OOM: Javert Day Three

[vojvode]

[ Cont'd from here. ]

He returns from the hunt, his hunger sated, but his mind restless.

The man haunts him, with his stern mouth and his searching gaze.  He lets himself imagine all the impossible moments, trying to let them fall away into darkness, to let them die like the flames when all the fuel is spent.  

He paces when he's restless, and he finds himself back in the sanctuary.  Alexandreina frets in her sleep, and he kisses her icy lips.  Mirella is still, and cold, and beautiful.  He remembers how easily he could make her laugh, before the hunger stole her mind.  Tsura reaches for him, her dark eyes opening and her voice a hungry moan.  A wave of desire hits him, and he pushes it away, willing her back down into sleep.

That is what he did to Javert.  He had good intentions, but the man refused all his advances.  And he pushed, and pushed, until all the armor was stripped away, and he made the man wail with ecstasy.

It was easier to live with dispensing pain, he thinks, eyeing the earth-filled coffin.   

In his head, he tries to imagine what the world would look like, if she had never been taken from him.  How many lives would have been spared?  How many souls?

He cannot sleep, not while this last day remains, and so he paces.  Listening for the man to stir above, and sending Abel to tend to him.

He releases all veils from Javert's mind, but the connection in the blood, that will only fade with time.

Comments

[vojvode]

Explosions of white and red crash through his vision with each hit. The hand at his throat cuts off his air, crushing cartilage, sealing his airway, but it hardly matters. The knee in his chest crushes his silent heart, ribs cracking, the sternum separating with a sickening crunch. His head lolls and returns with every punch, the flesh of his lips torn and bleeding, the meat of his cheek turning to bloody pulp, marring his marble white skin.

In his head, he feels each blow, catalogs each injury, the images tangling with the memories of last night, of tasting his skin and the sweet heaven of his blood. If Javert can't take what he needs from his heart and his mind, let him take it from his body. He will give whatever is required of him.

He can only mouth the words now, one hand clinging to the man's sleeve.

Stay.



Be.



Still.

[never_shall_yield]

He cannot shake that hand off him. He wants to not understand what the man is saying, but the words are there to be read, even through all the blood. Even through the body breaking underneath him; he wants to be sick, a body should not fall apart this way, nothing is that vulnerable.

But in the end, he has to break before he can find resolution. This time, not his mind - that is already gone, he is sure; has been gone since the night on the Seine, because he does not recognise anything that has happened since.

No, it is far more pedestrian. His hand is what gives out, making a crack of its own as it attempts to spread the man's nose across his face. Pain shoots up his arm like a lightning strike, his fingers turn numb, and he can no longer make a fist. His head thrums with pressure as he stops, yanks a breath in that tastes of copper, lets out a noise that is something akin to a horse who has broken its leg.

Tepesh is a mess beneath him. And there is no satisfaction in it. He feels just the same as he did before, only this time knowing that he has broken again. He has violated himself. This was not the behaviour of a just man.

He falls. Backwards, onto the floor, sitting with his hand useless on the stones. He is, finally, still.

[vojvode]

Vlad lays there, eyes closed, as still as death for a long time. He can feel the blood on the back of his head from where his scalp has been sliced to ribbons on the stone floor. He can feel the bones of his face, his jaw, separated.

He has no choice. One last breath whispered across Javert's thoughts.

I release you.

And then, emptiness and the black.