Salvation Ch. 01

***** This story follows on from House of Persuasion (aka 'Shameless), and follow's Nate's journey after Vince moves on. *****

*After being introduced to his own bisexuality by Vince, Nate struggles to come to terms with his newfound lust for male attention. When his girlfriend, Ash, leaves for Australia to study, Nate goes on a self-destructive binge and is rescued by his ex-lover after Ash sees him die in a dream...*

SALVATION

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Chapter 1

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Music pounded, base thudding through the floor, as Pax made his way between the bodies stretched out on filthy mattresses and trashed couches, kicking aside rubbish and empty booze bottles as he did.

A young guy in his twenties was sprawled across one of these couches, his hair falling back from his face, his eyes closed. His lashes lay dark against his pale skin.

Pax crouched beside him. "Nate, wake up!"

A kid in his late teens approached him, stumbling through the trash.

"Who the fuck are you?" He was wearing a loose singlet that showed his ribs through the wide slits at the sides, his blonde hair styled with sweat. He was carrying a hammer.

Pax straightened up. He was a head taller than the kid, and three times his size in muscle. He folded his arms, his tanned forearms bulging from the rolled-up sleeves of his black dress shirt.

"I'm here for him."

The kid, his eyes wide and blinking rapidly, looked down at Nate. "Him?"

Pax nodded.

"Cost ya."

Pax cocked his head and narrowed his eyes. "What do you mean it'll cost me?"

The kid nodded his head towards the unconscious guy on the couch. "He's out of it, so he won't be much fun, but... gimme fifty. Fifty for half an hour. I'll keep watch."

"You fucking little—"

The kid raised the hammer, his pale blue irises circled with white. "You gonna fucking pay or are you gonna leave?"

"Fuck you."

Pax grabbed for the hammer as the kid swung it, and elbowed him in the face. The kid fell to his knees, then keeled on to his back.

Pax dropped the hammer and shook the man on the couch. "Come on, Nate, come on, wake up!"

Nate's eyelids twitched. He groaned.

With an expression of disgust, Pax pulled him upright. He patted his cheek.

"Nate, are you in there?"

Nate groaned. "Leave me alone."

"Can you stand?"

"No." His eyes stayed closed.

"Then at least try not to throw up on me."

Pax hauled him to his feet and helped him stagger across the prone bodies and trash to the door. He hauled it open, flooding the room with sunlight, and dragged Nate out into the autumn afternoon where a young guy was leaning against a parked car.

"Hey, Yusef, can you help me here?"

Yusef, slim and dark with blue eyes and tattoos scrawled down his arms, helped him get the barely conscious man into the back seat.

"He's not going to puke in my car is he?"

Pax shook his head. "I hope not. I'll jump in the back with him. You drive."

He got into the back seat and pulled a seatbelt across Nate and clipped it in.

Yusef got behind the wheel. He glanced back at Pax. "Your place or A&E?"

Pax looked at Nate's pale face. "What are you on, Nate? Meth? Heroin? Something else?"

Nate's head lolled against the headrest.

"Let's take him to my place. It's only five minutes from the hospital anyway."

Yusef put the car into gear and pulled away from the curb.

They took a corner and Nate slid sideways. Pax put an arm around him and rested his chin on his head.

They reached Pax's wooden villa fifteen minutes later. Together he and Yusef dragged Nate inside and laid him on the couch. Yusef looked on as Pax slipped a cushion under his head. "Do you want me to stay until you know he's okay?"

Pax shook his head. "No, you go, Toby'll be wondering where you are. I'll take a cab if I need to get him to the hospital. But thanks."

"No problem, man. Good luck with him."

Pax shook his head and sighed. "Yeah."

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Chapter 2

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Nate woke to find Pax sitting opposite him nursing a glass of whiskey.

"Whaaat happened?"

"Yeah, that's my question too."

Nate threw an arm across his face. "How did you find me?"

"Ash told me where you were."

"That's not possible," Nate mumbled. "Ash is gone."

Pax shook his head. "She moved away, she's not 'gone'. Jesus, Nate, dramatic much?"

"Left me," said Nate. "Same thing."

Pax looked down at his whiskey. "How long have you been on this bender? Three months? She moved away to do something with her life, you stupid, selfish asshole. It's not as though she left you alone." He struggled not to sound hurt, and failed.

His brown eyes roved over Nate, whose sweat-stained t-shirt sagged across his chest, emptied out by drug-induced weight loss. His jeans were loose around his hips, held up by a belt that'd been perforated using the belt's prong.

