Fic, Silk and Steel, Part 9
Jul. 20th, 2008 05:15 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
fredbassettTitle : Silk and Steel, Part 9
Author : fredbassett
Fandom : Primeval
Characters : Ryan, Lester, Stephen, Lyle, Ditzy
Rating : 18
Disclaimer : Not mine, no money made, don’t sue
Spoilers : None.
Summary : Lester confronts Leek
Warning : Slave!fic!
A/N : With thanks to munchkinofdoom for helping to plot this AU.
Author : fredbassett
Fandom : Primeval
Characters : Ryan, Lester, Stephen, Lyle, Ditzy
Rating : 18
Disclaimer : Not mine, no money made, don’t sue
Spoilers : None.
Summary : Lester confronts Leek
Warning : Slave!fic!
A/N : With thanks to munchkinofdoom for helping to plot this AU.
Sir James Lester had just spent a very frustrating forty five minutes on the phone, calling in as many favours as he dared, in an attempt to discover the names of Oliver Leek’s backers.
He had drawn a worrying blank. Even more worrying had been the fact that Connor Temple’s hacking skills had produced no useful information, either. Or at least nothing that he hadn’t already known.
A minor public school, followed by an Oxford college that was notorious for things other than its academic reputation. Leek had then been fast-tracked through the Civil Service, transferring, six months ago, from the Prison Service to the newly re-housed Anomaly Project.
In his previous job he’d headed the policy unit on Penal Reform, which had led to the implementation of one of the harshest regimes the country had ever suffered. From Leek’s C.V. he clearly considered it a job well done. So why had he taken a job which could easily be seen as a step down the promotional ladder rather than up it? Lester hadn’t yet uncovered the answer to that question.
He watched Leek approach the open door, one of Ryan’s soldiers no more than three paces behind him.
Ryan himself stood to one side of Lester’s desk, dressed as usual in black, with the straps of his thigh-holster pulled distractingly tight. Lester made a mental note to inform the captain, at a more appropriate time, that some sights were not conducive to concentration.
Another such sight was replaying in nauseating detail on the computer screen in front of him, only this one held no shred of sexual interest. James Lester might like the occasional spice of pain to liven up his sex life, but he was neither a sadist nor a pervert, unlike the loathsome specimen approaching his desk with an all too confident air.
The man had come highly recommended by Downing Street, but as ever, the Prime Minister’s lackeys had covered their tracks well. The hints had been subtle, but effective, and Sir James Lester was now cursing himself for not having dug deeper into Oliver Leek’s past and his connections. In his own defence, he’d had been up to his neck in bolshie academics and dinosaur dung at the time. But it now looked like an entire flock of prehistoric chickens had come home to roost, shitting messily and noisily all over his previously well-ordered existence.
Lester pressed a button on his keyboard and directed the images from the security cameras onto the large plasma screen mounted on one wall of his office. He’d now watched this three times, but even so, he surprised himself by managing to restrain a wince at Leek’s activities with the whip handle.
“Was this sort of thing considered de rigeur in the Prison Service, Mr. Leek?” Lester enquired, mildly.
From the expression on Leek’s face, Lester surmised that the man had been genuinely unaware of the fact that his activities had been caught on camera, which was something, at least. Lester really did not enjoy going into a fight without at least having some idea of the strength of his own armoury and it looked very much like this recording was the main weapon he had to fight with.
Oliver Leek shuffled his feet and made no attempt to meet Lester’s eyes.
When Lester demonstrated that he had no intention of speaking again until Leek broke the silence, the other man cleared his throat and muttered, “A lamentable lapse on my part, Sir James.”
“Leek, as far as I can see, your entire interaction with our Special Forces detachment in the ARC has been one long lamentable lapse. A review of the punishment records indicates that, with only two exceptions, every flogging that has been dispensed since the Anomaly Project moved to these premises has been carried out at your instigation. It’s nothing short of a miracle that Captain Ryan has any men left fit for active duty. In fact, I begin to wonder if he has. This is neither the Navy nor the Prison Service, Leek, and I’ll thank you to remember that. The Prime Minister has already made it plain that in the current climate we are lucky to have this much in the way of resources detailed to the project, and you know as well as I do that he is a very frugal gentleman indeed when it comes to resources. What does he hate above all else, Leek?” It was a rhetorical question, as anyone who had worked closely with the P.M.’s office would know, but the look on Lester’s face made it plain that he was waiting for an answer.
“Waste,” muttered Leek, staring at a point on the wall somewhere to the left of Lester’s head and still avoiding eye-contact.
Sir James Lester raised one eyebrow in a well practiced maneuver. “Quite. And if he is prepared to lecture a nation of shop-keepers on the need to curb their natural inclination to Buy One, Throw One Away, how do you think he would regard your ability to single-handedly decimate an entire detachment of Her Majesty’s Special Forces? And before you even consider lecturing me on the correct usage of the term decimate, might I remind you that you have in fact done exactly that over the last few months. We have twenty soldiers assigned to this project, and at any one time, two of them have been signed off active duty solely due to your corrective activities. An impressive record, I must admit, but one which I feel will bring less acclaim in your current position than it might have done in the Prison Service.”
The words, “Won’t happen again, Sir James,” slithered from Leek’s lips at the same time as his eyes slid up in the general direction of Lester’s face, focusing somewhere between his nose and his right ear.
Ignoring the slight shiver that ran down his spine, Lester allowed one of his best long-suffering sighs to fall from his lips. “No, Leek, it won’t happen again. From now on, you will leave Captain Ryan’s men alone, in all possible senses of the word. For the avoidance of any possible doubt, that instruction also extends to Captain Ryan himself. The soldiers assigned to this project are exactly that. They are soldiers. They are not your own personal sex-toys. If in future you feel the need to bugger anyone with a whip-handle or indeed any other inanimate or even animate object, you will visit the appropriate establishment and negotiate the appropriate rates. Do I make myself clear?”
For the first time since he had entered the room, Leek met his eyes directly, and Lester suppressed the desire to shudder. There was something about Leek’s gaze that made him feel like someone was not so much walking on his grave as line-dancing over it.
“Admirably clear, Sir James. Momentary lapse ….. won’t be repeated, I can assure you of that …..”
