There's a particularly nice little restaurant/bar, just fifteen minutes' walk from Will's house, which goes by the (no doubt ironic) name of Valhalla. He's seated near the back, nursing black coffee and blacker mood, when a too-familiar silhouette darkens the table in front of him. It's accompanied by an arm slung heavily across his shoulders, and he wonders what sheer idiocy possessed him to sit with his back to the door.
"Buy you a drink?"
Disbelief. Fear. Confusion. Nervousness. Fear. (Intrigue.) Fear.
"I said," repeats Chainsaw, his tone shifting to a dangerous purr as he moves into view and leans down over the table, "can I buy you a drink?"
Will blinks. A multitude of potential responses flicker across his mind and are discarded as dangerous, idiotic, or both. At first the only thing he can think to do is take the last sip of his coffee. (It tastes, if possible, of surprise.)
Finally-- a good five seconds later, five seconds spent growing increasingly nervous under Chainsaw's mockingly cheerful gaze-- he offers a cautious nod. "Sure."
Chainsaw does not buy things so much as he orders them; when he approaches the bar, the 'tender gains a look of mildly terrified compliance. Will does not venture to suggest what drink; Chainsaw does not offer.
"Two shots of Liquid Cocaine," he says, and lowers his voice. Will strains his ears futilely to catch the rest; it's not a name he recognizes, and he is suddenly, unaccountably nervous.
When the drinks arrive the air is heavy with the scent of cinnamon. Pleasant-- just this side of overpowering, but with its own violent charm. Chainsaw slides into his seat and nods to the pair of glasses on the table, giving Will the chance to pick one. A move calculated to be reassuring? Reassuring of what? Poison would be particularly pointless, down here. He shakes his head and chooses at random-- left-- lifts the glass, and drains it recklessly, giving himself no time to think.
Cinnamon, impossibly strong, far more than his nose warned. Fluid agony, drowning his tongue and the roof of his mouth, adding to the burn of the alcohol down his throat. He chokes on the flashback, barely managing to swallow, and gasps in a startled breath.
Chainsaw snickers as he sets his own empty shot glass down on the table.
Will glares, but there's a hint of a smile in it. As sadistic tricks go, this one was pretty mild. And once the memory of torture settles away from the memory of the drink... hey, it was actually pretty good. He relaxes slightly, and smiles-- smirks-- across the table with a nod of half-challenging gratitude. Not broken yet.
"Quiet today, aren't we," the torturer comments, leaning back in his seat and lacing his fingers together behind his head.
Will turns his glass around and around in his fingers, listening to it click against the dull plastic of the table, watching the last drop of alcohol chase itself along the circumference of the tiny enclosure. It's a familiar sight. Poor thing. Deliberately, he raises the glass to his lips and puts the dribble out of its misery. Across the table, Chainsaw snorts a laugh.
"Talked to Eights the other day," he mentions idly. "You didn't come up."
It's a question, or a demand. Little enough difference. Will shakes his head, hesitates, shakes it again a moment later.
"She's not my personal hit squad," he says, his tone softly wry.
"Tell her that."
Will quirks a smile. "I did." In those exact words, too.
Chainsaw's eyebrows hit the ceiling. "And she listened? What's your secret? You're not fucking her, are you? You're fucking her."
The look of eloquent sarcasm on Will's face speaks for itself, but he responds verbally nonetheless. "I am not--" slight grimace-- "fucking her."
"You're not fucking her," Chainsaw agrees, narrowing his eyes in speculation. "It wouldn't help. I'd know. So how'd you do it?"
There's a long silence, broken only by the contemplative click of glass against plastic, and by the impatient drumming of Chainsaw's fingers on the table as he raises his eyebrows and waits.
"If I knew," says Will finally, lifting his hand from his empty glass, "why would I tell you?"
A snort. "Do I even need to go there? I broke Eights once. I could get it out of you no sweat."
"I'm not Eights," Will replies, his voice even, hand trembling slightly against the table.
"No." Thoughtfully. "You're not."
Another silence, this one more restful. Companionable, almost. Will finds he can restrain himself from fidgeting with his glass, and does. His hands are steady, motionless, where they rest folded by his empty coffee cup.
"Let's go back to your place," says Chainsaw suddenly. Will gives him an incredulous look, and starts to shake his head. Chainsaw raises his eyebrows. I can make you, they assert, eloquently. Humour me.
