voice around Steven like a blanket as Marcus whispers a blessing and draws a cross in holy water on the boy's forehead. A blessing and a test; Steven passes, not reacting to the water in the least when earlier today it blistered him like vitriol. Marcus tries not to grin like an idiot as he and Mouse untie him.Steven pins Tomas with his eyes as he rubs his wrists. “You'll stay with me while I tell my parents, right? You promised.”“Of course.” They help him up and support him as he limps back from the barn toward the farmhouse. They only get halfway there before his parents bang out of the house and tackle him in a hug. His father Dave is crying even louder than Sharon.Having hobbled the west of the way back into the house and been sat down with coffee all around (and Marcus is not shy about helping himself to a massive slice of coffee cake), Steven looks at Tomas across the room and then at his parents wedged on either side of him on the couch, and takes a deep breath.“Mom?”“Yes, honey?”“You're straight, right?”“What?”“You're straight? You're friends with women, but you've never wanted to have sex with one, not once in your whole life?”Sharon looks uncomfortable. “Well, no, I haven't, but what does that have to do with anything?”“That’s how I feel about everyone, women and men. There's nobody I want, not that way.” He squares his shoulders. “I'm asexual.”His parents look poleaxed. After a long moment, Dave rubs his forehead and groans. “Your Aunt Felicia was right: that stupid purity group put spiders in your head about sex.”“I hated those classes, Dad, but I think I would feel the same way without them. This is-” he looks at Tomas again, “this is the way God made me.”“Mr. and Mrs. Amponsah,” Tomas says gently, every inch the earnest parish priest, “Steven's fear of acknowledging this is what the demon used to prey on him. It might be hard to understand, but there is nothing wrong with him.”“That's easy for you to say!” snaps Sharon. “You chose to always be alone.” She covers her mouth, eyes wide. “Oh God, I'm sorry.”Tomas takes another sip of coffee, then says, “It's alright. Actually, I am speaking from experience when I say that sex and loneliness are far from opposites.” “Really,” says Dave, his forehead creasing well up into his receding hairline.Tomas shrugs. “I wasn't born a priest.”Marcus feels a sudden complicated surge of admiration and regret. Tomas is such a good priest. In many ways he's wasted on the itinerant life of an exorcist. It's so wrong that the Church's obsession with sex drove Tomas to meet his needs in indifferent secrecy. He eats his feelings in the form of a huge bite of coffee cake.Steven is the one to break the awkward silence this time. “Okay, you not freaking out is already more than I was hoping for, and now I'm honestly so tired I could die.” He hugs Tomas and then lets his mother fuss him up the stairs to bed. Dave lingers long enough to give them each a handshake that is pretty clearly also a request to go away.“We'll get our things and be out of your hair before you know it,” says Marcus, “but could you help me with something first?”“What's that?”“Where's the best place in these parts to find cold beer and live music?”Driving away, with very promising directions burning a hole in Marcus’ pocket, Mouse says, “Just so you know, boys, I'm going to start asking all the questions I’m sitting on about two beers in, and there's no Bennett in a coma to divert me with this time.”“That's fair,” Tomas allows, “you've done two exorcisms with us now.”Marcus snickers. “Nothing like demons to bring a family together.”

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

Four beers in, Mouse puts her head down on the table in their booth and peers sideways at Tomas through the brown glass of her bottle. “I can't believe you became a priest,” she says.Marcus bursts out laughing, the big, tipsy, teeth-flashing laugh Tomas associates with exactly this kind of setting: a bar with live music, a soul freed from possession behind them, liberal amounts of booze and greasy food inside him. “That's what he said!”“I did say that,” Tomas says, smiling goofily at Marcus.“So up ‘til now you were just, what, sneaking off to dark little hole-in-the-wall places?”“Sometimes literally,” Tomas mutters, and blames it on the beer.Mouse snorts and covers her face, shaking. “I’m sorry,” she wheezes after a moment, “that actually sounds horrid, but the way you said it-!” she splutters into her hands again. Marcus looks on with the kind of fondness Tomas normally only sees directed at children, or himself. Marcus may regret Mouse not being the ‘fat, happy little nun in Brighton somewhere’ he imagined, but Tomas thinks her coming into their world - back into Marcus’ world - has been a good thing.At last she sits back up and eats another chicken wing. “Ah, God, I haven't done this in I don't know how long.”“Work a lot, do you?” There's a note in Marcus’ voice Tomas can't quite decipher. He knows now that the Sisters of Mercy in Chicago were an anomaly; by and large Marcus has worked alone, and trying to impart the basics of his craft to Tomas is some of the only ‘talking shop’ he's ever done.Mouse smiles crookedly. “Not quite like you, though the way you've been going the last six months is closer. No veneer of respectability for Cardinal Caro’s irregulars, but not much in the way of mission parameters either. I was pumping Dolores Navarro for dirt on the Vatican conspiracy for months.”Marcus chokes on his beer. “The Dolores Navarro? She was your source?”“You knew her?”“I knew of her. Christ. I can’t believe they got her.” “I told you: they’re getting everyone. As far as the demons are concerned they’ve already won; this is just bayoneting the wounded on the battlefield.”Tomas clenches his jaw. “It’s not over ‘til it’s over.”Marcus lifts his drink, smiling grimly. “Amen to that.” Tomas clanks his own against it, and Mouse - somewhat clumsily - joins in.“To the resistance,” she says. After they’ve all taken a swig, she adds in a low voice, “You may be pleased to hear I was able to see to the man who turned Sister Dolores. Cardinal Guillot and six of his integrated friends met with an unfortunate accident before I left Rome.”Tomas stares. “Seven integrated demons? How did you manage that?”She shrugs. “Fed them all almond tarts sprinkled with icing sugar - and crumbled consecrated Host.” Marcus whistles, and she dimples and pitches her voice even lower, “And then I set the place on fire and walked off with his cat.” “Mouse,” Marcus says reverently, “you are terrifying.” Tomas feels a spark of jealousy and tries to extinguish it with more beer.This turns out to be a bad plan, because it probably contributes to what happens next:Marcus goes up to fetch another round, and he takes longer coming back than he should. Tomas stands up in their booth, craning his neck to see over the crowd. Some guy in a cowboy hat is blocking Marcus’ path, and from the way he’s hunched toward Marcus and the way Marcus is baring his teeth, it’s not to strike up a friendly conversation.Tomas gets up and starts shoving his way toward the bar. He reaches it just in time to see Marcus get poked in the chest. Tomas grabs the guy’s shoulder, spins him around, and headbutts him in the nose.He and Marcus both end up getting tossed out onto the street, none too gently. Mouse follows of her own volition, glaring at them. “You’ve no idea how much I miss the convent sometimes, with its near-total absence of men.” “We’re the worst,” Marcus agrees, rolling to his hands and knees with a grunt and then leaning over Tomas, who is still lying on his back where he landed. “You alright?”“I was just admiring the sunset.” The clouds are lit up a beautiful pink-orange right now, and the first bright stars are just barely visible on the opposite horizon. Also Tomas feels like he's spinning a bit too fast to try and get up on his own.“Got the spins, haven’t you.”“Mm.”Marcus holds out a hand. “Up you get, then.” Tomas nearly pulls him off-balance, but Mouse braces him from the other side, and Tomas lurches to his feet feeling like he and Mouse are playing tug-of-war over Marcus. And he's losing; he staggers and half-falls, half-leans into Marcus, who chuckles and braces him with an arm around his hip.“Oof, Christ, you're like a dwarf star. Mouse, luv, come ‘round and help me with my musclebound partner?” Which is how Tomas finds himself wobbling down the sidewalk, presumably in the direction of their motel, his weaving kept in check by Marcus’ large, bony frame on one side and Mouse's small, squishy (but strong) frame on the other.“You're nice and squishy,” he informs her. Marcus rumbles briefly with some kind of subvocal discontent; Tomas only knows about it because he feels it in his arm.Mouse shakes with suppressed laughter. “You're nice and pickled,” she retorts.“But I'm Marcus’ pickle,” he insists loudly. “You maybe had him first but I have him now.” “Oh my God,” Marcus moans. It feels like he's trying to pick up their pace.“Tomas,” Mouse says gently, “I never had Marcus. He had his vows, and I had a crush. That's all.”“Oh, I definitely had a crush too,” Marcus puts in. “But I also very much had my vows. I even believed they meant something back then.”“Of course they mean something,” Tomas argues. “Why do you think I won't let you touch my pickle now?”“Oh my God!” Mouse blurts out, and now both she and Marcus are definitely trying to hurry him along. “I don't want to know how your whole arrangement works!” “So well,” Tomas sighs happily, “Marcus is-”“Tomas! I said I don’t want to know!”They walk in silence for a minute or two, before Mouse says abruptly, “Is the incubus thing - sorry, the cambion thing - why you smell like pumpkin pie sometimes?”“Is that what that smell is?” says Marcus.“I have a smell?!” They finally arrive at their motel. “This is us,” says Marcus, “I can take him from here. Goodnight, Mouse. Tomas, say goodnight.” Tomas grunts vaguely.“Goodnight, boys.”“That was a trifle rude,” Marcus tells Tomas as he helps him into their room.“Sorry, I’m a trifle distracted by learning I impersonate a scented candle when I’m hungry.”“So you don’t do it on purpose, then?”“No!” Tomas pitches himself dramatically onto the bed.“You don’t do it every time. It seems to be more when you need me to get with the program right away.”“Oh, even better.” Tomas covers his eyes with one arm and asks in a small voice, “Do I do anything else?”“Your hands heat up, and, erm - your voice changes.”“That’s just my sexy voice. Everyone has a sexy voice.”“Not - quite as sexy as yours, love.” There’s the feeling of his boots being tugged off and the sound of them being dropped onto the floor, and then Marcus settles down at his side and puts a hand around his waist again. “I don’t mind it,” he says cautiously. “I mind,” Tomas answers.“It’s nothing I couldn’t say no to if I didn’t want it, if that’s what you’re bothered about.”“Not exactly - but it does help a little bit.” Tomas squeezes Marcus tighter against his side. “Thank you.”“Don’t thank me yet. I’m about to bully you into drinking so much water you’re as sloshing as you are sloshed.”Marcus wakes in the night to the sound of Tomas vomiting in the loo. He stumbles in after him and rubs his back.“I hate alcohol,” Tomas groans, propping his forehead on the toilet bowl as he flushes it.“Nah, it just hates you, for inviting it over so rarely.” He runs his hand up, between Tomas’ shoulders and into his hair. Tomas rolls his head into the touch briefly and then buckles forward again, gagging but bringing up nothing. “What prompted you to go so hard tonight? Was telling Mouse really so stressful?”“Yes,” Tomas says simply, and Marcus winces. “But that's not why I got out of control. I was jealous.”“Jealous? Of me and Mouse?”“I know I have no right.”“To be jealous of me having friends? No, you don’t.”“I know. And I was just drunk enough to think drinking more was the right thing to do about it.”Marcus drags his fingertips back down, kneading the muscles of Tomas’ neck. He’d probably needed an outlet for a few more feelings than that; he’s had a rough go of it lately, the poor lad.“Marcus?” Tomas’ voice is small. “Would you have started this if you hadn't found out what I am?”“Probably not, but only out of respect. I thought you were trying to stick to your vows the usual way.” Marcus brushes the damp curls off Tomas’ forehead. “And - a bit of inertia on my part. After more than half a century, I think I'm entitled to the excuse.”“You were also entitled to break out of that inertia at your own pace,” Tomas mutters, “I took that from you.”“I gave it willingly, Tomas, for a worthy reason - and to a worthy person.”“Worthy.” Tomas’ voice echoes in the toilet bowl. “I do not feel worthy. I feel like a mess.”“We're none of us at our best on the floor of a bog at midnight. You done sicking up?” Tomas pauses in thought, then nods. Marcus helps him up and makes him rinse his mouth and chug another two glasses of water.“If you start trying to take care of me in the aftermath of all my bad decisions, you’re never going to have time for anything else,” Tomas tells him as they crawl back under the blankets.“Tomas,” Marcus chides, “I was already doing that.”

