Dante’s World 4: Crimson Nights

by Willa Okati

  Someone was taking care of him.

  Though he didn’t know it, he drifted off into sleep with the faintest of smiles on his battered lips.

  * * *

  When the heavy pressure eased once again and Malaki woke up a second time, he lay still. Figuring out his next move. His eyes refused to open. He tried and found himself utterly unable to manage the feat. He hurt, and he didn’t want to play the game where he found out just how much he could take, and how much he couldn’t.

  Besides, something distracted him. He could hear again. Not much, but enough. The slight swishing of something. Cloth? Yes, cloth against a harder thing, something raspy and brittle. Scratch-scratch-scratch. It was a funny sound. He’d have laughed if his ribs weren’t white-hot with pain. Was someone washing themselves?

  Malaki felt a moment of utter relief. Wherever he was, whatever had happened, he wasn’t alone.

  If there weren’t colors, then at least there was another person. A woman, round and soft? No… he’d rather think it was a man. Some male, dry-washing a hand through the stubble on his cheeks. Scratching fingers through the sprinkle of hair on his chest and the short-cropped locks of his head. If color still existed, what shade would that hair be?

  A word came to his mind. Red.

  The word almost turned him inside out. Images he couldn’t understand barraged him, and his throat grew scalding-hot with dryness, then seared with the heat of imagined liquid pouring down it. His shuttered eyes burned with nightmare scenes of that strange bright shade splattered against walls, over snow, coursing down bodies. More, his nose twitched at the remembered smell of whatever that red was.

  His mouth moved again, but he did not realize he was the one making the strange whimpering sounds he heard until his center of gravity shifted, altered by a weight pressing down beside him. He couldn’t tell what it was he lay on, but he felt sharply the weight of the presence beside him.

  Warm wetness returned, patting down his face. “Shh, shh.” There came a noise he couldn’t understand. “Quiet, then.”

  The words made no sense, and he couldn’t figure out their tone. So sound was back, but it was meaningless.

  “Are you hungry?”

  Hungry. Yes. He knew that word. His stomach was so sore, though, that it whined instead of growled. The heavy weight pulled back a little. “Maybe not yet? We’ll try again next time you wake up.”

  Pat, pat with the damp warmth. A cloth? There was a smell to the thing -- a hand -- that held the cloth. Smoke? He whimpered, trying to move away. Smoke meant hot, more red -- fire!

  “Stop that.” He felt a hand press hard on his aching shoulder, steadying him. “Whatever’s troubling you, lover, take another rest from it. I’ll stay here and keep watch while you sleep.”

  And so he did, willing or not. The dreamless state pounced from behind and swallowed him whole in one gulp.

  He dreamed then, his mind filling with pictures and sounds. A small, dark woman, no, a woman and a man, no, two men, all shining hair and wide eyes, but they were monsters, killers. They’d stolen his heart to leave an empty space behind his ribs. But his heart didn’t beat. How? How could it be dead when he was alive?

  He awoke, gasping for air in shock, then choking on it for some reason he couldn’t comprehend. His lungs didn’t want to work. After a moment, he let them lie dormant. He didn’t seem to need them. Besides, the air tasted wrong. Sour. Bitter. Gritty.

  “Easy, easy there!” He heard the man coming, his footsteps loud and echoing on the floor. A loud echo that went on forever. The place must be big. He fought to open his eyes, to see -- to know -- to understand. He still couldn’t.

  “Stop that,” his companion scolded. “Two of the finest black eyes I’ve ever seen, and you want to go looking about like a gawking out-of-towner. Stop now, I said stop. No need to know where we are just yet. We’re safe. That’s what matters.”

  Malaki relaxed, because he understood ‘safe,’ and he trusted the man taking care of him even if he smelled of wildfires and worry.

  He wanted the soothing touch on his face again, and shifted a little in the hopes he’d be understood. Heard a long exhalation of breath. “Damned good thing neither of us has to drink this,” the man muttered.

  The words were just sounds in the air to Malaki, but there were other noises right away, ones he realized he knew. A thin trickling, a slosh, and then dripping. Dipping a dry cloth into a bowl of warmed water. So that was it. And oh, yes, then there it was again: pat, pat, pat, soothing him into a stupor.

