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layangabiJanie...
happy birthday! *collapses* Belated happy b-day. *hugs* Here is your fic precious, and we hopes you like it, we does...^^ We's also scared you might not, and we's sorry we's so late!!! ;-; Can you you forgive me????
And btw, friends., *scans horizon* I see chii, but where is you all?!
He has no idea how it happened, this eloquent greeting of mouths: hand pressed in hand as the other moved to take hold of him. Panic beats in him like a locked bird, not least because he finds he wants it.
Wandering in the dark of Seward’s house, fleeing the vestiges of his old nightmare and instead, finding it lurking in the dark to taunt him (in the shadows, in moonlit glimmers, in the brush of phantom caress); he had not been aware of having unlocked the door to wander out a sleepwalker into the garden. Not until this man had called him, struck him back into waking, and dragged him back inside.
You blasted fool! turning on the lights, flick, flick, flick, getting wine and coffee to warm him. Poor Morris, poor Jonathan, who doesn’t know it, but his own meandering stirred memory of another one who was lost to wanderings in the dark. Though Morris’ harshness stirs him back from shadows, and into the bitter world of waking. There are monsters in the dark, my dears, and they are as real as the mark on your beloved’s brow, the tomb where she lies with a stake in her heart and garlic in her mouth.
He knows. They had called him in the dark to play, and he could only follow.
The kiss (and no, he still can’t remember how it started) is what set them reeling back in recoil: Morris tastes of wildness, of wild grass whistling through windswept lands, burned by sun and heat, and the taste of him banishes all lurking remnant of cold, of demon-shadow and of mist.
Yet it also brings to mind red eyes and leering mouth, all a-flicker with demon-flame, and the unequivocal knowledge of his own filth. It should have him, Morris, do you understand that? Him with the mark on Mina’s forehead, his head cut off and the stake in his heart, the garlic stuffing his mouth like dressing and not your poor Lucy. But he gets away with it, the weak, useless …
The kiss deepens, tongue probing gently, languidly between his lips, as if innocently unaware. Hand digging in between his legs, the red lips at his throat, biting greedily at his open mouth. He resorts to pleading, and it’s casually ignored: No, no…
“No!”
Pushing away---and he is remarkably strong for someone who has been bookish all his life---he knocks Morris startled on his back, then turns and runs, a child in winter fleeing a wolf’s jaws. But the dark surrounds him, its phantoms lurk mocking at every turn, and he stills himself, in weary resignation and knowing defeat: for him, there is no sanctuary.
He heard footsteps, clutched the cross at his neck and shut his eyes. But they stopped and moved no closer.
“Jonathan,” Morris called, gently.
The hand around the cross remained clenched, trembling, the other digging into his palm.
“I’m not going to hurt you.” Morris said, gently. He took a tentative step closer. “I’m not going to make you do something you don’t want.”
Oh, but that’s not the problem you see…
You *want* this, don’t you, little brother…?
Shut up.
“This will never happen again, I swear it. On my honor…”
Only if you gag me with that mouth of yours…
Shut up! SHUT UP!
“Harker?”
You seemed to do it with him well enough…
Should we punish *her* for his not taking an active enough interest?
Oh, God…
“Jonathan, I’ll protect you and Mina with my life! Only please---”
It was all he could do, not to shatter into so much bits of broken glass.
Quincy, who knew the human signs, closed the space between them, enfolding Jonathan in his arms. Not a lover’s embrace: that would have been too much for Jonathan to bear, but as one who understood the suffering of another. And closing his eyes, Jonathan yielded, needing, wanting the human contact.
It when Jonathan finally lifted his gaze, looked in the eyes of the other man that Morris saw it: a haunted weariness, strange on that face but sharply familiar for the lingering agony of Lucy’s loss and Arthur’s grief, the figure of Harker wandering out into the dark.
“My God, Harker,” he murmured, his hand reaching out to touch the other man’s face, not thinking whether it was welcome or not, cursing for having noticed but not thinking there might have been more to it: the handsome face grown worn, weary and knowing, showing so much bone. “Why didn’t you say anything?”
“Well now you know,” Jonathan said, hoarsely, and there was a bitterness Quincy had not thought was possible in the man; “Once He has you in His sights, He never lets you go.”
Morris pushed the other man away, grabbed him by his arms and shook him. “Damn it Harker!” he said. “What did that Thing do to you?”
