Cesspool Serenade

by velificatio (ao3)

M/M, Dark Knight Rises (2012), Suicide Squad (2016), Necrophilia, Metahumans, Sewer Siren, Zombies, mysophilia, Water Torture, Latex, Fisting, Choking, Topping from the Bottom, Bottoming from the Top, Non-Linear Narrative, Cannibalism, Child Abuse, mental trauma, Drug Abuse, Child Murder

In a way, the city falling to the hands of crazy people gave him the excuse to leave the sewers he’d been waiting for. More and more John had been asking himself why he should hide away from the world instead of making the world hide from him .

First thing John did after the Arkham breakout and following blackout was steal a knife. He used it to cut his hair. It felt like the start of something new for sure.

Now he even had a place of his own right in The Narrows. Actually it was a long abandoned brownstone house sporting grass high as the broken fences, bashed out windows, overgrown weeds and trash. To John it was the perfect place to stay, piss stained walls, graffiti and all.

Just the right place to take a piece of this world for himself.

Eyes for eyes, teeth for teeth, monster for monster...

He stood in front of a creep he’d chained to the fence. Both his legs were broken, no way he was going anywhere. Normally John would let his zombies take it from here, but he had something else planned.

“There’s no order in Gotham anymore. But there’s still law,” John’s fingers made the man’s skin blister and burn when he grabbed his chin. “Right now mine is the only one you need to worry about.”

Around his neck John had tied a sign that read: I beat kids. He’d set several metal pipes and pieces of wood around him. Already one group of malnourished, angry kids had had their fun beating him. Afterwards, John had his pets pass out part of the rations they’d collected to them.

“You could have done anything, but what did you chose to do? Rob and beat up a kid.” He dug his metal claws in deeper. “Today you’re going to pay for it.”

He left him there, waiting for more of them to show up. Word had spread fast through the Narrows. Most of the street kids knew now that John didn’t have any interest in hurting them. Now that his zombies were collecting the few rations being dropped around this part of the city, they knew it was a safe place to get food.

John went back inside the apartment and wasn’t surprised to see a certain someone beside the stairway.

“Dispensing a small scale of justice I see Decayer.”

He frowned. “That’s not my name.” Just a nickname Waylon had given him that the caught on with the kids.

Bane shrugged. “What would you have me call you, when you’ve chosen to withhold your true name?”

True. John didn’t have an answer for that. He stared out the doorless entryway, watching another group of kids approach.

“They’re the only thing that matters you know?” He told Bane. “The only ones who make this city worth saving. They’ve been forced to live in darkness too long.”

Bane stepped closer to him. “Is that what you were? An innocent child thrown into the dark?”

John watched the children beat his captive about the face with pipes and scrap wood. “I like the dark. It's honest, it doesn’t pretend to be safe.”

Getting his hands on the drugs he wanted was difficult given the chaos in Gotham. Dealers weren’t exactly still setting up shop in the streets. But some of the kids gave John tips about supplier safe houses and then it was just a matter of going with his pets to get them.

John watched from the ceiling as his pets mauled and tore apart the gang members. Screams and bullet fire filling the room. Leaping down, he swung his knives, cutting off two hands, blood splattering onto him as the man’s gun clattered to the floor. He finished him off with a swing at his head, severing it from his neck.

The knives he carried were long and sharp, taken off two paper cutters he’d found at his apartment. John put them to good use and when the fight was over, they carried the boxes of drugs back to his place.

He touched the mold growing on the exposed brick in his favorite bathroom, waiting. Shouldn’t be much longer now.

Acid was harder to get than other drugs but John liked it the best. During the good times it made him feel taken away from reality, as close to happy as he’d felt in so long he couldn’t even describe the feeling. Somewhere deep deep in the back of his mind he felt like he was being hugged. Imagined it was a hug from his mom.

There were more bad times than good times though.

He sat down against the overgrowth of dried out weeds running up from the outside wall in through the broken window. A tiny, weak sounding laugh bubbled up in John’s throat, then broke off into a sob. Oh no, he thought-said, moving his feet when the cracks in the floor began to crawl further towards him.

The dog skull on his shoulder began to laugh. “Yooouuuuuuuu really fucked up this time Johnny-boy.” Those words were soaked in cheap beer and his dad’s drunken voice. “ How are you gonna get out of this boy, now I’m gonna have to hurt ya… ”

John smacked himself, “It wasn’t my fault.” He whispered, glaring at the eyes staring at him from the bathroom mirror. Cold and naked, he should have kept some clothes on, his body moss felt like it would freeze and the mold would get icicles on it. “It was the monster in the truck.”

He’d had a belly full of booze too, so much he ran John’s mum right off the road. Made their car flip flop flip over.

“ Shhhhhh. ” A voice from the floor crack said. “ This is not good memory. You gotta bury it deeper. Down down down.”

John was shaking as he stood, getting away from the scrawny cat hissing at him from the window. There was fog clouding the mirror. He wiped at it, smudging the glass with his dirty hands. ( Always so dirty, John was a dirty boy )-

“Fuck!” John slammed his hand against the mirror, breaking apart the blurry face of a screaming man. Purple blood began to trickle from his palm, he waved it frantically to make to the roaches crawling out of the cut fall off.

This was not good. This was very very not good.

He thought that for a long while. Then when he looked back at his hand, it was perfectly fine. Staring at himself in the mirror, John pet the wilted flowers on his shoulder and chest. Strange, he missed the bugs now. He touched at the leaf growing out of his ear carefully, humming to himself, still crying.

His leg vine slithered up and down, petting him. It didn’t matter, he barely felt it. John was still lonely. He laid on the floor curled up into a ball and let his tears drip down into the cracks.

Back when he lived in the sewers, it hadn’t taken long for it to feel like home. Everything became normal. How its smell carried through every tunnel, all the dirt and mud that caked onto his skin. The smothering heat during summer and how much of the rank air filled his mouth, clung to his breath. First thing he got used to was how dark most of the place was. After he was dropped in, after he changed, he could see much better. After he changed, the thought of breathing in clean air seemed strange .

“Dump the stupid brat in the sewer.” One of the bad men said, while John tried to crawl back to his dad who was spilling red, red all over the ground on the alley. “This is Arkham property. Nobody’s gonna fucking come looking for him here.”

They grabbed him, kicked and hit and hurt him until he couldn’t move, and they dropped him into a hole in the ground and covered it with a lid.

He remembered crying while the light disappeared. Calling for his mom, his dad. His voice echoed around him; ghostly. Nobody came. John laid in a slimy puddle, felt the ooze stick to him, burn him. Sink under his skin. It only hurt for a little bit. He fell asleep, hearing loud rumbling. He woke up different...

Eating was the hardest part. John got hungry for things he never thought he would want to eat before. Rats, bugs, someone who had been dropped down too, but stayed dead. They didn’t land in the purple slime like he had, so they never became something else. Not like him. He grew moss, leaves and dead flowers on parts of his skin. Strange black smoke would leak from his body. His eyes turned into zombie eyes. The other bodies changed too; went grey, got bigger and smelled worse the longer they stayed dead.

He only got sick eating the first one, so hungry at the time he was shaking all over, barely able to walk. The rest were easier, once he closed their eyes.

Creating zombies started as an accident. When John first came out of the sewers he wasn’t exactly on the good side of Gotham. Must have been October because there were masks and costumes strung up in store windows and no one paid much mind to his appearance. Or they were just too worried about the chaos of the blackout and all of Arkham’s loonies on the loose causing havoc.

John hadn’t been sure where he was headed but he found himself in front of a corner store staring at a glossy, black bodysuit on mannequin. As well as other curious masks that didn’t look like they were for Halloween. He kicked in the glass on the locked door and went inside.

Couldn’t be sure how long he was in that store. First he looked at several “bondage” and “alternative” magazines, feeling drawn to all the ink and metal the models had on them. He found some rings in the store and pierced his face. Went through the clothes and tried some on. Most clothes, he found, didn’t feel good on his moss and flowers.

It was in the back alley that found him, some bald guy with a broken bottle sticking from his neck, covered in blood. Tattoos all over his body. John had tilted his head, the guy was kind of cute. He decided to try something he’d never done before.

So John went and sat on top of him, closed his mouth carefully, then gave him a kiss. He’d kept his eyes open during it, and jumped back when the man suddenly blinked and began to move.

John hissed, ready to fight. But all he did was stand up and bow his head at him.

That was how it started.

