[Fanfiction] - Godchild - Ways and Means
Title: Ways and Means
Fandom: Godchild
Word Count: 1155
Beta: Unbetad...yes, I'm a bad, bad girl. I'm sorry. I have no real excuse, beyond feeling the urge to post something and my beautiful betas being offline.
Genre: Romance, Angst, Tragedy.
Characters/Pairing: Cain, Mary, Crehador/Cain, implied Cain/Riff, implied one-sided Cassian/Jizabel
Rating: R
Warnings: Angst, non-explicit (rough and angsty) sex, discussion of suicide, general darkness.
Author's Notes: A random piece I wrote whilst trying to get beyond an epic dose of writers block, which is currently kicking my arse. A few snippets from the viewpoints of assorted characters. I also seem to be doing this thing whereby I won't write any of by OTPs directly, I just write about them sleeping with other people and being miserable...
Disclaimer: Not mine. Wish they were.
Summary: Ways, means, and the intricacies of a broken heart.
i. if you ever betray me, i’ll kill myself.
He had the means. Hundreds of tiny bottles in hundreds of colours, from garish reds and pinks to soft blues that reminded him of the sky in spring and the gentle purple of wildflowers. Little pots of heaven, hovering before his fingertips. It would be so simple to paint his lips scarlet or cerulean, to taste what had been denied to him for this long. Silence. Solace.
Would you like me to keep my promise?
Even without his cellar of stored sins, he had the means. Such a fragile thing, human life. A twist of a knife, the blast of a gun, a tumble from a balcony, hot water and a dagger, a noose…he could snuff out the candle of his existence with little effort.
Would it stop me from hurting?
But if life without Riff is unbearable, then death without Riff cannot be imagined.
ii. the intricacies of a broken heart.
Mary knew what broken people looked like.
The streets where she’d grown up had been littered with them. She’d seen them shamble past, their faces indistinguishable from those around them, but with something different in their eyes. They walked and talked and ate and drank and slept, but there was something missing. She looked into their eyes and saw only the distorted reflection of her own face.
She looked into Cain’s eyes now and saw nothing but the glassy indifference of the broken hearted.
He would speak to her, but his lips would merely move through the motions while his soul slid out the window to chase after the sweet scent of its own destruction. He would ruffle her curls, and smile when she chastised him, but his smile had sharp corners and pieces missing. He would kiss her forehead, but his lips were cold.
She wondered if he knew she knew. Doors left ajar and restless summer nights revealed all manner of sins. Little girls with curious eyes should not be left to their own devices.
His eyes lingered on shadows and street corners, as if he was looking for someone, searching for something just beyond his line of sight. He would turn, open his mouth, glance behind him, then press his lips together and walk on, face set in lines of fatalistic determination.
He offered his arm to Death, and smiled when she ducked her head coyly and whispered his name.
iii. in your eyes I see my violation.
Jizabel hated it.
Hated the way Cassandra touched him, fingers crawling over his skin like maggots over a corpse, gorging themselves on the sweet rottenness of his sins.
Every time Cassandra looked at Jizabel he raped him with his eyes.
He could see the other man imagining him in those carefully made restraints, see him considering the way his muscles would be forced to flex, the way his body would contort under the unyielding hand of the iron. The way his limbs would twist, his muscles atrophy, the way he would wither and bend to the iron like a plant forced to grow against his nature.
Cassandra had been inside his mind. The thought made him shudder. Cassandra has seen all of his sins, picked through them, stared straight into the seething pit of effluent that bubbled inside his filthy, human heart.
So even when it came time to crack open his skull, to pull him apart and make him anew, Jizabel hated it. Hated having to touch that depraved flesh with his fingers, hated having to let a drop of that filthy, perverted blood spill onto his hands. Hated the smell of his flesh. Hated the stark white of his bone.
Hated everything that reminded him that, beneath his own skin, he was made from the same sinews and tendons as this repulsive, vile beast.
iv. i can taste the ashes in the back of your throat.
Crehador was aware this was wrong, wrong in the most fundamental sense of the word, wrong because it was making a mockery of everything that should be held dear. Wrong because he was glutting himself on another’s misery. Wrong because what he held in his arms was pieces of a man, and not the man himself. Wrong because they would wake in the morning tangled in sheets smelling of sweat and shame.
