#camcest

It’s late enough that Ward’s eyes are crossing as he fiddles at his desk, combing through papers and writing notes to himself for his meetings the next morning. He always preferred writing with a pen over keyboard, needing the tactile sensation of ink against paper to better commit things to memory. His office is mostly dark save for the warm yellow glow of his desk lamp, illuminating just enough for him to see across his desk. Rose is likely already asleep in bed, two Klonopin and a glass of wine escorting her to dreamland. Soon, Ward would follow his wife and crawl into their Merino wool and silk sheets, dyed a color he could never remember the name of that Rose just had to have. It is the feeling of his memory foam pillow beneath his ear that Ward is craving as he jots down a few more memos.

The creek of the door creeping open breaks the silence of the room. Ward doesn’t look up from his notes, seeing a flash of baby pink in his periphery and filling in the image of Rose’s satin robe. “I know, I know. I’ll be up to bed soon,” Ward says with a wave of his hand, imagining his wife’s chastising grin. Chardonnay always made her clingy if the pills didn’t knock her out first. Ward has a smile on his face as he looks up, that handsome grin of his that said he was a man that had it all together.

What greets him instead of his wife is Rafe.

Wearing a dress Ward almost certainly bought his daughter last year for her birthday party.

Ward’s son stands six-foot-two with long limbs that always reminded him of a lemur, his skin tan from being out doing God knows what every day. He’s pressed up against the back of the door with his hands folded behind his back, staring at his father with an expression Ward can only make out as maudlin in the dim light. The thin straps of Sarah’s dress are biting into the meat of his shoulders and the damn bodice barely stretches over his ribcage. The skirt is a pale pink gossamer, tulle maybe, and cuts off just above Rafe’s knees. The sight of him ignites disgust within Ward’s chest, but beyond that is searing disappointment. The kid had been a failure since birth and with age had only gotten more unpredictable. Cross-dressing in his sister’s clothes was par for the course, apparently.

“What the hell are you doing?” Ward asks with a grimace, pushing back from his desk before sighing heavily. He checks his clock before rubbing his brow. “I don’t have time for this, Rafe. Get the fuck out and go to bed.”

He casts a glance at Rafe that turns into a stare when he sees his son hasn’t moved an inch. Leaning onto his desk, he counters Rafe with a look that means business. But Rafe doesn’t move. He’s just standing there with that puppy-look that makes Ward sick to his stomach. “Sarah’ll kill you if you rip that dress,” Ward says with a low warning, giving the boy one last chance to get in line or suffer the consequences.

Like a gunshot Rafe pushes from the door, crossing the room in two unsteady strides before he’s around the desk and landing on his knees with heavy thunks that undoubtedly penetrate through the floor to the level below. He grabs at Ward’s knee and uses the leverage to turn Ward in his desk chair to face him. Bathed in yellow, Ward can see that Rafe’s eyes are all pupil, two black orbs staring up at him like dolls’ eyes. The effect is heightened by the long lashes that circle his eyes, thickened with mascara. There is rouge on his cheeks too, some kind of shimmery blush he no doubt stole from Sarah as well. Most obscene is the lipstick, a bright red smeared across Rafe’s lips.

“Jesus Christ, son.” Ward winces as he grabs Rafe by the jaw, turning his face into the light to examine the damage done. His lips curl in disgust as he looks away, blinking past the humiliation bubbling in his gut. He prays that this is just some bad trip, that Rafe mixed coke with something he shouldn’t and would forget all of this like a bad hangover, but then he feels hands running up his calves. Ward looks down, his eyes meeting Rafe’s, and past the high he sees ugly determination.

“Please, Dad. Just let me,” Rafe begs, his voice quiet and trembling as badly as his hands as they work their way up his father’s legs. Ward freezes, confusion and shock turning him rigid until finally his hands catch up with his brain. The urge to kick the kid like a hyper dog is ever present, but Ward opts to seize Rafe by his biceps and haul him up instead.

“The hell are you doing?” He asks through his teeth, his eyes nearly bulging as he tries to see his son past the haze of whatever he took and that goddamn makeup. Abomination. The word cuts like a blade through his mind, carving itself into whatever gland was meant to produce affection. “This isn’t funny, Rafe. Say something!” Ward shakes his son, recalling all the nights he had held the boy as a baby and sang to him until his squealing finally subsided and he could get back to sleep. All that effort, wasted on an ungrateful, thoughtless child.

