[He doesn't move beneath the hand on his throat. It stays, fingers seizing metal, threatening to cut the air of his next breath. It isn't the first threat Laurent has turned his way — he is full of them, made of thorns and barbs and hooks, however this one may be more real. More capable of hurt than before, when Sasuke had the ability to protect himself. Here he's been unmade; here he has never been so vulnerable.
Then the push. Sasuke staggers, barely, not enough to lose his feet. He does not have chakra but he has physical power in a body sculpted for combat, muscles tense — it is Laurent who goes to the soft floor, balance upset like a stumbling foal, lost grace, a mess of silk hair and loose strings. He spots pale skin beneath fabric where the sleeves of his shirt have parted, dangerous slits of indecency.]
... I won't tell you what to do. [This murmur, a susurrus, comes from Sasuke as he kneels in a definitive movement on the other side of the pallet. It is a slower, careful descent.] But I'll never see you as a master. That's not possible.
[Not when he's come to know Laurent as he has, stripped bare.
You don't have to do this alone. It can't be said. It won't be heard. He lies on the other side of the pallet, and they aren't close enough to touch, but in the span of an arm, they could be. He remains resolutely still and only looks at him with dark eyes.]
He must wonder if you're suffering right now. It's the control he wants to have over you. If your condition worsens, then it's better for him. I don't know what's wrong with you. I'll help, if you ask. Make it a command. I don't care.
[ a laugh nearly bubbles from his aching throat, an animal sound making an attempt to claw free. he has nothing to call his own here. he cannot even wrangle sasuke into submission. instead sasuke shows him mercy, and laurent only knows to react with the spark of anger that falls, landing into the deep well of his own humiliation. ]
It would be good if you didn't speak — [ he shifts, fingertips plucking at the soft threads of the sheets. ] About things you don't know anything about.
[ his uncle. him. laurent tips his bleary gaze toward sasuke and tries to hate him for being here. in his haze, he imagines sliding over this soft cloud and closing the space between them, to allow his hands to dance across firm muscle and smooth skin, to grip silken hair and draw the mouth that he knows to be both willing and hesitant toward him. it's a foolish, frightful dream. he doesn't know where it leads or what comes after.
instead he forces himself up, and he does close the distance, but it's to forcefully dig his hands into the flimsy fabric that sasuke wears now. he can feel the heat of his body through it as he presses his palms down against his chest, sliding his knee over his hip as if he means to straddle him. laurent's hair trails over his shoulders as he stares down at sasuke, his eyes pale and glassy. ]
The way you tried to kill me — [ one hand drags down his chest, nails sharp. ] You'll have to do it again. Not against me, someone would take your head off if you attacked the prince, but my uncle will want to see my pet get fucked in the ring and imagine it was me instead.
[ he drags a hand through sasuke's dark hair, pulling hard enough to tilt his chin upwards. laurent's mouth drops unsteady, grazing the corner of sasuke's lips. ] How weak have you gotten?
[I know enough, is a roar in his mind the moment Laurent insinuates himself closer, commanding the space between them with power if not grace, in this state. He's known a life of manipulation. He's known a life of the threat of death, and scheming, and hatred, and every dark thing in between — but not the complex politics that web Laurent together with his uncle. That much is true. I can learn, if only he would be allowed.
It's all out of his head with their changed proximity. This, Laurent has to know; he's doing it purposefully. Climbing on top of him like he's taking a throne. Blue eyes are cold, unfocused, as a wave of ticklish golden hair sweeps Sasuke's skin, the span of those two hands on his chest all that keeps them separated. He can feel the bite of Laurent's nails through flimsy fabric. Then a hand in his hair, yanking, the taunt of a mouth too close.
Sasuke seizes up with tension, more to do with the effect this has on him than those unpromising words. He's been doomed for a while. Laurent knows, and is using that to an advantage, certainly. Desire courses through him — as unsteady a beat as his heart, lodged somewhere in his throat.]
Does my weakness matter to you? I thought it made you hate to look at me. [He brings his arms around Laurent's slender figure, caging him in around the knees, around the hips, making a loop of strong muscle that traps him where he sits on top. And this feels good, to have his body able to embrace fully, even if it isn't for battle or intimacy now. Instead it feels like he's taking a cat by the scruff of the neck.] Have you agreed to this?
[And in a calculated roll, he attempts to subvert their positions, prepared to wrestle Laurent down if necessary. He doesn't think it will be. Laurent is too uncoordinated, too distracted.]
