Work Text:
Apparently, the boy needs data points.
Julien had been certain they would stay for merely a few hours in Castle Torch, if even that long, but no. A stormfront has swept in from the Barrowdells, battering the gates shut and trapping their motley crew together with the Barrowguard. Four days into the inclement weather, everyone's attention has turned to matters of preparation, like attuning to their strange new magic charms, and scouring the larder for rations that will aid them in the eventual hunt for Alogar Fang.
For the Tachonis boy, unfortunately, preparation seems to take altogether different and inhuman forms. He does not need to sleep or eat or heal. Instead, he busies himself at all hours of the evening - poring over his cursed anatomy textbook and trying out strange new incantations, until Julien nearly shoves him into a wall out of sheer spite.
"You are rattling my soldiers," he hisses into Occtis's ear one night, after a stray cantrip nearly sets the courtyard flowerbeds alight. "Practice your damned magic tricks downstairs, out of sight. Give us that courtesy, at least."
"They're used to facing the Eternal Night, aren't they?" Occtis's mouth works against itself; thoughts etch themselves into the plush line of his lips. He stares Julien down, and does not blink. "I didn't realize my magic could disturb them. I....I need living things to practice on. For data. I figured the flowers would be a reasonable sacrifice, but they're not really doing the trick."
Wind whistles through the arrowslits of the wall, singing a peculiar and familiar tune. Julien hadn't realized he missed the sound, until right now. This place is a home to him - different than the Orchard, different than the Palazzo, but a home nonetheless. A home of good people. Ordinary, reasonable people. People not yet touched by the horrors of the necromancer's godsdamned family.
"Living things?" he grits out carefully, forcing a light and pleasant smile onto his face as two guards wander past them within hearing range. "Tachonis, every detail I learn about your magic makes me all the more sure you are of a kind with your father and brother both."
"Well, um. Yes. I guess I am." Occtis bends down to pick up the rose at his feet. Its petals are wilted and charred from the latest spell, a skeletal hand which rotted the life out of the plant in real time while Julien watched. "That's family, isn't it? You can't really get that far away."
Julien only realizes his teeth are clenched when his jaw slips, and he bites painfully into the side of his cheek. Blood wells up, hot and slick along his tongue. Between every blink, he can see his father's skull fracturing apart, melting into the dirt and the dust.
The boy is wrong. One can get very far away from family indeed. Julien's family has gone somewhere else, and he does not know if he will ever be able to find them, in this life or the next.
He does not say any of this, because Occtis Tachonis does not deserve to hear of such good people. People far greater and wiser and better than his rotted bloodline could ever hope to produce. Instead, he glares at Occtis's palm, where the rose has been neatly dissected into pieces. The boy balances the component parts on the dark fabric of his glove, already picking apart its stem and stamen with a surgeon's eye.
"Why do you need living things?" he says, regretting the question but forcing it out anyway. "If you even think of harming one of my men -"
"I won't," Occtis says vehemently. His gaze flicks upwards from the flower. He still hasn't blinked. Julien is never going to get used to that. "I'm not...it's not magic that could really hurt someone too badly. Just low-level stuff. They'd probably be fine. Especially with a healing potion on hand. I just need to know how it works in battle. And it's not like I can try it on myself."
"Surely you could."
"I mean, I did. Believe me. It didn't work." The boy looks genuinely upset for a moment. The sight is so disarming that Julien has to bite back a mean-spirited laugh. "Undeath is a good foundation for some experiments, but not others."
He shouldn't suggest it. Julien really shouldn't suggest it, not least of all because it's a disaster waiting to happen. But Castle Torch has always been a place that encourages his more domineering and reckless impulses to a fault. And he certainly doesn't want the boy possessing arcane knowledge that he is not aware of.
"You'd best try your experiments on me," he says acidly. He's rewarded with a sharp inhale from the boy, one which he knows full well Occtis does not actually need. "I'll be down in the cellars tonight, if you insist on continuing your scientific work. If anyone is equipped to take your magic in stride, it is I. Just leave those poor flowers be."
He's certainly suffered enough wounds at the hands of the Tachonis already. Better the boy play with fire under his eye, rather than behind his back. Better that Julien judge Occtis Tachonis's new abilities up front, so that he can best defeat them, should the need arise.
And besides - he's a wizard, for Shapers' sake. A low-level, books-based, necromantic wizard. Julien can handle him just fine.
