Stainless Steel Reflections
Title: Stainless Steel Reflections
Summary: Next edition of the kink meme project. Insano wishes he could trust that Linkara wanted him, not Spoony. He sets out to show Linkara the truth, even if it means losing him in the end. Linkara is unamused and proves he knows very well who he's kissing. (OP requested 2nd person POV)
Characters/Pairings: Linkara/Insano
Rating: R- angst and sex, in that order
Disclaimer: I own nothing. This work is based on characters played by the great guys at Channel Awesome.
Warning and Triggers: Some suicidal imagery, D/s themes, and self-injury
The white porcelain of the sink is almost hidden by a drift of dark flecks. You ruffle your hands through your hair, shaking out the last of the cut edges.
Then you take a breath and find the courage to face the mirror.
For a moment you're hopeful. The cut is uneven, short enough that your hair stands up in tufts and half-curls. It's messy and looks like the butcher job that it is, but the only important thing is this hacked-up style is something new. Something unfamiliar.
But it's not enough. Just like it wasn't enough when you gained weight, when you lost it, when you tattooed a Bunsen burner on your hip.
Your face is still his face, and it always will be.
That night Linkara asks about the hair and the broken mirror in the bathroom. You dismiss both as sacrifices to science, burned away and shattered respectively in an experiment gone wrong. He frowns, but it's easy enough to distract him.
Later the taste of him sits bitter and heavy on your tongue, and you swallow slow to savor it. Raspy, snuffling snores drift from his side of the bed, and you savor that too, that he should have a place of his own beside you.
You've won. You're the one Linkara takes his pleasure from, the one he shares his nights with, and you tell yourself to be content. You tell yourself that it's enough.
You just wish you could be sure that you're the one he's kissing. Wish you could be sure that you're the one he's fucking.
Soon it will be morning, and like every morning you'll wait for Linkara to open his eyes and see the mistake he's made. Because someday he will, and it's the waiting that keeps you on edge. It's the waiting that hurts, a strange frozen ache that makes you shiver in the night.
It hits you then, while Linkara snores and you hold your breath through the long dark hours.
Your face is his face, but it doesn't have to stay that way.
You are a scientist, after all.
You think first of holograms and masks, but you want something more permanent. Something that can't be taken away.
So you turn to chemicals with tongue twister names in Latin. Combining, distilling, and boiling until you think you've found the answer. Then you test it, as scientists do, and watch a mouse scream its tiny rodent screams while its flesh is remade.
In the end it's still recognizable as a mouse, just not the mouse it had been before you dripped the elixir down its throat. Its tail is longer, its cheeks rounder, its ears bigger. When you return it to the colony the others fall on it and tear it to twitching pieces, responding as they would to any interloper on their territory.
You smile.
The serum is thick, a sticky mix that reeks of sulfur. You know it will hurt when bones first break and then heal into new configurations, but that's not why you hesitate before drinking it down.
You're so tired of waiting. Of pretending what you have is enough when you want so much more. You want Linkara to see you, not the man who shares your face.
But you also want Linkara to stay.
And you laugh. You laugh because you know you can't have both. You can never have it all, because you're not the good guy. Evil can win a battle or two, but never the war. You've known that since the very first night, when Linkara knocked the laser from your hands and pulled you into a bruising kiss. The night he took you hard, up against the wall of an alley while rats twined around your feet, and whispered someone else's name in your ear.
You think, not for the first time, of killing your rival (who is also your clone and also your brother, and it never pays to consider such things too deeply.) But you know Linkara would come to you for a shoulder to cry on, and it's pathetic enough to take second place to a video game reviewer, let alone a dead video game reviewer.
No. You have to drink it, if only to show Linkara the truth. Maybe you don't deserve more than you've got, but Linkara does. He's too noble to admit that he's using you as substitute, even to himself, and you're too much of a coward to simply turn your back. You'll lose him for this, but he's never been yours to keep.
You close your eyes and pinch your nose shut before raising the vial. The first sip numbs your lips and makes you gag. There's a tiny vicious sting near your temple as the thin skin there begins to stretch, and you brace yourself for greater agonies to come.
Then the test tube is wrenched from your hands.