Cain cried out, his voice catching on something between a sob and a moan, his pulse racing under Crehador’s lips. He tasted of salt and sweat, with the faintest hint of cinnamon, but above all he tasted of despair and shame and sweet devastation.
Crehador tried to be gentle, tried not to scratch open Cain’s soul any further, but Cain’s nails scoured tracks down his back and Cain bit at his lips and wrenched at his hair until he gave in, gave Cain what he wanted, lost himself in passion verging on violence. He wondered, even as the world went white, whose name Cain was mouthing into his hair.
There was blood on the sheets, but Crehador wasn’t sure whose. Cain’s lip was bleeding, but he could feel the warmth of blood on his back, oozing from the scratches. Funny how the blue blood of nobility and the coarse crimson of his own looked the same on white linen.
Cain wept afterwards, not sobbing, not wailing, just silent tears tumbling down his cheeks in a steady drip of betrayal.
It occurred to Crehador that the price of love was sometimes far too high.
v. the jealous eyes of the world could never stand your beauty.
Jizabel could be sleeping.
Cassian pressed a kiss to his cold lips, closing his eyes and trying to shut out the image of Jizabel’s blood spraying into the air, of the gaping slit in his throat. He tried to blot it out with memory after memory of beautiful hair and a smile that shifted between melancholy and manic. To drown it in the dreamy half-truths of imagined caresses.
Jizabel had never slumbered this peacefully in life. His dreams had been full of promises of love, snatched away and smashed. Of soft fur and the scent of fresh meat. Of the whip against his back, the pain. He’d cried out, screamed, and Cassian had bitten through his lip and rent bloody scratches in his palms as he lay awake, forcing himself to stay away, to stay silent.
Forcing himself to let Jizabel suffer alone.
He hoped, hoped more than he had a right too, that perhaps, just perhaps, Jizabel had realised in the end. Realised that Cassian hadn’t needed to save him, hadn’t needed to redeem him, hadn’t needed to do anything at all but love him. And though his love wasn’t perfect, wasn’t pure; was all too full of half-formed words and choking passion, was all too human, it had more truth to it than anything else in his life.
And who was to say that wasn’t enough?
Fandom: Godchild
Word Count: 1155
Beta: Unbetad...yes, I'm a bad, bad girl. I'm sorry. I have no real excuse, beyond feeling the urge to post something and my beautiful betas being offline.
Genre: Romance, Angst, Tragedy.
Characters/Pairing: Cain, Mary, Crehador/Cain, implied Cain/Riff, implied one-sided Cassian/Jizabel
Rating: R
Warnings: Angst, non-explicit (rough and angsty) sex, discussion of suicide, general darkness.
Author's Notes: A random piece I wrote whilst trying to get beyond an epic dose of writers block, which is currently kicking my arse. A few snippets from the viewpoints of assorted characters. I also seem to be doing this thing whereby I won't write any of by OTPs directly, I just write about them sleeping with other people and being miserable...
Disclaimer: Not mine. Wish they were.
Summary: Ways, means, and the intricacies of a broken heart.
i. if you ever betray me, i’ll kill myself.
He had the means. Hundreds of tiny bottles in hundreds of colours, from garish reds and pinks to soft blues that reminded him of the sky in spring and the gentle purple of wildflowers. Little pots of heaven, hovering before his fingertips. It would be so simple to paint his lips scarlet or cerulean, to taste what had been denied to him for this long. Silence. Solace.
Would you like me to keep my promise?
Even without his cellar of stored sins, he had the means. Such a fragile thing, human life. A twist of a knife, the blast of a gun, a tumble from a balcony, hot water and a dagger, a noose…he could snuff out the candle of his existence with little effort.
Would it stop me from hurting?
But if life without Riff is unbearable, then death without Riff cannot be imagined.
ii. the intricacies of a broken heart.
Mary knew what broken people looked like.
The streets where she’d grown up had been littered with them. She’d seen them shamble past, their faces indistinguishable from those around them, but with something different in their eyes. They walked and talked and ate and drank and slept, but there was something missing. She looked into their eyes and saw only the distorted reflection of her own face.
She looked into Cain’s eyes now and saw nothing but the glassy indifference of the broken hearted.