***
When he finally makes his way down to the cellar that evening, he is dismayed to discover Occtis has beaten him to the punch. There's a back room behind the main racks of wine barrels, made for storing particularly rare vintages at specific temperatures. The walls are specially thickened stone, insulated and padded to keep in cold or heat. Julien oversaw the installation of the place, back when he first came into charge at Castle Torch. He'd wanted to throw some excellent parties, after all. Out here, morale is a rare and vital thing.
Now, he stands in the doorway with his arms crossed, and watches as Occtis Tachonis shifts items around the room, a furrow of frustration steadily growing on the dead boy's brow. Lending a helping hand would be the polite thing to do. Which is, of course, exactly why Julien won't do it. He's giving up his free time to this nonsense out of an abundance of caution. He doesn't owe the necromancer any social courtesy into the bargain.
"This should work as a table," Occtis says distantly, propping a wooden storage shelf at an oddly specific angle against the far wall. "Just - mm. Come over here, Sir Davinos. I'll do the rest once you're up."
Julien rolls his eyes, but acquiesces. He hops up onto the board and follows Occtis's directions with the requisite amount of grumbling to maintain his ego, lying down and stretching his feet out in perfect form. His arms feel awkward, so he leaves them at his side, and sets his mind to running through imagined training drills while the Tachonis boy spends a good ten minutes doing something or other to the rest of the room. It surely doesn't matter. And even if it did, Julien doesn't really care enough to ask.
He's so engrossed in the rhythmic memories - arm out to the right; cape pulled back before the strike; don't leave your left side open - that he is startled when the light inside the cellar dims. The candelabras on the wall flicker out, their healthy orange-gold flames replaced with a sickly purple-green. All the bottles and barrels and stands have been rolled out of sight. Suddenly, Julien is in a cold stone room with nothing but his wits and Occtis Tachonis, who is staring at him with an eerie look that is quite...
...clinical. Not murderous, but clinical. Which does not necessarily reassure. The clicking of metal into wood signals the room's sequester from the rest of the castle. Julien doesn't hear the lock turn, which is probably a good sign, but it strikes him suddenly that he has elected to walk into a soundproofed area alone, and let the scion of his dearest enemy set up the playing field to boot.
No matter. He will not be tricked, or killed, or fooled. He lounges back against the makeshift table and grins showily at Occtis, making his posture as relaxed and lewd as he can.
"Well, you have me all to yourself. Congratulations," he says, just to see sparks of confusion dance behind the boy's unblinking gaze. Oh, it is far too easy to make him squirm. "What are you going to do with me? How long should this little scientific liason take?"
"I'm not sure." Occtis runs his tongue along his teeth. His fingers tap an even rhythm against the flap of his coat pocket. It seems death does not break one of their daily tics. "I'll need to run a certain number of trials before I can trust the veracity of my data."
The urge to roll his eyes again is strong. Julien decides to be a hero, and resists.
"Well, get on with it, then," he says, and stretches back into a pose that several of his lovers have called alluring in the past, and several others have called outright cocky. Admittedly, they were probably just jealous. Julien's well aware of his good looks. If he chooses to move through the world in ways that expose his sharp jaw and taut stomach and fine thighs...well. That's just accentuating what's already there. "What should I do?"
"Oh. Nothing."
The answer is simple. Alarmingly so. Julien purses his lips and tries to discern what in the hells is happening inside the corpse-skull of the death-damned boy. He's still staring at Julien, which is just...he really needs to stop doing that all the time. The green light washes Occtis out, adding a sickly pallor to his already-pallid skin. Shadows dance like moths across his face, carving it into sharpened blocks and lines.
The effect is disconcerting. It's like looking too long at an illusion, utterly unable to see the trick inside. Occtis Tachonis died one week ago, on a table in the Palazzo Davinos. Julien was there. He remembers it. He has to remember it now, to keep the discrepancy from driving him mad.
"Nothing?" he drawls, making sure that his disdain is audible. "I am starting to feel like this was a waste of my valuable time."
"No. No, I -" Occtis stops speaking for a moment, chewing thoughtfully at his lip. "I misspoke. I don't need you to - I'm just going to need you to stay there. And react."
"React how? React to what?"
"Well, if I told you how to react, and what you were reacting to, that would defeat the point. That's not really unbiased experimentation."
