Date: Sat, 9 Sep 2023 20:53:23 -0500 From: Fang Saito Subject: Welcome to Avernus - Chapter 17 This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to any real people or places is purely coincidental. This story is the property of the author and is protected under copyright laws. The author retains all rights. No reproduction is allowed without the author's consent. Conversations and feedback are appreciated to Greyson B. via email at hokkaidohotel86it@gmail.com. I love hearing from readers. As always, special thanks to Johnny Kape for the excellent editing assistance he has been providing me. If you enjoy this story, please support the Nifty archives today with a thoughtful donation by visiting https://donate.nifty.org/. I apologize for the delay in getting this chapter out. Too much has been going on in my life the last few months. If you can find an opportunity to help out a favored author, it would be appreciated. https://www.buymeacoffee.com/GreysonB. You can find my other Nifty stories at: https://www.nifty.org/nifty/gay/adult-youth/cadence/ https://www.nifty.org/nifty/gay/highschool/a-ghost-finds-a-body/ I have begun a mailing list to notify people when a new chapter is posted. If you would like to be added, feel free to write and let me know to add you. Welcome to Avernus Chapter 17 I texted the number I had for Dom, telling him about the visit and the warning from the Jianshi. I didn't receive a response, and for my own part, I did my best to stay away from the Warren and all of the Vampyre. Unfortunately this meant staying away from the game store after dark. It also meant I was being vague to some of Wren's texts, and ignoring the rest. I was a mix of pissed and nervous, and wasn't sure why. I missed Wren, but I didn't trust myself around him for some reason. Fortunately Boots was keeping me company when he could. He had to go make appearances at his own house occasionally, more than half the nights in a week, he was staying over with me. After what had happened with the Jianshi's last "warning", Boots had taken to crashing in my bed with me for quite a few nights. I couldn't tell if he was afraid to sleep in the basement now, or if he was worried that I needed the company. I hated to admit that it helped me sleep better. He and I hadn't actually done anything sexual yet, not that it hadn't come close a time or two. I couldn't even say why we hadn't. Hell, it might have been easier if we had. Now there was this tension between us, a barrier that made us careful. We held each other in bed, but were careful that we didn't do any "naughty" touches. We had not seen each other in less than our underwear. Hell, I think I'd only seen Boots without a shirt like, two or three times. Sucks for him, since I refuse to sleep with a shirt, no matter where I am. He was starting to turn into some kind of "forbidden fruit" or something. It was about two weeks later when I received another email just as the last bell rang, ending the school day. Dom's assistant, Ms. Flanagan, must have an alarm set for our school bell or something. The email informed me that I would be excused from school on Friday, because Thursday Dom needed me to go on a trip with him. This was to be his first time he really needed his Assecla to be with him. The message said we would be back in the early hours of Saturday morning. There was no mention of what I should expect, or even what I should pack. I texted, and about an hour later, got a message saying, "Dress casual. You won't be at the meeting.". Hmm. I didn't know if I should be relieved or insulted. I let it go and when the time came, I just threw a change of clothes, deodorant, toothbrush, and laptop in my backpack. I had asked Boots if we could just hang out, me and him, on Saturday after I got back. I wasn't really in the mood for a houseful of guys. Especially since I didn't know what kind of mood I was going to be in when I got back. Boots seemed kind of worried about the trip, but he didn't say anything except to agree about Saturday. As I had been instructed, an SUV came and picked me up at 5 pm Thursday. It was a really nice car, black outside with grey leather interior, sitting tall and heavy looking. One of the goons was driving, but not my super special friend. We drove over to the hotel, and sat out front, right by the lobby entrance with the engine running. The sun was almost at the horizon, with that last bright orange glow all over everything. I was a bit bored, a bit frustrated, and a lot anxious about what was going on, so I decided it was time to push some buttons. "What kind of gun you got?" I asked in my most innocent, inquisitive voice. He ignored me. "I've seen some of you guys with like, a machine gun under your coat. Did they give you one of those?" Still no response. "I can't figure out which way to guess," I kept going. "On the one hand, you're going to be driving Mr. Tsui, so I'm thinking