Tenderness.
Title: Tenderness.
Author: septemberoses
Fandom: True Blood
Rating: PG
Pairing: Eric/Godric
Word Count: 1900
Summary: Eric teaches Godric something new. Another installment in my Beginnings series, shortly after Eric is made a vampire.
Note: I play rough with these two, particularly recently. But not tonight. Much thanks to Gruochrua for the beta and suggestions.
Godric's leg twitched as Eric sat beside him, naked in the light of the small fire. The cave had a natural chimney in the very back; Eric had followed the sounds, and the bats. He'd been delighted with his discovery, clearing away the underbrush above. Godric couldn't care less about such things, but it made Eric feel cosy, even if the fire had to be kept low.
"Please," Godric said.
"Wait." But Eric said it kindly, and Godric waited, stretched out on his back on the fur pelts.
After a minute Eric resumed his soft stroking, his hands running across his maker's chest down to his smooth belly, fingertips ghosting down one thigh, then the other. Eric often tried to make his fingertips so light against Godric's skin that they could barely be felt. He could do this for half the night, watching as Godric's gaze blurred and darkened in pleasure.
It's not that he lacked for sex. But there was a certain sameness to it, and that sameness was in the force involved, one way or another. Only the details varied. Eventually Eric, who as a mortal man would never have said he desired tenderness, began to change his mind.
Maybe it was because Eric could feel his human self slipping away, like a snake shedding its skin to be reborn, bigger and stronger, that he found himself thinking with a strange pity of the many women in his former life, women who were mostly vessels to slake his thirst, although he hadn't treated them cruelly. Now he had some inkling what it must have been like for them.
Eric's hand stilled again. He waited. He watched, knowing it could not be pushed too far. Godric could only wait a little, he lacked patience when it came to this kind of touching, new territory to them both.
"Please. Please, Eric."
Eric waited another moment, testing. Satisfied, he began again - just soft touches, designed to comfort, not to arouse.
But why? Godric had been mystified by his first attempts. Why would you want to touch, except for coupling? He was learning, though. The boy hungered for it now, as if he were starving. As if he had never been held, or stroked, or cherished.
"Eric…"
And the sight of Godric's eyes, looking at him, begging, melted his resolve a little.
Eric leaned forward and kissed Godric on the neck then. Although they'd been in front of the fire for quite some time their skin and hair was still damp from the river. He had carefully combed the knots and twigs from Godric's hair, and then his own, which he'd tied back loosely in a leather cord. When it hung down in his face Godric had trouble resisting the urge to pull it, and that would lead to things other than what Eric intended for tonight.
Godric tensed beneath him.
"Be still," Eric whispered. And the small body, so powerful, began to unwind and sink down into the warm furs again. This was a pleasing new discovery - the feel of the fur against Godric's skin seemed to make him more pliant. Eric resumed his soft kisses on Godric's neck, moving across his collarbone, allowing his tongue to slip and touch the skin.
"That's nice," Godric said, his eyes closed, head rolling slowly to one side.
"Is it? Is it nice?" Eric's fingertips drifting again, stroking Godric's arm on a journey from the shoulder to the wrist.
He was sure there was much more, but he knew enough. More than enough. Pried from his maker in the small hours over many months, if Godric was in the mood for talking.
He liked boys - human boys. And so I would go out and find them and bring them home. He liked them to come willingly, he didn't want them dragged in screaming, and they wouldn't come with him, he was old and ugly. But they'd come with me. He liked - he liked to watch us, first. And then before he drank them he would play with them.
Godric... what do you mean, play with them?
And Godric had told him, and Eric wished he hadn't asked.
They had each learned something about the other.
Godric had learned that he couldn't beat Eric into giving him the tenderness he craved - he couldn't command him to produce the gentle touching that Godric clearly found so appealing. Instead, he had to ask for it, nicely. And Eric made him ask.
Over and over and over again.
Eric, in turn, had learned that there were limits. If Godric lost control while Eric was soothing him like this - as he sometimes did - he would throw Eric face down and have him without a second thought, no matter how much Eric objected. Only then Eric would refuse to touch him like this on the following night, and possibly even the night after, depending on how rough his maker had been. And so, bit by bit, soft stroke by lingering kiss, Eric forged a path to the tenderness that he sometimes wanted from Godric more than anything else. More than he'd ever wanted as a human.
The first time he had been dumbstruck, thinking he had misunderstood.
But why, Godric? Why would your maker do such a thing?
