Hello. Because no one had commented yet, so I could, I deleted the latest update and am reposting it below after making some niggly word choice edits that were keeping me awake. >>108 >>109 >>111 it makes me so happy to read stuff like this. I seriously just do this for the comments, because they feed me. Tell me everything. Show me on the doll where I touched you. I'm really glad 111 said what they did about "feeling like Sniper does sometimes". That's the ultimate compliment--if at any point, I can reflect anything of the human condition, I have accomplished my goal, no matter how briefly. This fic is loosely written with inspiration from my own codependent, dysfunctional, abusive relationships with extraordinarily charming, extraordinarily destructive men. I learned my lessons the hard way. Sniper may have to meet the same fate. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- PART XVIII Spy and Sniper both looked down. The young man was grinning, wild-eyed. “Snipes, you been fuckin’ the RED spy all this time? Holy shit, man. Brass balls.†He turned from Sniper to Spy. “And that lil’ speech was goddamn incredible! It’s like I got the Joker sittin’ on me! C’mon man, let’s do this thing.†He fondled the agent’s hips, smiling hugely. “Vingt-Deux. Maybe someone has been paying attention, after all.†Spy was looking down at Scout with authentic surprise. The runner put his hands behind his head casually, beaming. “You do not fear death?†“What’s the fuckin’ point of that? It’s like you said—I’ll be back in thirty seconds.†“That is precisely it. Canardeur?†He looked up at Sniper, who shook his head. “You two are bloody batshit.†The dim, blue eyes—four of them, now—glinted at him in the darkening room. Spy was helping Scout to his knees, and they settled together on the floor, the latter half-draped across the older man’s lap. “Ha! Whatever, chief. I quit havin’ this fight a long time ago. No one in this fuckin’ place seems to give a shit that we straight up can’t die anymore.†“Of course we can die! We die all the time!†“Maybe you do. Not all of us have to play grabass with our arch nemesis just to get our scores up. Kidding!†Scout glanced up at the agent, who smiled a tiny smile. “I mean, I was just playin’ my part earlier, beggin’ for mercy and all that; that’s like the whole point. But uh, Snipes…seriously, man. Get with the program. You’re Superman now, yanno?†“Think I like you better without the pills, mate.†Scout frowned. “They’re for my headaches, asshole.†“Yeah, likely. Those ‘headaches’ are what the rest of us call ‘reasoned thinking’ and it isn’t bloody reasonable to just throw up your hands and decide you ‘don’t care’ about dying anymore, no matter what sci-fi bullshit comes with this job! It isn’t—well, it just isn’t bloody human.†“Cher, you are the one being unreasonable—it is unreasonable to, when faced with immortality, pretend that it does not exist. Pretend that the human condition still applies to you. Pretend that you are anything other than what you are: a warrior who awoke in Valhalla.†Sniper, kneeling there on the thin carpet, facing down his monstrous lover and the lost boy, had the sense of a thing greater than himself, looming into the room. Abruptly, ruefully, Spy shook his head. He proffered a graceful glove. “Come here, kochanie—this is very dull talk for a party; c'est la barbe! So let us celebrate. To hell with philosophy. Here is a fat young boy for us to feast upon, yes?†Spy jostled and stroked the scout like a cat. He continued, unctuous, and Sniper felt the knots uncoiling in his guts as the rich voice unrolled. “And we do not even have to be gentle with him; what a treat. Come, cher. Scout, do you have more of that gasoline you call ‘whisky’? Let us entertain my dear, dear friend. Dolcezzo mio, please come to me.†Sniper crawled to them, and accepted the gloved hand, and then the drinks, and was soon intoxicated with both. There was nowhere else to go. -=- The rest of the evening, and well into the night, was spent destroying Scout’s room. The mattress dragged off the bedframe and onto the floor; piles of red and blue garments; spilled drinks; careless ashtrays. The boy threw himself on the mercies of his master, begging and babbling until he was gagged with the much-abused silk tie. Spy met his squirming eagerness with measured restraint, and restraints, binding the lad in all manner of inventive pretzels, teasing him tirelessly. Scout’s shirt met a sad end, cut from him in strips. Barechested, his hands bound behind him with the remains, his eyes fluttered and rolled as Spy taught his gunman lover to sensitize the compact, pink nipples with a series of hard pinches and delicate licks. The expert bent the boy over both their laps and beat the thighs and buttocks with firm, leathered blows. Gloves ran up and down the muscular legs, which blushed with pain, and chafed the prickling heat there, eliciting groans of enjoyment. Sniper watched with fuzzy interest as his agent took the tenderized boy to the mattress on the floor, rolled him onto his front, fixed his pants, cut his bonds, and took a few steps back. “Take me, if you can.