Doesn't Mean Anything

by slr2moons

Heine finds himself in a savage fight for dominance against Giovanni, who is determined to "help" Heine for his own good. Non con warning!

A/N: Written for Yuletide 2011. My recipient's request boiled down to, "I'd like this bloody, and violent, and messed up. Non-con or dub-con on Haine's part is fine by me." I aim to please, so let's do this! *rolls up sleeves*

WARNING: This dark!fic contains graphic violence, torture, bondage, D/s, and rape. Please back button now if any of those squick or trigger you. This fic has been edited to try to keep it within this site's content guidelines. About 200 words were either glossed over or removed, all from the sex scene. If you'd like to read the original version, you will find the link to it at AO3 on my profile page.

Set in volume 2 during the calm before the storm, and contains spoilers through volume 6. All name spellings are taken from the licensed NA release by Viz, as that is what I own. Many thanks to my wonderful beta, Stariceling. Any errors left in this fic are entirely my own. This is a work of fanfiction and has nothing to do with the original or licensed versions of canon in any whatsoever.

.oOo.

Doesn't Mean Anything (Fucking Giovanni)

Both Heine and Badou felt rather relaxed when they stepped out of Mamma Liza's gym. The mutant thugs they had thwarted earlier had been a bunch of yipping lap dogs. A single baleful sneer and the sight of Heine's guns aimed at their boss' eyes had been enough to run them off. With their literal tails between their legs, as Badou had observed with a smirk. Now Badou had a fat envelope full of his second favorite thing in the world and was already plotting how he would spend it—cigarettes, food, and booze, in that order. Heine had turned down most of his half, as usual, and was blissfully thinking about nothing at all. He followed his friend along the street on autopilot, watching Badou's shadow flicker in all the different angles of light that dribbled through the perpetual gloom of the underground.

"That peaceful look doesn't suit you at all."

Heine froze mid-step.

"Your face looks much better with a spattering of blood across it. Preferably your own." The last words were breathed disturbingly warm and much too close into his ear.

Heine whirled, drawing both his guns and almost roaring out, "Giovanni!"

The other man stood there, stance casual, dressed in his usual fitted suit, tie, and the inscectoid mirror sunglasses. Not one strand of his bowl-cut hair was out of place. The sight of him and everything he represented made Heine want to start shooting.

Giovanni hummed an appreciative noise and grinned. "That's more like it! Fury is much prettier on you. Though you still lack the blood." He deliberately licked his lips, and Heine's right eye twitched. "I can help you with that, next time I'm here in the flesh." The grin stretched into a suggestive leer.

"Shut up." Heine's surroundings came back into focus. The handful of people who had previously been around him on the street had all scuttled away at the sight of drawn weapons. A few seemed excited at the promise of violence, others afraid, and one looked rather bored with the world, but all were staring at him with varying levels of unease...like he was crazy. Like he was talking to someone who wasn't there.

Which, of course, was reality. If Giovanni had been there, Heine would now be full of bullet holes. The certainty of that was almost comforting.

Behind him, Badou had noticed the commotion. "Hey, Heine. Something going on?"

"Yeah, Heine, what is going on? You're not hallucinating, are you?" Giovanni mockingly drawled. He rocked back on his heels, hands in pockets, and looked quite pleased with himself.

Heine shoved his guns into their holsters and whirled away from the projection. "It's nothing. Thought I saw a rat. A sniveling little bug-eyed rat." He heard a snort from behind.

"Named Giovanni?" Badou asked with an eyebrow raised. He resumed walking, took a drag from his cigarette, and called over his shoulder in a smoky breath, "Better you point your guns at a rat than some random chick, I suppose. All that high-pitched shrieking is bad for business."

With a scowl, Heine caught up with him. "I have never pointed my guns at a woman who wasn't trying to shoot me first." He flashed back to the lab, the endless fights and one insane female scientist. "Or doing something else to kill me," he muttered. A scuff of boot against pavement made him look up to see Giovanni, now walking backwards in front of them, avidly watching their conversation.

Heine fought the urge to snarl at him, while Badou continued on, blissfully unaware of the eavesdropper.

"Yeah, but the way you react to them, it's only a matter of time." The redhead sighed. "I can see it now: some pregnant mommy trips and falls, grabs your arm on instinct, and you use your heroic reflexes to shoot her in the face." His expression became pained. "I don't want to think about what happens next."

"I think I do," Giovanni remarked. "Lynch mobs are so much fun. How many do you think you'd kill before they caught you?" His face brightened. "But what is this about you and women?"

Heine felt himself begin to bristle and tried to calm down. "It's nothing," he said firmly. He didn't know if he was addressing himself, Badou, Giovanni, or all three of them.

"It's not nothing," Badou retorted. He paused at the entrance to the train station that ran topside, and Giovanni took advantage of the moment to slide his arm around Badou's neck.

"I agree with Eyepatch here, Heine. It's not nothing, and I want to know more." He studied Badou's profile. "Please, do continue."

Badou unknowingly obliged. "I'm just saying this irrational fear you've got is a problem. You're fine when it's another guy. Why do you completely freak out when you're touched by a chick?"

"What?" Giovanni jerked away in shock, staring first at Badou, then quickly over at Heine. "You panic when a woman touches you? Really?" He started to laugh, lightly in disbelief at first, then in growing delight. "And I'll bet I can guess why, too! Professor Einstürzen's gonna love that!"

Anger flared up like a bonfire inside Heine, both at the extremely unwelcome conversation and at Giovanni having witnessed it. "Piss off!" Heine really did snarl this time.

