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Unholy Consort

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Written by Arian Mabe (Amethyst Mare)

Commissioned by Mirath

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“Huh… Weird."

Charles turned over the wooden board in his hands, frowning at the numbers and letters spaced out around the exterior, a little triangle of leather, supposedly so that some manner of communication could be channelled through it, rested in the middle, laid over smooth wood to give it shape. He splayed his fingers out along it, following the grain, while Soren was otherwise engaged with picking up something for his mother or something. Whereas Charles thought that it must have been nice to have someone that he actually cared enough for to make a special trip and a special purchase for, he'd never had the same feeling in his gut, he could not say. Family was…tentative and tenuous at best those days.

And it was fair enough that it was, even though he had not really actually addressed just why his guts twisted and his breath came short at times, imagining that something more was coming. Perhaps none of the three brothers were the healthiest individuals but Charles found himself more and more restless after John's death, right up from the very moment that that breaking, crackling call came through from Donnie, the one that had changed everything forever. Nothing would ever be the same, even though he had not been all that close with John. In all actuality, he had done his best to keep him out of his home, although he'd moved to another district of the city, somewhere closer to the circles that he could push into, all for his own entertainment. There was only so much boredom he could take, after all, only 'earning' through illicit means what he needed to get by, although much of that was stealing. Donnie had made sure he didn't need to do much after everything, to be fair, but that just left him with more and more time to think, keeping odd hours up late into the night and sleeping erratically.

Still, admitting to something being off was hardly his style and he got a free pass on the family front. Soren, however, was not one who could or would so easily let his strange behaviour pass by, as distant as they had become. Their relationship – friendship, what it was – came and went and Charles could not have honestly have said that the only one that he had satisfied his needs with was Soren, though there was something of an understanding between them as he went out and got wasted and dragged himself near enough home some decrepit nights.

Maybe the understanding was one-sided at the end of the day but he'd keep on going and doing what he was doing until things cracked on to a point where he needed to address them. With how evasive Soren was, slipping away as he ascended the career ladder, finally making his big break, there wasn't much of a need to really get into the nitty-gritty crappy detail of things. And Soren had more friends, new friends, extreme sports that he could only really undertake because of how hard and fast Charles had pushed him when they had been younger. Maybe it was his fault that everyone was drifting away but he had enough going on to fill in the hopes, or so he thought.

“What?"

Curious, Soren paused, a bag in hand, something that seemed too small and too dainty for his size. Charles rolled his eyes. Just what could be of anyone's fucking interest in an antique shop anyway? Something for those who had nothing better to do with their time than to look back, although perhaps that was a little more vehement a thought than it strictly needed to be as he did not want to look back. An Ouija board sat in Charles' hands, however, and he could not have said, honestly, that his curiosity was not perked at least a little by it, something about the sensation of the smooth wood against his fingertips and his palms soothing, slowing him down like nothing else did anymore.

“That is weird," Soren acquiesced, leaning in for a better look. “I've never seen anything like that in here before. Mom had a friend who thought she was a psychic a long time ago."

“Was she?"

“No, got done for fraud."

Even Charles had to scoff a short, abrasive laugh at that, drawing the attention of the store owner who frowned and peered at him over his sharp spectacles, perfectly deigned for an elderly, wizened face. He didn't want the likes of Charles in his shop no more than Charles wanted to be there and Charles' passing fancy proved as fleeting as his attention, the painted, black letters glaring out at him like the eyes of some kind of demon straight out of hell's abyss itself.

But that idea hit a little too close to home. He pulled away, sucking in a breath that did nothing to at all alleviate the burning in his gut, writhing guilt like a myriad of serpents, all hissing and fighting to claw their way up from his stomach to his throat.

Not today.

“Can you believe some dicks actually think this shit is real?" He scoffed, tossing it back on the shelf. “You got what you came for yet?"

But Soren had, apparently, forgotten all about that as he took the Ouija board in lieu of his friend, studying it carefully.

“You know, it looks like a collector's item," he said offhandedly. “These go for a lot of money if you want to make a quick buck."

Ah, just how far the tables had turned to put Soren in a place where he was giving Charles ideas on how to make money! Yet it was a legal one, if not one that he may just have to put a little bit of legwork in on. And, even in hindsight, Charles could not have quite said just what it was that drove him to roll his eyes, snatch the board rudely back off Soren and storm up to the desk, digging bills out of pocket. Maybe he was bored, maybe he was curious or maybe even he just wanted to think that there was hope of something more.

Who was to say?

*

Donnie glared at the Ouija board, which was, admittedly, far from innocent, with as much suspicion as Charles had expected him to. With his feet kicked up onto an ottoman that he'd had placed in Donnie's home without too much backlash or snide, muttered comments (the best he could honestly hope for in that kind of situation), Charles shrugged and leaned back, appearing as nonchalant about as he looked. Which, in all due respect, was not very nonchalant at all.

“What? Thought it was interesting. Soren got it."

Well, that was a lie but a lie that came with a hint of truth and the revelation of more information. Donnie raised an eyebrow but made no outward comment, softening his expression just a little. It had taken Charles a long time to say anything about, well, anything in his life and that was one area where John's death had brought them, at least a little, closer together. They could sit back and have a drink (or ten) and talk about more than things that lay on the surface of life, introspection delving far more than skin-deep as they learned just who the other person had become.

“And just…what…" He started thickly, words moving sluggishly up from his throat as he cleared it. “What do you intend to do with it?"

