FIC: Blood Dimmed Tide (1/1)
Oct. 19th, 2007 01:44 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
nilchanceTitle: Blood Dimmed Tide
Authors:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
nilchance and beanside
Rating: Adult
Pairing: JDM/JA
A/N: AU. Future, postapocalyptic. Snippet of a bigger picture. A weapon must be maintained somehow.
Jeff thought of fucking Jensen long before he did it.
His hesitation was an aberration. Retrievers and their Librarians worked long hours in close contact. It was the Librarian's job to serve and inform, staying up late in the Retriever's home to brief them on the necessary research. You had to trust your Librarian; it was their knowledge that you spoke to warlords and smugglers, their maintenance of your weapons that kept them from misfiring or locking, their care that patched wounds and kept you alive. It was an intimate thing, that trust. It asked more of them than soldiers in the trenches, spouses at the altar: this is your other half, and they will bring you home.
Other Retrievers had gone there before. God knew, whenever Jeff tripped over one of his own kind, that was what they talked about once the usual macho shop talk had been covered. 'How's your El?' came in the same breath as 'revolver or pistol?', and for good damn reason. There was usually a bit of griping about irritating habits, but it always came down to affection. Librarians took care of their Retrievers in every way they could. Kept them fed, content, sane. Sex was part of 'other duties as assigned', unofficial but encouraged. The less Retrievers went into the outside world, the better; it was no accident that they were asked about orientation in the psych evals, and then paired off with the gender they were most likely to want. It was no accident that Librarians tended towards pretty. Maybe they let their Retrievers dress them, which was a new level of twisted, or maybe there was an archive of slutwear trends in the uplink, but most Els dressed like they were coming off a fashion shoot. That, too, seemed like part of their job.
Jensen wasn't pretty. At least, not like that.
Jeff paused outside his apartment door and took a minute. He'd been winding down from the mission on the return trip and through processing after he crossed the border, but he always took this last pause. He'd survived another run, brought back another batch of supplies and old tech. It was okay to roll a little more of the killing tension out of his shoulders, unclench his fists, and breathe in the scents of dinner and fresh coffee. Once he felt steady, he unlocked the door and smiled.
Last time he saw his apartment, it was a wreckage of papers and takeout containers. Jensen had been cleaning the place again, and it looked like something out of a catalog. Golden light spilled out of the kitchen and in small, shivering spheres around lit candles. (Small bodies, ribs cracked open above the firepits, fat spitting as it hit metal-- Jesus, no, all that stayed in the field. It had to.) Books were stacked neatly. Quiet piano and guitar played on Jeff's stereo, one of the few serene CDs Jeff owned, and beneath it Jeff could hear the sink running over dirty dishes. From here, Jeff couldn't see out the kitchen windows to the fence, the campfires in the wasteland. It almost felt normal. Setting his luggage down, Jeff called, "Jensen?"
The faucet turned off, and Jensen appeared in the doorway. His suit was newer, gray and tailored to every curve, buttoned up and strapped down tight. His hands were still wet from the dishes, cuffs unbuttoned to show the pale insides of his wrists, before Jensen remembered himself and did them up again. When he looked down, his expression flickered with relief, gone before Jeff could decide if it was a trick of the light. "Are you hurt?"
"Bruises. I'm fine. Jen," Jeff said, pulling his luggage out of the way before Jensen could take it, "I've got it. Really."
Jensen searched his face, one hand still outstretched to take Jeff's bag. This close, Jeff smelled Jensen's soap, something crisp and clean. After the stench of metal and blood on the run, all Jeff wanted was to press his face against the curve of Jensen's throat and breathe him in.
The song switched. Jeff realized he was standing too close, staring too long. He was the Retriever, able to touch whenever he wanted, but Jensen radiated nerves. They were a hell of a pair: a skittish El and a damaged Retriever.
