An Unholy Alliance by InSilva
Disclaimer: right now, I'm in hiding from them.
A/N: OK. It's an M and that should tell you something about this chapter.
Just know that there are warnings. And lots of them. Something about not reading if you have a heart condition, are of a nervous disposition or are under 21. That kind of thing.
Chapter Twenty-Three: Seminal
Three months later…
Rusty sits in the reception of the expensive hotel and waits for Danny to answer and to ask where he is. Actually, he thinks he could skip that part and go straight to the reason.
"Michael got in touch," he replies as soon as he hears Danny's voice.
"Yeah?"
"He's in town and I thought-"
"Of course. I'll make the dinner reservation for four. How'd he sound?"
"Well, his text message sounded fine." Amused.
"Text?"
"Mmm. Meet him at his hotel. Said I'd swing by and pick him up and take him out to dinner. But he's not here yet. Might see if he left me a message."
"Where's he staying?"
"Inter-Continental."
"OK. We'll get the drinks in. Guess we'll see you later then."
"Say hi to Saul for me."
He hangs up and goes to the front desk and yes, there is indeed word from Michael. Running late and come on up. Room 776.
Rusty heads for the lift and the receptionist heads for the phone.
Something is nagging at Danny but he can't think what. And then Saul is there and the nagging is pushed to the back of his mind.
"Saul." Danny's face lights up and Saul smiles.
"Good to see you again. As always. No Rusty?"
"He's over at the Inter-Continental. Michael's in town. The one who helped us find you."
The nagging thought is still there. And it refuses to be pushed aside.
"Is he coming over?"
"Yeah. Rusty's collecting him."
As Saul talks about the flight and weren't the stewardesses getting younger, Danny's brain starts going into overdrive.
Rusty. Rusty and a text message. From Michael's phone. But not a phone call. A text message. From Michael's phone. But Michael would phone. Surely Michael would phone. But that would mean it wasn't Michael who wanted to get in touch. It was someone else who had found Michael and found Rusty's number on Michael's phone. But if it wasn't Michael, it would mean…it could mean…
He shoots upright and he is already reaching for the phone. No answer. And his blood freezes.
"Saul, I have to go. Stay here."
Bemused, Saul watches him leave.
"Our meetings get shorter and shorter," he says to no one.
Rusty raises his hand to knock on the door to 776 and realises it's ajar. Ajar and a "do not disturb" sign hanging from the handle. He pushes it open.
"Michael…?"
It's dark and it smells empty. And it smells of something else as well that is not unfamiliar though thankfully not a frequent memory. Blood and violence. He swiftly hits the lights and swallows the gasp.
Michael is on the bed. Gagged and bound and eyes open and vacant and dead. Very, very dead.
Even as his eyes are digesting the scene, his instincts are taking over and he is stepping back into the corridor and pulling the door shut and his fingers find his phone and still staring at the door, he is dialling the one number, the only number he ever needs to. And then before he can finish dialling, he hears a door opening behind him and his heightened senses make him start to turn round.
Things happen fast. Hands are laid on him and his phone is sent skittering away down the corridor as he is grabbed and thrown bodily into the room opposite. Into room 777. He slips out of his jacket and out of the grip and hurdles the bed even though he knows it's the wrong direction. The window's toughened glass and no help even if it was a distance he could jump down from. And the bathroom is on the other side of the room. And the door is a millennium away.
Rusty spins on his heel and with a certain amount of inevitability, Bryn is there. A fresh knife scar across his cheek and the top of his right ear is missing but it is unmistakably Bryn. And Bryn is smiling at him. Smiling and there's blood on his face and blood on his clothes and…
"Michael…" Rusty whispers.
"Had to make sure you took the bait," Bryn nods. "Didn't need him after that."
Bryn reaches without looking and wrenches the door handle up and over and there is the sound of metal squealing and the lock is most definitely jammed.
"So nice to see you again, Rus. Especially after that little revelation the last time I saw you. You and Danny-boy setting me up all those years ago. And for why, I wonder? Oh, that fury sustained me for quite some time."
"How did you…you were…"
"How did I get away? Mix of luck and human nature. Hobbs and Jamieson were busy blaming each other and Dubois was busy letting them hang themselves. His men took their eye off me. Picked up enough from what I heard to learn that you had a little help to drop me in it. Didn't take much to work out whom. Did take me a little while to trace you and to find him. He was surprised to see me."
Michael… He swallows and pushes away the refracted images of terror and helplessness.
