Fic: Black Paternoster
Title: Black Paternoster
Author: viceindustrious
For: linndechir
Rating: NC-17
Prompts Used/Author’s Note: A little bit of "knives" a little bit of "bloodplay" some minor clothes/gloves kink and a ridiculously large amount of "religious and/or philosophical background/subtext"
Summary: They were not made for God or man, but for each other.
-
Matthew, Mark, Luke and John
The Bed be blest that I lye on
-
Blackwood's hands have circled Coward's throat before, thumb to thumb, forefinger to forefinger. Coward settles under his touch, blinkered by the steady throb of Blackwood's pulse against his Adam's apple, fingers latched just at the nape of his neck. It is impossible to lose himself in Blackwood's eyes-
(Matthew: For what is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?)
-for it is where he finds himself.
Or from behind, all it takes to strip Coward bare is hot breath near the shell of his ear. The least, least whisper of a touch that carries in the seed of its heart the whole of creation and where, so used to its solitary confinement, the soul shivers to find a nest carved out for two.
The stifled urge to wrench away when Blackwood's hand moves to card through his hair. Cold, animal terror, more than an urge, a need to spin round and snap at that hand, at the fingers brushing against his secret and real self. All stilled when Blackwood presses his lips to the top of his spine, a kiss like a blessing, laughing softly at this tenderness.
Tender and soft like soft flesh that falls away from bone at the least whisper of a touch that laughs-
(Mark: And He asked him "What is thy name?" And he answered, saying-)
-with a voice of many, like an untuned choir.
These brief moments when Blackwood handles him with the care and precision of a safe cracker or a jeweller. Searching for a flaw that may be pried apart to where Coward is raw and vulnerable, opened only for him. Coward's pupils shot as a shudder runs through him, an eclipse banded by a ring of blue. He turns and meets his match in Blackwood's eyes.
Blackwood's hands have circled Coward's throat before. But now?
Now Coward slips his fingers around Blackwood's collar, popping the starched cotton. The stock tie is heavy silk and Coward is fumbling with it expertly, folding in into a thick knot around Blackwood's neck. Ivory and cornsilk, the palate of colour running like a stripe of cream between the black leather at his calves and the scarlet riding pink he's wearing.
"So, not too different from a cravat," Blackwood murmurs, looking over Coward's shoulder to the mirror.
Coward allows his eyes to fall shut, spreading his fingers across Blackwood's chest as he tucks the tie away. It's sensation that he craves, his skin tracking the slip of brocade over muscle, the tip of his tongue darting over his teeth.
"Yes," he says, pinning the silk in place and backing away with a misstep, a not-quite-stumble that's tipped by the effort it takes to break the gravity between them. He can keep his balance though. Dance across the rocks in the mist of Henry's magnetism where others have been drawn in and dashed themselves apart to please.
"But it would double as a sling, or..." Coward sits down on the bed and smiles. "A tourniquet."
In the mirror, Blackwood seduces his reflection and doesn't bother to reply. He straightens his lapels and pulls the coat close to admire the figure he cuts; a wolf grin splits his features. He turns on his heel to face Coward, the flash of his teeth bright.
"Well?" he asks.
"Master of the hunt." Coward reaches for the riding crop beside him and offers it up like a child eager to show off a toy.
Blackwood's smile twitches and the message hidden between the lines of his lips is a promise of violence. He slides his hand down the length of the crop, slow and deliberate, to cover Coward's fingers and draws it from him as if he's unsheathing a sword.
"Here, let me." Coward keeps his face upturned, watching the upswing of the crop as he goes down on his knees. Blackwood is testing its weight by cutting strokes through the air and Coward follows each flick of his wrist like a charmed snake.
It's coquettish, the slide of Coward's gaze to the side, and then to the floor when Blackwood glances down at him. Bending his head so that all Blackwood will be able to see is the top of his neatly dressed hair. The light casts a white glare on the polished leather of Blackwood's boots. Pure evil -
(Luke: Take heed therefore that the light which is in thee be not darkness.)
