W&W 43

Firehawk and Nightwolf performed a forbidden rite with the help of a mysterious "stranger". Now they get to relax---right?

All through the hell of his childhood, Carson had clung to color and form, the sweet power of creating images. Even when the darkangel had noticed and perverted this gift, it was incapable of taking his pleasure utterly away. The boy had just moved to surrealism, abstracts---strange and awful works that he rendered in blood and shredded flesh for a time.

Now, he composed his masterpiece. He was staggered at the beauty of it no less than he was stunned by his own happiness. There is nothing left now but flight itself, he thought wildly.

Shaking, he dipped his fingers into the bright sweet colors that replaced oil paints on Khesh. Blue and gold, he brushed the runes lightly onto the chest of the man who sprawled across his bed, shackled to him by a sparkling wristlet of gossamer steel.

Keith arced into his touch, grinning slightly. "Think of a wonderful thought," he sang annoyingly. "Any happy little thought---" If his voice hadn't been so bewitching it would have been easier to be angry with him. If it hadn't been so glorious to have him there, being himself and caroling out some foolish movie tune in response to Carson's errant thoughts.

And for one faultless moment, they WERE Keith and Carson. Nothing more or less, despite their otherworld surroundings. The dancing light of the braziers scattered through the tent might instead have been the flickering of television, partly ignored as they wrapped around each other on Keith's battered flea-market couch.

Time faltered and bent. Memory because almost tangible as it joined the pattern of Now in a silent, colorful working they barely noticed, so focused were they on each other.

Energy crackled between them, and not only through the enchanted metal of their new and forbidden Bonding. Mindtouch, almost forgotten, sizzled like faulty wiring as it sought to return to life. Carson laughed despite himself, fear barely a memory now---though one he carefully docketed in the extensive dark journal of his past knowledge. "Still you make jokes," he whispered. "Shut up, fool. Do you understand what just happened? We defied the gods and won. And YOU defeated a thing so awful you should be in trauma for at least a few minutes! Be serious for once!"

"No fucking way in hell," Keith responded brightly. "Don't you get it yet, Carse? That's how you kill the monsters." He reached up with his uncuffed hand as if to stroke his lover's face. Instead he tapped Nightwolf's nose gently but briskly. "You laugh at them," he said in a voice of honey and smoke. "Trust me, they fucking hate that."

Carson closed his eyes tightly. A wave of love so powerful it approached agony nearly jerked a sob from him. It wouldn't do, to offer Keith that in return for his matchless courage.

Instead, after a moment, he opened his eyes and snorted gently. "You are modest as always! And with all the answers to everything." You ARE everything, my fire angel, my life---he bit back hard on saying this aloud, and the effort made him whimper slightly.

Keith's eyes sparked. "All the answers but one," he agreed softly, and the warchief paused curiously in his artwork. Then he gasped as Keith's free hand slipped between his legs and cupped his balls firmly. "The question being---are you gonna paint me or fuck me, warrior boy? I'm open to both, just so you know."

It took him a long, shuddering moment to answer as passion roared through him. His fingers slipped on the rune he'd been stroking onto his lover's chest, changing its meaning slightly from what he'd intended.

He never noticed the mistake, because Hawk chose that moment to squeeze him (with an expression of malicious innocence almost as intoxicating as the touch!) and all Carson's self-discipline vanished.

Control he owned at last beyond anything human, and he used it in even minor things, just to prove that he could. He had become a tyrant of all he did and thought, even in matters as minor as a choice of music, what he ate, how he flavored his coffee. He always mastered his actions, often cutting them down ruthlessly and doing the opposite of what he strongly desired. His emotions, too, he in general leashed strictly. It was a strike against the Darkangel of his youth, the creature who had negligently---and so easily---used his feelings like a toy.

Only Keith made him weaken. And with Keith, he leashed himself simply because he understood that revealing too much emotion would alarm his lover.

But he'd been using that skill for the last few weeks to restrain the Darkangel, not to prolong a sexual encounter or make his lover more comfortable.

I cannot hold back anymore, not against you, Lanisha. The relief is too much, the temptation is *far* too much! And you drive me crazy, why did you touch--- I can't stop this, if I hurt you I'll---!

"Nothing wrong with a quickie," the redhead whispered to him in reassurance as he growled and mounted the smaller man helplessly. "Finestkind, in fact, after fighting a turd like that!" There was a light touch on his face, the kind of caress Keith rarely offered him.

