Devilc's Den 2.0

Title: If You Don't, You Act Like You Do
Fandom: poisontaster's A Kept Boy 'Verse
Pairing: Josh Homme/Chris Kane
Rating: Adult
Author's Note: Sequel to Forget Left Untold. Title is a reference to the QOTSA song Misfit Love.

Thank you to drgaellon for his excellent beta services.

And as always thank you, Poisontaster, for opening up the sandbox for us to play in.

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.




Time spent with Josh was unpredictable. Sometimes they had a beer and listened to the house band or whoever was playing that night at the Indigo Blue. Sometimes they played music together. Sometimes they fucked. (Okay, so that was most times.)

And sometimes?

They talked.

Weird, stilted conversations. Chris pointedly steering the topic away from anything to do with Jeff, his businesses, or the household. Josh unable to go into a lot of specific details about his activities or the whereabouts of his partner.

The absence of Damian worried Chris. Because he was, in a way, present in all their interactions, lurking below the surface like a shark whose fin hadn't yet split the waters.

~oo(0)oo~

"You ever meet a rock star named John Taylor?" Josh asked, popping a shrimp in his mouth.

Chris sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose against an impending headache. "I might have," he finally replied. "There were times when it all kind of blurred together." And sometimes I'm really grateful for that. "Why do you ask?" Because I'm not your informant and I don't want to be. He squeezed his eyes shut against a flare and prayed for the Tylenol to kick in.

Josh paused with a shrimp halfway to his mouth, looked like he was going to say something then reconsidered. "Nothing important."

Forcing his face back to calmness, Chris said, "Fishing for gossip?"

Josh smiled tightly. "Something like that." He drenched his next shrimp in cocktail sauce.

"Check the backstairs."

Josh gave him the kind of smile most adults reserved for small children. "Already have. Not a whole hell of a lot there." He sighed heavily, "The lord and lady spend half the year in England. He's still English. She's not."

"And they don't take the slaves?" Chris guessed. Taking slaves out of the Empire was a tricky proposition, depending on destination, and Taylor's non-Imperial nationality could complicate matters.

"Nope." Pause. "We think."

Like I'm going to help you bust somebody for that. Sarcasm dripped from Chris' reply. "However do they manage?"

"It's not like they're shifting for themselves, not with his record money and her fashion empire," Josh snorted. "They've doubtless got an army of wage-slaves they can fire at will over there."

"I'm sure you can find out," Chris said dryly. And I'd trade my job security for freedom to starve in a heartbeat. Wouldn't you?

~oo(0)oo~

Chris leaned over and whispered in Josh's ear, "You're sweet on her, aren't you?" as Brodie Dallie, this evening's singer at the Indigo Blue, returned to the stage for an encore. Her set had been all originals, but the encore, she explained would be classic torch songs. A perfect match, given her sultry, throaty voice.

"Jealous?" Josh smirked, but he did not take his eyes off of her. "Now shut up, I want to hear her sing."

Jealous? Chris laughed on the inside. What was the point of that? Like he had any say over Josh's affairs.

When she finished a smoky rendition of Worrisome Heart, Chris leaned over and said, "Hell, I'm half in love with her myself."

Josh barely flicked his eyes over as he squeezed a fresh twist of lime into his Corona. "Yeah? So, I'd nail her."

"You should."

"What?!" Josh gave him his undivided attention.

Chris shrugged, feigning a nonchalance he didn't feel. "Flash the badge, see if you can grab some tail."

Muscles twitched and clenched in Josh's jaw. "It doesn't always work like that," he finally hissed. "Besides, why are you trying to get me laid?"

That's a good question. "You know that when other people at Jeff's ask, I say yes, right? Hell, I even do some of the asking."

"And I still make Tail call," Josh replied in an icy whisper. "Your point is?"

"You know what?" Chris swigged his beer. "Forget I even brought it up."

"Oh, I will." Josh bit the words out.

Chris fiddled with the coaster. "Look, just so we're clear on what this is."

Josh guzzled his bottle dry, slammed it down and said, "Chris, I have no fucking idea what this is, or what's crawled up your ass tonight. Just so we're clear." He pushed the chair back, threw a bill down to cover his share of the tab and stalked over to the small knot of people clustered around Brodie.

Right.

