Chapter Nine
Hell House Client Brief: Emergency number...yeah, no, you're on your own.
In the perfect world, Shepherd really should have taken sex off the table.
But his best intentions had only gotten them as far as the kitchen, and despite whatever was going on with Kel…his knees were still bad. Accommodations needed to be made.
Which is why Kel was sprawled back on the kitchen table, with his ridiculously long legs slung over Shepherd’s shoulders.
His thighs, all freckles and heavy muscle, were slick with spit as Shepherd tongued his asshole.
The taste of him, the musk of a day’s sweat, soap, and fresh-burnt soul, filled Shepherd’s senses as he flicked his tongue over the taut, twitching pucker.
“Fuck,” Kel groaned. The heel of his foot dug into Shepherd’s back, muscles clenched all the way up to his ass, as he gripped the sides of the table. His cock, skin pulled taut over the thickness of the engorged shaft, smeared pre-come over his stomach as it bounced in time to his pulse.
Sweat dripped down Kel’s taint and ran over Shepherd’s face, the taste of it sharp and salty as it slid into the corner of his mouth.
Shepherd had already come. His cock was glued to his thigh, slick with spunk and spit. That meant he could take his time without feeling that he was leaning into old, bad habits.
…thought you were too good to serve our Lady, the bitter, bitchy voice of his father/cult leader/wanna-be murderer grouched in the back of Shepherd’s mind, but look at you now. What’s the difference?
Cock mostly.
Also, Kel wasn’t going to have him ritually sacrificed in order to hollow his body out to use as a human fleshlight in the mortal realm. Probably.
Mostly the cock, though, if Shepherd was being honest.
Shepherd let the dismissive thought roll through his mind. Even after all these years, it felt a little like blasphemy, but it worked better than trying to push the idea under the rug. His doubts had a point.
There was a certain irony to escaping demonic servitude, only to find out a few days into freedom that it was really the only thing you were cut out for. Shepherd couldn’t deny that just because these days he got a paycheck instead of murdered.
Really, when he laid it out like that, working for Renfield’s was a lot different than the cult.
Shepherd squirmed from under Kel’s knees and lowered his feet to the ground. He ran his hands up Kel’s thighs, tracing the bundles of taut muscle with his fingers, until he reached his groin. His spread hands, thumbs slotted into the crease of Kel’s thighs, framed the heavy balls and cock.
Shadows hung dense and oppressive in the corners of the kitchen, crawling down the walls like grease stains. Upstairs—in the attic—something creaked and sluffed along between the rafters.
“What was that?” Kel asked raggedly as he propped himself up on his elbow, the skin over his stomach creased. He looked up, and the shadows crawled into his field of vision, squirming for attention like a dog. It made Kel blink and scrub his knuckles over his eyes.
“I could tell you,” Shepherd said. He put his hand on Kel’s stomach and pushed. “Or I can finish this. I can’t do both.”
Kel took a ragged breath, chest swelling. He glanced at the shadows, shuddered, and flopped back onto the table.
“Fuck it,” he said. “I’m only on the hook to help with the lawn mower.”
That might not be…entirely accurate. Shepherd figured that news would probably go down better after an orgasm, though.
He slid his hands back down into place and leaned in to take Kel’s cock in his mouth.
There was still an aftertaste of vaguely strawberry lube and Shepherd on the shaft.
He savored the taste as he ran his tongue along the rigid length of it.
Kel moaned encouragement as he arched his hips up, thrusting his cock deeper into Shepherd’s mouth. He clenched the sides of the table, nails dug down into the wood, and something under the floorboards groaned low and broken and wet in rhythm with the ‘Gods’ and ‘pleases’ that escaped Kel’s mouth.
By the time he came, Kel was slick with sweat, his clothes tangled and knotted under him, and the shadows had crawled down off the walls to shackle Shepherd’s ankle. The possibilities gnawed the corners of Shepherd’s mind, but that way madness and a complete failure to stay on schedule lay.
Shepherd swallowed the mouthful of Kel and licked his lips. As Kel sprawled back on the wooden surface of the table, one arm thrown across his eyes, the shadows grudgingly returned to their place.
“You’re so fucking hot,” Kel said, his voice breathy and ragged. He lifted his arm enough to look at Shepherd from under it. “Kinda worries me that means things could still get weirder.”
Shepherd used the corner of the table to pull himself to his feet. He stood on one foot and then the other as he brushed his knees off.
“That’s…fair,” Shepherd acknowledged. He offered his hand to Kel, palm up and fingers loose. “But the weird is happening either way.”
Kel sighed, slapped his hand against Shepherd’s, and allowed himself to be hauled up into a sitting position. He absently rubbed his knees with the heel of his hand.
