Balakai's reward for good behavior is a night out at an exclusive club, and Griffin runs into an old friend.

Word Count: 5060

CW: Drinking/Altered mental state, use of Honorifics: Daddy, light D/s play.

Griffin never went out on the town unarmed and his weapons were the delicate charms and bits of leather braided into his hair, the silver hoop with the raw amethyst and the scribed copper bead. The materials out of which the bit of blood red ribbon was made, and the components in the scented oil that he dabbed on his wrists and behind his ears. Dark black kohl lined his eyes, smoky hematite joining and scarlet glitter up to his sharp brows. His lips were pouty and pale, just the hints of black cherry and clear gloss making them dramatic like a proper doll. He wore a pair of black wrist cuffs, the silver D rings laying flat against the band. His blood red shirt was open to the center and only buttoned a few down. It hid few of his scars and certainly not the new ones that Balakai had added when he'd ripped him asunder. Black leather pants and black, knee high riding boots were joined by a simple matching riding crop that hung from his belt loop as if it were the most natural thing in the world. 

His mismatched eyes shone even in the darkness and there was no mistaking the dangerous sharpness of him even if he looked quite the pretty dandy. He leaned against the wall of the entry and waited for Balakai to join him, checking his black nail polish for flaws.

Balakai, in turn, had firmly taken over one of the bathrooms for his own primping, and took every bit as much time as he implied he would. When he finally made his appearance, it was dropping over the bannister from the second floor, landing with a heavy solidity that seemed very at odds with the slim of him. He'd emphasized his own delicacy with a long skirt of diphonous, pale blue silk. It hung low, just barely clinging to the slim curve of his hips and the beaded fringe of it whispered and clicked in a way in which he delighted. It was slit up both sides all the way to the waistband.  Whenever he moved it fluttered open enough to show the strap of the white jock he wore underneath. The top was matching pale blue silk, not quite opaque, sleeveless and cropped high. 

His hair was styled, though he'd done nothing to attend the black roots that starkly contrasted with the ashy platinum. The sides of his head were freshly shaved. He hadn't bothered with make up so the clothing washed out his coloration to a translucent pale and the gold of his eyes glowed in the sharpness of his face. New boots, supple black leather that buckled rather than laced and for once he'd bothered to do them up. He held his pose in the foyer for a moment, then gave a little shake as if settling into his own skin and went to Griffin, winding his arms around the taller man's neck and molding to the front of him.

"You clean up alright. Now, I think you implied you'd be accessorizing me?" He batted his eyelashes and tilted his head to one side to show the bare line of his neck.

"I did indeed," the witch purred, running his hands up Balakai's hips and sides before he fit the thin, black collar around his neck. A leash hung from one of the D-rings in the back and he left it loose to drape along the demon's spine. The set matched his cuffs.  Once the collar was on, he ran a hand up Balakai’s neck and along the back of his freshly shaved head to pull him in for a deep kiss. His tongue invaded his mouth and he gave a little bite of his bottom lip when he finally drew back. 

"Hot."

Balakai sighed against his kiss, melted against him and boosted himself up on his toes into the kiss. There was something he liked about the feel of a collar around his neck. Not that it meant anything- there was very little Griffin could do to him if he didn't let him. Physically, he was stronger. Sure the witch had magic but he'd yet to see Griffin do anything that he couldn't either get him back for, or avoid. Mostly. 

Part of him looked forward to seeing what other tricks that Griffin might try on him.

Still he liked the weight of it on his neck and the way the leash felt as it hung down his back and brushed against his spine and ass when he moved. 

"Mmm and easy access. Gotta remember the important things." He turned in Griffin's arms and ground back against him a little. He tilted his head back against the witch's shoulder. "Don't leave the leash on unless you're holding it, once we're there."

There was the feeling like electricity in the air and Griffin leaned into the demon, purring in his ear in a voice that was all ready violence and possession. "If anyone but me touches this leash, I will make them regret their existence." 

He slid a hand up Balakai’s chest and rested it just a little too tight around his throat as he nipped his jaw. "Unless you want me to fuck you in the middle of a blood drenched dance floor."

He molded to the presence of Balakai there, the lithe form of him that he knew could be monstrous. He wanted all of him. Fearlessly. Balakai let himself be manhandled, just letting go and leaning into the witch, eyes mostly closed and a low rumble in his chest that wasn't quite a growl. 

"Don't tempt me," he sighed and the sound was almost wistful. "You're the one putting a leash on me though, so I'm your fucking responsibility. Won't be my fault if someone grabs it- it'll be yours."