-has the same spotless virginity as pure innocence, Coward thinks, and the better of the two for what is innocence but ignorance?
He adjusts the spurs on Blackwood's boots and the rich, strong smell of blacking makes his fingers itch to drive into their sharp little points. From ankle to calf, his hands travels up; start to creep further when the light tap of the crop against his cheek makes him freeze.
"All this pageantry," says Blackwood.
The tip of the crop trails down the side of Coward's face and he sways into the touch, just a little.
-
The hounds make short work of the fox, their shrill screams drowned out by the yelping of the dogs. When they've finished there's nothing left but scraps, bones, fur and a dirty smear of blood. Blackwood watches it all, rapt until the final dying shriek, bolt straight in his saddle and when the fox stops keening; everything from the set of his shoulders to his curled fists around the reins is taut as a bowstring.
He's smouldering when he turns to Coward, no other word for it and urges his mount into a canter once they've broken free of the woodland and are back on the fields. Coward lets his horse amble along, the dogs wagging their rails behind him and tumbling over each other like some joyful retainer.
It's a pageantry that suits Blackwood. He looks like a conquering general there, parading up and down the horizon, but Coward doesn't ride to meet him and after a few moments of this casual refusal, Blackwood rounds his horse to trot back down through the mid morning mist.
"I don't believe you've never been on a hunt before," Coward calls out as soon as Blackwood is close enough to hear.
The colour is high in Blackwood's face, more crimson and cream. It would be impossible to pick the cause; the cool, crisp air, exertion, excitement, were it not for the set of his jaw. Decidedly impatient, though it softens a little at Coward's words. Blackwood snorts.
"Not foxes, no," he says, tugging his horse round to draw in tandem with Coward.
Coward bows his head, contrition and flirtation in one to Blackwood but also to keep his smile to himself. Blackwood does not like to have his authority on any matter put into question.
"Of course," Coward says.
From the corner of his eyes he catches the jerk of Blackwood's head toward him. Coward watches as the grass is flattened by the hooves of his horse.
"There should have been blood," Coward says, quiet, apologetic. "You should have been blooded."
He touches his mouth unconsciously, thumbing his bottom lip. The small shiver that passes through him has nothing to do with the cold.
"Coward," Blackwood says.
His voice is quiet too and it may have been lost amidst the snuffled breath of the horses and the sounds of the dogs were it not for the simple steel of power there. Coward looks at him.
"Don't worry," Blackwood continues. "I will have blood."
He turns away as he speaks and Coward feels his heart being tugged along with it. There is some simple cadence in Blackwood's tone that sets his head to buzzing, roars like an ocean in the cave of his chest. They have mastered resurrection, no matter how many times he burns himself to ash under Blackwood's hand, he will rise again. He can give up his blood over and over, sacrifice himself a thousand times and it will never be the whole of what he has given to Blackwood.
Henry knows him.
This time when Blackwood kicks his horse into a canter, Coward follows suit.
-
This whole room is an altar. Cold, hollow, hallowed ground. A secret place kept behind a locked door at the very top of Blackwood's country home.
There's a large cross at the far end, both shadowed by the old oak beams that rise up to the ceiling and bisected by the light that falls through the slotted windows. There are circles of power painted on the floorboards, numberless names of Gods that can be read forward, backward, criss crossed to make new meanings.
Their footsteps have the same quality of echo as if they were in a church. No dust to kick up, only the swirling atmosphere of a long forgotten death chamber, a presence so heavy the air feels thick with it.
"Nicholas," Blackwood says and the sound dissolves throughout the room.
In the shadows, Coward's hands are trailing over the body of the cross. He ducks behind it at the sound of Blackwood's voice, pressing his back to the wood. There are more mirrors up here, naturally, Blackwood understands the power behind image. Coward catches the blur of his own movement in one, half shrouded in darkness and blackened with spots of age.
"Nicholas," Blackwood says again, right at his ear.
Coward starts but Blackwood holds him back against the cross. He puts his gloved fingers to Coward's mouth and Coward opens so they can push inside, the taste of leather bitter on his tongue.