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

Tomas wakes up a second time to light filtering through the curtains, a far milder headache than he deserves, and a fierce, deep, yearning ache in his groin. He blames the latter on Marcus, who is once again all over him like some kind of creeping plant life.

The inner curve of his elbow is right in front of Tomas' face. This close he can see every freckle and which ones are threatening to become liver spots someday, and the long peaks and troughs of his blood vessels - Marcus has almost no body fat to speak of. Right where his elbow bends the skin is so thin Tomas can see through it: pink muscle, shot through with blue veins. He barely has to move at all to sniff the skin, and from there he can't hold back from laying his lips and tongue on it, soft and unmoving, letting the so-subtle taste filter into his mouth, a tease that has him squirming as his hardon twitches.

I want, I want,

God

how I want,

he thinks, and is amazed to realize his

need

is fully quiet; this is pure desire. He can't hold back from sucking at the skin of Marcus’ forearm, and he bumps into the ragged scar where Simon slashed him in Chicago and has to run his tongue over it, ropy tissue marking yet another wound Marcus has survived. He's so strong, like an ancient tree forcing rocks to split around its roots. Tomas thinks about how it felt to be split open around his cock and shudders. He

wants.

“I can

feel

how worked up you're getting,” Marcus mumbles into his shoulder. His thigh is between Tomas’ legs, so yes, he probably can feel Tomas’ erection digging in there. He starts to shift his weight, but freezes when Tomas cries out at the bolt of lust the movement sends through him.

“Joder, fuck

I'm so close,” he pants.

“What do you want to do, Tomas?” Marcus’ voice is so even, so calm, although he's nearly as hard against Tomas’ hip.

“I don't know, I don’t

know.”

Tears of frustration, with himself and his body and his own stupid, halfhearted rules for the sake of no one who would believe his trying to follow them counted for anything, prickle in his eyes.

“Here,” Marcus says gently, and lifts his thigh away, “how about you touch yourself? That's always allowed.”

Tomas, pathetically grateful to not have to decide, takes himself in hand and moans, grinding his ass back against Marcus slotting himself half-behind him. “Thank you.”

“For what?” Marcus rocks against him and winds his arm around Tomas’ front, splaying his fingers over his chest and snugging them tighter together.

“For listening. Every- everybody said I shouldn't be a priest.” His abuela, his sister, his girlfriend, more than one bishop, all tried to stop him, some of them even after it was done and he was busy

being

one. “And they were

right.

But you, you

proved it,

and yet you're the only- the only one trying to help.” He thrusts into the circle of his own fingers and wishes it were Marcus’ fingers, his mouth, his body, and loves Marcus for not demanding that it be so.

He

loves

him. His hand on his cock stutters to a stop briefly.

“I'm just glad you'll

let

me help,” Marcus says, and pinches Tomas’ nipple. The bright little flash of sensation is like a spark to fuel, liquid heat spilling into his veins and out over his fingers as he moans his relief.

“Oh my God, that's so good.” Marcus’ dreamy tone suggests he's still not a hundred percent awake. “You feel so good, Tomas.” He's running his upper hand over Tomas’ front, dipping into the mess of come and painting with it in slippery upward streaks: Tomas’ hipbones, his abdominal muscles, his ribs, his nipples. His lower arm is propping him up so he can look over Tomas’ shoulder at what he's doing. He's furiously hard against Tomas’ ass, not quite in the groove, sort of wedged in by muscle and sweat-damp skin and their mutual unwillingness to move apart.

“Give me your hand,” Tomas says, “I want to try something.” Marcus’ fingers are still slippery with Tomas’ come, salty flavors mingling as he takes two into his mouth. He sucks, and feels the shock that ripples through Marcus with his whole body, and grins around his mouthful. Given the way Marcus is constantly touching everything, Tomas isn’t surprised his fingers are sensitive. He strokes his tongue extravagantly around and between them, feeling every crease and knobby knuckle, keeping up long, rippling pulls that Marcus answers with astounded moans.

“Christ,

Tomas, what-? How does that even-? Oh my

God.”

Marcus sounds almost as wrecked as when Tomas sucks on his cock, and possibly more moved. Tomas abruptly can’t bear not to see him, and holding Marcus’ hand carefully in place he rolls to face him, slotting a thigh in between Marcus’ legs as he goes, so they end up in nearly the reverse of the position they woke up in.

Marcus’ eyes are huge with surprise, pools of blue as deep and bright as the sky. Tomas cradles his hand in both of his, rubbing the metacarpals and stroking over the fingers he isn’t sucking (with as much gusto as he has ever brought to sucking cock), and revels in the way Marcus’ mouth falls open as he gasps. There’s an innocence to him like this, a feeling of discovery that Tomas cherishes like a holy mystery, and maybe it’s worth being a freak if it means he can use all his freakish experience and skill to bring Marcus these simple physical joys that were his birthright all along. He leans his thigh harder onto Marcus’ cock until he gets with the program and starts rutting against it, and rewards him with the deepest rumble of approval he can muster around Marcus’ fingers.

“Jesus,”

Marcus whispers, “I could - I could come like this. You’re going to make me come from just this, that’s how

fucking

amazing your mouth is.” Tomas squeezes his hand and grinds his thigh where Marcus is now thrusting like he means business. Marcus moves his fingers, fondling Tomas’ tongue back; he scrapes his tastebuds with a fingernail, and Tomas catches his fingers in his teeth, holding them fast but so lightly. He feels like he’s falling into Marcus’ eyes, as Marcus speeds up until he comes with a hoarse, ragged cry; Tomas forces his own eyes to stay open even as Marcus’ orgasm swamps him, not wanting to miss an instant of the pleasure flickering over his face.

He feels so

satiated,

more than in his greediest idle imaginings, overflowing with the pleasure Marcus shares with him so generously, so eagerly. And yet a part of him wonders: if there is this much more than he dared to dream, how much more is there still? How far can this go? What else would Marcus give him, if he asked? The part of him that wonders this is also the part beginning to tremble with the suspicion that Marcus would give him anything,

everything,

and find joy and fulfillment in the giving.

He closes his eyes then.

Forgive me, Lord, if I pray for the strength and wisdom to be more gentle with this gift than You have been.