Chris settled the tab and left without a backward glance.

~oo(0)oo~

He didn't head home right away, though. Instead, he drove the truck aimlessly through the Hollywood Hills, snaking up the streets and avenues, barely registering the quaint little houses and their tiny lawns, or the McMansions shoehorned on to their lots as he tried to figure out why he'd done what he'd done, said what he'd said.

(Why he was so fucking stupid as to push a man who could destroy him with a word? Except Josh would probably use a gun. It just seemed his style.)

As the clock crept past two, Chris turned onto the road leading to Jeff's estate and slammed on the brakes as soon as he saw Josh, arms crossed, slouched against the side of an unmarked black sedan. He had parked just outside the range of the external security cams at the entrance to Jeff's estate, Chris noted with some uneasiness. He rolled down the window. "What do you —"

"Get. In."

(Damned if you do, damned if you don't.)

After a moment's internal debate, Chris parked the truck also outside the range of the cameras. Because ... what if nothing happened but the footage somehow got brought to Jeff's attention? It would require Chris to answer questions that he'd rather not answer. Hell, he'd rather not even think about the questions.

He'd pushed a man who could destroy him. And honestly, if Josh wanted to get really vindictive, he could fuck everybody on the estate over. Royally.

(Time to suck up, take his lumps, and pay the piper.)

Chris said nothing, just slid silently into the passenger seat next to Josh, who gunned the engine and cut down the street and up a bumpy service road before skidding the car to a halt in a spray of sand and gravel behind a long row of houses.

In the split second as he waited for the blow to fall, Chris looked out over the valley and the rolling hills. The lights spread over them made him think of a swathe of copper and silver sequins, shot through in places with rivers of gold.

Josh's hand dug into his hair, wrenching him painfully back into the moment and then into a brutal, punishing kiss. "Don't ever do that to me again!" Josh shouted when he finally pushed Chris away, both of them panting. "Do you think I don't know what you were trying to do?"

I'm not even sure I know what I was trying to do.

(Or, maybe I do, but I'm too scared to admit it.)

Chris let out a shaky sigh as he leaned forward and rested his head on the dashboard as he searched for the words to explain, the ones most likely to mollify Josh. Even now, staring down at what he could see of his knees, feet, and the carpeted floorboards, he could feel Josh's glare drilling into him, could picture the curdled expression on his face and the vein throbbing in his temple. Chris forced a poker expression onto his face, and as convincingly as he could, murmured, "Yeah, it was pretty stupid of me." He even managed a half-hearted smile as he turned his head towards Josh.

"I don't think you quite understand how this really works," Josh said, his mild voice belying the intensity in his eyes. "I don't think you understand who's holding the cards here, or how the game is played."

Misery threaded with panic curdled in the pit of Chris's stomach. It was a sensation he hadn't felt in years, though it had been a regular emotion, an almost constant companion, during his life several masters ago.

(Zane. Especially Zane.)

It was the feeling of inevitability. And Chris had only one response for that. "Do your worst," he hissed as he sat up, jutting his chin forward.

Josh's fingers clamped iron-hard, digging into his jaw, making Chris's eyes water at the pain. "Oh, I'm going to do a hell of a lot better than that," Josh growled just before he pulled Chris back into a kiss every bit as hard as the first. A coldly calculating gleam entered his eye. "You get laid a lot on Morgan's estate?"

(What?!)

Chris had no idea how to answer that question. This was a slave's worst nightmare, being asked a question and having no idea which of the possible correct answers would most minimize the damage. He searched Josh's eyes for a clue, and as they bored into his, Chris knew.

The truth (but not necessarily the whole truth).

Josh would be on to any lie of his like white on rice and Josh was Commerce, and not just Commerce but BIS. If Chris insulted him by lying? The consequences might be worse than telling the truth.

"How much is 'a lot?'" Chris finally asked. "If you mean like, every day? No. But enough? Yeah, I guess." I'm a former body slave, for fuck's sake. My perspective on this is doubtless a little skewed.

Josh's hands dropped from Chris's head to the waist of Chris's jeans. "But I'll bet nobody gives you this."

"Helping themselves without asking?"

Josh's eyes bored into his as he popped the button out of the hole.

"A rough and ready?" Chris still wasn't quite certain what Josh meant. "If I ask —" the words turned into a startled gasp as Josh ripped his zipper down.