You hear it smash against the wall, a shattering of glass and a thick splash. You're shouting dire threats even before you open your eyes, striking out with frantic slaps and kicks against the enemy.
Until strong hands catch your wrists, squeezing with a pressure just shy of pain. You sag, too well trained to fight Linkara's hold.
You have to blink hard to clear your blurred vision, and only then do you understand that you've been crying.
"What were you doing?" Linkara asks, and he sounds...
Frightened.
For you.
You realize how it would have looked. Huddled in the corner, struggling to drink from a smoking vial while weeping like the sad sack you are. You can't bring yourself to ease his fears, can only shake your head at the pathetic creature you've become.
Linkara releases your wrists but stays close. Too close, and you flinch when he cups your cheek, the tender touch too much to bear.
You assume he means to wipe away your tears, but when he withdraws his fingers drip a merry red. You feel the sting again, sharp and sudden enough to have you gasping. The skin must have torn wide, splitting open in readiness for the changes to come.
He holds his hand out like an accusation and waits. You know this time he won't be distracted, and you scramble to think of an explanation, an excuse.
"No." Linkara takes you by the shoulders. He shakes you, not hard enough to hurt, but his eyes are hard under the fear. Your own blood smears your lab coat, blending in with older stains. "No lies. Talk to me. Just...trust me."
But you don't trust him. How can you, when he's the one who lies every time he touches you, every time he looks at you without a sneer?
And suddenly you're angry, and it's the anger that makes it easy to admit all the things you've been trying so hard to deny. You spit the words in his face, shaking with the rage you never knew was buried under your longing.
When you're finished he says nothing. Just takes a step back and lets his hands fall to his sides, and that's all the answer you need.
You nod and take your own step back. Clear the way for Linkara to walk past you, to leave you in your lab with your new face shattered at your feet. To turn his back and seek out the one he really wants, your doppelganger who is so different from you in every way but the one.
And somehow it makes it worse that you can't even hate Spoony. He's a rude little moron who wouldn't know a transdimensional rift if it hit him in the face, but he's good. There are rules to the game, and you knew that when you decided to play.
You're caught by surprise when Linkara surges forward. He wretches your head back by your short shorn hair and kisses you with such frenzy it leaves your breathless. It's rough, a clash of teeth and choking stab of tongue, but you moan all the same.
He keeps kissing you as he drags you across the lab. You're stumbling over each other's feet, savaging each other's lips, and you know you should put a stop to it. If only it didn't feel so damn good, so much like being claimed, being wanted.
Somehow you end up the bathroom. Linkara curses at the shards of broken glass that still litter the tiles, then swallows your gasp of shock at hearing such crass language escape your always courteous lover. He pulls you back out into the lab, only tugging harder when you dig in with your heels.
You end up face down over the stainless table, bracing yourself against it with both hands and staring at your own reflection. You can see Linkara over your shoulder, his face grown still and calm, a look you recognize from the battlefield.
His hands grip you by the waist and his hips roll, dragging his cock against your ass. You can't hold back your groan, can't hide the way you stretch back against the hard, delicious heat.
Then he stills.
"Do you want me?" he asks, as if there's ever been a question.
You try to show him, arching your back and presenting yourself like a cat in heat, but he slaps your flank until you slump. "Do you want me?" he asks again, and it shouldn't be so hard to answer, shouldn't feel like surrendering some final hidden piece of yourself.
"Yes," you admit at last, when it's clear he won't take anything else less, "Yes."
He makes short work of the scrub bottoms and prods you into standing long enough to strip off the lap coat and top. But his own clothes stay on, and for some reason that makes you feel lonely, either left behind or pushed on ahead.
You're tight, clenched up with fear. Not fear of Linkara, because if he hurts you it's never more than you can take, and always just enough. Fear that this is it, the very last time you'll have this.
He takes his time working you open with fingers and tongue. Groaning while he eats you out, like this is the best part, like you're a feast and he won't be rushed. This is the passion you remember so well and it scares you sometimes to be the focus of it, leaves you shaking and begging in a shrill tone that hurts your own ears.
When you're slack and open he eases his way inside. No hard claiming thrust but a gentle glide, pressing a sucking kiss to the nape of your neck.
"Do you want me?" he asks then, and the bastard, the bastard stops moving, just the head of his cock holding you open.
