Chapter Text
It had been his youth, Will knows, that had gotten him in in the first place.
A boy is rarely in possession of money enough to frequent such an establishment, there are other means by which he has to pay his way. And the pretty ones always have it easy, a coy look, a smile, a gentle biting of a lip and drinks are suddenly free, the pipes offered up by kneeling men just waiting for him to accept.
Sometimes older women, too, wanting a pretty little thing to recline beside them to pretend he’s theirs.
For a month, Will has sustained his habit without paying even a dime, and night after night he keeps his eyes to the ceiling as he lays sprawled, listening to the creaking of the floorboards, waiting for the owner to come down and drag him outside himself.
It had happened in the Chinese den on the docks, where the woman had bodily tossed Will to the sidewalk, barely clothed and into snow. It had happened in lectures when he had come in too high, too placid and soft and pliant to learn.
And it would happen here.
The anticipation for the inevitability drove Will to pleasant shivering before his eyes rolled back and he allowed the smoke to engulf him for another night.
Tonight, he rests curled already, head in the lap of a man with too much money and too little sense, enduring the patronizing stroking of his hair as he does things with his tongue against that pipe that sends the man’s interest into stark relief against the back of Will’s neck where he lies.
Above them, the floorboards creak, and Will’s eyes flick up at attention, following the path of the invisible man as he nears the corner of the ceiling where the landing should be.
Then the stairs creak, one by one, a soft sound of an old house, and Will fights a smile.
A step at a time, each assured beyond the swimming sensation pressing thick behind his eyes - an unintentionally dramatic entrance, but Mason, head cocked, is just as pleased to enjoy the stride of it. He sighs, curtly, at the bottom of the stairs and tugs the white smoking jacket tighter around himself, folding his arms over it. Lips purse, eyes narrow, as he surveys the spread for the evening.
Strumpet. Whore. Rube, rube, rube. Another whore. Junkies, too many to bother counting, one of which he reminds himself needs his fingers broken before he leaves again without paying. Orphan. Barkeep.
Boy.
Not one of his.
But a boy all the same.
Too old, really, to be one of his - a student, still in his coat and starched collar, black tie, no shoes, though, Mason notes with interest. Probably brought his bookbag with him and everything.
Spoiled little rich boy.
Mason's smile widens and he turns away, humming off-key as he passes through, past lamps and limbs, all splayed and warm around him, smoke parting as a sea when he waves a hand through it. The elegant motion curls into a fist that comes down firmly against the bar as he leans across it, pleased, "Wine. I'm out in the office."
The bottle presents itself without further question, the barkeep leaning back against the shelves behind himself to make a note of the bottle in his notebook - perhaps more thefts than usual lately.
Not that Will cares. He’s watching the stark whiteness that is the proprietor lean over the bar to collect what he wants.
He’s younger than Will expected, though older than himself. Something about the way he carries himself suggests privilege and an upbringing that taught him he was entitled to it always. There is also power, an immeasurable amount of power that sends Will squirming in the lap he’s in, drawing a pleased groan from the man above him.
Will arches his neck, head back and lips drawing up into a grin around the pipe he isn’t actually smoking, but instead utterly molesting.
He blinks, languid and slow, and parts his lips on a sigh when the man slips a hand down Will’s chest in a deliberate line. He spreads his legs without hesitation, turning his head to nuzzle into the man’s thigh with a purring little groan as his hand reaches between his legs and cups there.
His eyes he keeps entirely open, on the man at the bar, before bringing the pipe between his teeth again and enveloping it with his lips in a deliberate motion.
Mason glances towards the glass offered to him, turns a dry look towards the barkeep, and pivots his attention back to Will.
A little old, but with a mouth like a choir boy.
"Please," he grimaces, pushing away from the bar. "I don't know where your fingers have been."
He takes a pull from the bottle, grateful as ever for the personal store he keeps away from the ones cut with soured cider. Winding his way through the couches, glasses glinting in the gaslights, he makes no secret of his approach, and drapes himself to sit along the back of the couch.
The man on whom Will rests tenses sharply, familiar enough with the proprietor's propensity for explosions, and his hand slowly moves back along the line it followed, across Will's chest, and off of him.
"Now, now," Mason sighs, "no need to stop on my account. I want everyone to have a really wonderful time here. Are you? Are you having a really wonderful time?"
He claps a hand onto the man's shoulder and takes a long pull of wine, delighting inwardly as the man forces a laugh.
"Alwa-"
"I'm so glad. Truly, but tell me, how is the wife?" Giving the man's shoulder a squeeze that lasts just a little too long, he finally releases him to work gloved fingers up through his own hair instead, wild and nearly white in the low lights. Beneath him, the man's eyes close on a stifled sigh. "And the children. You have how many now?"
"Three," comes the low murmur, his former interest in Will fading where moments before it was pressed against his cheek.
Mason's smile widens, easy pleasure, and grateful as ever for the little brats that are always so happy to keep an eye on the more privileged customers that are drawn with clockwork regularity to the den. It's not hard to pick them out, their habits the same as any of the others, but their clothes and carriage betray them. Once they've found a place to chase their dragon, it's merely a matter of sending an escort - unseen, of course, and unwanted - behind them.
The only way to make a living easier than peddling the pipe - blackmail.
"Three," repeats Mason, and as the man starts to rise, so too does Mason, genial and bright. "Off so soon? Have to put the little darlings to bed, I know how that is. I'll see you again tomorrow, I'm sure."
The man, suddenly far less in his cups than he was moments before, doesn't spare a glance towards Will, splayed unceremoniously behind him, before quickly snatching up his coat to go.
Following his exit, Mason hands the bottle towards Will without turning towards him until he resumes his perch along the back of the couch, a languid swivel to regard him. "And you," he declares, more statement than question.
Will hums, fingers splayed to hold the bottle before he tips it to drink, lips slow to slip from the lip of the bottle when he’s done.
“I was rather enjoying myself, before you made him leave,” he admits, smile wide and pleased before he hands the bottle back, doesn’t bother sitting up as he brings the pipe to his mouth again. It doesn’t take much to lean over and heat it again, breathing in the heady fumes and arching his back before sighing them out.
“He’ll miss his money,” he laments, arching higher still to look towards the door the man had left through, upside down. “Plying me with wine, encouraging the pipe… and now he can’t even enjoy my mouth.”
A frown, almost genuine, before Will’s eyes slip to Mason’s again and he tilts his head.
Icy blue eyes level on Will, pupils wide enough to nearly block out the pale shade. He follows the lines of the boy, clad in pristine black but for the high-collared shirt beneath it, against which Will spreads his fingers in a seemingly absent gesture, and then blinks wide with a loud laugh.
"Right," he exclaims, snaring back the wine for another long sip. "Now, this is the part where I make some little remark - something about not letting good money go to waste, right?"