Lester allowed himself a second sigh, backed up by a pained expression as the continuous replay from the security cameras reached what might be described as the climax of Leek’s activities.
“Close the door on your way out, Leek.” Lester’s tone was dismissive.
A quick flash of anger crossed Leek’s eyes and was equally quickly suppressed but he did manage to shut the door without slamming it, which only added to Lester’s feeling of unease.
* * * * *
Ryan watched unmoving as Lester pushed his chair back and closed his eyes for a moment.
The soldier hadn’t liked Leek’s passive-aggressive manner one little bit and he knew without needing to be told that his master felt the same way. The man had to have highly placed backers, that much was obvious, and that wasn’t a comforting thought. This bloody job was dangerous enough without constantly having to watch your back on the inside as well. Damn Lyle and his stupid fucking heroics. He might have neutralized the immediate threat so far as Kermit and the others were concerned, but at what cost?
Lester stood up abruptly, looking tired. “It’s getting late. Tell Owen I’ll see him in the morning. No, better still, just do what the fuck you want with him and send me the pieces tied up with a red ribbon. I’m really not sure I want to know the full extent of what that pair of idiots cooked up between them and much as I might want to knock seven bells of hell out of Owen’s thick skull, we will almost certainly still be needing his services. But tell him from me that if he puts one foot out of line again, I will personally feed him to the next waif and stray from the past that Daphne and Scrappy try to persuade me to find a home for.”
And with that, Lester swept from the room, his own personal thunder cloud hovering just over his head.
* * * * *
Lyle lay face down on the infirmary bed, hooked up to an unsettling array of drips and monitors. Stephen Hart sat next to him, Lyle’s hand held loosely in his. If anything, in Ryan’s view, Cutter’s lab assistant looked even paler than his lover, with his black hair and long dark eyelashes standing out in start contrast to skin which looked pinched and drawn over the sculpted lines of his handsome face.
In answer to Ryan’s unspoken question, Stephen said quietly, “He’s doped up to the eyes on morphine.”
“And he’s staying that way,” added Ditzy. “When Lester’s finished flaying my hide, you’re going off to get some sleep yourself, and that’s a bloody order.”
“Lester’s delegated that task to me,” said Ryan, in a voice that made the medic’s stomach head south at a rate of knots. “Can you leave him?”
Reluctantly, Ditzy nodded. “Call me if anything changes,” he told Stephen, before heading off towards an empty treatment room.
Ryan pushed the door closed behind them and leaned against it, his arms folded.
The medic held up both hands defensively. “Sorry, boss, but you’d only have tried to stop him, you know you would.”
“Too fucking right I’d’ve stopped him! Kermit’s virgin arse wasn’t worth risking Jon’s fucking life for. So go on, let’s have all of it out in the open, how much did you know beforehand?”
Ditzy shuffled his feet and flicked his eyes in the direction of the ever present surveillance camera.
“Connor’s taken care of it,” said Ryan. “Lester trusts him and so do I. So spill it, Ditz. Now.”
“He was going to do it anyway. You know what Jon’s like when he’s got an idea in his head. It wasn’t just about Kermit. He reckoned Leek wasn’t going to stop until he’d killed one of us, and I think there’s a lot of truth in that. You can see it in his eyes, sir, the man’s mad as a fucking snake.” Ditzy hesitated, his nerve starting to fail in the face of Ryan’s implacable silence.
He took a breath to steady his nerves and ploughed on, “Jon’d heard stuff from a mate of his who’d been sent into Albany after the riots. They had some serious cleaning up to do there, and word on the streets was that Leek played a large part in tipping that situation over the edge. Always goes for lads like Kermit first, so they say, but he doesn’t stop at the first one, not by a long chalk.” He met Ryan’s eyes, a resigned expression on his face. “Sorry, boss,” he repeated, “but even if I hadn’t dosed him up beforehand, the mad fucker would still have done it, and he’s hard, but he’s not that fucking hard, whatever he thinks.”
Ryan sighed, and unlike Lester, it wasn’t for effect. He’d known Lyle for fifteen years, but this had to rank as one of the lieutenant’s maddest stunts, and for what? At some point a sick bastard with rape listed in the hobbies section of their C.V. would still end up shagging Kermit before the lad had served out his term. He’d known the score when he’d indentured himself, or he should have done, but Lyle had still insisted on playing the knight in shining armour and riding to the rescue.
Did he really care more about the men under his command than Ryan did? Was there still a shred of idealism left in Jon Lyle that even the System had failed to beat or fuck out of him? And at what point in the last seventeen years had Ryan lost that final shred of humanity that meant he’d do anything to keep his own men safe? Had he really been prepared to stand by and watch while his men were abused without doing anything to stop it?
“Don’t go there, boss,” said Ditzy, quietly. “The lads know you’d put yourself on the line for them any day of the week, Christ knows you’ve done it often enough, but Jon reckoned this one was down to him.”
Ryan looked up and shook his head slowly. “Since when did you learn to read minds?”
The medic grinned. “Goes with the territory. How else do you think I keep one step ahead of the lying bastards who call themselves my patients? You included, most of the bloody time.”
Of all the men under his command, Ditzy was the hardest to ream out at the best of times, and this wasn’t the best of times. Ryan was knackered and in pain and he was starting to feel that he wasn’t getting the upper hand in this debate.
“So tell me what the fuck the pair of you lunatics dreamed up, and then try and convince me why the hell I shouldn’t just ram your head through that wall and hope you pick up some common-sense along with the brick dust …..”
Five minutes later, Ryan stared at the medic in horrified disbelief. They were mad, the pair of them. Completely fucking mad. Without a word to Ditzy, he turned on his heel and stalked back out onto the small medical ward.
Stephen looked up, his dark eyes haunted. “Don’t blame Ditz, Ryan. You know what Jon’s like. You’ve known him long enough.”
“And I’d like to know him a while longer,” muttered Ryan. He reached out a brushed a strand of Lyle’s sweat darkened hair off his face. “You’re a complete fucking twat, Jon, you know that, don’t you?”
The ghost of a grin curved Lyle’s swollen lips, his eyelashes fluttered and his fingers flexed in Stephen’s grasp.
