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“You,” Luca snarled, glaring at Alva fucking Lorenz with all the force he could muster. The effect was somewhat diminished, he suspected, with his arms tied behind his back, and the two cultists gripping hard on shoulders.
“Me,” Alva said simply. “Hello, dear boy.”
“Don’t call me that, you lying bastard—“ He was cut off abruptly by one of the cultists shoving a gag into his mouth. Quite rude of them, if Luca was being honest.
Alva simply smiled, in that placid way Luca once used to admire. Bastard, he was a bastard, Luca had to keep reminding himself so he wouldn’t fall for the same stupid nonsense again. It was Alva’s fault he was in this mess in the first place.
The cultist shoved Luca forward, and Alva walked alongside. Notably, he wasn’t bound, allowed to walk freely unescorted. Another treachery on the books for Alva fucking Lorenz, it seemed—it was so like him to set Luca up to fall into being an avatar of one power just to pledge his allegiance to another insane group entirely.
Alva looked good, and it pissed Luca off more. He had a new haircut, Luca couldn’t help but notice. He hadn’t seen Alva in months, not since someone had framed him for murder and he’d had to run. He wondered if Alva would still deny it was him who had done it.
God, Luca had been stupid to fall for that tridactylidae.
The cultists roughly shoved him forward into a circle drawn in something dark on the ground. It seemed to pulse and ooze in a way Luca couldn’t explain. It made his skin crawl. Darkness and obscurity was almost as antithetical to his patron as the uncanny unknown of a stranger, he remembered Alva saying once. He didn’t know how he’d be able to fight his way out of this one.
His burner phone was still in his pocket. If he could just reach it, he had Norton and Naib on speed dial; all he’d need is a chance to hit the two little buttons. If he could just untie his hands, or create some slack, they could still—
Alva stepped close, entering the circle himself. He leaned into to whisper, “don’t even think about trying it,” directly into Luca’s ear. Luca snarled around the gag, disappointed he couldn’t bite.
“You’re letting your emotions get the better of you,” Alva continued, still barely above a whisper. It was the same tone he’d taken in all their mentoring sessions, and it was almost painful to hear again. “Letting the fear creep in. Master it, Mr. Balsa. Look. What do you see?”
Luca glared at Alva for a moment, annoyed enough to be contrary. Alva stared back, expression perfectly blank, challenge met. Luca huffed a breath, and then did as he was told.
He looked around slowly, taking in the entire scene. There were maybe twenty cultists in total, all wearing dark robes. Some of them wore the silver pendants of the People's Church of the Divine Host, as expected. They looked like they were waiting for something, for someone to give them guidance. They were all turned towards Alva.
Alva, pointedly, was not wearing a symbol of the People's Church. Instead, he only wore his usual strange little open eyed cross necklace, just visible under his shirt. That was interesting.
Around them were more concentric circles Luca hadn't noticed before. The outermost were beginning to fill with the inky blackness the line's pulsed with. He knew, somehow, in that way he had started to simply know things lately, that he had approximately an hour before the circles would fill in completely and reach Alva and him. Ah. So that was a time limit.
This was their ritual. They had decided to make Luca the centerpiece. And they were following Alva's lead. But something wasn't right.
"You've realized it then," Alva said, smiling just slightly. I'm not one of theirs. Alva didn't speak it aloud, but Luca heard it clear as day anyways.
Luca nodded. Alva had lied to them, too, it seemed.
"I've been working for a long time on this," Alva murmured. Working for a long time to double cross them. "I didn't want you to be here, but I knew you would find your way to them eventually, ever since you left. Or that they would find you, after the incident with Mr. Holt. I'll need your help, Luca." I need you to help me stop this.
"Why?" Luca managed out around the gag.
Alva took a deep breath, gaze steady on Luca. "Because the world won't ever be the same if the People's Church succeeds." That will mean you had the chance to save the world, and did nothing to help.
Alva really always knew what to say to wear him down.
"I don't like that he's looking so much," one of the cultists said, from what Luca presumed was the head of the circle. He had the largest pendant, pointing, Luca assumed, to his authority. "Mr. Lorenz, you ought to blindfold him. It's nearly time."
