Underneath the Skies of Lust
Title: Underneath the Skies of Lust
Author: Lyra
Rating: R
Fandom: Dresden Files
Pairing: Implied Thomas/Justine
Spoilers: Up through Turn Coat
Warnings: Descriptions of and allusions to torture, violence, sexual situations
Synopsis: Thomas attempts to deal with his experience at the hands of the Skinwalker in his own way.
Author's Notes: Thank you to jumble for the readthrough and relentless cheerleading, and evil_little_dog for continued moral support.
Underneath the Skies of Lust
Torture can do some strange things to people. Traumatize them. Break them. Make them re-evaluate their lives. Strip them down to their essence and force them to confront what they are. All of the above. They say that that sort of trauma means therapy, finding someone to talk to and work through all the feelings and memories. They meaning people.
Maybe it works for food, but who'd ever heard of a monster going to therapy?
*****
I'd been keeping an eye on Molly and Morgan when that two-bit thug and the cannon fodder patrol showed up. By itself, that would have been a problem, but my instincts picked up something that made the hair on the back of my neck stand on end, which meant it was going to be much worse, so I called Harry. Thinking back on it, I can't remember what I said to Harry, because that was when the Skinwalker hit me.
I am what I am. A vampire. A predator. I am paranoid and prepared, and even with my little brother getting himself (and by extension, me) into trouble bigger than he is, I don't usually get surprised or overpowered. That thing managed both. One second I was on the street in Chicago, and the next I was somewhere else, clenched in the fist, claws, talons, whatever of something whose presence made my skin crawl.
And then the world exploded, and I knew nothing but pain.
When I say pain, I'm not talking about banging your head against the counter pain or getting hit by a car pain. Hell, I'm not even talking about taking a couple of bullets pain. Because banging your head against the counter is shock more than hurt, and getting hit by a car ends. Getting shot? If you're being shot at, there's usually enough adrenaline in your system that you can't feel it until you go into shock, and then you don't feel it anyway. All part of the body's brilliant ways of coping with pain.
What I felt was slow and continuous. I guess when you've had since the dawn of time or whatever to perfect torture, you know what you're doing. Dull claws ripped into my skin, each bit of pressure shooting fire straight down my nerves, and then ripping, slow inch by slow inch. Think of it like ripping a bandage off a little at a time. All that stinging, second after second. Imagine that, except instead of stinging, it was like being burned, one inch at a time.
If I had been human, I would have passed out after maybe the third strip or so. But I am what I am, and my demon healed me, growing new skin the second the old strip was being pulled up. Which, of course, meant there was more for the Skinwalker to tear off. Another strip, another inch. Nerves on fire the entire time, the smell of my own blood rising all the while. I think it took him about three hours the first time to exhaust my reserves. Felt like a lifetime.
And then it got worse.
I'd only been that empty once before, and my memories of that particular evening were obscured by a heaping helping of guilt. This time, I was wide awake and skinless. Every breath of air brushing against exposed nerves was a fresh jolt of agony, and I'd screamed so much that my throat was beyond raw, every breath drawn into my lungs another throb of pain. And now there was that gaping emptiness inside me, the voice that had always been a dark whisper now a raging torrent. Pain. Feed. Feed or perish. Perish and there is nothing left of you, nothing to take up your corrupt soul. We must feed.
Do you know what it's like to feel so much hunger, so much hurt, so much pure agony? Your awareness doesn't grow crystal clear, nor does your focus sharpen, like some lucky hero in a book. It doesn't fade either. Your world becomes nothing but fuzzy, incoherent pain. You lose the sense of who you are, what you are, and where you are. Your body goes on functioning, taking in air in motions that hurt like breathing in fire, because it doesn't want to die, but all your mind knows is agony. It's like standing in the middle of an oven, but you never burn away, you just feel the heat, feel the crisping skin, feel everything. Now couple that with the idea that the same oven is burning you from the inside out. Now there's not just crisping skin from the outside, but there's burning from the inside, consuming everything one muscle, one bone, at a time, and you feel every second of it.
And it doesn't stop.
That's when he brought her to me.
She was young and lovely. And absolutely terrified. I told Harry I didn't know how old she was, or her name, but I didn't tell him I knew her more intimately than that. I'm not talking about the sex, I'm talking about knowledge and desire. My kind, our demons aren't just supernatural batteries. They tell us things about our prey. Reaching for them, sinking deep into them, our demons can find out exactly what makes them tick, what deep dark desires lurk in the corners of their psyches. Desires that are hidden even to themselves. The knowledge helps us pick and choose our partners, matching their desires to our preferences, or to bend them to our will. Pain might be the best teacher, but human beings underestimate their ability to be coerced by pleasure.