Badou raised his hands in a calming gesture. "Whoa. I'll leave in a minute." He took one last drag on his cigarette before dropping it to the pavement and grinding it out with a foot. "It's just..." he trailed off when he saw Heine's expression. "Look, man. If you ever want to talk about it, you know where to find me."

"You can always talk about it with me, Heine! Who else in the world could possibly understand your trauma?" Giovanni patted Badou on the shoulder. "Eyepatch means well, but he simply doesn't share our...unusual perspective on the female of the species."

For several moments, Heine couldn't find the words to respond to either his current or past partner. He clenched his hands into fists and forced himself to breathe evenly. "Drop it," he grated out.

"Yeah, sure." Badou retreated a step, then turned and continued towards the station entrance. "Later, Heine," he said, voice carefully nonchalant.

Heine pivoted and stalked away, determined to leave the conversation and Giovanni behind.

"Hey, Heine."

He pushed into jog.

"Heine!"

The jog increased to a sprint. The instant Heine ducked into an alley, Giovanni appeared in front of him. Heine skidded to a stop.

"I'm in your head, shit-for-brains. You can't outrun me. And I sure as hell am not going to let you outrun that conversation." Giovanni grinned at him. "It has too much potential for fun."

"Fuck off, Giovanni," Heine growled. He reached behind and clamped his hands on his guns' grips. Drawing them wouldn't do any good against a mental projection, just like running hadn't, but both helped him feel better.

Giovanni took a step closer. "I'd noticed you'd lost your edge, when we finally met face-to-face again. Now I think I know why."

"I don't give a shit. Go away."

Another step and he was within touching distance. He leaned forward, and Heine refused to back off. Heine studied his reflection in Giovanni's sunglasses—red eyes, white hair, an angry slash of mouth-and wondered how Giovanni planned to mess with him this time.

"It's gotta be rough, not being able to bear a woman's touch."

Heine showed him a vicious smile. "Yet somehow I manage to go on."

Giovanni cocked his head. "Do you? Tell me, Heine. If you can't stand being touched by a woman, if you panic so badly your partner fears you'll shoot someone, then..." A third step and he was so close Heine's mind insisted he could sense Giovanni's body heat. "...how do you get off? Sexually, I mean. I must know."

Heine stared at him, dumbstruck. Of all the directions his once-friend could have taken, of all the ways that particular conversation could have been twisted and used for torment, this was not what he had expected.

Giovanni waited several seconds for an answer, then pursed his lips. "Damn, Heine. Ouch."

The anger came howling back up inside him, and he drew both his guns as he leaped away. "I told you to fuck off, Giovanni!"

"Not just yet." Giovanni closed the distance between them again, bumping his chest against the gun barrels. "We were designed to be beautiful. You must have had people show interest. Did you blow them all off? Did you even notice them?"

Heine was so furious that he didn't bother to lie. "What do I care about their interest? I will never let anyone that close to me!"

"Let anyone close to you? Really?" Giovanni grinned, ducked his head, and pulled down his sunglasses to gaze up at Heine through his bangs. Heine could only see the slightest glint of his eyes. "Awww, are you a romantic at heart, Heine? How cute."

Heine pressed the trigger on his right gun, the white Mauser C-96. The bullet rocketed through Giovanni, ricocheted off the building behind him, and vanished somewhere in the alley's depths.

Giovanni laughed, completely unharmed.

Heine expressed his frustration in a meaningless bellow.

"It's just sex, Heine. And you need some." He stepped close again, to the side this time, and sidled around to whisper, "You don't have to be close to fuck. You don't even have to like the person. A stranger, an acquaintance, an enemy." At the last word, he touched Heine's neck. A gentle stroke of his thumb that nudged beneath the bandage hiding Heine's collar from the world.

Heine's control snapped. He whirled and depressed both triggers. The alley exploded with the sound of shots and ricochets, two of which hit him. The pain barely registered. "Fuck off, Giovanni!" he roared.

"I'll take that as a promise, Heine!" Giovanni's laughter filled Heine's mind as the projection broke apart, dissolving into the clouds of gun smoke, dust, and fog from Heine's healing that filled the alley.

Breathing hard and trembling with adrenalin, Heine replaced his emptied clips with loaded ones, returned the guns to their holsters, and backed up to lean against the wall. He rubbed his hands over his face, then shuddered and placed a hand over his neck where Giovanni's touch seemed to linger.

"Fucking Giovanni," he choked out. He pressed his thumb into the skin next to his collar, which was beginning to ache. It always ached after he had to deal with Giovanni. The bastard.

"I like that guy," the voice spoke up from the depths of Heine's consciousness. Führer, the brutal personality unintentionally imprinted upon Heine's Kerberos Spine in his last day under Professor Einstürzen's control. "He brings out the best in you."

"Shut up."

Führer chuckled. "That conversation went on so long, I was beginning to think you liked him, too. But then I realized it's only that you don't know when someone's hitting on you."

"Shut up! I've had enough of psycho berserkers today."

That earned him a round of dark laughter. "I could say the same." A last, low chuckle, and Führer vanished into the Spine, no doubt content to have had the last word.

Heine snarled ineffectually and jabbed his thumb into his neck, but the angle was wrong, and the ache around his collar worsened. With a muffled sound of distaste, he tried to shake off his reaction to Giovanni's touch. He banished the entire encounter from his mind, refusing to think about it, until he reached his current dingy hotel room and was stripping down to shower.