"I always thought there was something quite obscene about the way we figure angels," Blackwood murmurs. "We make virtue far too tempting. What would you do with a mouth so ripe?"
Coward bites at the end of Blackwood's finger and takes his wrist, pushing his hand away, tugging his glove off with his teeth.
"So am I an angel then?" Coward asks.
"Well, you will be..." Picking his words, Blackwood hesitates for a moment but Coward is ready to finish the statement as soon as it's begun.
"Your herald." Coward laughs and lets his head fall back against the cross. "What, should I tell them 'do not be afraid'? Lord Blackwood has come again. Oh they should be afraid, Henry. They will be."
"Yes," Blackwood agrees, another hesitation but this time it's as if he's savouring the simple truth of the word.
Coward holds Blackwood's gaze in the murky, dying silver of the mirror. It muddies the red of their coats to a dull maroon.
(John.)
And later, once their clothes are cast on the ground and Blackwood takes up his knife and the sun sinks slowly in red, the air is clotted too.
(This is how we know it is the last hour.)
"Do you want to see what I see?" Coward asks, hand held out, blade resting in his palm.
(They went out from us, but they did not really belong to us.)
Any other creature would sicken and die on the breath they share. They were not made for God or man, but for each other. Standing naked now before the eyes of the Lord, before each other. Blackwood's hands close around his, forcing his fingers to curl into a tight fist around the knife's blade like a moonflower in the sun.
(For if they had belonged to us, they would have remained with us.)
"I know what you see," Blackwood says.
A velvet of maroon, his eyes screwed shut, the bridge of his nose pressed against Blackwood's shoulder. The hand around his is insistent, inescapable and eternal.
"One, one, one," Coward gasps deliriously against Blackwood's skin. The knife feels like a shard of ice in his palm, burning bitter against the wound it's carving in his flesh. Bloods flows free, wet and warm between them. Blackwood tightens his grip and Coward groans. "Heaven."
He grasps the handle of the knife with his free hand and pulls.
(But their going showed that none of them belonged to us.)
His scream is still echoing when Coward raises his head, bottom lip chewed bloody.
"One heaven," he sighs, a smile like euphoria rising on his face. "Our kingdom."
The knife drops to the floor with a clatter. Coward places his bleeding hand on the side of Blackwood's face and Blackwood covers it with his own. Does he see Henry in those eyes? Does he see himself? Blackwood's gaze is entirely unlocked and so, so tender. Even a dragon will lay on its belly for you if you feed it from your own hand.
"Everything?" Blackwood says, breathless.
Coward grins. "Everything. Everyone. All of it belongs to us, Henry. We'll show them real magic and they'll beg to worship us."
Blackwood takes Coward's wrist and brings his hand across his cheek, over his mouth. The stripe of crimson on his face looks like war paint.
(I do not to write to you because you do not know the truth but because you do know it and because no lie comes from the truth.)
The slide of blood over skin. Lines divided, not between black and white, but between red and white. It's all so simple. Coward sees black when he sees blood anyway. In his mind it conjures images of that deep, dying black of lifeblood, the colour blood runs when it's spilling out in gouts too heavy to mean anything but death. These pretty wine smudges that he's painting Blackwood's chest with are just enough to arouse.
Coward leans in to kiss his own blood from Blackwood's mouth, licking his way inside with a hungry tongue. His injured hand flutters as it makes its ways down Blackwood's stomach, flinching as he grips the firm angle of Blackwood's hip. He pushes his palm against the bone with a choked gasp of pain. It's a needy sound and when Blackwood kisses him back, harder, he repeats the noise, trying for wanton.
His good hand slips between them, wrapping around Blackwood's cock as his head dips to follow the speckle of red across Blackwood's collarbone with cluttered kisses.
"Other hand, Coward," Blackwood says and laughs at Coward's shudder as he swaps.
(Who is the liar?)
He's ready to get down on all fours when Blackwood shoves him up against the cross.
They fight over this part sometimes, Coward likes being turned ink black with bruises, emptied of everything but the roiling thrum of the violence Blackwood pours into him.
