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Chapter Text

Nathan had promised Patel no repeats after raping the man’s mouth. He’d been called to task on his spoken-aloud promise the very next day, making him think through his words and whether to regret them.

Fortunately (for Patel) Nathan didn’t have the heart nor stamina for another session in that short of an order anyways. As the questioning panned out, Patel’s first name was Santosh. So instead Nathan had opted for giving him something of a show before the questioning commenced. Bit of an inauguration.

Day after that, Nathan didn’t have stamina to spare in the least. He was busy because Perez had needed further handling.

Then after that, two whole days without seeing the target of his affections as they slipped into the background and Nathan decided to give the fella a third, fourth, and fifth day of rest just to lower Patel’s guard and on account that Perez had truly been exhausting. And exceedingly lucky.

Perez didn’t begin to know how lucky. Patel had essentially sung the older dealer's praises only the day before Nathan’s dealing with him; or, mumbled something about Perez being a better person than Nathan. Same thing, really. And when you walked back a death threat on someone you still wanted to keep in line? Fair to say than that Nathan was exhausted.

He’d planned on allowing longer of a break once he’d accidentally handed one out, even. But the sense of waiting twisted into anticipation and dashed itself dead. Then went and made Nathan non-exhausted in a way that clearly told him that all this was for the mental stress relief, too. So best to press forward on the schedule and reward himself.

Nathan would've blamed himself for bludgeoning fantasy with impatience. But the truth was he needed the recharge. Nevermind earning it: Not killing someone was always his preference, convenient excuses being both convenient and excuses. He could swing it as a reward if anyone was of a mind to challenge him (they weren't), but the closer he got to the act the more any veneer on it stripped away. He needed it. Needed what Patel's body could give to him—or have taken from it.

Wasn’t going to be too hard on himself for that.

Anyway, that Nathan was too exhausted to be actively pursuing anything was—in a very roundabout way—Patel’s fault. Too exhausted to even think about what to do, really. That was Nathan for these last few days. Felt like longer, somedays. Bludgeoning was exhausting, whether it was of desires or of actual people that absolutely needed to be brought into line.

All of which made it a very good thing that Patel was already caught.

End of the day reports during the wait indicated that Patel showed up on time and with time to spare and that he left posthaste when dismissed. Since Patel made such a pattern of it, obviously, it seemed he wasn’t easing down any for the repetition. Seeing as how being late wasn’t an option, though, his timeliness was good.

(Again, for Patel.)

But even a little time had its way of addressing things and Nathan’s sort-of-a-plan on waiting worked fine without his involvement. All the better, really. The fifth day Patel had been left alone hit the switch on some chemical in his brain or frayed a final nerve in his drug-fried system; Patel had been dismissed in the same hour-long timeframe—sometime after six and before seven—each day, and he’d asked if that’s when he was meant to be leaving. Hesitantly, and without demand—but he had voiced his curiosity.

Probably he just wanted to leave at six each day, if he could.

That question had been forwarded to Nathan, necessitating Patel staying until nineteen two-zero. It was conveyed to Patel that he was now being given ongoing permission to leave at seven.

If he needed to leave sooner then he’d need to ask. But he could, and if he did he'd likely be allowed.

Each instance of telephone tag had ended with a clarification that this was what Mr. Hendricks had allowed or decided on. Nathan briefly considered slipping Patel’s guard detail an extra fifty—by chance he’d netted the same person conveying the requests back-and-forth as had dropped off that information pamphlet.

There was a different recruit dropping off food more generally, and who’d also dismissed Patel all but once. He did tend to be 'bout four to ten minutes off for when he was supposed to be letting Patel go and clearly didn't see an issue with that. He'd be moving up the ranks correspondingly slowly.

That latter individual did not have nearly as many questions as the first person, who clearly restrained themselves from asking after why Nathan was being as specific as to stress that his name be said aloud to Patel. The pamphlet and its specific focus in the area of sexual health had already given him his hint on that. The one time he'd been tasked with letting Patel go, his timing had been on the dot.

It was an acceptable measure a' sympathy.

Also didn’t ask why he had just now been told to bring Patel up to the gym before noon. “Now” was the eighth day since he’d had any sort of fun with Patel, or another person, and Nathan was pretty warmed-up on Patel.

But hey—least Patel would get to leave without needing to wait on permission. Even if he’d need to do some things to earn said freedom.

Sunlight keeping him nicely heated as it filtered through glass onto metal, Nathan pushed back on the weight bearing down on him from the leg-press. He finished another twelve reps before pausing.

He’d already finished his intended sets but, thinking practically, he wanted a burn in his legs by the time Patel was escorted to him. He gave his rest to a count of about thirty, mentally running through how to solve a minor mob issue in the realm of collecting protection money from a new corner store that didn't know it was paying, before continuing onto his third extra set of leg presses.

It didn’t take long to move a cooperative captive from one floor of the building up a few stories, especially not when elevators existed. Patel and his temporary captor walked into the gym on Nathan’s fourth set and Nathan finished up, pivoting to sit on the padded part of the exercise equipment and polishing off the water bottle he had resting on the floor.

Hydration was good for stacking exertion on exertion. And he’d decided on today’s activities and they didn’t involve the mere teasing of Santosh. Didn't stop there at all.

Teasing was when he got left alone in a room.

Getting put in a room with Nathan? That warranted more. Warranted actual action.

“Thanks,” Nathan said to the silent guard. “Got a private conversation to have. See yourself out.” He was fairly sure he didn’t imagine the flash of disgust that skipped across the guy’s face.

He was positive he wasn’t imagining Patel’s fear at being left alone with him, his more permanent captor.

Patel was trying to look at Nathan without making it obvious that he was looking. And Nathan would be glad to show him that it wasn’t a faceless button man that he had to be afraid of.

Nah, that emotion should be attached to Nathan himself. Even wearing an innocuous shirt with no room for it to matter that it wasn’t tucked into his equally benign shorts didn’t change reality. Gun or no gun, Nathan remained the threat to be wary of.

Least, that’s what he was going to make sure that Patel knew.

“Morning,” Nathan greeted.

“Uh.” And now Patel did give him a once over. “Good morning, Sir,” Patel said in rote reply.

Nathan plastered on a toothsome smile. “Hendricks, please. I ain’t in a suit right now.” His smile stayed statically affixed. “Wanted to show off for you.”

Patel let out a choked noise; a disagreement that he couldn’t quite voice.

Until he did. “That sounds like none of my business.” Patel walked closer when he spoke, the better to be heard and unsure—maybe embarrassed—about letting his words carry.

Fair. With only the two of them in a room together, Patel's fear was fair.

Nathan let the smile drop and sighed. “Mm-hmm.” His legs were starting to feel less warm. “I was thinking about that promise I gave you.”

Patel shifted sideways into a ray of natural light without seeming to realize. Being cooped up, very literally, and without adequate sunlight going on a week hadn’t done him any favours. Especially considering that he hadn’t stepped backwards and away from Nathan with the motion.

“You did,” Patel said. “Hendricks,” he added, like listening to Nathan was going to get him out of trouble. Like he still wanted to believe Nathan’s words.

Also like he was pretty sure, for all that he was feeling insecure about, that he shouldn’t believe them. That his insecurity was telling him the truth. Believing Nathan's words would necessitate some degree of belief in Nathan. There was a word for that: Ludicrous. 

Another one would be fantasy. Nathan liked that word and had no problem making his own take precedence.

“Yeah. And I let you know how I was feeling”—inflection made it clear what Nathan thought of feelings—“that I was pretty satisfied. Now, the way I see it you manipulated me. Got me to turn that into a promise. And I needed to, just to get you showing up,” Nathan said. “Which was for your benefit.”

For a person getting their first dose of sunlight in days Patel appeared rather frozen. His head was stock-still and he didn’t risk looking away from Nathan—despite the exit being behind him and closer, even, than Nathan was. That had been a new twist that Nathan now wanted to see play out.

“You said—” Patel cut himself off. But five days of pretending none of what had been done to him had happened, and he wasn’t as copacetic about the situation as he had been before. That and he was still alive, which might’ve boosted his confidence. “It’s not my fault,” he finished.

“I said that?” Nathan asked wryly. He had. “Or did I say you couldn’t fight me?” He’d also said that.

Patel was looking slightly down at Nathan, who for the purposes of this conversation was remaining seated and thus, hopefully, only a moderate threat. He was really curious how close Patel would get on his own.

“You said it was your fault,” Patel said-slash-begged.

Nathan shrugged and stood. “Sure. Said it was my choice.” He turned his back on Patel, picking up the cloth on the leg press's top section and wiping down the now locked portion of the machine. He didn’t hear any movement from Patel as he did so.

Nathan aimed to solve that. After all, he did need Patel close to take advantage of his body. “Come over here.”

Nathan heard feet shuffling then and within a few steps he could place that the sound was moving away from him.

“Hey, Santosh.” Nathan turned around and Patel froze. He’d been walking backwards, gaze attached to Nathan while he fled. “One guard may have left. But do you think, hand to god here, really think you’ll be allowed to run out of the building?”

Even without Nathan giving anyone instructions to the contrary that particularly stupid fantasy jus’ wouldn’t be happening.

Patel’s tongue worked its way from between his lips as he thought. “If I try?” he asked.

He asked. Nathan didn’t see that he was being left with much room to regret what he was choosing to do to Patel.

“I wouldn’t mind if you get my blood pumping,” Nathan answered. To which Patel looked like he might really run, muscles tensing and shoulders loosening. “Would mind if you turn this into a spectacle,” Nathan took care to add.

Patel’s shoulders slumped.

“Please. What changed?”

“Told you already: I thought more about that promise.” There were tears forming in Patel’s eyes as Nathan spoke and the honest issue was what hadn’t changed. “And what I said was you wouldn’t be put through the same paces twice. And you won’t be.” Not if each new experience gets you crying. “I’ll go for new things with you; I’ll keep that promise. Or we’ll negotiate.” Nathan shrugged, purposefully burying the lede on the new game. “And you keep me happy. Now: Get over here.”

Patel took a step back. “What are you going to do?”

It took Nathan a brief moments thought to reply, “If I keep you in the loop? What do I get.” Nathan then proposed his desired answer. “Will you do what I say?”

“I-I’m not go. Going to agree to being. Raped,” Patel replied, stutter joining in on the conversation.

“Not asking you to.” Yet.

“I don’t know what you’re asking, Sir.” Patel’s arms drew up, a prelude to throwing a punch or defending himself. His right hand wouldn’t be able to curl into a fist, of course, but Nathan was familiar with posturing. And if Patel went through the motions then he could pretend that he was doing everything he could. And that anything he could do mattered. “Please,” the word was laced with venom, a swift replacement for Patel saying what he really thought.

Too bad Nathan knew Patel’s spit really nicely smoothed the way into pleasure.

“What I would like right now is for you to clean up my sweat.” Nathan held up the rag in his hand. “I don’t want to be kneeling down.”

Patel’s left hand clenched and unclenched. “Your promise,” he latched onto. “Does it mean anything?” There was pain exposed in the words.

And really? Now Patel wanted another guarantee from him when Nathan had just went and gone to the effort of setting up a new system.

“It does.” Nathan sighed and leaned a hip onto the machine, well able to see that he was freaking Patel out with the changes in his posture and to his, well, everything. To his bearing. Like the security the young man had deluded himself into thinking he’d had vanished as Patel realized he wasn’t dealing with a professional.

Though he was. Simply not in a professional capacity, was all. Honestly, someone less professional about all this would still be using violence—Patel should consider himself lucky.

Patel eyed the rag. Eyed a bit of Nathan’s muscled arm, too. “You’re going to touch me.” His expression after he spoke said that he’d wanted to demand the opposite, not to already be decrying the future and acknowledging in that way that he couldn't change it.

“Never said I wouldn’t.”

Patel blinked first, a few harsh seconds of living with that pronouncement making his life worse. “Can you not?”

It took Nathan a second to realize he’d actually been asked that. He refrained from rolling his eyes. “Sure, ya’ ask nicely enough and I’ll listen to you. That’s entirely how this works.” What Nathan couldn’t stop, and wasn't inclined to, was his arms from crossing as he spoke.

And Patel took a (very hesitant) step closer. Despite Nathan's obvious displeasure. Ah, fuck. I'm luckier than Patel.

“You said we could negotiate.”

And there was why Nathan was controlling himself. Because if Patel was going to walk all the way over to him? That would be something special.

But there was a bit of a drawback to his fuckbuddy being quick on the uptake. He noticed more than Nathan would like jus' in the process of trying to make sense of things. He would have loved to start molesting Patel and then reoffer the negotiating when the fella was overwhelmed. Not have all the overwhelming mean that Patel got smart about things.

Nathan took a step of his own, away from the machine and gesturing Patel closer—he reassessed walking any further when Patel nearly fell on his ass, instead limiting himself to that one step.

Pretty sure, Nathan thought in a shining moment of clarity, that this negotiating thing is going to work out like the waiting thing. Even if I try my damndest. Every time Patel made it crystal clear how scared he was Nathan wanted to give him a reason for it.

(Again.)

So, sure. Nathan could entirely overwhelm Patel. But then the younger man would run straight outta the room. Then Nathan would need to use violence to keep him here. And then it wouldn't matter how intelligent Patel was; there'd be no shining moments. No brilliance. 

For all intents Nathan would be left raping a sack of meat.

“We can negotiate. The big things.”

“And what the fu… eff are those?” Patel accused. “Sir,” he added, like it would ward him from retribution for his being daring.

“Not this hissy fit you’re throwing, for starters. Over here. Clean,” Nathan waggled the cloth in his hand. “Now.”

Patel had his arms crossed with elbows tucked tight. His constant monitoring of Nathan had caused some physical mirroring. His eyes were blown and his breathing was harsh. He still walked over with half-steps. Once he got within arms range of Nathan that changed—not on account of Nathan, either.

Not directly. Still on account of Nathan. Nathan could honestly say that he was happy with how his influence was impacting and spreading into Patel. Always a treat to see.

“Fuck you, you’re not a good person, fuck you, and fuck you,” Patel repeated in near normal volume. He grabbed the rag from Nathan as he said it, kneeling down to wipe off the leg press with a momentum he likely couldn’t have managed had he not hyped himself up.

Nathan stretched his arm behind his shoulder without looking, unhooking the spray-bottle from where it hung atop the machine's frame. He was too busy looking at Patel. On his knees. “Here.”

“Thanks,” Patel answered in that same moderately angry volume.

Nathan opened his mouth in that same reflexive politeness before closing it. “Mmm-hmm.” Then, deliberately, he said, “Yeah. You’re welcome.”

Patel put his focus, anger driven as it was, into scrubbing. Wasn’t all that long before he was done. When he tried getting up Nathan placed a hand atop his head. Patel resolved that by ducking lower and addressed the implied threat of Nathan by staying that way.

Kneeling and with his head hanging down.

Not running off at all.

Nathan used a hand to push his shorts lower and hold them there, exposing the patch of skin where stomach became groin, and his other hand to peel his shirt upwards a few inches. “Got more sweat for you.”

Credit where it was due on Nathan terrifying Patel, but Patel was zoned out—after a mental count of three that Nathan was perfectly fine giving him he pressed the rag to Nathan’s skin.

Nathan got slightly dumbstruck and didn’t think of a reply before Patel listlessly began rubbing.

That tickles. “You did not make the taste any better for yourself,” Nathan said at length.

“I—what?” Patel looked up, meeting Nathan’s fixed gaze.

Nathan would be negotiating a blowjob from this position, nevermind that that was the worst thing he’d already done. That’s where the negotiating would happen.

“Use your tongue.” Those eyes, that look: Absolutely pleading. Nathan slipped his hand lower, atop his crotch. “Ain’t exposed this, there really ain’t much you have to do.”

Patel reoriented on his knees to face Nathan directly, making it so his torso twisted less. Gamely, and credit due to him, he started with lips to Nathan’s happy trail. Mostly with a closed mouth. Skipping past the complaining. Not with any tongue. Nathan sighed in a mix of contentment and minor frustration.