He caught his reflection in the grimy mirror screwed to the wall over the sink. He used his shirt to wipe off the glass and studied what he could see of himself. Giovanni's words repeated in his mind, 'We were designed to be beautiful.' Heine scowled in puzzlement. He couldn't see it. He looked like himself: a bony albino with messy hair, a long scar down his spine, and a metal plate bolted onto the back of his neck. He did attract interest from others on a regular basis, but Heine never felt the desire to pursue anything. Particularly not when it meant bearing a stranger's intimate caress. His own hand had always been enough.

Though now he thought about it, Heine supposed it had been a while since he'd rubbed one out. He touched his neck again, then started when he realized that was where Giovanni's thumb had stroked. A strangled noise escaped him. "No. Not after that."

But he did.

.oOo.

Nil was the reason Heine found himself facing off with a man on an aboveground warehouse roof. Heine had zero interest in helping Naoto, but that afternoon she had come across a lead for learning more about her sword, and when Nil had found out where in the city that lead would take her new friend, the younger girl had been upset. Naoto had insisted she'd be fine on her own—and Heine happened to agree with her—but Nil had cast soulful looks upon them both. Naoto apparently had the same weakness towards Nil that Heine did, to their mutual irritation.

After three hours of canvassing, an argument with Naoto, one skirmish with thugs, a chase on foot, another argument with Naoto, a gunfight with different thugs, six dead bodies, a welcome parting of ways from Naoto, and a second chase, Heine had finally cornered one of the potential informants.

He'd also ended up in a very bad mood.

"Look, man! I don't know nothing about no sword!" the target pleaded in heaving breaths, moving away from Heine until he was almost at the waist-high wall around the roof's edge.

Heine's lip curled as he stalked forward, left gun drawn. "Sure you don't. Particularly since we never mentioned one."

It took a moment for the guy to realize his blunder. "Uh...I mean..." Heine was spared an undoubtedly brilliant explanation when the side of the man's head exploded, immediately followed by two more shots that hit both of Heine's thighs.

He staggered and fell against the barrier, catching himself with his free arm. He rolled over, hissing against the pain, and held himself upright with his braced forearm. He looked up to see the glint of sunglasses scarcely visible through the healing fog that curled around him, and beneath the glasses a maniac grin.

Two more bullets impacted his chest, knocking him against the wall. A third shot high in his chest and he began to overbalance. Heine toppled backwards. He remained conscious long enough to see Giovanni leap at him, still shooting and laughing, to ride him down to the ground.

.oOo.

Heine woke to the sensation of fingers tracing the outline of his collar upon his skin. They moved along the back of his neck, pressing as if they knew where he ached the most. He rolled his head to the side and bumped against something firm and warm that made a perfect headrest. The fingers continued their magic, and Heine sighed out in appreciation.

He heard a deep chuckle from above. Two heartbeats later, his eyes snapped open. First, he realized he was sitting on the floor with his back supported by a couch in a strange room, and his guns were not comfortingly under his ass. Second, when he tried to leap up and whirl to face whoever was behind him, he discovered his outstretched arms were chained at the wrist to the couch's front legs. Third, and by far the most unsettling fact, the source of the chuckle, the one whose fingers had been working his neck, and against whose inner thigh Heine had been so comfortingly resting his head...was Giovanni.

Heine threw himself forward again, and again his chained wrists jerked him down. He wrenched his neck around instead and tried to sink his teeth into Giovanni's leg, but the man jumped up with a laugh to stand out of reach on the couch, bounced to the floor, and delivered a full-force roundhouse kick to Heine's face. Heine had just enough presence of mind to turn his head and take the blow on the cheekbone. Only the chains prevented him from being sent flying.

"Calm down, Heine."

Reeling from the force of the impact, Heine pulled himself to sit upright again and leaned his back against the couch. He ran his tongue over his teeth and healing split lip, and then focused on Giovanni.

"Let me go."

Giovanni shook his head with a smile. "Nope." He drew one of his guns and shot Heine through his right thigh, in the same place he'd been shot on the roof.

Heine curved as far over his legs as he could and choked out, "You bastard!"

"'Let me go'," Giovanni mocked. "As if that ever works. Stop being stupid and use your brain for once." He tapped Heine on the forehead with the gun barrel.

Heine tried to head-butt him.

Giovanni easily evaded and shot Heine's left thigh, again in the same place as before. He grinned as Heine hissed against the pain. "That's right, I want you to really feel it." He ran a hand through Heine's hair, as if offering comfort.

Heine fiercely shook him off and went for the hand with his teeth. Giovanni used the butt of his gun to club him in the mouth.

"Haven't you figured it out yet? Think, shit-for-brains."

Heine spat out a mouthful of blood, and the fog generated by his healing puffed out with his words. "Fuck off, Giovanni!" This time, he used his freshly-hale right leg to lash out.

The movement lacked power. Giovanni lightly hopped over Heine and pivoted about. He shot a bullet across the back of the offending leg's knee, hamstringing it.

"I said calm down. I'll do the other one, too. And then this one again, after it heals. Then perhaps another round in the chest? It makes no difference to me. I like watching you bleed."

Writhing against the chains that held him bound, Heine gasped for air and used his other leg to keep himself upright against the couch. His vision went gray, and he rolled his eyes towards Giovanni, who bent close and waved a casual hand through the fog rising from Heine's right leg.

"Stop fighting, sit and behave like a good boy, and we can move on. Understand?"

Within the depths of Heine's mind, a voice rumbled, "Ohhhh, let me out..." Führer stepped from the shadows and licked his chops. "Come on, Heine. Let me out! He thinks he can subdue you, sure, but no way can he take me! I want to play with him!" The final words came out almost in a whine.