"Understood," Alva called out. He pulled a length of dark cloth from his pants pocket, and held it out to Luca. Softly, he said, "I am going to need you to trust me, dear boy."
Luca swallowed hard. He'd rather do just about anything but trust Alva Lorenz again. But what other choice did he have? He nodded, trying to fight down the rising panic as Alva stripped him of his sight.
The darkness was awful.
All around him, Luca could hear sounds--the rustling of the cultists robes, the sound of their breathing, the slow trickle of brackish water through the circles. He felt adrift in it, like he was sinking under the surface of the ocean. He suddenly understood what Alva had meant when he insisted that the dark was against them.
But then a hand grabbed his forearm, anchoring him. He would recognize the writing callouses on that thumb and ring-finger anywhere.
"Easy, easy, I've got you," Alva's soft voice murmured in Luca's ear. Luca hated how much that did to ease his nerves.
"Remember you've got to claim the sacrifice," a voice called out, a different cultist than before. "The symbolic—thing."
"The symbolic triumph over the denizen of another power," the first cultist replied coolly. "Mr. Lorenz, we're counting on you. We'll begin the ritual now."
The sound of low chanting began to fill the chamber, twenty voices in unison. Luca didn't recognize the language, but he understood it was an invocation to a place. How strange--how did the People's Church know where fear dwelled? How could they possibly have figured that out before he did? He almost let himself get lost in the thought, in his frustration, before Alva's hand slid up to cup his face.
"We're to give them a show, my dear," Alva murmured. Play along for now, Luca heard clearly. Luca couldn't help but snort.
"Didn't think the dark followers would all be perverts," Luca slurred around the gag. Alva huffed a laugh, and Luca felt something in his own treacherous little heart melt at the sound.
Then the gag was being moved down, and Alva was kissing him.
Kissing Alva was almost enough to distract him from everything. Alva always kissed with experience, with weight, like he'd had more time to learn than even his decade and a half on Luca would suggest. He swiped his tongue across the seam of Luca's mouth, and Luca opened for him easily. It was familiar, warm and easy like this was just another one of their little illicit after work trysts. A hand came up to fist into Luca's hair, and Luca couldn't help but melt.
It was embarrassing. Just utterly embarrassing, still falling for the bastard so easily.
"You missed me, then," Alva whispered against Luca's lips.
"Go to hell," Luca replied, before surging up to cover his mouth again.
Alva wasted no time getting Luca's shirt untucked, pushing it up to run a hand over his stomach. The asshole still knew all of Luca's most sensitive spots, and found them again with no mercy. Rough, clever fingers found their way easily up over the scars on his chest, and tweaked over a nipple. Luca gasped, and then swallowed a curse.
"You don't need to hold it in, my dear boy" Alva said, smirk clear in his voice. "As you said, everyone here is a pervert. The more you scream for me, the happier they will be."
Luca groaned. "I forgot somehow that you were the worst."
"You don't mean that," Alva murmured, kissing Lua's temple. "In fact, I suspect you missed me being a little cruel to you. Shall we test a hypothesis?"
Without more warning than that, there was suddenly an absence of sensation. Alva had pulled back entirely--Luca couldn't even feel the heat from his presence any no longer.
The panic started to rise again at the thought that he was alone in the dark. He felt loose and untethered, floating alone in the great dark abyss even as he knew, at the edge of his awareness, he was still standing in a room full of cultists. What's worse, is distantly, he could almost feel the weight of Alva's gaze on him. Seeing him. Watching him. Knowing, intimately, what Luca wanted, and denying him both pleasure and comfort.
Luca was suddenly, uncomfortably aware of the wetness between his legs.
Somewhere the wires in Luca's shit brain had crossed, his fear and his want getting all tangled up together until they were inexplicably linked. Alva was gone, and Luca was left aching for it. Luca was left afraid, left in danger, and he was maybe the horniest he had ever been.
He rubbed his legs together, but kept his mouth shut. He wouldn't give Alva the satisfaction of begging for him.