He offers the bottle back, and holds it just far enough away that Will has to stretch for it.
"Or - wait, even better. I'll say something about how I'm certain I could find a better use for your mouth than him, and you'll laugh, and pretend I'm very funny."
Pushing his fingers into Will's hair, they tighten just a little, grin spreading his lips. "I am very funny, aren't I?"
Will's brows raise, smile still one of genuine delight as he flicks his eyes between Mason’s.
"Hilarious,” he agrees, directing the pipe to between his lips again and making a sound of faint displeasure when it's taken away. It is replaced with the bottle, however, and Will finds himself smiling before obediently sucking the top into his mouth and swallowing when it's tilted.
Oddly gentle.
Will is certain that won’t last much longer.
He licks his lips when they're free again, sits up enough to tilt his head into the hand grasping it.
"I was going to recite old Greek poetry, actually,” he reveals, amused at the gentle niggle of surprise at his earnestness. “Usually gets him right up."
A press of lips together, red from wine, from youth.
"I shudder to think what you had in mind that I would be doing with it."
The leather glove is cool against Will's cheek where Mason cups it, sliding his thumb along his cheekbone, and down further still to press across his lips. He leans forward a little, watching Will over the top of his glasses, eyes darting from feature to feature, no forest for the trees but satisfied enough it seems, with the way Will's lips wrap just softly around his finger.
A choir boy in looks alone, although maybe in practice, too, all priests considered.
"There will be plenty of room for Greek," Mason assures him with a pat on the cheek. He slides limber from the back of the couch, arms heavy and liquid from the opium still thickened like tar in his limbs. He holds the bottle out only as a taunt, to bid Will follow him, before making his way towards the stairs.
Arms folded over himself, coat pulled tight, he turns to ascend them backwards, eyes bright as embers in their focus.
"What is your name? I do like to know who's joining me for a private drink, you know - it's not every day I share company in this way, share my wine, my little pleasures."
Not every day, but nearly so, and depending on how long they last, sometimes more than once a day. He sighs, fond, and turns to tug himself up the rest of the stairs.
Will spares only a brief look to the couch he had occupied, bending to take his shoes before obediently following like a pup after a new master. He keeps a few stairs below him the entire way, eyes wide when they’re met, smile languid when Mason turns away.
“Will,” he offers, tone curling on the liquid at the end, turning it on his tongue into something gently more youthful. He feels his cheeks flush in anticipation as slowly, slowly, the wedge of light disappears at his side, as he ascends the stairs to the room above. He bites his lip.
“Do I get yours too, or do I just call you ‘mister’?” He adds a lisp to the word enough to actually be comical and smiles genuinely when Mason turns to him again, on the landing now, Will three steps below.
Mason braces both hands against the railing, leaning precariously across the stairs to loom over Will, crooked grin cutting wide. Far from minding the gentle mockery, he revels in it, loves that this new boy can look at everything around him and see Mason's tastes so clearly dug into the walls, soaked into the floorboards.
His teeth press together, savage delight and a low snarl.
"Say that again."
Will widens his eyes a little, lower lip pressed between his teeth, and he takes a step closer.
"You want me to call you 'mister'?" he repeats again, dragging out the word, with the same lisp flattening the sibilant and the same shiver peeling across Mason's skin when he does.
"Mason." Each syllable is stressed equally, like teaching the name to someone who doesn't speak English.
Like teaching it to a child.
"Mason," Will repeats, chin lifting, and Mason's fingers close quickly around it. He resists the urge to dig his nails in yet to those rosy cheeks, to leave scarlet stripes along them, and merely holds him, to watch the shape of his mouth.
"Good boy," sighs Mason. "Very good boy." He pats Will's cheek before he turns to push open the door to his office, handing the wine back to him. Sifting towards the desk, he rummages across it through paperwork and books - most of which ends up across the floor - and finally finds the small snuffbox to gather into his palm.
"Mummy and daddy have no idea what you're up to, do they? What are you here for - university? Boarding school?" Christ, Mason hopes for boarding school. "What do you tell them when they ask what you're studying? What are you so busy with, dear boy, that you can't even take time to write?"
Will sets his shoes quietly by the door, peels off his jacket to toss on top, hands slipping into his pockets as he meanders over, eyes skimming the room. Large as the space downstairs, one window that looks painted shut, a table in the middle of the floor, neither here nor there in room design, a tall wardrobe with the doors partially open, and the crowning piece: an enormous bed in the corner, messy sheets, four posts.
Will makes a pleased little purring noise again.
“Mummy and daddy think I’m in my dorm room, getting a good night’s sleep between classes,” he says, a pleasant, simple lie. “Six days a week in lessons, and Church on Sunday for morning mass and evening mass.”
He stops, close to Mason again but not enough to yet reach. The other just regards him with that same strangely restrained hunger before twitching his head in a shake and furrowing his brows.
“How old are you, Will?”
Lip between teeth again and a slow drag to free it before Will responds.
“Fourteen.”
A slow blink, a deliberate breath as Mason’s fingers flex against whatever he’s holding. Will doesn’t blink, just watches him, smiling without moving a single muscle in his face.
“Are you lying to me, Will?” Mason asks, almost sweet, disturbingly so. Will blinks then, adjusts his stance to look up at Mason, through messy curls.
“Do you care?”
Mason draws himself up a little taller, a shift of shoulders, a roll of his head to stretch his neck as he steps closer. Serpentine, liquid movements, a venomous ichor in the way he extends a hand to brush the backs of gloved fingers down Will’s cheek. His fingertips press beneath his chin and lift their eyes to meet.
“I always care,” he drawls, “if something’s gone off with age.” Mason grips Will’s chin and turns him from side to side, as though expecting an animal at market, and - seemingly pleased with what he finds - he smiles benevolently. “But you - you’re still fresh as spring daisies, aren’t you?”
There’s a wryness to his tone, a lie that even he doesn’t believe with Will’s pretty mouth distracting him like that. He cups the boy’s cheek when he takes another drink of wine, to feel his jaw work, and then opens the snuff-box.
Will blinks at the dusty, medicinal smell in the air, glancing between the wild-haired man in front of him and the box of powder he presents.
“But what I cannot abide is lying, Will,” Mason sighs, lifting out a tiny spoonful of the powder. “You should know that about me. As long as you’re honest, about whatever it is - Mason, be gentle, Mason, it hurts, Mason, I’m bleeding - we won’t have a problem. But you have to trust me,” he intones, stepping closer still, and offering out the little serving of cocaine.
Pure. Strong. A vicious burn at the edges of it as Will looks from it to Mason, and back again.
“Call it a truth serum,” Mason laughs.
Again Will considers, rolls his bottom lip between his teeth before ducking his head with a laugh.