they would want you to have some firepower. But on the other hand, maybe they don't trust you with anything bigger than a .22 with training wheels." I was grinning by this point. He was going to want to answer me soon, or I would start getting personal. I gave him a moment, to see if he would say anything. He didn't, so I decided to see how far I could go. "I'm curious about your buddy," I said. "You know, the one that gave me the pat down. Did you other guys give him shit about feeling up my ass and thighs? Or were you jealous that you missed out on the opportunity?" No reaction still, except maybe his fingers whitened with the grip they had on the steering wheel. I grinned and leaned forward between the two front seats. This put me pretty close to his ear, so I whispered, "You know, we will have two days away. Maybe you'll get your own opportunity." Finally I saw the crack in his posture, and sat back, enjoying my grin. "I'm here to take care of Mr. Tsui. I don't have to babysit you, or keep you safe." "You're probably going to find out otherwise," I said, letting my grin slip into more of an attempt at a friendly smile. "But really, if I gotta hang out with Mr. Tsui more, I'd rather be friends with you guys, and get to know you a little bit." "Look, sir-" he started to say. "Sir! I'm barely worth a `hey kid'. Maybe a `listen, asshole," I laughed, but tried not to let it sound mean. "Really, dude, just call me Jason or something." "Alright, Jason," he said in a controlled tone. "I need you to stay in your own space, and stop distracting me. Please." "Yes, sir, mister guard sir." I moved over against the door, in the seat directly behind them. "Give it to the end of the weekend, to see if you'd rather be allies." I popped in some earbuds and started some music. We sat there, letting the subtle vibration of the car lull me into relaxation, for another 20 minutes before the doors to the hotel opened and Dom came striding out flanked by two more of his goons, and followed by someone else I couldn't see through everyone else. Both of the black suited guards stepped forward, pausing for a moment to look around, and then opened the front and rear doors simultaneously. The dude in back held the door open and Dom got into the car. Once he was in, the guy up front got in, closing his door. Then the person that had been following them leaned in to say something to Dom. He was short and with the height of the SUV, he really didn't have to lean down. At first I didn't understand why he looked familiar, and then I went cold when I recognized him. He didn't have the rotted parts to his face, his hair was fuller, and he had a full body, but that face was definitely the Jianshi that had been in my house. And seeing him up close and without all the fear effects going on, I realized there were subtle differences between the two that had been in my basement. His was definitely the face of Plague of Sorrows, or whatever, but was not the same as the one that had attacked Taki a couple of weeks ago. It was odd that I hadn't realized that until now. I had no idea what they said. It was in what I was now recognizing as Cantonese. They only said a few sentences to each other, before Dom finally nodded in acknowledgment to whatever was last said, and Plague stepped back away from the car. The goon closed the door, then slapped the roof of the car twice and we were off. I was half proud of myself for recognizing that the language was Cantonese, and half frustrated. Way back a few weeks ago, I had looked up some language apps, to see what would be involved in learning the language that it seemed I was going to be surrounded by. But fuck, it looked like that was going to be an impossible task, and after several days of real effort, I gave it up. Maybe I would try again if I figured out someone to work with or something. I had a couple of things I really wanted to ask Dom, but he was busy on a tablet of some kind, so I didn't want to interrupt him. I started thinking about Wren, and why I was avoiding him. It was a feeling, something subtle, that I couldn't put a name on. I had asked both of them, Wren and Dom both, about why they both gave the same weird story, that they disliked each other, yet worked together because of the council, kung fu, or whatever. They weren't making any sense, so I just decided that cutting them both out for a while was the best option. Maybe it was extreme, but it felt right for the moment. Of course, I couldn't think of Wren without thinking of what we had been getting up to in my bedroom. Maybe I should ask to see his house, or living quarters, or wherever he lives. Maybe he has a coffin somewhere, even though he is not, as he says, a "vampire". Of course, thinking about my bedroom made me think about Boots, and him staying by himself there. Shit. It just occurred to me that I still haven't blocked off that door down there. It's a fucking