"I do want you to beg, though," Alva said, voice startling Luca, as if reading his mind, seeing his thoughts. "Perhaps I'll come back over there if you do."
"Not in a million years," Luca forced out through gritted teeth. "I won't beg for a traitor's touch."
"Oh, come now," Alva replied softly. "No need for that. I betrayed the institute, yes, but I never betrayed you. You were always the prize, Luca, the crown jewel."
If Luca's eyes weren't covered, he would be glaring. As it was, he could so clearly picture Alva's face it didn't matter—the stupid little frown, the hint of hurt that Luca had always been stupid enough to fall for. "What's that supposed to mean?"
A step back toward him, putting Alva close enough that Luca could feel his breath on his cheek. "Precisely what I said, dear boy. Everything I've done has been for you. Just because you can't see it yet doesn't mean it isn't true. All of this has always been for you. My most precious archivist."
Luca can't deny the ripple of pleasure that slides through him at the words, at Alva's praise. There was a time where that had been all he'd ever wanted.
Luca sighed. Alva was a bastard, but he was a fool. "Well. You gonna give these perverts a show, like you said?" He tilted his head upward towards where he knew Alva's face would be, plaintive. Trusting.
A soft kiss was dropped on his forehead in answer. "Of course, dear boy. All you had to do was ask."
Alva's hands were back on him in an instant.
The button on his pants didn't stand a chance now that Alva meant business. He made quick work of it, roughly shoving down both Luca's jeans and underwear in the same instant. The sudden cold was jarring, but Luca barely cared when one of Alva's big hands were sliding immediately back up to cup him. His long middle finger slid through Luca's folds, meeting absolutely no resistance.
“That’s flattering,” Alva murmured.
Luca felt himself blush to the roots of his hair. “Go fuck yourself.”
Another kiss is pressed into the corner of Luca’s jaw. “Now, now. I always enjoyed that you were easy, love.”
There was another swipe through his slit to tease him, and Luca barely held a whine behind his teeth. “Get on with it!” Luca hissed.
“As you wish.” Without more warning than that, Alva worked two fingers inside.
Luca couldn’t hold back a sigh.
He had always liked Alva’s hands. Long fingers, not particularly thick but good for stretching him, and attentive, too. With the same weight of experience he had with kissing, he always seemed to know just the right places to curl and press, just the right angles to rub against his dick as he fingered Luca. He’d come on Alva’s hands alone more times than he could count. He was well on his way to doing it again.
Alva at least took mercy on him, reaching around to untie Luca’s hands. The second they were free, Luca reached out in front of him blindly, grabbing impatiently, trying to find purchase somewhere on Alva’s body. He needed to anchor himself again. He found Alva’s hip. Using that to gauge the distance, he let his forehead fall against Alva’s chest, sagging his weight down. He’d let Alva do the work for awhile. All Luca concerned himself with was working his hand under Alva’s shirt to feel his skin, and trying not to let out too many awful noises when Alva added a third, and then fourth finger sliding in and out of his pussy.
“That’s it, my boy,” Alva whispered, directly into Luca’s ear. “Just let go. Focus on the feeling, the sensation. Expand out your senses. See and observe, without relying on your sight.”
Luca groaned. “Why are you making this one of your lessons, now of all times? How am I supposed to focus on anything but you buried to the wrist—hh—inside of me?”
Alva twisted his fingers just so, making Luca cry out. “This is how we stop the Dark. Focus, love. You must try.”
So Luca did as Alva wanted, trying to take in everything. If he concentrated hard, he could still almost hear over the sound of his own hitching breaths. He could still hear the chanting, but some of it was uneasily, other shallow breaths besides his own. He could still hear the slow movement of the brackish water, still far enough away; they still had time. For a second, in his mind’s eye, he felt like he could see himself from Alva’s point of view. But that was crazy right? Impossible?
Then Alva abruptly pulled his fingers out, pulling Luca back to his own body, pussy clenching uncomfortably around nothing. Luca couldn’t stop himself from whining. He cursed, mortified as a frustrated tear slid down his cheek.