Jensen's throat worked beneath the high, buttoned collar of his shirt. He looked down, chin dipping until Jeff could see the perfect line of his part, the vulnerable pale of his scalp. Jeff's hands itched to run through Jensen's hair and muss it up, leave it sticking in chaotic spikes. Beneath the barrier of Jensen's glasses, his eyelashes were unexpectedly lush. His lips pursed, probably revving up to offer sex again, then relaxed as he apparently thought better of it. "Do you plan to go out again?"
"Nah. I'm in for the night." Rubbing the back of his neck, Jeff gave the closest approximation of a laugh as he could. It usually took a few days for words to come back after a mission. Too much adrenaline, letting out the rage that lived in his gut and marked him Retriever. The wasteland was better passed through quietly, no sudden sounds to attract predator attention. "Probably tomorrow and the next, too. It was a rough one."
A rough one. Small words for the horror that pushed against Jeff's throat. He used to talk his old Librarian's ear off after a mission, endless attempts to understand until he finally realized that there was no way to wrap his mind around it. He was sane, and that itself kept him from understanding what he saw outside.
Sane being a relative word for a Retriever. Deep down, they were all predators. Not much better than the animalistic Cybers that lived in the wasteland. Barely leashed, their Librarians standing between them and the general population that feared them even as they relied on the technology and supplies the Retrievers procured.
"Do you want me to stay?" Jensen asked, eyes still lowered. He looked tired again, the urge to toss him in bed and hold him there tweaking Jeff's already raw nerves. It might've been a strange question, considering that Jensen lived in his apartment specifically so he could be around for nights like these, but Jeff didn't doubt that Jensen could serve and make himself scarce.
"Please." The word jerked up Jeff's throat like coughing blood, raw and unstoppable. "Yes. Stay."
Jensen glanced up at him, and Jeff didn't want to know what Jensen read on his face. Whatever it was, Jensen wet his lower lip, then stepped closer. He didn't move to embrace Jeff, and Jeff didn't back up; they spent an awkward moment shifting for balance, too close and still operating in two different worlds. Then Jeff held his arms out and Jensen moved into them, like a bullet sliding into its chamber.
The shudder of his own body took Jeff by surprise. It seemed strange that Jensen could be engulfed in anything as simple as a hug, taking up more space in Jeff's head than in his arms. Jeff rested a hand on Jensen's back, against the hard wing of his shoulder blade. Jensen held very still, barely breathing, his forehead not quite against Jeff's shoulder. Jen had always seemed brittle, fragile and cool as the bone china he served coffee from, but he was warm against Jeff now.
Jeff breathed with Jensen, slow and shallow, and felt the horror drawn away like poison from a wound. Once he was steady, once he could imagine letting go, Jeff stroked his fingertips up to the back of Jensen's neck. When he found bare skin, soft against the cool fabric of Jensen's suit, it burnt his fingers.
Jensen exhaled and let his head bump against Jeff's shoulder. Baring more of his neck for Jeff's touch. Accepting. Submitting. Jeff could take him now, strip away the suit and the glasses, bend him over the back of the couch and see what it'd take to make him scream--
Jeff turned away so sharply that Jensen staggered, his pupils blown wide with alarm. Jeff didn't stop to steady him, didn't stop until he'd walked away and into the relative safety of the bathroom. He slammed the door shut, dropped back against it, and set his jaw against a snarl of sheer animal frustration.
Every thudding heartbeat drummed out his, his, his. It pounded in his head, in his blood, in the darkness behind his eyes as Jeff undid his jeans. When he stripped his cock with hard, fast strokes, he thought of green eyes and bare wrists, the vulnerable nape of a freckled neck. The way blood would surface under his teeth. Bruises in the shape of Jeff's fingers, ringing Jensen's wrists like bracelets. When Jeff came, the violence spilled into his fist and left him drained and shaky.
Jensen was his. His to protect. Even if from Jeff himself.
******
Unacceptable.
Jensen met his own eyes in the mirrored door of Jeff's closet. The fever in his face had finally calmed, making him look less like he was in heat. It hadn't stopped the frantic rhythm of his blood, pulling and pushing against the seams until it'd tear him apart, but he wouldn't tempt Jeff now. He'd put fresh clothes by the door, food on the table, and stay close enough that Jeff's instincts were satisfied without triggering another...