“So formal, brother!"

Ah, there was the old spark of Charles lighting up in the backs of his eyes, a laugh on his lips and a glass in his hand. Strangely for him, he'd gone for whisky but it was hardly as if Donnie's supplies of liquor were low in the slightest: a regular delivery kept those well-stocked, as needed, even though he didn't drink as much as he had in the time immediately after the event that had changed everything. There was plenty to go around.

“Look, just a thing I bought," he said, clearing the air of tension, although the broken nature of his speech, gruff on lips that it was not entirely suited for. “Thought you'd like to see, you know…"

And yet he trailed off awkwardly with a sigh that reverberated through the room, sliding his eyes away. He'd never much been one for making eye contact when something was going on and Donnie frowned at him once more, wary.

“I didn't think you'd believe in all that crap."

“Well, Small Donnie, someone would laugh to see us try."

Donnie stiffened, sucking in a breath, eyes wide. The change in him was instantaneous and Charles knew that he'd made a mistake, stilling all of a sudden, watching his brother with the wary eye of a hunter who was being stalked by the cougar, the tables turned at the very moment where they were the most important to keep level.

“Never call me that."

“Whatever, jeez…"

Charles rolled his eyes but the damage was done, tension crackling in the air between them, a palatable wall of static electricity throwing up a formidable barrier. Donnie's heart pounded. Sometimes their voices were so similar that he almost couldn't catch himself in time… But, no. Just a joke, a stupid fucking joke that a stupid fucking younger brother would make. Charles left the room briefly, just at the right moment to allow Donnie the space he needed, slumping forward with his head in his hands. His stomach turned over and he willed it, stubbornly, to stay put, although he wanted nothing more than to jab a needle in his arm at that very moment. It had usually been John that had stuck him, only using drugs recreationally before. Now, he was a pro at finding a vein.

Glass tinkled from the kitchen and he winced, imagining his good glasses toppling to the floor. It was the way of the clumsier one, after all, although Donnie's shakes had not gotten any better as he slouched his way up from addiction in the aftermath. Drugs, after all, did not discern between people, much like death did. It would be better once he was back to his old self, but he wasn't all that sure anymore that there was any kind of an 'old self' to return to with John gone.

A drink pressed into his hand and, automatically, Donnie curled his fingers around it with a grunt, not caring what it was.

“Thanks."

“Don't mention it. Ever."

The lighter lilt of his tone at least helped soften the tension between them and Donnie tipped his head back to down the whisky in one, the burn lingering for the intensity of the liquor. It was really a wonder that he had any taste buds left with how much he abused them with alcohol but, maybe, that was a result of the little bit he had held back before and was getting back to. Just the sound of that name, well… It had caught him off-guard, to say the least, but he didn't have to think about that for the moment. He was well enough used to turning his thoughts to more interesting matters, other matters that they didn't really have to consider the emotional impact of.

Better not to think too much into things sometimes.

“So, what is this bullshit all about then?"

Heavens, he'd never before sounded more like John than he did right then. But the board twisted something in his gut, the hint of a memory that a drug-fuelled stupor, before, had told him simply had not existed. And, truly, he could not have been blamed for what he'd seen then, why something as ridiculous as an Ouija board stirred up such a sense of unease in his gut. It was a stupid thing, really, to mess around with even back then but he eyed it as if it opened a door to a new world and still one that he didn't want to explore at the same time, good and bad coming together in conversely equal measures.

Yet...

He bit his lip – just the inside, so that Charles could not quite see, hiding his emotion behind a bland, bored mask. He'd copied that one from John but even he had not quite been able to perfect it, as much as it still sent a pang through his heart. Did Charles realise, even after the fact, the true depth of how close they'd been? That was more than just one kind of being family but something more, even through the debauchery of running the drug empire. And that was difficult enough to keep going on its own.

But that was a thought that he didn't want to follow through either and he frowned, looking down and pressing the tips of his fingers together, the board calling the eye almost as if it was controlled and a symbol of an otherworldly, powerful force. And, at the end of the day, it was just a piece of wood, regardless of how pleasant it was in itself to look at, the grain easy on the eye, and the leather covered pointer thing (well, it would be on Donnie to not remember what something like that was actually called). There was nothing in it and a distraction was a distraction at the end of the day.

Still… He coughed lightly and strove to appear offhand, brushing his fingers back through his hair as both brothers, somehow, managed to avoid eye contact despite trying to gauge the other's reaction – quite obviously at that too.

“Do you remember that last time with this thing?" Donnie said, a scoffing edge entering his tone. “Hell... I thought there was something there, in the room with us. Do you remember that?"

Casting him an odd look out of the corner of his eye, Charles fussed and set up the board on the ottoman, although it was merely there as an object of study; he showed absolutely no inclination whatsoever to actually use it. His finger covered the engraved letters much as Donnie's had, although he did not press down into the indentations formed there, perhaps as hesitant to push the matter as Donnie was.

“What are you talking about? I never even knew about this except from that weird horror flick before a couple of days ago when Soren was gassing on and on about it."

So, he didn't remember. Although it sent a chill down his spine that Donnie fought like the blazes to shake off – ignore it, just ignore it – he knew that it was all well and fair enough. Getting blackout drunk in those days was hardly a rare occurrence and just one of the few 'family' activities that, at least, they could agree on. There wasn't all that much, in all honesty, for the two of them to talk about, even though John had had more in common than Charles, in a way. They had not been the same, their differences setting their back teeth on edge on more than one occasion, but things had worked and flowed a little more easily for them than they ever had for Charles and Donnie.

