A Boy Who Came In from the Cold Ch. 11

"Ssshhhhh," he whispered, scooping Rayne tenderly into his arms and holding the lad close as he began to sob more audibly. "Aahhh... don't cry, it's all over now. No one's gonna hurt you any more. I swear it!"

They got Rayne back to the boat a little before sunset. Ant insisted on carrying him all the way there, even though he argued weakly and rather shamefacedly that he could walk. In the end he gave in and closed his eyes as he was lifted in strong, warm, familiar arms and held tightly to his lover's breast, his head on the older man's shoulder. At one point he curled his arms around Ant's neck, hiding his tear-streaked face against his rescuer's hot, sweat-damp skin.

Ant Wright had only left his side once since they found him and that was when Aldo came back, with blood on his knuckles and spattered across his powerful chest, to help console the boy. Ant rose silently then and walked back down the hall towards the front door where Christophe was fuming about the invasion of his privacy and arguing with Mikkal who still stood between the older Frenchman and his young lover, Thierry, arms folded implacably across his broad chest.

"He belongs to me!" Christophe insisted, although there was perhaps an edge of fear in his voice as he said it. "You people cannot monopolise every beautiful boy on the Cap!"

"You're right," Ant said in a low, dangerously neutral tone, making Christophe whirl to face him with a little start. "We can't. But we can make damned sure that you never hurt one of them again!"

"Hypocrite!" Christophe sneered at him. "You agreed that such a thing would excite you! On the train..."

"On the train I said a lot of things that I regret," Ant interrupted, conscious of Mikkal's raised eyebrows, although the tall, imposing Finn did not say a word. "Toys and restraints are one thing. Humiliation is a completely different ball game, Christophe. You thrashed Thierry until he could barely stand upright. And for the things you've done to Rayne today I ought to fucking kill you! If you've damaged him, I'm gonna come for you with the biggest fucking dildo you've ever seen in your god-damned life!"

Christophe opened his mouth to say something else but the words never left it. Ant's punch knocked at least three of his teeth out and slapped him into the wall. Thierry gasped in shock. Mikkal applauded slowly, with a humourless smile. Phil, who had been guarding the doorway merely shook his head in amazement.

Several hours later they were all back on Dan Leland's boat, including Thierry and Phil Honeywell, who seemed to have been accepted by the regulars with open arms. Neil and Craig Dupont who had spent all afternoon down on the Plage and missed much of the excitement now whooped and cheered as Phil related the storming of the bungalow to them, making it sound like a scene from a Batman cartoon, complete with 'Splat!' and 'Kerrpow!'. In the relative privacy of the bedroom, Rayne was sleeping at last. Ant had helped him to shower and Terry fetched Doctor Mahmoudi, who pumped him full of antibiotics (to be on the safe side) and a shot of something 'to help him settle'.

"You should have called the Police," Daniel lectured sagely now from the doorway as Ant lay on the bed beside his exhausted lover, stroking the boy's hair. "He could still press charges for assault, you know."

"Somehow, I don't think he will," Ant murmured, burying his face in Rayne's dark, silky hair as they curled together like hand-carved spoons on the huge bed. "And our way of dealing with him was infinitely more satisfying!"

Rayne Wilde slept like a dead thing for nearly three days. The Doctor visited him each morning and gave him a little jab to 'help with the pain'. He did not exact his usual fee for such services, for which his patient was profoundly grateful. Rayne was too enervated to even speak most of the time, he just sprawled on the bed wrapped in the silken sheets with his eyes closed, enjoying the stillness. Voices came and went. Gentle hands felt his brow or tried to sit him up a little to coax sips of chilled water or slivers of ice into his mouth, then Mahmoudi's needle slipped into his arm and down he went again into that comforting darkness where nothing could touch him.

Aldo was sitting on the end of the bed when he came to his senses properly for the first time in days. The Italian youth was perched on a corner of the mattress with his legs crossed under him and his spine perfectly straight, peeling an orange. The sharp, citric scent roused his companion and Rayne's eyelashes fluttered as he rolled over and tried to sit up.

At once Aldo sprang into action, abandoning his snack and catching the boy before he collapsed back onto the sheets, or worse, fell out of bed. Ant would never have forgiven him if that happened during one of the few, rare periods when he was not personally at Rayne's side.

" 's awright," Rayne muttered hoarsely as he was propped up and surrounded with pillows. "Don' fuss!"