†Scout grinned wolfishly, rubbing his wrists and wiping drool off his face where the tie had wicked it. The scuffle was heated, brief, and gorgeous. Scout dropped the older man to the mattress with a quick sweep of his legs, but Spy was like a cat: more dangerous on his back, and when the lad fell on him, he was ensnared instantly. He caught up Scout’s wrists again, pinning them up painfully between his shoulderblades with one hand, tsking the while. “Non, non. Sloppy work, petit. You are in quite the pickle now, yes?†The captor slid his free hand under the lad’s waistband at the back, pulling until the trousers came free of the still-pink buttocks and the insistent erection. Scout squirmed happily. “Whatcha gonna do, pervert?†He leaned into Spy’s ear, his voice breathy. “You’re hurtin’ me, y’know.†“I regret that it is necessary. But you have left me no choice.†Spy’s free hand began to caress between the buttocks as he played along. “What I am about to do to you, is so shameful, so incredibly humiliating, that you would not possibly allow me to proceed, were you to become unsecured.†“Jeez, that’s horrible! Surely there is some way to protect my honor.†Scout practically waggled his eyebrows. “My darling, you could attempt to kiss me. I have been known to feel merciful after a truly excellent kiss. But remember, your reputation is at stake—spare no expense.†Sniper was too drunk to roll his eyes, so he settled for taking a seat against the wall with a good view, and helped himself to another drink. He watched the matched mouths of the combatants, listened to the music from the record player, to the hums and rustlings and little gasps. Finally they came up for air. Scout turned to look at Sniper. “I don’t think it worked, man.†“Why’s that?†“He’s still a frog.†Sniper frowned. Scout was biting his lips. They both started to laugh at the same time, and Scout was still laughing when his wrestling partner flipped him onto his back, and pried him out of the rest of his clothes. “You will pay for that remark, fanfaron.†Spy slapped him playfully, and pointed a warning finger. “Stay.†Leaving his toy on the mattress, he approached Sniper and crouched down. He laid one glove on Sniper’s cheek. “Come, this is supposed to be fun… Oh, заÑц, I know this is difficult for you—think how it was for me.†He laid one hand on his chest, and there was pain in his eyes. Sniper added a little guilt to the awkward miasma sloshing through his brain. “Look at him. Yes, just turn and look.†Spy was whispering, sitting close. “He is exquisite. That supple mouth; those burning eyes. I understand completely, why you succumbed to the temptation.†He stood up, giving Sniper a hand. “When you could not have the whole thing, you found what pieces you could.†He did not offer to explain this last, cryptic comment, merely kissed the drunken gunman on the mouth. He tasted of smoke, yes, but also whisky and boy-sweat. A little later, Sniper held the young man’s torso in his lap, a hand behind either of his knees, pulling them up and apart. Spy knelt before them, very slowly unfastening his trousers, savoring the noises of impatient greed and adoration from his gagged boy. Scout’s hands were tied together in front of him, and he grappled with his own arousal as best he could. “Hold him still.†Spy held his gloves out to Sniper, who bit their fingertips and pulled them off, tossing them aside. Bare, vaguely seamed with the pink stamp of the stitching, they moved like purblind cave creatures across the straining legs. Scout’s toes flexed and curled as beautiful fingernails scraped the dorsal planes of his thighs, dipping inward to taunt his vulnerable recesses. Spy was murmuring wistfully, fading from French to Italian, and through dark languages indefinable by either of the other men. Both listened, watching the monster's mouth moisten each syllable, feeling the low growl of utterances that could not have been filthier if they were perfectly translated. He brimmed with this poetry, and it spilled from him, and they were heavy with it, and Scout kept quiet, to listen, even when slickened fingers insisted that he yield, that he suck and clench and finally relax, quivering, waiting. There was some English, as Spy unrolled the condom, but it succumbed to the declarations of war that Germans call ‘language’, when the barbarian arrived at the gate. Pressing, pressing, and sinking, sliding, and fucking the tense, sweating young thing, but slowly, and now the poems of swallowed consonants, of decaying vowels, a pace measured not in inches, but in milimeters—because after all, the French invented the metric system.