Santana Lux was one of the most powerful men in the world.
His was the story everyone lovedâ of an underdog, an orphan with nothing to his name, who carved his way to the top to become a force in the world not to be reckoned with. He was the everyman the common folk aspired to be and the shining example of rags to riches Hollywood made movies of. Everyone was suspected of something, but, for the most part, Santana was popular among the public, and his tech company benefited well from it.
Of course, the story they printed about him in magazines and broadcasted in documentaries was a lie. But he had never lied to Lucius. He just never told him the whole truth.
He did grow up in an orphanage, which Lucius knew because they grew up together from practically diapersâ at least until a mysterious servant came to pick him up. That servant, Cerbastian, was a part of an equally mysterious cloak-and-dagger cult, and it wasn't until he was in high school that he learned why the cult adopted him.
He was the devil.
At least, they thought he was.
The Lords of Evil Macabre Omens and New Sanctities, or LEMONS for short, were the proprietors of the New World, and they believed Santana was their leader. According to them, he was the Biblical Anti-Christ of revelations; honestly, Santana didn't believe in the Bible or the devil or anything, but if it meant all he had to do to be rich and influential was to participate in a few silly rituals and play along then he was willing.
Did they really have to be so corny, though?
"Bring in the sacrifice!"
Santana rolled his eyes as men in black robes entered the Sanctum, carrying a woman in white above their heads. The four cloaked members at the same long table as him began to chant, and soon the entire room was echoing with Latin. Their high and mighty leader did not chant with them. All he could muster in response to their display of lavish gowns and glorified placeholder-text chanting was an unenthusiastic plop of his shoes up on the table.
"Damn, she's heavy," a voice under the chanting grumbled.
"Don't slow down, I'll trip!" Another voice.
Soon a low clamoring rippled across the underbelly of the chant, until they suddenly broke formation. The united chorus transformed into yelps and hisses as the men in robes tripped on themselves, dropping the woman in white onto the ground. The woman cried out from the fall as she rubbed her backside and complained.
Santana rubbed his temples. These were the assholes responsible for the Satanic Panic back in the days? It seemed like a far stretchâ even as the man in red robes beside him stood from his seat and scolded his congregation for their clumsiness.
"You fools! You shame us in front of our lord!" He rebuked them.
"Yeah, yeah," the woman in white grumbled, picking her ear with her pinky. She glanced at him in the corner of her eyes and smirked. "Your flies undone."
The hands of the man in red robes shot down in front of his crotch, finding nothing but the soft velvet of his robes. He furrowed his brows. Roaring at his subordinates, he stomped around the long table after them and sent them back out into the hall to regroup and redo the ritual. He slammed the door behind them then and turned back to Santana with a gracious clasp of his hands.
"My liege. Please forgive them," the man pleaded. "They are still learning. I swear by our kingdom come, they will have it perfected." His voice simmered into a low growl as he glared at the door and the noise beyond it. "Or may you smite them..."
"Mammon," Santana began, leaning as far back in his chair as it would allow. he chose his words carefully. "Do you have any proof of me being the devil?"
The man in red robes stood up straighter and eyed him quietly for a moment, and in those silent seconds Santana at once wondered if he had overstepped. They may have been idiots, and it was next to impossible that he was some mythical devil, but the money and power they provided was something tangible. If they stopped believing in him, he wondered how far his own notoriety would take him.
Fortunately for him, he didn't have to think on that for very long before Mammon rested his hands in front of his chest and bowed.
"Of course, Sire," he replied, an inch away from incredulous. "It is written: He will not follow the faith of His fathers. He will think of Himself as greater than god," he explained. Then, he raised his brows and winked. "He will not desire women."
Santana snorted and sat up from his chair then. Gathering up his things, he sauntered around the table for the exit and wrapped a powerful arm around the older man's neck. The rest of the men at the table rose and bowed on their knees as he made his way to the door.