He grunted in response. To his eternal shame, he could do nothing else as he pinned his lover down and drove into him as hard and fast as possible. He convulsed within minutes, gushing forth and crying out like a rabid animal that had finally fed on blood.

He immediately pulled out and away, shuddering at memories not related to Keith in the slightest, already regretting the lost tenderness. Before he could hate himself fully, Keith sat up as suddenly as a switchblade being flicked open. The wizard cracked him upside the head with a doubled fist and a vigor more suited to an angry enemy than a loving Bonded.

"Don't you dare start yelling 'sorry' to me for that!" Keith hissed. "You big stupid jackass! What do I have to do to convince you I love it when you go crazy on me? I'm not a ten year old girl, I'm not breakable, dammit, and you don't have to ask politely ever time you boink me especially after shit like that so STOP WORRYING GODAMMIT!"

Carson glared back into flashing green eyes, clamping down the churning rush of anger and guilt until finally, amusement won over and he chuckled ruefully. He had, indeed, been about to ask for forgiveness vehemently! But not for the reasons Keith thought.

Carson willed himself to relax even as he pulled his indignant lover closer. His unsatisfied lover, he noted wistfully. He really did owe an apology for not even worrying about Keith's pleasure in the rush of his own. But he wasn't idiot enough to mention it given the wizard's current temper!

Instead, he touched Keith's cheek lightly with the tips of his fingers, in a kind of wonder at all the things he found behind the man's angry eyes and offended expression. He smiled, a little crookedly. "I do not wish to be so much---a warchief, with you," he admitted quietly. So much a monster, was his real thought, but that could not be said! "Sometimes, it's hard to remember that you don't hate me for it." It wasn't quite apologetic enough to get him into trouble, yet enough to let Keith understand. He hoped.

The wizard paused, mouth at half-blast, to stare back at him. Then suddenly, Keith's face was buried in his shoulder and the redhead was gabbling crazily. Unthinkingly?

As fast as Firehawk spoke in certain parts, Carson had excellent hearing and a slightly imperfect mind-touch. The chill metal of their cuffed hands was a live wire between them. He missed virtually nothing.

"Fuckin' idiot. What the hell. Haven't we beeninlove for long enough by now to where you know Iloveitwhenyouwantme dammit? I was scared off my ass thatI'dloseyou and if you hadn't jumped me I'd be offended as hell so go bite yourself with this 'sorry' crap and makelovenotwar, you dumbass---warchief!"

As the wizard's jerky speech dribbled to a self-conscious halt, a warm calm filled Nightwolf's soul, soothing the places the darkangel had rubbed raw in its struggle for mastery. Carson buried his face silently in Keith's hair, inhaled the smoky cinnamon spice of it. He ghosted a breath into the elf's ear, felt the other man shudder helplessly. He smiled as his lover cursed and pulled back reluctantly. "No fair, the ears are no fair!"

"So. And how fair is the rib cage?" he inquired with amusement, lifting a brow in conscious imitation of a television character named Spock.

Keith looked exasperated. "Ribs," he stated scorchingly, "are *human* body parts! And not a push-button for most people, unlike elf ears! If fast is what you're after, dude, let me suggest a direct attack on the dick for once." He couldn't hold his annoyance for long; a sly grin flickered as he glanced up at Carson, trying to look beseeching and succeeding only in appearing smug.

The warchief reached for him, fighting back his own grin as Keith's expression turned disgusted. The dark-haired man had gently grasped Keith's uncuffed hand, ignoring the erection being banged significantly against his leg. He studied the fingers gravely as his lover fumed. Long but definitely not fragile, still slightly calloused on the tips although guitar practice had become minimal in this world. Wickedly, Carson pressed his mouth to Keith's knuckles. Just as the redhead drew a breath to complain, Carson innocently curled his tongue around the forefinger.

Keith's planned bitch-fest dissolved into a startled sound that from anyone else would've been a whimper. He covered this immediately with a storm of talking, but too late---Nightwolf's eyes glimmered with interest, and he inhaled another finger to test his theory.

"Jesus! What the---oh, man. Er. Dick. I said DICK not, not----whatever you're doing---oh, shit---are you TASTING me? Oh---wow."

