Log -Death and Perturbation

[der_umgekehrte]

Who: Stildyne and the Marquis de Sade
Where: The Marquis' quarters
What: The Marquis is bothered. Stildyne wants to know why.
When: The night of this thread.
Warnings: Likely talk about sex, possibly sex outright. Mentions of very mild bloodplay.

Comments

[impure_tale]

The Marquis was actually redressing his bed when the knock came. His sheets from the night before lay crumpled on the floor, spatters of blood still visible on them. He left them for now, though he uttered his dog's name to warn her away from them. Since she'd first gotten a whiff of it the night before she'd been whistling unhappy under her breath, and she would not be satisfied until the scent was gone from the room.

The door distracted the both of them, thankfully. She beat him to it, and seemed happy, knowing before he did who it was, and the Marquis opened it to Stildyne and a tired smile on his own face.

"Come in, Brachi."

[der_umgekehrte]

Stildyne stepped in, closing the door behind him quickly so that he could greet the other man with a kiss on the cheekbone. "Donatien. What's wrong?" His eyes flickered around the room, lingering on the discarded sheets, and he frowned.

[impure_tale]

"Short and to the point," he murmured. "Come and sit." He led him over to the area by the fire and sat down on the sofa. "I am happy to have helped you," he assured him. "Still, in retrospect it has left me...somewhat unsettled."

[der_umgekehrte]

"Well. That's not what I'd wanted." Again, short and to the point. Stildyne sat next to the other man, a hand on his knee in reassurance.

He wasn't sure who had suggested it, but he remembered that it had come on the tail of a particularly lengthy rant on his own part about the mental beating the death toll had subjected him to and how much it unnerved him not to have any physical proof of so much damage, and the upshot was that three clean cuts were healing nicely on his right shoulderblade. The number had been in debate between them, but the port had bothered Stildyne enough to push for the third.

"Tell me about it," he urged, rubbing the Marquis' leg with his thumb.

[impure_tale]

"Brachi, I have done things in the past that I own but of which I am not especially proud. Drawing blood from another person, with the exception of wartime altercations, was a very rare occurrence and not one that I relished."

This, perhaps, belied his rather blatant reaction to their excursions the previous evening. And he knew this.

"I enjoyed myself with you last night, in so many ways, moreso than I have in a while, actually. But it must be because of the control it represented, the trust you afforded me," and there he went couching a very intense, animal act in the terms he'd in the last three years learned to analyze his own behaviors. "...But I'm not a violent man. I do not wish you to think that I am."

[der_umgekehrte]

"I don't think you are," Stildyne assured him. "It's never an impression I've taken of you. I didn't take any particular pleasure in the physical half of it, either. But I do trust you. Implicitly. And trust you not to be violent."

The irony was that if de Sade was a real sadist, of the caliber Stildyne knew-- had been a man like Koscuisko, to whom power was an aphrodisiac and screams were a lover's invitation-- Stildyne never would have let him within a mile of him with an edged weapon. This man, for his apparent reputation and what he had heard were pretty shocking writings, he'd trusted implicitly to sit on his back and open his skin so that he stopped waking up in the middle of the night and wondering if he'd only dreamt dying.

"I hadn't wanted it to bother you. If it did, I'm sorry-- a little easy peace of mind on my part isn't worth yours."

[impure_tale]

He shook his head. "I am pleased to put your mind at ease, dearheart," he murmured. "And given how easily I rose to the occasion you had little reason to think any differently."

Oh Marquis. You and your double entendres.

[der_umgekehrte]

"We've got our games, you and I." Stildyne lifted the hand up to the other man's face, stroking his brow and cheek with his knuckles. "And games are all, for both of us. You had as much right to think I'd suddenly developed a taste for pain, the way I acted after." Enthusiastically, frankly. The adrenaline that had resulted from the first act had found a very useful place in the aftermath. "Is there anything else, besides fear I'd read you wrong?"

[impure_tale]

He found himself leaning into him with ease, rather enjoying the ease with which a companion had suddenly come into his existence again. It was such a mundane thing, to take pleasure simply from sharing warmth with another human body, but it was one he had taken for granted in the past and then sorely missed in times between. It should not have, but the thought reminded him of Pavi, and how he had tried to do things with him in a way he thought might be considered "normal".

The disaster that had been his birthday present, and so uncharacteristic of him.

But whatever the implications, however it looked, he had especially enjoyed a warm body to cling lean against. Scents to inhale.

Now it was much the same, and he wondered, then, if he should hesitate.

[der_umgekehrte]

"You're thinking harder than an overloaded engine core," Stildyne said quietly, his windy, ruined voice pitched low. He shifted closer, thigh to thigh, shoulders brushing, and let his hand linger against the Marquis' face.

"Anything I can help with?"

[impure_tale]

I'm simply thinking of where I was at this time a year ago, and a year before that. ...And simply supposing the state of being mildly disturbed is perhaps not so bad.

[He offers a little smile.]

[der_umgekehrte]

"Why don't you tell me about where you were last year? You know I like hearing you talk," Stildyne offered. On the one hand it wasn't a very subtle offer to play counselor; on the other hand he really did enjoy hearing the man talk.

[impure_tale]

"Lonely, married to my work as always." That was the short of it, anyhow. "I remember going into port, catching the eye of a lovely young local, and then feeling especially bitter and ugly that one little shit of an Inmate had charmed her right out from under me."

[der_umgekehrte]

Stildyne sucked air through his teeth. "Bad hour, then. I can't imagine someone out-charming you." He leaned in to chase off the reminiscence with a kiss to the jawline, a thumb swiped across the cheek as he cradled the Marquis' chin.

[impure_tale]

"Oh, I would dispute that he was more charming, just younger and better looking." He murmured this with half-bemusement as Stildyne's lips touched his jaw. He turned his face to catch them with his own in a lingering kiss part to return the gesture in kind and part to stop any immediate objections, much as they would have fed his ego.

[der_umgekehrte]

Catch him not indulging, when it was on offer. He kissed the other man with patient thoroughness, essaying a little bit of escalation, the offer that things could get a good deal less verbal very fast, if that was what they both wanted.