Hapi by Cari Waites

Jayden awokeas the chain rattled and the shed door was pulled open. A moment later Hapi loomed in front of the mattress, a darker shape against the gloom, and Jayden stared up at him. His heart pounded in his chest and blood roared in his skull.

Hapi crouched down and held out a sandwich.

Jayden took the food, wondering how long he’d been here now. Was anyone looking for him? Would anyone even notice that he’d gone? Only Barry, and what if Barry hadn’t bothered to knock on his cabin door to check he was okay after the power outage? What if he’d just assumed Jayden was still inside, reading and eating and dozing and waiting for the rain to end? There was nobody who would miss him—Jayden had always known that, but for the first time in years he felt the weight of it like new.

His eyes stung as he hunched over on the mattress and ate the sandwich. Ham and cheese again, as dry as yesterday’s. He ate it anyway, glad to have something. His stomach rumbled but not with hunger. He shifted uncomfortably.

“Eat,” Hapi said, “then I’ll take you back to the house to the toilet.”

Jayden nodded. He didn’t want to go back to the house, but he also didn’t want to have to shit in the shed.

The rain seemed lighter when Hapi escorted Jayden through it to the house. The dog was still sitting on the veranda, but there were no signs of the brothers. Jayden was glad. His bare feet left muddy footprints all the way to the bathroom.

He was surprised when Hapi let him use it alone.

The bathroom was small and poky. Jayden pissed in the stained toilet bowl and then sat, hating the idea that Hapi could hear him. He studied the room carefully.

A torn shower curtain hung from a rail around the old bath and shower. It was damp and mildewed. A half squeezed tube of toothpaste lay on the counter beside the sink. A cracked cake of soap sat beside the taps. There was a cabinet screwed to the wall beside the counter.

Jayden finished up, flushed, and then washed his hands. He glanced behind him at the door and quickly opened the cabinet. It was full of crap. Jayden reached for a torn open pack of cheap razors, pulling one out and sliding it into the waistband of his board shorts. He hoped it wouldn’t shake loose.

He couldn’t even say why he’d grabbed it. Instinct, maybe. The urge to reach for any advantage, even if he wasn’t sure what advantage the razor held. If he could get the blade out, maybe it was a weapon. Maybe it was an escape plan in the most existential sense instead, and Jayden shivered as he imagined pressing the blade to his wrists and cutting. But for now it was potential. It was an edge. And Jayden needed as many of those as he could get.

He twisted the tap off before he wiped his hands on his board shorts. The handle of the razor scraped the small of his back.

And then he thought of the tent peg, and how Hapi had punched him in the face.

A shudder ran through him, and he felt the razor slip against his damp skin.

He reached for the razor before he could second-guess the decision. He pulled it out of his waistband and set it back in the cabinet. He closed the cabinet and glanced at the bathroom door.

He froze.

Hapi was watching him through the gap, his dark gaze steady.

“I put it back!” Jayden exclaimed, retreating rapidly. The edge of the sink pressed into his lower spine as Hapi pushed the door open. “I put it back!”

“Shh.” Hapi pressed against him, a hand coming up to cover his mouth.

Jayden, his heart beating and panic clawing at his throat, heard the measured tread of footsteps on floorboards as someone walked down the hallway. One of the brothers. He stared at Hapi with wide eyes, unable to understand why Hapi hadn’t hit him. Why he was urging him to silence with a hand over his mouth instead of wrapped around his throat. This felt more dangerous than anything that had come before. This felt like Hapi was on his side, if only in this strange moment.

Hapi leaned in.

“Imsety,” he murmured, his breath hot against the shell of Jayden’s ear.

Jayden didn’t know if that was a warning, or an order, or… a name?

A sharp voice cut through the silence, in the language Jayden didn’t know. It was the brother with the scar, Jayden thought. The one who’d said it—Jayden—was all meat to him. He suppressed a shudder.

Hapi replied in the same language, his voice low and level, and the footsteps retreated back down the hallway toward the front of the house.

“If my brothers know you are still fighting,” Hapi murmured against Jayden’s ear, “then they will tear you into pieces when the time comes.”

Jayden’s breath shivered out of him. He swallowed. “Isn’t that what you’re going to do to me anyway?”

“Mmm.” Hapi’s mouth brushed the shell of his ear, and Jayden shivered. “But you will not hurt, if you give your breath to me. My brothers are not so gentle.”

