Chapter Text
In Coyle’s hands he holds a simple bowl of some ungodly creation, a mixture of various rotten fruits and vegetables and meats, all congealed in a mighty concoction of fat and caustic acid that’s fit more for the inside of batteries than another man’s stomach, yet he pushes a spoon of the awful substance against Clyde’s pressed-thin lips anyway. It might be a miracle that the gruel doesn’t burn through his skin and muscle and teeth, dripping down onto the floor and melting a hole through the wood like the kind of acid the rest of Sinyala’s currently dissolving in, wherever they were seen fit to be buried. As it stands, though, it commits no such quarry other than exist as a time-tested virtue towards the entire art of keeping someone alive but not comfortable, a play of sorts that, if Coyle had any sort of penchant for theatrical acting, he would be playing a starring role in.
Clyde yanks his head–the only stable part of him he can move–to the side and almost snaps his neck in the process, a motion to which Coyle responds with a deep, resonating growl, the kind of affronted anger that comes best when the subject of cruelty dares to fight back. A dog fucking a bitch into the pavement when she dares to nip him, or a cocksucking punk getting a little too toothy around a better man letting him try to bribe his way out of the cruiser.
He sets down the bowl and with fingers like snakes in Clyde’s hair, Coyle just slithers them near-gently along until he gets to where that soft spot would’ve been when Clyde was a mere infant, and then he tugs hard like a mighty fish he’s caught on the line and is going to descale and fry for a nice Sunday dinner with a family he’s never had the privilege of truly knowing beyond the cruelty of whims and misguided judgements forced upon him. “You’re gonna eat this shit, you dumb cunt, else I’m gonna melt it down and peruse these backalley, Godless streets ‘til I find a needle I can stab it into you with.”
Clyde has not eaten since the incident – the one which Coyle refuses to elaborate further on, already a full week ago now. Yet, until he needs to, he’s kept it pushed down, just like the various other consequences of his life that hold no true sway over his intelligence or actions in the present.
Regardless, it’s been a week, and Clyde’s own insults and person are already wearing depressingly thin. Nothing like the thick stock of meat Coyle’s used to playing with, and the inability of his captive to even look him in the eye for longer than a few minutes at a time has grown boring for a man that relies on action and the inevitabilities of said action carrying out to keep himself from falling completely apart.
Since his own rescuing, Clyde has been the one true constant of pure, unagonized light that shimmers and shines like fresh blood on the grass, or bile on the pavement when his own scraped-up knuckles lodge deep into a commie’s feeble fucking stomach, the cracking of rib bones a symphony upon his ears that have heard nothing but the equivalent of nails on a chalkboard since. Everything else is dull background noise, luring him into a domesticity he hasn’t been able to be latched down into not once, not twice, not even on the third fucking try but women are weak anyway, and he felt that disgusting sway with every single docile word and movement that came out from the doctor’s presence.
But not anymore.
No, Leland’s got his own pet now, and he’s just a little bit nervous is all. He didn’t have the patience for such trivialities before, kicking and bruising a bit too hard until the stupid mutt keeled over and died on him with blood coming out of every sorry orifice it possessed, but this time, he’s got half a mind to keep this bastard alive. At least, that’s what would be the most beneficial to them all.
Yet Clyde? He doesn’t see it that way.
“I told you time and time again,” Clyde speaks through clenched teeth, not allowing Coyle even an inch of give past his lips. “I’m not fuckin’ eating that.”
Coyle responds by slamming his captive’s head backwards against the wall. “You are, ‘cause I said you are and I’m the fuckin’ law ‘round here! It’s my house and I ain’t lettin’ you starve to death ‘cause I ain’t fuckin’ dealin’ with your corpse.” The teeth-grit rant is what he says, but the reality of the situation is apparent to both of them.
Still, Clyde only shrugs. “Better that than the alternative of gagging myself to death watching you two live with one another.”
Coyle rolls his eyes. “Fucker’s hardly here, you goddamn infernal skunk .”
Words don't need to be said, he can read it clear as day on the smug motherfucker's face, like that length of rope tied tight around his legs and arms and torso can’t be used to wrap a noose around his sorry neck and hang him like the sick, degenerate sort of scum he is.
“You think you’re one of them now, don’t you?” Coyle presses dirty nails into Clyde’s cheeks, crescent-shaped red marks blooming across the sun-tanned skin. “Think you’re somethin’ ‘cause you got money and time?”