Griffin heard the explicit warning there, and it sent another shiver down his spine. In some ways, like this, Balakai was wildly dangerous for him. Griffin's command of order and law were already tenuous at best. Having a partner in crime and debauchery was wildly liberating and it left him with fewer reasons to anchor himself than usual. Because Balakai called to dark places in him and he enjoyed them. The heat that always rose between them and the forsaking of convention and of moderation and of worry for anything but what they pleased. The demon was quickly becoming his favorite drug.

He ran his tongue up the demon’s neck and shivered, drawing back slowly so that he wouldn't send Balakai sprawling on the floor in absence. His hand slid down his back to catch the leash and he gave it just the tiniest tug. "Ready for your introduction into proper Boston society, my big bad wolf?"

Balakai caught his balance easily but almost reluctantly as Griffin pulled back, readjusting himself though rather fruitlessly because the way the skirt clung there was nowhere to hide. 

"Sure thing, Red." He flashed Griffin a sharp toothed smile and trailed along at heel.

The drive through town was leisurely and he led them to a huge warehouse that looked out over the bay. Everything around it was ruin, and the large structure itself didn't look trustworthy. It was dead quiet and there was no sign that anyone had been near here in decades, let alone this evening. Griffin flipped down the sun shade and on the back of it was a tarot card. The Emperor. He traced a glyph on it with a finger and spoke a word in a language not from these shores.  To Balakai’s ear it sounded a little of the Irish he’d heard spoken, but older.  Fae. The air in front of them shivered and Griffin drove them through it like a waterfall, the illusion settling back behind them as they drove forward. 

In place of the derelict warehouse was a soaring structure that looked like no hand of man had made it. Black glass that shimmered as with the light of an opal on fire, reminiscent of a castle that was as much living water whipped up by the wind. Light scintillated from within and there was the deep heartbeat of bass music. The cars parked neatly beside it were an exercise in wealth and European styling, and there were things that did not come from the world of men at all. Tall black glass pillars were lit with fire from within and there was a forest of black trees with red leaves that rained in perpetual autumn, a menagerie of statues hidden under the mysterious eves and sheltering shadow.

Through a garden of deadly beauty, few of the plants natural to the human world, many folks walked.  Vampire, wolf, faery, human, and others still. This was Pandemonium, a dark place that did not try to be other. It was as sinister as it was lovely. 

Griffin got out and went around to open the door for Balakai, taking his hand and drawing him out of the blood red sports car, taking up the end of the leash even as he gently caressed his back. He tossed his keys to the fawn who was the valet without a word. 

"Welcome. I hope the evening does not disappoint."

“You match the decor." Balakai laced his arm through the witch's, feeling the leash where it trailed down his back and curved along his side up into the witch's hand. He traced a fingertip down the scarlet silk of Griffin's sleeve. "Is it Fae? Has the feel of their dramatics."

There were a pair of guards at the two story steel banded black doors, clad in dark armor, twins by the sameness of them. Their long, pointed ears were adorned with jet like dark tears, hair like blood falling to their lower backs in complicated braids and matching halberds in hand. They didn't move, but Griffin knew they would if they were needed. Just like the statues that decorated the grounds and the ones inside. Enchanted, all, constructs upon which to be called to keep the peace if things got inordinately out of hand. "Pandemonium is run by the lovely and cruel Pandora at the behest of the Garnet Prince. Being banned from the Cup won't matter here, but I can't promise you won't run into the Lord himself. He's here from time to time when his human is angry with him."

"I'm not worried about seeing him." The demon shrugged a shoulder.  Balakai watched curiously at the other people leaving their cars and heading for the entrance of the club, or lingering in pairs and small groups in the strange gardens. His nostrils flared as he drew in breath deeply through his nose, pulling in the strange scents, the color of his eyes scintillating from bright burnished gold, to amber, to smoldering red and back again. 

"I want to drink tonight. Something sweet and strong and beautiful." He leaned into Griffin though he didn't take his eyes off the surroundings.

Griffin liked the feel of the leash in his hand, the way it warmed under his skin and how pretty it looked like a dark shadow in contrast to the almost ethereal blue in which Balakai was dressed. "From the bar, or to sink your teeth into? Because both can be arranged here."

"From the bar. Isn't that the point of coming to a place like this? Get me drunk, Griffin. It's my reward after all." His gaze turned up to Griffin and his smile turned warm and full of promise.  

