58. Percy and Joe Make it Official
CHAPTER FIFTY-EIGHT
PERCY AND JOE MAKE IT OFFICIAL
P ercy straightened himself, put on a smile, and said, “If it will make you happy, I’ll do it.”
“It will.” Something in the way Joe looked at Percy just then cut the intimacy with tension. His hand moved slowly but deliberately up his chest, his fingers slipped beneath his clerical collar, dark red with dried blood, and he pulled it free.
This wasn’t simply undressing. Percy could see it in his eyes, clear and serious. This was more. This was symbolic.
He watched Joe stare down at the stained collar, watched his fingers open, watched the thing drop to the stone floor.
The action was so decisive, so pivotal, Percy felt the need to stop him—to prevent whatever sort of pain he imagined might be tied up in that decision. “It doesn’t have to change.”
Joe’s fingers wrapped back around Percy’s. “Can’t you see? There’s only one thing I have faith in now.” He kissed him. “And it’s not God.” He kissed him again. “And it’s not the Devil.” Once and again, then he stepped away.
Joe walked to the baptismal font. He pulled the black cloth of his shirt over his head, and Percy surveyed him as he bent over the water, washing his face, his chest, the scars on his back, his skin red and purple with new wounds just made, just healing. But when Joe stood, when he turned back to Percy, cleansed, beautiful, dripping, his eyes were warm, and he had a confidence about him Percy had seldom seen. A purpose. A happiness.
Joe returned, taking his place in front of the altar, and he placed his hands on Percy’s chest, running them down the expensive fabric of his suit jacket. He pulled one side open, and there, in Percy’s inside pocket, he found his dagger. He drew it forth, holding the hilt with one hand, the blade with the other, and he settled it carefully, reverently, on the altar.
Percy watched on, curious, enamoured, as Joe’s hands shifted to the inner seams of his jacket. He took a hold, and eased it back over his shoulders, while Percy moved his arms, compliant, wondering, softly aroused.
The jacket was laid out long upon the altar next to the dagger, and now the increasingly confident, increasingly determined fingers moved to the buttons on Percy’s vest. Joe stepped closer as he worked, his thigh brushing against Percy’s. Percy wasn’t sure how sexy any of this was supposed to be, so he tried to hide his interest in case he let Joe down by not showing proper decorum for whatever strange Catholic ceremony this was about to be.
Joe’s eyes were fast on his work, disrobing Percy of the vest, then beginning on his shirt. Percy followed every move intently, fixed eyes, dark lashes, searing heat building between them, as it always, always did, almost corporeal, alive with each passing moment that he held himself back from touching Joe.
Down his chest, the gentle press of fingers slipped each button free. A sensation close but not quite against his skin, down his abdomen, Joe refraining from reaching into the open shirt, though his eyes drank Percy’s body in all the same. He pulled the remaining portion of Percy’s shirt free and loosed the final fastenings. This too, he made to slide over Percy’s shoulders, but Percy’s hand clamped down on his wrist, shocking Joe, forcing a flash of his eyes to Percy’s.
Percy said nothing, awaited him. Joe tilted his lips up and kissed Percy. He kissed him and he did not stop kissing him as Percy yielded, let Joe push his hand down, let Joe take his shirt over his arms where it dropped in a crumpled heap on the church floor.
Percy slipped a hand around his waist as Joe began to pull at his belt buckle. “What are you doing?”
“I need you,” Joe whispered, fingers more frantic now, kisses on a tremble of lips. “I need you. And I’m going to have you.”
Joe took his lips to Percy’s neck and wrenched his belt open. It uncoiled like a snake, dropped to the flagstones, trodden beneath Joe’s feet as he got closer to Percy, spreading his hands over his pecs, feeling the hard shape of him as his chest expanded, as his back arched into the sensation of Joe’s teeth.
Joe bit him, hard, and “Oh, fuck,” Percy groaned. He was just about gone already, sunk under Joe’s spell that he’d thrown over him so easily ever since that first night. And all those memories mingled in Percy’s mind behind his closed eyes. Joe shoving him against the wall of his own house, soaked from the rain. Joe kissing him for the very first time. Joe fucking him as he held onto the golden bars of his own bed posts. Joe’s unerring and complete control of him that he wanted to give in to completely. The way he wanted to be his slave.
Joe pulled his head back and looked deep into Percy’s eyes. “Kneel.”
Percy’s knees hit the ground fast, but the pain barely registered with the tingling of anticipation flooding his brain and body.
Percy stared up at Joe, bathed in a shaft of morning sunlight that cut through the church dust like a message from God. He was everything to Percy. He was worth living and dying for.