"I'm seventeen,” he admits, glancing up, swallowing gently, "and... they kicked me out of school for truancy. Last week."
A bright smile before he steps closer. He can almost smell the power behind that powder, even amidst the smoke in his head that wafts and turns as he does, trying to unbalance him.
"The strap didn’t work on me," he sighs. "I liked it too much."
Another lick of his lips, a brief hesitation, and Will leans in to breathe stuff in.
It's sharp, stinging, and his eyes tear almost immediately.
"Oh hell," he sighs, one hand up to wipe the powder still stuck to the rim of his nostril, the other out to catch Mason’s arm for balance, something the man finds utterly delightful. The box closes with a snap, disappears into Mason's pocket. Will makes a helpless little noise that turns into a laugh as his limbs tremble with the sensation of this new thing in his system.
"What will this cost me?" he asks, breathless, nearly stumbling closer, still holding onto Mason's arm. "Nothing in your house is free, Mason, and,"
His breathing hitches gently, eyes up to meet Mason's through the glass, wide and dark, bare rims of blue. He shakes his head with a giggle.
"I have no money!"
Mason sways a little closer, a viper coiling towards a small helpless thing.
"Bad form," he clucks, voice a little lower. "Partaking with no way to pay it. Surely you didn't intend to swindle me tonight the way you did what's-his-name down there."
He purses his lips in thought and tugs off a glove, one finger at a time, and then reaches. His thumb drags along Will's upper lip, feels the smoothness of it, and he wipes away the traces of dust with a glimmering smile.
"Doesn't matter," Mason decides, before the wild-eyed boy before him can answer. "Everyone earns their keep around here - you'll find I'm really very generous with how much I can give." Equally unsettled eyes level on Will and Mason bares his teeth, rubbing the dust from Will's lip across his gums, chasing it with his tongue.
Very close now, noses nearly touching, Mason's eyes wide, voice punctuating the quiet. "Shame about the truancies - not such a good boy after all. But I've always had a soft spot for helpless little creatures, did you know that? Those wretched things you find starving in the street." He presses his bare fingers against Will's cheek, pushing up into his hair. "I like to take them in. Feed them. Let them lay by the fire. They look at you with such gratitude. It's really very beautiful."
Mason's fingers snarl, twisting deeper through Will's long curls, just until he gasps.
"It's just unfortunate that - for as much as I give them - they don't live longer. Struggles take their toll, I suppose," sighs Mason, bringing their mouths nearly together. "But that just means I'm in the market for a new pet."
Will grins, can feel Mason's breath against his lips and smiles wider for it.
He feels as though he could do anything, as though he could run forever if he started, could climb any mountain, fight anyone who touched him. He feels invincible, immortal -
"Do I get a pretty collar?" he asks, biting his lip and blinking to try and get Mason in focus with how close the man holds them. "Do I get to have a tail to wag? To crawl on the floor for you?"
A soft sound, like a moan, as the hand in his hair twists tighter. He imagines having to eat only what he's fed by hand, imagines a tether, imagines a pendulum swinging, with every stroke the bed is remade, the light crawls shaking and backwards to its morning position. Will wonders if he's seeing the past, the future, or if it matters.
He will know the feeling of those sheets against his skin, he is certain.
"Can I sleep at the foot of your bed?" he whispers.
The enormous grin cracks wider still.
"Oh, you'll crawl," Mason promises, the clarity in his voice far more dangerous than the fervor. He releases Will's hair to bring his hand lower, across Will's mouth, and slide to rest on his neck.
Fingernails dig sharp above his collar and with a shove and a laugh, Mason brings Will roughly to his knees.
"Good dogs stay on the floor," he grins, teeth clenched and bared and as starkly white as the rest of him. "Stay."
Fingers trembling with anticipation, he squeezes Will's throat a little tighter and moves towards the chest of drawers, shedding his smoking jacket as he goes. Well-dressed beneath the bizarre coat, far nicer than this neighborhood should merit, an expensive silvery vest over fitted trousers, suspenders up over the tailored shirt.
He glances back towards Will, yanking open a drawer, and rifling through it.
"I'm glad you're here," he declares, dropping something heavy and leather, a clatter of metal, to the floor bedside his feet. "These things are made for horses and usually the creatures I find are so -"
He stops, pulls hard on something stuck, grimaces and pulls again until it snaps loose. A swish of leather from the riding crop that he tucks under his arm, and Mason continues.
"They're so very small. Little fits them, so I have to force it, and it's all very messy. But you, you're a healthy one, aren't you? Someone took good care of you."
"I took care of me," Will breathes, but it's hardly an angry confession, hardly a displeased one. He made do. He still does. After this, he still will.
He thinks of how he had lain on his back, lips parted to gasp out his pleasure in smoke as some man or several touched his skin, worked open his pants, positioned his own pliant hand over hard bulges beneath fabric, between their legs, and all that time he stared up.
Here.
"Will you take care of me now?" he asks, words smooth, coy, as he stretches, knees slipping wider on the smooth floor, hands stretching forward until he’s nearly face to face with the floorboards, everything in stark relief.
"Teach me to be a good boy?"
He delights in knowing Mason enjoys this false youthfulness. He’s young enough but this man... this one feasts on the souls of utterly innocent creatures. Will needs to tempt, to distract the man closer in order to get what he wants.
A thrum of thunderous pleasure at the question, Mason shivers visibly, tilts his head from side to side, and dumps another piece onto the floor. A bridle, this time. Always a delight to make them hold the bit in their mouths, even though it’s so big. It pinches, sometimes, caught in the corners of their lips, but only when he pulls too hard on it.
Mason laughs.
He always pulls too hard on it.
“Papa used to say I have a heavy hand with the animals,” Mason muses, unclipping the reins from the bridle, and snapping the worn, oiled strap of leather between his hands. “But you have to when they’re unwieldy, otherwise they never learn who their master really is. You can’t let them think for themselves or they get,” he pauses for the word, licks it from his lips, and turns to Will with a grin. “Spirited.”
His shoes click against the old floorboards as he winds his way closer again, crop still tucked under his arm, and he looms in front of Will, studying the bend of his back, presenting himself so prettily.
“The key,” he emphasizes, “is to understand the animal itself. They’re all different, even if they still break the same, but the bad habits you have to beat out of them really depend on who else has had them first.”
He tugs his other glove off and sends it to the floor, crouching in front of Will. The boy’s eyes are enormous, spread black with pupil, lips parted and damp and eager, and Mason tucks a finger beneath Will’s chin to lift it.
“You are a pretty one, aren’t you? Good breeding,” he decides, looping the length of leather around Will’s neck, and clipping it closed into a loop. “And now you’re all mine. We’re going to have such fun together.”
