A/N: In which we introduce our main character, and he fucks about.

Nightmare's Call

"Run!"

"I am running!" Damian snapped. The stitch in his side had graduated from 'minor irritation' to 'blinding agony', and he was having trouble keeping up with his companion.

"Well, run faster!"

Sparing a moment to glare at the man at his side, Damian managed to gasp out, "Fuck you," then immediately regretted it.

"Watch your mouth," Benedikt retorted automatically, and Damian gave his shoulder a disbelieving look.

They skidded around a corner and found themselves staring at a blank wall. "Oh shit," said Damian. "Oh shit oh shit oh shit." He clutched at Benedikt, whose hand had dropped automatically to the knife at his belt. "We are gonna die, man." Was there time to planeswalk? It was kind of a shitty move to leave behind the guy who had paid him fifty percent in advance, but Damian was firmly of the opinion that being alive long enough to feel bad about that was worth it. Unfortunately, before he could even think about reaching for the Eternities, their pursuers rounded the corner and caught up.

Damian blanched as the thing that had been following them reared up, spreading its four main arms above the slick body like a starfish. Blue light glowed from suckers embedded in the flesh. Beside him, Benedikt muttered what sounded like a very tame curse, and he felt a tingling in the air as the arrester began to draw mana.

The creature attacked just as Benedikt's spell finished, and Damian dove behind him in terror. There was a slick, squishing noise, followed by a zap and a hiss. Damian smelled burned flesh and looked up to see that Benedikt had thrown up a wall of sparkling light between them and their attacker, which was jabbing at it with angry pseudopods. Each time it did, the wall shuddered and spat sparks from the impact. Benedikt's face was drawn and pale with the effort of keeping it in place.

"Not a bad effort," said a voice from behind the horror. The sound echoed hollowly in the stone undercity corridor. An unnaturally pale young woman stepped carefully around the starfish monstrosity. "But doomed, I think, to failure. Tell me, why did you intrude into a place that is no business of yours?"

"Got lost," Damian said, shivering with the effort of keeping his voice steady. "What's your excuse?"

"Oh, I don't think that's true," said the woman. "But I don't think your companion can keep that wall up for much longer, so I suppose I'll be able to find out. I think I'll let my pet here take your friend, and I'll have you."

Damian started to say something witty, and then her mouth opened, sharp, gleaming teeth bared, and the resulting wave of terror stopped the words in his throat. Vampire. Oh, fuck no. No. He wasn't doing this.

He felt the fire rising inside his chest, the fire he had fled from but that still lurked in wait for him, felt the dark compact awaken as he called on it. Somewhere, very far away, he imagined he could see the demon's smiling face, its ears pricking up as he tapped into the reserves of strength tied directly to his own life force. Flames burst from his hands, and he realized that the fire and the panic were rising too fast, that he couldn't possibly hope to control the power surging through his veins. He heard Benedikt yell in surprise as the flames blossomed outward in a black-red corona around him.

Breath seizing up in his lungs, Damian tried to hang on, but the shadows came next, and he could never control the shadows. They rose up from the locked space inside his head and burst from the darkness behind his eyes, and he could feel them, dimly, winding and twining forward. The white light of Benedikt's wall was the first to go, but beyond it, the shadows kept moving, burrowing through rock and flesh alike, as the flames burned and a roaring hum rose, blotting out everything else.

Damian swam slowly back to consciousness. There was a heavy weight on his chest, and his entire body felt bruised. Coughing, he discovered to his chagrin that his mouth was full of grit and the taste of blood. "Ah, fuck," he managed, blinking his eyes open. The blood-red light of the setting sun illuminated a rocky scree he recognized as being near the edge of Utvara, not too far away from where they'd gone into the undercity to begin with.

He heard a groan, and a little hillock of the rocks rose as Benedikt pulled himself out of the wreckage and sat back with a gasping breath. "Damn," he said. "You did not tell me you could do that."

Damian looked down. He was submerged in rocks up to his sternum. "I don't like doing it," he said. "Gonna die young enough as it is." He clawed ineffectually at the rocks for a few minutes. "Help me out here?"

"Oh. Of course," Benedikt responded, sounding a little dazed. He headed over and began to pry the worst of the debris away from Damian's chest. After a few minutes, the warlock was able to wriggle his way out and lie panting on the solid Ravnican ground. "Avacyn bless," he muttered automatically under his breath, the prayer too ingrained for him to forsake it, though he managed to slur the words into unrecognizability. After a moment or two of just breathing the fresh air, he found laughter shaking its way uncontrollably up his spine. Benedikt was gaping at him, but he couldn't stop.

