Title: Darken
Fandom: Brimstone
Rating: NC-17, Slash and Het. Dear god, I can't believe I just typed that.
Summary: He's had nightmares since the night that he found out who Ash was.
Notes: Dream sequences. Excessive contemplation. Repetition. Whee.

Actually, I just had this line wander into my head--the first one of the story, in fact. And then it sort of built a fic around it, the idea of which was enough to make me pause and give the bunny a long, wary stare. This is the first time I've ever written something in present tense, the first time I've written explicit sex, and, because it was short enough to finish, the first time I'll be actually putting slash sex out there. (Halfway, which is the first story I wrote with the last item, is turning into one of those fics that ate the world, and has paused, with over fifty-thousand words down on screen, at the end of Part One--of three.) So generally I'm, um, rather nervous about this whole thing. (Assuming 'rather nervous' stands in for 'had to be bludgeoned into posting it'....)
Warnings: General for explicit slash and het, general for slash in this fandom (in which the Devil is, after all, a central character), and See Notes.
Obligatory Disclaimer: This show isn't mine, nor are these characters. I think they belong to people at Fox. I propose we should conduct a raid of Fox and liberate them, as they've obviously been abused and misused. 13 Episodes? Please.
Blame: ...I think this one is actually my own fault. Which is so rare it's worth noting.
Thanks: To canthlian and rosaleendhu for the beta'ing. Extra thanks particularly to Canth for making me actually post the thing; I'd actually have preferred to keep beta'ing and editing but he beat me into putting the pen down and slapping the page up (metaphorically speaking).
Feedback: In comments is fine, or email at milkshake_butterfly @ yahoo.com, or, if you're as bad about such things as me, just try thinking really really positive thoughts in my direction. Anything will be happily received (unless it's a flame, of course).




Darken


How many of our daydreams would darken into nightmares
if there seemed any danger of their coming true!
Logan Pearsall Smith, Afterthoughts (1931) "Life and Human Nature"


He's had nightmares since the night that he found out who Ash was.

Zeke wonders, sometimes--when he thinks about it at all, which isn't often--if that might have been what drove him to seek out Rosalyn, despite the warnings from the Devil, despite even the best advice of an angel who was all but literally perched on his shoulder. In the end, perhaps, it turned out for the best; he can't say what Ash would or wouldn't have done if Zeke hadn't been there. But it worries him, sometimes, the possibility that, deep down, the reason for his tracking down his wife... his widow... at that particular time hadn't been because he still loved her and needed to see her again, or even to have some chance to say goodbye, to get closure. He worries that instead he might have been going to Ros as... an antidote. A shield. Something, someone, who could help him deny what he sees at night in his sleep, to stand between him and the thing he fears, to help him push away the terrible truth that seems to be rising from the depths of his subconscious. It might even have worked, clinging to her, using her to chase away the images that haunt him, except for the fact that it would have involved using her--and now, after the fact, he is honest enough with himself to admit that it would have, and still a good enough person to be appalled by that.

It doesn't make him want her there any less, though, on those nights he wakes up trembling and desperately afraid.

There are only two dreams, really, that make up the nightmares; constantly repeating, constantly cycling through. Which isn't to say they're the only things he dreams, because he still has the other ones, the normal ones. But these two, they come back, again and again, and sometimes when he considers it he remembers the pride in the Devil's voice when he talked about getting one just right. Zeke tries to avoid that thought, tries to avoid that memory, because it only makes things worse; it just adds fuel to the fire, and he is alarmed by the possibility that these are the Devil's work. Alarmed, despite the fact he thinks it should be comforting, soothing to imagine it's not his mind producing this; it should be helpful to think of it as something to fight against. Alarmed because of the fact that it's something he should fight against, whether they're the Devil's creations or not, and as far as that goes... Zeke is losing. And if they are the Devil's work, that means he is winning.

When you look at it that way, Zeke isn't sure which alternative is the better one.

The first dream is slightly more common than the second, which is something of a relief, if that word could in any way be associated with these things. It came to him first, the night after the events that inspired it happened, but it was... easier, much easier, to handle than the second was when he finally dreamt it. The first one was easier to dismiss, easier to shrug off with a thought of, 'wow, that was weird', particularly when he woke up alone in his bed with the sun shining through the window. And it's an indication of something, Zeke thinks, that he did wake up alone, but an indication of what he can't say. It could be as simple as a sign that the Devil doesn't know everything that goes through Zeke's mind, and he'd like to think that's the case.

