by Heidi Belleau;Ally Blue;Kari Gregg;Peter Hansen;Laylah Hunter;Brien Michaels;Sam Schooler
He spent the second day anxious, so much so that Nora asked him if he was coming down with a fever. After the boys returned from their work and were in their beds, Tobias locked the house down and went back to Clark Street, his eyes peeled for any sign of David on the way in. There was none, so Tobias slipped inside the pub and found himself a table—still no David—where he could avoid the majority of the bartender’s glares.
He planned to offer David his options just the way Mr. Ashmedai had offered them to him. Except now the question would be, “How badly do you want to live?”
If David showed up. Which he hadn’t, while around Tobias the pub was slowly filling with men of the same caliber as always: working-class, sweaty and loud with pints in both hands. They sang, they drank more, they danced, they chattered with unrestrained, booming voices. Tobias saw other mary-anns flitting through the crowd, offering themselves with their simple presence.
And then he saw David.
David, who was even paler than he had been two nights previous. Who passed inside like a ghost, and who paused just past the threshold to observe the crowd with sunken eyes. He was holding himself stiffly, robbed of the leonine grace from when he’d seduced that man in front of Tobias. There was no doubt that he was here to hunt, however, and it was obvious when someone caught his eye. He angled his body, ready to move towards them, but then his line of sight passed over Tobias.
David’s lips parted. Tobias was held in place by his eyes, the roar of the pub fading. For a moment, he was certain that he never wanted to escape David’s gaze, but when he stood to go greet him, David was the one who turned away.
“Wait!” Tobias hurriedly snatched up his cloak and pushed into the crowd. “David!” He was turning heads, but he couldn’t bring himself to care when he was so close to sparing himself days’ worth of wondering.
“Leave me alone,” David said when Tobias came close enough. His pretty brown eyes were narrowed, and he drew into himself, backed up to a table. “I don’t want to talk to you, Tobias. Why are you even here?”
“I was looking for you,” Tobias said. “I just want to talk.”
“I just wanted to talk, too.” David edged out from between Tobias and the table. There was a wheezing rattle under his voice. “You proved yourself incapable of civil conversation, remember? Find some other unfortunate to inflict your moralizing on.”
Tobias reached for David’s elbow, intent on keeping him there, and David reared back so violently that he nearly fell, and only managed to save himself by catching one hand on a table.
“David,” Tobias said, stunned despite himself. David was so weak. So fragile. So unlike the boy full of vitality and mischief he’d once been.
“I told you to leave me alone.” David had a hand to his chest, and he coughed deeply, wetly, before looking up at David from under the fringe of his blond hair.
“I only want—”
“I don’t care what you want!” David stepped away again, swaying on his feet.
Tobias couldn’t let this sickly man walk away from him into his death, not when he alone held the key to David’s salvation. “It’s a matter of life and death, David.”
David’s expression hardened. “It was a matter of life and death the night before last, too.”
Tobias’s heart squeezed. Started up again, faster than before. So this was what desperation felt like. “Please,” he said, and he could have apologised for his behaviour, for losing his temper, but somehow the words stuck in his throat. “You said when you looked sicker, your trade would dry up. You look sicker now.”
David swallowed hard, eyes widening in silent, surprised fury. He didn’t speak. Maybe he was too stunned to. Or perhaps he knew that Tobias was right, and thus couldn’t muster an offended response.
“So what if I paid you? What’s your going rate?” Tobias fumbled through his pockets, pulling out a wad of bills and practically shoving them all into David’s hands. “I’ll double it. Just speak with me. Let me tell you what I’ve come here to say.”
David wet his pale lips, eyes shifty as he thought it over, clearly tempted by the proposition. And then he nodded. “It’s four shillings, then. That’s double. Come with me.” He turned.
Relief and fear crashed simultaneously through Tobias’s body. “Come with you? Where? Why can’t we go back to my table?”
“Because,” David said, an odd glint in his eye, “what you’re paying me for, I don’t do in the light. So come on.”