Episode. Embrace. Collision. Jensen knew plenty of words to describe what they were being pulled towards, but not one way to explain why his hands still shook as he smoothed fine lines out of his suit jacket. It had been an echo of tapping into a datastream without that first bite of pain. Sensory input instead of information, a chaos with no goal. Jeff wouldn't let him serve. No culmination, no solution, no endgame, no--
In the mirror, Jensen saw the data-port in his neck pulsing red. He'd connected to the uplink again, a thread winding through the back of his thoughts bleeding poison and three dollar words. He slapped the connection down and the light died away. His breathing came hard enough to fog the mirror.
He'd uplinked without thinking, instinctual as breathing. Three times since Jeff was gone. He'd hooked himself in and drifted, nearly drowned before he even noticed that the ground was lost beneath his feet. If anyone found out it'd be back to the care facility, back to drugs and padded walls. That assumed that they'd even bother pulling him back from the datastream.
Dragged along in the current forever, a ghost in the machine.
Shuddering, Jensen closed his eyes and pressed his forehead against the cool glass of the mirror. He should wait until there was no chance of discovery, but he could feel himself losing pieces as he shook apart. He pulled his shirt out of his pants, rucking it up around his ribs, and reached back with fumbling fingers.
His fingers brushed silk, stays, and found the ties of the corset. He shook harder as he untied the knot, hating the old feeling of threatening disintegration; the corset held him together, kept his ribs a cage around his heart. For a terrifying moment, he thought he might drop the ties, but they stayed wrapped around his fingers as he pulled the stays tighter, tighter, tighter. The stays bit bruises into his sides, creaking their song. Jensen sucked in a shallow breath, lightness sweeping through him like benediction. He sank gratefully against the mirror and drank in calm, one moment of peace. Then he knotted himself together again.
The room was quiet. The shower kept running. Jensen breathed, tucked in his shirt, and picked up a rag for the mirror. Soon it was clean again.
When the madness finally took him, he wouldn't even leave a fingerprint behind.
Authors:
nilchance and beansideRating: Adult
Pairing: JDM/JA
A/N: AU. Future, postapocalyptic. Snippet of a bigger picture. A weapon must be maintained somehow.
Jeff thought of fucking Jensen long before he did it.
His hesitation was an aberration. Retrievers and their Librarians worked long hours in close contact. It was the Librarian's job to serve and inform, staying up late in the Retriever's home to brief them on the necessary research. You had to trust your Librarian; it was their knowledge that you spoke to warlords and smugglers, their maintenance of your weapons that kept them from misfiring or locking, their care that patched wounds and kept you alive. It was an intimate thing, that trust. It asked more of them than soldiers in the trenches, spouses at the altar: this is your other half, and they will bring you home.
Other Retrievers had gone there before. God knew, whenever Jeff tripped over one of his own kind, that was what they talked about once the usual macho shop talk had been covered. 'How's your El?' came in the same breath as 'revolver or pistol?', and for good damn reason. There was usually a bit of griping about irritating habits, but it always came down to affection. Librarians took care of their Retrievers in every way they could. Kept them fed, content, sane. Sex was part of 'other duties as assigned', unofficial but encouraged. The less Retrievers went into the outside world, the better; it was no accident that they were asked about orientation in the psych evals, and then paired off with the gender they were most likely to want. It was no accident that Librarians tended towards pretty. Maybe they let their Retrievers dress them, which was a new level of twisted, or maybe there was an archive of slutwear trends in the uplink, but most Els dressed like they were coming off a fashion shoot. That, too, seemed like part of their job.
Jensen wasn't pretty. At least, not like that.
Jeff paused outside his apartment door and took a minute. He'd been winding down from the mission on the return trip and through processing after he crossed the border, but he always took this last pause. He'd survived another run, brought back another batch of supplies and old tech. It was okay to roll a little more of the killing tension out of his shoulders, unclench his fists, and breathe in the scents of dinner and fresh coffee. Once he felt steady, he unlocked the door and smiled.
