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Dick first sees the demon as he’s barging into Gotham Central Hospital.
The drive from Blüdhaven was agony, Dick trying to focus on the road with his heart pounding and his stomach twisted up, trying not to think things like too late. He barely remembered to lock the car in the hospital parking lot, and now he’s running, finally giving all that adrenaline an outlet, darting around people in wheelchairs and vaulting over decorative shrubbery on his way to the door.
He’s almost there, hand outstretched to shove the door open, when he locks eyes with the man leaning against the brick wall and the wheels that have been spinning too fast in his mind screech to a halt.
The man is wearing jeans and a white shirt, smoking a cigarette in defiance of the sign beside the door, and his eye flicks to Dick as Dick passes. Eye, singular. The other is covered with a black patch. The biceps straining against his sleeves are so thick Dick doubts he could even wrap both hands around them, and the calloused fingers that pluck the cigarette from his lips so he can blow smoke up into the air look big enough to encircle Dick’s throat. A chill sweeps over Dick’s skin.
Dick doesn’t know shit about the occult, but when the man raises an eyebrow and smiles, his first thought is, Demon.
And then he’s crashing through the door. The world is suddenly loud, the hum of voices and the squeak of shoes on the linoleum floor hitting him like a tidal wave. The fluorescents are bright enough to make him wince. Dick takes a breath. Fuck the demon, fuck everything, he needs to get to the children’s ward, needs to find the right room and the right bed—
Needs to find Damian, before it’s too late.
He’s still breathing, when Dick arrives.
Breathing softly, through tubes in his nose, but breathing. His eyes are closed, hands layered over the blankets to make room for an IV drip. A heartbeat monitor silently flashes his pulse on an electronic chart. His head is wrapped in neat, white gauze.
He’s so small.
Dick grips the door frame before his knees can buckle.
He makes it the few steps across the room to Damian’s bed and sits heavily on the edge of the mattress. ‘Hey, Dami.’
A shape unfolds on Damian’s other side, and Dick barely manages not to flinch. It’s Bruce, messy-haired and pale-faced, slumped in the chair at Damian’s bedside. ‘Dick,’ he mumbles, in greeting or recognition.
‘What happened?’
‘Head injury.’ As if that isn’t obvious. Bruce glances at the door. His eyes are dark with bruises and the leftovers of black make-up he hasn’t washed off properly. He looks like a teenager who cried off their eyeliner, and that might’ve been funny if Dick’s chest wasn’t aching right now.
Taking the hint, Dick gets up and softly closes the door, leaning his back against it while he waits for Bruce to continue. ‘How? Who?’
‘Equipment malfunction. We suspect someone tampered with his grapnel.’ Bruce swallows, and when he continues there is a promise in his voice, ‘We don’t know who yet.’
Dick nods, the motion tight and jerky. They’ll find whoever did this. They’ll make them pay.
He hasn’t thought about anything as selfish as revenge in a long time. Not since he was younger than Damian, so much hatred and resentment crammed in his body he thought he’d burst with it. It won’t help.
No, only one thing will help now. Damian has to be OK. That’s the only thing that could possibly make this acceptable. The only thing that could make the universe make sense.
Dick clears his throat. ‘How … how bad is he?’
Bruce’s dead-eyed stare is all the answer he needs.
He sees the demon again by the water cooler.
He aches in a way he never aches after even the most brutal patrol in Blüdhaven. He tries not to make too much noise in the bathroom, sat on the closed toilet seat with his shoulders shaking, biting down on his fist until he’s wrung out and hollow and exhausted. He splashes cold water on his face to wash away the sticky, hot feeling of tears on his cheeks.
His mouth is cotton-dry, so Dick stops at the water cooler on the way back to Damian’s room. He tugs a plastic cup from the dispenser, and then watches bubbles wobble up through the tank as he fills it. His eyes refocus, and the demon is staring at him in the reflection of the blue plastic.
‘Shit!’
Dick spins, water splashing from his cup. The demon steps back and the water misses him, splattering on the linoleum. The demon’s single eye—blue-grey, like a chip of ice—travels all the way down Dick’s body and back up again.
‘You don’t look sick.’
This close, the demon is huge. Dick has to crane his neck to look into the demon’s face, and his heart thunders. God, he does not want to fight that. Not even on a good day. Not even if he was wearing his armour, with his escrima sticks in his fists. The demon could probably crush Dick’s spine in those hands, and the thought makes Dick weak at the knees.
‘I’m visiting my brother,’ Dick croaks. Should he run? Dick feels like he should run, but he also vaguely remembers Raven telling him he shouldn’t run from anything immortal. Or maybe that was just a movie. God, he can barely think straight.
The demon tilts his head, giving a small smile. ‘Best wishes for a speedy recovery.’
He smells of smoke. Not like cigarettes but like buildings burning down. And he’s handsome: an older man with ash-white hair and a close-cropped goatee. How cartoonishly stereotypical, for a demon to have a goatee.
The smile does something to Dick. Makes a little part of him break, inside. Brings the tears back to his eyes, the heaviness back to his chest. He’s just done crying, but suddenly he feels like he’s about to break down again, to collapse on the floor, screaming.
‘He’s dying.’
The words are out of Dick’s mouth before he can stop them. They don’t feel real. The word dying doesn’t connect with Damian. Damian is alive, more than anyone else is alive. He is angry words and the blunt pain of connecting punches and hard-earned smiles and tight, tight hugs.
‘I’m sorry to hear that,’ the demon says.
He doesn’t sound demonic. His voice isn’t raspy or nasal, and there’s no reverb or echo like in the horror movies. It’s low, with the kind of rumble that Dick suddenly, strangely, wants to feel with his head pressed to the demon’s chest.
A man in scrubs turns the corner and walks past. He gives Dick a polite nod.
He doesn’t look at the demon at all.
Dick stares up at the demon, his skin prickling. ‘Can you fix him?’
‘Me?’ The demon raises his eyebrows.
Dick swallows. ‘I know what you are.’
There is quiet. Then, for an instant, Dick sees it: a grey-skinned creature with curling horns and too-long teeth and a tail swishing behind its legs. Then a handsome man is staring down at him again, wearing an eyepatch and a thin-lipped smile, and Dick can practically hear Raven screaming in his head, You don’t know what you’re messing with, Nightwing! Get out of there!
Dick stands his ground. ‘Can you do it?’
‘Nothing is free.’ The demon’s lips move, but the voice Dick hears is inside his own head, echoing like thunder.
His hands are trembling so he curls them into fists. The plastic water cup crumples. ‘What do you want?’
That single eye trails down Dick’s body. He can feel its stare on his jaw, his chest, his thighs. Then it flicks back up to his face. The demon’s mouth curls into a smile. ‘You.’
Dick wants to laugh, but the sound isn’t coming out. Laughter has been carved out of him, along with common sense and self- preservation, apparently. ‘Me,’ he says flatly.
The demon doesn’t answer. Just keeps smiling, and holds out his hand.