They never spoke unless he talked to them, only ate people he sicked them on them and otherwise stood outside in the apartment lot. Unless intruders who weren’t children came, then they’d attack. All except for Bane. John had put them in halloween and bondage masks so they wouldn’t scare the kids.

John wasn’t sure what to think of them. Not family, not friends, closer to pets than anything else. A constant reminder that he wasn’t quite human anymore.

Still, he usually made a new zombie for every one he lost.

One of the girl’s hands were scraped raw, bleeding from missing broken nails. There were bruises on her face and legs. “It was just some creep.” She kept whispering to John. “He’s always hanging around that alley between the gas station and the liqueur store, usually Stacy and Ben walk with me but...they’re gone. I got away though….”

John crushed shards of glass into the moss at the bottom of his feet, the sharp spike of pain helped him control the anger he felt. He didn’t take her hand but he did nudge at her knee with his own so they were looking at each other.

“I’m going to find him, I promise you. He’ll never hurt you again.”

Just about anything John touched would have dark smudged prints from his dirty skin left on it. He hadn’t had a bath since before he’d been dropped into the sewers. Not that it bothered him; the kids who came for food said he smelled like lemon cleaner.

Once he’d almost asked Bane if he could smell him but decided not to. If Bane knew he was starting to like him coming around, that wouldn’t be good. That’s what John told himself.

Not that he didn’t like to look at him though. Bane had a body that reminded him of the underground fighters his dad would place bets on sometimes, but taller. Made himself the center of any room he stood in. It should have been scary but with the mask John wasn’t afraid. That mask made Bane look like someone from his world, someone who had come up from below.

Once John imagined covering him in mud. What it would feel like to run his fingers over that clumpy dirt and feel the curves and firmness of muscle underneath. Watching it cake to Bane’s smooth skin, harden and flake, licking off patches with his tongue. He’d lick all down that scar on his back over his legs, down to his feet even. John had made himself come stroking off to the thought of sucking dirt off Bane’s toes.

No one else made John feel this way. He had no idea how to handle it.

“Please stop talking to me.”

This time it was a little boy with a hole between his eyes. He’d come with the horseflies and the smoke right after John had shot up.

“Will you help me find my daddy?” He asked again. And again. And again.

“STOP TALKING TO ME!”

John bashed his head against the wall and fell to the floor, unconscious.

John wasn’t always prepared for when he and Bane fucked around but he was adaptable.

As far as fucking went, John learned he had his limitations. Except for his mouth, any skin on skin contact would burn a regular person. When he’d have sex with his zombies, using his penis without a condom made them die for good. Same went with them being inside his ass without rubber (the one time he did that and he didn’t like doing it like that anyway). Safe to say doing the same with an actual living person would have the same results.

Which was fine. Sex hadn’t been something he thought about much until he met Bane. It made him feel unsteady in a way, resisting him on one front while wanting very much to have him on another.

He tried not to think of it much as he came down from a bad high. For the past few days it had been raining on and off. Out in the lot there had been a an abandoned tub covered in graffiti. He’d had his pets move it indoors.

Now the tub was full of murky brown water and different weeds and fungus that had started to grow inside it when John first began soaking in it. They were a dark, sickly green color, rising out from the water, curled and withering.

Splashing some water in his face, John rubbed at his eyes, fighting off a headache. It had actually been days since he’d snorted that coke. During that time he hadn’t gotten any sleep, his moss was constantly itching and he’d thrown up a couple of times.

Although he wasn’t hungry, John made himself eat a few rotten vegetables taken from a corner store. The idea of going back to eating regular food was odd and there was a ready supply of expired food no one else was going to eat.

Leaning his head back, John started up at the black blotches on the ceiling then the peeling blue plaster on the walls. This was the same room where a starved-thin man had shot himself in the head. He’d come to him with the horseflies before and every other time John blinked he could see the red of his blood and brains staining the ceiling.

“Even the children refer to you as Decayer,” John startled, glaring at Bane from where he stood in the doorway. “Petty criminals and derelicts speak your name in fear.” He chuckled as he came to stand beside the tub. “If they only knew the very drugs you claimed from them were being used to ruin your own mind.”

John made a low, grumbling noise. “I’m fine, they don’t even work most of the time.”

“Then why use them?”

“ Cause when they do work it's as close as I get to letting go. ” John smacked himself hard, realizing he’d said that outloud. “Go away.” He snapped at Bane, yet grabbed at his pant leg when he began to move.

But Bane only crouched down beside the tub. “You don’t know how to get what you need.”

“And you do?” John said.

“Yes, I can guide you to it.”

Sure you can . John rolled his eyes but then again, what was the harm in it. “Show me.”

Of all the different things he imagined Bane doing to him, yanking ahold of his hair and dunking him underwater wasn’t anywhere on the list.

John gasped, pulling in a mouthful of water. He swallowed it down, his throat tightening. His muscles spasmed painfully and without thinking he began struggling against Bane. Yet he was careful not to touch his bare skin. A hand grabbed his cock, stroking it slowly. John couldn’t think straight at both actions. Only feel them.

Bane lifted his head up suddenly, letting him cough and try to catch his breath. He was unmoved when John splashed water onto him. “Asshole.”

“This is not to your liking?”

John huffed. “I didn’t say that, did I?”

Bane was still jerking his cock in that big fist of his, the movements smooth with a wonderful touch of roughness between the water and the leather gloves he wore. So good John was rocking his hips forward into that touch, more focused on it than pulling in as much air as he could before he was dunked again.

“You squander your body by filling it with useless drugs.” He thought he heard Bane say over the rapid bubbling of the water. “Trying to lose yourself. But it’s never quite what you need, is it?”

No, but this was what John had been chasing. Nothing outside of this moment was even on his mind. All that existed were Bane’s voice, his hands, the tub water threatening to drown him and the pressure building up in his cock.

John sputtered when he was raised up again, his nose burning. He kept thrusting into Bane’s fist even though his movements were sloppy. Most of what he saw was hazy blurs he couldn’t make hold still. He loved it.

There was no pattern to Bane’s dunks. Sometimes he’d only hold him under for a second, other times what felt like minutes. But the hard pumping of his hand stayed the same, and John was coming almost without realizing it at first, all his senses in a frenzy.

His hair was let go. Then John just...drifted, feeling loose and sleepy. He didn’t realize he was smiling until Bane traced over his lips with his thumb.

After the mass breakout at Blackgate Prison the US military had barricaded all the exits from Gotham, leaving the GCPD and the Batman to try and take back the city- and keep the psychos and criminals inside of it. They were doing a good job at that last part but from what John was being told, not so great on the first.

“Entire place has gone to shit. Folks either trying to escape, or stay and wreck shit.” Waylon laughed as he shook his head. He tried to avoid stepping on too many used cigarettes as he took a seat on a couch ripped up so bad stuffing was coming out. “You coulda shacked up in any of those fancy ass high rises or million dollar mansions. Instead you chose this dump.”

Blake brushed his fingers over the dog skull woven onto his left shoulder, petting the vine keeping it there. He looked at all the smudges of dirt on his skin happily. “I like it here.”

And he did. This room he slept in the most had two of its walls knocked down, and there were piles of old newspaper and trash he liked to go through. Perfect place for him to rebuild his nest.

Waylon and him were sorta-friends now, at least John thought.

“Take it you ain’t heard.” Wasn’t exactly a question, given Waylon’s tone. “Nicodemus torched the mayor last night.” Taking a swig of his beer, he put his feet up on the pile of wood from what was probably a tv stand. “Seems he got a stockpile of all the officials and board members who didn’t hightail it out of Gotham fast enough.”

John frowned. If these people were actually guilty of the crimes Nicodemus charged them with, then fine. Let them burn. But from what Waylon and Bane had told him that man was very eager about finding people to tie to poles. So it all left a bad taste in his mouth. “Where’s he keeping them?”

“Hell if I know, but they damn sure the only folks the GCPD and the Bat care ‘bout getting back.”

Of course they were. John had learned a long time ago that the people in charge didn’t give a damn about the people barely scraping by on the streets. What was he to them? Just another lost boy no one was missing.

After eating the first body (why was there so much yellow inside of it? Yellow, yellow, thick and mushy) John puked then fell asleep and dreamed he’d been thrown into a different hole. Covered in dirt and grass, he couldn’t breathe and all the colors he saw as he tried to push and climb out of the hole were bright and hurt his eyes.

Blue. Red. Yellow yellow. Purple. Green. The more he moved his hands and tried to scream the brighter they got until he couldn’t see anything but black.