The frustration built at the continued lack of tongue.

“That promise?” Nathan interjected the non-action with.

Patel strained his neck to look up, still hooked by the tall tale on that line. His Adam's apple brushed against Nathan’s knuckles where Nathan was still covering (and massaging) his dick.

“Means I won’t be redoing tricks with you, all else being equal. Which means I want you doing them better than passably the first time.” Nathan could see hope diminish as he spoke, something about the attentiveness in Patel’s eyes conveying the loss. “So: Use your tongue.”

Nathan enjoyed the sensation that followed of Patel’s forehead resting hard on his stomach. If Patel’s listlessness traveled down his legs, stopped propping him up as high on his knees as he was, Nathan would enjoy it even more. Dick nuzzling, though, landed on the save-for-later list.

Mostly. Would he notice doing it twice if it wasn’t the main event? Probably. Maybe not. Worth trying.

Another thing that tickled was Patel’s tongue against Nathan’s skin. It wasn’t exactly helping that sensation, entirely too soft and halfway sexless, that Patel was using just the tip of his tongue and that only in short licks.

“More tongue,” Nathan demanded.

Patel leaned back, head turned away in disgust. “Man, you’re clean. Why do you want my spit on you?”

Nathan was kneading at the thing between his legs that was interested in the proceedings and which Patel would rather ignore. He gave Patel his time away from him, perversely happy with the little signs of resistance that told him how in control he was and how much Patel wasn’t.

“Really gonna play the ‘why’ card? For that?” Nathan, looking down, kept grasping and releasing his dick and kept silent even as pleasure pushed sounds up his throat. The silence was for a reason: Nathan didn’t mean his question as a rhetorical one. He hadn’t thought anyone would ask their rapist that without being across a courtroom from them first. Signs were that an answer would be pretty entertaining, then.

“I mean—why—yes. Why?” Patel careened his chin upwards as he spoke, forceful on his last word.

“Funny; when you go and ask that you make me think of other questions. Take why I’m treating you so nice.” If Patel didn’t assuredly hate him before now, well, then Nathan would’ve sworn he saw the moment his unwilling partner in crime, being the victim of it, started hating him. “You’ve any answer for me?”

“You think—how are you—fuck you.”

Least Patel was improving on the outright stuttering issue.

Nathan reached his already low hand outwards, ignoring Patel’s flinching effort to get away since he didn’t duck this time around. He gripped hair and shoved Patel against his pelvis, pushing downwards until Patel made up for the fact that Nathan had removed his hand from his dick to grab the bloke.

“Know—ya know,” Nathan broke his sentence apart to groan and rock his hips. “Term ‘sweating balls’ exists for a reason. I could have you spit shining my sack.”

“Ain’t,” Patel twisted his head, clearly feeling it alongside Nathan as his lips got used for pleasure but rather wanting to talk. To disagree. Have his words mean something. “It isn’t nice or—”

Nathan reached his other arm down and centered Patel’s mouth atop dick. He started manually joggling the head about in small motions, action coming easier when Patel relaxed his neck to let it happen—it was a disconcerting thing, to not be in control of one's head. Patel let it happen fairly quickly, that lack of control asserting itself.

There was a reason that talking was as important as it was to people.

“Want me to be nice to you?”

Due to declining to answer, Patel was shaken around again.

“Be nice to let you back up, huh?” Nathan pushed Patel’s head forward after he asked. Ground into Patel’s face as he said, “Say the word and I’ll listen.”

“Please,” Patel began, getting the “plea” bit out before his open mouth was pressed into staying that way by the curve underneath Nathan’s shorts.

Still. Nathan had said he’d listen. He let go of Patel’s head and Patel rocked back on his heels. For a second it looked like he was ready to bolt up, and no doubt he was, but he restrained himself.

“See. Ain’t I nice?” Nathan asked, panting. His fingers were itching to grab. He could restrain himself, too. Try being nice. Fail—but try.

And Patel still hadn’t figured that him glaring up at Nathan was half of what was getting Nathan going right now, baleful as he was.

“Well. Patel, you’ve got a tongue. Either use it to answer me or use it making me happy.”

Patel’s expression—looked like he’d just sucked on a lemon instead of lemon-scented cleaner. Nathan let the mental chuckle that that prompted lodge itself in his throat alongside all his other gamely suppressed sounds.

“And better hope if you answer me that it makes me happy anyhow. Probably best to just keep me physically sated.”

Patel dropped his glare. His shoulders started shaking when his sightline went to Nathan’s crotch, obviously still sharing far too much altitude with his own head for Patel’s liking. Nathan flexed. Patel dropped his gaze entirely to the floor.

Even had his chin tucked to his chest like he knew how beaten he was.

Then Patel started mumbling something that Nathan couldn’t hear.

“Speak up.”

Patel’s shoulders started shaking more, and sobs didn’t need to be all that distinct to be heard.

Nathan wasn’t exactly keen on breaking Patel when he’d waited on him and then, on top of that, setup plans for longer term use.

Nathan crouched down, not quite level with Patel because of their inherent height difference. Closer in height than usual, though.

And yep, Patel was sobbing away. Ass flat on his calves, knees stuck to the floor, Patel must’ve felt some degree of trapped. He swiped a forearm across his face without any more regard for Nathan than one would have for a (nasty) wasp.

Nathan shoved his hand into his shorts. He could deal with how his favorite activity for a partner to engage in was also the one that meant they were breaking down, how much he liked that idea, and the quite sensible requirement that he not actually break his partner wholly down if he wanted to keep them.

Just needed to add his hand to the partner list in order to take some of the stress off of other entrants onto it.

Though nothing was really stopping him from enjoying the benefits of an entirely shattered bed partner, either. (Nathan was pretty sure there was. There was something he generally recalled once he spent himself, anyway.)

Patel tried blubbering some words.

Nathan wondered if he could see, through his tears, the comparatively fine movements of Nathan’s arm as he masturbated. Or whether he only knew that Nathan had knelt to be nearer him.

“Wanna look at me and try talking again?”

Chapter Text

Thing was that Nathan hadn’t stopped masturbating. Patel looked and started blubbering all over again. The crying put a damper on talking.

Fuck’s sake. Nathan wasn’t doing all this for his own hand to get him across the finish line. He stopped. Took his hand away from himself, dick twitching at the loss. Exposed to the cooler air than the inside of his shorts, Nathan felt cold for the stopping.

Tough luck. Nathan wanted Patel onboard more than he wanted mechanical release, pure and simple and physical as it was. As pleasing as it was. That was the trouble with being a practicing sadist. In a cruelty handed to Nathan on the matter, sadly, it turned out he sometimes needed to abstain. There were better things than plain sex.

“Hey. Hey.” Nathan said, breathing more unevenly than Patel. “Come on.”

Nothing.

Nathan rested his previously occupied hand on Patel’s knee. Trying to comfort—knowing it was likely to fail—he started rubbing. He kept himself constrained to that one boney knee, too. One could say he was keeping things professional; not someone in the room who'd say that, of course not. But someone not apprised of all the facts might think it.

Took a minute or three or five but Nathan woulda cheered when Patel stopped crying ‘cept that that would positively startle the fella again. Then they’d be getting nowhere and slowly. He’d had to switch to sitting cross-legged, himself, halfway in and thighs starting to burn too much in protest at his prolonged crouch. Worked for keeping him warm, though.

Seeing that he had Patel’s attention again, Nathan spoke, saying, “You know, Santosh, you’re lucky I happen to be a fan of turning my own balls blue.”

Okay. Nathan was not all correct on what led to Patel’s crying to the point of incoherence. That had clearly been the wrong thing to say.

Nathan should have known it would be the wrong thing to say. Well, for right then.

Maybe it would give Patel some hope of dissuading Nathan in the future. Overall, it seemed like a pretty decent thing to say given all of Nathan’s different wants. Honest. Sadistically so, to boot. Honest plus sadistic, great admixture. Honesty helped to force the sadism.

Sat across from a, once more, inconsolable sexual assault victim, Nathan placed his hand overtop that same spot on Patel’s body that he had had Patel’s mouth to do certain, sexual kinds of things with on his own person.

Meaning straight on Patel’s dick.

When those panicked hands went for his wrist Nathan slowed down proceedings with a squeeze.

Again, straight on Patel’s dick.

People cried when they’d given up—not when they were still trying to protect themselves. A pretty good bet to get somebody to stop crying, in Nathan’s experience, was to present them with a new danger.

“I’ve your attention, I trust?” Nathan asked, letting off the squeezing. The softness pressing back against him? That was almost worth not causing as much pain as he might have done.

“Sir?” Patel managed to acknowledge.

Huh. Trained that into him already? Nathan had experienced worse outcomes on overforceful applications of fear, so he mentally shrugged past the form of address. He did add it to a usually locked drawer he had pulled out in his head of “ways to be purposefully sadistic for the sole purpose of being sadistic.” It was an option there, to remind Patel he’d told him to call him Hendricks. Other things that drawer contained: Sex toys. Police issued handcuffs. Bondage supplies that erased the difference between the first of those things and a person.

Patel’s hands were still wrapped around Nathan’s wrist. He could actually do some damage. It was an idle observation, borne of Nathan’s self-assessment that casual clothing and not having sleeves and cuffs, all fancied up, had a drawback or two.

“Let’s sort this out. Are you up for that?” Nathan asked.

“Yessir,” came Patel’s very prompt reply.

Nathan was watching Patel with considerably more focus than any idle observations placed on himself. Had had time to think during all that crying: The real issue here was that he’d changed the groundwork they had going, Patel had lied to himself about said groundwork’s security, and then Nathan had gone and acted without much regard for the new groundwork.

Thus, Patel was anxiously worried and insecure. As he should be. 

Nathan was fond of how reasonable Patel was and how accommodating it made him.

The solution was to finally allow for some negotiating. Despite that Nathan really, really wanted to indulge in how hurt Patel was. And anyways, Nathan already let an option with his hand and Patel’s tears slip by. He’d let this pass, too, if it was for investment reasons.

Nathan wasn’t missing out on anything, not any significant thing, by extending the amount of time before Patel’s tears ran dry.

Sure you’re not.

All of it had been an effort. To not keep pleasuring himself. To not smack Patel around a little bit. To reach for that crying face and get way too intimate in ways Patel didn’t want. To not reach for his face, crying and comported as only another human was.

“Want I can stroke ya a little when you’re doing alright?” Nathan asked.

Call it generosity.

He didn’t squeeze or anything while he said it. A benefit to a lifetime of adrenaline and weapons use, tempered by training, was that Nathan was possessed of steady hands. It legitimately kept said hands poised to control others more often than it kept his hands off of, or to, himself. But the benefits were there either way.

“No, Sir. Ah. Thank you. No thank you,” Patel said while hesitating throughout.

Nathan let him.

Speech was for civil affairs.

“Please don’t. And, uh. You don’t need to if you don’t want to?”

Nathan’s hand that wasn’t on Patel slipped up the outside of his own thigh, tempted. At this point his dick was a throbbing demand on his mind.

Or right there between his legs where he could touch it and find relief.

Patel crying? That had decidedly not made Nathan anything approaching less hard.

“So I’ll just squeeze a little when you fuck up,” Nathan said, an answer to Patel's oh so hesitant request.

Patel did not look comforted.

“Don’t worry. Won’t squeeze as much as I could.”

“Yessir.” 

Still didn’t look comforted.

If Nathan weren’t sitting in a literal arms reach, as borne out by the soft evidence of Patel's dick, then he wasn’t sure he’d be able to tell that Patel was breathing at all. And the breathing did stop when Nathan squeezed, a basic kinda touch, as his own response to Patel.

Nathan loosened his grip with the same ease he’d tightened it, not going for causing Patel any acute pain. “Do you want to guess where you messed up?”

By nature Nathan wasn’t a largely expressive person. He’d always liked that about himself: The self-control. It was patently clear that this trait was leaving Patel rather adrift.

“I’d… . No.”

“That’s fine. I don’t mind telling you. Point of order, I already did; a man wearing a suit, you call him ‘Sir.’ But if'n you see me dressed casually, I want you to address me by my name.” Well. Last name.

“Hendricks,” whooshed out of Patel in a bare whisper.

“That’s good. You get me,” Nathan Hendricks nodded. He nearly tightened his grip on Patel’s dick in a forcefully denied instinct to stroke.

He didn’t, managing instead to not commit to either action. It remained a near thing even after Nathan realized the instinct and its subversion.

“I don’t.” Patel’s fear-widened eyes most assuredly didn’t decrease to normal sizes when he heard himself disagree with Nathan.

Nathan didn’t squeeze. Were that not doing so was as non-hard as Patel's member. “That’s fine. We can disagree; you ain’t doing anything wrong when you disagree with me.” Nathan gave the words a chance to be heard before he kept talking, saying, “When your disagreement means that you don’t do what I tell you to, on the other hand, then we have a problem.”

“I—I just. I can’t.”

Not surprisingly Patel’s shoulders were tense enough that Nathan nearly ached in sympathy, disregarding how relaxed Nathan was everywhere but his own dick. He’d get to it. That spot ached the most, he would get to it. He wanted to get to it. That was enough of a reason for getting to it.

After drawing Patel in even just a smidgen as much as Nathan was drawn to him. 

Nathan rolled his hips forward in a small way that thankfully, motion obeying physics even in minuscule, shifted the fabric over himself and provided a reminder of what friction could feel like.

He needed Patel to get to it. He wanted the type of friction that he’d already given Patel a taste of.

“Nah. You just don’t want to. You can. You will if I tell you to. And really, Patel. All I wanted was something simple: Bit of a tongue bath on a normal, decent bit of skin that you’re liable to see out in public.” Nathan licked his lips, too much anticipation in his veins not to, then he spared Patel the smile that he’d intended all along as he said, “And not only on the loop or with the crazies, either. More like if you went for a day at the beach.”

Patel, hyper focused on every word tossed his way and inhaling and exhaling in time with Nathan, huffed out something that could have been a laugh in its last lifetime. “A nude beach.”

“Funny. Sure. Though I’d note that my dick only got involved once you decided you wouldn’t be,” Nathan agreed and admonished. “Which tells you the general shape of the matter,” Nathan explained. Then he let some of what he thought leak through the manipulations, saying, “Jeez, Patel, if I go sticking it in you willy-nilly there ain’t gonna be anything left to negotiate over. Ya understand?”

Patel looked away. At something over Nathan’s shoulder. Nathan, not possessed of eyes in the back of his head, didn’t know what.

He also didn’t care.

Nathan watched that stretched line of neck. The hollow of throat. Snappable phalanges, especially ones that aren't thumbs. Nathan watched the places of Patel’s body that called to him. Those were the things and pieces of Patel that he did care about. Those, along with whenever Patel's identity shone out from under the fear of Nathan and detritus of drug use only to make itself vulnerable.

“No,” Patel said in a much too soulful manner. He didn't understand.

Least vulnerable word in the world, "no." Nathan hated it and had aims to resolve that Patel even considered saying it to him, nevermind that he went and did say it and nevermind whatever Nathan told Patel was okay.

“Hmm.” Nathan let go of his literal manhandling of Patel. Gave the little fella a pat. Then he stood up and stretched, legs starting to sting in painful mutiny against the rest of himself.

Patel was silent. He knew enough to figure the varied ways in which that word shouldn’t be in his vocabulary. Not when he was conversing with Nathan.

Patel was also learning to disregard when Nathan laid out things that ought to be in his favour, too. He was afraid of being punished, Nathan's words to the contrary being—well. Words.

“That’s on me,” Nathan declared, looking down at the limp mass of brown brought low on the floor. “Thought the mat under this,” Nathan kicked at the aforementioned plastic object, “would be softer. Get up.”

Patel hustled himself up. He’d at least heard the bit where should do as he was told and did not think those words were pantomime. Understanding could come later.