Last time he saw his apartment, it was a wreckage of papers and takeout containers. Jensen had been cleaning the place again, and it looked like something out of a catalog. Golden light spilled out of the kitchen and in small, shivering spheres around lit candles. (Small bodies, ribs cracked open above the firepits, fat spitting as it hit metal-- Jesus, no, all that stayed in the field. It had to.) Books were stacked neatly. Quiet piano and guitar played on Jeff's stereo, one of the few serene CDs Jeff owned, and beneath it Jeff could hear the sink running over dirty dishes. From here, Jeff couldn't see out the kitchen windows to the fence, the campfires in the wasteland. It almost felt normal. Setting his luggage down, Jeff called, "Jensen?"
The faucet turned off, and Jensen appeared in the doorway. His suit was newer, gray and tailored to every curve, buttoned up and strapped down tight. His hands were still wet from the dishes, cuffs unbuttoned to show the pale insides of his wrists, before Jensen remembered himself and did them up again. When he looked down, his expression flickered with relief, gone before Jeff could decide if it was a trick of the light. "Are you hurt?"
"Bruises. I'm fine. Jen," Jeff said, pulling his luggage out of the way before Jensen could take it, "I've got it. Really."
Jensen searched his face, one hand still outstretched to take Jeff's bag. This close, Jeff smelled Jensen's soap, something crisp and clean. After the stench of metal and blood on the run, all Jeff wanted was to press his face against the curve of Jensen's throat and breathe him in.
The song switched. Jeff realized he was standing too close, staring too long. He was the Retriever, able to touch whenever he wanted, but Jensen radiated nerves. They were a hell of a pair: a skittish El and a damaged Retriever.
Jensen's throat worked beneath the high, buttoned collar of his shirt. He looked down, chin dipping until Jeff could see the perfect line of his part, the vulnerable pale of his scalp. Jeff's hands itched to run through Jensen's hair and muss it up, leave it sticking in chaotic spikes. Beneath the barrier of Jensen's glasses, his eyelashes were unexpectedly lush. His lips pursed, probably revving up to offer sex again, then relaxed as he apparently thought better of it. "Do you plan to go out again?"
"Nah. I'm in for the night." Rubbing the back of his neck, Jeff gave the closest approximation of a laugh as he could. It usually took a few days for words to come back after a mission. Too much adrenaline, letting out the rage that lived in his gut and marked him Retriever. The wasteland was better passed through quietly, no sudden sounds to attract predator attention. "Probably tomorrow and the next, too. It was a rough one."
A rough one. Small words for the horror that pushed against Jeff's throat. He used to talk his old Librarian's ear off after a mission, endless attempts to understand until he finally realized that there was no way to wrap his mind around it. He was sane, and that itself kept him from understanding what he saw outside.
Sane being a relative word for a Retriever. Deep down, they were all predators. Not much better than the animalistic Cybers that lived in the wasteland. Barely leashed, their Librarians standing between them and the general population that feared them even as they relied on the technology and supplies the Retrievers procured.
"Do you want me to stay?" Jensen asked, eyes still lowered. He looked tired again, the urge to toss him in bed and hold him there tweaking Jeff's already raw nerves. It might've been a strange question, considering that Jensen lived in his apartment specifically so he could be around for nights like these, but Jeff didn't doubt that Jensen could serve and make himself scarce.
"Please." The word jerked up Jeff's throat like coughing blood, raw and unstoppable. "Yes. Stay."
Jensen glanced up at him, and Jeff didn't want to know what Jensen read on his face. Whatever it was, Jensen wet his lower lip, then stepped closer. He didn't move to embrace Jeff, and Jeff didn't back up; they spent an awkward moment shifting for balance, too close and still operating in two different worlds. Then Jeff held his arms out and Jensen moved into them, like a bullet sliding into its chamber.