So when the Skinwalker cut me down from the rafters and I reached for that tender little doe out of pure, mad instinct, I knew her. I knew her likes and dislikes, her loves and hopes and dreams. I knew what to do, where to rest a hand to have her quivering. She was young, had I mentioned that? Young and full of dreams of her own invincibility. It was what had led her to agree to meet her friends at that trendy new nightclub. And then another nightclub, and another and another, each one dabbling in darker desires than the last. It was what had led her down this road to be snatched up by one monster and come face to face with another. Deep down, so deep that she didn't realize it, she wanted saving. She wanted salvation at the hands of someone better than herself, someone who would snatch her out of the grip of the life that had caught her.
Justine had too. It was one of those little things that had caught my attention about her that first night in Zero. I had thought it would be fun, to play the hero for a while and then find something else to occupy my time. But it hadn't quite worked out that way.
The doe, on the other hand, wasn't quite as lucky. Maybe I said something to her, something to reassure her that she was safe, that she would be well. All I remember doing was taking her, feeding on her until she gasped in pleasure with her last breath, and how when I killed her there was nothing but blessed silence inside me, cool relief from the furnace, warm satisfaction out of the cold.
Can you imagine how it feels? To have your entire world be pain and suffering one moment, and in the next it all washing away in a flood of warmth and healing? To struggle against something dogging your steps for years and suddenly it was simply gone? It's like being out in the middle of a storm, in the middle of the desert, thinking you're going to die any second, and suddenly being rescued.
It stays with you.
*****
What else do you want me to say? When I was whole and the girl was dead, the Skinwalker strung me up again. Lather. Rinse. Repeat. Pain is pain, and reliving it six separate times isn't exactly going to help my well-being or yours, is it? The women? No, they weren't all the same. Not every feeding is the same. Each depends on the prey's own weaknesses and desires, unique. But they were all lovely. All delicious. All dead.
The second one was dark haired and long-limbed, with a dancer's slenderness. She had a subtle beauty to her, a sweetness that came with maturity. My Hunger danced through her, danced with her, delved deep into her mind and found her broken. She wanted nothing more than to die, trapped in a hell of her own mind's making behind the mask. So I gave her what she wanted. And took her life in exchange.
The third. Oh, she was special. So many emotions, and every single one of them burned with white hot intensity. Her moods that shifted like quicksilver, inviting and exquisite. She lasted the longest of the six, screaming for me with every breath, her lips tasting like fine red wine and her death kept the cold and hunger at bay for nearly a full day.
Fourth had a backbone, a determination to return to friends, to family, to those she cared about. She resisted but I broke her. Sent her into the very throes of ecstasy without release until she begged for me. Begged for me and for what I could give her. She died with a smile on her lips, blue eyes staring with empty wonder.
Sure you want to hear more? It's usually considered impolite to talk about other women in the presence of one.
If you insist.
The fifth was intriguing. At first I thought it was naïvete, when she stared at me with utter serenity in her eyes even as her breath hitched with desire, her flesh flushed with arousal. But she believed that I wouldn't hurt her. She'd been kidnapped by a monster even the legends were afraid to speak of and stared her own death in the face, and yet was unafraid. She had desires like the rest, nerves that sang for my demon, life that slid like honey and sunlight under my skin. But she had not been afraid. There had been a soul-deep conviction of good in her that my demon and I in our depravity and hunger could not touch. She'd died believing in goodness with her last breath. Believing in goodness despite the darkness that threatened to devour her very soul.
Her name had been Katrine.
The sixth, the last. Maybe if I had known she would have been the last I would have made it last, savoured her like some fine wine. But by then, my world was nothing but pain and that glorious moment of silence and pain again. There was no reason to believe she would be the last. Maybe by then I had given up hope that there would be anything more than feeding and being skinned alive by the monster that held me captive. Or maybe there had never been any hope at all. Maybe if there had been hope, I would have tried not to kill them.
Or that's just the pathetic part of me talking.
The last one... She had been the best parts of all of the rest, dark haired and slender, her emotions quick and flowing like sweet water. Beautiful and broken, with a quiet strength and iron will that threaded through her desires.
She had also been in love.
Skinned and out of my mind with the emptiness that consumed me, I'd reached for her with pure instinct, and her skin had been like fire. Like live electricity that shot through me and cut through all the dull, ever present pain of exposed nerves and slow-regenerating skin. It made what the Skinwalker had done to me the past few days feel like a particularly long and drawn-out prelude. I knew what that was the second I'd touched her. The touch of true love, of someone who had experienced selfless, unmistakable, undeniable love and was loved in return.