You whine. You mock his parentage and threaten castration in a number of interesting ways. You promise to stop your evil plots and almost mean it.
Finally you scream it, an animal howl of want. "Yes! Fuck you, yes!"
"Good," he answers, and you can hear the smirk in his voice. "Because I want you."
He pushes forward, and you shudder with relief at being filled. But what has always bordered on punishing before is gentle now. Linkara rocks against you, hands stroking your chest, the side of his face pressed close to your own.
He turns to press a kiss where the wound is bright and vivid at your temple, tongue slipping out to trace its edges.
"I want you," he whispers in your ear, "Maybe I wanted Spoony once, but that was before I had this. But now...why would I want anyone or anything less when I have you, Insano?"
You shake your head, a little frantic. Because you're not anything, not in the ways that count.
"Hush," Linkara says, and that's when you know you've spoken aloud, "Look."
It's an order and you obey on reflex, staring down at polished metal. Your hair is curling tighter with sweat, but what catches your attention is your eyes.
Your eyes, not his. Pupils blown wide and still wet with tears, but you see the man behind them. You see yourself, for the very first time, and relief makes you sob.
"There you are," Linkara mumbles and you nod, because yes, yes, you're there after all. You've been there all this time, and when Linkara starts to thrust harder there's no doubt in your mind that you're the one he's fucking.
"You're brilliant," he tells you as he takes you in hand, "And you're less evil than you'd like, and so much better than you know. You challenge me, and who else could do that?"
You want to protest, but there's no air in your lungs for it. Not with Linkara squeezing your cock in rhythmic little pulses that have your hips juddering in desperate thrusts.
"You know what else you are?" he asks.
"What?" you gasp, because you're starting to believe, just a little. Because Linkara's a good guy, and good guys don't lie. Those are those rules, and for once you're grateful for them.
"You're mine, Insano," he says, and bites down where your neck meets your shoulder.
You shudder through a climax that turns your bones to jelly. A few minutes later Linkara pushes in hard one last time and sighs. He slumps down, his weight heavy over you, and you smile down at your reflection.
Your face is still his face, and it always will be. But your eyes are your own, and you like what you see.
Summary: Next edition of the kink meme project. Insano wishes he could trust that Linkara wanted him, not Spoony. He sets out to show Linkara the truth, even if it means losing him in the end. Linkara is unamused and proves he knows very well who he's kissing. (OP requested 2nd person POV)
Characters/Pairings: Linkara/Insano
Rating: R- angst and sex, in that order
Disclaimer: I own nothing. This work is based on characters played by the great guys at Channel Awesome.
Warning and Triggers: Some suicidal imagery, D/s themes, and self-injury
The white porcelain of the sink is almost hidden by a drift of dark flecks. You ruffle your hands through your hair, shaking out the last of the cut edges.
Then you take a breath and find the courage to face the mirror.
For a moment you're hopeful. The cut is uneven, short enough that your hair stands up in tufts and half-curls. It's messy and looks like the butcher job that it is, but the only important thing is this hacked-up style is something new. Something unfamiliar.
But it's not enough. Just like it wasn't enough when you gained weight, when you lost it, when you tattooed a Bunsen burner on your hip.
Your face is still his face, and it always will be.
That night Linkara asks about the hair and the broken mirror in the bathroom. You dismiss both as sacrifices to science, burned away and shattered respectively in an experiment gone wrong. He frowns, but it's easy enough to distract him.
Later the taste of him sits bitter and heavy on your tongue, and you swallow slow to savor it. Raspy, snuffling snores drift from his side of the bed, and you savor that too, that he should have a place of his own beside you.
You've won. You're the one Linkara takes his pleasure from, the one he shares his nights with, and you tell yourself to be content. You tell yourself that it's enough.
You just wish you could be sure that you're the one he's kissing. Wish you could be sure that you're the one he's fucking.
Soon it will be morning, and like every morning you'll wait for Linkara to open his eyes and see the mistake he's made. Because someday he will, and it's the waiting that keeps you on edge. It's the waiting that hurts, a strange frozen ache that makes you shiver in the night.
It hits you then, while Linkara snores and you hold your breath through the long dark hours.
Your face is his face, but it doesn't have to stay that way.