"Fuck," Damian managed. "That was probably two or three years of my life I won't get back. But we're alive!" He grinned. "That calls for a celebration, don't you think?"

Benedikt blinked at him. "Well, I supp—" Damian flailed upright and kissed him. It lasted only a moment before his rubbery legs gave out and he fell back onto the pile of rubble, but he felt a shudder run through Benedikt's body, and the other man's hand reached out toward him. There was a moment of something bright and eager sparking between them, and then Benedikt looked away, firmly shoving his hands into his pockets. "Perhaps not that kind of celebration," he mumbled.

Damian felt the quivering tension leave the air in a rush, but tried to cover for himself. "Sorry, man," he shrugged, letting the easy laughter out to cover his disappointment. "We should go find an inn or somewhere to spend the night, though." And I'm sure I can find someone from the Rakdos to fuck me. His body was twitching and terrified, still, but wrung out and hollow, and he knew that if he tried to actually sleep, he would have screaming nightmares.

Benedikt didn't object, just put out a stiff hand and helped him to his feet. "Perhaps," he said, "next time you offer a potion to put the guards to sleep, you should test it to ensure it actually works."

"Well, next time you engage my services, you should tell me we're likely to be dealing with undead," Damian responded testily.

Benedikt woke suddenly in the middle of the night, wondering what had woken him. If he'd managed to fall asleep through the moaning and banging from the adjacent suite, he wasn't sure why he would have been woken up by—silence? But there were no noises coming from the next room over anymore. Well, good. The walls were so damn thin, he could hear everything, and there were certain things he did not need to have heard. He turned over, drawing his pillow up over his head and his legs up to his chest and tried determinedly to get back to sleep.

It did not work. His mind kept producing the same image over and over, no matter how much he tried to ignore it: the sudden, sharp disappointment on Damian's face when he'd said no. Well, why shouldn't he? Who wanted to have sex with a grubby, miserly warlock who'd nearly gotten them killed with his cut-rate potions? Just because he'd ended up saving both of their lives—

I don't like doing it. Gonna die young enough as it is. What had he meant by that? There had been a flash of something dark in his eyes. Benedikt couldn't remember much of what had happened in the undercity tunnel, but he had an image of Damian's slight form silhouetted against the red flames, head snapped back as if he couldn't control his limbs. There was something dark sprouting from his back, and the smoke and shadows had curled around his head in the shape of a pair of enormous horns.

I cannot have sex with that—that warlock! He wouldn't even know where to begin. Benedikt's experience in that area had been decidedly—limited—which was pretty clearly not true of Damian. Besides, there was the employer/employee relationship to maintain. Surely it wouldn't be professional to sleep with the person you'd paid money for help on your decidedly failed initial attempt at stealing a scroll. And that wasn't even beginning to touch on how inappropriate it was for an Azorius arrester to become involved in any way with a guildless without proper authorization.

The silence in the next room over was getting to him. Somehow, he'd thought Damian would be up all night with whatever person he had managed to coax into his bed. Surely it wouldn't hurt to just—take a look? Just in case something had happened. Sighing with frustration, he got out of bed, pulling on a cloak over the loose trousers he wore to sleep in, and made his way out of the room and over one.

As he'd feared, the door wasn't locked, and it opened silently to allow him access. He blinked against the candlelight spilling out of the door and looked inside, then promptly blushed.

The sheets and blanket lay in a tangled pile in the corner of the room, and Damian was stretched out naked on the bed. In the golden glow of the half-burned candle, his pale form looked reddish, but there were deeper red marks all down his sides, across his thighs and stomach, and an older puckered white scar beneath them. His dark hair flopped into his face, eyes shut, for all intents and purposes apparently asleep, but his arms were chained to the bed above his head. A half-empty bottle of ruby liquid sat abandoned on the nightstand.

Benedikt found himself leaning against the door. Whatever he'd been expecting to see—this wasn't it. Heat spiked in the base of his stomach as he stared at Damian's battered form, and he tried to tell himself it wasn't arousing. That he had certainly not felt the same sudden hot spike when Damian had kissed him earlier. That—oh, Krokt.

