Categories > Original > Fantasy > To Dance With the Devil
Title: To Dance With the Devil
Author: MakaiKitty
Rating: NC-17
Category: Original Fantasy, "Above and Below” series
Pairing: Venkata/Cameron
Warnings: Slash, M/M, Anal, Angel/Devil sex, Mention of past child abuse
Distribution: My website, My LJ and any LJs I choose to post at, AFF.net, and FicWad. All of my accounts are under the user name MakaiKitty. If you'd like to use it just let me know.
Disclaimer: The characters, daemon realms, and situations in this story are all original and belong solely to MakaiKitty. Please don't steal, borrow, take, or otherwise use anything from my fics.
Updates: Just join my Yahoo!Group to be informed of any updates to this or any of my other fics - http://groups.yahoo.com/group/makaikittyfics
Status: Complete/One-Shot
To Dance With the Devil
Chapter Four: Too Good to be True?
Cameron wasn’t quite sure what to do. Venkata had met him at the club, as always, but they hadn’t stayed long. They had gone to dinner at a nice restaurant and then to the movies. Now they were sitting on Cameron’s couch, Venkata’s arm thrown over his smaller companion’s shoulders, Cameron’s head resting comfortably on Venkata’s shoulder while they listened to the local news and talked about how absolutely terrible the movie had been. However, despite the fact that they had been in Cameron’s apartment for just over an hour, the arm around his shoulders was the only contact that the two men had had aside from a kiss when they’d first sat down. And that was the problem. Cameron wasn’t used to the attention that he had been receiving over the past weeks, wasn’t used to being wooed before being taken to bed, and now that Venkata sat beside him without any indication that he wanted more than the simple cuddling that was going on, Cameron didn’t know what to do with himself. He felt useless. He feared that Venkata’s passion for him was already waning, and he felt certain that if he couldn’t bring the man pleasure, then that would be the end of it between them. The thought of losing Venkata, even though he had only known him for a few weeks, tore at something deep within Cameron. There had been a strange connection from the moment that they’d met, and he felt it still, the bond growing stronger every time that they were together. He knew that it wouldn’t last forever, that Venkata would come to his senses soon and realize what all of the others had, that Cameron wasn’t worth the effort of a real relationship, but Cameron wasn’t quite ready for it to end just yet. He would do anything to keep the other man near, if only for a little while longer. Anything. He just didn’t know what Venkata wanted.
“So,” Cameron might not know what Venkata wanted, but he most certainly knew what he wanted. He wanted an end to the silence. It was driving him mad! “I… um…”
“Hmm?” Venkata looked down at Cameron, dark eyes filled with amusement, somehow sensing that Cameron was scrambling to come up with something to say and finding the struggle very entertaining. He did not provide anything useful to help his lover find a topic of conversation. He was too cute when he was flustered.
"Can I ask you something?"
"Anything," and he meant it. In fact, Venkata had been waiting for Cameron to ask certain questions. Certain very important questions. He hoped that one of those important questions was about to be asked, in fact. It would make things so much easier in the future.
"Why don't you ever stay to morning?" It wasn’t the question that Cameron had meant to ask. He had promised himself that he wouldn’t push his lover, wouldn’t ask for more of him than he was already being given, but his frantic mind had struggled to find words, and when it had, it had grabbed on to one of the questions that had been plaguing it for weeks. But it was too late to take it back, so Cameron held his breath and waited, hoping that Venkata wasn’t too mad with him by the time that their conversation was over.
From the harsh and searching look that he was receiving from his handsome companion, Cameron thought that not only was it too much to hope that he hadn’t angered Venkata, but he had a sinking suspicion that he would be sleeping alone long before morning came.
"Because I'm not as good at hiding first thing in the morning."
"Hiding?"
"I guess it's unavoidable,” Venkata sighed, as though he had just come to the conclusion of some long debate, his dark eyes spearing Cameron’s paler ones with a look of such seriousness that Cameron was powerless to look away. Something in that look spoke of the grave importance of his next words. “It's not time yet but, since I've already broken the rules to see you, I suppose that it can’t hurt to tell you the truth."