Nathan led the both of them over to a bench placed along the wall, dumbbell racks arranged to either side of it. He sat down and patted the spot next to him.

Patel kept listening. He sat down as directed.

Obedience didn’t stop Nathan from placing his hand in the other man's lap, of course, after they were sat next to each other. Nathan lifted his hand away, briefly, to arrange himself. Nathan went and raised his leg closest to Patel onto the bench. It made it easier to turn and face his (rather hapless) victim.

Then his hand went back onto Patel’s dick.

“Like I was saying,” Nathan continued. He paused rather pointedly to tilt his head down and watch as Patel tried figuring out what to do with his free hands. “Could reciprocate?” Nathan suggested, accompanying the words with a loose tug at Patel’s member.

It wasn’t a reward for Patel’s good behaviour, or anything else of that nature. It was a demonstration of a suggestion.

And Patel needed to learn to play these types of word games if they were going to go forward with this whole negotiation business. Well: He didn't need to any more than Nathan needed to rape him. It would certainly help, was the heart of it.

Patel’s hands fell flat to his sides, resting with hands at a weird angle to the bench. He turned his head away from Nathan, opting for looking straight forward. Nathan turned the loose tug into some light stroking.

There wasn’t anything on the wall across from them except doors to the change rooms and showers. Between the two walls there were a handful of other one-off exercise machines that saw use in a hotel, including a low row machine that Nathan had used the day before.

“Come on, man. You don’t need to do that,” Patel protested. Barely.

Arm day hadn’t gotten blood pumping to his lower body and encouraged Nathan that all the signs pointed towards having Patel for himself right then and there. But today? Nathan disagreed with Patel. He needed to do this, all the more so after he’d started doing it.

Not that Nathan wasn’t moderating himself. He wasn’t doing anything but resting his hand in a private area of Patel’s where Patel didn’t want it. He’d stopped moving when Patel had given voice to his disagreement.

Which was plenty satisfying. It left Nathan knowing that he was, in effect, rewarding Patel for his resistance. Which meant that Patel might think it smart to keep resisting, ignoring all the signs that indicated it wasn’t.

Patel was absolutely perfect, able to be poked and jabbed to the point of breaking, and then, with a few calm words and barely gentle touches, prodded out of the shell he retreated to for safety.

“Still wanna know why I do? Need to.” Nathan felt his throat going dry and realized that, quite suddenly, maybe he’d delayed too much.

It was an honest to god struggle to stay still as Patel swallowed down his trepidation. “Why?”

Fuck. “You can’t actually expect a good answer.”

“Why not,” Patel’s newly raised voice demanded. He also, head turned towards Nathan, spat on the floor.

Nathan squeezed. Hard. “One: Clean that up. Now.”

It shouldn’t be too difficult given that Nathan let Patel collapse to the floor in pain. Being that he was already down there, Nathan kicked him.

Lightly. Without getting up from the bench nor even bracing the leg he'd kicked with, the other leg still curled atop the bench.

Nothing like the beating he’d previously inflicted on Patel, and which Patel should be nearly recovered from. Nathan considered kicking again. Harder than before. He considered other uses for Patel than just as a punching bag and used his words instead. “I said get it done.”

Observing the curled form that was (again, and unfortunately for it) on the floor, Nathan finally didn't feel guilty.

That was quick. Tried being nice to you and you still fucked it up.

“Don’t care if you have to crawl,” Nathan added when the form—Patel—he was still a person—didn’t move.

“S'rry, sorry,” Patel said. It had taken him a few moments to find his voice, maybe because the surreality of the situation had long since robbed it from him.

Or the pain. Pain’s a generally decent explanation.

Or motivating factor.

Or consequence of life.

Patel stood up in a collection of stiff motions wherein he wasn’t able to determine whether to press his thighs together to relieve pain, or to go with a bowlegged limp that gave his manhood the most room possible.

Nathan was sorely tempted to kick at his shins as he passed by him on his return trip with the spray-bottle and rag.

“You got something wrong with you,” Nathan said once Patel stood back up from his cleaning.

He stood, himself, taking away the cleaning supplies and putting the bottle on a shelf near the door with the others, instead of leaving it near the leg press machine again. Fastidious in a way he usually wasn't, Nathan threw the rag away before he turned back to face into the room, blocking the door should Patel decide that fleeing was an option. “Anytime I think you might have a spark of intelligence, Patel, you show me how easy it is to flirt with self-doubt.”

Patel stood in the most open area of the room, aside from the walkway behind the bikes themselves almost pressed against the window. For all the space Patel was stuck looking like he was trapped. More than if he were on those bikes and actually trying to get somewhere. Just. Existentially trapped into doing things he didn’t want to be doing, and which weren’t the type of things a person like what he imagined himself to be would be putting up with.

That trapped feeling, the existential one, often led to outbursts. Nathan was well aware of this and expecting it when Patel started to throw a fit.

“Me. There’s something wrong with me? You’re fucking fucked in the—”

“Cut the swearing,” Nathan said, not loud and not putting the effort into interrupting. He could be loud and interrupting almost literally whenever he wanted to be.

This? The deadly calm voice tinged with cutting edges that he’d spoken in. That was something he borrowed from Marcone on the occasions when shouting was apparently too pedestrian for expressing that he was pissed off. Except passive-aggressive anger didn’t sit right with Nathan, not naturally; if he was acting calm, well, he could afford to be calm.

That held true.

He mostly wanted to see if Patel was smart enough to stop talking, even with the threat in Nathan’s words taking care to hide itself away to tight corners. If Nathan were sincerely deadly angry about something then that deadly adverb tended to come into play.

Patel barrelled on speaking—“head. What type of sick chukko sicko rapes somebody that they should have been protecting, lies that they won’t do it again, and, and starts inventing rules about how they’re going to r-rape them again like it doesn’t mean anything? Like none of it means a fucking thing, or like fucking swearing is more fucking important. It’s a joke or it’s a sickness, and a madarchod like you needs meds stronger than what you sell through people like me. People who are actually on the streets and keep your drug business running! You—you.”

Patel ran out of steam on his own initiative, shaking and shivering and done shouting.

“Pervert?” Nathan supplied, deadpan.

“I—please. I don’t deserve this.”

“Been thinking about it a lot?” Nathan asked.

“I—yes. Yes, of course I have.” Patel looked ready to fall over. Dissociating, likely, since his crying spell and connecting with his body in that way hadn’t done him any good.

“Guess that brings me to point two,” Nathan said. He lifted a fist to clench and unclench it in front of himself, aware from the nail bed of his toes to the head of his incessantly throbbing dick that Patel was watching.

Not the same way Nathan had been watching Patel, granted, bar that Nathan had wanted to bite into Patel’s neck and that Patel would certainly return that particular favour if he thought it could draw blood. Rather, Patel was watching Nathan warily.

“Point two?” Patel prompted, ability to speak belying the vigil he was keeping of Nathan’s fists.

Nathan shook his left hand out and slapped his knuckles harshly into his palm. “Yeah. Point two. I’m a sadist. Answers a lotta the questions you’ve posed. You know the word?”

“I—I think I do?” Patel took a step backwards.

“Don’t run,” Nathan ordered. “Actually, sit down.”

Patel sat down where he stood. He didn’t kneel, which was a damn shame, but then again—he’d done exactly what Nathan had ordered him to do, and he’d finally done it hastily.

“Gotta admit, I don’t know some of those words you used,” Nathan said.

Nathan stalked over towards Patel before the other realized that that had been a demand for information.

“Uh. Faggot and motherfucker,” Patel dumbly said at normal volume, thoughts catching up with Nathan’s words.

“Well. I am that first thing, and this is the last time you get to insult or to speculate or to speak about the second thing. Understood?” Nathan gripped Patel’s hair in his left hand, forming his grip into that of a fistful of hair to match with his right hand. 

That hand was also formed into a first.

“I understand. H-Hendricks.”

Nathan ought to put Patel through training on how to handle being kidnapped. The man might be a natural at making himself seem pitiful. On top of that, he listened well. Selectively, but well.

“Great. Now, that word you think you might know? I’m going to enjoy teaching you the meaning of.”

Nathan lifted and then backhanded Patel, letting both his fists loosen some as he did so. It would hardly do to break Patel’s neck. Or anything attached to his face. Patel had a nice face. It didn't matter that his lips were more beige than red or that Nathan had seen plenty like it.

It had nice expressions. Displayed different types of fear well, ranging from trepidation to abject terror.

Nathan backhanded Patel a second time.

Then he dropped Patel back to the floor, letting the guy's knees and lengths of lower leg brace him. He threaded his fist through Patel’s black hair again because he could. And yeah, there was something handsome about outright black hair on men. The most Nathan’s own red hair had been complimented was on how unique it was. He hadn’t minded shearing it short.

“In a structured manner that befits my enjoyment,” Nathan added onto his last statement. 

He might extremely enjoy the idea of Patel replaying his words late at night, as he either masturbated or failed to masturbate or cried himself to sleep. Or, hell, he could replay the words in his nightmares.

Nathan felt how his cock stretched out the fabric of his shorts with real gusto to try to introduce itself to the confused expression on Patel’s face.

“I’m… grateful?” Patel was looking up at him in the best way yet, neck stretched until the back of his head almost hit the area between his shoulder blades and very obviously physically and mentally discomforted.

But Nathan had beat him up once before; Patel was well aware that Nathan was holding back. Probably, he was amazed he’d been hit in the face twice and could still talk.

Most definitely wasn’t sincere about being grateful.

“Don’t bother being. Point two was point two before and after your little spiel. I’m letting you know how I am so ya likewise know that you’re not changing what I’m going to do to you. Just have to live with it. Now. Does something you just have to live with sound like a thing worth throwing a tantrum over?” Nathan tugged at the head of hair still safely tangled in his grip.

Patel winced. “No.” He hesitated. “It depends.”

“Great viewpoint. It does, doesn’t it? Brings me to something else I’ve kept meaning to say. Meaning to explain to ya.” Nathan paused there to pat Patel on the cheek, right against where he’d backhanded.

And none too gently itself. Nathan paused for a moment, just to savor the whole situation.

He’d gotten his hands on Patel, was inflicting unwanted violence, and Patel was sitting there taking it. Patel had thanked him, too, by saying he was grateful. That hadn’t even been requested.

Nathan couldn’t tell if Patel’s eyes were narrowed in their focus on him, or just stretched tight by Nathan’s tugging at his scalp. “Hendricks. Sir. Do you even want to explain—” Patel whimpered as Nathan clenched his fist closed, tugging hair further from Patel’s scalp in a way that Patel couldn’t account for by simply rising with the motion. He also trudged on with whatever his point was—“before I say something that justifies you hitting me?”

Narrowed eyes, then. And glaring.

And saying Sir just to piss him off. Maybe. When he knew better, or coulda known.

Apparently didn't require explanations, either—god, he'd nailed it with that question. 

Nathan smiled, a genuine burst of joy going off in his belly as Patel proved to be hard to break while prone to crying while quite deserving of Nathan’s affections.

“Possibly. Might be I just want to hit you again.”

Why Nathan’s dick had stayed hard all through Patel’s rant was knowing that the fit would lead to Nathan hitting Patel.

Patel had noticed, learning from repeated exposure—most of the exposure being of the sexual kind—to focus on what about Nathan threatened him in all the ways that scared him the most.

“Divine is what it is. Don’t know why priests ever hit themselves to feel this way.”

“You wanted to give me a history lesson?” Patel sneered. He didn’t tug himself away, however.

A smartass who listened and wasn’t a touch bit masochistic—Nathan wasn’t lying when he described how he was feeling.

He knew he had it skewed but he wasn’t lying. It felt heavenly.

“Nah.” Nathan shook out his right hand again and kept Patel in place with his left.

Slapped him across the face. The sound of it was more pronounced than backhanding.

Nathan needed to let go of Patel to stand straight, so he did. “Stay,” Nathan said. Purely because of how he guessed that Patel would associate that command mentally.

Patel didn't snark that time.

“Now, I’m getting what I want. Would you want to negotiate matters?” Nathan asked.

They’d gotten massively sidetracked from Nathan’s plan when he’d made them sit down together: He’d intended on laying out the new framework for Patel. Comforting Patel went hand-in-hand with controlling him, and the result of all Nathan’s fuckedupness was that he would genuinely have been happy to talk a bit, or a lot, about how everything would start slow and inevitably progress.

That didn’t mean he was going to pass up the opportunity to directly put things into practice, though.

Doing was a good way to learn.

“Will I get hit for it?” Patel snorted, the sound muffled by blockages in his airway caused by all the earlier crying. (Or maybe he was only trying to cry again.)

“Depends.” Nathan wasn’t a monster. He let the word linger but after a moment added, “Predominately on how well you negotiate.”

Patel was starting to breathe again. “Can I—this is stupid.” The latter part sounded like Patel meant it for himself.

“Do share,” Nathan prodded.

“Can I stand up?” Patel asked, the same tone in use that people had when they were asking about natural disasters miles away yet. That’s to say, his tone was surprisingly resentment-free.

“While we negotiate I don’t see why not.”

Patel listened to that too, and, legs shaking, stood up.

He looked Nathan over again, looking for a solution. A desperate sound escaped him; speech, too, escaped him.

“You know, general tip, you’re right to try negotiating from a position of power,” Nathan said. Mostly, it was a merciful impulse to speak after a certain amount of awkward seconds passed them by in silence.

“I.” Patel sighed, overlong enough for it to be dramatic. Nathan chalked it up to him sensibly trying not to scream. “But I’m not.”

“No, you’re not,” Nathan agreed. “That’s when you negotiate with what you have that the other party wants. What I want.”

Patel was staring at Nathan, not inclined to blink and miss a fist flying his way. His expression remained one that was only missing in stupefied blinking.

“Can—you wanted me.” Patel didn’t finish his sentence.

One thing that did happen was that Patel’s cheeks tinged with red, lightening in the process—it actually took Nathan a few heartbeats to notice, given the whole fact of it being daylight.

“Are you blushing?” Nathan asked, ignoring Patel’s fumbling attempts at their coming to an agreement. Sure, his dick was certainly redder than Patel’s cheeks, but he hadn’t expected actual blushing. That only happened when people were embarrassed.

And they didn’t tend to be that when they were afraid. Not 'til they'd gotten used to things. 

“I am,” Patel mumbled. Looked like he was chewing on his cheeks when he spoke.

To say that Nathan was pleased would be accurate. “Don’t start mumbling again. Seriously, I was just trying to hear you earlier. And look how that turned out.”

“You. Oh,” Patel quietly said. His eyes were wet. He'd ran out of tears. Then, “And you want me to. Do what you said earlier?”

Nathan thought about that. Did he want Patel back on his knees? Yes. Lapping at his stomach? Fuck, yes. Would he shove his dick down Patel’s throat if given that much of a chance? A hundred percent.

“You want my dick down your esophagus?” Nathan answered with.

The sound that came from Patel’s mouth at that was a wet smacking, his tongue getting stuck when he tried to speak.

“Gonna take that as a no. Meaning, no. I don’t want wholesale temptation at the moment,” Nathan said. “Thanks for the offer.”

“Okay.” Patel blinked. “I don’t,” Patel swallowed but didn’t stutter, “know what you want.”

Nathan slipped his hand atop dick (his own) again, not rubbing. Only touching. He couldn’t do more than that without risking ejaculation. Which would be fine if he were to keep beating on Patel—Nathan would still find pleasure in that, the context being what he’d made it—but he wanted to give Patel a chance.

Nathan gave Patel a hint, saying, “Sadist, remember?”

“Except I don’t want to get more broken fingers.”

Smart. “After I beat on you last time, don’t blame you for that.”

“You would, oh god. You wouldn’t do that again, right?” Patel begged. His legs shook. His neck would have tension strains in it tomorrow, and not necessarily from all the looking up—he was simply that tense.

“Nah, I wouldn’t. Too risky, health wise. How’re you recovering?”

“Decently.”

