Title: Ripped Stitches
Author: scy
Feedback: scynneh@yahoo.com  - Surely you want to feed the Muses?
Disclaimer: I take them in, give them sympathy and a place to screw each other- Yes, selfish it may be, but Joss is being rather inconsiderate; stress should be let off now and then. Not once every FREAKING season!
Improv 15: air, chime, orange. dark
Fandom: A:ts
Pairing: Angelus/Lindsey
Spoilers: I do not like where Joss has taken the boys, so they're AU-ing it for a bit.
Author's Notes: The rest of this series can be found at: http://www.envy.nu/nuit/Hyperion.html. I would have been much happier if Life had not dealt me a convention, two math exams, and a nasty cold followed by asthmatic troubles, all in a universal plot I believe, to prevent me from keeping that hold on my sanity and writing down more of this pair's antics. So, Lar, sorry if this isn't wrapped up with a bow dearie, I am working on how to suppress common sense and get more done!
Rating: Not for those who might be harmed by thoughts of men getting groiny with one another.
May 2001

****

There are many types of monsters, made from their isolation from society. Not all the Boris Karloff versions of Frankenstein. The original. He is the wronged one, the being who has been abused by society. That is most often the way that the rural people think of themselves, as the weaker, in need of comfort and compensation, but never pity, for they are too proud.

Dumas was writing an underdog thing. Probably the average Frenchman in the 1630's would have said much the same thing. Granted, he might not have been able to sell books with his words, but the sentiment was not isolated.

City people have been forever a very different ballgame. They make their own world and tend to view government, and even gods and goddesses as 'in the way.' And they are particular about the way the rest of the world's cities look at them.

Every city since Rome has wanted seven hills. Early in the construction of Seattle, planners wrote excitedly back to New York that it had seven hills, and would be 'the Rome of the West.'

Yet, someday, all of the great centers of commerce shall end up like a little temple on the banks of the Tiber river. No one remembers whom it belonged to; it literally survives lost in time.

There was so much under those eyes that went unnoticed, and a large part of that blame could be laid at the slippers of frigid Vanity, never considering something like him to be of any worth in the greater painting. And he was like a work of art, not a sculpture, with curves that broke hearts for their perfection, but another kind of sadness that yanked at preconceived notions and threw them in the closet to be suffocated by the oldest of thwarted truths.

A civil war had raged in his being, and neither side had come out the victor, leaving tender ferocity in lieu of an emotion that would be easily categorized or understood. So narrowly driven from the whispers of servitude into an endless night of battles and games that were to further wind the threads of opportunity and event around the limb until it, lacking circulation, was forgotten and removed.

Lindsey was only an infinitesimal distance from what he had attempted to raise, naked and trembling from the miasma that was Soul and Demon, easily molded, something that would take orders and then submit itself to punishment as neatly as the regretful hound who erred.

Is evil like a virus? Use the same method on it time and again, until finally, it becomes immune and mocks the efforts of the faithfully obtuse and devotedly unoriginal.

****

He bundled me away from the wall. and I would not be shocked if an imprint of my sweaty body was left on the paper- a scrawl of desire.

Hinges gasped and tore from their bindings the bolts chiming indignantly as they fell to the floor, not having anticipated this parting. Redecorating had been past due, and the rest was let go.

My bedroom had not been any real matter of contemplation, 'till now, and from the cursory glance the vampire gave it, he should not give it any more thought than- it had flat surfaces and was shielded from their mutual adversary: the sun. There was no sunlight in my bedroom, the place was as far removed from the day as a human might hope to get without altering diet or body chemistry,

The sheer insanity spilled over my body like a sunset on tombs freshly set in the ground, so viscously orange hiding behind bashful yellow that it rapped on my tender skull once before slipping in through the lenses of my eyes, like some strange sucker-footed monster and the tendrils grabbed ahold of decision-making centers and I could imagine more sensible brain functions being wooed, their mental fingers removed from the panic button and given a stress relieving massage.

Angelus found that the metal interlocking to my parts hidden from the world. Neat, quick movements undid that concealment and the wool obligingly slipped off hips, off the legs that knew the touch of a sun lamp, and not any reality- much like Angel.