Ryan laid his hand briefly on the lieutenant’s arm. “Go back to sleep, you fuckwit. And if you have the goddamn nerve to die on us, I’ll follow you into hell and rip you a second arsehole myself.”
* * * * *
The lights in the bedroom were turned down low but even so, the pounding in Lester’s head hadn’t abated much and he knew perfectly well that alcohol and tablets were a bad mix but that hadn’t stopped him.
Every time he closed his eyes, the sight of the whip tearing a red furrow across Lyle’s skin came back to haunt him. It reminded him all too forcibly of watching Ryan suffer the same way for some wholly imaginary disobedience. The third time that had happened, closely followed by the image of the wooden handle being forced into the soldier’s body, his stomach had rebelled and he’d barely reached the toilet in time.
He was sitting on the edge of the bath, resting his forehead on the cold porcelain of the sink when he heard the main door to his room open and close and booted feet approaching across the floor. He debated telling Ryan to get the hell out of it but however much he didn’t want to be seen like this, being alone didn’t greatly appeal either.
A large swill of mouthwash got rid of the taste of vomit, but did nothing for the pain in his head.
The Special Forces captain slid carefully to his knees and avoided Lester’s eyes. “Don’t blame the guards. I told them you wanted a report.”
“I did. I’d obviously just forgotten to make that clear, Captain Ryan. So how is the idiot?”
“Heavily sedated but provided he doesn’t get an infection, Ditzy reckons he’ll be OK. He’s another bloody idiot,” Ryan added, irritably.
“They all do it,” said Lester, pulling off his tie and throwing it inaccurately at the laundry basket in the corner of the room. “If they reckon they can get away with it, all the medics shoot ‘em full of painkillers and steroids before a flogging. That’s nothing new.”
In spite of himself, Ryan grinned, “Yeah, I know, but how many of them administer an enema then stuff their patients arse full of lube as well?”
The veil of cynicism dropped from Lester’s narrow face leaving him looking surprised as well as several years younger. “He did what?”
“Cleaned him out to cut down the chances of infection, stuffed him full of codeine to dull the pain and bung him up for the next few days, then squirted enough lube up his backside to sink a battleship. Ditzy says the only thing Lyle whinged about was the local anesthetic he whacked into his bum for good measure.”
Lester shook his head in amazement. “I know you lot claim that planning and preparation prevents piss poor performance, but that’s taking it to extremes, for fuck’s sake. Did the silly sod get torn?”
“Yes, but not too badly. It seems his main worry was the lube leaking and Leek noticing.”
“His main worry? Nice to know he’s capable of keeping a sense of proportion. I rather think my main worry might have been the thought of being buggered with a whip handle, but clearly Lieutenant Lyle’s made of sterner stuff.”
“Ditzy said Jon preferred the idea of the whip handle to being fucked by Leek. It seems his entire plan was based around it.” Ryan looked up and met his master’s eyes. “Lie down, I’ll give you a neck rub.”
“After the day you’ve had? Go and get some sleep, Ryan, you look fit to drop.”
The soldier’s grey eyes held the merest hint of challenge as he answered, “I can last a while longer ………..master.”
Lester ran a hand through Ryan’s short blond hair. The captain knew exactly how to push his buttons, and he swore Ryan had those damned thigh straps so tight that kneeling should have been nigh on impossible. A swift brush of soft lips across the inside of Lester’s wrist really wasn’t playing fair, but his headache was rapidly heading towards a migraine, he’d need his wits about him tomorrow, no doubt ….. and Ryan really did know all the best ways of relaxing him.
Lester dimmed the lights even further then shed his clothes, for once leaving them scattered and unheeded on the floor.
Face down on the bed, head pillowed on his arms, Lester felt Ryan’s strong fingers working across his shoulders, unknotting the muscles, stroking, soothing, moving downwards in wide, sweeping strokes, replacing tension with pleasure.
The soldier knew exactly where to press his thumbs to relieve the thudding pain in Lester’s head and within minutes the sickness and pain begin to recede, leaving behind a pleasant feeling of lethargy.
Lester rolled onto his side and muttered, “Much as I like the feel of your gun digging into my hip, Captain, on this occasion I’d prefer to avoid any reminders of violence, if you don’t mind.”
Ryan chuckled and slowly and very provocatively started to unfasten the straps holding the pistol in place, before dropping it onto the rugs beside the bed.
“Boots,” said Lester, decisively. “Boots are not an adjunct to a massage. Nor are socks.”
The boots and socks followed the gun.
With the headache fast becoming no more than an unpleasant memory, Lester reached up and trailed his fingers down Ryan’s cheek, lingering along the line of the strong jaw, feeling the rasp of the late evening stubble.
“In fact, I’d really rather prefer it if you’d shed the rest of your military attire.”
Lester’s words ghosted over his skin, punctuated with slow, gentle licks in the hollow below his ear. Ryan shivered in anticipation and started to obey the instruction, pausing every now and again to knead the flesh of his master’s neck and shoulders with both fingers and thumbs.
Both men had seen sights today they wanted to forget, and this was as good a way as any of keeping the memories at bay. Provided he moved sufficiently slowly, Ryan could avoid provoking the stabbing pain in his chest and if he positioned himself just right he could enjoy being fucked without sustaining any more damage in his chest.
What he didn’t expect was to find himself pulled down into a long, slow kiss. Ryan opened his mouth and let the other man’s tongue slip inside. It tasted pleasantly of mint mouthwash.
This was something new. Lester had fucked him every which way round for the last few months, but kissing was new. Unexpected but very pleasant.
Tongues slid together, caressing and teasing.
Ryan’s fingers stroked the back of his master’s neck and slid lower and lower down the lean body He wanted to kiss back, to press his own tongue into the other man’s mouth, but he didn’t dare. This was too new. Too fragile a thing to risk a wrong move.
He found himself being pressed gently back onto the bed as long fingers dipped down, stroking him to full hardness.
Lester’s lips were still moving round his, kissing at the corners of his mouth, sucking on his lower lip, while hands teased and circled, breaking off only to take his own hands and press them down onto the silk covers.
“Lie still or I’ll get that tie out and I’m bloody sure it smells of vomit …..”