He would speak to her, but his lips would merely move through the motions while his soul slid out the window to chase after the sweet scent of its own destruction. He would ruffle her curls, and smile when she chastised him, but his smile had sharp corners and pieces missing. He would kiss her forehead, but his lips were cold.
She wondered if he knew she knew. Doors left ajar and restless summer nights revealed all manner of sins. Little girls with curious eyes should not be left to their own devices.
His eyes lingered on shadows and street corners, as if he was looking for someone, searching for something just beyond his line of sight. He would turn, open his mouth, glance behind him, then press his lips together and walk on, face set in lines of fatalistic determination.
He offered his arm to Death, and smiled when she ducked her head coyly and whispered his name.
iii. in your eyes I see my violation.
Jizabel hated it.
Hated the way Cassandra touched him, fingers crawling over his skin like maggots over a corpse, gorging themselves on the sweet rottenness of his sins.
Every time Cassandra looked at Jizabel he raped him with his eyes.
He could see the other man imagining him in those carefully made restraints, see him considering the way his muscles would be forced to flex, the way his body would contort under the unyielding hand of the iron. The way his limbs would twist, his muscles atrophy, the way he would wither and bend to the iron like a plant forced to grow against his nature.
Cassandra had been inside his mind. The thought made him shudder. Cassandra has seen all of his sins, picked through them, stared straight into the seething pit of effluent that bubbled inside his filthy, human heart.
So even when it came time to crack open his skull, to pull him apart and make him anew, Jizabel hated it. Hated having to touch that depraved flesh with his fingers, hated having to let a drop of that filthy, perverted blood spill onto his hands. Hated the smell of his flesh. Hated the stark white of his bone.
Hated everything that reminded him that, beneath his own skin, he was made from the same sinews and tendons as this repulsive, vile beast.
iv. i can taste the ashes in the back of your throat.
Crehador was aware this was wrong, wrong in the most fundamental sense of the word, wrong because it was making a mockery of everything that should be held dear. Wrong because he was glutting himself on another’s misery. Wrong because what he held in his arms was pieces of a man, and not the man himself. Wrong because they would wake in the morning tangled in sheets smelling of sweat and shame.
Cain cried out, his voice catching on something between a sob and a moan, his pulse racing under Crehador’s lips. He tasted of salt and sweat, with the faintest hint of cinnamon, but above all he tasted of despair and shame and sweet devastation.
Crehador tried to be gentle, tried not to scratch open Cain’s soul any further, but Cain’s nails scoured tracks down his back and Cain bit at his lips and wrenched at his hair until he gave in, gave Cain what he wanted, lost himself in passion verging on violence. He wondered, even as the world went white, whose name Cain was mouthing into his hair.
There was blood on the sheets, but Crehador wasn’t sure whose. Cain’s lip was bleeding, but he could feel the warmth of blood on his back, oozing from the scratches. Funny how the blue blood of nobility and the coarse crimson of his own looked the same on white linen.
Cain wept afterwards, not sobbing, not wailing, just silent tears tumbling down his cheeks in a steady drip of betrayal.
It occurred to Crehador that the price of love was sometimes far too high.
v. the jealous eyes of the world could never stand your beauty.
Jizabel could be sleeping.
Cassian pressed a kiss to his cold lips, closing his eyes and trying to shut out the image of Jizabel’s blood spraying into the air, of the gaping slit in his throat. He tried to blot it out with memory after memory of beautiful hair and a smile that shifted between melancholy and manic. To drown it in the dreamy half-truths of imagined caresses.
Jizabel had never slumbered this peacefully in life. His dreams had been full of promises of love, snatched away and smashed. Of soft fur and the scent of fresh meat. Of the whip against his back, the pain. He’d cried out, screamed, and Cassian had bitten through his lip and rent bloody scratches in his palms as he lay awake, forcing himself to stay away, to stay silent.
Forcing himself to let Jizabel suffer alone.
He hoped, hoped more than he had a right too, that perhaps, just perhaps, Jizabel had realised in the end. Realised that Cassian hadn’t needed to save him, hadn’t needed to redeem him, hadn’t needed to do anything at all but love him. And though his love wasn’t perfect, wasn’t pure; was all too full of half-formed words and choking passion, was all too human, it had more truth to it than anything else in his life.
And who was to say that wasn’t enough?