Patel was back to heavy breathing and Nathan didn’t think that he had all too long left of the guy remaining rooted to the spot like he was. Patel was about to bolt or, failing that display of useless agency, fall down.

“Hmm,” Nathan hummed out, like he had at the start of their encounter. “I’d like to see.”

A rush of air escaped Patel’s lungs, then, and he looked about ready to hyperventilate. “You—just. If I show you... my body. You’ll. You won’t hit me. And just—just looking?”

“Sounds about right,” Nathan agreed. “No crying.”

Patel took a few steadying breaths. He closed his eyes, taking in a few extra gulps of air that his body was lying to him he needed.

Nathan was closer to gawking than leering at that action; Patel had closed his eyes. He’d figured it was safe to pretend Nathan wasn’t a part of the situation and he’d closed his eyes. He had went through things ‘til this point, tears blurring his vision until he couldn’t see and his blindness causing him to panic over the course of whole minutes, and now Patel had closed his eyes.

Nathan needed to figure out all the nooks and crannies about him. “Patel, tell me. Are you relieved right now or scared?”

Exhale. Answer, “I.” Patel opened his eyes, paused—he had sensed something off, then. “I’m not sure. Both?”

“Lay it out for me an’ take your shirt off.”

Patel’s hands tangled in the hem of his tee shirt. Both of them, akin to if he were battening it down for hurricane season. “I’d be relieved if you—promise—please promise you won’t touch me.”

Extending an arm outwards until he could hold his palm up in acquiescence, Nathan enjoyed when Patel demonstrated that a whole body could tremble. “I won’t touch you.” I promise, Nathan had the thought ready to follow the rest of his words. He didn’t say it.

And then Patel was lifting his shirt above his head, for all the world not knowing how vulnerable he was when his neck and arms appeared to Nathan as nicely pre-tangled.

Nathan sucked in a breath.

Patel stood with his arms awkwardly at his side—Nathan would’ve bet he never would have found it in himself to remove the shirt if he’d been facing the window. Instead of the doorway, and with Nathan between him and it.

There would be too much exposure, or maybe too much safety, with any options above the ones that Nathan was giving him.

Not knowing what to do with his hands, Patel rubbed one of them across his jeans. Across that divide between jeans and skin.

“Pants as well.” Nathan had followed every movement. He wasn’t positive he'd meant for Santosh to remove his pants in the original ask.

Too bad they hadn’t negotiated that.

Patel’s mouth worked. Didn’t work for words coming out of it, and he shimmed out of his pants. He made it worse for himself when he wanted to stand quicker than he ought to have, ankles held together by the waist of his own pants and not standing straight enough to kick himself out of the discarded, useless clothing.

His thighs had bruising to match with his torso.

Nathan had seen plenty of bruising before. On himself. On others.

Plenty, even, on the shade of brown that was Santosh’s skin. He’d seen more than his fair share of full body bruising, too. He’d seen less in terms of bruising he himself put on people. Generally, one did not beat on someone one day and order them to get to stripping anytime in the next few. Before, whenever he’d had that type of power over a person, namely back in the military, he wouldn’t have been liable to put bruising there, or, more accurately, he’d have been quite too liable.

Everything came together and Nathan was mesmerized.

Were Nathan in a more prosaic mood then he would have found the words to describe the purple of Santosh’s bruises. He’d be committing to purple prose, then, in truth.

Nathan couldn’t help but chortle.

Santosh was shaking, down one arm, stiff at the shoulder; near the armpit, wrist held painfully straight. Shaking; trying not to shake apart.

“Jus’ thinking how nice you look in purple,” Nathan softly assured his—victim. Right.

Probably, Santosh was not assured.

He was shivering. Full on, teeth clanging together, shivering.

“Stay there. Like that.”

Nathan, looking at the edging around the bruises, realized quite suddenly that he was now stood closer to Santosh than he’d been moments ago. The real trick of it was, Nathan thought, how the greens and yellows were mostly hidden by Santosh’s own body. Like the bruises were just folding out of his being.

They were meant to be there.

“Can I?” Nathan started, stopping to exhale out the overabundance of excitement filling him. He wasn’t totally sure he was still hard, except that with how worked up the rest of his body was, of course his dick needed to be. “Touch.”

Nathan had a hand already poised to tilt Santosh’s neck. The bruising around his throat was less pronounced than the others by far, but it was there. It was there and it was ringing his throat in shadow.

Santosh didn’t answer. Nathan let his hand drift dumbly down inches away from Santosh, retracting it as his own limb got lower than Santosh’s shoulder.

He could control himself if he had to. He had hardly thought of strangulation. Not even with how often Patel was laboured in his breathing.

The thoughts were too dangerous to entertain without being in a prepared setting.

“Please.”

Nathan figured that was the word that should be coming from Santosh about now. It hadn’t. It had come from him. Nathan was the one asking.

“You promised.”

Nathan locked his eyes on those lips. They’d look good in lipstick. Nathan could shade-match.

“I didn’t. Made sure I didn’t,” Nathan countered.

Why hadn’t he?

Nathan drifted his hand lower down, to rest on his dick. It was, indeed, hard. Fuck, it was probably hard enough to cause bruises.

Nathan stroked.

He couldn’t stroke Santosh and couldn’t so much as touch him. He was entirely free to touch himself, however. He did.

In short order Nathan was on his knees, ass resting heavy on his heels. It was near to the only option where he could control himself as opposed to jumping the other man. The tension from the waistband of his shorts helped him keep pace and stroke back down, textile fighting against how dangerously near his palm was to stripping the skin off of himself in effort to reach away—for Santosh—without letting go.

Plenty of precum had seeped across the front of Nathan’s shorts and into the fabric. Plenty more was spreading across his cock as he stroked. Fuck. His hand went too far up, pressed his dick in towards his thigh as it came off of his shaft; got more precum nicely into his palm.

A brief straightening out of all the requisite parts and Nathan was back to the action.

A brief indulgence in action, in friction, applied steadily instead of as force between the striking of two objects, tempting as that option was, and Nathan was spending himself in his shorts. He would've sworn he could still feel where he had backhanded Santosh. He could see where he'd kicked him, that was evident. Legs bruised up plenty when they bruised at all, and the swarths of exposed skin below Santosh's black boxers had black bruises competing for overall space.

As he came he sweated, quite heavily, into his shirt. Meant that he was definitely less clean than when he had started.

“Ah, mmh,” Nathan moaned, performative. The captive audience brought that out in him. Nearly finished, he widened his feet some and sat directly on the floor.

Spent another rope of his cum against his shorts.

Another one pretty much into his own hand, stroking it once back down and up the length of himself, squeezing out what he could.

Nathan squeezed a final time, on account that the feeling was amazing—he had finished spending himself, though.

Could always build up a credit for the future. There was nothing wrong with that.

Actually.

Nathan looked up from the bruising that painted across Patel’s ribs, inwards to his chest and downwards to find purchase on his stomach, and Patel’s expression soundly provided him with the information that maybe there was.

Something wrong with drawing his pleasure this way.

“I’m good,” Nathan said. He eyed where his water bottle had been the whole time he’d been exercising. It was empty. Getting back into the reality of things, Nathan relaxed his shoulders and eyed Patel. “Are you good?”

Nathan was panting.

Patel was, too.

“Fine. Fine. I’m fine. I—please. I’m fine. Can I go?”

Guess I was more casual last few times. Neither of those times had been a quarter as satisfying as seeing that aubergine colour on a person.

And—Patel was sincerely extremely bruised up.

“No.” Nathan stayed sitting.

“Why not?”

Nathan would not be surprised if Patel began crying this instant.

“Help me up,” Nathan demanded.

Patel froze.

He ended up sitting on the floor next to Nathan after a few heartbeats, shaking his head back-and-forth. “No. No. You said you wouldn’t. I’m not touching you.”

“Okay. Relax,” Nathan said, the words as empty as any pillow talk.

Patel was inhaling, gasping almost like he was choking. Almost. He was crying.

Again. How many tears did one person have in them on any given day?

Then there was a sound that did concern Nathan, now that he was attentive to it: A physically pained sob. It was short, and Patel cut it off himself.

Nathan worked his (cum slick) hand from his shorts and brushed it against the relatively clean outside, dividing up the mess and not cleaning anything worth shit.

“Santosh,” Nathan spoke. It was a practiced tone that he used; it got the attention of new recruits.

There was a world of difference between how Nathan ordered people about for his own pleasure versus the unquestionable obedience demanded of the institutions he’d made himself a part of. Right then he conveyed a tone that carried the authority of those latter institutions.

Miraculously, Patel stopped crying. Hiccuping out a sob, he also tried saying something or other that begun with a consonant.

“It’s fine. I’m fine. You’re fine,” Nathan stated, no question in his voice; he was conveying information, simple as.

Nathan observed as Patel calmed, quicker this time than before. That might’ve been down to experience.

“Gonna ask you a few questions. You’re not in any trouble,” Nathan led with. “Have you been taking pain killers these last few days?”

Patel hiccuped out a laugh and wiped his tears away. “What, are those drugs now?”

Nathan had a brief and soundly dismissed urge to grab Patel’s arm and suck at his wrist because that’s where all the tears had gotten to.

“Nah. It’s how I said, you’re not in trouble,” Nathan reassured.

“Okay. I have. It hurts,” Patel answered. Quieter, he added on, “What else was I supposed to do?”

“Any sharp pains?” Nathan followed up with.

“Those stopped.”

Patel was blinking at Nathan. His lips were shaking. The pull between whether to cry or to talk was a lot of force inflicted on the bloke.

“That’s good.” Nathan worked his legs out from underneath himself to sit cross legged on the unforgiving floor. “Now: How about tender areas?”

Nathan wondered at how there was so much laughing involved in raping somebody; for his part he could figure at some understanding. For Patel’s, best he could say was that he guessed he had hope as to the guy’s resilience. The sentiment contained therein was heavily hedged, however, because Patel, reasonably taken, shouldn't be laughing. Could be down to how unreasonably he is being taken.

“Yeah, fuckwit. How about all of the areas?”

As to hope for Patel’s safety? That waxed and waned.

“Does it hurt worse when you press down? How about when you twist your torso?”

Nathan knew when to ignore posturing. With Patel that was and would continue to be around most of the time.

“I don’t—I’m not sure,” Patel said. “Sorry.”

“Don’t sweat it. Least your insults were in English this time.”

Finally Patel went and copied Nathan in sitting cross legged. He was calming down some—as he should. Nathan hadn’t touched him, even.

Much.

After they agreed he wouldn’t.

Nathan could see that Patel was running his hand across his chest, feeling for pain. He let him.

“It feels fine,” Patel reported.

“Check again.”

Patel did. This time Nathan appreciated the display by focusing on his spent organ. He didn't want to touch himself this close to having came, anyhow. Also, Patel had the confidence to press harder. Which made it rather a shame that Nathan lost his working excuse to grope.

“Cough.”

Again, Patel listened.

“Did that hurt?”

“Not much. Not more than it should have.”

Nathan could see that Patel was starting to worry about the health-related questions.

“You’re fine. You’d know by now if you weren’t. If you need to cough again hold something soft against your chest when you do it. Last question: Have you managed to stay mobile these last few days?”

“I’ve—needed to,” Patel responded. He remained afraid and grew confused. Different flavours of each than with the sexual assaults, but Nathan wasn’t choosy.

“Well, Patel. I’d like to make sure you’re okay. What do you say to that?”

If he didn’t say them entirely too fast, Patel’s next words would have been a very composed ending to the events that besieged him. “Thank you very much but no.”

“Not optional. I need a shower. And you look like it’d do you well, too,” Nathan said, dismissing Patel as surely as he’d asked after his health.

Patel now had some sound advice and Nathan had done what he could.

Patel’s lips, still trembling, let out a soft whimper of a sob. “Then we’re done?”

Nathan stood first, having long since regained control of his jellified legs. Sadly, or not, Patel had knocked him out of the afterglow quicker than Nathan appreciated being. “For today,” he answered, transforming his shrug into a satisfying roll of his shoulders.

And for the suffering (or not having enough pleasure), Nathan figured he could enjoy a shower and a show.

Chapter Text

Nathan was somewhat of an asshole. Not that he’d hidden that fact.

If it came up a bit less when he was plowing well past being a dick and straight into being a sadist, then that was what some humanitarians would call a horrific accident: Giving Patel hope where hope ought to be barred. 'Cept lies weren't likewise barred, so it was foreseeable that hope snuck in alongside 'em. It remained plain unfair; none of the lies were for Patel's benefit, and the hope was only to the benefit of keeping him stuck in place.

Stuck trapped in the situation, tracks kindly telling Patel that at least he was on a path.

What Nathan did—what made him an asshole—was a minor action, all told. Wholly honest. He walked ahead to the showers while expecting for Patel to heedlessly follow him.

That Patel was slow in following meant that Nathan was shrugging out of his shirt as the door swung inwards some few feet behind him. Nathan didn’t hear the door close, same as he hadn't heard Patel's footfalls. When his shirt came off he could see that Patel was standing, framed, in the doorway, blocking it from its function of sealing away the rest of the world.

He wasn't surprised.

Patel didn't much look like he was, either. Then again—he looked like he was foolishly clinging to raw hope. That this wasn't real. That this was done. That it didn't need to be real, not anymore, because it was done.

“Yeah, Patel,” Nathan chided. “Now we’re private and I can finally ravish you—get in here.” It's over, went unsaid.

Patel hurried to a stalled motion, saying, “Ex-excuse me.”

That had started off angry. Expectedly—Nathan had forced Patel to confront reality. Then it ended up sounding like an actual request for Nathan to move further away from the door.

Since, apparently, Nathan moving himself would get Patel accompanying him?

“Sure. Need a sit down, anyway,” Nathan allowed, walking forward more and sitting on the middle of the three wooden-slatted benches which dominated the changing area.

Almost pretending Nathan wasn’t here, Patel made to walk past his bulk at a controlled pace. That facsimile of control was, of course, where the pretending was.

Nathan grabbed him, right hand to right wrist. That way, he slightly barred Patel from going forward—grips broke apart, when they did, where thumb met fingers, and Patel would need to go a good ways forwards to challenge Nathan’s hand on him. Also: Got his spend on Patel, giving him something worth washing off.

Worth doing other things with, as well. Nathan was trying to see things how Patel might, though. Mostly this was because the enervated feelings he must've, he imagined, inspired in his captive did a lot for Nathan. How often did he get to restrain somebody using one hand? Not often enough. Anyhow, when he did the point wasn't to feel skin against skin or to luxuriate in how encircled by overlapping thumb and ring-finger his victim was.

“You’re touching me,” Patel said, genuinely aghast and reevaluating Nathan’s sarcasm from moments ago. He was looking at their locked-together limbs, eyes stuck to the sight.

Nathan knew he wasn’t letting go yet. Knew, too, that he’d hold on to this memory.

Small moments imprinting themselves into Patels psyche—getting to witness those moments—was—indescribable. Nevermind that his dick had gone soft, Nathan felt a tightening in his chest that squeezed, and when it let go it let go only enough to warm his insides. Wasn't butterflies, by any stretch of the imagination.

Stung too much for that.

He'd make new memories, too. Obviously. Share that swelling feeling underneath his own skin with another. Those eyes would look amazing glued closed with my cum.

“You cried. Told ya not to,” was Nathan’s answer and excuse, given after rubbing hard enough to feel Patel's wrist bones. “Gotta notice the conditionals.”

“I—you surprised me. I wasn’t just bawling my eyes out and you know that,” Patel justified. A touch of desperation caught in the words.

A normal reaction, and he was trying ta justify it. 

Nathan kept holding Patel there. Amazing what a person would withstand if they had reason to. Sitting down like he was, Nathan had expected Patel to make a break for it in either direction—if he was smarter, he’d realize that retreating to the exercise room they were just in would not be causing a spectacle.

Well. Smarter and more secure that Nathan would see it the same way. What Nathan had been hoping for was Patel to make a run for the showers.

To run and trap himself despite the running.

