estdeus_innobis | Yeah you wanna do right but not right now

He comes for me fast and slams me up against the wall, high enough that I can look down dizzily on the crown of his head, the way the hair lies there. It's a strange thing to focus on.

"What is wrong with you?" I'm trying to think of an answer when he laughs and drops me. "Of course you always have had a death wish."

I look up at him breathlessly, and I'm grinning. Because it hurts so much, and because I won't back down, and because his smile is beautiful. "Killing me won't you do any good." My voice is a croak now. "I'll just come back again. And again. I missed you," I add, "before I died." I can remember that.

He's looking up at me with his pretty, perfectly human teenage face, but his smile is all Tez.

It's strange how much that hurts.

"Good," I say. "You deserved to miss me." I offer him my hand, and I haul him up. "You should really try to remember how to fix yourself," I say. I put two fingers against his forehead and press a little. "It's still in there, the ability. Just buried under a great deal of human nonsense." I drop my hand. "I am not quite sure how I became involved with someone so comprehensively idiotic. I suppose I have always liked to torture myself."

"You should really try to remember how to fix yourself. It's still in there, the ability. Just buried under a great deal of human nonsense."

It would probably be easier to remember if everything didn't hurt so much. Him pushing on my face doesn't help with that.

"There's all sorts of things I could remember how to do, probably." If I look I can see everything that's broken, and how, but I don't know how to put it back together. It hurts to breathe.

...Did I used to be able to be a girl? I wonder if Valmont, or Val, would have had sex with me then. This is probably a strange time to think about that.

I manage to laugh at what he says, even with the pain. "Glad I could - help." I have to breathe out slowly through my nose before I can go on. All the adrenaline is fading away, and I'm starting to shake a little. "I think - I don't remember very well. Just snatches. But I - think you pestered me until I had sex with you." Another breath. "And I fell completely in love with you. But that might have been before the sex."

I wish I could work out how to fix this. I try sort of poking at my ribs, inside my head, and - no. Ow. That's not right.

He is trembling a little from the pain. Such human weakness.

"I think - I don't remember very well. Just snatches. But I - think you pestered me until I had sex with you. And I fell completely in love with you. But that might have been before the sex."

I smile at him quite brilliantly.

"You pestered me, actually. When I was in this body, because I was so very pretty. And then I raped you, more or less, here in town." Fond memories. "You did not really want to belong to me, but you did. And I wanted you from the first moment I saw you."

I can feel him trying to fix himself, clumsy twitch of his magic, and I sigh and put my hand on his chest.

"Think harder," I say, and I push my thoughts inside him, catch hold of them like taking hold of his chin and pointing it in the right direction.

His smile.

"You pestered me, actually. When I was in this body, because I was so very pretty. And then I raped you, more or less, here in town. You did not really want to belong to me, but you did. And I wanted you from the first moment I saw you."

There's a comfort in the thought of belonging to him. It's something I should resist, I think, though it's hard to be clear on why. Using this brain can be tiring. "I think I remember seeing you for the first time. Not clearly. But the," I grope for the words, "the feel of it. Like," and I laugh, still breathless, "a shovel to the face." Or his fist.

His hand on my chest makes me jump: my first thought is my heart. "Think harder." I hear the sound I make when he moves inside me and for a moment I can't breathe at all, just hang in his thoughts' grip like a kitten in its mother's mouth.

Oh. Like that. My ribs are easy, bone knitting, swelling going down. My nose - I put a hand up to it. Ow. If I mend the bone, it will stay crooked. "Should I leave it like this?"

"I think I remember seeing you for the first time. Not clearly. But the, the feel of it. Like a shovel to the face."

"Yes," I say. "For me too, yes." The thought makes my eyelids droop briefly with satisfaction.

He remembers, with my hand to guide him, and I feel his bones mending. It satisfies me.

"Should I leave it like this?"

"I think it has more character," I say. "More of your character, I should say," and I give him a mischievous look. "Or I could snap it back into place," I say, giving him a mildly innocent look.