The last word is punctuated by a sharp jerk to tighten the lead around Will’s neck, snapping high beneath his chin to keep it raised as Mason stands. He’s in a very good mood tonight, it seems, a well-struck balance between abundant chemicals, and he pushes a hand back through his hair, lips twisting into a peculiar pouting smile as he looks down at Will and laughs.
“Know any tricks?”
The initial response to hook his fingers beneath the leather and loosen it is curbed into a caress of the strap around his throat. Will swallows, feels it there as pressure, heavy, and grins.
It feels as though his heartbeat not only beats through him but the rest of the room as well, pulsing up and up and up in a steady thrum, like the beat of savage music. Will makes a murmuring sound and twists to sit properly, legs in a messy tangle at his side, one hand just able to reach the floor to hold himself balanced.
"I can do anything,” he says, and he wonders if it is considered a lie when he feels the truth of it so wholly. He thinks again of running without end, of the sheets folding and refolding into neatness only to be disheveled back.
He grins, eyes up, and turns his head just enough to catch the leather in his teeth and close them around it. He doesn’t tug, but the darkness in his eyes levels to a humming grey, like dusk.
“Can you,” responds Mason, no question in it. He steps closer, eyes hidden behind the glitter of gaslamp, and his grin twists into a look of displeasure at his dog, biting at the lead.
“You puppies are insatiable,” he murmurs, and slowly winds the lead around the back of Will’s head, against his mouth again until his mouth parts to accept it. A gag, now, horse-stink leather rough against his lips, and Mason winds the end around his fist, fighting back the urge to snap it so hard it cuts Will’s mouth.
He’s always had a habit of breaking toys sooner than he means to.
“Clothes,” Mason instructs, jerking the lead just a little, just a bit, just enough to scratch the itch in him that already howls laughing to see skin shredded and teeth knocked out. He’s done that before. He’s done that plenty. He can do that again and again.
He wants this one to be different, at least until he’s bored with it. This one can actually talk in more than just pleas and crying. This one knows Greek, it says. Mason doesn’t care about Greek, but he likes nice things, and it would be nice to have a dog to come home to at the end of the night, to nuzzle his hand and whine for his attention from the floor until he pets it or beats it or both.
Probably both.
“I’m going to take good care of you,” he decides, reaching out to press his fingers through Will’s hair, down over the stripe of leather wrapped around his head. He loosens it with a quick flourish, watching with interest as it falls free of Will’s lips. “You’d like that, wouldn’t you? Someone to feed you all the things you want. Let you lay around by the fire. Teach you and play with you.”
It would almost sound tender, if not for the snarled grin with which he watches Will’s fingers rise to his collar.
“My Will.”
Will makes a soft noise and smiles, directs his energy - and there is so much of it, so close, just under his skin if he could just find a way to use it - to keeping his hands from shaking as he works the buttons on his shirt and slips it down his back. He lets it rest there, caught against his elbows, and looks up.
He looks younger, almost sleepy, the way his clothes rest. Like a small child in a nightshirt too big for it, rubbing its eyes when it comes downstairs too early on a Christmas morning.
Will bites his lip.
"Please play with me,” he purrs, the tone softer, similar to his lisp on the stairs. He knows what it does. He knows what the man wants of him, laid out in front of him like a cobbled road. Frantic, quick, harsh, over and over until he is sated or Will exhausted.
There is no tenderness to tempt here, just the devil.
But... one does choose hell for the company.
Will brings one hand between his legs to work the buttons there, to fold the fabric open to reveal the soft breeches beneath. He would need to stand to remove them entirely, but he doubts Mason wants this done simply. Instead he just tilts his head, curious, and lets his thighs slide wider where he sits, in invitation to look, to touch, to rend from his body in harsh jerks and quick rips.
Watching with a sharpness of attention that one may not expect from someone whose moods pitch so wildly, Mason’s eyes narrow with interest as Will spreads and splays and softens himself. Years erased with gestures, worries with words played sweetly from his lips, a young man, perhaps, but readily capable of becoming a child.
Of course, Mason always prefer the real thing, but they don’t do anything like this - asking him for it, sprawling on display for it. Too busy struggling.
One of them scratched him, right under the eye, not two weeks earlier.
Mason was happy to teach him a Biblical lesson - an eye for an eye, or near enough, anyway.
“I had a dog once,” Masons recalls, circling Will until he’s standing behind him. Smooth fingers snare roughly in his shirt and yank it from his arms to be tosses to the floor. His tie follows, pulled sharply enough to nearly burn against Will’s slender, pale neck.
Cool fingers press to where the red mark is left, just beneath the leather strap, and hold there against Will’s throat.
“They’re not as sturdy as you’d think.”
Mason continues his slow circle, and wraps another loop of leather around his wrist. He lifts upward, until Will is drawn onto his knees, and with a quick snap, brings him to the ground. Will catches himself on his hands just before colliding with the floor, remaining where he’s been dropped, and watching Mason with eyes, bright and blue, beneath his curls of hair.
“Good boy,” Mason grins, before feigning a frown and tapping Will’s nose with a finger. “Stay.”
As Will readily guessed, Mason is quick to yank Will’s trousers down from his hips, around his thighs, soft britches left in place.
“Now,” he sighs, “tell me, just how many owners have you had? Such a naughty puppy to get tossed out into the street like that.”
Will shivers, turns his head. The leather tighter around his throat now with every shift and pull and Will feels the discomfort that comes with swallowing with it. He considers the question, knows what answer is expected, that he wriggle and adjust, pretend to have none while the blush that comes with the lie gives him away. In truth, it hasn’t been many.
“One,” he admits, lip finding its way between his teeth again, pressed out of shape. “One of my professors took a liking to me. I let him.”
He twists, thighs pressing together then parting again, sighs.
“The rest have merely petted a stray,” he laughs, enjoying the game of being this… thing… to someone, a toy in the hands of an overgrown boy who is dangerous in his convictions, his beliefs in who he is and how he is.
“Fed me scraps, paid for wine and poppy so they could touch.” He laughs again, that oddly sweet, helpless little noise that he supposes Mason’s laugh may once have been, before it twisted, turned off key.
“And then you offered me wine.”
“I did,” Mason agrees, cheerfully, whether pleased or not or even paying attention enough to hear Will’s answer, it’s hard to say. Reminded of it, Mason snatches the bottle of wine from his desk and takes a quick pull before offering it against Will’s lips. Still on fours, Will’s eyes settle on Mason, smile caught in the corners of them, as he drinks from the bottle that Mason upturns into his mouth.
“I’ll feed you very well.” He watches wide-eyed at the way Will’s throat works, and in this Will can sense a particular truth, an interest - at least so far - in keeping this one alive. Still, he tilts the bottle higher, more than a trickle now, a steady flow, until Will makes a sound of protest and coughs sharply, wine spilling from his mouth, from the bottle, onto the floor, scarlet cheeked.