He releases Marcus’ fingers with reluctance: pruny, a little flushed with all the blood he sucked into them, with slight indents of his teeth near the bases. He folds them to join their fellows, and wraps both his hands around Marcus’ hand and kisses it.

“You all right?” Marcus is still breathing hard, damp with sweat all over, looking at Tomas with slight concern.

I love you.

“Never better.”

Marcus combs Tomas’ hair slowly with his free hand. “They were wrong, you know. You make a fine priest. I robbed a parish when I let you come with me.”

“I - I know.” If he’d known in high school what he knows now about himself - if he’d even just known how impossible it would be to stay chaste, nevermind being a cambion - he might have chosen a different path, but he

knows

he was good at the parts of his job that mattered most. “I do know that.”

Marcus hesitates, then says, “Even if the vow of celibacy

weren’t

a vow of starvation for you, and therefore invalid as are all religious restrictions when they interfere with saving a life-”

Tomas smiles helplessly. Marcus is such a - a

nerd

sometimes.

“-I would argue it’s more a construct of church politics than a thing of consequence to God.”

“But you don’t argue that.”

“Because it’s of consequence to

you. That

I respect. But, respectfully-”

“Here we go.”

“-you might consider why this vow is of consequence to you and others are not. That dough-puff of a bishop back in Chicago would probably have a few choice words to say about your obedience - as do I.” Marcus winks and busses him on the nose. “Let’s go get Mouse and find some eggs to soak up the last of that beer.”
It’s while poking at the brown, oily crust of some diner eggs that Tomas remembers something else that’s bothering him. “The demon called me filthy.”
Marcus slaps the bottom of the hot sauce bottle over his own plate. “Pay it no mind. Demons are all prudes.”

Mouse drops her fork.

“What?”

“They hate us; they think we’re disgusting.” Marcus says this with his mouth full, cheeks bulging like a hamster’s. He chews and swallows, then elaborates. “They have to perform some serious doublethink to live in a human body at all.”

“Marcus,” Mouse says slowly, “I’ve

been

possessed. I remember some of what it said and did.”

“It’s all crude innuendo, or at most a - really weird kind of barely-touching stimulation. I’ve met well over a thousand demons in my life, and not one of them voluntarily went naked. Honest sexuality appalls them.” He forks up some hash browns and says, “It’s like a magazine cover I saw once, of a model in a wet t-shirt, but they’d airbrushed her nipples clean off. That’s demonic as all hell.”

“Well,” says Tomas, “I can’t argue with that.”

Mouse cocks her head and says, “So, beings like Tomas’ father or your - friend, in Nevada, who left the Host specifically to live among us and especially to have lots of sex with us - demons would find them very upsetting.”

Marcus points his fork at her. “Precisely.”

Tomas asks, “Do you think they knew before I did, and that’s why none of them brought up - what I was doing?”

“Doubt it, or the one on the island never would have jumped into you. I think you’re just better at compartmentalization than you give yourself credit for.” Marcus crinkles his eyes at him.

“Maybe.” God knows he’s had lots of practice not thinking about it: acknowledging his sharpening need and not thinking about it, traveling to bars or other shadowy places on the other end of the city and not thinking about it, servicing a few people and not thinking about it, going back to his home and his work and

not thinking about it.

Yes, he can believe there were things in his head easier for a demon to find. Like, all the things.

“You might consider practicing that again,” Mouse points out, “in case you want the option of baiting another demon to its death.”

Tomas shudders. “I really don’t.” Here is the limit of the martyr complex he’s self-aware enough to know he has: he doesn’t think he can ever bring himself to invite a demon in, ever again. Angela Rance, whom he already held in high esteem, is now a virtual saint to him in her bravery.

“Good,” Marcus says fiercely. “There’s no guarantee the reaction is universal, and the physical fallout alone was really goddamn dangerous. Our work is hazardous enough as it is without risking brain damage, lung damage, whatever else on top of the rest.” He squints at Mouse’s smile. “What?”

“Nothing,” she says, then, “just - I didn’t see it before, because I saw you as this rockstar, but you’re really very practical about safety.”

“You have no idea,” says Tomas. “I’m twice the carpenter I was six months ago, and I used to build houses.”

“Doesn’t recommend the houses,” Marcus says with a smirk.

“Hey!”

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

“Half a moment,” Marcus tells the gas station clerk, and squats down to unlace his boot. He pries up the insole with the help of the blade on his iron rosary, and triumphantly produces a few pungent twenties. The clerk takes them with understandable reluctance and sets them beside the cash register instead of in with the rest of the money, and hands over his scant change.

“Did you get coffee?” Tomas asks on his return to the van.

“I did not. The last of Bennett's credit cards have been cut off. I had to use my boot money to pay for this petrol.”

“So, we're broke.”

“Completely.”

“In… Wyoming.”

“Unfortunately.”

“What’s our next move, then?” Mouse asks, looking between him and Tomas.

Marcus shrugs. “We've still not heard from Bennett's network, if it exists, and the demon partyline-” he waves vaguely at an area above Tomas’ head, who looks duly offended, “-is quiet for the moment, so I guess we find the nearest town large enough for a decent library and start looking for work. Luckily it's summer, so we can sleep out.”

“Sleep out,” Mouse repeats slowly, “in the van.”

“Or beside it. Looking up at the stars, it’ll be fun. Definitely preferable to fighting to keep the fillings in our teeth in a shelter that smells like feet.” He isn’t looking forward to fighting mosquitoes to keep his blood in his veins, but maybe they can look for a fairly dry spot to park.

“Or,

you could ask the third member of your

team

if

she

has any money.” Mouse’s arms are crossed, and she’s staring out the window, looking - she looks

hurt.

It’s Tomas who breaks the awkward silence. “Mouse, I’m sorry.” He looks at Marcus, who nods minutely, and adds,

“We’re

sorry. It didn’t occur to us to ask. You are a full member of the team and we should have realized that includes your resources.”

“Yes, you should have.”

“So… do you have any money?”

“...Yes. I robbed Cardinal Guillot particularly blind, because he deserved it and because I’ve had lots of practice. I’m rich as Croesus.” Marcus wonders why she’s let them putter along with beater vehicles, fleabag motels, and greasy road food, but he knows the answer before he even opens his mouth: it’s blood money, squeezed from the suffering of the innocent before Mouse reappropriated it. It’s not to be used on luxuries.

But they’re no use to the war effort with backs half-broken by sleeping on the ground, nor so filthy half the people they meet won’t let them in the door. “Will you find us a place to stay the night, Mouse? Please.”

She softens. “I will. But actually I think we should stay a few days, try harder to reach out to people. There’s no sense rolling into Chicago with no information and no plan.”

Marcus sees Tomas stifle a counter-argument, probably about how

his

plan included spending time with his sister and nephew, and also possibly that Chicago is his old stomping grounds whereas a random town in Wyoming is not. He reflects upon the fact that Chicago is also the stomping grounds of a horrific number of demons - the ranks of the wealthy riddled with the integrated, more of the homeless than not afflicted with vexation or obsession - and he and Tomas are known to them all. He says, “Agreed. And, Lady Croesus, if it’s not too much trouble: wouldn’t you agree that wherever we go, we stand a better chance of driving there safely with some terrible coffee inside us?”

She rolls her eyes and hands over a credit card. Marcus beams and strolls back into the gas station.
Tomas thinks, sometimes, of the impossibility of trying to explain his life now to some of the people in his past. How the sketchiest roadside motels on the outskirts of towns, the kind that once evoked vermin and squalor and desperate, grinding poverty, have come to represent anonymity and safety, peaceful havens and quick getaways.
And, now, increasingly, pleasure.

“Fuck, fuck,

fuck,”

he chants, dropping himself down onto Marcus’ cock as fast as he can lift up, wanting the push, the stretch, the pressure deep inside his ass and especially dragging over his sweet spot like a sparking match head.

“My - sentiments - exactly, darling,” Marcus grunts, words punched out of him by Tomas’ weight thumping down rhythmically. He tightens his abdomen every time; Tomas can see each twist of lean muscle under his pale, freckled skin. It's hypnotic.

“You're close,” Tomas moans, “I can see it.” The blue light is roiling in Marcus, centered in his belly but making rippling forays all over his body, like reflections bouncing off the inside of Marcus’ skin. He's never gotten to look at one person's energy so many times, nor for so long, nor so openly.

As he watches, Marcus squeezes his eyes shut and blows out a long breath, and his arousal settles a little, backing away from the brink. Tomas is so surprised he stops moving. “How did you do

that?”

Marcus winks. “I've been not-having sex twice as long as you've been having it, Tomas. I know a trick or two to simmer down.”

“That’s so hot,” Tomas says vaguely, and starts moving again, just rocking in place at first to feel Marcus' length shifting inside him, then rising and falling once more.

“Bit surprised it worked at all, with you like

this,”

Marcus’ hands span his hips and travel up to Tomas' chest to tweak his nipples. Tomas gasps, his rhythm stuttering again as his hips twitch. “Christ, look at you, bouncing away up there like you need it more than anything.”

“I do, I do need it.” Ridiculous; he’d feasted on Marcus’ desire twice yesterday, and once more in the middle of the night, buried under the covers with Marcus hot and dewy and barely-awake beneath him, his thighs around Tomas’ ears and his cock thick and perfect in Tomas’ throat. It was the height of decadence to just wake up and climb aboard first thing this morning, but here they are.

