The Demon's Head

By: Lexalot

lexalot_luthor@yahoo.com

Summary: Evil is something you learn.

Rating: NC-17

Pairing: Bruce/Dick, Bruce/Ra's, implied

Disclaimer: I will use and abuse and they will go right back to the way they were before, no harm done :)

Inspiration and Reference: This idea was inspired by casting and plot details from the new film in production, "Batman Begins".


The Demon's Head
By Lexalot
***

The halls held a silent presence. Dark and stealthy. And as Bruce walked down the corridor with Dick close behind, Bruce's senses told him to be alert. The slight difference in the air, an almost imperceptible change in thickness, was too subtle for Dick to detect at his level of training.

Bruce wondered why he was bothering to teach Dick this dangerous trade. It still felt like a chore and a burden to have Dick following him out into the night, and Bruce knew he would never become accustomed to having company on his patrols. His personal life, his real and private personal life, was mixing with his clandestine one, his personal crusade. His true purpose was becoming a shared one, and he wondered if he had been genuinely prepared to share it. And if Dick was ready to share the burden. He doubted that Dick was ready for this world and its evils. Dick was only seventeen, but he was learning fast. Too fast. And Bruce knew it would take a while to get used to having a partner in this. To Dick becoming Robin as Bruce had become Batman.

They continued on their way through the manor. Day was breaking. And Bruce knew Dick was feeling the exhaustion of the battles they had fought this night. The path to their bedrooms was long, and the shadows had eyes. Bruce felt the weight of their gaze. As they passed through a gallery, Bruce halted, and Dick nearly walked into him before realizing that Bruce wasn't moving.

"What?" Dick's voice was half sleepy, half confused.

Bruce remained frozen for a few seconds longer, and then turned. His eyes found focus beyond Dick and his expression dulled. "Hello, Ra's."

Dick turned to look behind him and saw a mature man with foreign features standing behind him, having seemingly materialized from a hole in space. The man was dressed fine clothing to excess and carried himself with a regal posture.

"Bruce." The intruder smiled knowingly, wickedly, leering at Bruce in a manner that was implicitly indecent. "You look terrible." His complacent smirk would suggest he thought otherwise.

Dick squinted, an annoyed and unimpressed expression on his face. "Who the hell are you?"

A small burst of laughter erupted from the stranger, his amusement as pompous as everything else about him.

Bruce's voice was vaguely chastising. "Dick."

"You don't have this one broken yet, Bruce?" The man's accent was sharp, his speech eloquent, and his words like poison mixed with nectar. "Have you forgotten everything I taught you?"

The young ward turned to his guardian, his irritation and impatience peaking. "Bruce, who is this asshole?"

Glacial blue eyes never wavered from the invasive presence that was this man. "This is Ra's Al Ghul. He was a sensei of mine."

"How cold a description!" Mock offense resonated in the cavernous gallery. There was a transparent mask of humanity over his insidious expression. A smile on a snake. He approached Dick slowly, as his focus shifted to the boy full of heat and subdued anger. "What I taught Bruce was so much more than can be told." An exotic and powerful charm clung to the man, the shroud of it nearly obscuring the vile energy he radiated. As he came closer to Dick, the boy stood his ground. "I'm sure I could instill discipline in you." Ra's watched in contentment as Dick's eyes narrowed in revulsion. "My techniques worked very well on Bruce."

Suddenly there was a wall between the two of them. Bruce had stepped directly in the way of Ra's and blocked Dick from the man who was bearing down on him with a sadistic glint in his black eyes. Bruce's eyes were ice and his voice became stone. "Lay one finger on him and you'll find yourself at the bottom of a very deep cave." Bitterness. Resentment shaped his jagged tone more than any trite possessiveness. Bruce was acting more protective than he did when they were in the field fighting. A loathsome vulnerability was exposed in that, and Bruce knew it. Worse, Ra's surely knew it too. "What do you want, Ra's? Or did you just come here to reminisce?"

A smile cracked on his thin lips. "As much as I would love to recount old times, I come on a matter of business. The men you attacked tonight were mine."

White fire lit behind Bruce's frozen stare, and he bit out his words. "Why am I not surprised?"

"Because you know me, Bruce. And I know you." The statement was heavy with revolting implications. "You don't want to go to war with me." The threat was in his words but not his tone, and everything about his demeanor was composed and confident.

"I'm not intimidated by you, Ra's. You've lost your advantage." His voice reduced to a growl. "I'm not a fifteen year-old boy anymore."

