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Vegas dug his toes into the sand, watching the sun paint achingly beautiful colors across the sky as it set. Even more achingly beautiful was how those colors caressed the planes and angles of Pete’s face, illuminating his perfect profile as he looked up at the sky, smiling that perfect smile of his. Just like he felt every goddamn day, he felt like the luckiest man in the world to have Pete beside him. To be able to call Pete his, and to know that he belonged to Pete.
Pete sensed Vegas’s gaze on him, and turned to look at his husband, smiling so brightly that it made the sun look dull in comparison. The sunset reflected in Vegas’s eyes and made them glitter like bottomless, priceless jewels. Pete leaned in, drinking up the content, happy look on Vegas’s face. He was smiling, one of those big, carefree smiles that Pete craved and coveted. Vegas gave those smiles only to him. Just from that alone, Pete thought this vacation was the best idea he’d ever had.
“Your grandmother is probably wondering where we are,” Vegas whispered, staring into Pete’s eyes, rather than at the glorious sunset. “We were only supposed to run down to the market. I doubt she meant for us to fuck off to the beach.”
“She knows,” Pete murmured, leaning closer so he could feel the balmy heat of Vegas’s breath against his lips. “And besides, she has Macau and Chay to keep her company.” Pete kissed Vegas’s lips gently. “She had plenty of onions. She’s giving us a chance to be alone.”
Vegas kissed Pete back with equal tenderness. They’d decided to take a mini-vacation to visit Pete’s grandmother after she had a bout of pneumonia. She insisted she was fine, but Pete wasn’t having it, so they’d made a trip out of it, bringing Macau and Chay along with them. Porsche had been delighted to agree when Chay asked if he could leave Bangkok for a week - he’d been poking his nose too much into the family business for his older brother’s liking.
“We need to find a more private beach so I can fuck your brains out,” Vegas murmured in English.
“Why not right here?” Pete asked. “You’ve never been shy about the idea of everyone watching us fuck before.”
“We’re trying to keep a low profile for your grandmother’s sake,” Vegas pointed out. “It was you who pointed that out, Pete.” He gave a lopsided grin. “One thought about sex and you get all forgetful.”
Pete hummed happily, his eyes glimmering mischievously in the dusky light. “That’s all your fault, then. You’re too good at sex.”
Vegas leaned in again to nip at Pete’s lower lip, hard enough to leave the phantom of his teeth behind.
Pete suddenly stood up, which caused Vegas to frown.
“Stop pouting.” Pete offered his hand. “I’m going to take you somewhere.”
“Where?” Vegas asked. He pretended to be sulky, but an electric thrill went through him when he interlocked his fingers with Pete’s. No matter how many times he touched the other man, his nerves would sing. Still. Always.
“You wanted to have people watch us fuck? How about ghosts watching us?” Pete began walking away from the beach, tugging Vegas along with him.
“Huh?”
Pete looked over his shoulder, smiling brightly at his husband in a way that made Vegas’s heart want to explode from his ribcage. “Let’s see if I can remember the story…” he chuckled. “Legend says that the Liu family, who lived in the house on the hill a hundred years ago, had gotten into a fight about inheritance. The grandmother was very wealthy, and when she died, there was no will. So, the siblings began to fight over who would get what. The middle son - I can’t remember their names… honestly, whatever name I heard was probably made up by the kids telling me the story. Anyway, the middle son knew that he probably would get the smallest piece. After all, the first son was the first born, and the third daughter had been the grandmother’s favorite, and had also married some influential lawyer who could probably talk his way into splitting the inheritance more to her favor.”
“Sounds positively spooky already,” Vegas teased, pressing his face to Pete’s neck to give him a kiss on a fading bruise he’d left there a few days ago.
“Shut up. Let me tell the story,” Pete admonished, but he smiled as he did. They walked through the streets of his hometown, and it gave him the sense of leaping back in time. Hazy memories floated back up to the surface of his mind, superimposing his younger self running through these same streets. Sometimes he’d been happy, but most of the time he’d been miserable. Running away in fear, rather than running towards something in joy. Walking these same streets with Vegas made him feel like he was stepping over the memories of his childhood, and of his father.
“Anyway,” Pete continued as they walked down the quiet street. Here, they weren’t the Minor Family. Here, they weren’t the boogeymen who did the dirty work. Here, they were just two men in love, inconsequential to anyone else other than each other. “The middle son decided that he was going to have that money, no matter what, and he wasn’t going to share it. So, he decided that he needed to commit familicide.”
“Children really used the term ‘familicide’ while telling a ghost story to each other?”
Pete squeezed Vegas’s hand hard. “You are the worst fucking audience ever.”
“Sorry,” Vegas apologized, not sounding sorry in the least. As they walked, the neighborhood got quieter, the houses more run down. Up ahead, there was a hill jutting up from within the nestle of trees and ramshackle houses, a shadowy building sitting as if presiding over a kingdom. Even from here, it looked like it had once been grand, but had fallen into disrepair.
“So, the middle son decided that he couldn’t just stab his family. There would be too much evidence, and it would get back to him. Same with poisoning them. He needed a way to kill them that wouldn’t put any evidence on him, so he could cleanly get all the money. So, he decided on a more… spiritual way of getting rid of them. The middle son decided to summon a dark spirit to do it for him. He easily was able to get personal trinkets from his family members, who were all staying in the house at that time. None of them wanted to leave, because then the others might take the house away from them if they did. Middle Son had always been interested in ghosts and the spirit world, so had books on how to do rituals. He drew a summoning circle, got the candles, the salt, all the things he needed, and called forth to the afterworld…”
“I’m sure that went really well.”
Pete sighed heavily. He stopped and gripped Vegas’s shoulders, giving him a shake. “Do you want to have sex in the ghost house or not?”
Vegas laughed and wrapped his arms around Pete’s gorgeous, sexy, perfect waist. “I want to have sex with you anywhere, anyplace, anytime. You’re just too cute when you get annoyed.”