Joe reached across to the altar, and Percy, captivated, followed the curve of his body, every line of every rib, his brown nipples, the precious hairs on his chest, the arms, cut and bruised and bulging with strength.
He took up Percy’s dagger, long and silver. The jewels on the hilt glinted in the light, and Joe ran his long fingers across the blade. It sparked a flare in Percy’s eyes when he turned it over, then he drew the blade across his body, closer and closer to his skin, until the tip touched down at the inner edge of his right ribcage.
“Joe…” Percy grasped him by the hips. Joe pressed the dagger into his flesh and cut, his skin ripping open in a long, clean line.
“This is my body…” Joe whispered. He took two fingers through the blood that came plentifully, leaving a vermillion smear across his rippling body. Those fingers, red and wet, he brought to Percy’s eager lips. “My body, which I have broken for you.”
His fingers traced the line of Percy’s beautiful lower lip. Percy’s mouth opened for him, and Joe felt the erotic warmth of his tongue sliding beneath his fingers, taking him deep into his mouth, hungrily. His thumb and ring finger, the latter newly augmented in sapphire, pressed against Percy’s beautiful cheeks, and he forced his fingers deeper, his cock straining against his pants as Percy sucked.
Joe raised the dagger in a shaking hand, brought it to the left of his navel, and slid it into his flesh, opening a fresh wound. He pulled the dagger away, blood dripping onto the church floor, blood dripping onto the altar where he placed it down, blood running down his firm flesh. “This is my blood, which I have shed for you.”
Percy’s eyes raised to meet his, black, heated, and he relinquished Joe’s fingers with a slide of his hot mouth. His tongue traced a line beneath Joe’s navel, slowly, up and up, never breaking that eye contact, until his head tilted and his tongue ran across the long slit. Joe shuddered in ecstatic agony as he lapped at the wound, drank his blood down, and Joe said, “I will be your saviour, Percy. I will lift you up, and I will be your protector. I give eternal life to you.”
The potent effect of the dark magic flowing in Joe’s blood took immediate and heady effect on Percy. The heaviness of his heartbeat, the vigour in his veins, the clouded, reality-altering obsession that he’d always had with Joe, rolled his eyes back as he let the blood pour down his throat. He drank until the blood stopped gushing. Then his hand moved to the fastening on Joe’s trousers. He ripped them open and wrenched Joe’s remaining clothes to the floor.
He stared up, worshipful, and just then, beneath Joe’s enormous and erect dick, Percy had his awakening.
This man, flesh and blood, was the way and the life.
Percy, of all people, had finally found his religion.
Percy took Joe’s dick, fabulously sleek, deliciously hard, dripping for him, and he closed his lips around it, slid his tongue all the way along the base and sucked. The rasp of pleasure that ripped out of Joe echoed off the church walls. And Joe stood, naked, at the head of the church, the light of the new day glorifying him and Percy in its warmth, one ecstasy piling on top of another. His thick thighs flexed, and he held Percy at the nape of his neck, hands following the movement of his keen mouth, ears attuned to the sounds, the lick and the breath, heavy, his own mingled with Percy’s, which was amplified by the high ceilings and stone walls, an altar of pure and unmitigated sex.
Percy was in heaven. Joe’s complete devotion to him made him want him all the more, which he hadn’t thought was possible. His husband, his partner, his lover, for eternity. Finally, Joe had overthrown his God, his religion, for Percy, and that filled Percy with a determination to bring Joe to his knees with pleasure every day for the rest of time. But especially that day. Percy would bring him to his knees, and from there, would push him down and fuck him right there on the floor of the church. He was resolved to make him lose himself entirely, every piece of him unravelled and fallen apart and Percy’s alone to put back together.
But Joe said, on a shaking breath, “Rise.”
“No,” Percy responded around a mouthful of cock.
“Percy!” Percy only increased the suction, leaving Joe a shuddering, trembling mess, holding on for dear life as Percy took his ass in hand and really went to town. His lips smacking, Joe’s gasps, Percy’s pleased groans, and that would have been exquisite. Joe could have come right there in Percy’s mouth, and they both would have been perfectly satisfied with the morning’s events.
But it wasn’t quite enough.
It wasn’t right.
Not yet.
Joe threaded his fingers into Percy’s hair and made a slow fist. He pulled firmly, but in no rush. Percy fought him, and Joe tightened that grip, pulling, pulling at the thick hair, while Percy’s head tilted, while the muscles in his neck resisted, but Joe didn’t relent. And that wasn’t easy, because Percy was a masterful cocksucker. And how Joe wanted to come—fill his mouth to the brim—make him drink his cum down right then and there.
