by Quil Carter
“Reaver-baby… do you have any idea how powerful you would be… if you got rid of those weaknesses and made them your most powerful strengths? If you got not just your old self back… but used this to fucking refine who you are, smooth off those damaged edges. Shit, brother. If you could turn it over in your mind… and make that experience make you harder, darker, more fucked up and psychopathic, then the next time it happens and someone ties you up and sticks their cock in you… you can laugh and tell them to fuck you harder.”
Nero chuckled and shook his head. “Imagine the look on Silas’s face? On anyone who makes the mistake of thinking they can dominate you in that way. Fuck, Reaver. You’re this much of a psycho bitch just being twenty, if you can swallow that pride and learn this craft at twenty, you’ll take their power away. Killian is immortal like you said, no one will have anything to hold against you, they’ll have no power over you. You’ll be unstoppable.”
I’d be unstoppable.
His words sunk into me, and I realized that while I had been listening to him, my breathing had slowed, and the anxious knot that kept stealing my breath had started to loosen. For the first time in I didn’t know how long… I felt better.
I felt hope. Light at the end of what seemed like an endless dark tunnel.
There had never been a time where I thought Nero would be the one to help me through what had happened. I had felt completely alone in facing this, the only man who had helped me far away in Skyfall dealing with his own crumbling life in the form of his dying pet. A man who I realized I was very similar to. Both with two weaknesses: the boys we loved, and our egotistical, sometimes arrogant, pride.
But I didn’t have to be Elish. I didn’t have to adopt the same weaknesses he had, whether he’d admit it or not. I didn’t have to become solely Elish’s protégé; I could learn from the man that, even with the hatred that had burned so deeply inside of me, I had respected and admired when I’d first seen him in Donnely. Respected his power and authority, and how he made Perish scream and cry underneath him as he dominated him with an iron fist.
And not only was Nero a force in himself, who had decades of experience on me. Someone who struck fear into the hearts of his younger brothers, and commanded respect; someone who talked openly about raping men and enjoying it, and made no apologies over what he’d done to me unless he actually meant it… I was realizing…
He would make a powerful ally, and perhaps the first act of cauterizing these weaknesses would be swallowing my pride and doing something I knew, deep down, would start me on the road of getting myself back.
No. Not getting myself back.
It would be my own rebirth. The dark chimera rising from the white flames like a phoenix, stronger, more ruthless, and ready to take on whatever was thrown my way.
“You’re right,” I said, after there had been silence between us for quite a while. “Everything you said, is right.” I looked over at him and felt him squeeze my shoulder. “I’ll make every weak flaw inside of me my hardest point. I thought I was created to be the worst, but I understand now I was only created with the potential. But I’ll prove that I am who I thought I was, and actually be that chimera… with your help.”
Nero smirked, his hand still squeezing my shoulder. “I’m going to fucking make you into a god.” Then the smirk that seemed to fit his face like he’d been making it inside his steel mother, turned into a smile and then a laugh. He shook my shoulder before sliding his hand to my neck and pulling me towards him. He kissed my cheek, before slapping my backside hard. “Enough emotional shit, you fucking prissy bitch. Come inside and drink with me.”
Chapter 31
Reno
I wrapped the towel around Silas and helped him out of the shower. It was the biggest shower I had ever seen, but Silas also had the biggest bathroom I’d ever seen too. It was the size of my bedroom back home with a Jacuzzi tub that could fit six people, like as big as a hot tub almost. There were three sinks on a long white and grey marble counter top too, over a dark brown wood counter with flashy faucets. The floors were the same white with grey veins like the counter tops, and the walls half coffee brown tile, half lighter brown. And, my favourite thing, a painting, protected with a cover because of the steam, I guess, of Silas sprawled out in some kind of green jungly oasis, naked and exposing it all, with Sanguine on one end of him looking sinister with his hand sliding up Silas’s leg, and Drake leaning against Silas with his hand on his inner thigh and a coy smile on his face. I recognized Jack’s painting style by now, and knew this was another one of his masterpieces.