Ryan laughed somewhat breathlessly, and winced as pain from his damaged ribs lanced through him.
“Told you to lie still, you stubborn bugger.” Lester punctuated each word with a light kiss, squeezing Ryan’s cock at the same time to reinforce his words.
The soldier groaned, open mouthed, but this time it wasn’t pain that was provoking the reaction. He closed his eyes and ran the tip of his tongue round his own lips, hoping almost against hope that his master would kiss him again. He couldn’t actually remember the last time he’d felt anyone’s lips on his like this: soft, lingering and possessive.
Lester’s tongue tracked delicately round his mouth, interspersed with feather light kisses, landing randomly across his face, even on his closed eyelids.
Ryan let a soft sigh of pleasure escape him, all barriers for once lowered, as the tension of the last few days started to drain out of him, then Lester’s mouth was on his again and all he could do was lie there and feel, too afraid to do anything which might break the spell.
The kiss broke off, and Ryan tried to remember how to breathe. Then a moment later he almost forgot again, as he felt those same cool lips surround the head of his cock.
Oh dear God, this was another first. Ryan moaned and twisted the sheet in both hands, desperately trying not to thrust upwards with his hips as the same skilful tongue that only a moment before had been invading his mouth started to lick around and down, dipping towards his balls, then sweeping back up again in one long, slow, wet glide.
The soldier dropped any attempt at control and started to beg.
Lester laughed, his breath sliding across Ryan’s balls before he took first one, then the other into his mouth and rolled his tongue round, sucking gently. A hand drifted gently up Ryan’s cock, rubbing pre-come around the head.
Ryan arched his back against the smooth sheets, oblivious of the pain in his chest. His master’s mouth tracked inexorably up his cock, sucking and nipping.
“You can move if you like ……” then Lester’s lips wrapped themselves round him again and started to suck.
Ryan’s hands ran through Lester’s hair, then clutched at the narrow shoulders as his hips started to thrust, almost of their own volition, and he felt the head of his cock hitting the back of the other man’s throat and then Ryan was losing himself in unfamiliar sensations and his control was starting to break apart. For once in more years than he cared to remember, the steel collar round his throat was no longer the main thing he could feel …….
Then he was coming and words were falling from his lips that he had no control over and all he knew was that he had his cock down the throat of a man that he had spent the last nine months calling master and it felt better than anything had ever felt before.
And for once there were no memories, and no pain, only the warmth of soft lips surrounding him and the slip and slide of silk beneath his hips as an orgasm longer and fiercer than any he’d previously experienced rolled over and through him. While the shudders still coursed through his body, the same lips fastened themselves on his and a tongue that tasted sharply of himself twined with his.
Ryan’s inhibitions had disappeared at the same time as he’d come down his master’s throat and he kissed back, with fierce abandon, rolling Lester beneath him, feeling the other man thrusting up into the hollow of Ryan’s hip, chasing his own climax. The soldier shifted onto one elbow and got a hand between them and moments later Lester gasped into his mouth, his thrusting losing its rhythm as he came.
The kiss slid into open-mouthed panting, neither man wanting to break apart any further.
A small sigh of contentment escaped Ryan’s lips, then he muttered, “How’s your head?”
Lester laughed softly, and licked a bead of sweat of Ryan’s chin. “I’ll live. And how about you and all your idiot men trying to do the same? We might have survived this round, Ryan, but Leek won’t take this lot lying down, you can bet your life on that.”
Ryan opened his eyes, the final tremors of orgasm still clenching his thighs and rippling through his stomach. He didn’t so much mind betting his own life on the outcome of a clash with Leek, but what he wasn’t prepared to risk was his master’s life.
What he didn’t realize was that Sir James Lester harbored similar feelings about him.
A weakness that would leave both men more exposed than either of them could begin to guess.
He had drawn a worrying blank. Even more worrying had been the fact that Connor Temple’s hacking skills had produced no useful information, either. Or at least nothing that he hadn’t already known.
A minor public school, followed by an Oxford college that was notorious for things other than its academic reputation. Leek had then been fast-tracked through the Civil Service, transferring, six months ago, from the Prison Service to the newly re-housed Anomaly Project.
In his previous job he’d headed the policy unit on Penal Reform, which had led to the implementation of one of the harshest regimes the country had ever suffered. From Leek’s C.V. he clearly considered it a job well done. So why had he taken a job which could easily be seen as a step down the promotional ladder rather than up it? Lester hadn’t yet uncovered the answer to that question.
He watched Leek approach the open door, one of Ryan’s soldiers no more than three paces behind him.
Ryan himself stood to one side of Lester’s desk, dressed as usual in black, with the straps of his thigh-holster pulled distractingly tight. Lester made a mental note to inform the captain, at a more appropriate time, that some sights were not conducive to concentration.
Another such sight was replaying in nauseating detail on the computer screen in front of him, only this one held no shred of sexual interest. James Lester might like the occasional spice of pain to liven up his sex life, but he was neither a sadist nor a pervert, unlike the loathsome specimen approaching his desk with an all too confident air.
The man had come highly recommended by Downing Street, but as ever, the Prime Minister’s lackeys had covered their tracks well. The hints had been subtle, but effective, and Sir James Lester was now cursing himself for not having dug deeper into Oliver Leek’s past and his connections. In his own defence, he’d had been up to his neck in bolshie academics and dinosaur dung at the time. But it now looked like an entire flock of prehistoric chickens had come home to roost, shitting messily and noisily all over his previously well-ordered existence.
Lester pressed a button on his keyboard and directed the images from the security cameras onto the large plasma screen mounted on one wall of his office. He’d now watched this three times, but even so, he surprised himself by managing to restrain a wince at Leek’s activities with the whip handle.
“Was this sort of thing considered de rigeur in the Prison Service, Mr. Leek?” Lester enquired, mildly.
From the expression on Leek’s face, Lester surmised that the man had been genuinely unaware of the fact that his activities had been caught on camera, which was something, at least. Lester really did not enjoy going into a fight without at least having some idea of the strength of his own armoury and it looked very much like this recording was the main weapon he had to fight with.
Oliver Leek shuffled his feet and made no attempt to meet Lester’s eyes.