You're going to put me in that ring and ask me to kill someone else? Why are you playing along with his game? [They're faces still loom a scant distance, but it isn't one he narrows further. Black eyes are fierce.] Laurent. Were you poisoned? What's wrong with you right now?
I do hate to look at you. [ the lie slips so easily from his tongue, one of hundreds he's told since his reintroduction to life in arles. he doesn't remember the last time he's said a single word containing a shred of truth since — before. before, during all of his strange time in strange worlds with sasuke appearing inconveniently at his side. have you agreed to this makes a laugh bubble up inside of him, but it doesn't make it past his throat, dead like every other thing he feels beneath the confines of this glittering roof.
he lands like a flowered wreath back onto the pallet, golden hair going everywhere. his mouth curves, humorless. ]
Are you concerned that you'll have trouble killing someone? I've seen you try before. Don't worry, you're good at it. [ his wrist twitches against the soft pillows, itching to strike flesh. no one has put him on his back so many times since — he squeezes his eyes shut, banishing all thoughts of his uncle, his spine going rigid. ] What else are you good for, Sasuke? You were made for this. You'll go into that ring. You won't let yourself die, you'll fight back. And everyone will be so impressed with my rabid dog.
[ his hand strokes sasuke's face as he would a lover, tracing the curve of his cheek and the shape of his lips. he holds desperately onto his hatred, onto every morsel of dislike he can summon, because otherwise the worst of the poison will set in — the desire burning low at his core, the heat becoming harder and harder to ignore with every passing moment. he should not have come back to this room, and yet sasuke's presence pulls him as if he's tethered, a constant drag toward the thing he wants to forget the most. ]
Will you fight for me? [ his mouth is dry, the question like a blade driven into his own body. no one has ever fought for him since auguste went to marlas and never returned. an unforgiving grip fists a handful of sasuke's dark hair, and laurent rises, forcing their mouths into a hard kiss so that he doesn't have to hear the answer. ]
[Scalding words, spat from cold lips, the fury of Laurent beneath him in a messy crown of golden hair, unlaced sleeves like white ribbons down his pale arms. He finds himself staring, and then starting — the hand on his cheek is a tender caress, on his lips. They part beneath those slender fingertips, breath fanning damp and hot, but there is no protest for the cruelty of those orders. He has been shut out of whatever tangled battle Laurent wages against his own blood. He won't be let in.
If it is killing that is needed, then it can be done. Laurent is correct; he was made for this. You'll fight back. Helpless desire to fulfill this statement reaches him through the unfeeling, gauzy detachment he's found in his days here. It gathers, a dark and heavy thing, spun from every awful deed he has ever committed, stitched from every part of him that has enjoyed the violence. In that instant, he finds it impossible to believe he could have atoned for anything. Not now. It's out of reach for someone like him, in a place like this.
The answer is lost to the crush of their mouths, but not the meaning. Sasuke eyes remain slitted open just for the blurry, too-close view of that beautiful face; he devours the kiss in the way Laurent has taught him to do, lips parted, wet and hungry, tasting whatever might still lie on Laurent's slick tongue. And then he is hauling both of them to their feet in a heave of strength without ever surrendering Laurent's mouth. Refusing to give it up, even if the air grows thin between them. He feels the ticklish fall of hair on his skin, pleasant and fragrant as his arms close around a narrow waist, dragging Laurent like a doll over to the bed on the other side of the room. Tossing him down onto it.
He does not follow. Looming above, Sasuke's eyes are very dark, expression fixed into one that is shockingly open in its mixed display — aroused, somber, angry. Then he turns away.]
Rest for a while. After that, we'll go, and I will fight in that ring.
[ he lands upon the bed silently, his breath gone. the sensation to tear out of his own skin mounts, his hands digging into the mattress, turning his head to throw a glare in sasuke's direction. his lips burn, his body aching, this time not just from the poison but for more. it's a heady, devastating mix — the memory of all he's experienced in a state similar to this. the desire to erase it all with something new. ]
You need to be prepared. [ bathed. painted. armored, if one can call the decorative slave-wear that. but it'll be more than the gauzy thing he's wearing now. laurent's wide eyes follow sasuke as he turns away, his heart rabbiting as his chest rises and falls. ] The guards will take you. Get out of my sight.
[ the alternative is that sasuke will end up in his bed, that their mouths and bodies will collide, and laurent — can't. the panic that rises in him threatens to spill over. in one order the doors burst open, stone-faced men coming to collect sasuke, and laurent is alone.
true to his word, he's late to the feast in a show of blatant disrespect to his uncle. the next time he sees sasuke, he's calmly composed, tightly laced in severe blue. he takes the end of sasuke's golden chain without looking at him, standing at the doors and listening to the rowdy laughter in the banquet hall. ]
Cause a scene. [ the doors open for laurent, the guards moving aside for him. ] I dare you.