Will opens his mouth. Closes it. Shrugs, finally, the motion wry with amused defeat.
"All right," he says, pushing back his chair to stand.
The journey home is unnerving. Both men walk with their hands in their pockets, Chainsaw practically breathing relaxed confidence, Will more reserved-- almost, but not quite, subdued.
Three minutes out, Chainsaw breaks the silence.
"Any decent alcohol at your house?" he inquires, his tone implying that he's reasonably certain of an answer in the negative.
Obligingly, Will shakes his head.
"Right. We're stopping at a liquor store."
With a nod and a very what the hell, might as well shrug, Will changes directions, taking them down a side street where Chainsaw proceeds to near-literally raid the store in question. Makes you wonder what kind of effect torturers with entitlement complexes have on the Downside economy, Will thinks, and snorts to himself.
Predictably, Chainsaw makes him carry the bottles.
When they arrive, Will discovers that against all odds the familiarity of home is a comfort to him. It gives context to Chainsaw's disconcerting nonviolence, his change of gears from sadism into mischief. Whatever the source of his fey mood, it is somehow appropriate to the setting. So much so that Will isn't even particularly surprised when he produces a pack of cards and arranges himself on the couch by the coffee table.
"Since you're not feeling chatty," Chainsaw explains, "I figure we can get in a good game or two. Warm you up a little."
Against all probability, he finds his hands moving-- setting down the assortment of alcohol, finding glasses, mixing drinks. He doesn't even know how to make a... whatever this is; vodka is involved, but to no recipe he recognizes. --Well, now he does.
That's an oddly benign use for torturer's control.
He moves to the couch on his own initiative when the command fades away, bringing Chainsaw his mystery drink, then seats himself at the coffee table and raises his eyebrows.
"Well? What are we playing?"
Chainsaw just grins.
"Hey, buddy," calls Eights as she unlocks the door (Will has never felt it politic to ask where she got a key). "Brought you some-- oh what the fucking fuck."
A kilogram of coffee grounds falls from her hands and hits the floor with a decisive thud. The paper bag strains but does not break. Will looks up from the table and can't help but smile, even as Chainsaw (sprawled across the couch with a martini and a languid grin, his cards held loosely in his off hand) laughs outright. "Strip poker," says the torturer, jauntily. "Want in?"
Her eyes flick assessingly over the bizarre spectacle. Will is shirtless but otherwise fully clothed, settled neatly into an armchair; everything about his body language says wary but having fun nevertheless. Chainsaw lounges on the couch wearing his best feline grin, a pair of neat black silk boxers, and one sock. Losing, badly, but apparently happy about it. (Well, she's always suspected him of exhibitionism.)
Snorting and shaking her head, Eight-Hour kneels to pick up the coffee. "Yeah, save me a spot for next game. I think this time around I'd prefer to watch."
She's surprised to hear Will laugh first, although under the circumstances it's not as astonishing as it could be.
"If you're looking for a glimpse of Willy's willy, you'll be waiting a while," Chainsaw informs her, lifting his head to talk over the back of the couch as she heads for the kitchen. "Little bitch bluffs like a motherfucker."
Will smirks, and says absolutely nothing.
"Wipe that smug look off your face," the torturer grumbles. Something passes between the two of them-- a flinch from Will, answered by a triumphant smile from Chainsaw, which Will parries by means of a snort of laughter and an honest grin. Eights isn't certain what to make of it, which disturbs her immensely until she notes with satisfaction that Chainsaw doesn't quite get it either. Will, on the other hand, practically shines with quiet confidence. And it's considerably more than she can reasonably accredit to his success at poker.
Well, if only one person in this room is going to understand what the fuck is going on, all things considered she'd pick Will out of the three of them.
"Anybody want a coffee?" she inquires, setting down her burden on the counter. "And by anybody I mean Will. Baby, you can make your own."
"No, thank you," replies Will with a smile.
Chainsaw snorts. "I can get him to make it for me, you mean."
Eights raises her eyebrows. "Ain't that a little domestic?" she mocks, unthinkingly.
A slow grin from the torturer. "Oh, you're right. I should find something more... interesting to do with him. Huh, Willy?"
Will freezes in place-- a momentary panic, no more. Eight-Hour slams the lid on self-recriminations and swaggers elegantly into the room, looking down at Chainsaw with calculated disdain. "C'mon," she says, leaning over the couch to ruffle his hair and breaking the tension with a fond, teasing smile. "Don't be an ass. We all know how big your cock is. No need to strut."