But fuck the painting, this bathroom was just amazing and I couldn’t get over it. When you first walked into the bathroom all you saw was a glass door off to the side, then you opened the door and realized the shower was a small room in itself. It even had a bench built in (perfect height to prop up a leg, or to sit down and receive a surprise), and above it, recesses full of soaps and bottles of more soap. There were two giant shower heads that rained water down, three on each wall to shoot it at you, and a detachable hose with many power settings which I one day might want to play with. This shower made Garrett’s normal walk-in shower look like my mouldy piece of crap in Aras. I was really going to have to speak to Garrett about a renovation.
I rubbed Silas’s shoulders but realized he was starting to shiver bad. He was staring at the floor just shaking like a leaf, his lithe, grey body swimming in the black towel I had wrapped around him.
It had been day four of spending time with Silas, and it was morning. During the first full night I’d spent with him, Silas had woken up with a start at 3 am, and in his lucid, out-of-it-state, he had started rambling and babbling about everything from where Reaver was, to wanting to check on the babies. I wasn’t sure which babies he was talking about. I kept telling him they were okay, but I couldn’t convince him they were.
Eventually I called Garrett and asked him where the knock out pills were, he was up here in five minutes flat and we drugged the king pretty good. Silas slept like a rock after and it gave me and Garrett a couple hours to ourselves. We finished off the rest of the spaghetti and started making loose plans for our new royal holiday. Garrett was beaming and kept looking at me with those loving eyes. And surprisingly, his emotions didn’t bounce off of me like they did previous. Before when he’d beg me to say something or show I was still in there somewhere, I couldn’t do anything but stare at him and robotically say what he wanted to hear. It was the first time I could honestly say I felt a little bit better when I went to bed. And when Silas kept repeating these lucid, babbling moments every night after bed, it had started to become a routine for Garrett to come up, drug him with me, and we’d get our time together after.
There was still a gaping hole inside of me, one that I didn’t think would ever be filled, but I noticed myself feeling Garrett a little bit more every night, enough to have a conversation and receive his affection.
Now I was trying to do to Silas what Garrett had done to me: attempting to draw out any reaction from him, anything to break him from the automated movements and his sad words that were so heavy you only had a moment to listen to them before they sank down to the infinite chasms below.
Four days and it was hit and miss… but I think I was making progress.
“Poor boy,” I murmured as I rubbed his shoulders harder. I looked over and saw two blow dryers and smiled lightly to myself. I grabbed one and plugged it in and turned it up as high as it could go. Silas’s eyes raised just slightly, giving me a look that was still the definition of depression, but with the faintest flicker of curiosity.
I started blowing the hot air onto his neck, then pulled back the black towel to warm up the grey skin underneath it. When I had taken his clothes off, I had to hide the grim look as I took in his thin frame. Every rib I could count, and he had a thigh gap so wide it made his legs look bowed. I almost thought it would be easier for him to die and resurrect to his normal weight, but then I remembered what Silas had said
about the white flames.
“Hey, raise your arms,” I told him. “So I can dry the rest of you off.” Silas obeyed and he slowly lifted his arms, the corners of the large towel in his trembling hands. I waved the hair dryer over his chest and arms, then got an idea. I grabbed the other, plugged it in and pointed it at his arms, or more specifically the towels. The force behind the blow dryers made the towel start to blow just slightly in the double gusts of air.
“Na na na na na na na na, Bat Silas!” I sang.
Silas’s heavy green eyes looked at me, and my heart absolutely burst when I saw a small twitch in the corner of his lip, before it hooked to the faintest, but still visible, crooked smile. Silas closed the towel back around him, and not wanting to push him, I started drying his hair.