“And you’ll get it, just as soon as you make yourself come for me.” Another pinch, Marcus watching him so intently. His eyes burn on Tomas’ skin like the wicked tease at his nipples, first almost-too-hard, then the softest, most maddening brush. “Come on, I want to see it hit you twice: once from you and once from me.”

“Yours is better.”

“Better get busy, then. Show me what I want and you’ll get your reward, love.” Marcus might be grinning at the absurdity of it all, but his voice is still so soft and deep this way, a growl that wraps around Tomas and heats his skin like a blanket. Tomas needs to feel him come

so badly,

and Marcus has told him what to do to get that, so he digs deep and starts to ride him even faster, rising higher and fucking down harder, until he’s huffing out little grunts every time he fills himself.

“That’s

it, there you - go.

Good.

You’re a - vision, Tomas, a fucking - miracle.” Tomas’ grunts turn to pants turn to a long, punctuated moan. As his head tips back Marcus grabs his hips and starts to thrust up into him on every downstroke. He bites out, “Now, love, fucking - do it now, come for me-” and Tomas squeezes his eyes shut and comes all over Marcus’ chest. Moments later Marcus bucks up into him and his cock swells and twitches inside Tomas, and Tomas’ vision whites out as he shares in Marcus’ orgasm hot on the heels of his own.

He falls onto Marcus’ chest after like a marionette with its strings cut, and just lies there for a while, feeling their hearts pounding together.

“Hell of a way to wake up,” Marcus rumbles at last.

He curves his fingers around Marcus' upper arm, feeling the divots between the muscles. “You spoil me.”

Marcus strokes his back aimlessly. “Not like it's a hardship. Got a lot of time to make up for myself.”

“I'm starting to think I do too. It’s never been like this.”

“Never? Not even with Jessica?”

Tomas thinks about how to put this. At last he says, “Jessica and I were always - escaping ourselves. Our lives, our commitments: we created bubbles where they didn't exist.” Truth be told, they got up to some pretty crazy things in those moments of unreality; much of what Tomas knows about how to stop hesitating and follow his instincts, he learned from her. Wherever she is, he hopes she's happy. “But the thing about bubbles is, they pop.”

“You don't think there's a bubble here?”

Tomas smiles. “Definitely not. I am always myself with you. Maybe more myself than I have ever been. You gave me a

new

part of myself.” He squeezes Marcus’ arm and plants a kiss on his neck. “And of yourself, too.” Marcus answers him with a kiss in his hair.

“The fact that Mouse has the van for a day trip today, exiling us to the library, may also be increasing my willingness to lie in.”

“You like libraries, though.”

“Sure, once they're open...” The very normalcy of how they start pulling themselves together for the day is its own kind of comfort: who they have become to each other hasn’t cost them who they were before.

----- CHAPTER BREAK -----

Tomas is right; Marcus does like libraries. It's long been his practice, when he first sets foot in a new city, to find the nearest one and get a card. An early adopter of email, he uses the public computers to keep up vast correspondence without understanding or enjoying the rest of the internet. During particularly gruelling exorcisms, libraries are warm, quiet places he can retreat to, just long enough to regain some sanity. In his downtime between assignments, if he feels a little too raw to face the wider world, he can find a corner and disappear into a book.Excepting the email, he doesn't do these things as often since meeting Tomas, who is his own kind of oasis. But libraries are useful in yet another way: as a base of operations when investigating. Especially when, as in this one, there are enclosed study rooms of various sizes that can be signed out. They can spread their gruesome, paranoid, occult-obsessed research out freely on a table, and discuss their singularly bizarre lives freely, behind the security of a closed door.He remembers something and takes advantage of Tomas spinning away from the computer for a break. “I’ve been meaning to ask: have you had any new dreams?”“Not that I can remember. And that kind of dream is memorable. Although...” Tomas rubs his forehead. “Not everything in my vision of Steven made sense afterwards.”“What do you mean?”“With the visions of Cindy, I saw things that didn't make sense until Andy. But I also saw lots of things that never made sense at all. So it’s hard to know what’s important.”“Bit of a downgrade from The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter.” Tomas barks a laugh. “Good Omens. That was such a silly book.”“Soft as a bedtime story. I loved it.”“Do you think there could be demons like Crowley? Who grew to change their minds?”“If there were, they'd probably stay well clear of the likes of us. And of other demons, come to think of it.” Marcus fidgets with his pen. “But my gut says no. Growing and changing isn't really their forte. It's just a pleasant daydream.”“What about-” Tomas visibly braces himself, “-incubi and succubi?”“Mind you, I’ve only had the one honest conversation with the one representative, Tomas. But my impression was they’re not very good at change either; they’re adaptable enough to get by and stay hidden, and that’s it. The real difference between them and demons is one of motivation, the things they value. Which still aren’t precisely the same things we value, but it’s close enough for government work.”Tomas turns back to the computer, remarking, “That is one idiom I understood immediately.”Marcus chuckles and spreads out a back-issue of the Chicago Tribune. “I think most everyone does.”They read in quiet for a while, the only sounds Tomas clicking the mouse and typing, Marcus rustling paper, and both of them scribbling notes. One downside to libraries as sanctuaries is listening to music is not generally allowed; but again, even just knowing Tomas is there makes the silence more tolerable.And then of course, sometimes Tomas breaks the silence, such as when he straightens up with a, “Huh!”“What is it?”“According to legend, Merlin was a cambion!” Tomas looks unaccountably pleased.“There, you see? You’re in good company, however fictional.”"What? He wasn’t fictional!”“I mean, a sixth-century druid named Myrddin might have been real, but few tales outside the Bible have grown so much in the telling- what?” Tomas is beaming at him.“I like it when you show your nerdy side.” “Side?” Marcus scoffs. “I'll have you know I hacked it with the Jesuits, in an accelerated program.” Tomas groans and adjusts himself. “Seriously?”“I told you: I really like it.” Tomas glances at the small window of the meeting room, then at Marcus at the table. Marcus realizes at about the same time Tomas does that the table can’t be easily seen from the window... and then Tomas sinks to the floor and Marcus realizes the underside of the table can’t be seen at all.“What are you doing? This is a library.” Marcus’ objection is weakened by the fact he doesn’t move away as Tomas crawls under the table - in fact, he spreads his legs and slumps to the edge of his chair in anticipation.Tomas stops on his knees in front of Marcus. “Keep talking. Accelerated program.”“Right, um, part of the whole growing-exorcists-from-scratch initiative, getting us invested with clerical authority as efficiently as possible,” Marcus swallows convulsively as Tomas nuzzles the crotch of his trousers. “There were some concerns we couldn’t handle it, being from ‘disadvantaged backgrounds’. That was the first time I really put my head down and learned a language on purpose, just so I could give those advisors a piece of my mind in Latin.” “Utinam fuisset. Ego volueram mecum detinere ut videam facies suas." Tomas winks, popping the button on Marcus' trousers and unzipping his fly. “Loyola is a Jesuit school too.”“God, we're both nerds,” Marcus exclaims unsteadily as Tomas draws his cock out, hands radiating that peculiar heat. The whole little room is redolent of pumpkin pie. “Maybe the only marvel is it took this long for us to have a dalliance in a library- oh fuck, love, slow down a bit!” This is - what, the fifth time in 24 hours? Even with Tomas’ ability to compel more from Marcus’ body, there’s a certain - soreness, as his cock tries to get hard again much faster and sooner than it would otherwise be inclined.Tomas lets go and pulls back slightly, brows knitting together. “I don’t know if I can slow down. I only just found out I’m doing it at all. Should I stop?”“No, no.” Marcus slides his fingers into Tomas’ hair, relishing the way Tomas tips his head into the touch. “Only, just - instead of how much you want it, maybe think about how you’re going to get it.” He drops his voice, and it feels silly but the way Tomas shudders and lets his eyes fall halfway shut is very gratifying. His arousal starts to catch up properly, and his cock starts to thicken again, still tender but getting with the program. “I said I’d take care of you, and I will.” His mouth waters as he lays his cockhead against Tomas’ lower lip. “Use your mouth, not your hands. Take your time. Enjoy yourself, Tomas.”Tomas’ moan sounds almost pained. He opens his mouth against Marcus, not taking him in but instead licking him with the tip of his tongue, and moving his lips softly against him - like a kiss. He gives Marcus this treatment all over, slow and indulgent, just as Marcus asked. Marcus struggles not to moan too loudly himself, to keep his voice measured as he says, “Good, that’s very good, Tomas. Oh Christ, the way you look right now, love.” He’d had some vague notion of keeping his head up and only looking down with his eyes, as more protection from anyone who might wander by the window, but he can’t manage it. Instead he picks up one of the newspapers he’d been perusing and spreads it out upright, as if he’s reading it, so he can stare down at the filthy fantasy currently playing out at his feet.Tomas looks up at him through his lashes, color high in his cheeks, as he opens his mouth wider to take Marcus’ cock onto his tongue. He was nearly fully hard already, and firms up with one last flinching rush of blood at the warm wetness that surrounds him and the naked desire in Tomas’ eyes looking up at him. He goes down on Marcus so often, but the reverence with which he does so makes it feel new every time. “Yeah, there you go,” Marcus croons, barely aware of what he’s saying, “there’s a good lad. Just like that.”Marcus had long ago given up on the idea of being wanted in this way, of allowing himself to want, of finally experiencing this closeness with someone. He had barely begun to re-approach the thought, with scarcely a notion of how to get started - and then Tomas needed him and he plunged headlong into all of it at once. Perhaps it’s not surprising; he never did learn to give less than all of himself to something. Not even when it hurts.And it still hurts a little now, but he’s too far gone to care. “Go on, Tomas, take what you need - mmph, that’s the way,” as Tomas swallows him to the hilt. It feels like he’s trying to be gentle, pulling at his shaft with his tongue and working his head with his throat more softly and slowly than is his wont, certainly less than the sleepy, demanding strength with which he’d nursed on Marcus in the dark last night. Marcus is so worn out that even this gentleness is almost too much, but that too much is still less than his determination to give Tomas what he needs. He thinks of how it feels to pull himself in, to force his arousal down, and he tries to do the reverse of that now, to reach out to Tomas and give over that part of himself.Instantly his hips jump, and he breaks out in a fine sweat. Tomas yelps around his cock and grabs his knee for support. “Eureka,” Marcus gasps, “not long now. W-will you do something for me, Tomas?” Tomas grunts an affirmative, gentling the movements of his mouth and throat even further as Marcus starts to shiver with every one. “Get your - oh, get your cock out.” A zip and a rustle tell him Tomas has obeyed him in this too. “Now, when you come with me, catch it in your hand and s-save it. Wanna-wanna taste you,” he babbles, startled at himself; he hadn’t even known that was something he’d wanted until just now. From the way Tomas’ eyes fall shut and he presses his face even closer to Marcus’ groin with a deep groan, as if he can somehow take him even deeper, he likes the idea.“Oh, fuck, here we go, darling. Tomas, Tomas, God!” Marcus’ hand is shaking too hard to hold onto the newspaper anymore; he drops it to clutch at Tomas’ head with both hands, arching in his chair, head thrown back as his orgasm seizes him. He holds onto that feeling from earlier, that sense of willing something into Tomas, his energy maybe. Filling his boy up. Tomas takes it, and his come, with a choked gurgle, fingers of his free hand digging into Marcus’ thigh hard enough to bruise.At last it lets up, and Marcus realizes how wrong he was to think he was sore before. This is soreness; just the texture of Tomas’ tastebuds against the skin of his shaft feels like too much. He whimpers as Tomas softens and opens his mouth enough to let him slide free; even the air burns, like he’s been scraped raw. “Pobrecito,” Tomas mutters, looking at Marcus’ cock, then up at his face, “I took too much, I think. Lo siento.” Marcus brushes Tomas’ bangs off his forehead and then taps at his lowered shoulder. “Gimme.” Tomas blinks and brings his hand up; he has indeed caught his come there, and it glistens on his palm and between his fingers. Marcus sniffs it, and rubs some between his thumb and fingertips, then brings them to his mouth. The smell and taste are intense, distinctive, not so different from his own the few times he tried it, and yet somehow he thinks he would know it wasn’t his own even without knowing where it came from. The awareness that it’s Tomas’ sends a final exhausted surge of arousal flickering through him as he brings Tomas’ hand to his face and licks it thoroughly clean. Tomas watches from the floor, head resting on Marcus’ thigh, watching him with dark, adoring, worried eyes.