"That is all true," Santana entertained him, "but that description could fit just about any city boy these days. What really makes me special?"
"Why, my liege, you should already be aware of your gifts," Mammon replied. They left the door, stepping over the men in robes wrestling on the floor below. The old man interlocked their arms as he grew more enthusiastic. "Your ability to charm any person with your charisma and charm, the uncanny luck, your unusual strength and staminaâ"
"You see? Other than strength and stamina, you could've just as easily been describing Donny Trump. Just need to add a three inch penis," Santana teased.
"No, my lordâ well, some believeâ"
"I guess what I mean to say is that I'm waiting for something with more... Pizzazz, you know?" Santana explained. "Can I turn my head 360, summon an army of demonsâ do I have a lizard tongue hidden somewhere? 'Cause that would all be super practical in a super devil orgy."
"You're starting to sound like Asmodeus," Mammon muttered, looking away for a moment. He shook his head. "No, my dawn, it is nothing so trivial as parlor tricks. Yours is the most supreme power, and it will soon begin to awaken. The signs appear now at an alarming rate. All we wait for is the first trumpet."
Santana chuckled and rubbed the old man on his shiny bald head. They were crazy old fools, but they were committed to their lunacy, and, if it weren't for them, he wouldn't be able to give Lucius the life he deserved. He supposed playing along wasn't so bad.
The men emerged from the other side of red curtains through the corridor. Their cult hideout was in an a top secret abandoned bowling alley, just across the street from a middle school. It wasn't a difficult task for the friendly neighborhood Satanists to make their way across the smooth wooden floors to the exitâ so long as they remembered to avoid the spirit boards and amateur hex dolls the kids left them over night. On the way out, Santana's phone gave a buzz in his pocket.
His heart fluttered when he read the name on screen.
"Did you get it?" He asked.
"Yeah..." Lucius chirped on the other end. "How do you always know when I forget to eat?"
"You always forget to eat."
"True," Lucius laughed.
Santana could hear the clicks of his keyboard in the background, a sound that brought the image of him in the study immediately to mind. He could see him sitting in his hammock, on top of all his little animal-shaped throw pillows, with his laptop on his lap. The way his fragile little fingers so expertly danced across the keyboard, even when his eyes and thoughts were far away, and how whenever he talked to him on the phone he would turn his head just slightly and rock his fit back and forthâ it was a beautiful movie that played in his head.
His own finger found its way to a curly black lock as he listened to his lover's little idiosyncrasies over the phone. He didn't know how he did it, but he was sure that even if they were in the middle of an apocalypse, Lucy could find a way to soothe his soul.
"Oh, hey," Lucy spoke up again.
Santana made his way down the street toward the towering glass skyscrapers. The coming commuting crowd avoided the large man fluttering down the street with his pink face pressed tightly against his phone, knowing that if they didn't make a path for him then he would run straight into them for lack of attention. Mammon, by then, had found his carpool and taken off into the enigmatic void; it was best that whenever they finished their rituals and Santana went to work that they separatedâespecially as his face became more notorious.
"Lillie is coming back from Europe on the 5th. She's finishing up her tour," Lucius hummed. "She wants to take us to dinner."
Santana rolled his eyes; that was a name he hadn't elected to hear for some time, at least.
Lillie D'Eden was a world famous pop-metal singer, a single femme-fatale that made a splash with her Bisexual Panic album. They met her during a environmental conference, and she and Lucius instantly hit it off. Lillie often offered cheap displays of affection to his husband to keep up their friendshipâ but take them to dinner? Yeah right. Lillie didn't do anything for anyone unless it meant that she received something in return, and that was absolutely not his jealousy clouding his judgment.
"She can't stay with us," Santana denied him before he could even ask. Lucius clicked his tongue and sighed.
"Come on, Annie, she's running low on funds right now and needs somewhere to stay," he whined. "It won't be for long, just a few days. I promise."