Pete glowered, which made Vegas laugh again and kiss all over his face. When he pulled away, he saw that Pete tried to keep frowning, but he broke out in a smile, and he showered Vegas with kisses in equal turn. They walked towards the gates that led to a grown-over gravel path winding up to the dilapidated house. “Here it is. The Liu house.”
“They never tore it down?” Vegas asked, putting his hands against the mossy, rusty gates. There was a padlock that looked fresh, as if it would actually keep any trespassers out. Vegas saw that the house would have been gorgeous in its prime.
“Someone still owns the land, but maybe they were too superstitious to do it.” They both regarded the peeling house. The windows had been smashed out long ago, and there was graffiti on some of the walls. Pete pressed himself against Vegas’s side. “Kinda romantic, right?”
“Well, maybe not to most people,” Vegas murmured, finding Pete’s lips with his own. He’d meant to kiss Pete only for a moment, but how could he stop when Pete’s mouth tasted so fucking good? His tongue slipped into his husband’s mouth, licking across his tongue, his teeth, the roof of his mouth. Pete’s tongue twined with his own, and his hands slid into Pete’s soft hair. He couldn’t help the small, breathy moan that escaped him when Pete’s hands stroked up his back.
“Well, isn’t this cute?” an unfriendly voice taunted.
Vegas and Pete broke apart to see three men standing behind them. They’d been so wrapped up in each other that they hadn’t noticed their approach, and Cello was back at the house with Pete’s grandmother and the boys. She was probably subconsciously furious at their lack of perception right now, and had no idea why.
The tall man who seemed to be the leader crossed his beefy, tattooed arms and leered at them. “So, you two lovebirds think you can just wander into Black Fist territory without permission?”
Pete felt that darkness rise in him. Did these nobody assholes realize that they were talking to Theerapanyakuns? Pete opened his mouth to viciously correct them and tell them to offer the respect that they deserved, sliding his gaze over to Vegas and expecting the same cold rage. Instead, he saw Vegas’s lower lip trembling, and his eyes wide with a very alien look on his beautiful face - supplicant terror.
“Oh, no no no,” Vegas breathed out. “We didn’t know! Please don’t hurt us. We’re so sorry!”
Pete’s lips quivered with the struggle of holding back laughter at Vegas’s performance, and he turned it into a look of fear. “Right!” Pete squeaked meekly, making his eyes as big and doe-like as he could. “We can just go back to our inn. We don’t have to tell anyone!”
“Aww, they aren’t going to tell anyone? Isn’t that what he said?” the leader asked of his cronies, who laughed in that sycophantic way that Pete and Vegas were very used to. “I think that reparations are going to have to be made.” He jerked his head, and the thugs advanced and gripped Pete and Vegas by the backs of their necks. “Here’s what’s going to happen, lady boys. You’re gonna give us your money, and all your expensive watches and necklaces and shoes, and we’re going to beat the shit out of you, and you’re going to thank us for not killing you for insulting us by daring to step into our turf.”
“We’ll give you what you want!” Pete wailed as they were dragged along the fence and around the corner of the house, off the street. He cast a sidelong look to Vegas, eyes glimmering with merriment rather than tears. He gave the other man a look that asked too much?
Vegas grinned quickly, and then hid it behind a mask of fear. “Please don’t hurt us. We’ll give you the money!” He gasped when he was shoved through a foliage covered hole in the rusty fence. He stumbled, but remained on his feet as Pete was also shoved through. He reached out and caught Pete in his arms so he wouldn’t fall. The inner garden was overgrown and cast eerie shadows with the light moonlight now shining in the sky.
“Maybe we want to beat the fuck out of you faggots,” the leader hissed, stepping into the garden.
“You don’t have to be homophobic about it,” Pete muttered, the scared mask slipping a little bit.
“What was that?” The leader stepped forward, pulling out a knife. “You talking back to me, bitch? I should cut up that pretty face of yours. Do you know who you’re fucking talking to?”
“I really don’t,” Vegas answered, the game gone. Fun was fun, but nobody talked to Pete like that.
One of the thugs sensed the change in Vegas’s demeanor. “Uhh, Roe? I think that th–”
“Shut up,” the leader, Roe, hissed. “These fucking assholes think they can talk back to the Black Fist?”
“I think that we should shut up his boyfriend’s pretty fucking mouth. He’d probably feel like a girl… after we knocked his teeth out, of course,” snickered the second thug, a block of a man with closely buzzed hair and eyes that were wild looking, slightly too far apart. He oozed insecurity masked under a thin veil of bravado.
“I think you should stop talking to my husband like that or we’re going to do a lot more than talk back to… oh, who are you nobodies again?” Vegas purred, his voice getting more dangerous with each word, rage making his words silky. “You really don’t know anything, do you?”
Pete moved like a flash, rushing Roe and uppercutting him right under the chin before the bigger man could react. He hit him just in the way his father had taught him, to knock him out with one blow. He felt Vegas move at his side, roundhouse kicking the skinnier of the two thugs and punching him a couple times in the head to down him.
Pete then moved to the third guy, the one who’d been backing up because he’d sensed that something wasn’t right. Pete tackled him and slammed his head into the ground a couple times until he stopped moving.
Both men rose to their feet and gazed down at the unconscious so-called Black Fist. “They really didn’t know who we were…” Vegas trailed off. “Why am I so insulted?”
“Want to just shoot them?” Pete asked, running his hand through Vegas’s hair absently. He, of course, never felt like they were in any real danger, but relief still washed through him, memories of the past still haunting him.
Vegas turned to Pete, cupping his face. “Babe, where’s the fun in that?” He looked over his shoulder at the Liu house. “What happened with the spirit?”
“Huh?” Pete cocked his head. “Oh, uh… Middle Son summoned it, and it killed his family, just like he wanted. But, there of course was a price to pay. The spirit didn’t want to go back, so it tethered itself to the house. Middle Son wanted the house so bad? Well, he’d get it and everything that came with the inheritance, including the ghost. So, he had to share his house with the spirit, who tormented him for the rest of his days. He threw himself off that balcony there.” Pete pointed to a sagging, crumbling second-floor balcony. Part of the railing was broken away where the middle Liu son must have thrown himself to his death. “And the ghost inherited the house, and lives there to this day.”
