Sequel

WOW. This is like six pages.

It took all day to write due to several reasons. One. I'm supposed to be at work. But almost puked on someone so I came home and thus wrote slower. Of course, I'm not the type to laze in bed when I'm ill. My brain actually hurts when I do that. Two. I was highly uncomfortable with this. As I am with all "child" abuse.

The afterwards was totally worth it. Not proper Sidhe, as they're both speaking different dialects and are ignoring the special endings and such to make the basics be known, but it was highly amusing.

Now I feel woozy again.

Going to start a partner's update. But ... woozy sick thing might slow me down. Hope you enjoy the longer update though!

Read, Review and enjoy.



Rel awoke sometime in the middle of the night and groaned. Muan sat up and edged away from him. As soon as the Sidhe moved towards the edge of the bed, the panic returned. Muan paused and peered down at Rel, eyes glittering in the dim lighting of the apartment.

“Lel?”

“Please,” Rel made a beckoning motion to Muan. He couldn’t handle sex again, but would Muan understand the need for something else? The Sidhe shifted closer, bringing his head dangerously close to Rel’s as he made a questioning sound at the back of his throat, “just hold me…”

Muan made an uncertain sound and pushed himself close against Rel, which pressed Rel’s back against the wall. His back was against a wall and the being between him and the rest of the apartment was big enough to rip him apart, limb from limb. He should have had some sort of panic over that thought, over the idea that he could die if he upset Muan in any way.

Instead he felt comforted. Rel made a content sound, pulling Muan’s arm over his side, burying his face in the Sidhe’s chest as the blankets were drawn up and around him. He was warm, he was protected and for the moment, the panic was on the backburner. His eyes drifted closed and he let the tension go from his body. Seeking sleep on purpose was not an easy task for him. He managed to drift off but only after Muan’s breathing had slowed drastically.

It was sometime later when he forced his eyes open. Dawn’s grey light was trickling in the windows and Muan was gone. Well, not gone, gone, but not in bed with Rel either. The bed where Muan had laid was still warm to the touch. The bathroom light flicked off a moment later, drawing Rel’s eye to the door. It opened and Muan shuffled out, yawned, gave a stretch and looked around the apartment as he scratched himself.

Rel closed his eyes and pretended to be asleep. He wasn’t certain he could face Muan. The Sidhe had seen him weak, yet again. The fact that he wanted sex again didn’t help his bouncing emotions. His ass throbbed, his interest in another naked body was building but he didn’t want to have sex with Muan again. At least, not for a good long while.

He must have drifted off…

The next time he opened his eyes the sun was above the horizon and the smell of coffee was drifting through the apartment. Rel struggled with himself, pulling his sore body from under the blankets. Muan was in the kitchen, bent over, watching the coffee trickle into the metal carafe. By the smell of the coffee, it was going to be strong, but if Muan had made it, Rel would drink it.

He wanted to encourage independent action.

Muan glanced over at Rel and made a sound that might have been acknowledgement of the man’s existence, before looking back at the coffee maker. Rel made a greeting sound of his own and shuffled to the bathroom. With the door firmly closed behind him, he tried lifting first one, then the other leg as if he was going to take a step.

It hurt. A lot. Rel winced at the pain and forced himself to step over the lip of the tub and into it. While sitting on the cold ceramic, he turned the water on and filled the tub. Hot water would do his muscles good. A soak and a wash and Rel went back into the living area. The coffee was ready, poured and milk and sugar were on the dining table along with a teapot and several flowers. Muan sat at the table, flowers in front of him.

It was only as Rel eased himself into the chair across from Muan that the Sidhe chose a purple flower and dropped it into the tea mug, pouring water over it. Rel reached for the coffee, only to have it snatched out of his hands and the tea mug given to him instead. He took the mug and glared from it to Muan and back again. If the coffee wasn’t for him, why, he wondered, was it on the table?

Muan added sugar and milk as the Sidhe had often seen Rel do, and tasted the coffee before adding more milk. Muan had made himself a cup of coffee. Rel gave Muan another glare and sipped his tea. It tasted the way he imagined flowers would taste. Which wasn’t too bad. So it wasn’t a terrible start to a day, just a snag to what he preferred.

When the elevator dinged, Rel knew his day was not going to get better. Both Muan and Rel looked at the elevator doors warily, knowing that the arrival of someone else was only going to ruin the day even more.

Mari stepped off the elevator, decked out like a proper Illuen. Business suit, black hair pulled into a tight bun. Not a speck of lint or a hair out of place. The woman looked like she was going to kill somebody. She walked into the apartment as if she owned the place, the march of a determined woman.

“If this is about last night-”

“No, I wish it were about last night,” Mari pulled to a stop just short of the kitchen table, “No, it’s not about last night. And as I’ve no idea how to broach the subject, I will speak plainly. Rel. Your father is dying.”

Rel made a sound at the back of his throat and sipped his tea once more, “we’re all dying. From the time we hit age eighteen our brain cells begin to deteriorate. We begin dying.”

“No, I mean he is terminally ill.”

“Ah,” Rel took a moment to savour the thought before he pretended to be the good son, “how long does he have to live?”