The last couple of words were distinctly feeble, and trailed off into something unintelligible as Carson's tongue slithered over Keith's palm and then gently back to his now shaking fingers.

"Well, well. I am always discovering new things with you, lanisha," the warchief murmured. "It seems a shame, though, that you hid this preference from me for so long. It would have been a wonderful thing to know of in Berkeley! We could have done---this---rather more publicly, it seems." The tease in his voice was wicked.

"Bite me," Keith growled automatically, then he squalled as Nightwolf obligingly nipped the tip of his finger. "I mean! Didn't know myself till----wow---stop, Carse. I can't---think---when you---" His eyes fell closed, and a spasm claimed his body. "Yeh," he panted when he could, "no one woulda been at all---freaked---to see you nibbling on my hands, that happens all the omigawd! where we come from---"

Carson turned slightly, letting Keith's erection push against his body as he carefully, almost reverently, mouthed the wizard's fingers one after the other, tangling velvet licks with tender bites. He watched with grave pleasure as a slight flush touched his lover's cheeks, a clear signal that Keith was very close indeed to ecstasy. Aroused again himself, the warrior abandoned his attack and fell back on the bed, wrapping his huge hands around the slim elf's backside to both steady him and pull him closer.

A good grip on his butt, apparently, was all Keith required at this point. He fell forward with a muffled cry that he tried desperately to turn into a swear word. One moist hand tangled in the spill of Nightwolf's hair across the furs as Firehawk pushed himself hard against his lover; once, twice, yet again; increasingly slippery and gasping, but obviously trying to hold back and prove he could beat the control freak this time!

Nightwolf, delighted and inflamed, chose to actively cheat even as Keith so often did. His hand slipped between the wizard's legs and he tickled his lover's balls with innocent stealth.

Firehawk's eyes snapped open like green lasers frosted with gold-dust; his curse this time was shocked but hardly muffled. Then his eyes *closed* just as dramatically and he came hard, pressing backwards into Carson's firm grip and gasping out unprintable remarks about perverts in general and warrior perverts specifically!

He collapsed, then, with perhaps a shred of overdone drama, and if he'd been filleted and boned. Carson smiled gently, caressing the limp body that draped him. His own arousal was once again overwhelming, but now he was capable of----waiting.

"I know you're there, Elven Prince," he murmured quietly. "I saw you, smirking from his eyes. And while I thank you for your help in this---I believe you have played the voyeur long enough. Leave us to our privacy, now. If you please." And I hope you understand, for all your drama and power and dazzle---I find the man I know to be a thousand times more enchanting and desirable than you. A part of him you may be---but not as significant as you fancy yourself, truly.

For a moment, Keith lay still except for his light, panting breath, loose and seemingly unaware. Then he stirred, very slowly, as a golden shimmer laid itself across his naked body like a cloak. Nightwolf watched critically as the elf straightened and moved back from him with chilling grace, baring teeth as white and sharp as cat's claws in the dark.

"Rude you are," the creature murmured in bewitching, silver tones. "But attractive anyway---that is lucky!" His smile widened as he reached for the warchief, who drew back with a quelling look. "Nay, let me. One thing only---then I leave you, since you mislike my company so! But the rite must be sealed, and only I know the full key." His fingers mockingly reached for Carson's half-engorged sex, and though the blue eyes narrowed hotly, the warchief let the Elven Prince stroke him, gathering what he needed.

"Now attend." Kef grinned, as if delighted at this mortal's displeasure. He brushed his fingers through the wetness on his own torso, mingling what he had taken from Nightwolf with what was there.

Purple fire like a misty rope leaped up on the instant, bathing his body and lighting up the warchief's nether regions as well. Nightwolf stiffened, and his eyes became mere slits of blue flame, but he would show no overt amazement in front of this---this arrogant *elf*!

Kef's eyes, the chilly green of crème de menthe, fastened on the warrior with mockery. "Strong and untamed," he murmured dreamily. He might have been speaking of the man who glowered at him, the magic that rose around them like amethyst smoke dusted with diamonds, or the weather miles away near the Jewelfoam Ocean. "Give your hand, you muscle of the North."

The elf hissed impatiently when Carson merely continued glaring, his temper likely not improved by the title. "It must find a direction or it will dissipate!" he snapped sharply. "Give the hand with the binding, against his!" He raised his cuffed wrist significantly, and after a beat Nightwolf slowly offered his arm.

