NC-17; warnings for incest, non-con, abuse and various kinks-gone-wrong.
Angelo's fingers scrabble uselessly at the rough stone as Marcello pins him there with hands and body. His expression has gone from defiant to terrified, blue eyes wide and young-looking.
He knows better than to scream. The walls of the Abbey are very thick.
Feeling him tremble, trapped, is a deliciously sweet torment. Marcello rolls his hips forward, lets Angelo feel his erection.
Angelo whines like a frightened dog, deep in his throat. "Please." Barely audible. "Marcello, please."
Marcello slides his hand down to the bulge in Angelo's trousers, and wonders if even his brother knows what he's begging for.
Marcello deftly unfastens Angelo's belt with one hand, the other still pinning him against the wall. He pulls the belt free, to be used if Angelo protests too much, then works loose his trousers and slides one gloved hand inside.
At the first touch of leather against flesh, Angelo closes his eyes, cringing against the wall. One of his hands is bleeding from digging at the stone; Marcello catches it in his free hand, slides the fingers into his mouth, runs his tongue across the raw flesh.
Angelo whimpers, thrusting into Marcello's hold, and the tone of his pleading changes.
Marcello knows people think he doesn't love his brother.
They're wrong.
He loves the little hitch in Angelo's breath at the precise moment he realizes they're alone together, with no witnesses, no one to intervene on his behalf. He loves the way Angelo's pale flesh bruises and splits beneath the lash, the contrasting red of his blood.
He loves the taste of Angelo's sweat, acrid with terror and pain, loves the sounds he makes when he begs Marcello to stop, the sounds he makes later, when he begs Marcello not to stop.
Indeed, Marcello loves his brother a great deal.
Marcello seldom watches Angelo overtly, preferring an illusion of disinterest. Intended to fool the others at the Abbey, it somehow seems to fool Angelo as well. And when Angelo feels ignored, he inevitably finds ways to get himself into trouble.
Naturally, Marcello wants to reassure him before that can happen.
After weapons practice, he orders Angelo to his office, has him strip, inspects every bruise and scrape. He doesn't touch him; he doesn't have to. By the time he is done, Angelo is hard, panting from the intensity of his gaze.
Marcello still doesn't touch him, even when he begs.
Angelo isn't the man his brother wants him to be, may never be that man despite Marcello's best efforts. But where once Marcello had to have him watched, followed, now his guilt is watchdog enough. It goads him up the stairs to Marcello's room, makes him wake his brother with a trembling hand.
He is very drunk, his purse overly heavy with the coin he won by cheating.
He confesses, tongue thick and clumsy, and knows he's making sense from the way Marcello's eyes narrow in anger and disappointment.
His punishment, when it comes, hurts less than his brother's expression.
The others believe he was moved from the trainee barracks to his own quarters because of his brother's influence. They aren't wrong, but Angelo suspects they wouldn't be jealous if they knew the reasons Marcello wants him separated. Just as they wouldn't be jealous if they knew the reasons he's "allowed" to come in at all hours of the night.
He won't tell them; the truth is worse than the current rumors. And while his own reputation is as worthless as he is, he won't allow Marcello's name to be sullied.
When he's caught fighting, he refuses to admit why.
The bruise blossoms across Angelo's cheek, sealing his eye shut with lurid purples and greens. "Who did it?"
"It happened during practice." A pause, just enough to shift his next word from respect to contempt. "Captain." His chin comes up defiantly. "Not as if I haven't had worse."
At your hands remains unspoken, proof Angelo hasn't completely lost his mind.
Marcello motions dismissal to the guards who brought Angelo to his office, leans forward to consider his brother thoughtfully. "Nobody lays a hand on you but me." His tone is both threat and promise. "Now. Tell me who."
"Make me."
"Do you think I can't?"
Marcello's voice is soft, dangerous, and Angelo almost regrets his moment of defiance.
Then Marcello's hand fists in his hair, yanks his head back painfully; Marcello's mouth covers his, smothers the sounds he makes when Marcello's hand unfastens his trousers and slips inside.
He's barely standing when Marcello is finished, wouldn't be standing if his own hands weren't tangled in the fabric of Marcello's uniform. He pants, nearly sobbing, pleasure and pain hopelessly tangled.
For just a moment, Marcello's touch gentles, his fingers untangling from Angelo's hair with a caress.
Angelo tells him the name.
