Drabbles: Coldfire (G to soft R, slash)

[winter]

I should have known better than to offer drabbles to a fic-starved fandom with so many plotbunniers on my f-list, really :) In order of appearance, for alighiera, alice_montrose, fuumasfrog and trobadora.

WORKAROUNDS

Ever since Mount Shaitan, Gerald had been learning to appreciate the simple pleasures in life. For example, at the moment he was lying sprawled across Damien’s broad chest, idly toying with the ex-priest’s shirt and watching the dazed look in Damien’s eyes. Even the cramped quarters only meant that he had an excuse to climb just that close, and Damien had to put an arm around his waist.

Presently, Damien blinked, his eyes turning clearer. “Are we on a ship-“

Gerald leaned in and kissed Damien again until the other man’s eyes were glazed over once more, the guarded question turning into a drawn-out moan before it could be fully phrased.

If he had known getting Damien to enjoy ship travel would be that easy, he would have tried this method ages ago.

-FIN-



SO THE WORLD WILL NEVER FIND YOU

Damien sighed as he pushed through the crowd, taking another drink from a flask of liquor someone had pressed into his hand. At least in the black mask and cloak, even if he did make a fool of himself at the Jaggonath carnival, no-one would be able to tell him apart from every other guy dressed up as a vampire. And a few real vampires, he had no doubt.

He wondered what Gerald would wear. The adept had been reticent about his plans, only setting the meeting place on the outskirts of the city-

Near Karril’s temple, he realised as a woman flung herself into his arms. She was wearing a version of a First Landing uniform, though he was sure the real colonists never had ones that tight.

She kissed him on the mouth. “Praise Karril,” she whispered. “A man is waiting for you, two alleys down. An... urgent matter.”

She laughed shrilly, and as she flung her neck back he saw the imprint of teeth. Not quite Gerald’s type, he thought, too strong, but then he wasn’t Gerald’s usual type either.

He stumbled through the throng of people, found the alley, leaned against a door that opened to rapidly for him to do anything but fall through it to the floor.

A chapel of the Church, he realised as he looked around blearily. Closed down temporarily, with a pagan festival roaring through the streets. Yet there were candles burning, and a fresh cloth on the altar.

Something – someone – moving, and he raised his head as he struggled to his feet.

Layers of silk obscuring limbs and body, so that he could no longer recall their past or present look. A broad collar of beaten gold with a pattern of flames. Dark hair instead of light brown, but oh, never mistaken, and now he remembered too clearly.

“I remember you felt particularly strongly about that dream.” Even the old mocking cadences were back in Tarrant’s voice. “You will enjoy this better than you would have the masquerade.”

Strong hands pushed Damien against the altar before he could think of fear, revulsion, desire, sacrilege.

“Don’t worry,” the man who had been the Hunter whispered in his ear as clothes were quickly, deftly pushed aside. “I won’t let you think.”

-FIN-




PETTY ANNOYANCES

Damien moved his wrists experimentally. The cuffs were far snugger than it should be possible for something lined with fur.

“Gerald, this is vulking ridiculous,” he muttered.

The former Hunter shook his head as he surveyed his handiwork. “You have a habit of tearing buttons off my shirts. I’m running out of outfits, and the shops here are not up to my standards. Therefore, you’ll be chained until I undress myself.”

“Only until then?” Damien asked hopefully.

Gerald’s smile was sweetness itself as he ran a hand down Damien’s bare chest. “Perhaps a few minutes longer than that.”

-FIN-




PROOF OF FAITH

The bracelet was tarnished silver, a streak of near-black on the red velvet lining the box set on the street stall. Gerald’s fingers closed in on it without hesitation. Damien raised his eyebrows, but remained silent as Gerald ruthlessly argued down the price.

He got his answer when they left the street fair and Gerald tenderly wiped the grime and tarnish off a fragile piece of glass. Underneath it was the face of a clock, too small to ever house the appropriate mechanism.

“A watch used to be an important theological analogy, Vryce. As the watch with its complexity proves the existence of a watchmaker, so the world proves the existence of its creator.”

Under Gerald’s touch, a tiny screw turned without resistance.

Tick.

-FIN-

Comments

Re: bit

[fyrie.livejournal.com]

*grins* You're in my head again :D Darla's really wishing she'd never taken Angelus there, because oh, the embarrassment. He might be a dlightful brute and lover, but oh, he's a moron.

