Fanfic: Impermanence (1/1)

[smokingmirror]

Title: Impermanence
Author: Avarice
Rating: NC-17 (warnings for abuse, disturbing imagery)
Pairing: Tybalt/Harley, Harley/Mikhael, Tybalt/Mikhael
Spoilers: -
Summary: Some things don't last forever, but others seem as though they'll never end.
Word Count: 2819
Date First Posted: 30-01-2002
Date Revised - 17-05-2011
Beta: Tink, Rin, Sandra
Awards: -
Notes: Tybalt POV. It references situations of the incredibly short-lived vampire fandom (and precursor to bmb) This Is Home (hence the crossover of some characters). You don't have to know about it to know what's going on here, as it really is all about Tybalt being the losing party yet again. Poor guy, I love him, but in my fic he never wins, not emotionally. Schadenfreude to the extreme.
Feedback: always welcome, as is constructive criticism.
Also Archived At: LJ

It's been a rough night.

My hunt was uninspiring. I stalked, harassed, fed. It was so goddamn ordinary, like I was performing some menial task like taking a piss or jerking off -- satisfying in the moment, but afterwards, what is there?

Alanah wanted to fight, I saw it as soon as I walked back into our lair. But there are some things you just don't do. We are vicious to each other, that's true, but not quite ready to go for the kill yet. Still so many things to do... the look on my face was one that she understood.

If she started with me tonight, only one would walk away.

As much as she is a warrior, she's not ready for a serious throw-down.

Yet.

The hall is like a tomb. After Alanah departed silently, I was left alone. Nowhere to really go, no one I particularly wanted to see, and yet my feet kept walking, automatically taking me to his chamber.

Harley...

It is the latest in a series of rooms he'd been living in. It seems Harley is a getting a little clumsier, always injuring himself, marking that pearly skin. Every once in a while I find him wandering the halls at night, with no explanation.

His new room has a heavy oak door with a large iron latch on the outside to lock it. But it isn't locked right now. Belying the formidable look of the room from the door, the inside is quite a different story.

There are patterned quilts hanging from walls, piles of pillows around the room. Everything is made from soft, sensual fabrics; things the body delights in touching, savouring...

It's similar to my chamber, only lacking the bloodstained manacles attached to the headboard of my bed that had been, once upon a time, my Master's pleasure.

I grind fangs together and am just able to refrain from ripping the fucking thing off its hinges. Wouldn't exactly be a stealthy entrance then...

He is in the room, I can feel it, but upon quick inspection I confirm that he's alone.

Purple gauzy fabric hangs all around his bed in soft waves. It mutes the freestanding lamp's harsh light into a comfortable, deep mauve luminescence. It gives the room a subdued, ethereal glow. His silhouette is a stark outline in violet. I pull back the curtain.

The mattress is covered in feathers. And Harley sits in the centre of them, wearing nothing but a pair of pale blue satiny drawstring pants. His wings used to look pristine, white as the porcelain of his skin. Now they look smudged, grey, like a dove's.

That and the bald patches aren't really making them look all that healthy.

Harley plucks out a feather, flinching slightly as he does so. The pain is gone from his face as he tosses the feather up in the air. Eyes stay transfixed to it as it floats down with a variety of twists and turns until it joins the others on the bed.

It lands on a pile of similar feathers. He stares at it for a moment, before reaching to grab another.

I watch him pluck two more feathers before stepping in, grabbing his wrist as he reaches for another. Harley looks up, suddenly noticing I'm there.

"Oh!" He appears startled. "You were so... quiet," Harley shares a secret smile with the wall behind my head.

I tug on his wrist slightly and he sucks in a pained gasp. Sure enough, his wrist is banded by purpling marks, the size of a large hand. By the shade, I'd say they'd been inflicted in the past day. My own wrists itch in memory and hands unconsciously tighten over the bruises. He yelps, and I let go. I didn't really come in here to hurt him. This time.

Why do I come in here?

Because the way that the gauze around his bed diffuses the light and turns his swirling blue-green eyes to a pale violet. Because he unconsciously twitches his wings when I stare at him too long. Because those light coloured pants sit so low I can see a line of pale golden curls down his abdomen, disappearing underneath the silk. Because there's a fading bruise high on his cheekbone, and his flesh looks so lovely when marked.

Because I love to want him, and want him to love me.

I sit down in front of him on the bed, watching feathers fly. Harley giggles as they drift around.

"Has anyone seen you today?" I ask.

He thinks about his answer, all his concentration on snatching feathers out of the air. "No one except for 'lynne. And me. I've seen me today. But I don't count," Harley's voice drops to a whisper, and he pauses in his feather catching pursuits. "I'm no one."

I frown slightly. He's been doing this lately. Speaking in riddles, or verse. Like a child.

Or a lunatic.