I remember that I laughed then, harsh and hysterical, the laugh of somebody so out of his mind that he would spit in the face of the gods that held him. Laughed because I could not touch her, because I wanted to, because some part of me was glad that this was how it would end, that I would die in that lair, unable to have the one thing that could keep me alive. I think some little part of me thought that I would finally win.
Except monsters don't win. Monsters cheat.
While I laid there laughing and waiting to die, the Skinwalker watched me and watched the doe. The air rippled around him and suddenly there was another man in the room. I think he wanted me to think he was me, but there was something about him that wasn't quite right. Cruelty clung to him. Despite the facial features, the grey eyes, the hair, the pale skin, there was a sense of utter wrongness to him. Or maybe he's just that good at looking like me. Maybe I look like that.
The skinwalker took her, quick and ruthless, without any of the niceties, the pleasure, or the desire. I think she cried. I know she screamed. And then he threw her at my feet, a dirty broken rag doll where before there had been something beautiful, something pure and loved. Something protected.
She didn't last an hour with me after that.
*****
This is the part where you try to figure out why I remembered the women, isn't it? I'm surprised you haven't already figured it out, Dr. Trent. Isn't the answer obvious? I thought it was obvious.
They all reminded me of Justine.
One, maybe two, I could have believed it was a coincidence, but all six? All six women somehow managing to exhibit precise qualities that remind me of the one woman I want more than life itself but can't have? That's not coincidence. That's planning. The Skinwalker knew exactly what doe to look for, how to feed her to my Hunger to get his point across.
I'm a predator; they're prey. Justine and I shouldn't have happened. And... if it had happened now instead of seven years ago, she'd be dead. Just like those six. She's no different from them. Fragile. Human.
Food.
*****
So what now, Dr. Trent? Is this the part where you tell me that my trauma is still too close to the surface? That it's colouring how I see the world around me? And that healing will take time?
Like I said, therapy might work for you and the rest of the human world, but I'm not like you. I'm something that looks human, that sounds human, but there's a little part of you that knows I'm not. That knows I'm something dangerous. But you think you can help, Diana, don't you? You think you can figure out what's broken and fix it. But there's only one way to help fix what's inside me, and you know that.
So why don't you give us a kiss?
Author: Lyra
Rating: R
Fandom: Dresden Files
Pairing: Implied Thomas/Justine
Spoilers: Up through Turn Coat
Warnings: Descriptions of and allusions to torture, violence, sexual situations
Synopsis: Thomas attempts to deal with his experience at the hands of the Skinwalker in his own way.
Author's Notes: Thank you to jumble for the readthrough and relentless cheerleading, and evil_little_dog for continued moral support.
Underneath the Skies of Lust
Torture can do some strange things to people. Traumatize them. Break them. Make them re-evaluate their lives. Strip them down to their essence and force them to confront what they are. All of the above. They say that that sort of trauma means therapy, finding someone to talk to and work through all the feelings and memories. They meaning people.
Maybe it works for food, but who'd ever heard of a monster going to therapy?
*****
I'd been keeping an eye on Molly and Morgan when that two-bit thug and the cannon fodder patrol showed up. By itself, that would have been a problem, but my instincts picked up something that made the hair on the back of my neck stand on end, which meant it was going to be much worse, so I called Harry. Thinking back on it, I can't remember what I said to Harry, because that was when the Skinwalker hit me.
I am what I am. A vampire. A predator. I am paranoid and prepared, and even with my little brother getting himself (and by extension, me) into trouble bigger than he is, I don't usually get surprised or overpowered. That thing managed both. One second I was on the street in Chicago, and the next I was somewhere else, clenched in the fist, claws, talons, whatever of something whose presence made my skin crawl.
And then the world exploded, and I knew nothing but pain.
When I say pain, I'm not talking about banging your head against the counter pain or getting hit by a car pain. Hell, I'm not even talking about taking a couple of bullets pain. Because banging your head against the counter is shock more than hurt, and getting hit by a car ends. Getting shot? If you're being shot at, there's usually enough adrenaline in your system that you can't feel it until you go into shock, and then you don't feel it anyway. All part of the body's brilliant ways of coping with pain.
What I felt was slow and continuous. I guess when you've had since the dawn of time or whatever to perfect torture, you know what you're doing. Dull claws ripped into my skin, each bit of pressure shooting fire straight down my nerves, and then ripping, slow inch by slow inch. Think of it like ripping a bandage off a little at a time. All that stinging, second after second. Imagine that, except instead of stinging, it was like being burned, one inch at a time.
