Weiss Kreuz - slash_me_twice - 053. Trolley
053. Trolley
*
Schuldig remembers the days when horses, trolleys, and trains were the cars, subways, and planes of the day. He remembers a time before radio, television, computers. A time before the telegraph, the cell phone, the telephone. He has outlived the light bulb and the discovery of cancer. He remembers drinking with Jack the Ripper, and the feel of the atomic bomb searing his flesh. He remembers a revolution in the Americas that wasn’t supposed to go anywhere. He remembers the end of the Tokugawa era and the ascension of the Meiji empire.
Schuldig remembers many things. For him, time is an endless loop of birth, blood, healing, and death. Traveling from place to place, returning when all he knew has crumbled and fallen, giving way to the new, the improved, the soon-to-be-fallen. New discoveries are made, and the old is left to the dust of the ages. Babies are born, and the dying give in. It is of no consequence to Schuldig, for people remain the same no matter what age they live.
They are prey, and nothing more.
At least, they are until he finally feels what his master told him about, long ago, on the night he and Schuldig parted ways.
Schuldig sees the human with hair like blood and a moon-kissed sword, and he wants him more than anything. Aches to possess him, lick the blood from his skin, taste the fire that burns within him.
He wants to Turn this human. He wants to witness this man’s transition from flesh to porcelain. He wants to stroke the blood-filled cheek and feel warm hands wrap around him. He wants the kiss of lips that scorch, a bullet graze in the carding of fingers through hair.
And so Schuldig follows the hunter of men, so like Schuldig and yet bound by the mortal coil. Schuldig watches him as he screams tragedy in his bed, as blood spatters across his face, as the comm whispers death in his ear. The human doesn’t sense his presence; no one ever does.
His chance comes when the human is wounded. Schuldig whisks him away to the newest high tower humans have come to build. In a skyscraper that reflects the sun, Schuldig licks the human’s wounds closed and tastes of his precious blood for the first time. He keeps the human delirious, has his way with the man, and the taking is sweeter than honey, sweeter than blood.
The human sleeps beside him as Schuldig hides from the sun. And at sundown he wakes the human as much as he wills and drinks of him, buries himself inside him and gives back the blood, knowing this will sustain the human for a time, as the blood sustains Schuldig.
Days pass. Nearly a week before Schuldig’s near-drunken euphoria wears off enough that he realizes the man he has chosen is growing thin. He sends the man, now tied to him irrevocably, into the world. Schuldig shrinks back into the shadows and watches.
The man goes back to his life. His red hair puts the lamplight in his stark apartment to shame, and his distant expression puts his friends on edge. Schuldig slips into his room at night and laps at his neck, tasting the phantom of blood on his tongue. And Schuldig slips back out of the human’s room nearing dawn, the imprint of his head on the man’s pillow the only sign of his passing. In the day the man goes about his business. Schuldig dreams that his human is searching for something.
It is dusk. Schuldig wakes to find the man standing over him, red hair in his eyes, a hot tear streaking down his cheek, a wooden stake in one hand. In the man’s head is an ultimatum that Schuldig can read as plain as day.
The man’s head tilts: why did you leave me?
Schuldig smiles and holds out his hand: stay with me.
The human smiles back, a tremulous, joyful thing, and comes to him.
In the growing dark, they come together. Bleed together. Are made whole.
*
Schuldig remembers the days when horses, trolleys, and trains were the cars, subways, and planes of the day. He remembers a time before radio, television, computers. A time before the telegraph, the cell phone, the telephone. He has outlived the light bulb and the discovery of cancer. He remembers drinking with Jack the Ripper, and the feel of the atomic bomb searing his flesh. He remembers a revolution in the Americas that wasn’t supposed to go anywhere. He remembers the end of the Tokugawa era and the ascension of the Meiji empire.
Schuldig remembers many things. For him, time is an endless loop of birth, blood, healing, and death. Traveling from place to place, returning when all he knew has crumbled and fallen, giving way to the new, the improved, the soon-to-be-fallen. New discoveries are made, and the old is left to the dust of the ages. Babies are born, and the dying give in. It is of no consequence to Schuldig, for people remain the same no matter what age they live.
They are prey, and nothing more.
At least, they are until he finally feels what his master told him about, long ago, on the night he and Schuldig parted ways.
Schuldig sees the human with hair like blood and a moon-kissed sword, and he wants him more than anything. Aches to possess him, lick the blood from his skin, taste the fire that burns within him.
He wants to Turn this human. He wants to witness this man’s transition from flesh to porcelain. He wants to stroke the blood-filled cheek and feel warm hands wrap around him. He wants the kiss of lips that scorch, a bullet graze in the carding of fingers through hair.
And so Schuldig follows the hunter of men, so like Schuldig and yet bound by the mortal coil. Schuldig watches him as he screams tragedy in his bed, as blood spatters across his face, as the comm whispers death in his ear. The human doesn’t sense his presence; no one ever does.
His chance comes when the human is wounded. Schuldig whisks him away to the newest high tower humans have come to build. In a skyscraper that reflects the sun, Schuldig licks the human’s wounds closed and tastes of his precious blood for the first time. He keeps the human delirious, has his way with the man, and the taking is sweeter than honey, sweeter than blood.
The human sleeps beside him as Schuldig hides from the sun. And at sundown he wakes the human as much as he wills and drinks of him, buries himself inside him and gives back the blood, knowing this will sustain the human for a time, as the blood sustains Schuldig.
Days pass. Nearly a week before Schuldig’s near-drunken euphoria wears off enough that he realizes the man he has chosen is growing thin. He sends the man, now tied to him irrevocably, into the world. Schuldig shrinks back into the shadows and watches.
The man goes back to his life. His red hair puts the lamplight in his stark apartment to shame, and his distant expression puts his friends on edge. Schuldig slips into his room at night and laps at his neck, tasting the phantom of blood on his tongue. And Schuldig slips back out of the human’s room nearing dawn, the imprint of his head on the man’s pillow the only sign of his passing. In the day the man goes about his business. Schuldig dreams that his human is searching for something.
It is dusk. Schuldig wakes to find the man standing over him, red hair in his eyes, a hot tear streaking down his cheek, a wooden stake in one hand. In the man’s head is an ultimatum that Schuldig can read as plain as day.
The man’s head tilts: why did you leave me?
Schuldig smiles and holds out his hand: stay with me.
The human smiles back, a tremulous, joyful thing, and comes to him.
In the growing dark, they come together. Bleed together. Are made whole.