His whole body racked with the closeness of his orgasm, Joe forced Percy from his dick, love-drunk, sex-drunk, blue eyes staring up at him.
“Rise.” Joe pulled, Percy rose, a mass of half-naked muscle at his beck and call. Joe forced Percy’s mouth to his with the one hand, loosed his pants with the other, and let them drop, turning Percy, shoving him backwards, kissing, stumbling, until he hit that low, flat altar, where Joe took a hand to Percy’s chin and held him, looking hotly into his eyes.
He didn’t need to say a word. Percy wouldn't have moved for all the world. He was caught on the edge of stopping Joe, asking him, really, is this what he wanted? But he was in too deep. He was drowning in pleasure, and blood, and dark, magical energy pulsing through his veins, and he only waited, following Joe’s lead with bated breath.
Joe leaned past him, reaching around the edge of the wooden pulpit that stood by the altar. How the fuck he knew it was there, Percy didn’t think to ask, because the golden sunlight hit a small glass jug of anointing oil, lighting it up like a city of lost gold.
He tilted the bottle, and a trickle of oil ran down Percy’s chest, and more and more, as Joe let it pour. The scent of cinnamon and myrrh flooded Percy’s senses as the oil heated on his hot skin, then Joe took the pour into the palm of his hand, set the bottle down, and slathered his precious dick.
Percy’s shock at the act cannot be understated. He was lost in the sight of Joe’s big hand on his big cock, oily, glistening, glorious, and he only snapped to when Joe’s hand slapped down on Percy’s ass, the sound ricocheting off the walls. He shoved him around, pushed him over, and Percy just had time to grasp the cool metal of the altar before a stream of oil ran down his back, before Joe’s fingers entered him, and curled.
“Jesus Christ!” Percy’s body shone with oil as he arched against the artful movement. Expert now, Joe knew how to get him off in seconds. He applied every facet of his hard-earned skill until Percy was a writhing mess on a pillar of sparkling copper, muscles quivering, begging Joe to fuck him.
Joe leaned a knee on the altar, his dick gliding over Percy’s ass, and how he wanted to slide in, enter him and fuck his hole just like that. But Percy, there on that gilt canvas, that face that to this day outshone all others Joe had ever laid eyes on… That look on his face when Joe fucked him. He would not miss that.
Joe’s hand locked onto Percy’s neck. He wrenched him back up and around. His slick fingers took Percy by the thighs, digging into him, lifting him, and with the brute strength that had caught Percy from day one, that he’d come to worship, Joe lifted him, wrapped an arm around his shoulder, and pulled him down onto his cock.
“Oh, fuck!” Percy hadn’t been remotely prepared for the sudden, welcome incursion. Not mentally, at any rate. Joe settled him onto the altar, leaned forward to hold Percy to him, while Percy arched his hips, giving Joe full, delicious access. Joe thrust forward, slowly, forcing a cry from Percy that Joe felt in his heart.
“Christ, I love you,” Joe groaned against his neck.
“Forever,” Percy whispered on a trembling breath.
Joe’s eyes devoured Percy as his dick slid exquisitely into him. His hand was grasped, Joe’s fingers crushing his. Percy sucked air over his teeth against the pain of the delicious, determined hold. He raised his eyes to Joe’s, hot, possessive, about as sexy as anything Percy could ever have imagined.
It was one thing to be married. Quite another to have the man you love claim you as his own by fucking you on the altar of his religion right after illegally marrying you. It did things to Percy that Percy didn’t know could be done to him. His heart rate and temperature rose dangerously. His need for Joe overflowed to madness.
Joe’s fingernails dug into his shoulders, a bruising clasp of him while he fucked him, harder, harder, his back flexing, a groan on every breath, like Joe couldn’t ever get his fill. He kissed Percy, feasted on the glorious spectacle, his pupils blown with pleasure and blood and magic, Percy’s entire being responding to the sight and taste of him. And how he loved being fucked by his priest on that altar.
Joe reached for his dick, and Percy slapped his hand away, wrapping one around Joe’s firm ass, reaching his legs over his hips, pulling him in, willing him to come, to let it all go, every last bit right there at the head of the church.
Percy shifted his hips, forcing Joe’s pleasure, giving him no control as he tried to hold back, fucking him more brutally, powerfully, his ass so tight around Joe’s dick, until finally, with one enormous thrust that ripped a cry of pleasure from Percy, Joe let go, his orgasm filling Percy, his head falling on his shoulder, exactly where Percy loved it best, his body a trembling wreck.