priority, right? I've known about it for a month and still haven't done anything? I haven't even covered the peephole, and I could do that with a wad of chewing gum. Hell, I even have a sticker over the webcam on my laptop, but I haven't done anything about that damn creepy ass door. That needs to be handled the second I get home. After we had been on the road for an hour, I decided it was time for at least a little information. I pointedly cut off my phone, took out my headphones, and turned in my seat to face Dom. It took a few minutes for him to acknowledge my attention, but he tapped the tablet to blank the screen and set it down. "What can I do for you, Jason?" he asked with a pleasant expression. "I was just curious what was going on," I said. "Are we flying somewhere? Where are we headed? Will there be much to do there? Am I going to need to keep my head down while bullets fly?" The goon in the passenger seat up front smirked, but quickly silenced himself. Dom gave a smile then answered. "I do enjoy flying. Such a marvelous discovery. Sadly, not this weekend. We are heading down to New York City. We should be there in approximately three hours. And no, it is merely for a meeting that I need to take. There should not be any, as you say, bullets flying." "Then why am I here, if you aren't fighting?" "My dear boy," smiled Dom. "There are many strengths that I gain from having my Assecla close to me. Fighting prowess is, perhaps, the least of those." "Then what was up with that attack last month? You guys said that if I had been your Assecla then, you would have been strong enough that, whoever it was, wouldn't have risked attacking you." "Correct," he replied more seriously. "Had you been by my side at that point, I would have had other skills that would have allowed me to avoid being in a position to have been worth attacking." "If you say so," I muttered. "I really feel like I'm getting a bunch of half answers here." Dom glanced at the men up front. "Perhaps we can have a more in depth discussion once we reach the hotel?" "Sure," I sighed in frustration. Dom reached over and placed a hand on my leg, leaning over to speak more quietly. "I promise, Jason, I will straighten out all your questions." I nodded, and when he went back to his tablet, I picked my phone back up. I didn't want to wait, but I got it. First, it wasn't the best conversation to have in front of the hired help. But also, it would make more sense to take care of my questions later, in a more comfortable environment. Besides, then we would be alone. And this time it would be in a swanky hotel room, not in a dining room chair. I was already getting hard, thinking about what we could do together. What would it feel like, how better would it be, to feel those teeth slide into my neck, while this time his hands could slide into my undies? I shuddered, glancing over at Dom, and it took all my effort to keep from making a mess of my pants. It was a long, boring ride. I think I napped for half of it. I mean, night time with tinted windows, on the interstate, not a lot to see and I only had my phone. I was tempted to turn around and dig in the back for my backpack and laptop, but I thought that might be a little kid move, so I didn't do it. I only asked one more question in an attempt at conversation, asking if we could stop for food somewhere. Dom just told me I could order room service once we were at the hotel. So a stuck in a car for four hours together, and we shared a five minute chat that was basically saying, "we'll talk later". We finally arrived, and the kid in me came out. I tried to roll down my window because I wanted to see everything. The goon up front called me out for it, laughing and saying that for safety, the windows don't roll down. So I stuck my nose to the glass and tried to take as much in as I could. It took another 30 minutes of driving through the city to get to the hotel, so it was damn near 11 before we were dropped off at the front doors of the tallest building I had ever seen in my life. Of course, considering that before today the tallest building I'd ever seen in person was about twelve stories tall, anything here was going to be huge to me. A valet took the car, with our bags and everything in it. Checking in was literally the driver speaking with someone at the front desk, and within about a minute we were being escorted to a bank of elevators. It felt like we were going up forever, and when we got off, there were literally just four doors on the entire short hallway. We walked down a bit, and I realized that the entire floor was divided up into only four suites. Ours had a huge central area, with an entire wall of open glass with a balcony. There were two giant bedrooms and an office, as separate rooms, plus what looked like a mini kitchen that I was informed was a wet bar. I guess my dad would have been in heaven. I was surprised by the room