The years flow by like water, and one day men come home again. Part II

[al_shairan]

From here. Iblis freed Micah!Tez from his bond to Management, and then gave him an unexpected gift.
*
"You had a riding crop once. I remember."I drop my head forward again, and I look at him through my lashes. I remember looking at him like before

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[tezcatl_ipoca]

Things he likes. Destroying the world? But when he smiles at me like that I don't even care. "Yes," I say, and take too large a mouthful of pie, have trouble chewing it. Laugh around it. Wash it down with coffee.

I wonder what it would be like to be like this all the time. I won't think of that. "Are you nearly finished?"

[al_shairan]

I think he's laughing at me, but I don't mind. I think I would have minded once, but that's the past, and now there is sunshine through the window and his happy face, and I am... content, yes.

"Are you nearly finished?"

I eat the last forkful deliberately slowly, to vex him, and I grin at him.

"Now I am," I say. I lean forward and say confidentially: "I want you. I want you to do terrible things to me, and - make love to me, all at the same time. Can you?"

[tezcatl_ipoca]

I look at him for a long moment. "I always do," I say, and stand up. "Except when you do terrible things to me," I add. My smile is bright. I brush a crumb of pastry away from the corner of his mouth with one finger. "Come on."

We go outside, and the sun is very bright. There are a lot of new businesses here, and it's only half familiar. I wonder where we should go.

[al_shairan]

"You had a room," I say. "It was horrible, but it was yours. You made it yours, so that no one else could have it. Do you remember where it was?" We walk through narrow streets in the sunshine, to a street where the buildings are old and worn. The one I stop outside is the worst of all of them, windows broken, paint peeling. It feels empty. But I can sense him here like an itch in my gums.

[tezcatl_ipoca]

"...Oh." I stop and look at the building. Everyone's gone. "There was a woman, downstairs," I remember. "She used to take in laundry. She offered me food once." I wonder where she is. I hope she's alright.

"Come on," I say. The front door is locked, but it's easy to lift it off its rusting hinges. Inside it's dark and smells of emptiness and a bit of rot. "Upstairs," I say. The stairs are still sound. We go up, and up again. I can feel myself up there in the dark. Is this home, then?

The door isn't locked, but it hasn't been opened. I can feel it. I put my hand on it and push. For me, it opens. The inside smells rank. It's dim inside, and I go across and pull down the cloth I'd tacked across the little window.

Genny's picture's still here. There's a bloom of pale mould on one corner. I wonder what he'll think of it, as he is now.

[al_shairan]

It smells dark and mean here.

"This place feels sad," I say, looking around. "It doesn't suit you." Things don't have to be ugly, I'm sure of that. Half-remembered things press at the back of my mind. I remember he and I lay under a canopy of branches. I made them grow. I crouch and touch my fingers to the mouldering floorboards, thinking of that, and they... spring up green with grass, grass dotted with flowers. A meadow. I laugh, a little amazed, but... not surprised, I think. I think there are all kinds of things I can do.

"Magic," I say, with satisfaction. The whole floor is covered soon, and when I lie down in the grass it smells very sweet.

[tezcatl_ipoca]

"Thank you," I say, and touch his face. I want to touch him as much as I can. "It's beautiful."

The grass is soft and smells of the best part of summer. I put my face against his neck and breathe him in. I wonder what terrible things his body can stand while he's like this. Could I kill him? I think about it for a moment. Would he be blotted out like a human? Maybe it would be kind, to break him apart in his moment of happiness and swallow him down before he remembers despair. He wanted to give me oblivion once, I remember, and I kiss the soft skin of his throat. I'd give you that, I promise him.

I don't, though. I bite lightly instead: tender innocent thing. More so than Micah ever was, since I've been him.

[al_shairan]

"You're so sweet," I say, wonderingly. I stroke the back of his head. Was he always like this? I wish I could remember. "You can bite harder, if you want. I know you like my blood in your mouth." Half-remembered memories make me smile, make my fingers curl into his hair.

[tezcatl_ipoca]

I'll be sweet for him, then. His fingers are in my hair, and I bite down hard. My teeth are blunt and grind together, bruising more than tearing. It's not what I want.

I used to be able to - change. I've done it a bit, in the last three years, when I've been in danger. I've never known how. There's a low frustration in me as I will my teeth to sharpen and slide into flesh. They don't, and I make a small sound, annoyed. I want to be what he wants.

[al_shairan]

I cry out when he bites me. I'm hard underneath him, and I tug his weight on top of me, press up against him. He makes a frustrated sound. I can feel him trying to... shift something in himself, and I make a soothing sound.

"You know how," I say, and touch his forehead. "Here." I can feel his bones shift, teeth grow sharper. I have a memory of - animal, I think. "There," I say, smiling, and tip my head back for him. His teeth are very sharp, now, and my back arches. "Oh."

[tezcatl_ipoca]

Oh, like that. He pushes up under me, and I put a hand on his shoulder to hold him down, quite gently. His blood still tastes like fire, somewhere down inside. "Oh," I agree breathlessly, and lick up his neck where it's running down, worry at the place where neck and shoulder join. The beauty of pale skin's becoming the stranger beauty of exposed flesh.

"I want all of you," I say without thinking. It's a stupid thing to say.

[al_shairan]

I like him holding me down. He bites me in different places. I can feel my own blood on my skin. I like that, too.

"I want all of you."

"Of course," I say, surprised. "You have that, don't you?" I have a vague memory that... this body is - for him, somehow. I'm not quite sure what that means, but I don't worry about it. It's hard to worry about anything when his hands are on me and his teeth are in me. "Will you take your clothes off?"

[tezcatl_ipoca]

For now I do, I think fiercely. For now, and for as much of him as is here. It's better than not at all, isn't it?

"Will you take your clothes off?"

I nod and roll off him a bit to pull off my shirt and pants. The grass is cool against my bare skin. "I want to make you happy," I tell him. Even more stupid.

[al_shairan]

"Of course you do," I say, "can't you tell?" I smile at him. "Your foot," I say, looking at him. "It's... whole." I think I remember it being hurt before. I take my own clothes off and straddle him. My blood's running down my chest, and a few drops splash onto his face. I lean forward and lick them off. "I want you to do what you want with me," I say. "I won't mind. I think I like whatever you do to me." I say it confidently. I'm sure, somehow, that whatever Micah and I do to each other is...as it should be.

[tezcatl_ipoca]

I could close my eyes, but I don't. I look into his face instead and smile. This moment, this moment. Will he remember it afterwards?

"Good," I say, and he climbs on top of me. He licks my face, quite delicately, and I smile.

"I want you to do what you want with me. I won't mind. I think I like whatever you do to me."

"I don't want you just not mind," I say - very fiercely, which surprises me. "I want you to want." I pull him down and roll him under me again in the grass, kiss his face again and again. He smells of blood and like a young human and like the grass he made. I suck on the mess I've made of his neck.

[al_shairan]

I laugh when he rolls me under him and gasp as he sucks my neck.

"Oh," I gasp, "I want you, I want..." He must be able to tell, with me pressed against him like this. I can feel how hard he is, and I smile and strain against him. "I always want you." I scratch my nails down his back, hard enough to draw blood. I like him bleeding, too. I think blood is important to us, somehow.