He stank.

"Can you stand yet? I'd like it if you took a shower."

Nate made a noise of annoyance and pushed himself upright. "You didn't have to come after me."

"Are you aware that while you're out of it, there's a kid selling your body to anyone who wants it?"

Nate started to laugh and broke into a cough. He put the back of his hand against his mouth and wiped flecks of spit away.

"That's just Rory. He tries it on. No one wants to fuck someone who's out of it."

Pax rolled his eyes. "You can't seriously be that naïve."

Nate shrugged and lay back against the couch.

"Did I mention you stink?" said Pax.

Nate gave him a resentful look. "Fine. I'll take a shower."

He got to his feet and staggered down the hall to the bathroom.

Pax followed him into the hall and collected fresh clothes from his bedroom. He took the clothes into the bathroom and leaned against the sink as Nate closed the shower door and started the water.

"You know, when I met you, I thought Vince was doing you a disservice."

Nate threw his head back and ran water through his hair. "And now?"

"Please use shampoo. God knows what you picked up in that dump."

Nate gave him another look of resentment. "Don't be a cock."

But he squirted some out anyway and massaged it into his hair.

"And now... I think you have some serious character flaws."

"Well, no one's forcing you to be around me."

Pax gritted his teeth with frustration. "I came to find you because I was worried about you. We both were."

Nate rinsed the shampoo out of his hair and picked up a bar of soap and started lathering his body.

Pax frowned as he ran his gaze over his slimmed-down frame. "You've lost a lot of weight."

"Thanks," said Nate sarcastically.

Pax watched as he slicked his chest with suds, the bubbles clinging to the dark down on his chest, and felt something stir inside him as Nate moved the soap lower, smoothing suds down his legs.

Despite having lost some muscle, he still had a great body. And a fantastic cock. Pale, smooth and perfect, especially with water trickling off the end of it.

Pax pulled his eyes back to Nate's face. "You need to start eating properly again."

Nate turned into the water, showing Pax his taut ass. "Don't be a feeder, Pax. No one likes a feeder."

He finished rinsing his chest and turned his back to the stream again, holding Pax's gaze as he rinsed the last of the soap off his body. His eyes glittered with a look Pax knew only too well. It was the look he gave Pax when he was planning on fucking with him, just because he could.

Nate ran a hand through his wet hair and turned off the water. He stood there naked, droplets of water clinging to his chest hair, running down his body. Running across the tattoo that covered the upper left side of his chest, the all-seeing eye surrounded by flames, and its twining ribbon that held a single word. A name. Inteus.

He gave Pax a slow smile. "You missed me, didn't you?"

Pax looked down at the bathroom floor. "Don't."

Nate pushed open the glass door and stepped on to the bath mat. "Is there a towel? Or would you prefer me to stay naked?"

Pax met his gaze, but couldn't stop his eyes dropping... lower.

He snagged a towel off the rail and tossed it to Nate.

Nate caught it and held it bundled in his hands. "You sure you don't want to help me get dry?"

Pax closed his eyes in frustration. When he opened them again, Nate was still standing there, naked, dripping and gorgeous.

There was a time he'd have dropped to his knees without hesitation and swallowed that pale, perfect length. But he was still stung by Nate's rejection of his affection in Ash's absence. The three of them had been good together, but he'd genuinely thought Nate felt something for him that was just theirs alone.

But no. Nate was just using him to fill the void Vince had left when he'd uncovered Nate's bisexuality. Pax had nothing against no-strings sex, but it should have been more with Nate. Pax knew he deserved more.

Nate mercifully fixed the towel around his waist and walked over to his former lover, scattering drops of water across the tiles.

He searched Pax's face as the darker-skinned man watched him warily, and dropped the flirt from his eyes.

"What?"

Pax shook his head. "Just... you. The way you behave blows my mind."

Nate raised his eyebrows suggestively. "Why stop with your mind?"

Pax sighed. "Please don't."

Slowly, Nate dropped to his knees, keeping his eyes fixed to Pax's face.

Pax followed his progress with tortured fascination.

"Please, don't," he said again. His voice was hoarse.

But Nate was already tugging at his jeans. Pax put a hand to his fly to stop the other man taking his jeans down, inadvertently palming a handful of his own swollen erection.

Nate gave him a disbelieving look. "Really? You don't want this?"

"I just pulled you out of a disgusting drug den, Nate, that's not a turn on."

Nate looked down at Pax's obvious erection. "Are you sure?"