"Or I could snap it back into place." I put up a protective hand. That decides that.

It's not so crooked, when I'm done. "You don't like the thought of me being as pretty as you," I say mildly, feeling it. There's rather a lot of blood still. I wonder if Valmont will be angry - I must make sure Alice doesn't see me until I'm cleaned up.

I reach out and touch his cheekbone, just briefly. "You are ridiculously pretty," I add. "You were when I arrived, too, before you changed. Though in a different way." And then all that light, and a memory catches me: both of us, bodiless, spread out across the stars. Oh.

It's strange, having been Micah, to think about what I was, and what he is. Such terrible things. What I am, now? I don't know.

"You don't like the thought of me being as pretty as you," he says.

"Not possible," I say pleasantly, and look him over. He has done a decent enough job of mending himself, although I imagine he still aches.

"You are ridiculously pretty. You were when I arrived, too, before you changed. Though in a different way."

His fingers are light on my face, but I feel them so keenly. This body feels so much for him. Especially since I burned it for his sake, and I reach out and catch his fingers, put the tips inside my mouth for a moment. It makes me shudder, and I let go of his hand. I must be more distant.

"I can be a lot of things," I say lightly. "Remember this?" And I am Danika, pretty sweet-faced corruptible Danika in a crumpled pinafore.

This body that I'm in has never felt anything like his mouth around its fingers. It makes it harder to breathe than the pain in my ribs did.

I can be a lot of things. Remember this?"

"...I think so." I reach out and touch her sleeve. Everything he makes is so real. "I was - an animal?" I frown. Is that right?

(Earthquakes. Echoes. Heart of the mountain. Yes.)

"I would match you better now," I add, looking down at my own body. We would look like a young couple. Attractive, unremarkable. Human.

"I was - an animal?"

"Kitty," I say, in Danika's country drawl, and stroke his hair like a cat. "Quite a big one."

"I would match you better now," he says, and I smile.

"Yes, I suppose so. In town they think I'm a nice farm girl who looks after her mother." I grin at him. "But you liked me like this in your old body. You played at forcing this body, once. A wicked older man and the pretty young virgin." It does not have the same sting as some of Brant's bodily memories do, and so I can smile at him quite sweetly as I recall it. "But you did always seem to want me, whatever body I wore. I think Brant was your favourite." Which is why I burned him, of course.

I like the way she pets my hair. I am trying to tell if the memory makes me feel - ashamed, I think that's the word. Of how the memory makes me feel.

"But you liked me like this in your old body. You played at forcing this body, once. A wicked older man and the pretty young virgin." She's smiling, and I feel my face flush. That's what Jarmyn thought, with Alice. I wouldn't have done that, I wouldn't. Not to Alice. But this girl wasn't like Alice, not really, and it was just a game.

It's confusing. I shake my head a bit. I want to kiss her smile.

"But you always did seem to want me, whatever body I wore. I think Brant was your favourite."

That was the name. It echoes at the base of my skull. "Which was your favourite?"

"Which was your favourite?"

Brant.

"That depends," I say, "on what I was using it for. Each body to its purpose." I smile at him. "I have worn so many bodies over the years. I could make something new in a heartbeat," I add. "What would you like?" I want to remind him of what I can do, perhaps. And maybe a new body will remind me less of our past together.

Edited 2011-11-06 20:37 (UTC)

"I have worn so many bodies over the years. I could make something new in a heartbeat. What would you like?"

I look at him thoughtfully. I wonder for what purpose he made the body he wore before, the pretty boy? Do his bodies shape him the way that Micah's memories have affected me: slight, but real?

"Something," I say, "that - feels like you. To you. As much as any body can," I add, because I know that about him: that he is not flesh. I want to know him again.

"Something that - feels like you. To you. As much as any body can."

I look at him thoughtfully for a moment.

"That is a gift," I say softly. "Very well." I think about it, because it is a difficult thing to decide on, and then I become.

