Reza Mansour (aswritten) wrote in shadows_rpg, @ 2021-02-17 19:07:00 |
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Entry tags: | #june 2018, reza, reza x shane, shane |
Who: Reza & Shane
Where: Overlook
When: Tuesday noon, June 5th
Status: Part 1, complete
Shane woke up with a hangover that was fairly mild only on account of him drinking water, eating well and going to sleep early after the binge he'd gone on the day before. It was still enough to make him a little cranky and the weather did not help. It was dark out, even before noon, and he knew it was pouring out there before he even opened his eyes. There was a crack of thunder as he headed for the bathroom and no, he did not like this at all. He always started his mornings with a run - either outside or on a treadmill during the winter months - and although this house was equipped with many delightful things, a treadmill was not one of them. After a quick clean-up he stubbornly went outside anyway. It wasn't just his need for movement, he also needed that time alone before he talked to Reza and some part of him felt smugly superior thinking about how his new running rival probably didn't go out running in this weather. He might have gone earlier in the morning of course, but Shane didn't see him and he suspected most sane people didn't go for a jog in a thunderstorm.
It wouldn't have mattered how long he stayed out there, he was drenched within the first minute of his run. The way his clothes clung to him and weighed him down made it harder but Shane liked physical challenges so he pushed on and came back to the house out of breath and dripping water everywhere. He stripped off by the front door and padded to the nearest bathroom to wash up, still biding his time. He honestly would have liked to stay out longer because he knew Reza wanted to talk, but maybe he'd be okay with not talking until dinner or something. Shane was so not in the mood for any of it and if he got his wish they would never, ever talk about any of it ever again but that was very unrealistic. He silently cursed Jane as he toweled off and fixed his hair, taking perhaps a little longer in there than he might otherwise have. Unfortunately the running had just amped up his hunger so he needed breakfast. With any luck, Reza was still in bed reading. It was the perfect day for lounging after all.
Reza slept a bit later than he normally did, only really waking up when Shane got out of bed. His body clock was all over the place here on ‘vacation,’ so it didn’t bother him much. He snoozed while his lover got ready and left the house, then got himself up and into some comfy clothes. The multitude of windows showed a dark and gloomy day outside, and Reza knew they had a conversation in front of them that wouldn’t be entirely pleasant, so he might as well indulge in some other creature comforts. He made himself a cup of coffee with some of the expensive creamer he insisted on having in the house, then took his drink to the covered part of the back deck to sit and sip and watch the rain while he scrolled through his phone. Reza loved the feel of the air when it was stormy, there was so much energy and power in it. It wasn’t great jogging weather, but Shane was an adult who could make his own call on that.
Reza was still out there when Shane returned, though he was just heading inside for a coffee refresher at the same time Shane was walking to the kitchen from the bathroom. It was impossible to miss that he was naked, and Reza couldn’t help but smile a tiny bit as his gaze skated over him. “Morning,” he said, sliding the door to the deck closed. “Please tell me you went running like that, gave the neighborhood a thrill.”
"You know, that would have been easier and more fun," Shane said with a smirk and a small regret that he hadn't actually done that. What was the posh neighborhood's stance on eccentric rich guys running around naked in the rain? "I doubt anyone would have seen me," he added, still debating whether that would have been a good thing or a bad thing. He quickly put that out of his mind and met Reza halfway to the deck, slipping an arm around him to pull him into a kiss. It was oh so tempting to distract him with sex, to put off the Talk for as long as he could and he sure as hell wasn't going to be the one to bring it up even if the not knowing how this would go was driving him insane. "Did you sleep okay?" he asked instead and gently bumped his head against Reza's.
It was probably a little too easy to distract him with sex, because Reza couldn’t help but notice and appreciate the feel of Shane’s lithe body against his. He turned his face up for the kiss, one hand flat against Shane’s stomach, then smiled a bit at the sweet headbutt. “Yeah, I slept great,” he murmured, patting Shane a little before he moved away to get more coffee. “Funny how stress and drinking and getting your brains fucked out will make you tired.” Reza glanced back at him with a little grin. “How about you?” He was willing to bet that Shane hadn’t slept as well as he was, or he’d woken up agitated or something ... Reza wasn’t quite sure how to broach the subject yet, but he wanted them to talk and clear the air as soon as the time felt right. That might not be while Shane was nude, but who knew.