In the dream, he's back in that car with Ash, feeling like they're driving at a thousand miles an hour though he knows they're standing still. There's a twinkle of lights above her and below her--stars and the city--but he sees them only peripherally, barely aware of them, because she is in front of him, above him, on top of him--and she is everything. Blonde hair that seems to glow in the dim, skin so pale and fair and perfect that he wonders how he kept himself from touching it all this time, lips as red as desire itself, and eyes that devour him, call to him and pull him forward. He's breathless as he kisses her, breathless just to touch her, but that's okay because he doesn't need to breathe. She makes it okay, makes it so he can almost feel his heart beating again, and he realizes only then how much of an absence that has left in his life. Ash smells like fresh rain, and she feels like silk and fire as she moves against him. She's going slowly, so slowly, with lingering touches and kisses that take forever, and yet she's going fast, so fast, and her hands are everywhere. Her body moves against him and her lips tease at his skin, but it's not enough, nowhere near enough; he wants more. He pulls at her clothes and she tugs at his, sliding his shirt off to bare his marked flesh to the night and her eyes, to show her what he is for the first time.

In the dream, her eyes--they look black in this lighting--widen, and her breath catches for a moment... but then she smiles, and leans forward to slowly lick at one tattoo, and now it's Zeke's breath that's catching.

In the real world, it had ended here, ended the moment she saw those sigils, but in the dream, she doesn't ask. In the dream, she doesn't stop. She lays kisses like fire along his shoulders, licking the lines of his muscles, occasionally tracing a tattoo with her tongue, with her hands working up his chest with teasing, caressing touches. Ash shifts restlessly against him and he can feel the tension in her body as his hands splay against the skin of her lower back. He slides those hands upwards, very slowly, and her mouth comes off his skin as she arches back into the touch, eyes half closing.

This is wonderful. This is perfect. This is right. There's a distant thought in his mind about Rosalyn, but it vanishes, chased away in need and the taste of Ash's skin as she lowers her mouth back to his and captures him for a kiss that goes on forever.

He's pulling away her shirt as she finally breaks off the kiss, tugging it over her head as swiftly as he can take it, going after her bra next; he needs to see her, needs to touch her. She laughs, softly, and helps him, shoving the straps down her shoulders, black lines against her skin, but nothing like the ones he's wearing. He pauses for a moment, fingers still tangled in soft fabric, to appreciate the sight, the contrast of it, and Ash smiles at him as though she knows exactly what he's thinking, leaning forward again to kiss him as though she's trying to push her way inside him with her mouth, tongue leading the way. He sucks in a startled breath around that, feeling the pressure of her hands against his shoulders pressing him back into the seat; she's strong, he realizes, stronger than he'd guessed, and he finds... he likes that.

The last catches of her bra slip free with ridiculous ease, and her hands leave his shoulders to slide the straps the rest of the way off her arms. He can feel the brush of her breasts against his chest, now, and groans softly, but he can't see them, because her hands go back to his shoulders and her mouth refuses to leave his, refuses to let him go for a long, long time. He doesn't need to breathe, after all, and neither does she, and he knows that, although he knows that he shouldn't know that, except that he does.

The logic of dreams.

He can't see her breasts, no, not without breaking their kiss, but he can feel them, sliding his hands forward from her back to brush across the tips, light as he can and still have contact, before cupping them and running his thumbs, slowly, over her nipples. It surfaces Ash from their kiss with a gasp, and he smiles slightly at the unfocused look in her eyes. She catches that, and smiles back in a dangerous sort of way, leaning forward to nip at his neck, and his own eyes go unfocused as he gasps and surges himself, before she kisses him again, his hands somehow back laying against her spine. He's drowning in her, and he... wants to.

She slides her arms around his neck and twines them together behind his head when she finally breaks that kiss, still moving restlessly, rocking against him in a way that he never wants to stop, but which still isn't enough. She stares at him, watches his face as he looks at her, as he leans forward to kiss at her shoulders, trailing the kisses down her collar, down her chest. When he hits the starting swell of one breast he lets his tongue follow it outward, defining the top curve of it with a long, slow lick, and Ash makes a small, soft sound at this that doesn't convey any other meaning than need.

He smiles against her skin, moves a fraction forward, and repeats the lick in the other direction.

She's panting by the time he gets to the nipple, hands tangled in his hair, and when he runs his tongue across the tip she makes a louder sound and rocks hard against him, too hard, because dead or no Zeke's been erect practically since they got in here. He buries his face against her body and groans, and she laughs softly and does it again, getting a forward rock of his own in response as Zeke abandons technique and frantically mouths at her body, breasts pink-tipped, soft and perfect, upper stomach like silk over hard steel in contrast. The quiet laughter turns back into pants and even a few whimpers, and she's leaning backwards against his arms and writhing before long, spread out before him like a feast or a painting of a goddess he never knew existed until now.