She tries not to wonder why Will is laughing even as Chainsaw swats her hand irritably away from his head. "I'll break your wrist," he warns halfheartedly; Eights smirks, darts down to kiss his forehead. "Later," she purrs in a voice full of promise. Will rolls his eyes. The calmness of him is jarring. When did he stop acting like-- well, like a liveling? It usually doesn't hit them this hard this fast. She's not sure whether to blame Chainsaw or thank him. Likely both.
Nibbling her lip in thought, she occupies the room's second armchair to watch the game. Will really is wiping the floor with Chainsaw. The latter does not appear to mind, which is also uncharacteristic. She's never known him to be particularly happy about losing at things, even when the things are strip poker.
With great drama and solemnity, he forfeits his lone sock. Eights snickers. Will smirks. Chainsaw grins arrogantly and hooks a thumb under the waistband of his boxers-- okay, so maybe it is straight-up exhibitionism. On the other hand, if he's trying to make Will uncomfortable-- she spares a glance in that direction-- it would appear he is failing miserably.
Maybe he's just drunk. That martini doesn't look to be the first of its kind. Has either of them eaten anything? Two men in an apartment with no visible dirty dishes anywhere: no. Has Will been drinking? Thankfully also no, looks like-- the empty glasses appear to congregate on Chainsaw's side of the table. Just like him to hog all the alcohol for himself. Although it's probably not helping his poker game any.
At some point, Will excuses himself to the bathroom, citing an overabundance of coffee.
When he opens the door, drying his hands on a towel, it's to find Chainsaw leaning against the wall and looking at him with an inscrutably speculative expression.
He swallows. Hangs the towel from its rack. Steps out of the bathroom, closing the door behind him.
"Yes?"
"She's not pissed at me." Chainsaw sounds suspicious, or amused, or both. "What did you tell her?"
Will glances to the side; the corners of his mouth curve upwards just slightly. "The truth." (What else?)
"The truth," he repeats, incredulously. "What, all of it?"
"Some. Enough."
Chainsaw shakes his head. "And what," he asks after a brief silence, "did she tell you?"
Taking a slow breath, Will chooses his words carefully. "That you never cheat at solitaire," he replies at last, his tone even, his smile faint but genuine.
The torturer barks a laugh, steps forward, and snakes out a hand to wrap demandingly around the back of Will's neck.
Fifteen minutes later, when they return (a little breathless) to the poker game, Eights doesn't ask what kept them. It seems obvious.
"Well, fuck you all," Chainsaw declares, rising from the couch with dramatically false annoyance. Will rolls his eyes. Eights leans over to smack Chainsaw's ass as he wriggles out of his underwear, whereupon he really does break her wrist.
The sound of bone cracking and splintering prompts Will into one of his split-second freezes.
Eights, for once, doesn't notice a thing; she's a little too busy getting up and heading towards the bathroom to torch politely out of sight. This sort of thing is par for the course when you're playing poker with Chainsaw.
As soon as he can breathe again, Will closes his eyes for a moment. Some deep-laid instinct prompts him to take the direct approach. On the strength of past successes, he obeys.
"You haven't hurt me yet," he says, opening his eyes and regarding the now-nude Chainsaw steadily.
"No," Chainsaw agrees, meeting his eyes and offering a less-than-pleasant grin. "Want me to?"
A smirk drifts unbidden across Will's lips. "What'll you do," he inquires, steady as ever, "if I say yes?"
"This." He clears the coffee table in a nimble hop and has Will pinned to his armchair in seconds.
None of what follows involves pain, or at least not more than tangentially.
Eight-Hour leaves without bothering to reenter the living room.
"So Willy."
Will lets out a small, exhausted sound of inquiry.
"What were you gonna do if I didn't let you go?"
There is a thoughtful pause.
Finally: "Why do you ask?"
"Bored. Curious. Answer me or I'll nail your cock to your stomach." Chainsaw's tone is even, matter-of-fact. Will closes his teeth on the words You've used that one before, and shrugs.
"Guess it wouldn't have been up to me, would it?"
"Flattery will get you nowhere."
"With you, when it's true? Flattery will get me anywhere I want to go." He speaks without thinking, and the words drop into a sudden quiet. As the silence lengthens, fear tightens his stomach; has he said something wrong? He doesn't dare turn his head to look. The moment stretches; the sound of Chainsaw's breathing is a slow, cyclic hiss, almost mechanical in its regularity.