Heine blinked at Führer, then concentrated on the outside world, where Giovanni was waiting for an answer. He cautiously tensed his right leg to test the tendons and decided to stall for more time.

"No," he gritted out to both of them.

Führer expressed his displeasure with a malignant noise. Giovanni tilted his head, one eyebrow raised.

"No," Heine repeated. He continued, his voice growing steadier, "I don't understand. I thought you were under orders to bring me back. You told me so yourself. So why am I chained to a fucking couch?"

Giovanni grinned with clear anticipation. "You're not chained to the bed upstairs because this beautiful, teak, 300 years old, and appropriately named loveseat fit the bill perfectly for functionality, size, and sturdiness." He petted the couch's frame fondly.

Heine glared at him.

"Of course art would be wasted on you," Giovanni said with resignment. He pushed his sunglasses up his nose and crouched down on one knee, his face on a level with Heine's. "You are chained to this beautiful teak antique loveseat so I can generously help you with your problem."

"Right now, you're my problem." Heine wished Giovanni was still wearing the suit coat and tie. Either one would have made a perfect tooth-grip for mangling.

Giovanni pistol-whipped Heine's face again, breaking his nose and the skin across a cheek. While Heine slumped against the chains, Giovanni grasped his nose and set it with a jerk before it could heal crooked.

Heine cried out, and the fog that rose up as his nose and cheek healed made his eyes water.

Giovanni gave him a few moments to recover from the pain, then straddled Heine's thighs and sat on him. He grinned. "But mostly, Heine, I am here for me."

Heine lunged; Giovanni stopped him with two gun barrels to the forehead. "Bad dog. No biscuit." He shot both of Heine's shoulders simultaneously, knocking him back and crashing his skull against the couch's hard frame.

Heine almost blacked out again. One of the bullets had impacted and lodged in his shoulder blade, and when it arrived in his mouth for regurgitation, base reflex alone made him part his lips and let it spill out with a dribble of blood. He dazedly watched Führer pacing in a tight, spot-lit circle, whispering continuously, "Let me out let me out he's back and I want out to play let me out..."

Woozy from blood loss and the continuous healing, Heine barely registered Giovanni busying himself around him. The other man reloaded and then holstered his guns. Then he grabbed Heine's shirt collar and lifted his torso from the couch to place a large seat cushion behind him. He pulled off Heine's boots and socks and added them to where he had previously tossed Heine's jacket, neck bandage, and guns in their holsters. Then he grasped the drop sheet that was underneath Heine and tugged on it, moving it until the large pools of drying blood and bullet holes were no longer beneath him.

When Giovanni grabbed Heine's ankles and straightened him properly in front of the couch again, Heine realized the sheet had originally been placed off-center underneath him, leaving the middle and far side pristine. No doubt exactly as planned.

Fucking Giovanni.

Apparently finished, Giovanni sat on the floor next to Heine. He pulled out a handkerchief, wet it in his mouth, and used it to clean the blood off Heine's face. Heine grimaced and weakly tried to evade the cloth, but Giovanni used his other hand to hold his head steady. That was when Heine noticed the tell-tale bulge in Giovanni's pants. His pulse quickened.

"You sick bastard. Should have known you'd get off on twisted shit like this," Heine commented, his voice dripping with derision. "What does it for you? The blood or the bondage?"

Giovanni folded up the handkerchief and set it neatly on the floor. He braced his hands on his knees and gave Heine a smug little smile. "You have no idea, do you, Heine? While seeing you bloody and bound-all thanks to me-is very satisfying, it's satisfying because it is you."

That made Heine blink.

"Now relax. I want to see you all limp and languid."

Heine was grateful he knew exactly how to respond to that. He lurched upright, straining against the chains holding his wrists to the couch. "Fuck off!"

"Such a limited vocabulary you have, Heine," Giovanni tutted and pulled out a gun.

Heine flicked his eyes from Giovanni's face, to the Walther P38 now aimed at him, and back to Giovanni. Very slowly, and hating every moment of it, he settled against the cushion.

"Good boy." The smug smile reappeared. "And you will relax for me tonight, Heine. Just wait for it."

Heine bit down another sarcastic comment and chose to silently snarl.

"Where to begin? I suppose it's best to start with information. Tell me, Heine. How long has it been?"

"How long since what?"

In answer, Giovanni reached out with the hand not holding a gun and patted Heine's crotch.

Heine jerked his hips away in shock, his feet scrabbling at the sheet-covered floor. The gun still in Giovanni's hand caught his attention. Giovanni motioned with it, his meaning clear.

Heine returned to his previous position with an audible growl this time and glared at the opposite wall.

"Has it been a week? Or more?" Giovanni went on. Heine could hear the smile in his voice, and it made his skin crawl.

He swallowed and dared to admit the truth. "Not since the...chat...in that alley. With you."

When Giovanni didn't respond for several long seconds, Heine glanced at him.

The other man started. He pulled off his sunglasses, and Heine saw his brother's uncovered face for the first time in years. Not since his last, disastrous day in the lab had he seen red eyes belonging to someone else.

Giovanni looked different. Sharpened with age, more confident, and with somewhat shorter bangs, but...he still looked like Giovanni.

Giovanni was the one to break eye contact. He carefully set his glasses on top of his handkerchief on the floor. Then he turned back, and the quiet tension had vanished from him like it had never been. He cleared his throat to ask, "And before then?"

Heine watched him silently for a moment before he replied in a low voice, "I don't remember. I've had other things on my mind."