When Lester demonstrated that he had no intention of speaking again until Leek broke the silence, the other man cleared his throat and muttered, “A lamentable lapse on my part, Sir James.”
“Leek, as far as I can see, your entire interaction with our Special Forces detachment in the ARC has been one long lamentable lapse. A review of the punishment records indicates that, with only two exceptions, every flogging that has been dispensed since the Anomaly Project moved to these premises has been carried out at your instigation. It’s nothing short of a miracle that Captain Ryan has any men left fit for active duty. In fact, I begin to wonder if he has. This is neither the Navy nor the Prison Service, Leek, and I’ll thank you to remember that. The Prime Minister has already made it plain that in the current climate we are lucky to have this much in the way of resources detailed to the project, and you know as well as I do that he is a very frugal gentleman indeed when it comes to resources. What does he hate above all else, Leek?” It was a rhetorical question, as anyone who had worked closely with the P.M.’s office would know, but the look on Lester’s face made it plain that he was waiting for an answer.
“Waste,” muttered Leek, staring at a point on the wall somewhere to the left of Lester’s head and still avoiding eye-contact.
Sir James Lester raised one eyebrow in a well practiced maneuver. “Quite. And if he is prepared to lecture a nation of shop-keepers on the need to curb their natural inclination to Buy One, Throw One Away, how do you think he would regard your ability to single-handedly decimate an entire detachment of Her Majesty’s Special Forces? And before you even consider lecturing me on the correct usage of the term decimate, might I remind you that you have in fact done exactly that over the last few months. We have twenty soldiers assigned to this project, and at any one time, two of them have been signed off active duty solely due to your corrective activities. An impressive record, I must admit, but one which I feel will bring less acclaim in your current position than it might have done in the Prison Service.”
The words, “Won’t happen again, Sir James,” slithered from Leek’s lips at the same time as his eyes slid up in the general direction of Lester’s face, focusing somewhere between his nose and his right ear.
Ignoring the slight shiver that ran down his spine, Lester allowed one of his best long-suffering sighs to fall from his lips. “No, Leek, it won’t happen again. From now on, you will leave Captain Ryan’s men alone, in all possible senses of the word. For the avoidance of any possible doubt, that instruction also extends to Captain Ryan himself. The soldiers assigned to this project are exactly that. They are soldiers. They are not your own personal sex-toys. If in future you feel the need to bugger anyone with a whip-handle or indeed any other inanimate or even animate object, you will visit the appropriate establishment and negotiate the appropriate rates. Do I make myself clear?”
For the first time since he had entered the room, Leek met his eyes directly, and Lester suppressed the desire to shudder. There was something about Leek’s gaze that made him feel like someone was not so much walking on his grave as line-dancing over it.
“Admirably clear, Sir James. Momentary lapse ….. won’t be repeated, I can assure you of that …..”
Lester allowed himself a second sigh, backed up by a pained expression as the continuous replay from the security cameras reached what might be described as the climax of Leek’s activities.
“Close the door on your way out, Leek.” Lester’s tone was dismissive.
A quick flash of anger crossed Leek’s eyes and was equally quickly suppressed but he did manage to shut the door without slamming it, which only added to Lester’s feeling of unease.
* * * * *
Ryan watched unmoving as Lester pushed his chair back and closed his eyes for a moment.
The soldier hadn’t liked Leek’s passive-aggressive manner one little bit and he knew without needing to be told that his master felt the same way. The man had to have highly placed backers, that much was obvious, and that wasn’t a comforting thought. This bloody job was dangerous enough without constantly having to watch your back on the inside as well. Damn Lyle and his stupid fucking heroics. He might have neutralized the immediate threat so far as Kermit and the others were concerned, but at what cost?
Lester stood up abruptly, looking tired. “It’s getting late. Tell Owen I’ll see him in the morning. No, better still, just do what the fuck you want with him and send me the pieces tied up with a red ribbon. I’m really not sure I want to know the full extent of what that pair of idiots cooked up between them and much as I might want to knock seven bells of hell out of Owen’s thick skull, we will almost certainly still be needing his services. But tell him from me that if he puts one foot out of line again, I will personally feed him to the next waif and stray from the past that Daphne and Scrappy try to persuade me to find a home for.”
And with that, Lester swept from the room, his own personal thunder cloud hovering just over his head.
* * * * *
Lyle lay face down on the infirmary bed, hooked up to an unsettling array of drips and monitors. Stephen Hart sat next to him, Lyle’s hand held loosely in his. If anything, in Ryan’s view, Cutter’s lab assistant looked even paler than his lover, with his black hair and long dark eyelashes standing out in start contrast to skin which looked pinched and drawn over the sculpted lines of his handsome face.
In answer to Ryan’s unspoken question, Stephen said quietly, “He’s doped up to the eyes on morphine.”
“And he’s staying that way,” added Ditzy. “When Lester’s finished flaying my hide, you’re going off to get some sleep yourself, and that’s a bloody order.”
“Lester’s delegated that task to me,” said Ryan, in a voice that made the medic’s stomach head south at a rate of knots. “Can you leave him?”
Reluctantly, Ditzy nodded. “Call me if anything changes,” he told Stephen, before heading off towards an empty treatment room.
Ryan pushed the door closed behind them and leaned against it, his arms folded.
The medic held up both hands defensively. “Sorry, boss, but you’d only have tried to stop him, you know you would.”
“Too fucking right I’d’ve stopped him! Kermit’s virgin arse wasn’t worth risking Jon’s fucking life for. So go on, let’s have all of it out in the open, how much did you know beforehand?”
Ditzy shuffled his feet and flicked his eyes in the direction of the ever present surveillance camera.
“Connor’s taken care of it,” said Ryan. “Lester trusts him and so do I. So spill it, Ditz. Now.”
“He was going to do it anyway. You know what Jon’s like when he’s got an idea in his head. It wasn’t just about Kermit. He reckoned Leek wasn’t going to stop until he’d killed one of us, and I think there’s a lot of truth in that. You can see it in his eyes, sir, the man’s mad as a fucking snake.” Ditzy hesitated, his nerve starting to fail in the face of Ryan’s implacable silence.