"I was not aware that there was more to this," he observed in a grim tone meant as warning. Kef merely smirked, not at all intimidated as he clanked his cuff against the one binding the dark-haired giant.

"Piffle. The things that humans 'are not aware of' would fill the Books of Time and Space, and overpopulate the world if they became solid matter. The list of what they *know* is easier to count; that can be done on three fingers only!" So saying, Kef hooked his own fingers into the thinning violet miasma, and it shuddered and froze at his touch. It was an almost solid, jewel-like film that he tugged against the cuffs, teasing it down the chain so that for an instant the metal dripped with fantasy color.

Carson would have been relatively unimpressed save for two factors. One was the instant, melting pain in his wrist as something like a cold electrical charge drove into his flesh and then his vein, burrowing its way towards his heart with the avidity of a maddened piranha. He jerked back instinctively, to find his lover's face kissing close to his, eyes dripping green gold fire.

"Do not fight it," the Elven Prince advised almost calmly; his breath against Carson's face was chill yet amazingly sweet, cherries mixed with frost. "Ride with it; fly into each other as if on a journey into a wondrous, unknown realm. To be afraid is not a weakness, so long as you complete the task." The beautiful, mocking face smiled crookedly, as if knowing what it said next would not be liked. "Be an elf, warchief. If only for this hour, be an elf for him."

"I am not, nor ever will be, an Elf!" Carson growled, reaching abruptly for Kef's flowing hair and catching it in an iron grip as if to jerk it and break the redhead's neck. "And I am not afraid. Except of treachery and in that case---"

"You will kill me, so? In your lover's body? I think I will recover from that faster than he will!" Kef's smoky-silk voice was delighted with the new game.

"You promised this was no possession!" The warchief snarled, then steadied his emotions with an effort, glaring at this not-quite-Keith with eyes of azure iron. It was true, he could do nothing but trust this creature now, until Keith was returned to him. His veins were filling with chilly, liquid light and hot smoking rivers. It was---not an unpleasant feeling, though danger lapped through it like the scorch of a magic blade. It was binding him to Keith with threads of starmetal and sorcery.

But it was a bond forged solely of magick. There was nothing human in it, nothing! It was as cold as this elfish mocker grinning at him through Keith's eyes.

He bent his arrogant, dark head and closed his eyes. Remembering, and forcing those memories into his and Keith's blood along with the violet drug of Bonding.

He thought of their first time together, of finally managing to urge the nervous, rather wild-eyed teacher with the over-long reddish-gold hair and wire spectacles to possess him. It was months before the spell that had pushed them into wizard and warrior; no, that had happened later, when he had reversed their roles to take his master. That time he'd been the reluctant one, sure he would lose control and hurt the older man, but wanting it badly enough to agree that, if a spell against pain and damage could be crafted---

A pain that was half pleasure sang through his veins as the starmetal gushed through both their bodies, as Keith's mind stirred without warning, catching Carson's memories and batting them aside as he remembered the moment in his own unique way. There was a slightly exasperated sound from Kef---who doubtless did not like being removed from the center of attention. And then for a glorious and endless time Nightwolf the Slayer returned to Berkeley, a laugh finally escaping his grim lips as he saw the "romance" of their first time through his lover's eyes.

*Writhing together on my couch. He'd finally knocked the remote out of my hand in sheer frustration, pinned me down into the soft flocked velvet. "Stop watching the fucking television! I want you to fuck me!"

We'd been necking for an hour. I still wasn't sure about my ability to "fuck him." Just the coarseness of his request proved how frantic he was for it; hearts and flowers had got up and left, tucking their leaves between their legs I bet.

No romance in this. Just need, want---harsh demands. He was gonna brain me it I didn't do it. Shit, I'd never done a guy before; I mean, I knew what went where but I sure wasn't practiced at whatever finer points there might be.

He'd been with me---how long? I dunno. Kept me damn busy. I hadn't graded one fucking test paper. In fact, I couldn't remember what the test was *about*. Hell, maybe my class would get a late Christmas present---straight A's for nothing.

"Carson," I whispered, and he growled, expecting another "Dude, let's just do the usual, right?" And he might have gotten it, I still was waffling.

He whipped his upper body back, stared down at me with eyes blue and hot as gas flame, scorching and intense. The movement pushed the throbbing swell of his crotch against me, and just like that my decision was made.