That was why the alcohol flowed, sometimes weed too or sometimes something more – whatever they felt like. And they weren't always on the same thing, although they did seem to have a particular liking for hallucinogenic drugs when together, tripping off into another world where it seemed that the very fabric of reality shifted and swayed, trembling through the ether of matter that may or may not have been there. That did not mean that they remembered the trips they took after the fact but it did make sense, afterwards, that Charles could not remember his worry, his fear, his concern… All for those eyes and the smirk that had lain behind them.

“Anyway, Soren thinks I can sell it." Charles continued on with a laugh but there was no humour in it, pushing the board away with a sharp, jerky movement with the heel of his hand. “I don't think there's anything in it really, don't know why I bought it."

Oh, how he had changed. He had always been touch and go, fleeting, with his money, whatever it was that he brought in and stole when he actually needed it. Donnie didn't question it, just made a deposit from time to time into one of his bank accounts, whether or not Charles used it. It wasn't his money but it made him feel just a tiny little bit better to do it, to know that it would be there if Charles ever needed it, if his means sent him down the same path that Donnie had drank himself into time after time after time again. But now he was the one who had to be strong, who had to keep things together.

And now it was that damn Ouija board staring him the fuck down with its jaunty little gaze and the bastard fucking eye carved into it, mocking him like it actually had any right to be there. His mouth turned down into a sullen frown that did not suit his otherwise delicate features, hair falling across his cheeks as he tipped forward, loose above his shoulders yet shorter than he had previously kept it. A new look had made him feel better, a little more refined, even if he could not imagine returning to the styles of much younger days and having it cropped short like most professional men in the business world.

His father had worn his hair like that. And, so, he did not. Never again.

“Well, if you'd like to list it up somewhere or see if it's actually worth anything significant, I can take a look for you," Donnie suggested, words coming out so slowly and thickly that he may as well have been speaking through a layer of mud. “Maybe good, maybe not. You won't know until you look."

“I know that."

Charles grunted and shot him a look that could have meant any number of things but Donnie did not flinch, meeting his gaze levelly and steadily. Yes, that was good: better than thinking about the board. Better than the stirring, grinding unease in the pit of his stomach, guts clenching in as if there was something more there that he had to fear, had to be wary of.

“You talk to me like I'm a child – don't you remember everything that I've had to help you with over this time?"

Smirking, Charles cocked his head to the side and Donnie bristled, fingers reflexively clenching into a crude fist.

“What are you talking about?"

“Ah, picking up the pieces, the groundwork, your employees…"

The last word came out as a sneer, lip curling up for just a fraction of a second: he wasn't all that far gone. And, now that Donnie was paying just a little bit closer attention to him, the tension in the line of his jaw was a little more evident, speaking volumes of the work he'd been taking on.

“Yes, those people – do you know what they're really like, Mr-I-work-behind-the-scenes-and-only-behind-the-scenes? They're unsavoury character of the worst kind, really, but you wouldn't know that, having left it all to John and now me, would you?"

“That's enough!"

Standing in a snap of limbs, Donnie balled his hands into fists, even though he didn't quite know what he was trying to do with them, shaking all of a sudden with a white-hot rage that did not quite feel natural coursing through him. That could have been the point where another kind of brother would have known that he'd gone right off the deep end and pushed his brother a little too far, apologise or at least defused the situation in some kind of way. But Charles matched him stride for stride, matching up with him, almost on the same level. It was hard to say whether Charles was actually a bit taller than him then or whether it was the fact that he was wearing shoes over his brother, Donnie's toes curling with an oddly apt sense of vulnerability into the carpet. Fuck being naked: being barefooted was the true vulnerability when it came right down to a battle of wills.

“You volunteered for it. You said you'd do it. You can back right the fuck out at any time."

Time to channel his inner John. It was easier than he had even realised that it could be to pull on that rage, the fury over the injustice of his death. Although it was strange, even to him, to seek a sense of righteousness and fairness in the death of one who had, of course, out and out been a criminal. Of course, there was no denying it: it was what it was. And yet he wanted to make it right, to set everything straight and clear and fair where the waters had become so very muddied and his younger brother roiled and seethed at the crudity of being 'forced' to step into shoes that were too big for him too soon.

Maybe Donnie should have sold off the 'company' after all. It was much easier just to skim bank accounts and he was so, so very fucking tired of a challenge. Challenges were overrated.

“You didn't have to do any of this," he said, slowly advancing until he was nose to nose with his brother, breath rasping in a throat that was, abruptly, sore and tight, aching for something more. “None of it. You know this. So, why now do you think that it's right to throw your toys out of the pram like the child you say I'm treating you as? Why did you come here?"

A loaded question at best but Charles reeled back as if he had been struck, sucking in a sharp breath that he did not release again, nostrils flared and stiff without any sense of movement there. His chest pulled taut, rigid, and Donnie held his ground, the space between them put there by his brother. And it would have been easy enough for Charles to fight back, to stand his ground and snarl like the wildcat he really was, but he did not. Maybe he was as far gone as Donnie was or maybe he knew that Donnie was right – it was not as if he'd been forced into anything. Coming there in a bad mood had been the worst of it and he scowled, rubbing his jaw as if he'd been struck, the sharp snap of his head turning to the side causing his hair to flip out to the side: ostentatious at best.

