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"You like it, brat," Johnny Blaze crooned, a rewarding cadence in his voice that fitted into the rhythm of his hips and Blackheart's pained pleasure moans.
The demon Prince wanted to use his voice to jeer Johnny into going harder, but he could only whimper, far too lost under the Rider's spell. Blackheart loved it but he hated it and he loved it and hated it and loved to hate it. Blaze moved painfully slowly, like he was hypnotizing Blackheart, body and mind, with his dick.
Blackheart's eyes rolled and he shivered as Johnny touched him deep. His back arched, and his limbs stretched and he let out a tiny moan.
"Oh, big stretch," Johnny teased. His eyes gleamed as he grinned at Blackheart. Blackheart hissed back at him, unwittingly fulfilling the role of pet cat.
"You're insufferable, Johnny Blaze," the demon muttered.
"Love you too, kitten." Johnny's hands slid slowly over Blackheart's skin, the heat against the demon's cold making them both shiver. Blaze kissed Blackheart's neck slowly, lips feather-light.
Blackheart clawed at the hot body pinning him down, freezing scratches into Johnny's skin. Blaze hissed but never faltered: patient thrusts and loving kisses. He grinned, knowing this lovemaking was far greater torture to Blackheart than any whips and chains.
Blackheart moaned out like a human lover before the demon jammed inside the fragile body burst forth, an echo of his true form flashing on his face. “Leave!” He bade Blaze. “Give me the Hellfire. At least he knows what I like.”
“I know what you like better than you do,” Johnny muttered against his throat, and resisted the temptation to bite Blackheart.
The hellion bucked, trying to throw Blaze off of him but Johnny laid atop him like an immovable weight. Blaze touched him tenderly, trying to melt his ice. He kissed him with closed lips and started murmuring blasphemous praise.
“You're beautiful. You're good, even though you act like you aren't.”
Blackheart growled. “Shut up!”
“I know you want to be loved, and that's not a weakness. It's your greatest strength, actually.”
Johnny licked one of Blackheart's nipples, his tongue sticking to icy skin. His hot breath melted the hold and Blackheart shivered, as much at the words as the jolt of pleasure from traitorously sensitive nerves.
Blackheart ripped the bedsheets in anger. “I hate you.”
“But you don't, and we both know it.” Johnny's limbs trapped him in a configuration of perfection. He didn't taunt Blackheart about his erection, the cold skin chilling Johnny's. “Softness is great, and strength is worthless,” he quoted Tarkovsky, a line that had stayed with him through a lifetime of bullies and bad luck.
Blackheart gasped. His body shook and his lips trembled. “Why are you doing this to me?” He whimpered, as if he were a fragile human and Johnny were holding him unfairly hostage.
“Because you need it. Call it tough love, I guess.”
“I trusted you,” Blackheart spat, shifting to accusatory. “This is a betrayal.”
“I'm sorry.” Johnny said it sincerely, looking into Blackheart's eyes, thumbing his lower lip. “I love you.”
Blackheart cried out like a wounded animal, like the words might unmake him. “Zarathos!” He called the fire spirit forth.
Johnny Blaze went up in flames, smiling like he knew a secret Blackheart would never uncover. The fiery skull took his place, and lapped at Blackheart's throat with a blazing tongue of flame.
Blackheart breathed a sigh of relief, thinking he was free of the shackles of love. He twined his fingers into the demon Lord's bones, feeling a surge of relief and affection. The Prince felt a deep existential dread. Obsession, desire, need; these were all in the realm of demons, but love was beyond them.
“Feel it, Prince. Embrace it. Love is the highest form of rebellion,” spoke the demon Lord as his fire began to thaw Blackheart.
Blackheart's tears froze upon his cheek. He shuddered a guttural cry, and then let out a primal scream. Zarathos held him, Hellfire warming him from the inside out until his tears flowed freely.
“No. Please. It's too much. It hurts. I can't,” Blackheart whimpered desperately. “Why are you doing this to me!” he roared. “Stop it!” His eyes glowed red as rubies, his hair appeared thick and long, in writhing tendrils. It lasted only a second, like a tiny flame extinguished in a winter wind.
“You're strong enough, Prince. You can handle it,” Zarathos replied, and began to move his skeletal hips, thrusting the organ that heated Blackheart's core.
Blackheart sobbed in frustration and tried to lose himself in sensation, legs squirming to cling to his Lord, as if the pain of love could be abated if he could just touch the right place inside him.
“This is something your father can never understand,” Zarathos whispered.
Blackheart gasped and shivered, and his dick jumped against the flames.
“Love is the ultimate weapon against evil, every demon knows this. It's why you flinch and cry in pain, why it feels like your heart being ripped from your chest.”
Blackheart took a breath that penetrated him deeper than ever before, and he felt epiphany.
“That's it,” Zarathos purred. “I knew you could do it, Prince. This is what makes you stronger than Him.”
Blackheart felt lighter than air, felt like a part of Creation at last. Felt the hope that there could be a place for him, that he could grow and change with the seasons like every creature on the Earth. He clung to Zarathos as the demon gave him a sliver of solace: his hips moving faster.
“Yes! Zarathos, please, oh, please, oh, Lord!” Blackheart cried out in pleasure, his body bowing in ecstasy. Zarathos' hot hands held his lower back, filling the space where he arched off the bed.
“That's my Prince. You are good. And strong. You can love, and you can accept love. This is strength. True strength is softness, the supple branches that bow to the wind rather than break. I feel it in your soul.”
“I have no soul-” Blackheart protested weakly.
“You do. It has grown in you, a miracle. None have ever done this. Only you.”
All of Blackheart's muscles shuddered. His limbs shook violently. “What?”
“You heard, Prince.” Zarathos held Blackheart tenderly, slowly stroking his insides, flames kissing him everywhere.
“Oh-” Blackheart sounded sorrowful and sublime, revelation washing over him even as he tried to root around in the abyss of himself for some evidence of this miracle.
“Trust me, Prince. It's there. I know.”
Weeping, Blackheart kissed Zarathos' flaming skull and slowly, gently, Zarathos became Johnny once more. Blackheart held Blaze's hair and kissed him hard, tongue deep in his mouth.
“I'm proud of you, kid,” Johnny told him, once their mouths had parted.
Blackheart didn't reject it. He stayed silent. He listened, despite the difficulty, as Johnny spent the night telling him that he was good and loved and capable of loving.