"Low on funds? She just got back from a world tour," Santana protested.
"Annie..." Lucy sang sadly.
Santana muted the phone and growled as he entered the Lux Tower; his doormen cleared the way for him to stomp through with dramatic swings of his arms with the phone. He quickly settled back down when he entered the private elevator on the other side of the lobby. By the time the phone was off mute, he softened and forced a smile over the phone.
"Lucy, dear-sweet-little-rosy love of my life," Santana reminded himself. "I love you agonizingly, but that stupid bitch is not sleeping under the same roof as me."
"Santana!" Lucius huffed. "She's my best friend. I can't just kick her to the curb."
"No, she's justâ" Santana began.
He swallowed his words for a moment and reset himself.
'She's just trying to sleep with meâ' was what he wanted to say, but, while it was absolutely true, he couldn't do that to Lucius. Neither of them had very many friends growing up, and when they became famous they had even fewer. When Lucius met Lillie, she became a big sister figure to him, and it made him so happy to have someone he could bond over stupid TV shows and celebrity news with.
Except, he knew Lillie was only using Lucius to get to him. She made it obvious every time they were together that she wanted to sleep with him, whether Lucius was there or notâ not that he caught on or noticed. Of course he didn't. Lucius was the sun, and Santana was the moon that tuned to every dark desire and shady goings-on.
Santana knew himself and Lucy enough to know that they were two sides of a beautiful coin; they were sealed together, complemented each other, but they were complete opposites. Santana was serious business, practical, and aside from Lucy he only really saw others as objects to be used. Lucius, however, had a sticky heart that glued itself to everything it touched. His love gushed out of him uncontrollably, and he funneled that overwhelming love through television and art and music.
It was just impossible for Santana to love both Lucy and all the things that Lucy loved. He couldn't do both. He loved Lucius beyond eternity, and Lillie at least pretended to like the same stupid pointless dribble that Lucius liked. He supposed if it meant making his husband happy, it was worth enduring the pop princess's antics. Besides, it didn't matter how much she threw herself at him; his hellhound only drooled for one piece of meat, and that was Lucius.
Thick, juicy piece of meat...
Santana closed his office door behind him and leaned against it with a sigh as he wiped the corner of his mouth. He shut his eyes, imagining a pouting redhead swinging his angry little legs over the edge of their bed as they talked. He smirked. Taking the phone away from his ear, he flipped through the screen until his finger hovered over the video chat button. One quick look in the mirror, a flick of his curls, and a hop into his chair, and he finally clicked the button.
Lucy stopped in the middle of his nagging and sighed. He accepted the request, and soon the phone lit up with with his pouting face. Santana grinned and cocked his head, flashing his most charming face at the most beautiful pair of eyes he'd ever seen. It broke his poutâ because neither man could stay mad at the other when they made such goofy faces.
"I miss you," Santana told him, running his thumb over his face.
Lucius blew his curly red locks out of his face and tilted the phone up for a moment to hide himself. Santana grumbled at him for moving, but, when he returned, that grumble soon turned into a purr deep in his chest.
Lucius had taken off the jacket he'd stolen from him, leaving him in a sleeveless tank top. Santana whistled at him and begged him to take more layers off, but Lucius only blushed and waved him off. He hardly got naked in person. It was a slim chance in the fat casino that he would undress for him on camera. Still, even just the thought of it had him sweating in his seat.
"Annie, I haven't seen Lillie in six months," Lucy tried again, resetting himself with a breath. "Please just let her stay with us for a little while. She's my only friend."
"Tell you what," Santana finally relented, adjusting himself. "If you strip for me, she can sleep in the patio."
Lucius's face burned scarlet.
"Annie!"
"Okay, okay, she can sleep with Cerbastian."
Growing fed up with his teasing, Lucius swallowed back his embarrassment and stood up from his bed to set the phone down on the dresser in front. As Santana watched him, salivating as he adjusted his dress pants, Lucy crawled back onto the bed and hid underneath the blanket. A moment passed, the blanket bobbing around with his tossing and turning, until he suddenly popped his head out again.