He seemed to have trouble grasping and comprehending the simplest social dilemma; that of personal space. It seemed to cost him a great deal of effort to understand such things as boundaries, and to try and explain them might result in a premature finale, so I decided to hold onto the encounter for what it was. A beast used proximity to control and establish a relationship, and the little dabbling into research I had been able to fit between projects had said that vampires had the baser hierarchies well thought out to a capital letter. The concavity of stomach enthralled Angelus, and he dipped his tongue over that curve, traced the down of fine hair that begged he move further south

His jacket was so close, like him, that I reached out, curled fingers in that hide and drug it down.

The leather had his sweat, blood and hatreds woven into the cowhide, obsessions lined the inside and even the Book of Secrets was embossed on the collar.

I brought it to my mouth, lipping the cloth, a child teething, not there, but almost.

****

I was shaking, an automatic reaction to so much warmth where I had lacked heat. As I enjoyed the unusual situation, my body was silently seeking out the softer spots of the body below him, passing a hand over a stomach that had been worked without mercy, never mind that shorts could not be worn in glass buildings were loafers were required. shoes with pert tassels that served no real function.

He had not learned about danger. Was it the fault of Holland manners, who had not done all that he could have to shape Lindsey into a more hardened employee, one who had the assurance of being guaranteed a place higher up? But it could not be entirely Manner's fault; I felt myself pursuing a line of thought as laid out by B.F. Skinner, damn that soul's delight in defining the edges of personality and where things diverged in our case. If not the student, then the teacher, and if not that party, then that which had made the instructor, the society, huge in its quiet observations. At the point when fault was being assigned to the furthers reaching influence, the culture punishment was impossible to administer.

Shaking off the more complex question of what constituted discipline for an entire world of morons, I resumed discovering spots where Lindsey was apt to gasp at any touch. I watched the air he expelled in small gusts nearly condense into moisture and dampen us where we were closest.

The edges of ribs, where an arched waist made the skin taut and clearly in need of nipping teeth.

Reciprocation was delightful, willing or not, and so when Lindsey extended his legs, unprompted, and with several contortions that might have been part of a relaxation program designed for members of any number of yoga studios, he knotted his heels behind my back and brought our groins into aching contact.

The anticipation darkened his lower lip till it was a bough on a sapling, showing the life and strength that wee usually disregarded until much later on. That flesh demanded that I sample its plumpness and a marginal hold on control prevented me from ripping downwards as there was a soft brush of fingers on my collarbone. Delicacy was not required; predatory instincts told me to Claim this one now, as no one had seen fit to ever before. A sheen of desperation in girlishly pretty eyes gave explanations of abandonment, and I hissed with the rage that a certain female had only made this boy more resistant to affection by first promising, denying, and lastly fleeing. Well, she hadn't truly 'fled' so much as she had 'stolen', 'engineered' her own demise. Rather amusing and pathetic in my opinion.

Lindsey had been lulled into thinking that blond hair could bring peace; that wide eyes and flawless shoulders and thighs needed protection. I know that trap, had been the fully aware 'prisoner' of childish wiles and longings for a world where the bedspread was fully tucked under, and the frame had been designed to repel nightmares. That kind of bond was no partnership, with one leaning too much on the other, then the weaker fell to the foot of the stairs and blamed the pillar for gaining knowledge and absconding with vital maturity. I don't mind that he was bruised and gouged by my Sire, I would be a hypocrite if I denied my personal need to claw his skin, own him entirely. Maybe I would find some of those 'specialty shops' that housed tools of possession, and spend some time picking out the appropriate means of stamping him with me. Or, I traced one finger over closed eyelids, there was the chance that sipping him wouldn't be enough, what then, take this form and disassemble it, bit by bit, then rebuild, like a Craftsman with an old car which may run adequately, but can be improved upon.

I lowered my head and tongued the quivering eyeball, Death and Promises all at once, how shockingly tasty to have all craved abruptly dumped on the doorstep, or windowsill, and then find that they were all as they should be.

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