This body is shaped like a man, though it could be a woman, wrapped as it is lightly in a white robe, and its face is quite sexless. No blood runs in its veins, only the scent of the desert. It is young, or old, or neither. My skin is amber, my eyes as pale as sea glass. I look something, I think, like גַּבְרִיאֵל who said hail. This is how they came, my kin, like and unlike men. But this body does not resonate with the same song. It is very beautiful, and very sad.

A gift for him, or for me? The softness of his voice is strange. I -

"Oh," I say, and my voice is soft too. He is - he looks -

I wish I could make him less sad, even though the sadness itself is beautiful. There's no consolation, is there, for what he is.

He looks less like a man - a human - than the idea of one, the lines and angles but none of the meat and sweat. "You are a strange thing," I tell him gently, and touch the skin of his hand. The bones there are very fine. "Thank you." It is a gift for me, even if he didn't mean it to be. "This is more beautiful than the others."

Because it is him - is it, because him is wrong too, though it sounds like an object and this is very much a being. إبليس‎. The skin almost glows, like a smokeless fire. It makes my eyes feel sore, like staring into a light. Not human, far less human than me even in my making. It's like being in love with the sea, or the sky, and the scope of that makes me feel dizzy. But I don't look away. Can you see how I feel?

"You are a strange thing," he says, and I smile a little. He takes my hand, and I can feel the humanness of it more in this form, the rough imperfections in the skin, the pulse of blood. "This is more beautiful than the others."

"Yes," I say. "You see, do you not, why men have worshipped me." I run my fine golden fingers over his face. "But you would not hunger for this body the way you would for the others. You would hold it like glass, something precious." I lean forward and kiss him. It is very chaste, and it is passionate too, in a way of all of air and light, nothing of skin. I straighten up. "Do you remember," I say, and I smile a little, "that you knew how to be in the body of a girl?"

Is he right? Something precious, yes. He kisses me, and perhaps it isn't the same hunger, but it's a hunger in me none the less. A yearning, sharp and hollow under my breastbone. Sweet, too, and fierce. Being kissed by him is like turning my face up to the sun.

I do hunger for you.

"Do you remember that you knew how to be in the body of a girl?"

"Oh," I say, my fingers touching my lips, "I did remember, earlier." It seems less strange than when the memory came back to me. Most things would, looking at him now. "This body is - less malleable, I think. So far." I look down at it. My eyes are drawn back to his face. You would hold it like glass.

"It will come back to you," I say. "I reminded you how to do it," I say. I put my fingertips over his eyelids, shutting them. "It was like this -"

And I show him the memory (http://estdeus-innobis.livejournal.com/155634.html#comments).

Both standing in the night-dark water, and I have the taste of his semen in my boy mouth as I say "Do you remember how to be a woman?", running a hand over his chest, taking hold of his cock. "Do you remember how it felt, its neat wet darkness, a finger or cock sliding inside you?" And his body transforming into hers, and later, rolling her onto her back, pushing my whole hand inside her, pale fingers deep inside her heat.

"You can be so many things, Night Wind. You are never just this."

I let him close my eyes. It's strange, how much I trust him.

Is that what I looked like? I can see myself in his memory, male and then female. I can feel myself around his hand. How strange it is, and - sweet.

"You can be so many things, Night Wind. You are never just this."

I can see-feel-understand it, how I made that change. And I can feel this body resisting the idea, its years of humanness heavy as lead. Healing it was easier - it moves towards that anyway - but this is something different. It makes me frustrated, my bones aching.

It doesn't help that his memory of sex has made my penis remarkably hard. I laugh a little, shakily. "I can see the way of it. I just can't - I will learn."

"I can see the way of it. I just can't - I will learn."

"You will," I say, quite certainly. And then I put this bright body away and slip back into Brant's, because I do not wish today to dazzle him too much. "And you remember how this works," I point out, quite meanly, as I put my hand around his erection. "Some things do not change." I smile at him and drop my hand. "But I should be grateful to it, since it led you back here." I wonder what human he wants - wanted - so much. I could look inside him, but I do not. I do not think it really matters a great deal.