He led them in and the inhuman beauty was echoed here in wildly colored lights, a low fog on the ground that was magical, and a gallery of private booths and rooms. There was madness here in the diversity of folk - from someone's human pet who looked utterly lost and terrified as if he'd just been picked up off the street, to a large manticore holding what looked like a minor court off in a private area. A second floor overlooked the huge dance floor and while the music was loud, when someone made to talk to another, they could hear as if in silence. It was an exercise of magical excess to an absolutely obscene degree. 

And on a throne of black glass like the building, Pandora herself watching over all from the second floor gallery, a pair of sphinxes flanking her like lazy pets. It was impossible to make out the Lady for she was wreathed in shadow, but she was there.

It took a not insignificant amount of alcohol to get a demon drunk, but there were any number of Faerie born and magical wines and spirits that would do it. A place like this, Balakai imagined, would have a bar well stocked. Even as they waded across the club through the crowds, his hips moved with the music. The deep bass of it throbbed in his bones and he gave a little involuntary shiver. "Get me a drink and dance with me. Please." 

The please rolled through Griffin and he took a deep breath because it was the first time that he could recall the demon using the nicety before. 

"Ask like that, and I'll do almost anything you desire, beautiful," he said in a voice that was want and magic and the promise of violence. Under the faery light, swirling patterns of something that was otherwise invisible lit on Griffin's skin, along his arms and chest and up his neck. It glowed like white under black light, only the color of it shifted, like shimmering translucent oil. He kept an arm around Balakai, his movement like that of a hunting feline, all predatory grace and hunger. Nothing about Griffin was soft except sometimes when his gaze flickered to the demon and his lips curled just so. 

The bar looked like the altar of a cathedral, complete with stained glass behind the lines of shelves. In addition to bottles and strange barrels there were beautiful bodies, some human some not, poised and draped and scarred where they had been cut to bleed for the patrons of the club.  A blue skinned Fae hardly even looked up from cleaning glasses and serving other patrons when they walked up.  "Pick your poison." 

"Two glasses of Ever After." The bartender paused. They looked about to question him and he drew the tarot card from his front pocket. 

"As you like, m'lord," they said sweetly, dipping their head deferentially.  Another emotion flickered briefly behind their eyes. Maybe fear.

Balakai shifted between Griffin and the bar, putting his back to it so it appeared as though the witch had him trapped against the bar and was keeping everyone else away from him. He slid his hands up the witch's chest, curling his fingers in the blood red silk and he turned his face up to him, the lights reflecting off his eyes shading the gold of them queer shades of color. He leaned up to brush a whisper of a kiss to Griffin's throat, nuzzling under his chin.

"Oh please," he whispered, the magic of the club making sure the witch could hear every word. "Tonight, I'll beg. Please, Grif. Dance with me, daddy. Please." 

He gave a low, needy whine, pressing himself against the taller man. Only when the glasses were set on the bar did he pull even an iota of attention away from the witch. He turned his back to the witch and instead pressed his ass back into Griffin’s hips as he picked up the glass.

It was sin and sex and sweet and smoke; the space between stars and promises of forever.  He savored the taste in a way he didn't with the mundane alcohol that he so often drank. He let the heat of it trickle through his system,

Griffin sipped his too, the wine almost black, and then smiled with hunger. Griffin took the demon's jaw in hand, the gentleness of it in contrast to the way he held himself otherwise, drawing him in for a deep kiss. He stole his breath and claimed it for his own, conquered his lips and mouth and it was only when his head began to swim and his vision narrow that he drew back. 

"God that's pretty. Do it again. Beg me." And he pulled the leash a little tight so that the collar bit into his neck just a hint.

Balakai gave a low mewl of pleasure into the kiss, not minding that he was somewhat twisted around in Griffin's arms, caught between the bar and his body. In many ways the slight discomfort added to his desire.  He put up only token resistance, casting a less than pleased glance at Griffin’s drink though he didn’t say anything, unwilling to break their little play acting dynamic just yet.  Theoretically though, the witch was supposed to be the responsible one tonight.

The collar tightened on his neck and he arched back into the witch. There was a moment of pause, then the demon took his glass up in both hands and turned back to face Griffin, offering the glass up to him.  "Would you feed it to me, daddy? Your pet would be grateful to drink it from your lips. Please, daddy?"

The flicker of gaze was not lost on the witch and he just grinned. He hadn't arrived unprepared. There was not one single world in which he got drunk here. There was far too much for him to lose and just the magic in the very air was more than enough. He could have consumed the whole bar and, while he would have died of alcohol and magic poisoning, never gotten drunk. This was Balakai's night out as he had promised and though the witch was a capricious creature who lied all the time, his word mattered and thus far there had been no lies between him and Balakai. There wasn't a need. So he didn't have to. It was... nice. So much less work than most other associations that always ended up souring for him after too brief a time. 