arrangements, because goons A and B, I still hadn't been given names, were given one bedroom, with two queen size beds in it. The other had a single bed that looked bigger than a king, and I was told I would be sleeping in there. I asked Dom where he was going to be sleeping, and he just grinned. I nearly wet myself at the pure seduction in that look. One of the goons came over and took my food order, and I sat on one of the couches and pulled out my phone, waiting to see what was going to happen. The whole thing was so surreal. I mean, little old nobody me was now here, in New York City, in a high rise hotel, in a suite that was probably costing more for this one night than my dad made in a month back in Alabama. And here I was, in ratty jeans and a hoodie, playing on a cheap ass phone. The shoes our guards, armed fucking guards, were wearing probably cost more than every material possession I brought with me on this trip. Speaking of possessions, our bags were brought up about fifteen minutes behind us. I grabbed my backpack and headed into the bedroom. Unpacking consisted of pulling out my laptop and coat from the backpack. I didn't see any point in pulling out the single change of clothes to throw in a drawer. Then suddenly... I was on the bedspread, the stitching in the fabric scratched across my face. The scratching just barely distracted me from the climax I was having, thrusting, pumping into the hand that was wrapped around my dick. I giggled, picturing how many pairs of underwear I have accidentally shot a load into in the last couple of months. Was I high? Was I drunk? Everything was fuzzy. Instead of my senses, I get sensations. A burning, pinching pain at the side of my throat. Then I was facing the light, the same sharp pain in my inner thigh. I felt myself trying to hump the air, though something held me in place, as I spouted another load. I cried out, I moaned, I whimpered. Someone was shaking my shoulder. It was disturbing my comfort. I was warm. It was dark. I came around, only to find that I was wrapped in the thick bedspread, the stitching creating a gentle, teasing itching sensation on my arms and face. I pulled back the thick cover and sat up. I must have fallen asleep. I was still dressed, and yet... My clothes were twisted, tangled. Like, my underwear was on me, but bunched up and pulled to the side, under my jeans. My shirt was the same way, twisted around and bunched up on my back. I was no longer wearing my hoodie. "Food's here," came the voice of one of the goons. The driver, I think? What in the holy hell happened just now? I slipped into the bathroom real quick and rearranged my clothes. I had to drop trou completely to straighten out the undies. This was the first time since staying at the Avernus hotel that I felt like someone had messed with my clothes. It pissed me off. Especially since, as far as I knew, there was only one person here who could mess with my mind. It was time to go have a word with dear old Dom. I stepped into the living room area and the smell of the excellent food hit me. I couldn't even remember what I had ordered, but when I went over to where the food cart was, I saw the most perfect chicken sandwich there, with a plate of onion rings and a bowl of cottage cheese. It was the perfect meal to end a long day. One of the goons shook his head when I took a spoonful of the cottage cheese, but I just grinned and ignored him. Dom was sitting on one of the couches a decent distance from the food, typing something on his phone, and I gave him a head nod in acknowledgment. I knew there was something I needed to talk to him about. Oh, yeah. I needed to ask him about this meeting tonight. I started to call out, "Hey Dom", but it seemed out of place, considering the bodyguards. "So Mr. Tsui," I said instead, "What's going on with this meeting? What do you need from me?" "It won't take much from you, my Assecla. Robert here will stay in the room with you. I will not be leaving the hotel, so we will be just fine." He had gestured to the goon that had been driving when he said the name "Robert", so now I had a name. And just like I had teased him, "Robert" was now left babysitting me, just as he had insisted he wouldn't be. I decided to be nice for now, and didn't give him a smirk. I just quietly ate my food. Without looking up, Mr. Tsui asked, "Did you have any other questions for me?" I wracked my brain. It felt like I had something else I wanted to ask him. I couldn't think of what it was, so finally I just asked, "What time is your meeting? Do I need to stay up for it?" "No," he said with a hidden smile. "Go ahead and sleep. In fact, if you would like, you can have Robert take you out tomorrow for a bit of sightseeing." I glanced over at Robert, who tried to hide a facepalm. Then Mr. Tsui added, "Just be back at the hotel here by 8pm. I'll have two more meetings tomorrow night, and then we can head home." I