“Wait—” Tobias was wary of what David thought was happening, but David was already making his way to the door, determination apparently overriding his body’s frailty. Tobias had no choice but to follow David farther down the street, until he ducked into an alleyway. When Tobias came in after him, David was standing with his arms crossed over his chest.
“Here.” David’s voice was strained. “Here is where I do it, Tobias. Against a wall or on my knees in a fucking puddle. Here’s the reality of my debauched, hedonistic life. Here’s what you think I chose.” He put out his hands to either side of him, gesturing as expansively as a showman.
“You did choose,” Tobias insisted, but found himself mumbling, without conviction. Who would choose this? It wasn’t the taboo temptation he’d imagined as he sat in the pew, praying. This was no romantic reveling in sin. There was a dead cat on the cobblestones, crawling with flies. Some ingrate had pissed recently, filling the narrow space with an acrid smell.
And at the center of it all was David, so small, so pale, so drawn. Sick.
Even if . . . even if David enjoyed men, he couldn’t enjoy men like this, in a dank alleyway with no tenderness given to him. Tobias had imagined his hands over David’s, his mouth on David’s. He was sure the men who patronised him didn’t often want those same things.
“So here we are,” David said shakily. “You paid for me, so how do you want me? Against the wall, or in the puddle?”
“I just wanted to talk.” Tobias’s voice was as stricken as David’s. He realised he was on the verge of tears. Grief, not fury.
“They don’t pay me to talk. Why should you?” David’s soft mouth was drawn in, like he was biting the inside of his lips. He hugged himself. It was cold out here. Damp. He wouldn’t last long in conditions like these. The illness would progress quicker in such a poor environment.
“Is it terrible, what they make you do?” Tobias reached out to put a hand on David’s shoulder, suddenly desperate to touch him, to reassure him, to lend him a tiny scrap of warmth.
“Not always.” David’s expression was strangely coy as he peered up at Tobias from under his lashes. “Sometimes, when they’re kind, when they’re good-looking, it can even be good. But then, even those times they’re still a punter. It’s nothing like it was with you.”
With me.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” He’d meant it to come out scandalised, affronted by the implications, but instead he squeaked.
“Yes you do.” David sounded weary. “I know you do. And I also know that it . . . tears at you. I see it all the time, in my work. Angry men, men who try to punish me, when the one they really want to punish is themselves. How old are you now, Tobias?”
“T-twenty-one this past August.”
“And still without a wife? And no prospects, either?”
“I’m married to my work.” It was a weak protest. “The boys keep me— I mean, I have to do my best. For them. I’ve a cook. And a maid. My house isn’t without a feminine influence.”
“Tobias.” David sighed out his name. Not calling him, simply saying it with an ages-old tone of . . . of disappointment. “I’ve been honest with you. At least do me the honour of responding in kind. Answer me this: What went between us as boys . . . How do you remember it? What does it mean to you?”
Tobias stiffened. “I . . .” His judgement of it seemed harsh now, while he was looking at David. Looking into his eyes. Seeing his wasted body, but sorely missing the vision he’d once been. “I se
e— I saw it as a failure,” he said finally. “A mistake. A child’s failing.”
David’s face fell. “Then there’s nothing for us here. I should go.” He pulled his shoulders back, seemingly at great effort, and made to walk past Tobias and out into the street again.
No!
Tobias’s hand shot out of its own accord, snatching David by his small wrist. “No, David. Please.” He swallowed. “Please don’t go.”
David said Tobias’s name again, quiet and racked with confusion. “I don’t know what you want from me,” he muttered, leaving his wrist in Tobias’s hold without complaint. Or was he just too weak to struggle? “Tobias, we . . . we do this—we go in circles. Ever since then. Always. Because you can’t . . .” He broke off, the muscles in his jaw ticking. “I don’t know what else I can give to you.”
Give me a promise you won’t kneel for another man in this alley. Give me a promise you’ll turn away from your sins.
Repent or die.
But Tobias found he no longer wanted any of those things. Didn’t want to give David that fateful choice.
No, not “give,” because the choice wasn’t a gift.
Tobias no longer wanted to force David to make that choice.