Dick goes to shake, but pulls back an inch from the demon’s fingers. Don’t be stupid. Don’t blow this on a fucked up monkey’s paw wish. ‘Damian Wayne lives. He gets better. He wakes up and he gets back to normal. No permanent trauma, no disabilities. And it happens today, not after he’s been in a coma for ten years or whatever.’
The demon’s smile doesn’t falter and his hand doesn’t move. ‘Damian Wayne will regain consciousness today. In six weeks, he will return to the physical and mental capabilities he had before his injury.’ He raises his eyebrows as if to say, Satisfied?
Dick thinks it over. There must be a loophole somewhere, but he can’t see it. Maybe the demon just wants Dick’s soul that much. More fool him. Dick’s soul isn’t worth half of Damian.
Taking a breath, Dick grips the demon’s hand.
Damian’s still asleep when Dick gets back, so maybe the whole thing was just a sleep-deprived hallucination. Wouldn’t be the first time Dick exhausted himself to the point of seeing things, but the demon was so much more vivid than the odd shadows and flickers he’s seen at the edge of his vision before.
A nurse dragged another chair in here a few hours ago, and Dick slumps into it. On Damian’s other side, Bruce taps listlessly at his phone, giving or receiving updates from Tim and the girls, still on patrol. Dick slides his hand into Damian’s and closes his eyes, leaning back against the wall.
Small fingers squeeze his hand. He squeezes back. Sighs.
The fingers move.
Wait.
Moving. Damian is moving.
Dick jerks upright, eyes snapping open as he whirls on Damian, clasping Damian’s hand in both of his. The heaviness in Dick’s chest lifts away and his heart swells, filling his throat, and he can barely breathe. ‘Dami?’ He squeezes Damian’s hand again. ‘Can you hear me?’
Damian makes a small, disgruntled noise, and the tears Dick washed away are suddenly back full force. He sobs, dropping his head onto the blankets, trembling with laughter. Bruce sweeps to his feet, and when Dick raises his head Bruce is at the door, bellowing for a doctor.
Damian cracks his eyes open. He winces at the light. His tongue darts out to wet his lips, and gradually his eyes focus on Dick, laughing and crying, gripping his hand. He scrunches his nose. ‘That’s completely unnecessary.’
Dick pulls him into a hug.
Damian recovers.
He’s in hospital for two weeks for monitoring, and whiles away the time bitching at the nurses and demanding Bruce bring either his weapons or his pets. Bruce refuses both demands, and when Dick brings him a stuffed toy dog as a compromise, Damian sniffs that he’s not a child. (The next time Dick visits, the dog is tucked neatly into the blankets at Damian’s side.)
Dick doesn’t see the demon again.
He has nightmares, occasionally, about that single grey eye staring at him in the hospital corridor. The whole thing must have been a dream. Maybe he’d even felt Damian’s hand moving in his while he dozed in that chair by his bedside, and his sleeping brain translated that feeling into a handshake. Maybe he’d known, subconsciously, that it meant Damian was alive, and so he’d concocted a whole story about selling his soul so Damian could wake up.
Damian comes home from hospital, and Dick returns to Blüdhaven, and the demon still doesn’t show up to take his payment.
The nights get longer, and Dick’s nightmares get worse.
Pressure on his hips. Claws raking down his chest. Teeth in his throat, so sharp and so visceral he can hear the squelch as they break his skin.
He jerks awake. The blankets are kicked down to his ankles, the sheets beneath him damp. He cradles his throat as he staggers to the bathroom and grips the sink with trembling fingers. But when he peels his hand away the skin is unbroken, and the only wetness under his palm is sweat.
Dick barely flinches when a yellow blur appears at his elbow.
‘You look worse than usual.’
They’re filing out of the latest Justice League meeting, past the marble statues of the founders. Dick gives Wally a wan smile. ‘Rough couple of weeks.’
‘I get it,’ Wally grins. ‘Thanksgiving’s always crazy at my place, too.’
Dick tries to envision a Thanksgiving dinner large enough to satisfy the metabolism of an entire family of speedsters. He shudders. ‘America’s turkey population may never recover.’
Wally cackles, and some of the exhaustion lifts from Dick’s shoulders. God, he needs to get out of Blüdhaven more; see his friends. He misses crashing on the couch in Titan’s Tower, a box of pizza on one side of him and Beast Boy on the other, game controllers in their hands.
Raven and Zatanna are ahead of them, tucked under the marble statue of Wonder Woman and talking quietly. Zatanna looks up as the boys approach and smiles, and Wally is gone in a gust of wind, reappearing at her side.
‘What’s the tea?’ He leans back on a marble ankle, grinning expectantly.
‘No tea,’ Zatanna turns her hat idly in her hands. ‘We’re talking shop. I’ve been working on this new spell but I can’t get it right.’ She utters some words, gesturing with one hand. Sparks fizzle pathetically between her fingers. Shrugging, she goes back to fiddling with her top hat. ‘I hoped Raven could help.’
‘My magic is more intuitive than yours,’ Raven says apologetically. She gives Dick a thin smile as he steps up beside Wally, then turns back to Zatanna. ‘The winter solstice is close. You could try then—the veil will be thinner.’
Cold trickles down the back of Dick’s neck. He glances over his shoulder, expecting to find someone—a single grey eye—staring at his back. But the other Justice League members are strolling past, chatting in groups, none of them trying to catch Dick’s eye. There’s a prickle in Dick’s throat, and as he turns back to Raven he can’t help rubbing at his neck, where he felt those teeth bite down.
‘What does that mean?’ he tries to sound casual. ‘The veil being thinner?’
Zatanna arches an eyebrow, smirking softly. ‘You want a whole lecture on magic theory?’ But there’s a sparkle in her eyes that Dick recognises—it’s the same look Alfred gets when Dick asks for recipes, and Damian gets when he talks about his pets. ‘When the veil between worlds is thinner, magic is stronger. It happens a few times every year, like at Halloween and the winter solstice. So if you ever want to cast a big spell that needs lots of magic, those are the times to do it.’
‘You need to be careful though,’ Raven cuts in softly. ‘Magic is stronger for everyone on those days. People like—’ her eyes flick away momentarily, ‘—my father will use those days to step into our plane of existence.’
The prickle in Dick’s throat sharpens. The memory of shaking hands with a white-haired man in an eyepatch are strangely washed-out, like trying to remember a childhood dream. He barely hears Zatanna’s response, or Wally offering to meet up on the solstice for moral support. They make their goodbyes, and Dick smiles and nods and tries not to show how queasy he feels.
Wally West piggy-back is not Dick’s favourite way to travel, but it is at least marginally more dignified than the alternative Wally West bridal style, or worse, Wally West fireman’s lift. But it’s the fastest way to San Francisco for Zatanna’s winter solstice spell night, to which Dick hadn’t realised he was invited until Wally showed up expectantly on his doorstep.