Vegas wrapped his arms around Pete again. “Let me guess… anyone who goes in the house becomes part of the house, which is the ghost’s inheritance, and they can never leave?”
“You’ve got that look in your eye, Vegas.” Dark desire rushed through Pete’s bloodstream like cocaine.
“How would you feel about giving the Black Fists a real haunted house experience?”
***** ***** ***** ***** *****
Berry had always been a shithead kid. His mother had even shouted at him he’d be a good-for-nothing loser as she’d thrown him out of the house at 13. It was no surprise that he wound up in a two-bit gang like the Black Fist. True, they were never going to make waves in the underground crime scene. Not like the Triads or one of the Bangkok families. Rumor had it that there were Theerapanyakun connections in town to some old lady. She was off-limits because she was related to some fucking maniac who would chop your limbs off and feed them to you before you died.
But, Roe had assured them that the rumor was all bullshit. What would a Bangkok family want with this boring, shitty beach town? It’s not like they’d ever shown up here. The Black Fist made good pickings on tourists and meth deals, and Roe’s gang made Berry the big-shot he’d always wanted to be. He got to steal from rich fucks, and all the people who looked down on him in this stupid town. And if there was a pretty girl, he got to steal even more than money or jewelry.
Berry groaned, rubbing his head as he sat up. Everything was black, and he blinked a few times, rubbing his eyes. But the darkness remained. He jerked when he felt something brush against the back of his neck. Was it air? Was it breathing?! “Fucking shit,” he whispered to himself, stumbling back and rubbing his nape.
Berry stumbled to his feet, groaning. Those fucking fags! That one bastard had knocked him out. “Where the fuck…?” he muttered. Was he in the ghost house?! “Imma fuckin’ kill them,” he ground out. He would find those fucking pricks and stab them to death for doing this to the Black Fist. First, maybe he’d show them a thing or two though - the fucking fairies would probably like that. He’d show them what a real man was like.
Berry stumbled forward in the dark, wiping at his bloody nose. Everything smelled like a mixture of musty dirt and his own blood, clogging up his nose. Wherever he was in the stupid Liu house was drafty and it felt like there was breath all around him, hundreds of ghostly mouths hissing against his skin. He wiped frantically at his arms when a tickle went across his flesh. Did he just walk through a fucking spider web?
Did a ghost just touch you? Are they breathing on you, man?!
Berry tried to shake those thoughts out of his head. Only pussies believed in ghosts. That’s what Roe had told him when they’d started patrolling around this rotting house. Yeah, that’s right. Only pussies believed in ghosts, and he wasn’t a fucking pussy. As he stepped forward, he heard a groan and his foot brushed against something. He leapt back, screaming. “Get away from me!” he shrieked, running forward. Running anywhere that wasn’t this room with the ghostly breathing.
However, as he took a big step forward, he stepped on something solid that caused him to trip and faceplant against the floor. The old floorboards creaked and wailed under his weight and sounded like a specter groaning. Berry covered his head with his arms to protect himself. “Man, don’t kill me! Take Roe and Surly! Take those fucking tourists! Just don’t hurt me.”
“Fuccckkkkk,” a voice groaned from the vicinity of his feet. “Berry…?”
“Huh?” Berry sat up in the dark and reached out. His fingers found the solid thing he’d tripped over. It was warm and breathing.
“Get your hands off my leg!” Surly grunted from the dark.
“Oh shit man! You okay?”
“Did you step on me?!” Surly whined. He tried to roll over, but in the dark, all he did was collide with Berry and topple them both over again.
“It’s fucking dark, man! I couldn’t see you.”
Surly sneezed loudly at the dust. “Did you seriously fucking ask the ghost to take me and Roe?”
Berry scooted back so he could try to stand without tangling with his buddy again. “Heh. I was totally joking. Just trying to make you scared of the ghost house.”
“We’re in the ghost house?!” Surly exclaimed. “Shit. Shit, shit, shit.” He started searching his pockets for his phone. “You have your phone?” he asked when he couldn’t find his. “I bet those guys took it…” Surly frowned in the dark. He’d been the one who had tried to warn Roe when that one guy’s demeanor had changed.
Berry patted himself down. “Shit. Those fruits took my phone! I guess at least I don’t have to worry about them trying to steal my girlfriend.” He chuckled to himself, starting to feel around, trying to find a wall.
“You’d have to have a girlfriend first,” Surly muttered, getting to his knees. “I don’t think they were tourist, Ber…” Surly began to crawl along the floor, not wanting to risk standing and tripping again. He reached out in the dark with his long, spindly arms to find the wall as well. When his hand brushed against moving fabric, he gasped loudly and yanked his hand back, heart racing.
Berry yelped a high-pitched squeal that hurt Surly’s ears. “Fuck off, Surly!” Berry hissed as he realized the touch had been his friend, and not the ghost.
“Stay still then!” Surly kept crawling, his knees killing him. The floorboards creaked and groaned under him, and he worried he was going to fall through. “But… seriously, Berry. Don’t you think there’s something weird about this? Those guys moved real fast when they attacked us.”
“They just surprised us, is all…” he muttered. There was no way two rich fucks would get the drop of him normally. “You just distracted me, that’s all. I would have fucking whipped their asses by myself.”
“Uh huh.” Surly shivered as he crawled in the dark. The room was very drafty and there was cool night wind coming off the ocean through the walls. The cool air made him realize he was also sweating. Before they’d seen those two guys walking together, oblivious to everything except each other, he knew he’d have to find another fix soon. One of their watches would have set him up with enough smack for a month, but now here he was, crawling around in the fucking haunted house. He stopped and patted his pockets again, hoping against hope that his phone was there. It wasn’t, but he found a small baggie in the inner pocket of his cargo shorts.