Dirt had a strange taste to it, made his mouth dry. Like the beer he would drink when the water was turned off in dad’s home. Or the rain that fell into his mouth the day his mom died.

One time two monsters were in the sewer, looking through the tunnels and at the water running out. They moved like creeping shadows being fast forwarded, their long white tongue spewing from their mouths.

“Figures we got saddled with this inspection.” One of them said, his tongue touching the floor.

The other one laughed. To John his eyes were two large white circles. Spinning, spinning, spinning. “Tell me about it. Nothing I love more than smelling like shit and waste Rick.”

Tears fell down John’s face as he climbed one of the high beams, trying to get as far away from them as he could. It wasn’t hard for him to climb them normally, he could climb them as good as the ladders.

His hands shook and slipped and he bit his lip hard not to make any noise, but his sharp claws scratched the beam. John was able to grab onto one of the lower beams and swing up onto the platform close by. He got down on his stomach, covering his mouth. His heart was moving so fast, he could feel it.

“What the fuck was that?” A flashlight pointed at the beams where John had been, then to the right instead of the left, missing him.

“Relax man, it’s probably a damn rat.”

The monsters kept walking. John crawled up the platform, got up on the rails and jumped for the beams again. This time he held them tighter, climbing them up to his nest where he slept, in a high corner in one of the darkest parts of the sewer. He’d made it out of some shirts and pants he took off the dead people he ate, since they didn’t fit him and he wanted a bed. It was much wetter, and smelled worse than his bed at dad’s home, but it was okay.

Sitting down, John pressed his claws into his knees, moving back and forth. Trying to quit crying. The rocking didn’t help. He was shaking as he started scratching at the moss on his chest. That didn’t help either. He was too angry.

“Stupid, stupid,” He said, his voice dry. “ Stupid -“

He got up and punched the wall hard. It hurt his hand but he did it again and again. Somehow it stopped him from screaming and crying. He hated being afraid, being weak. And sometimes he cried when he didn’t have a reason to and when it rained it reminded him too much of water underneath his body, falling from the sky and a car on top of him and his mother touching his hair and telling him it would be okay. It wasn’t. John needed to be strong.

The knuckles on his right hand were red, puffy when he finally stopped.

He couldn’t be stupid, he couldn’t get caught. John didn’t want to be seen by people. So many of them were awful, he remembered that most of all. He would never go out again.

That night he dreamed he was in the alley again, where his dad had died. But no one was there but him and the ground was covered in blood. It hurt his skin when it touched him. John backed into a wall and suddenly hands sprung out, lots of them, grabbing at his skin and pulling. Hurting him.

When he got away the blood was up to his neck and he couldn’t swim away. Then it was over his eyes and he was gone.

John wasn’t sure exactly how old he was when he met the King of the Sewers. Once he’d started venturing away from where he’d been dropped underneath Arkham Asylum, it had felt like there was something else living in the sewers. Hard to explain, just a feeling John had that he was not entirely alone. Yet it didn’t make him feel threatened.

Even so, he didn’t try to find out what it was.

What he did know was that their first meeting happened right around the time John began building his nest.

He’d been walking back towards it with a handful of leaves and sticks when the water beside him shifted in a very strange way. John stood there, waiting, until someone began to rise from the water.

A tall, hulking person whose skin was scaly and green. Crocodile man, was the closest word John could think to describe him. He stood there as the man climbed all the way out of the water and stretched.

Then he lumbered towards John, circling him. John couldn’t help his curious staring, or leaning towards the man to sniff him. He had a nice scent.

“Ain’t you gonna run?” The man asked, and wow his teeth were sharp.

John shook his head. “ ‘M not scared.”

That made him tilt his head, clearly surprised. He stared at John for a long time. “Why’s that?”

“You don’t look like a monster to me.” For the first time John looked away to stare at the light coming in through the storm drain. He pointed at it. “The monsters are all out there.”

That got him another long stare. The man looked up and down John’s body, at his moss and dead flowers, the leaf growing out of his left ear. He nodded then, holding out his hand.

“Name’s Waylon.”

John took his hand without pause. “I’m John.”

John chewed on the tail of a rat (he was getting better and better at sneaking up on them), being sure to stay in the shadows as he watched a group of monsters fight at one of the outside tunnels into the sewer.

They were in a gang, he remembered his dad telling him not to join one when he was alive. Sometimes a lot of them would beat up one person, a new person. Sometimes they did bets like his dad used to do, but on fighting. This was one of those times. Two monsters were fighting each other with their fists.

A punch was thrown at a monster’s face and he blocked it with his arm before dropping down and kicking the other monster’s feet out from under him. Once he fell to the ground the other monster got on top of his chest and began hitting his face.

John payed close attention, wanting to learn how to fight too. His dad had made him learn how to throw a punch one night after he drank a lot of beer. He gave John a black eye that night, but said his punching was good.

The air coming in was itchy on his moss and skin and the light hurt his eyes but he kept them open. On the ground the monster reached up and grabbed his attacker’s neck before rolling them. He sprang up and began kicking the guy until the other monsters pulled them away and began trading money.

After heading further into the sewer, John began doing the same moves on he’d seen. Hitting the hard, grey walls didn’t hurt like it used to, back when just seeing monsters in the sewers made him want to hide.

“H-hey skinny kid?” John wasn’t scared as he turned towards the voice. He’d heard the horseflies following him back here and knew what it meant. Someone dead had come to talk to him.

Just like he thought there was a tall, muscled man surrounded by gray smoke and flies. He had a bullet hole in the middle of his head. When he smiled maggots crawled around his blackened teeth.

John frowned.“What do you want?”

“Those moves you’re doing? That’s kiddy shit.” The man laughed. “You wanna do some real damage? The kind I caught a bullet for- I can show you. And not just with your fists…”

A picture flashed in John’s head. One of a man slashed up on the floor of a restaurant kitchen, the gashes large enough for him to put his hand in and blood everywhere.

It didn’t make him sick, looking. John knew all the ways a body changed after death, how the skin swelled and rotted then sunk in and turned to bones. He couldn’t remember what his mother’s voice sounded like but he remembered the glass from the car that had stuck out from her neck and the coldness of her hand to his fingers.

“Teach me.” He told the man.

John learned to fight but still made sure not to get caught. More and more it made him angry. This was his home and monsters weren’t welcome inside.

A few times when he climbed walls up to the highest parts of the sewers, to look out of drains, he could hear people laughing. Sometimes kids he thought might be his age. He couldn’t remember how old he was now, he didn’t know how much time had passed. His hair much longer than when he’d dropped in and his chest felt empty when he thought of other kids, then tight when he remembered he’d have to go outside the sewers to meet them.

John never peeked for long, but he could still hear their voices and their laughter in his head much later as he laid on his nest curled up in a ball, refusing to cry. He was angry because they would probably be afraid if he tried to meet them. He was sad at the same time.

Bane got him on his knees the first time it happened. John was staring at his glossy latex catsuit in the broken shards of mirror. In a strange way he felt more naked without his dog skull and body chain with the rabbit skull on. Looking at himself now, he could almost forget how everything around him was rotting away.

“Tell me Decayer, are you completely toxic?” Bane asked, stepping out from a corner. John wasn’t sure when he’d get used to that, like something out of a bad trip. How Bane came out of the darkness like he was made of it.

He ground his teeth, annoyed by the unwanted visit but not really, brushing away the white powder still stuck on his nose. Lots of minute-hours had passed since he’d snorted a handful of it ( this was something he learned early, for him he could never take too much of anything ) and still his moss felt itchy underneath the latex. The vine wrapping around his leg too felt like raw sand.

But the roaches he usually ate now were trying to bury themselves inside his moss so he kept the catsuit on. John watched Bane prowl towards him, noting the horns growing out the sides of that mask of his. The black fumes were leaking from his body too.

John was so tired but so full of twitching and movement and jittery. Looking at Bane made him feel warm and hungry in a way that had nothing to do with food.

“Mouth’s not.” He finally answered, jerking at the barest sound of Bane’s boots on the rock littered ground. The hiss of his mask made John lick his lips.

So how to ask for what he wanted? He’d never been with anyone who could talk before.

Bane’s large hand fell on his shoulder like a rock. John was lowering himself down to his knees before he fully realized it. Once he did he opened his mouth as wide as he could. Bane wasn’t small, at all.

In the sewers he’d tried this for the first time after pulling in some guy who’d been stabbed to death by a woman that had been kneeling in front of him. His pants were left open and his penis was still hard. It had been different then, John had taken his time, rubbing the flat of his tongue all around the organ. Feeling out taste, texture, smell. He copied everything he’d seen the woman do.