For his sake, he'd better be getting in touch with his inner toddler. I don't know if anyone could stand another nutcase like Delphine.

My eyes linger on the subtle lines of his torso. Muscular, but not like mine. Shallower curves, softer skin... His body is frozen forever in that transient stage between boy and man. Supple and hard in all the right places.

His wings twitch nervously and I realise I'm staring.

"You're all alone then," I murmur as Harley nervously twirls a feather between small, delicate fingers.

"Not alone!" he corrects, then ducks his head. "Never alone," he says, distinctly softer.

I reach over and take the feather out of his hands. His skin is warmed by the light, unlike mine. Mine is chilled from the night, but even that little contact with him warms me.

"No, never," I lift his hand to run the tip of my tongue over his knuckles. A blush stains his cheeks as I taste his skin.

Mmmm... I've missed this. His closed eyelids flutter when I trail the feather over the slight definition of his pectoral muscles, and over twitching abdominals. The gold hoop in his navel sparkles.

My left hand tugs on the ring insistently, even as my right lifts his chin up. A sliver of blue is visible beneath closed lids. His head tips back further as I continue playing with his piercing, allowing me a good view of strong jaw lines.

"Mmmm," His voice is husky, the light airy tones unusually heavy with desire. The curve of his neck is like ripe fruit - firm and succulent - and my fangs itch to taste deeper...

"Mmmmu..." The soft moan vibrates through his throat as my lips trace down. I push forward even as he leans back, his knees parting to allow my body in between them.

Harley's silk pants do little to conceal his excitement from me. My own is painfully pressed against the seam of my dark wool trousers. I lick the underside of his chin, blond hairs tickling my nose, and he whimpers again.

"Mmuuh... mmma..."

Just one more of those sweet little sounds and I'll take him...

"Maah... Master..."

Reprisal is instantaneous.

My body is a machine that is nothing if not precise. In some part of my head -- the very small section that isn't ablaze with hatred -- I'm quite pleased that less than a second passes between Harley's utterance and the back of my fist cracking across his face. His head snaps to the left, and he nearly falls over with the force of the blow.

Harley looks up at me, large dewy eyes filled with tears of pain. Blood vessels have already ruptured underneath his skin, and his right cheek bursts into full bloom. Mouth moves, but no sounds come out. A delicately boned hand reaches up in numb disbelief to cup his face...

...the left side.

The old bruise.

I roar. No other word for it, I roar.

And I make the little whelp hurt for my slight.

"Who am I?!"

His image blurs in a haze of the purest anger. Fists connect with flesh, a dull crunch as ribs fracture. There is pain in pleasure, and in this moment I take so much pleasure in his pain.

Blood stains the skin of my hands. Pause to lick it off, and begin anew.

I am second to no man.

"Who am I?!"

Redness fills underneath my fingernails, raking down his arm. Rivers spill down over milky skin. He flings his arms out, trying to keep me at bay, succeeding in spattering the bedclothes, my chest and shirt, the walls.

His blood always flows so freely...

My fist drives into his gut.

"Who am I?!"

I broke a bird once. Bones in the wings are so delicate. I snapped them like fingers, and then bit into its breast in an unrecognised tribute to art.

Harley's wings are larger, but no less delicate. He shrieks as my fingers dig into the soft flesh, tearing and scratching. Redness spatters the feathers, congealing into ugly red clumps.

I am ready for my answer now.

"Who am I?"

"D-- De-mon..." he cries out softly, arching up against my body in anguish.

I pull back, watching roseate lips tremble. "Who?"

"Demon," his voice is a terrified whisper.

He falls silent, except for barely audible, wheezing gasps. Wanting to cry out, but horrified of what I will do to him.

Little puppet. I wonder who is pulling who's strings. His eyes are wide, too wide. Large pools of drowning blue. But they are not focused on me. They look past me, an unseen monster holds his attention. His Demon is not me.

Never me.

So silent, waiting for me to do something. Speak, fuck, kill him.

Purpling and bloody, bearing marks that are new and old, and his body is mine for the taking.

But not his heart. Or his slowly cracking mind.

I have only ever truly sought those things from him. And those were the precise things he snatched from my grasp. My-- our -- beloved Master.

Harley's eyes are numb and glazed. He sees only the Demon, not the man I want him to. I straddle the tops of his thighs, placing a hand on each side of his head. He flinches away.

Brushing a sweat and blood-drenched lock of hair from his forehead, I ask again.

"Who am I, Harley?"

"De-" I silence him with a finger on bruised lips.

"Who?"

Brows knit together, his confusion over my dulcet tones evident. And yet the undercurrent of terror is still there -- he does not want to get this answer wrong.

He pauses, unsure of what I want. He believes -- with good reason -- that a lack of response will cause him to be in as much trouble as the wrong response. Ordinarily he would be dead accurate, but tonight... tonight he just needs to see...