Then two hands slid under Luca’s ass, hoisting him up and pushing him down on to Alva’s cock. Luca yelped in surprise, grabbing and sinking his nails into Alva’s shoulders. Alva seemed to like that, pushing in harder the next thrust.
Luca swallowed another loud moan. “Wouldn’t have thought you had the strength for this, old man,” he challenged.
“I’m full of surprises, love,” Alva replied, rocking his hips up just right to make Luca see stars.
Something strange started to happen as Alva fucked him. The strange awareness from before, of seeing from Alva’s point of view, started to crawl back into his periphery. He felt as though he saw Alva looking down at where his cock disappeared inside of Luca, felt something like his satisfaction and building pleasure. He saw from the view outside the circle, through a cultist’s eyes—felt how hard the man was, felt his distraction from the chanting, the smug satisfaction of knowing his ritual would soon come to pass. He passed seamlessly into the gaze of another, then another, then a third, until he felt like he was embodying the man in charge. This man knew that something was wrong. He felt the strangeness that Luca felt, the sudden uneasiness that came with the feeling of being watched. Both he and Luca felt the moment something changed.
“Touch yourself, Luca,” Alva said, punctuating the statement with a nip to Luca’s ear. Luca felt it as himself, but also as Alva sinking the teeth in.
The hand the reached between them to touch his dick was his own, but it was also Alva’s, and it was also something bigger. The feeling of being watched, the act of knowing, of uncovering too much. Something was here with them after all. Something had come when Alva and Luca had called—but it wasn’t the Dark.
With one final thrust, Alva came hard. Luca felt it, both inside and as Alva. Overwhelmed, he followed close behind. For a moment, everything was quiet, and still. Luca couldn’t process anything over the ringing in his ears and the feeling of Alva’s arms around him.
Then, distantly, someone started to scream.
Alva gently pushed the blindfold off of Luca just in time to watch the carnage unfold. The water that had been filling the circles started to reverse its course, spreading outward and escaping the carefully drawn lines. The trickle that had been flowing with the chanting became a torrent, whipping back towards the cultists. Most of them jumped back, but a few couldn’t react in time. Luca watched them disappear, as if pulled by an unseen hand, down into the water.
The others started to run, but the water was faster. One by one, the cultists were devoured by whatever lurked in the dark of the water, pulled down into an impossible depth. The last one standing was the head man, who turned to Alva with the terrified, furious eyes of a man about to meet his death.
“You knew,” he seethed, all but screaming in the cavernous space. “You played us all for fools. You were a snake all along.”
“The young man did try to tell you,” Alva said, voice perfectly level. He shifted Luca in his arms, working one hand under his legs and the other curling protectively around his torso. Luca, suddenly exhausted, leaned his head against Alva’s shoulder.
The man’s eyes narrowed. “Zeeman had been right—never trust the fucking Watcher, or the goddamn Lorenz institute.”
Zeeman, Luca thought sluggishly. That was his old name—his father’s name. What could that possibly mean? He filed that away for later, too wrung out to examine it now.
Alva snorted. “Are you certain you want those as your last words, sir?”
“I curse you,” the cultist said, just as the water started to reach his feet. “I curse you, and I curse your institute. May your plans never reach fruition. May you suffer for all the suffering you’ve enacted tenfold. May you—”
The sound of the man’s tirade was cut off as the water took him. All that was left of the People’s Church of the Divine Host was a sinking silence, and the inky blackness covering the ground.
“The Eye within the Dark… we always get our due,” Alva murmured, before shaking his head.
“How do we get out of here?” Luca slurred, barely clinging to consciousness. He didn’t understand why he was so tired—even sex with Alva, as good as it always had been, had never left him feeling quite like this. Something about what had happened; the strange thing he had done had taken more out of him than he had realized.
“The water will retreat shortly,” Alva said, with certainty. “Until then, you can rest. I’ll get us out of here to somewhere safe.”
“How can I trust you?” Luca muttered, already closing his eyes. “You’re a traitor, and a bastard.”
“You’ll know I mean you no harm, love.” Another kiss was dropped on Luca’s forehead. “Well done, my archivist. My dear boy.”