Shane followed him, not really in any rush to get dressed though he probably would want to before they talked. Unless they could just skip the talk, that'd be great. "Yeah I slept okay," he said and that much was true even if Reza was right that he hadn't woken up too happy. He grabbed a bottle of juice from the fridge and popped it open, drinking at least half of it in one go. As much as he wanted to avoid the crap out of this, he could feel it hanging in the air between them and it wasn't going to go anywhere if they didn't make it. So either they agreed to forget about it - which he knew damn well Reza wouldn't - or they did need to talk. He huffed softly, swirling the remainder of his drink. "I should put on clothes," he then muttered a bit sullenly. "Need anything from the bedroom?"
Reza knew he ought to eat some actual breakfast, but he wanted another cup of coffee first. He was feeling awake enough, the flavor was just good and the heat was soothing to sip on. Once his fresh cup was made, he perched on one of the stools pushed up against the kitchen island and watched Shane chug down some juice. Yeah, they definitely needed to talk with clothes on, because his mind was already wandering with Shane just hanging out naked like that. Reza shook his head a bit at the question, lifting his mug to sip from. “I’m good,” he said once he’d swallowed. He paused, then added, “You coming right back down?” He wasn’t sure how long Shane would try to stall on this talk, but he was thinking more and more that the sooner they got it out of the way, the better.
Shane could practically hear the real question behind this one and he licked his lips before taking another sip of his juice, biding his time. "Yeah," he finally said, once he'd thought about it. He had to be ready for this because otherwise he'd just spend all his time waiting for it to hit. He put the cap back on the bottle and left it on the table before heading out, giving Reza a playfully seductive look as he passed him. Maybe he wouldn't delay this with sex but it wasn't a bad idea to remind Reza what he'd be missing if he didn't like what he was about to hear. There was another crack of thunder outside and he groaned softly, like that weather was trying to ruin the day for him specifically. Then again if the sun had been out, he couldn't say he wouldn't have been tempted to just keep running away.
He didn’t really need the reminder, but Reza always appreciated the view, and he grinned back at Shane before he disappeared. He was pleased that Shane seemed amenable to having this conversation sooner rather than later. Reza wanted to know more of him, more of his story. He knew it would likely be difficult for Shane and he had trouble trusting people -- because of real trauma, from what Reza was learning -- but Reza knew he was going to be supportive, so he felt they could get through it. If Shane did ever come back down, that was. While he was waiting, Reza went to sit in the more comfortable chairs at the kitchen table, putting his feet up in another one and getting settled. The kitchen was where his family had most of their serious conversations, so it seemed to fit.
As tempting as it was to get in the car and just drive away - after getting dressed of course - Shane actually didn't. He could and that was the funny thing to him. There was nothing that said he owed Reza anything and leaving would be so easy. It was telling that the option went through his mind as he leafed through his clothes and wondered if he'd miss any of them if he had to start from scratch. The answer was always no but he'd miss Reza's clothes. He rolled his eyes at himself at that particular thought. He'd miss Reza. So he pulled on some jeans and a t-shirt, opting against going barefoot in case he wanted to storm out again. Don't storm out again he told himself but fuck, he had no idea how this was going to go. Maybe Reza would do the storming this time.
He didn't take too long before he headed back to the kitchen and started making himself a cup of coffee. "Okay," he said after taking a deep breath and blowing it out abruptly through pursed lips. "Why don't you tell me again exactly what Jane said."
Reza had briefly considered that Shane might escape out a window, but more in an amused way than anything. He considered it a good sign that it didn’t take forever for him to come back down, and Reza gave him a smile from the kitchen table as he lifted his mug again. He supposed the question was fair, but he took a moment to try and remember everything Jane had said now that he was out of the shock of it all and then the emotional turmoil that had come straight afterward. “She said that she knew you because when you guys were teenagers, you were held captive by these people who were kidnapping psychic kids,” he said, hoping that summed it up well enough. “She mentioned something about selling you? But you escaped in a fire.”