Benedikt's head bumped against the hand he was using to hold himself upright on the doorframe. There was an unmistakable hardness between his legs. He shook his head again. He should probably go over and check that Damian was all right, but the smell of sweat and sex in the room and the light rise and fall of the warlock's chest suggested that this was just the remains of whatever sexual encounter Benedikt had fallen asleep listening to. And he was aching.

Well, he reasoned, rather hazily, Damian had asked him to—to sleep with him. He didn't seem like the type of person who would mind if Benedikt just—quickly—he hadn't even finished the thought when he caught his left hand stealing downward inside his pants. Even more aroused than he'd realized, he had to bite his lip sharply to stop the moan that threatened to fall out. His sharp intake of breath echoed loudly in the still room.

"You can touch, you know."

Benedikt looked up in consternation. Damian's eyes were heavy-lidded with sleep, but open and gleaming as they regarded him from across the room.

"Um," he said, heat rising to his cheeks. "I. I should apologize for, uh."

He stopped. Damian was laughing. "I don't fuckin' care," he yawned. "If you really wanna jerk yourself instead of fucking me, that's fine, but you'll be missing out."

"Goddammit," Benedikt said explosively.

"Watch your language," Damian mocked, wriggling his hips a little, which sent another uncomfortable spike of arousal shooting through Benedikt's groin. He ground his teeth together against the noise that wanted to come out of his mouth.

His legs propelled him across the room before he could stop himself, and he found himself leaning down over Damian. "Are—you sure?" he asked breathlessly.

"Sure about what?" Confusion flickered briefly across the warlock's sleepy face.

"I can—touch you?" God. That sounded moronic.

Damian clearly thought so as well, because both eyebrows went up. "I fucked a Rakdos shred-freak a couple hours ago—well, more accurately, she fucked me. I don't think you need to worry."

Benedikt knelt on the bed beside him. "Do you want me to get these off?" he asked, touching the chains lightly.

"Nah," Damian grinned. "Not till you're done, anyway. It'll be easier to sleep if you remember to take them off then, though."

Benedikt, who had been automatically reaching toward the chains, halted at Damian's words, shuddering as a wave of lust ran down his body. He shouldn't like this. But the irritating warlock, tied down in front of him. He could do anything he wanted. The sense of power was dizzying, and he moaned again before he could stop himself.

"There's some stuff on the dresser," Damian waved one chained hand loosely. "I might still be slick enough, but no harm in adding more."

"You—actually want me to—" Benedikt said hoarsely, staring down. Damian's cock hadn't been hard before, but it was now, engorged with blood, his hips making little abortive motions upward as if he were trying to reach Benedikt.

Again the incredulous eyebrows. "Why wouldn't I want you inside me?"

"I—earlier—I rejected you, and I haven't been particularly—"

Damian shrugged, eyes sliding away. "Doesn't matter, does it, man? C'mon, just fuck me. Assuming you really do want to."

"I—I do." His voice spat out the truth before his mind registered it, and he stooped and kissed Damian on the mouth, tipping the warlock's lips up to his. Blood and sweat and salt burst onto his tongue, and what he'd meant to be a short kiss turned longer and deepened. Damian moaned beneath him, hips surging up off the bed to thrust desperately against his stomach. Benedikt's free hand fell to the warlock's hip, cupping it gently, but sliding along so that he could feel the shape of it.

"Please," panted Damian, still trying to thrust upward. "Touch me or fuck me or just—god—anything. Fuck. Please."

"Yes, um. All right." Benedikt reached for the bottle on the nightstand that Damian had indicated earlier, then paused. "I, uh. I'm not exactly—I don't exactly—er."

Damian bit his lip and—damn him—wriggled again. "Most people are less experienced than I am," he drawled. "I don't give a fuck. It's not hard, just stick your cock in my ass."

"Well, actually," Benedikt responded, a little reassured. "I think you'll find it's quite hard." Damian's laughter almost took him by surprise, hips and legs jolting against Benedikt's, and Benedikt had to pause for a moment, overwhelmed at the sensation. Finally remembering what he was doing, he unscrewed the bottle, and, with shaking hands, spread the cold, slick liquid inside across his hands and his erection.

"Yeah, good," said Damian. "Probably could just stick it in, though, don't think you'll need to—gnnnf—" Benedikt, unable to stop himself, had slid a curious finger inside the warlock and crooked it. "Ah, god, yeah, fuck, yeah, keep doing that." The warlock's voice trailed off into a desperate whine, his hips jerking against Benedikt's hand.

