Ficlet: Burn
Title: Burn
Author: Aisalynn
Fandom: Jumper
Pairing: David/Griffin
Rating; PG-13
It was like electricity with them.
Burning through his body, spiking at places where lips trailed across his skin, where teeth nipped and scraped underneath his jaw and down his neck, along the line of his shoulder, biting hard enough to draw blood (so good, the pain, the pleasure, he never could tell the difference between the two). It was in serious, bright blue eyes, sparking between strands of blond hair twisted in his fingers, following the paths of sharp fingernails as they dragged across his back, digging into the deep and faded lines of scars (old scars, fresh scars--he made them his, setting each one alight and burning with his touch, a brand on his skin, hot hot hot).
It was the energy pumping through his veins when they fought, words pushed through raw vocal chords as he shouted, screaming uselessly in the air of a hundred different cities, the sky of a hundred different worlds, the scar of a thousand different jumps. It was the crunch of his jaw underneath his fist, the pain of broken fingers and black eyes and swollen lips and desperate, blood filled gasps of air. The heated glares in those blue eyes (he would smile still, bloody and little bit manic, because even then that gaze would burn, burn right through him).
It was a little bit funny how electricity could be both friend and enemy: the quiet hum of the generator as it sent power to the dim lights in his cave (lair), ran the fridge and the TV (his beloved video games), the cruel pressure of coiled metal wrapping around him, cutting across his skin, sending wave and wave of pain through him, spiraling through his nerves and bones and blood, (pain pain pain) but it was the feeling of being trapped that he hated, the sudden loss of freedom (that’s why he hated him sometimes, before him there was nothing, no one to hold him, no one to tie him down and trap him, but he doesn’t think he could stop now, he couldn’t, not ever).
He used to daydream about the past, of days with out electricity.
Jumpers roaming the face of the planet, paladin’s only weapon’s their words of hate and damnation, backed by wooden crosses, and thin, ancient pages of tightly printed script, crumbling beneath clumsy and fanatic fingers (and fire, always fire and heat and pain).
Before machines that could send them anywhere he went.
(before confused blue eyes and harsh gasps of breath and stifled moans against burning skin)
Before metal cords of electricity that could bind him to the earth, trap him, confine him, enslave him.
(before the unforgiving grip on his wrists and biting kisses and warm, precious blood staining the tips of his fingers)
Before the beginning (the end) when he was surrounded by metal and electricity and pain (trapped, it was the worst, being trapped) with no way out. Before he came back to get him, peering at him from the ground (bright blue eyes that burned into him even from a distance) then jumping right into the metal cage with him, grabbing his arm and jumping them out again.
Before they had collapsed on their backs on the ground, breathing heavily as they recovered, body still twitching in remembrance of the jolts electricity, of the pain, nerves still on fire.
Before him.
David leans his head towards Griffin, breath still coming in gasps. “I’m sorry,” he says, blue eyes skating over his face nervously, like he couldn’t quite look at him without facing something within himself he didn’t want to see.
Griffin turns his head towards the sky, feeling the burn of the sun on his skin.
“No, you’re not.”