He wants to see more, he thinks, to see her complete naked, and just like that, she is--and so is he. He's aware that there was more clothing at some point, and it shouldn't just be gone in the space of a heartbeat, but it doesn't seem to matter, not with the feel of her there, nude body pressed against his; not with the sight of her, those perfect lines completely revealed at last. Ash laughs again as he pulls her forward and wraps himself around her and kisses her again, just luxuriating in the sensation of this, the heat and desire and fire. But she doesn't stop that rocking, that shifting, and it's wonderful and terrible, making him throb in all the right places, making him need so much that it's all he can do not to push forward and into her right then. He's moaning against her neck as he slides his hands down her sides, across her stomach, but he doesn't really care.

She laughs softly into his hair, and then reaches down to grab him, squeezing her hand up the length of his cock in a motion that can't be described as anything other than perfect. Zeke gasps, hands locking onto her hips and rocking her hard against him, and she laughs again and leans forward to whisper into his ear, "Yes."

It's the only thing she's said since they began.

Ash moves forward and straddles him, parting herself and guiding him, and Zeke doesn't have to do very much other than hold her, which is more than enough. He moans as he slides inside her; slowly, she's moving so slowly, and he can't help bucking, driving himself forward, deeper. Ash growls at that, which should startle him but somehow... doesn't. How could it, really, how would it even remotely bother him, with the feel of her on him, around him, moving into his thrusts, gasping against his skin? It's perfect, this is perfect, it feels so good, and he wraps his arms around her and never wants it to end.

And then the dream... changes... and it's not Ash in his arms anymore.

The second dream didn't come to him until after the day he saved Ros's life, that weird, intensely fucked up day that Zeke spent hyper-aware of exactly how caught between Heaven and Hell he had become. He even thinks he might know why it started then; two words, not an unfamiliar concept, but something... something about them, the way they were said, just then....

He thinks he might know, but he doesn't like to consider it too much. If it's true, if he's right, then the nightmares might pale in significance, and so he hopes he's wrong, hopes it was something else about that day that triggered it, or perhaps not even something specifically from then; maybe, if this is the Devil's doing, the first dream was to soften him up, and this was just... the right time to step things up.

He's still not sure which prospect is more disturbing.

In the second dream, he's back in Saint Mary's, dead body laying a few feet away, Ash straddling him again, staring down at him with features and colors that are her and not her all at once. She's still desire, still something he could want, but there's more to her now, darker things and older, and instead of smelling like fresh-fallen rain he catches a different, dryer scent, which another encounter with her later on lets him place as the smell of snakes.

He's afraid of her, horrified by her... and yet still drawn to her, and in the real world that was what moved Zeke to do what he did next--not the fear, for all that she held that knife far too close to his face, to his eyes, and not the horror, but the fact that despite all that he had learned some part of him still wanted her.

But in the dream, he doesn't throw her off of him, doesn't scramble to his feet to stand pointing a gun he can't seem to fire. In the dream, he lays there, sucking in deep breath after deep breath, underneath her, and isn't surprised at all when, as the knife moves away from his face, she leans down, very slowly, to kiss him.

Zeke doesn't fight the kiss--completely the opposite, in fact. His arms are coming up, but not to push her away; instead he throws them around her and pulls her down and close so that they're pressed together in body the way they are in mouth, her lips igniting a desire he doesn't want to think about but can't seem to help. She presses into him and shifts in that restless way he remembers from before, and it's frightening how he can feel himself responding to that--but he doesn't, despite the fear, want it to stop.

She pulls back after an eternity and stares at him, breathing almost as heavily as he is, with her hands on either side of his head. She's not at all the woman he knows, eyes and hair and clothing wild against the backdrop of dim church stone, but it fits, really, the scene that they're in, the play that they're acting out. She rocks her hips against him and he drags in a breath, completely hard now despite everything. Ash smiles down on him in response, and if there's triumph and darkness in those eyes of hers now, there's also something else there as well: honest need. And it's comforting, somehow, to at least not be alone in his desire, because he knows that under the circumstances, neither of them should want the other; this is as unwise for Ash as it is for him.

"Give up, Zeke," she says, quietly, and he does. Gives up on his gun, gives up on fighting her, gives up on the possibility of this not happening; they are, insanely, going to do this, right here and now, with a dead body laying in front of the church alter and the smell of gasoline all around, with her revealed to be someone he doesn't even really know and him revealed to be someone she can't really afford to know. Somehow, with all of that, the setting just fits; why not, with them being who they are, have sex together for the first time in a bloodstained church?