Shane worked hard not to bristle at that. Jane had just gone ahead and said all that and it was insane. He wasn't sure what he'd say to her the next time he met her, he just needed to not see her until he'd cooled down from this. "I didn't know about the selling but I met someone who was so yeah," he mumbled as he added sugar, then creamer in his coffee and finally walked over to join Reza at the table. "I stand by my first statement that Jane is fucking insane," he said, just to be able to say it out loud instead flinging his perfect cup of coffee against the nearest wall. He took another deep breath. Jane wasn't there and they needed to have this talk. "So she told you we're here to figure out if they're still up to their old tricks and you're staying because there might be kids going through this same shit again. That about sums it up?"
He watched Shane as he approached and sat down, biting his tongue on a statement that he didn’t honestly give a shit about Jane’s sanity, he just wanted to know if it was all true. Shane was more or less confirming it, but in the most maddening sideways fashion. “I’m staying because I give a shit about you and I don’t want to leave,” he said, his tone more neutral than the words themselves. “But that about sums it up, I guess. I want to hear it from you, though. What’s going on. Especially if Jane is a nutjob, like you say.” Reza kept his gaze steady on Shane as he took another swallow from his mug.
Shane felt tired suddenly, like the rain and thunder had suddenly gotten to him and he just wanted to go back to sleep. He knew it was this conversation though and he drank some of his coffee as he thought about just how insane it was for Reza to know any of this. "So AIR is-" he started, huffing softly as he psyched himself up into actually talking about all of this to someone who needed to be explained to. So far everyone had been there - or somewhere similar - and they could dance around the topic all they wanted and still make sense of it. "I don't know a lot about them. They take kids with psychic abilities or potential psychic abilities and they train them up to be sold to god knows who. We thought it was just this one little place, you know? American Institute of Research. There was a small group of people, kids really, who got out at the same time. During the fire. Now we're finding out there's more places around the country and uh, so we gotta strategize on how the hell to stop them all. They're still doing the same shit, maybe not here but somewhere. The youngest we know about right now is just a teen. Everyone we talk to right now is someone who escaped so what are the odds of there being hundreds of people somewhere locked up."
Reza listened, looking troubled, because it was all troubling. He had a lot of questions that probably didn’t actually need to be answered, like how did these people find kids with psychic potential, how did one go about ‘training’ them, where were they kept and how many of them had there been, that kind of thing. Those details weren’t important, at least not at the moment. Everything Shane said came off sounded pretty dry and impersonal, and Reza hoped that would stop once the overview was done, but he knew he couldn’t ask for it directly. “So how long did they have you?” he asked, his voice quiet. “You were a teenager when the fire happened?” Reza was fairly certain that Shane was responsible for the fire, but he didn’t want to sound like he was accusing him of it or anything. Reza just wanted to understand what he’d been through, as well as he could.
Shane shook his head and quirked his brows as he thought about it. "Six years, give or take." He could have lied about that, he supposed, told Reza it was just a few weeks but at this point lying just seemed dumb somehow. He never told anyone anything so he never had to keep up with some complex story and he didn't feel like starting now. Reza was too close to him and it was entirely Shane's own damn fault. He could have pushed him away weeks ago but he hadn't so now he was here, too close and too involved. It made him think of all the angry drunken things he'd said the day before and it made him feel a little stupid so he didn't really want to think about it ever again. "I was one of the oldest but it was Jane who got it all going." He huffed as he mentioned her, that anger flashing back up inside him but talking about her as a thirteen year old kid was different, there was fondness there too. "We burned that place down, Reza," he said and put his cup of coffee down on the table, idly turning it by the handle. "I burned that place down. If you go look at old news stories you'll probably find out how many people I killed."