“Whatever. Thought you wanted the company."

So clipped. Donnie would have rolled his eyes and made a comment if the circumstances had been at all different and yet he could not, merely watching as another brother left him, if not in the same way. A temporary leaving could feel the same as a permanent one, even though he had not actually watched John leave that time. He had, however, watched it back on the cameras installed throughout his home, always watching and keeping track of things he might need to know in the future. They didn't always work but they'd worked well enough to track John looking back at the hidden one in the living room for the last time before shrugging on Donnie's jacket and leaving forever.

Charles strode out with a snappy, shunned stride, long legs covering more ground than they strictly seemed to have any right to. He did not speak, only spat as he left through the front door, although Donnie didn't see that. He was still standing before his sofa with his fists clenched for a fight that, technically, he'd won and yet still felt that he'd lost.

Slumping down again, the hollow emptiness of his home closed in around him and he, once again, considered moving, even though the logistics of that would be a nightmare to play out. Fine if it was necessary but just doing it for himself seemed like a luxury that one man didn't have the time or the strength to actually take on. There were ghosts in that house and the demons of the past were still all too keen to rear their ugly heads, horns shimmering in an unearthly light and crimson eyes glistening with the tears of so many lost souls. Yet it had just been an apparition and a drug-induced apparition at that.

That didn't mean that reaching for a bottle of vodka with the damned Ouija board staring at him wasn't a good idea though. In fact, it was a very fucking good idea.

Time to drink the pain away.

Again.

*

Stupid… Fucking stupid…

_ _

Several hours later (he'd rather lost track of time) Donnie slugged back vodka straight from the cool neck of the bottle, chest rising and falling in rapid breath. The doors were locked, the security system on and, really, there was not a chance in hell that anyone was going to bear witness to him in such a state. Charles had swung by again at some point but he hadn't allowed him in, having changed the passcode that he had only given him for use in an emergency. Maybe Charles had considered it an emergency when his only surviving brother was not communicative but it was not so bad to be alone. It was comforting to, in a way, to have only his own thoughts circling his head, those scavenging vultures that knew flapping around noisily. They weren't strangers anymore and had not been for a long time indeed.

The board was still there and he could not have honestly have said just why he did not move it. It would have been easy enough to find it another home even if that home was the bin. Who cared, really? Charles could come back again another day or not or he could seek him out himself. It was by the by as he slipped and laughed and shook his head, the TV screen on the opposite wall flickering and dancing with a show that he had not watched in years.

One from way back… One that he'd watched with John when they'd just started getting high, experimenting with things that kids really shouldn't have been experimenting with. But there was that sense of illicit escapism in it too and times really had changed, the world moving into an era of technology that he had revelled in, rejoicing for a space that he could call his own. And the show had been all about that, that changing influence as the young surpassed the old and the old hands struggled to stay in positions of power in tech culture, their ideas slipping into monotony as the flood of a younger generation forced them back and back.

Maybe that was the way of it. He leaned over the ottoman for the crudest of the crude: a line of coke. It was not his usual way of doing things but it was one of the few things that he had left around to get his hands on quickly without going to one of their many, many warehouses and distribution points and he tried to take a back seat to the day to day. Charles was right about him in that matter but he would have still, shrewdly, thought it was all for the best when it came to an operation of that scale. Let the cops go after the ones on the front lines and false positions of authority while he stayed safe at HQ, out of sight and out of mind. He'd be the one reaping the benefits and the spoils and, if terrible things came to pass, he had the tech at his disposal to quickly and quietly disappear from prying eyes.

The drug flooded his system and he exhaled softly, rubbing the back of his hand across his face, ignoring just how it trembled. No… No, he would not think, only dream, allowing himself to just be there as the slow creep of euphoria tugged insistently at his mind, wanting more – wanting him. Drugs were strange like that in that they didn't only settle for what a human mind and body could be intoxicated with but demanded they sacrifice their very soul too.

But it was good to slip away and laugh and find the energy to leap up and pace and do things that he could not after such an experience, a downward turn that threatened to suck him under. It was not good to go under – at least not that far – and he used what he did to find release, escape from tension, the lust for life returning to his limbs and a flush of lucid colour in his cheeks. He'd rarely seen much of the sunshine before anyways but it was better to look like he wasn't a corpse sometimes, if only to meet the eyes of the reflection in the mirror.

As he spun with the bottle of good liquor in his hand, sloshing it everywhere, he laughed and jostled the ottoman, the board skidding lightly as if it was going to fly off altogether. And it was only then that it regained his attention even after so many hours of sitting in its presence, although maybe it had been there watching him the whole time, calling him in as he picked it up and turned it over just the once, scoffing and dropping it back again instantly as if disgusted that he had even taken the time to touch it.

“Seriously…"

He pushed at the board with his foot, awkwardly balancing as his lips stretched into idiotic joy. Why was it so bad to get high, anyway? People didn't see the good sides sometimes, the sides that made a man so much more than he was in himself, something far, far more than anyone could ever be without something more than the shadowy, cryptic intervention of humanity. The board was just a tool, a stupid tool, and he laughed, shoving it again until it fell to the floor and the planchette skittered off and away, its leather coat picking up dust.

“It's all a fucking joke, isn't it?"