"Almost as surprised as you are…"
Rusty's brain is working on exits and weapons and coming up empty on both. It refuses to let him think past the next few seconds.
"Revenge, Rusty. It's a beautiful thing. Ask Michael."
The Inter-Continental isn't far away but next door would be too far and he can't get there quickly and he can't get there quickly enough and he tears through traffic, cutting up cars and running lights and he abandons the car in the middle of the road and ignores the honks and the swearing and he sprints up the steps and he dashes into the lobby.
"But that's then. This is now."
His head is screaming with Bryn's words and he clenches his teeth to stop the sound escaping. He looks at Bryn, at the power and the purpose and at the no escape.
Some things are a given: Rusty will always go down fighting. He launches himself across the floor at Bryn and lands a solid blow and a fierce punch before Bryn knocks him down on the floor, face first. Rusty pushes himself up on his right arm, trying to regain his footing.
Immediately, a foot comes down hard, deliberately, viciously on his right arm above the elbow and he hears the sickening crack just before the pain hits. He lets out a fierce yell and then his right knee is stamped on, once, twice, three times. He lets out another sharp cry and twists round on to his back, shuffling inelegantly away as he instinctively tries to protect his body and to move out of reach.
"Violence and sex, what can I say? Such a winning combination," Bryn grins, looking at the pain in Rusty's eyes. The grin disappears to be replaced by a look of intent. "Now. Unfinished business."
He drops down to his knees, straddling Rusty's middle. Rusty tries to sit up but a ringing blow to the temple knocks him back. Bryn reaches out to Rusty's arm and runs his hand over the place of the break. He squeezes and the pain is excruciating. His arm is on fire. Rusty arches back, face creased in anguish. Part of him senses Bryn's breath catch at that. Rusty fights through the agony and out the other side. He blinks up at Bryn who is staring down, an unsteady look in his eyes.
"Just make sure you behave," Bryn says and his voice is uneven. "Wouldn't want you to hurt yourself."
"You are one sick-" Rusty breaks off with a harsh cry as Bryn's fingers dig into his arm again.
"Behave," Bryn reminds him, eyes bright and sharp.
Rusty tries to sit up again and this time the blow to his head is heavy and hard and before he can recover, Bryn has loosened Rusty's tie and slipped it free of his shirt collar. Bryn pulls the shirt itself free and with a savage movement, rips it open, sending buttons flying everywhere. Blinking up through the haze of pain, Rusty sees Bryn looking down at his chest and stomach, taking in the golden tautness, the defined muscles and something inside Rusty wants his skin to up and crawl away.
"Ohhh…" Bryn says with feeling and the word is long and drawn out and shuddering and it makes the disgust in Rusty rise to the surface and pour out of his face.
Bryn's eyes are lit with an unholy fire. He adjusts Rusty's tie, pushing the knot tight and into the neck. Rusty claws at it with his good hand, trying to get his fingers in between the material and his throat. His breath is trapped and as he struggles he hears Bryn's soft laugh.
"Asphyxia apparently heightens the whole sexual experience," Bryn informs him, keeping the tie tight before slowly releasing the pressure.
Gasping, Rusty swims back from the breathlessness and pants up at Bryn.
"Did it do it for you?" Bryn asks and Rusty can only manage a glare. Bryn goes on, "What you have to understand is that of late, I have been thinking of nothing else but this moment. Do you know how intense that is? Do you have any idea how hard I am right at this minute?"
He licks his lips. "Let me show you."
Message. Rusty was going to ask for a message. Danny heads for the front desk and tries to control his breathing long enough to keep the panic off his face, long enough to fake sanity. He isn't going to be able to charm. There isn't enough control in the world at the moment to let him do that. And that means money will have to talk.
Again, Rusty tries to shift the weight on top of him, tries to land a punch with his left hand but Bryn easily captures his hand in his own powerful grip and simply smiles.
"Oh, you want to find out for yourself?"
He reaches into his unbuttoned fly with Rusty's hand and Rusty cannot hide the revulsion as Bryn uses him to pull himself free. Rusty squeezes his eyes closed and fights the bile retching through him. His eyes shoot open as Bryn's other hand digs into his injured knee.
"You keep your eyes wide open," Bryn says softly. "I don't want you to miss a thing." And he starts to stroke himself, Rusty's hand still firmly in place.
Mouth working overtime to contain himself, Rusty wants badly to speak, wants badly to tell Bryn exactly what he thinks of him, about the nausea and the loathing seizing him, about the revulsion that is filling his brain but there are no words. There is only the feeling of intense hate, building and building just as Bryn himself is moving towards climax, and Rusty's eyes are full of that hatred. It seems to spur Bryn on and within seconds, Bryn shudders and comes.