Mason’s eyes sharpen to pinpoints, and he leans nearer Will to drag his tongue along the boy’s cheek, drinking the wine from his skin before he mutters, with a glance to the floor, “You’re going to want to lap that up before it soaks into the floorboards. That would displease the cleaners very much, they’ve only just gotten the last stains out of them.”
Skimming his palm along Will’s back, Mason presses the small of it down a little further to arch the boy, and his fingers snare in the waist of Will’s britches as he passes his touch along Will’s ass and slides them down.
A hum of approval as Mason extends a finger to trail back up the inside of Will’s pale thigh, across the seam of his balls, and up higher still - two fingers now - to pull at the little pink ring of his opening. He tugs his hole open a little, crouched beside Will, and then teases a finger inside with little more than the wine sticky on his fingers. Grinning as Will twists in discomfort, Mason pushes harder, upward, to force Will into holding his ass high in the air, bowed over his hands.
“Lick it up, Will.”
Will twists, finds that only brings more discomfort, and finally obediently leans, bends further, to touch his tongue to the wine on the floor.
He manages most before Mason hums, pleased, and twists the leather over his wrist again, tightening the pull, forcing Will to hold his breath if he wants to keep it when he licks.
And he does, with a soft whine of displeasure, a shiver as the finger pushes deeper still, until he arches higher, a deeper bend in his back by his own making, feeling the way Mason spreads his palm over one cheek and squeezes.
Will lifts himself on all fours again, head ducked, thighs shifting to spread wider before he turns to meet Mason's eyes, licking his lips clean. Expectant.
"Down, boy," Mason instructs, brow lifting.
Smooth leather strokes cool up the line of Will's spine, riding crop held jauntily aloft until it finds the base of Will's skull. A firm, but gentle push as Mason stands, legs on either side of the boy, positively beaming as he pushes Will's face to the ground.
"Stay."
Mason unwinds the leash enough that Will can stay bowed when he steps back, although the idea of holding it too tight for him to do so - to hear those lovely choking sounds - and then beating him for disobedience when he finally bends is particularly tempting.
He considers, for possibly the first time, that the longer he keeps a toy unbroken, the longer he'll have to play with it. Not usually an interest since breaking them is the most fun of all, but he'll be able to still do that, if he wants to, at any point, if he keeps this one here with him.
The stiff, chilly leather touches the inside of Will's thigh, teasing up and down for a moment, before it cracks hard against his soft skin.
"Wider," he drawls, extending the word out many syllables, and slapping Will's other thigh next. "This is what ‘down’ means, puppy. Do you think you can remember?"
The crop grazes upward, menacingly slow, to tap just softly against the back of the boy's balls, against his presented opening.
Will shivers, whines, but doesn't move beyond how his thighs tremble from the strikes - cruel and harsh against him.
He wants to move, to twist, bend, spread himself wide and get fucked into the damned floor. He wants he wants he wants...
"Yes, Mason."
He sighs, pressing his chest closer to the floor and his hands splaying over it. He is dizzy with wine, languid and restless, entirely, painfully restless. He pushes back against the crop where he feels it, a graceful bend of his body. He can feel himself already semi-hard from this, disturbingly pleased with this, enjoying the abuse that will only get worse.
Some people have a sixth sense - a preternatural awareness of when certain moments shift, when changes occur. Going towards the door before the guests have even knocked. Anticipating a storm through the soreness of one’s joints. A sense that Mason shares, when it comes to storms of his own making, and his attention hones on Will in the moment that the drugs collide in his system. The loose weight of the poppy that convinces its companion that no harm or ill can befall them. The bowstring pluck of the cocaine that vibrates alive and ringing to push one towards action. The wine as the more familiar friend that joins them, prompting one towards bravery and a loose tongue.
A heady push and pull of drives and sensations, pulling a sigh from Mason as he watches the ecstatic shivers in the boy beneath him. He thinks fondly of when he felt those things so easily, before even more became less, and drove him seeking more complex means of achieving intoxication.
Growing, really, as a person and in his interests.
“Good,” Mason intones, more to himself than Will, pulling steadily on the leash to bring the boy to face him again. Without mind for the expensive fall-front trousers he wears, he kneels in front of him, an immense presence even so lowered, and snares Will by the jaw to raise him up a little from the floor.
The kiss is languid, lazy, tongues pressed into each other’s mouths with little regard, lips sliding slick and eager together. He can feel the pulse of energy in the boy, the pleasure that in its amplified intensity pulls at him every which way - to do nothing, to do everything - and Mason watches him, eyes open, and breaks the kiss only long enough to replace his tongue with his fingers, just between their mouths, to push Will away.
“I always love how animals show their affection, when they’re smart enough to do it,” Mason suggests, grinning. “Lick my hand, boy.”
Will’s eyes are hooded, dark and bright beneath the lids, and he parts his lips with a shuddered sigh before he allows just the tip of his tongue forward, to trace fingers base to tip. He blinks, then focuses his attention on Mason entirely, a laser of blue aimed and unwavering as one lick becomes several, as the tip of his tongue becomes the wide rough flat of it.
The leash tightens and Will shudders with the sensation, swallowing a little moan before tilting his head to nuzzle the damp palm that, despite his attentions, despite the gloves before, is still cold.
"Play with me," he whines softly.
Another chill shiver catches Mason off-guard and he curls his hand to press his palm to Will’s cheek, pushing his fingers into the boy’s long, loose curls of hair to scratch with surprising gentleness against his scalp.
“Oh, I like when you beg,” Mason declares, almost quietly. His fingernails start to press a little harder, not enough to leave marks or tear hair yet, but his teeth bare clenched somewhere between a grin and a grimace. “Do it again.”
The lithe length of Will’s body twists delightfully as he presses his head into the touch - stimulation for a body that almost aches for it now - and he spreads his knees a little wider, cock nearly touching the floor, wholly hard now.
“Please,” keens Will, pitching his voice higher, younger, sweeter and watching through the slits of his eyes as Mason’s lips part in response. “Please, play with me?”
Another nuzzle, mouth warm, against Mason’s palm is enough to spur him from his reverie and he snaps the lead, hard, laughing loud when Will whimpers, startled. “Roll over,” comes the instruction. “Beg.”
Fingers splayed against the floorboards, Will stretches his arms out in front of himself, more feline than canine, but it hardly matters, when he lifts his ass higher still into the air and spreads himself across the floor, sprawling onto his back. He leaves his arms pulled high above his head, eyes rolling closed on a groan as Mason traces the boy’s cock with the cool leather of the riding crop. It twitches, Will shivers, and Mason slips the crop beneath the boy’s swollen cock, flushed pink, lifting it from where it curves against his soft, pale belly.