“Are those my only choices?” Jayden asked, reaching back to grip the sink with his trembling fingers. “Torn apart, or torn apart without pain? You’re going to kill me whatever happens?”

He felt the curve of Hapi’s mouth against his ear. “You are already dead, Jayden.”

“But the dead can still hurt.”

Hapi hummed and reached down to press his palm against Jayden’s dick. “The dead can feel a lot of things.”

Jayden’s eyes fluttered shut as Hapi rubbed his dick into hardness, and his tongue traced the shell of his outer ear. He squirmed. “Hapi….”

“Give me your breath,” Hapi said. “Give me your breath, and you will feel no pain at the end.”

Jayden felt a sick thrill run through him, and pressed himself against Hapi’s hand. “Yes,” he said, while a voice in the back of his mind screamed at him. “Yes, I’m yours.”

* * *

Jayden had been drunk once,and it felt a little like this. Limbs both heavy and light at the same time. Numb. Unable to feel the ground under his feet. Aware, but also not. Existing not in the seconds, but somehow outside of them, like he was watching everything he did from behind a curtain of rain.

Hapi drew him into a bedroom at the back of the house. It was a small room, with white-painted walls and high ceilings, a ceiling fan, a sash window, a built-in cupboard, and a bed with a yellow cotton blanket on it.

Jayden had to make this count.

Whatever connection there had been between him and Hapi in the bathroom, when for a moment it had felt as though Hapi had been on his side, Jayden had to use that. He had to seize that connection and not let it go because, if he was going to live, then he needed Hapi to help him. Hapi had to break free of this crazy delusion he had about gods and judgement, and help him. And to get what he needed, Jayden had to make him want him, not just now and in the hard press of Hapi’s dick against his thigh as Hapi backed him toward the bed, but afterward, too. He had to want Jayden enough to fight for him to live.

Jayden’s only currency right now was his body, and he had no idea how to use it. He’d never…. Well, he’d exchanged a few hand jobs here and there, and a blow job once, but never anything more than that. He didn’t know how to make himself alluring, didn’t have a clue how to seize some kind of latent seductive power that had slept in him all this time, but he thought that maybe Hapi didn’t want that. Maybe Hapi just wanted to make him cry and to have Jayden promise him his breath. Hapi wanted him helpless, and Jayden supposed there’d be no acting at all involved in that.

Want me, he willed as Hapi pushed him backward onto the bed. Want me so much you save me.

The bedspread was softer than he’d thought it would be—nothing else about Hapi was soft—worn that way by time and use. Jayden dragged his fingers against the fabric, twisting them into the it. His dick was hard, and he wasn’t even sure precisely why, if it was the heated look Hapi gave him as he stood at the end of the bed. Was it the thrill of twisting this into something he could use, of being the one to take for once? There was a power in controlling a situation, and Jayden’s chest ached to feel it.

Hapi flipped him over onto his stomach and tugged at his boardshorts. Jayden lifted his hips to allow Hapi to pull his pants away, and Hapi gave a satisfied hum. A moment later, thick fingers pressed into the crease of Jayden’s arse, dry and probing.

Jayden gripped the bedspread again and squeezed his eyes shut, forcing down his rush of panic. It would hurt, he was sure, especially dry, but that was fine. He was choosing this. He was taking this moment, and he was owning it. He wasn’t a victim, not in these seconds, not when he’d decided otherwise. Because Hapi might hurt him, but Jayden was manipulating Hapi in return. He’d hold onto that thought, and it was powerful enough to see him through.

Hapi moved away, and Jayden heard the creak of the cupboard doors. Then the mattress dipped as Hapi knelt on the end of it. His touch was strangely gentle as he pushed Jayden’s legs apart.

Jayden’s knees scraped across the bedspread while he positioned himself.

Hapi slid a hand up his spine, bunching his T-shirt under his arms. Jayden risked a questioning look back at him, and when he saw no flash of rage in that dark stare, he straightened up long enough to pull his shirt off. Then, he waited on his hands and knees—naked—to be hurt.

Hapi hummed. His hand was warm on Jayden’s spine, his touch lingering to count every knot—up and down, and up and down. When he moved his hand to the top of Jayden’s spine again, he applied gentle pressure between his shoulder blades. Jayden folded his arms underneath him and followed Hapi’s touch down onto the mattress.

Hapi’s pillowcase smelled faintly of old sweat. The fabric was damp; everything here was damp.

Above them, the rain drummed on the tin roof.