"For you, princess, my world." He drank deeply, then slid a hand to brace the back of his head and bring the demon back to his lips where he released the wine, their tongues mingling in it.

It was a pleased little moan that escaped him as Griffin drew him back in and he drank the wine from his mouth. He'd noticed the grin, and while he couldn't be utterly sure of what it had been in response to, something in the back of his mind settled and he just closed his eyes, moving his body as Grif directed, kissing him long past the point where the mouthful of wine was gone, chasing the traces and taste of it on Griffin's tongue. The heat of it already began to suffuse his body, heady and strong.

"Oh," he said softly when finally they came up for air. "Thank you." 

He trailed soft kisses along the underside of Griffin's jaw. "More, please? Then dancing?" 

He may have been a demon, but even he wasn't stupid enough to leave a drink unattended and he certainly wasn't interested in wasting the rare drink just because he wanted to go out and move to the music that already swayed him slowly in Griffin's arms.

"Everything," Griffin almost purred as he drank deeply of the wine again, emptying Balakai's glass, and brought his lips to those of the demon. He moaned into him as he shared the outrageously expensive wine, sent it cascading down his throat while he kissed him deep, feeling the warm of it and the sweet that was almost edged in shadow. It could not make him want more because he was ever hungry. He slid his hands down Balakai’s sides, pulled him to him so that their hips locked and moved in a slow, demanding grind. He drank down his sounds and claimed his breath and if there was anything else in the world, he did not care. 

When finally his lungs screamed and his head felt light, he drew back and there was surprising tenderness as he reached up to trace the demon's bottom lip with a thumb where it was wet with spilled wine. "I think you asked so pretty to dance. This evening, I deny you nearly nothing." 

This was still a Faerie place, and he had care with his words.  There were always ears listening, always a way that intent and execution could be confused to cause ruin. Without looking at it, Griffin reached over and grabbed his own cup, downing it in one, reckless gulp. That alone would have gotten him kicked out of plenty of Courts, to so casually imbibe the wine of the King. But, here... he was the Lord of Crows and he bent the knee to none. 

He clipped the leash to one of his wrist cuffs so that he could have his hands free, and to be mindful of it. Balakai was not wrong, it was dangerous to leave it be here, and he had assumed ownership of the demon tonight. It would not always be so, but he found the power and responsibility of the thing heady. Already he ached for him and it was divine torture as he led him to the press of bodies on the dance floor, fingers laced in his.

The lights were bright, the shadows dark, and the press of bodies felt like an ebb and flow of heat and pressure. Balakai’s arms slid up around Griffin’s neck and his eyes closed. The faery wine made the music throb through him, move him almost involuntarily. Balakai liked to dance. Just the sort of grind and bump common in a club. It was a primal, sensual way of moving. 

This was more. 

He felt like liquid shaped by sound and by the witch's hands on him. Like the weight of the collar around his neck made him solid where the leash brushed him. He didn't shy away from other people, hardly seemed to notice them. They were just currents, eddies that moved him little as he gave himself over to the throb of music and complex play of scents on the air, dominant over them the smell of Griffin's skin just under his nose, almost overwhelming.

The light refracted in the facets of Griffin's gem-like eyes making them glow with a kind of queer witch-light like the magic on his skin. The witch always had a shard of his attention on the world around them because he was not unaware that there were monsters here that were more powerful than he, even if he unleashed the fullness of his own power. It was the demon who held the weight of his attention, the way he moved and the feel of his lithe body pressed into his. The slide of skin under his hands as he ran them up Balakai's back, nails digging in just a little, but not enough to leave marks for long. He knew what the wine would do to him; he'd ordered it to that end. 

Griffin liked the feel of his arms around him and the way they fit together. While Griffin was taller, he wasn't so much so that it was annoying or inconvenient. It meant he could bend down just a little to catch the top of the demon's ear between his teeth, holding it as he moaned suggestively, hands on Balakai's hips to keep him where he wanted so that he could sway and grind into him with purpose. He could feel the flush of his own skin and the want that coursed through him like addiction, sweet and heavy.

Balakai shuddered and sighed into him. It was maybe reckless, the way he entirely gave himself over to music and into the witch's hands, but honestly he'd done worse. He'd been more reckless. Burnished gold eyes blinked open to look up at the witch with a base, open desire. As though no other person existed besides him. His hands slid down Griffin's chest, fingertips instead hooking the top edge of the waistband of his pants. For once, the daemon took it no farther. He wasn't thinking, wasn't planning or weighing. Just moving, and letting Griffin move him, though occasionally he resisted when the two conflicted, the discordance bringing a little line between his brows and a tiny, distressed whine to his lips until they moved back in concordance.