But Rafe doesn’t stop. His hands are on Ward’s thighs now, grasping at the meat of his legs like he wishes to claw out chunks of his flesh through the fabric of his pants. The boy is shaking, his wide eyes wet with tears that smear the clumps of black stuck to his lashes. “Please, Daddy,” He gasps, and Ward flinches at the word. Only Sarah calls him that still. Rafe had grown out of it by the time his mother died. “I’ll be good. I promise to be good for you.”

The words shock Ward to his core and his breath hitches, escaping his lungs in a stuttering exhale. Slowly he releases his grip on Rafe’s arms, trying and failing to make sense of this. The kid’s sweating, he realizes, the scent of spun sugar heavy in the air. And crying. Rafe is crying as he looks up at his father, his hands now on Ward’s belt. The full grain leather slips from the buckle with ease, accompanied by the tinkling sound of metal. It’s not his son he sees before him, but for a moment it's her. Rafe always shared his mother’s coloring, that dark honey hair and eyes the color of sea glass. After it happened, during that short while Ward was alone, he had barely been able to look at his son. All he saw was what he had lost. That resentment had never been scrubbed away, even after Rose swept into his life and made Ward whole again. Why did Rafe get to live when he squandered every chance he was given? When he was nothing but a pitiful fuck-up, destined for prison or worse?

The thoughts send Ward grasping Rafe by the hair and bending forward to get in his face as he wrenches Rafe’s head back. “You disgust me.” Ward spits the words like venom. He smells vodka on Rafe’s breath, heady enough for Ward to feel buzzed as he shoves his son away. Rafe isn’t deterred, going now for the button and zip of his father’s pants. It’s happening. There’s no denying what Rafe intends to do as he slides down the pull of the zipper with a shaking hand.

“Good. I’ll be good,” Rafe whispers to himself, and Ward can’t tell if the boy is psyching himself up or still trying to convince his father not to intervene.

Rafe is all hands, running his fingers over Ward’s legs in massage-like circles. Ward’s curiosity is beginning to outweigh his shock as his own hands find the arms of the chair, gripping the cushioned rests until his own trembling subsides. How much is Rafe really like his mother? How far is he willing to go? Rafe was a coward as much as a fuck up, and Ward intended to win this game of chicken like he won at everything in life. “You want it? Take it,” Ward orders, waiting for his son to turn tail and run.

Ward isn’t aware that he’s half hard until Rafe pulls him out. The kid bends forward between Ward’s spread legs and licks him from root to tip, one long stripe on the underside that makes Ward hiss. He grows against Rafe’s tongue and forces his breathing to remain even as Rafe circles his hand around the base of him. Rafe's mouth is hot and wet as he pops the head into his mouth. Ward can feel every bump and groove of Rafe’s tongue and his stomach lurches, every logical neuron in his brain shooting sparks of pure terror.

This is happening. And it feels good.

Rafe is swirling his tongue around the head, flicking his tongue against the slit in a way that has Ward’s back arching as he braces himself with his iron grip on the arm rests. He lowers his head, taking Ward into his mouth inch by inch until Ward can see that Sarah’s dress is open in the back. Rafe hadn’t been able to do up the zipper and the fabric flaps like wings as his bird-like shoulder blades jut out. With every inch Rafe takes, he’s sucking harder, his hand twisting around the base like he wants to rip Ward from the root. The boy’s got a mouth like a hoover and Ward shuts his eyes, seeing her and smelling Sarah’s perfume. Rafe’s tongue is too much, too hot, and Ward releases one of the arm rests. He opens his eyes to stare down at his son as he takes him by the jaw, feeling his mouth work as he begins to bob back and forth, sucking Ward’s cock like he had been trained for it. He wipes away the drool that escapes Rafe’s plush lips before slipping his thumb inside, stretching his mouth to the side until he sees teeth.

Rafe opens his eyes and meets his father’s gaze, his lipstick smeared across his face. He looks filthy, like some back alley whore Ward found in the Cut. He expects to see hatred or fear in Rafe’s eyes, but all he sees is a half-lidded look of desire. Humiliation returns with a vengeance and Ward leans back in his seat, unable to meet the boy’s eyes any longer.

He wants to shove Rafe away, but he’s harder than he’s ever been for Rose inside that slick mouth. It would be one thing if Rafe wasn’t enjoying it, if this was just a punishment like all the other times Ward had cut him with words or taken away privileges that Ward had worked hard day and night tirelessly for. But this wasn’t a punishment; this was desperation.