[In the time since the guards escorted him from Laurent's bedchambers, a transformation has taken place. Not only in the physical sense of his body, although that aspect is prominent. It has become little more than a sore, pitiful blur in his mind by now. Autonomy is no longer something he possesses in this world. As he is handled — changed into clothing more sheer, impossibly, than before and cut at a length that leaves long, pale legs entirely bare with no decency afforded — he learns this better. Oil is smoothed over his skin, until it shines in the light of the burning sconces on the walls. The collar at his throat is polished to a bright gleam. And then, at the worst of it, he is bent over and perfunctorily fingered as one would ready a farm animal for the dutiful nature of its existence.
It takes every fiber of his control not to lash out with violence. In his mind is fixed Laurent's words: Will you fight for me? A burning, pointless devotion to tie himself to, but it is all he has now. Though the influence of that shadow dimension no longer clouds his mind, he doesn't need it. He can feel the darkness as it shrouds his thoughts, at home, in perpetuity for the sake of his permanent soul. This is who he is, as he has been relentlessly reminded by Laurent himself. Even as he imagines breaking the arm of the man who is doing it to him, oiled fingers in a place he has never touched himself, it transforms too. It is fuel for a blazing inferno, so that when he emerges through those doors and Laurent addresses him, buttoned up and untouchably perfect, he barely notices. He is somewhere else.
The world around him is rotten to its core. He'd assumed as much, but it's another to be faced with it, in the light and awe of an audience. Young boys and girls in pretty, flimsy clothes on leashes, the ends held in the hands of their masters. Perhaps once it might have shocked him to see the same-sex pairs, men with boys and women with girls, but now very little can penetrate the haze that he has surrendered beneath.
He doesn't even look at Laurent. It would be a weakness, if he did. He can't allow himself that much.
And then he's let into the ring, and he meets his opponent. A tall, stocky, mean-looking man who outweighs Sasuke significantly. If he had his abilities, it would take less than a second to eviscerate the thick meat of the man's body with weapons, or tear apart his mind like a ball of string with Sharingan, or burn his flesh to ash with Amaterasu. He has none of that, only a violence predisposed by his blood. One that creates hatred and despair where love might once have laid. And it feels like that curse has come true again, as his continuous attempts to reach out to Laurent in this place have been met by refusal, rejection, cold words.
What does it matter anymore?
The man says something lewd to him, something about fucking him, something about his appearance, but Sasuke doesn't hear. He does what Laurent had asked of him. He fights with his opponent, not using any tactic or style that anyone in this large room will recognize — it is foreign, alien, forged from another world. Bare hand-to-hand combat is still something he excels at, and he has the advantage of his opponent's ignorance of his movements; where he is meant to be pinned down, he becomes fluid like a dancer, fist slamming into the side of the man's barrel chest. There is no kindness in his actions. Only ruthlessness.
Eventually he gets his killing hold, wrapped like a venomous snake around his opponent's stocky body, like he's squeezing the life from him with sheer strength, until one hand — the dominant left, mercifully returned to him — seizes the back of a head and snaps the man's neck. It's so sudden as to be disappointing. There's no pleading, no rape, just an efficient death. And it's over.
Sasuke is breathing hard and drenched with sweat when they separate him from the body, coursing with adrenaline, eyes vivid and wide, reflecting the light of the surrounding lamps enough to appear almost red.]
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no subject
Then the push. Sasuke staggers, barely, not enough to lose his feet. He does not have chakra but he has physical power in a body sculpted for combat, muscles tense — it is Laurent who goes to the soft floor, balance upset like a stumbling foal, lost grace, a mess of silk hair and loose strings. He spots pale skin beneath fabric where the sleeves of his shirt have parted, dangerous slits of indecency.]
... I won't tell you what to do. [This murmur, a susurrus, comes from Sasuke as he kneels in a definitive movement on the other side of the pallet. It is a slower, careful descent.] But I'll never see you as a master. That's not possible.
[Not when he's come to know Laurent as he has, stripped bare.
You don't have to do this alone. It can't be said. It won't be heard. He lies on the other side of the pallet, and they aren't close enough to touch, but in the span of an arm, they could be. He remains resolutely still and only looks at him with dark eyes.]