"What's happened to you?" asked Pax. There was pain in his voice. "Be honest. Have you been selling yourself to pay for drugs?"

A look of anger passed across Nate's face. "None of your business."

Pax shook his head. "Jesus, Nate. If you needed money, you could have come to me."

"Really?" said Nate, a note of steel in his voice. "Hey Pax, I really need to do some meth today, can you lend me a hundy?"

Pax let out a growl of frustration. "I would have helped you."

Nate's lip curled in a snarl. "Helped me? Oh, you've helped me more than enough. Sucking me off after I told you I was straight, fucking with my head. Pulling me into some fucked-up ménage à trois that left me... really... fucking... fucked up."

Pax looked as if Nate had slapped him as Nate climbed back to his feet.

"I don't understand what I am," he said to Pax. "I don't understand why I want you like I do."

Nate moved into Pax and sniffed his shirt collar. "You smell like Jean Paul Gaultier."

"I wore it to work," said Pax.

"Le Male Terrible," said Nate, pronouncing it with a French accent. The hunger in his eyes blazed. "You know what it does to me."

Pax swallowed. "I didn't wear it to fuck with you."

Nate put his hand behind his old lover's head and pulled him into a kiss. Pax opened his mouth and kissed him back with an animal hunger as Nate pulled him closer, Nate's erection tenting the towel, pressing the damp fabric against Pax's jeans.

Pax pushed Nate back. "Stop!"

Nate pulled back, touching his teeth to his lip where Pax had nipped him. He tasted blood. He dropped his hands to his sides, breathing hard.

"Why do I want you, Pax? I'm not fucking gay. What did Vince do to me?"

Pax shook his head. "I don't know, Nate. I'm sorry if I've done anything you didn't want. You know I'd never—"

Nate closed his eyes and dropped his head. "I know. I know. Fuck."

Pax put his hands back to his jeans and zipped up his fly. "Get dressed. I'll make you some coffee."

Nate shook his head. "Whiskey. Please."

Pax nodded. "Okay."

He left Nate in the bathroom and headed down to the lounge, his pulse thudding in his throat.

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Chapter 3

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Nate found Pax waiting for him on the couch when he got to the lounge. Pax handed him a glass of whiskey and he took it and dropped down onto the couch opposite.

"You still talk to Ash?"

Pax nodded. "I don't speak to her often, but she called a few days ago. Said she knew where you were and that you were in trouble."

Nate's eyes dropped to his drink. I've been gone for three months. You only started caring a few days ago?

Pax seemed to read his mind, a habit of his. "Nate, you're an adult. If you didn't want to see me, I wasn't going to chase after you."

"No chasing. Got it."

"God you're a child."

Nate met his lover's eyes, but couldn't hold his gaze. He tilted his glass to his lips and took a large swallow of whiskey. "How did Ash know where I was?"

"She had a dream."

Nate did a double take. "A dream?"

"She said Vince told her you needed help."

Nate's glass froze halfway to his lips. "Vince?"

Pax shook his head. "I should have known that'd be the thing you'd fix on."

Nate shrugged. "You don't think that's the part that's the most fascinating? That a man who may or may not be human appears in the dreams of my ex-girlfriend and tells her where I am?"

He drained the rest of his glass.

Pax pressed his lips together. "I haven't asked you about Vince because I figured you'd tell me if you wanted me to know—"

"Yep, and I still don't want to talk about it."

"But, it's pretty clear that whatever Vince means to you, he's not done with you."

Still holding the empty glass in one hand, Nate started unbuttoning his shirt with the other. He pulled the shirt aside, baring the tattoo.

"See this? See the name underneath the tattoo? Shameless. It means shameless. And that means Vince wants me punished."

"Then why help you? Why send me looking for you?"

"Because he couldn't touch me!" Nate's face filled with rage. "Because fucked out of my brain on drugs, he couldn't fucking touch me. If I get clean, he'll find me, and he'll hurt me."

Pax shook his head. "What makes you think boiling your brain on meth was protecting you?"

Nate shrugged. "I just know."

Pax poured himself another inch of whiskey and offered the bottle to Nate. He took it and filled his glass.

"So now what?" said Nate. "I don't have anywhere to go."

"You could go home?"

Nate shook his head. "No. I can't face Cara and Ty. I don't want to have to lie."

"You could stay here," said Pax, regretting it even as he said it.

"You don't want me here," said Nate. "If you felt that strongly, you'd have come looking months ago."