San Francisco’s mild December weather feels blazing hot after the black ice and sleet in Blüdhaven, and Zatanna’s apartment is cosy and so much tidier than Dick’s own place. He’s no help with anything magic-related, so while Zatanna and Raven compare components and invocations, and Wally zips around offering encouragement and mostly being a nuisance, Dick dozes on the couch in a patch of sunshine.
He needs the sleep. He always needs more sleep, between the day job at the police station and the night shift on patrol. But recently he can’t seem to close his eyes without feeling a weight on his chest and nails raking down his skin. He woke up three times last night, sweating and trembling, and even after sweeping his apartment multiple times he could swear there were eyes on him.
When he blinks awake, Raven is looking at him, frowning. When he meets her eye, she looks away.
Zatanna’s spell finally works at sunset, and Dick watches her trace incandescent colours through the air, grinning as she laughs in delight. He figures it’s more than just pretty colours, but the girls’ talk of thaumaturgy versus prestidigitation goes over his head, and he lets it, too tired to try and keep up and content to just enjoy Zatanna’s happiness.
They eat victory pizza on Zatanna’s couch, and as Dick is pulling his shoes back on for his grim return journey with Wally, Raven touches his arm.
‘You know, if you ever need us …’
Dick blinks at her, slowing with one foot halfway in his sneaker. He guessed napping all day on Zatanna’s couch wasn’t such a good idea. He didn’t mean to worry anyone. Still, he’s warmed that Raven of all people would be the one to reach out.
‘Thanks, Raven. I just needed some Zs.’ He gives her a smile he’s practised many times at Wayne charity galas. ‘I’ll be fine.’
He doesn’t miss the way her eyes flick behind him, or the insincerity of her returning smile. He pulls his sneakers on and clambers onto Wally’s back with an exaggerated groan.
It takes everything in him to resist glancing over his shoulder.
The feather-light trace of hands up his ribs jerks Dick out of sleep.
Someone is in his room. Someone is on top of him.
He lunges on instinct, not at them but for the edge of the bed. His escrima sticks are behind the nightstand. He only needs to grab one—hit the button that electrifies them—
A hand locks around his wrist, hauling him back into the middle of the bed and pinning his arm to the pillow. Dick hisses; that grip is crushing and it hurts. He swings a blind punch with his free hand, but it doesn’t connect, and then fingers close around that wrist, pushing it down like the other.
His apartment is dark, but he can make out the silhouette of the figure straddling his waist, and their weight pins him to the mattress as they settle on his hips. They’re heavy enough that Dick grunts, even as he thinks, Not this dream again.
He’s exhausted. It’s been too many nights, too many nightmares, and he just wants this one to be over so he can wake up. Hopefully with enough of the night left that he can roll over and go back to sleep.
The figure leans down and Dick feels bare skin against his chest. The knees, tight around his hips, are naked, too. He feels too-warm skin and the tickle of body hair. He shudders. He’s only wearing his boxers. Are they wearing anything?
Something touches his throat. Dick flinches. It’s the tip of a nose, followed by warm, wet lips and the scratchy-soft brush of a beard.
It’s only a dream.
But Dick squirms, tugging uselessly at the hands that flex around his wrists, keeping his arms pinned either side of his head. There’s a nip of teeth—Dick presses back into the pillows, choking back a yelp, breathing hard through gritted teeth—and then the long, slow slide of a tongue up the column of his throat.
‘You sold yourself to me, Dick Grayson.’
Dick’s breath hitches. He knows that voice.
‘Time to pay your debt.’
Cold rushes through Dick’s body. He fell off the pier into Blüdhaven docks one time; this feels like that. Shock makes his muscles seize in a way that aches all over—and then he’s thrashing, snarling, clawing for the surface and air for the demon to be off him.
‘By all means, kid, struggle.’ The demon’s voice dances on the edge of laughter. ‘Give me an excuse to take your brother away.’
Dick falters. Dami.
He was looking forward to Christmas. His present waits on Dick’s kitchen counter, not yet wrapped.
‘He’s all better, isn’t he?’ There’s a brush of beard against Dick’s cheek, and Dick twitches away, and then feels lips right next to his ear, the voice low and soft and rumbling. ‘I kept my part of the bargain. I’d hate to be forced to take him back because you can’t keep yours.’
Bile rises in Dick’s throat. ‘Leave Damian out of this.’
A soft chuckle. ‘You brought him into it.’ Warm lips press to the corner of Dick’s jaw. The hands around his wrists squeeze, and then they’re moving, pushing Dick’s hands up over his head, crossing them at the wrists so the demon can hold them both in one broad hand. ‘Relax, kid. I don’t want Damian Wayne. I want you.’
It’s a dream, Dick thinks frantically as a hand slides down his ribs. It’s just a dream.
It must be a dream, because he knows a dozen ways out of a pin like this, but for some reason none of them are working. He twists his wrists at an angle that should put uncomfortable force on the demon’s fingers, force him to adjust his grip and give Dick a chance to break free. The demon doesn’t seem to notice. His fingers don’t even twitch. Meanwhile his other hand is now at Dick’s hip, toying with the elastic of his boxers.
The demon lifts his weight off Dick’s hips, and this is another chance. Dick’s done it so many times—done it as a kid. He just needs to twist his waist and shift his centre of gravity and—
He’s moving through molasses. His bones are heavy. He can’t—he can’t get into position properly—and he feels his boxers tugging against his leg and then hears the high scratch of fabric tearing. And then skin is sliding against his thighs and there’s a hand on the back of his knee, gripping hard and bending his leg back, and he tries to say, No or Stop or Don’t, but what comes out in a ragged gasp is, ‘Oh god, this isn’t a dream, this is real—’ before pain splits him open and everything else is swallowed up in screaming.
Dick is trembling by sunrise.
His head is pressed to the demon’s shoulder, their legs tangled together, and Dick’s back aches from the angle he’s awkwardly propped in, but when he tries to move everything hurts and his limbs feel like they’re filled with wet sand.
The demon strokes his hair; kisses the top of his head; scratches absently behind Dick’s ear like he’s a dog. He’s murmuring softly, and Dick hears maybe every other sentence. Mocking words of comfort and praise wash over him as the grey light of dawn filters through the blinds.
‘—let you off easy this time. Are you listening, pet?’
Hard fingers pinch his chin. Dick flinches, but he can’t pull away, and the demon levers his head up into a painful arch so he can stare Dick in the eyes.
‘I said, if you fight me next time, the deal’s off.’ The demon’s single eye is cold and colourless. It’s the first time Dick’s been able to make out his features all night. ‘Do you understand?’
The deal. God, yeah, that’s right, there was a deal attached to this pain.
Damian.
Dick’s stomach clenches. He swallows hard, but when he tries to speak he can’t force words past the lump in his throat, so he nods instead. The demon lets him, releasing his chin. Dick’s head drops back on the demon’s shoulder. He tries a few more times to speak, and finally the words come in a broken rasp, ‘Who are you?’
Dick feels the vibration of the demon’s soft laughter through his cheek. Fingers slide through his hair, and the nails that scrape at his scalp are too sharp for human hands. The first scratch makes Dick wince, but the next is softer somehow. The skin layered against his body grows cooler.