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Tomas tucks Marcus’ cock away gingerly, noticing for the first time the redness at the crown, the beard burn visible on Marcus’ inner thighs that he realizes must extend well beyond the window exposed by his fly. I need to be more careful with you, he thinks, less greedy. Marcus doesn’t have any experience saying no after saying yes. Tomas doesn’t have any experience with constant access to a willing partner. It finally occurs to him, nearly too late, that this is a dangerous combination.The shadow of fatigue under Marcus’ eyes is out of place. He looks like this several days into a difficult exorcism; he should not look like this after several days of rest. Tomas is also reasonably sure he didn’t look this bad even ten minutes ago. “Marcus?”“Mmm?”“That time, it felt - different. Like this morning, except instead of pulling back, it seemed like you - pushed forward.”“So it worked, then?”“If that was what you were trying to do, then yes. But, Marcus, cariño,” Tomas winds his arms around Marcus’ waist, “please don’t do it again. You don’t look so good now; I think maybe doing that is not good for you.”Marcus pets his hair, and yes, dammit, there is a tremor that wasn’t there before, of fatigue and not excitement. “Made a promise,” Marcus says doggedly, “to take care of you.”“And you are,” Tomas says hastily, “so well, Marcus. You give me so much more than I need. But if you give too much and - and hurt yourself…” He cringes. “I couldn’t bear it. I would rather go back to the way things were before, and I don’t want to do that.”Marcus’ hand tightens against his head. “Me neither.”“Okay then.” Tomas sorts his own clothes out as well and then clambers up into Marcus’ lap for a single long, lingering kiss, only pulling away out of (belated) respect for the public space they’re in.The rest of the morning passes uneventfully, Tomas ducking out to get them some sandwiches (and a few other things he tucks away in his bag) at lunch, which they eat on the lawn outside the library.“Are you finding anything?” he asks Marcus.“Hard to say without being on the ground. If Bennett - the demon that has Bennett - headed for Chicago from Spokane it’d be north of us, and if it just wanted to get there as fast as it could there’d be no trace.”“But we already decided to search based on the assumption the demon is going to be - splashy, like it was in Spokane.”“That’s true. But the goriest details won’t be in an article in a regional paper. We’d have to talk to eyewitnesses to get those, maybe pry at a cop or two. So I’m stuck reading between the lines.” Marcus looks at him. “Well, you know this. You’re doing the same thing on your computer, and with more current news.”“I don’t have your instincts, though.” And not all of the tiny midwestern papers have a web presence.Marcus bumps their shoulders together. “You do fine.” Tomas lets the warmth of the praise curl through him, a tiny lick of flame.Mouse calls in the afternoon to check in. “I found something,” she says, sounding excited, “but the trail leads into Nebraska. I’m coming back for you two.”They pack it in after that. Tomas claims he can't focus his eyes on the screen any longer, and truth be told Marcus has been wobbling in his seat without turning the page of his newspaper for the last twenty minutes.Marcus may be tired enough to trudge back to the motel with only token protest, but he balks when Tomas tries to lay him down in the bed. “It's the middle of the day.”“And we need to get some rest to deal with whatever Mouse has for us.”“I won't be able to sleep,” Marcus mutters, contrary as an overtired child.His mulishness is hopelessly outclassed. “Then let me rub your back, help you relax.” Tomas clasps his upper arms, then the back of his neck. His hands are warm, but not supernaturally hot. “Let me take care of you for once.”Marcus scowls. “All right.”Tomas beams. “Great! Take off your clothes and lie down on your stomach.”“There’s a joke in there, but I’m not fit to find it.” Tomas doesn’t have to worry about Marcus trying that ‘pushing’ trick again; he feels like he got hit by a truck. He strips and lies down where Tomas has pulled back the blankets, feeling strangely exposed and vulnerable considering Tomas has touched him far more intimately than this.The bed dips as Tomas kneels beside him and lays his hands on Marcus’ shoulders again. He pauses. “This is awkward. Maybe-” he swings a leg over Marcus’ hips and winds up sitting squarely on his arse.“That can’t be comfortable. I’m far too bony.”“Don’t sell yourself short.” Tomas wiggles absurdly. “You have plenty of muscle. I, um, I really like your body, actually,” he says, sounding almost shy.“Good to know you weren’t holding your nose all this time,” Marcus drawls. Tomas’ laugh almost drowns out a familiar plastic click and glugging noise.“Erm, Tomas? Is that the lube?”“No, I got some massage oil.” There’s a slippery sound, like Tomas is rubbing his hands together, and then they settle on his skin again, warm with friction, and swipe broad trails over Marcus’ back. “... Would you like me to - do things that need lube?” He asks it as if he’s just now having the thought.So is Marcus. “I hadn’t given it much thought, to be honest with you.” He’d sort of cordoned off all such ideas, off-limits along with Tomas’ cock. He’s very, very good at not thinking about things he can’t have. But he knows, now, doesn’t he, that a lot can happen there without bringing a cock into it - he does such things to Tomas all the time. “I am now, though.”“Well,” Tomas says warmly, “let me know if you think of something you want - later.” He smooths his hands up to Marcus’ trapezius muscles. “I’m busy right now.” He gives them a firm squeeze, and chuckles when Marcus groans.It feels wonderful, Tomas quickly finding the sweet spot between ticklish too-light touch and painful too-hard. He works determinedly at the many, many knots in Marcus’ back, kneading and stroking until they give in and relax. “You’re good at this,” Marcus mumbles.“You can’t have much basis for comparison.”“There was a girl’s uncle, in Samoa, who thanked me with something he called lomilomi. He started his training for it earlier than I started mine to be an exorcist.” Marcus had cried. He hopes he doesn’t this time, but with Tomas working him over so thoroughly, glutting him on contact, it’s a diminishing hope.To his surprise, he sort of holds it together until Tomas leaves his back for a while to work on his shoulders, down one arm, to his hand. He digs into the space between two metacarpals and Marcus’ breath leaves him in a silent sob. “Good?”“Yeah,” Marcus says thickly, “just - a lot.”Tomas keeps going, milking his finger until the tip squeezes out of his grasp, and then going back up to the wrist and doing it all again for each metacarpal and finger in sequence. He doesn’t comment on Marcus’ face being wet after, just leans over to plant a kiss on his palm and then switches arms.Their words die away, Tomas speaking with his hands and Marcus with his breath and wordless moans, more and more bleary as his whole body is made loose and malleable. He realizes when Tomas shifts to work on his buttocks and thighs that he’s hard, but not urgently so, not even enough to need to adjust himself where he’s pressed into the sheets. It comes and goes as Tomas massages his legs, peaking slightly when Tomas gives his feet the same attention as his hands (and isn’t that interesting?), and fading away when Tomas finishes by rubbing all the way up his back again, ending with the small muscles of Marcus’ neck between his thumbs and forefingers. At that, Marcus dissolves into sleep like a raindrop into the ocean.Tomas draws a blanket over Marcus, tucking it carefully around his shoulders, and tiptoes into the bathroom. He shuts the door silently, leans against it, and finally lets himself buckle, clutching at his groin where he’s painfully hard, and clapping his other hand over his mouth to stifle his whimper.God. God. Marcus trusts him so much. The way he’d surrendered himself into Tomas’ hands, giving up every part to be touched, not even to achieve an end like sex, just for the sake of touch alone - this man who has so obviously been touched so rarely, for all that he reaches out to touch others all the time. He’d fallen asleep with Tomas’ hands on his neck. Tomas has to bite his hand not to touch himself. He wants to, he could - Marcus’ voice echoes in his head, ‘That's always allowed ’ - but he knows if he does right now he won't be able to keep from thinking about Marcus’ ass. About touching him there, fucking him there, feeling him shake apart around Tomas’ love right up inside him, feeling him yield. He would yield, Tomas is certain, and he would be so beautiful Tomas would be changed just by witnessing it-So he shouldn't touch himself right now.He grinds the heel of his hand against his fly, willing his erection down. He wonders if he could learn to control the flow of his energy like Marcus can - that is, if he had any. He looks down at his own abdomen and sees it blank as ever, exactly what everyone else in the world sees. Nothing in the mirror either. It could be worse: he could have a dark void there, like he sometimes feels himself to be.Marcus had been shimmering by the time he fell asleep, a diffuse sheen in a normal orange-red for once, dim and cozy as firelight cast by banked coals.He needs to get out of here. He texts Marcus’ phone that he's going for a walk, and Mouse's phone that Marcus is napping and not to wake him, and slips out of the bathroom, past the lump of Marcus under the blanket, and out into the nominally-fresh (they are right by the road, after all) afternoon air.He scents the air out of pure habit, but when he does make out a hot-spot he recoils from the smell because it’s not Marcus. He buries his face in his hands. He is so fucked. Then he sighs, straightens up, and sets out on his walk in the opposite direction.“Marcus. Marcus, wake up.” Marcus grunts and buries his head under his pillow, but Mouse takes it away and jostles him, her small hand squeezing his shoulder painfully.“Welcome back, Mouse,” he grumbles. “Did you find something juicy on your excursion?”“Tomas isn’t answering his phone.”