  “I swear you’re more trouble than you’re worth. I’ll wait until you’re yourself again and you can understand me. Nuisance,” the man grumbled. “Are you hungry yet?”

  Malaki considered the question. Yes. His stomach was rumbling. But more, he was sleepy. And so, he drifted away under the wonderfully soothing touch…

  He awoke to darkness yet again, but this time something was new. There was a hard, cold thing pressed to his lower lip. It hurt. He made a low noise, trying to turn his head away.

  “Enough of that!” His man’s voice was rough when he spoke, hard and broken as the rubble Malaki thought he was lying on. Gravel? Broken stones?

  The cold thing came back. “You’ve been three days without food, old man. You’ll drink this down to the last drop if it’s the last thing I do, understand?”

  He didn’t understand.

  Something hot and wet filled his mouth. Startled, he choked, coughing on the stuff, and it splattered out. Away. It tasted of the red that he feared.

  The man swore at him, slapping at the stuff where it had landed on his blackness. “What the hell’s got into you, spitting good blood everywhere?” he demanded. “You know what trouble I went to getting this? I drained rat after rat in the rubble. Now you drink it, or you drown in it. Get me?”

  Malaki licked his lips, struggling for comprehension. Drink?

  “Here.” The thing touched his lip a third time. “We’ll go slower this time.”

  He felt the thinnest of trickles slip into his mouth, over his tongue, pooling at the back of his throat. A hand stroked his neck, up and down, coaxing the swallow that wanted to happen. Finally, things clicked into place and the liquid rushed down into his stomach.

  Malaki moaned as the food hit his belly. He understood now. And he was hungry -- so hungry! He wanted to make a grab for the bowl, to gush the heat and light of it down his sore throat and into him, where it needed to be, but he was held back.

  “Slow, I said,” the man growled, trickling a bit more. “I’ve had one bath already. I don’t care for another.”

  The ambrosia had to be sipped, then, a bit at a time. Malaki could feel the warmth of it tingling through his limbs, down his frozen arms and legs. So good. He wriggled a little, to see if he could, and gloried in the twitch of movement.

  “Yeah, happy as a lark, I’ll bet,” the man said glumly. “There’s a bit more of this left, then back to sleep with you. Maybe now you’ll start to heal.”

  Healing sounded good.

  More food sounded better.

  * * *

  When Malaki awoke again, he could speak. He was full of the certainty before he even opened his cracked lips and pushed the words out hard.

  They emerged as a ragged whisper. “Where am I?”

  He heard a flurry of startled movement. His companion had been relaxing, too, while he slept. “I’ll be damned a second time,” he said, sounding amused. “He lives. Or un-lives, as the case may be.”

  That was confusing. Malaki shook his head the little bit that he could. “Where am I?”

  “That question’s just a bit trite, if you don’t mind my saying so.” Cool hands touched his forehead, pulling down a little on Malaki’s eyelids, still swollen shut. “Better luck next time.”

  Malaki considered that, and then he tried again. “What happened?”

  “Ah.” The hands stilled. “You got hurt, didn’t you?”

  Yes. The pains, the flares in his bones
and joints, that made sense. But… “How bad?” he croaked.

  “Bad enough.” The man didn’t want to say anything else, Malaki could tell. Not about how damaged he must have been.

  Malaki decided he could wait for answers. Trying to look properly hopeful and grateful, he asked, “Food?”

  “Now that’s a bit more like it, lover.” A waiting cool surface brushed his mouth. “Lift your head a bit now, and do this yourself. Drink. Swallow.”

  It tasted of the red, and the red was good. What he needed.

  He drank and was content. Tingly-warm through every muscle. For the moment.

  * * *

  An uncounted stretch of time passed and Malaki was awakened again, this time to a shock. His eyes slid open automatically, and he could see. Just a bit, flashes of blurriness here and there. Something red-gold-colored moved and bobbed in his vision. He turned his neck, far easier now, to track it.

  Was that his helper? He’d hunkered down over something painfully bright and… warm. Malaki would have liked to be closer to that. Now that feeling was returning to him, he realized he was desperately cold.