“A few months. He’s requested a visit with you.”

“I can’t just leave Muan-”

“He’s downstairs, he came to the program building and started making demands and invoking rights. It was a mess. If you decline, I can send him away,” Mari inclined her head towards Rel, as if insisting he say no.

Rel didn’t have it in his heart. It might be the last time he ever saw his father. Dead or alive.

“I’ll see him.”

“Very well,” Mari said quietly. She left quickly.

Rel swallowed hard and glanced at Muan. The Sidhe finished off his coffee and blinked at Rel, seemingly unconcerned.

The elevator dinged and Rel guarded his emotions closely. If Mari stayed, then the meeting would be safe. If she left…

Mari wasn’t even on the elevator. The man that stepped off was dressed in a business suit. His black hair was peppered through with grey and white and his green eyes pinned Rel with a look. A full beard, speckled and coloured like his hair, adorned his chin. Drawing the eye around the face and covering the scar down the jaw line that Rel had given him. The recollection of the feeling of that beard against his cheek made Rel’s heart pound faster, and not in a good way.

His chest tightened, panic welled up. He tried not to let it show as his father drew closer. Tried not to let any emotion show as he stood to greet his father. The man was bigger than he was, taller and wider and stronger, Rel wouldn’t stand a chance against him now, let alone when he had been a child. He hadn’t seen his father in…

In…

What was eighteen minus twelve? Why couldn’t he recall basic math? Basic math said that it would be… eight… ten… fifteen… six. Six damn it. Six years and not a single thing had changed. His father still looked him up and down like he was a piece of meat.

“Father,” thank the gods he managed to get that out. He had imagined their next meeting, had imagined him being stronger and more able, of being able to force his father to see the wrong that had been caused. But six years hadn’t changed a thing. The fear kept Rel from moving, even as the aggravation and frustration of knowing what was coming made him want to scream.

“Son.”

Muan stood from the table and stiffened. The Sidhe looked in Rel’s father’s general direction without actually looking at the man.

“You haven’t changed a bit, have you? All your claimed intelligence and you still get yourself arrested and nearly executed.”

Bastard. Fucker. Cock sucking fucking bastard.

But that was the way it went. Rel’s father spoke while Rel wished he would stop and cursed and swore silently because no amount of words would stop the man from speaking.

“I raise you, I pay for your education and put food on your plate, clothes on your back and when you move out, you ignore me. Look at me, forty-eight years old and I’m wearing a second hand suit to see my convict of a son. You made a fortune and refused to share-”

His father hadn’t paid for his education, had said he would then fucked off half-way through, which was why Rel had started his first business, to pay for school. The food on the plate, as his father had so loudly told him multiple times, did not have to be cooked or cared for, so long as it didn’t kill him. He was ignored for a reason and what forty-eight year old is so fucking whiny about not being retired because OH MY GODS, his children, who were hardly old enough to wipe their own noses, wouldn’t pay his way in the world. And he wasn’t a convict.

Bastard.

“With the rest of the family, we’re living in destitution and you use your fortune to buy you way out of jail. You are not above the law. I’ve been diagnosed with cancer and the damnable Illuen won’t pay the Tahluen for the cure. You’ve got a lot of money, you can pay them, make them make me better.”

Rel’s mind did that odd thing it did. It thought about saving his father, tried to figure out how to do it. But all his money was gone and he had no other way of making money and that thought somehow made him feel better.

“I don’t have access to my fortune, not for … ten years or so… and that’s if I survive. If I don’t, the fortune is still taken for ten years and then will be… divvied up or something… amongst the surviving family members.”

“How in the seventeen hells is that going to help me? I’ve worked myself to the bone, I’ve worked night and day for you and your brother and neither of you ever showed appreciation for me, not once,” His father took a step closer to him and Rel stubbornly held his spot. To not take that step that would make his father advance on him, hand raised, “I’m dying, do you even care?”

“Of course I do.”

He wished the bastard would die faster.

“Don’t lie to me you ungrateful bastard.”

He wasn’t a bastard. The Illuen didn’t exactly allow bastards from his line to survive, it was against Illuva’s code.

His father was suddenly standing in front of him. Directly in front of him and within arms reach and too close and… Rel let out the breath he was holding and met his father’s eyes.

“If you loved me, you would find a way to get your fortune back and save me.”

“I can’t. The Illuen drew up the contract there’s no-”

The first blow was a backhand across his cheek. Rel’s head snapped around but he managed to keep his footing under him as the stinging sensation filled his left cheek. The burning and the anger filled him, just as it had the last time his father had raised a hand to him when there was someone else, someone not family, about.

“Find a way.”

Rel looked back at his father, speaking the plain truth, “I. Can’t.”

The second blow was a closed fist, catching Rel’s right cheek and jerking the young man to his knees. He took a twisted sort of satisfaction at the small cracks he heard. Damage to his face, yes, but also his father’s hand cracking in what had to be a painful way.

Fingers grabbed his hair and yanked, jerking his face upward even as his father’s free hand contacted with his right cheek once more. The taste of blood and the burning told him the damage was bad.

