Someone tell me why I do the things
That I don't wanna do
When you're around me I'm somebody else
Someone tell me why I act like a fool
When things don't go my way
When you're around me I'm somebody else
-Guided By Voices
Irrykin?s WestEnd apartments
Several Months Ago
?You seem displeased, but I can see you have completed the task as requested.?
Requested? Ordered.
?Your client seemed... vexed.? Fingers climbed to the collar of his shirt, shifting fabric as if to allow his throat more room, though that was perfectly ridiculous. Arden wore another collar beneath. Irrykin had strapped it to his throat, claiming it was a protective device. He touched it, absently, then coughed into his balled fist, a cover-up for thoughts he wore outright. Green collided with Irrykin's mismatched eyes, and was lost.
?Did they?? Irrykin smiled, and amused, cold smile... it edged on cruel, the way eyes narrowed upon catching up the bookworm's striking green but did not quite devour. He adjusted the other cuff-link and started forward towards and past Cale, leaving the room. The jingle of the chain muttered for the man to follow, though the imperative wormed its way deeper in the grasp of the collar. ?I'm surprised you could so easily read his expressions. I thought you only familiar with more human, faces...? Not upstairs, though they would have drifted past the staircase. Downstairs, the doorway just before the kitchen.
Oblivious to the sound of silver as it poured into the inner depths of his lobes and worked its way up to his brain, sending his legs and feet into a quick pace for Irrykin's path. The youth didn't marvel at the fine fixtures of this new apartment like in the beginning - for what was one more
setting?
?One more soul.?
To Arden?s shock he let his words slip this time, but it was a small hope that those words were swallowed by the sounds of shuffling feet. He stopped just beyond the Jackal's reach - physical reach ? and forced his glasses along the bridge of his nose. He was, for the most part, a creature of habit, not habitat. ?I am a quick study.?
They made their way downstairs.
It seemed a simple room, wood flooring, the vagrant chill that came with stone beneath and hiding behind walls...but there too was a faint metallic bite. Doubtless the youth was familiar with the truth that taint meant.
?I know little of your human soul, Arden. It also wouldn't be in the best interest of truth to assume that there was a soul attached to the thing your piece of delivery belonged to.? Silver whispered as the Jackal spoke. He didn't seem to take note yet, of Arden's position; he had withdrawn to a desk and was removing the cufflinks, something from a pocket, two dark rings of some kind of metal.
?You have seen peripherally a handful of instances. Do not judge me if you do not know the entire
truth of what I do.? As if to take the bite away from his words, there was an edge of sardonic humor and the Jackal turned his good eye to the bookworm, brow raised.
Arden was a stiff sort of fellow, for the most part, his shoulders perfectly straight in alignment with his back, his chin at equal height, neither raised nor lowered, unlike his eyes, which were usually off to a side unless absorbed in some meticulous study. But it was here where he softened, here where the air bent as a sigh broke the silence of his judgment. He stepped forward, killing the distance between himself and the desk, his face full of questions, feeling part of the dark's allure, of the Jackal's.
?When will you tell me these things? Will you ever?? There was no anger in his elevated words, only a soft pleading for information. It was who he was.
A soft hand upon the youth's thinner shoulder, drifted to a palm along the side of his face. The Jackal was quite talented at looking benign, a skilled wolf in sheep's clothing. ?I'm showing you slowly. Do not be so quick to draw conclusions, my green-eyed one.?
The claw on his jaw line was soft, but it was still there as the hand was withdrawn. Irrykin removed his coat and settled it carefully about the back of the chair near. Glitter of knives in sheaths that he removed... but he did not place them in a drawer away from Cale as he usually did, he set them upon the desk and drifted a hand towards them in offering for the bookworm to examine.
Arden pressed the weight of his cheek to that palm as it was offered, his lids falling only half-way, obscuring green beneath lashes and glass.