Because he liked to. Or, depending, because he wanted to punish me, or because I brought home the wrong boy, or because he wanted me to remember not to do that again, or to teach me a lesson -
The truth was plain enough once Eric had begun to think on it. The boy could hardly have reached this sorry state on his own - he had to have learnt it somewhere. Eric guessed that you could learn many such things in a long life, although he didn't know precisely how old his maker was. And if half the things Godric had told him were true (and Eric had no reason to think they weren't) then no wonder the boy woke screaming at long-ago horrors. Although … there had been less of that screaming lately, less of the quiet sadness, and the rages that seemed to come from nowhere.
"Look at me," Eric said softly, and Godric opened his eyes, their faces less than a foot apart. The shadows played across his small, angular features, his crooked teeth, his oddly full lips. There was an unfamiliar lurch inside Eric when he realized that somehow, along the way, his own heart had moved from anger to indifference to something else. They were a part of each other now. It was not the boy's fault that he'd been so ill treated.
"I won't hurt you," Eric said, reassuring.
He ran his thumb across Godric's lips, testing. His maker's fangs weren't down, which was a good sign. "And you won't hurt me."
Godric shook his head slowly. Eric decided to press for more.
"Say it, please."
"I won't hurt you," Godric said obediently. He had such soft, full lips. Eric leaned in and kissed them, unable to resist, and Godric moaned. Here were the fangs.
"Sssshhhh." Eric kissed the corner of his mouth.
Godric looked at him then with that expression - somewhere between intense longing and physical pain.
"Eric …. please ….. please kiss me again. Please."
And Eric did, moving slowly to avoid arousing him too much. This - and the feet - were the trickiest areas. Godric's maker had many uses for his mouth, apparently, but kissing wasn't one of them. Godric found it wildly arousing and perverse, to kiss another vampire on the mouth. Eric's kisses, whether soft and delicate or more passionate, undid Godric completely.
Eric lifted his maker's foot with great care. The first time he had done so, teasingly, Godric kicked him so hard Eric had smashed into the far wall of the cave, his head cracking against the stone like the shell of an egg. After that, Eric just talked about touching his feet. And then one day he did so, resting the tip of his forefinger on the top of one foot while Godric looked at him suspiciously.
"I won't hurt you," Eric said.
Godric looked at him a long time, then lifted his chin, like a defiant child.
"You can't hurt me."
"I won't hurt you. I won't."
Godric had small, well-formed feet, uncalloused and undamaged; Eric wondered if it was because he spent so much time in the river before he was turned. To Eric, feet were nothing special, but the boy's powerful, unexplained resistance to having them touched in any way only fed his curiosity and desire to do so.
Each foot fit easily in Eric's large hand. If Godric was calm and Eric was careful, he was allowed to handle them. They'd reached a point after several months now where Eric had begun to test, taking liberties with those feet. He bathed them in the river, or in streams they passed, holding them and squeezing them gently, his palm pressed to Godric's sole. This gave way to soft kisses on the top of the foot, then the instep, bending and flexing the toes … he never tired of watching the transformation when he touched Godric in this previously forbidden way. He was watching it now. Godric's head was thrown back. Once in a while he would let out a low moan.
What happened to him?
I don't know. He was gone. One night, I woke up and he was gone.
But … how did you know he was gone? You didn't see it?
I could feel it. I knew. He's gone and he's never coming back.
Eric didn't ask if Godric missed him.
At last Eric sat upright in the cave, Godric curled up sideways in his arms, looking so deceptively fragile. He ran his fingertips down Godric's back, feeling the sinewy strength there; then up to the base of his neck, drawing soft circles with his fingertips, pressing into the scalp the way Godric liked. Godric was asleep; he was making that odd purring sound, Eric couldn't sort out how, he wasn't breathing, but there it was nonetheless, a faint rumble between his throat and his chest. Eric kissed his hair and smiled to himself. Tonight had been good. Gentle and sweet and good. Eric had shown kindness and had received it in return.
"…Eric?"
"I thought you were asleep."
"I was … that feels very nice."
"You like it when I touch you like this."
The corners of Godric's mouth twisted upward, although he didn't open his eyes. Eric continued to work at the muscles in the back of his neck, wanting to hear the purring noise again… and there it was. In a minute he'd shift them both back down to the furs and go to sleep himself.
"I love you," Eric said, quietly.
An owl - or maybe a bat? - flew past him in the cave. If it was an owl it was a small one.
"You love me?" Godric asked softly.
Eric didn't answer. Why had he even said such a thing?
"But why?" Godric's voice was drowsy.
"I … I don't know. But I do." It was true.
"Will you love me tomorrow?"
"Yes."
"Even -- even if I punish you?"
"Yes."
"Eric, it's hard to be nice. I'm sorry."
"It's all right. I know." Eric pressed his lips to the top of his head, stroking the soft skin right above his ear.
"I'm trying."
"I know. Now hush, and go to sleep."
And this time he stayed asleep, still purring when Eric covered them in the new wool blankets and then pulled him close to his chest, as the dawn broke above them.
