Devilc's Den 2.0

Title: Forget Left Untold
Fandom: poisontaster's A Kept Boy 'verse
Characters: Josh Homme, Damian Lewis, and a smidge of Chris Kane.
Rating: Adult (There's some squick inducing torture here.)

Author's Note: A sequel to I Want To Play The Game You Missed. Title is a reference to the QOTSA song River In the Road.

Thank you to drgaellon for picking all of the spinach out of the teeth of this story.

And of course, thank you to Poisontaster for opening up the sandbox.

Legalese: The following is a bit of whatiffery, set in a fantasy universe and is not intended as an accurate reflection of any particular person's actions, world view, or morals.




They met for lunch at Roscoe's Chicken and Waffles, Josh in his cap and coveralls, Damian in his full biker kit.

"I swear," Damian groaned as the waitress took their menus and left, "this investigation is going nowhere except Clusterfuckistan."

"You're having fun and you know it," Josh snorted. "Besides, when you finally close it, you'll be able to shave off that Fu-Manchu and hop back into your suit and tie. Only, it will be Armani."

"Don't I wish." Damian took a gulp of his iced tea. "How's it going on your end?" The dark circles under his eyes and his overall haggard look spoke of long days and endless nights playing gofer for the gang he had infiltrated as a probationary member.

"Pretty damned boring. It's a goddamned fishing trip. And I fucking hate LA traffic more than ever." Josh's phone vibrated. A text from Chris. "At least you can weave in and out of traffic on your bike."

Damian laughed. "If I'm feeling suicidal, yes."

"I just wish that flashing lights and a siren weren't so out of place on a fine wine and spirits delivery van," Josh said as he texted back that he'd have to pass on Chris' offer to grab a bite to eat down on the pier.

"What's the latest catch?" Damian asked.

Josh rolled his eyes and sighed, "Other than a hotel heiress with a penchant for being leashed and collared by her big black muscle daddies? Really, that's the most exciting thing I've seen."

Damian tsk'ed and shook his head in mock sorrow. "It says everything about the sad and degenerate state of those born to the purple, if that's the kinkiest kink you've uncovered so far."

Yeah, he had that right. The only thing worse than a fishing expedition was a boring fishing expedition.

~oo(0)oo~

No sooner had their plates of chicken and waffles arrived (because what else would a person get at Roscoe's?) than Damian's cell rang. Josh guffawed as he always did when he heard the ringtone -- a song that Damian told him was called "Cherry Pie" by an obscure 1990s hair metal band. Damian's chapter president had forced that ringtone onto him as yet another dig.

"And that right there is why you could not hack what I'm doing," Damian said to him, just before he took the call. "Having lunch with my brother," he said to the person on the other end. His face fell. "Yeah, I'll get right on that." Hanging the phone up, he snarled, "Fuck!"

Josh smiled back at him and said (too sweetly), "His master's voice."

Reflexively, Damian flipped him the bird, but then frowned thoughtfully. "You don't even want to know how these people treat their slaves. I'll be so glad when they patch me in, or relax enough to do or say something really stupid in front of me. Being their probie fucking sucks." He stared longingly at his untouched plate and pushed back from the table.

Josh shot his hand out and grabbed his wrist. "Man, at least take a bite or three," because damn if you don't look like you haven't eaten right in a week. "If you're a little late it's because LA traffic sucks, right?"

Damian snorted mirthlessly as he poured syrup on his waffles.

~oo(0)oo~

"Himself caught The Douche banging His Slit last night," Shannon, the housekeeper, whispered gleefully in his ear the moment that Josh stepped through the kitchen's back door with the weekly case of imported German beer Master Silverman liked.

"Annnd?" Josh asked.

Everybody downstairs had known about the affair between Stan (aka "The Douche"), Silverman's majordomo, and Shenae (aka "The Slit"), Silverman's body slave. Despite the fact that the two of them were despised by the rest of the household staff, nobody had ratted them out to Master Silverman. Josh wasn't sure if it was because of the unspoken code amongst slaves to not inform on each other, or because they hated their master as much as, if not more, than The Douche and The Slit.