"But you don't ask, do you?" Josh spoke barely above a whisper, and somehow, the words hit harder than a shout.

Chris opened and shut his mouth several times, flailing for words, flailing again for an entirely different reason a moment later when Josh's hand reached into his boxer briefs.

"Your Master sure as hell doesn't touch you this way. Jared the big stable stud is —" Josh grinned wickedly. "Well, he's just a big gentle sheepdog, isn't he? Chad with the wiseacre mouth and the stripes down his back to prove it?" Josh's fingers curled around Chris, making him gasp. "Well, he just can't keep up the act, can he?"

Chris snapped into action, seizing Josh's wrist. "Look," he said evenly, "you've read my file. You know my rep."

"Boy, do I ever." Josh chortled, low and throaty, squeezing Chris's cock ever so slightly. "Oh, you're no Jensen, hot and bothered as soon as you're ordered to bend over. You're not that kind of rough trade."

Damn right, Chris thought with more than a little flare of anger.

The glint in Josh's eyes showed that he'd caught the flash in Chris's. He leaned in even closer, breath tickling at the edge of Chris's face. "You miss that somebody would dare."

Low and raspy, the sound tumbled out of Chris's mouth, followed by something akin to a gasp, and then a heated rush as a blush stained his cheeks.

Josh cackled triumphantly as he slowly stroked his hand up and down Chris's rock hard shaft, Chris's now nerveless hand on his arm doing nothing to stay him.

With his other hand, Josh gently peeled Chris's fingers off his arm, and, still keeping the pace a tease, he whispered straight into Chris's ear, "You miss having your boundaries crossed, don't you? You miss the thrill of pushing back, of rolling the dice. 'Will it be a beating this time? Or worse? What can I charm myself into or out of?' You miss the thrill of getting away with it."

"Never got away with it," Chris gasped, feeling dazed, light-headed, almost high, "Got my share of beatings and ... other things." Other things. Yeah, that was putting it lightly.

"But all you had to do was be a good little slave and keep your mouth shut —when you weren't told to open it wide — but you didn't do that, did you?" Josh crooned low. "And you're still alive and intact. Not in a labor camp, or a med lab, or a mine. Not maimed. Not a horse. Not rotting in a ditch." Josh tightened his hand around Chris. "You'd make such a fucking agent, you know."

"On stage," Chris gasped, his whole body shivering.

"Oh, that, too." Josh agreed. "On stage, giving them your all under the lights, daring them not to love you."

Chris screwed his eyes shut, sucked in a long gasp, like a man about to drown, and said, "I push. I push back, but I've seen what happens to people who try to push back against the system, against Commerce, against men like you." Been there and had my lip split bloody because I fucking forgot myself with you and Damian.

He felt as much as heard Josh's low chuckling reply. "Yeah, you have, haven't you?" Then, "But do you know how many people I've met where it's not some sort of stupid show of bravado?" Josh gave three quick ripping jerks that sent the static crackling through Chris's body. "You — you're the nail that sticks up and those stupid bastards can't hammer you down. Can't begin to figure out how."

Chris tried to say that it was because they were stupid, or didn't care that much, or they got exactly what they'd paid for, but it wasn't like he could think right now. His hips bucked up of their own accord as Josh's hand set a staggered time rhythm that seemed calculated to drive Chris insane.

"So here's how it's going to go," Josh said, shifting, his breath no longer in Chris's ear, but teasing right across his lips, "I'm going to jerk you until you're begging to come, and then I'm taking your limp body and throwing you face down on the hood and fucking your unruly little ass the way it deserves."

Chris tried to say, "Fine by me," and "Sounds like a plan," or "You're awfully sure of yourself, Josh," but what came out was, "Ohhhh!" as Josh's thumb tickled just under the head.

Josh's laughter filled the car.

~oo(0)oo~

Chris never thought he'd be nostalgic for bent-over-the-hood sex, and yet, as Josh hauled his Jell-O-like, orgasm-blissed body out of the car, Chris stumbling from a combination of rubber knees and his jeans around his thighs as he tried to walk, he found that he kind of was.