Sometimes, Marcello fears Angelo will always be defiant, impulsive, willful. In part, his fault; he spent too many years ignoring and hating his brother, while Abbot Francisco was lax in his discipline to make up for Marcello's harshness.
When he saw how much like their father Angelo was becoming, Marcello had realized his failure, vowed to give his brother the restraint he lacked.
Still, sometimes he despairs of Angelo ever learning the lessons he's trying to teach.
But when Angelo's on his knees, mouth stretched around Marcello's cock, compliant and content, Marcello believes he may yet succeed in his teaching.
There's a fine line to walk with Marcello. Angelo fears punishment for disappointing him. He's nearly as afraid of pleasing him and hearing that he's ready for something new.
He's failed to walk that line again. He can tell by the smile on Marcello's face, the satisfied gleam in his eye.
Exhausted, arms aching from being tied above his head, he barely hides his dread as Marcello approaches, knife in hand.
"I'm proud to call you my brother." Marcello circles behind him. "Proud to call you mine."
Angelo finds strength to scream as Marcello carves his ownership into his flesh.
The skin is unbroken, but the bruises are deep in the muscle. Marcello's impressed with his new toy. So much less to answer for when there's no blood left behind.
He reaches down, pulls Angelo to his feet. Angelo leans against him, little mewling sounds of pain escaping with each exhale, his face pressed against Marcello for reassurance. Absently, Marcello strokes his sweat-damp hair; Angelo whimpers at the touch on his back.
"You did well," Marcello says, lips against Angelo's ear. "I'm proud of you."
He waits, then says the words that make Angelo endure it all. "I love you."
There are fleeting moments when he considers telling Marcello no, begging him to stop. Moments when the line between pain and pleasure stops blurring and becomes pure agony, when he thinks he'd rather die than continue.
He always endures, knowing Marcello is only trying to make him better, stronger, tempering him like steel.
Marcello has never said it, but Angelo knows refusal is failure. He spent enough years being a failure in Marcello's eyes; he won't bring that down on himself again.
Besides, Marcello loves him, and he loves Marcello, never questioning that love feels a great deal like fear.
Marcello releases Angelo's arms, massages shoulders that ache from the position he was tied in. Angelo can't help but be suspicious; he hopes Marcello reads the tension in his body as pain rather than the dread it is.
"Do you trust me?" Marcello's breath is warm against his ear, and the shiver it draws forth has nothing to do with fear.
"Of course." There is, after all, no other permissible answer.
Marcello kisses the side of his neck. "I want to be certain."
Angelo nods, and tries to ignore the fear twisting his gut as Marcello picks up the whip.
Marcello is brilliantly precise with the whip; he should be, with all the practice he gets. Still, it's one thing to accept the blows on his back, quite different to hold still as the whip licks across his stomach, opens a line of blood on the front of his thigh. It's not just that it hurts more; he's used to the whistle and crack of the leather, not the sight of it approaching.
By the third blow, he's shaking uncontrollably. He closes his eyes; Marcello orders them open again.
The whip only lands twice more before his nerve fails him.
He stumbles as he backs away. The whip cuts across his face; he drops in agony. Blinded, he panics. He hears Marcello's voice but can't make out the words, casts a healing spell almost before he can grasp what he's doing.
He still can't see, but the pain eases enough for him to realize the mistake he made. He starts apologizing before Marcello pulls him to his feet.
"You need to trust me."
Angelo fears what his brother will do to gain his trust. But it's worth it, even if all he sees now is the rage on Marcello's face.
The blade pinning his left hand to the table is broad and ugly, selected to maximize damage. Angelo tries not to look at it, or the pool of blood making him lightheaded; he needs to focus on ignoring the pain radiating up his arm, anyway.
He feels like he's been there hours; the wound has gone from pain to numbness to fire since Marcello left. He's unbound, save for the knife piercing his hand; he can remove it any time, use his magic to heal himself. But Marcello asked for his trust.
He refuses to fail the test this time.
He's barely conscious when Marcello returns. Marcello strokes the back of his neck, drawing forth a sigh, then pins Angelo's wrist, and jerks the knife free.
Angelo had thought he was inured to the pain, but waves of fresh agony tear a scream from his throat. His entire arm feels hot and heavy as he drags it across the table, curls protectively around it.
He's bleeding again; he can't move his fingers. He considers begging, but that won't demonstrate he knows Marcello wants what's best for him.