"I want to fuss," Aldo insisted cheerfully. "You need some fuss. Antoine practically insists upon it. He will be most annoyed that he was not here when you awoke."

Rayne blinked at him sleepily.

"Why do I feel like shit?"

"You don't remember?" Aldo asked, looking a little worried.

"Dunno." Rayne shook his head, trying to clear the fog of sleep. "It's all a bit..." he waved a hand vaguely.

"Maybe that's good," Aldo said hopefully.

"Why would that be good?" Rayne demanded, pulling a sceptical face at him. "Uh-ohhh..." he added, before the Italian fellow could think of an excuse; "...I think I'm starting to remember why!"

Paddy came to see him that evening. Rayne opened his eyes slowly, coming out of a disturbing half dream in which he was pursued across Camber Sands by men in gimp masks with large nets. He sat up a little too quickly and strong hands caught him, holding him steady as he realised where he was. A little colour returned to his cheeks when his eyes met PJ McNamara's steady gaze.

"Aldo said you were beginning to feel more like yourself," he remarked evenly now. "You will forgive me, I hope for not coming to visit sooner. Your guard dog has been most vigilant in keeping me at bay. I think he believes I plan to mount you the moment I get you alone."

Rayne took a quick breath and licked his lips nervously.

"Don't you?" he asked with a quick, teasing smile.

"I thought it might not be terribly polite," Paddy replied, his hands sliding gently upward over Rayne's shoulders and cupping his face. "You are looking a little healthier then when I last saw you, anyway. The marks on your cheek are healing well."

Rayne touched his face anxiously but could feel no evidence of indelible scars. He inhaled more deeply and his fingers lingered briefly on the backs of Paddy's hands, then fell away as he realised that Ant was sound asleep on the bed next to him. His visitor saw the way Rayne's expression flickered from tenderness through surprise and a little confusion and back to a look of tolerant affection as he tugged the delicate coverlet up over Ant's nude body. Sitting back on the edge of the bed, Paddy let his touch drop away and Rayne's pale green eyes darted back to his own at once.

"He's barely left your side," he said quietly. "I don't think he approves of me."

"He's only jealous," Rayne answered in a monotone. "He thinks he's in love with me."

"Is he not?" PJ smiled curiously.

A little shake of the head was his only response. Rayne sighed deeply and looked away.

"What makes you so sure?" the Irishman enquired.

For a moment Rayne seemed to stare into space as if he saw another time and place to the one he was in; a place where the answers were. He flexed his long, pale fingers slowly, then bent his head.

"I'm not someone people fall in love with," he whispered at last with a hint of resignation.

"Since when?" PJ's smile faltered but his tone was still gentle.

"Since... always." Rayne looked up at him finally, his lips twitching almost apologetically. He seemed both impossibly young and immeasurably ancient in that moment. Paddy almost leaned forward to hold him but the instant passed and Rayne was looking away again, watching Ant sleep like a worried parent with a small, sickly child.

"I don't think that's true," Paddy told him at last, exhaling the words carefully. "I think that you don't like to let others get too close. Maybe you think that they'll hurt you. Maybe you believe that you're safer if you don't give them the keys; if you don't even let them through the door. I reckon you've broken some hearts in your time, Mr Wilde."

The look he got in return for that observation was one of mild disgust and casual dismissal. Rayne plumped up the pillows and leaned back against them for a little while, then shifted again restlessly, pulling his feet up under him and propping his elbows on his knees. His hands moved constantly, tracing light, airy, invisible patterns between them as if he could conjure enchantments to protect him.

"You just want me to get well so that you can fuck me," he said at last, rather deprecatingly. "Just like Ant wants me to get well so that he can get inside me and I can make some money and pay him back. Dan just wants me to get the fuck off his boat! I think he's a bit scared of me, actually." A cynical smile flashed across his face and was gone just as quickly as it came. "You all are, when it comes down to it."

"I'm not scared of you, Rayne," PJ told him with a small shake of his head. "And yes, I do want to fuck you. And it's nothing about movies and money. I want to get inside your body and feel you merge with me and cry out for me until we're both melting with pleasure. You are one hell of a challenge, Rayne Wilde. I just want to... to please you."

Rayne's response was nonplussed. He snorted softly through his nostrils and looked away again, closing his eyes.

"You're damned hard to impress," the older man informed him, utterly bemused by this.

His lithe young companion did not look at him but murmured; "You want to impress me, do you?"