I could hear the lick of heat in my own voice as I said almost conversationally, "Clothes. Off. Lubricant. Where?"

He smiled above me, a feral baring of teeth, and damn if the boy didn't reach beneath the couch cushion and pull out a small tube from where he'd probably stashed it a week ago

"Now that's smooth, Carse," I panted, as we did our best to struggle free of clothes without totally losing body contact. "How'd you (grunt, oof! Get yer knee outta my balls dammit!) know we'd end up doin' it on the couch?"

He was beyond speech, but his eyes flickered into mine half-wild, half-laughing, and suddenly through mind-touch I knew. The amount of money he'd spent on slippery stuff made me gasp. And it was only sheer luck that had kept me from stumbling on one or other of the 25 treasure troves tucked handy to every part of my house in which two bodies could possibly screw.

"I got me a Boy Scout," I snickered, twirling off the cap and cussing as goo squirted everywhere with my enthusiastic squeeze. "Always prepared---and you're just about to be. C'mere, babe. I'm gonna light your fire at long last----Damn, wish I'd printed off that web page!"

Yadda yadda yadda. That was me, too horny to know what silly shit I was saying, but shut up? Never. I could talk and multi-task, thank you kindly!

And I did talk almost all through---cheering myself on, don't cha know, through this new, exciting but very scary experience---

Until, finally inside him, some wave caught me in its roaring undertow and I lost the power of speech for the first time in my life, ever---

Nightwolf raised his head slowly, and stared into his lover's dancing emerald eyes. He, too, smiled. Partly, from the delightful fact that Keith and only Keith looked back at him thought those eyes. Whether annoyed, insulted or merely bored stiff by Keith's irreverent memories, Intyrykef had gone for the moment.

"I remember our first time somewhat differently," Nightwolf murmured, and Keith leaned into him for a kiss, nipping the full lower lip gently. "And without the song quotes!"

"Yeh, I saw your version. Man, if I'd known just what soap opera, romance-novel dribble you was thinking at me there, I woulda lost that erection before I even got it and run for the hills!"

They looked at each other silently, smiling in the same way. A bit too sappy for Keith McIntyre; a little too wickedly humorous for the dreaded Nightwolf.

They were together, blood and bone. The magic had done its work at last; the cuffs around their wrists were slowly fading, would disappear entirely over the hours as the last of the magic trickled into them.

Then, their pleased expressions disappeared as a kilted figure with a bobbing black mohawk burst through the tent door with neither a polite warning first, nor apology afterward. "My lord king!" Le'gahn cried importantly. "The Easterners---they're here, and not for war, to parley! The lady Sa'thal bids you---"

"Bids me?" Nightwolf interrupted, mildly for him but with an edge in his voice that froze the youngster like a blade to his throat.

The boy had forgotten in his youthful excitement that no matter what the news, bursting unannounced into the Warchief's tent ranked fairly high on the list of interesting ways to commit suicide.

Carson felt Keith's hand on his arm, the gentle squeeze calming the thick rise of killing rage as it had done since his teenaged years.

"'S'okay, kid. We do need to go out anyways, Carse. To show our people. Before the binding fades," the wizard of the Shadow Riders added quietly, to his faintly scowling Bonded.

"Any other small details or bits of information you plan to impart to me?" Nightwolf growled. "Please tell me the whole of it now, just so I won't go insane expecting some sex any time soon!"

He was astonished when the wizard burst into careless, delighted laughter and flung himself against the huge, naked warrior to hug him hard.

Le'gahn wasn't all that astonished when the warchief bent a slow, reluctant smile on his lover and mussed the bright hair with a gentle hand.

Nobody could resist Firehawk, not even the Slayer himself. And he remembered to thank Odin for this blessing as he used Nightwolf's distraction to slip unobtrusively out of the tent and hustle away.

He'd interrupted the warchief in a "boink", he was sure of it. If his hair hadn't already been standing pretty much on end just from the nature of its style, it would have done so now! By the gods, the next time Sa'thal needed a message delivered to Nightwolf in a rush she could damned well take it herself!

"Sex on a stick," the boy grinned happily, pleased to remember the Earther phrase. "Felkar'nish," he added in Tribal, automatically translating to the closest equivalent. The breath of beauty that wild things hold.