Unbelievable. Someday, when the boy turns truly undead and insensate, Julien will take perhaps too much joy in severing that strange little head from his high-strung shoulders. As it stands, he's not able to do that yet. Instead, he sighs, and resigns himself to staring sullenly at the ceiling.
Paper rustles from across the room. Fabric shuffles, followed by wood scraping across stone. Not the door again. A different sound. Perhaps a chair. Julien is raising his head to confirm the assumption, when -
A sudden pressure. Something invisible, swift and unyielding, tugs at his joints and forces itself against his ankles, his wrists, his neck. It's not sharp, but it's deep - cold and firm and solid, manhandling him down against the wood, pinning him roughly and tightly into place -
"Stop resisting," Occtis Tachonis says, with the same absentminded calm he uses to talk about his spellbook, or his pet fox, or his death. "I, um - yeah, sorry. This isn't part of the experiment yet. I should have specified. I just need to keep you still."
Fuck that. Julien jerks in place. The restraints yield slightly, letting him squirm around atop the wood an inch or two. That in itself is worrying. If they were completely rigid, he could try to use brute force and shatter his way through. They're just slack enough to be difficult, however. Just well-designed enough to stop a trained fighter from a proper escape.
"Is this your grand plan to murder me, boy?" he bites out, despite the fact that all of his instincts are telling him to start shouting at the top of his lungs. That impulse won't actually do him any good, because this room is so well insulated as to be damn near soundproof. Why did he agree to work with a fucking Tachonis necromancer? "You will not make it out of this castle alive, if so."
"I won't make it out alive no matter what I do."
The magical restraints, or whatever the hell they are, mean that Julien's head is fixed in place, his eyes only granted line of sight on the candle flames. He can't see Occtis, but he can hear the ghost of a smile drifting behind the boy's voice. Fitting. He always smiles so sweetly, when he's gotten it into his strange little mind to be consciously cruel.
"I'm not trying to murder you," he says coolly. The words echo softly against the stone. "I just need to study you. And you really tend to squirm."
"You could have asked." Julien forces the words to come out as a hiss, rather than a snarl. It is exceedingly difficult. He's always had a particular fondness for restraints, true, but that fondness depends on seeing them coming in advance. "You could have given me a heads-up. Surely that would have been polite."
"I mean, I guess?" A pen nib taps rhythmically against paper. Julien can easily paint the picture in his head - Occtis sitting in the corner with a notebook out, watching him with mild yet unflinching interest, like a cat enjoying the fluttering of a bird. "But you were already in position. And I'm getting kind of tired of polite."
What is Julien supposed to say to that? He swallows, hard, clawing back some measure of dignity and composure as the flames gutter lower and the shadows in the room begin to grow. Notably, they are expanding to fill the space everywhere but the table, leaving his body and limbs illuminated in a kind of makeshift spotlight of lavender and jade.
His arms raise, the magic pinning his hands above his head in a position of surrender. His legs are neatly splayed, thighs opened up a little wider than the width of his hips. He cannot see the restraints, but he can feel the pressure still, and decides to let the matter drop for the moment. He is...fine. He is going to believe that this is fine, because it has to be fine. There's no reason for the boy to kill him. Other than every good reason that the boy has to kill him.
But either way, Julien can handle it. He can handle this. That has to be true.
"There was an extra magical item in the bag from the druids," Occtis says. Glass clinks against metal as he moves something around. "It was this little - crystal, I think? It's really tiny, but it - well, it basically splits spells apart. You can cast multiple cantrips at once. Which is, quite frankly, an unprecedented scientific opportunity."
"Delightful," Julien drawls. "I simply couldn't be more interested in the concept."
"Mm. I'm sure."
The candle-flames gutter. A cold breeze sweeps across Julien's skin. He shivers instinctively, despite being fully clothed. The dull green motes of light are starting to get into his eyes. He blinks them away valiantly, screwing up his face against the glare.
Something touches his neck.
No, not - not something. A hand. Four fingers and a thumb wrap lightly around the front of Julien's throat. He startles, adrenaline firing his nerves, warming the chilled skin back up in an instant. He jerks sideways instinctively, fighting against the restraints, desperate to move, break, run -
The incongruity of the situation catches up to him a second later. No one is here. The boy hasn't moved closer. Has he? Julien didn't hear any footsteps. What is going on?