He laughs. Will relaxes.
"And where," Chainsaw murmurs, twisting his fingers into Will's hair, "do you want to go right now?"
Pensively, Will brushes his hand over the carpet an inch from his nose. "The bedroom," he says aloud, "would be a great start."
"So." The weight atop him shifts; Chainsaw's voice sounds in his ear, loud and close and very, very amused. "Flatter me."
"Nnnh-- oh, fuck--"
"I'm sorry," purrs Chainsaw, "what was that?"
Half groan, half gasp: "You asshole."
"Mm. Flattering enough. Let's go." He takes his hand away, ruffles Will's hair, and bounds to his feet. Will follows after a momentary pause, heaving himself up off the floor and staggering in the vague direction of the hall. Chainsaw turns back to laugh at him. "Having a little trouble walking straight, are we?"
"I can't imagine why," Will deadpans, stabilizing himself on the back of the couch. "Besides," this with a glance at Chainsaw's hand, wrapped securely around the frame of the living room door, "I see I'm not the only one with coordination issues. One too many martinis?"
"There's no such thing as too many martinis. Until I can't get it up. Then we have a problem."
"On the other hand," counters Will, "you're gonna stay clumsy until you sober up; I'm better already." He releases his grip on the couch and lifts his hands pointedly away.
"Yeah? Come here and let's see how long that lasts."
"Thought we were headed for the bedroom."
Chainsaw leans out into the hall and judges the distance by eye. "Bedroom's too far away," he concludes.
"It's ten steps at most," says Will, brushing past.
Grinning, Chainsaw snags Will around the waist and pushes him into the wall. "Yeah," he replies, "and that's too far away."
"Horny bastard," Will groans, slumping against the plain beige wallpaper. "F--"
Whatever else he was going to say, it's neatly forestalled by Chainsaw's tongue in his mouth, Chainsaw's hips pressed to his, Chainsaw's hands on his face forcing open his jaw and shoving him back against the wall. The sheer vivid brutality of it is incredible. He gasps, with difficulty, and raises his hands--
Or not.
Control forces him into complete passivity. He can't move, can't react, either to resist or to participate. Trapped with the wall at his back and his personal space full of drunk horny torturer, he's terrified; with Chainsaw's tongue sliding against his and a hand reaching down between them to stroke his cock, he's aroused. He can act on neither impulse.
The utter lack of agency is frightening in its own right, at first. After the initial shock clears, however, fear dims to frustration and frustration to simple calm. His heart stops hammering in his chest; the muted roar of panic fades from his ears. He finds his eyes are closed, and opens them.
With a disgusted growl, Chainsaw pulls away, releasing control at the same time. It takes Will a few seconds to follow the tangled logic of the moment, but when he does, it all becomes startlingly clear. Chainsaw never cheats at solitaire, he thinks, and keeps the grin from blossoming on his face with effort as he lets the torturer lead him ten steps down the hall.
It's another few weeks before he sees Chainsaw again. This time his choice of seat in Valhalla is deliberate, and he knows who's walked in the door by the sudden conspicuous absence of a stir. No need to turn around. The shadow over his table and the strong hand ruffling his hair are an inevitable corroboration of the theory.
"Chainsaw."
"Got it in one. How you been?"
"Just fine, thank you. And you?"
Dropping into the seat opposite Will, Chainsaw raises his eyebrows: an 'are you for real?' look. Will's answering nod could stand either for a greeting or an affirmative. Between them, it manages both.
"Stellar," he chirps. "What is that, coffee? Again? Shit, Willy, do you ever have any fun?"
"Plenty." He lets a smile creep onto his face. "Some of it even while you're around."
"Good to know you're not a total loss. I'm gonna take you back to my place and fuck you up."
Will very carefully refrains from choking on his coffee. The timing on that statement was deliberate; it had to be. A glance across the table at that bright razor smile confirms what he already knew: he is to have no say in this.
"Well," he replies, setting down his cup, "at least I didn't have any plans for today."
The sheer fatalistic bravado of the statement prompts Chainsaw to raise his eyebrows again. Will shrugs, a motion of wry, defeated humour. The torturer starts to laugh.
"Are you fucking baked? That's it? You're not even going to try and stop me?"
He smiles slightly. "Would it do me any good?" he counters.
"No." Snort. "Fair enough."