"The truth?" Cameron wasn’t sure that he liked the road down which they were now headed. Why, oh why, had he opened his big mouth? He didn’t want to know the truth. Didn’t need to know it. All that he needed to know was that he was happy for the first time in a very long time, if not ever, and he didn’t want it to end. But if Venkata said what he suspected he was about to say, then it most likely would end, and end abruptly. I’ve got a boyfriend, I’ve got a wife and kids, I’ve got a family that won’t approve or a job that I would lose if they knew about my lifestyle. He’d heard it all before. And always afterwards they would promise him that it wasn’t his fault, since they were the nice ones, the ones who always tried to be kind and to pretend that they weren’t the type of man who was just out for a good time; but still they’d leave, going back to the life that most certainly didn’t involve him. The only difference was, this time Cameron had no one but himself to blame. He should have just kept his questions to himself and been content.
"You're an angel and I'm a devil, we were promised to each other by the Powers that Be, and together we're going to help to bring peace to the worlds Above and Below."
That was when Cameron knew that his happiness really had been too good to be true. And why. Venkata Mekjian was, it seemed, certifiably insane.
***
There was a long silence as Cameron and Venkata looked at each other, both waiting for the other to say something. /Why me/, was all that Cameron could think. He couldn’t understand why he had such a habit of attracting religious nuts. He wondered if it had anything to do with the wings on his back. Angels and devils?
Cameron’s hand moved to his stomach of its own accord, a move that was mostly unconscious, touching the scar that he found there as the tried to think. Was the inverted cross a symbol of his curse, proof that he was forever damned, or did the scar bring the curse? And how many nights had he lay awake and wondered the very same thing? Either way, it seemed that he was lost, never to find happiness.
He was scared, but not for the reasons that he should have been. Venkata was mad, to be certain, but Cameron was oddly unafraid. He’d dealt with the mentally ill before, he knew that they could be dangerous, but he did not fear for his safety. Instead, he feared that he could not play the part that Venkata had cast for him convincingly enough to make the other man stay. He was not an angel. Far from it.
“That’s ridiculous,” Venkata suddenly said, reaching out to pull Cameron’s hand away from his scar. “Not those angels and devils.”
“Oh?” Cameron was confused. “Sorry?”
“Above and Below, the lands of angels and devils, they’re just sub-levels of this realm. Unseen by most, but there none the less, just as physical as this place. Havens for daemons of this world who do not belong with the humans.”
“I see.” Venkata honestly seemed to believe what he was saying. Cameron was oddly intrigued. Later, he would probably be afraid, but at that very moment he considered playing along. “I wasn’t aware that there was a difference.”
“In some ways there isn’t,” Venkata was smiling, his pale brown skin crinkling at the corners of his eyes, honestly amused by how hard Cameron was trying to control his fear while indulging Venkata’s /delusions/. “A few thousand years ago a handful of humans accidently found their way to our worlds, and when they brought back their tales of what they had seen, we somehow got twisted up in their creation myths. The fact that some of us like to tease the mortals from time to time doesn’t help matters, I suppose.”
“So, you’re saying that Heaven and Hell are actually alternate dimensions and God isn’t real?”
“No,” Venkata was patient, understanding how strange his words must seem. “Above and Below, they’re a part of this dimension, just unnoticed and inaccessible to most. And, as for Heaven, Hell and God? I have no idea if the Christian god is real. Or any other god, for that matter. And I don’t know where any of us go when we leave this world. I just know that the mortal imaginings of demons and angels came, in part, from our world.”
“And you’re…”
“A devil.”
“A devil?”
“Well, we used to be called something else,” Venkata defended, looking a little sheepish as he rubbed nervously at the back of his neck, “but over the years we’ve adopted the mortal’s name for us for some reason.”
“Of course.”
“Someone’s idea of a joke, I suspect.”
“If you say that you’re a devil, then I believe you,” and, oddly, a part of him did, no matter how farfetched it seemed. Cameron had always thought that there was something other-worldly about the mysterious Venkata Mekjian. If he said that he was a devil from Hell, or Below, then so be it. But, as ready as he was to believe, even in part, there was still something that he simply could not take Venkata at his word about. “But if you’re looking for an angel, then you’ve got the wrong guy. I’m anything but holy.”