But Blackwood's commands are as soft now as the wood is hard.
"Arms up," he murmurs from behind, tracing Coward's skin from shoulder to wrist, holding Coward's hands against the top of the crossbar on either side. "Lovely."
There are nails hammered into either end of the wood. Ornate, vicious looking things right in place for a real crucifixion and Coward grips onto them. Every muscle in his back feels taught, tight, his nerves high-strung. There is a hunger in Blackwood's voice that excites him dreadfully.
"They whipped him you know, whipped him first," he says and swallows saliva that tastes of iron, running his tongue over his bottom lip, the sting sharp and reassuring.
"Scourged," Blackwood corrects. "And maybe next time."
Coward's laugh flickers up to the ceiling. He grinds the flesh of his palms against the twisted iron of the nails and knows, yes, next time. He'll come while Blackwood is paring the skin from his back and he doesn't want that now. He needs the unbearable fullness of Blackwood inside him.
(It is the man who denies that Jesus is the Christ.)
The friction of pleasure dragged out in wet moans and the slap of sweat slicked flesh on flesh.
Harder, he doesn't say, Blackwood's obliging his unspoken plea with each thrust and Coward can't talk, can't even get enough air over the cries being wrenched from his throat.
It hurts so much, so good, so perfect. Sharp, sharp agony in his hands and the dull desperate ache of his ribs crushed against the wood and that sweet hot pain, violent sex that rips pleasure through him.
(Such a man is the antichrist-he denies the Father and the Son.)
"Lord!" Coward cries.
(I am writing these things to you about those who are trying to lead you astray.)
Collapsed at the foot of the cross like the victim of some great desecration, Coward's eyes are half closed, satisfied and lazy. Blackwood is beautiful in the aftermath, warm and basking against him like some sort of sun god. He talks into Coward's ear with the right lilt for a snake and Coward smiles.
"Tell me about the future," Blackwood says.
Eternal victory. Eternal loss that chill shadow which stalks them both. But eternal still and as Coward turns to look into Blackwood's eyes he understands that it's the only word that really matters.
Their path has always been clear.
Author: viceindustrious
For: linndechir
Rating: NC-17
Prompts Used/Author’s Note: A little bit of "knives" a little bit of "bloodplay" some minor clothes/gloves kink and a ridiculously large amount of "religious and/or philosophical background/subtext"
Summary: They were not made for God or man, but for each other.
-
Matthew, Mark, Luke and John
The Bed be blest that I lye on
-
Blackwood's hands have circled Coward's throat before, thumb to thumb, forefinger to forefinger. Coward settles under his touch, blinkered by the steady throb of Blackwood's pulse against his Adam's apple, fingers latched just at the nape of his neck. It is impossible to lose himself in Blackwood's eyes-
(Matthew: For what is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?)
-for it is where he finds himself.
Or from behind, all it takes to strip Coward bare is hot breath near the shell of his ear. The least, least whisper of a touch that carries in the seed of its heart the whole of creation and where, so used to its solitary confinement, the soul shivers to find a nest carved out for two.
The stifled urge to wrench away when Blackwood's hand moves to card through his hair. Cold, animal terror, more than an urge, a need to spin round and snap at that hand, at the fingers brushing against his secret and real self. All stilled when Blackwood presses his lips to the top of his spine, a kiss like a blessing, laughing softly at this tenderness.
Tender and soft like soft flesh that falls away from bone at the least whisper of a touch that laughs-
(Mark: And He asked him "What is thy name?" And he answered, saying-)
-with a voice of many, like an untuned choir.
These brief moments when Blackwood handles him with the care and precision of a safe cracker or a jeweller. Searching for a flaw that may be pried apart to where Coward is raw and vulnerable, opened only for him. Coward's pupils shot as a shudder runs through him, an eclipse banded by a ring of blue. He turns and meets his match in Blackwood's eyes.
Blackwood's hands have circled Coward's throat before. But now?
Now Coward slips his fingers around Blackwood's collar, popping the starched cotton. The stock tie is heavy silk and Coward is fumbling with it expertly, folding in into a thick knot around Blackwood's neck. Ivory and cornsilk, the palate of colour running like a stripe of cream between the black leather at his calves and the scarlet riding pink he's wearing.