He leans in close, foreheads butting, nose brushing against one another's like an intimate scene in a painting or a movie, but the brush strokes are all wrong and the actors can't get their lines right. He’s never been one for ribbons and bows placed all over the scene of a crime like some Christmas present given by a Santa hell-bent on staining the snow pink with blood. He doesn’t mince words, he doesn't waste his breath. What he says, what he does and what he lives and goddamn breathes is the truth as he sees it, no frills or lace or beating around the fucking bush whatsoever. He hasn't the time for it, none of them do, and he doesn’t pretend otherwise.
“You ain’t shit and you never will be shit. You’re cannon fodder, fucko. You ain’t even gunpowder.”
With a shove Coyle releases his captive, the contents of the bowl of “food” he gathered out of a dumpster late at night splashing onto the floor when he jostles against it by accident, and the rancid smell hits them both like a suckerpunch – a disgusted wrinkle of the nose and a dry heave of the gut following respectively.
Coyle pushes through it. “A person who’s somebody ain’t got scars. No tan lines. And what do you got, huh?” He pushes Clyde downward and to the side, ignoring his struggles like a doctor with a coward afraid of the needle, fingers digging into the pressure points of his wrist he can reach through the rope and watching the man’s hands flex with agony and reluctance. Scars across the skin, just where he’d left them. Like a wedding ring, but it can’t be removed, can’t be hidden in a pocket or left on the dresser. A permanent brand of Coyle’s presence that he’ll never, ever be able to shake.
“What’s your point?” Clyde grumbles with his face pressed into the floor, shaking Coyle out of his self-induced stupor so he hauls him back up to a position where he’s kneeling again, though of course he doesn't do so gently. It doesn't matter, Clyde seems used to it now, has come to expect it or maybe he just doesn’t have the fight left in him anymore to even grimace or wince or show any sign he’s still a living, breathing person. Other than his quips, of course. Has to do something or he’ll lose his mind. “Or let me guess, you don't have one. You're just projecting like always.”
“Jesus Christ.” For anyone else, this is taking the Lord’s good name in vain. For Coyle, it's an expletive of the same breed as calling someone an outrageously daft cocksucker. “And where’d you get your degree, huh? Academy for Assholes?” It's bad enough with one man in the house playing doctor, he doesn't have the time nor the patience to deal with another. “Point is, you better shut the fuck up and open your mouth ‘fore I decide I wanna stick somethin’ else in there instead.”
Clyde’s stomach betrays him, rumbles like distant thunder in a way that makes Coyle smile. “Get me real food.” Coyle hovers the bowl up in a gesture that says this is the best he can do. “Bullshit.”
“How ‘bout this, then?” He rises then from his crouched position, sets the bowl tantalizingly close, and closes the distance between him and the front door. “Got work to do out in the fields. I come back, scrape what I picked up in the pastures off the bottom of my boots and you eat that instead.”
The look he gets in return of such a proposition is just a deadened stare, someone who's been worn down to the utmost degree until he’s nothing but a stain on the carpet or a scratch in the wood. “When’s he coming back?”
Coyle shrugs. He never knows anymore, and he can't say he cares all that much either. If the bastard was shot and killed, he might just let the perp go. Hell, he’d buy him a drink and toast the motherfucker, then proceed to dance on Easterman's grave with a pretty little number named Irene. After all, someone needs to show the poor gal a good time, and he’s sure she never had anyone love her like a real man should.
“Christ, fine . Give me the poison.”
“Forgettin' your manners there, Perry.”
“Don't push it.”
And Coyle doesn't. Instead he saunters back over like he just won the damn lottery, and he picks that bowl and spoon up the same way he would with his winnings, smooth and exaggerated and smiling, a self-satisfied grin tugging at the corners of his mouth. “Here come’s the fuckin’ plane.”
Clyde looks like he doesn’t know whether to be more disgusted with the food itself or the words Coyle just said, but either way, he opens his mouth just the smallest bit and allows the other man access inside. On the first taste, he immediately spits it out.
“Fuckin–it’s got fur in it, Coyle!”
“You ain’t never had a peach before?”
“Oh, shut the hell up.” A pause. He leans in closer, tries to get a better look. “And what’s all the liquid even from? Did you piss in it?”
Coyle leans back, scrutinizing. No more time to waste, as though he had any before. He’s a busy man and babysitting a fussing prisoner isn’t really on his agenda for any second past the current hour. “You want the boot instead?” And Clyde thinks about it, just for a moment, before opening his mouth back up again. “What I thought.”