Venkata had been trying to be serious, to explain to Cameron to the best of his abilities what was going on now that the other man had asked him to, but when he heard Cameron calling angels holy he simply couldn’t hold back the bark of laughter that spilled out of him. “Angels are anything but holy, I can promise you that, my sweet.”
“Excuse me?” He was sure that his mother and her priest would love to be privy to that little fact. In fact, Mary Anne, Tommy’s little sister, would love to know it too. She had angels all over her room, cherubic little faces looking up from every available surface of her bedroom, gentle eyes and kind smiles helping her to sleep once the door was closed and the six year old was left alone.
“As I’ve said, I don’t know what goes on in Heaven, should it be real, but the angels that I’ve known from Above have been some of the horniest, raunchiest, and all around blood-thirstiest beings that I’ve ever met. Some of them can put devils to shame!”
“We are talking about angels, right?” Cameron had to clarify. Maybe he had misunderstood? “White wings, halos, choirs? That sort of angel?”
“The halos are actually illusions, almost like rainbows in oil slicks, just the physical manifestation of their power while they’re here on the surface world.”
“And the wings?”
“They’ve got wings,” Venkata assured him. “Just like you.”
“But mine are a tattoo,” Cameron reminded him, not quite sure how he’d gotten into such a discussion. All he’d wanted was to be reassured that he was still wanted, that tonight’s date hadn’t been the last, but now he felt completely out of his depth.
“They’ll manifest in time.” Cameron highly doubted that. He was sure that, if he had really been intended to have wings, they would have shown sometime in the past twenty-two years. He didn’t think that he was that much of a late bloomer.
“And why would they do that?”
“Well, your father was an angel, and the Seers found you easily enough when they were looking for my other half, so there’s no reason not to think that you’d get your wings sooner or later.”
It was Cameron’s turn to laugh. His father, an angel? “My father beat me within an inch of my life more times than I can count. He used to enjoy kicking me until I’d piss blood. Doesn’t seem very angelic to me.”
There was murderous rage in his eyes when Venkata responded, and had he been feeling a bit more sane Cameron might have drawn away from him when he saw that all-too familiar expression, but instead he got closer and put a hand on his lover’s arm. The pain was old for him, but the fact that it was fresh and stinging for Venkata eased some of his old wounds. Pity he was used to, but not many people bled for him, the way that Venkata’s dark eyes said that he did. It made him believe the man’s next words. “If he’s still alive then I’m going to kill him.”
“He’s dead.”
“Good,” Venkata didn’t seem entirely pleased to hear that. “But that worthless piece of mortal trash was not your father.”
“As much as I’d like to believe that, my mother never would have cheated on my father,” the idea was actually laughable. His mother, cheating on his father, conducting an illicit affair right under their noses? He doubted that the idea had ever even occurred to her. “Adultery is a sin.”
“Angels, and devils for that matter, can be very convincing when they want to be.”
Cameron still couldn’t believe him. The idea that Venkata could be something other than human, the knowledge that Heaven and Hell were real, even if the weren’t the real Heaven and Hell, seemed far more believable than the idea of his mother breaking her marriage vows. A man would have to be a lot more than convincing to accomplish that feat.
“You’ve never been normal, have you?” The change of topics caught Cameron off guard, although the new question made him far more uncomfortable than the others had. He’d driven people away with his decidedly non-/normal/ talents more than once. Although how Venkata could know that was beyond him. He could still remember being a seven year old boy, shocked to see a car hit a cat and keep going as though it were nothing; he’d run out into the street towards a wreck of flesh that had previously been a kitten only to return with a purring ball of fur that was the picture of health a few moments later. Even he had understood why his mother had called him unnatural, forbidding him to talk of the incident after taking the belt to him for what he had done, although he still didn’t know how he had done it. He’d learned to stay clear of road-kill over the years. “Strange things happen around you. Things that can’t be explained.” He didn’t make it a question.
“Venkata,” his voice had taken on a desperate quality. Why couldn’t Venkata have just fucked him into the mattress and disappeared before morning, like usual? “I-“
“Need more proof?” The familiar smile was back, dark eyes twinkling mischievously as he stood from the couch and started in on the buttons of his dark red shirt. Cameron suddenly wondered if devils weren’t psychic, and the man had heard his plea. The bed he understood. The rest? Not so well. “Ask and ye shall receive, my little angel.”