Author: septemberoses
Fandom: True Blood
Rating: PG
Pairing: Eric/Godric
Word Count: 1900
Summary: Eric teaches Godric something new. Another installment in my Beginnings series, shortly after Eric is made a vampire.
Note: I play rough with these two, particularly recently. But not tonight. Much thanks to Gruochrua for the beta and suggestions.
Godric's leg twitched as Eric sat beside him, naked in the light of the small fire. The cave had a natural chimney in the very back; Eric had followed the sounds, and the bats. He'd been delighted with his discovery, clearing away the underbrush above. Godric couldn't care less about such things, but it made Eric feel cosy, even if the fire had to be kept low.
"Please," Godric said.
"Wait." But Eric said it kindly, and Godric waited, stretched out on his back on the fur pelts.
After a minute Eric resumed his soft stroking, his hands running across his maker's chest down to his smooth belly, fingertips ghosting down one thigh, then the other. Eric often tried to make his fingertips so light against Godric's skin that they could barely be felt. He could do this for half the night, watching as Godric's gaze blurred and darkened in pleasure.
It's not that he lacked for sex. But there was a certain sameness to it, and that sameness was in the force involved, one way or another. Only the details varied. Eventually Eric, who as a mortal man would never have said he desired tenderness, began to change his mind.
Maybe it was because Eric could feel his human self slipping away, like a snake shedding its skin to be reborn, bigger and stronger, that he found himself thinking with a strange pity of the many women in his former life, women who were mostly vessels to slake his thirst, although he hadn't treated them cruelly. Now he had some inkling what it must have been like for them.
Eric's hand stilled again. He waited. He watched, knowing it could not be pushed too far. Godric could only wait a little, he lacked patience when it came to this kind of touching, new territory to them both.
"Please. Please, Eric."
Eric waited another moment, testing. Satisfied, he began again - just soft touches, designed to comfort, not to arouse.
But why? Godric had been mystified by his first attempts. Why would you want to touch, except for coupling? He was learning, though. The boy hungered for it now, as if he were starving. As if he had never been held, or stroked, or cherished.
"Eric…"
And the sight of Godric's eyes, looking at him, begging, melted his resolve a little.
Eric leaned forward and kissed Godric on the neck then. Although they'd been in front of the fire for quite some time their skin and hair was still damp from the river. He had carefully combed the knots and twigs from Godric's hair, and then his own, which he'd tied back loosely in a leather cord. When it hung down in his face Godric had trouble resisting the urge to pull it, and that would lead to things other than what Eric intended for tonight.
Godric tensed beneath him.
"Be still," Eric whispered. And the small body, so powerful, began to unwind and sink down into the warm furs again. This was a pleasing new discovery - the feel of the fur against Godric's skin seemed to make him more pliant. Eric resumed his soft kisses on Godric's neck, moving across his collarbone, allowing his tongue to slip and touch the skin.
"That's nice," Godric said, his eyes closed, head rolling slowly to one side.
"Is it? Is it nice?" Eric's fingertips drifting again, stroking Godric's arm on a journey from the shoulder to the wrist.
He was sure there was much more, but he knew enough. More than enough. Pried from his maker in the small hours over many months, if Godric was in the mood for talking.
He liked boys - human boys. And so I would go out and find them and bring them home. He liked them to come willingly, he didn't want them dragged in screaming, and they wouldn't come with him, he was old and ugly. But they'd come with me. He liked - he liked to watch us, first. And then before he drank them he would play with them.
Godric... what do you mean, play with them?
And Godric had told him, and Eric wished he hadn't asked.
They had each learned something about the other.
Godric had learned that he couldn't beat Eric into giving him the tenderness he craved - he couldn't command him to produce the gentle touching that Godric clearly found so appealing. Instead, he had to ask for it, nicely. And Eric made him ask.
Over and over and over again.
Eric, in turn, had learned that there were limits. If Godric lost control while Eric was soothing him like this - as he sometimes did - he would throw Eric face down and have him without a second thought, no matter how much Eric objected. Only then Eric would refuse to touch him like this on the following night, and possibly even the night after, depending on how rough his maker had been. And so, bit by bit, soft stroke by lingering kiss, Eric forged a path to the tenderness that he sometimes wanted from Godric more than anything else. More than he'd ever wanted as a human.
The first time he had been dumbstruck, thinking he had misunderstood.
But why, Godric? Why would your maker do such a thing?
Because he liked to. Or, depending, because he wanted to punish me, or because I brought home the wrong boy, or because he wanted me to remember not to do that again, or to teach me a lesson -
The truth was plain enough once Eric had begun to think on it. The boy could hardly have reached this sorry state on his own - he had to have learnt it somewhere. Eric guessed that you could learn many such things in a long life, although he didn't know precisely how old his maker was. And if half the things Godric had told him were true (and Eric had no reason to think they weren't) then no wonder the boy woke screaming at long-ago horrors. Although … there had been less of that screaming lately, less of the quiet sadness, and the rages that seemed to come from nowhere.