With Bane, things were going much differently. Now there was a hand clutching at both his hair, pulling him in close until his nose was crushed against Bane’s smooth groin. Even without having hair there, he had a strong musk to him John liked. He didn’t mind the way his throat seized and choked around the thick cock. There was a heavy rope of drool leaking from his mouth down off his chin. It dangled in front of his chest as his upper body was wrenched forward, backwards, forwards.

“You’ve felt in control in the dark.” Bane said, “Is it sinking in now, just how feeble your dominance truly was?”

Well, if that’s what Bane assumed, he wouldn’t argue with him. John rubbed at the tears falling from his eyes with the back of his hand, but didn’t bother touching the snot coming out his nose. He could feel every throb and twitch of Bane’s cock, the drag of the skin covering its crown sliding back and forth in his mouth. His lips felt puffy, spit-slick.

It was hard keeping his eyes on Bane with his blurry vision but John managed. What made him the hottest was the messy, wet sounds of his gags and Bane’s cock thrusting through his spit. They sounded like drums in his ears, made his cock painfully hard.

“You thought it would give you comfort, but it is not what you truly crave. Only what you hide behind.”

John coughed, unable to breathe but that didn’t bother either of them. Bane’s heavy balls slapped against his chin on each thrust. When they swung back he could feel his spit clinging to them. The noises coming from him grew louder, wetter. His cock bobbed between his legs.

He thought he saw the corner of Bane’s cheeks and eyes crinkle in a smile. “What you truly desire is to belong. To be owned.”

Then without warning Bane pulled away. John’s tongue was still stuck out in shock at the abrupt change and he let out a soft protesting noise before he was silenced by the warm splash of come hitting his face. He tried to jerk away in surprise only to have his head yanked back by Bane and more of that wetness streaking his face.

Bane was still smiling. “You enjoyed that.” The tip of his boot nudged roughly against John’s cock. “Or do you deny it?”

John panted, still held in Bane’s grip. He stared up at him, feeling hot all over. That question pushed at him. Unsure of any other way to answer, he brought his hand to his face, scooping up all the come Bane had marked him with. John pushed his soiled fingers deep into his mouth, body jerking as he choked himself in the process. He swallowed deeply, without looking away from Bane.

When he pulled his hand out of his mouth it was soaked with spit. As good an answer as any.

The next time a monster came into the sewers John got mad. They were too close to his nest, his home. He snuck up on them and jumped on them. Rolling them over, John scratched and punched at their face and neck. They shook and screamed like nails on a board, their arms waving waving.

“Hate you! Hate you,” John yelled, while his hands became red and skin got stuck in his nails. He yelled until it hurt to talk and when he stopped the monster didn’t look like they had a face anymore at all.

John let the rats eat him. He didn’t want to taste him, his hands were shaking. But he did use the bones and clothes for his nest.

“That man you killed,” Waylon began once he’d climbed up to John’s nest, days after he’d killed the man. “Why ain’t you eat him?”

Visits from Waylon didn’t happen often. Mostly they each kept to themselves. John was okay with him coming to his nest though. “I dunno…”

“Bullshit John,” Waylon watched the way John’s fingers shook as he pet his moss. His voice was softer when he asked. “He was your first wasn’t he?”

John nodded. “I...I don’t know if he was really a monster.”

“So you ain’t sure if he deserved to die, that it?”

“Yeah.”

Waylon sat back. “Well,” he sighed. “Thing I’ve learned growing up is world's full of ugly people, cause anyone can be ugly, but there’s a sliding scale y’know? You gotta measure that life by where they fit on that scale John. They just mean people- or are they evil people? That’s how you know.”

He left John alone after that, thinking hard on his words.

John had been hunting rats for his dinner when he first smelled people, a lot of people, heading into the sewers from the tunnels and the outflow grates. Too many for him to fight all by himself.

Heading back was the smart thing to do, until he found out why they were here. The first thing John had to do was protect his nest and food supplies. Even though he never caught people wandering that far back in the sewers.

He slurped up the brown water instead of the storm water this time, it was gross but the mist lasted much longer. And as he climbed the walls and crawled through platforms and tunnels back to his nest he sprayed it. The poison was so thick he felt sure he wouldn’t be followed.

But John was still worried. He left his nest and crawled on the ceilings, making sure to stay in the darkness, to be as quiet as possible as he moved closer to where the scent was coming from. These people, they didn’t smell or dress like the police who had searched part of the sewers before. And they were talking to each other in a language John didn’t understand.

They were dressed in dark colors, blacks and greys and army boots. They had boxes with them. They had guns. Lots of guns. John swallowed hard.

And there was a strange sound coming from one of them, the one who seemed to be bigger than all the rest. It reminded John of how his mom had sounded breathing when she was hooked to a machine in the hospital, before she’d died. He couldn’t see the person’s face, he was wearing a big coat with a hood up. His heart pounded harder the more he listened to the person breathe. It made the hair on his body stand up.

John swallowed hard, backing up towards his nest area. Even worse, the people were spreading out, and some of them were headed towards it. Sweat rolled down John’s body, he was shaking. It wasn’t until they began to cough and some of them puked, a few falling down, that he felt he might be safe. They started to talk louder amongst themselves and one of them finally said into a walkie talkie in English.

“There are fumes coming from the southwest tunnel. Probably methane, we can’t go through there yet, not without some masks.”

A strange voice answered him, different than any voice John had heard before. “ And yet this did not appear in the last official inspection report… ”

“Either due to improper procedure, deliberate oversight or,” said the man with the red scarf, he had an accent too. “This could be a recent development.” As John kept crawling backwards, the man tried to look around the walls and up at the ceiling, but John’s mist was so thick he turned away quickly. “There is something back there.”

“ You are certain? ”

“Positive.”

“ Report to the northwest corridor. We will discuss this further. ”

John watched them retreat, uneasy as the man once more tried to look through the mist. Whoever these people were, he had a feeling he had not seen or heard the last of them.

He was right. Over the days John heard the same people moving through the sewers, watched them often. It made him mad, they seemed to be living there, part of them. No one was allowed to live here but him, but there was only so much John could do.

He had smeared his poop and peed on the walls in the southwest tunnel, and made sure to always get up before the sun came through the drains to spray his mist. Pooping on the ground turned the water that came through that tunnel into thick sludge. Even when the people came with strange masks on their faces they couldn’t go through the tunnel without getting sick or stuck.

It kept his nest and a small area where he hunted food safe. But otherwise John had to constantly be on guard and careful when he would venture out of the southwest tunnel. The more days that past, the more people appeared. And then he could hear machines running. Soon there were places John just couldn’t go, people walked the halls with their guns.

This seemed to go on forever, with John being stuck in and protecting his nest in the southwest tunnel. He wasn’t sure how long went by, had to be months or years because he kept growing in the meantime.

But he hadn’t eaten a body in a long, long time and bugs and rats didn’t fill him up the same way. Waylon sometimes brought him the meat he craved, but he hadn’t seen him in a while. John hadn’t killed anyone since that day years ago. But he was so hungry, he was starving. He had to do something.

John laughed sadly as he knocked the back of his head against the wall. “I was lost.” He whispered, still standing long after he’d finished peeing. Someone had taken a knife and scraped him out until there was nothing left inside. “I was lost and no one came to find me.”

“You’ve never experienced this before,” Bane said, his voice echoing all around John like waves. “The pleasure that comes from being seized. Move . ”

His grip was bruising on John’s throat, cutting off his air. John made a high, strangled noise, ignored his body’s attempt to breathe and concentrated on doing as he was told. Tremors shook him and he rolled his hips weakly, feeling tears begin to slip down his cheeks. How he managed to keep pushing down on Bane’s fist, he wasn’t sure.

But he was clenching with every move of Bane’s hand inside him. The stretch alone had his nerves singing. As well as slick slide of the latex gloves Bane wore. He was full, so full it felt like he almost couldn’t keep him in. John was over the edge, struggling to keep up. He loved it.

Bane chuckled, rewarding John’s obedience by allowing him a momentary gasp of air. “Very good boy. You were made to be taken. I believe this role suits you well.”

His hand tightened, choking John again. It was like spinning on a knife’s edge. At any moment he could tip over and shatter like glass. John could feel how hot his face was, knew it must be red, streaked with the runny black lines of his tears. Still he rocked down onto Bane’s fist, his fingernails scraping the concrete. His cock was twitching, unconscious, wet and dripping with precome.