I brushed it and fluffed it up all nice, and when he was dry, I walked him out to his bedroom. I was pleased to see that the sengils I had called up had cleaned his room, and had done so in record time. I wanted them in and out before Silas was out of the shower, so I had let in a team of seven of them. They had sheets in hand, a thin blanket since it was still August and sweltering outside, fresh pillows, and had vacuumed and picked up the trash and wiped everything down, and had even put little fabric ribbons on the charmander and the two stuffed cats.
Silas paused when he stepped into the bedroom. I was worried for a moment he was pissed I’d gotten it cleaned, then I realized he might’ve just been confused since I’d done this on the dial-a-sengil phone out of his earshot.
“Want me to order you some food?” I asked as he walked to the bed, smelling like Febreeze and holding purple sheets and a black comforter with purple pinstripes.
To my dismay Silas didn’t answer me. He dropped the black towel onto the white chair and curled up naked on top of the bed, then hugged the charmander to him.
I sighed and sat on the foot of the bed and started rubbing his shoulders. “Want to watch some television?” It was like I was walking up a steep hill, every time I got a glance at the summit I slid right back down to the bottom. I’d see a hint of Silas, and I’d fool myself into thinking it would stick, but then he’d shut down like he was a laptop with a blue screen error.
Silas didn’t answer.
“Want to go for a walk?”
I wasn’t expecting an answer to that one. I knew he was a long way away from going outside into the sun, and, sure enough, he didn’t answer.
“Want me to lay with you?”
I watched him and listened for any answer. I was about to suggest video games when I got a faint. “Yeah.”
“Okay, I’m good at that.” I slipped on some dry boxers. I’d been in the shower with him and I just didn’t think it was right to bathe naked with him, stupid I know, but it just felt weird and inappropriate since I was taking care of him. I put them on, and laid down beside him and he turned away from me. I took a shot in the dark of what he wanted and became the big spoon, and he relaxed when I drew him to me.
I closed my eyes and started some rhythmic breathing, a thing Garrett had taught me when I was still in my hysterical crying stage of grieving, and was surprised and complimented when Silas started breathing in tune to mine. With every exhale I felt his body relax further, and I could even feel his heart through my hand start to slow, and I knew mine was as well.
Everything quieted down after that, and I felt my eyes start to become heavy.
“Reno?” Silas whispered. My body jumped; I hadn’t even realized I had drifted off. I woke up, the unexpected nap no doubt from my late night time with Garrett, and realized that during my sleep Silas had gotten up and put on a new pair of grey drawstring boxers and a new undershirt.
I yawned. “Sorry, I’m up,” I said, rubbing the sleep from my eyes. I squinted them and saw Silas’s forlorn eyes staring at me, they looked red and puffy. I think he might’ve been crying.
“Aw, you should’ve woken me up so I could’ve been awake with you, mister,” I murmured. I raised a hand and stroked his cheek with the front side of it.
“I woke up like this,” he mumbled back. “I woke up crying. I… I dreamed I was back in Aras. When I opened my eyes and saw you, I was so sure for a moment…” Silas’s face tensed, creases appearing in his forehead, and my own stomach knotted. I knew it was coming, I prepared myself for it.
“I was sure we’d both be heading to Aras, and he’d be there with Killian.”
The sting hit me as expected, and in a two prong attack my throat tightened and throbbed. That kind of throb where you knew if you spoke you’d start crying. I didn’t answer back, I couldn’t.
“Why did he have to uncover my secret?” Silas whispered.
I wanted to tell him he fuelled that runaway car by practically raping Killian, but the remembrance of what he did to my now dead friend immediately hardened myself against Silas. I had to purge that memory and remind myself he wasn’t the same man, that a different one was in front of me now. I didn’t have clean hands. I lost my virginity as a top raping a legionary as Reaver held him down for me, and had raped dozens after him with no guilt whatsoever.
“You… raped Killian,” I said back, as slowly and cautiously as I could. “So… him uncovering the secret was kind of because of that. Because you were trying to drug and get with Reaver.”