TBC ...
Author: MakaiKitty
Rating: NC-17
Category: Original Fantasy, "Above and Below” series
Pairing: Venkata/Cameron
Warnings: Slash, M/M, Anal, Angel/Devil sex, Mention of past child abuse
Distribution: My website, My LJ and any LJs I choose to post at, AFF.net, and FicWad. All of my accounts are under the user name MakaiKitty. If you'd like to use it just let me know.
Disclaimer: The characters, daemon realms, and situations in this story are all original and belong solely to MakaiKitty. Please don't steal, borrow, take, or otherwise use anything from my fics.
Updates: Just join my Yahoo!Group to be informed of any updates to this or any of my other fics - http://groups.yahoo.com/group/makaikittyfics
Status: Complete/One-Shot
To Dance With the Devil
Chapter Four: Too Good to be True?
Cameron wasn’t quite sure what to do. Venkata had met him at the club, as always, but they hadn’t stayed long. They had gone to dinner at a nice restaurant and then to the movies. Now they were sitting on Cameron’s couch, Venkata’s arm thrown over his smaller companion’s shoulders, Cameron’s head resting comfortably on Venkata’s shoulder while they listened to the local news and talked about how absolutely terrible the movie had been. However, despite the fact that they had been in Cameron’s apartment for just over an hour, the arm around his shoulders was the only contact that the two men had had aside from a kiss when they’d first sat down. And that was the problem. Cameron wasn’t used to the attention that he had been receiving over the past weeks, wasn’t used to being wooed before being taken to bed, and now that Venkata sat beside him without any indication that he wanted more than the simple cuddling that was going on, Cameron didn’t know what to do with himself. He felt useless. He feared that Venkata’s passion for him was already waning, and he felt certain that if he couldn’t bring the man pleasure, then that would be the end of it between them. The thought of losing Venkata, even though he had only known him for a few weeks, tore at something deep within Cameron. There had been a strange connection from the moment that they’d met, and he felt it still, the bond growing stronger every time that they were together. He knew that it wouldn’t last forever, that Venkata would come to his senses soon and realize what all of the others had, that Cameron wasn’t worth the effort of a real relationship, but Cameron wasn’t quite ready for it to end just yet. He would do anything to keep the other man near, if only for a little while longer. Anything. He just didn’t know what Venkata wanted.
“So,” Cameron might not know what Venkata wanted, but he most certainly knew what he wanted. He wanted an end to the silence. It was driving him mad! “I… um…”
“Hmm?” Venkata looked down at Cameron, dark eyes filled with amusement, somehow sensing that Cameron was scrambling to come up with something to say and finding the struggle very entertaining. He did not provide anything useful to help his lover find a topic of conversation. He was too cute when he was flustered.
"Can I ask you something?"
"Anything," and he meant it. In fact, Venkata had been waiting for Cameron to ask certain questions. Certain very important questions. He hoped that one of those important questions was about to be asked, in fact. It would make things so much easier in the future.
"Why don't you ever stay to morning?" It wasn’t the question that Cameron had meant to ask. He had promised himself that he wouldn’t push his lover, wouldn’t ask for more of him than he was already being given, but his frantic mind had struggled to find words, and when it had, it had grabbed on to one of the questions that had been plaguing it for weeks. But it was too late to take it back, so Cameron held his breath and waited, hoping that Venkata wasn’t too mad with him by the time that their conversation was over.
From the harsh and searching look that he was receiving from his handsome companion, Cameron thought that not only was it too much to hope that he hadn’t angered Venkata, but he had a sinking suspicion that he would be sleeping alone long before morning came.
"Because I'm not as good at hiding first thing in the morning."
"Hiding?"
"I guess it's unavoidable,” Venkata sighed, as though he had just come to the conclusion of some long debate, his dark eyes spearing Cameron’s paler ones with a look of such seriousness that Cameron was powerless to look away. Something in that look spoke of the grave importance of his next words. “It's not time yet but, since I've already broken the rules to see you, I suppose that it can’t hurt to tell you the truth."