Which was insane because weren’t there cameras, weren’t there supposed to be safety protocols? Wasn’t Muan going to…

The Sidhe had a blank look on his face, almost desperately blank.

They were both caught in their pasts, unable to overcome what had been done to them.

Fuck.

Rel pushed at his father mentally, as he had so many times in the past, urged the man to fuck off, urged the aging body to stumble backwards. Rel’s father took a step back and frowned, down at Rel for a moment before the lip turned up in a grimace.

“You little shit. I thought I had beaten that out of you.”

Beaten what?

A foot caught Rel under the chin. If his father had been in fit condition, the kick probably would have killed Rel instantly. Snapping of the head backward and all that. Having… cancer, Rel guessed it was cancer, and being on the treatments had weakened his father so it just hurt. A lot. As his head snapped back, muscles in his neck pulled in all the wrong ways and his teeth clashed together, cracking painfully in his gums.

Rel hit the floor, head bouncing off of the hardwood twice before he groaned and tried to get his eyes to focus. Something was battering at his body, he recognised as a shoe connected to an old injury along his side, as something struck a spot in his lower back that his father liked to hit and punch. There was a nerve there that made Rel whine in pain. The world turned to white pinpricks dancing about his vision.

Rough hands dragged him to his feet. A blurry head appeared in his vision.

“My line ends with you, you fucking woman, but I won’t have you tarnish generations of LeAniege with your disgusting power.”

His head was slammed into the table and he hit the floor, unable to move as he collapsed against Muan’s leg. Something dangerous thrummed through the Sidhe’s muscles as his father thumped away. The telltale ding of the elevator was Rel’s first clear thought.

His father was leaving. Thank the gods.

His second thought was. How the fuck was he alive? Or thinking?

As soon as the elevator doors closed, Muan was kneeling by his side, a hand against Rel’s head as something viciously tore through his mind, slamming bits back together. It was a quick cleaning of the mess left behind. His head throbbed as whatever tore through his mind flowed from it, into his body. Pleasure washed his senses, across his forehead, down the cracked cheek bone and into the broken and cracked ribs. Internal organs, punctured or bruised or bleeding, bloomed back to life and solidified.

His body was mending.

When Rel pried his eyes open he expected a million things. What he didn’t expect was Muan’s hands on either of his cheeks. He didn’t expect the creepy, bone on bone feeling as his teeth righted themselves in his mouth and the cracks filled in and smoothed out.

Rel drew in a haggard breath only because he knew if he didn’t, Muan would force him to. He breathed. He was… alive.

“The.. Hells?”

Muan blinked at Rel, joy playing over the Sidhe’s features as he sat back and panted out, exhausted, “te master te Rel…” Muan murmured, making a motion for beating a person with his hands, “Lel… oooonded… wooo… wound? Woundered.”

Thump.

Rel and Muan turned towards the open window and saw the look on Hohi’s face. Horror for a moment and then anger. Pure anger as the larger male came at Muan fast, snapping and snarling something out. Muan stuttered out a response that Hohi couldn’t have understood, as the tall male glanced down at Rel questioningly.

“My father came.”

“Lel tell Muan no stop?”

“No.”

Hohi let out a string of words that didn’t need a translation. The Sidhe was cursing Muan. Muan whined and stepped away from Hohi, head down and to the side.

“Stop it, Hohi,” Rel said weakly, “knowing you can and actually overcoming the fear to do it are two different things. Muan. Muan could have stopped him.”

Muan looked at Rel, confused, “te… stohppered?”

“Stop,” Rel held up his hand in a motion he had used on Muan before, “like… no…” and a shake of his head.

“Te… master no,” stop, then the beating motion, “no, no,” a hand motion that meant a finality. A … never? Stop, “te master,” stop, “te master, master,” beat, and a motion for more.

“Seeehhhhhh,” Hohi muttered under his breath for a long moment until he had Muan’s attention. The taller male spun a finger in the air and gave Muan a look that meant something like ‘dumbass’ “soh.” beat “master tuhl master dead.”

“Te dead?”

Hohi mimed dying. Muan watched the Sidhe hit the floor before understanding bloomed.

“Se’yehtah? Awuah dead master.”

“Auh, zahaat Lel te shae’ar, shae’ar awuah,” beat “te. Te Muan lahoo joooooo.”

Muan went bright red. Rel frowned, the look on Hohi’s face implied…

“What was just said?” Rel held up a hand to stop Hohi as the Sidhe opened his mouth to speak, “exact translation, please.”

“Muan said ‘fuhking kidding? No keel mashter.’ Hohi, me,” Hohi grinned as if he were a hero, “say ‘yes, stop Lel’s father, den father no hurt this one. Then,” Hohi did that look again, “’Muan’s penis very pleased.’ yes?”

Rel went bright red.

“When fahder leafed?”

“I… don’t know.”

Muan made a reply. Hohi’s face fell. The Sidhe said something and rushed over to the window, leaping out it and leaving Rel completely confused. Muan blinked at the window, then looked at Rel.

“Hohi shtop Lel’s fah… there.”


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