Percy gave him precious seconds, time for the waves of ecstasy to roll through his limbs, for the tension to ease, for the shuddering to slow, and the briefest moment for Joe to look up with his smile, wide and loving, satisfied. Then Percy took a hold of his ass and wrenched him up onto the altar, spilling his cum beneath them. He lay back, head against cool metal, Joe’s knees pressed into it as he straddled Percy.
Oil, glistening in the sunlight, poured into his hand, dripped golden over Percy’s belly, and Joe slathered it over his dick, overwrought and begging for Joe’s ass. Percy ran his fingers through a swath of liquid, wrapped a hand around Joe’s neck, and pulled him down to his chest. Reaching fingers over his ass, Percy found his hole and sank in. Joe tried to work Percy’s dick at the same time, but soon found himself a mess on Percy’s chest, fingernails in his skin, sighing against his ear, Percy stretching him wider, finger-fucking him deeper, until he could barely take it anymore.
Percy’s strong hands lifted him, and Joe wrapped his hands around Percy’s ribs as he settled him. Joe rose up on his dick like an idol, covered in blood and anointing oil, his rib sliced, his side cut, his hair a glistening, thorny crown, tips sharp with blood and sweat, close to exhaustion but always fighting. A picture of all the things Percy loved about him. The place light and darkness met, the unerring bravery and beauty, the naked, gasping vulnerability of him in Percy’s arms, their wild devotion to one another.
Percy shifted his hips with one hand, the other feeling over his thigh, loving, savouring the sensation of his skin beneath his fingers, the sensation of him molten around Percy’s cock, the look of him taking it, loving it, not a shred of doubt or sadness in his decision. Rising up into the light, a rainbow of stained glass windows behind him, pure, heavenly, like he was straight out of some renaissance painting… Like he was…
The sexy Jesus.
Percy almost let go, almost came at the very thought of it—his own saviour, cut and broken, in an ecstasy on his dick, falling apart for him.
But Percy always demanded aesthetic perfection.
“Touch yourself,” he whispered.
Joe’s eyes opened slowly, hazily, upon Percy’s expectant, filthy half smile. Joe was spent, assuredly, but that dick fucking into his ass, that smile. He took his still-hard cock in hand as directed, slid lazy fingers down, smooth with oil, sending a new and welcome shot of fire through his body.
How the blue eyes gazed up at him, unguarded, dark against the shining altar, that unkempt hair thick, nearly black, his pomegranate lips setting hard about the white teeth with every stroke, every thrust, that he had begun to fight.
The vision and the euphoria took Joe, and he began to fuck his dick into his hand just as Percy fucked harder into him, eyes fluttering closed, head tilting back to reveal the long, tender neck.
“You’re so beautiful,” Percy whispered. “I wish you could see yourself like this.”
“Percy…” Joe breathed.
“Say it again.”
“Percy…” he moaned.
“Tell me how good it feels.”
“You’re a god. Oh, Christ. Percy, you’re a god to me. You’re everything.”
Percy wrapped a hand around his shoulder and slammed Joe down onto his dick and he thrust upwards and he pulverised Joe, relentlessly, watching him all but crumple, helpless at his hands, working his dick for Percy, assailed by pleasure on all sides from the sight and scent and feel of his beautiful husband.
Joe was lost in the same dream. His husband. Here, now, and he made Percy slow, right on the precipice. Made him take his hand from his thigh, red with his iron grip, and he pulled him up.
Their chests met. Percy’s hand pressed firm into Joe’s back, taking him close, and Joe dropped his forehead to Percy’s, their breath mingling, eyes burning into one another’s, Joe taking Percy’s cock with a helpless whimper of exhausted happiness.
“I love you,” Percy whispered. “My husband. My beautiful, beautiful husband.”
He took a hand to Joe’s cheek, and Joe leaned into it, rising up, riding him. He leaned his head back and Percy kissed his neck, wrapped a hand around his cock, worked him, firmly, gently, faster, until his hand clamped down with an involuntary movement, gripping tight, letting out a cry as his orgasm came for him.
“Percy, fuck,” Joe gasped. And Joe let go, for the second time, only with Percy’s hand placed just so to send the cum bursting out the sides between his fingers, coating Percy’s hand, the pair of them, and the bloody, sweaty altar. Percy kissed Joe, cum, anointing oil, and blood mingling on their chests, and he finally, after he’d seen every shared tremor of bliss through to the last, pulled him down next to him to lie on the cool copper, the mess they’d made spilling down the sides of their altar, onto the church floor, as they lay heedless of anything but each other.
