Shannon and Felix - Blackmail

[shannonteverius]

Shannon was practically glowing as he breezed into the apartment complex, collected the mail and made his way up to the apartment he shared with Felix. Inside, he dropped his shopping bags in the bedroom, the mail on the table and set about brewing a pot of coffee. Contrary to popular belief, living away from home where the only staff they had was a cleaning lady who came once a week had made Shannon partially self-sufficient. Partially.

While waiting for the coffee, he flipped through the mail. Most of the correspondence was uninteresting and therefore tossed aside. A few were for Felix and those were set on the counter for his lover to find, but at the back of the pile was a larger envelope neatly addressed to him. There was no return address on the package and he wondered who sent it as he reached for the letter opener. Reaching in, he withdrew what looked to be a small stack of photos and a piece of paper. The subject in the first photo made him drop the contents onto the table as if bitten. They fanned out in a glossy array giving him further unwanted glimpses of the boy in them.

Shannon was unable to look away though he wanted to. The boy in the photos was young, almost too young and he was very much naked. He had long red hair and a lithe body. It was plain to see that the sender intended for Shannon to assume the photos were of his lover. The idea enraged him. How dare they try to manipulate him by threatening Felix in such a disgusting manner? Sickened, he collected the photos, planning to burn them as soon as he could light a fire, but there were too many of them. The boy had been photographed in an array of compromising positions, each one more vulgar than the last. Shannon felt his stomach churn as he tried to stuff them haphazardly back into the envelope. One of the photos feel free and he leaned down to shove it back with the others but as his eyes fell on the photo, he froze.

All of the photos displayed as much of the boy as possible, but this was the first that had managed to catch the boy's eyes straight on and Shannon was looking into the unmistakable mismatched gaze of his lover. The blood drained from his face and he ran to the bathroom to empty his stomach. He couldn't believe it. He knew Felix had had lovers before him, the man couldn't give such pleasure without some experience, but he had always assumed this was in the past and forgotten. The thought of someone else touching his Felix was unimaginable and he wanted it to stay that way, but here was undeniable proof that Felix had not only had other lovers but he had gained his experience much earlier than Shannon had considered. In addition, he'd been photographed while doing it!

He returned to the living room almost cautiously. The damning picture lay on the floor as if it were an innocent piece of paper. He avoided it and finally turned his attention to the paper that had come with the photos. It would most likely be a blackmail letter of some sort, he was sure. He was wrong. The paper had clearly been printed off of the internet and it was an advertisement for- Shannon swallowed, unable to look at it any more, but when he closed his eyes he saw the youth with Felix's eyes. He wanted to empty his stomach again but there was nothing left in it. Defeated, he sank into a chair.

He didn't know how long he sat at the table. At some point he picked the stray picture up from the floor and placed it on top of the pile. He was still staring at it when he heard Felix's key in the lock. He looked up, wondering what he would say to his lover, how he would even begin to ask for an explanation. He was still searching for the words as Felix walked in and saw him.

Comments

[harrowgate]

Felix stepped in through the front door in his usual riot of color and motion, setting his work briefcase down on the credenza in the entryway, then unloading his pockets of keys and wallet on top of it as was his habit. His first inhale upon closing the door was of fresh coffee, which smelled divine, and he only barely swung off his coat before he was strolling out of the entry on his way toward the kitchen.

All the signs of Shannon being home already were evident, so Felix began talking almost as soon as he got inside. "Is that coffee, darling? Please tell me it's ready, it's beastly cold outside and I'm not sure I can feel my..."

He stopped, suddenly, all motion suspended when he caught sight of Shannon, still and stricken, sitting at the table. Whatever had vexed him so was clearly there before him, a pile of papers and perhaps photographs that Felix couldn't clearly see. Despite a twist in his heart to see Shannon looking so pale and so... so strangely lost, Felix's guard went up immediately.

"Shannon? Whatever has happened. You look like you've seen a ghost."

[shannonteverius]

The composure Shannon could so easily grasp or at least fake on a normal basis seemed to have vanished. He forced himself into motion, barely able to look at the photographs as he slid them across the table toward Felix, his fingers barely touching them. Surely the slimy residue of their touch was just his imagination?

"This came in the mail today," he manage to say, his hand moving over his pant leg as if unconsciously wiping it clean.

[harrowgate]

Felix stepped forward with a frown, glancing down at the table.

Only to see his own eyes gazing back at him.

His face went bone-white. In one sickening rush, Felix remembered those photos, viscerally and consumingly, as if he were back there in front of the camera. He had grown too quickly in his thirteenth year to be of interest to many of the club's "members," but his exotic appearance and other particular talents made him too much of an asset to Lorenzo to dispose of him. Young though he was, his rapidly-attained height and sudden burst of physical maturity led Lorenzo to graduate him to another branch of the business. These had been his publicity photos. His coming-out party. His debut.

