Pair-Bonded (an Institute story)
by Wrestlr
4.
Under the Master’s tutelage, Don’s anger has become more manageable, easier to separate from his Talent; he has outlets for releasing both now. At the same time, too, Don has become more affectionate toward you in your after-hours time; his dalliances with women have become fewer. Don has sex with you more often. You still let him instigate, let him decide when he wants it, but you’re pleased at the increasing frequency, with the open affection, even lust, in the way Don looks at you now. You like the way those emotions color Don’s side of the bond when he thinks about you. You suspect, but cannot confirm, that this is another of the Master’s gifts to you, a way of keeping you happy and cooperative, since the Master has come to value your Talent particularly. You would like to think this is his gift to you both.
You asked the Master about this once, whether he was influencing Don sexually. He denied it, of course, and suggested you might be the one influencing him, perhaps subconsciously, now that your skill with your Talent is increasing. Perhaps, the Master muses, you are manipulating Don by tweaking his lust hormones and erotic reactions at the lizard-brain level, employing the bond to bind him ever closer to you emotionally and sexually. Where the body goes, the mind often follows. The mind, he says, rides on top of nerve cells and depends on them. Nerve cells are what you can control. You might be doing this without even realizing. You thought about it, couldn’t dismiss the possibility that the Master might be correct, so you decided to change the subject.
You’ve changed too. The fearful teenage named Ryan who always followed Don’s lead is gone. You’ve become harder, stronger, more of a man. The confidence with which you use your Talent now, as much as what you can do with it, has the Master’s mercenaries terrified of you. Even Don defers to you sometimes now, seems sometimes maybe a little afraid of you. He was never afraid of you before.
You know you’re using your Talent to hurt people, but that’s just the price of everything you have now, you tell yourself. Don, this apartment, money, safety, love. Everything has its price. The Master has made this all possible for you, guided you, mentored you, showed you the way. If he made you a weapon, then being the weapon he needs when he pulls the trigger is your job. It’s the least you can do in return.
But on your own time, you can still put that hardness away. You can still love—the affection and bond you share with Don is proof of that, as is the devotion you feel toward the Master. When you’re though being a weapon during the day, maybe some part of being Ryan returns to you.
You come back to your apartment after some small errand for the Master that you performed solo, one of the few times you and Don have been apart in the last few weeks, the bitter salt without his fiery pepper. On your way home, you took advantage of the time alone and stopped by a store to take care of another, more personal errand. The little shopping bag is tucked under your arm as you fish in your pocket for your keys.
As you approach the door, through the bond you feel how excited and aroused Don is. Maybe he’s masturbating? You open the door silently, hoping he hasn’t sensed you coming, hoping to surprise him in the act.
The lights are off inside the apartment, and they don’t come on when you flip the switch.
From the darkness, someone shoves you against the wall, pushes the door shut. Hands grab your wrists and yank them quickly up, pressing them back. You drop the bag. You’re pushed against the wall, its solidity cool against your back. Your wrists are held firmly in place against it.
“What’s going on?” you whisper, because talking seems inappropriate in the intimate black. “Let me go.” You know Don can sense through your bond that you aren’t really afraid, but he wants to be reminded of his strength. You decide to play the role of the helpless victim anyway.
One hand holds your wrists together against the wall. The grip is strong, but you could pull free if you wanted. Another hand pulls at the hem of your shirt, pulls it up, exposes your abdomen, the bottom of your chest.
Suddenly, you’re pulled away from the wall, turned, pushed face-first against it, firmly. Your hands are pulled back, and handcuffs close around one wrist, then the other. Quickly and efficiently. Suddenly you really are helpless, at least physically. You could reach into his head with your Talent, though, and shut down his mind if you needed to. You’re not helpless, but you play the role.
The grip rolls you, until your shoulders are against the wall again. A hand drops to your pants, paws at your crotch, opens your fly. You can’t help grinning in the darkness. Don isn’t usually this aggressive with you, or this creative. You like it, though. You’ve got a significant erection.
Those hands push your pants and boxers down to mid-thigh, letting your prick jut straight out into the air. The hands slide under your shirt, caressing your ribs. A tingle is stealing through your skin as the hands increase your arousal. You can’t get away because, you admit to yourself, you don’t want to. You like this.
A mouth presses to yours. You return the kiss. The kisser has an incredible tongue: long and searching. You’re feeling warm and relaxed, not nervous at all, not now. He has made his point; he is in control and has no need to intimidate you now. The mouth kisses down your neck, down your chest, your stomach, until it finds your cock, absorbs it. The pleasure of it takes your nervous system by storm, makes you shudder involuntarily.
Your arousal is turning into a tension in your groin and the need for release. It begins transmuting into a tingle that saturates your limbs. One of the hands reaches behind you to grip your ass, while the other toys with your balls in their sack. Your testicles churn in response. The tingling pleasure focuses on your groin. You murmur that you’re close, just in case Don hasn’t caught on, but the mouth doesn’t let up on your dick, and anyway it’s suddenly more important to push your hips forward and bury yourself in that throat. Your cum boils over, blazing along the length of your hard dick, and the spurting feeling in your cock turns into the rippling, radiant waves of your orgasm throughout your body.
Hands on your shoulders force you to your knees in the dark. Something bumps your lip: a penis head, leaking a pearl of slimy pre-cum. Open your mouth. The head pokes inside. Take a deep breath through your nose. Let the cock slide deeper into your mouth. In the darkness above your head, a voice moans.
Grab one of his thighs to steady yourself as you suck at the first few inches of his dick. He is naked. Surely he can feel the handcuffs pressed against his skin as you cling to him. The feel of them reminds him he is in control here. His hips pump in answer to your bobbing head—yeah, he’s getting off on this. Suddenly—kabam!—you feel his balls detonate and fiery-hot goo squirts into your mouth. The voice cries out again—”Aaah!“—as he orgasms.