He directed the question at the board, shaking his head, not all that annoyed at it. It was kind of hard to feel put off by an object when desire coursed through him, passionate joy curling up through his veins as if he had injected himself with a new strain, something that could warm him from the inside out like the lust of raw orgasm itself. And wouldn't that sell well on the streets? Injectable sex!

“Oh, spirits," he said, raising his tone mockingly even as he swept down into a low, embarrassing bow. “Will you not grace us with your presence? Have you not spent enough time looking down from on high, John, while I wait? Haven't we seen your reflection in the smoke and mirrors of existence before?"

Eloquent for one who could barely stay standing, staggering and bellowing out a raw, hearty laugh that should have come from a much larger man. The drugs made him bold and he swung a kick at the board, sending it into the opposite wall even as he turned away, his attention drawn by something else entirely. Just where was his drink? The bottle had become misplaced in his pacing and he fumbled to get a glass out of the cabinet, the coldness of it thick and heavy in his fingers, which no longer seemed to possess the delicate dexterity of glass.

It shattered on the floor at the same moment that the letters only on the Ouija board began to glow, the order moving too swiftly for the bare human eye to catch – if anyone had even been looking at them, that was. Something hissed, a seething, roiling sound like a trapped wild animal that knew it was near the end of its days, and Donnie blindly swung his head to the side, searching for the sound that senses both dulled and sharpened by intoxication and rancid influence could not quite determine.

But there was something more than the need for liquor thrumming through his veins and he groaned as he forgot all about getting a drink and sank back onto the sofa, the tightness in his trousers impossible to ignore. Were the cameras off? He didn't really want to record that, not again. It had been done more than enough times and that was never a pretty sight, no, definitely no. And yet he could not resist the call of manhood, need rising up with a tingle of excitement that, if only for a time, could make him feel alive again, vibrant and pulsing and ringing through with passion.

It had been a long time since he'd felt like that. So, why not indulge?

He grunted in the back of his throat, cock out and in his hand before he realised what was happening, although he didn't see the true terror in the room. Smoke seeped out of the Ouija board from four letters alone, beginning with the 'J' and ending with the 'N'. It should have been shockingly, horrifically obvious to anyone watching just what was happening even if they could not uncover all of the details of it in the very moments of all occurring, unfolding in a swift and decisive series of events that could not be stopped. Hissing through his teeth, Donnie spat a curse and rocked his hips up from the bed, moaning out the name of the one he missed the most, pre-cum bubbling lightly from the tip of his cock in a glistening round.

“Fuck… Fuck, yes!"

He pumped the length of his cock with a feral gleam in his eye, lips parted and a spot of saliva marking the corner of his lips. Donnie rocked and ground up as if he was engaged in the raw act of sex itself and not mere self-pleasure but even his abruptly rapid orgasm was destined to be cut short as he reached greedily for it with both hands.

Electricity shot through the air, snapping through with a crack that sent him reeling back, curses flooding his mind. But it was not his security system or anything else of the tech infused into the very fabric of his home but something all the more deliriously sordid, the smoke from the Ouija board finally swirling like roiling, writhing thunder clouds made up of dark matter itself, for there was simply no other way to describe it. Drug-fuelled reality curdled into the unknown as he quailed back into the sofa and the figure rising from the smoke came right along with a groan that did not, in fact, come from the lips of any human.

No… That soul would never again be anything at all close to human.

Straightening, the figure tugged at the golden-yellow cuffs of his dark, pure black suit, fitting him perfectly, shoulders that seemed a little broader than they had been in life. The lapels matched the golden hue along with the tie, but it would not have been fitting to linger on the clothing choices without Donnie's eyes sweeping up to his head.

Dark hair. Eyes that were familiar and unfamiliar at the same time. The very same eyes, in fact, that he had seen staring at him over the Ouija board that time before, the time that Charles had not believed him when all had actually gone down and didn't even remember after the fact. A smirk on unholy lips and a pair of horns snaking sensually back out of his hair, the man spinning a sceptre topped with a golden hook from one hand to the other as if he was putting on a show, although if it was any kind of show it was only going to be one that he understood in the crux of the moment.

Laughing, the man that was his brother and not his brother at the same time bowed in turn to Donnie, mimicking the action that he had only performed to the Ouija board itself so mockingly only short minutes ago, horns pointing towards the ceiling with the angle of his head.

“Well, well, well, brother, I thought it was high time I paid you a visit. Are you not glad to see me, dear?"

Dead.

_ _

That was the only word that crossed Donnie's mind as he worked his jaw, eyes wide and hands clutching where they had fallen – rather unfortunately so, in the case of his bare, exposed cock. He did not soften in the slightest (most likely due to the drugs in his system, odd effects there interfering with the nervous system and all that) but tried to speak, throat locked up and nose itching as if to sneeze as the overly dramatic, crackling and sparking smoke cleared, moment by moment.

Scoffing, John fussed with the lapels of his suit, posing with one hand on the sceptre as if he was staring off into the distance.

“Well, not so much of a visit on my terms, that is, I had to wait while I worked out just how to channel things but, really, is this not a fine entrance? I'm so very sure that my absence has been greatly felt."

And yet Donnie could not talk still, blood roaring and pounding to the beat of an endless drum against the inside of his skull, chest tight but as if it was inflating, swelling out and out and out. While part of him rejoiced, heart fluttering and pulsing, the rest of him told him, slyly, that it was all just a hallucination, something that he should have expected, considering what he'd taken, the cocktail of abuse ringing through him, taking over his mind as he sacrificed his body for the daily art of survival. Like everyone else, he did it exceptionally well.