If I had been human, I would have passed out after maybe the third strip or so. But I am what I am, and my demon healed me, growing new skin the second the old strip was being pulled up. Which, of course, meant there was more for the Skinwalker to tear off. Another strip, another inch. Nerves on fire the entire time, the smell of my own blood rising all the while. I think it took him about three hours the first time to exhaust my reserves. Felt like a lifetime.
And then it got worse.
I'd only been that empty once before, and my memories of that particular evening were obscured by a heaping helping of guilt. This time, I was wide awake and skinless. Every breath of air brushing against exposed nerves was a fresh jolt of agony, and I'd screamed so much that my throat was beyond raw, every breath drawn into my lungs another throb of pain. And now there was that gaping emptiness inside me, the voice that had always been a dark whisper now a raging torrent. Pain. Feed. Feed or perish. Perish and there is nothing left of you, nothing to take up your corrupt soul. We must feed.
Do you know what it's like to feel so much hunger, so much hurt, so much pure agony? Your awareness doesn't grow crystal clear, nor does your focus sharpen, like some lucky hero in a book. It doesn't fade either. Your world becomes nothing but fuzzy, incoherent pain. You lose the sense of who you are, what you are, and where you are. Your body goes on functioning, taking in air in motions that hurt like breathing in fire, because it doesn't want to die, but all your mind knows is agony. It's like standing in the middle of an oven, but you never burn away, you just feel the heat, feel the crisping skin, feel everything. Now couple that with the idea that the same oven is burning you from the inside out. Now there's not just crisping skin from the outside, but there's burning from the inside, consuming everything one muscle, one bone, at a time, and you feel every second of it.
And it doesn't stop.
That's when he brought her to me.
She was young and lovely. And absolutely terrified. I told Harry I didn't know how old she was, or her name, but I didn't tell him I knew her more intimately than that. I'm not talking about the sex, I'm talking about knowledge and desire. My kind, our demons aren't just supernatural batteries. They tell us things about our prey. Reaching for them, sinking deep into them, our demons can find out exactly what makes them tick, what deep dark desires lurk in the corners of their psyches. Desires that are hidden even to themselves. The knowledge helps us pick and choose our partners, matching their desires to our preferences, or to bend them to our will. Pain might be the best teacher, but human beings underestimate their ability to be coerced by pleasure.
So when the Skinwalker cut me down from the rafters and I reached for that tender little doe out of pure, mad instinct, I knew her. I knew her likes and dislikes, her loves and hopes and dreams. I knew what to do, where to rest a hand to have her quivering. She was young, had I mentioned that? Young and full of dreams of her own invincibility. It was what had led her to agree to meet her friends at that trendy new nightclub. And then another nightclub, and another and another, each one dabbling in darker desires than the last. It was what had led her down this road to be snatched up by one monster and come face to face with another. Deep down, so deep that she didn't realize it, she wanted saving. She wanted salvation at the hands of someone better than herself, someone who would snatch her out of the grip of the life that had caught her.
Justine had too. It was one of those little things that had caught my attention about her that first night in Zero. I had thought it would be fun, to play the hero for a while and then find something else to occupy my time. But it hadn't quite worked out that way.
The doe, on the other hand, wasn't quite as lucky. Maybe I said something to her, something to reassure her that she was safe, that she would be well. All I remember doing was taking her, feeding on her until she gasped in pleasure with her last breath, and how when I killed her there was nothing but blessed silence inside me, cool relief from the furnace, warm satisfaction out of the cold.
Can you imagine how it feels? To have your entire world be pain and suffering one moment, and in the next it all washing away in a flood of warmth and healing? To struggle against something dogging your steps for years and suddenly it was simply gone? It's like being out in the middle of a storm, in the middle of the desert, thinking you're going to die any second, and suddenly being rescued.
It stays with you.
*****
What else do you want me to say? When I was whole and the girl was dead, the Skinwalker strung me up again. Lather. Rinse. Repeat. Pain is pain, and reliving it six separate times isn't exactly going to help my well-being or yours, is it? The women? No, they weren't all the same. Not every feeding is the same. Each depends on the prey's own weaknesses and desires, unique. But they were all lovely. All delicious. All dead.
The second one was dark haired and long-limbed, with a dancer's slenderness. She had a subtle beauty to her, a sweetness that came with maturity. My Hunger danced through her, danced with her, delved deep into her mind and found her broken. She wanted nothing more than to die, trapped in a hell of her own mind's making behind the mask. So I gave her what she wanted. And took her life in exchange.