John’s mouth fell open in a silent cry, his fingers scrambling for better purchase as Bane suddenly began pumping his hand. His thrusts were quick, relentless, knuckles grinding over that spot inside John with merciless consistency. All the while he still maintained that firm grip on John’s throat.

The room grew hazier, bright spots flickering in John’s vision. He watched the veins and muscles in Bane’s arm flex as he fucked him. Without Bane talking the only noises in the room were the scratch of John’s nails, the occasional coughing gasps when he was allowed to breathe. His moss was soaked, his cock flushed a deep red. He was too tight around Bane’s hand, it was too much. John was shaking now, so close to coming or passing out or-

“Look at me boy.“ Bane ordered, finally relinquishing his hold on John’s throat when he obeyed, but grasping his jaw in an equally bruising grip.

John whined, breathing in hitched gasps, unable to look away from those eyes. Two endless, empty pools. The only thing in his vision that remained still. He felt Bane roll his fist in a hard circle and then John was coming, shooting in hot spurts all over his moss and belly. John moaned with it, trembling and helpless under Bane, feeling as if he was the only force that kept him from being torn apart by the pleasure seizing his body.

By the time John had decided to catch a living human, it wasn’t just adults in the tunnels, but kids too. He could hear them talking sometimes and it made him feel strange.

The man in the red scarf, John had figured out his name must be Barsad because that’s what the other people called him when they tried to get his attention, kept coming back with a small group of men to try and go into the southwest tunnel. Sometimes he’d come by himself very, very early in the morning when John might have been asleep if he was ever able to sleep long without nightmares. He’d even put some of the sludge on the ground in a bottle once and walked off with it. But he had never noticed John watching him from the ceiling before.

There was no way John was going to catch a living child. He couldn’t even think about doing that, he wouldn’t do that. He’d never even been able to eat the bodies of kids dropped down into the sewers. He left them for the rats and stole the bones later.

This man smelled dangerous, looked strong. Like a soldier. But John was strong too. And right now it was just the two of them outside the southwest tunnel. John knew that for a fact, all the other scents were so far away he only picked up a slight hint of them.

John crawled further down the wall when Barsad turned his back to him. No matter how good at sneaking he was, his feet would definitely make a sound if they touched the sewage water first so John got into a crouching position. Waiting, waiting until it looked like Barsad was going to walk away from the tunnel.

He sprang forth, his hair flying about, ready to latch onto Barsad’s back. What he didn’t expect was for him to whirl around and to be hit hard in the face by an elbow. John bit his lip to keep from hissing as he fell. He only had a second to try and come back before a hand was in his hair, grabbing a fistful.

This time John did hiss and kicked out hard hitting the man somewhere in the legs with all his strength. It pushed him back but he still tried to keep ahold of John’s hair, only letting go when John grabbed at his arm with his bare hands. He felt the skin underneath his fingers growing very hot and Barsad let go but John was kicked in the chest. It felt like the breath was knocked out of him.

John rolled away, quickly realizing Barsad could move through the shadows in the darkness almost as well as him. He was charging at him and managed to dodge the punch John threw at his face. John saw the silver glint of a knife coming his way, towards his stomach. He grabbed at it with one of his hands and twisted, snapping the knife even as he bled.

John screeched, its sound reminding him of nails on a chalkboard dropped down before bolting back up into Barsad. He ignored the pain of the punches being thrown at his ribs and shoulder and ran until he rammed into the wall of the tunnel. He heard the smack of Barsad’s head hitting it and felt his body go limp. But his heartbeat was a steady sound in John’s ears, right alongside his own. He wasn’t dead.

There wasn’t any time for John to stop and think about what he’d just done. The scents of multiple people were heading towards the tunnel. He set Barsad down for a moment and scooped up as much sewage as he could, spitting out thick clouds of poison mist.

John lifted Barsad over his shoulders. He wasn’t the heaviest person he’d ever carried back to his nest but he wasn’t light either. One of his big guns fell into the sewage but that was fine, John didn’t want it anyway. He latched back onto the tunnel wall and crawled away towards his nest.

Their fucking didn’t always sit well with John. Sometimes what Bane said would piss him off.

After Bane took his fist out of him, John lurched forward and spat at the girdle of his mask. His spit was only acid when he was mad. “Stop being an asshole to me.” John growled, everything Bane had said replaying in his head.

Now he’d never been sure what that mask of Bane’s was for, and John wasn’t expecting for that spit to slide but the last thing he saw coming was the genuine pain that crossed Bane’s features as the one of the tubes began to dissolve. The punch to his face that knocked him flat on his back though, he was expecting that.

Once he could see straight John laughed, tasting blood on his teeth. The back of his head was aching.“I’m not a toy to pull apart and see what's inside.” He yelled after Bane as he leapt out the window into the pouring rain. “Don’t treat me like one.”

Staring at himself in the water running from the sewers out into the outposts (that’s what the “inspectors” called them) John knew years had to have gone by now. He wasn’t a boy anymore, he thought he was probably a teenager.

The moss, covered a big part of his chest but only a little patch was on his belly, more of it was on his back and around his penis but not on his legs or arms. There was a dead flower and some plants growing on it on the right side of his chest and vines with leaves grown out to wrap around part of his leg. His hair went all the way down past his bottom. Yesterday John had been brave enough to sneak his hand out of the outposts and grab a garbage bag someone had thrown in there. Along with food and things for his nest he found a lot of barbed wire he twisted into a circle and wore on his head.

He grabbed a handful of water and sucked it into his mouth, holding it as he walked to an area rats had their babies in a lot. John spit the water out and mist began to show. Poison mist, he learned a few days ago he had that power. It killed the rats, even the big ones, and made humans who came too close to where his nest was at sick.

John scooped up some baby rats into the garbage bag, they were much better tasting than cockroaches. His nails were metal and had grown so sharp they went through the stone walls, but he still liked to jump and practice new ways of climbing to the abandoned platform of his nest. .

He felt his penis doing that strange thing again as he jumped up some railing then climbed a ladder. It was hard after he’d gotten cold water on him. Sometimes he woke up with it that way too. John didn’t know if he liked it or not, mostly he didn’t know what was making it do that or what to do about it. Usually he left it alone and it got soft eventually.

Not a boy anymore, and growing up brought him new powers and new problems he didn’t understand. John payed more attention to his powers. The metal nails, the poison mist, seeing in the dark, his spit he thought turned to acid when it touched plastic stuff too. He could climb pipes and walls without having to dig his nails in, he mostly used them for cutting up the bodies he ate. There were less human ones lately.

Something big had happened up above. John didn’t actually see it, but he heard it in the screaming and the police sirens and when he listened to people talk through the drains. Some person they called The Joker, making the entire city afraid until recently. And it was all this guy named Batman’s fault.

John had heard of Batman before, when he lived up above with his dad. He was a vigilante but John didn’t know what that meant. Now he’d stopped The Joker but killed important people.

Before some of his dad’s friends had called him a hero but others hadn’t. He didn’t save John’s dad, that was for sure. Or the dead people who got dropped in.

John didn’t have any use for heroes anyway. In the end, the only person he had was himself.

Weeks into coming out of the sewers John woke up and the first thing he did was gasp and cover his eyes. He wasn’t in his nest, but in a room, he’d never seen before. The lights were so bright he could barely see, his eyes hurt.

Why did he stick that needle in his arm, pump himself full of poison? John ran to the door, shouting when he found it locked. He pounded on it with his fists.

“Out, out! Let me out!”

He’d made the biggest mistake of his life, chasing something he’d never catch. Should have known better. Now, now he was caught. Now he was going to be hurt again. Maybe this time he’d actually die -

“No!” John screamed, angry. Afraid. He kicked and pounded the door more. There were people on the other side, he could smell them. No one would help him, no one ever helped him.

Inside his body, it felt like something had grown very, very hot. John stepped back, screamed as loudly as he could and threw himself at the door. He heard a loud cracking sound, and didn’t realize what was happening until suddenly the door slammed onto the ground with him on top of it.

How did he do that? Didn’t matter. Too bright. It was still too bright! Just like being up above, with all of them.

John whimpered, blocking the lights with his hands as he scrambled off the door. There were people around, he could smell them, see them. Their scents choked him, made him shake. Why had he come here? Get away. He had to get away.

It took a moment for him to realize he was running already. Down the hall, down steps, away from the light but the smells wouldn’t leave him. John couldn’t hold in his scream, couldn’t slow down his heart. It was pounding, harder, harder.