“Beg,” Mason reminds him, and Will’s groan fills with pleas.
“I’ll be so good for you,” he whimpers. “Such a good boy if you’ll keep me and play with me. Please play with me, Mason.”
The pout that purses Will’s scarlet lips is enough.
The crop is slid away, tossed with a thud to the floor, and replaced by Mason’s fingers curling cold, sudden, too hard, around Will’s length. He strokes once, enough to cut Will’s moan short on a hitched breath, before taking up a quick pace, functionally fast, focused on the arch and bend of Will’s body beneath him as he sighs, “Good puppy. Will you cum for Mason? Hmm? Does puppy want that?”
"Yes.” Breathless, pliant, Will's lips left parted on more gentle whimpers as the hand does not relent, sending shivers through him, down his spine, arching it up, hips up to Mason's touch, thighs spreading for him, chest rising and falling on quick breaths.
"Puppy wants," he purrs, the sound turning into a laugh as he twists, gasps hard and quick as the leash is tightened. He opens his eyes, seeking Mason's, trembling hard now, leaking against his palm.
"Please, please, please," whimpers and gasps, voice higher, needy, childish.
Mason slows his pace, hardens it still, squeezing almost so hard it hurts, and drawing off his palm to regard the trail of slick along it. Wordless, eyes narrowed, he holds his hand out to Will to lick, smirking pleased when Will does it with a whimper.
“Good dog.”
He keeps the leash wrapped around his fist as his other hand returns to stroke Will, between their bodies as Mason slinks between Will’s legs. Quick movements jerk Will’s legs higher when Mason jams his knees beneath his thighs, laughing when Will locks his ankles around his neck.
“Pretty little puppy,” croons Mason softly, “just wants to play. You can stay and we’ll play whenever I want.”
He hisses in pleasure when Will arches higher on a long and almost anguished moan, bent nearly to his shoulders, and Mason’s hand moves against him relentlessly even still.
“Do it,” he barks suddenly. “Do it, dog!”
A gasp, high, and Will's eyes roll up and close. He makes a quiet sound, desperate and lilting, and trembles, twists, before he cums hard across his stomach and chest, across Mason's fingers.
Then he laughs.
Almost helpless, breathless giggles, lip between his teeth until he’s slapped, harsh and unexpected, Mason's hand remaining to grip Will’s face, smearing his own mess against him.
"Messy boy,” he chastises, but the grin remains wide, almost cruel in how manic it is. He holds his palm hard over Will’s mouth until he is forced to breathe through his nose. Then he shifts it higher and cuts off Will’s breath entirely.
"That is another thing I will not tolerate, Will, mess." He holds harder as Will starts to struggle, "I will punish you soundly for your messes, for your inattention to them."
Will whines, thighs squeezing harder around Mason as his lungs burn with his struggle for air.
"If I let you cum," Mason continues, matter-of-factly, as though the boy beneath him isn't near-convulsing with his need to breathe, "you will lick it clean after. Every time. I won't have a dirty boy in my room."
He holds a moment more, sick pleasure at the struggle, before letting go, watching Will draw in breath and cough before taking another.
He blinks rapidly, lips parted, sticky and messy, flushed and shaking with adrenaline, with the drug still in him, eyes nearly black with it. Then a pink tongue flicks out to lick his lips, to bite the bottom one as he grins.
"This was a gift, Will," Mason informs him, sitting back on his heels. "You understand? I can't spoil my pets by just giving them whatever they want. It wouldn't be fair to you, really. Teaches the wrong things. Sends a bad message."
Dampened hand still held daintily aloft, he watches as Will skims his fingers through the cum on his face and brings them to his own lips. A little moan, as he laps them clean, sucks his own release from them, dutifully wiping it from his chest and belly in turn.
"If I do it myself, I expect just the same. It isn't my job to clean up messes, Will. It just isn't. That's work for boys to do, not men." Mason turns his attention, feigning fretfulness, to his own hand, before offering it out to Will expectantly.
"Papa couldn't stand a mess," Mason continues, as Will leans forward, hands pressed to the floor, to trace the flat of his tongue against each of Mason's fingers. "Really, he'd become quite angry. We work too hard not to have nice things and -"
His speech is cut short with a breath in his throat, rising up onto his knees again as Will draws a finger into his mouth, eyes fluttering closed with a moan and cheeks hollowing to suck slowly. He turned such a lovely shade of red before, Mason considers, probing deeper into the boy's mouth - he'd very much like to see it again, for longer maybe, but not too long, because then they turn purple and it's over.
And maybe this one will be smart enough not to try and use his teeth.
It's always such a damper on things when Mason has to knock them out after that happens.
Cleaned to satisfaction, he snares the lead closer again, to pull Will's face demanding towards his groin, visibly hard in his trousers.
"Be careful," Mason warns.
Will's still breathless, gasping with parted lips and wet, wide eyes, but one hand he spares, the other still down for balance, to work the pants open.
He's done this before. Filling his mouth with the sharp salt of another man's pleasure to wash away the taste of Plato or Aristotle. This he knows the intricacies of, the subtle turns and twists, how to suck and when to curl his tongue.
He brings up his hand to wipe at his eyes, a drop still hanging heavy on his lashes, looking so unbearably young that the leather tightens to utter cruelty. He whimpers, drops his hand, lifts his eyes with drawn brows and a pouting bottom lip.
"That mouth," Mason breathes, curling the leather harder until Will's neck is arched with the effort, "open."
Will obeys, eyelids fluttering.
"Wider."
He does. Mason shivers with just watching him, indulging, for once, in taking his time.
"Tongue," he whispers, harsh, and the corners of Will’s lips tilt in a grin before that, too, is obeyed.
A second just to look, to take in the temptation, before the leash is yanked hard and Will is forced closer, one hand out to catch Mason's thigh the other to the floor. He hums gently, bites his lip, and leans in to take Mason into his mouth, slowly, inch by inch.
The belt is held rigid tight between Mason's fist and the boy's throat, squeezing enough to discomfort, but not yet enough to choke. He swallows hard, mouth fallen slack to watch as his length disappears past the boy’s pretty lips, and unable to resist, he reaches to push them out of shape, and feel his cock against them, tracing the damp curve with his thumb.
Will is good, Mason will grant him that, and delights in imagining how many times Will has found himself this way - tears glittering in his long eyelashes, eyes red-rimmed and lips swollen and flushed, wrapped around an unyielding cock that Mason now presses deeper across the boy’s tongue.
Far deeper, in fact, than Mason ever usually gets to be when he does this, and he shudders ecstatically to watch Will flinch when he finally brushes the back of his throat.
“More,” Mason grins, the only sensation he ever feels anymore, really - needing and wanting and demanding more from the world and everyone in it.
Will hums his displeasure, hands curling a little tighter where they hold, but he manages a little more before he genuinely chokes. Above him, Mason almost moans in delight.