looked right at Robert as I said, "Mr. Tsui, do you have any recommendations on what I might want to do while we're out tomorrow?" If looks could kill, I'd be dead. "Sure, boy. Robert can take you on the ferry to see the Statue of Liberty, and then take you up to the top of the Empire State Building." "That sounds excellent. Thanks!" The next morning's attitude was pretty much set when I was awoken by someone punching me repeatedly in the shoulder while yelling, "Something, something, something." "What the hell," I yelled. When I threw the blankets off myself, Robert was standing there. "Come on, something. It's time to get up," he said, then turned to walk out of the room. After dragging myself out of bed and hitting up the bathroom, I headed into the main room. "Hey Robert," I called out. "I couldn't make out what you were calling me. What was that you said?" "Yesterday, you told me to call you `Jason or something'. Yesterday I tried Jason, and it got me assigned to babysitting duty. So today I'm going to call you `Something'. Fair?" I had to laugh at that. "Good enough, my dude." Turns out Robert had been to New York City a few times, and sort of knew his way around. Not only did we see the Statue of Liberty and the Empire State Building, but we had a giant New York style pizza just a bit off of Times Square, and rode around in a taxi a whole bunch. I wanted to see the subway, but he didn't want to trust that. Robert was finally being cool with me, so I went out of my way to not give him a hard time. In exchange, he slipped into one of the tourist stores when we were out, and bought a pack of playing cards with the Statue of Liberty on the back. Then when we were back at the hotel, he started teaching me how to play poker. Overall, a lot cooler than the day could have been. Sadly, Robert did say that we needed to call it a night a bit before eleven. He said he needed to catch a nap, and that we would be leaving the hotel to get on the road by around 2:30 or so. The weird hours that Vampyre keep, I guess. Speaking of Vampyre, and more specifically a particular Vampire, I was pretty sure that the bits and pieces I was remembering from last night were from Dom taking advantage of me. Fuck, I wish he had just asked. I had been looking forward to it. I started thinking about the four-plus-hour car ride back to Avernus, and started getting annoyed with Dom. I meant Mr. Tsui. That was a bad habit I was getting into, being overly familiar with him. But then, why shouldn't I be? We were tied together now, right? I mean, possibly for a long time. I was kind of pissed about it, and knew I needed to talk to him. Soon. I was kind of groggy when I was woken up a few hours later and barely remember taking the elevator down to the car. I climbed into the back seat of the SUV, slid to the other side, and barely had time to curl up into a ball before I was out cold. The next thing I remember is pulling into the bright lights of the parking lot of the Avernus Inn and Suites. I vaguely recall Mr. Tsui saying something about calling me later, and then there was another time skip and Robert was telling me we were at my house. The sky was just starting to lighten with the coming sunrise as I let myself into the house. I barely made it to the couch before I was right back to sleep. Saturday was spent quietly with Boots. He could tell something was bothering me, but he was great about blending in with me, and just kind of meshing with my mood. A bit after we had eaten dinner, I got a text from Wren. I was not looking forward to this. The longer we had gone without talking, the more I was dreading how awkward our next meeting would be. But I knew I needed to quit dodging him, and get this over with. W --I've missed you, babe. How did I screw up so badly as to run you away. Can we meet up and talk about whatever is going on?-- J --idk-- W --You don't know if I should come over? Don't know what I did wrong?-- J --I think ur up to some bullshit, but sure, come on over-- W --Just tell me when. <3-- J --Give me an hour. And don't bother using the basement. I blocked it off-- Note to self. Block off that damned basement. Why haven't I done that yet? I looked up from my phone to talk to Boots about the change in plans. I expected him to get annoyed at the interruption of Wren coming over. "I'm sorry man," I said to him. "This is something that has to be handled." Boots just kind of looked at me, with this not quite sad look on his face. "Do you even know why you're mad at him?" I looked up at him, kind of surprised at the question. "Not really. I'm not even really sure I'm really mad at him." "You are," he said. "I'm just curious if you know why." "Do you?" I asked with a smirk. He looked thoughtful for a moment, then said, "I have an idea. But I don't know that I know you well enough to know that I'm right." "Well let's hear your fan theory," I said with a grin. "I