He doesn’t think about the familiarity of the motion, of how quaint and homely this act of his is. All of that gets sealed off under police caution tape, “do not cross” with a high enough jurisdiction that even he doesn’t have the clearance to get through, not that he’d want to. There’s only one type of person that’d bother with prying that deep, and he’s finally busy enough playing his favorite role in a town filled with people just a bit less fucked in the head than Coyle himself – though most of them all play the same tune and dance, all to the same maladjusted rhythm.
In truth, Coyle doesn't know what caused the shift: perhaps it’s the access to a vehicle that isn't Coyle’s cruiser–that he’d never let anyone else drive, especially not him –or his pickup, but Easterman is gone often, and for long, long spouts of time, minutes that drudge onward like soldiers through the rain and the mud as hail and snow and ice and rain crash down upon them and batter their helmets and turns their skin raw and rugged, pulling and peeling and scrubbing and scratching until there’s nothing left under their uniforms but rotten black and icy blue.
Of course, Coyle doesn't care about it in the least.
He’s prayed every damn day since this whole triage of theirs started that such a sight as his own home being devoid of that righteous bastard would grace his vision, but Clyde’s always asking and prying at him like he’s got the answers to what that straggly son of a bitch is up to, or when he’ll ever be back.
“He always comes back, don't he?” is a reply he once gave, and what's sad about it is, he doesn't quite know himself if he's disappointed or relieved with the revelation.
And it’s not like he hasn’t hounded him before too, after he comes home, asked him where he's been, but it's always the same. Found work somewhere, not that Coyle believes it. This town doesn't talk feelings, and they certainly wouldn't with him of all people, but Coyle’s also seen the change for himself – what a few good years without his presence has done, and the more and more the man’s gone, the more and more he starts to find solace in Easterman’s excuses.
Of course, Clyde only asks and worries–though he’ll never admit to such a thing–because he knows Hendrick’s his best bet at not being treated like slackened cattle, but even then, even with his presence in the home, he stays wholly distant, a fog beneath the glass that neither of them can touch to wipe away, always on the wrong side. A constant reminder, always there, but inconsequential to any event that happens since Clyde’s capture. Just another ghost, in a home filled to the brim with them.
Clyde’s able to get the second bite down, and the third, and the fourth. By the fifth, he’s shaking his head, face pale, and remarks that he needs to lie down. Coyle lets him, no skin off his back. It was only partly about filling Clyde's stomach anyway.
Tossing the rest of the food into the trash, Coyle rinses out the bowl and settles it in the bottom of the sink for later. He passes by the front door, gazes out the windows near it, and seeing no sign of Clyde’s car or any sort of vehicle on the gravel road beyond his property, turns his gaze forward to the figure that beckons him every single damn day since he let it have at him the first time. It wasn't the last, and neither would it be this go around.
With every instance, he – his parts – seems to grow more phallic in nature. Blunt, wet tips of slithering tendrils that now latch onto the doorway like spiders to their prey, beckoning with an eerie sort of flirtation that makes his cock swell and his lungs ache all the same. He’d be a fool to say he's used to it, but he keeps coming back over and over again like an addict drawn to poverty. Information comes at a price, he keeps telling himself, and he gets a bit further into that damn journal each and every time.
Truthfully, it's the only access he gets to Easterman beyond his flickering activity in the home, a firefly he tries to catch that always manages to slip through his fingers, and it's the only full truth he can get out of the man either. Though the book is mostly just the drivel of a man stocked up to the brim on hallucinogens, a lot of it is dedicated to Leland himself, like a school girl with her crush; reading it makes Coyle sick to his stomach, but every time it still leaves his heart pounding twofold with the realization that he’s on Easterman’s mind just as much as the other way around.
Though he doesn't try to pick Hendrick apart in a similar sort of circumstance. He just leaves the good doctor how he is, knows there's no changing a man that is too busy trying to change others. Besides, he had already attempted – and failed – to get him to be different, and the result had gotten Easterman on his knees with a gun in his mouth. That song and dance doesn't need to be repeated.
He's tried to retract since then, lest he do something he’ll say he doesn't regret but his nightmares ‘til the end of all time will tell him otherwise.