There was so much of him that felt like laughing, another which wanted to weep. Ask Mina, he wanted to cry out. Ask her, ask her what He did to her!
His Eye and Hand is on me…
He was conscious of Morris reaching out to grasp him again, to hold him, enfolding him a second time in a brother’s embrace.
And he was aware only of the warmth, the gentle strength with which Morris held him, the smell of the other man. This time, there was no haunting, no threat of demon-fire: he knew only of the soft whistling of wild grass, the pulse of a hot wind.
And he felt the other’s grief: one love lost, two endangered, all under the spell of the same haunting. And none of them, none of them, choosing him for the last.
He lifted his eyes to look at him, his decision made.
“Quin---”
Jonathan leaned forward to catch his mouth, capturing Morris in a lover’s grasp: one arm binding him to Jonathan at the waist, the other clasping his head to his. So close, and he felt the other man stiffen in shock. But he didn’t pull away, and as if he were frightened of Jonathan fleeing him like some wild bird, he answered with grasp for lover’s grasp, pressing in on the other with an answering kiss.
They broke off, their breaths deep and fast. Finally, Quincy spoke:
“Come on Jon,” he said quietly, “we can’t do it here.”
He burst out laughing. Quincy, lighting up at the sight and sound of it gave in to a few swift kisses, the mouth, the cheek, before tugging at his arm, pulling him through the house in a gentle run. In Quincy’s room, locking the door behind them to unbutton each other’s shirts, hands fumbling because all the while, it’s mouth on mouth, bodies caressing, stroking, loving; the two of them alchemized into a Kiss.
It’s when it becomes skin on skin, the chill of autumn warmed with summer wind; autumn offering solace of itself, that Quincy vows the prayer that saves his loves, and dooms himself:
You’ll never have them, either of them do You hear? If I have to die to save them, but I swear by God and the Devil, they’ll be free of You…
It’s a prayer Jonathan will never hear, but will remember, nevertheless, in perfect clarity when he and Mina hold Morris dying in their arms. But in this moment, he simply has no forewarning; it’s all he can do to keep from crying into Morris’ mouth as he’s taken, all he can do exorcize the demons which plague them both, all he can do to give this man a reason to live.
He has no reason to believe, that in healing, he has also given this man a reason to die.
happy birthday! *collapses* Belated happy b-day. *hugs* Here is your fic precious, and we hopes you like it, we does...^^ We's also scared you might not, and we's sorry we's so late!!! ;-; Can you you forgive me????
And btw, friends., *scans horizon* I see chii, but where is you all?!
He has no idea how it happened, this eloquent greeting of mouths: hand pressed in hand as the other moved to take hold of him. Panic beats in him like a locked bird, not least because he finds he wants it.
Wandering in the dark of Seward’s house, fleeing the vestiges of his old nightmare and instead, finding it lurking in the dark to taunt him (in the shadows, in moonlit glimmers, in the brush of phantom caress); he had not been aware of having unlocked the door to wander out a sleepwalker into the garden. Not until this man had called him, struck him back into waking, and dragged him back inside.
You blasted fool! turning on the lights, flick, flick, flick, getting wine and coffee to warm him. Poor Morris, poor Jonathan, who doesn’t know it, but his own meandering stirred memory of another one who was lost to wanderings in the dark. Though Morris’ harshness stirs him back from shadows, and into the bitter world of waking. There are monsters in the dark, my dears, and they are as real as the mark on your beloved’s brow, the tomb where she lies with a stake in her heart and garlic in her mouth.
He knows. They had called him in the dark to play, and he could only follow.
The kiss (and no, he still can’t remember how it started) is what set them reeling back in recoil: Morris tastes of wildness, of wild grass whistling through windswept lands, burned by sun and heat, and the taste of him banishes all lurking remnant of cold, of demon-shadow and of mist.
Yet it also brings to mind red eyes and leering mouth, all a-flicker with demon-flame, and the unequivocal knowledge of his own filth. It should have him, Morris, do you understand that? Him with the mark on Mina’s forehead, his head cut off and the stake in his heart, the garlic stuffing his mouth like dressing and not your poor Lucy. But he gets away with it, the weak, useless …
The kiss deepens, tongue probing gently, languidly between his lips, as if innocently unaware. Hand digging in between his legs, the red lips at his throat, biting greedily at his open mouth. He resorts to pleading, and it’s casually ignored: No, no…
“No!”