“Okay; I surprised you by assaulting you a third time, and the crying only happened when you were surprised. Not on and off for the whole event,” Nathan sardonically conceded. “Congratulations, you’re a real man.”

Getting to use his words to inflict damage wasn’t always an option Nathan had; subsequently, he might be overdoing it now that head free rein.

Patel, insulted, tugged his arm free. Nathan let him. That freedom clearly did surprise Patel and all he did was stay standing there. Surprised Nathan, too. Maybe he’d let it happen because the wrist was the only bit of his body that Patel tried taking away from him. Patel wasn't geared up to run anywhere. Nathan didn't know why he'd let him loose.

“Look, what do you want?” Patel snapped out.

Nathan clicked his tongue, asking, “This how you treat all your partners, or am I that special to ya?”

Nathan would allow—would admit, as it were—that Patel was special to him.

Heck, Patel’d started processing the assault inflicted on him in front of its inflictor, much too ready to think of it as done. Extended the amount of time that Nathan could fuck with Patel—and the amount of time before he did fuck him. Made Patel all types of tempting and engaging all at the same time.

“You—” Patel breathed out, deliberate like. The same way that people much younger than him were taught to take deep breaths and count to ten. “You’re just trying to piss me off,” he articulated, treating the words like they required perfect diction.

And like they hurt to force into place so clearly. That Nathan wasn't doing this for any good reason.

“And you blush nice. Was wondering how else you redden up, is all,” Nathan said. Patel hadn’t asked why again, smarter than that. More experienced, more like. But that didn’t mean that Nathan couldn’t go ahead and tell him. Yes, he was trying to rattle the other man and yes, he would keep doing so.

Patel lifted his hand to near his face, vividly recalling being slapped around not minutes ago—and forgetting that his wrist had semen on it, now. Stalled in motion when he saw the evidence of Nathan’s crime.

“Wanted options, right?” Nathan asked. Sitting here, like this, wasn’t what Nathan wanted. His knees were pushed too high up, the bench too close to the floor.

“What now?”

Messing with Patel? That was a superseding want. One that meant he was in no way letting go of Patel just yet.

“Suppose that now you have two options, how I see it. I’ll either watch you clean yourself off. Now. With your tongue; nothing really new there, I know. It’s in the combination. Or I’ll get to spy as you clean up the more traditional way via the shower. Am looking forward to seeing you naked.”

Looking at the row of lockers opposite Nathan—not even in Nathan’s direction—Patel thought over his options, as they were.

“Last week. I. Already swallowed,” Patel said to his blurred reflection in the distant metal.

He hadn’t needed to walk along the pathway between the bench that crossed his paths with Nathan's spot. He could have walked alongside the lockers to either side of the non-middle benches. He didn’t need to keep being perfect. But while he was, Nathan would enjoy their time together.

“Doesn’t count when you immediately eject the contents of your stomach.”

Patel’s gaze focused on Nathan, the gaze nonetheless appearing to be a thousand yard stare. “Are you going to keep—doing this. Changing the rules.”

Nathan sighed and leaned forward, choosing to run his knuckles against Patel’s exposed side. “Gonna clarify matters, yes.” He left them resting somewhere above Patel’s love handles.

“After you lie.”

“Hmm. What have I lied about?” There wasn’t much cum on the back of Nathan’s hand anymore. Cruelty inflicted in measurable bits was the name of the game. And those small transferences, Nathan would be letting Patel wash off in any case. If that's what he decided on.

“I don’t know.” Desperation backed the words, “Are you—sick?”

“Yes. And not physically. Trust that I ain’t making you sick,” Nathan answered. “What I have ain’t contagious.”

“Are you—do I have any control, here?”

“Leverage, more like.”

Patel snort-laughed.

Nathan decided he liked the sound.

Patel asked, as follow-up, “Yeah. How short of a stick do I get?”

Nathan shrugged, motion carrying down to his hand lingering on Patel. “It is long enough to beat you with.”

Patel’s gaze lowered to Nathan’s collarbone; not wholly away, not all the way down and dejected. Just. On a spot that was undoubtedly Nathan, while not too much so.

“Is that all it’s good for?”

“Is this fifty questions?” Nathan drew his thumb down across his own fingers, knuckles still at rest. Then Nathan spread his fingers to let his thumbnail scrape across Patel.

Santosh warbled out a cry, body stuttering as his elbows locked—he’d wanted to wipe his tears away yet again. But that hand was freed up and sullied, both. After a moment's consideration he used his left arm instead.

The crying was pretty silent.

And pretty.

“You’re pretty when you cry,” Nathan said. “Blush so nice.” Scraping his thumb across flesh, appendage constrained in the force it could apply given how it was kept positioned atop his own fingers, Nathan kept talking. “You bruise beautifully. Then there’s your face: It’s expressive. You’ve a type of casual victimhood to you. Maybe we fuck or beat it out of you and that means we both benefit.”

The silence was what Nathan would expect at two in the morning, not before two at noon. Certainly not in a soon-to-be public building. But that was the beauty of it, wasn’t it? They weren’t in public. He was in control.

There wasn’t going to be a rescue for the victim that Nathan was creating here.

“You can’t—can’t actually mean that.”

“Why not? Wasn’t lying, Patel, when I said I liked you.” Nathan couldn’t see if he was rubbing the skin that was getting abraded by his nail red and raw. He drew his hand back.

Nothing. No visible signs at all. Where he'd dug in was a bit more pale and bloodless, if anything

Him and Patel knew better.

The knowledge appeared to have broken Patel, standing there lax in posture. The tears hadn’t dried up, however—they were slow and steady in coming.

“Wanna walk yourself over to the shower?” Nathan shifted his hand to be palm down on Patel as he spoke. Same spot as before. Not anymore comforting.

“No.”

It was an answer. Wasn’t a denial or anything of the sort—wasn’t even resigned agreement, voiced inline with a contested action. It was a mere statement of feeling.

Am I going to have to rub you calm again? Nathan thought. He didn’t think asking that, with the crude implications, would help. Nor would asking, Shit, did I break you.

Question(s) unasked, Nathan took permission for himself and started kneading at Patel’s hip.

“Ever had appendicitis?” Nathan eventually asked. He gave himself longer than ten seconds of counting out his feelings before he had decided on what to say.

Patel stood there, unflinching. “No.”

“I have. Hurts right here,” Nathan stilled his rubbing above the spot. “Hurts like hell, too. Worse than a beating.”

Patel opened his lips; moved his chin. He didn’t speak much, only deigning to say “No.” A bit more forcefully than before.

Third time’s the charm, Nathan thought. Patel shouldn't, wouldn't, get to say no to him thrice over.

“It does. Physically. But there’s this thing about being beaten that hurts worse, isn’t there?”

Patel shut his eyes, screwing his eyelids tight together.

Nathan gave it a frankly awkward amount of time—ten seconds, then twenty. Ten more after that—and Patel didn’t say anything. And Patel was the individual here who felt pressured by silences. Patel was the one who didn't know what was going on when things were at rest.

So Nathan kept talking, giving him more to work with. “There’s nothing ineffable about it, either. It’s wholly that another person is causing you pain that makes a beating hurt more.” Finally, Nathan flexed his fingers and flattened his palm, proceeding to rub off on Patel that semen that had gathered in the creases of his own lifelines. That particular gathering had been difficult to wipe off on Patel when he'd grabbed him, palm too bent inward and cupping the liquid matter.

He withdrew his hand—he left most of his essence behind.

Nathan observed. “Are you expecting to be hurt?” He started humming after he asked, tuneless but content to give it time and to make that time less soundless. Soundless and still was, despite that Nathan could maintain it, grating in a way that little else was.

It was a while, maybe a minute or two, before Nathan prompted, “Jus’ be honest, and I’ll be the same.”

“Y-yes.”

“‘Kay. Honestly, then. No; I do not mean all of what I’ve said. Only way that this helps you is all the ways I choose not to hurt you.” Nathan watched Patel shudder. His eyes kept closed. “Everything else? I meant all that. ‘Cept maybe there are other options that change how I hurt you. Physically—bad, or good?”

“Ba-bad,” Patel answered. His eyes opened and traced down Nathan’s collarbone. It hadn’t been Nathan’s collarbone that had already hurt him, after all. It had been the hands.

“Words? Good, or bad?”

“G-bad,” Patel answered.

“Mentally?”

“Bad.”

“Yeah, I can see that,” Nathan confirmed. “So. What would you change, if you could?”

Patel staggered a foot away, ending up sat on the bench across from Nathan. Shortly after that his head was ensconced between his arms; under his hands. Tucked away, generally.

He whined, a low-pitched sound of abject despair, before answering, “Everything.”

“Get more specific. I’ve already been trying to be nice to you in plenty of different ways,” Nathan said, steady as a rock.

“What are you doing? Here. This. What are you doing this for?” Patel had one ankle crossed over the other, turtling himself away. Again. Mostly naked in this new instance.

Talking, still. That was new.

It was an extremely low bar to clear for not breaking his fuckbuddy, how Patel was talking; Nathan would grasp it.

“For the sake of human decency, Patel—Santosh—I’d like to give you something of a longer stick. Better leverage. However you want to put it, I want you knowing that there’s a way I’m trying to avoid causing you pain. Make it all hurt a bit less, if we can. Do you think we can do that?”

“Why?”

Nathan chuckled. He couldn’t help himself, really. “Opposite of sadism.” He couldn’t help himself, true. But maybe he could help Patel.

Nathan had done his next intended action before but it wasn’t less tempting for that fact. He aimed for hooking his shin behind Patel’s (already twisted) legs, to entwine them together.

Patel retracted his legs, lifting both of them onto the bench. That was how he ended up laying on his back, knees the fulcrum of an upside down vee, clad only in his black boxers and black bruises. The boxers were the blacker of the two.

The bruises made his legs appear as if they should be collapsed and laid out straight, rather than have any type of structure to them. It was the same feeling when pressing down on bruised fruit—that the whole thing should simply collapse under pressure.

“Physically hurts,” Patel reasoned aloud, words addressed more to the PVC-coated plaster ceiling tiles than to Nathan. Each of the tiles had a bronze hue and a slight groove to their edges, all to better mimic elegance.

(By joining the mob Nathan had learned more about construction and interior design than he thought he would. It was a passive learning that one did not avoid if they did not want to be wholly scammed.)

“That it does. Recovery’s fine.”

“Recovering’s scary,” Patel countered.

“Can you stand to be called pretty?” Nathan asked, next.

“I’m not,” Patel said, a lie of his own.

“How’re ‘slut’ and ‘whore,’” Nathan tossed out without glee.

Patel flinched, not unlike—

—actually, quite unlike when he’d been struck. It had been the buildup that caused all his smaller motions, but he’d braced himself well for actual impacts.

“Not true,” Patel replied. Like the facts defended him.

“My cocksucker?” Nathan lobbed those words across the thin aisle between benches.

Starting to scratch at the wood beneath him, Patel’s nails had a harder time with their whetstone than Nathan had had with his. Flesh was pretty easy to win over. There was a real chance that Patel would cause himself more physical harm by scraping at the bench than Nathan had in scraping at Patel's hip.

“Maybe not,” said Patel.

“Mentally, then. Do you want me to always tell you the truth?”

“No.”

Adamant, that no.

“How about me being upfront and clear in our negotiations?” Nathan offered.

“Sincerely: Does. It. Matter?”

“End result would be my taking harder stances.” Nathan swallowed. Because he was a human with human emotions. “I’d make less promises, too.” He wanted that. To be remorseless. 

“Do you. Try.”

Nathan wanted to pretend misunderstanding of the question.

“Sometimes.” Sometimes, despite his worst impulses, he meant the sweet nothings he said.

“Then I can rule that one out,” Patel said, treating his circumstance like they amounted to a multiple choice exam.

Which Nathan supposed was true. And he didn't—not if he thought about it, Nathan didn't want to have zero accountability to himself. He couldn't hand that task over in full to Patel, could not lay out the abuses he planned in full before he did them. He'd fuck it up. Patel would agree to something he shouldn't. For all the right reasons, Patel would be a weak point.

“Physically, it's worth noting that I’ll smack you around in any case,” Nathan said. Placing his finger on the scale by voiding one of the answers.

Let Patel ask Nathan to be prim and proper, respectful. That would be the easiest of the bunch. 

“What—wouldn’t you do?” Patel needed to know. He did not want anything physical happening to him at all, and the potential was too tempting to give up on entirely.

Even if Nathan would still smack him around.

As to what more he could do? Immediately the thought came to Nathan: His hands wrapped around Patel’s throat. Or just one hand while Patel was tied, resisting and unable to defend himself. His whole body would be resisting, desperate for air. Nathan's other hand could explore. Zero difference made whether Patel was awake or passed out, passed a point.

It stood out, now; Patel’s unsupported neck, curved while his back and head were otherwise straight. The wooden bench, shades and shades lighter than his skin, caused the bruising to stand out more than it had before—that ring of shadow around his throat became deeper. It wasn't just on the skin; It had bruised. It had gone deeper than Patel's skin. Nathan's grip had gone deeper than skin.

It was blood speaking that truth.

Nathan moved his tongue about in a manner reminiscent of a person gargling marbles. Then the thought intruded of biting down on that neck. Not much. Enough to be much more violent than a hickey, say; enough to no longer be juvenile or innocent.

But not much.

Then a bit more.

Draw some blood, and only then fold.

“More literal enactments of your life being in my hands,” Nathan managed to reply. That's what he wouldn't do if Patel asked for this thing to change.

“And is it?” Patel was dissociated enough to ask, directly tackling the worst of it. His replies hung on the end of Nathan's, silent when Nathan was and responding when Nathan spoke. After everything, Patel didn't have the energy left to resist something as basic as the one-sided flow of conversation.

“Doesn’t enter into the equation for me,” Nathan honestly answered.

“Oh.” Patel’s knees went lax, legs extending further from him. Physical relief and exhaustion both. Probably. Maybe. Maybe not either, or maybe it was only exhaustion. Or confusion.

Nathan sighed, not sure what point Patel was being stabbed with. “Beyond how lucky I was to come across you, I would like to keep business and pleasure as separate as you let me. Jus’ don’t try me an’ we’re good.”

“Okay. Okay, I’d like that—if you didn’t. If you tried not to, physically. You know,” Patel decided.

“Consider it done. I’ll hurt you less when it comes to physical hurts.” Nathan knew what he was offering. He’d kept track. He wasn't sure Patel had, because he had said he wouldn't off him anyways. Had even implied that he wouldn't inflict anything drastic in most any case; enactments weren't anything too egregious.

Anyways. Negotiating something remained possible. Less likely, since now Nathan wouldn’t force the choice.

“Mahāna. Great,” Patel said, lackluster.

“Now, how about you be a good, agreeable whore and get yourself into the shower for me. It’ll be like a personal peep show from you to me.”

Patel stayed laying down. Nathan was fairly sure he’d broken some part on his insides.

Then Patel rolled onto his side, away from Nathan, and did those sobs that Nathan had heard when little kids broke bones. An’ jesus, home meetings of his direct underlings had (keyword: had) included half as much of that as—well, no. By instance of days, maybe it was so, but by pure numbers his time in the service had included a hell of a lot of displaced families.

His hands were itching. Nathan realized he was forgetting a lot of days in his accounting.

“You—you didn’t break my finger, my other one, that first time. You were bluffing, weren’t you?” Patel demanded, suddenly afraid that he’d given the wrong answer. That he may have given away meaningful options for nothing.

“No. Jus’ didn’t feel like escalating, then. Was all.” Nathan stood. Standing temporarily, he rested a leg on the bench that had been across from him. The one that Patel was on. But mostly Nathan took a knee. Imposing wasn’t what he was aiming for with this. “Would have broken a toe of yours or something to hear you scream. Or started you on stress positions. Only thing worth mentioning,” and here, Nathan rested a hand on Patel’s shoulder while taking care not to slip it into the curve between shoulder and neck, “is I would love to do some touching, now, if you’re going to be finished with the bruising soon n’ for good.” Companionably, Nathan squeezed on Patel’s shoulder. “Bit of a very personalized peep show, then.”