"Again. Do that again for me."
The grip on the leather is relentless, whitening Mason's fingers where it wraps as Will imagines it does around his throat. It isn’t hard to choke again - he doesn't have to fake that - and he moans, a weak little noise that gets silenced by a harder yank to the leather.
Then it's relentless, a brief reprieve where Will gets to gasp in a breath before Mason thrusts back in, deep as before, and much faster. Over and over until Will is genuinely struggling with it, hands curled into claws against Mason's thigh but finding him utterly immovable.
"Eyes up." Breathless, immeasurably pleased for the moment that he hadn't yet damaged his toy, that he can watch the flush of his cheeks grow darker like before as Will struggles, as his eyes turn almost liquid blue with tears.
Mason knows these colors well. Pale first, they’re always all so pale and consumptive in this awful city, and then pink as they’re touched more, or as they touch him, aroused or ashamed or both, if Mason has any say about it. That pale pink - the color of an English garden rose - darkens though as Mason presses onward, seeking that infinite more turning red, ruddy, finally the harsh scarlet as the rest of them pales around the crimson in their cheeks and mouths and openings, stark and stunning.
Only past that, choking or fucking or spreading or beating, does the scarlet take on the violet tint that Mason loves the most. The color of pomegranate stains on fingers, of wine on lips, brief enough before the tedious livid color of military uniforms and mice, blue and finally grey, that awful ashy shade that still - for a while, at least - bears the pretty purple shade for a little longer before that too pales again, and then white, white, white as the sickening snow that scatters and turns sooty against the ground -
Mason gasps and jerks back from Will’s throat, enough to give him room to breathe, for a moment, enough to keep him from reddening to too rough a shade of scarlet. Their eyes meet and Mason is almost tender as he runs his hand along the boy’s face, to wipe the sweat from his brow, to feel the heat of his cheeks and of his mouth.
He doesn’t want this one to turn to ash - he wants to stoke the fire and not extinguish it so suddenly. He will, of course, allow the fire to consume when he is ready to let it, but for now, no - this one will stay and sleep on his floor and lick his hand and follow his commands. A beautiful pet, with curly hair and big blue eyes.
The lead pulls just a little tighter, and Mason’s pale cheeks are flushed as he brings himself deep into Will’s mouth again.
A moan, this time of genuine pained displeasure, and Will flinches again, swallowing quickly to keep his gag reflex at bay, feeling, at once, the leather tighten making it near impossible to breathe and in one moment two things happen: his eyes snap closed, and his lips pull back from his teeth and graze the sensitive skin he’s sucking.
His blood hums with adrenaline, with the drugs still diluting within and Will feels dizzy from lack of air, for want of more - though what he wants more of he can’t say. He whimpers, relishes the deep breath of air he’s allowed when Mason pulls out with a curse. He raises his eyes briefly, lips parted, dripping spit, red and abused.
Rough fingers dig hard into Will's cheeks - he can breathe now, finally, choking down air - but it's stolen on a gasp when Mason moves faster over him, shoving him to the floor, hard enough to drive the wind from his lungs as it comes up fast beneath Will's back. His fingernails sharp, savage, almost shaking as Mason scarcely holds at bay the desire to dig deeper, to feel blood hot beneath his hand.
"Never," Mason spits. "Never with your teeth."
He releases Will's face only enough to slap him brutally, sending his head back against the floor enough to make the room spin more than it already is, between the booze and the breathlessness, between the drugs and domination.
"Do you understand?" he snarls, teeth bared and gritted, as stark as the coat dropped against the floor, as white as the powder that he fed the boy. Another slap, savage, but restrained all the same from becoming a fist instead that would knock Will's teeth from his mouth and ensure that it never happens again.
Another whimper, a soft little whine and the spit against Will’s lips is red now, from where he’d knocked his teeth against the inside of his lip enough to cut. He trembles, blinking quickly before directing his eyes up to Mason again and nodding in quick jerks.
“No teeth,” he repeats, breathless, before sucking his bottom lip into his mouth.
And again that inescapable youthfulness, hair a mess and eyes rimmed red and tearing, cheeks flushed, the bridge of his nose the same. Will sniffs and swallows, releasing his lip again, and meeting Mason’s eyes unblinking, waiting for the next command before he even attempts to get off the floor.
Never before so obedient, though never before left at such a disadvantage to fight back, as here. He conserves his energy, knows he will have more than one chance to try and find himself beaten down.
The sense of power is immense, whether justified or not, the knowledge that Mason readily and pleasurably ruins and ends lives for his own amusement without consequence. It’s easy in this city, where the river runs fast and can carry a body down blocks faster than even throwing it into a carriage could. It’s easy in this city, where money is so sought and so rarely found, but can make the difference between a turn in Newgate and a turn in Hyde Park.
But Will is beautiful and for those without means such as Mason has, that carries its own cost for company, one Mason is willing yet to pay despite this minor misdeed. The little sniffs, the little shivers of pain, the blush and the blood and the obedience, is enough to still Mason’s hand from another strike.
He leans low instead, tongue gliding along Will’s lower lip to taste the bloom of blood there and draw it into his own mouth instead, meeting Will in what would be a warm, passionate kiss in any other circumstance but this, with a strap still choking tight around his throat.
Everything Mason might want - youthful innocence and a tremendous tolerance for terror - wrapped up in a pretty package.
Another kiss, meeting briefly, almost sweetly, before Mason leans back against his heels and winds the leash around his fist to bring Will forward again.
“Finish it.”
Will’s lips part wider, eyes barely open as he chases the kiss with a long sigh before lifting his eyes to the man who holds him tethered.
He endures the tightening of the leather when he shifts, gets his knees under him, returns to be on all fours. He risks the displeasure, risks another slap, but presses his smarting cheek against the side of Mason’s neck, almost like a nuzzle before bending obediently forward, down, to take his cock into his mouth again.
A moan, unfurling Will’s body for his back to arch, his thighs to spread. A wanton, pretty toy who sucks until he reaches his limit, trembles and swallows more.
No teeth this time, only the rolling of his tongue and the soft sucking of his lips and the little moans that send vibrations rollicking down Mason’s cock to gather rough in his belly. Will is braced for it when Mason snaps the leash taut again on his climax, groaning so loud it would be a wonder if those downstairs didn’t hear it, braced equally when Mason pulls him by the hair to press him harder down and take it, every drop.
Mason holds him there until he’s soft in his mouth, and when Will sucks him clean, he finally releases the boy with a short, curt sigh.
“Well,” Mason says, and there is finally a stillness to him as he carefully buttons his trousers again, lips pursed. He tugs on Will’s leash without meaning to, in adjusting himself again, and then sits forward, so much so that Will has to rest his chin against Mason’s chest to watch him, eyes turned upward.