Reza’s brows lifted in surprise -- six years was a long time in a child’s life. Even if Shane had been seventeen or eighteen when they escaped, that meant he’d barely been starting puberty when he was kidnapped. It made Reza want to stand up and hug him immediately, but he stayed put. There was still more to talk about. He could hear the heaviness in the last statement, and silently marveled for a moment at what a burden that must have been for teenage Shane to carry. Had all those people been members of this AIR group? Or had some of them been other kids? Jane and Shane both kept talking like there were more escapees too, but had they all gotten out? Questions better left unanswered, maybe, this many years later. “What other choice did they give you?” he muttered instead. “You were just a kid. And they fucking -- six years, Shane? That’s forever in your teens, and they stole it from you, I just -- ... trying to wrap my head around that, fuck.” There was anger seeping into Reza’s tone as it all sank in. He rubbed a hand over his face and tried to push it down. It wasn’t his to get angry about. Reza took a breath and wrapped his hands around his own coffee cup to resist reaching for Shane’s hand. “What was living there like? Like how were they trying to train you?”
Anger was far more acceptable than pity in this case and there was some strange itch inside Shane wanting to tell him everything just to see how angry he'd get or how much it would take for him to give up. "It wasn't too bad, except when it was," he said with a shrug. "I got to go outside, I got to play softball or some shit, I just didn't get to learn a whole lot of things. It was okay for a while, it was like... For my own good. I know that it wasn't now but I believed it back then. For a while at least. Think about a ten year old kid accidentally burning down his whole school or setting someone on fire because he gets angry. You don't want someone like that on the loose." He took a sip of his coffee, kind of wishing it had a little something extra in it but considering how his mood had flipped the day before, sober was probably the best way to go. He told that part of him that wanted to push Reza away to shut the fuck up and fumbled for some semblance of truth before he spoke again. "I don't want to tell you anything because you're either going to give me that look of sympathy that will make me disgusted with you - or you'll get disgusted with me eventually. Does that make sense?"
It sounded weird and surreal to Reza, like something out of a movie. They held him captive but let him play softball? Reza could have some sympathy for the fact that Shane was dangerous as a child, considering his abilities, but that was obviously not the solution. He focused on the rest of what Shane said, his brow furrowed as he chewed on that. “It makes sense why you think that,” he said finally. “But you can’t know how I’ll feel about anything.” Reza suspected that disgust from him was what Shane both feared and wanted, in a way, so it would be easier to keep space between them. So far Reza did feel sympathy for him, because he’d suffered and Reza cared about him and so that really sucked. He wasn’t going to show him pity though, that was patronizing. “I want to know you, Shane,” he added quietly. “Good, bad, everything. And I can’t know you without this piece.”
Shane felt like he was doing a very difficult balancing act where if he fell he'd either land on completely shutting Reza out and the other he'd just blurt out everything that ever happened to him in a spiteful way, almost gleeful at the idea of proving Reza wrong - he did not want to know everything! This communication thing was tricky and he tried to stay on that fine line between the two extremes, frowning softly as he tried not to delve into some angry rant about how no, it didn't make any sense, none of this made any damn sense. The annoyance flickered in his expression for the long moment he stayed silent for and he tapped his fingers against his coffee cup a bit restlessly. "Okay," he then muttered. "I probably killed my parents and a couple of other people in my building before AIR. I don't know. That's how AIR found me, I was like Daenerys just chillin' in a burnt building, which would have been cool if, you know. Everyone else had survived. So I moved here to stay with some uncle of mine, barely remember that part. Ended up at AIR where they tried to figure out if I had more fun little gifts than just fire and just what the limits of the fire was. Met Jane accidentally one night - she saw me and... Did she tell you what she can do?"
Reza could tell this was hard for him, but he hadn’t expected anything else. The way dry, blase tone Shane had while he recounted his early story was perturbing, but Reza thought he could understand that too. It was kind of a shock to hear that Shane had likely killed his parents when he was a kid, but he made sure his only facial reaction was more tension in his brow as he listened. That explained how AIR found him, at the very least. Something like that would’ve made the news. He felt like Shane was just skating past how completely traumatic all of those things had to have been to a kid his age, but if that was how he had to get through it, Reza wasn’t going to push him to engage deeper with it. He wasn’t a therapist, even though he’d been to a couple of them. “No, she didn’t,” Reza said with a small shake of his head.