Pushing away---and he is remarkably strong for someone who has been bookish all his life---he knocks Morris startled on his back, then turns and runs, a child in winter fleeing a wolf’s jaws. But the dark surrounds him, its phantoms lurk mocking at every turn, and he stills himself, in weary resignation and knowing defeat: for him, there is no sanctuary.
He heard footsteps, clutched the cross at his neck and shut his eyes. But they stopped and moved no closer.
“Jonathan,” Morris called, gently.
The hand around the cross remained clenched, trembling, the other digging into his palm.
“I’m not going to hurt you.” Morris said, gently. He took a tentative step closer. “I’m not going to make you do something you don’t want.”
Oh, but that’s not the problem you see…
You *want* this, don’t you, little brother…?
Shut up.
“This will never happen again, I swear it. On my honor…”
Only if you gag me with that mouth of yours…
Shut up! SHUT UP!
“Harker?”
You seemed to do it with him well enough…
Should we punish *her* for his not taking an active enough interest?
Oh, God…
“Jonathan, I’ll protect you and Mina with my life! Only please---”
It was all he could do, not to shatter into so much bits of broken glass.
Quincy, who knew the human signs, closed the space between them, enfolding Jonathan in his arms. Not a lover’s embrace: that would have been too much for Jonathan to bear, but as one who understood the suffering of another. And closing his eyes, Jonathan yielded, needing, wanting the human contact.
It when Jonathan finally lifted his gaze, looked in the eyes of the other man that Morris saw it: a haunted weariness, strange on that face but sharply familiar for the lingering agony of Lucy’s loss and Arthur’s grief, the figure of Harker wandering out into the dark.
“My God, Harker,” he murmured, his hand reaching out to touch the other man’s face, not thinking whether it was welcome or not, cursing for having noticed but not thinking there might have been more to it: the handsome face grown worn, weary and knowing, showing so much bone. “Why didn’t you say anything?”
“Well now you know,” Jonathan said, hoarsely, and there was a bitterness Quincy had not thought was possible in the man; “Once He has you in His sights, He never lets you go.”
Morris pushed the other man away, grabbed him by his arms and shook him. “Damn it Harker!” he said. “What did that Thing do to you?”
There was so much of him that felt like laughing, another which wanted to weep. Ask Mina, he wanted to cry out. Ask her, ask her what He did to her!
His Eye and Hand is on me…
He was conscious of Morris reaching out to grasp him again, to hold him, enfolding him a second time in a brother’s embrace.
And he was aware only of the warmth, the gentle strength with which Morris held him, the smell of the other man. This time, there was no haunting, no threat of demon-fire: he knew only of the soft whistling of wild grass, the pulse of a hot wind.
And he felt the other’s grief: one love lost, two endangered, all under the spell of the same haunting. And none of them, none of them, choosing him for the last.
He lifted his eyes to look at him, his decision made.
“Quin---”
Jonathan leaned forward to catch his mouth, capturing Morris in a lover’s grasp: one arm binding him to Jonathan at the waist, the other clasping his head to his. So close, and he felt the other man stiffen in shock. But he didn’t pull away, and as if he were frightened of Jonathan fleeing him like some wild bird, he answered with grasp for lover’s grasp, pressing in on the other with an answering kiss.
They broke off, their breaths deep and fast. Finally, Quincy spoke:
“Come on Jon,” he said quietly, “we can’t do it here.”
He burst out laughing. Quincy, lighting up at the sight and sound of it gave in to a few swift kisses, the mouth, the cheek, before tugging at his arm, pulling him through the house in a gentle run. In Quincy’s room, locking the door behind them to unbutton each other’s shirts, hands fumbling because all the while, it’s mouth on mouth, bodies caressing, stroking, loving; the two of them alchemized into a Kiss.
It’s when it becomes skin on skin, the chill of autumn warmed with summer wind; autumn offering solace of itself, that Quincy vows the prayer that saves his loves, and dooms himself:
You’ll never have them, either of them do You hear? If I have to die to save them, but I swear by God and the Devil, they’ll be free of You…
It’s a prayer Jonathan will never hear, but will remember, nevertheless, in perfect clarity when he and Mina hold Morris dying in their arms. But in this moment, he simply has no forewarning; it’s all he can do to keep from crying into Morris’ mouth as he’s taken, all he can do exorcize the demons which plague them both, all he can do to give this man a reason to live.
He has no reason to believe, that in healing, he has also given this man a reason to die.