"I wanna get through to you," PJ said. "I wanna register in your eyes. I just want to know that you're human like the rest of us, I guess."

Rayne shrugged his shoulders. "That's tough," he replied quietly.

PJ frowned at that. It seemed such a cold thing to say; so crushing and final.

"Is there 'anyone' out there who impresses you?" he wanted to know. "Is there anyone in this world that Rayne Wilde sees as an equal, huh? Do you actually give a good god damn about anyone at all?"

Those green eyes came slowly back to his. Rayne's lips framed a crooked half smile but it never reached his eyes.

"That really bothers you, doesn't it?" he ventured at last, tilting his head, studying Paddy as if he was an image in a frame on the wall of a gallery. "You're really freaked about the idea that I might not actually give a shit!"

"I find it... kinda disturbing," the Irishman admitted. "You're a good looking boy, Rayne. You've got a lot going for you and you don't seem to realise it. Or you don't actually care."

"I had teachers like you when I was a kid," the young man told him with a speculative smirk. "Fucking trainee social workers, every last one! When the fuck are you gonna realise that it doesn't matter?"

Paddy shook his head, bewildered by this remark. "I don't get it. What do you mean, it doesn't matter?"

Rayne uttered a little sigh of frustration and looked away again. His hands spread wide then curled into fists and fell into his lap.

"No one gives a fuck! I don't give a fuck, PJ! Shit happens. Most of it happens to me!" He looked down at his hands for a little while then closed his eyes again. "Why the fuck would anyone want to take that on?"

"You talk like you believe you're cursed," Paddy said incredulously.

"Maybe I am."

Rayne was shutting the door. He sensed it right away and moved closer at once, refusing to let the kid push him out.

"I don't believe that."

"More fool you!" Rayne muttered without lifting his chin.

Paddy McNamara reached out and cupped his face before he could flinch away. He drew Rayne towards him until he could almost taste the boy's quick, angry breath. Those eyes were incandescent. He had never known anyone so determined to be right.

"Let me prove it," he whispered.

"Fuck. Off." Rayne's teeth came together with a little click behind slightly parted lips. His expression was almost a snarl.

"You think I kicked the crap out of those perverts the other day because I enjoy kicking ass?" PJ almost laughed. He did not know whether to be angry or amused. "I did it because I don't like to see helpless people get abused."

" 'm not helpless," Rayne muttered, trying to shrug out of his grasp. "I don't need your help. I don't want you to feel sorry for me. It doesn't make a scrap of fucking difference!"

"What 'do' you want?" PJ asked, sensing an opening.

"I want you to leave me alone."

He was surprised and somewhat deflated. "For real?"

Rayne quivered like a tensioned cable in a high breeze. Then his delicate hands moved up to Paddy's thick red hair and surged through it, fingers closing and tugging on it as if he would fall if he let go. His head tilted again and his soft, moist lips pressed against PJ McNamara's mouth kissing him ravenously, all but sucking the air out of his lungs. He felt small and cold, a tiny, fragile thing, clinging on to life. Groping hands pushed through Paddy's mane to the back of his head and he looped his slender arms around the other man's neck, pulling himself closer. His lips moved rapidly as if he was speaking a silent language into the Irishman's mouth; directly into his soul. PJ scooped him up and held him tightly, feeling Rayne straddle him and rub against him as if he needed someone else's warmth to survive.

He rose to his knees, bending forward, laying the boy down again and carefully lying on top of him. Automatically, Rayne spread his legs and hooked his knees up over his partner's hips, rubbing his slender body urgently against Paddy's muscular belly and torso as the Irishman's tongue searched his open mouth. Beside them, Ant grunted in his sleep and rolled over slowly and they both froze. Rayne was looking up at him with huge, melting green eyes. His pupils were enormous, almost dwarfing the irises. As PJ's lips parted softly from his he could hear the boy panting rapidly under him.

"You wanted to know how much I care?" Rayne whispered to him breathlessly. "There's lube in the cabinet by the bed. Rub it on your dick and push it into me, McNamara. Ram your big cock up my arse and fuck me 'til I scream! Wake him up. Let him watch. Let him fucking well join in!"

The last comment was uttered in a snarling tone that shattered his desire. Paddy shifted his weight onto his elbows. For a moment he traced the pale, hungry face of the slight, frenetic, bewildering boy beneath him, then he knelt up slowly and disentangled himself from Rayne's grasp feeling a sudden chill in his loins.