He took a breath to steady his nerves and ploughed on, “Jon’d heard stuff from a mate of his who’d been sent into Albany after the riots. They had some serious cleaning up to do there, and word on the streets was that Leek played a large part in tipping that situation over the edge. Always goes for lads like Kermit first, so they say, but he doesn’t stop at the first one, not by a long chalk.” He met Ryan’s eyes, a resigned expression on his face. “Sorry, boss,” he repeated, “but even if I hadn’t dosed him up beforehand, the mad fucker would still have done it, and he’s hard, but he’s not that fucking hard, whatever he thinks.”
Ryan sighed, and unlike Lester, it wasn’t for effect. He’d known Lyle for fifteen years, but this had to rank as one of the lieutenant’s maddest stunts, and for what? At some point a sick bastard with rape listed in the hobbies section of their C.V. would still end up shagging Kermit before the lad had served out his term. He’d known the score when he’d indentured himself, or he should have done, but Lyle had still insisted on playing the knight in shining armour and riding to the rescue.
Did he really care more about the men under his command than Ryan did? Was there still a shred of idealism left in Jon Lyle that even the System had failed to beat or fuck out of him? And at what point in the last seventeen years had Ryan lost that final shred of humanity that meant he’d do anything to keep his own men safe? Had he really been prepared to stand by and watch while his men were abused without doing anything to stop it?
“Don’t go there, boss,” said Ditzy, quietly. “The lads know you’d put yourself on the line for them any day of the week, Christ knows you’ve done it often enough, but Jon reckoned this one was down to him.”
Ryan looked up and shook his head slowly. “Since when did you learn to read minds?”
The medic grinned. “Goes with the territory. How else do you think I keep one step ahead of the lying bastards who call themselves my patients? You included, most of the bloody time.”
Of all the men under his command, Ditzy was the hardest to ream out at the best of times, and this wasn’t the best of times. Ryan was knackered and in pain and he was starting to feel that he wasn’t getting the upper hand in this debate.
“So tell me what the fuck the pair of you lunatics dreamed up, and then try and convince me why the hell I shouldn’t just ram your head through that wall and hope you pick up some common-sense along with the brick dust …..”
Five minutes later, Ryan stared at the medic in horrified disbelief. They were mad, the pair of them. Completely fucking mad. Without a word to Ditzy, he turned on his heel and stalked back out onto the small medical ward.
Stephen looked up, his dark eyes haunted. “Don’t blame Ditz, Ryan. You know what Jon’s like. You’ve known him long enough.”
“And I’d like to know him a while longer,” muttered Ryan. He reached out a brushed a strand of Lyle’s sweat darkened hair off his face. “You’re a complete fucking twat, Jon, you know that, don’t you?”
The ghost of a grin curved Lyle’s swollen lips, his eyelashes fluttered and his fingers flexed in Stephen’s grasp.
Ryan laid his hand briefly on the lieutenant’s arm. “Go back to sleep, you fuckwit. And if you have the goddamn nerve to die on us, I’ll follow you into hell and rip you a second arsehole myself.”
* * * * *
The lights in the bedroom were turned down low but even so, the pounding in Lester’s head hadn’t abated much and he knew perfectly well that alcohol and tablets were a bad mix but that hadn’t stopped him.
Every time he closed his eyes, the sight of the whip tearing a red furrow across Lyle’s skin came back to haunt him. It reminded him all too forcibly of watching Ryan suffer the same way for some wholly imaginary disobedience. The third time that had happened, closely followed by the image of the wooden handle being forced into the soldier’s body, his stomach had rebelled and he’d barely reached the toilet in time.
He was sitting on the edge of the bath, resting his forehead on the cold porcelain of the sink when he heard the main door to his room open and close and booted feet approaching across the floor. He debated telling Ryan to get the hell out of it but however much he didn’t want to be seen like this, being alone didn’t greatly appeal either.
A large swill of mouthwash got rid of the taste of vomit, but did nothing for the pain in his head.
The Special Forces captain slid carefully to his knees and avoided Lester’s eyes. “Don’t blame the guards. I told them you wanted a report.”
“I did. I’d obviously just forgotten to make that clear, Captain Ryan. So how is the idiot?”
“Heavily sedated but provided he doesn’t get an infection, Ditzy reckons he’ll be OK. He’s another bloody idiot,” Ryan added, irritably.
“They all do it,” said Lester, pulling off his tie and throwing it inaccurately at the laundry basket in the corner of the room. “If they reckon they can get away with it, all the medics shoot ‘em full of painkillers and steroids before a flogging. That’s nothing new.”
In spite of himself, Ryan grinned, “Yeah, I know, but how many of them administer an enema then stuff their patients arse full of lube as well?”
The veil of cynicism dropped from Lester’s narrow face leaving him looking surprised as well as several years younger. “He did what?”
“Cleaned him out to cut down the chances of infection, stuffed him full of codeine to dull the pain and bung him up for the next few days, then squirted enough lube up his backside to sink a battleship. Ditzy says the only thing Lyle whinged about was the local anesthetic he whacked into his bum for good measure.”
Lester shook his head in amazement. “I know you lot claim that planning and preparation prevents piss poor performance, but that’s taking it to extremes, for fuck’s sake. Did the silly sod get torn?”
“Yes, but not too badly. It seems his main worry was the lube leaking and Leek noticing.”
“His main worry? Nice to know he’s capable of keeping a sense of proportion. I rather think my main worry might have been the thought of being buggered with a whip handle, but clearly Lieutenant Lyle’s made of sterner stuff.”
“Ditzy said Jon preferred the idea of the whip handle to being fucked by Leek. It seems his entire plan was based around it.” Ryan looked up and met his master’s eyes. “Lie down, I’ll give you a neck rub.”
“After the day you’ve had? Go and get some sleep, Ryan, you look fit to drop.”
The soldier’s grey eyes held the merest hint of challenge as he answered, “I can last a while longer ………..master.”
Lester ran a hand through Ryan’s short blond hair. The captain knew exactly how to push his buttons, and he swore Ryan had those damned thigh straps so tight that kneeling should have been nigh on impossible. A swift brush of soft lips across the inside of Lester’s wrist really wasn’t playing fair, but his headache was rapidly heading towards a migraine, he’d need his wits about him tomorrow, no doubt ….. and Ryan really did know all the best ways of relaxing him.