think it's their hypnosis. I mean, if they can make you notice or ignore anything they want, then can you trust anything you are feeling about anyone?" "But I've already shown that I can force my way through the mesmir," I argued. "But can you force your way through something you don't know is being used? Plus, what if they have been giving you little baby uses to break through, and just telling you, or you assume, that was the `normal' level of their power?" "What would be the point of that?" "Well," he mused, "If they get you used to this idea that you can break through their power whenever you want, maybe you'll ignore it when they use their powers against you for real?" I had to really think about that. Is that what had happened on the trip to New York City? I mean, I did seem to act differently about Mr. Tsui once I was hanging out with him in person. And now that I think about it, what was this deal with not calling him, well, not Mr. Tsui anymore? I looked over at Boots. "I don't like that you might be right." "Sorry?" he said sheepishly. "No, it's good that I have you here to point this shit out to me. Any other thoughts you want to share?" "Well," he started reluctantly. He didn't seem to want to say what he was thinking about. "Please?" I begged. "You're probably helping me out a lot. What is it you're thinking of?" Boots sighed, and finally said, "Every time we're downstairs in the basement, you pretty much obsessively glance over at the stairs. It's almost like you are afraid to be down there. What's up with that?" I tried to think of what he meant. I didn't feel like I was thinking about the stairs. Usually when I was in the basement, my mind was thinking of... "Oh, shit," I muttered. "I think you're right, man." When boots looked at me with confusion, I reluctantly explained, "It's not the stairs. It's the wall at the bottom of the stairs." His face scrunched up in confusion, then slowly morphed into fear and concern as I went on. "There's a hidden door there that leads to their area. I always mean to block it off, but I only seem to think about it when either I'm not home, or the guys are over and I can't do anything about it." "And now you're thinking that if we went down there right now, you would, what, forget about it?" "Or I'd think about it, but decide it wasn't a good time to do anything about it." Boots hopped up of his counter stool. "So let's do it now." He grabbed my hand and pulled me downstairs. "Come on, man," I said. "Wren will be here soon. Are you really going to stick around for him to be here?" "I thought you told him an hour?" "Yeah, so he could be here any time. We'll need to deal with this later." "Dude, it's been ten minutes, if that," he said with a laugh. "Man, they've got you good." We headed down to the basement and we started looking and feeling along the wall. It took a good ten or more minutes, but we finally found the peephole. I studied it so that I would be able to find it again, even pointing it out to Boots and explaining what it looked like from the other side, about having the slide that blocked it from the other side. "I'm totally sure about blocking the peephole. I hate the idea of being spied on," I said. "But should we maybe leave access to the door, you know, for some kind of emergency thing?" He looked over at me, in confusion. "Can you open the door from this side?" Now it was my turn to be confused. "No? At least I don't think so." "Then why the fuck would it help you from this side?" "Shit." I hung my head in frustration and embarrassment. "Man, they have me fucked up. And here I was proud that I could see through their mesmir." "Maybe you can, either to some extent, or to more generic, blanketed mind control," offered Boots. "Maybe it's just when they focus something on you that you can't stop it." He seemed to get an idea. "Hey! Maybe that's why they wanted you to practice throwing off generic, what did you call it, mesmir. That way you wouldn't know about the targeted stuff!" "That sounds just screwed up enough to be true," I said dejectedly. "Wish I could have you there when I talk to Wren, so you can keep me on point." "Why can't I?" he offered. "Because then they would know you aren't under their control." "Oh yeah," Boots said sadly. I knew he was thinking about how dangerous we both had it here. Then he added, "But you like Wren, right? Maybe he's really on your side, and all the bad stuff is coming from Dom?" "Maybe," I said. "But for the moment, I'm going to go with my gut. My brain's got a reason I've been ducking him for the last two weeks." I begged Boots not to leave, but instead to stay down in the basement while Wren was here. I felt like just knowing he was around might help me stay centered. He agreed, saying he could keep looking for this hidden door. When I realized that I had already forgotten about our search for the door, I realized just how screwed I really was.