Re: bit

[winter]

Especially when polite company is involved, n'est-ce pas?

Re: bit

[fyrie.livejournal.com]

Of course!

Although, for some inexplicable reason, I've wandered back into the Herbert-chained fic. Spike one is sitting open, but I'm hopping tween them.

Re: bit

[winter]

Well, you know what my reaction to such a comment will always be...

Snipplet? :>

Re: bit

[fyrie.livejournal.com]

Just re-reading atm. Didn't realise how long it was :D

Re: bit

[winter]

Herbert peeked out from behind the bench. “I think they’re gone,” he whispered.

“Who are they?” Von Krolock lowered his voice to match.

Herbert made a face. “The Turks, father. We’re hiding from them because they’re invading. And when they catch you, they put you on a sharp stick and push down.”

At the last word, the boy shuddered, looking around cautiously. To a child like him, his father thought, the Turks would be even greater monsters. And in the silence, without distractions not of their own making, the tower was chilly and forbidding.

He wrapped his arm around Herbert’s shoulder. “Are you afraid?”

Herbert leaned against him, still looking around cautiously for imaginary invaders. “I was, a little,” he admitted. “When I was all alone with no-one to help. But now you’re here and when they come, you’ll rip their throats out, right?”

“That’s werewolves, Herbert,” von Krolock murmured as he kissed his son’s forehead. “I would like to think I’m a little more restrained.”

Alone with no-one to help, he thought, holding his son close. The boy needed company, beyond magic-dazed servants and a single vampire who was not sure of his own thoughts for half the time, never mind the needs of one of such a tender age.

Re: bit

[fyrie.livejournal.com]

Oh, bless! Poor adorable little Herbie with his scary games!


“What is worship but the hopeless devotion of one creature to one who does not truly care for it?” the demon asked. “I was worshipped for millennia, but never did I profess to love those who gave me their devotion.”

“Love is different,” Vittorio said faintly.

“Sometimes, yes,” the demon said, stepping close and scrutinising him with a cold intensity that made him lean back in his seat. “The shell had love for the one called Wesley. This love was returned a hundred-fold from him. When she was lost to him, this... emotion remained. Even when he died, it was his foremost thought, as he had been the shell’s when I claimed her form.” She canted her head. “Would your thought and feeling be returned by the Sorcerer upon his death?”

He did not, could not respond to that, his chest aching unbearably as if the demon had reached between his ribs and wrenched out his heart.

Re: bit

[winter]

Awww, poor Vitto. Illyria's just poking the bleeding wound here, isn't she? I'm hoping he won't be broken for good...

Re: bit

[fyrie.livejournal.com]

She's reinforcing the fact that he needs to get over VK and grab what he has now, before he loses it forever :D

Re: bit

[winter]

I think he does need a swift kick in order to think of Buffy and what she's going through all this time. Even in their scenes together, I got the feeling he wasn't entirely there.

Re: bit

[fyrie.livejournal.com]

He was mooning far too much in them. She's about to get tackled and glomped next time he sees her, wrapped in his arms and told they're going away together and no one'll bother them and he will renew himself to her and her alone :)

Re: bit

[winter]

Atta boy :) And incidentally it'll take them both out of Dawn's hair for a while...

Re: bit

[fyrie.livejournal.com]

Big chunk of the plan :D

Re: bit

[fyrie.livejournal.com]

“What of your female?”

In the stillness, her voice seemed like an explosion of sound.

Buffy...

Closing his eyes, Vittorio swore softly, under his breath. What had he been doing in fawning over the Graf all over again? They had not seen one another for centuries and with good reason. Why had he become a love-struck fool again when confronted with a face from his past, even when his lover was by his side?

It was she who had dominion in his heart now, had done for months and when he thought of her, of the way she laughed, of the expression on her face when she tried to pretend she had not burned the pasta, of the way her hair fell against her cheek when she fell asleep in his arms...

“She deserves so much better,” he heard himself say. “And I do not deserve her.”

“In this festering cesspool,” Illyria’s voice was a monotone. “I do not believe better is a choice. I have seen people fight for this emotion, this love, and many of them do not deserve all they have. Why should you deserve or not deserve? If you want it, then you keep it. If not, then you destroy it.” Her expression was distasteful. “It is such a weakness, emotion.”

Re: bit

[winter]

(Illyria is the best therapist ever. And Vitto so needed that kick.)