“Oooh baby,” he whispered, carefully pulling out the oxy pills. It would suck to spill them in here, so he handled them as if they were bombs. He didn’t want to drop them in this oppressive darkness.
“Roe?” Berry called in the dark, staunching his nosebleed with his shirt. “Yo, you in here?” He waited in silence to see if he could hear Roe breathing. “Hey, shut up!” he hissed to Surly, who was still crawling around the room.
“I’m not saying anything,” Surly muttered, feeling stupid as hell as he crawled around in the dark trying to find a damn wall. “But, don’t you think there was something up with those two guys…? He seemed surprised we didn’t know him…” Surly blinked a few times, his muscles starting to feel relaxed as the pills kicked in.
“Roe!” Berry shouted, ignoring Surly’s mutterings, as he often had to do. It’s not like a junkie made for the best conversation. But he had a lot of connections, so that’s why they kept him around, according to Roe. He wasn’t useful, not like Berry.
As response, a loud creaking ripped through the room. Berry jumped back so hard that he stumbled over his own feet and tumbled down to the floor, banging his shoulder hard. Surly squeaked in shock, curling up in a ball to protect himself. They both watched as dim light spilled into the room from the door that loudly swung open. Both men froze, staring unblinking into the dim grey rectangle. They stared so long that their eyes watered, screaming to blink. They didn’t dare look away. First, both of their lizard brains immediately went to ‘ghost’. As the moments stretched on, the screeching of the rusty hinges echoing in the room, they thought it might be Roe, or the tourist guys. As the silence became as thick and oppressive as a smothering pillow, their minds trailed back to the ghosts of the Liu family.
Like all locals, they’d grown up on the ghost story of the Liu family, and how the spirit was trapped in this house forever, bound by the will that brought it to the realm of the living. Most people grew out of that stupid story, but… why hadn’t the house been torn down? Why had the door opened on its own?
Berry groaned. “Fuck, this is so stupid.” He glared at Surly. “You can stay here on the fucking floor. I’m getting out of here. I’m finding those fuckers and ripping their dicks off.”
Surly slowly rose to his feet, using the wall as a crutch. “The guy who hit me moved so fast…”
“Huh? What the fuck are you talking about, Surly? I’m really gonna go. Gotta find Roe.” And yet, he remained glued to the spot, staring at that empty, silent doorway. It seemed to taunt him, yawning there. Mocking him. Ushering him. It both repelled him and called to him.
“What if he was a ghost?” Surly asked, eyes unfocused in the dark. “Has the house already claimed us?”
“Fucking stupid junkie,” Berry hissed under his breath. Yeah, he’d get Roe and leave Surly here. Surly was so useless. He huffed out his breath and stormed towards the door. No dumb house was going to make Berry scared. He was what made people scared, not the other way around.
He saw that the door led down a rickety staircase. He looked over his shoulder, and saw that the darkness had swallowed Surly, leaving Berry feeling utterly alone. The moonlight coming through the slats over the busted skylight stole away his darkvision. He went down a couple of stairs, and they protested angrily. The wood felt dangerously spongy under his combat boots.
“Roe?” Berry called into the darkness at the bottom of the stairs. He coughed as a blood clot slid down his throat from his sinuses. “Hey, are you fucking assholes here?! You fucking pieces of shit messed with the wrong people!”
Silence was the only response the house deigned to give him. His eyes caught a spider moving along at the top of the stairwell, the moon shimmering off the strands of its web, making it gleam like silver.
Berry groaned angrily, heading down. He’d always been someone that everyone looked past. He wouldn’t let those rich out-of-town pricks think that they could just look past him. He gasped when he placed his foot on one of the steps, and it crunched under his foot, his boot falling into the old wood. He grabbed the banister for dear life to prevent himself from falling through. Berry paused to catch his breath, his heart racing at the near fall. His pulse raced in his ears and amplified his heavy breathing, as if it were echoed. As if there were two people breathing…
“Fuck!” Berry yelped when he felt something on the back of his neck, cool against the sweat beading on his skin. “Shit, shit, shit,” he hissed under his breath. “Just the wind or a fucking spider, Berry,” he admonished himself. “Ghosts aren’t fucking real, man.” He reached up to wipe away the offending cobweb, but halted all movement when he heard low laughter behind him, hauntingly low and deep and far, far, far too close.
Berry’s body froze, the taste of adrenaline sharp on his tongue. He slowly began to turn his head, but suddenly he was flying. His feet were swept out from under him and he plummeted down to the bottom of the stairs. He landed with a loud crunch, his chin bouncing off the moldy, bug-eaten rug at the bottom. The floor creaked and cracked as his hip and elbow caught most of his weight.
Berry panted and groaned, rolling himself up. “You fucking motherfucker! I knew it was you faggots doing this!” He sat up, despite his body’s protests, ready to square up and fight one of those assholes. But, the stairwell was empty. Only the black, open doorway above stared down at him. He realized he must have been in an attic.
“This ain’t funny!” he bellowed, trying to rise to his feet. His plan was to rush up those stairs back to the attic, but his hip refused to hold up his weight, and he crumpled back down to the floor. He flopped down on his back, fuming. The rug under him smelled of old, wet fabric and decades of dust.
As he tried to calm his breathing by imagining all the ways that he would punish those two tourists, he began to notice another smell mingling with the rot and mildew. Tangy, hot, metallic. He knew the smell of blood from how many people he’d beaten up and shivved. He’d also had several bloody noses from underground fight nights, but this smelled more immediate.
Berry turned his head, and saw that there was blood on the carpet not far from him. A small trail, leading into the blackness of the hallway. “Roe…?” he called, slowly sitting up. His head spun. He knew he’d have a wicked bruise on his chin, but it would make him look tough. Nobody would want to fuck with him at the next bare-knuckle match. Maybe he could get a sympathy fuck out of Surly’s sister…
“Roe, that you?” he asked, stumbling to his feet. He was glad that nobody was around, because the way he swayed and tripped, Roe and Surly would have torn him a new asshole and never let him live it down.
