FicWad

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 Seven: Open Your Eyes

“311… 312… 313.” Cameron stopped before the last door at the end of the hallway. Hospital corridors all looked the same, sterile colors and neutral paintings meant to be tasteful but only succeeding in being utterly forgettable, simple doors hiding untold pain behind each tiny brass doorplate. He’d been a patient one too many times not to hate hospitals, the familiar sights turning his stomach, but as much as Cameron hated being a patient, he hated having to visit a friend who was left to the doctors’ tender mercies even more.

“Are we going in?”

Cameron hadn’t realized that he’d been standing, unmoving and unblinking, at the door to room three-thirteen for some time. He was worried about Tommy, more worried than he could ever put into words, but he was suddenly less than eager to see the other man even though a simple door was all that separated him from his friend. It was as if by not going through that door, not seeing him, it would keep the truth from being real. And Cameron feared that this time the truth was going to be very real.

“In a minute.”

“Do you want me to go in and talk to the doctor for you?”

“No!” Cameron was aghast at the very thought. Tommy was his best friend, Tommy had called for /him/, and no one else should talk to the doctors but him. “I can do it myself. In fact, you can go now, Tommy doesn’t need you here.”

“Tommy might not, but you do.” Venkata wasn’t offended by his angel’s words. He could tell that the younger man was hurting, but he didn’t think that there was much that he could do for him other than be at his side when he needed someone to lean on. If the look of desperation in Cameron’s pale eyes was any indication, he was ready to break as it was, and Venkata planned on being there to catch him when it happened. “Besides, if this human is so important to you then I think that I should meet him. My other half’s best friend is someone that I should know.”

“You don’t…” but anything that he would have said would be a lie. Cameron wanted to be strong, wanted to be in control and push the other man away, but the truth was that he was glad for the company. This wasn’t the first time that Tommy had been admitted with an emergency, although something deep in his gut made him fear that it was worse than before, but this would be the first time that he’d had someone at his side. He wanted to tell Venkata that he didn’t need him, but he couldn’t. He just didn’t know how to put into words just how grateful he was to have the devil with him. “I’m sorry.”

The arms around him were most welcomed, and for a moment Cameron simply let himself melt into the embrace, nuzzling his head against Venkata’s chest and wishing for all the world that they were anywhere but in a hospital. The instant comfort that the gesture brought him even made him believe, if only for a moment, that Venkata might be his soul-mate. It certainly felt right, there in his arms. But, at the moment, Cameron didn’t have the luxury of thinking about his own life. And he knew that, no mater how much he’d like to, they couldn’t stay in the hallway forever. So, tugging at Venkata’s arm because he wasn’t willing to completely give up the contact, Cameron moved them both towards the door. “Come on, Tommy’s been begging me to let him meet you. In fact, I wouldn’t put it past him to check himself into the hospital just to get me to bring you to visit.”

“A simple dinner invitation would have sufficed.”

There were three doctors in the room, white lab coats stark and foreboding, all circled around the room’s lone bed. Cameron could hear words like progressive, and incurable, and terminal, and had Venkata not still had an arm around his waist he most likely would have fallen, knees buckling at that last word. Tommy had been sick for as long as Cameron had known him, but somehow the older man always managed to keep a smile on his face and his spirits high, promising his siblings and his friends that it was only a matter of time before he beat his illness. Now, it seemed that that had been a lie.

A whimper drew all eyes towards the two men at the door.

“Cam!”

Cameron forgot everyone else in the room, even the devil at his back, and ran towards his best friend. Tommy looked pale, and there were wires and tubes hooked up to him, but it was still Tommy. And Cameron had never been happier to see him.

“Tommy!” Cameron didn’t hesitate to climb up into the narrow hospital bed, ever careful of the various needles sticking out of Tommy’s body, wrapping his arms around the other man and holding him tight. Tommy held him back, wincing when the movement pulled at an IV hooked to his forearm, smiling despite the pain.

Venkata stood back, arms folded across his chest as he leaned on the wall beside the door, watching as the doctors filed out of the room. He felt a slight pang of jealousy at seeing Cameron so happy in the arms of another man, but the sense of brotherhood that emanated from the two men stilled his darker thoughts, unable to think ill of any man that made his soul-mate smile so. He decided in an instant that he liked this Tommy Smithe. Which left him with quite the problem, because his heightened daemon senses told him that the human before him was not long for this world. Even the doctors didn’t realize just how precarious his hold on life was.

