Chapter 38
SINN'OUS
Jasper Marcelo is mine to keep.
The thought is loud and invasive, and he can’t decide when it turned from hurt to keep. Or for that matter, when it left the position of kill to hurt.
Bringing the boy back to his cell wasn’t the plan. Yet here they are, standing in his cell surrounded by his Satanic memorabilia. And he can’t argue that the defenceless inmate doesn’t look tempting among Sinn'ous’s belongings.
As part of his belongings.
“I’m surprised the guards let you leave this up. Wouldn’t it be considered . . . Evil—or something,” Izz’s voice is still raspy, and it has Sinn'ous’s teeth clenching. And he speaks that last part ‘evil’ like it’s scandalous or something.
Each painted page on the wall, script written in ink, interlacing symbols and markings, all speak to a higher power. A deity beyond measure. None but Satan should exist to be followed.
“A lot of them think stepping foot in here will condemn them to Hell—”
Izz bursts out laughing, a tense unsure noise edged in hysteria. A way to expel nervous energy. “They think you’re the Devil?” The boy’s voice is hoarse, and strained.
If he could kill those men over again he would in a heartbeat.
Over and over and over again.
They got off too easily, they should have been made to suffer. To writhe in agony and choke on their own blood, begging for a death Sinn'ous would deny them. At least, until he got bored of prolonging their life and ended them.
But to answer Izz’s question. No he has never seen himself as the Devil. Can never claim that title over the one who owns it. It is not his place, he will never be above Satan, always below and willing to follow, to serve.
He can’t voice any of his beliefs, not if he doesn’t want to scare off the boy. Evading the question seems more apt. “I’ve never asked. Don’t care.”
Izz shuts down, in the way his eyes fade and his demeanour shifts. A subtle change anyone would miss if they weren’t like Sinn'ous and able to read people so effortlessly.
“I see.” The far-off look intensifies behind Izz’s green eyes, and a yearning joins them when they drift to Sinn'ous’s bunk.
“You can relax, if you wish. Get some rest.”
Izz nods, slips off his shoes, clambers onto the bunk, and settles under the thin sheet. Twisting and shuffling over until he is lying close to the wall, his back to Sinn'ous, his front pressed against the rough wall. The only separation being the blanket wrapped tight to his body.
An empty space left behind him. A very glaring invitation for Sinn'ous to join.
By the time he takes the invite, and slips in behind Izz, the boy is out cold.
And he discovers it’s more tolerable to watch the boy sleep.
No hard to answer questions, no meaningless conversations.
Just quiet stillness, and the opportunity to explore a warm body.
A living warm body. Not something warm for now that death’s pull hasn’t yet claimed and cooled to a chill.
No pinching off his expressions, no worries he’s giving anything away through his eyes.
Like this, he can let down his walls and bask in the present. Though, taking into consideration how pliant and rule-abiding his boy is, it shouldn’t take long to break him in completely.
Oh, how I can’t wait for you to bend to my will.
~~~
Sitting on the brittle sheets, mattresses compressed under his weight, Sinn'ous has his head cocked to the side, eating in the still form sleeping under his sheets. In his bunk. Among his possessions.
Riding the suspended trance he’s been indulging in since Izz fell asleep, however many hours ago that was.
He’d only reluctantly left to scavenge some food from the kitchens, and much to the guards’ annoyance he’d brought that food back to his cell.
He’s sure Rogers will be getting bitched at to deal with him.
But it needn’t matter, he’ll do as he pleases and Rogers won’t step over the line.
Izz’s eyes flutter open, and Sinn'ous takes this as the time to feed him.
“Sit up,” Sinn'ous instructs, presenting the bowl to Izz, the triple six tattoos flashing on his wrists. A dark branding dedicated to whom he serves. “I have pain meds for you too.”
Bracing elbows into the mattresses, Izz cradles the sustenance in delicate hands.
Balancing it on the bunk in order to accept the pills.
A whispered thank you is given, then he’s pinching the three little pills between his fingers, plucking them out of the offered hand, and stuffing them into his mouth.
The soup is used to wash down the pills.
And the rest is chugged down fairly quickly.
The boy neither argues or presses on what the pills are, or protests overeating.