Felix's chin rose, his jaw twitching as he gritted his teeth. There was no denying the photographic evidence. The look he turned to Shannon was brittle and cold, sickness and fury warring for dominance behind his eyes. "Anything else?" he asked, his words low and sharp.

[shannonteverius]

Felix's anger was justified and Shannon didn't take it personally. This was a shock all around.

Without a word, he passed the flyer to Felix.

[harrowgate]

His head was spinning and his heart seemed to have stopped beating. Surely this was a nightmare and he would wake up at any moment, terrified and cold and silent in their bed, fighting off the old demons on his own without waking Shannon, without disturbing him or daring to ask for his comfort.

Felix stared at the flyer in silence for less than a breath. With a flick of his fingertips, he flung a tiny tongue of flame at the paper, and turned away, letting it scorch and curl and devour itself on the table. The finish in that spot would be badly damaged.

He stalked to the liquor cabinet and pulled it open, reaching blindly for his preferred bottle of bourbon. There was no need to find a glass. Felix opened the bottle and drank straight from it, his back to Shannon the entire time.

[shannonteverius]

"Felix!" Shannon exclaimed at the fire. Having found his voice he asked, "I take it the pictures are real then?" He knew they had to be. Unless they were something magical he didn't see how the model in the photos could be anyone other than Felix and his lover's reaction confirmed it.

[harrowgate]

"You have the evidence before you, don't you, Master Teverius?" Felix asked, his words as cold as the icy, needling fury slowly whirling into a frenzy in his chest. Cold, like razors, slicing him up from the inside.

[shannonteverius]

Shannon's eyes narrowed, his natural reaction to Felix's tone, but he hadn't been looking for a fight. Still, if Felix was going to provoke one he would respond. It distracted him from the sour feeling on his gut.

"Master Teverius? Last time I checked I didn't take servants to bed." Nor did he take prostitutes but that was what the flyer was clearly advertising. "Is it all true?" he asked. The flyer was now nothing more than a black smudge but it was clear what he meant. Shannon wanted to plead with Felix to lie to him if necessary, clinging to the tiniest sliver of hope that at least the flyer could have been a forgery.

[harrowgate]

So Shannon wanted him to say it. Felix swung back around. Black ice was the most dangerous of all, and that was how he felt now: inky dark and deadly.

"Of course it's true."

The words sliced clean and precise through the veneer he'd been hiding behind for the last eight years, through the lies that Malkar had taught him to tell, and through the life with Shannon that he'd wanted so much to be real.

[shannonteverius]

It's true. The words rang in Shannon's ears. He wanted nothing more than to pretend he'd never heard them but he couldn't.

"How? How could it be true? You're from north Scotland for power's sake."

[harrowgate]

"Yes, Scotland, the land entirely free from prostitutes," Felix sneered, mocking. As if the two things were related in any way, except in Shannon's mind, in the lie Felix had been telling. "I might be from Scotland. I'm afraid I haven't the slightest idea."

[shannonteverius]

Shannon made a disapproving face at the word 'prostitute'. "How is that even possible?" he asked.

[harrowgate]

Felix snatched another long drink from his bottle. It burned, searing his chest, but couldn't touch the frozen center of him.

"Because the merchandise doesn't need to know that, darling."

[shannonteverius]

Merchandise. People had purchased Felix and...done things to him. Shannon felt like he was going to be sick again. He closed his eyes hoping for the nausea to subside.

"So everything was a lie?" he said quietly, the statement half a question. "Has anything you've told me of your past been true?"

[harrowgate]

"I don't even remember half the things I've told you," said Felix coolly.

[shannonteverius]

Shannon opened his eyes and looked at Felix. "Well, it's nice to know how much our time together has meant to you," he said sarcastically. "Feel free to let me know where else you've found it necessary to use a facade in our relationship."

[harrowgate]

He could have. Felix could have told Shannon in detail of all the concessions, large and small, he'd made over the years to keep the blackness of his past away from their relationship, to keep Shannon innocent of those shadows, in the hopes that he might have something, if not pure, then at least good, in his life.

Shannon hadn't the slightest idea of everything that Felix had protected him from. The tempting, velvety ink of his temper soared, blinding him to reason and sense in a roaring rush of rage.

He slammed the bottle down on the table, leaning over it, his mis-matched eyes hard and threatening. "You want to say it. Say it. Tell me what I am, Shannon."

The word was hanging in the air between them. Whore.

[shannonteverius]

Shannon lifted his chin and he sat proudly in his chair. "Obviously I have no idea what you are," he said. "Apparently everything I've known about you has been a lie."

[harrowgate]

Furious as he was, Felix could not allow Shannon's pride to dominate even one more moment. He had taken enough of Shannon's lead. In a mad, blinding instant, Felix wanted to drag him to the floor, hold him down and force him to understand exactly who and what Felix had once been.