He tripped on his own vine, falling to the cold ground. Lifting himself off the floor. He screamed, feeling glass cut his skin. Sobbing, he crawled forward until he grasped what felt like a blanket.

Behind him John saw something move quickly. In the darkness. A living shadow moved towards him.

John hadn’t realized he’d backed up into what felt like a bed until his hand was grabbing a sheet. A grey blanket. He shut his eyes tight and held the blanket up to his nose. An angry scream tore from his lips. He hated himself for shaking and especially for crying. But the blanket was so soft against his face, in his fingers. Much better feeling than anything in his nest.

He’d almost forgotten he wasn’t alone, but then John’s ears heard that noise again. Same noise from back when he was in the sewers. John curled up, holding the blanket tighter, keeping his eyes shut.

“Calm yourself,” Someone said, their voice very close to John. It startled him enough to make him open his eyes.

There was a man crouched in front of him, a very big, bald man wearing an odd looking mask. Kind of like what some people put on their dogs faces. And he was just watching John.

“Breathe in, deeply,” He told him. John listened without thinking. This guy had a voice that just made listening to him easy. The man nodded slowly. “Hold your breath, count to three, and then breathe out slowly.”

Again, John did as he was told. The corner of the man’s eyes crinkled, he might have been making a face but it was hard to tell with most of it covered by that mask. John stared at him intently as he did the breathing count again, then again, not allowing himself to blink. After a little while he didn’t feel so tight and wound up. The leaf in his ear twitched and without really thinking on it he leaned forward to sniff at the man.

He liked how this man smelled. His musk was thick, almost overwhelming. John could smell the earth on him.

Crawling closer, John sniffed at where his hands were held together, his elbows resting on his knees. He crawled around to sniff at his back to. The entire time the man kept absolutely still, except for his breathing he was like a statue. John paused, seeing the long scar at the top of the man’s back. He looked at it for a long moment before crawling back to the bed.

His penis was hard, not a good time for that. John frowned, smacking at it to try and make it go down only to jolt when the man let out a small laugh. Cheeks hot, John scratched at the little patch of moss on his belly.

“Who are you?” He asked, nervous by the man’s constant staring. “Why are you here?”

“I am Bane.” Bane stood, nearly towering over John, looking down at him. “I’ve come with a proposal for you...”

The first thing John did after getting Barsad on the nest platform was cuff him with two pairs of handcuffs from his collection. He’d stolen them off police officers who’d been searching the sewers for someone. Then he tied his arms with some of his vines that grew off his moss, ignoring the purple blood smearing his hand. They were so strong he could use them to swing from beams. His body was aching in the places he’d been hit and fallen, he wasn’t taking any chances. He took some mud from a broken jar and smeared it on the cut on his hand. It would heal soon.

John went through Barsad’s pants pockets, pulling out a pair of black gloves. He liked their texture and put them on. Then he rolled Barsad onto his back carefully, not sure why he was being so careful. He was supposed to be eating him anyway.

This man was very good at fighting, but not so good at living in the sewers. He didn’t smell like them at all. John wasn’t sure if he liked his smell, but his beard reminded him of his dad. It looked like Barsad took better care of his though. John tickled the the leaf growing out of his right ear, trying to think of something else.

Looking at Barsad’s arm, it was different colors, swollen and had bumps where John’s fingers had been. And some blood. Like he had hurt him somehow, with his touch. Fingers shaking, John put some mud around that too. Then he sat back in his nest, watching Barsad’s chest rise and fall. Very much alive.

He was still hungry, he was still mad at these people for coming into his home where he didn’t want them. But John couldn’t stop thinking about the man he’d killed before, what he had done to him. He felt sick enough to puke now and that was how he knew he couldn’t kill Barsad.

Instead he tried to slow down his breathing. There were so many questions in his mind.

What was he going to do with Barsad? He didn’t want to keep him here. He just wanted all of them to go away. Why were they even here? What were they doing to the sewers? Why were there kids here?

John paused suddenly, realizing he had the perfect person to ask all of these questions right in his nest with him. When he woke up of course. Until then John began to search him again, keeping the gloves on. There were big bullets in the brown vest he wore, another knife, a cell phone, a walkie talkie too. A smaller gun he put away in his collection with the knife. Then John found something wrapped in clear plastic that made his stomach growl. It had been a while since he ate parts of them from garbage but he knew a sandwich when he saw one.

John nearly ate the plastic too in his hurry, tearing at it with his nails before taking a big bite. He took his time chewing. When was the last time he’d had food that wasn’t in anyway rotten but wasn’t a rat or bug? Here was some kind of meat he couldn’t remember, and lettuce and tomato and spicy sauce and peppers.

He couldn’t help making little “mhm” noises as he ate, licking sauce off his black-stained fingers. Like he’d never had a sandwich ever before. But it was different when the best meat you had been eating for years before was human.

After he was done he sniffed over Barsad for more food, crouching carefully. There was a candy bar in another one of his pockets. “ F I B E R O N E ”, it said. John only knew what the one part meant but he didn’t care. He opened it up and ate it too. Still hungry, John took a small rat from his food stash and began to eat it too. Their bones broke easily under his teeth, which had chipped a lot and some of them fallen out but new ones grew in their place, sharp tipped while his old ones went stubby and yellow like the rest of his teeth.

He jerked then, backing up into his nest when he noticed Barsad’s eyes were open. They’d been closed before and even though he wasn’t moving otherwise John knew he had to be awake. It was after Barsad’s eyes slowly glanced around and settled on John that he hissed at him.

Barsad began to sit up, glancing down at the cuffs John had put around his boots. Before he could say anything though he coughed and began to puke on the platform. John wasn’t sure what to do about that, the best he could think of was to grab a handful of his special mud and throw it in Barsad’s face. He took another handful and threw it on the spots he’d missed. Barsad’s body jerked but it only took seconds for him to stop puking.

John put down his rat and took one of his rusty cups he kept stormwater in, as he hissed at Barsad. He crouched down closer to him, pouring some water into his hand in warning. His eyes never left Barsad.

Barsad stared back at him for a long moment, not blinking. It made John’s nervous. “"Ty pakhnesh.” Barsad finally snapped. “You really should have killed me boy, especially after doing that.”

John didn’t understand the first part but he frowned as Barsad looked him over without fear. He pushed him down and swallowed, thinking hard on what he wanted to say and what exactly the words were. It took him a few seconds of thinking before he could. “N-not a boy.” The words sounded thick on his tongue, his voice a stranger to him.

“A very foolish man then,” Barsad spat on the ground by his nest. “Who will not last long.”

He didn’t like this man, the way he talked to him. It made John mad, made him want to scratch him but he still didn’t want to kill Barsad. So instead he slurped up the water in his hand and spat on Barsad’s boot, feeling better when he watched part of it melt a little. “Jerk. Here b-before you,” He said, upset he was having such a hard time thinking of how to speak. “For much longer.”

Barsad looked over him again, this time for a long moment. He stared at the moss and flowers on John’s skin, the wire around his head, and the leaves around his leg for a while. At his nest and over at his collection. Then he tilted his head. “This is your home.” Something in the way he said that didn’t make it sound like a question either.

John looked away, replacing the bottle with his rat, fingers twitching. He felt itchy and restless, his muscles tight. After a moment he nodded. His questions weren’t forgotten though.

“Who’re you people?” John said, after he had finished his rat. He scratched at the moss around his penis, not caring that he was naked. Crawling, he moved closer to Barsad, making sure he could see his metal claws and not try anything. “You people, why are you here?”

Barsad’s eyebrows rose. “What leads you to believe I’ll answer any of your questions?”

John hissed, spitting on Barsad’s other boot. Even as it started to melt, he didn’t get an answer. Yeah, there were ways to make people talk, he’d seen them on TV before. But he didn’t exactly want to do them himself. So he settled on something from his life above he remembered very well. The way his dad used to make people talk to him. “You owe me.”

“Do I?”

John nodded, watching Barsad carefully. “I let you live, so…”

“After attacking me, bringing me here against my will and throwing this...substance into my face?”

He was annoyed all over again. John crossed his arms. “You came into my home. And I stopped you from getting sick with my mud and fixed your arm.”

“That’s what the shit on my face is supposed to be?”

It wasn’t all mud. It was also vomit from the times John got sick. Barsad didn’t need to know that though. They stared at each other in silence for a moment.

“How old are you?” Barsad asked.

John hissed at him. “My questions first.” A lot of them, given John didn’t even know what year it was. Much less how old he was.