"She gets one look at you and she can visit your dreams," Shane replied and that was at least a fun part of the story. "Made plotting easy. She met some of the other kids, I didn't, we puzzled together the layout of the place, did a few false starts to trigger the fire alarm until it went down for repairs." He figured the rest was pretty self explanatory. "I didn't really know where she got all her information but it makes more sense now, knowing what some of the other kids could do. If you're gonna fuck with psychics, don't fuck with a whole group of them, I guess." He smiled wryly at that and hoped that was still true and that AIR wasn't even more powerful now like they were all suspecting. "We thought it was gone, looking at the news it seemed like the worst of them burned in there. But there are others out there and they're rebuilding in the same place right here in Point Pleasant."
“No shit,” Reza murmured to himself at learning Jane’s power. That was pretty intense, was she going to be invading his dreams now? She hadn’t the night before, but now that they’d met, who the fuck knew. Reza listened to the rest, which sounded more like the description of a prank than desperate kids using any advantage they had to escape a terrible situation, at least judging by Shane’s tone. Reza wet his lips and sucked the bottom one into his mouth for a moment. “So you’re all reuniting here to try and destroy AIR for good?” he asked then. It was less a question and more a confirmation. He wasn’t in any position to judge their plan, only just now learning about this, but if the place was just now rebuilding, he wasn’t sure it made sense that this would be the headquarters ... someone had to be in charge somewhere, right? He knew these probably weren’t questions Shane could answer yet, but he hoped someone eventually could.
"Sounds pretty futile, right?" Shane snorted. "But we have some mindreaders on our side, a dream walker and people like me who can really fuck your shit up. The problem is they are apparently all over the country and if it's anything like it was before, they have people who can shut us down. There was this one guy who'd drop by all the fucking time, didn't look threatening at all, looked like an accountant, really. But just being around him? I couldn't feel the fire at all, Jane couldn't dreamwalk. People like him smother whatever this is we've got. They also had witches working for them back then, or a witch at least. Didn't meet him very often." That man hadn't instilled any sorts of hatred toward witches in him at least and he was thankful for that now that he knew Reza wasn't a psychic like him, it could have soured this thing they had fast otherwise.
That did sound like a useful cadre of psychics, but Reza wasn’t sure it would be enough for what they were proposing. He was willing to bet they weren’t sure either. The news that there had been at least one witch involved made him frown deeply again. He didn’t like the sound of that. Besides the fact that he wanted to believe his people were good people -- even though he knew better, logically speaking -- that meant it might be more dangerous to start asking the witches around town for information. What if that guy had lived and was still in town? A witch who’d been a part of a psychic trafficking ring. “How fucking ... fucked up,” Reza muttered. He glared down into his rapidly cooling coffee for a long moment. One of his legs bounced under the table. He wanted to express to Shane that he was sorry he’d had such a rough start to life, that none of that had been his fault, that it didn’t change the way Reza looked at him, but he felt a little painted into a corner by Shane not wanting any sympathy. He didn’t want to fuck this up, but god, Reza’s chest hurt for him.
"I know," Shane muttered. "I've never actually had to tell anyone all this before, everyone who knows just... knows." He quirked a brow at that and he had to admit Reza was doing a good job at not giving him that gross sympathy face he'd been so afraid of. It would probably look pretty on him but it would make Shane feel like breaking something so, pretty or not, he didn't want to see it. Then there were the things that nobody but him knew, everything that came after and was nobody's business but Shane's. Yet he weirdly found himself wanting to continue talking. "So now you're in the know," he said with a faint smile. "And I really wish you weren't but I gotta admit, your magic could come in handy."
It was a lot to process already, but something in Reza’s gut said that wasn’t the entire story. Shane had said he would be disgusted eventually, and nothing in what Shane had told him made him disgusted. Shane had been just a child with a power that was too big for him and he didn’t understand when he’d killed his parents -- something Reza could relate to, though he was grateful that his own magic had waited until he was a little older to kick in ... still, it had been scary and confusing. The rest of Shane’s story was of survival and escape, nothing malicious. But maybe his guilt and self-loathing just ran that deep. Maybe there’d been abuses he couldn’t talk about yet. It made Reza want to hug him even more, but that was the wrong move. He rubbed his hands over his face and sighed into them, wrangling his own feelings, then let them drop to his lap, his expression as neutral as he could make it at the moment. “I want to help,” Reza stated. “So ... just tell me what you need from me, when you know.”