“So fucking needy,” Ward groans, his thumb slipping out of Rafe’s mouth before snatching his hair again. He pushes Rafe forward, forces him to take it all until he feels himself smacking the back of Rafe’s throat. Rafe begins to gag, choking and sputtering against Ward’s crotch. His hands scatter to grip Ward’s legs again, tugging on his pants and digging his nails into the muscle. “You like this, don’t you? So, take it.” Ward bucks his hips into Rafe’s mouth, his breath heavy as his body warms, tightens. “Fucking take it.”

Rafe resists a moment longer before he breathes through his nose and his throat relaxes. He swallows down the head, allowing Ward to penetrate his throat to the hilt. Naturally, it takes a dick in his mouth for the boy to follow orders. Ward doesn’t have the ability to feel pride, too busy fucking up into that ruined mouth. It lasts for hours or seconds, Ward can’t tell, but then he’s shooting off and Rafe is drinking every thick drop that exploded against his tongue.

Ward’s orgasm rolls through him in waves, leaving him trembling and gasping for air. No sooner does he release his hold on Rafe’s hair than his son is pushing himself away, his chest heaving like he had been drowning. Ward looks down at him and is overtaken with the sense that he has spoiled the boy, that this is just one more mistake in a sea of regret. Reaching out, Ward wipes a smear of lipstick and cum from Rafe’s bottom lip before shoving hard at his shoulder.

“Get yourself cleaned up.”

~

He heard the shuffling of bedding behind him and realized that he was still standing in the middle of the room. He already felt her getting up and getting close.

“Just give me a minute,” he said and rushed into the adjoining bathroom, locking the door behind himself.

He walked over to the sink, heat was rushing through his body, so he turned on the faucet and splashed some cold water into his face. The water didn’t do anything; his mind wouldn’t come clear. His vision stayed blurry as he looked at himself in the mirror. He frowned and blinked, but he still felt that prickling sensation at the back of his skull. Like rough whispering voices scratching.

He sniffled and the urge to snort a line was growing. But he didn’t do that anymore. And it wouldn’t help, though he missed that sharp feeling. Everything was sharper then. Unlike now. The booze made him drowsy. Made everything dull. He was used to drinking a lot. So he needed a lot to get that numbing feeling that helped to silence the scratching.

His hands rested on the sides of the sink, arms stretched, he looked down, taking a deep breath. His hard stomach muscles flexing. He lowered his gaze further. He only saw the waistband of his boxers. He didn’t have to see more.

He’d been making out with the girl in the bed on the other side of the bathroom door, and it’d been nice and going well – until it wasn’t. He needed to get his head clear to get back into it. But those damn words kept crawling into his mind. “It’s you or him.”

He pressed the ball of his hand against the side of his skull.

“No, no, no, no.” He shook his head. “I’m the man now. This is my house.” Rafe glared at his own reflection in the mirror.

“You’re not a man. Just a boy. A little boy.”

The voice was so close, it made him flinch and turn. But there was no one there.

He pressed both his hands to his ears with such force that he drowned the humming bass coming from the party still going on downstairs, and all he heard was the pulsing beat of his own blood. He felt the world spinning and had to grab the sink for support. Panting he opened his eyes again, and lifting his head he saw himself in the mirror.

He just got out of the shower. His hair longer, the wet bangs clinging to his face. His face too boyish. Too pretty. His arms and legs too thin, too long. He grabbed a towel to dry his lanky body.

“I’d thought you’d grown into a man by now, but you’re still a little boy.”

Rafe dropped the towel. The voice of his father in the bathroom startled him.

“I – I didn’t hear you come in,” he stammered an excuse as he bent down to pick up the towel from the floor. But his father had already reached it before he could. Rafe’s gaze moved up at the man standing in front of him. His father was fully closed, wearing jeans and a short-sleeved shirt, showing his bare veiny arms. One of his hands held the towel. Rafe hesitated, then moved his own hand to reach for it, but his father kept holding it close to his body. So Rafe lowered his hand. His gaze moved up to look into the man’s face. He didn’t have to look up, they were the same height, he still felt like he had to put his head back as he looked into his father’s face. He tried to read in his expression, tried to figure out what the furrowed brows and widened pupils meant. His father’s eyes didn’t meet Rafe’s. Ward looked at his son’s naked body in front of him. Noticing his own nakedness and the lack of anything to cover it, Rafe was about to turn, when his father’s voice stopped him.

“It still hasn’t grown.”