“You must be Venkata,” Tommy extended a hand, the other still holding tight to Cameron. He’d seen the way that the dark stranger had been holding Cameron up when they’d entered the room, he saw the way that the other man’s eyes followed Cameron possessively, but the unmistakable look of kindness and affection that shone in those dark depths did Tommy’s heart well. One appraising look at the man and Tommy knew why Cameron had been so happy lately. It made him feel a little less guilty, knowing that he likely wouldn’t be there to take care of the younger man much longer, seeing that his friend would be looked after by a man like Venkata. “It’s good to finally get to meet you. Cameron can’t stop talking about you.”

“Is that so?” Venkata arched one midnight brow, a chuckle escaping him when he saw Cameron’s cheeks pink before he buried his face against the side of Tommy’s neck.

“Where are the kids?” Cameron tried to cover his embarrassment while distracting the two older men at the same time. It wasn’t only a fear that Venkata didn’t care enough to meet his best friend that had kept Cameron from letting the two men get together. “Do they know what happened?”

“They’re with James. He took them to a movie after school,” Tommy looked a little guilty when he added, “They don’t know anything yet.”

“Tommy.” There were tears beginning to well up in Cameron’s eyes. As a rule, Tommy was always honest with his siblings, even when it was something that was likely to upset them. If he was keeping this hospital visit a secret from them, then that meant that it was serious. More serious than anything that had come before.

“You love him more than me,” it wasn’t a question, simply a fact, and Venkata frowned as he thought on how that made him feel. It hurt a little, and in the back of his mind a possessive voice demanded that the angel love only him. Cameron was his other half, the person that he had waited his whole life to find, and he wanted to demand his whole heart. But something about the frail human on the hospital bed kept him from being too upset that he was being forced to share. Not that it rid his heart of all anger and jealousy, but, since the human would likely be dead very soon, Venkata thought that the internal war was already pointless.

Cameron was speechless for a moment. Love Tommy more than Venkata? Wouldn’t that imply that he loved Venkata, even a little bit, despite the fact that he’d been trying to push him away not an hour earlier? Even within his own heart, Cameron wasn’t sure. But, one thing that he did know was that, no matter what he felt for the devil Venkata, Tommy was family. “Of course I love him. I’ve only just met you.”

“That’s not an answer,” Venkata pointed out, looking thoughtfully between Tommy and Cameron, before nodding his head once as though he had come to an important decision. “I suppose that it’s unavoidable then.”

Without so much as another word Venkata walked over to Cameron and Tommy, smoothly pulled Cameron out of Tommy’s grasp, and began to walk towards the door. It didn’t even occur to Cameron to struggle until they were nearly out into the hall.

“What the hell do you think that you’re doing?!”

“You don’t need to see this.”

Cameron wasn’t fast enough to make it to the door before Venkata shut it in his face, the sound of the lock turning very ominous in the otherwise silent hallway. He had thought that he had been scared before, terrified by the phone call from the hospital and the sight of his best friend hooked up to machines in a hospital bed, but Cameron realized that he had not known true fear until the moment that he found himself on the wrong side of a locked door while Tommy was alone with a real devil. It occurred to Cameron that he didn’t really know Venkata that well, and while he did not fear for his own safety while alone with the man, he had no idea what he had planned for Tommy. He wondered if he wasn’t about to lose them both in one day.

“Open this door!” Cameron shouted, pounding on the door and rattling the handle, even though he knew that neither would do any good. His heart pounded in his chest, a caged animal, and the sound of his own blood rushing in his ears was the only thing that Cameron could hear. The small window set high in the door did him no good, and his imagination quickly filled his mind with a barrage of horrifying images. He wanted to believe in Venkata, had wanted to ever since the man had first shown him his true form, but how could he when he had been locked outside without a word of explanation? “Venkata, please! Let me in! Tommy!?”