“OK,” he said. “But I’m still kinda drunk, so how about we break another of your rules, and I get to stay the night?”
Shepherd hesitated, but…
At this point he wasn’t entirely sure he would be able to throw Kel out, even if he wanted to. He gave in with a sigh and leaned into the tug that got Kel onto his feet.
“You might regret that tomorrow,” he warned.
Kel didn’t listen. No one ever did.
“SON-OF-A-BITCH!”
The startled shriek—and getting kicked in the thigh—woke Shepherd up. He squinted one eye open just in time to see Shithead get chucked across the room. Then Kel threw the sheet over Shepherd’s head as he scrambled out of the bed.
“What the hell!” Kel blurted.
Shepherd dragged the sheets down and sat up.
He yawned and stretched his shoulders as Kel shuddered and scrubbed his hands down his chest. Shithead had bounced off the standing mirror in the corner of the room and landed at the foot of it.
In the reflection, something vile smeared a red smile over the doll’s face that showed a hint of white teeth.
Then the mirror jolted forward, wobbled on its edge, and fell flat on top of the doll. The bladder in it that used to say ‘mama’ made a dry, ‘meh’ noise as it was compressed.
“What the fuck,” Kel demanded. He glared at Shepherd. “Do you think that was funny?”
Shepherd pulled his knees up, sheet tented over them, and rested his elbows on them. He scratched his eyebrow and nodded at the mirror. Shithead’s foot stuck out of it, in a frilly sock and a scuffed black Mary-Jane shoe.
“I mean,” he said. “A bit.”
Kel gave a full-body shudder and grabbed his jeans from the dresser. He leaned awkwardly against the wall for support as he dragged them on.
“Why the fuck would you put that thing on my balls?” he asked.
“I didn’t,” Shepherd objected.
Kel hitched his jeans up over his hips and gave Shepherd a ‘really’ look as he buttoned them.
“Oh, so, what?” he asked. He freed one hand from what he was doing so he could use two fingers to mime walking. “She just crawled on in there under her own power.”
He paused expectantly.
Shepherd shrugged. “I told you that you’d not regret not having this conversation last night,” he said.
Kel rolled his eyes and headed for the door. He was still barefoot as he stepped over Shithead, so Shepherd figured he wasn’t actually leaving-leaving. That meant Shepherd could take the time to put his shorts on.
He had just done that when he heard Kel’s voice from downstairs.
“Shep?”
…Huh, Shepherd didn’t love that. He supposed it was the risk you ran fucking someone twice.
“Hold on,” he yelled back as he crouched down to grab the frame of the toppled mirror. “I’m coming.”
He manhandled the mirror back onto its base and nudged Shithead out of the danger zone with his foot. There was a new crack in her face, a jagged line that ran from temple to the corner of her mouth. Shepherd gave his reflection an annoyed look through the fly-spotted glass.
“Leave the doll be,” he said.
His reflection sneered at him in slow motion and dragged its thumb over its throat from ear to ear.
Shepherd raised an eyebrow at it.
“Oh, that’s nice,” he said. “After everything I’ve done for you? Yeah, well, just remember. I’m the one who knows how to feed you, and if anything happens to me, how long do you think it’ll take someone to come get Shithead?”
The reflection looked mildly alarmed at that reminder. It sheepishly fell back into mute mimicry of him, and Shepherd snorted as he bent down to pick up Shithead.
“That’s right,” he said as he tucked her under his arm.
In the reflection, the doll swivelled its head 180 degrees and latched onto mirror-Shepherd’s wrist with its tiny, piranha-bone teeth.
Mirror-Shepherd placidly didn’t react as pale, thick blood splattered over the floorboards beneath its feet. “Shithead would be your problem.”
He left it to think about that as he headed downstairs to see what Kel wanted.
It didn’t take long to find him. Six-foot-three redhead frozen in the doorway of the kitchen was hard to miss.
“What’s—” Shepherd started to ask as he came up beside Kel. The next word was going to be ‘wrong’, but as Shepherd looked past Kel’s shoulder, he worked out the answer to that for himself. “Oh. That’s…thoughtful.”
Breakfast was served.
Steaming platters of…food…were piled onto the kitchen table.
It was a feast for a lord…of Hell. A bloodied rat king lay in a greasy bile sauce on a silver platter, a punch bowl of worms and black, writhing centipedes had been set out with a ladle for Kel to serve himself, and piles of moulded, crawling bread filled the toast rack.
“What?” Kel asked, his voice choked.
Shepherd dropped his voice to a murmur. “Well, you don’t want to look ungrateful,” he said out of the corner of his mouth. “That would get you off on the wrong foot.”