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Tomas has made many attempts to abstain from sex in his life. Most were halfhearted failures, but three were serious: one in seminary, and two after he was ordained. All three times his hunger drove him to proposition the first stranger who was even vaguely available, leaving them very confused and his career in jeopardy if they ever recognized him. The last time happened not two blocks from St. Anthony’s, and he had lived with his heart in his throat for months afterward. After that he was always careful not to wait too long, to go cruising while he still had the control to choose a safely-anonymous location, consoling himself with the knowledge that he was taking the bare minimum (until Jessica, when he failed completely). Three days had been his limit when he was living alone, often only two. In Marcus’ company, with the touch he gave out so freely, that limit had stretched to seven or even ten days (though he's been feeding much more frequently than that since Nachburn, so greedy for Marcus). He’s been in this cell a minimum of eleven days. And Marcus is not here.If there were a single human in the building, he thinks he would be desperate to have them the same instant he smelled them, no matter that the thought of anyone’s energy but Marcus’ makes him gag, like the thought of having to eat slimy, maggot-ridden meat. But there are no humans anywhere near; he can tell, now, as his need claws at his insides and he scrutinizes every shape that comes into sight. It’s all demons, all the time, and they do contain the voids that Tomas has sometimes feared seeing inside himself, twisting ropes of black emptiness like they’re always aroused for something they’ll never get. There’s nothing for him there.He doesn’t know what they want him for. At first he was worried the demons would see inside his head and learn that he’s a cambion, probably useless as a vessel, but his working theory now is that demons give up that kind of free-floating telepathy when they integrate. Just in case, he files the knowledge away in the same tight little box where he used to keep - keeps, now, again -  his thoughts about feeding and when he would need to do it next.He sits against the wall of his cell, looking up at the one shaft of sunlight that moves around the corridor throughout the day. He says the rosary in his mind, counting the prayers off by tucking his fingers into fists on his knees and then untucking them. His inner voice lingers over the shapes of the words, the Spanish (he hasn’t thought an English word in days) slipping from the sound of his own voice, to his abuela’s, to Marcus’. He should have asked Marcus to speak Spanish while they made love. If he somehow gets out of here, he will ask for that.Once he would have scolded himself for letting his thoughts drift to Marcus, when praying the rosary is supposed to free the mind to turn to God. Now he has nothing but time, and is grateful for any thought that isn’t his growing desperation. He’s been given food (and there is a working sink and toilet in the cell) but even so the feeling has gone beyond comparisons to hunger, until he feels almost parched. He remembers the feeling of Marcus’ energy, how it had cascaded over him, swept him up in its brilliant blue light until it saturated his every cell. Some of it must be in him still, keeping him alive and sane this long, even if he can’t feel it. Water in the core of a cactus.
Someone, make a mistake. Come close enough to feel my thorns.
A door opens somewhere in the tiny State Patrol office. Tomas wonders why demonkind decided to stage a full takeover of a half-dozen troopers presiding over a few hundred miles of highway in rural Nebraska. The how is obvious; they wouldn't have had to promise anything more than, “You'll be less bored.” The why puzzles him, but hey: it'd given them a way to grab him off the street in broad daylight in Wyoming, and a place to keep him locked up, so maybe they're on to something.He glares at the sheriff who enters the tiny block of cells, phone up to his ear. “You understand he’s awake now - okay, okay. Just a minute.” He holds the phone out in front of him and fiddles with it until it makes a camera-shutter noise. A little more fiddling and he returns it to his ear. “There, alive and in one piece. Satisfied? ...Yeah, he’s been fed today.”“No I haven’t,” Tomas snaps, loud enough for whoever’s on the other end to hear.“Oh, for fuck’s sake. And everybody’s out on patrol, and my meatsack has to show up at a meeting in ten minutes. I’ll have to send in the bootlicker. You better make this worth our while-” The sheriff pales and swallows, third pupil rolling around crazily. “No. No sir. Of course not. Yes sir. We will.”He hangs up and stares balefully at Tomas. “How’d a goody-two-shoes priest like you become valuable to the biggest looney-tune to ever come howling up out of the Pit?”“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”“This guy, he’s a loose cannon like we haven’t had to clean up after since the days of the bubonic plague. Worse, because if anyone slips up he’s going to make us front-page news around the world in hours.”Tomas catches his breath. Bennett. It has to be. He tries to keep his face in the same hostile expression he had earlier. The sheriff walks off, muttering to himself and poking at his phone, raising his voice as the door to the cellblock closes.An hour or two later, a waft of scent reaches Tomas. Human. He stifles the whine that rises in his throat and tries furiously to think. The bootlicker, the sheriff had called him - an aspiring demon-host, like Maria Walters? Someone covetous, then. Greedy. Anxious to be rewarded. Tomas swallows hard and starts taking off his shirt.The ‘bootlicker’ turns out to be a lanky blond man, probably in his twenties, bearing a paper sack of takeout like Tomas has been handed often in his time here. His eyes bulge when he reaches the cell and comes face-to-face with Tomas: naked to the waist, on his knees, with his face upturned and his lips wet and parted. He was never aware of the scent he produced before, but this fast is teaching him all kinds of new things about himself; now it rolls off him in billowing waves so thick Tomas can almost see it, and can taste it on his tongue - cloyingly sweet and sharp with spice. He can’t believe it doesn’t strike this man as odd, but there he is: gaping, jeans tenting rapidly.“What- who-?”“I’m for you,” Tomas breathes, and lets all his hunger reverberate in his voice, and notes with satisfaction how the man gasps as his pupils dilate. “They said you’d done so well lately, you deserved a treat. They gave me something,” he groans, and rubs his crotch, where he is in fact half-hard, for all that this greasy-haired stranger turns his stomach. “I need you soooo much, baby. What’s your name?”“Um, H-Howard.”“Well, Howard, you can stick it anywhere you want, and I promise I’ll make it the best sex of your life,” he runs his hands up his belly, arching his back, and then thumbing his nipples with a showy little gasp - Howard gasps with him - “because no one’s ever been as horny as me.” He licks his lips and gazes pleadingly through the bars. “What do you say, baby?”“Fuck, yes,” Howard mutters, dropping the sack of takeout and fumbling with his keys. Tomas, too, thinks, Fuck, yes. The instant the door opens Tomas lunges out into the corridor, yanking up Howard’s shirt and pressing his face into the unwashed skin of his nascent beer-belly. He doesn't bother to unbutton the jeans; he doesn’t need to. He just reaches out to the light in his abdomen (pale orange - shockingly, Howard the demon sycophant hasn't gotten much action) and commands it into himself. All of it at once. “Oh!” Howard squeals, going rigid as he comes in his pants. Tomas does not come, and would have thought nothing of it before the night Marcus made his extraordinary offer. As it is, some detached corner of his mind notes the detail for further study later. The rest of him pulls and pulls from Howard, straight through his skin, as the hapless man yelps and whimpers and starts to scrabble in Tomas’ hair, already too weak to even grip it.At last Tomas tears himself away, just as Howard topples with a winded noise. Tomas guides his fall into the cell, trying not to let him crack his skull open on the concrete, and then hunches over the toilet and vomits - mostly water, it having been more than a day since his last meal of food. He quakes in revulsion, feeling like he just ingested motor oil, or feces, or something else equally unclean. And yet it will still do the job in the absence of (Marcus) anything better; he feels stronger already. He takes Howard’s keys (he’s unconscious, not dead, and Tomas is still himself enough to be vaguely relieved at that) and locks him in the cell, then steps out of the little cellblock and into the main body of the field office.This is his first look at the rest of the building, since he was dragged through here the first time with a blanket over his head. It's about what he pictured, based on the ambient noises he'd picked up from his cell: open-plan, half a dozen desks, nothing overt to tip anyone off that all the permanent staff here have been integrated demons for who knows how long....Well, nothing overt other than the deputy walking through the door, taking one look at Tomas, and rolling his third pupil as he shouts, “Fuck! Galgomon, get your ass in here! The priest is loose!”Tomas has been cooped up for eleven days, and now he’s brimming with disgusting subpar energy that makes him want to rip his skin off. He’s never been more ready to rumble in his life. He runs straight at the deputy and punches him in the throat, then knees him in the balls.The other trooper - Galgomon, apparently - who intercepts him as he goes through the doorway is quick and strong enough to grab Tomas by the neck and slam him into the wall. “What are you doing out of your cage, monkey-boy?”Tomas remembers Marcus’ theory that demons are repulsed by genuine sexuality. He balls up his scent and fairly throws it at the demon, consciously hitting the same vocal register he used on Howard moments ago as he growls, “Choke me harder, Daddy.”He has the satisfaction of watching Galgomon blink and let go of him, stepping back involuntarily and clutching at his groin, looking absolutely horrified. “What did you do? What- what are you?”“Figure that out later!” The deputy wheezes, crawling through the door. “Sleep him now!”Tomas dodges Galgomon’s outstretched fingers reaching for his temple, and runs.