‘Call me Slade.’ The demon presses another kiss on top of Dick’s head. Dick barely feels it. Underneath him, the demon is fading as morning sunlight fills the room. ‘I’ll see you again soon.’
And then Dick is alone in bed, and the only thing pressing into his face is the sweat-drenched pillows.
Nobody comments on the turtleneck he wears to Wayne Manor on Christmas Day.
Dick tries not to fidget with it too much, but when he reaches across the table for more potatoes his long sleeve slides up a little and shows the blotchy brown-and-purple bruises encircling his wrists. Alfred raises an eyebrow and it takes all Dick’s self-control not to snatch his hand back and tug the sleeve down. Instead he puts on a breezy smile and begins spooning potatoes onto his plate. ‘Perils of the job, right Bruce?’
Bruce smiles knowingly, and he knows nothing at all.
Dick holds off for another week before he calls Raven. The bruises have mostly faded, and he’s practised in the mirror until he can keep a steady voice.
‘I need a favour,’ he says, as casually as if he were asking her to pick up groceries.
On the small phone screen, Raven’s eyes narrow. ‘What favour?’
Dick almost laughs. She’s too smart to agree to anything pre-emptively. Too smart and too suspicious, although he doesn’t think he’s asking anything that taxing of her. ‘When Zatanna was doing her spell, you said the veil was thin?’
‘At the solstice.’ Raven nods.
‘Are there other times the veil is thin? Does it happen often?’
‘A few times a year.’ They’re both quiet for a moment, and then Raven adds, ‘I could send you a calendar?’
The grin on Dick’s face is only a little forced. ‘Could you?’
He waits for her to get up, carrying her phone with her to the library that encompasses most of her home. He figured the calendar would be buried in some dusty old tome somewhere, but instead she taps at the phone for a minute, and then his phone pings with an attachment.
‘Woah, you had that waiting?’
Raven shrugs. ‘The wheel of the year is common knowledge. You could find it on the Internet.’ As Dick opens the attachment and scans the dates, she adds, ‘Why the interest?’
‘It’s for a case,’ Dick says, a line he’s rehearsed so many times it doesn’t feel much like lying anymore. ‘Some weird occult connections ... I figured it might be related? Just a hunch.’
‘Would you like some help?’
‘That’s all the help I need for now. Like I said, just a hunch. Thanks, Raven.’ He keeps his tone friendly, but also says it with enough finality that she can’t do much but make her goodbyes and hang up.
Dick reads over the calendar. The dates are evenly spaced, every eight weeks or so. The solstice is there, of course. So is Halloween. The night, Dick realises with a hard lump in his stomach, that Damian was admitted to hospital. The night he first saw Slade.
Maybe he should have told Raven more. Told her he’d made a deal. Maybe she could help him get out of it, without losing Damian. But Raven knows how demons work. She’ll want to know what Slade wants from Dick, and how is Dick supposed to explain that without telling her ... telling her ...
He raped me. He wants to rape me again. He’s going to keep on raping me.
And if I stop him, Damian dies.
He hasn’t dreamed of Slade since that night. The next date on Raven’s calendar is at the beginning of February. So soon. Only a few weeks to work this out. To work out some way he can fix it.
He runs a hand down his face, repressing a shiver.
He doesn’t work it out.
January crawls on like a dirge, dark and cold and feeling like it will never end until it suddenly does. Dick has his first dream of Slade on January twenty-fifth, a little over a week before the date now marked on his calendar. It’s a fading, foggy dream: snatches of Slade’s voice in a low murmur, the faint feeling of pressure on his hips. The next night it’s clearer, and the next, and the next, until on January thirtieth Dick jerks awake clutching at his neck, wheezing at the phantom pain of fingers crushing his throat.
He staggers to the bathroom to splash his face and drink from the tap, and realises belatedly that his dick is hard.
He takes a day’s leave from the station on February second. As if the extra few hours will give him some inspiration he didn’t get in the last month. There are plenty of ways to kill demons, as far as his research can tell him. Holy water and salt and crucifixes and burning sage, and he has no idea which things work, and which are plucked from pop culture or made up by phoney psychics selling quartz to cure cancer.
He paces his apartment, almost calling Raven or Zatanna a dozen times. It’s getting dark when he calls John Constantine instead, his hands shaking. The tinny voicemail he gets in response feels like a slap in the face.
‘Wotcha, I can’t pick up right now ’cause I’m saving the bloody world. Leave a message.’
Dick waits two seconds after the beep, his throat to dry to speak. He hangs up without saying anything. Then he sits on the couch, phone in hand, trying to imagine what he can say to Raven that won’t end in her appearing in his apartment in a swirl of shadows, demanding answers.
He’s still turning his phone over in his hands, reading yet another Internet article about demons, when a pair of hands slide over his shoulders from behind. Dick flinches, his phone tumbling out of his hands and bouncing off his knee before it clatters to the floor.
‘You waited up for me.’ Slade’s voice rumbles a few inches from Dick’s ear. His hands slide down Dick’s chest, so warm through his t-shirt he thinks they’ll scald if he touches bare skin. ‘Cute.’
‘Was hoping you wouldn’t show,’ Dick muttered.
A soft hum of laughter. Slade’s hands spread over Dick’s pectorals, and then he curls his fingers into claws and digs his nails in, hard enough to hurt through Dick’s t-shirt. ‘I thought we were past this, kid. Unless you want to renege on our deal?’
Dick closes his eyes. Blows out a long breath. Not yet. He has to protect Damian a little longer. Just this one night, and then he’ll talk to Constantine, or Zatanna, or Raven. He will. He’ll find a way to fucking banish Slade and keep Damian alive. Curling his hands in his sweatpants, he raises his chin. ‘No. I’m still in.’
‘Good boy.’
A beard brushes Dick’s jaw, and then the tip of a nose, nudging his head to the side. Gritting his teeth, Dick tilts his head, and doesn’t fight—even when teeth sink into his throat. Even when not fighting back turns out to be easier than he expected. Even when his erection starts to ache, and Slade wraps hot fingers around it and laughs.
He dances around the issue, because of fucking course he does.
There’s a damn good reason why he didn’t fight back, and he knows that, and he wouldn’t blame anyone in this situation for letting a fucking demon hurt them when that demon apparently has their brother’s life in the palm of his hand.
But whenever he comes close to forgiving himself, he remembers the way his toes curled on the floorboards as Slade levered his arm higher and forced him to bend further over the arm of the couch, his face pressed into the cushions as Slade fucked into him harder and he screamed and choked and came, so hard his vision filled with sparks.
Dick spends the next Justice League meeting scratching at his forearm, glancing at Raven—no Zatanna today—and then looking away before she can make eye contact. When the meeting finally ends, he can’t exactly blame her for striding up to him. She doesn’t quite catch his arm—that would be far too forward for Raven—but she pins him with a stare so hard she might as well have shoved him against the wall.