As the warm liquid hits Rusty's body, he is overcome with repugnance.
"Fuck!" he cries loudly and Bryn chuckles.
"That an invitation?" he asks and Rusty finally finds his voice.
"Get the fuck off me," Rusty snarls, enunciating each word. "Get the fuck off me now!"
"No, no, no," Bryn coos. "Not when we're just getting started. Frankie says "Relax"."
He looks down at the deposit trailing across Rusty's torso and then up at Rusty's eyes. Rusty can see ideas forming, just as he sees in Danny. He blinks because unlike Danny, Bryn isn't sharing.
Still holding Rusty's good hand fast, Bryn reaches down with his other and draws two fingers through the thick fluid. Rusty feels Bryn's fingers dragging down his chest and stomach and tries to control the shake of disgust, tries to ignore the viscous liquid which drips from them as Bryn lifts his hand up.
Frowning, not comprehending, Rusty tries to make sense of the action, to predict the future and then he realises the intent.
"Oh, you have got to be kidding me…"
Bryn's smile widens.
"Open wide," he whispers and forces his fingers into Rusty's mouth, his thumb jammed under Rusty's chin.
Rusty tries to resist, he uses his teeth but Bryn doesn't even seem to notice and Rusty is left helpless as Bryn moves his fingers in and out, over his lips, over his tongue... The taste of him…fuck, the taste of him… Rusty wants to scream.
"Damn, but that's the sexiest thing I've seen in ages," Bryn marvels, finally pulling his fingers free.
Rusty glares at him but the anger is dying away into the horror and the fear. This is Bryn. This is like the night. This is like the nightmare. This is the nightmare. Danny…
"I'm growing hard again just watching you squirm…this time it's going to last longer though. Long enough to use that pretty mouth of yours, long enough to fuck you senseless…"
Something magically appears in Bryn's hand, something hard and blunt and metallic and Rusty really can't imagine a pleasant use for it.
"I'll introduce you later," Bryn promises. "First of all, I want to-"
He is interrupted by the door bursting open and ferocity appearing in the form of Danny, who bundles into the room and stops dead, taking in the scene in front of him. Rusty. Rusty's face, Rusty's eyes - Rusty's eyes - Bryn on top of Rusty, Rusty's arm and Rusty's blood and Rusty's knee at the awkward angle, Rusty's ripped clothes, Rusty's chest exposed and covered in- God, he doesn't want to complete that thought – and Rusty's eyes, Rusty's eyes... All these things Danny sees in a no second. And after that time is up, he launches himself at Bryn, pulling him off Rusty, throwing him up against the wall, punching with deliberation.
"Danny-boy!" Bryn sounds delighted. "How nice of you to join us."
Bryn defends himself with ease. Height for height, reach for reach, they are evenly matched though Bryn is an inch or two taller, certainly more muscular, certainly stronger. It makes not the slightest difference. Danny is immune to the blows hitting him. For every punch that makes its mark, he lands two, with precision, with as much viciousness as Bryn possesses. And slowly, disbelievingly, Bryn finds himself losing the fight.
He slips and falls and Danny kicks out at his head, over and over, until somewhere he hears Rusty's voice.
"Danny…Danny, you can stop now."
Breathing heavily, he looks down at Bryn, near unconscious.
Bryn looks up at him and smiles crookedly. "What's the matter? Don't tell me you've never wanted to use his hand to bring yourself off. Don't tell me you've never wanted to have him suck your come off your fing-"
Danny cuts him off with a kick in the mouth and another two to the head which finally send Bryn into oblivion.
He stands panting looking down at his handiwork and then he spots a small video camera on a shelf, deliberately angled. He grabs it and pockets it. He will smash it to Kingdom come later. Right now…
He lifts his gaze and catches sight of himself in the mirror. His face is marked and there's blood around his mouth and in the morning there will be bruises to his body and he supposes he should be hurting with something more than what he is.
"Danny…"
He turns and sees Rusty who's managed to get to his feet, who's leaning against a wall, face drawn with pain and a hundred other things. Danny feels like he doesn't know where to start.
"Get me out of here," Rusty manages and Danny moves, arm under his good shoulder, wrapped around his waist and supporting his weight.
Unwillingly, his eyes move over Rusty's chest.
"Believe me," Rusty says tightly. "I'm trying not to think about it."
A/N: next chapter back in the main fic.