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Predictably, the call comes in just as Mouse has convinced Marcus to collapse into an exhausted doze. He knows he’s no good to anyone delirious with sleep deprivation, he knows this, but every time he starts to drift off he remembers how they took Tomas while Marcus was sleeping and he bolts miserably awake once again, some contrary part of his hindbrain certain it happened because he slept. The argument he finally accepts, near tears, is that this time is different because Mouse is with him too, and she won’t let anything more happen.“Nothing would dare cross me,” she tells him, and he believes her and finally lets his eyes close… and then the phone rings.Mouse takes the call. After a moment she covers the receiver and whispers, “It’s Donnelly, from that Lawndale shop Tomas called.” She takes her hand away and says, “Go on. Yes. Yes. Thank you. We will, and we won’t forget this.” She hangs up.Marcus, agonized by hope, demands, “What did he say?”“It was the Nebraska State Patrol that grabbed him, just like the witness in town said. A man who fits Tomas’ description was seen breaking out of one of their field offices and fleeing, before he was recaptured - without being shot,” she specifies, and Marcus slumps, so dizzy with relief he sees spots. Just one state over, not trapped in the belly of some fortress in Rome, not reduced to disappeared remains. Thank God. “The sheriff would only say he was part of an ongoing investigation - but there’s nothing on file about that office having anyone in custody before or after the incident.”“How long ago did this happen?”“Two days ago.”“He was in shape to run after eleven days. But who knows what they’ve done to him since.” Marcus shrugs back into his coat and grabs his bag, never unpacked from their last trip chasing a lead. “We have to go to him.”Mouse never even took off her coat. “One stop along the way. It’ll be worth it once we get there.”The stop turns out to be a military surplus store. Mouse is in and out in two minutes, and returns with a bulging duffel bag. “Ordinance,” she says with a grim smile. “It seems we’ve been accepted into the ranks of Bennett’s irregulars.” The first thing she pulls out of the bag is a license plate. She swaps it for the one on their van, and they drive the rest of the way in murderous silence.The field office is an ugly, innocuous little building, on the outskirts of a cluster of buildings almost too small to even rate the title of hamlet. Tomas would have had better luck fleeing into a field - in fact it’s quite possible he did; there’s a cornfield up the road that looks decidedly trampled. Mouse sees him staring and squeezes his shoulder. “If they wanted him dead he’d be dead.”“That leaves a lot of other things they could do.”“Get him out first. Worry about the rest later.” She hands him a plain black t-shirt, and starts to wrap another around her own head so the neck-hole forms a slit for her eyes. “There’s no way they don’t have cameras. Bloc up.”“I don’t hide from demons.”“The police think these demons are police.” Marcus concedes the point and copies her technique.Mouse jams a clip into a pistol - not one of the four strapped to her person - and hands it to Marcus. “This one won’t misfire.”It isn’t a gun she brings out when she approaches the field office, though, but a canister. She pulls the pin, opens the door a crack, and rolls it inside. “Holy water vapor grenade. Guard the back door.”There are screams coming from inside the office by the time Marcus reaches the back of the building. Two men burst out the door, clutching their throats and spitting blood; Marcus shoots them both in the knees and a third who comes out several steps behind, then swiftly removes their sidearms and kicks them out of reach.Mouse emerges last. “Cells are empty.” She goes back in to hunt down anyone who went to ground instead of trying to flee.Marcus secures his three demons with zip ties: first hogtied each separately, then also limb-to-limb to each other.“Would you look at that?” He snarls. “A rat king. Who wants to keep their tail longest?”“Get fucked!” The demon who speaks is gurgling horribly, pink froth on his lips. Inhaled a little too much holy water.“Oh, you don’t sound so good. Looks like the cupped hands of eternity are running dry for you.” Marcus pulls a bag of salt from his jacket pocket and prays rapid Latin over it, then unseals it and grips the demon by the cheeks, forcing his lips apart. “It'll be over even sooner, though it won't feel like it, unless you tell me where you've stashed that priest you kidnapped.”“Piss off!” Marcus pours a judicious portion of salt between the demon's lips and pinches his nostrils shut. The howls are earsplitting at first - Marcus' face gets flecked with more than a few grains of bloody salt - and then subside into gagging and wheezes on a slippery slope to a death rattle.  Marcus circles his rat king and squats to stare into the six pupils of the two remaining captives. “The priest.”“Eat shit and die,” spits one. The other glances sidelong at his companion and works his jaw. Marcus zeroes in on him.The defiant one notices. “Astrethos, don't you fucking dare. Our mission-” Marcus shoots him in the gut.“And what has mission leadership done for you lately, Astrethos? Cast you out into this pisspot, forgotten and ignored, to die at the hands of the likes of me. I don't see them riding to save you, do you? Why show them loyalty they won't return?” Marcus is uncomfortably aware he's echoing Brother Simon.But demons saw the beatific vision every day, once, and turned away. They don’t have Marcus’ conviction - or this one doesn’t, anyway. Astrethos glares at his comrade and blurts out, “It's not even for the mission; it's just trying to do damage control on that one crazy fuck from the Vatican.”At any other time, he would be all over that; it’s the most he’s heard of Bennett since they started looking. But now it takes a backseat. He brandishes his bag of salt and grinds out, “Where. Is. The priest.” He hesitates to say Tomas’ name, both because he doesn't want to give the demons information on principle, and because he wants to keep Tomas’ name out of their filthy mouths.“A warehouse, south of town.”Just then, Mouse emerges from the field office. “Isn’t that interesting. I’ve just been told he’s being held in a warehouse north of town.” She and Marcus share a look, and Marcus steps back, making a ‘he’s all yours’ gesture at Astrethos.By the time she’s satisfied, they’re reasonably confident the warehouse is north, but they still finish off the other two demons and cut Astrethos - or what’s left of him - partially loose to bring with them. As they drag him to the van, Marcus asks, “You did make sure the ones inside were all demons, right?”“Yeah,” she says lightly, “sure.” Marcus can’t find it in him to fuss about it right now. He’s aware he’s building up a tab of acts that are questionable at best, a tab he’s going to pay with feeling haunted for a long time to come, regardless of whether or not he concludes he chose rightly when he has the time to sit down and think about it.  But that’s nothing new, and none of it matters until he finds Tomas. Tomas is his only choice.The directions Astrethos screamed out for Mouse do lead them to a warehouse, and it does appear to be unguarded. Marcus still unholsters his gun as he tumbles from the car and sprints for the door, feeling like he’s running through treacle.“Marcus, wait!” Mouse shouts behind him, and then curses, and then the sound of her voice is cut off as the door falls closed.