John laughed and proffered the sceptre before him like an offering but, frozen in place, Donnie had not the sense of mind or the capabilities in his body to think to take it or even complete the action.

Dead.

_ _

Gone.

_ _

Dead, dead, dead.

"Seriously? My dear, _Small _Donnie... Couldn't you think of a better incantation if you wanted to bring me back? And the Ouija board? Well, well, well, didn't that have Charles written all over it... He wouldn't have remembered the first time but he does follow all the same patterns that he used to, doesn't he? I'm shocked to see him still around with Soren, although, given the circumstances, perhaps it is understandable..."

Working out the kinks from his neck and shoulders, stretching and straining, he smirked, although the corners of his lips twitched just a little, belaying just what lay behind. Donnie froze against the back of the sofa, slack-jawed with his eyes wide and the bottle of vodka very slowly slipping from his hand. It fell to the floor with a bang and a light clatter, rolling away even over the thin carpet, so chosen for its slick appeal in a simply stylish room that he didn't spend all that much time in anymore. He'd be disappointed to see it wasted once he came around and back to himself again: it was good stuff.

And yet John was still going, coughing lightly into a clenched fist, red eyes dancing with the mischief of the other side. There were words, after all, to come but just because another kind of life, even if it was not truly living, had clasped him and dragged him away from the bounds of mere mortals he was not, suddenly, flawless in every way. And that was, maybe, just maybe, to become his saving grace in the strangest of ways.

“That one is rather cliché... Yes... That old time... Not fitting at all."

Donnie's jaw worked and he leaned back, a strand of hair clinging to his forehead that could not be brushed aside, fingers curled as if he was about to clutch something but ending up frozen in the moment. What the hell was Charles going to say? Had that time really been...real? Had he seen back then? The image of the Ouija board, the staring, demonic eyes ripping into his soul, crossed his vision like a flashback of the beyond, something that had been and yet still was to come, both sides existing at the same time.

What had he done? He hadn't... No... No! It could not... Well, no one would have expected the damn thing to actually _fucking _work!

Smirking, John sat back in the chair that he'd, long ago, claimed for his own, legs apart and his hand hanging between them casually as if he was really there, the very picture of relaxation. He'd put that chair there just as Charles had claimed his own little space with the ottoman, just to have it there when he wanted it. It was not as if Donnie objected all that much to either of them, except when it crossed a line. And, as was in the world of cyberspace and mental slipping, that line was always changing, shifting, wavering, the bond of a security system that one could not help but want to break down, just for fun.

As if from a distance, blood roaring dully in his ears, Donnie watched the shade of his brother's eyes darken from their natural shade of grey, just oh so very lightly tinted with that eerie red, to a nuance of crimson that didn't seem to be of any earthly matter. Not blood and not something else that he dared not mention either, throat closing up, blood roaring in his ears. And that was just because it simply wasn't earthly; he couldn't have put a name on it if he tried. Nothing of John was flesh and blood and merely human anymore.

No... He was far more than that. And that was just what sent his stomach churning into knots and twists the most.

“Did you really dredge me back up just to get your rocks off? Or is your jaw dangling for some other reason, hm, darling?"

“I…"

Sitting up slowly, heat crept down Donnie's neck, guts lurching and twisting as if he was going to lose his stomach, although it would have taken a stronger man than he to not lean into the euphoria of the drug. Hell, if it was some fucking kind of weird hallucination, why shouldn't he just go along with it? He fumbled with his belt, pushing his shaft back into his trousers, orgasm still fighting for dominance in his mind, coughing and stumbling over words that did not quite make it to his lips while John clicked his tongue against the roof of his mouth in mock disapproval, head slowly, so very slowly, swinging from one side to the other in a hypnotic, cajoling motion.

“Come now, Donnie… You can say it. Go on now."

“You…" Maybe that was easier. “You're… You're meant to be dead."

“Well, only in a sense, my dear, but it will all come to light and life in due time. No, not that kind of life," he added on quickly, chuckling throatily as if at his own joke. “I am dead and something else now. But I was that something before too, as I'm sure you know."

Donnie's eyes burned and he cursed under his breath but it was not for that something that he may have known and may not have known before, doubting himself even in his moment. Even as his stomach turned over sickeningly, nausea rising up in the back of his throat, threatening to overwhelm him, he forced away the ludicrous elation at seeing him there before him – John! John, flesh and blood! Maybe not blood and maybe not even flesh either but something and something was better than nothing, very, very much so.

He sucked in a breath, pain slipping away from his chest as if he had finally been released from restricting bondage that he had not even known was present, a full breath of clean air, even if it could not have been said to be fresh, filling his lungs. Again and again, he breathed in fully and deeply, exhaustion lining his muscles even as his soul trembled in invigoration. It was just so simply good to see him there, even if he did not quite still believe in his heart that something terrible had come to pass, was over, that John was…there. Whether or not it was true did not quite matter as he finally swallowed, Adam's apple bobbing as he mobilised his jaw and relaxed in the knowledge that, once again, all was just as it was supposed to be.

There was a tightness in John's face too that he could not read, smirk slowly, second by second, faltering and teasing away from strained lips, softening into a neutral line. That could have meant anything but there was nothing that Donnie did not understand in the three, long, swift strides that John took to cross the distance between them, a low growl rising up darkly from the back of his throat, the skin around his eyes crinkling on the outside corners, betraying something more.