Dry, bruised lips are licked, and his voice is rough from screaming, but it is still music to my ears.

"Tybalt?" he says it, left eye twitching, as if expecting another blow to the face.

I smile indulgently, moving closer.

"Who am I, Harley?" Lick his cheek and taste the tears and sweat and blood. He makes a little hiss as my tongue dances over his cut cheekbone, pain mingled with pleasure.

"Tybalt..." he answers with more confidence, arching up to me for a completely different reason now.

Wings fan out onto the sheets, making a draft that scatters feathers, even as my mouth attacks his lips, neck, shoulders. Tongue leaves lines of wetness that glitter in the lamplight.

The curve of his neck is truly glorious. When he throws his head back, I can almost see the flesh pulse with life again. Almost imagine it was I who took him that very first time. I who left the lingering mark on his supple throat.

Instead, I give my all to this fallen beauty, an angel tasting of purity and sin. I realise this every time his hands touch my chest, undress and caress me. When the innocent mouth bites into my shoulder, enough to bruise, enough to draw out the tiniest drops of ichor.

When he licks them up with hunger, never taking his eyes away from mine.

Slender legs are thrown over my naked shoulders. There is still enough blood to suit my needs; what hasn't caked underneath my fingernails is still slick, staining his skin dark red.

My name is a litany on his lips. Tiny hands clutch at my arms, nails dig in, and the tiny crescent moons fill with vital fluid. When I kiss him, the tang in his mouth is my blood. And when he comes, it is with my image etched behind fluttering eyelids.

Falling from my shoulders, his legs wrap around my waist in a tight embrace. Even with his injuries, Harley pulls me down on top of himself, locking arms around my neck like a vice.

And he cries into my chest.

"Shhhh, precious one," I murmur, licking the salty tracks of his tears. I cradle him for as long as it takes for them to stop, before propping myself up in his embrace. The light illuminates Harley's body, giving skin a purple tone, making the dark blotching bruises seem at home. His wings twitch and flutter, making a slight draft on my skin.

"Go get cleaned up," I tell him, pulling my trousers up over my legs. He wipes his eyes and stays stock-still for a moment, before scrambling off the bed and running into the other room.

My shirt is spattered and stained, hardly worth putting on, but I do anyway, to cover the small nail and teeth marks on my shoulders and arms. It's not a fucking peep show.

I leave Harley's chamber and enter the silent corridor once again. A change of clothes is in order, and then I'll come back and see him, maybe even take him out into the garden like I used to...

Passing the entrance to the throne room, there is a dark shape in my peripheral vision. Of course, it's Him. Perfect.

He sits back in the cushy blue chair, in a classic state of repose. I'm not fooled for a moment into thinking he's off his guard, however. He could still be up and have his hands around my neck before I got close enough to breathe on him.

Mikhael ignores my presence for at least five minutes. It looks as though he doesn't notice I am there, yet he is without a doubt waiting only for me.

Patience isn't one of my virtues in games such as these.

"Is there something you wanted, Master?"

He opens his eyes lazily, and after a long pause, completely ignores my question.

"Productive evening?"

The comfortable ache in my limbs and scent of sex still clinging to my skin is enough to bring a small smirk to my face.

"Quite."

I just fucked your golden boy, Mikhael. Thank you for asking.

"And do you think your little trip to the garden, later, will incite him to address you as anything other than The Demon?" he continues in a conversational tone, looking down to study his fingernails.

The world freezes for a moment, as his words -- ever so carefully honed to a razor’s point -- slice through the air and my flesh. My mouth is dry, but cold fury doesn't make for a good companion to eloquent speech.

"Oh don't worry how I know," he waves his hand dismissingly, "you're still both screamers, and sound does carry in this old place." Amused chuckle.

"It'd be a great deal easier if you hadn't given him the idea or ever called me anything else than your Demon." My answer is quicker and more defensive than I planned. He smiles.

"What makes you think it's my fault Harley calls you that? Hardly my concern how you appear to him..." He gets up from the chair and walks in a lazy circle around me. I keep the tremble of rage from clenched, white-knuckled fists.

"Honestly, you sound as though I put him up to it." He circles me like a wolf, with the same maddeningly conversational tone. "You want to be the artist, and you've never claimed to be otherwise. You've lived the life, now you get the title. Congratulations, you win."

Mikhael stops walking directly behind me, knowing how much of a stretch it is to keep my back turned on him, and pauses dramatically.

"Demon."

A hand ghosts my hair, and then I feel a vacuum behind me. Spinning around, he's halfway across the room at the door, looking at me with mahogany eyes.

"I'm the Alpha and the Omega, boy. You can have the letters in between, but I will always be first and last."

He leaves then. I hear footsteps down the corridor, and the latch open on Harley's chamber door.

~finis