He had two handfuls of Shannon's shirt snatched up in clawed fists without a moment's thought as to what he was doing.

[shannonteverius]

Shannon's eyes were wide and a jolt of fear ran through him. He hadn't truly believed that Felix was a stranger, but in that moment the claims rang true. He didn't know this man. His Felix was cruel and beautiful, inciting Shannon to anger or lust in so many intricate ways, but the Felix in front of him now only brought fear. This man was dangerous.

Powers he was still beautiful.

"Are you going to hurt me now?" he asked, his voice surprisingly calm.

[harrowgate]

He could have. He wanted to. The delicacy of Shannon's bones, the thinness of his skin, seemed terrible and exquisite to Felix in that moment. He could have unleashed his anger in a destructive tempest, confirming that the life he'd built in the last three years truly was nothing but a lie, and that the hard-eyed boy from those photos was Felix's real, true self.

Instead, he shoved Shannon back in his chair, and without a word, turned on his heel for the door. The answer to Shannon's question remained an unqualified yes. But Felix did not need fists to hurt him.

[shannonteverius]

Anger rushed through Shannon, swift and hot. "You don't get to leave," he snapped. "Not this time." He pushed himself up from the chair and stalked after his lover. "Why didn't you tell me? Didn't you think I had a right to know?" He reached for Felix's sleeve to turn him around.

[harrowgate]

Felix reacted, more sharply than was usual for him, when he felt Shannon's touch on his arm. A violent smack of one hand slapped Shannon's hand away from him. He did not trust himself with the other man so close. "Why didn't I tell you?" he spit. "Why do you think?"

[shannonteverius]

"You thought I would leave? You think my feelings for you are going to change after all this time? Don't you trust me?" Shannon asked.

[harrowgate]

"If you could have seen your own face when you told me about Alcuin, you wouldn't be asking stupid questions," Felix shot back, holding himself perfectly straight, perfectly distant.

[shannonteverius]

Shannon's lips pressed together tightly as he glared at his lover. "Alcuin isn't you." He said each word succinctly, the weight of his anger behind them.

[harrowgate]

"No. Alcuin is a tender innocent who never lied to you," Felix snapped back. "And you still spoke of his past as though it were something sticky you found on the heel of your boot. Give me some credit for not being blind, darling."

He was still moving, ever closer toward the front door, though his back was no longer turned to Shannon. Felix had every intention of leaving. If Shannon wouldn't be his victim, he would find someone who would.

[shannonteverius]

"I don't give a shit about Alcuin," Shannon snapped. "I'm talking about you and me."

[harrowgate]

Shannon's curse was enough to draw Felix up short for an instant; he could not recall his lover ever saying such a word before, and certainly not in an argument with him.

"Much less about me," Felix observed in that sickly-silken voice he'd learned from Malkar. "Much more about you, and your requirements surrounding our relationship. Do you want another shocking revelation, darling?"

He leaned just slightly closer, his gaze sharp, his words like weapons. "I quite miss being on top."

[shannonteverius]

Shannon's eyes widened and his lips parted in surprise. He closed his mouth and lifted his chin, unwilling to be defeated. "Anything else?"

[harrowgate]

Plenty, Felix thought, and for a delicious instant was tempted to give Shannon a recitation of everything he'd surrendered in order to keep Shannon happy -- and blind -- in bed.

He lifted both brows before turning away again. "You can't hope to understand everything else. Not even if I used very small words."

[shannonteverius]

The insult cut deeper than it should have and Shannon's anger flared, red and hot, in response. His instinct against the pain was to inflict some of his own and the sharpest weapons he had at the moment were the ones he hated the most, especially as they gave Felix what he was asking for. "They didn't care to tell you where you were from yet made sure to expand your vocabulary?" he retorted. "I didn't think it would be required for you to speak much in that profession."

[harrowgate]

Felix laughed, short and sharp, venomously bitter. It stung deeper than he wanted to admit, a sharp bloom of poison that summoned up so much more darkness than just the life he'd spent on his back. He'd spent a significant portion of the years after those photos had been taken on his knees.

"I'd suggest you put two and two together, but you've given me no indication that you can count that high." He stalked to the entry hall, barely remembering to snatch his wallet along the way.

[shannonteverius]

Shannon knew he wasn't as intelligent as Felix but the other man had never made him feel stupid before. He could feel the burn gathering behind his eyes with the threat of stinging tears. "You're the idiot between us Felix," he said, his voice rough.

[harrowgate]

Felix knew he'd wounded Shannon, and that knowledge was savagely satisfying. Perhaps guilt would come later, but in that moment, all Felix could feel was the terrible devouring pleasure in knowing that he'd won.

Long fingers snatched his coat from the rack, and he slammed out of the apartment, leaving Shannon and everything else he owned behind.