When Chainsaw hops to his feet and heads for the door, Will follows. He doesn't know if control compels him to, and he doesn't particularly care; what matters is that he chooses to go, whether or not he could have chosen otherwise. This feeling of freedom will be the last he experiences for a while, and he intends to enjoy it while he can.
Judging by Chainsaw's amused expression, there is no control in effect; judging by the hundred little signals of posture and movement, there was going to be.
It's getting harder to tell himself it doesn't matter.
Chainsaw is watching his inner conflict with a mocking smile.
Still not too terrified to see the humour in his situation, Will grins back, and is rewarded by another split-second look of disbelief. They're getting rarer; Chainsaw is starting to accustom himself to this new, bizarre recklessness.
If he wants to keep being surprising, he's going to have to find a new trick.
The thought provides a successful distraction from who he's with and where they're going, at least for a minute or two. By the time he engages with the world again, he's seated on a familiar hard, uncomfortable plastic chair with Chainsaw's arm heavy around his shoulders and Chainsaw's hand--
"Hey!"
Soft snicker. "Something wrong, Willy?"
"...no," he answers, quiet and shamefaced and trying not to squirm.
"Good."
To emphasize the point, Chainsaw squeezes a little harder. Will shifts uncomfortably, trapped between the arm weighing on his shoulders and the hand caressing his groin. Despite the fact that they're the only two people on the tiny car, the subway feels distressingly public. The sense of violation is somehow more acute than it's ever been in the privacy of his own home or Chainsaw's dungeon.
And the bastard knows it.
"What would you do," wonders that bastard aloud, "if I told you to take off your pants right now?"
Will shudders, part repelled, part aroused. Mostly the former.
Snickering, Chainsaw nuzzles his ear. "Better think fast," he murmurs playfully, "or you'll be leaving them on the train."
He grits his teeth against a number of ill-advised replies, then gasps at the sudden wet heat of Chainsaw's tongue on his ear. Caught on the border of disgust and desire, he knows just how much of an enticing spectacle he's making right now.
The knowledge triggers a surge of unaccustomed anger.
"Fuck off," he snarls, jerking his head away. A split second later he freezes stone-still, cold with the sudden rush of dread, not even daring to breathe.
The moment stretches.
Stretches.
Snaps.
Chainsaw is laughing, withdrawing one hand and ruffling Will's hair with the other.
"That's what I like to see," he says, and gets to his feet. "You were almost starting to bore me there. C'mon, our stop."
Not my stop. Ours.
As he follows the torturer out of the subway, he wonders if he's attaching the wrong kind of significance to that statement.
They pass the distance to the house in relative silence, and then the trip down the stairs, until Will is wondering if the quiet is another way to play with his head.
Just inside the door to the dungeon, mere seconds after it closes behind them, it finally ends.
"So. Willy." Chainsaw is grinning. "Just how crazy are you?"
Will doesn't answer. It doesn't seem necessary. Proving him right, Chainsaw keeps talking with hardly a pause.
"I mean, most people do what I tell them to 'cause they're scared I'll fuck 'em up, but you?"
He leans in closer, as though to emphasize the point.
"You practically fucking ask me to. You go along with me and you laugh at my jokes and you blush like a Catholic fucking schoolgirl when I grope you on the train. You're not dumb enough to think I'll go easy on you, so what gives?"
Even if he knew the answer, Will isn't sure whether or not he'd give it. As things stand, he shrugs it off.
"Fine. Don't tell me-- yet."
No trick of the mind or game of perception could forestall the cold little knot that tightens in his stomach when he hears that last word drop into the air like a bomb. Chainsaw watches, his grin broadening with every moment, and they stay locked in this tableau for several seconds before he breaks it again.
"Get on the table."
Will looks from torturer to workspace and raises his eyebrows incredulously. It's a test, of course. One of Chainsaw's games. Does he do it or not? Play along or act out? Which one is the better answer; where is the path of least pain?
At that last thought, a kind of certainty settles over him. It's not reassuring, but it's solid, which is the next best thing.
There is no right answer.
No matter what he does, Chainsaw is going to hurt him, and hurt him badly. No matter what he does, his action or inaction will be used against him, probably in ways he can't currently imagine.
Through the rapidly growing terror, he reaches back into memory and feels that first rush of triumph all over again, curving his lips in a small, amused smile.
"Make me," he taunts, and the astonished snort of laughter from Chainsaw is all the spoils his fleeting victory could ask for.
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