?My sincerest apologies...? He began, looking rather comically with a sleepy sort of face and so sincere the words he strung into a sentence. ?Sometimes... it is just...? Arden thought more on the issue, but hadn't the time, for silver was ever present, silent or not. His eyes widened as Irrykin laid out that set of knives in full view for his study, and like a moth to a flame, they called to him. The examination was entirely professional at first, and the youth took great care to place the type of metal, the manufacturing processes for the sheaths, before deeper consequences began to reveal themselves. He looked up, perplexed.
Again that raised brow, though this time the Jackal circled around the youth, looked over his shoulder at the knives as the mock-barrister might see them. ?Did you think I wore them for decorative purposes?? A possessive arm went about the bookworm's waist.
Arden swallowed audibly, but nonetheless pressed back in response to the hold on his waist. He looked down, then outward, his study complete. ?Perhaps. Though, I suppose it is just another truth you are meant to reveal...? Less clipped, more suave, though still wrapped in shyness.
?Protection, and also a job implement.? Complex words to desensitize the discussion, the glitter of metal on the table graceful in its own disturbing fashion. The Jackal breathed his too-warm breath against the bookworm's head, kept trimmed to a thin fuzz. Silver jingled something incoherent but not at all incomprehensible.
His questions hung unspoken in the air as he blinked and near slumped into the Jackal's hold. Like a drunkard, his head rolled, mouth agape for a moment before the bookworm licked his lips and reached around, his hands carefully settling atop each of Irrykin's thighs. ?You kill, on
occasion?? No judgment sat between the spaces of those words. In fact, the sound was near sensual.
?Upon occasion, it is what I am called upon to do. Never without justification.? The Jackal let his words drip into the bookworm's ear before he let his teeth number the edge, tug at the flesh (irony was not lost). He idly allowed his other hand to chase the remainder of the bookworm's collar open, expose the thin band of leather and metal that had no apparent clasp. A mute interest, as he and the chain were far more interested in how well the bookworm was distracted.
How easy it was to be righteous and morally inclined when he was not so near! But now, heated by his breath and his touch, the boy let those obligations slip, spiraling further into apathy. At a loss for words now, he merely murmured, quite aware of the teeth on his ear and the building pressure that desire was apt to bring. Rest assured, he was distracted enough, especially when his eyes fell fully closed: An attempt to erase reality and embrace the moment as his thrall.
A soft chuckle, warm reverberation in the bookworm's ear that carried its own weight of praise. The vest and jacket were chased open and the Jackal amused himself with tugging the boy's shirt free and unbuttoning it. Claws took a tour of belly flesh, of ribs, various warm skin... the scars he'd left, thin for the nonce.
If there was a chill to the air it went unnoticed, for all sensation was warmth and rising heat and building pressure as the fabric was tugged free. Arden stretched himself, shoulders rolling and back arched to a perfect pose for explorative purposes. His flesh was a canvas, and he meant to
make that all the more obvious.
As obliging as the boy was, it was not long before the Jackal had chased from him the coat, the vest, the shirt. An exposed creature of pale flesh and the striking dark band of the collar, new muscles that moved...still small but certainly refined. One could almost have called the paths of
the Jackal's hands gentle if they did not leave tell-tale red lines, thin, arching, delicate and yet blood-scented. He shifted their curious twining of contact, leaned back against the dark wood of the desk and turned the boy about. Irrykin's kisses were always a portrait of violence.
And that violence did little to slow the way in which his hands latched on the Jackal's sides, the way lips parted full on and moved in rhythm (as best they could) with this new wave of touch. There was a confidence in this created perhaps by the passage of time, by the building of this
budding physique, or by the sheer need for his possession. Fully pressed against one another, his want was obvious beneath stylish pants. He moaned into the Jackal's mouth, knowing the message was sure to be conveyed.
Those unfamiliar sounds should be less alien to the bookworm now... Not so strange the snarl that devoured the moan, the deep-note rumble that was not quite an audible sound. A familiar ritual, doubtless, the blooding of the bookworm's lips upon the Jackal's harsh teeth before he hooked fingers (claws) into the collar about his neck and directed the boy south with all the clarity of audible command in the soft chime of silver. His want was as evident as Cale's, after all.
?You look quite like the cat that got the canary??