"And therein lies your problem!" Leaning forward, voice earnest and eyes bright, Giovanni continued, "You lack proper visualization. Women terrify you and you're too noble to fuck your friend, Eyepatch. If you had a proper visual or a happy memory, you'd be all set. No more distractions! And so...here I am!" He patted Heine on the cheek and gave him a brilliant smile.

Completely at a loss for words, Heine could only stare at him. "What."

Giovanni gazed at Heine and deliberately licked his lips, as he had on the street all those days before.

Deadly calm settled over Heine. "Giovanni. I know you like messing with me, but this is..." He trailed off and caught another peek at the other man's erection, which had increased.

"No. I do not want this."

Giovanni placed a hand on Heine's contrastingly flat groin and gave it a tender squeeze. "But I do."

Heine's self-control exploded like a grenade. He fought in earnest, throwing himself against the shackles and straining with everything he had. Giovanni leaped out of the way while inside his head, Führer howled with joy. Heine arched forward, away from the couch and fought against the chains, roaring with the effort.

The couch scraped on the floor, but wood and steel refused to break.

A bullet ripped through his right shoulder from back to front, followed by a second one below it. Heine jolted from the impact and collapsed, bent over his legs with his arms pulled out behind him. Breath wheezed in and out of his compressed and damaged lungs. Blood frothed in tiny bubbles around his mouth.

Giovanni grabbed his shirt collar and hauled him supine upon the floor. "That couch is the reason I chose this particular empty house, of all the ones here aboveground. I brought the chains with me from the lab; I'm sure you remember how strong they are. You can't free yourself."

Heine floated in a gray void, the words almost meaningless to him. He was burned back to reality by Giovanni digging a fist into one of the healing exit wounds in his chest, and twisting. Heine screamed.

"Stop resisting, Heine! I am in control here. Do you understand?"

His voice cracking, his shoulder on fire where Giovanni's fist refused to let it heal, Heine choked down the scream and managed to nod.

Giovanni removed his hand—it made a wet sucking noise—and Heine nearly whimpered in relief. The faint breaths he managed to take as ribs and tissue regrew were thick with the muggy scent of healing. He welcomed the encroaching blackness that spotted over his vision.

"So that's it, Heine? You're just going to flop on the floor and let him control you?" Führer crouched close. "That's little Giovanni out there, kicking your ass again. The terrified, useless little brat you protected for years inside the lab." Führer poked him in the chest with a sharp-nailed finger. "I've seen him in your memories and dreams. Cute little helpless Giovanni's all grown up and became the big bad wolf." Führer laughed.

"Giovanni," Heine whispered. He remembered Giovanni. Small, timid, so happy to make friends with the two of them. Standing beside them in the hunting games even while his whole body shook with terror, in the rec room showing his newest picture to...Lily...

"Let me out, Heine," Führer demanded balefully. "I'll take care of him."

Lily...dying in Heine's arms after Führer ran wild with his body.

Inside his mind, Heine straightened. He stood and looked Führer directly in the eyes. "No. You're not going to kill another one of my friends. Not Giovanni."

Heine returned to himself and took a deep breath. It came pure and unhindered into his lungs, with no taste of fog. He saw the cracked off-white ceiling far above him, the old light and fan fixture that cast its shadows upon the room, the scattering of other furniture still covered with sheets, and Giovanni.

"Welcome back, Heine. You were gone for quite a while." He tossed away a large ripped square of drop cloth that was smeared with blood. "I cleaned you up some. You're welcome."

Heine drank in another gulp of air. "G-Giovanni..." he stammered, speaking more to the memory of the boy than the man.

Weight sank into his realization then. Giovanni had resumed sitting on Heine's thighs. His breath hitched when he felt the other man's hand spread across his chest and slowly move. The sensation changed curiously as the hand moved across the many holes that now speckled his ruined shirt. Warmth dimmed by cloth, then the seeming heat of skin on skin, then the cloth-dimmed warmth again. Giovanni's thumb rubbed against the fading scar where he had punched his fist into the gaping wound, as if to soothe the insult away.

The second hand joined the first. They both moved up to grasp Heine's shirt collar and rip it open with a sound strangely muted to his still muggy brain. Unimpeded now, they stroked down Heine's chest, tracing across the planes of muscle and bone.

Heine's brow furrowed at the unfamiliar contact. He twitched when the fingers lingered to pebble first one nipple, then the other. "Why..."

"You have to ask, Heine? I meant what I said when we fought before. I was so jealous of you and Lily. You were both so special. Both so strong and deadly." Giovanni's voice became soft and detached, as if he wasn't paying attention to what he was saying. His hands kept moving down, thumb circling over belly button, then through the white prickles of hair that started beneath.

Heine made a confused noise, unable to resolve what he was feeling and hearing with the memories the voice invoked. All of his skin seemed to come alive wherever the hands moved. He'd never been touched like this before. Lingering and full of care, more than just Nil holding his hand or trading shoulder bumps with Badou. He knew it was Giovanni touching him, but Giovanni was small and helpless, with hair in his eyes and a tiny voice. But the voice he heard now was deep and smooth and not at all childish.

"And when you forced Lily to calm down...forced your will upon her..." Giovanni paused to swallow. "I...wanted..."

He felt Giovanni shift his position on his thighs, and flinched away from the warm pressure of a hand on Heine's uninterested prick, safe beneath his low-riders. Giovanni's breath puffed against his chest in a short sound of frustration.

Giovanni suddenly sat upright, trailed his hands down the top of Heine's thighs, pushed them back up, and then Heine noticed a tug on his pants. The top button came undone.

It was like a slap to his face. The little cowering Giovanni from his memories vanished, and he remembered exactly what was happening to him, and who was doing it.