Still, he doesn't relax until he feels the healing spell settle around him.
Angelo's still shaking when the magic dissipates; Marcello casts the spell a second time to ensure the damage is healed. He doesn't want to harm Angelo, after all.
"You did well."
"I knew you wouldn't let anything happen to me." The tremor in Angelo's voice suggests he knew no such thing; Marcello smiles, pleased Angelo obeyed him.
He kisses Angelo's palm, draws him to his feet, wraps him in an embrace. Angelo so seldom meets his expectations that he's feeling magnanimous. "A reward is in order." He presses Angelo back against the bloodstained table and sets about easing his trembling.
Angelo doesn't flinch from the first few drops of hot wax on his skin. It's only most of a candle later, with the sting of fresh burns building on the dull throb of existing burns, that his control fails and reflex takes over.
Marcello pauses, running his fingers over the shell dripping down from Angelo's chest, covering his stomach. "Do I need to tie you down to keep you still?"
"No." Angelo's voice is no more stable than his body, trembling under Marcello's touch.
"Do you want me to stop?"
A pause; this time Angelo's answer is sure, steady. "No."
Angelo's back is smooth, unblemished beneath Marcello's palm, until he reaches back of Angelo's right shoulder. There, scar tissue denotes an ornate letter M, an early whim Marcello expected to be gone as soon as they were finished. He still remembers his surprise at finding the half-healed initial when all the other marks had been healed away. Since then, he's enlarged it, embellished it, cut until he's been certain Angelo will break down and heal it with the rest.
He never has.
Angelo makes a noise, pleading, as Marcello traces the scar. With a loving smile, Marcello draws his knife.
Angelo fears he'll go mad, fears he's already mad. It can't be sane, the way his body thrums alive at Marcello's touch, whether than touch comes from hands or whip or blade; can't be sane to bow his head at Marcello's order and let his brother do what he does.
Can't be sane to enjoy it.
Marcello yanks his head up by the hair. "Are you all right, brother?" His voice is tender, while his free hand sends fire through Angelo's back, the slickness of blood between them.
Angelo would answer, but his own voice is long gone from screaming.
He's on his knees, he's shaking, and he can't stop shaking. Little tremors through his body that could be fear or desire, and he honestly isn't sure which he's feeling.
He isn't sure what he ought to feel, what he wants to feel.
So instead, he focuses on the tremors in his aching muscles; on the rough stone of the floor digging into his skin; on the currents of warmer air the torches send through the room; on the short, hard breaths thudding painfully in and out of his lungs.
On the sound of Marcello's boots, slowly, slowly circling him.
Bad enough to be in Simpleton. Worse to be so pre-occupied with hopes the strangers would return his ring that he'd shoved his well deserved guilt out of his mind.
Worst to defy Marcello twice, once in private, once in front of the strangers who had inspired this madness.
He aches from the way Marcello has stretched him against the wall; his back screams with ripped and ragged flesh. He can't feel his hands; the blood running down his arms tells him that's just as well.
Marcello has dealt him pain before. This is different. This, he wants to escape.
There is ice running through his veins, chilling him, numbing him. He curls on the stone floor and wishes it could numb his thoughts as well as his body.
Marcello has left him there. Pulled him free of the restraints - something in his shoulder had torn at that, fire burning through his chest, contrasting the ice - let him drop to the floor, and left him.
Marcello has never left him before, and Angelo wants to believe something happened, something important called Marcello away and he'll be back with soft reassurances and healing spells and forgiveness.
But he can't.
Marcello paces, regretting the harshness of his punishment, knowing he went too far. Ironic, he thinks, that the months he spent teaching Angelo discipline, obedience, blind faith in him, have all been destroyed by his own loss of control.
He might have been able to salvage things had he stayed, but he feared his blind fury over Angelo's obvious interest in the strangers would make him do something unforgivable. More unforgivable.
His uniform is stained with Angelo's blood. He hopes Angelo has the strength to heal himself, worries he doesn't.
By the time he checks on him, Angelo is gone.
Marcello isn't surprised when he summons Angelo to his office. Anger, resentment, fear, held in careful check; Angelo undoubtedly believes he's concealing those feelings, forgetting Marcello knows him too well for that.
Marcello tells him he'll be leaving; shock and betrayal are transparent on his face.
And that does surprise, because Marcello expected...relief, at the least.