He must wonder if you're suffering right now. It's the control he wants to have over you. If your condition worsens, then it's better for him. I don't know what's wrong with you. I'll help, if you ask. Make it a command. I don't care.
no subject
It would be good if you didn't speak — [ he shifts, fingertips plucking at the soft threads of the sheets. ] About things you don't know anything about.
[ his uncle. him. laurent tips his bleary gaze toward sasuke and tries to hate him for being here. in his haze, he imagines sliding over this soft cloud and closing the space between them, to allow his hands to dance across firm muscle and smooth skin, to grip silken hair and draw the mouth that he knows to be both willing and hesitant toward him. it's a foolish, frightful dream. he doesn't know where it leads or what comes after.
instead he forces himself up, and he does close the distance, but it's to forcefully dig his hands into the flimsy fabric that sasuke wears now. he can feel the heat of his body through it as he presses his palms down against his chest, sliding his knee over his hip as if he means to straddle him. laurent's hair trails over his shoulders as he stares down at sasuke, his eyes pale and glassy. ]
The way you tried to kill me — [ one hand drags down his chest, nails sharp. ] You'll have to do it again. Not against me, someone would take your head off if you attacked the prince, but my uncle will want to see my pet get fucked in the ring and imagine it was me instead.
[ he drags a hand through sasuke's dark hair, pulling hard enough to tilt his chin upwards. laurent's mouth drops unsteady, grazing the corner of sasuke's lips. ] How weak have you gotten?
no subject
It's all out of his head with their changed proximity. This, Laurent has to know; he's doing it purposefully. Climbing on top of him like he's taking a throne. Blue eyes are cold, unfocused, as a wave of ticklish golden hair sweeps Sasuke's skin, the span of those two hands on his chest all that keeps them separated. He can feel the bite of Laurent's nails through flimsy fabric. Then a hand in his hair, yanking, the taunt of a mouth too close.
Sasuke seizes up with tension, more to do with the effect this has on him than those unpromising words. He's been doomed for a while. Laurent knows, and is using that to an advantage, certainly. Desire courses through him — as unsteady a beat as his heart, lodged somewhere in his throat.]
Does my weakness matter to you? I thought it made you hate to look at me. [He brings his arms around Laurent's slender figure, caging him in around the knees, around the hips, making a loop of strong muscle that traps him where he sits on top. And this feels good, to have his body able to embrace fully, even if it isn't for battle or intimacy now. Instead it feels like he's taking a cat by the scruff of the neck.] Have you agreed to this?
[And in a calculated roll, he attempts to subvert their positions, prepared to wrestle Laurent down if necessary. He doesn't think it will be. Laurent is too uncoordinated, too distracted.]
You're going to put me in that ring and ask me to kill someone else? Why are you playing along with his game? [They're faces still loom a scant distance, but it isn't one he narrows further. Black eyes are fierce.] Laurent. Were you poisoned? What's wrong with you right now?
no subject
he lands like a flowered wreath back onto the pallet, golden hair going everywhere. his mouth curves, humorless. ]
Are you concerned that you'll have trouble killing someone? I've seen you try before. Don't worry, you're good at it. [ his wrist twitches against the soft pillows, itching to strike flesh. no one has put him on his back so many times since — he squeezes his eyes shut, banishing all thoughts of his uncle, his spine going rigid. ] What else are you good for, Sasuke? You were made for this. You'll go into that ring. You won't let yourself die, you'll fight back. And everyone will be so impressed with my rabid dog.
[ his hand strokes sasuke's face as he would a lover, tracing the curve of his cheek and the shape of his lips. he holds desperately onto his hatred, onto every morsel of dislike he can summon, because otherwise the worst of the poison will set in — the desire burning low at his core, the heat becoming harder and harder to ignore with every passing moment. he should not have come back to this room, and yet sasuke's presence pulls him as if he's tethered, a constant drag toward the thing he wants to forget the most. ]
Will you fight for me? [ his mouth is dry, the question like a blade driven into his own body. no one has ever fought for him since auguste went to marlas and never returned. an unforgiving grip fists a handful of sasuke's dark hair, and laurent rises, forcing their mouths into a hard kiss so that he doesn't have to hear the answer. ]
no subject
If it is killing that is needed, then it can be done. Laurent is correct; he was made for this. You'll fight back. Helpless desire to fulfill this statement reaches him through the unfeeling, gauzy detachment he's found in his days here. It gathers, a dark and heavy thing, spun from every awful deed he has ever committed, stitched from every part of him that has enjoyed the violence. In that instant, he finds it impossible to believe he could have atoned for anything. Not now. It's out of reach for someone like him, in a place like this.