"Okay, calm down," Occtis says. His voice is exactly the same distance away as before. Not up against Julien's ear; not even close. He's on the other side of the room. How is he doing this? "If you fight the restraints, you're just going to pull something, and I don't know if I can heal that."
"What," Julien spits out, "is touching me. Answer me, boy."
"Oh. It's a mage hand." The necromancer's words are tinged with a faint edge of surprise, which is ten times worse than condescension could ever be. The fingers flex, tapping lightly against Julien's trachea. When he gulps, he can feel his throat pulse against their ministrations. "Have you never heard of those? I thought you'd at least be familiar with the concept."
Fuck him. Julien is not a fool. He serves the great Lady of House Royce, for Shapers' sake. He is aware of the basics of magic.
He just wasn't expecting a mage hand here and now. And not from the Tachonis brat, to boot. The pressure on his throat shifts back and forth, almost teasingly. It relents, briefly, and Julien catches a glimpse of transclucent green-blue bones, an apparition that drifts in front of his face and vanishes silently out of his sight.
When the touch returns this time, it is at his temple. An ethereal, bony finger traces down from his hairline to his jaw, hovering just lightly enough above the skin to make Julien shiver. He feels - exposed. Visible. Flayed, almost, even though nothing has actually been done to hurt him. The ache in his joints is all his own doing, a side effect of wrestling vainly with the invisible magic ropes.
He must not be so maudlin as to compare himself as a cadaver, on this table. But the thought is lingering, somewhere in the brainstem. No. Julien is not dead, no matter how familiar those spirits at the Palazzo felt. He is not dead, no matter how much the past week has been a living nightmare, a mortally wounded man's feverish dream of incoming hells.
He is not dead, no matter how much he wishes to be. He is alive. His heart is pumping, his blood is thrumming, and he is alive.
"You're stressed," Occtis Tachonis says softly from the corner. His voice is barely a whisper, but Julien can make out every syllable. "Don't be. I'm...well, I'm excellent at this. I know what I'm doing. You're going to be fine."
Not particularly reassuring, Julien is about to say. He is halfway through conjuring up the requisite sarcasm for the words when the candles flare brightly, and green light spills, all-encompassing, across his field of vision.
The finger at his temple presses down firmly, pockmarking the skin. A second later, a sharp jolt of pain stabs Julien, more visceral and sudden than any knife. He chokes, twitching forward, eyes widening, half-blinded by the sting. It's like a lightning bolt has struck him surgically, set him on fire in the most precise and pointed way. It radiates outwards and sinks into his muscles, making them sluggish. When he tries to react further, he finds himself briefly paralyzed, unable to move save for little twitches and jerks.
"Good, good," the boy says. Soothingly, for gods' sake. Like Julien is an animal on the butcher's block. "Well done. That was really great."
"Hhh," Julien replies, half-incoherent. His tongue tastes like metal and salt. The back of his throat is thick with dust, and a cough is trapped somewhere in his ribs. The pain is already receding, but the heat persists. It drips lax and loose through his skull, his shoulders, his chest, making him tired, causing his body to shake. "That was - what did you - that was not a fucking mage hand, Tachonis."
"No, no, it was." Occtis writes something down, muttering to himself as he turns the page. "The shock was a cantrip, but it was cast through a mage hand. That's part of what I'm testing. I should be able to do it more than once."
Something brushes against Julien's legs. His nerves scream for him to twist out of the way, but the lingering effects of the lightning-shock are still melting him, keeping him rooted into place. The pressure at his forehead trails downwards to press against his collarbone. There are two hands, now - one tracing the top of his chest, and one circling the vulnerable puck of bone above his knee.
The palms flattens down against his skin, and start to massage. Occtis exhales slowly, something that might almost be a laugh.
It shouldn't feel good. It - it should not feel good, logically, to be touched and kneaded by phantom hands of magic. It should feel frightening, inhuman, almost obscene. Julien flexes his hands, able to hear the click as his wrist bones rub together. He is caught and locked down, he realizes. Pinned perfectly in place.
He's vulnerable. At someone else's mercy. At Occtis's mercy.
That should not feel good.
"This is going to sting."
Lightning burns twice. Electricity splinters through Julien's legs and chest. He does cry out, this time - a choked little grunt of pain that is immediately taken up by the stone walls of the cellar and echoed out tenfold. He was cold a moment ago, he could have sworn it. But the magic has set him ablaze, and he cannot remember what it was like before.