Like at the start, when Coyle steps into the room, it just leers at him with those sunken, reddened eyes that make goosebumps prick all up and over his arms. Something crawling on his skin, bugs and mites in his veins that chew and gnaw at all of his nerves until he’s scratching at his neck, drawing only a thin, meager trickle of bright red hue down his shirt collar and across his side. There's always a scab there nowadays that gets peeled off in the process, trying to rummage his fingers into the wound. A wound that’s always already opened from something he can't quite remember.
His footsteps are heavy as he turns the corner, one last glance towards Clyde’s sleeping form, because no one's supposed to know he’s kept doing this, and he closes the door with a soft click behind him. He’d gotten a verbal lashing from Easterman before because he’d taken what wasn't his, but he ate that nauseating little scrap of information up anyway and absorbed the knowledge through some cannibalistic form of osmosis, because he couldn't stand the thought of that perverted, disgusting creep reading over that one moment they shared together in a primal time of his own need.
Coyle does that himself enough already, he doesn't need to be thinking about anyone else doing it.
“Here again.”
It speaks to him in a gross mockery of a voice he's heard thousands of times before. He speaks back like it's an old time friend, but friends aren't doing the things this. . . creature does to him. Neither would he let a friend do it, but he doesn't have a choice in the matter.
“There’s always a choice.”
He ignores it, presses forward even as long, skeletal arms wrap up from behind him, as talon-esque fingers start to claw and rip at the edge of his shirt, all the while repeating to himself that none of this is real, all of this is fake and nothing will remain when he’s out and gone.
“You missed me.”
Coyle grunts, steadies himself with his hands as he finally makes it to the desk, a white-knuckled grip keeping him sane but not safe, never safe in any sense of the word, even where there isn't a hallucination tugging at his dick like it wants to rip it clean off.
“You came back to me.”
The touch burns against the mangled skin, and heat is so pleasant to a man with a heart and soul as cold as his. His knees buckle and his shoulders pop. Actual tears start brimming in his eyes when he feels one of those claws catch on the tip of his cock and tear, threatening to rip it cleanly in half but he’d still probably whine like a bitch and ask for more.
It’ll always touch him in a way that's searching for something, like it needs something from him, every bump and ridge, tracing along the vein with blunt nails and leaving blackened ash and red welts in their wake that doesn't disappear after three hot washes. A constant reminder, not dissimilar to the ones he’s left on others before.
What little hair that can grow, in scraggly patches crispy-cut by ember and flame and self mutilation, is ripped out from more than just the root, makes him feel like clumps of his skin are coming along with it. And yet he knows when he wakes up after all of this, when he's up and gone away from this room, it’ll only be razor-shaved in a way that’s so much closer than he's ever been able to do to himself before.
Somehow – in some wretched, soul-sick way, in some rotten part of his very core – he likes that vulnerability, that unknowing lawlessness that comes with these trysts of his.
He craves it.
“You always come back to me.”
“Shut your fuckin’ mouth.” Through clenched teeth Coyle stays quiet, even when he knows this thing can hear his thoughts because it is him, a manifestation of something he doesn't quite care to name, and seeing as they're getting close to the main event he doesn't have the time to, either. Rips open drawers, the damn thing always in a new place every time, must be doing it just to annoy him. All he finds now are clothes and a wedding ring, the implications of such a discovery not lost on him.
Fingers want to force themselves inside a hole he thinks too small for anything besides his own urine, and he blanks his imagination from thinking too seriously on such a matter to save himself at least that small amount of indignation, even when cold, wet ooze drips out of him like a leaky faucet and stains the front of his pants black and red with a substance he can’t find–and doesn't want to find–the words to describe. Afraid of consequences, afraid of himself and the paranoia that creeps in despite his continued mantra cycled on repeat, afraid that the assurance that none of this is real and he’d be stupid to believe it was may be a little less certain than he’d like to think.
Even when there’s evidence, it’s only the type he can see. This thing is about as crooked a judge and jury as he himself could bother to be, but it doesn’t even have the common decency to execute anything other than his pride when his sentence is over.
“Say it.”
Coyle says not a word. With a frustrated growl, he closes the drawers back up and tries to ignore the sensation of what feels like electric eels wrapping around his arms and legs, turning his attention instead to the closet and making his way there. They undulate and tighten like vice grips against his straining muscles but they don't pull him away. It’s wet and sticky and like every single cigarette he's ever put out on himself is lit up again and pushing into every minute inch of his biceps and thighs but brighter, more explosive now, a building set to detonate or a tower meant to burn.