To his surprise Barsad actually laughed. “Quid pro quo.” He said. John didn’t know what that meant but he went on. “Your question, then my question. We take turns.”

He could do that. John bit his lip before speaking. “Why are you all here?”

“We are doing work here.” Barsad said right away. “Did you make that poison in front of the tunnel?”

“Yeah,” John had to think on what he should ask next. Barsad’s answer only gave him more questions. “Why do you have guns?”

“For protection. Why do you live here?”

John paused over that answer. If they needed guns for protection it probably meant they weren’t supposed to be in the sewers from the first place. But who did they need protecting from? It took him a moment to realize Barsad was still watching him, waiting for his answer.

He thought of the kid’s voices he’d heard in the sewers. Kids were safer than adults, but he would probably scare them. Maybe he could make sure they stayed safe instead. It could be dangerous in the sewers if you hadn’t lived there like John. Taking off the gloves, John put them with his collection and pet the leaf on his ear as he went to sit in his nest. John didn’t want to be honest. He also wasn’t sure if Barsad would be able to tell if he was lying. “I have to.” Was the best answer he could think of. “Why are kids here?”

“They work with us and earn money.” Barsad rolled his shoulders, startling John. “How old are you?”

John frowned. He didn’t feel like Barsad was really answering his questions, not as well as he could. If he was even telling the truth at all. And he wasn’t sure what to do about it. It annoyed him, he wanted him gone. “I’m not sure,” He snapped. “What year is it?”

Barsad stared at him for a moment. In a way that made John feel like he’d said way more than he actually had. “It’s 2011.”

John sat back in his nest, clenching his hands into fists so Barsad wouldn’t see them shaking. The year his father had died, the year he’d been dropped down into the sewers was 2000. John had been eight years old and now, now he was nineteen. “When are you going to leave?” He said, trying to hide the sadness in his voice.

If Barsad heard it anyway, his face didn’t show it. “When our work is done.”

John sat on a bathroom sink, eating orange peels peppered with white fuzz and green spots. “I don’t believe you, you know.”

Bane just stared at him.

He went on anyway. “You watch me a lot. Well I’ve watched you too. I’ve seen the way you look at the people still living on the streets.” The vine on John’s leg curled up to his thigh. “Even the kids who come here for food. You don’t care about any of them”

Bane’s expression never changed, which was pretty much an agreement in John’s book.

“So I call bullshit on you wanting my help taking down the Arkham inmates to save the city. If you really cared about Gotham, wouldn’t you be working with Batman?”

His question was very amusing to Bane. “Batman’s methods are short-sighted and naive.”

John shrugged, not sure what either of those words meant. “I guess.”

“You don’t sound entirely certain of that Decayer.”

He huffed. “ Look I just know I don’t throw bad people behind bars they can escape from. I fix them for good.”

Bane leaned in at that. “Which is what I aim to do as well. Solve the problem of Gotham’s rampant corruption and injustice permanently.”

His sewer nest was underneath some kind of outside play area in Arkham. Hearing people talk wasn’t strange to him. This time though, it was two kids.

“I want to hear a song,” A little girl said. “Sing to me Jason!”

“Sung this damn song three times already Deula.”

“I want to make sure I remember it so I can sing it to Dr. Strange when it’s our talk time.” John someone’s foot stomp.

“Okay okay,” Jason said, clapping slowly as he sang, “ Peter, Peter, pumpkin-eater, had a wife and couldn't keep her- “

Deula jumped in, singing the rest before Jason could finish. “ He put her in a pumpkin shell,

and there he kept her very well! Dr. Strange is going to be so happy when I sing this to him!”

They were quiet for a moment then before Deula gasped. “No, Jason, you don’t kiss girls!”

“You’re my doll wife.” Jason said.

John heard Duela skip around, laughing at Jason. “Dad doesn’t keep his wives in a pumpkin shell. They go in a box!”

Jason must have done something to her because she cried out. “Shut up Duela! Don’t talk about that here, remember?”

All the happiness in Duela’s voice went away. “Or we’ll go under the patio.” She said. “Sorry Jason.”

John thought about those two kids often, of how he never heard them again. This was how it happened, he decided. How kids got lost in the dark and stayed there. Because other people who could have helped them fell back on their fear instead.

There was a dead cop hanging from a street lamp post, swinging with the wind. A pig’s head was nailed to his face. Around his neck hung a sign: SLAUGHTER THEM ALL.

“Who did that?” John asked Bane, who shrugged.

“Perhaps the Clown Prince of Crime, or someone working with the masked man Nicodemus, or any other victim of the corrupt system these people propagate.” Bane crossed his arms. “This is justice in its purest form, is it not?”

What kept John from answering was that he wanted to say “ Yes ” and for the first time, that fact made him uneasy.

John didn’t trust Barsad. He couldn’t put his finger on why, but something about him and all his answers didn’t make sense to John. Didn’t sit right.

But here he was in John’s nest, and while John didn’t plan on keeping him there he wasn’t sure what exactly to do with him. The mud he’d thrown on Barsad’s face would leave him able to breathe through his poison mist until he washed it off, so if John just let him go Barsad could come right back and attack him. Plus there was no telling who all would be waiting for Barsad outside the tunnel.

Dealing with this man had been more than enough for John. He didn’t want to see more. These people, he felt it deep inside, were not good people. They were dangerous.

Anyway John looked at it, the only way to make sure no one else learned about him being here was to kill Barsad. It shouldn’t be hard to do, to think of, he’d done it before. But it wasn’t something he ever wanted to do again unless they were monsters.

So it didn’t matter how afraid John was of being caught, it didn’t matter how much he wanted these people gone. He didn’t have a better way to solve his problem then to let Barsad leave.

“You’re restless,” Barsad said, startling John out of his thoughts again. “Deciding my fate?”

John walked over to his collections, rummaging through a garbage bag. He didn’t reply. He knew what what he was going to do with Barsad. Now he just have to figure out the best way to let him go.

There wasn’t any rope in his collection and John wasn’t going to use his vines. It was storming up above, and the sound of the rain annoyed John. He looked over the platform, at all the stormwater running down through the tunnel. Well, that would take care of everything.

John walked back to Barsad, taking his vine off his arms but leaving the cuffs. His vine was very, very important to him and he wasn’t going to let it go.

“You don’t trust me enough to uncuff me,” There was a strange look in Barsad’s eyes. John wasn’t sure he liked it. “Smart man, to a point.”

John shoved him over the platform without a word, watching his body fall then make a splash in the water. He smiled to himself, glad he wouldn’t have to listen to the man anymore, and watched closely as the water carried Barsad down out of the southwest tunnel. If anyone tried to come into his nest area, he’d do the same to them.

It was strange though, John was feeling a lot of different things about what had happened. Sure he’d gotten mad but it hadn’t been all bad, having someone else in his nest who actually talked, even if they weren’t invited. There were so many bad people in the world, scary people. But Barsad hadn’t scared him, even if John had a bad feeling about him.

There were still people in his sewer, his home. From what Barsad had said, they didn’t plan on leaving anytime soon. John still didn’t even really know what they were doing here.

He thought of the kid’s voices he’d heard in the sewers. Kids were safer than adults, but he would probably scare them. No no, he was being stupid.

It was better to stay away from them, all of them. It was safer that way. Taking off the gloves, John put them with his collection and pet the leaf on his ear as he went to sit in his nest.

Atop the ceiling of his home, where parts of the roof had fallen in, hung a tangled mess of rusty chains tied to the beams. John would use them as a sort of swing set, hang from them for hours, letting his mind wander. He liked to hear the clinking of his body chain and sound of worn out metal grinding together.

The last time he and Bane had spoken he’d told John about some man called Deacon Blackfire who was making an army of Gotham’s homeless adults and fighting his own war on crime. Not just in what used to be the upper class parts of Gotham, but even down in The Narrows, Blake’s territory.

He fiddled with the holes in his torn up t-shirt, petting his chest moss. Feeling lonely.

Streets were littered with trash, along with human waste and lifeless bodies. In the air was that scent, foul enough cause many people to gag. He might have left the sewers but just about every part of it seemed to have followed him above ground.

And while John might have been fine staying away from the psychos, they were getting closer to him whether he liked it or not.

Joining up with Bane was beginning to sound like less and less of a bad idea.

Now if only Bane would come by again so John could tell him as much.

“Why do you do it?” John asked Waylon. “How come you keep going outside? What’s up there for you?”