As he followed the blood, the smell got thicker, more repugnant. The moonlight only illuminated small pools at a time, but there was too much blood. It seemed to make the air hotter… Ahead of him, he saw the small flicker of candlelight. Normally, the light would have been welcome, but it made the buzzed hair on Berry’s head all stand up.
“Roe…?” Berry called again, now less sure. He chuckled to himself, but it was weak and shaky. “Man, I bet you gutted one of those fuckers, right? Maybe you had some fun first, huh…?”
His words stopped as he came to the mezzanine above the entrance hall, candlelight flickering ominously around the scene. The staircase split off, going down to the darkness of the first floor. The candles illuminated the wet mess, but made Berry feel like he was in a spotlight, surrounded by nothing but thick, evil blackness. The yellow light gleamed off the pools of blood and the tangle of innards. A body was slumped in a sitting position against the mezzanine railing, legs splayed out before him. All his guts pooled in his lap in a glistening tangle of coils.
It was one of the tourists. The pretty one. The one that he’d thought about mouth fucking after busting out all his teeth. The one that had moved so fast and knocked out Roe in one punch. His bangs hung in his eyes, head slumped forward. The front of him was coated in gore, intestines spilling out from the bottom of his torn shirt. The candlelight came from small red candles that were positioned around his body in a circle, connected by white powder. Like a summoning circle…
Berry leaped back and screamed in a way that he hadn’t ever screamed in his life. He tore down the staircase, taking two at a time. “Fuck this, man!” Berry screamed as he flew down the stairs. He looked back over his shoulder, expecting to see the ghost materialize out of the shadows to claim him next. His foot punched through the floorboards on one stair, and he tumbled down the last few steps, yelping as he hit his already bruised hip.
He stumbled towards the door, tripping over his own feet. He was so panicked about looking behind him up the stairs that when he turned to look at the front doors, he couldn’t stop himself in time. He skidded and collided with Roe. Or, what was left of Roe. His wet chest felt tepid under Berry’s fingers. Berry leapt back, wiping his hands over and over on the front of his shirt, the feel of Roe’s congealing blood coating his fingers. But it wouldn’t come off.
Roe was strung up across the front doors, limbs splayed to block the way out. The lower half of his body was completely soaked in blood. More red candles were clustered at his feet, some having been extinguished due to the blood dripping from the ruined hole that was Roe’s stomach. His eyes stared out, wide and terrified, his mouth opened in a silent scream of agony.
Berry slowly stepped back from the corpse of the Black Fist’s ringleader, still wiping his hands on his shirt to try and remove the feeling of Roe’s blood. The candlelight illuminated the white gleam of Roe’s spine, visible through the hole in his torso. All his guts had been removed. Just like the guy upstairs…
“Fuck me man. Fuck this, fuck fuck fuck fuck,” Berry panted, cradling his head in his arms. “Lemme go, man. I don’t want to die,” he whimpered.
He gasped when that same deep, low, hushed laughter echoed behind him. He turned around and saw a flash of blood, and then nothing.
***** ***** ***** ***** *****
“Peeeteee!”
“Whaaaat?” Pete grunted, mimicking the same cadence Vegas had used calling his name. He looked over his shoulder from where he was working on securely tying up the last remaining Black Fist shithead. Vegas bound down the stairs in a way that Pete found utterly adorable. It made his heart melt in his chest, even with a line of blood splattering across Vegas’s throat and cheek. It made him think of the child Vegas had never been able to be, the one that Gun had so thoroughly tried to erase.
Vegas shook a baggie with pills inside, clothes slung over one of his arms. “The one in the attic had these.”
Pete gave a wry grin, tightening the knot around the guy’s hands. He thought he heard that his name was Berry. “Bunk pills we found on a two-bit gang? I’m sure nothing can go wrong with that, Vegas. And we should probably focus right now.”
Vegas rolled his eyes. “They’re legit. Besides, I was thinking for later.” He came up behind Pete and wrapped his arms around Pete’s waist tight. Pete’s front was wet and tacky from all the blood drenching his shirt and pants from where Roe’s intestines had sat in his lap. “I can brutalize you all I want, and it will take the edge off after.”
“Hmm. Fuck me so rough that I’ll have to limp home and then give me oxy so my grandmother doesn’t notice? How romantic…” Pete tried to make it sound biting and sarcastic, but he knew that Vegas heard the slight hitch in his breathing and the note of anticipation. “We’ve made a huge mess. Good thing we have most of the police in our pocket. By the way, you do a really good evil ghost laugh. You really scared the fuck out of this guy.”
Vegas pulled out his phone while he nuzzled his face into Pete’s hair. He’d put it on silent, and there were a couple messages from Macau checking up on him.
Where are you? You better not be having sex in public.
Are you okay?
Vegas grinned as Pete took his phone and typed out a message so Vegas could have both hands free again to roam Pete’s torso.
Your brother is busy fucking me in a haunted house. We’ll be back in the morning. Give my love to my mother. Pete added several heart emojis, plus a couple eggplants and a ghost for good measure.
Macau responded almost immediately with Gross! Stop traumatizing me. Tell the ghost I said hi.
He tossed the phone onto the clothes Vegas had piled at the foot of the stairs, and lolled his head back when Vegas’s mouth worked across his throat, honey-slow and warm, and sighed happily. The way that Vegas’s mouth worked the back of his neck and his fingers ruched up Pete’s torn, bloody shirt made Pete’s head swim and his nerves sing. His muscles began to liquify and that desire to just give in and let Vegas do whatever he wanted grew stronger and stronger.
“You think the ghost is going to be mad about all this…?” he panted, voice hitching as Vegas’s fingers traced the line of his groin muscles. “We killed a bunch of people in its house, and we’re going to have sex now…”
Vegas grinned and nipped the nape of Pete’s neck, sucking on the flesh until Pete hissed and whimpered. He heard the dreamy, faraway quality of Pete’s voice and knew his husband was already slipping into subspace. “I think that this is the most fun that this ghost has had in a hundred years.”