His fingers struggle with his pants, the scorching, soaking feeling too much to bear, like he’s got a cunt instead of a cock, soaking his pants with slick before he can wrestle them off. A whore like any other, desperate to get filled up and split in half, yet the cool air does nothing to help alleviate him. Just makes him feel more accessible and open as his dick jumps up and spills more of that fluid onto the floor instead, getting into the cracks and sealing them up like caulk and concrete.
“ Say it.”
The silent treatment, because he can’t be bothered to indulge in it right now. He rips open the closet and shoves aside more hanging clothes, these ones pressed and clean in a way that has the gears in his brain turning in overtime, but all questions filter from his mind when his eyes land upon a lone box in the corner. Jackpot.
He squats down, feels another hand crush around his balls in a familiar way he doesn't want to think about at the moment–but perhaps later, like always, when he’s tugging his dick late at night to the thought of his own submission during these encounters–and pries the lid off the box with shaky hands and uneven breath.
“You don't need to say it.”
A flip of the switch, the air goes from hot to unsettlingly cold. What he finds is not what he expects. No journal, no paper or pen, just glass and sharp, metallic points. Needles, a few of them, already measured out with a substance Coyle hasn’t seen for a good long while.
“I already know.”
It feels like knives slash his ankles and force all his weight onto his knees, up close and personal with the true evidence of these illusions, these absolutely fucking horrendous expeditions he's been on, time after time, until he’s willingly coming back for more. He is an addict to a drug he thought he was clean of. Does it happen in his sleep, or can he just not feel it?
There's no one to trust, there's no one to rely on, and of course he knew that before but he’d been saved, hadn't he? Rescued, an unlikely savior for himself, the fool that ruined everything because he hadn’t learned acceptance of his place at the time, lashing out like a stubborn animal backed into a corner. Blood drips to the floor from the spot on his neck, his fingers sticky, a stark reminder that no matter who he lies to, who he tries to blame, this is all his fault. All those lives, all that money, all that freedom he could've had but gambled and lost because he thought he was on top of the world.
All of this is retribution. All of this is revenge. Can he blame the man?
Even if he hadn't kept this going, even when it runs out, wouldn't all of this still wind up the exact same?
“Quiet now.”
His hips left up high, his jeans wrapped around his ankles and his face pressed harsh into the ground, this is when the real show begins. It’ll start slowly, a gentleness he used to laugh at but has since learned is a mercy, and he keeps his mouth closed like a dog with a muzzle because he knows it’s better for him so he doesn't walk around with a phantom limp and a pain he knows isn't real.
But then his balls get squeezed so hard he thinks they might pop, and he can no longer sit quiet and still.
He kicks out and screams, all throat and animal terror, a cat cornered and getting ready to be thrown into a bath. A screech tears through him when what feels like an entire hand is shoved dry inside of him all at once, spreading him wider than he’s ever had the gall to do to another being before (not for lack of trying) and he chokes on objectified lightning in the form of faceless, black pythons stretching his jaw open until he swears any more pressure will crack his skull clean in half. White-hot agony dresses itself in the snug clutch of his throat, following it down and pushing deeper still until both ends of this monstrous being touch like long-lost lovers, their slick contact almost gentle in the folds of his intestines. His entire body quivers and shakes around them, a livewire of terrible sensation for a job badly done.
Hardly knowing if he’ll choke to death first or be torn in half as easily as paper, thick, gummy drool descends from his lips and coalesces with the rest of the ooze his still-hard dick is currently excreting like a hose that just won’t stop running. It’s sick , an abomination, he cries and he sobs and he wails like the girl he had at nineteen when she’d begged him to stop but he never did listen, and it’s his lack of listening now that’s got him wound up in a position he always knew he’d be in sooner or later. Repetition repeating religiously, realizing he’s got nothing but regrets rebirthed into regrown majesty.
Of course it’ll happen time and time again. It doesn't matter what he does, it doesn't matter how he changes. It’s like what's always been told to him, that the past can be rewritten but always, no matter the avenue of attempted divergence, the future is already set.
His future is to be fucked to death by lightning, and surely as the storm will come, he’ll get to see it through.
“Why do you make me punish you?”
Coyle has no answer, eyes rolling back into his skull, trying hard to get his hands underneath him, to fight, but it doesn’t work. His wrists are wrenched backwards, a slippery hogtie of inadequacy he hasn’t felt since he was a child, forced to endure and watch and obey but he struggled then and he’ll struggle now, all because he was and still is just a frightened boy desperate for an escape from responsibilities he can’t manage to keep and expectations he doesn't want but can't shy away from.