‘Something is bothering you. Something about me.’
‘It’s not anything you’ve done.’ Dick gets what is probably her primary concern out of the way first, and knows he was right when her shoulders sink a little in obvious relief. ‘It’s just … I’ve been meaning to ask you something, but I’m not sure how to say it.’
Raven shrugs, sidling up to stand beside him, a little less aggressive and a little more companionable. She draws her cloak around her body. Dick misses his cape sometimes, when she does that. Misses how safe he felt, bundled in fabric. Not for the first time, he considers adding a cape to his Nightwing suit, and then immediately reconsiders when he remembers how annoying his old Robin cloak was, dragging behind him and tangling in his legs.
‘Is it to do with that occult case?’ Raven asks eventually.
Dick latches on to the idea. ‘Yeah. It’s uh … a lot of it is need-to-know.’ As in he, Dick, is the only person who needs to know. Ever. He pushes forward regardless. ‘Look, you know about demons, right? Like, what would happen if you made a deal with one?’
‘No,’ Raven says dryly. ‘I’ve never heard of such a thing.’
Dick snorts. ‘OK fair, stupid question. Do you know if there’s any way to get out of a deal with a demon?’
‘Generally, you break the contract. You stop giving the demon what it wants and it will take back whatever it gave you.’
Like Damian.
Dick’s stomach twists. He gives it a few seconds before he speaks again, pretending to think, getting to a place where his voice isn’t going to crack when he asks, ‘What if you can’t do that? Like say, the demon saved your friend’s life, and your friend will die if you break the contract?’
Wide, dark eyes stare up at him for a long time, unblinking. Raven’s brow furrows. ‘Dick,’ she says softly, ‘what have you done?’
Dick almost fakes a laugh, before he realises that will come across as more suspicious; like he’s embarrassed and trying to shake it off. If he really was talking about someone else, someone he was trying to protect, he’d be worried for them. So he keeps his face straight and fixes his gaze across the room. ‘Not me. Someone I’m trying to help.’
Raven seems to buy it. She sighs, looking away and shaking her head. ‘Well, whoever they are, they shouldn’t have made that deal. I’m sure they meant to be noble, but whatever the demon wants in exchange will be equally terrible.’ She hesitates. ‘I guess they could kill the demon, maybe. If they had a powerful sorcerer to help them.’
She gives him a thin, knowing smile. He returns it, hoping it comes across as warm. Grateful.
‘Thanks, Raven.’ He touches her shoulder. ‘I’ll let you know how it goes.’
‘I’ll be here,’ she says softly.
And he knows she will be. Except, as he walks away, all he can think of is the moment he came with his arm twisted up behind him and Slade laughing behind his back.
Dick knows Slade is coming back when the nightmare start.
It’s mid-March and Blüdhaven is all freezing rain and cutting winds. They had late snow, only just melted, and Dick knows the nightmares are getting to him when he lands out of a grapnel and slips on black ice he somehow failed to notice. He skids three feet in the wrong direction, lands on his tailbone, and watches the mugger he’d been about to apprehend flee the other way down the alley.
(He still catches the guy, but regardless. It’s fucking embarrassing.)
He can’t take sick leave—from the day job or the other job—for something as petty and ridiculous as bad dreams, although he’s tempted, at least at the police station. He staggers in after work the night of Ostara, according to the calendar Raven gave him, and doesn’t bother changing into his Nightwing suit. Blüdhaven will have to live without its superhero for one night.
His apartment is full of books on the occult, courtesy of Raven and Constantine. He flips through the pages, picking up the little cardboard packet of chalks he bought from the toy store round the corner. He slides one out, tapping it against the box a few times as he reads and re-reads the instructions.
Getting on his knees, he drags his bed out into the middle of the room. Then he bends down and begins to draw.
He stays awake again, watching the candles flicker around his bed. As if he could sleep, knowing what’s coming. Knowing how fucking risky this is.
He has to. He can’t live like this.
He’s cross-legged in the middle of the bed, paging through one of Raven’s occult books—as if he’ll find anything else useful in there at this point—and the candles have burned halfway down when the mattress dips under a new weight behind him.
‘Candlelight?’ Slade purrs in his ear, all soft mockery. ‘Do you also have roses and champagne?’
Dick reaches into his lap, under the book. ‘No. I have this.’
He flicks the lighter against the bundle of sage.
It’s a couple of seconds before smoke begins to curl off the dried leaves. The smell hits him, musty, and Dick pushes up onto his knees and spins to face Slade, brandishing the bundle like a weapon.
Slade’s face—human form, strong and handsome—twists in disgust. He lashes out to shove the sage aside, but Dick scuttles back, hopping off the end of the bed and backing up past the circle of candles, until his back hits the wall.
‘You’re making a mistake, Grayson.’ The consonants crack from Slade’s mouth like snapping bones. His features flicker, the smoky half-image of curling horns momentarily flashing over his head, his fingers briefly elongating into claws. ‘I thought we were past this.’ He crawls across the bed, slow, like a large and powerful animal approaching its prey. ‘Put that thing down and apologise, and maybe I’ll let your little brother live.’
‘You’re not gonna touch Damian,’ Dick hisses. ‘Or me, ever again.’
Slade tilts his head, that one eye as cold as death. ‘Wrong answer.’
He lunges. Midway in the air, the flickering over his face stops, and suddenly it isn’t a man coming at Dick at all but a monster, all twisted features and needle-sharp teeth, single eye blazing. Dick jerks back, although there is nowhere to go, swinging the sage like a club.
He needn’t have bothered. A foot off the edge of the bed, Slade slams into something Dick can’t see. He falls back, snarling and spitting, long snake-like tail whipping behind him. Perching on the edge of the bed like a gargoyle, Slade glares down at the symbols in chalk encircling the bed. The symbols, and the candles, and the line of salt. Dick doesn’t believe in half measures.
He pushes himself up off the wall, straightening his back. ‘You want to be in my bed so bad? You can stay there.’
Slade pulls his grey lips back to bare his teeth. ‘You can’t keep me here forever.’
‘I can, actually. The candles might burn down, but the chalk and salt aren’t going anywhere.’ Dick takes a steadying breath. It’s working. Slade can’t get to him. ‘After tonight, when the veil comes down, you’ll be trapped here. Well,’ Dick shrugs, ‘more trapped than you are now.’
‘You are going to regret this.’
‘You can choose,’ Dick says, louder, speaking over him. ‘I can call Raven right now—you’ve heard of her, right? Trigon’s daughter?—and she can obliterate you with a thought. Or, you can make a new deal with me. You revoke your ownership of me, in exchange for your freedom. And you leave Damian out of it.’
For a long time, Slade only stares, his tail swishing back and forth behind him. Then he sighs, ‘You are a fool, Grayson.’ He settles on the edge of the bed, feet on the floorboards, his toes inches from the line he can’t cross. He leans forward, elbows on his knees. ‘Do you think you can fool me? Or only yourself? You liked what I did to you.’