You are a scientist, after all.
You think first of holograms and masks, but you want something more permanent. Something that can't be taken away.
So you turn to chemicals with tongue twister names in Latin. Combining, distilling, and boiling until you think you've found the answer. Then you test it, as scientists do, and watch a mouse scream its tiny rodent screams while its flesh is remade.
In the end it's still recognizable as a mouse, just not the mouse it had been before you dripped the elixir down its throat. Its tail is longer, its cheeks rounder, its ears bigger. When you return it to the colony the others fall on it and tear it to twitching pieces, responding as they would to any interloper on their territory.
You smile.
The serum is thick, a sticky mix that reeks of sulfur. You know it will hurt when bones first break and then heal into new configurations, but that's not why you hesitate before drinking it down.
You're so tired of waiting. Of pretending what you have is enough when you want so much more. You want Linkara to see you, not the man who shares your face.
But you also want Linkara to stay.
And you laugh. You laugh because you know you can't have both. You can never have it all, because you're not the good guy. Evil can win a battle or two, but never the war. You've known that since the very first night, when Linkara knocked the laser from your hands and pulled you into a bruising kiss. The night he took you hard, up against the wall of an alley while rats twined around your feet, and whispered someone else's name in your ear.
You think, not for the first time, of killing your rival (who is also your clone and also your brother, and it never pays to consider such things too deeply.) But you know Linkara would come to you for a shoulder to cry on, and it's pathetic enough to take second place to a video game reviewer, let alone a dead video game reviewer.
No. You have to drink it, if only to show Linkara the truth. Maybe you don't deserve more than you've got, but Linkara does. He's too noble to admit that he's using you as substitute, even to himself, and you're too much of a coward to simply turn your back. You'll lose him for this, but he's never been yours to keep.
You close your eyes and pinch your nose shut before raising the vial. The first sip numbs your lips and makes you gag. There's a tiny vicious sting near your temple as the thin skin there begins to stretch, and you brace yourself for greater agonies to come.
Then the test tube is wrenched from your hands.
You hear it smash against the wall, a shattering of glass and a thick splash. You're shouting dire threats even before you open your eyes, striking out with frantic slaps and kicks against the enemy.
Until strong hands catch your wrists, squeezing with a pressure just shy of pain. You sag, too well trained to fight Linkara's hold.
You have to blink hard to clear your blurred vision, and only then do you understand that you've been crying.
"What were you doing?" Linkara asks, and he sounds...
Frightened.
For you.
You realize how it would have looked. Huddled in the corner, struggling to drink from a smoking vial while weeping like the sad sack you are. You can't bring yourself to ease his fears, can only shake your head at the pathetic creature you've become.
Linkara releases your wrists but stays close. Too close, and you flinch when he cups your cheek, the tender touch too much to bear.
You assume he means to wipe away your tears, but when he withdraws his fingers drip a merry red. You feel the sting again, sharp and sudden enough to have you gasping. The skin must have torn wide, splitting open in readiness for the changes to come.
He holds his hand out like an accusation and waits. You know this time he won't be distracted, and you scramble to think of an explanation, an excuse.
"No." Linkara takes you by the shoulders. He shakes you, not hard enough to hurt, but his eyes are hard under the fear. Your own blood smears your lab coat, blending in with older stains. "No lies. Talk to me. Just...trust me."
But you don't trust him. How can you, when he's the one who lies every time he touches you, every time he looks at you without a sneer?
And suddenly you're angry, and it's the anger that makes it easy to admit all the things you've been trying so hard to deny. You spit the words in his face, shaking with the rage you never knew was buried under your longing.
When you're finished he says nothing. Just takes a step back and lets his hands fall to his sides, and that's all the answer you need.
You nod and take your own step back. Clear the way for Linkara to walk past you, to leave you in your lab with your new face shattered at your feet. To turn his back and seek out the one he really wants, your doppelganger who is so different from you in every way but the one.
And somehow it makes it worse that you can't even hate Spoony. He's a rude little moron who wouldn't know a transdimensional rift if it hit him in the face, but he's good. There are rules to the game, and you knew that when you decided to play.
You're caught by surprise when Linkara surges forward. He wretches your head back by your short shorn hair and kisses you with such frenzy it leaves your breathless. It's rough, a clash of teeth and choking stab of tongue, but you moan all the same.