"Look at me," Eric said softly, and Godric opened his eyes, their faces less than a foot apart. The shadows played across his small, angular features, his crooked teeth, his oddly full lips. There was an unfamiliar lurch inside Eric when he realized that somehow, along the way, his own heart had moved from anger to indifference to something else. They were a part of each other now. It was not the boy's fault that he'd been so ill treated.
"I won't hurt you," Eric said, reassuring.
He ran his thumb across Godric's lips, testing. His maker's fangs weren't down, which was a good sign. "And you won't hurt me."
Godric shook his head slowly. Eric decided to press for more.
"Say it, please."
"I won't hurt you," Godric said obediently. He had such soft, full lips. Eric leaned in and kissed them, unable to resist, and Godric moaned. Here were the fangs.
"Sssshhhh." Eric kissed the corner of his mouth.
Godric looked at him then with that expression - somewhere between intense longing and physical pain.
"Eric …. please ….. please kiss me again. Please."
And Eric did, moving slowly to avoid arousing him too much. This - and the feet - were the trickiest areas. Godric's maker had many uses for his mouth, apparently, but kissing wasn't one of them. Godric found it wildly arousing and perverse, to kiss another vampire on the mouth. Eric's kisses, whether soft and delicate or more passionate, undid Godric completely.
Eric lifted his maker's foot with great care. The first time he had done so, teasingly, Godric kicked him so hard Eric had smashed into the far wall of the cave, his head cracking against the stone like the shell of an egg. After that, Eric just talked about touching his feet. And then one day he did so, resting the tip of his forefinger on the top of one foot while Godric looked at him suspiciously.
"I won't hurt you," Eric said.
Godric looked at him a long time, then lifted his chin, like a defiant child.
"You can't hurt me."
"I won't hurt you. I won't."
Godric had small, well-formed feet, uncalloused and undamaged; Eric wondered if it was because he spent so much time in the river before he was turned. To Eric, feet were nothing special, but the boy's powerful, unexplained resistance to having them touched in any way only fed his curiosity and desire to do so.
Each foot fit easily in Eric's large hand. If Godric was calm and Eric was careful, he was allowed to handle them. They'd reached a point after several months now where Eric had begun to test, taking liberties with those feet. He bathed them in the river, or in streams they passed, holding them and squeezing them gently, his palm pressed to Godric's sole. This gave way to soft kisses on the top of the foot, then the instep, bending and flexing the toes … he never tired of watching the transformation when he touched Godric in this previously forbidden way. He was watching it now. Godric's head was thrown back. Once in a while he would let out a low moan.
What happened to him?
I don't know. He was gone. One night, I woke up and he was gone.
But … how did you know he was gone? You didn't see it?
I could feel it. I knew. He's gone and he's never coming back.
Eric didn't ask if Godric missed him.
At last Eric sat upright in the cave, Godric curled up sideways in his arms, looking so deceptively fragile. He ran his fingertips down Godric's back, feeling the sinewy strength there; then up to the base of his neck, drawing soft circles with his fingertips, pressing into the scalp the way Godric liked. Godric was asleep; he was making that odd purring sound, Eric couldn't sort out how, he wasn't breathing, but there it was nonetheless, a faint rumble between his throat and his chest. Eric kissed his hair and smiled to himself. Tonight had been good. Gentle and sweet and good. Eric had shown kindness and had received it in return.
"…Eric?"
"I thought you were asleep."
"I was … that feels very nice."
"You like it when I touch you like this."
The corners of Godric's mouth twisted upward, although he didn't open his eyes. Eric continued to work at the muscles in the back of his neck, wanting to hear the purring noise again… and there it was. In a minute he'd shift them both back down to the furs and go to sleep himself.
"I love you," Eric said, quietly.
An owl - or maybe a bat? - flew past him in the cave. If it was an owl it was a small one.
"You love me?" Godric asked softly.
Eric didn't answer. Why had he even said such a thing?
"But why?" Godric's voice was drowsy.
"I … I don't know. But I do." It was true.
"Will you love me tomorrow?"
"Yes."
"Even -- even if I punish you?"
"Yes."
"Eric, it's hard to be nice. I'm sorry."
"It's all right. I know." Eric pressed his lips to the top of his head, stroking the soft skin right above his ear.
"I'm trying."
"I know. Now hush, and go to sleep."
And this time he stayed asleep, still purring when Eric covered them in the new wool blankets and then pulled him close to his chest, as the dawn broke above them.