Lester dimmed the lights even further then shed his clothes, for once leaving them scattered and unheeded on the floor.
Face down on the bed, head pillowed on his arms, Lester felt Ryan’s strong fingers working across his shoulders, unknotting the muscles, stroking, soothing, moving downwards in wide, sweeping strokes, replacing tension with pleasure.
The soldier knew exactly where to press his thumbs to relieve the thudding pain in Lester’s head and within minutes the sickness and pain begin to recede, leaving behind a pleasant feeling of lethargy.
Lester rolled onto his side and muttered, “Much as I like the feel of your gun digging into my hip, Captain, on this occasion I’d prefer to avoid any reminders of violence, if you don’t mind.”
Ryan chuckled and slowly and very provocatively started to unfasten the straps holding the pistol in place, before dropping it onto the rugs beside the bed.
“Boots,” said Lester, decisively. “Boots are not an adjunct to a massage. Nor are socks.”
The boots and socks followed the gun.
With the headache fast becoming no more than an unpleasant memory, Lester reached up and trailed his fingers down Ryan’s cheek, lingering along the line of the strong jaw, feeling the rasp of the late evening stubble.
“In fact, I’d really rather prefer it if you’d shed the rest of your military attire.”
Lester’s words ghosted over his skin, punctuated with slow, gentle licks in the hollow below his ear. Ryan shivered in anticipation and started to obey the instruction, pausing every now and again to knead the flesh of his master’s neck and shoulders with both fingers and thumbs.
Both men had seen sights today they wanted to forget, and this was as good a way as any of keeping the memories at bay. Provided he moved sufficiently slowly, Ryan could avoid provoking the stabbing pain in his chest and if he positioned himself just right he could enjoy being fucked without sustaining any more damage in his chest.
What he didn’t expect was to find himself pulled down into a long, slow kiss. Ryan opened his mouth and let the other man’s tongue slip inside. It tasted pleasantly of mint mouthwash.
This was something new. Lester had fucked him every which way round for the last few months, but kissing was new. Unexpected but very pleasant.
Tongues slid together, caressing and teasing.
Ryan’s fingers stroked the back of his master’s neck and slid lower and lower down the lean body He wanted to kiss back, to press his own tongue into the other man’s mouth, but he didn’t dare. This was too new. Too fragile a thing to risk a wrong move.
He found himself being pressed gently back onto the bed as long fingers dipped down, stroking him to full hardness.
Lester’s lips were still moving round his, kissing at the corners of his mouth, sucking on his lower lip, while hands teased and circled, breaking off only to take his own hands and press them down onto the silk covers.
“Lie still or I’ll get that tie out and I’m bloody sure it smells of vomit …..”
Ryan laughed somewhat breathlessly, and winced as pain from his damaged ribs lanced through him.
“Told you to lie still, you stubborn bugger.” Lester punctuated each word with a light kiss, squeezing Ryan’s cock at the same time to reinforce his words.
The soldier groaned, open mouthed, but this time it wasn’t pain that was provoking the reaction. He closed his eyes and ran the tip of his tongue round his own lips, hoping almost against hope that his master would kiss him again. He couldn’t actually remember the last time he’d felt anyone’s lips on his like this: soft, lingering and possessive.
Lester’s tongue tracked delicately round his mouth, interspersed with feather light kisses, landing randomly across his face, even on his closed eyelids.
Ryan let a soft sigh of pleasure escape him, all barriers for once lowered, as the tension of the last few days started to drain out of him, then Lester’s mouth was on his again and all he could do was lie there and feel, too afraid to do anything which might break the spell.
The kiss broke off, and Ryan tried to remember how to breathe. Then a moment later he almost forgot again, as he felt those same cool lips surround the head of his cock.
Oh dear God, this was another first. Ryan moaned and twisted the sheet in both hands, desperately trying not to thrust upwards with his hips as the same skilful tongue that only a moment before had been invading his mouth started to lick around and down, dipping towards his balls, then sweeping back up again in one long, slow, wet glide.
The soldier dropped any attempt at control and started to beg.
Lester laughed, his breath sliding across Ryan’s balls before he took first one, then the other into his mouth and rolled his tongue round, sucking gently. A hand drifted gently up Ryan’s cock, rubbing pre-come around the head.
Ryan arched his back against the smooth sheets, oblivious of the pain in his chest. His master’s mouth tracked inexorably up his cock, sucking and nipping.
“You can move if you like ……” then Lester’s lips wrapped themselves round him again and started to suck.
Ryan’s hands ran through Lester’s hair, then clutched at the narrow shoulders as his hips started to thrust, almost of their own volition, and he felt the head of his cock hitting the back of the other man’s throat and then Ryan was losing himself in unfamiliar sensations and his control was starting to break apart. For once in more years than he cared to remember, the steel collar round his throat was no longer the main thing he could feel …….
Then he was coming and words were falling from his lips that he had no control over and all he knew was that he had his cock down the throat of a man that he had spent the last nine months calling master and it felt better than anything had ever felt before.
And for once there were no memories, and no pain, only the warmth of soft lips surrounding him and the slip and slide of silk beneath his hips as an orgasm longer and fiercer than any he’d previously experienced rolled over and through him. While the shudders still coursed through his body, the same lips fastened themselves on his and a tongue that tasted sharply of himself twined with his.
Ryan’s inhibitions had disappeared at the same time as he’d come down his master’s throat and he kissed back, with fierce abandon, rolling Lester beneath him, feeling the other man thrusting up into the hollow of Ryan’s hip, chasing his own climax. The soldier shifted onto one elbow and got a hand between them and moments later Lester gasped into his mouth, his thrusting losing its rhythm as he came.
The kiss slid into open-mouthed panting, neither man wanting to break apart any further.
A small sigh of contentment escaped Ryan’s lips, then he muttered, “How’s your head?”
Lester laughed softly, and licked a bead of sweat of Ryan’s chin. “I’ll live. And how about you and all your idiot men trying to do the same? We might have survived this round, Ryan, but Leek won’t take this lot lying down, you can bet your life on that.”