"The truth?" Cameron wasn’t sure that he liked the road down which they were now headed. Why, oh why, had he opened his big mouth? He didn’t want to know the truth. Didn’t need to know it. All that he needed to know was that he was happy for the first time in a very long time, if not ever, and he didn’t want it to end. But if Venkata said what he suspected he was about to say, then it most likely would end, and end abruptly. I’ve got a boyfriend, I’ve got a wife and kids, I’ve got a family that won’t approve or a job that I would lose if they knew about my lifestyle. He’d heard it all before. And always afterwards they would promise him that it wasn’t his fault, since they were the nice ones, the ones who always tried to be kind and to pretend that they weren’t the type of man who was just out for a good time; but still they’d leave, going back to the life that most certainly didn’t involve him. The only difference was, this time Cameron had no one but himself to blame. He should have just kept his questions to himself and been content.
"You're an angel and I'm a devil, we were promised to each other by the Powers that Be, and together we're going to help to bring peace to the worlds Above and Below."
That was when Cameron knew that his happiness really had been too good to be true. And why. Venkata Mekjian was, it seemed, certifiably insane.
***
There was a long silence as Cameron and Venkata looked at each other, both waiting for the other to say something. /Why me/, was all that Cameron could think. He couldn’t understand why he had such a habit of attracting religious nuts. He wondered if it had anything to do with the wings on his back. Angels and devils?
Cameron’s hand moved to his stomach of its own accord, a move that was mostly unconscious, touching the scar that he found there as the tried to think. Was the inverted cross a symbol of his curse, proof that he was forever damned, or did the scar bring the curse? And how many nights had he lay awake and wondered the very same thing? Either way, it seemed that he was lost, never to find happiness.
He was scared, but not for the reasons that he should have been. Venkata was mad, to be certain, but Cameron was oddly unafraid. He’d dealt with the mentally ill before, he knew that they could be dangerous, but he did not fear for his safety. Instead, he feared that he could not play the part that Venkata had cast for him convincingly enough to make the other man stay. He was not an angel. Far from it.
“That’s ridiculous,” Venkata suddenly said, reaching out to pull Cameron’s hand away from his scar. “Not those angels and devils.”
“Oh?” Cameron was confused. “Sorry?”
“Above and Below, the lands of angels and devils, they’re just sub-levels of this realm. Unseen by most, but there none the less, just as physical as this place. Havens for daemons of this world who do not belong with the humans.”
“I see.” Venkata honestly seemed to believe what he was saying. Cameron was oddly intrigued. Later, he would probably be afraid, but at that very moment he considered playing along. “I wasn’t aware that there was a difference.”
“In some ways there isn’t,” Venkata was smiling, his pale brown skin crinkling at the corners of his eyes, honestly amused by how hard Cameron was trying to control his fear while indulging Venkata’s /delusions/. “A few thousand years ago a handful of humans accidently found their way to our worlds, and when they brought back their tales of what they had seen, we somehow got twisted up in their creation myths. The fact that some of us like to tease the mortals from time to time doesn’t help matters, I suppose.”
“So, you’re saying that Heaven and Hell are actually alternate dimensions and God isn’t real?”
“No,” Venkata was patient, understanding how strange his words must seem. “Above and Below, they’re a part of this dimension, just unnoticed and inaccessible to most. And, as for Heaven, Hell and God? I have no idea if the Christian god is real. Or any other god, for that matter. And I don’t know where any of us go when we leave this world. I just know that the mortal imaginings of demons and angels came, in part, from our world.”
“And you’re…”
“A devil.”
“A devil?”
“Well, we used to be called something else,” Venkata defended, looking a little sheepish as he rubbed nervously at the back of his neck, “but over the years we’ve adopted the mortal’s name for us for some reason.”
“Of course.”
“Someone’s idea of a joke, I suspect.”
“If you say that you’re a devil, then I believe you,” and, oddly, a part of him did, no matter how farfetched it seemed. Cameron had always thought that there was something other-worldly about the mysterious Venkata Mekjian. If he said that he was a devil from Hell, or Below, then so be it. But, as ready as he was to believe, even in part, there was still something that he simply could not take Venkata at his word about. “But if you’re looking for an angel, then you’ve got the wrong guy. I’m anything but holy.”
Venkata had been trying to be serious, to explain to Cameron to the best of his abilities what was going on now that the other man had asked him to, but when he heard Cameron calling angels holy he simply couldn’t hold back the bark of laughter that spilled out of him. “Angels are anything but holy, I can promise you that, my sweet.”