His thighs twitch, the muscles stuttering, animated by sensation. So bad - but somehow so wonderful, as well -
When he wrenches forward against the restraints again, something almost snaps within his shoulder. His gasp of agony is mingled with a soft sigh from the corner. A moment later, the magic shifts, fluid and blurring, as liquid as water. Julien's hands are pulled further above his head, held a little tighter. His legs are spread wider, his ankles almost trailing off the table, his groin and chest both shamelessly exposed.
"Don't hurt yourself, Sir Davinos," the Tachonis boy mutters. "That's not your job."
Yes, Julien has most certainly been in this position before. He has begged for this position before - begged and paid for the hedonistic delight of a dozen different people having their merry way with him. But this has to be different from those past experiences. The pleasurable, dizzying subjugation of bondage cannot be allowed to overlap with....this maudlin torture show.
They can't. Julien just can't fathom that. If he starts to let those lines blur, he'll go mad. If he starts to enjoy this, he just might lose his mind.
As if his thoughts are being read, a third hand appears, stroking carefully up the tender skin of his side. It moves from hip to ribcage, back and forth. The other two hands maneuver to the buttons on Julien's shirt, and drift down to the tight metal fastenings keeping his trousers in place. Skeletal fingers start to open him up, slow and sure. He sucks in a desperate breath, forces his head down just far enough to see his chest and hipbones come into view, the flimsy coverings of his armor already being pulled away.
This cannot be happening. This is surely just a dream. He's angry, or - he should be angry, instead of hungry and frantic and desperate for more. That cannot be allowed. He cannot allow himself to be weak like that. He does not deserve it. Not after all he's been through. Not after all this.
A fourth hand. Fingers devoid of flesh wind their way into Julien's curls and manhandle him efficiently, yanking his head back up into the light. The sound that escapes his throat is utterly shameful, and a flush fills his cheeks that has nothing to do with the lingering electricity.
The other three hands organize themselves along his bared chest, his skin already starting to prickle in the damp, chilled air. Fifteen fingers press down against his flesh in an orderly line, running from the base of Julien's throat to the very top of his crotch.
"It's possible to split an initial cantrip across four casts," Occtis says distantly. He still sounds as though he's talking to himself. The pen scratches against paper, eager and sure. "So in theory...well, the idea is that I can cast spells through the mage hand that would normally require touch. And if I have four mage hands active, then shouldn't I be able to cast it four times over? I've already done it with two..."
It's too much. Julien can't stand the feather-light caresses of the bony fingers, the unflinching gaze of the Tachonis boy, the pleasure that is molten in his body, curled and purring like an eager cat. The anticipation is brutal. He doesn't want to wait, to imagine the hurt. He wants it to hit him, now, to double him over, to wipe out thought and worry with relief -
"Skin-to-skin contact should exacerbate it. But I guess there's only one way to find out."
The spell is audible this time. Lightning snaps, sizzling in the air, scorching against skin, and Julien screams. His body writhes, twists and tugs with absolutely no consent or input from his brain - his limbs are possessed, pulled out of his control, and it hurts, it hurts. Gods. Fuck. His heart is racing a mile a minute, accelerated unhealthily, so fast that it might burst. He tastes blood, and realizes he's bit clean through his lower lip. He grinds himself back against the table, helplessly. His scream is quickly fading into something that sounds far too much like a moan.
It's total. All-encompassing. Too many sensations are at war - so much that his mind briefly shuts down, refusing to accept or analyze any of them. The reprieve is tragically short, though. He's already beginning to piece himself back together. His shirt is fraying and slipping off his shoulders; his feet are painfully wedged and numbed within the tight toes of his boot. And his thighs...
Oh. Oh, no. Something dark and heady pools in the base of Julien's stomach, inciting more panic than the fear of assassination ever did.
He can feel it now, cutting through the aftershocks like a blade. A thick, familiar straining in his groin. The hand in his hair loosens, ever so slightly. He glances down to confirm the suspicion. His erection is growing shamefully fast, the hardness pushing out to tent the fabric of his underclothes.
"Fascinating," Occtis says. There's a tight, hungry thing at the edge of his voice now, alongside the chill. "I'm not sure if I expected that. Do all knights experience arousal from shock-based cantrips, Sir Davinos? Or is it just you? You certainly seem like you would be the type."