His eyes shot open and he met Giovanni's gaze as the second button of his fly was released, and then the third. The rush of cool air upon his exposed cock caused him to hiss in a breath.

Giovanni didn't blink or break eye contact while he undid the fourth and final button. He carded his fingers through Heine's wiry patch of hair, and Heine tried lurch away with a gasp.

"No, Heine!" Giovanni's red eyes seemed to burn into him, stopping him mid-rise. "Down."

Heine, trembling, bared his teeth at Giovanni in silent refusal.

Giovanni leaned towards him. "I will shoot you again, Heine. And that won't feel nearly as good as the other things I want to do to you."

As they stared at each other, locked in impasse, Heine felt it. A weird tickle that started at the base of his neck and raced down his spine.

Führer stirred within. "You know what that was, right, Heine?" He walked out of the black and knelt next to him, his voice soft and insidious, "He's trying to subjugate you with the Spine. Imagine that. You gonna let him dominate you? Huh?" He moved to Heine's other side and scoffed, voice becoming louder. "Why are you so reluctant to fight back? You really that afraid of pain? What's pain to us, anyway? A fleeting moment of discomfort that will always fade! Look at yourself, Heine! Down and cowering before Giovanni! GIOVANNI!"

Heine threw back his head and screamed, "FUUUCK!" He slammed against the couch, jarring it flush to the wall. The cushion went flying. He crashed backwards again and again, venting out his frustration in howls of pure madness.

Giovanni's mouth clamped on his throat in a choking hold, forcing him to the floor. Heine arched against him and fought to breathe, flailing and kicking his legs. He weakened disturbingly fast.

Giovanni growled, the sound almost subsonic against Heine's neck. It sent shivers through his entire body.

With a strangled moan, he went limp. The shivers intensified, and Heine focused on simply breathing, on taking what air he could move through Giovanni's rumbling grip on his throat.

After a handful of heartbeats, the growl faded. Giovanni released his neck and straightened, still sitting on Heine's thighs. He rubbed the saliva off his mouth with a forearm and silently watched Heine. He reached out a hand. It hovered for a moment, then gently stroked down Heine's face.

Heine didn't protest, not even a twitch. His eyes closed on reflex when Giovanni's fingers paused over them, testing. Heine was too deep within his befuddlement to register how the fingers trembled.

What had happened? Had it really been the need for oxygen that made him lose the will to fight? What were those shivers, caused by the sensation of that growl upon his flesh? As if rekindled by the memory, a wave of them returned and stroked down his body. His skin tightened into gooseflesh. He gritted his teeth.

Giovanni ran a thumb over the tooth marks and saliva he'd left on Heine's neck. With a murmur of Heine's name, his mouth descended again. It touched Heine's pulse point, not in a hold this time, but instead a nip and warm, long lick along his throat. Giovanni's exhale made the wet trail cold. Heine gasped and moved restlessly, unknowingly stretching his head out to give Giovanni more room. The cool, soft tickle of the other's hair brushed him, in contrast to the heated mouth.

Heine squeezed his eyes shut and tried to think. He didn't know how to react anymore to what Giovanni was doing to him. Fighting brought pain, accepting brought confusion, and Heine didn't want either. He could only grunt when he felt Giovanni's erection bump into his groin, the cloth of the other's pants unwelcome against sensitive flesh.

Everything was so different, Giovanni was so different. Why after all these years—years when Heine had believed his friend and brother dead—had Giovanni reappeared in his life and acted like such an utter bastard? Tormenting him through hallucinations, then shooting him as an up close and personal greeting. Both times.

"Giovanni..." he croaked out, voice rough and tired. "What the fuck, man? What happened?"

Giovanni paused his sensual onslaught, then placed his hands to either side of Heine's head. He looked down, pupils blown wide, mouth reddened with traces of Heine's blood. When he answered, his own voice was breathy and rough around the edges. "What happened just now?"

Heine shook his head slowly, the motion gently bumping each side into Giovanni's forearms.

Giovanni's expression grew thoughtful, until he smiled. Grimly. "What happened to change me."

A nod, also slow and tired.

Bending down, he whispered into Heine's ear, his hot and close breath sparking more shivers, "Lots of things happened after you left, Heine." Mouth hovered over mouth, and they shared each other's air.

Heine distantly wondered if he was about to be kissed or not. He couldn't find the energy to care either way.

Giovanni remained still for a long moment, watching Heine passively watch him. "You can't dominate me anymore, Heine."

As the words percolated through his exhausted mind, Heine's brow wrinkled. "Dominate...? What? I never..." He stopped when Giovanni laid his hand over his mouth in a silent command, and that strange tickle raced down his spine again.

Heine let his eyes shudder closed.

Giovanni's hands cupped his face, thumbs brushing his eyelids, before they trailed down his cheeks, along his jaw line, and found their way to the back of his neck. They traced the scarred skin around his collar as they had before, when Heine had been summoned out of the black to begin this misery.

Fingers dug into his skin. Heine forgot everything as the pressure awoke him to how much his physical connection to the Kerberos Spine was aching. He arched his neck up and groaned.

"Yes, I know," Giovanni said softly. "I know better than anyone how it aches after so much healing. And when it's aching, there's also this..." He pushed in with force and triggered a wave of pain in Heine that tipped over into ecstasy.

Heine let out a strangled noise and his entire body bucked up against Giovanni's before he hit the floor again. His stubborn cock, which had remained flaccid despite all of Giovanni's efforts, began to swell.