“What about him?” Pete murmured, both of them now looking at Berry, lashed to the banister of the still lovely staircase. “I almost gave it away and started laughing when he fell down the stairs.”
Vegas’s eyes narrowed at their captive as his fingers slowly circled Pete’s nipples. “What do you think, Pete?” he whispered into his ear. “He’s the one that threatened to rape you, after all.”
“Vegas,” Pete moaned, his mind floating away at Vegas’s ministrations on his nipples. Trying to string together coherent plots of revenge was becoming extremely difficult. “Please…”
“Please what?” Vegas purred, pinching Pete’s nipples roughly.
“Vegas,” Pete whimpered, rocking his ass back against Vegas’s hips. The feel of Vegas’s half-hard cock against him caused Pete to moan, his own cock feeling heavy and trapped in his shorts.
“You’re so eager for me already, aren’t you? Pete, you’re such an impatient slut.”
Pete groaned, pressing his back flush against Vegas’s torso. The lust thrummed through him so strongly that he couldn’t stand up on his own anymore. “Yes,” he panted.
“Tell me what to do to him, and I’ll fuck you,” Vegas breathed into Pete’s ear, tracing all the curls and folds with his tongue.
Pete’s eyes rolled back into his head. How was he supposed to think of anything else aside from Vegas’s cock pistoning inside him? His underwear felt wet from all the precome that his cock was already leaking.
Vegas laughed into his husband’s ear. “All right, all right. I’ll stop teasing my little cockslut.” He gripped Pete’s glorious ass hard, digging his fingers in hard enough to bruise, kneading them as if he were tenderizing Pete’s flesh. He wanted it tender and sensitive. He pulled away, and laughed quietly as Pete whimpered in frustrated lust.
“Vegas…” Pete’s whole body shook.
“Take all your clothes off,” Vegas instructed. “And get on your hands and knees.”
Pete immediately complied and began to remove his clothes, which his shaking hands made more difficult. Vegas looked around and found the heap of intestines that Pete had discarded after their prank was over. He picked up the slimy coils, dark lust firing through his veins like gasoline. Feeling the guts reminded him of the night that they’d first killed someone together. Shadow had been their first witness, his intestines spilling out around them in a hot pool as they’d painted each other’s flesh with Shadow’s blood and with their love.
Vegas brought the intestines over to Berry’s unconscious form, and wrapped one end around Berry’s neck like a scarf. He willed himself not to crush the organs in his hands as he looked over his shoulder at Pete, who was now sliding off his briefs and stood gloriously naked. How was one man so fucking beautiful? That curve of his waist, the healed scars across his chest, his lithe and elegant thighs, the perfect angle of his jaw and chin. The way Pete’s eyes were glassy with lust, and yet burned so hot like the heart of a volcano.
Vegas’s eyes traced over Pete’s body, a muscle in his jaw twitching when he stared at Pete’s hard, leaking penis. Getting those Jacob’s Ladder piercings that now glinted silver, six steps up his perfect erection, was the best decision Pete ever made. His pierced cock jumped under Vegas’s gaze as Pete slowly slid to the ground, eyes looking up at Vegas with both perfect supplication and insatiable demand.
“You wanted to threaten my Pete?” Vegas crooned to the unconscious man as he began to wrap the intestines around Berry’s head and face. He didn’t want to pull too tight and burst the now cooling flesh, so was glad that intestines were so long, because it gave him a lot of material to work with. He criss-crossed the slimy tubes around the lower half of Berry’s face, cutting off oxygen.
Berry grunted and stirred, gasping at the slithery feeling enclosing his head.
“Shhh,” Vegas admonished. “Now, now. Save your breath. You’ll need it.” He grinned wickedly as he continued to wrap Berry up. However, he left his eyes uncovered, a slit between two coils. “Your little stoned friend upstairs thought we were the ghosts. Do you know the truth yet?”
Berry screamed out a profanity, or at least tried to. The intestines were tied so tight around him that only a muffled whimper could escape.
“The truth is that it doesn’t matter if we’re spirits or flesh. You’re still dying here regardless. It’s just a shame you decided to start a gang in a town owned by the Minor Theerapanyakuns, and you didn’t even recognize us.”
Berry’s eyes, now wet and huge with terror, dawned in realization.
Vegas knocked on the top of his head with a cruel knuckle before setting the last of the guts on top like a cap. “I hope that our reputation precedes us, fuckface. You threatened my husband. You remember? You said you wanted to knock out all of Pete’s teeth and fuck his face. Remember?” Vegas hissed.
Berry tried to muffle out an apology, now sweating profusely under the guts. It stunk so fucking bad, and he felt bile rising in his throat. He tried to swallow it back desperately, but failed. He choked on his own vomit and began coughing when it had no place to go except up his nose and into his lungs.
Vegas nodded, laughing as he turned his attention to where it really mattered - Pete on his knees. Vegas pulled off his shirt. “You better suck me off good, Pete. We don’t have any other lube.”
Pete looked up at Vegas, Berry’s chokes and cries mere background noise as he eagerly slid forward and pulled Vegas’s shorts and underwear down in one motion, swallowing Vegas's cock in one motion.
Vegas threw his head back as Pete’s throat worked him, saliva dripping down his balls and Pete’s chin. He ran his hands through Pete’s hair, getting lost in the velvety feeling of the other man’s mouth for a few moments. He then tightened his grip and pulled Pete off him, chuckling at the angry mewl that Pete let out. He looked up at Vegas with blazing eyes.
“Fuck, his mouth feels so good,” Vegas taunted over his shoulder. He replaced his cock in Pete’s mouth with two fingers, which Pete greedily sucked upon, drooling all over them. With his fingers still in Pete’s mouth, Vegas slid to his knees behind him, diving in to lick over Pete’s hole. Pete moaned around his fingers as he pushed saliva into Pete’s asshole. Vegas pulled back to spit against it, and then went back to wetly licking it.