Julien should say something to that. He should make fun of the boy, or yell at him, or sneer. Find some way to throw him off the scent. But he can't seem to summon the words, or the will. His bones are throbbing, and his cock is aching, and the blood in his mouth is wet and warm and perfect. The hand in his hair plays with his curls for a long moment, its sharp tips scratching soothingly against his scalp.
It hurts. It's good. Too good to be true. To his horror, Julien has to bite back the beginnings of a sob. He cannot lose. He cannot let him win.
"This spell is meant to deter melee attackers, you know." Glass rattles as an object is set down carefully onto the stone. Julien thinks wildly, for a moment, that the Tachonis brat is going to stand up and walk over here, but no such luck. There are no further sounds of movement from the corner. "It damages you, and it dulls your reflexes. Just long enough for an endangered caster to escape. It's not really supposed to be pleasurable, though. I guess it's good that you like pain so much, huh?"
"I do not." Julien's voice is hoarse and ruined, cracked at the edges. He's sounded more coherent than this after sucking cock, which...no, he cannot think about that right now. That is an eminently dangerous train of thought. "I...I do not like pain. You are wrong."
"Oh." The mage hand in Julien's hair gives him a final, patronizing pet. It withdraws, and Julien swallows down a pulse of incoherent rage at the fact that he misses it. "Well, then. Would you like me to release you? I can let you go about your evening. I don't mean to get in your way."
Yes. Julien should stop this. Julien should say no. He is supposed to say no. He is supposed to want to leave, not to be strapped down to this table in a dark and dusty cellar, a myriad of hands roaming his skin, hurting him and soothing him in turn. He is not supposed to enjoy it this way - careful and clinical, dissociated entirely from the warmth and weight of someone else's flesh.
He is not supposed to be the sole recipient of pleasure. He hasn't earned that. Fuck. He never will.
His mouth works silently, his tongue leaden and useless in his jaw. When he tries to say l do not want this, let me go, the sentiment refuses to spill out. Several heartbeats skip by, laden with the implicit statement of his silence. He wishes he could blame the electricity, welding and sealing his vocal cords against his will. He wishes, desperately, that his denials could be the fucking truth.
"Or...do you want me to continue?"
Fingers close around the back of Julien's throat. The pinch sends something cool and soothing washing through his nerves. He feels hollowed, treasured, like he's a kitten being picked up by the scruff of the neck. The three additional mage hands tap teasingly against his stomach, then split apart. Two slip beneath his new-bared thighs, tracing lines along the sensitive swells of skin beneath his ass. The third positions itself at the base of his belly, infinitely gentle, carefully cupping the soft pouch of fat along his gut.
Fuck. Julien can feel the hard tent of his cock struggling against his breeches, the growing flush and tingle across his abdomen from the electric shocks only making it worse. It's shameful to be on display like this. It's disgraceful. Obscene. He shouldn't - he shouldn't -
"Trial and error, Sir Davinos." Occtis would sound mocking if he didn't also sound so invested, his words slicing like scalpels, loaded with want and weight. Maybe the boy is a little desperate too. "You are just so reactive, and I would hate to lose the chance to watch you move about. I've never seen anyone react to my magic like this, it's kind of incredible -"
"Do it," Julien says, all in a rush. It's a confession, a condemnation, and he doesn't care. He can't care. He is beyond that, now. "Godsdamn you, brat. Do your fucking experiments, whatever you want, just please -"
The world ignites.
Pain hits him in overlap. The spells burrow inside like a riptide, moving through legs and core and cock, purposefully out of synch. Julien burns. His vision whites out as the mage hand yanks proprietorially at his curls. His hips spasm upwards fruitlessly, sensitive bones banging sharply against the wood as the mage hands press and hold him tight in place.
He is dimly aware that he is moaning as he twists frenziedly, wildly - his body surrendered, his nerve endings animated by ghosts, telling him to move, to get away, away. It's too much and not enough, terrible and total and so fucking hot -
His throat is ragged when consciousness comes back to him. His face is wet with tears, and he is gasping frantically, clawing for some semblance of air. The agony throbs, a rush of blood in his ears, a great ocean on which he is afloat. It is impossible to think through the lingering pain, even as the lightning-lethargy recedes. It is impossible to do anything but submit.