"Coward!" the youngster exhaled vehemently as he rose to his feet beside the bed. Rayne's eyes never left his face but Paddy could not hold that ferocious, half-crazy stare. And surely he 'was' out of his mind!

He shook his head slowly and sorrowfully and reached out to smooth the boy's hair. Rayne thrust his hand away and rolled over with a little gasping noise that might have been a sob or a brief sigh of disgust. As Paddy watched him, Ant turned again and curled an arm around the boy's shoulders, drawing him closer. Rayne burrowed into that embrace and did not look back.

ON DECK:

"That was quick!" Aldo was laughing as he mixed Paddy one of his special Blue Witch cocktails, following the tall Irishman out onto the rear deck where Daniel and Terry were already ensconced with Arturo and Isolde, chatting amiably in the evening sunlight. ""Not to mention quiet!"

"That's because nothing happened," PJ said impassively.

"Sure!" Aldo was still grinning at him.

"His boyfriend was with him, what did you 'think' was gonna happen?" Paddy took the cocktail glass and lowered his imposing bulk into a wicker chair, which creaked alarmingly under him but held his weight.

"Sound asleep," Aldo remarked, shaking his head. "He's probably exhausted enough to sleep through the boat sinking!"

PJ shrugged and sipped his drink with a solemn expression on his face.

"What's all this about?" Daniel asked mildly, a little frown creasing his brow.

"Paddy's got a crush on Rayne," Aldo grinned more broadly.

"Yeah, right!" PJ sighed, fixing the younger man with a steely look.

"Come on, everyone knows you hate it when they hold out on you," the Italian youth teased. "And he's got you wound up like a god-damned spring, old man!"

Terry and Isolde laughed heartily at this and Arturo cracked a smile behind his bushy moustache but PJ only shook his head again and Daniel's frown deepened. Nothing more was said about the matter but the elderly pornographer cast more than one speculative glance in PJ McNamara's direction before the evening was out.

AND DOWN BELOW:

As Rayne huddled into the curve of Ant's hot, naked body, burying his face in the salty flesh at the hollow of his neck and shoulder, he was cursing himself furiously and silently. It was too easy to cry right now. He still felt weak and less than himself. Mahmoudi had been giving him morphine, he suspected, and it was never good for him but this was just ridiculous. He felt as if someone had physically turned him inside out and now all his thoughts and emotions were on display, raw as open veins and stretched nerves. How the hell else had PJ known just how to pull his strings?

Had he not been wasted, there would have been no way he'd have allowed their argument to get so far. So let the arrogant Irish prick think he was a complete slut. In a few days he would be out of here, with money in his pockets and a smile on his face. He would never see McNamara again. What did it matter?

Rayne closed his eyes on the prickle of tears and swore to himself quietly.

"Jesus, stop it! Fuckin' stop it, you idiot!"

"Stop what?" Ant murmured quietly and the boy sat up as if a gun had gone off behind him.

Blue-grey eyes opened and surveyed him shrewdly as he scrubbed at his face, eradicating the tears as quickly as they had come. His breath came in rapid huffs that were not quite sobs.

"I thought you were asleep," he panted, flopping back down and hiding his face in the pillows.

"I gathered," Ant said, rather neutrally.

"I was talking to myself." Rayne rolled onto his back, staring at the ceiling, willing himself to think straight. "I was just mad at myself... for... for letting them get me so easily."

"Not because you freaked McNamara out and missed a shot at that cock then?" Ant queried atonally.

Rayne turned his head, staring at the other man incredulously.

"You...?"

"Yeah, I was awake. Or do you want to try and convince me that I didn't hear any of that?" Ant was looking back at him, his expression unreadable.

"I'm..." Rayne swallowed hard, trying to remember exactly what it was that he had said to PJ. He remembered getting angry and a sense of wanting that was almost strong enough to choke him. "It... it's not what you think."

"It never is," Ant sighed, sinking back into the pillows and gazing up into the shadows of the ceiling. "You know something, I could probably have coped with all the moods and the tantrums. I could even have coped with you taking drugs and lying bald about it. But what I can't take is that you were prepared to do something like that; to fuck him and rub it in my face. Maybe Dan was right about you, after all. I should have left you in the fucking snow!"

Rayne opened his mouth to say something. His lips quivered and he knew that it was no good. He was going to cry and that would cut no ice right now. Instead, he pushed himself to his feet and forced the quaver out of his voice long enough to snap; "Maybe you fuckin' should have!"