Giovanni's breath whooshed out at Heine's reaction. "Finally," he muttered, then said in a normal if slightly stressed tone, "That also happens to me. That's why I love fighting you now, Heine. There's always...after."

Heine sucked in air, heart hammering, while his mind returned to sanity. He was completely focused on the fingers upon his neck, and when they left he whined in protest.

"Enough foreplay, much as I love being able to touch you," Giovanni grated out. He pressed his mouth to Heine's pulse point again, tasting the rapid heartbeats. He spoke, lips tickling Heine's throat, "I doubt either of us is going to last for very long." A final taste and Giovanni climbed off to kneel next to Heine's right side. He buried his left hand into Heine's hair and looked into his face. "Stay down, Heine."

Heine met Giovanni's eyes and felt as if he'd been drugged. He knew without a doubt this was his last chance to escape, even as Giovanni scratched his fingernails down Heine's nude torso. His last chance to resist before Giovanni straight-out raped him. The couch was too sturdy, the chains and shackles specifically manufactured to constrain all the lab's savage guinea pigs. He didn't have the time or strength to break either. He could always chew through one of his upper arms, but again, not enough time.

That left letting it happen, letting it become nothing but another bad memory in Heine's gruesome collection. And right now, with his exhausted body and foggy brain full of Giovanni's presence, Heine didn't really care.

Führer said something then, trying to speak through the murk, but Heine couldn't parse the words.

His canvas trousers scraped skin when Giovanni yanked them from his legs, not giving Heine a chance to lift himself up and make it easier. Giovanni remained true to his word. He immediately took Heine's length in his right hand and began.

Heine closed his eyes and groaned, and every half-thought of resistance extinguished in the glory of Giovanni's touch on his full-fledged erection. But the calloused fingers seemed nothing when the mouth closed around him. Heine reacted violently, arms restrained by the couch and hips bucking. Giovanni slapped his splayed left hand down on Heine's chest while his right hand and his mouth continued their torture.

Against his will, Heine levered his eyes open and stared down at the alien and erotic sight of Giovanni sucking his cock.

Giovanni caught his gaze and purposely used his teeth. The pain intensified the sensations blaring through Heine, and his head fell to the floor with a thump. He lost track of how many times Giovanni repeated the motion, sometimes with teeth and sometimes without. He wheezed in air and knew that he was about to climax.

He sobbed once when the assailment stopped, and sought out Giovanni to see him shedding his weapons harness. He ripped the button-down shirt apart, shucked his pants and shorts, and then stood over Heine. His body, as pale and lean as Heine's own, seemed to glow in the feeble yellow light cast from the fixture above. Heine's eyes trailed down from Giovanni's intent face, his panting chest with its herringbone ribs, the flat and tense stomach, and locked upon Giovanni's matching erection.

Giovanni's breath caught in his throat as he faltered for a single moment, and then with a short sound of avarice he dropped onto the floor. He crawled up Heine's body, pressing low for as much skin contact as possible. Both of them shuddered when sensitive fleshed was squeezed by the motion. Heine watched his approach, unable to turn away, even when Giovanni halted, his face directly above.

Heine flinched when Giovanni settled down, suddenly overwhelmed by the touch of another's hard length pressed against his own, their sharp hipbones cutting into flesh, their chests brushing as each sucked in air. He averted his eyes, his face burning.

Giovanni placed a hand on his cheek, "Look at me, Heine!" He dug in his thumb when Heine didn't respond.

Teeth gritted, Heine slowly obeyed.

Giovanni began to move, slowly at first, then faster as he found his rhythm. Heine barely noticed the rising pleasure on Giovanni's face-he barely remembered it was Giovanni on top of him at all.

His body was electrified by the movement, the exquisite friction of skin on skin along his entire body that focused so incredibly in his center, the rising scents of sweat and drying blood from his healed-over wounds mixing with that of shared arousal. He sucked in great lungfuls of air, the combination of smells forcibly reminding him that it was Giovanni doing this to him.

For the second time his climax neared, and he looked to the side, away from the intent red eyes and flushed face so close to his own. Giovanni sank his left hand into Heine's hair, the fingernails digging into his sweaty scalp.

"No! I want to see your face when you come!"

Again Heine found himself obeying.

Giovanni licked his right hand from base of palm to fingertips. He rose up on one knee, twisted to the side, and stroked quickly, red eyes locked with red eyes. It didn't take long-a few short seconds and Heine arched up as he came, fighting against the chains on his wrists and stretching his legs. He let out a garbled sound and dimly saw Giovanni follow him over, shouting Heine's name.

They collapsed to the floor, gasping, Giovanni half on top of Heine. Giovanni moaned and pressed his face into Heine's hair.

Heine took in a deep, quavering breath and opened his eyes. There. It was done. It was now a memory he could forget.

Giovanni shifted and rolled off Heine to sprawl across the floor next to him until his breathing evened out. He finally sat up and grabbed a corner of the drop cloth to clean himself. Then he stood and began to dress.

Neither of them spoke. Heine couldn't think of anything he wanted to say, and Giovanni kept his back to him.

Heine watched him pull on his shorts and pants, the ruined shirt, the tie, the gun harness, the socks and boots, and finally the suit coat. He considered Giovanni, his friend and brother throughout the hellish years within the lab. Giovanni, who had chained him down and raped him. But he didn't really care about the sex. No, what bothered Heine, what made him snarl inside his head even now, was that Giovanni had managed to lay him out flat and keep him there. Subdued through pain and reinforcement and exhaustion, bent to Giovanni's will.

Rage flared inside him, and he welcomed it. Führer laughed, a dark sound filled with promise.