“Don’t you know that I care for you?”
His heart beats so loud he swears it could shatter the windows and the very foundation of his home. Reality has no meaning because it doesn’t matter. Illusion, delusion, hallucination – none of that matters when his guts are being rearranged from both ends and he’s vomiting more of that substance he’s now sure is his own body rejecting this demonic possession as best it can, but everything has to give some time, and he’s tired and weak from trying to prevent it.
“Don’t you know that you’re useful to me?”
Something tightens around his throat and leans his head backward, bending his spine so harshly he believes he’ll soon snap in half. Wide, frightened eyes follow their predetermined path, bleary with tears, but he still holds his breath, hitches in anticipation of the deformed skull he knows he’s going to see, but–
“Don’t you know that only I love you?”
It’s Hendrick’s face obscuring his vision, real, pure, with a halo of artificial light surrounding it like a sun he wasn't allowed to see deep underground in the belly of some hellish, corporate beast he had slain one too many times before. His muscles tense, more viscera and bile spewing from his lips in a muffled torrent, but everything in his guts feels so overwhelmingly tight that his cock spills all it’s got onto the floor: cum and urine and blood and everything else in-between, liquids in every shade of rot staining the time-worn wood under his knees.
Shame burns hot on his tongue as the force that was gagging him slips out from between his teeth, leaving him able to beg like he always does eventually, like he always will do because this is what he is and what he’ll forever be.
“Hendrick, please, I,” his voice wavers and cracks, he is frightened and he's confused and of course he doesn't understand, doesn't want to understand yet still, he tries to wrap his head around the inevitability of reconciling what has happened. “I need help.”
But he gets none. Nails scrape and they snag on welts and blemishes across his softening flesh, tearing and ripping and causing him to whimper like some poor, lost dog starving under a bridge, desperate and alone and scared . “How many times?”
He feels like he’s been castrated by pain alone, and his savior isn’t providing him with any salvation because perhaps he doesn't deserve it. Maybe he isn't regretful enough. “I’m,” he stutters over the word like he’s been kicked in the head by a mule, vision whirring, feeling so close to passing out, just like always. “I’m sorry, okay? I just–”
That hand of righteousness tightens and squeezes, the real thing, pinching his limp dick until he’s yowling and doesn't feel human himself. “How many times?” Hendrick’s voice is stern, no room for negotiation and Coyle swallows and gathers his words as he admits the truth of everything.
“Every day since.” That warm hand tears now, whatever’s inside of him expands and he panics in such a way he doesn't think he’ll ever be able to look himself in a mirror after. “Please, I’m sorry, alright? I am, I really am but God, fuck–” His hips tremble in place, he will never reconcile this feeling, and blood rushes back down south like roaches into the holes in the walls when the lights turn on. “You gotta help me, Hendrick. Please.”
A hum. A glance down at Coyle’s cock, hard so quickly yet again in the palm of his hand and his hole absolutely gaping, he imagines, an embarrassing sight that he does have the common decency to be ashamed of, but can't cover himself up regardless. “I’m afraid you don't mean it.”
“Wait–”
But Hendrick doesn’t, he strokes along Coyle’s shaft with a vindication to bruise and batter the already-abused flesh some more, knuckles white with the force of his grip and his knee wedged between his spread legs. He presses up, a motion so swift and hard and powerful that it knocks the air out of Coyle’s lungs when it connects with something too sensitive to withstand that sort of pressure, even when he's burned and taxed and pinched himself there too many times to count.
“No matter what I do,” he retracts his knee, slams it back home, repeating the motion again and again and again until Coyle can't keep his eyes open any longer. His mouth is always agape and drool hangs from his lips like a survivor to the cliffside. “You’re always going to ruin it for me, aren't you?” Coyle doesn't realize the question isn't rhetorical, and for his lack of effort, he is rewarded with nails scraping against the sensitive head of his cock. “Aren't you?”
Of course, he denies it. “No, no, no, fuckin’ Christ Almighty.” He coughs and he gags, more of that bile churns up but it's hardly more than just a speckle of blood and ooze from how much he’s expelled out of himself already. “Not gonna ruin, please, I’ll be–”
“You’ll be what?” Hendrick laughs, amused, playing him with the efficiency of a master pianist, not letting go or giving up even when Coyle meets another shamefully quick finish. “Good? You’ve never been anything of the sort.”