He is the boy - Brant - again. I suck in a breath when he puts his hand on my penis. I didn't expect that, somehow.

"Some things do not change. but I should be grateful to it, since it led you back here."

I shake my head, but I'm laughing. I wish he hadn't moved his hand. "No. That was you, with your wish-granting. And I knew from the first that I wanted to be here. Your tower, I mean."

I put my own hand on his hip. It's quite different from touching that other body he made.

"Yes," I say patiently, "but it was your desire that made you want a wish, was it not?" I shake my head. "Your weakness for humans. I hope he is pretty, at least." And at least it is not Syl. I am not going to remind him of her, if he has not remembered yet.

He puts his hand on my hip, and I look at him through my eyelashes.

"I am glad you like the tower," I say, and I stroke his fingers where they rest on my hip. "I am quite fond of it myself."

"If you weren't known for granting wishes," I come back, "I wouldn't have come here. And yes, pretty. But not as pretty as you." Though it wasn't Valmont's prettiness that made me want him.

"I am glad you like the tower. I am quite fond of it myself."

"People are scared of it," I tell him, but I'm mostly focusing on his fingers on mine. I move my hand a little. The way he looks at me...I realise I'm biting my lip, and make myself stop.

"No one is as a pretty as me," I say, and I keep smiling at him because I can see that it is bothering him. He does not really remember flirting, does he? It makes my smile twitch up.

"People are scared of it," he adds, and his expression is flustered. It makes me want to goad him. I make my stroking of his hand very, very light and slow. His old self would have tried to touch me by now, even if he thought he might be rejected. He is such a child again.

It was easier, with Val. Then I just put my hand on his penis. But I don't dare do that now, even though I dared annoy him into throwing me across the room. My lips are parted, a little, and I feel hot in the face.

His fingers make me shiver.

I don't know what he wants. I reach out and put the palm of my other hand against his chest. I can feel the warmth of his skin through his shirt.

I can feel his heart beat, and that brings up a sudden sharp memory that makes my fingers dig in. Yes, I remember that.

I feel how he digs his fingers into my chest.

"You ate my heart," I say, "in a filthy alleyway, out of this chest." I pull open my shirt with my free hand, showing the pale skin, and I smile at him. And then I take hold of his hand, pull it off my chest. "Not today." He wants it now; let him need it.

Yes, I think I am finding my feet again, after the shock of his return, and I lift his hand, push his forefinger into my mouth, right back, and I bite down lightly on the base of it, tongue hot against his finger.

"You at my heart, in a filthy alleyway, out of this chest." His words, and the feel of his skin, turns my shiver into a hard shudder. "Not today."

A low disappointed sound in my throat, and then a startled noise as he draws my finger into his mouth. The feeling of that alone is almost enough to make this body ejaculate. I feel my mouth twist and I focus hard with that new awareness, pushing it away. My breath is coming fast through my nose. Can he tell that I haven't had sex in this body?

"You," I tell him, and I'm not-quite-laughing, at myself and at the situation, "are terrible. Horrible. Oh," as his tongue moves against my finger. Half-memories are crowding me, things that I've done with him. Oh, yes.

"You are terrible. Horrible."

I smile around his finger and pull it out of my mouth.

"You may yet remember how accurate that is," I say, and I tip his head to the side so I can bite down where his neck meets his shoulder.

"You may yet remember how accurate that is."

"I have no doubt of - ah! - of that." He hasn't forgiven me; he doesn't forgive. He hates me for what I did. He will hurt me, in one way or another, a very great deal.

But for now his teeth are digging into my skin, and I tilt my head to let him bite me. My hand is on the back of his head, lightly holding him. It's like a caress, though it isn't.

I can remember enough to know that I have never had much sense in situations like this.

I do not bite hard enough to break the skin, but it will bruise him, teeth grinding against flesh. I can imagine the mottled colour the skin will turn, and it satisfies me. I think of Tez's teeth in the back of my neck as he knocked me to the ground. I wore riding boots that evening, and I threatened him with a crop.