Hapi said something in the language Jayden didn’t understand, and then there was a wet touch against Jayden’s hole. He forced himself to relax as Hapi pushed his thumb inside him and it was slick and slippery. Hapi’s knuckles pressed against Jayden’s taint as his thumb pushed in. Jayden moaned and shifted, trying to ease the sudden stab of discomfort. He felt strange and heavy again, his nerve endings sending contradictory messages that his brain couldn’t untangle. He didn’t know whether he needed to pull away to ease the sudden ache or push back. He shifted again, swallowing a confused whimper, and Hapi hummed. Then Hapi worked his thumb out and replaced it with two fingers. The stretch burned a little, and his fingers pushed deeper than his thumb had.

Jayden made a sound into Hapi’s pillow.

And then Hapi was withdrawing his fingers and replacing them with the hot, blunt tip of his dick.

Jayden’s breath shuddered out of him as Hapi pushed inside.

It hurt but not in the sharp way that Jayden had been expecting. It was an ache or a dull cramp. It was a space being opened up inside him where there was no room. He squeezed his eyes shut, tears leaking onto the pillow, and he tried to suck in a breath while Hapi made soothing noises from above him.

“H-Hapi,” he gasped, gripping the bedspread tightly.

Hapi continued to push.

And then the ache was a deep throbbing somewhere inside Jayden, and he couldn’t tell how badly it was hurting or even if it was hurting at all. It felt loud, too much noise in his head, even though he knew the loudest thing in the room was the rasp of breath.

Hapi curled one hand around Jayden’s hip and settled the other one on his shoulder, and Jayden realised that he was all the way inside. He moaned and shifted, trying to relieve the strange pressure, the not-quite pain, trying to transform it into something easier for his mind to process. He rubbed his dick against the bedspread.

The sudden spark of pleasure shocked him and compelled him to do it again.

Hapi laughed, a low, amused sound that vibrated through Jayden’s trembling body.

“Up,” he said, and for a moment Jayden didn’t know what he meant. Then Hapi was drawing him up and back, impaling him on his dick as he knelt behind him on the bed. The sudden shift in the angle made Jayden’s vision flare white for an instant.

He panted shallow breaths because there was no room inside him. No room for anything except Hapi.

“Shh,” Hapi murmured. He folded his arms around Jayden’s chest, and their sweat-slick bodies slid together.

Jayden stared at the wall, his head lolling and mouth open as Hapi rolled his hips and lit up every confused nerve ending in his body. It was too much. Too much.

Hapi slid one hand up his chest, his fingers splayed wide.

Jayden moaned and leaned his throat forward into the cradle of Hapi’s hand.

Hapi squeezed.

Jayden’s vision greyed out, and Hapi rolled his hips again. Jayden’s dick was hard, and he didn’t know how or why. Sensation boiled low in his gut, in his arse, and everything felt hot and tight. Abruptly, his body ceased to exist. His universe vanished too. There was nothing but pleasure, dark waves of it drowning him and roaring in his skull, and Jayden was dashed to pieces against the rocks.

A breath brought him back, shuddering on Hapi’s dick. Hapi let him take in air, let him suck it into his lungs, and then Hapi squeezed his throat again.

Jayden was dying or living, and he couldn’t tell the difference. His head throbbed and so did his arse and his dick. His pulse boomed as it fought against the too-tight confines of his body. His chest tightened. His limbs shook.

Black again and then back again.

Jayden opened his eyes to find himself flat on his back with his legs hooked over Hapi’s shoulders. Hapi fucked him hard. His stomach was wet with cum, and his body was shaking with the after-effects of having orgasmed or having come back. He didn’t know. All he knew was that he was floating.

“Good,” Hapi said as Jayden blinked up at him and wheezed. “Good boy.”

Jayden’s body was jolted with every thrust. His head bounced on the mattress. He lifted a shaking hand and laid it against Hapi’s cheek. Widened his eyes when Hapi turned his face and sucked his thumb into his mouth.

He cried out when Hapi bit down, and his dick jerked even though he didn’t come again.

Hapi grunted, hips juddering as he came, and then he lowered himself down onto Jayden and pressed their mouths together. The kiss tasted of blood. Jayden’s thumb throbbed along with the rest of his body.

“Good,” Hapi said again, and the word sounded like a groan.

Jayden stared at the ceiling and traced patterns against Hapi’s sweaty back.

Want me, he willed. Want me more than them.Save me.