Because what if he didn’t choose to live?
Tobias wanted David to live.
He was still holding David by the wrist. David’s skin had warmed under his touch. “How do you remember it?” he asked, too quiet. “What went between us as boys. What did it mean to you?”
David’s gaze softened, was watery and wistful and distant, as if he was looking over Tobias’s shoulder and into their shared past. That warmth in his expression—Tobias felt it too, when he was too soft to fight it.
“You were my first love,” David said at last. “The standard by which all other men are measured. The dream I could never have but could never wake up from, either.”
“Love,” Tobias said, stunned, turning the word over in his mouth like a stone. “Love. You said love.”
“Did you think a whore couldn’t love?”
“You never kissed me.” Touched him, yes, set flames under his skin, yes. Lust. Not love.
David made a faint noise in his throat. “Because I liked it too much when you kissed me. It was the one thing you gave to me.”
It was true. Tobias had always been the one to kiss David first. Because he couldn’t stand to do the things they did without it. Couldn’t stand not kissing David. It had driven him to the point of madness, to desperation, had driven him right past his scruples and into David’s mouth.
He’d wanted to kiss David. Wanted it so badly that nothing else mattered.
And there, in that filthy alley, Tobias was the first to kiss David again.
David made that noise again, needier this time, and his hands came up to fist in Tobias’s cloak. He swayed back and Tobias caught him, his arm sliding around David’s shoulders to keep him close. Feeling him like this, helpless from one kiss, made Tobias want to shelter him, want to erase the hurt from all the men who had sought to punish him in their own stead. Including himself. Especially himself.
And he’d wanted David to repent?
“Tobias—” David gasped when Tobias moved away. His hands clenched, shaking from the strain.
Tobias drew David immediately back into his chest and eased him against the alley wall, letting it take his weight.
“It was love for me, too,” Tobias admitted. “And I . . . I thought something was wrong with me. I tried to fight it, tried to escape it, but I felt it more and more keenly with every passing year. I blamed you. I thought you’d tainted me somehow. I was wrong. I was wrong. Forgive me, David, I was wrong.”
David tipped his head back, exposing the pale line of his throat, which bobbed when he swallowed. Tobias wanted to put his mouth there. More than that, though, he wanted to put his mouth back on David’s—so he did, and David’s lips parted for him. Tobias licked into his mouth, finding it as cool as the rest of him. Like he was half-dead already—already losing vitality, already untethering from the world.
“I forgive you,” David said when they broke apart. “Tobias. I do.” His eyes shone. When Tobias moved in closer, he felt David’s prick hard against his thigh. “I don’t have long to live. I won’t spend what time I do have hating you.”
“And if you had . . . if you had more time?” Tobias’s mouth was dry. Parched. He felt like he’d walked forty days in the desert. He let a hand slide down to cradle the curve of David’s hip, then let it pass inward, over the fastenings of his trousers. They had done things like this when they were younger—not just the touching, but the way they were standing, close together with one of David’s thighs finding its way between Tobias’s. His body remembered this. Knew it still.
David shuddered, his hips flexing forward. “Then . . .” he panted, reaching for Tobias’s trousers. “Then I’d make you do something every day, for the rest of our days, to earn my forgiveness.”
“Your brother.” Tobias buckled forward when David got a hand on him at last, flesh on flesh, David’s fingers closing so well around his cock and stroking hard, David’s thumb slicking over the slit of it and drawing another sound from Tobias. “I’ll see him cared for. Whatever he needs, I’ll provide it. Whatever the cost, I’ll pay it. Oh.” He pressed his forehead to David’s shoulder, his grip on David slipping and finally failing when David said his name brokenly, coaxing him to release.
Yes. Whatever the cost.
Tobias shuddered, grasped at David’s shoulders, mouthed a cry into the side of his neck. Spent himself into David’s hand, the way he’d done in their youth.
Whatever Mr. Ashmedai asked of him, Tobias would give. He wouldn’t tell David, not now, but he could hide his true promise inside another.