‘You’re disgusting.’
Slade’s mouth curves into a smirk. ‘Call your witch.’
Dick lifts his chin. ‘She’ll kill you.’
‘So call her.’ Slade stares, unblinking. ‘Does she know I’m here? Does she know the delicious things you’ve done for me? The way you whimpered and pleaded—’
‘Shut up!’ Dick’s heart hammers. OK, Slade wants to call his bluff? Fine. Fine. Raven already knows Dick is involved with a demon somehow. Slade can spout all the foul garbage he wants; at the end of the day, he’s a creature from Hell. Of course he’s going to lie. Of course he’s going to say anything to humiliate the people about to kill him. Dick just needs to act surprised by whatever Slade says, on top of being horrified. The latter won’t take much effort. And Raven will believe him—why wouldn’t she? They’re friends.
‘She won’t believe anything you say.’ Moving stiffly, Dick drags his phone out of his jeans pocket. ‘She knows what demons are like.’ The back of his neck prickles when he takes his eyes off Slade to look at the screen, scrolling through his contacts. He gets to Raven’s name and his thumb hovers over the call button.
He glances up at Slade. ‘Last chance.’
Honestly, he’s not sure if she can kill Slade. Maybe not right away. But she did say a powerful sorcerer could kill a demon, and Dick doesn’t know any sorcerer more powerful than her. Slade can wait there on the bed, as long as it takes. Hell, maybe he’ll have a change of heart when he sees his impending doom incoming.
Slade says nothing, and Dick hits the call button. He pulls the phone up to his ear, listening to the dial tone.
‘Of course,’ Slade says evenly, ‘as you say, the daughter of Trigon must know all about demons.’
Dick narrows his eyes. The phone trills in his ear.
‘She must know which ones can alter emotions, and which ones can cause pain with a glance.’ Slade’s eye gleams. ‘And which ones cannot lie.’
Cold sweeps through Dick’s body. ‘What?’
Slade laughs, low and soft. ‘My dear boy, why would anyone make a deal with a demon who can lie to them?’
Dick hits the button to hang up so fast he almost drops his phone. ‘You can’t lie?’
‘Not a word.’ Slade’s eye flicks to the phone and back up to Dick’s face, his grin positively insane. ‘What’s the matter? Don’t you want to call your friend anymore?’
Dick stares, breathing hard, fingers flexing around his phone. He shoves it back in his pocket. ‘Doesn’t matter. You’re still stuck in there. You want to spend eight weeks sitting on my bed? Be my guest. You’re not going anywhere, and I’ve got plenty of time to decide what to do with you.’
Slade hangs his head, white hair falling loose around his horns. His shoulders shake with a laugh, and when he straightens and flicks his hair back, he looks pitying. ‘You are damned idiot, Dick Grayson.’ He pushes himself back up the bed, crossing his legs. ‘You should have called her. You should have called her before you set up this pathetic attempt at a trap. She could have warned you not to draw the circle under your bed.’ His eye gleams as he reaches slowly behind him, dragging a pillow into his lap. ‘I can’t leave. But everything else in here can.’
With a mocking smile, Slade lifts the pillow and tosses it over the edge of the bed.
The pillow hits the floorboards and skids, tearing through the salt line and the chalk sigils before thumping into a candle that topples and rolls across the floor, extinguished.
Dick’s stomach drops.
‘No!’ He lunges, as if he can fix it. The salt ring is torn open, white grains scattered in the wake of the pillow. The chalk symbol is smeared, but maybe it isn’t enough—maybe it can still hold—
As he looks back up, Slade grins, showing two rows of pointed teeth.
And then he is gone, leaving nothing but a rolling haze of black smoke.
Dick is still in his room, staring at the empty bed, when the call comes through.
‘Master Dick?’ Alfred’s voice is hollow. ‘It’s … it’s Master Damian. He’s … we think it’s related to the head injury from last year. He collapsed. The doctors say there’s bleeding on his brain.’
There’s a knot in Dick’s stomach, growing larger and tighter, tangling into his heart and his lungs, pulling them all together like vines choking a plant. ‘I’ll be there,’ he manages. The words echo, like someone else said them.
Alfred makes a stifled noise down the phone. The next word is choked, before he hangs up. ‘Hurry.’
Dick doesn’t see the roads he drives down. He could’ve blazed clean through every red light and stop sign, for all he knows. For all he cares.
Damian is going to die, and Dick killed him.
There are no demons lounging outside the hospital this morning. No one eyes Dick with interest as he staggers to the children’s ward and locates Bruce and Alfred, waiting outside the operating theatre.
‘Tim is flying out from California,’ Bruce says dully. ‘He’ll be here this afternoon.’
Dick nods and sits beside him. They watch the operating theatre doors, and wait for the bad news.
Damian survives his surgery, and for the barest fleeting instant, Dick wonders if he ever needed Slade at all. Of course Damian will survive. Damian is a fighter.
But the surgeon talking to Bruce looks weary to his bones, and he’s saying things like, ‘We did the best we could,’ and, ‘All we can do is keep him comfortable,’ and finally just, ‘I’m sorry.’
They expect he’ll live until sometime tomorrow.
Dick has less than twenty-four hours.
He slept in the hospital, if it could be called sleeping, leaning on Bruce’s shoulder with his eyes half-open, but he’s near delirious with exhaustion when he makes it back to his apartment in Blüdhaven. He puts on the strongest pot of coffee he can stomach, and reaches for Raven’s books.
Slade only comes when the veil is thin, but there are ways to make it easier. Ways to summon a demon, in these books.
Turns out it’s easier than trying to trap one. Dick scrubs away the chalk and sweeps up the salt; he pushes the bed back up against the wall. He repurposes the candles.
He hasn’t prayed since he was a little kid, but by that night he’s praying, hands clasped together and elbows on the end of the bed.
‘Come back,’ he croaks. ‘Please, Slade, I’m begging. I’m sorry.’ He takes a shaky breath, feeling the knot tighten through his innards. ‘I’ll do whatever you want. I’ll never resist again, just please, please, don’t take Damian, not Damian, please, I’ll do anything—’
The candles go out.
That’s it. A last fuck you, plunging Dick into darkness. A sob breaks out of him, and he drops his head into the crook of his elbows and shakes with tears.
Fingers scratch down his back. ‘You’ll have to do better than just not resisting.’
Dick whirls, landing flat on his ass with his shoulders against the bed frame. By the faint glow of the streetlights straining through his curtains, he can see dark shoulders. White hair. Horns. Slade rises to his feet, an enormous and terrifying shadow. Dick scrambles up after him, leaning hard against the bed for support. His legs tremble.
‘From now on, you will be whatever I want you to be.’ Slade reaches out, and Dick tries not to flinch as Slade grabs him by the chin. ‘If I want you eager, you will get on your knees and beg. If I want you scared, you will struggle and cry. If I want to carve my name into your back, you will hand me the damn knife and turn around.’ His nails dig into Dick’s skin, sharp as talons. ‘And you can start by begging for my forgiveness.’