  “Give it a minute.” Red-gold poked at bright-and-hot. “Took me a while to find enough stray burnables. Can’t make it too big, or we’ll run out of fuel straightaway. But I expect you want this more than I do, so --”

  Arms slid under his shoulders, startling him badly, until it sunk in that he was being moved ever so gently, a few precious feet closer to the warmth.

  He closed his eyes in gratefulness. “Thank you.”

  The hand stroked over his face, infinitely tender. “Just for you, lover. Enjoy it all you like. I’ll keep it burning all the night.”

  * * *

  Malaki was beginning to find comfort and ease from pain. His limbs moved a little more smoothly, though he was still weak as the kitten he’d first compared himself to. Cats, faugh!

  He stayed mostly awake this time, only occasionally drifting into fever dreams.

  When he emerged once, from the vision of the man who changed from monster to fighter to demon to man, he looked up and saw Red-gold’s face more clearly. It looked… what was the word? Worried? Concerned.

  “What?” he rasped.

  “Nothing.” Red-gold poked the fire with the end of a long stick. Sparks flew up in a beautiful, beautiful cloud, dissolving in the air. “Only just…” Jab. “Time’s writ nothing across your face, do you realize? Them, me, none of it’s left a mark the eye can see. It’s all one to you, forever young and beautiful. Are you changed inside, at all? And me. Where’re the scars I ought to bear across my heart? Or yours?”

  “What?”

  The man frowned. He wouldn’t look at Malaki. “You talk in your sleep, you know.”

  Why was that wrong? “What… what did I say?”

  “Couple of names. People I thought you’d long gotten over. A couple of old lovers.” Jab, jab went the stick. “That’s all.”

  Malaki tried to put out a hand and catch Red-gold’s sleeve. “They’re all right?”

  “Mmm.” His companion put down the stick. He looked away and wouldn’t meet Malaki’s eyes. “I expect that wherever they are, it’s better than here.”

  That wasn’t an answer. Malaki wasn’t sure if he wanted to know, but the pressure of lying so still weighed on him.

  He could remember more things now -- bits and pieces. Hands on him. Stroking, petting, caressing. Undoing his shirt and kissing down the line of revealed skin. Hands on his hips, rocking them to and fro. He couldn’t tell if they were freckled or long and slim. Maybe both.

  He remembered… love. Intense. Enough to stop his breath, except now he remembered that he didn’t breathe, either. Enough to make him want to breathe, to pant in longing. He squinted, wishing he could see Red-gold’s hands, let them be held in his own. “Are you…” he started hesitatingly. “Are you someone I love?”

  “Gods, you can ask that?” The man cast down the stick and stalked away, sharp and angry. “I thought so, but they were the only ones you called for. But they’re not here, are they? Just me. So put up with me, Malaki. I’m all you’ve got.”

  All Malaki could think to say was, oh.

  So he didn’t.

  * * *

  Sleeping, he dreamed of being mobile again, of moving through the air gracefully as fish in water. Of bare skin and warm or cool bodies pressed together, open-mouthed kisses that sought to drain he and his lover dry, of white-hot stickiness spurting to land on his belly.

  He awoke with his head in Red-gold’s lap. The man was petting his hair, soft as a child’s touch. Malaki’s eyes could open almost all the way by then, and his sight was nearly clear.

  It didn’t help. He didn’t recognize the place that he lay in. Cavernous, full of stone, stone, nothing but stone and thick, heavy dust. “Where --”

  “Don’t ask me where we are, now,” his companion warned, still stroking. “I don’t know. We had to run for it, didn’t we? All the same, we’re safe enough here. I’ve checked and checked while you slept.”

  It was enough. Malaki trusted the man. Turning his head a little, he nuzzled against the thigh his cheek was pillowed on. There was something like a purr welling up inside.

  Loving the feel of flesh on -- yes, cotton was the word, they were loose trousers that Red-gold was wearing -- he burrowed his face deeper into the leg.

  A rippling ran down into his gut. Felt so good. Burning, like the fire. But it didn’t hurt. Red-gold made a sudden, pleased noise.

  “Now there’s a fine sight,” he said approvingly. One of the hands on Malaki’s face drifted down, trailing over his chest and down to the waist. It toyed with what was left of the ragged belt cinching his own pants around his waist.