"So, not too different from a cravat," Blackwood murmurs, looking over Coward's shoulder to the mirror.
Coward allows his eyes to fall shut, spreading his fingers across Blackwood's chest as he tucks the tie away. It's sensation that he craves, his skin tracking the slip of brocade over muscle, the tip of his tongue darting over his teeth.
"Yes," he says, pinning the silk in place and backing away with a misstep, a not-quite-stumble that's tipped by the effort it takes to break the gravity between them. He can keep his balance though. Dance across the rocks in the mist of Henry's magnetism where others have been drawn in and dashed themselves apart to please.
"But it would double as a sling, or..." Coward sits down on the bed and smiles. "A tourniquet."
In the mirror, Blackwood seduces his reflection and doesn't bother to reply. He straightens his lapels and pulls the coat close to admire the figure he cuts; a wolf grin splits his features. He turns on his heel to face Coward, the flash of his teeth bright.
"Well?" he asks.
"Master of the hunt." Coward reaches for the riding crop beside him and offers it up like a child eager to show off a toy.
Blackwood's smile twitches and the message hidden between the lines of his lips is a promise of violence. He slides his hand down the length of the crop, slow and deliberate, to cover Coward's fingers and draws it from him as if he's unsheathing a sword.
"Here, let me." Coward keeps his face upturned, watching the upswing of the crop as he goes down on his knees. Blackwood is testing its weight by cutting strokes through the air and Coward follows each flick of his wrist like a charmed snake.
It's coquettish, the slide of Coward's gaze to the side, and then to the floor when Blackwood glances down at him. Bending his head so that all Blackwood will be able to see is the top of his neatly dressed hair. The light casts a white glare on the polished leather of Blackwood's boots. Pure evil -
(Luke: Take heed therefore that the light which is in thee be not darkness.)
-has the same spotless virginity as pure innocence, Coward thinks, and the better of the two for what is innocence but ignorance?
He adjusts the spurs on Blackwood's boots and the rich, strong smell of blacking makes his fingers itch to drive into their sharp little points. From ankle to calf, his hands travels up; start to creep further when the light tap of the crop against his cheek makes him freeze.
"All this pageantry," says Blackwood.
The tip of the crop trails down the side of Coward's face and he sways into the touch, just a little.
-
The hounds make short work of the fox, their shrill screams drowned out by the yelping of the dogs. When they've finished there's nothing left but scraps, bones, fur and a dirty smear of blood. Blackwood watches it all, rapt until the final dying shriek, bolt straight in his saddle and when the fox stops keening; everything from the set of his shoulders to his curled fists around the reins is taut as a bowstring.
He's smouldering when he turns to Coward, no other word for it and urges his mount into a canter once they've broken free of the woodland and are back on the fields. Coward lets his horse amble along, the dogs wagging their rails behind him and tumbling over each other like some joyful retainer.
It's a pageantry that suits Blackwood. He looks like a conquering general there, parading up and down the horizon, but Coward doesn't ride to meet him and after a few moments of this casual refusal, Blackwood rounds his horse to trot back down through the mid morning mist.
"I don't believe you've never been on a hunt before," Coward calls out as soon as Blackwood is close enough to hear.
The colour is high in Blackwood's face, more crimson and cream. It would be impossible to pick the cause; the cool, crisp air, exertion, excitement, were it not for the set of his jaw. Decidedly impatient, though it softens a little at Coward's words. Blackwood snorts.
"Not foxes, no," he says, tugging his horse round to draw in tandem with Coward.
Coward bows his head, contrition and flirtation in one to Blackwood but also to keep his smile to himself. Blackwood does not like to have his authority on any matter put into question.
"Of course," Coward says.
From the corner of his eyes he catches the jerk of Blackwood's head toward him. Coward watches as the grass is flattened by the hooves of his horse.
"There should have been blood," Coward says, quiet, apologetic. "You should have been blooded."