And yet Donnie did not need to know exactly what that was and what intricacies lay beneath the surface, breaking the skin. John's hand slid around his face, fingers curling beneath his chin and thumb brushing his cheek with a cool tenderness that, before, may have shocked him – and yet the connection was there, simmering with hidden heat. Without thinking, he squeezed his eyelids closed, groaning quietly, no longer frozen in place and not yet willing to move either. But his brother's thumb tickled the flutter of his eyelashes, bidding him to open his eyes again, and he could do more than to heed his call, heart leaping when he still found John to be right there before him, the apparition more solid than it had been in the beginning.

“It's alright."

And was it not funny how two little words could come together with such meaning, John tipping down to meet him even as he pushed up, one palm and fingers sunk into the suddenly too-soft seat cushions of the sofa. He could not get quite enough lift and urgency behind his thrust but John was right there to catch him, dropping the sceptre as his other hand snaked around to his shoulder, holding him there with a strength that should have shocked him even as the ache of rising up into half of a standing position, trapped between moments, seared through his shoulder.

His brother's lips met his and he knew no more, parting his own eagerly into the kiss, nothing else mattering as he hovered there as if in the moment of rising, of getting up from the sofa. He'd only later come to learn that that was just where John was caught too, not quite living and not truly dead either, the intermediate interim where demons of his kind found themselves even if the very beginning of the plot had begun so very long ago. Grunting thickly, emotion rising up, Donnie kissed him fiercely, although there was still very much no question as to who was the dominant upper hand in the situation.

For, slowly, John bore him back onto the sofa, one knee up on it and the other leg stretched out behind him as if he was leveraging some kind of force to keep Donnie there, pinned and at his mercy. And it was perhaps in testament to his power and control that Donnie shivered and melted beneath him, still a part of him unsure just how much of the experience was fantasy, even though he very much now believed that the majority was a strange reality.

But he could do strange. He'd do all that was fucking strange and unholy every day until the end of his life it if meant that he could still have John right there with him, where they needed to be: together.

The kiss deepened, seemingly neither willing to break it, tongues tangling and lusts rising. Certain that Donnie was not about to go anywhere – as if it was ever a question – John's hand crept around to the back of his neck, slowly as if he was not sure in himself that it was the right thing to do. And he was gentle, so much gentler than before, turning his brother's chin up in the breaking of that kind of kiss, nipping lightly down his neck as Donnie's voice trembled out in a moan that rang out with such a tremor to it that it was most likely a good thing indeed that he was not standing at that point.

Yet there was always time for more and that sense of time had opened up in a way that neither of the brothers could ever have dreamed of before.

Smirking lightly, John drew back, spreading two massive, feathered wings that sprouted from his shoulder blades, so very easily dwarfing his brother. Donnie sucked in a breath, chest tight for all the right reasons, raking his eyes down the black gloss of them, right down to the luxuriously tapered crimson tips as if they had been dipped by some higher power into a pool of blood. For all he knew of the world he was about to enter and learn of, they could very well have been.

And then his hand was lower, much lower, squeezing something that was so very ready to pulse back to wanton desire all over again for a much better cause this time. Gasping lightly, Donnie swallowed, ears ringing and yet his soul controlled by something more potent than drugs or alcohol or even the simply raw act of sex itself.

“You shouldn't put that away around me, dear."

John's voice came out softly, more softly than he could ever have remembered hearing before, but things moved too quickly for him to keep track, clothes flying off – just his body, actually. With the sceptre in hand, John stepped back for the briefest of moments only to strike a pose that was both powerful and amusing in its promiscuity, clothes falling away as if they had never have existed to begin with. And there he was in all his glory, coming together with his brother in the best and only way that they would have said that they knew how if they were ever questioned on it.

Of course, there was more to it than that, despite the odds being on them never, ever bringing it up together, as much as it lingered, a strengthening, driving force between them. But that was not the fact of the matter of the present time and no one needed to make a distinct point of it as John pressed his brother back into the length of the sofa, cushions shifting and getting in the way as they chuckled and kicked them aside, John even using a wing to toss one out of the way with surprising accuracy.

But the heat of the moment was in lips pressed together, tongues tickling between their mouths and lips, hungry and biting for the something more that they could now, again, have from one another. John pushed his brother's legs back readily and Donnie groaned into his mouth as he allowed it, not understanding the why of everything but not needing too either. Maybe it was wrong to ask too many questions. The real pleasure in things was experiencing them as they happened, living even if one was dead.

And then John was inside him, the hardness of his shaft demanding entrance even if Donnie was not, that time, ready for him. He cried out and rounded his shoulders forward, forehead pressed into the crook of his brother's neck, trembling and sweating. It was hard, harder than it had ever been before, to take him and yet he could not allow himself to stop, could not break from it, rocking and gyrating even as pain lanced through him, ardent desire trumping all else, the limits of a human body that should have been better taken care of during the course of his, rather respectable, lifetime.

The pressure eased as John's fingers curled around his shoulders, making him look up at him without actually forcing or demanding it. Of course, there was an insistence behind the touch that Donnie bowed into instantly and yet it was all willing, putting himself through the moments of pain and strain for something that he'd, guiltily, been craving since his grief had found one more thing to focus on. The presence of his brother alone, ah, no – now that would have denoted the love of candlelit dinner and long walks on the beach, the red and pink romance that was for couples and those who took that sort of thing seriously. No, what was between them may have been classed under the same name but it was of a different, darker ilk, the carnal lust of knowing another person so intimately, going through what they had and still not needing the softness of anything lighter and holier.