Marcello had assumed he knew the results of his fit of temper; they haven't spoken since he left Angelo almost too broken to heal himself. There isn't time to speak now, and as he watches Angelo leave, Marcello fears he's made another mistake.
In battle Angelo is fearless, to the point where Eight finds himself always keeping an eye on the graceful blur of silver and crimson, healing wounds Angelo doesn't seem to feel, praying Angelo won't take one risk too many.
It's only when they're alone together that uncertainty shadows Angelo's features, slows his swift, deft movements. And yet, Angelo seems to crave his company.
Eight hates that a wrong move from him can darken those blue eyes with fear, where nothing else can.
He begins to watch Angelo outside of battle, as well, determined to discover what's wrong.
And fix it.
The kiss was...Eight doesn't like the word "accident", it sounds too negative, like a mistake. But unintentional, the kiss was definitely that, the result of a very long day and too much wine at King Pavan's feast.
Pavan had generously offered them rooms; Jessica had taken the first, Yangus the second, and somewhere before the third one of them had stumbled into the other. Who had stumbled was blurry; all that was clear was the memory of them clinging to each other's arms, holding each other up, eyes locking and lips meeting.
The fourth room never did get used.
Normally, when Marcello has to wait for Angelo to appear as ordered, Angelo suffers for it. Today, though, Marcello is in a rare good mood, and Angelo doesn't tense when he hears his brother lock the door behind him.
Marcello catches Angelo's long tail of hair into his fist, tugs just hard enough to make Angelo tilt his head back, covers Angelo's mouth with his own. His other hand rubs firmly at the erection already straining against Angelo's trousers, until Angelo moans with pleasure.
"Love you."
The voice is wrong, not Marcello's, and Angelo opens his eyes, his fantasy shattered.
It's three weeks before Eight sees Angelo naked. Angelo's talented, with mouth and hands and excuses, and on the road they haven't the luxury for much else. By the time they reach Pickham, though, Eight's more than happy to pay for extra rooms, if it will buy him time alone with Angelo.
When he finds the mark carved into Angelo's back, new scars layered over old, he's livid, but he already knows Angelo well enough not to show it.
Instead, he follows each line and curve, as if he can heal the scars away with fingers and lips and tongue.
Eight's touch confuses him, leaves him off-balance. It's so alien, the gentleness, the caresses and kisses and soft words. Even when Eight's hands are rough and hasty, they're never harsh, never bring the crystal-bright pain Angelo expects.
At times, Angelo craves the pain. But Eight never asks Angelo for anything he isn't willing to do himself, and Angelo knows Eight will never hurt him unless he's willing to hurt back.
The very thought sickens him.
Still, when they have the luxury of lying tangled together, Eight's fingers tracing the scar on Angelo's shoulder, Angelo dreams guiltily of jade green eyes.
Alone, the first thing Eight does is free Angelo's hair so it cascades around his shoulders. He loves the way it catches the light as it moves, the feel of it brushing against his face and chest.
He's learned to resist the urge to tangle his fingers in the strands. That makes Angelo tense, breath short with fear rather than passion. Instead, Eight nuzzles through the silver curtain to kiss Angelo's neck, strokes it back from sweat-slick skin so he can see Angelo's face when they're finished.
He can live with the compromise, but he wishes he didn't have to.
His weeks away from Marcello have made him careless. He thrusts into Eight, pleasure overcoming uncertainty, tips his head forward, kisses the side of Eight's neck. His tongue slips out, running over the skin until Eight pushes back against him with a growl.
Somehow, in that moment of pleasure-bound inattention, his teeth fasten down, hard enough to mark. He freezes, certain he's earned himself a broken jaw, panic draining desire from him.
He finds himself on the ground, as expected. But instead of blood and threats, there are only soft hands, and a softer voice reassuring him that he's safe.
Angelo's teeth sink into the juncture of Eight's neck and shoulder, then Angelo...wavers, as if his balance has fled him. Eight feels him pull out, turns to ask what's wrong, is met by a shock-white face and eyes that don't see him.
His first confused thoughts, as he wraps Angelo in his arms and eases him to the floor, are of hidden wounds and malicious spells. It takes long minutes to realize he's seeing raw terror.
Angelo whimpers a broken litany of apologies and pleas. Eight counters with whispered reassurances, gentle caresses, and silent prayers that those will be enough.