Patel suppressed what was left of his sobs. Plenty of them were left by the sound of it.

The constant repression might’ve explained the constant breakdowns.

“Okay,” Patel agreed.

“Take a moment. It really won't hurt.”

Nathan left Patel there. He went and gathered the clothes that he’d had him strip out of in the exercise room. The shirt was a button down, which Nathan had noticed and decided to leave be—a young man trying to dress professionally was a good thing in his books. The jeans were just jeans but they were properly deep blue.

Nathan folded the clothes, rolled the socks together.

Then he really wondered at the lack of shoes.

“Huh.”

Wanting to give Patel a moment, Nathan set the clothes back down and stretched. Things had gone well.

Fuckbuddies should be for fucking and leaving, though. Or toying with. Or hurting, or seeing hurts plastered onto. Or possessing.

Okay. Nathan saw how he hadn’t left well enough alone. And would it break Patel any more to know if Nathan went and saw a prostitute, fulfilling the needs that Patel himself was stuck subject to and demonstrating to him how utterly indulgent Nathan was being with taking him? Would that made Patel feel like his own rape was meaningless?

Remember: You are not trying to break him, Nathan thought, not too kindly towards himself.

Unless—

Nathan held his stretch for longer than normal. There was no “unless.” He just would not break Patel, simple as. Or if he did then he’d put him back together.

An ache came loose in Nathan’s back as he stretched his arms languidly above his head. Since he was already absent a shirt, Nathan took off his shorts. In no state to check how things were going outside of his own little slice of paradise, he bent down and grabbed Patel’s clothes.

Then returned to the locker room. And Patel exactly where he’d left him.

Setting the clothes down on the end of the nearest bench, Nathan took those handful of steps between them that brought him to Patel’s side. “Up and at ‘em.”

“Please,” Patel asked. Didn’t even turn to face Nathan.

“Fine. Up and at ‘em, please,” Nathan replied.

Patel flopped to the laid-flat position again. His eyes widened. “You’re—” Patel's eyes also focused on Nathan's exposed self. Wide and attentive was, Nathan knew, panicked. As fuck.

“Naked. Sure am. Somehow, I keep expecting a shower,” Nathan dryly returned.

“I’m, I,” Patel hurried to say something at the same time that he hurried to stand, attempt ending up with him stood awkwardly close to Nathan and not saying what he meant to say. “Shower. Right.”

Nathan helped out—he put his hand on Patel’s shoulder again and this time he pushed.

They made it back to the showers without incident, walking together through an open archway at the back of the room. Wall greeted them to the right side, and then there were only six showers: Three to the wall that made for the back of the original locker room and three to the actual back wall of the room as a whole.

Nathan directed-slash-pushed Patel into the first shower stall on the far wall. “Warm or hot?” he asked after following him in—crowding him, really.

Most people, when they showered, didn’t attach themselves to the tiles on the wall. Patel did.

Patel-plaster, Nathan thought. He was maybe a bit muddled from his orgasm.

“Whatever you want,” Patel said.

Nathan, having used the facilities here before, went for something shy of scalding; like all showers did, it started off cold. He joined Patel against the wall, pressing the other man between it and him. Also: Getting hit by most of the cold water before it warmed up.

“Really am quite a bit bigger than you,” Nathan stated, looking down at Patel’s head. The other man came up to very slightly over Nathan’s shoulder height, and that was with Nathan leaned inwards. Tall enough, in any case, that he could give Nathan hickeys easily enough if he were so inclined.

“I’m not short,” Patel grumbled out. Without looking up, his statement was directed at Nathan’s chest.

“You’re what, five foot six?” Nathan asked.

Patel declined to answer until Nathan careened their hips together, his own naked flesh against Patel’s boxers.

“I’ve never measured myself, man,” Patel rushed to say, on some level thinking that if him and Nathan were talking than Nathan couldn't be assaulting him.

Nathan gave Patel back his inch of lower-body space, taking space off of the top instead. “You ever measured your dick?”

The snort that Patel gave at that question had no laugh behind it, being mostly driven by disgust. “No, and yes, you’re bigger.”

“You say that. And yet, I don’t know if you’re any size at all.” That wasn’t true. Patel, soft against his thigh in that brief moment, had certainly been present. “Seriously, Patel: Who wears their boxers into the shower.”

“You—” Patel began, mildly angry.

“What, didn’t strip you first?” Nathan interrupted, mocking. “Pardon me for thinking you could undress yourself.”

Nathan couldn’t see every line of Patel’s body with the angles involved, but he could feel against his chest as the other tensed.

Nathan’s back was wet, water running down his thighs. Legs, where they were exposed through Nathan’s own, were what was wet on Patel. Him being shorter, this included his boxers. Not that they were soaked; only that they could suffer to come off.

“Fine, I—” Patel began, lifting a hand from his side and pushing it against Nathan, elbow at an angle tighter than a vee to do so. Nathan declined to move.

For a moment. To show that he didn’t need to move when Patel pushed. Then he gave in a few inches and enjoyed the spray of water pouring straight down from the shower head. Another thing to enjoy: Patel, slipping the band of his underwear clean past his ass and shimmying out of the last of his clothing while standing as motionless as he could. His left hand had to brace against the wall despite his best attempts. The boxers puddled around his ankles and he stepped out of them.

His upper thighs were more bruised than lower down on his legs was. Nathan should have expected that—in wanting to not break anything, Nathan had kicked at the fleshier bits of Patel when they’d first met.

Wasn’t that long ago that they’d first met, but for Patel it must’ve felt like a lifetime. Patel was, quite literally, stuck in a corner.

“Hey. Were you wearing shoes when you came up?” Nathan asked. His left hand rested against the wall perpendicular to the shower’s single open side. His body, still luxuriating in water mostly across his back, blocked the rest.

Determinedly not looking down, Patel answered, “Was—no, I wasn’t.” As he spoke his shoulders bunched upwards, his breathing did the opposite of evening out, and if there weren’t already more tears on his face than water, still, Nathan would have said he was starting to tear up. What did you call it when it wasn’t the start?

“Stop that,” Nathan lightly admonished. “Tell me about it.” We are both—I can say that. “Sure, we’re both buck naked. Sure, you’re terrified. But we’ve covered this. I’m not for hurting you. Me in you, no warning, no muck—no lube. That’d be hurting you. So don’t be quite as terrified as you are.”

“Not as—okay.” Patel breathed in deep and leaned against the wall, all types of breakable and prone to slipping as the situation called for. He was barely supported. “They’re downstairs. Shoes—I mean, I’m just sitting in that room. It’s the only wiggle room I get.” Another one of those little snort-laughs, this one trapping water up Patel's nostrils and Patel choked out, "Literally, it's the only wiggle room that I get."

“Kicking your shoes off to relax?” Nathan asked.

“Yeah,” Patel breathed out. He let his eyes slip shut.

“Gonna get you trying something better.” Nathan’s other hand went to rest on the wall opposite the shower’s entrance, fully entrapping Patel in his corner. Now that Patel couldn’t see it and couldn’t panic over it, Nathan couldn’t quite help himself. “Put your hand on it—yours,” Nathan clarified.

Rather protectively, Patel followed the instruction and cupped his dick and balls together. Not unexpectedly, they were darker than the rest of him; like Nathan himself, he wasn’t circumcised. Like Nathan, at this moment, he was soft.

“I’d like to see how much bigger I am.”

Starting to tug at his dick, Patel had his fingers and thumb all coordinated to a loose circle wherein his palm was moreso facing his pelvis than flattened out along the length of himself. There just wasn’t much length to get it going.

The position was forthcoming in its leisure and Nathan enjoyed observing. He’d really enjoyed making Patel watch. There wasn’t much that he wouldn’t enjoy doing to Patel, really.

“I’ll be right back,” Nathan leaned in to say directly into Patel’s ear. “Keep it up—if you can, get it up.”

He’d left the soap in his locker, alongside his business suit and sidearm. Patel didn’t need to know about all of that, nor how, for his part, Nathan had stripped out of underwear before putting on his gym shorts—similarly to how Patel had kicked off his shoes.

Within the span of thirty seconds he retrieved the soap from its cardboard packaging and was back at the showers.

Cleaned and very much non-spit shined, Patel’s wrist no longer had Nathan’s ejaculate coating it. His hip, too, had been wiped off.

Cleaned.

Nathan had padded back into the showers quietly. Patel had kept his eyes closed.

Are you so willfully blind, Nathan wanted to ask. However, Nathan would simply never would say anything to break that particular reaction.

Too bad that Nathan was too old to get it up again quite so soon and not stupid enough to take any type of mood-altering drug while on the job; and viagra and a hard dick certainly would be enough to alter his mood. The idea of a constantly hard dick was enough to alter his mood.

Dark cock gripped in a lighter hand, Patel barely seemed as though he’d hastily cleaned himself with the first chance available. Didn’t seem it at all, really, but he had.

Dried semen was caught up in Nathan’s own public hair. Nathan knocked on the tile just interior to the shower stall; Patel, bless him, froze. As much as he could've startled and fallen over, Nathan was distinctly not going to follow him onto the wet tiles and risk a game of human dominoes.

“Got us some soap,” Nathan held out the bar.

“Thanks.” Patel grabbed it, slowly. Like he was trying not to startle himself (or a mountain lion that he was in an enclosure with). Either one or the other of those two things, as different as they were.

“Hey, back up,” Nathan demanded, forcing his way back into the shower. “Keep up your pleasuring.”

Patel did exactly that, returning to an eyes-closed lean against hard tiles.

Having exercised, and having already had his release, Nathan did want a traditional shower. The show was primary, yes, but only in respect of being unique. A shower was still enjoyable in its routine. The scalding heat was turned down, and Nathan turned it back up without a word.

It didn’t take Nathan long to clean himself, finally fully wet. The heat was blissful. So was soaping up his chest using Patel’s hand, him being the one holding the soap loosely in one hand while the other self-pleasured. Working with the lather he got, Nathan washed the rest of himself. That's to say that he didn't make Patel touch him too intimately. It probably wouldn't have worked anyway, not with how positively lax Patel was.

“None a’ this,” Nathan said, “is as nice as hitting you was.”

“Uh,” Patel replied. It twisted into a low moan midway through. “Thank you?”

“You’re welcome.” Taking a step backwards, Nathan gave Patel somewhere in the realm of half of the shower to himself.

He looked small. Nathan, his body, filled his half of the shower. And then some.

Patel did not fill out his half.

“Can you feel the bruising? Nathan asked.

The words had been meant as a question. Taking them as a demand, Patel’s now free hand—his left—went to the interior of his thigh and stroked. Sightless though he was, he knew where he was bruised.

“How’s it hurt?”

Patel’s eyes snapped open. “I thought—you weren’t going to. Hurt me.”

“Goddamn: I don’t mean to, but don’t say it like that. Do not present that question like it’s its own declaration. Have a little faith.”

Blinking, Patel leaned forward then tilted his head to be under the main flow of water. Then, he needed to close his eyes again and had an excuse to. “Don’t tempt you? Is that what you mean,” he asked.

“More ‘don’t be so tempting,’” Nathan answered.

Cleaning behind his ears then downwards, Patel did not comprehend what a risk it was when he sluiced a cupped handful of water down his neck.

“I’m not. You’re fucked up,” Patel muttered, lips closed for half of it to stop the water from slipping in.

Which was another appealing thought to get him—temporarily, Nathan—not breathing. Temporarily.

Somewhere Patel had taken his hand off of his dick and Nathan hadn’t cared. He did care now, though. Very much so. “You’re not hard. Stroke yourself.”

A person's hands worked together when they were showering, soaping up and rinsing off. Patel knew better than to argue and did as instructed.

He chubbed up maybe a quarter of the way, if the straightness of his organ was any indicator—since by Patel’s own claims, size wasn’t what to be looking at.

“Would you appreciate a helping hand?” Nathan asked, after he’d watched for two minutes and Patel had gotten halfway hard or thereabout.

Immediately on hearing Nathan’s voice, Patel was back to quarter hardness. He twisted, then he leaned forward, arm braced against the same wall as the facets—opposite where he’d been cornered in.

Wasn’t any more free nor any less trapped. The water was out of his eyes, though, and he was doing what Nathan wanted. So, he was safe.

He ignored the question.

Maybe not so safe.

Already well within his personal space, Nathan stepped back into the area that Patel would need to move and leaned Patel away from the tiled wall. “Keep doing what you’re doing. I’m going to touch you now. Don’t stop. Don’t worry.”

After saying that, Nathan found that he needed to shuffle a bit backwards in order to lead with one leg and be able to lean in enough to reach down between Patel’s legs, underneath his prick and balls. Down to his bruised up thighs.

The colour shone more in the water, wetness giving it that extra sheen. Being dark, this shine added depth more than it did brightness.

The contrast of everything against Nathan’s hand told a tale. Things that did fit. The things that didn’t. How easy it was to cup a pound of flesh and hold it in his own palm. The contrast answered whether massages were enough to care for a ruined body: No. It wasn’t enough.

But it wasn’t Nathan’s body; it was a body in his possession. He—desperately, obsessively—wanted to give it a different type of care than he would his own. “Must hurt to walk,” Nathan said. He slid his hand less than a palms length down, back up. Was sort of imposing on Patel’s self pleasuring, but not really. At worst Nathan's wrist was in the way.

Patel just had to work with the angles he was being granted. Then it would all work out.

Something about a hand that wasn’t his own on his body made Patel get erect. He was going slow, Nathan observed, and even hard he wasn’t half as excited as Nathan had been. He wasn’t leaking any precum, or at least nothing that wasn’t wicked away by the water bearing down on the two of them.

He was in his early twenties, though: His dick was steadily rising, very closely pressing against his own stomach in short order.

Really, Nathan joining in had done more to get them out of each other’s way than standing there and observing had done.

There was a gasp when Nathan gripped with his fingers, deigning not to pinch.

“Have you ever heard your skin described as ‘blueberry’ before? Or blackberry might be more fitting.”

“Sir. No.”

Nathan had, straight before that emphatic denial, directly cupped Patel’s balls; the whole sack. The things fit in his hand. They were less than a pound, but what a piece of flesh they would be.

Patel moved his left hand from the shower stall, having kept his appendages mostly in place if Nathan hadn't touched them, to instead grip Nathan’s side. Then he gave up to the lack of space and leaned his head against Nathan’s shoulder and partially down against Nathan’s pectoral. He, still possessed of his faculties, kept their pelvises apart. Sadly this apartness applied to their stomachs too.

“Think you’ll be able to finish?” Nathan asked, directing the question to the bent neck he was looking at.

Wetted like this, Patel’s already black hair didn’t darken any extra. It did show the length it would be without the appealing wave it had when dry. If he lifted his chin and straightened his spine, Patel’s hair would manage to cover all his neck.

“Trying not to think,” Patel replied on delay.

“Think you’d mind growing your hair out, say, another half-inch.” Cautiously, Nathan rested his forearm across Patel’s right flank. Was careful not to draw him in and careful to leave room free and clear for the jerking off he was so nicely doing. That had his own left side joined to Patel’s right, and Patel’s scrote in Nathan’s main hand.

“Yeah. Yes,” Patel’s voice cracked out, something between a moan, a cry, and whatever must’ve been going through his head at the request.

Started speeding up, too, on top of gaining a bedroom voice. As evidenced by the feel of his thumb and forefinger, in the loose circle they made once they’d surpassed the top of his member, hitting repeatedly against the front of Nathan’s thigh.

On occasion, striking Nathan’s hip. On a stuttering occasion that let Nathan know what was happening. Not that he didn't already know, the scrote-sack trying to jump itself out of Nathan’s hand enough of an indicator.

Throat flexing into exposure, Patel made it physically obvious that he was orgasming in more ways than just the splatter which landed on Nathan. Up high onto his stomach, actually. Most of it, even. Patel’s jaw clenched shut-tight during, his lips sucking up between his teeth.