She sees it, maybe in his eyes, or maybe in the relaxation of his body, it doesn't matter; Ash sees it, and smiles. She brings the knife forward, and he starts to tense again, but the cool blade only slides briefly across one cheek, like a caress, before she's moving it lower, teasing the edge along his throat, finally settling it in at the neck of his shirt. Her other hand tangles in fabric, and she pulls downward with the blade; apparently it's as good a knife as he was told, or maybe Zeke's clothes have just taken all the abuse they can stand, because his shirt gives with the buzz of ripping cloth, sound echoing through the quiet of the church around them.

She spreads the remains of his shirt back with her left hand and stares for another long moment at the tattoos revealed there, stroking them with hand and knife in an almost absent-minded way that still makes it so that it's all Zeke can do not to writhe and moan in response. "You shouldn't have let him do this," she whispers, so softly he almost doesn't hear her.

"I didn't have a lot of choice," he points out, and it jerks her attention off of his body and back to his face for a moment. Then she gives a slow, sensual smile, and lowers herself again, keeping her eyes fixed on him as long as possible, to lick at his right nipple, tongue tracing wet circles around it that still seem to burn. He gasps, arching his head backwards, and he hears her laugh again; when he looks back she's moved away and down, sliding the knife with her, and teasing at the skin along the top of his waistband with her mouth. He makes a noise, isn't sure exactly what, but whatever it is it makes her pull back up over him to stare down with a another heated smile, before she carefully lays the knife aside, and then lowers herself back down, going after his body with both hands as well as that mouth, now. She's tugging at the remains of his shirt, helping to slide them off his arms, and working her fingers at his fly, but somehow what she's doing doesn't seem to be getting him any more naked, only more aroused, and maybe that is the point.

But then the dream changes, and it's not Ash who's pulling off his clothing anymore.

The mouth moving against his skin becomes larger, harder; the hands moving along him are broader now, and the strength that was present in Ash is even moreso here. The Devil's eyes glint in the shadows as he raises his head to stare at Zeke, the play of light stealing all color and reducing him to a monochromatic portrait, all grays and blacks and hints of brown. It doesn't do anything to conceal the expression on his face, though, as he looks down on Zeke; it doesn't in any way hide the sheer, consuming hunger in his gaze.

The Devil moves back up his body to kiss him, and Zeke doesn't fight back at all.

They're both naked, suddenly, but it's even less surprising with the Devil than it was with Ash, in the first dream; it feels right, somehow--it feels like something that could happen. The sudden hot shock of skin against skin, the burn that the Devil's touch makes in his body, even the hardness of another man's erection pressed against his hip--these, too, are also somehow right, somehow as perfect as Ash was, and the sensation of the Devil's tongue in his mouth is somehow something he's been missing all his life without ever even knowing it existed. And there's another difference there; he doesn't smell anything like Ash did. The Devil smells--and tastes--like fire, not like smoke or charring or ash, but like the flames themselves do, a hot, bright scent, and that fits with everything else so perfectly that Zeke can't imagine it being any other way.

Zeke can't help rocking against him, moaning at the feeling this produces, and the Devil breaks the kiss to give a purring, satisfied laugh into Zeke's ear, which manages to be as arousing as the things his hands are doing to Zeke's skin and body. He gives another helpless rock and low moan, wanting this, wanting so much more than this, and the Devil laughs again even as he licks at Zeke's neck. He whispers something then, low and quiet and Zeke can't make it out, but it doesn't matter; he knows what the Devil is asking.

"Yes," he whispers. Just the one word.

The Devil moves down his body again, kissing as he goes, and then lifts Zeke's hips with a casual, easy strength. Zeke remembers the strength of Ash's hands pushing him into the back of his seat before, and how he liked it then; he still likes it now, even when it is the Devil himself doing this, shifting Zeke's body, and positioning himself to push inside, with Zeke no more and no less than a willing, an eager, participant.

There's no pain. The Devil's first thrust is deep and hard, and he's enormous, or at least he feels that way, but there's no resistance. There's none of the agony Zeke would have expected, would have feared, in the waking world, had he ever considered such a thing. There's nothing but explosive pleasure, nothing but being filled and taken and claimed, and Zeke rides the sensation and the motion as though this was what he was made for, wrapping his legs around the Devil and crying out helplessly, wordlessly, unable to articulate anything but need.

The Devil laughs again, leans forward to brace himself on arms planted on either side of Zeke, and kisses his way from the base of Zeke's ribs up to his neck, licking at his skin like it's bathed in wine, driving forward with an incessant, perfect rhythm that's got Zeke halfway to the breaking point already. He moans and throws his head back, pressing his hands against the cool stone beneath him and rocking his hips upwards and into the Devil's thrusts, and the Devil nips at his neck exactly where Ash had.