The candle was burning low, beginning to gutter. In the soft half-shadows, his head thrown back against the headboard, hands straining against the cuffs, Damian looked almost otherworldly. Benedikt kissed his throat and down his stomach, pausing as he reached the short, dark trail of hair leading toward his cock. The warlock's breathing was rough in his ears. "Please fuck me, please fuck me, gods, please," Damian chanted, voice rising high and desperate. "C'mon, Benedikt, please, fuck, I'll do whatever you want, I'll suck you, I'll brew you a potion, I'll—" his voice broke, words slurring into incoherence.

"All right," Benedikt said, drawing a deep, steadying breath. It was less helpful than he'd hoped; the air was thick with the scent of sweat and the sweet-stale odor that hung around the Rakdos clubs. He withdrew his hand and kicked off his trousers, then tried to line up with Damian's hips. The angle was awkward, and he couldn't manage it. Trying to hold Damian still was useless; the warlock's writhing hips slid and slipped beneath his greasy hands. "You have to stop moving so much," he said. "And tip your hips up."

A tight, desperate nod. The hips stopped moving, though they still quivered in anticipation. Damian spread his legs apart, arcing his back off the bed, and Benedikt took the bottoms of his thighs gently, tilting them upward. Better. He could see what he was doing now, still in the dim, flickering light of the dying candle. Taking one last, deep breath, managing not to choke on the thick air, he thrust.

He gasped, and Damian cried out, rough and hoarse. For a long moment, Benedikt moved slowly inside him, feeling the heat of him and the slickness of the grease, soft noises falling from his throat, a strange, soft, slow union. Then Damian's hips moved greedily back against him, and it wasn't slow anymore, not at all. Benedikt thrust desperately, silent except for an occasional soft moan, but Damian more than made up for it, muttering a constant string of obscenities beneath his breath. Perhaps it was the guttering candle, but the shadows seemed to ripple along his form, pooling darkly in the hollow of his sternum, delineating his cheekbones, and heightening the dark smudges underneath his screwed-up eyes. He was really quite beautiful, Benedikt thought, with some surprise.

"You're stopping, don't stop," Damian begged, eyes half-opening into slits to regard him.

"Sorry," gasped Benedikt, moving again. His eyes slid shut as the world narrowed to just this, to Damian's heat around him and the smell of sweat and the twitching, quivering tension in the muscles of the man beneath him. "Ah—Damian—I think I'm going to—"

"Mmmm, go ahead." Benedikt opened his eyes to check, and saw that Damian's eyes were still open, watching him avidly. The warlock's tongue flicked out briefly across his bottom lip, and that was too much—Benedikt gasped and climaxed with a sudden shout, curling forward across Damian's body as the white heat surged across him. After a long moment, he slumped forward, the muscles in his arms no longer capable of supporting him. "Ah, fuck," Damian said from underneath him. "Undo the chains? I can't get myself off if you don't."

Benedikt looked up. "Er," he said. "I thought that was my job."

A flicker of surprise ran across Damian's face, but he recovered quickly. "You seemed tired," he said, with a rapid shrug. "If—if you don't mind, I'm not gonna say no."

"Well, then," Benedikt smiled. He turned his head and kissed Damian's inner thigh, slid his lips down along it. The warlock gave a sharp hissing intake of breath, and Benedikt's head bobbed up for a moment.

"Wait, are you—" Damian started, and then Benedikt closed his lips around Damian's erection. The words dissolved into a low moan. Admittedly, he wasn't entirely sure what he was doing, but it couldn't be that difficult, could it? A substantial proportion of the population seemed to manage all right. Damian made a strangled noise, straining upward, and the top of his cock hit Benedikt's soft palate. The Azorius mage gagged, pulling back, trying to stop his stomach from rebelling.

"S-sorry," Damian managed. "Fucking hell, man. Warn me next time."

"Apologies," Benedikt said, ducking back down. This time he held the base of the shaft in one hand to prevent it from going too far into his mouth as he went back to what he had been doing.