Shannon grinned back at him, eyes gleaming with malice. Crooking a finger, she said, "Follow me."

~oo(0)oo~

Josh figured that if you had the means -- and as a media mogul, Master Silverman certainly did -- a wine cellar was as good a place as any to bind your slaves for punishment. Even in a modern house in the dry and mild climate of Southern California, it was possible to make a room that was cold, clammy, dank, and full of cobwebs.

The Slit --for Josh had found her exceedingly arrogant the one time he crossed her path -- was naked and chained face-down, legs apart, to a splintery, rickety-looking table in the center of the room. Somebody, probably Silverman, had worked her over pretty good. Both of her eyes were blackened (one to the point of being shut), and blood from her unset broken nose (now grotesquely swollen) covered the lower half of her face. A dish rag forced into her mouth served as a gag.

"You can have her if you like," Shannon said. "All the others have had a go."

Josh circled around on his way to getting a better look at The Douche. "Nah, she looks like --" he almost said "she's had a month of Tail in a single night" but caught himself, "-- a whore after fleet week." Shannon laughed.

It took him a few moments to figure out The Douche's punishment. Bloodshot eyes pleaded with him above a slobber-and snot-soaked gag. He'd cried recently, too: the tear stains on his face still looked damp and sticky. But other than having chafed his wrists raw where electrical zip ties bound him to a mostly empty rack ...?

Josh's knees buckled a little when he saw it -- the swollen, plum colored scrotum. "What the --?" he muttered under his breath as he crouched to get a closer look. Because holy shit, that looked painful.

"Elastration." Shannon's voice came from over his shoulder. "Himself can't sell The Douche because he was a gift from Grandpa and has been in the family all his life and all that, so Himself's fixing it so The Douche won't fuck where he's not supposed to ever again." She cackled gleefully, "Hell, he's not fucking again. Period."

Under the pretext of adjusting a pen in his work-shirt pocket, Josh turned on the micro camcorder hidden in it. Tentatively he reached out, brushing The Douche's penis aside -- causing a muffled cry of pain and a full body jerking that caused the wine rack to creak ominously -- in order to get a better shot of the elastic band that had been used to cut off the blood supply to the scrotum.

"Damn," he said as he stood up, shuddering slightly.

Shannon snickered at his reaction. "All the guys do that when they see him and realize." She shrugged. "According to Himself, they'll fall off in a few days. We're to keep forcing water down his throat until they do. She's getting taken to market in two days." She jammed two fingers into The Slit, eliciting a groan from behind her gag. "Sure you don't want a go? She was quite expensive."

"Positive." Josh bit the word out. He tapped his watch. "I've got a delivery schedule to keep."

~oo(0)oo~

He placed the pen recorder in a priority envelope and dropped it in a mailbox along with a write-up of the date, place, and time. Those higher up the chain of command would decide what to do next.

Josh half-wished Damian were here. He'd know what to do, what to say to put it all in perspective.

His other half wished for Chris. They'd go to the Indigo Blue, have a few beers, and later they'd go back to Josh's place and Josh could fuck The Douche (and his sad, pleading eyes) out of his brain.

With a shuddering sigh, he pulled out his phone and texted both Damian and Chris the same message: Need 2 talk ASAP.

~oo(0)oo~

His phone buzzed with a reply from Chris. "No can do. Prep 4 party 2nite."

Crap.

As he sat in his rented room, Josh closed his eyes, pulled a deep breath in through his mouth and blew it out his nose and thought about the fact that, although he'd spent his whole life chafing against it, right now, oh irony of ironies, he missed the familiar rhythms and orderly regimentation of life at Commerce, where a private room with a kitchenette and shower like this would be a luxury and a sign of status.

While here, undercover, it just meant that he lived the kind of life that was about as low as it got for "free range humans," one step away from disaster. Life in these "extended stay suites" was filled with the noise of TVs filtered through the too-thin walls, random gunshots in the night, domestic squabbles, crying children, worn and shabby furniture/appliances/fixtures, and, worst of all, despite the press of people on all sides, desperate loneliness.