Sit back on your heels. Your pants around your ankles hobble you, and the cuffs restrict your hands, so you don’t try to stand up. It’s still his show. Wait for him to make the next move.
You are lifted, still cuffed, and carried toward the bed. Somewhere on the floor back by the wall in the dark is the gift you bought for him with money you’ve made working for the Master. There’ll be time for that gift later. Now, just a moment before he drops you onto the bed you share, you whisper, “Happy birthday, Don.”
The next day, you and Don rendezvous with the Master in his main warehouse, where he keeps his office and the base of his operations. You didn’t get much sleep last night—you both look tired. The Master looks at you, at Don, and lifts a sarcastic eyebrow at you. You yawn, grin sheepishly at the Master, and lift an eyebrow back, challenging him to say something. His expression changes to a knowing smirk but he says nothing.
You move a little closer to Don and nudge him with your shoulder, almost imperceptibly to anyone except the two of you. Your grin now is warmer, more private, meant just for him. His lust and affection purrs back at you through the bond.
The mercenaries can never quite reconcile the always-there affection between the salt and pepper shakers compared to the stone-cold weapons you become, the hot head and the one who touches, as if a switch has been flipped, when the Master sends you out on assignments. The dichotomy disquiets them, but they never say anything about it, not where you can overhear them.
The Master has gathered all of his lieutenants here today to tell them about the next mission. His last remaining rival is banking on a big shipment coming in later that day. It’ll almost certainly be a trap, one of his lieutenants suggests, and the Master agrees. He asks for ideas, strategies. A distraction will be needed, says the lieutenant, something they’ll focus on instead so that the main assault will catch them by surprise.
The lieutenants debate strategy. The unexpected and powerful itch in the back of your head makes you flinch. “Ow!”
The Master sees. He leans aside from listening to his seconds and whispers, “Something wrong?”
Shake your head. “No, sir. I just wasn’t expecting your telepathy ...”
“I didn’t do anything.”
Your eyes widen. “There’s another telepath nearby—he just scanned us.”
The Master snarls to his lieutenants that they’re under attack.
The first grenade crashes through the window—gas—followed by six, seven, eight more. The doors burst open, and soldiers spill in through the windows and doors.
Hang back. You’ve never used your Talent in a firefight before, and you’re intimidated. Don, though, reacts quickly. Two soldiers, then a third, burst into flame, screaming. Their ammunition explodes at once. The screaming stops. You’re surprised—Don has never used his Talent to hurt anyone directly before. You don’t know whether to be impressed or horrified. The smell of burning flesh nearly drowns out the irritating gas.
One impression comes solidly from Don through the bond: No more running.
“Yessir,” one of the soldiers on the periphery barks into a radio. “The tip was good. We have visual confirmation of the telepath, and at least one pryokinetic too!”
Something in his helmet blocks you for getting in to shut down his brain from a distance, but it doesn’t stop you when you sneak up behind him and grab his arm. It doesn’t stop your Talent from pouring into his arm and up into his head from the inside. No time to be subtle. You give him everything. Red streaks immediately run up his neck as every nerve in his body explodes, and he falls without a scream.
“Report!” a voice orders through the radio as it clatters against the floor. “What’s the situation?”
You stomp the device to pieces.
The mercenaries and soldiers are firing at each other, conventional weaponry. The soldiers’ gear is flat black, no identifying marks. That identifies them as Institute, since they can’t show their logo in this country. If these soldiers were sent by the government, they’d bear the Darven flag.
Fire has broken out around the edges of the warehouse too. Don is trying to widen his Talent radius, trying to take out more soldiers faster. That means his targeting is diffused. He gets every soldier he sees through the gas, but he is also combusting anything burnable near them, and smoke rips at your lungs.
You see and feel the bullet tear through Don’s side: a burst of air and clothing, followed by red, the impact, and a searing pain through your bond. Don falls.
You’re trying to run to him when you see them. The Master and the telepath. Not just any telepath—the Telepath. It’s been four years, but you recognize him on sight. You freeze—a moment of panic. He doesn’t seem to recognize you, though. After but a quick glance your way after you screamed Don’s name, the Telepath turns back to the Master. They aren’t doing anything visible to the eye, but the air practically crackles with telepathic energy storming between them—some mental battle you can’t see but certainly sense. The back of your head erupts like a thousand rats are clawing their way through.
Push past the panic. This ends now. The Telepath is focused on the older man, and you have to get to Don, but first you have to help the Master. It’s time for payback. It’s time to show the Telepath how much you’ve changed in four years, thanks to him.
From behind, you grab the Telepath’s arm. You’re not sure your Talent will reach through the body armor he wears, so you slam everything into him: payback for every time you were running scared, every day spent missing your family, every night you went to bed hungry, everything. Red streaks rush up his neck and he screams. Push your other hand up under his assault helmet and slam your Talent into his head. You can feel the wave tear through his head and through his brain. The forebrain blackens and starts to die. A great screech of telepathic static burns through your mind as the Telepath bellows his death-scream. The Master screams too. The Telepath’s midbrain liquefies as the cells erupt and explode. His awareness lasts another second, during which the hindbrain becomes mush. His telepathy goes silent. He topples, face-first. His brain is already dead. His body will follow soon, once his heart and lungs stop working.
You pause by the Master. His brain is inactive. The death-throes of a telepath must be especially hard on other receptives nearby, like a point-blank supernova. He is dead too. Just another corpse now. Whatever loyalty and devotion he implanted to control you evaporates, and only the weapon he created remains. You, the one who touches, the demon—and you have to get to Don.