Lucy layed back against the headrest with the blanket pulled just up to the beginning of his shoulders, but his clothes were missing. His face was flushed as he batted his eyes at the drooling camera. Santana panted at the image and caught his bottom lip between his teeth before he could choke on his tongue. He swallowed.
"If you're gonna be that way, then I'll just stay home, sad and lonely."
"Take the blanket off," Santana purred. Lucius shook his head and raised the blanket higher. "Goddammit, Lucy..." He wheezed. He unbuckled his belt and ripped his zipper down, hoping to alleviate some of the sweltering heat coursing through him. "I swear to you, when I get home, I'm gonna fuâ"
"Sir, your 10â" A young woman's voice called as the door to the office suddenly threw open.
Santana burst up from his chair and chucked the closest notebook to him at the door. The young woman, whom he recognized as his secretary, shrieked with apologies and slammed the door shut as Santana fixed himself, frantically warning her to knock whenever she came in. By the time he turned back to his phone, the call had already ended, and that was probably the biggest punch in the dick he'd ever received in his life.
He sighed and leaned back in his chair for a moment. As he glared at the ceiling, he could still see the image of his husband's shouldersâ and his memories filled in what the blanket dared to keep from him. He groaned, the sound startling him back up from his chair; he couldn't shake this one off, he quickly realized as he strode toward the door. He needed relief.
Pushing passed the young woman still waiting outside, he dismissed her on his way down the hall to the private bathroom before shoving the door open and slamming it behind him. Shaky hands gripped the sink. He glanced up at the mirror mounted on the wall at his eye-level and swallowed.
God, he was an ugly bastard, he chuckled, showing his teeth in the mirror as he shook off his coat. Ever since he started dressing and grooming himself like them, like what the public liked. He looked like an absolute tool. He laughed at that thought and let out a shaky breath. Those hands that held the sink were once around Lucius's wrists and hips and other delicate fleshy parts of that beautiful sculpture.
Shit.
Lucius could really get him unhinged. Especially recently. Maybe it was the onset of his mid-twenties, but his mind had been consistently lodged between wanting to crack their bed open with his husband underneath him and wanting to squeeze every inch of him lately; there was no in-between.
Santana got himself going before he even realized it, buried under the crushing flashes of sweat and phantom sensations. He dropped his shoulders and dragged a breath from his lips, leaning his entire weight on the sink in front of him as it shook against the wall.
When he finished, he washed his hands of the deed and hid the evidence in a wastebin by the toilet, on top of a few more discarded evidences. He opened the door. His heart caught itself in the point of his ribcage, stabbing him as he jolted back at the figure on the other side.
"God watches all, you know."
The judgment came from a middle-aged man with a full head of wavy blond hair. His gray eyes pierced right through his soul as he stood there, staring at him, and, for a moment, a visceral instinct to punch the man across his face overcame him. He swallowed it down, however, and furrowed his brows.
"Who the hell are you?"
"Your 10 o'clock," his secretary chirped.
It wasn't often that Santana met anyone that was as tall or as naturally broad as himself. It also wasn't often that he met anyone bold enough to stare him down without fear of being throttled. That wasn't a challenge he appreciated having to answer. The smarmy bastard was too confident in a place that wasn't his. He gave him the impression of a rich kid, whose dad owned everything his feet touched.
"Who's this asshole?" Santana barked at the woman. She swallowed and flinched at his harshness.
"G-Gabriel...? He said you grew up together?" The woman replied.
Santana slowly dragged his eyes back to the blond man and raised a heavy brow at him. The man raised his hands away from side. Santana swallowed, anticipating every move he could have possibly made in those draining seconds passing like hours the higher his hands rose. Then, the man outstretched his arms out completely and tackled him.
Who was this huge man? And what did he want from him?