Wood scrapes against stone. Julien's head is puppeted upwards; the restraints around his wrist loosen, as the mage hand in his curls drags him inexorably into a sitting position. It is a mockery of his former lounging posture - almost the same, but with every piece of him opened and revealed, embarrassingly on display. The three other skeletal hands are roaming him still, their intent now entirely lascivious in nature. They scrape along his calves and pinch at his nipples, torturing him everywhere but the place he wants them most.
A set of translucent fingers slips onto his tongue. His cock hardens even more, the arousal now far beyond the point of pain. Julien sucks on the magic digits greedily, feels spit wicking its way down his cheeks and chin. He'll have this. He'll take it. He is much too tired and needy to resist.
"W-wow," Occtis says quietly, from somewhere far away. "You - that was wonderful, Sir Davinos. You did so good."
Julien forces his eyes open to meet the boy's gaze. Tachonis is as still and unnerving as ever, sitting straight-backed in the corner chair. His cravat is askew, though, and the notebook in his lap is splotched with ink. A quill pen has tumbled from his hand, and a puddle of darkness spreads steadily from its tip, seeping into the cracks of the cobblestone floor.
His mouth hangs open. He is looking at Julien with fascination, with awe - like Julien is a prize possession, a pinned butterfly or a skeleton for display. The reverence is crystallized in his unblinking eyes, wide green circles that sink impossibly deep and sallow in the skull, studded with remnant through-lines of magical light.
It is the face of death. The sight is so petrifying, so horrifying and wonderful, that Julien almost comes right on the spot.
"Please," he slurs around the fingers, begging helplessly to the wraith-boy who has his life in his hands. Abomination. Nightmare. Murderer of all Julien holds dear. He needs his touch, though. So badly that he might as well be dead too. "Please, I...more. Occtis, I need more."
Those limpid pools of greenness flicker and shift. Occtis Tachonis's mouth twitches, and Julien can see the moment he realizes the power he wields. The expression on his face is achingly familiar. Primus wore it too, when he held the skull of Julien's father in his palm.
Perhaps this is the same thing. Or perhaps this is worse. Perhaps the way that Julien desires it is the most unforgivable part of all.
"O-okay," Occtis says, and runs his tongue carefully along his teeth. He sits back slowly in his chair, and traces a single finger through empty space. "Okay. Yeah. I can give you more."
Two hands hold Julien in place, careful and sure. Spectral fingers continue to fuck into his mouth, setting a steady pace as the fourth hand tenderly tugs down his braies and pulls his cock into the open air. Julien whimpers, ruts his hips up raggedly into the grip. The mage hand stays loose but present, domineering. It's not jerking him off, really, so much as providing him a surface against which to chase his pleasure to its end.
"You've been so receptive," Occtis whispers. "So messy. So reactive. So good for me. You're - wow, you're not scary at all, like this. I understand you like this. I just had to study you, didn't I? It all makes sense."
"Mmm." Julien twitches autonomically as a mild shockwave dances on his tongue, the brief brush of lightning burrowing into the back of his teeth. His cock spasms too, dribbling pitifully at the tip. So close. He is so close, and he needs it. He wriggles his hips up harder, wild and raw. Some part of him, sick to its stomach, can see the picture he must make. Begging and pleading; sweat-drenched and wrecked. A man in love with torture, unwilling to resist. "Fuck. More."
"I already gave you more," Occtis says, soft and gentle, totally in control. Julien would scream in fury, if it didn't feel so good. "I know you're desperate. It's - it's all right. Just keep moving. You can get yourself there, can't you? You're doing so well."
He's trying. Julien is trying, but the mage hand is just too loose for him to get the needed rub, the bright-white burn and pulse of proper friction. The only respite is an occasional lazy spark of electricity from the other hands, the ones clamped around his thighs and slick across his tongue. They make him whimper and writhe, until the table creaks violently beneath his shifting weight.
He is more beast than man, like this. A test subject, a mad dog, chained and held for proper experimentation. As it ought to be. Why did he ever bother trying to be otherwise? He can't remember. It feels so good.
"I can't," he chokes out, too far gone to hate himself for the admission of defeat. "I can't. Please, fucking...oh, gods. More."
"So you do have manners," Occtis murmurs throatily. The quill has been rescued, evidently. It is scratching against paper again, eager and quick. The boy will remember this. He'll have notes and theorems on every ounce and facet of Julien, proportioning him and judging him with a surgeon's sterile view. "That's good to know."
