(no subject)
Title: Power, Absolutely
Author: Flannery
Rating: R
Pairing: Tucker/Warren
Summary: It's not easy being Tucker's bitch.
Notes: How much do I love the Tucker/Warren? Could be I just love pairing Warren with someone that makes him seem mentally stable. *g*
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“You can’t,” Tucker had once told him, “program submission. If someone doesn’t have a choice - a choice of submitting, the choice of giving up that power, or the choice of escaping intact… man, what’s the point? If there’s no alternative to being under your power, you don’t really have any power. You have an appliance.”
Long minutes were spent this way: silent and still, naked, unmoving, breathing through slow exhalations from the nose. Warren’s eyes shifted to the side, just to make sure Tucker was still in the room. He was. Two feet away, sitting and watching, with one leg crossed over the other. Two feet away, and it felt like both a wide expanse, and too close to relax.
This afternoon, Warren let himself be tied up; hands bound with coarse rope and stretched out like a bled animal. It wasn’t the first time. If Tucker held the rope, just like Warren was on a leash, he’d follow Tucker to his bedroom and hold out his wrists. All Tucker had to do was look at him, and he was sunk, struggling and gagging, into the black tar of Tucker’s eyes.
There was never a guarantee Tucker wouldn’t harm him. Tucker hadn’t volunteered that promise, and Warren hadn’t asked. Just because injury hadn’t occurred before didn’t mean the possibility wasn’t there, wasn’t a constant threat in Warren’s mind. There was something deeply unsettling about Tucker - something on the comfortable side of frightening, but not familiar enough for trust. He intimidated Warren, whether Tucker was jerking off over Warren’s face or simply watching him across the Wells’ family dinner table.
Some day, Tucker may pull the leash and hold it taut, just to watch Warren struggle to breathe.
The thought excited Warren terribly.
He was stripped under those shiny black eyes, down to blood and sinew. Warren used to blush, his body covered only by Tucker’s shadow. Modesty left him, then, and apprehension slowly blossomed to replace it. Tucker never scratched, never bit, never hit him, but when the black tar eyes turned to Warren’s body, and when Tucker licked his upper lip and bent low to Warren’s throat, all of Warren’s instincts flinched.
“Don’t see why you’d want a robot anyway,” Tucker said, that once. “You can’t program fear.”
Like a giant spider, Tucker crawled over Warren’s body. He seemed to be saying something, softly, under his breath: his lips moved and air passed out in different rhythms. Black eyes skated impassively over exposed skin, and he inched closer, until he was gazing down directly into Warren’s face.
Tucker appeared almost bored.
He expected a kiss; one of Tucker’s bruising kisses that left no doubt that Warren was fully dominated by the other man. He held his breath in anticipation, but no kiss came. Minutes passed in tense silence.
Finally, Tucker said, “I don’t know what I want to do to you.”
All the warmth drained from Warren; it felt as if he’d been stabbed with an icicle. “Do you - “ He swallowed dryly. “-- want me to do something to you?”
Tucker paused, thinking. He let a hand rest on Warren’s chest, absently stroking the dark hair that covered the skin. A flush spread across Warren’s collarbone, just above the spread fingers.
Abruptly, Tucker answered, “No,” and withdrew his hand.
He untied Warren.
“You want a soda or anything?” It was asked so casually. Tucker threw a quick look at Warren.
It was a long moment before his mind caught up with the present, and Warren felt sick with the sudden shock. He shook his head, rapidly blinking glassy eyes. “No,” he said, “No thanks.” His face was still red with humiliation and the ghost of arousal.
Tucker shrugged into his shirt. “Whatever. Hey, my brother should be home in, like, fifteen minutes.” He didn’t look up at Warren as he dressed. “You can go watch TV or something, if you want to wait.”
Warren rubbed at the pink circles of skin around his wrists where the rope had chafed him. He searched for his boxers on the cluttered floor, but his mind felt shaky, and his vision was hollow.
“A robot,” Tucker told him on that day, “A robot doesn’t feel anything. You can make it cry, but you can’t make it hurt.”
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