Dick lunges at him. He grabs Slade in both hands and pulls him into a kiss like he’s drowning. ‘I’m sorry.’ Slade’s teeth are sharp, scratching at Dick’s lips and tongue. His chest is bare, and Dick grabs at his shoulders, pulling himself in close to feel the near-painful heat of Slade’s skin. ‘I’m sorry.’ Slade grips his hair, so tight Dick’s scalp burns and he sucks a breath through gritted teeth before leaning in to kiss Slade again, harder. ‘I’m sorry. I’ll do better, I promise, I’ll do anything you want.’ Slade bites Dick’s lip. Tears spring to Dick’s eyes at the hot, sharp pain. The next time he crushes their lips together, he tastes blood. ‘Just tell me what you want. Please, Slade, please, I’m sorry.’
Slade yanks at Dick’s hair, dragging him down. Dick lets his legs buckle; he lands hard on his knees and stays there, Slade’s hand still curled in his hair. He figures what’s going to happen before it does; opens his mouth at the tap of Slade’s cock on his lips and leans forward to swallow it down.
He expects Slade to fuck his throat, to use him hard and rough, but instead Slade keeps a hand in his hair and lets Dick work. Lets him prove just how sorry he is. The first couple of seconds Dick fumbles, when he’s still waiting for Slade to shove him down. But then he sets his hands on Slade’s thighs and leans in, slurping and sucking, wriggling his tongue along the ridge at the underside of Slade’s cock, lapping small wet kisses over the head, steadying himself and sinking deep enough to feel the stretch of Slade’s cock in his throat. He gasps apologies whenever he comes up for breath, tears streaming hot and sticky down his face.
When Slade finally does use the hand in Dick’s hair, it’s to yank him off. Dick splutters and gasps, looking up into the darkness. He can barely make out the pale shape of Slade’s hair; the cold gleam of his eye. ‘I want to fuck you. Strip.’
Dick nods and reaches over his head to pull off his shirt. As Slade’s hand slides out of his hair, he hesitates. ‘I … have lube?’ He swallows. His throat is sore. God, is this a mistake? Is Slade going to think he’s trying to squirm out of his punishment, asking for small mercies? Tentatively, he adds, ‘If you want it?’
Slade just snorts. ‘What a good little whore.’
He doesn’t say anything else, so Dick takes that as an affirmative. He rips his shirt over his head, kicks off his shoes and jeans and briefs, and shuffles to the nightstand. Lube is in the bottom drawer. It’s strawberry flavoured. Dick doesn’t know why he thought that was a good idea, whenever he bought it. It’s sickly sweet, when he cracks it open.
He kneels up on the bed, watching Slade’s shadow approach as he drizzles cold lube on his fingers. He rubs his hands together, quick, just enough to warm it up before reaching back between his legs and smearing the scent of strawberries over his asshole. He slips a finger in, circling and stretching, fast enough that it’s uncomfortable. He’s still clenching when he forces in a second finger and begins to scissor.
Slade’s hand slides down Dick’s other arm. Tugs his hand forward by the wrist, until Dick is cupping Slade’s cock. Getting the idea fast, Dick slides his wet fingers up and down, coating as much of Slade as he can.
‘From now on,’ Slade says, ‘you do this before I arrive. I’m not waiting around for you to stretch yourself open for me.’
Cold spreads through Dick’s stomach. ‘Yes,’ he says quickly. ‘Yeah, OK, sorry. I’m ready.’
He’s not ready; not by several fingers, judging from the thickness of the dick in his hand, and his memory of how much it fucking hurt to take it. But Dick slides his fingers out and goes down on all fours. His breath hitches when Slade tugs his hips, but he doesn’t move out of the position Slade gets him in.
There’s pressure, and then pain, sharp and hot, and Dick bites down on the blankets and tries to focus on that, on pulling all the tension in his body up into his jaw so the rest of him can relax. Gradually he loses the tension in his thighs and his glutes and his ass, and the pain becomes duller. More manageable.
Slade doesn’t give him any longer than that first slide to adjust. He comes up flush against Dick’s ass, and then he grips Dick’s hips and fucks him hard. Dick twists the blankets in his fists, whining softly, hoping Slade won’t take that as a complaint. Slade’s hand comes off his hip and his fingers trace Dick’s spine, gently at first, then digging deep, gouging in his skin. Dick shudders and whimpers, and wonders if the wetness he can feel trailing over his ribs is sweat or blood.
As the sun rises, Slade is layered over Dick’s body. His knee is between Dick’s legs and his teeth are in Dick’s throat. Dick is boneless. It isn’t his body anymore. It’s just a weight he has to carry; pain he has to endure.
Slade glances up at the new light filtering through the curtains. His hand slides up Dick’s body and curls around his throat. ‘No more chances. Don’t disappoint me again.’
A moment later, he is gone. Dick barely has the energy left to roll over before he falls asleep.
Damian makes his second miraculous recovery in as many months.
He’s kept in hospital for monitoring again. Where before he seemed defiantly alive, Damian is more subdued this time, hugging the stuffed dog Dick bought him and quietly surrendering to the battery of tests the doctors subject him to. Between them, Dick, Bruce, Alfred and even Tim blatantly flout the hospital’s visiting hours. Whenever a nurse complains, a small wad of cash from Bruce’s pocket is enough to silence them. Almost a month later, all the doctors can find is that Damian is healthy, and growing healthier by the day.
Damian is finally sent home, with strict orders to return for regular check-ups. Dick stays in Gotham; requests desk work at the police station so he can work from home and takes all the bitching from his colleagues about it. He feels Bruce’s eyes on him occasionally as well as Damian, quietly worried. Neither he or Alfred ever asks outright where Dick went for so many hours the day Damian collapsed, or why he came back pale and hollow-cheeked and exhausted and triumphant—and just in time for Damian to wake up.
‘You know you could always move back here,’ Bruce says one day, stiffly, his eyes focused on the coffee he’s pouring from the pot. Alfred is out with Damian for yet another check-up at the hospital. Bruce sets the pot down and turns, leaning back on the counter and cupping his mug in both hands. ‘Gotham has a police force. And Jim Gordon could do with one more decent apple in the bunch.’
Dick almost considers it. He could pack up his apartment; drop his notice in at work. Give up on Blüdhaven entirely—just another unsalvageable city in a country full of unsalvageable cities.
He shakes his head. ‘I have to go back. I still have work to do in Blüdhaven.’ He hesitates. ‘Thanks, though.’
Bruce nods and sips from his coffee. He stands in the kitchen a little longer, as if considering asking something else. But finally, he pushes off the counter and walks away, pausing only to put a hand on Dick’s shoulder as he goes past.
Halloween is nearly done.
The kids stopped trick-or-treating hours ago. Most of the jack o’ lanterns on the street have burned out, although Dick can still faintly hear music thumping from another apartment on the floor below.
