title: Perfection
fandom: Terry Pratchett's "Hogfather"
pairing: Susan/Teatime, Medium Dave/Teatime, Teatime/multiple characters
rating: R, to be on the safe side
words: 704
warnings: slash, sex between minors, death of several characters.
disclaimer: I don't own anything.
There had been a child from his street, possibly a boy, who had had something incredibly valuable and beautiful. It could have been a wooden horse. Little Jonathan had been so enchanted by it that one day, when the owner of the treasure hadn’t been looking, he’d stolen it and broken it into little pieces.
Then, much later, there had been this boy at school. An Omnian (who else would have thought of comparing him to an angel; as a matter of fact, even an Omnian would have needed a special kind of insanity for that) who’d whisper to him sweet words while unbuttoning his jacket in the hiding place behind the stairs or plant kisses on his neck and let his hands wander under his nightshirt while everyone else in the dormitory were or seemed to be asleep. Teatime had enjoyed it so much that one night he couldn’t hold himself back. As the boy had been caressing him in the dark, letting his hands creep up Teatime’s thighs, Teatime had taken a knife from under his pillow and had tried to stab him. Unfortunately, he had been rather inexperienced and the boy had been prepared (after all, he was a student Assassin, and an Assassin wouldn’t dream of going anywhere unarmed). The boy had died, but in the fight Teatime had lost his eye.
Teatime touched his eyelid lightly. The memory had no bitterness in it. The glass eye had proved to be better and more useful than the real one.
He remembered being scolded after that incident. Not because he had killed a fellow student - that was a perfectly acceptable form of competition, - but because he had done it so very messily. He had responded with pure serenity, unable to see the reason for all this fuss. Funnily, that same incident had later been one of the reasons for allowing him to perform tasks while still in school.
This roof posed no difficulties to a good edificeer and the chimney offered protection from the wind and the snow, and so he felt quite comfortable sitting here and thinking about things that had been.
There had been several rentboys - not many, because Teatime had never been particularly rich or especially needy. They had been very enjoyable - tall and strong but not particularly bright - and he had always killed them in the end. It wouldn’t have been the same without them dying. The thrust of the blade - he knew perfectly well where to strike - made the experience more exquisite and more real. Killing was his way of feeling the world, knives were his eyes and fingers, more sensitive and perceiving than the real ones.
Then there had been Medium Dave. Teatime had been drawn to him rather strongly and, even though Dave had seemed to be disgusted, it wouldn’t probably have taken long before his attitude had changed. That was the only reason Teatime hadn’t killed him then: he’d hoped to share another kind of intimacy with him first and then kill. That would have been perfect.
And now there was Susan.
Teatime had heard of her - read, to be exact, he probably knew Twurp’s Peerage by heart by now. The idea itself had been fascinating: Death’s granddaughter and, occasionally, a temporary replacement. She was unique, and Teatime had always been interested in everything unique. More so, she was famous and killing her would have made him, too, rather well-known in certain circles.
And then they had met. There was a certain piercing quality to her, a certain “you’re-no-match-for-me” look in her eyes. She was a challenge, a puzzle to be solved - and Teatime loved puzzles.
He wanted to solve her, to know her, to become close to her, so close that it’d be hard to separate the two of them, and then kill her. Possibly, he wouldn’t survive that. But Teatime had never been afraid of taking risks. It had never been about staying alive - others’ deaths had always been more important.
Anyway, everything had always gone his way and he wouldn’t allow even a thought of a failure. This would probably take some time but he was willing to wait. And he knew that in the end Susan would be his.