The shudder of his own body took Jeff by surprise. It seemed strange that Jensen could be engulfed in anything as simple as a hug, taking up more space in Jeff's head than in his arms. Jeff rested a hand on Jensen's back, against the hard wing of his shoulder blade. Jensen held very still, barely breathing, his forehead not quite against Jeff's shoulder. Jen had always seemed brittle, fragile and cool as the bone china he served coffee from, but he was warm against Jeff now.
Jeff breathed with Jensen, slow and shallow, and felt the horror drawn away like poison from a wound. Once he was steady, once he could imagine letting go, Jeff stroked his fingertips up to the back of Jensen's neck. When he found bare skin, soft against the cool fabric of Jensen's suit, it burnt his fingers.
Jensen exhaled and let his head bump against Jeff's shoulder. Baring more of his neck for Jeff's touch. Accepting. Submitting. Jeff could take him now, strip away the suit and the glasses, bend him over the back of the couch and see what it'd take to make him scream--
Jeff turned away so sharply that Jensen staggered, his pupils blown wide with alarm. Jeff didn't stop to steady him, didn't stop until he'd walked away and into the relative safety of the bathroom. He slammed the door shut, dropped back against it, and set his jaw against a snarl of sheer animal frustration.
Every thudding heartbeat drummed out his, his, his. It pounded in his head, in his blood, in the darkness behind his eyes as Jeff undid his jeans. When he stripped his cock with hard, fast strokes, he thought of green eyes and bare wrists, the vulnerable nape of a freckled neck. The way blood would surface under his teeth. Bruises in the shape of Jeff's fingers, ringing Jensen's wrists like bracelets. When Jeff came, the violence spilled into his fist and left him drained and shaky.
Jensen was his. His to protect. Even if from Jeff himself.
******
Unacceptable.
Jensen met his own eyes in the mirrored door of Jeff's closet. The fever in his face had finally calmed, making him look less like he was in heat. It hadn't stopped the frantic rhythm of his blood, pulling and pushing against the seams until it'd tear him apart, but he wouldn't tempt Jeff now. He'd put fresh clothes by the door, food on the table, and stay close enough that Jeff's instincts were satisfied without triggering another...
Episode. Embrace. Collision. Jensen knew plenty of words to describe what they were being pulled towards, but not one way to explain why his hands still shook as he smoothed fine lines out of his suit jacket. It had been an echo of tapping into a datastream without that first bite of pain. Sensory input instead of information, a chaos with no goal. Jeff wouldn't let him serve. No culmination, no solution, no endgame, no--
In the mirror, Jensen saw the data-port in his neck pulsing red. He'd connected to the uplink again, a thread winding through the back of his thoughts bleeding poison and three dollar words. He slapped the connection down and the light died away. His breathing came hard enough to fog the mirror.
He'd uplinked without thinking, instinctual as breathing. Three times since Jeff was gone. He'd hooked himself in and drifted, nearly drowned before he even noticed that the ground was lost beneath his feet. If anyone found out it'd be back to the care facility, back to drugs and padded walls. That assumed that they'd even bother pulling him back from the datastream.
Dragged along in the current forever, a ghost in the machine.
Shuddering, Jensen closed his eyes and pressed his forehead against the cool glass of the mirror. He should wait until there was no chance of discovery, but he could feel himself losing pieces as he shook apart. He pulled his shirt out of his pants, rucking it up around his ribs, and reached back with fumbling fingers.
His fingers brushed silk, stays, and found the ties of the corset. He shook harder as he untied the knot, hating the old feeling of threatening disintegration; the corset held him together, kept his ribs a cage around his heart. For a terrifying moment, he thought he might drop the ties, but they stayed wrapped around his fingers as he pulled the stays tighter, tighter, tighter. The stays bit bruises into his sides, creaking their song. Jensen sucked in a shallow breath, lightness sweeping through him like benediction. He sank gratefully against the mirror and drank in calm, one moment of peace. Then he knotted himself together again.
The room was quiet. The shower kept running. Jensen breathed, tucked in his shirt, and picked up a rag for the mirror. Soon it was clean again.
When the madness finally took him, he wouldn't even leave a fingerprint behind.