Pax put his teeth together. "Jesus Nate, what do you want from me? When you left you accused me of taking advantage of you. I felt like crap. I wasn't going to run you down and make it worse."

Nate shook his wet hair back and that look was back in his eyes. The look he used to manipulate men and women alike, a look that left straight guys confused, and everyone else imagining him naked.

"But you didn't try."

"You're an adult!" Pax was close to shouting now. All his frustration came boiling back. "No, no, I take it back. You're a fucking child. And that's why I let you go. You're not mature enough to be anything more than a fuckboy."

Nate's mouth hung open in shock for a moment. Then the raw look in his eyes was replaced by arrogance.

"Since when did you want anything more than that? You just wanted to fuck me, like everyone else."

Pax felt a physical pain in his chest. He let out a sobbing breath. "You wanker. Get out. Just get out."

Nate got to his feet and drained the rest of his drink. He stared down at Pax with petulant anger. "Next time Ash has a dream, tell her to come find me herself. If she gives a shit."

He set his glass on the coffee table and headed to the door. He got as far as putting his hand on the knob before Pax tackled him, pushing him hard against the wall, one arm across his chest.

"Don't you dare." His voice trembled. "Don't you fucking dare go back to that place."

Nate watched him warily. "Or what?"

Pax slammed him harder against the wall. "Don't! Don't do that. Don't pretend no one cares about you."

"Like you care. That's why it took you three months—"

Pax put his hands behind Nate's head and kissed him roughly, sucking the breath out of him.

He pulled back, panting. "Yes, I fucking do."

Nate stared at him, then kissed him back just as hard, drinking in the scent Pax wore that drove him crazy, lost in heat and hunger. It wasn't enough. He needed more. He needed all of his lover, not just his mouth.

He pushed Pax away and shoved him hard against hallway wall opposite. "Prove it."

"Give me a chance and I will."

Nate gave him a savage look and kissed him roughly as he tore open Pax's shirt. Pax dropped his hands to help him, tearing it off to leave his swarthy, muscled torso bare.

Nate unbuckled his lover's belt and tore open his jeans, but Pax pushed him away hard, sending him staggering towards the couch.

Pax put a hand to his mouth and ran a finger over his lower lip while Nate stared, mesmerised, as a shaft of sunlight stuck his lover's eyes, making them burn amber. He'd never seen eyes that colour before. Like gold glass.

He took a shaky breath in and Pax strode forward and pulled Nate's shirt open. He pressed a hand against Nate's tattoo and Nate's legs buckled under him, his eyes rolling back in his head.

Pax grabbed a handful of Nate's hair and gripped it tightly, keeping him upright.

Nate groaned with pleasure as his old lover's fingers stroked across the ink, tracing the eye's outline. He only had a moment to think how familiar that caress was before Pax spoke. His voice was low, a throaty growl.

"How I've missed your pretty face."

Nate's eyes flew open to find Pax's had turned a cloudy green.

"Still playing your little games, I see." The voice coming from Pax's throat had an English accent that reminded Nate of gangsters and violence. It was a voice that still had the power to make him freeze in fear.

Pax's green eyes burned into him. "Best you get moving before bad things happen to you."

Nate swallowed hard. "Vince?"

The second he said the name, Pax's eyes faded back to a rich brown. He loosened his grip on Nate's hair and stared at him, confused.

"Did you just call me Vince?"

Nate moved away from him. "I have to go."

He strode towards the front door, buttoning his shirt as he walked.

"Nate, don't. Please don't leave again." Pax came after him, but Nate hurried down the stairs to the footpath, somehow knowing Pax wouldn't follow.

As he swung the gate shut behind him, Pax called out to him: "You're still letting him hurt you. When's it going to stop?"

Nate put his head down and started walking.

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Chapter 4

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Nate had to go home. As much as he didn't think he could face his family, he had no money and nowhere else to go. He'd lost his wallet months ago, had lost his car keys... and his car. He'd have to pay for that somehow, since it belonged to Colin Dashwood, owner of the car yard where he worked. Used to work. He doubted he still had a job.

As he walked along the shoulder of the highway thumbing for a lift, he wondered if there was any way to keep Vince away. He could go back to the squat. Get high again. But he was tired of living on his knees. Tired of being confused. Tired of being hungry for sex all the time to the point of physical pain, and not caring who fed him.

He needed help.

An off-duty Taxi pulled over the side of the road. "Get in, mate," said the driver.

Nate slid into the back seat. "You're sure it's okay? I don't have any cash."