Pete moaned and bowed his upper body so his cheek was pressed against the dusty floorboards. He looked up at Berry’s face - or, at least what he could see of Berry’s face. The thin line of his eyes were wide and wet with tears as he struggled to breathe. Wet, sputtering coughs were muted from behind the guts wrapped tightly around his face. Pete was in a place of utter submission, falling further into the warm haze of subspace with every motion of Vegas’s tongue. He wondered if he should have felt humiliated or weak in this position, on his knees and sucking Vegas’s fingers as Vegas ate him out. But he felt powerful. Vegas was worshiping his body. Vegas had wrapped up Berry with intestines so Pete could have an audience to see his pleasure, to see what Vegas did for him and to him. The image of Vegas giving Pete all the pleasure his body could handle would be the last thing that Berry ever saw. It would be burned into his eyes forever.
Vegas pulled his fingers out of Pete’s mouth and quickly replaced his tongue inside Pete’s asshole with his fingers, jamming them into the last knuckle in one motion and began to ruthlessly fuck Pete with his fingers, adding a third finger not long after. Pete wailed, and Vegas groaned as he looked at Pete, meeting Berry’s gaze intently. Did Berry see the monster there now? Did he see that dark thing that lived in Pete that was a thousand times more deadly and terrifying than whatever ghost had claimed this house?
Berry stared back at the man who looked up at him from the floor. Berry began to realize that he really was going to die here, the oxygen rapidly running out as he aspirated on his own vomit. He’d never wanted to admit to Roe and the rest of the Black Fists, but this place had always freaked him out. He’d never wanted to admit, not even to himself, that coming face-to-face with a ghost terrified him. As the blackness crept in around the edges of his vision, and he stared transfixed at the man looking up at him, he realized that was foolish. There had been nothing to be afraid of from a stupid ghost story… the real monster was now looking up at him.
And that monster stared back, unblinking. Maybe it was the lack of oxygen as Berry died, but as he blacked out, he was certain he saw the true form of the kneeling man, that the endless black void of his eyes had shown Berry a glimpse of the hell that was now waiting for him on the other side.
Vegas pulled his fingers out of Pete, groaning as he looked at Pete’s gaping hole. It was one of the sexiest sights in the world to him. He spit in his hand and coated his cock with more saliva, and then spit into Pete’s opened entrance. He heard Pete let out a slow sigh, and he knew that was the moment when Berry had died. He pushed himself into Pete at the same time, which turned the sigh into a long, loud moan.
“Yes,” Pete hissed against the floor as Vegas immediately set a punishing pace, his hips slamming into Pete’s sore ass deliciously. The sound of their flesh meeting echoed through the now silent house. “Yes, Vegas. Fuck! More!” he pleaded, hand moving to jerk himself off in time with Vegas’s thrusts.
Vegas slapped Pete’s ass cheeks, which were already pink from earlier. “Don’t you fucking dare touch yourself, Pete. You come from my cock only, like the cockslut you are.” He slapped Pete until his ass was red, groaning at the tight heat encircling his cock. Pete’s muscles clenched down around him as he gripped his hips tight and began thrusting into him at a more furious pace. He made sure to slam against Pete’s sore ass cheeks with his pelvis as hard as he could. His knees protested against the unforgiving floor, but the small discomfort, and the burn already settling into his thigh muscles, was well worth it to hear the noises Pete made under him.
Pete clawed at the floor as Vegas railed him just the way he wanted. He relished the thought of trying to sit down tomorrow and feeling the dull ache all through his ass. Maybe he wouldn’t even take the oxy that Vegas had swiped off the guy in the attic, just so he could feel that pain for longer, feel the ghost of Vegas inside him. It was the only ghost that mattered. He whimpered as Vegas thrust into his prostate again and again. He knew that this fucking wouldn’t even be in the top 100 of their longest sessions, but Pete didn’t care - he wanted Vegas to make him scream and come all over this dusty, forgotten floor. “More,” he begged, arching his hips up further to create an even more dramatic angle for Vegas to fuck into.
“Fuck Pete, you’re so tight.” Vegas gripped Pete’s hips so tight that he was grinding them against bone as he ruthlessly fucked him. He moved one of his hands up Pete’s sweaty back, wrapping around his neck from behind. He clenched his fingers hard enough that Pete sputtered and gasped, the whites of his eyes visible as he rolled his eyes back in ecstasy. “Vegas,” Pete whimpered, chanting the other man’s name over and over. “Please.. I… I’m going to come… Vegas…!”
When Vegas felt Pete begin to come, his muscles clenching and fluttering, he pulled out. Pete whimpered as his semen splattered down onto the floor under him, his asshole now clenching and fluttering against nothing, gaping and used and so fucking perfect. It only took two pumps from his fist, watching Pete’s asshole clench and gape, for Vegas to come. He came into Pete’s open hole, some splattering around the abused rim and his red ass cheeks. He came and came, so much that he felt like his dick was going to fall off.
After he finally finished, he panted heavily to try and get his breath back, looking down at Pete, whose back also rose dramatically with his breaths. Pete’s slack, sweaty face was relaxed in a look of fucked-out bliss.
“Lay down here, sunshine,” Vegas whispered, gripping Pete’s hips with far more care than earlier. He helped Pete lay down, moving them so he wouldn’t have to lay in the puddle of semen. There wasn’t exactly much Vegas could do in a haunted house in terms of cleaning aftercare, but he could stroke Pete’s hair and spoon him, so he did just that. He lay himself against Pete’s back, running his fingers through his husband’s sweaty hair and murmuring in his ear. Vegas wasn’t sure what he was saying - it was just as much a comfort for himself as it was for Pete.
The one thing that he knew he peppered in over and over was ‘I love you’. Because, how could he not use every chance he had to tell Pete how much he loved him, how much he needed him? He ran his hands up Pete’s chest, feeling Pete’s heartbeat, rapid under his fingers. Vegas buried his face in Pete’s neck, breathing in the scent of his skin, his lips finding the pulsing jugular vein in Pete’s neck. He pressed his mouth there, tasting his life. Tasting the most precious thing in the world to him.