Giovanni found a clean part of the drop cloth and moved to wipe off Heine's semen-until Heine struck out at him with a leg. He ducked and blocked the blow with his arm, backing away out of range.

Heine couldn't form words. He growled at Giovanni, a full-throated animal sound from deep within his chest. An unmistakable sound of fury.

Shock and hurt flickered through Giovanni's eyes, to be replaced by growing anger. He picked up his glasses and handkerchief from the floor, never removing his eyes from Heine's. He straightened, tucked away the handkerchief, and slid the sunglasses on. Then he pulled out a gun and shot Heine twice. Once through the shoulder and then through the offending leg.

"Forget your lesson already?"

Heine spasmed, the growl choking off in his throat.

Giovanni loomed over him, sinking his hand into Heine's hair to resume his controlling grip and squeezing hard. "I am the dominant one now, Heine. I had you writhing beneath me! You submitted to me." To prove his point, he yanked Heine's head back and licked up his neck, following the vein to where it vanished under his jaw.

Heine went limp again, and he abhorred it.

"And now, every time you wake up with morning wood, every time you decide to 'relieve some tension', every sex dream...you'll think of this night, and me. See how you like it, Heine. Because now, you're mine."

Giovanni kissed him then, a hot pressure on Heine's left cheek. The same kiss Heine had given to Lily that fateful day so long ago, when he had subdued her using his will channeled through the Spine.

Heine's eyes went wide. The memory that kiss invoked made him seek out Giovanni's gaze—only to see his own shocked face reflected in the sunglasses.

Mouth stretched in a cruel leer, Giovanni stood. "Happy wanking, Heine." He used his guns yet again, two bullets through the left shoulder. Heine screamed, and Giovanni calmly unlocked the chains from around his left hand. He placed the key in the middle of Heine's chest, patted him on the cheek where he had kissed Heine, and then turned to walk away.

It took Heine three seconds to remember how to speak. "FUCK YOU, GIOVANNI!"

Giovanni laughed and carelessly waved over his shoulder. "I love you too, Heine!"

.oOo.

Heine spent the five minutes it took for his shoulder's flesh and bone to heal resolutely ignoring everything Giovanni had implied. Heine didn't give a flying fuck about Giovanni's feelings or past issues. Any lingering joy he'd felt at learning someone else had survived the nightmare of the labs and Professor Einstûrzen's experiments had been snuffed out like a sack of puppies thrown into the canal. More than that, Giovanni thought he had dominated Heine, and the knowledge burned through him. The wait until he could move enough to free his other arm was unbearable. He wanted to fling himself after Giovanni and rend his throat with his teeth, precisely as Giovanni had threatened to do to him. But he had to lie still and wait for his shoulder, for fear of any movement on his part knocking the fucking key off his chest and out of reach.

Führer spoke then, voice derisive, "'Thought' he dominated you? I seem to remember his mouth on your throat, and you going immediately limp beneath him."

Heine blushed, a mixture of shame and the memory of desire, followed immediately by anger. "What the hell was I supposed to do? Try to fight with my neck ripped apart? I had to breathe!"

"Oh, so it was all part of your master plan for survival, eh? You didn't actually like any of it."

"What the fuck—of course I didn't! I hated being powerless!" He fumed. "Fucking Giovanni thinks he can fuck me and just walk away."

Führer made an inquisitive noise. "Oh, you fucking say fucking so, eh? Well, fuck!"

"Shut up!" Heine bellowed at him. "I'm not going to let this go. He really thought I dominated him all those years ago?" Heine's voice rumbled in his throat again. "He won't have a doubt about that now. He's going to bend, and I'll make him do it." The final words were spoken in a snarl.

Inside his head, Führer licked his chops again. "That sounds...fun." He laughed, and the sound echoed within Heine.

Heine made a fist to test the amount of completed healing, then successfully twisted his forearm. He quickly snatched the key off his chest and freed his right hand. He cleaned himself off with the drop sheet and dressed—forgoing the shredded shirt. After he made his way into the night air, wonderfully crisp and fresh in his nose, he realized Giovanni's scent was all over him. He shuddered and resolved to find a shower as soon as possible.

He struck out to return to the underground. If Naoto had already made it back to the church, Nil would be worried about his absence. He walked quickly, red eyes alert, hands on his guns, already plotting how he would reclaim his power over Giovanni.

"Fucking Giovanni," he bit out in promise, and vanished into the anonymous crowds.

.oOo.

completed 12-20-11, last tweaked 1-4-12

A/N: If I may borrow Heine's glorious vocabulary...that's some pretty fucked up fic I wrote, huh? Yuletide is a fanfic challenge, and it's certainly lived up to that for me!

DOGS canon has some intriguing gaps, and one that has always made me wonder was how Heine felt about Giovanni's return. Heine believes for years that all of his brothers and sisters had died in that lab, then Giovanni appears—and what does Gio do? Torments him mentally, and then shoots him full of holes. "Hello, my brother! Long time no see! BLAM! :D" Poor Heine never had a chance to consider Gio's reentrance into his life at all. While I've made things even worse between them in this fic, I did enjoy exploring the emotions behind their thoroughly trainwrecked relationship. Both of these guys have enough issues to fill a library, and they are fun to play with, as twisted as it sounds. I admit that until my Yuletide assignment, I never considered Giovanni's character all that interesting, and now...I think I ship it, too!

I must give many profound thanks again to my beta, Stariceling, who not only whipped this fic into shape, but always calmed me down whenever I freaked out about what exactly I was writing for my first Yuletide. This is one holiday season I'm never going to forget!