He touches his mouth unconsciously, thumbing his bottom lip. The small shiver that passes through him has nothing to do with the cold.
"Coward," Blackwood says.
His voice is quiet too and it may have been lost amidst the snuffled breath of the horses and the sounds of the dogs were it not for the simple steel of power there. Coward looks at him.
"Don't worry," Blackwood continues. "I will have blood."
He turns away as he speaks and Coward feels his heart being tugged along with it. There is some simple cadence in Blackwood's tone that sets his head to buzzing, roars like an ocean in the cave of his chest. They have mastered resurrection, no matter how many times he burns himself to ash under Blackwood's hand, he will rise again. He can give up his blood over and over, sacrifice himself a thousand times and it will never be the whole of what he has given to Blackwood.
Henry knows him.
This time when Blackwood kicks his horse into a canter, Coward follows suit.
-
This whole room is an altar. Cold, hollow, hallowed ground. A secret place kept behind a locked door at the very top of Blackwood's country home.
There's a large cross at the far end, both shadowed by the old oak beams that rise up to the ceiling and bisected by the light that falls through the slotted windows. There are circles of power painted on the floorboards, numberless names of Gods that can be read forward, backward, criss crossed to make new meanings.
Their footsteps have the same quality of echo as if they were in a church. No dust to kick up, only the swirling atmosphere of a long forgotten death chamber, a presence so heavy the air feels thick with it.
"Nicholas," Blackwood says and the sound dissolves throughout the room.
In the shadows, Coward's hands are trailing over the body of the cross. He ducks behind it at the sound of Blackwood's voice, pressing his back to the wood. There are more mirrors up here, naturally, Blackwood understands the power behind image. Coward catches the blur of his own movement in one, half shrouded in darkness and blackened with spots of age.
"Nicholas," Blackwood says again, right at his ear.
Coward starts but Blackwood holds him back against the cross. He puts his gloved fingers to Coward's mouth and Coward opens so they can push inside, the taste of leather bitter on his tongue.
"I always thought there was something quite obscene about the way we figure angels," Blackwood murmurs. "We make virtue far too tempting. What would you do with a mouth so ripe?"
Coward bites at the end of Blackwood's finger and takes his wrist, pushing his hand away, tugging his glove off with his teeth.
"So am I an angel then?" Coward asks.
"Well, you will be..." Picking his words, Blackwood hesitates for a moment but Coward is ready to finish the statement as soon as it's begun.
"Your herald." Coward laughs and lets his head fall back against the cross. "What, should I tell them 'do not be afraid'? Lord Blackwood has come again. Oh they should be afraid, Henry. They will be."
"Yes," Blackwood agrees, another hesitation but this time it's as if he's savouring the simple truth of the word.
Coward holds Blackwood's gaze in the murky, dying silver of the mirror. It muddies the red of their coats to a dull maroon.
(John.)
And later, once their clothes are cast on the ground and Blackwood takes up his knife and the sun sinks slowly in red, the air is clotted too.
(This is how we know it is the last hour.)
"Do you want to see what I see?" Coward asks, hand held out, blade resting in his palm.
(They went out from us, but they did not really belong to us.)
Any other creature would sicken and die on the breath they share. They were not made for God or man, but for each other. Standing naked now before the eyes of the Lord, before each other. Blackwood's hands close around his, forcing his fingers to curl into a tight fist around the knife's blade like a moonflower in the sun.
(For if they had belonged to us, they would have remained with us.)
"I know what you see," Blackwood says.
A velvet of maroon, his eyes screwed shut, the bridge of his nose pressed against Blackwood's shoulder. The hand around his is insistent, inescapable and eternal.
"One, one, one," Coward gasps deliriously against Blackwood's skin. The knife feels like a shard of ice in his palm, burning bitter against the wound it's carving in his flesh. Bloods flows free, wet and warm between them. Blackwood tightens his grip and Coward groans. "Heaven."
He grasps the handle of the knife with his free hand and pulls.
(But their going showed that none of them belonged to us.)
His scream is still echoing when Coward raises his head, bottom lip chewed bloody.