Shane gave him a somewhat incredulous look, a small smile curling his lips. "That's it?" he asked, expecting more somehow, or if he was honest with himself, expecting less. "You're still just... wanting to help?" He hadn't told him everything but Reza now knew he was capable of killing people - had killed people and not once did he say he regretted it because he didn't. Shane knew well enough he should have some guilt over what happened that night and what happened later, but he didn't. All the horrible shit he had done had gotten him to a better place in life, like each time he lashed out and did something awful, the universe rewarded him for it. "I've lost count of the people I've killed," he said softly, still watching Reza with some disbelief but there was warmth there too because yes, that did sound like Reza. Ride or die, he already said he wasn't going anywhere and now he was stubbornly holding on despite everything. "That doesn't bother you?"
Reza’s dark brows quirked upward into a questioning look. “Have you continued to kill people?” he countered. “For reasons other than accident or survival?” He had to admit that it was a little chilling to hear Shane say he’d lost count, like murder was something casual he would do on a regular basis, maybe on a long weekend or for kicks on vacation. That was a whole different animal than self defense or loss of control. Reza had never killed anyone, though he knew he could and exactly how he would do it ... he just hoped he never had to. That might change with this whole situation, but he would cross that bridge when he came to it. Shane had never struck him as a dangerous lunatic or a psychopath or anything ... but Reza knew you couldn’t always tell. It occurred to him finally that Shane might kill him, but the idea was so foreign he couldn’t think about it seriously yet.
The question threw Shane slightly off balance and he wasn't really sure how to answer. He had never killed anyone in a coldly premeditated way - then again there was nothing cold about how he operated - but he did have death on his conscience that had felt completely unnecessary and even good at the time. "No," he said with a little frown. "I haven't gone around killing people but I've- I've overreacted. I've covered up crimes and cheated the system and willingly boiled someone's brain. Did he deserve it? I don't..." He trailed off and shrugged. "I don't feel bad about it. I mean, obviously my parents and all that but I don't even know if that was me but the ones I know for sure I did? I don't give a shit that they're dead." And yet maybe he did, because talking about it was weird, brought those memories to the forefront of his brain where they felt too vivid, made him question them. "I'll do it again if I have to," he added. "That doesn't bother you?"
The phrase ‘boiled someone’s brain’ made Reza’s stomach turn in an uncomfortable way, but he didn’t let it show. He already felt guarded, so it wasn’t too hard to smother. That was graphic and horrifying, but he didn’t know the circumstances either. What if the guy had been threatening Shane or something? Triggered him somehow? Had he been protecting himself as a very traumatized individual? He had used the word ‘overreacted,’ after all. Or was Reza already trying to justify inexcusable actions just because he had feelings for a murderer? He’d always considered himself to be a moral, principled person, could he accept this? He felt a little queasy and he fully understood now why Shane had resisted talking to him so hard. Shane was troubled, he’d already known that. He seemed stunted and repressed in so many ways, maybe he’d blocked out his guilt too. Reza wet his lips slowly before he answered, choosing his words carefully. “Of course it does,” he said. “All of this bothers me, I hate that any of it happened to you, I hate that you were maybe ... put in a position where you felt you had to do terrible things. It bothers me, but ... it doesn’t change anything, for me. I mean, I would kill if I had to too. I’ve just never had to.”
It was probably a testament to just how damaged he was that Shane felt a little thrill when Reza said he would kill if he had to, it added an edge to him Shane had so far not been aware of and wrong or not, he appreciated it. "I feel like he deserved it," he said. "I overreacted but he was a prick and he wanted to hurt me a lot more than he did. I'd do it again in a heartbeat." It was crazy saying all of this out loud but it felt cathartic, like he'd been holding his breath for a long time. "If you change your mind, when all this starts to really sink in, I won't hold it against you," he said and it was he that closed the distance between them, feeling like he had to touch Reza to really get the point across so he reached for his hand and tangled their fingers together. "I would never hurt you and I don't want you to get hurt because of me. I've never lost control of my temper like that and I know I won't." He shrugged one shoulder and gave Reza an attempt at a cheeky smile. "Unless you try to kill me, I might make an exception for that." The smile felt strained and the attempted humor fell flat. This wasn't something normal people joked about.