Then Cameron found himself falling forward. The door opened onto an eerily silent room, and it was with trepidation that Cameron looked up, kneeling on all fours, fear in his pale eyes. Tommy was still on the bed, but his body was still, slumped forward, gaze fixed on some far off point. The sight made his entire body tremble. Cameron’s voice, when he finally found it, was small and frightened. “/Tommy/?”

Venkata walked past him, his steps sure, not a word for either Cameron or Tommy until Cameron’s hand latched on to his pants leg. The angel looked up at Venkata, unshed tears swimming in his eyes, “What did you do?”

“What needed to be done.”

“Where are you going?”

Venkata moved out into the hall, forcing Cameron to let him go, “I’m going to get a doctor.”

Cameron was afraid to move forward, but he was even more afraid to follow after Venkata, yet at the same time he wanted to do both. As it was, he cursed his weakness and stayed where he was, kneeling on the floor and shaking with fear. Even when he heard footsteps approaching from behind him Cameron did not move.

“As I said before-“

“Just take a look at him,” Venkata’s voice still did not send a shiver of fear up his spine, even though Cameron knew that it should. If he’d had the presence of mind to think on that fact over much, it might have frightened Cameron, or at least it would have made him ponder whether his answer to Venkata’s earlier question had been entirely true. “I think that you’ll find it worth your time.”

Cameron cringed when Venkata knelt down and put a hand on either of his shoulders, but the touch was still oddly comforting. Cameron wondered if there weren’t some validity to Venkata’s talk of soul-mates. It was the only way to explain why he was leaning into the touch of a man who had just done God-knows-what to his best friend.

Then the doctor all but shouted, “It’s a miracle!” and Cameron forgot that Venkata was even there.

“What?” he begged, “What’s happened? What’s a miracle?”

Cameron looked up at Tommy at last, and what he saw was more shocking than anything that his fevered imagination could ever have provided him with. Where once Tommy had looked sickly and pale, eyes listless and breathing labored, he now looked the picture of health. He looked better than Cameron had ever seen him looking. It was a complete and utter turnaround accomplished in only a matter of minutes.

The walk back to room three-thirteen with the agitated doctor in tow had dissipated most of Venkata’s anger. He knew that he was being unreasonable. He had stepped into Cameron’s life less than a month ago, and now he expected the angel to drop everything and keep only Venkata in his heart? Tommy had looked after his lover’s heart and soul up until the day that they’d met, had been the only person to show the unfortunate man any sort of love or affection, and Venkata knew that he should be grateful for that. “If he means that much to you, then I can’t just let him die on us, now can I?”

More doctors came into the room, and words like unbelievable, and remission, and cured replaced terminal as they took their turns examining Tommy. Cameron could only stare on in awe as doctor after doctor pronounced Tommy as completely healthy. It was one of Cameron’s greatest wishes come true.

“Happy now?” Venkata wanted to know, his hand still on Cameron, smiling when his eyes caught Tommy’s. Devil or no, he had done his good deed for the day.

Cameron didn’t know what to say. How do you thank someone for giving you the life of your best friend? All he could do was turn and throw his arms around Venkata, finally giving in to the tears that had been threatening to fall for so long.

“Hush, my little angel,” Venkata soothed as Cameron clung to him and sobbed. He knew in that instant that he had done the right thing. Even if it did mean that he’d have to compete for Cameron’s affections.

“Thank you… thank you… thank you…” The words didn’t seem enough, but they were all that he had. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome,” Venkata held tighter to Cameron so that the younger man couldn’t see his smile, “But this still leaves one big problem.”

“It does?” Cameron pulled away from Venkata far enough to look into his smiling face, wondering why the devil was smiling at him while remaining grateful that the doctors were still choosing to ignore them.

“The appointed time hasn’t come yet,” Venkata tried to appear serious, but he failed when his dark eyes twinkled with mischief. “I told you that I came here without permission.”

“And?”

“That means that I’ve got to stay here for a while, and your shower isn’t big enough for two sets of wings,” he took pity on his lover and pulled him close again, kissing his lips, pleased to see that a matching smile graced his handsome features. It was like a ray of sunshine breaking through the clouds after a storm. “We need a bigger apartment.”

There was only one answer that Cameron could give. And they both knew what it meant. “Why not.”

The End