Dick checks his wristwatch on the nightstand—almost midnight—and fidgets with the leather cuffs encircling his wrists. Too loose can be just as uncomfortable as too tight; he’s learned that after so many bruises. Slade didn’t ask for anything specific this time, so Dick sticks to the usual.
In some ways it’s not unlike prepping for a patrol. Make sure he gets enough to eat, drink some water, take a nap to make up for the inevitable sleep debt. Showering at the start of the night is different. So is the new showerhead attachment, which took a while to get used to. At this point it’s almost routine, except for the little rush of anticipation as Dick towels off and reaches for the bottom drawer of his nightstand.
Cuffs on first. Plain black leather, each of them with a little silver carabiner that can be attached to each other or clipped to the bedpost, or whatever else Slade chooses. They close with buckles; easy enough to undo with one hand but hard to wriggle out of. He’s started keeping a knife in the nightstand too, just in case Slade decides to leave him tied up one night. He figures he can get it out with his feet, if it comes to it.
But so far, besides the scratches and bruises, Slade doesn’t seem interested in making Dick suffer beyond his allotted time. Dick guesses if Slade’s not there to see it, it isn’t worth the effort.
Dick’s watch flicks to 11:40. Plenty of time. He lifts a collar out the drawer and snaps the popper closed at the back of his neck. He slides his fingers under the leather, tilting his head, his stomach squirming. He hasn’t worn this before. Slade mentioned last time how pretty Dick would look in a collar; the next day Dick started searching online. The tag is blank. He doesn’t know what Slade wants engraved on it.
The important thing is keeping Slade happy.
Pulling out the lube, Dick drops onto the bed. He squirms into a comfortable position on his back, propped on the pillows, wets his fingers and gets to work. It’s gotten easier over the last few months; he doesn’t really ever let himself get too tight anymore. Two and then three fingers slide in easy, and Dick switches to the thick dildo in that bottom drawer. This is closer to Slade’s size; he grunts as the ring of muscle snaps down around the bulbous head, and then drizzles more lube before sinking into the pillows and easing the dildo deeper. It’s thicker at the base, perfect for gradually stretching himself open, and he takes his time filling himself with it.
When he can take it up to the flared base, Dick slides the dildo out and replaces it with the black silicone plug. It sits fat inside him, a pressure he can’t ignore as he wipes his fingers on a tissue and sets the lube aside.
His cock is aching, almost scarlet at the tip and dripping clear strings of precome onto the sheets. Dick doesn’t touch it. Slade loves it far too much when he’s the first to get his hands round it; when he gets to hear Dick wail and beg.
A few minutes to midnight, Dick flicks out the light and takes his place kneeling in the middle of the bed, hands on his thighs, head bowed. He closes his eyes and just lets himself drift, clenching occasionally around the butt plug just to feel how incredibly full he is.
He knows it’s midnight when he feels hands slide up his back.
‘There’s my boy.’
The hands smooth over Dick’s shoulders, curling into claws that rake over his skin. Not hard enough to draw blood, but enough that Dick feels hot trails all the way over his shoulders and down his back. He tilts his head up, arching his back and rising a little way on his knees.
Slade’s hands smooth back up, and this time his fingers catch on the collar. They still for a moment, and then Dick feels hot breath on the side of his neck, and the tip of a nose nudging the corner of his jaw. ‘What’s this?’
Dick swallows, settling back on his heels. ‘You said you liked the idea of a collar …’
Slade inhales. One arm comes up over Dick’s shoulder, and Slade’s hand wraps around his throat. His fingers slide back and forth, feeling the band of leather. Dick lifts his chin higher, breath coming shaky.
‘What a good little pet you are.’ Slade kisses Dick’s cheek, slow and lingering. ‘So eager to please.’
His hand slips away, and then he’s gripping Dick’s hips, tugging him backwards. Dick goes, shuffling on his knees until he’s sitting in Slade’s lap, his back pressed to Slade’s chest.
‘Hands,’ Slade says, and Dick lifts them up in front of his face. With another kiss and a murmur of, ‘Good boy,’ Slade clips the leather cuffs together. He must be feeling generous. Hands tied in front is one of the more comfortable positions. He taps Dick’s thigh and says, ‘Up,’ and Dick rises up onto his knees.
He winces as Slade pulls the plug out, a little too fast. Lets the little whimper slip out of his throat; Slade doesn’t mind noises of pain or discomfort, so long as Dick doesn’t ask him to stop. If Dick holds it in, Slade will only get more brutal, more determined to prise evidence of pain from Dick’s lips.
Slade touches his hips, and slowly coaxes Dick down. Dick inhales at the initial pressure of Slade’s cock against his ass, and then lets his breath out slowly as he sinks down, stretching open. The dildo and the plug make it more comfortable, but neither of them feel like Slade. Nothing feels like Slade: huge and burning hot, filling Dick so full he can only tremble and whine.
When he’s buried to the hilt, Slade tugs at Dick’s hips and legs, adjusting him into whatever position he wants. Dick keeps his hands up by his chest, tugging occasionally on the cuffs without any intention of breaking them open. Just wanting to feel them.
Slade traces the collar again. His fingers find the little metal disc at Dick’s clavicle. He rubs it between thumb and forefinger. ‘It’s blank?’
‘Wanted—to let you choose—what it says.’ Dick has to keep his thighs tense to maintain this position. They don’t ache yet, but it will be hard to maintain for long, and the tension automatically tightens his ass, making Slade feel that much bigger inside him.
‘Oh, sweet thing.’ Slade kisses his cheek. ‘Fuck yourself on me.’
Giving a tight nod, Dick steadies his breath and begins to move.
He’s not even sure Slade’s mocking him anymore, near dawn when Slade pulls Dick into his arms and pets his hair, and finally, finally jerks him off, murmuring insults in the tone of praise.
‘There’s a good pet, Grayson. Spread your legs like the whore you are.’
Dick comes in only a few hard tugs. He falls back against Slade’s chest, trembling and sobbing as Slade continues to tug his dick well past the point of overstimulation. He aches all over. He knows his throat will be a mess of bruises, and there are bite marks on his shoulders and wrists, and his back is criss-crossed with red welts from Slade’s claws. He aches and stings all over. He feels like he’s flying.
Slade squeezes him, hard. Rumbles with pleasure when Dick cries out, and keeps squeezing until Dick shudders and gasps and lets out a whine that builds into a second cry of pain. Then, finally, he lets go. Dick slumps against him, breathing hard, rallying for whatever Slade wants next.
Slade’s hand crawls up to Dick’s collar, tracing the leather fondly. He pinches the metal tag between his thumb and a curved finger, and there’s a teeth-aching scraping noise as he drags his clawed thumbnail over the metal.
‘What do you say, pet?’
Dick turns his face into the crook of Slade’s neck and kisses the hot skin there, trembling and breathless. He touches the tag when Slade pulls his hands up to it, tracing his fingertips over the jagged S now carved into the disc. ‘Thank you, Slade.’
Slade just laughs, soft and mocking. The sun rises and the sound gradually fades away into nothing.