His response was a proud grin, as if rising to accept a challenge. Fiendish eyes drifted over Bruce's shoulder to the beautiful young man behind him. "Bruce is an excellent lover, is he not? I know. I am the one who schooled him in that art." This was Ra's picking up the gauntlet and smacking Bruce in the face with it. A weakness exploited. Like any predator would not hesitate to do.

"There was nothing artful to your teachings in that area, Ra's."

The man studied Bruce's rigid expression and the contained animosity glaring back at him. "You seemed to take enough pleasure in it."

Bruce did not falter, managing to cool his raging temper before it could boil. "I suggest you leave the way you came. Before you're forcibly removed."

Ra's gave Bruce a wry smile. "Tread carefully, my friend." He lingered a moment longer and then turned, moving with such speed and grace with his cloak billowing behind him that he appeared to glide across the floor. Before being swallowed up by the shadows of the hall, Ra's paused and glanced back at Bruce. "If you cut off a demon's head, another will grow back in its place."

In the blink of an eye, he vanished without a trace. No footsteps could be heard, and no wretched hint of his presence remained.

Bruce stared into the dark emptiness. "You're staying with me tonight. With him on the loose, I want you in my sight at all times."

* * *

The large bedroom was dimly lit by the coming dawn. Everything painted blue by the early morning light that filtered through a small opening in the drapes. The contours of Dick's androgynous body became valleys of darkness, pools of shadow. Bruce's tongue explored those hidden pockets of skin, licking around the sections of skin that glowed with blue light. Dick's breaths deepened, but Bruce could not tell if it was out of passion or anxiety.

Finally words came, definite unease about them. "You let that guy fuck you?"

Bruce paused. 'Let' wasn't necessarily the word he would use. 'Fuck' however... "I was young and I was his pupil." His voice drained of color until there was only gray. "It was part of the lesson."

It was obvious by Dick's disgust that he didn't understand. "Well, if fucking and learning go hand in hand, then what are you trying to teach me, Bruce?"

"The difference." He spoke his answer into Dick's chest. Over his heart. It made Dick quiver.

Bruce backed along the lean body underneath him. His hands dragged down over Dick's ribs until they settled on his slender hips. Concealed by the shadows, Dick didn't see Bruce's mouth open to take in his balls and the sudden shock made him jump an inch off the bed. Bruce urged him back down with his hands, as he closed his mouth gently around the sack and sucked. His tongue swirled around the skin as he let it slip from his mouth.

Before Dick had a chance to recover, the silky and wet tongue slicked a trail up the vein of his cock. When Bruce reached the tip, his licked back and forth across the slit. He moved to take the head into his mouth and Dick lifted off the bed, plunging his length into Bruce's throat. Bruce quickly adjusted to draw Dick's sex in all the way to the base. He began with a faint suction and gradually sucked harder, easing down the shaft and then all the way back up it again. He felt the heat of Dick's cock start to pulse, and he drew back, quickening his rhythm as his lovely young companion came. Bruce tasted the thick fluid that gushed onto his tongue and swallowed as it trickled down his throat.

As Bruce crawled up the boy's body, his erection dragged along the inside of Dick's thigh, coming to rest against his abdomen. Bruce hovered, his eyes blazing, burning his desire into Dick. A hand wrapped around Bruce's cock and worked the taut flesh with long, eager strokes. Another hand roamed over Bruce's chest, rubbing his fingers over the nipples and feeling the hard muscles that bulged as Bruce thrust into Dick's hand. Dick tightened his grip as much as he could and jerked furiously. His grasp weakened slightly as his hand started to cramp but he kept up the frantic pace. Nothing came easy. Certainly not Bruce.

A feral groan escaped Bruce's lips and he felt his heart pound in his chest. Streams of white shot out across Dick's stomach, a few ribbons of come reaching as far as his neck. The older man's sex began to soften, and Dick slowly released it and stretched his hand. Bruce laid on his back next to his youthful lover, and Dick's eyes traveled over his naked body.

The light in the room had grown brighter now, and Bruce could see Dick's eyes catch on every dark patch of bruised flesh, every blemish upon his abused skin. Dick most likely had not realized how much of a beating Bruce had taken tonight. Bruce didn't want Dick's pity, but he knew it was there anyway.

"Did he hurt you?" Dick avoided Bruce's eyes, and he gulped down something that was probably anger. And Bruce knew he was talking about Ra's again.

Callous, distant. No stir of emotion in him. He spoke as if the pain had befallen someone else. "I wanted to hurt."

His brow twisted in knots. "Why did you let him do that to you? Why did you even let him touch you? What did you gain from it?" Dick made no mystery of how much this puzzled and bothered him.

Bruce was bathed in ache and sweat. Dirty when he was once clean. "I got inside the demon's head."



END