"One heaven," he sighs, a smile like euphoria rising on his face. "Our kingdom."
The knife drops to the floor with a clatter. Coward places his bleeding hand on the side of Blackwood's face and Blackwood covers it with his own. Does he see Henry in those eyes? Does he see himself? Blackwood's gaze is entirely unlocked and so, so tender. Even a dragon will lay on its belly for you if you feed it from your own hand.
"Everything?" Blackwood says, breathless.
Coward grins. "Everything. Everyone. All of it belongs to us, Henry. We'll show them real magic and they'll beg to worship us."
Blackwood takes Coward's wrist and brings his hand across his cheek, over his mouth. The stripe of crimson on his face looks like war paint.
(I do not to write to you because you do not know the truth but because you do know it and because no lie comes from the truth.)
The slide of blood over skin. Lines divided, not between black and white, but between red and white. It's all so simple. Coward sees black when he sees blood anyway. In his mind it conjures images of that deep, dying black of lifeblood, the colour blood runs when it's spilling out in gouts too heavy to mean anything but death. These pretty wine smudges that he's painting Blackwood's chest with are just enough to arouse.
Coward leans in to kiss his own blood from Blackwood's mouth, licking his way inside with a hungry tongue. His injured hand flutters as it makes its ways down Blackwood's stomach, flinching as he grips the firm angle of Blackwood's hip. He pushes his palm against the bone with a choked gasp of pain. It's a needy sound and when Blackwood kisses him back, harder, he repeats the noise, trying for wanton.
His good hand slips between them, wrapping around Blackwood's cock as his head dips to follow the speckle of red across Blackwood's collarbone with cluttered kisses.
"Other hand, Coward," Blackwood says and laughs at Coward's shudder as he swaps.
(Who is the liar?)
He's ready to get down on all fours when Blackwood shoves him up against the cross.
They fight over this part sometimes, Coward likes being turned ink black with bruises, emptied of everything but the roiling thrum of the violence Blackwood pours into him.
But Blackwood's commands are as soft now as the wood is hard.
"Arms up," he murmurs from behind, tracing Coward's skin from shoulder to wrist, holding Coward's hands against the top of the crossbar on either side. "Lovely."
There are nails hammered into either end of the wood. Ornate, vicious looking things right in place for a real crucifixion and Coward grips onto them. Every muscle in his back feels taught, tight, his nerves high-strung. There is a hunger in Blackwood's voice that excites him dreadfully.
"They whipped him you know, whipped him first," he says and swallows saliva that tastes of iron, running his tongue over his bottom lip, the sting sharp and reassuring.
"Scourged," Blackwood corrects. "And maybe next time."
Coward's laugh flickers up to the ceiling. He grinds the flesh of his palms against the twisted iron of the nails and knows, yes, next time. He'll come while Blackwood is paring the skin from his back and he doesn't want that now. He needs the unbearable fullness of Blackwood inside him.
(It is the man who denies that Jesus is the Christ.)
The friction of pleasure dragged out in wet moans and the slap of sweat slicked flesh on flesh.
Harder, he doesn't say, Blackwood's obliging his unspoken plea with each thrust and Coward can't talk, can't even get enough air over the cries being wrenched from his throat.
It hurts so much, so good, so perfect. Sharp, sharp agony in his hands and the dull desperate ache of his ribs crushed against the wood and that sweet hot pain, violent sex that rips pleasure through him.
(Such a man is the antichrist-he denies the Father and the Son.)
"Lord!" Coward cries.
(I am writing these things to you about those who are trying to lead you astray.)
Collapsed at the foot of the cross like the victim of some great desecration, Coward's eyes are half closed, satisfied and lazy. Blackwood is beautiful in the aftermath, warm and basking against him like some sort of sun god. He talks into Coward's ear with the right lilt for a snake and Coward smiles.
"Tell me about the future," Blackwood says.
Eternal victory. Eternal loss that chill shadow which stalks them both. But eternal still and as Coward turns to look into Blackwood's eyes he understands that it's the only word that really matters.
Their path has always been clear.