He was trying to be quiet.

That was fine.

But Nathan wasn’t going to let him pretend that this wasn’t real. He pulled Patel’s shoulders against him and let his left hand lower and settle possessively inside Patel’s thighs. Then he reached for the water tap with his other, banking on Patel not pulling away from him and thereby letting the water wash the evidence away.

Which he didn’t.

The staccato falling of water stopped, the static sound no longer wiping away the situation as it occurred. 

“That’s your cum on me; you can lick that off without any problem.”

“Now?” Patel whined, panting afterwards. His head was comfortably slotted where it had been before he had came. On Nathan.

Yes, Nathan had been the one who’d pulled him back in; yes please, he’d made it easy.

Nathan pushed downwards on Patel’s shoulders.

Which. Well. Maybe that ended up being too easy, and probably Nathan should’ve checked that his target's legs hadn’t gone overlax. Patel ended up pushed onto the floor, legs splayed beneath him in a mess.

Eye level with Nathan’s junk was not where Patel wanted to be, quite obviously. He scrambled (briefly) at Nathan’s knees, bumped a knee into Nathan’s foot and, courtesy his boxers still soaked on the shower floor and a misplaced hand, banged his head against solid tiles.

Nathan begrudgingly resigned himself to not getting cum licked off of his person. Or manhood. Or even the unthreatening softness, relatively considered, of his stomach. If the third time in the locker room hadn’t been the charm, why would this fourth go be any different?

“We can agree, I think, that that was an accident,” Nathan calmly said.

On hearing Nathan’s voice, Patel reigned in the scuttling, crustacean-like motions he'd enacted on the wet tiles and that had been getting him a grand total of nowhere.

“You—it wasn’t—yes,” Patel replied, looking up in the middle of his words as he managed to settle onto one knee and one foot, shy of a runners start, hands braced on the immobile floor instead of loose fabric.

It somewhat seemed, including to Nathan, that Patel deserved a redo. A soft one. He hadn't actually ran away at any point, after all. “Wanna stay down there while I turn the water back on?” Nathan asked, waiting. His hand settled on the hot water tap. Again.

Chapter Text

Nathan wondered if he would get to kick Patel to make it so that his answer was forthcoming.

It wasn't to be.

“Yes,” Patel replied, exhaustion making it obvious that he was agreeing to stay, soaking, purely because it was an option given to him; likely not even because Nathan was suggesting it, implicit threat that that carried, but on the whole account that it was a given option. Didn't need to be fought for to be taken.

And that made it easy.

Nathan turned the tap on and then cleaned Patel’s spend off of himself, water sufficing. Just barely. But the soap was on the floor. Patel was on the floor. The possibility of Patel getting comfortably dressed was gone to ground as well.

Nathan had a thought in the vein of what passes through minds that notice socks abandoned by major roads, or those shoes isolated on the cables between electric utility poles.

Patel crossed his legs and hung his head. Looking down.

“I do feel a bit bad for your boxers. I mean, you kick off your shoes to relax and now you can’t put everything back on if you wanted to,” Nathan said, then thought, huh, I did not mean for that to sound discouraging. “How’s your head?”

“Fine.”

Nathan crouched down. “Come on. You’re fine now. Made it through. Your virtue’s intact,” Nathan whet his lips, enjoying a sharp, peremptory twinge in them at the idea of claiming exactly that, “and you and I can go on a date before anything happens about that. Do you like how that sounds?”

“No,” Patel said to one of his knees.

Nathan sighed. He’d enjoyed his afterglow at a relaxed pace. True. But his slow enjoyment didn’t mean that he wanted Patel demure for everything.

Wanted some fight in him. They both deserved that much. Different reasons why, but it was the truth.

Nathan gripped Patel’s chin, abusing the leverage there and tilting his whole face upwards so that they were looking at each other.

“Are we going to go on a date anyway?” Nathan asked, softness easing its way from his tone. He sounded more how he had at the start of their encounter.

And that wasn’t much of a problem. Not the way that Nathan saw things. Any consistency that he could give Patel—take, say, indications of when work was versus when pleasure was to be—might prove useful to the other man. Might help guide him away from this horror in his day-to-day life, the one where he still had to work for the mob.

And get away from those streets, shoeless, somehow.

Then again . . . slight indications might not help. There was still a line and Nathan had soundly crossed it. Still, he could speak warmly when Patel and him were being involved; an' he could speak securely when he, instead, needed Patel to not even question him.

“Yes,” Patel conceded. His chin trembled in Nathan’s palm.

If they weren’t underneath a warm shower, almost scalding the way that Nathan preferred and water sticking to his skin, he suspected that Patel’s teeth would’ve been chattering in wonderfully extended fear.

“Any questions for me?” Nathan prompted.

“Yes?” Patel asked, seeking permission.

Nathan nodded along to the request. 

“My, well. Vi-. At the end of the date. What, what will happen?” Patel said. Woefully inadequate on the formulation of whole sentences.

“We negotiate. I get what I want,” Nathan answered.

Patel was staring at him, hesitance at searching Nathan’s eyes seemingly vanished. Nathan had no doubts that this was a temporary bravery. Hormones and all, they encouraged a certain openness after sex and related activities. So long as another person was involved, everything that was necessary for undue attachment existed.

“We can negotiate beforehand. Right?” Patel asked.

Sighing, Nathan replied, “I’m not sure what I’ll be in the mood for. Depends on when you’re free. How my day’s been leading up to it. How the date itself goes. To that end, you have any dinner preferences?”

That was met with more staring. “I don’t think I’ll be hungry.”

“Uh-huh,” Nathan said, saying the pieces of sound like they were whole words. “I wouldn’t mind skipping to the end of the date. But do you really want to?”

Those tan lips tightened. “It depends,” Patel stressed the second word, “what’s at the end of the date.”

“Patel.” Nathan huffed out a breath through his nose. He leaned towards Patel’s face, bringing their heads as close together as they’d ever been and then some. Coming to a decision, Nathan pressed his lips against Patel’s jaw—forward from where the ear was by a fair bit, nearly on his chin.

By all measures it was chaste. Absent the measure that relied on permission. Whatever. Nathan was permitting this for himself. For it to happen to Patel. “Patel,” Nathan repeated, moving lips further up his (victim's) jaw and pressing another closed-mouth kiss against skin. Another, then, in the same place. “You don’t get to decide if you're participating. What makes you think you need to know anything?”

A bit cruel, but Nathan had answered this same question once already and Patel came equipped with ears. Nathan didn't know how their date would end.

Heck, maybe Patel would deign to not think on information that he didn’t have. As unlikely as that was. If he didn't then he wouldn’t linger in his pain.

Outside of their sessions, that was. Where lingering was emphatically what Nathan wanted him to do. Nathan kept kissing up Patel’s face.

Admitted to himself that Patel spending some time lingering during the day-to-day wouldn't hurt.

At the question and the further feel of Nathan’s lips working their way up his jawline in increments of centimeters, Patel turned his head away. As much as he could when Nathan didn’t loosen his grip.

That happened to be "barely able to move at all."

“Empathy?” Patel pleaded for. Clearly, he’d thought about his answer.

What had Nathan asked him?

“Empathy’s why I’m not biting you,” Nathan replied, desiring to bite an earlobe and instead nipping at it. Kissed it after, just because and to soothe where sharpness had met softness.

Right. Why should Patel get to know anything? That was it.

To that generally given answer, Patel tried to lift his head. A different direction of away, all to get it free. That resulted in a slight opening of his mouth, teeth misaligned when the top bit of his face was allowed the few centimeters of movement that the bottom bit wasn’t. Quickly enough, discomforted, Patel settled his chin back into Nathan’s palm.

Giving him a final peck precisely where the ear and jaw met, Nathan then resettled on his haunches to give Patel a modicum of space.

“A human amount of empathy,” Patel tried again. He was looking at Nathan as he spoke, watching and waiting for that moment when his asking was turned against him.

“I’m a person, too. I’d say I’m giving you a human amount. A humane amount? Well now, isn’t palliative care humane,” Nathan mused.

“That’s another word I don’t know,” Patel rejoined, deadpan and dull.

“But you know what an intact virtue is?” Nathan taunted. Also: Probably for the best that Patel didn’t know that last word. Palliative. He’d probably, mistakenly, associate it with a death threat. Was also used to ameliorate chronic issues and Nathan planned to hold onto Patel for quite a while yet and to cause him a great deal of pain.

The threat that he did comprehend was enough, though: Patel jerked, a harsh twitch that involved his entire body. From his neck up the motion was aborted by Nathan’s grip on him.

Again. He keeps trying.

Patel began blubbering, “Please, please, I’m not a—I’m not into guys. I wouldn’t like you even if I was, and you’re—you are big. Large. Massive, even. You would, wouldn’t fit. I don’t think you would.” Patel swallowed. “You’d need to drug me to get me relaxed enough for it. That would be way counterproductive. You’d kill me for it.”

Letting his crouching shift to kneeling, legs spread wide and encasing Patel, Nathan ended up closer to Patel. And after he tried to ward Nathan off so inelegantly with words, so clearly getting closer to the reality of what it would mean to be raped and hating it.

Nathan had a few words of his own. “Help me puzzle this out. Did you jus’ try to coerce drugs outta a situation where I rape you?”

Patel jerked again, legs heavily joining in on the motion and very nearly hitting his head a second time. Or, he would have without Nathan. Who lifted his left hand to rest it solidly in the middle of Patel’s chest. Now he had a grip of Patel’s chin and control of his body.

“No. I—you wouldn’t. But you’d need to. It all’s a mess. None of this works out.”

The heart underneath Nathan’s palm was beating like a water pump in a storm, hard thuds and laboured function.

Words were only coming out of Patel after action failed him. It was an amazing display of struggle and helplessness and trying to force civility into much less than civil affairs.

Nathan liked that veneer. Also, the absence of violence as-such.

Anyways, he did have a way that this all worked.

“Have you never prepped for a date in your life? Dress nice and care for your hygiene, for starters,” Nathan laid out with brute words. “In this case, get yourself used to opening up. That’s the main bit. Ain’t the stretching out that does shit. It’s a muscle, it retains its tightness. Eh. Mostly. Point is, relax and I'll get in and do the stretching for you.”

Santosh looked nauseous. “And enjoy yourself,” he said in accusatory horror. The combination revealed how ingrained it was in him in such a short time what his future would contain.

Trauma did that.

Culpability did other things. Reassessing the end of their date, it was . . . easy.

“On a first date?” Nah. Nathan smiled, a bestial twitch to his nostrils dragging his upper lip high and exposing teeth. Then there was normalcy of expression immediately after, twitch done away with. Though trying not to laugh at Patel was difficult, the euphoria pretty much dragging all of Nathan’s emotions into the game. Sue him. Once the criminal charges didn’t stick.

Dumbstruck, Patel said, “You are going to f-fuck me.”

“I am,” Nathan agreed. His smile was of calm acceptance, an emotion that was infinitely easier when occupying his position. “Though there is the other hand, and you did show that you can get it up for me.”

Thud, stutter, thud, went Patel’s heart.

Patel came up with an offer and said, “I can do you. Then we’ll have slept together. Then this will be done.”

Nathan spread his fingers as far apart as he could, covering a huge span of Patel’s upper body. Given how he’d kept his hold on Patel’s chin, this coverage extended to include above his neck. No neck itself, though. That’s still too dangerous. Mostly, Nathan was getting a feel for the wrong set of Patel’s cheeks—he did not want to risk drifting his hand any lower and feeling that pulse, pounding so thready and urgent in Patel’s veins, getting stifled.

Or any higher and feeling the same, for that matter. He could move either hand and strangle Patel, though, if he let his wanting to win over his actions.

Nathan's knees were going to regret today later tonight, but right now he felt held aloft and weightless. Grounded only by what he held: Feeling that pounding heartbeat would have to be enough. Teasing Patel would have to work.

If this meant teasing himself somewhat? Nathan could—and would—deal.

With words. His tongue, despite how it felt, wasn't a lump that he'd choke on.

He exhaled. Floated a bit less. Kept playing. “How do you square that with the fact that I did you and plan to do you again? Positions matter,” Nathan chided; teased incessantly. Used his diction instead of his dick to cause the hurt. “And take a word of advice: Do not call it ‘doing you’ to an individual in my line of work. Such as myself, for example. Unless you’re thinking of doing me in?”

The heartbeat under his hand went fluttery as Patel laughed. “Gods, no. Heck, no.”

Nathan got it. He really did. Patel wasn’t stupid, was all. What a funny idea it was that he might endanger his life after surviving.

“Good bootlicker,” he said.

Patel laughed more. His eyes were puffy again but the tears seemed harder to squeeze out after the adrenaline and warm water and the talking.

“It seems like if—if you want that from me, you shouldn’t be saying kacarō like that,” Patel had enough strength to opine.

“It’s not exactly what matters, is it? Us agreeing.” Nathan could feel a nipple against the edge of his middle finger. Pinching it between two fingers sounded better. Except he was doing Patel the twin courtesies of looking him in the face and not outright groping him during the aftermath of an assault. “Seems to me as if it should be extremely important to you what I like. And that I don’t fuck on first dates. You’ve a favorite cuisine?”

In disbelief Patel had to ask, to know: “You’re serious?”

Had Nathan seriously strung Patel along about how impending his future rape was? Yes, he had.

“Sure am. Haven’t paid any attention to what they’re feeding you here,” Nathan replied, pretending for the moment that it was that simple. (It was true that he hadn’t paid attention to Patel’s food intake, though, beyond directing that he was most definitely meant to be fed and watered. Yes, including on request.)

Were that it was that simple.

That any of it was. It had been a long while since Nathan’d been on a date. Hookups were also a glaring “no” when he was a face that publicly cavorted around Chicago with its reigning mob boss.

Cruising would be too risky on entirely too many levels. That one bloke had flipped when he saw Nathan’s gun—thought he was there for a hate crime.

Sleeping with the product of any given pimp would effectively be outing himself. Too much networking went on there.

Lastly, sleeping with an independent prostitute wouldn’t be much better than any of the above. It would, however, be a bit better. Nathan occasionally made it work, even if he couldn't say that he'd done so recently.

He also engaged in cruising if he had the time to be outside of the city by a generous amount; also, if at those same times he was willing to toss the dice on finding someone suitable. Local areas could be inscrutable. People with pimps did not come with a warning sign that said “rumour mill here.” There were too many ifs, really.

Taken together Nathan hadn’t been mindlessly fucking in a while and had not been on a date in an exceedingly longer while. But good food was meant to go together with good company, and good company went so much better alongside good fucking. And Nathan hadn't even worked backwards from the good fucking point to get to the idea of a date with Patel.

He’d tossed the date idea out there because he knew he’d be taking a lot of Patel’s time and knew he would feed him, during, but piecing it together like that sparked something—possessiveness?—in Nathan’ belly. It made him want the date.

Patel, not unreasonably, was staring again. “You are serious,” he said. That time he sounded like he believed it. “You just—like screwing with—me. That much.”

“I do,” Nathan affirmed. “We’ll have to be discreet. And the after dinner activity is a surprise. But if you want anything specific, let me know now. Also: I meant to open the floor to general questions. You should have how we work figured out by the date, Patel.

“Ask away now,” Nathan commanded.

Patel shifted in discomfort. Nathan felt him on that. The shower floor was an unenjoyable place to be sitting down, as every place except for the sets had been this morning. Nathan’s shift included pushing his hips up and pelvis forward, which caused Patel’s shifting to become erratic.

Although Nathan couldn’t even reach him right from this angle.

“Take two minutes. I’m going to get dressed. Then you’re going to get back to me on all of that.” Nathan stood.

“Yeah. Yes. Of course,” Patel replied from his spot on the floor. The second Nathan had granted him the room to, his legs reordered themselves into a ready position, leaving Patel on the one knee and with a foot solidly under him, and his arms braced against the wall, nevermind that it was behind him—he wanted to bolt, and his body knew that being able to push and run were the survival-responses to that anxious feeling.