Rafe felt the disappointment in his father’s voice, felt the reproach. Looking down at himself, looking at his flaccid dick and his shriveled balls, he opened his mouth, started to come up with an excuse, an explanation, as he felt that he owed him such.

“But it has. I swear it has. It’s bigger than those of most of the guys on the team.”

“You been looking at your teammates’ dicks?” Another voice, mocking and amused. Rafe shook his head. No, he hadn’t. He’d only been comparing. He had to compare to know, because the only other dick he’d ever seen was his father’s.

“Big? Do you hear yourself, Rafe? You’ll never be a man.”

“But I – it – I—” Pointless stammer left his mouth as he looked up at his father who stepped closer, and Rafe heard the clinking of the belt buckle, and he flinched at that familiar sound, drawing up his shoulders, attempting to stumble backwards, but his father caught his arm and his attention.

“This is what a man looks like. – Look at it.” Ward didn’t yell, he only raised his voice just a bit, enough to make Rafe follow his command. And he looked. And he saw his father’s hard cock sprung free from his pants. It was huge as it stood upright menacingly. It was thick and its veins were showing. It was an awe-inspiring sight. It was a frightening sight.

Rafe turned away, his whole body shivering. A terrifying sensation crawling beneath his skin. His hip bone hit the sink’s edge. And when he looked up, he saw his face in the mirror. Blue eyes brimming with tears. His lips trembling.

“Oh, boo-hoo! You crying like a little baby cause you’re afraid of Daddy’s big dick – or cause you want it?”

Rafe’s eyes moved to his left side, and he frowned at the face that grinned at him through the mirror, showing a gold tooth.

“What now? You want me to cuddle you and coo you and tell you, no need to be afraid of Daddy now you’re a man?” A dark chuckle. “He’s still inside your head.” Barry’s index finger poked against Rafe’s head, touched his close-cropped hair. “Always will be.”

“No, no, no, no, no.” Rafe violently shook his head and had to close his eyes as the world was spinning again.

When he opened them, the image of Barry was gone from the mirror. He breathed in through his nose. Closed his eyes and let the tears roll down his cheeks. Warm fingers caught them from his chin.

“It’s okay. I know you’re trying, son. You’re just not built for it. But I’m here. I’m here for you, son.”

Rafe’s lips parted, he felt the wetness on them, panting. A hand clasped around his shaft. Moving up and down in a terribly delightful rhythm as something pushed against his ass, parted the cheeks and pushed against the tense muscle. He gasped for air and with it a whiny noise left his mouth as his own finger pushed roughly inside him.

“This is it, my boy. You’re good, son.”

He was growing hard, and soon he could return and perform and act like a man. And fuck the girl in his father’s house. In his father’s bed. In his father’s sheets. And be the man.

Crack baby, you don't know what you want But you know that you're needing it And you know that you need it bad With wild horses running through your hollow bones

Ward’s eyes are bulging with terrified rage as he bursts through the front door of Castle Cameron with enough force to make the hinges scream. He storms through the house, searching for his only son with nothing but his thrashing pulse to guide him.

Daddy, it’s okay! It wasn’t a big deal. Please- Please don’t hurt him, okay? Please! Daddy, don’t!

The words echo in Ward’s head like a hammer against his skull. Sarah had come to him, bruised and bleary eyed and not making sense. None of this is making any sense and he is sick with it, his stomach lurching as he calls out his son’s name, howling the word until it ceases being a name and becomes a curse. Ward needs to know the truth. Needs to look in his son’s eyes and see his sin reflected there. It was the only way to untangle this, to accept it as reality and not some nightmare he has stumbled blindly into.

He finds Rafe in his room, watches his son bolt upright from his position at the foot of the bed and step backwards as Ward charges for him. He isn’t seeing his son right now, but the thing that had hurt his daughter. Zeroing in on his target, Ward snatches the boy by the jaw and surges forward with all his strength. Rafe is like a ragdoll, offering no resistance as he allows his father to pummel him smack into the wall. Ward is in his face, gripping the boy’s mandible as his other hand makes a fist to strike the wall a mere inch from Rafe’s head.

“What did you do!?” Ward bellows out from clenched teeth. His heart is bludgeoning itself behind his ribs, coursing hot blood through his veins as he looks in Rafe’s fear-struck eyes. “What the fuck did you do! Answer me!”