I use one hand to catch hold of his wrists, hold them against him so he cannot touch me, and my other hand opens his fly and gets hold of his erect penis.

I want to hold him. It's frustrating. Once there was a bed here, I think, and light through leaves, and I want -

I want this, oh god. My head goes back. Does it make him feel better, to be in control of this? I can let him have that. Yes, I can let him have that.

His hand feels so good. Micah's memories are more immediate than my own, and this is - this is -

I won't orgasm. I won't. I won't.

He gives himself over, the part of him that is the human teenager who needs to come and the part of him that wants this because he loves me.

It does not take very long at all, even though I can tell he is trying not to climax. He does not yet have that control over himself.

I am still holding his wrists after he has climaxed, and I put the fingers of my other hand in my mouth, lick them clean. He tastes different, but I still close my eyes with satisfaction. I hate him, and I will ruin him again for what he did to me, and - I am glad he is here.

I'm glad he doesn't let go of me. I continue spasming for a few moments after I ejaculate, all my muscles tense. My eyes have rolled back in my head. Afterwards I'm weak and trembling, but my whole body twitches again when he tastes my semen.

"I." My voice is hoarse. "Will you let me - ?" I don't expect him to say yes.

I smile at him.

"No," I say. And that might be frustrating enough, but I think this might be worse. And so keeping a firm grip on his wrists - they will have bruised after this, I think - I pull down my own fly and get my hand inside my trousers. I do not even pull out my cock; I just work it tightly. I look at him as I do it, listening to his breathing. I feel my nostrils flare, my own breathing quicken, and I touch my tongue to my lip, taste him on my mouth, and I push myself into orgasm with a sharp cry.

I let go of his wrists then and fasten my trousers, sit down on a chair and stretch out my legs. My cheeks are very flushed, but I keep my expression calm.

"No."

I can see how smug he is. How he watches me, eyes narrowed and nostrils flared. The movement of his hand. The bones of my wrists feel like they're grinding together.

"Please," I say. He won't. I feel a low tight satisfaction of my own when he comes. It's still because of me.

I look at him sitting in his chair when he's done. I moisten my own lips. "Thank you," I say, my voice low. I rub my wrists. My penis is still hanging outside of my trousers, and I tuck it away.

I look at him thoughtfully for a moment longer, then come and kneel down by his chair. I don't think it's a gesture of fealty, this time.

He kneels down next to me, and it tugs something inside me. I put my clean hand on his hair, stroke it for a little while.

"You should go now," I say. It is strangely difficult to send him away, although I know he will try to see me again soon.

I'm content to kneel there and let him pet my hair. I could stay like this for a long time. I haven't felt this content since - I don't know. Since I went to sleep lying with Val, I think, with his arm around me. The thought makes me sad. Everything was simpler, then.

"You should go now."

I look up at him. I don't want to go. I don't try to hide that from him. But I'm so very tired, as well, after this. "Must I?" The corner of my mouth's turned up: half a smile.

He gives me a little smile, and I tug his hair lightly.

"Yes," I say. I stand up and walk back to the window, light another cigarette and draw on it. I glance back at him. "I am pleased that you found me again."

I stand up when he walks away. My legs are shaky under me. "I am pleased that you found me again."

I go across to him and gently take the cigarette from between his fingers, puff on it. It helps the wobbly feeling. "I am, too. Even though you complicate everything."

I lean in and kiss his cheek, pass the cigarette back. "I think I may sleep for a week."

I have to snort a little at his cheek. No one else would dare treat me so casually.

"Here," I say, taking another cigarette out of the case, and I tuck it behind his ear. "For later."

I turn back to the window, and do not look round as he leaves. He looks very small as he walks out of the tower, and I put the cigarette back in my mouth, taste him on it, and then let it drop from the window, a tiny glint of light falling towards the earth.

Yeah you wanna do right but not right now

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