The answer is lost to the crush of their mouths, but not the meaning. Sasuke eyes remain slitted open just for the blurry, too-close view of that beautiful face; he devours the kiss in the way Laurent has taught him to do, lips parted, wet and hungry, tasting whatever might still lie on Laurent's slick tongue. And then he is hauling both of them to their feet in a heave of strength without ever surrendering Laurent's mouth. Refusing to give it up, even if the air grows thin between them. He feels the ticklish fall of hair on his skin, pleasant and fragrant as his arms close around a narrow waist, dragging Laurent like a doll over to the bed on the other side of the room. Tossing him down onto it.
He does not follow. Looming above, Sasuke's eyes are very dark, expression fixed into one that is shockingly open in its mixed display — aroused, somber, angry. Then he turns away.]
Rest for a while. After that, we'll go, and I will fight in that ring.
no subject
You need to be prepared. [ bathed. painted. armored, if one can call the decorative slave-wear that. but it'll be more than the gauzy thing he's wearing now. laurent's wide eyes follow sasuke as he turns away, his heart rabbiting as his chest rises and falls. ] The guards will take you. Get out of my sight.
[ the alternative is that sasuke will end up in his bed, that their mouths and bodies will collide, and laurent — can't. the panic that rises in him threatens to spill over. in one order the doors burst open, stone-faced men coming to collect sasuke, and laurent is alone.
true to his word, he's late to the feast in a show of blatant disrespect to his uncle. the next time he sees sasuke, he's calmly composed, tightly laced in severe blue. he takes the end of sasuke's golden chain without looking at him, standing at the doors and listening to the rowdy laughter in the banquet hall. ]
Cause a scene. [ the doors open for laurent, the guards moving aside for him. ] I dare you.
cw SA and murder... typical captive prince stuff
It takes every fiber of his control not to lash out with violence. In his mind is fixed Laurent's words: Will you fight for me? A burning, pointless devotion to tie himself to, but it is all he has now. Though the influence of that shadow dimension no longer clouds his mind, he doesn't need it. He can feel the darkness as it shrouds his thoughts, at home, in perpetuity for the sake of his permanent soul. This is who he is, as he has been relentlessly reminded by Laurent himself. Even as he imagines breaking the arm of the man who is doing it to him, oiled fingers in a place he has never touched himself, it transforms too. It is fuel for a blazing inferno, so that when he emerges through those doors and Laurent addresses him, buttoned up and untouchably perfect, he barely notices. He is somewhere else.
The world around him is rotten to its core. He'd assumed as much, but it's another to be faced with it, in the light and awe of an audience. Young boys and girls in pretty, flimsy clothes on leashes, the ends held in the hands of their masters. Perhaps once it might have shocked him to see the same-sex pairs, men with boys and women with girls, but now very little can penetrate the haze that he has surrendered beneath.
He doesn't even look at Laurent. It would be a weakness, if he did. He can't allow himself that much.
And then he's let into the ring, and he meets his opponent. A tall, stocky, mean-looking man who outweighs Sasuke significantly. If he had his abilities, it would take less than a second to eviscerate the thick meat of the man's body with weapons, or tear apart his mind like a ball of string with Sharingan, or burn his flesh to ash with Amaterasu. He has none of that, only a violence predisposed by his blood. One that creates hatred and despair where love might once have laid. And it feels like that curse has come true again, as his continuous attempts to reach out to Laurent in this place have been met by refusal, rejection, cold words.
What does it matter anymore?
The man says something lewd to him, something about fucking him, something about his appearance, but Sasuke doesn't hear. He does what Laurent had asked of him. He fights with his opponent, not using any tactic or style that anyone in this large room will recognize — it is foreign, alien, forged from another world. Bare hand-to-hand combat is still something he excels at, and he has the advantage of his opponent's ignorance of his movements; where he is meant to be pinned down, he becomes fluid like a dancer, fist slamming into the side of the man's barrel chest. There is no kindness in his actions. Only ruthlessness.
Eventually he gets his killing hold, wrapped like a venomous snake around his opponent's stocky body, like he's squeezing the life from him with sheer strength, until one hand — the dominant left, mercifully returned to him — seizes the back of a head and snaps the man's neck. It's so sudden as to be disappointing. There's no pleading, no rape, just an efficient death. And it's over.
Sasuke is breathing hard and drenched with sweat when they separate him from the body, coursing with adrenaline, eyes vivid and wide, reflecting the light of the surrounding lamps enough to appear almost red.]