Pete sighed, that dreamy and woolen feeling softening the world around him. Laying here in Vegas’s arms felt so fucking good. He still marveled at the feeling of Vegas’s embraces, still treasured every second. It had almost been stolen so many times that each touch was worth more than diamonds. He purred as Vegas’s hand lovingly ran through his hair with a gentle, feather-light touch.
But, Vegas’s hands were on his chest, lightly tracing the scars he’d made there. Pete raised his head, looking over his shoulder. He saw the curve of Vegas’s cheek as he smiled. Pete gripped Vegas’s hands, bringing them up to his lips to kiss his fingertips. He shook his head, wondering if he’d just imagined that touch against his hair as subspace refocused into reality. But he didn’t think he had. Maybe Vegas had been right about them giving the ghost more fun than it’d had in a long time…
***** ***** ***** ***** *****
“I think you actually didn’t make a fucking awful choice,” Macau ground out. “This show is actually okay.”
“Shut up!” Tankhun hissed, slapping his younger cousin’s shoulder.
“Yeah, yeah. You can’t hear the subtitles. I get it.”
Pete was now the one to slap Macau’s shoulder. “I can speak Korean, Macau. So listen to your cousin and shut up.”
Macau groaned again, loud and dramatic.
“Why did you even bother coming?!” Tankhun screeched, pausing the episode of Semantic Error, rewinding with a pointed glare at Macau’s profile.
Pete decided to keep the peace and go along with Tankhun’s complaining, and not point out that Tankhun had not-so-subtly demanded that Macau come along for their drama-watching date. Pete was convinced that Tankhun liked arguing with Macau, and Macau liked arguing back, as they spent a lot of time together for people who claimed to do nothing but argue. The fact that Chay was at the university for his long-overdue interview probably helped Macau’s decision to get out of the house.
“Here you are!” Vegas’s voice called from the doorway.
Pete leapt up from Tankhun’s bed, heart bursting with joy at the sound of Vegas’s voice. It had only been half a day since Vegas had gone off for a meeting that he’d been cagey about, but it felt like a lifetime. He strode across the room and wrapped his arms around Vegas’s waist, peppering his face with kisses before hungrily claiming his mouth.
“Get out,” Tankhun hissed. “This is my private sanctuary. I will not have you sully it and steal my Pete away again! Pete, I command you to stop kissing him! It’s making me ill!”
“No,” Pete murmured against Vegas’s mouth. “Never.”
Vegas raised his eyebrows in a dare as he stepped into the room. “Well, if you’re going to be a fucking asshole, I won’t let you in on my surprise.”
“I don’t care about your surprises,” Tankhun muttered, crossing his arms in a snit.
“I care!” Macau grinned. “Unless it’s a sex toy. You don’t need to show me that.”
“What if it were for you and Chay?”
“... is it?” Macau asked with a cocked eyebrow. He lost it in a fit of uproarious laughter at the positively horrified look on Tankhun’s face. He wrapped his arms tight around Tankhun. “We’re just kidding. No need to be horrified, grandma.”
“Stop it!” Tankhun shrieked, trying to struggle away from Macau’s grip. “I will have Pol come in and beat you up!”
“I could take Pol in a fight and you know it,” Macau countered, squeezing harder.
“All right, all right,” Vegas said, merriment dancing in his eyes. “Your dear cousin is about to burst a blood vessel, Macau.”
“I don’t need your help,” Tankhun hissed at Vegas, adjusting his clothes after Macau released him. The royal blue catsuit and white jacket set off his skin perfectly. He beadily stared at the papers in Vegas’s hand. “So, what’s this surprise? You have brought your evil germs into my room, so you may as well tell me.”
“I just bought a summer property.” Vegas waved the papers. “In Pete’s hometown. There is this really old house there that has been left to disrepair. With Grandma getting older, I thought having a place there would be more comfortable.”
“You bought the gh–” Macau began.
“Yes, I bought that grand old house on the hill,” Vegas interrupted. “But it needs a lot of work… interior decorating, contracting…”
Tankhun leapt to his feet. “You don’t know anything about decorating, Vegas.”
Macau gave his knowing, mischievous smirk to his brother behind Tankhun’s back before turning his attention to his phone. He sent Chay a text letting him know about the house. They’d both gotten very attached to Pete’s grandmother, and Macau knew Chay would be just as happy to know they’d get to spend more time with her and her cooking, playing MahJong. He still didn’t know why the idea of playing MahJong with her made Vegas and Pete dissolve into laughter, though…
“Sure I do. Why, do you know someone who is into decorating that comes highly recommended?”
Tankhun strode across the room, jabbing his finger into Vegas’s face. “You know me, you stupid idiot! I will be decorating your new house, and you cannot say no. It’s penance for coming in here and ruining the spiritual energy of my rooms. And for stealing Pete away.” Tankhun then went to the door. “Pol!” he screamed.
“I’m right here, Khun Noo,” Pol answered from the hall, where he’d been talking to Cello. “You don’t have to scream.”
“Help me get out my color wheels! We have some decorating to plan. You too, Cello!”
“You’re not the boss of me,” Cello said simply, crossing her buff arms with a smirk. “But, I did have to live through the remodeling of the Minor compound, so I can help you boss Pol around.”
Pol glared at her, betrayed. She laughed and clapped him on the shoulder as he followed his boss into the room.
“Did you do this to help bridge the gap with Tankhun?” Pete whispered in Vegas’s ear as Pol sighed heavily as Tankhun ordered him around the room, Cello offering suggestions with a shit-eating grin. “Someone is so cute when he’s soft-hearted.”
Vegas leaned in and kissed the tip of Pete’s nose before resting their foreheads together. “I was very serious when I said I thought we should spend more time with your grandmother.”
“Are you going to tell him the house is haunted?”
Vegas grinned. “Oh Pete my love, where would be the fun in that?”
END.