The third. Oh, she was special. So many emotions, and every single one of them burned with white hot intensity. Her moods that shifted like quicksilver, inviting and exquisite. She lasted the longest of the six, screaming for me with every breath, her lips tasting like fine red wine and her death kept the cold and hunger at bay for nearly a full day.
Fourth had a backbone, a determination to return to friends, to family, to those she cared about. She resisted but I broke her. Sent her into the very throes of ecstasy without release until she begged for me. Begged for me and for what I could give her. She died with a smile on her lips, blue eyes staring with empty wonder.
Sure you want to hear more? It's usually considered impolite to talk about other women in the presence of one.
If you insist.
The fifth was intriguing. At first I thought it was naïvete, when she stared at me with utter serenity in her eyes even as her breath hitched with desire, her flesh flushed with arousal. But she believed that I wouldn't hurt her. She'd been kidnapped by a monster even the legends were afraid to speak of and stared her own death in the face, and yet was unafraid. She had desires like the rest, nerves that sang for my demon, life that slid like honey and sunlight under my skin. But she had not been afraid. There had been a soul-deep conviction of good in her that my demon and I in our depravity and hunger could not touch. She'd died believing in goodness with her last breath. Believing in goodness despite the darkness that threatened to devour her very soul.
Her name had been Katrine.
The sixth, the last. Maybe if I had known she would have been the last I would have made it last, savoured her like some fine wine. But by then, my world was nothing but pain and that glorious moment of silence and pain again. There was no reason to believe she would be the last. Maybe by then I had given up hope that there would be anything more than feeding and being skinned alive by the monster that held me captive. Or maybe there had never been any hope at all. Maybe if there had been hope, I would have tried not to kill them.
Or that's just the pathetic part of me talking.
The last one... She had been the best parts of all of the rest, dark haired and slender, her emotions quick and flowing like sweet water. Beautiful and broken, with a quiet strength and iron will that threaded through her desires.
She had also been in love.
Skinned and out of my mind with the emptiness that consumed me, I'd reached for her with pure instinct, and her skin had been like fire. Like live electricity that shot through me and cut through all the dull, ever present pain of exposed nerves and slow-regenerating skin. It made what the Skinwalker had done to me the past few days feel like a particularly long and drawn-out prelude. I knew what that was the second I'd touched her. The touch of true love, of someone who had experienced selfless, unmistakable, undeniable love and was loved in return.
I remember that I laughed then, harsh and hysterical, the laugh of somebody so out of his mind that he would spit in the face of the gods that held him. Laughed because I could not touch her, because I wanted to, because some part of me was glad that this was how it would end, that I would die in that lair, unable to have the one thing that could keep me alive. I think some little part of me thought that I would finally win.
Except monsters don't win. Monsters cheat.
While I laid there laughing and waiting to die, the Skinwalker watched me and watched the doe. The air rippled around him and suddenly there was another man in the room. I think he wanted me to think he was me, but there was something about him that wasn't quite right. Cruelty clung to him. Despite the facial features, the grey eyes, the hair, the pale skin, there was a sense of utter wrongness to him. Or maybe he's just that good at looking like me. Maybe I look like that.
The skinwalker took her, quick and ruthless, without any of the niceties, the pleasure, or the desire. I think she cried. I know she screamed. And then he threw her at my feet, a dirty broken rag doll where before there had been something beautiful, something pure and loved. Something protected.
She didn't last an hour with me after that.
*****
This is the part where you try to figure out why I remembered the women, isn't it? I'm surprised you haven't already figured it out, Dr. Trent. Isn't the answer obvious? I thought it was obvious.
They all reminded me of Justine.
One, maybe two, I could have believed it was a coincidence, but all six? All six women somehow managing to exhibit precise qualities that remind me of the one woman I want more than life itself but can't have? That's not coincidence. That's planning. The Skinwalker knew exactly what doe to look for, how to feed her to my Hunger to get his point across.
I'm a predator; they're prey. Justine and I shouldn't have happened. And... if it had happened now instead of seven years ago, she'd be dead. Just like those six. She's no different from them. Fragile. Human.
Food.
*****
So what now, Dr. Trent? Is this the part where you tell me that my trauma is still too close to the surface? That it's colouring how I see the world around me? And that healing will take time?
Like I said, therapy might work for you and the rest of the human world, but I'm not like you. I'm something that looks human, that sounds human, but there's a little part of you that knows I'm not. That knows I'm something dangerous. But you think you can help, Diana, don't you? You think you can figure out what's broken and fix it. But there's only one way to help fix what's inside me, and you know that.
So why don't you give us a kiss?