As Josh positioned him, Chris savored the heat of the the engine through the hood. It was a modern engine, electric, a dynamo and a transmission, really, not an antique gasoline engine like some of his masters and mistresses had had — Chris had always loved those — but it was close enough: the smells of hot rubber and oil, steering fluid, and it ticked and pinged, too as it cooled. He turned his face to the side and savored the way his breath ghosted across the paint, lingered for an instant, and vanished into the night. There was something, a kind of heat-of-the-moment-ness, to what Josh was about to do to him that even post-bonfire encounters at Jeff's lacked. Perhaps it had something do with the fact that a stranger out for a middle-of-the-night stroll could chance upon them, or that somebody in one of the houses below might hear them and call the police.

When Josh finally (finally) clenched one hand in Chris's hair and guided his considerable length in with the other, Chris pushed back with everything he had, savoring the stretch and burn as Josh's bulk filled him. He would pay for this tomorrow, but right now? God, he needed it. Hadn't known how much he needed it, until Josh rubbed his face in it.

According to Josh, Chris was the third man he'd had sex with, because Tail was all female, and yet Josh had known from day one exactly what do to with it. Chris's hands clawed over the slick metal of the hood as Josh nailed him right. there. with every stroke. "Are you sure you never went to school for this?" Chris gasped as a particularly good thrust had him haffing and twitching, a fresh surge of pre-come spurting from his cock, doubtless leaving peckertracks across the hood. If Josh kept up this pace, Chris would come again real soon — and without a reach around.

"Certain." Amusement threaded through Josh's voice. "I know how to rig a bomb, though."

"You're a natural — don'tfuckingstop!" Chris rasped as Josh got him with a doubletap.

"I could say the same about you, Mr. Kane." Josh reached around and under, closing his hand almost too hard around Chris's aching cock. "Here you are, reloaded and ready to go. Such a slut."

For you? Yeah. "I think," Chris gritted out, pushing back as hard as he could, bucking forward as much as possible, "this is a chicken and egg thing."

Josh snickered.

Then buried himself as deep as Chris could take him and gave Chris's dick three good jerks, making him shoot a messy load all over the hood of the car, before he pulled out and shot all over Chris's ass and back.

~oo(0)oo~

Ass and neck (because Josh had rolled him over on the hood of the car and sucked a hickey right below the collar as he fucked Chris a second time) throbbing in time to his pulse, Chris opened the kitchen door as quietly as he could and tiptoed in. Sam would be getting up in about 15 minutes, if she wasn't already up. He might be able to slip into bed and grab a three hour nap before he had to get up and attend a video conference about the state of sales and future market strategies for the Morgan empire. Or perhaps he should just make a pot of coffee and power through the rest of the day. Maybe Sam had some pie left.

He opened the fridge. Well no, not surprising. So bed, then. He shut the door, and turned to find Jensen looming over him. "Jesus!" Chris hissed, heart rabbiting in his chest. "Make a little noise next time. You scared the piss out of me!"

Jensen stared at him for a beat, then closed his big green eyes, fingers pinching the bridge of his nose as if he had a headache. "Jeff's not a blind man," he said, voice barely audible over the hum of the appliances.

Crap. "It's none of your business," Chris bit the words out.

"Jeff's wondering about you. He's not saying anything, but he is, and, he's going to want to talk to you. He's noticed and it's — " Jensen's tone firmed, "it's my business when it keeps him up at night, or sets him to pacing."

Chris sighed heavily and leaned his head back against the cool metal of the fridge, "It's nothing. Just me getting my ashes hauled."

Jensen stepped fractionally closer and crossed his arms. "And you think Jeff won't want to know about the hauler? You think that he's not worried about you?"

It was the utterly flat-calm delivery that set Chris's teeth on edge. He could've handled sarcasm or even a hint of reproach, but this? Fuckadoodledoo. His mouth quirked into a wry smile. "Y'know, I half wish you were still jumping at shadows. You see too much."

Jensen lifted an eyebrow. "So noted."

Right. "I'm going to bed. I've got a long day ahead of me." Chris pushed past Jensen and wearily headed to bed.

The day he was waiting for, the day he dreaded, was coming. But he was a slave, so that day was always coming. In one way or another, for one reason or another, it was always coming.

He set the alarm, pulled the sheets over his head (maybe he could delay it just a little longer, get out of the mess he'd landed himself in before Jeff had to deal with it) and crashed out.