Percy placed an arm beneath Joe’s head, and the two of them rolled onto their sides, facing one another. He traced down Joe’s jawline with the side of his index finger, storing away the sight. Something to remember for the rest of his life. Then he said, very seriously, “I’d like you to take me to church every Sunday from now on.”
It was incredible to Percy that Joe could still blush after everything he’d just done, but he turned bright pink, hiding his smile against Percy's chest and moaning, “It’s too soon for that kind of joke.”
“Who’s joking?” Percy returned.
Joe gave a small, almost argumentative but well-humoured enough huff, and submitted to having his hair stroked by his gorgeous tormenter.
Joe.
Too sweet for words.
Unchanged, deep down. The one solid thing in Percy’s life, for the first time ever, and for always. Percy hugged him closer.
They lay there, basking. Joe stared up at the ceiling, his beautiful eyes illuminated and more golden than ever. Percy wondered what he was thinking. Eventually, he took a breath to ask, but his voice drifted off with his inability to hit whatever it was on the head.
“Am I thinking about which thing?” Joe supplied. “Watching you die, damning you to eternity, losing whatever shred of faith in God I may have had left, filling us both up with dark magic, or quitting the priesthood?”
“Which one?” Percy asked, bracing himself for reality to slip back in, which he was used to. Which he hated.
But Joe said, “None of them. Percy, I’m so happy. It feels like… Like this is the end. Like this is how it was all supposed to work out. And I’m so, so happy.”
Percy kissed his temple. “I feel the same way.” His arms around Joe were solid, and his sigh was deeply contented. His head shifted against Joe’s, warm and loving. “I think it was terribly romantic of you to bring me here. It is perfect. Perfect for us.”
Joe stretched out his hand, forever examining Percy’s ring on his own finger. “Two thousand years old?”
“Roughly.”
“It’s special. Beyond special. I don’t feel like I should be wearing it. It’s irreplaceable.”
“So are you. Hopefully, it will last you the next two thousand.”
Joe laughed lightly, a touch of gravity behind it, then quieted for a few minutes, until he asked, “Do you really think we’re immortal now?”
“Who knows?” Percy contemplated the matter. “There was something in that blood. I can feel it. That sex was…”
“Mmmm,” Joe agreed heartily.
“But besides that… I don’t know. But I wonder if Puss… Are we really calling it ‘Puss’?”
“For now? I guess.”
“Very well. I imagine if Puss could grant it, they would also know how to take it away.”
Joe’s head tilted against Percy’s arm as he looked up into his eyes. “Is that what you want?”
Percy kissed his forehead. “I want whatever you want. I’m with you. All the way to the end. Whatever it is. Whether there’s an end or there isn’t.” Joe snuggled in against Percy, who continued, “We don’t have to decide right now. If we’re to stay this way, I have no complaints. There’s a lot I’d like to do, and I don’t think I’d have time otherwise.”
“Ah. So you’re not planning to slow down and enjoy life? Take it easy?”
“I’d like to go back in time.”
Joe’s head snapped up. “What now?”
“I’m just reflecting. If you can open a portal to Hell, then why not to the past? Wouldn’t it be fun to go back and spend the weekend with Byron? Or commission a painting by Caravaggio and stash it away to be discovered tomorrow? Or we could attend a Regency ball and really fuck things up. Go down in the history books.”
“I already have regrets,” Joe sighed out.
Percy nudged him with his shoulder. “No, you do not.”
“I don’t.” Joe chuckled. “Why not? I gave up normal a long time ago. We could do that. Or anything, I suppose.”
“Or we could just lie here all day.” Percy stretched out his back. “It’s surprisingly comfortable, actually. How long have we got the place for?”
“Oh, shit!” Joe whispered. “Oh, fuck!” he hissed, pushing himself up to sitting, with an urgent, “What time is it?”
Percy, about ready to drift off to sleep, offered a languid, “Fucked if I know.”
“You, but—” The bells of Sacré-C?ur cut into his speech that very second.
“That makes it seven,” Percy said.
“Fuck!” Joe was up, gorgeously naked but running around like a madman.
Percy rolled onto one arm to enjoy the show.
“Aren’t you going to help?” Joe panicked. “Look at this mess! Jesus Christ, what did I do? They’ll be here any minute!”
And so it went, Joe ranting and raving, Percy watching his new husband with a smile until he really couldn’t leave it a second longer, when he finally got up to help Joe clean away every sacrilegious trace of the utterly magical morning they’d spent in church together.