He's done that before.

It's the other way around, in that first dream; suddenly the Devil is in Zeke's arms instead of Ash, but somehow it never bothers him as long as he's asleep. If anything, it excites him more, and Zeke's driving in harder, kissing at the Devil's neck and raking his nails down the Devil's back, and the Devil is rocking with his thrusts, a sort of wild, glittering enjoyment in his eyes, though he's silent despite that. Zeke isn't, can't be; the tightness of the Devil's body around him, the heat of it, the sheer ecstasy of it, makes him helplessly groan against the Devil's skin. There's laughter at that, warm purring laughter that surrounds him just before the Devil leans down to nip at Zeke's neck exactly where Ash had, and then the Devil is bracing his hands against Zeke's shoulders and moving himself, rocking himself, riding Zeke and Zeke's cock and it's the most wonderful thing Zeke has ever felt.

Except for this.

He's still being ridden, but now it's the Devil thrusting into him. Zeke could cope with the first dream better because of that, because it was him fucking the Devil and not the other way around, and he could convince himself it was a metaphor for his desire to regain the upper hand here, or an empowerment fantasy, or... something, anything. But not this, not this; he can't dismiss, couldn't dismiss, coming to pieces on the cold stone floor of a church because the Devil is literally fucking him over. The Devil's cock is inside him, driving in deeper with every thrust, and he's loving every minute of it, never even considering the possibility that he could feel anything but that, anything but desire and need and pleasure. Zeke cries out against him, feeling helpless explosions of light and color inside his head as he tries to use his legs to force the Devil in even deeper. He's needing this so badly he can't breathe, can't even get the air to cry out anymore, dazed with ecstasy and want, and the Devil kisses at his jaw, softly, and whispers his name. It's same thing, the exact same movement, the exact same tone, in both dreams, and the sound of his name wakes him up with a gasp every time.

Wakes him up panting and hard, unfulfilled and feeling his blood pounding despite the fact he doesn't have a pulse. There's a strange taste in the back of his throat, something partway between lust and fear, and he would almost always give anything, then, to have Rosalyn beside him, to be able to wrap his arms and his body around her and have her kiss away the terrible desire he feels and replace it with something more normal. Even to wake and have Ash there might be okay, might be... better than what he's afraid of. However twisted everything else in their relationship became, the attraction between them was still less wrong than this is.

But neither of them are there, and neither of them will ever be there if he can stay strong. But someone else could be, he knows that, and it's part of what makes them nightmares, part of what makes him snap into wakefulness with an edge of panic to his thoughts that only recedes slightly when he's alone. Only slightly, because he's sure, some day, he won't be. He's sure, some day, he'll wake to find the Devil beside him in the bed the way he was with the first nightmare he gave Zeke, the one that preceded the whole Ash meltdown. He'll wake to find the Devil staring triumphantly down at Zeke with the knowledge of what he's been dreaming, what he's been thinking, adding shine to his smile and glitter to his eyes, a look that says, 'You're mine,' even if he doesn't actually speak the words again; he'll wake to find the Devil close enough to feel the heat of his body, close enough, with Zeke needing and desperate, to reach out and grab. And the most terrifying thing of all is the admission that if that happens, if he wakes from dream to reality and the Devil is there, Zeke can't say for certain what he'll do in response.

He'd like to think that if he reached out at all it would be to push him away, but Zeke is, with this fear, honest enough with himself to admit he can't be sure of that.

He tries not to think about it, tries to put it entirely out of his mind during his waking hours, and usually it works. If the Devil does know, either because he's doing this or just because he... knows, he never lets on, never acts any differently around Zeke than he has before. It's a small blessing, a small favor, and in those dark hours in the night when he's standing in an ice-cold shower trying desperately to bring his body back into line, it's a tiny relief that Zeke is absurdly grateful for.

His current excuse for a life goes on, and will go on, until he's sent back all the remaining Damned and he can get his real life back, get Ros back, and be safe from this forever. He's strong enough not to have given in to Ash, strong enough to have walked away from Rosalyn, and so he's strong enough to do this. Strong enough to never consider the matter during the day, never let on to the Devil that if it is his plan, it's working, and strong enough, just barely, on those nights when the cold water isn't helping quickly enough, to keep himself from dealing with the matter another way, with his own hands and the mental image of the Devil joining him in that shower. He can do this; he will do this.

He's had nightmares since the night that he found out who Ash was.

They're not bad dreams.