“Excuse me?” He was sure that his mother and her priest would love to be privy to that little fact. In fact, Mary Anne, Tommy’s little sister, would love to know it too. She had angels all over her room, cherubic little faces looking up from every available surface of her bedroom, gentle eyes and kind smiles helping her to sleep once the door was closed and the six year old was left alone.
“As I’ve said, I don’t know what goes on in Heaven, should it be real, but the angels that I’ve known from Above have been some of the horniest, raunchiest, and all around blood-thirstiest beings that I’ve ever met. Some of them can put devils to shame!”
“We are talking about angels, right?” Cameron had to clarify. Maybe he had misunderstood? “White wings, halos, choirs? That sort of angel?”
“The halos are actually illusions, almost like rainbows in oil slicks, just the physical manifestation of their power while they’re here on the surface world.”
“And the wings?”
“They’ve got wings,” Venkata assured him. “Just like you.”
“But mine are a tattoo,” Cameron reminded him, not quite sure how he’d gotten into such a discussion. All he’d wanted was to be reassured that he was still wanted, that tonight’s date hadn’t been the last, but now he felt completely out of his depth.
“They’ll manifest in time.” Cameron highly doubted that. He was sure that, if he had really been intended to have wings, they would have shown sometime in the past twenty-two years. He didn’t think that he was that much of a late bloomer.
“And why would they do that?”
“Well, your father was an angel, and the Seers found you easily enough when they were looking for my other half, so there’s no reason not to think that you’d get your wings sooner or later.”
It was Cameron’s turn to laugh. His father, an angel? “My father beat me within an inch of my life more times than I can count. He used to enjoy kicking me until I’d piss blood. Doesn’t seem very angelic to me.”
There was murderous rage in his eyes when Venkata responded, and had he been feeling a bit more sane Cameron might have drawn away from him when he saw that all-too familiar expression, but instead he got closer and put a hand on his lover’s arm. The pain was old for him, but the fact that it was fresh and stinging for Venkata eased some of his old wounds. Pity he was used to, but not many people bled for him, the way that Venkata’s dark eyes said that he did. It made him believe the man’s next words. “If he’s still alive then I’m going to kill him.”
“He’s dead.”
“Good,” Venkata didn’t seem entirely pleased to hear that. “But that worthless piece of mortal trash was not your father.”
“As much as I’d like to believe that, my mother never would have cheated on my father,” the idea was actually laughable. His mother, cheating on his father, conducting an illicit affair right under their noses? He doubted that the idea had ever even occurred to her. “Adultery is a sin.”
“Angels, and devils for that matter, can be very convincing when they want to be.”
Cameron still couldn’t believe him. The idea that Venkata could be something other than human, the knowledge that Heaven and Hell were real, even if the weren’t the real Heaven and Hell, seemed far more believable than the idea of his mother breaking her marriage vows. A man would have to be a lot more than convincing to accomplish that feat.
“You’ve never been normal, have you?” The change of topics caught Cameron off guard, although the new question made him far more uncomfortable than the others had. He’d driven people away with his decidedly non-/normal/ talents more than once. Although how Venkata could know that was beyond him. He could still remember being a seven year old boy, shocked to see a car hit a cat and keep going as though it were nothing; he’d run out into the street towards a wreck of flesh that had previously been a kitten only to return with a purring ball of fur that was the picture of health a few moments later. Even he had understood why his mother had called him unnatural, forbidding him to talk of the incident after taking the belt to him for what he had done, although he still didn’t know how he had done it. He’d learned to stay clear of road-kill over the years. “Strange things happen around you. Things that can’t be explained.” He didn’t make it a question.
“Venkata,” his voice had taken on a desperate quality. Why couldn’t Venkata have just fucked him into the mattress and disappeared before morning, like usual? “I-“
“Need more proof?” The familiar smile was back, dark eyes twinkling mischievously as he stood from the couch and started in on the buttons of his dark red shirt. Cameron suddenly wondered if devils weren’t psychic, and the man had heard his plea. The bed he understood. The rest? Not so well. “Ask and ye shall receive, my little angel.”
TBC ...
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