Von Krolock steepled his fingers. “Herbert is a curious child and mostly takes care of his own education at this point. He practices his reading skills on select books from my library. Mostly those close enough to the floor for him to reach.”

“Oh, I won’t allow that to continue,” the nanny said.

He had a bad feeling about this. “You won’t?”

“A child should not be heard, nor seen outside the nursery more often than once per day,” she explained. “I’m sure the poor motherless boy only needs a firm hand. He’ll be thankful for the discipline once he’s older.”

Idly, he wondered if he had managed to acquire a curse while he wasn’t looking. “How would you define discipline?”

“Oh, kneeling on peas, fasting for a day or two maybe.” She smiled with a grandmotherly twinkle. “I always say you should wait until they’re at least seven before you actually draw blood with the belt. They only learn to appreciate it with age.”

Von Krolock wondered what sound would she make while being dropped from the highest tower of the castle.

Re: bit

[fyrie.livejournal.com]

Idly, he wondered if he had managed to acquire a curse while he wasn’t looking.


BAHAHAHAH! :D

Also, am now back in the William-poetry...

Re: bit

[winter]

He really should have paid attention to the fact his wife's old nurse, who took care of Herbert during the first five years of the boy's life, was a Gypsy :>

Goodie. Someone's getting impatient.

Re: bit

[fyrie.livejournal.com]

*snickers* Silly VK :D And what a thing to be cursed with - evil nannies :D



“Er…”

“May I choose?” Herbert asked, grey eyes so bright and eager, and William held out the book mutely to him. Parting the pages with a reverence William would have used himself, Herbert smoothed a page and laid the book back in William’s hands. “That one, if you will.”

William looked down, then felt as if his innards had turned to ice, his hands gripping the edges of the book. On the page, the words were blurred into a mass of black and he squinted at them uncertainly.

“I-I really am terrible at reading aloud,” he mumbled, trying to close to book. “I-I stammer and...” Herbert’s hand prevented him from shutting the book and he turned, only to find grey eyes gazing at him.

“Please,” the Graf’s son murmured, so close, so polite, so striking, so charming. “I would be delighted to hear it, regardless.”

William realised, belatedly, that he was staring again and, colouring deeply, looked back down at the traitorous page with eyes that refused to work as efficiently as the rest of his cursed body.

“Your pronunciation and diction were so...” There was no word, none that could do it justice, and William scuffed his feet against the carpet. “I would be ashamed to disappoint you.”

Re: bit

[winter]

Oh, they're both so freaking adorable :D

(Only note - from my experience, with my glasses off type usually looks like a mass of grey, not black?)

Re: bit

[fyrie.livejournal.com]

*grins* Wait til William realises this a poem he knows from memory ;) He'll be reciting, all dreamy-like, then get mauled :D

(Ooh, good call. I did wonder since old-school print systems tend to be big and blocky. *tweaks*)

Re: bit

[winter]

Oi, write! :P

(Just got a period-ish book off the shelf. Definitely grey, even with the whole page chock-full of a single paragraph of small type.)

Re: bit

[fyrie.livejournal.com]

Herbert’s chuckle was soft, sincere and not at all patronising. “Cheri, since I have no idea what it is meant to sound like, you think I would know?” he said, sliding a little closer. He gazed down at the page and carefully articulated the first line, stumbling on the vowels, “And thou art dead, as young and fair as aught of mortal birth.”

Hopeful blue eyes turned to stare at him. By sheer chance, by sheer, breathtaking coincidence, Herbert had selected the one poem he knew by heart, the one poem he had loved since he had read it in a classroom, when the teacher had been unaware of his attention.

“Oh...” he whispered.

Grey eyes met his, so close to his it almost seemed conspiratorial. “You know this poem?” he asked softly. William nodded wordlessly. “Will you say it for me, cheri?”

Re: bit

[winter]

William = so doomed :D

Btw, coincidence or dad helpfully picking William's brain, or Herbert's very own magic of some sort?

Re: bit

[fyrie.livejournal.com]

It was actually just sheer chance. Herbert loves that poem and now, knowing William loves it to is just making him go "EEEH! THIS ONE IS MINE!" - Herbie likes it for the undeadness of it all. William loves it for the beauty. And somewhere in the middle, they meet ;)

Plus, this means Herbert's lechery throughout the recitation is even more intense :D

Re: bit

[winter]

Those two are just made for each other, aren't they? ;)

*commences ritual nailchewing as she waits for snippets*