He could have happily spent forever like this, sweat gathering on his skin from the exertion and the heat of the crowded dance floor, heart pounding so loudly in his ears he couldn't tell if it was his pulse or Griffin's or just part of the music.

They were a picture, the two of them. While he was not the only one dressed in pale colors, the dominant palette of the room was still dark. Jewel tones and shadows with just pinpoints of light here or there. But they were an unfairly pretty pair, and more than one set of eyes watched them with some combination of jealousy and desire.

Griffin let go of his hold of time. He moved against Balakai and there was no act of sex that was more sensual than that to which they slid one against the other on that dance floor. The witch slid down the demon's body, his hands caressing as he let them follow him down and he nuzzled along the front of the pale blue skirt to tease and arouse before he slid back up and turned him around so that Balakai's back was pressed to his front. He was hard and wet and he ached for him. The music passed over and through them and he wrapped his arm around him, fingers splayed over his stomach and slowly moving down to palm him while their hips continued to move. He ran his other hand up to settle along the collar while he kissed his neck and nipped at him, making sounds of delight and want.

The filmy skirt did nothing to hide Balakai's clear arousal, though the jock he wore underneath obscured the details to a bulge that distorted the line of the skirt. It was in its own way obscene, hiding nothing even while covering. He whined under Griffin's hands, turned when he was directed to and pressed back against him. Arched into his hands, both the one on his cock and the one on his throat. The sound he made was all animal, baring his neck to the witch's kisses, hands sliding over Griffin's arms to rest atop his, not trying to control or pull away but rather encouraging him to stay there, to press harder. 

Then the music shifted and it jarred Balakai from his quiet, dropping his voice to an irritated snarl and his claws pricking into the skin on the backs of Griffin's hands. He tilted his head to press his lips close to Griffin's ear. 

"Don't like this music. Bar?" His voice, while low and growling, didn't entirely lose its soft dreaminess but rather went sultry and petulant. "Please?" He hurried to add, with a rush of odd urgency.

With an indulgent smile, Griffin nuzzled one last time into the soft and light of him and then lifted his hand to turn Balakai in a little spin before he led him from the dance floor and back to the bar, still keeping his fingers so that he couldn't get out of reach. He pressed up behind him, keeping the demon between himself and the bar, his arms framed around him to make a cage of his body, though not anything out of which he couldn't have broken easily had he wanted to. Regardless of the magic active on his person, Griffin wasn't any stronger than the average human. He shivered with the memory of Balakai's teeth ripping into his shoulder.  He wouldn’t easily forget what the demon was capable of.

For the demon, he ordered another glass of the Ever After and this time the bartender didn’t question him.

 "Such extravagance for a pet, that's not the Summerville I know," came an amused voice from just down the bar. Griffin accepted the beer he'd ordered for himself and gave a little shake of his head at the tall, storkish man at the end of the bar.  He wasn’t dressed terribly different from Griffin, in leather pants and a poet’s shirt, though he was in deep brown and cream rather than black and red. 

"Fancy seeing you here, Lir. I thought you were done with the rest of the world." The other witch was somewhat like Griffin, traveling on the outskirts of their society. They'd traded information from time to time, and while not friends, they weren't adversaries. He brushed a hand along Balakai's jaw and turned his attention to the other witch for a moment. 

He was older than Griffin, silver salting the dark of his short cut hair, goatee gone almost wholly white. His eyes were pale and his skin dark, a handsome man. "Oh you know me. Can't stay out of trouble forever. Retirement gets boring."

Griffin chuckled. "I'll die before I retire."

Lir's lips quirked a wry grin. "I don't doubt that. You here for business or pleasure?"

"In town to work. Julian Rhodes."

The other man's eyebrows lifted. "I thought he was already dead. Didn't you hunt him like a decade ago?"

Griffin's smile turned bitter. "Fucked it up. Back around again."

Lir shook his head. "Might wanna walk away from that one, Griff. Not that you're not perfectly capable, but Rhodes had a reputation in certain circles. Pretty on the outside, rotten at the core."

He shrugged. "Not so different from my own reputation. I won't make the same mistake I did last time." He was about to ask him another question when he felt a tug at his cuff. He turned an indulgent smile to the demon. His blood turned to ice in his veins and the jewel-bright of his eyes paled with fury.  The pressure in the club changed with the rise of his wrath before the warding magics in place dampened the effect.  He hardly noticed.

There was a woman with her hands on his demon.