It’s only when Coyle is hard again does he retract his hand, flipping the man over with a grunt, and pushing his knees clear up to his shoulders with a stretch that makes him groan. “Stop, you can’t–”
“I can do whatever I want with you.” Hendrick snaps, every word a curse that makes Coyle’s cock spurt, and the man above him shakes his head, disappointed, disgusted. “Maybe you’ll finally learn your fucking lesson.”
And to his credit, he struggles. He kicks and he shakes and he yells curses but his legs are shaky and his arms are pinned underneath him. His throat is hoarse, tongue overworked, and none of his words mean anything when he’s worked up so much that he doesn't think he can withstand another go at himself. Even the light breeze of air is too much for him, and the barest touch is like millions of needles being inserted into the head of his cock and balls. Not only that, but he still feels too full, he still sees the tendrils and they still toy with his body in every place Hendrick doesn't.
“You drugged me!” Left with nothing else, Coyle becomes defensive. Hurt. Petulant, lashing out and trying to maintain any semblance of control even when it's obvious he has none left whatsoever. “You made me see him, you–”
“You were seeing him before I did anything.” The truth hits Coyle like a truck. He wishes he actually had been run over, because then none of this would be happening. “I took what I could to keep your withdrawal symptoms to a minimum, but then you told me you saw him.” He smiles, warm, but with a bite that holds too much venom to be accurately measured. “So I upped your dosage. I made you face your fears, I tried to help you, and what did you do?” Three long fingers force their way into him, too quick, too sudden, stretching him alongside whatever vivid hallucination is already inside. “You fucked a visage of me behind my back so you could betray me.”
“Ain’t what I was–”
“I’m talking here, Leland.” He twists his hand, Coyle’s back arches and his hands grab onto the wrist connected to the digits deep inside of him, but he doesn't pull, nor does he cause any hurt for reasons he doesn't even know why. Chemicals, probably, some sort of overdose or dependency he doesn't have the qualifications to understand fully. “Let go.”
“Not a fuckin’ chance.”
“Fine.” Hendrick remarks, nonchalant, and proceeds to reach with his free hand to the button on his pants.
“You get near me with that thing and I’ll kill you!” But his hands shake, his thighs do too and even he doesn't miss the subtle way in which his legs part just a bit wider, as though preparing for something he’s already had plenty of preparation for in the past. Hendrick blinks, takes in the sight of someone who had knocked him out not too long ago, and smiles down at the man he’s become since.
“Then say it.”
Coyle tries to dislodge a lump in his throat filled with trepidation and familiarity of an experience he has already taken part in once before. He knows what he wants, it's the same exact thing. Everything is the same as it will be for all eternity. Why does he bother fighting it anymore? What's the point of going against something that will always ring true no matter what?
The button unclasps, those long and nimble fingers reaching for the zipper. “I’m waiting.”
“I. . .” His voice grows weak, his lips tremble and nothing inside of him ever stops working overtime to make every single nerve-ending in his entire body buzz at him like crickets at night. “I need you.”
The pressure builds, it crescendos to a plateau that peaks with sensation that makes him cry and squeal all over again, every single muscle tensing until he’s absolutely sure they’ll all tear and he'll be left limp and lifeless and willing for whatever poor sons of bitches want to have their turn with him next.
“I need you too, Leland.” Hendrick presses over him, his long, hooked nose buried into his shoulder and from the crook of his neck to the bottom of his ear, he licks a narrow stripe up his neck, right over that injection point that’s already starting to heal over. “And I always will.”
And fuck, “Fuck,” if that doesn't cause his sore, red and dry dick to unravel with absolutely nothing left inside, a painful sort of orgasm that leaves him broken and used and nothing like what he had been before, whimpering akin to some poor rabbit that got stuck in a trap and will never see the light of day again. If Clyde’s food poisoning hasn't knocked him out cold, then he’ll be left wondering what sort of torture Coyle has just endured, and maybe he’ll feel some pity but more than likely he’ll laugh and he’ll joke about a matter that will only end up in more broken bones and less teeth than what he ought to have.
Hendrick pulls away, he slides his fingers out, and with them so too does the phantom pain of stretch and agony that had been with him all this time. All sensation melts away save for Hendrick’s fingers sliding through what little hair he’s got on the top of his head, and all sound fades except for his one simple command.
“Clean this up.”