Silas was still. “I forgot about that,” he admitted. Then his gaze became slightly more aware. “Did you know Sanguine was there with me the entire time? He sneaked in behind Killian’s back while he was throwing up, and dropped a maggoty scaver carcass behind him to scare him. My Sanguine was out of there before Reaver even noticed. He was so quick. We had a tracker on Killian the entire time, that’s how we stalked him. Sanguine was wonderful; Theo dropped in too, several times. My stealths are so fast.”
I didn’t know how I felt about this. I wanted him to stop but my mouth was glued shut trying not to cry.
“I was so alive,” Silas whispered. Then the awareness disappeared like the dimmer switch on a light had been turned low, and his eyes became dead again. A brief moment of life before it was extinguished by his own misery. “Yet no more happier, just content in tormenting my babies.”
Silas choked and his face dissolved. Even though it felt like little needles were stabbing my heart, rapidly and without rest, I held him and shushed him as he cried. My feelings were overwhelmingly conflicting, and I decided once he fell asleep I would be self-medicating with some opiates. I just… whenever I was reminded of the hurt he’d caused my friends, the swells of hate rose and crashed against my surface, but then he became a puddle of sadness and I couldn’t hold onto that hate.
Sadly the choking turned into full blown sobbing, and my soft hold became tight when he started to absolutely fall apart. I would be lying if I didn’t secretly hope it was from guilt over what he’d done to us, but I could never ask.
Even after he’d calmed down I continued to pet his hair back. It was hard, his hair was blond like Killian’s. Silas’s was more golden and it had the waviness to it, Killian’s was a lighter blond and straighter. Still, even with those differences it reminded me of the times I held that little guy. The time I remember the most was when he’d thought Reaver had been killed by Greyson. So funny knowing that he actually had killed Reaver; fucker’d just come back.
I wonder how Reaver would be when he came back, and what would he be coming back to. Garrett was adamant he wanted to make me immortal soon, I was twenty-three now, but… I don’t know. Hearing Silas talking about how terrifying it was to be unable to escape his mental torture, made me not know if I really wanted to be.
If I wasn’t… I’d be forty-three when Reaver came back. Damn.
“Tell me a story?” Silas croaked, his voice raspy and congested from a stuffed-up nose.
“Hm, okay,” I thought for a second and tried to think of some old books I’d read. “There was a little kitten named… Guacamole.”
“No…” Silas pulled away from me. “I want to hear a story about Reaver.”
; “Oh…” I swallowed hard. “That’s going to hurt…”
“A funny one,” Silas said. “I know you have them. You told me a lot of them when I stayed over at your house.”
I took in a deep breath and exhaled slowly. I didn’t know how to feel about this, but orders were orders, let’s see if I can get through this without breaking down.
Then a recollection came to me, one that made me smile sadly. “This happened when he was eight and I was ten. This new kid came to live in Aras, ten like me, some snotty little asshole who was always trying to one-up us. I had a Game Boy Colour, but his dumbass father had scavenged him a Game Boy Advance. We had a stereo we’d play our Disney songs on, cause we acted them out and pretended and all of that, but he had a CD player. So he’d tag along, and he’d butt-in on whatever we were doing and tell us his daddy could make it better. His name was Jussin.”
“Justin?”
I thought for a second. “Yeah, actually that was probably it. Well, at this time me and Reaver had this thing we’d do… we’d find anything big and we’d put wheels on it and sail it down this area of the red canyons that had this super flat slope that angled up before there was like a fifty foot drop off. Greyson was just happy that Reaver was leaving him alone, so he’d give him scraps to put wheels on and we had a way to get down to the canyons to collect the wheels if needed be, since it was a pain in the ass to find wheels to put on shit. For Reaver’s eighth birthday Greyson and Leo even put wheels on a fucking fridge and a stove. They used the dolly and hauled it to the top of the ramp and sailed that shit down! It was great.”