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“This is a dream,” Tomas tells Marcus.Marcus looks down at Tomas where he lies with his head in Marcus’ lap, and strokes his hair. “Then it’s a good dream.” A breeze blows in the open window. Gulls fly past, level with the window; they’re up very high. This might be the apartment Tomas lived in as an undergrad.“Not really. A demon trapped me here.”“You drove it off.”“Then why haven't I woken up?”“You know you follow someone’s voice out more often than not. And you forget; the demon put you under after you dropped like a ton of bricks in that cornfield.”“That's true.” Tomas rolls his head against Marcus' thigh. “Your energy lasted me eleven days. That man’s lasted thirty minutes. I thought I knew how I worked but now I have no idea.”“You'll have time to figure it out. You know I won't rest until I find you, out there in the real world. Mouse too. Just hold on, Tomas-”“Hold on,” says Jessica, clutching at his shoulder and rocking on his hand, squeezing his fingers so, so tight. “Andrea needs a little something, don’t you, baby?” She leans across Tomas’ chest to kiss her friend, who’s squirming on Tomas’ other hand. They’re beautiful together, brunette and blonde, little pink tongues visible as they gasp into the kiss. The air is humid with their mingling sweat (and Tomas’ too, so aroused he feels dizzy).“Oh, mmm,” Andrea moans, “touch me, so he can get his fingers deeper.”“Sure thing, babe.” Jessica’s fingers brush Tomas’, and then she takes over rubbing Andrea’s clit. Tomas slides his fingers in deep, and wiggles his other hand in Jessica the way she likes, and they both come almost simultaneously, making Tomas’ arms go numb as they flood him with honey-sweet energy. Their soft cries echo off the walls of what he is now certain is his old student apartment - he remembers the acoustics.Andrea topples to the edge of the bed, watching sleepy-eyed as Jessica lavishes kisses on Tomas. Tomas can’t take his eyes off Jessica: flushed and dewy, small and sweet, her smile shining at him like the sun. “You did so good,” she breathes, bringing Tomas’ hand up and licking his fingers clean along with him, beaming when he shudders at the taste of her. “You were such a good sport, letting my friend join us. And a true gentleman.”“Ladies first,” Tomas says, and grins at Andrea’s snort.Jessica pushes him to lie back. “You’re always giving me just what I want. Now it’s your turn.”“This is all my turn,” he says, entranced by the way she looks at him.She raises an eyebrow. “There must be something you want.”“Um, I would like to come? Please? Any way you like.” She rolls her eyes a little and goes down on him; he lets his head fall back and surrenders to the pleasure of it.Later, on the edge of sleep, he hears Andrea whisper to Jessica, “I don’t know what’s more unbelievable: that he wants to be a priest, or that you’re letting him go to marry Jim.” “I’m letting him go so he can be a priest,” she whispers back. “And… I don’t know if I could keep up long-term. He’s like this all the time.” “Jesus. You’d need a vagina transplant.”“Or I just wouldn’t be enough one day.”Tomas cringes internally. He wants to argue, but he does want to be a priest, and she is engaged (he’s already doing moral cartwheels and a lot of penance every week after confession as it is). It wouldn’t be fair to admit to wanting more than what they both agreed to. He’ll take what he can get, and be grateful.“Did you have a good cumpleanos, mijo?” “Si, abuelita.” He’s seven now, really too big to be climbing into his abuela’s lap, but he’s so glad she doesn’t say it, not even as his chubby arms and legs overflow her little chair and make it creak under their combined weight. She just holds him, soft and sturdy, and lets him snuggle close, the way he so often needs to when he’s tired. “That was the biggest piñata I ever saw.”She chuckles. “We make them right down here. There has to be enough candy to make all the guests happy.”“I didn't like the mordita very much.” He likes cake, but not when his whole face gets mashed into it.“Your cousin Carlos turns eleven next month; you will have your revenge.”Tomas lets his forehead thud onto her shoulder and sighs heavily. “I miss Olivia. Talking to her on the phone wasn't the same.” He misses Mamá, too, but - she sent him away. He doesn't like how he feels when he lets himself think about that. When it was her turn to talk on the phone he spoke to her as politely as if she were a stranger.She rubs his back. “I know, mijo.” “Abuelita?” His voice is small, as small as he feels. “Why didn't Papá call?”Her arms tighten. “Your father loves you, Tomasito. But, sometimes… sometimes love isn't enough for us to get everything we want.” “You get what you get and you don't get upset,” he chants, the English already feeling more awkward than Spanish on his tongue.She sighs. “Close enough.”He dreams his way into one of his earliest memories next; maybe three years old, four at the most. Even then he was prone to waking early, troubled by dreams he instantly forgot.He tiptoes down the hall and into his parents’ bed, squeezing in between them, facing Mamá.Her breast is so soft and warm against his little hand. Immersed in the dream, he can remember the taste of her milk in his mouth. Even though he can't have that anymore, he still loves her breasts, loves to curl up against them, pat them with his hands, rub them with his cheek. She strokes his side, clumsy with sleep.Against his back, Papá radiates heat. He's firmer than Mamá, and broader, like a brick wall in the summer sun. Tomas snuggles happily between them.He can see their love shining in him, and his in them, flowing between every point where they touch. He's still too young to explain what he sees, so he just rests in the light, and in the certainty that he can have this anytime he wants, that this will always be there for him. But it wasn't, he thinks, and then clenches his teeth and buries his face in the mattress. He wants to stay here, in this moment.“Wake up, Tomas,” his father says then, sounding wide awake himself when in the memory he was sound asleep.“No,” Tomas groans, rolling to face him - but he's gone, and his mother too, and Tomas is a man again. Bloody Tomas, wake up. The voice echoes in his head like it’s coming in from the real world.“Marcus.” Don’t do this to me, love, open your eyes. He sounds frantic.  Tomas digs the heels of his hands into his eyes. “I’m trying!” he shouts. Even without a demon’s supervision, he’s under so deep this time. With no energy to feed on, his body must be shutting down.There’s a silence, then Marcus’ voice turns solemn. I made a promise. Do you remember? Tomas freezes. “No. No, nonono, don’t-”Marcus’ hand shakes as he strokes Tomas’ face. He’s unnaturally still, and when Marcus pries up an eyelid his eyes are rolled back into his head, but there’s a slackness to his muscles and a pallor to his skin that makes Marcus think this is more coma than supernatural dreamstate. Tomas isn’t coming out on his own this time. Not after thirteen days without getting what he needs.He arranges Tomas’ hands at his sides, rubbing sorrowfully at the rope bruises around his wrists. He makes sure nothing entangles Tomas’ legs. He lays himself down on top of Tomas, arms and legs in parallel, interlacing his fingers between Tomas’ limp ones.“I hope this works,” he tells Tomas’ beautiful, horribly-empty face. “I don’t have a plan B. If it does work, I hope you forgive me.”In the distance he can hear gunfire, and Mouse’s shouting once again, but he’s committed to his course of action.He thinks back to the last day they were together, in the library, when he experimented with doing the opposite of reining himself in: willing that something that stirred in him into Tomas. He doesn’t think he could get aroused in this situation, but it’s not… exactly arousal, is it? Not precisely, not entirely. Arousal is one way to express it, but - Marcus hopes, desperately, as he kisses Tomas’ mouth and then presses their foreheads together - not the only way. Maybe he can move it around directly.He thinks of the way his spirit kindled all unbidden - to his dismay - the first time he laid eyes on Tomas and Tomas breathed, It is you, recognition on the face of a perfect stranger, the hand of God pulling him back into the game. The glee he takes in needling Tomas out from under his grandmotherly mannerisms, the frustration of trying to keep up with his recklessness, the heart-clenching fear and roaring determination of trying to protect him from the many, many dangers in their lives. The silent chime of surprise and pleasure every time he turns around and remembers Tomas is there, with him. And, yes, the longing reach of his soul for Tomas’ every time they make love, the urge to meld as deep as they can get and then deeper, not only to sustain but in doing so to be sustained.Marcus envisions this feeling, all of this and more, welling up in him like water from Moses’ struck rock - and then bursting forth into Tomas. Something happens; Tomas twitches violently, and Marcus feels a sudden swoop of dizziness. He shudders at the draining sensation, untempered by any sensual excitement, but he has poured himself out many, many times before - never quite this literally, granted, but it turns out to not be so different after all. He breathes out steadily and keeps up the flow.His vision dims, and there’s a roaring in his ears, but he still sees and hears the moment when Tomas comes shrieking back to consciousness. There are sparks crackling over his teeth. That's probably uncomfortable. Forgive me, he thinks again. Somewhere behind him a door bangs open and Mouse’s voice gets louder. In front of him Tomas shouts something at him, wild-eyed, but Marcus is too busy blacking out to catch it.