While Tobias was dizzy from the afterburn of his orgasm, David pulled his hand back from Tobias’s trousers and slid his arm around Tobias’s neck, hugging him with what little strength he still had. “That’ll do,” he said with a soft laugh. “I’d say that’s payment enough.”
Hardly. Not after what Tobias had put David through, the way he’d treated him.
But then, Tobias wasn’t planning on limiting his repentance to one act.
Yes, he’d barter for David’s life, no matter the price. And then, when that life was secured, he’d spend the rest of it making amends.
Tomorrow was the third day. Tobias had Mr. Ashmedai’s answer.
Tobias arrived at the church a little past eleven in the evening and let himself in. He and David had parted ways last night with a promise to meet again at the Red Cock the night after this one. If this worked, if Mr. Ashmedai kept his promise, if he truly held a cure, then the David that Tobias would meet tomorrow would be healed. The shake in his body would be gone, the sallow colour taken from his face, and he would possess the strength he’d had as a boy—perhaps even more, given what he’d come through.
At the head of the church were the familiar racks of candles situated before the altar, and Tobias was reaching for a lighting stick before he saw that the same three candles he had lit for himself were still flickering.
Of course, not the same three candles. Those would have burned out long before now.
Tobias lit three more, then turned to survey the quiet church. The rows of pews were cast in shadow, and the alcoves above were darker, utterly silent. No light was cast through the church’s enormous stained glass windows—the only light in this entire place came from the candle racks and the red glass tabernacle that hung close to the altar.
He waited. Waited. When he at last went to sit in a pew, it had to be past midnight. Out of habit, he took the same pew that he had been in last time, and touched the same Bible he’d prayed next to.
“So I see you’ve come to a decision,” Mr. Ashmedai said.
Tobias startled and turned. Mr. Ashmedai was seated behind him, watching him patiently.
“I—I didn’t hear you come in.”
“Most don’
t.” Mr. Ashmedai had his left leg crossed over his right, and the toe of his shoe moved in a slow, rhythmic circle. His cane was spread over his lap. He looked down at it, apparently fascinated, and then looked up and met Tobias’s eyes. His own—right, Tobias hadn’t forgotten that they were that cold, swallowing black, and now they were narrowed. “Did you have trouble making up your mind?”
Tobias shrugged halfheartedly. The same cool feeling swelled at the base of his spine—restlessness and anxious anticipation. “Wouldn’t anyone?” he said.
Mr. Ashmedai mimicked Tobias’s shrug, then reached out a hand. “So tell me your answer.”
Tobias clasped their hands together. “Yes. I’ll do it.”
Something passed between their hands, some fluctuation of the air, and Mr. Ashmedai took his hand back. “Tell me,” he said. “Is this a decision you made, or is this the decision David made?”
Tobias stared at him, taken aback. How could he have known? Tobias hadn’t even told David, let alone Mr. Ashmedai—it had only been in his mind. A thought. And then he remembered their first meeting: the overheard prayer, the words Tobias had been so sure he hadn’t said aloud, and yet Mr. Ashmedai had heard them just the same. A sinister, unearthly power. Had Tobias sensed it? Felt the long shadow of dark magic cool across his back? Was that why he’d so easily accepted that Mr. Ashmedai could cure an incurable disease? He’d never doubted it, not for a second, and now the thought gave him chills. And yet, despite the encroaching danger, he couldn’t bring himself to back out of the deal. For David, he would face that primal fear. “I— No, this is my decision. I didn’t tell David.”
“But you wanted to,” Mr. Ashmedai uncrossed his legs and leaned forward. Tobias leaned away, wary. Mr. Ashmedai propped his elbows on his knees and folded his long fingers together. “Didn’t you.”
“It’s only fair,” Tobias said. He refused to feel guilty—not for considering passing on the burden of choice, and not for changing his mind when he’d realised David’s answer may not have been the one he wanted to hear.
“Fair? Is it really?” Mr. Ashmedai cocked his head. “I would think that telling him would place an undue burden on him, don’t you?” His eyes bored into Tobias. In the gloom of the church, they were completely black, like staring into a deep well. Like Tobias could call into him and hear echoes in return.