That was just as well considering what John was, the demon moaning as he ground in, teasing and stretching his brother open as he held him down only so that he could control the depth of his thrusts. Taking charge let him see that he wasn't hurt, one of them now most certainly more breakable than then other, and their chests rose and fell in ragged unison, harsh cries of lust breaking their lips as he, patiently, seated the full length of his tool deep inside his passage. Right back where it belonged.

There could have been sweetness and light and tenderness but what they had was all of that in its own kind of way and more, bodies humping and grinding against one another as Donnie's head finally rolled back against the arm of the sofa, relaxing and exhaling in a rush of breath, filled at long last. Such a need did not bear being spoken about in the months that had passed while he strove and struggled to keep everything going but the man behind it all was there now and could lift that burden from his shoulders too, leaving him to do what he did best in the logistics and hidden tech behind the scenes. Everything left a mark and a trace and it was his job to ensure those were concealed and wiped out wherever possible even as he accepted every last one of John's marks onto him.

They couldn't bear it, hissing through clenched teeth as they ground together, John's thrusts coming with increasing urgency, desperation clawing through the sensuality of it. How something like that could come with that they would never know and neither would they honestly care to know, driving in with greater and greater force, two bodies coming together as they so very desperately needed to. Maybe it was what they had needed all along to seal the deal between them but John's heady, guttural grunts took on a different lilt to what they had boasted before, groaning and pumping his wings in time with his thrusts, a stray feather floating off as if it had been plucked free in the thick of it.

Harder and harder, Donnie's cock pulsed up, woefully unattended as each and every thrust sent his head spinning in the very best of ways, gasping for breath that would not quite be needed until the moment was well and met, coming to its expected dramatic conclusion. They wouldn't have known how to stop even if they had been entirely with their senses, John gasping raggedly, eyes darkening with that demonic hue with the little, round Ouija board sitting ever so innocently in the background of the deliciously decrepit scene of sordidness.

“Fuck… Donnie…"

That was all Donnie needed to hear, a hand that was not his squeezed around his cock with a light, lustful pressure, stroking and pumping him to throbbing completion. He cried out and then John was over him, forcing his legs back and out of the way further, an arm thrust into the back of his knee. Limbs tangled and those wings came down, secluding them away from the world as the demon's orgasm erupted within him, spilling in hot and heavy, so much more viscously potent than it had been before. Of course, that could have just been his mind assigning additional meaning to the climax of the event and emotion, head lolling back and muscles jumping down the lines of his throat, delectably tense, but Donnie could well enough fucking choose what to assign himself. Energy pulsated through him even as he spent his load, relishing in the hot, slick sensation of being filled, nothing more mattering to him than the fact that he was there, there with John.

Donnie laughed, reckless at the height of ecstasy, quads tight and back sore from holding such a position. Yet none of that mattered, nothing else mattered but in the good way. The rest of the world, completely and utterly, could go fuck themselves.

He would reconsider that thought later when he remembered all that had drawn him through the darkest of times and more would come to light but there was nothing quite like panting, heated embraces, a tongue dominating his, as they came down from their joint high, John's wings slumping to the sides of them as if he too had been drained from the force of their passion. A demon, however, could not fail in energy so swiftly and part of it was an act, just to show his brother that, in a way, he was still the same old John he'd always been, however badly his wings shook with the urge to slice through the air, to pump and shape the air, his sceptre vibrating with the lure of power on the floor beside the sofa, all within easy reach.

They could have stayed there for hours even as seed trickled from an abused and aching hole, lips barely apart and hot breath washing against one another, panting and gasping. Their lips pulled up into half-smiles in unison, John, very lightly, resting his forehead against his brother's, not trying to push him back but not giving any space either. And that was to be the way of it as he learned just how far he could push a mortal as a being of the other realm, fingers restless and playing across Donnie's throat, his collarbone, the vulnerability of his clavicle.

Groaning quietly, Donnie turned his head away, struggling to draw some semblance of strength back into his limbs. In some ways, it was easier said than done and yet John gave him space to allow it, pushing himself up smoothly with his arms, which remained perfectly steady in complete contrast to just how terribly Donnie trembled, although that was not at all from fear. Why, John had not even broken a sweat but the reasons behind that, the increased stamina and much more too, would be gone through later and even demonstrated as Donnie learned all that had come to pass. For, in John's life, he had been absent too and one brother felt it just as keenly as the other.

“What does this mean now?" Donnie said, panting heavily, pushing himself up, as much as his arms ached – this time, pleasantly so; it was a nice change. “This… John…"

But John only straightened his back, lengthening his spine, a smirk in his eyes flaring up in a hint of crimson, lips curved up on just the one side in just the way that made Donnie groan and want to, inadvertently, crumple to the floor. It wasn't fair that he still did that to him but the thickness of his seed in his mouth…well… It was tangible, it was there. There could no longer be any second-guessing that John was not…John.

Winking, John spread his wings up high, staring off to the side, flamboyant and wanton, his gaze sliding away as if he saw something that Donnie did not and could not. At least, not yet. That would all come together in due course and time.

“My dear Donnie…"

His smirk grew.

“This changes everything."