Nathan left Patel where he was on the floor.

It was a matter of professional diligence to be able to re-arm himself within a timeframe less than that of two minutes. By the time Patel emerged from the shower ten or so minutes later—no skin off of Nathan’s back, he had his new-fangled cellphone available along with a backup pager and used both devices to get back to work, his work chiefly hinging on knowledge—Nathan was dressed in his suit, his holster, and his holster contained a loaded firearm.

Patel froze. Stared in an obvious way.

Really made Nathan want to quip about all that hot water going to waste and what else he could do to thaw him. “Bullets are for people who don’t suck my dick,” he went with instead.

Then Nathan ran a hand across his face, because it’s not as if Patel had truly listened that well in terms of obeying orders. Patel was still pushing, still learning. “Correction: Bullets are best reserved for people who have never sucked me off,” Nathan said. “You have. You can nevermind the gun.”

“‘Nevermind the deadly weapon,’ he says,” Patel replied, sotto voce. Louder, then, “Unless I test you?”

Nathan breathed out deeply, relaxed his shoulders. “Testing me would mean actually attacking me. Or deciding to go to the press. Whatever other forms of resistance you want, I want. Sincerely. Worst case, you give me my excuses.”

It should be noted that Patel was holding his sopping wet undergarments in front of his person, in front of the proper place that they’d be worn. He nevertheless eyed the clothes—his own, folded—that Nathan was standing between him and.

“Wanna talk more out there?” Nathan tilted his head towards the exercise room. “Or more in here?” he offered. “Or I can fuck off and we don’t need to talk at all.”

“Just—let me get dressed,” Patel answered, taking a hesitant step closer. He left it at that, waiting on Nathan to respect him before he took another self-initiated action. Like a wind-up doll.

“Sure.” Nathan nodded as one would in greeting and went to go wait some more.

He barely minded the waiting. It pleasantly juxtaposed his usual day—real violence was sudden, was actually something he preferred to avoid where possible, and if patience could offset it? Absolutely. It was another of those little things that he would make use of to get the sex that he wanted.

Sadistic as it was.

He probably would not have broken any of Patel's bones, even without their agreement. Yes, that was a bluff, was the thought considered.

Patel didn’t take his time exiting back into the small gym, though; went twice as quickly as he could change, only having to put clothes on, then he was dressed and sharing a room with Nathan.

He edged between the changing room doors and the adjacent wall that held the lone door out into the hallways. Of course he would. Nathan veered towards the windows and as out of the way as he could be.

“You won’t—uh. Our date, you won’t do anything during it? Or, like, right after?” Patel asked. Because despite how he felt about Nathan, despite his confusion and horror—both of which must’ve been dulling the other, depending—Nathan was his source of information.

Nathan shrugged, limiting the motion to one shoulder. “Here’s hoping the date goes well and we get a kiss in. Wanna watch French cinema or horror?”

Patel blinked. “Dinner and a movie?”

“Why not?”

“I—why? Not like, why are you horri—”

“Horny?” Nathan supplied, when Patel ran into an actual loss of words. And before he could run into more wrong ones. Or make this about the wrong things.

Nathan watched as Patel’s jaw clenched, anger at Nathan’s lackadaisical attitude making itself known.

Both of Patel’s shoulders jerked upwards, next. Like he wanted to hug himself. He forced his arms to stay by his sides. Made himself stay in control of his body. “You, I get that you’re. Fucked up worse than me. And you like it when I resist?”

“Uh-huh,” Nathan supplied.

“Then a date seems like a set up?” Patel laid bare, honesty absolutely striking.

Nathan mentally debated his answer. He felt a bit bad making Patel wait, but at least the younger man wasn’t quaking in his boots anymore. If Nathan booked him a decent massage, Patel might even hold his body normally once the tension left.

Maybe.

Maybe not a thing he’d do anymore.

Finally, Nathan settled on some turnabout, saying, “You’re an honest sort, Santosh. Your body certainly is. Your words just then, they’re upfront—too upfront—about what you’re afraid of.” Nathan, his own posture relaxed—professional, though, due to the suit and longstanding training about how to act in uniform—tapped his pointer finger against his leg, thinking. “Reality of the matter is this: You’re a diversion for me. Yes, I’m taking my pleasure certain ways—when I’m taking it from you. There’s a few movies I haven’t had the time for, but if I pull double duty on my pleasures, well. I get more done across both tasks. It's that simple. Maybe I get less done in one than in the other. So, the more you play along the more I’ll focus on the other thing. Consider yourself a distraction to a distraction.”

If Patel did have footware than Nathan held no doubt it would've been thrown at him at some point before now. 

“I—fine. But what will that look like?” Patel asked, pleading.

“I have a few ideas bouncing around. Remember how I said you could negotiate the big things?” Nathan prompted.

“Of course.” Patel was stood a few feet from the door by now, close to escaping. But far enough to keep it and Nathan in his field of vision.

Nathan wondered if Patel consciously realized what was driving his decisions. If he knew why he wasn’t already sprinting? And if Patel did know, if he was that aware, did he also know that Nathan was deliberate in the soft-touch aspect of things? In making it so that the two of them could talk. He knew about the way that Nathan liked him resisting once he was onboard.

He’d piece it all together. Eventually.

That he could run and the worst Nathan would do was chase. Then, Patel pinned, he’d do more of the same.

That last bit was probably the bit that worried him, actually. This was an instance where more was worse.

“Well. Let’s say kissing ain’t a big deal. Come’ere and show me how you’ll manage for later.” Nathan would help him get to more sooner. Of course. They could kiss on their date, too.

“I’d, uh. Love to be done for today? And when will our date be.” Patel inched towards the door.

Nathan sighed. After this long spent playing? Patel was still trying to opt out early. When I know he's a good team player. It made for much more work. Nathan walked to the door himself, Patel stuck off to the side. Opening the door, Nathan saw what—or rather who—he was expecting.

The man he’d had deliver Patel to him stood in the hallway, at rest and ready to deliver any orders to Nathan should the need arise. He steadily ignored that the door had opened—which Nathan guessed, from experience on guard duty, meant he must’ve been paying attention, waiting for it. Otherwise he’d’ve jumped.

“Edmund, right?” Nathan called out.

“Yessir. Rawlins,” Edmund added. All without looking.

“I recall.” Nathan did, too. Edmund had a brother on the force. “You know why you brought Patel up here, right?”

“Yessir,” Edmund replied, terse.

Nathan jerked his head to the side, a motion that correctly indicated to Edmund to get the fuck over here. He stepped out of the doorway too, back into the gymnasium.

Edmund followed, smartly closing the door behind him.

Nathan was exceedingly glad that the glass on it, a necessity for the modern door, was frosted.

Patel was breathing audibly—from the few feet away that Edmund and Nathan now were.

“Mr. Hendricks—” Patel interposed.

“Quiet,” Nathan interrupted. “Edmund, screw plausible deniability—do you want a go?”

Edmund glanced to the side, neck otherwise stock-still and quickly returning to an at rest pose. He’d picked that up in Marcone’s employment. “Thank you, but no.”

“The—fuck,” Patel started with. Genuinely offended (finally moreso than hurt).

“Jus’ sorting some things out,” Nathan replied. To Edmund, “Need guard detail for mine and his date. Does anytime in the next few weeks work for you?”

Edmund grit his teeth, replying—in much the same vein as Patel—“Whenever, Sir.”

Nathan stared at him, steadfastly ignoring Patel. “You know what you’re guarding against?”

“I’d assume,” and here Edmund grimaced, glancing at Patel, “your ‘date’ running off.”

The disgust in that word: “Date.”

Edmund did know, then.

Not to mention the bit about running off. Knew and disapproved.

“Great.” Now Nathan looked at Patel. “You asked when, I’m sorting out when. You pick. Tell me when our date is.”

Patel couldn’t determine where to look: Nathan, who wandered some metres back into the room, or the embarrassingly present Edmund.

Witnesses tended to make issues stick more.

“I—”

Nathan interrupted, “You’re about to contradict me in front of another person, is what you’re about to do.”

“Yeah, and? That wasn’t on your precious list of things I couldn’t fucking do,” Patel huffed out.

Nathan smiled, a brief flash. There was the trap he wanted to spring in pushing Patel like he was, and spring it he did. “Know what else wasn’t?”

“What?” Anger gave way to confusion, Patel aware of how much he could get screwed over any new second.

“Maybe this’ll tell you: Edmund,” Nathan again redirected his speech towards the man standing like a statue in the doorway. “Tell our friend here why ya thought I’d keep you out of this.”

This time Edmund didn’t glance Patel’s way. “My brother is a police officer. He’s on some special investigations team for the people they—we—can’t corrupt. Or don’ want to.”

“So, Patel. You see any way out of any of this for ya?” Nathan asked, approximating the casual cadence of his criminal cohort.

“No. I don’t. Next week. Let’s go on our date next week. Anything after that and.” Patel stopped. Deflated. “I can’t hold up for that long.”

“No, I don’t expect that you could,” Nathan replied. “If you want to, you can go to the police.”

Edmund’s mouth twitched. He held his tongue, though, from whatever he could say.

“I can’t,” Patel answered. He added, “And even if I did, what would it change? That was your point, wasn’t it?” Patel barrelled forward talking, not wanting an answer. “And I’m vegetarian, not that you care. And we should watch a comedy. You’re less likely to mistake it for porn.”

Nathan processed the words. If he wanted to watch porn, he’d have said. Maybe as an after show. ‘Cept he could just live it out after, too.

“I’ll see what I can find,” Nathan said. It was a concession, seeing as comedy hadn’t been an option when he'd told Patel to pick. But there were enough concessions from Patel that Nathan threw his own in. He’d throw in another one, too. “Doesn’t he have a mouth on him?” Nathan directed towards Edmund.

“I wouldn’t know.” Edmund was looking past all of them.

Patel probably hated him for blocking the door. And for Nathan offering him up to the other person. Again, taller than him. Able to force Patel on his own, really.

“See, funny thing is that neither would I. Patel here declined kissing me.” Nathan said nothing about the other places he’d gotten Patel’s lips to go. “Figured I’d give him options.” Nathan stared at Patel again and, blank faced, asked, “How am I doing?”

Patel, for all he wasn't moving, may as well have had nails in his feet. “Fuck you,” he mumbled.

And for his expression after saying that, may as well have thought that nails were an actual risk. He still risked it.

Edmund twisted towards the door, a jerky mix of protracted and weightlessly hollowed out and stuck. “I’ll wait—”

“Stay,” Nathan told him. “You’re one of the options.”

“I’m not—” Patel snapped out. He cut himself off. More calmly, he continued, “I’m not doing shit with someone who doesn’t want it.”

Nathan replied simply, “I do.” We can both be team players.

Patel stared at Nathan, contempt born from humiliation in his eyes. “Great for you.” Patel screwed his courage together, then, and marched stiff-legged towards the door.

“Edmund, gotta practice run for you,” Nathan said. He didn’t move himself.

Patel tried to push past him. Edmund tried not to let him.

Neither ended up applying much force and Patel was barred at the door.

“See, this right here is a good result,” Nathan said into the tense silence. “Patel, gotta hand it to you on not forcing things. Edmund, you don’t hurt him unless I say. Got it?”

Edmund was gripping Patel’s arms, the end result of attempting to literally hold him in place. He gripped tighter at the implication that he may be asked to hurt Patel. “Got it.” Didn’t let go, however. Protective?

Patel was pretty copacetic, too. Keeping Edmund's face outta his sights from so desperately wanting to ignore him, there wasn't much choice. He couldn’t even resist correctly.

“Fuck you,” Patel repeated. Louder that time

To which Edmund (lightly) pushed him away. Treating him as if he were contaminated or might make Nathan go nuclear.

Nathan finally, finally walked over to Patel himself. Still at the point closest to the exit, Patel stayed rooted. “What do you think, Patel: Did you give me a reason.”

Nathan stepped closer; Patel’s hands came up to hold against his torso. It was a failed attempt at pushing him away.

(Edmund woulda been blocking anyone from using the door ‘cause of how he was leaning into it. Nathan ignored Edmund. Who was rather right to keep quiet.)

All this started when you said you’d do anything, Nathan thought of Patel. Wasn’t one of those thoughts he’d share and he was still waiting on an answer: Had Patel given a reason to have Nathan hurt him?

“‘Honestly,’ fuck you,” Patel repeated. Finally in the right tone, too. “You’re testing me.”

“Yes, I am,” Nathan replied.

“But nothing—nothing—I did fit what you said I,” Patel almost cried. “Can’t do,” he mumbled.

“Not really, no,” Nathan replied. He leaned down, then, and planted a kiss atop Patel’s wet hair. Grabbed one of his arms below the elbow and shook Patel so that the other arm lowered. Stopped stopping Nathan. Slid his free hand up Patel’s back and—

Tugged his hair.

Kissed him on the mouth.

Enjoyed it, closed-lipped and fairly certain this secret wouldn’t spill out.

Patel’s lips weren’t chapped. But rather they were torn in places. He had been biting at them.

Nathan pressed more, ‘til he knew he was imprinting Patel’s teeth against the back of his lip. Snuck his tongue out between his own teeth because no one could close their mouth enough that their lips couldn’t be sipped at—

Patel sucked his lips between his own teeth.

Right. Fantasy, met reality. Nathan continued kissing at the inordinately and insubordinately closed mouth.

Got spit on his deliberately, because he could. Because Patel might just feel clean from the shower, and he shouldn't.

Released his grip on Patel’s hair, next—

Immediately, Patel jerked backwards. He ended up stepping on Edmunds foot to a muffled “fuck.”

Was pushed back towards Nathan and steadied himself.

Nathan smiled. He was looking down at Patel and smiling. “But you are supposed to listen to the little things. They won’t hurt you. And learn to negotiate.” Nathan poked his tongue between his lips and when he retreated back into his mouth with Patel's taste—too much copper—very obviously smacked said lips together. “Repeating ‘fuck you,’ is not negotiating.” Nathan, pleased Patel’s arm was still in his hand, hummed a thoughtful sound. “Can’t think of anything else you need to know for our date. Can you?”

Patel blinked hard, trying to clear some obstruction in his vision away. Or see something that was stuck in his head. Finally, though, he finally got it. He listened. He learned. “No. And actually. Since we don’t need to talk at all, can you fuck off now?” He swallowed, then. “That was—that was something you said you could do?”

“Sure.” Nathan patted Patel’s arm and let go. “Feel free to ask Edmund here to relay any questions you find you have unanswered.” It would be fun to see what Patel could come up with. Which degrees of freedom he constrained himself to. “And don’t try to decide for yourself when we are done. I do that.”

“Right.” Patel spun on his heels, so close to the door. This time Edmund moved.

Patel left.

Edmund stayed in the room. That was good. Probably hadn’t seen the prelude to this kind of act happen with his own eyes before and known it at the time. Couldn’t blame him for being shocked.

Clicking his tongue and grabbing himself Edmund’s attention, Nathan ordered: “There’s some boxers in the showers. Clean them up and return them.”

“To—of course. Yessir.” Edmund hurried away.

Was Henry Rawlins younger brother. Nice to Patel. Looked nice.

Altogether it meant he was fun to tease, but not passable fun to play with.

And if Rawlins acted outta sorts next time S.I. and Nathan’s kind crossed paths, that detail would be well worth knowing. Determined if Edmund was trustworthy and, if not, whether his family would cross the necessary lines to protect him. Rawlins was generally a smart cop and stayed on his side—however, smart and moral together might change where he stood. Especially the more knowledge he had.

And S.I. had recently became rather important to operations. Turns out that Nathan and the boss had missed a few rather large details about how reality was. And that it included the supernatural.

Nathan liked people better. There were fewer monsters.

Like Edmund. Edmund could be nice to Patel. Or so one could hope. Having a friend might keep Patel in the right mood.