Ryan opened his eyes, the final tremors of orgasm still clenching his thighs and rippling through his stomach. He didn’t so much mind betting his own life on the outcome of a clash with Leek, but what he wasn’t prepared to risk was his master’s life.
What he didn’t realize was that Sir James Lester harbored similar feelings about him.
A weakness that would leave both men more exposed than either of them could begin to guess.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
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Date: 2008-07-20 04:44 pm (UTC)But Leek... *shudders*
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Date: 2008-07-20 06:06 pm (UTC)Sorry about the ending, but on this occasion, my Evil Twin and I haz a plan ............
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Date: 2008-07-20 04:45 pm (UTC)*still wants something nasty and painful to happen to Leek*
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Date: 2008-07-20 06:06 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-07-20 05:19 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-07-20 06:07 pm (UTC)(no subject)
From:(no subject)
From:no subject
Date: 2008-07-21 04:43 am (UTC)*feeds the bunnies steroids*
(no subject)
From:no subject
Date: 2008-07-20 05:33 pm (UTC)Mmm, hot. Especially Ryan abandoning all control.
You've got me worried as to how Leek will get his revenge though.
*gnaws fingernails*
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Date: 2008-07-20 06:08 pm (UTC)(no subject)
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Date: 2008-07-20 06:46 pm (UTC)And Ditzy was up to his elbows in it wasn't he? That's some serious planning and preparation.
And now I'm just going to snuggle down with that last section for a while. Yum!
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Date: 2008-07-20 06:53 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-07-20 06:47 pm (UTC)And yes to the thigh-strap picspam, pretty please *g*.
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Date: 2008-07-20 06:52 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-07-21 04:41 am (UTC)This is coming along nicely, isn't it?!
Even with all our evil plotting, I hadn't foreseen the preplanning that Ditzy and Lyle had done in order to string up Leek. Well done, Twin!
Love the ending... *veg*
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Date: 2008-07-21 10:14 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-07-21 01:44 pm (UTC)Sorry hon, I meant to leave FB yesterday but I was stranded at the lake with coverage on my cell phone only if I stood on one leg and did a little dance (took me a bloody long time to open the page of the fic already, I tell you).
Ditzy FTW!! I totally love him and Lyle's 'sense of proportion' :D
The scene at the end is fantastic and made me go all melty inside, so hot and sweet.
Still... I have not stopped hoping something very evil (and painless) will befall Leek :)
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Date: 2008-07-21 03:45 pm (UTC)Do you really want something painless to happen to Leek??
(no subject)
From:no subject
Date: 2008-07-21 03:21 pm (UTC)But the beginning of the chapter. Woah. Ditzy boy, not sure whether to kiss him or what. :D Lyle and Stephen are kinda cute.
It was just a damn good chapter :) Thank you!!!
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Date: 2008-07-21 03:47 pm (UTC)(no subject)
From:no subject
Date: 2008-07-22 12:41 pm (UTC)And yeah, I know I must sound like a broken record but this is still highly intriguing... well done!
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Date: 2008-07-22 02:26 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-07-31 08:54 am (UTC)and I honestly watched privmeval last night and waited for lyle to appear:-))
anyway, you've got me worried with the last sentence, but I can't wait for more...
and please kill leek very, very slowly and very, very painfully...
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Date: 2008-07-31 05:49 pm (UTC)Thanks for reading :)
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Date: 2008-09-29 07:14 pm (UTC)That is a backward compliment I know, the society you've created is horrible and I'm totally with Cutter on the horrified reaction front. BUT the way Lester tries to protect the soldiers, particularly Ryan, as well as his calmly ignoring until useful Connor's hacking habit... that is oddly comfrting. Kinda nice to see Lester not being a total bastard!
I'm starting to find Lester/ Ryan very sweet... despite the circumstances, but Stephen/ Lyle is just confusing me! I'll get used to it in time I'm sure... *whispers 'But Lyle belongs to Lester, so there!'*
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Date: 2008-09-29 08:06 pm (UTC)Munchkin and I have been working on this quite a lot over the last few days!
(no subject)
From:no subject
Date: 2009-05-07 09:24 am (UTC)Awwww Ryan really does care LOL!!!
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Date: 2009-05-07 09:08 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-06-06 10:35 pm (UTC)Ryan and Ditzy - lovely conversation, how they care about each other and protect each other.. hugs all the SF guys.
And the Lester/Ryan bit... melts. Especially when Lester kisses and then sucks Ryan, and Ryan feels 'human' again. The last bit is sweet but rather scary though.. eek for the future.
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Date: 2009-06-07 10:24 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-09-21 12:19 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-09-21 06:59 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-12-10 01:13 am (UTC)I really like the Lester/Ryan dynamic in this... and we can has more Stephen/Lyle plz? *g*
(and now I'm going to bed, so you'll be getting no more comments from me tonight)
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Date: 2010-12-10 09:51 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-05-31 10:08 am (UTC)Bizarrely, I'm more scared of passive-agressive Leek than flogging-torturing Leek. I really hope he doesn't have some evil plan, but that's probably in vain.
And finally. EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEESCK. That was absolutely gorgeous! First-time kissing and blow job and this line...
What he didn’t realize was that Sir James Lester harbored similar feelings about him.
I may end up hopelessly over-invested in this pairing.
(Also: apologies for spamming your journal with comments! I genuinely only meant to read Part 1 *g*)
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Date: 2011-05-31 03:15 pm (UTC)Don't apologise! It's lovely to follow someone's progress through the series. Especially as we need to start writing the final plot arc as soon as Munchkin finishes her Mini Bang.
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Date: 2011-12-01 04:15 am (UTC)You capture this creep perfectly!
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Date: 2011-12-02 08:48 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-02-10 05:37 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-02-10 07:53 am (UTC)Glad you're still enjoying it :)
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Date: 2012-04-19 10:33 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-10-10 09:33 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-11-26 11:16 pm (UTC)Loving the slowly unfolding relationship between Ryan and Lester.
But, Leek. Ew! I know there must be more to him but he's so very, very awful in these chapters that it's difficult to think what could possibly go on the plus side of the ledger.
Oh, and well planned Lyle.
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Date: 2013-11-26 11:22 pm (UTC)