He keeps kissing you as he drags you across the lab. You're stumbling over each other's feet, savaging each other's lips, and you know you should put a stop to it. If only it didn't feel so damn good, so much like being claimed, being wanted.
Somehow you end up the bathroom. Linkara curses at the shards of broken glass that still litter the tiles, then swallows your gasp of shock at hearing such crass language escape your always courteous lover. He pulls you back out into the lab, only tugging harder when you dig in with your heels.
You end up face down over the stainless table, bracing yourself against it with both hands and staring at your own reflection. You can see Linkara over your shoulder, his face grown still and calm, a look you recognize from the battlefield.
His hands grip you by the waist and his hips roll, dragging his cock against your ass. You can't hold back your groan, can't hide the way you stretch back against the hard, delicious heat.
Then he stills.
"Do you want me?" he asks, as if there's ever been a question.
You try to show him, arching your back and presenting yourself like a cat in heat, but he slaps your flank until you slump. "Do you want me?" he asks again, and it shouldn't be so hard to answer, shouldn't feel like surrendering some final hidden piece of yourself.
"Yes," you admit at last, when it's clear he won't take anything else less, "Yes."
He makes short work of the scrub bottoms and prods you into standing long enough to strip off the lap coat and top. But his own clothes stay on, and for some reason that makes you feel lonely, either left behind or pushed on ahead.
You're tight, clenched up with fear. Not fear of Linkara, because if he hurts you it's never more than you can take, and always just enough. Fear that this is it, the very last time you'll have this.
He takes his time working you open with fingers and tongue. Groaning while he eats you out, like this is the best part, like you're a feast and he won't be rushed. This is the passion you remember so well and it scares you sometimes to be the focus of it, leaves you shaking and begging in a shrill tone that hurts your own ears.
When you're slack and open he eases his way inside. No hard claiming thrust but a gentle glide, pressing a sucking kiss to the nape of your neck.
"Do you want me?" he asks then, and the bastard, the bastard stops moving, just the head of his cock holding you open.
You whine. You mock his parentage and threaten castration in a number of interesting ways. You promise to stop your evil plots and almost mean it.
Finally you scream it, an animal howl of want. "Yes! Fuck you, yes!"
"Good," he answers, and you can hear the smirk in his voice. "Because I want you."
He pushes forward, and you shudder with relief at being filled. But what has always bordered on punishing before is gentle now. Linkara rocks against you, hands stroking your chest, the side of his face pressed close to your own.
He turns to press a kiss where the wound is bright and vivid at your temple, tongue slipping out to trace its edges.
"I want you," he whispers in your ear, "Maybe I wanted Spoony once, but that was before I had this. But now...why would I want anyone or anything less when I have you, Insano?"
You shake your head, a little frantic. Because you're not anything, not in the ways that count.
"Hush," Linkara says, and that's when you know you've spoken aloud, "Look."
It's an order and you obey on reflex, staring down at polished metal. Your hair is curling tighter with sweat, but what catches your attention is your eyes.
Your eyes, not his. Pupils blown wide and still wet with tears, but you see the man behind them. You see yourself, for the very first time, and relief makes you sob.
"There you are," Linkara mumbles and you nod, because yes, yes, you're there after all. You've been there all this time, and when Linkara starts to thrust harder there's no doubt in your mind that you're the one he's fucking.
"You're brilliant," he tells you as he takes you in hand, "And you're less evil than you'd like, and so much better than you know. You challenge me, and who else could do that?"
You want to protest, but there's no air in your lungs for it. Not with Linkara squeezing your cock in rhythmic little pulses that have your hips juddering in desperate thrusts.
"You know what else you are?" he asks.
"What?" you gasp, because you're starting to believe, just a little. Because Linkara's a good guy, and good guys don't lie. Those are those rules, and for once you're grateful for them.
"You're mine, Insano," he says, and bites down where your neck meets your shoulder.
You shudder through a climax that turns your bones to jelly. A few minutes later Linkara pushes in hard one last time and sighs. He slumps down, his weight heavy over you, and you smile down at your reflection.
Your face is still his face, and it always will be. But your eyes are your own, and you like what you see.