Some lizard part of Reza’s brain expected Shane’s hand to be burning hot when it touched him, but it wasn’t, of course. He didn’t flinch away from it, and he was glad he hadn’t, emotion bubbling up strong in his chest. It was reassuring to hear that Shane had killed in self defense instead of impulse or something even more sadistic. He didn’t want to ask if that had been the case for every death, he had enough to digest as it was. Reza’s fingers flexed in Shane’s as his lips quirked a tiny bit. “I don’t see that ever being a problem,” he murmured, not even trying for any return humor. He gazed down at their linked fingers, rubbing lightly at Shane’s knuckles with his thumb. “Thank you for telling me all this,” he said after a moment or two, dark eyes moving up to Shane’s face. “I know you didn’t want to, but I’m glad you did. I don’t ... I don’t want you to mistake this for that sympathy you don’t want, but ...” He lifted his free hand to touch his chest. “It burns me, right here, to think about what they did to you. I remember how I felt when my magic woke up, and thinking about being even younger and somebody fucking around with that and stealing my life at the same time ...” Reza shook his head, something in his face going cold. “Let’s fuck them up.”
Shane's smile wasn't strained at all this time as it curled his lips slowly and god, Reza looked dangerous and it made Shane feel so damn horny for him. He could imagine the ways Reza could use his own power to hurt people so he knew he wasn't helpless by any stretch of the imagination and even if a nul got involved, he wouldn't be affected. But Shane still felt a little guilty for bringing him here. He could be living a lavish lifestyle in Chicago, dating some stud who wasn't an emotional mess, being oblivious to all the madness happening in the world around him. Instead he was here with Shane and looked like he was ready to go to war. "To be fair, everyone who hurt me is dead," he murmured. "But they're hurting others now so yeah, let's fuck them up."
Reza was very aware of where he could be ... but he’d been there for quite a few years now, and it hadn’t made him feel anywhere near as alive as he did right now. He probably had some issues of his own, but Reza didn’t want to be anywhere else. He hadn’t wanted to leave before this conversation, and that resistance felt even stronger now. He was falling into this deep, and all he wanted was to be with Shane, whatever trouble that brought his way. The suddenly hungry way Shane was staring at him didn’t help anything, sending a little wave of tingling through his lower belly. Regardless of their pasts, they obviously had some intense chemistry and he wasn’t ready to turn his back on it yet. Reza nodded a bit, agreeing it didn’t matter who was behind AIR now, they needed to be stopped before they ruined even more young lives. His grip tightened a bit on Shane’s fingers as he groped for something he felt free to say but came up empty-handed. Instead he stood up halfway, leaning over the corner of the table to kiss Shane, his free hand coming up to cup the back of the other man’s neck.
It was the best possible outcome to this chat and one Shane hadn't seen coming at all. Once Reza kissed him he knew he needed him closer so he kicked at the table leg to get the table out of the way before pulling at Reza until he got him on his lap and wrapped his arms tightly around him. There were still things he hadn't told him, things he was sure Reza wouldn't like but he didn't care and he didn't care about anything that might be lurking in Reza's past either. He had never wanted anyone this badly, he'd never been unable to walk away before. It was terrifying and mind blowing and utterly fucking hot in a twisted way, especially now that Reza had all but told him he was willing to kill for him. That shouldn't turn him on as strongly as it did but apparently he was really into it, at least in theory.
Maybe he was rushing into something utterly insane and foolhardy. Maybe he was letting his emotions and attractions rule him and being an awful person himself. Maybe all of this was a sociopathic ruse and Shane would end up boiling his brain. Reza couldn’t give a shit about any of those possibilities as Shane pulled him into his lap. He didn’t think he’d ever gotten hard so fast, as a huge wave of pent-up tension rushed forward inside of him, quite a bit of it concentrated in his dick. Reza straddled Shane’s lap and plastered himself against him, arms wrapping around his shoulders, fingers tangling in his hair almost immediately. Reza kissed him like his life depended on it, something in him clinging to the fact that he could feel emotion coming off of Shane. That couldn’t be the case if he was really some cold psycho killer, could it? Reza’s instinct said no and he held onto that as he let the sharp spike of arousal inside him take over.