Sense comes back into Angelo's eyes, followed closely by shame. Eight feels guilty for refusing to let him leave when he tries, but refuses just the same. They don't talk; Angelo flinches away from his touch.
Eventually they find themselves in bed. Angelo's back is to him, the scar just visible above the blankets.
The tension eases from Angelo's body; Eight spoons gently against him, wraps his arms around him. Angelo's hands are cold, clenched into fists; it's nearly dawn before warmth comes back into him and he falls asleep.
Eight holds him, and allows himself to truly hate Marcello.
"You were afraid of me last night," Eight murmurs against his shoulder.
Not an accusation, but the words still sting. "Not of you," he says, because how can he deny being afraid when Eight saw him curled on the floor, weeping like a child?
"I was the only one here," Eight says; for that, he has no answer.
A few moments of silence, and Eight's palm slides across his chest, comes to rest over his heart. "I'm not going to hurt you," he whispers.
"I know," Angelo says. "I trust you."
He doesn't add that he trusted Marcello, as well.
He feared seeking out Marcello would be a mistake, but he couldn't stop himself once he knew his brother was on Neos.
Now he's pressed against rough stone, Marcello's mouth hard and hungry on his, Marcello's hand on his cock. It feels...right, familiar, safe, in spite of the way they parted. Marcello's almost gentle; Angelo wonders if it's an apology, or if he's simply forgotten this side of his brother.
Marcello certainly hasn't forgotten anything about him, has him twisting and moaning in moments.
He licks and sucks Marcello's fingers clean, sinks to his knees, and returns the favor.
Angelo disappears for long hours each day that they're in Neos. Eight doesn't need to ask where he goes; he's seen Marcello in the city.
Each day, he worries that Angelo won't bother to return, breathes a sigh of relief when Angelo rejoins them. Angelo seems happy; he tells himself that's the important thing.
The day before they plan to go back to the ship, Angelo doesn't return. Eight tells himself it's Angelo's choice to make, but that doesn't help him sleep.
He's still awake when Angelo stumbles into his room after midnight and sinks down beside the bed, trembling.
The moonlight coming through the window reflects off eyes that are wide with shock; Eight rethinks speaking and slides out of bed, kneeling beside Angelo and taking both shaking hands in his.
It takes Angelo a moment to realize he's there, then he curls forward, burrowing against Eight's neck. He's cold, freezing, despite the warm night.
He smells like sweat and fear and blood. Too much blood.
Eight frees one hand, rests it carefully on Angelo's back, knowing what he'll find before he touches the sodden fabric. He hopes Angelo can't hear his rage when he whispers the healing spell.
Eight struggles with what seem to be endless buttons and curses Angelo's uniform, because with all his practice getting it off he's never had to do it while Angelo wasn't cooperating, while Angelo was alternately trying to curl against him and escape, while his own hands were shaking and he was blinking away tears that were part hurt and part rage at Marcello and part anger at Angelo for doing something so fucking stupid.
And finally it's off, nothing more than a blood-ruined pile on the floor, and Angelo's in his arms, not crying, not making a sound, just shaking.
Eight holds him for a long time before finding something with which to wipe the blood off them both. Under the blood, Angelo is ghostly pale.
Angelo's hair is a tangled, blood-matted mess. He discovers a raw patch where the hair was torn out when he goes to tie it back, curses as he heals it.
His first spell healed most of what Marcello did; the faint marks left, covering Angelo from neck to knees, tell him its best he didn't see, doesn't know. If he knew, he doubts he could stop himself from going after Marcello, and damn his responsibilities to Trode and the quest.
But he doesn't know, not all of it, not for sure, and so he can coax Angelo into bed, wrap him in blankets, whisper reassurances to him, hold him and wait for him to stop shaking.
He wonders how many more times they'll have to lie like this before Angelo's finally free.
The change in Angelo's breathing warns Eight he's waking before he begins struggling, fighting the blankets and Eight's arms around him. He's as silent as when he came to the room the night before; Eight murmurs reassurances and feels oddly grateful that there's nothing to alert the others.
Finally, Angelo goes limp, draws a shuddering breath like a sob. Eight waits.
"He..." Angelo's voice is shaking, cracking, an edge of hysteria to it. "He didn't... take it well... when I told him I was going with you."
"You could have stayed."
"No." Angelo's hand finds his, clings tightly. "I couldn't."
Continue to the next section.