Waylon gave him a strange look. “Cause it ain’t right kid. We don’t deserve to be stuck down here for the rest of our lives, you know?” He gestured up to the storm drain. “That up there? Its our world too. Sometimes you gotta get out there and take any piece of it you can to remind yourself that.”

John ran his fingers over the black latex of his catsuit, wiggling his covered toes. One of the few materials that didn’t make the moss and vines on his body itch, he’d gotten his pets to go get him as many as they could from the store he’d first gone to. Part of this one even fit around his penis.

He felt someone come into his nest room before he saw them. John hid his smile from them. “I’m sorry I spit at you.”

“You have the temperament of a child with your tantrums, and no discipline of your abilities.” Bane said, his mask all fixed apparently.

John leaned up on his tip toes, frowning. “I said I was sorry. And you knocked out two of my teeth when you punched me.”

“Hardly comparable,” Bane tisked coming to stand right in front of John. “How will you regain my favor?”

Without thinking John touched his chest. The stark contrast of his black latex against Bane’s skin made his mouth water. “I’ll make you feel better?”

Bane stared at him for a long moment, until John decided that was all the yes he was going to get.

One of the best things about this suit was the face mask. Now John could lean into Bane’s underarm, breathe in his scent without worrying about burning him. There was the gleam of sweat there and he couldn’t resist licking at it slowly as he undid the straps to Bane’s vest.

He’d just gotten Bane’s pants and boots off when he was shoved down onto the floor. John grunted but didn’t try to get up, wanting to see what would come next. His heart was racing in excitement. What Bane did was move to stand over his face. “Please me.” He told John as he sat down.

John spread Bane’s bottom cheeks with his hands, squeezing the firm muscles. He palmed him for a moment, licking his lips as he got frontal view of Bane’s brown hole. It was crinkled tight and as hairless as the rest of him. Looked delicious but John wanted draw this out. Leaning forward he blew a hot puff of air on Bane’s opening, biting his lip when it contracted. He did it again, and again, his cock throbbing with every wink he was rewarded with.

Hands circled his throat. “Enough.” Bane said and John managed not to laugh at his impatience.

Feeling bold, he bit one of Bane’s ass cheeks, licking at the brief indents his teeth left. That got his cock a smack hard enough to steal his breath for a moment. John was grateful Bane couldn’t see his smirk.

He spit on Bane’s hole, messy as he could be and finally flicked the tip of his tongue over it, wiggling back and forth in steady strokes. The hiss of Bane’s breathing seemed to come out sharper, and he bore down on his face. John held Bane open with one hand and rubbed his lower back with the other, pressing an open mouthed kiss to that brown rim, his lips wet and tongue circling.

John spit again, watching the wetness run down Bane’s crack towards his balls. Bane moved again, bearing down until both his ass cheeks were smothering John’s face. That was fine with John. He loved the feel of that soft skin pressing against his latex covered face. All the weight atop him. How Bane’s scent was near suffocating now and how he had to squirm to find room to breathe. He’d never been this hard before.

He went in further, lapping in broad strokes from Bane’s crack to his hole, harder with each sweep of his tongue. John nuzzled his face in those cheeks and shook his head, moaning as Bane’s ass quivers around him. His breathing had definitely changed, grown harder, and he was pushing himself down onto John’s tongue.

John was much more noisy, making loud hungry noises. There’s a neediness he felt. He couldn’t get enough of how Bane’s iron like control seemed to be slipping. His movements instinctive rather than thought out. All from John’s hot mouth on his asshole.

He moaned, jabbed his tongue inside Bane hard and licked . It was such a sudden move that Bane actually jerked, his hole spasming around him. John thrust his tongue in, out, licked deeper inside him. He panted at the flavor.

Above him Bane rocked his hips back and forth, riding John’s mouth. He was openly panting. Pride swelled in John, made him greedy for more evidence of Bane’s pleasure. He wanted to please him, unravel him completely. Goliath-like, powerful Bane who made John come so hard it was a rush better than any drug he’d taken.

It was when John thrust his tongue as deep into Bane’s hole as he could, closed his mouth tight around his hole and sucked that Bane nearly lost it. His breath hitched, all of him tensing up and then he was lifting off John’s face, laughing at his whine of protest.

“Very good boy. You show promise in more ways than one.”

He put his foot on John’s chest, stopping him from sitting up. John couldn’t help bucking his hips up, especially when Bane slid two fingers into himself. They stayed like for several minutes, so much control coming off Bane as he looked down at him.

Opening his mouth to speak, John stopped when Bane moved to stand over his cock. His eyes had to be hilariously wide as he realized what was about to happen.

John panted as Bane lowered himself down, breaking off into a moan. Even with the latex covering his cock he could feel the heat inside him and the tightness was unlike anything he’d experienced before. Like some snake had wrapped itself around him and was squeezing the life from him. Coupled with Bane’s full weight atop him, he was pinned, unable to do much more but feel .

His eyes were shut tight but he opened them right away when Bane said, “Eyes on me boy.”

“F-fuck.” John whispered, overwhelmed as he stared into those blue eyes.

The corners of Bane’s eyes crinkled, his cheeks shifting upwards. “All in due time.”

He ran his hands up the latex, both of them easily encircling John’s throat. Somehow he clenched around John even tighter, pulling a whimper from him.

All John wanted to do was fuck up into him but he didn’t try. There was a silent order in Bane’s eyes keeping him still on the floor. A test. After a few moments apparently he passed it, as Bane gave him a few stinging slaps to his cheek. Then he rose up on John’s cock, until just its tip remained inside of him, and slammed back down so hard John’s grunt was one of half pleasure half pain.

But fuck if it wasn’t good. A pace that was too fast for John to keep up with and he found himself grabbing ahold of Bane’s wrists to try and ground himself. His cock was held in that grip, that heat and with the latex covering it it just made everything feel hotter.

But it was the sound of Bane’s breathing growing unsteady, faster, turning into harsh bull-like pants that turned John on the most.

Bane’s hands squeezed around his neck, choking him. John felt helpless in the best sort of way, throttled and used. He hiccuped a raspy moan, feeling like any breath he had was being knocked out of him with every slam of Bane’s body down onto him. He could hear it, a pounding sound of his naked flesh hitting John’s latex clad body. Felt the force of it driving him into the floor and his back would be sore after this but he didn’t care.

More sweat was beginning to bead on Bane’s body, rolling over those ripples of muscles and his taut belly. John wanted to lick it so badly. More than he wanted to breathe. His cock was leaking in his suit, so hard it hurt.

Bane leaned down, right in his face. “Are you close boy? Will you lose yourself for me?”

“Yeah,” John gasped, dizzy when he was allowed to breathe. “Fuck yes.”

He rubbed his hands up and down Bane’s arms, licking his lips. Feeling braver when they were not swatted away, John touched at Bane’s belly, moaning at how hard it felt before petting at his legs. Those thighs could probably break his ribs if they squeezed hard enough.

He wondered if Bane wanted to break him as badly as John wanted to rub all over his skin, crawl inside him.

John let out a weak noise, coming so hard he felt faint afterwards. That didn’t stop Bane from riding him still, grinding back and forth on him until he whimpered, overwhelmed. His noises drew a laugh from Bane as he lifted himself off John’s cock and climbed up his chest.

All that weight on him there was near suffocating but John opened his mouth and stuck out his tongue anyway, catching the thick spurts of come Bane wrung from his cock as he came.

In his hands, John held the last of his cocaine. It would be so easy to lean his face down, snort it up, chase something he could never reach with it.

I don’t need you anymore, he thought, throwing it out the window. Maybe Bane was right, and he never had to begin with. Time had come for him to find out. He watched the clouds of white disappear into the darkness.

Peeling off his catsuit, John sighed happily as his leg vine tickled his ankle. “So I’ve been thinking-” He started, turning back towards where Bane was sitting, only to have his words knocked right out from him.

Bane had changed himself somehow. Made himself grow twice as big, John had to look up at his face even with him sitting down. And he could see all his veins, glowing a green color. “Where I come from they’d say I was born with the Devil’s serpent venom coursing through my blood.” Bane told him, his voice echoing in a rumble. “Making me monstrous. That is part of my story.”

John stared up at him, smile slowly creeping onto his face. “You’re like me.”

“Yes.”

He wanted to cry. From happiness.

When the tears came, John did not wipe them away. “My name is John Blake. I’ve got a story too.”

“And you will let me hear it?”

It was the first time Bane had asked him a question that didn’t also sound like a challenge.

John sat down in his nest, took a deep breath and began his story.

★

Locked

Cesspool Serenade

by velificatio (ao3)