Ward strikes the wall again, leaving a dent in the plaster, and Rafe flinches. Ward can’t look at this piece of shit anymore and shoves himself away. Turning his back on his son, he runs a hand down his face as he pants against his palms. He wills his heart to calm down and his mind to sort its shit out. This is his son. There has to be an explanation. There has to be a logical reason why Rafe has done this. Turning to face Rafe, Ward stares at the boy.

The young man Ward taught to walk, to drive, and gave him his first beer is staring back at him, his chest hummingbird-quick with burgeoning hyperventilation. “She told you,” He says, his voice hollow and panicked all at once. He looks like a little kid, his six-foot-two frame shrunken, shriveled.

The words leave Ward breathless and his hands clench into twin fists. He feels himself go rigid as that fury simmers within him, his desperate calm thinning by the heartbeat. “How you have the audacity to say that to me right now, I don’t know.” Shaking his head, Ward never takes his eyes off Rafe. The boy slides down the wall, collapsing against the floor, and drags his hands through his hair. He tugs at the strands, hits himself. Ward feels nothing. Even when his gaze rises and he sees a second, large dent in the drywall left from where Rafe’s skull had slammed back into the plaster upon impact.

Silence stretches and Ward can tell Rafe is thinking of an answer, calculating honesty against the probability of punishment. Ward won’t hesitate to throw his son in prison for this, and Rafe knows it. This is his only chance to save himself. He’s shaking from the weight of it, his mouth open as he struggles to breathe. “What I tried to do to Sarah, I admit that it was wrong,” Rafe finally gasps out, the words slow and rehearsed. He had been planning for this confrontation, dreading it. “I know that, alright? So, you don’t have to remind me.”

Rage and disgust is quickly spinning into contempt and Ward steps forward. He doesn’t recognize his son and wants to rip him limb from limb as he would any man that dared to hurt Sarah, but Rafe beats him to it.

He begins to hit himself again, ramming his hands down against his skull to the point that even Ward flinches. Smack, smack, smack, go his hands, filling the room with a meaty clatter that turns Ward’s stomach inside out. A strangled cry escapes Rafe as he shoots to his feet, pacing in a daze as he begins to strike his chest, his arms. He’s imploding before his father has barely said a word and Ward can only watch. He’s frozen now, finding his son this undone so disgusting as to shock him where he stands.

“I should’ve never touched her,” Rafe says, that rehearsed tone completely gone now. He must be going off script, evident by how he vomits out the words in a fast, hysterical cadence. “I should’ve never touched her, but, you know, I just lose control in moments like that, and I- I don’t know what happened.” He presses the heels of his hands into his eyes, groaning like Ward has stabbed him. He stops pacing and bows over. For a moment, Ward thinks Rafe might actually puke, but eventually the boy straightens.

Their eyes meet. In Rafe’s gaze Ward sees the guilt he has been searching for, accompanied by shame and fear.

And anger.

And hate.

“She just,” Rafe chokes out. He swallows, and Ward sees the instant he makes a choice. “She just has everything, Dad! She’s young and beautiful and fucking--” Rafe shakes his head, the words clawing up his throat. Ward can see the struggle and the part of him that loves the boy Rafe used to be, so full of promise and hope, is suddenly aching to comfort him. “She does whatever she wants! And you don’t care! You never give a shit about anything she does! I get the lectures, the groundings! You threw me out of the fucking house, Dad!” Rafe is roaring now, smacking his chest like an ape claiming dominance. There is no remorse in his viscous stare, only vacant resentment. “You don’t care what that does to me! What she does to me!”

Rafe rushes forward to grasp his father’s shoulders, his hands on either side of Ward’s neck. Now it’s Ward’s turn to flinch, to tremble beneath his son’s hands as he gawks at the massive void before him. Rafe looks inhuman as his lips curl into a repugnant smile, chilling Ward to the bone.

“So, yeah. I touched her.” Rafe says, and behind that wall of nothingness Ward can almost feel Rafe’s shame again. He needs to touch it, cherish it, stoke it like fire until the monster is gone and his son has returned to him. Ward grips Rafe’s collar instead, though what he wants is to wrap his fingers around Rafe’s heart and see if it's still beating. “I wanted her. I wanted her to fucking pay. She doesn’t just get to do whatever she wants forever. There are consequences, right, Dad? You taught me that.”

Ward sucks in a breath, blinking back tears he hadn’t realized were streaming down his cheeks. He remembers every difficult talk, every warning slap upside the head. He remembers every push and shove, every kick and punch. He remembers having failed to raise his son right, so he had turned to his fists in the hope of carving Rafe into someone worth the effort of existence.