"Occtis, help me." It is base and febrile, but perhaps using the first name will earn Julien enough sympathy to finish. "I need - I need you to -"
"Be specific, Sir Davinos. I need to know what, exactly, you're so needy for."
The quill moves faster still, a hurried flood of thoughts etching themselves into parchment. The necromancer must have summoned a fifth mage hand, just to keep up such a strenuous pace. Perhaps his real hand is busy elsewhere. Perhaps he is stroking himself, getting off to the sight of Julien like this. He's certainly aroused. The thick and heady lilt of his instructions makes it clear that he knows full well what he is doing.
Or perhaps not. There are no sounds of such an act taking place; no slick echoes or harsh gasps from the shadows. Perhaps Occtis doesn't even need it. Perhaps he is simply enraptured - too locked in on the dimensions of Julien's torment to even spare a thought for his own release.
The thought pushes Julien closer still. He arches his head back into the skeletal fingers, lets his thighs splay wide and welcoming to the air. Every hump of his hips bounces his wet cock sharply against his stomach, a jagged jolt of pleasure spiking where flesh slaps against flesh.
"I need you to fuck me," he chokes out, the words spilling over themselves without rhyme or reason. "Anything. I don't fucking care. It hurts."
Cold pads of bone brush lovingly against the cleft of Julien's bare ass, then slip inside. He gasps for air, legs kicking at the unexpected intrusion, whining as the fingers start to scissor and probe. The chill is met and marred immediately with deep-scorching warmth, a throbbing shockwave that never seems to end. It's not a zap, this time, but a continued pulse. Pain and pleasure twinned together, spinning and spiraling inexorably up the length of his spine.
"I know," Occtis whispers from the corner. "I'm sorry. I know. You're...you're just so pretty like this. I really can't resist."
The hand over Julien's cock presses down suddenly - right as the fingers inside him stab that tender, hidden spot. Orgasm cracks him open, splitting him irreparably in two. The sound that leaves his throat would be a wail, probably, if he had any lung capacity left.
Instead, it is a pitifully drawn-out croak, as he shudders and thrashes in place, coming apart at the seams. His cock makes a mess of him, his body spending and spilling past what should even be fucking biologically possible.
Everything sparkles quietly for a while. Julien is heavy, sticky, and sore, laid slack and limp on the unforgiving plank of wood. The restraints have vanished, and he curls in on himself in lieu of their comfortable weight, floating above it all. Aftershocks animate him briefly, little nerve-pulses that make him twitch and yip. He's like some tamed beast after a good meal, rolling lazily on its back, sated and full. Happy, and complete.
When awareness finally begins to trickle back in, so do the tears. No. No, not this. Julien does not want to go back to his duties, not yet. It was so good. He was watched, and denied, and memorized, and it was so good. He was so good. He was useful, and wanted, and he didn't even have to do anything for it. He didn't have to fight back. He just had to suffer, and take it. And he can.
"....more," he mumbles wetly, like a prayer. "More, please. I would like some more."
Hands caress his skin. At least half a dozen of them, now. He is lifted effortlessly, as if he is far lighter than a feather. A vial presses against his lips. Cold liquid slips down his throat, the familiar cardamom afterburn of a healing potion following behind. Magic supports his head like a soft pillow. It keeps him upright as his limbs are propped back into place on the plank, like those of a particularly well-ruined doll.
The candles flare, illuminating the scene. In the corner, Occtis is more skull than man. A skeletal hand takes notes in the journal on his lap, while another orients the rainbow prism at his side. His eyes are luminous and wild, like fireflies or witchlights or the surface of the moon. He leans back in his chair and crosses his legs primly, looking all the world like a student settling in for a long demonstration.
There is something terribly sweet and tender in his gaze. He is staring at Julien with breathless fascination, the infinite patience of a scientist who never has to sleep or eat again. It is the exact same way he looks at his dead fox. An awful fondness, mixed with a steely desire to control.
Tomorrow, some better version of Julien will hate the boy for that. He doesn't want his pity, or his care. Doesn't deserve them, either. But right now, all that seems very far away. He makes himself go limp, then limper still. Bares his throat to the sky, and wills the world to fade back into pain.
"I do need more data points," Occtis says, and clicks his tongue against his bone-white teeth. "All right, then. Start a new page. Trial two."