Sinn'ous would be fuming if it had been anyone else giving Izz pills that he swallowed without so much as a raised brow in question. But considering it’s him and he wants a pliant obedient boy, he will let the issue slide.
For now.
They will be having a discussion in the future about Sinn'ous being the only one Izz is allowed to follow blindly. A discussion he would like to nail in by burying himself balls deep inside Izz.
Once done, Sinn'ous takes the bowl, placing it on the floor. Left awake in the cell he goes back to watching over Izz’s exhausted form. As though the boy is taking this time to catch up on all the sleepless nights in prison. A testament to the trust he has handed over to Sinn'ous.
The building blocks he’s worked on, brick by brick, to create a dependency in the boy has worked. It has bloomed into a show of utter vulnerability.
~~~
“Why the Satanic stuff? Were you born into the religion? Or did you take it up on your own?”
These are all questions Sinn'ous is not going to answer. Not truthfully anyway.
Hovering between the bunks, bowl of rice mixed with vegetable chunks, in hand.
And three more pills to be given. He mulls over his options, and what information he can and can’t share.
Too much truth will drive Izz away, not enough truth will make tracking the lies harder on his end to do.
A shallow skimming of facts should tide over Izz’s curiosity.
He can’t exactly explain how his father took him and raised him in a home brimmed by Satan. How he grew up to the prayers of the Satanic culture. Or the things his father had shown him, the places they had gone, sacrifices Sinn'ous had witnessed before he even learnt his times tables.
All that he had seen had opened his eyes to who runs the world. Nothing and no one—sentient being or deity—out shines the one and only. Satan is and always will be the ruler of all. And Sinn'ous will always be his devoted follower.
Forgive me Satan, but I need to lie to pull this boy into my possession and keep him there. If I tell this naive creature that I worship you he will run, and I can’t have him running.
“Something I picked up as a teen. It was easy for me to relate to,” Sinn'ous half explains, taking a seat on the edge of the bunk by Izz’s horizontal body. Passing over the food and pills.
Those blood results better come back soon. He needs answers on Izz’s health.
“Do you sacrifice virgins?” Izz picks through the rice with the slim spoon, running an inspection on each vegetable he digs out.
“You watch too many movies, Beautiful,” He can’t fight the desire, so he doesn’t, slipping his fingers into the boy’s hair, stroking the soft tangles.
And allows a soft chuckle from his chest, to soothe Izz.
“A misconception. Satanism isn’t based on sacrifices and deaths.
It’s being true to yourself and not apologising for it.
You can be a nature lover and a Satanist. I, on the other hand, use it for the former.
I’m true to myself and who I am. I will never apologise for what I’ve done. Or will do.”
One day, once the boy is tightly fixed in Sinn'ous’s web, he will divulge who and what he is. And who and what Satan is. A worthy deity to follow and worship.
Sinn'ous clicks his tongue lightly in thought, he can divulge some of what it is to be a Satanist. The watered down version. “You could be a carer for your family and a Satanist. If it’s true to who you want to be. You don’t have to get on your knees and pray to Satan.”
But you will. I will make sure of it.
“So you don’t believe in Satan?”
Even after he apologised to Satan and explained his intentions, he still can not bring himself to utter the lie the boy needs to hear. Instead, he changes the topic.
He tilts his head, scanning over Izz’s features, “Jasper Marcelo. Yet you go by Izz, why is that.”
It’s not a question, it’s a distraction, and one that Izz will answer. Everyone always does, they always give Sinn'ous what he wants so why would he phrase things as a question when they are a command to respond, one which will be obeyed.
He sits by and listens to Izz’s story of a sick sister who lost her ability to speak when cancer attacked her brain and affected her speech.
The nickname creation, and all the little details in between.
All the while his mind locks away each emotion Izz expresses and any weaknesses he shows.
Placing them into a filing system to be brought out later when he needs fuel to manipulate the reactions he wants from the boy.
He studies the wall across the cell, trying to will his memories to play there for him to see.
Nothing comes of it, he still cannot remember what it had been like to live with his biological parents.
And he straight up refuses to think back to the beginning days of his impromptu adoption.
His later teen years are as far back as he allows memories to circle.
Half his focus is on keeping his mind blank of anything he locked away.
Izz’s story is a heartfelt one. For anyone else it would bring tears to the eyes. For him it’s more an information gathering. Nothing emotional about it.