  The rippling tingle increased, centering in his swelling groin, from the touch that felt so good. Shameless, he arched toward the hand. He remembered this, from his dreams. Not exactly what or why, but how it felt, and he craved it more than the red food.

  “Go on, then,” said his companion, and he was purring in time with his teasing strokes that just wouldn’t go low enough, teasing Malaki into a hardness that burned. “Part of you recognizes this. How about the rest?”

  The rest?

  “Say my name,” Red-gold encouraged. “Tell me who it is touching you. Remember me.”

  Malaki struggled for words. He was hungry, so hungry, and not for the red food. He wanted… he didn’t know what he wanted. But more of it, much more.

  “My Master?” he ventured.

  The hand working such magic on him jerked back and away. “No.” He felt the comforting lap pull away, levering his head back down to sharp ground.

  “Don’t…” he protested. “Don’t go.”

  Red-gold barked a laugh. “Me? I’m not going anywhere, am I? That’s the problem. Not going for help, not going outside, not doing anything. Just staying here to help your sorry ass. Even when you haven’t got a fucking clue who I am. That’s what.”

  He whirled around and kicked at a pile of stones. They flew into the distance, striking sparks against some far wall, while Red-gold screamed. “Damn it!”

  A slow tear leaked down Malaki’s cheek. He’d hurt the man, his only friend. He knew somehow that if he could, he would do anything to make it right.

  He just didn’t know how.

  * * *

  The roaring burn woke him again. Cool, hot, warm, cold. Malaki’s eyes fluttered open and saw that his shirt had been undone and hung at his sides, revealing horrific, livid patterns of healing bruises. His pants were opened, and pushed down to his knees.

  Red-gold’s hands were running over his thighs, taking too long and going too languidly to be checking for damage, but not nearly long enough to be a caress. Malaki realized he’d become erect again, his cock hard enough to hurt and lying nearly flat against his belly.

  On his hands and knees between Malaki’s spread legs, bent knees, his companion looked up. His eyes were a startling bright shade. “I’ll make y
ou remember me,” he growled softly. “Starting with this…”

  Red-gold’s soft mouth dipped down and brushed a kiss across the leaking tip of Malaki’s cock. Malaki gasped, his torn nails scrabbling in the debris on the floor for a grip on something, anything.

  “You’ll remember,” his companion whispered, words buzzing against so-sensitive flesh. “You’ll know my name again…”

  That mouth set to work, lapping down the underside of his erection and back up the other side; the wet cavern took him in wholly and sucked hard, tongue beating a savage rhythm on the veins. Malaki couldn’t think, couldn’t move. He wanted to breathe but found it to be impossible. His small world had narrowed to the wet brand coolly burning between his thighs.

  “Say it,” the man murmured around him. “Come on, you know me, lover. Say it.”

  Malaki groaned in frustration. He wanted to -- so much! Other words came pouring out, like “more, more” and “harder” and pleas to a god he didn’t recognize, but not the one name that was wanted most.

  He did know this man, he was sure of it. He knew this feeling, this position of vulnerability and power. It was more familiar to him than what he’d fed from.

  But the name wouldn’t come to him!

  That viciously talented mouth went on and on, punishing and pleading, until Malaki was ready to weep from it. He moaned his apologies, and tried to warn the man -- but with a short, sharp bite he was driven over the edge and he was falling, falling, reaching out in vain for Red-gold.

  Red-gold withdrew. “If you won’t remember me that way, then how about this?” he asked, raising himself up. Malaki had a moment to admire the sight of the man, naked and hard, before Red-gold was maneuvering himself over Malaki’s hips, taking his erection in hand and sinking down on the shaft, tight and dry, squeezing him in a way that made his mouth fall open and his lungs begin to work painfully, harshly panting in and out.

  “Remember me,” Red-gold began to chant. “Remember me, remember me, remember me…”

  Malaki recalled one thing, and that was how to fuck. He seized hold of Red-gold’s hips with both hands, easing the man up and down his own shaft, groaning with pleasure as the pressure intensified on each stroke. Red-gold’s eyes were half-rolled back into his head, and as Malaki stared at him, transfixed, spume after spume of white, sticky stuff spurted from Red-gold’s organ, splattering across his chest. A drop flew up to his own mouth and he licked at the fluid, amazed at how good it tasted. It was even better than the food.