"Gnnngh," Damian said intelligibly, then managed to form words again. "Little slower—you can use your tongue or your teeth if you fuckin' want—yeah—ah, shit, yeah—suck on it like—liiiiiike that yes exactly like that oh fuck yes." His hips twitched upward again, and Benedikt held him down as he pulled lips and tongue along the erection in front of him. Damian made a noise like a sob. "Ahhhh that's good, I'm close, I'm close I'm—" One heel tapped frantically at Benedikt's back, but he didn't realize what Damian was trying to say until the warlock's hips twisted up off the bed and bitter salt burst across his tongue. Benedikt gagged at the taste and pulled back, coughing and sputtering. Wiping off his face with his arm, he watched as Damian's legs twisted frantically together and he finally slumped back onto the bed. "Shit," he mumbled in a voice that sounded suddenly dull with exhaustion. "Sorry."

"It's fine," Benedikt said uncertainly. Do you sell potions of cure disease might not be the most tactful thing to ask right now, and he was vaguely ashamed that it was the first thought that came to mind. He could take care of it tomorrow, in any case. "Let me get your arms free," he said quietly. "Where's the key?"

"Uh."

Benedikt put a hand to his forehead. "Really?"

"You can just leave them, it's not a big deal."

"I am not leaving you like that all night. Just a minute." He pulled his pants back on and hurried back to his own room, where he found a round, metal object he had tucked away carefully beneath the bed. It warmed in his palm as he retrieved it, and after getting back into the other room, he blew on it.

"What the fuck is that?" demanded Damian, as it extruded six small legs from the round main body and trundled hesitantly along the top of the bed over to the cuffs.

"It's something I enchanted recently. Shut up and be glad I had it with me." The automaton made a soft clicking chirp, then rubbed its forearms together with a scritching sound and applied itself to the handcuffs. They popped open a minute later, and the creature made a small motion like a stretch, pulled all its limbs back into its main form, and was quiescent once more. Benedikt picked it up gently and stowed it safely in the drawer of the night-stand. Groaning, Damian collapsed onto the bed, rubbing his wrists, which were bruised and lacerated.

"What the hell," said Benedikt. "Those were—"

"What?" said Damian. "What she had with her. It worked, didn't it? I'll be fine."
"You idiot," Benedikt said, shaking his head. "I don't know how you've survived this lo—" He bit his tongue, wondering if he'd said something wrong, but Damian just laughed.

"A lot of luck, I guess," he said with a yawn. Benedikt shook his head again, then climbed into the bed.

"Move over," he said. After a slight pause, Damian did so. "Unless you don't want me here?" Benedikt asked, suddenly concerned, but Damian reached out mutely and took his hand.

"Um, no. Thanks. Stay," he said quietly.

As Damian pushed himself back against the altar, the flames licked higher, the choking smoke obscuring his vision. He coughed desperately, eyes watering, maybe from the smoke, maybe from—

Oh, Avacyn. The mantra repeated in his head, even though he didn't care much for the angel. He had loved Marlis more than he'd ever loved anyone. Even dying because of her, he couldn't quite stop himself from wanting to waken in his lover's arms. Stupid, he thought vaguely. Stupid, it was that emotion that had condemned him to death. The flames licked nearer, and he—

-woke with a sob and a gasp, alone in his bed. As usual, his first instinct was to reach for one of the bottles he kept on his nightstand, and he cursed when he remembered that he was still on Ravnica, that all his comforting tonics and potions were a long, weary planeswalk away.

He slung his legs over the side of his bed and put his head in his hands, trying to calm his breathing. "Gods be damned," he breathed. "Gods be—" He shivered, the expression an uncomfortably appropriate one. He stretched, and his eye fell on a scribbled note lying on the other pillow.

Damian,

I had a nice evening. Please feel free to stop by New Prahv the next time you are in the area. I may have other work for you.

Benedikt

Damian's fee had been neatly pinned to the top. He was relatively sure that Benedikt hadn't meant to imply he was paying him for sex, but he shook his head and snickered anyway. He had to admit, he wouldn't really have expected to have decent sex with an Azorius arrester, and he'd been pleasantly surprised.

Crumpling the note, he shoved it into his pocket. At least the arrester had stayed until he was sleeping—a kindness Damian hadn't expected or looked for. Still, it was time to go home. Ravnica was a fine plane, but he needed to get back to his potion shop on Fiora before his brain exploded. Should've brought more ingredients with him. He just hadn't wanted to admit that he was getting to the point where he couldn't keep functioning without them, hadn't wanted to think about what that meant for his longevity.

Another long shudder ran down his spine, and he reached for the Eternities, in the hopes that their cold-hot paradox would drive the thoughts out of his head.