“Does puppy want to stay?” he croons, fingers curling beneath Will’s jaw before pressing lightly back into his hair, affectionate now, mollified by his release.
Will swallows, pupils still wide, the blue darker, now. Sated from before, exhausted now. In truth, he has nowhere to go tonight - the man he had hoped to spend most of the evening with Mason had frightened away in order to claim Will himself. He shivers pleasantly and licks his lips.
“Very much,” he purrs, voice rough, throat abused and sore. He can feel the beginning of a bruise forming around his throat from the leather. Wonders if he will ever be allowed to walk around without that lash around him.
He’s hungry, thirsty, horny again after Mason’s abuse and his dark, cloying words.
In truth, Will wants to sleep for hours, wake somewhere he remembers falling asleep.
His lips curl up in a smile.
“Good boy.”
Mason pushes back from Will to stand, no more affection now, but simply a peculiar contentment in the swell of Will’s lip where he was struck, the harsh scrape at the edges of his words from the press of Mason’s cock against his throat, the way that the boy is pleased to remain on the floor as Mason looms over him, considering.
“Come,” Mason declares, tugging the leash for Will to follow him towards the bed. The leather is looped around the heavy wooden legs on which the bed rests, tied into a crude knot there that could be easily released, but Will is given a peculiar sort of trust in this - trust that he won’t loosen it and run, that he won’t unclip the leather from around his neck.
Trust that Will knows how thoroughly - possibly lethally - he would be punished if he did.
Mason pushes his hands back through his hair and frowns in thought as he looks down at the boy at his feet.
“You know, I usually hire people for this - to take care of the animals. I have a habit of getting distracted,” he sighs, hands on his hips. “Very busy. Lots of things to do.”
In truth, he’s puzzled by the fact that the thing at his feet is still alive, still mostly whole but for the welts raised and raw against its throat, not gasping and shuddering and cowering like they normally do. Not bleeding everywhere, not clutching broken bones, not pleading at him in fear. It’s just sitting there, at the foot of his bed, legs curled up neatly to sit on the floor, and watching him.
He frowns and turns to go, leaving the door open behind him.
Will watches him go, exhales slowly when he leaves and brings a hand up to slip just beneath the line of the collar, not to remove but to feel the damage, wincing when his fingers touch raw, sensitive skin.
The floor is cold.
As the night progresses it will be colder still and yet Will was not told to stay on the floor, merely implied that he would by the way he is tethered to the leg of the bed.
He lets his hand drop to the floor again, fingers splayed, bent, as he rises on his knees and considers how to climb into the bed without dislodging the knot holding him tied - he knows that, truly, will get him damaged.
The man will hurt him more, he knows that, it’s clear enough to read in his eyes and yet the promise of the pleasure surrounding that, the promise of the cloying smoke and the stinging powder, good wine and praise…
Will turns when he hears footfalls on the stairs again and stays as he is, kneeling with his arms folded on the bed. When he sees Mason he rests his head against them. No guilt, having done nothing wrong, but in that way presenting what more the man could take from him, what more he should keep him for.
Mason regards Will at length as he enters again, kicking the door shut behind him. In his hands are two bowls, in his expression a narrowed suspicion as he skirts around his desk and toes off his shoes.
He approaches almost warily, uncertain how to consider this creature that rests half against his bed, watching him with wide pupil-black eyes and tousled hair, stripped bare but for the leash and the tall black socks that Mason forgot to remove. It really shouldn't be here, Mason knows that much, but it is, still, all warmed by the firelight and so very pale and pink, no longer the angry red or florid purples he made in its skin before.
"Here," Mason says, curt, setting down both bowls by Will. "You see? I can take care of the animals as well. Papa wasn't always right about me."
He seems pleased as he steps away to untuck his tie from his vest, stripping off both and dropping them across the desk. In one bowl is water, surprisingly clean and sweet-smelling, nothing like the disease-ridden stuff that this neighborhood typically offers. In the other bowl is a steak-and-kidney pie, upturned but still steaming hot.
His suspenders are twisted from his shoulders and his shirt unbuttoned, humming off-key as his strips down to the soft cotton drawers that sit against his hips. For as unpleasant as he is in so many ways, to look at him is not - he is healthy, fit, clearly well-fed and from a place that has never known hunger as so many others have. Blonde hair askew on his head, more scattered fine across his chest, down along his lower belly where he scratches absently.
Shameless in this, as all other things, he snuffs out one of the gas lamps.
"When you're finished, you can sleep at the end of the bed, only. Do not touch me. I'm not responsible for what happens if you touch me. I am a very light sleeper."
Will licks his bottom lip into his mouth again, watches just as shamelessly until Mason looks at him and Will swallows, fighting the tilt of his smile but doesn’t look away. There is a silence between them, Will’s eyes on Mason until the other parts his lips, presses them together again in a swallow, and then Will allows his eyes to slip lower, down the length of his body and to the floor.
The pie smells amazing, Will running a mental checklist to see what he’s eaten in the last few weeks that comes anywhere close to being this hot or this filling. He had been fed at school, but rarely meat, rarely an entire pie.
He’s careful to set the hottest pieces aside to cool while he eats the others, fingers dirty with it but licked clean almost immediately as he rests with his back to the bed, one leg drawn up to rest the bowl against, the other out in front of him, toes flexing in his socks.
He nearly licks the bowl clean by the end, eyes up to where Mason is now, at this point by the window smoking a cigarette that smells unlike the smoke outside, or downstairs, or from any regular tobacco. He can’t see his eyes.
Will takes the bowl of water and carefully tips it to drink, savoring how clean it is, how good it feels against his throat before it settles in his stomach, heavy and full with his dinner.
He finds climbing into bed to be less of a challenge now that he’s allowed it, but it leaves him precariously close to the edge where he curls up, eyes up from beneath messy hair to watch Mason finally approach the bed again, apparently spare Will no glance as he crawls into it himself.
Mason draws his knees up beneath the blankets, plentiful and fat with downy feathers, seeming not to notice that Will is there at all, curled naked at his feet. A small vial - dark - is drawn from the nightstand and poured generously into his own mug of water, swirled three times, squinted at, and swallowed.
Laudanum, to help him sleep. Cocaine, to help him wake. Opium to make the day go by smoother and wine when he’s in a good mood - liquor when he’s not. It’s an easy enough routine, except when he takes too much of one, and has to balance it back out, or gets too excited, and wants more than he needs. He considers it now, as always, another pipe perhaps, but they’re so far away, and he puffs a breath up through his hair that makes it stand on end and removes his glasses.
Only then does his attention fall on the boy watching him, wide-eyed, from the foot of his bed. Mason’s lips purse.
“Go to sleep.”
The light is extinguished, and nothing more is said.