FIC: Violence
Title: Violence
Rating: R
Pairing: Kara/Leoben
Word Count: 2,000
Disclaimer: I just write about them, they're not mine.
Author's Note: Okay, so warnings. WARNINGS. This is a companion to my ship-swap piece for Kara/Leoben, Prayer. That story is about their religious sides and is not, in my opinion, triggery much at all, and non-Kara/Leoben folks seem to like it. THIS IS THE OPPOSITE. So: warnings for child abuse, violence, character death, sex, and dark themes.
Violence
Kara Leoben
I
It was just a joke. She knew, knew there would be trouble but it doesn’t stop her from screaming as she lies here on the floor. Her throat is raw and hoarse and the world is blurred by tears.
Socrata glares from across the room. “You knew exactly what you were doing,” she accuses.
Kara blinks, trying to see her, and reaches up to wipe away the tears. When her fingers brush her face the world goes black.
When she wakes again there are casts, and nurses, and lies to be told. And Kara tells them, because it’s true--she knew.
I
Leoben cringes behind the dresser as Daniel screams in agony.
Blood splatters across the wall and Daniel falls silent.
His brother is dead and Leoben can’t breathe.
Until this moment, he didn’t know that fear would make him hide, would leave him damp with sweat and trembling with horror. His hands are shaking. They have this same power for destruction. He presses them over his eyes, reaching into the stream, away from this place.
John’s blow comes without warning, pain blossoming sharply as Leoben learns what made Daniel scream.
Even after John wipes the memory away, nightmares plague his sleep.
II
There’s something about the way the bead of sweat rolls down his brow that makes Kara crazy. As if humanity is something they can copy, can steal. They’ve destroyed her entire world, and now they’re claiming it as theirs.
Kara grins at him, eyes fierce, and begins.
He taunts her, tries to engage her, but this is what she’s good at, this is what it seems she’s always known: how much pressure to bruise, to bloody, to break. She feels his head crack against the table like it’s her own. Leoben is her enemy, a cylon. She doesn’t hold back.
II
All day long he’s played her game, has provoked her with his knowledge of her past but let her think she was in control. She smirked and hit him and believed it.
Now though, alone with her, aware every second of her body and her blood and they way they respond to him, Leoben wants Kara to know his power. He flips the table, pins her to the doorframe. Her pulse hammers against his fingers as she chokes out words. Leoben sees their connection, knows she feels it, too. His blood pumps harder as Kara struggles. She will be his.
III
Kara falls down the stairs, jagged concrete scraping against her skin. She lands, orients herself, takes in the apartment.
Her blood freezes at the sight of Leoben. Does he remember the cell, the torture? She stands defiantly, slowly descends. “It’s your turn now, is that it?”
Leoben smiles, his eyes intense. “You know what the scriptures say.”
“This has all happened before...”
“That’s right,” he murmurs. “Except this time...this time you’ll love me.”
He’s so sure that a frisson of fear lances through her. Kara lashes out, striking the first blow.
Leoben laughs, doesn’t hit back.
Kara doesn’t stop.
III
You’ll never be a man. Her words ring in the air.
Something snaps inside him.
Three days, two deaths, and his patience is gone. Leoben whirls, sees Kara’s eyes go wide as he moves with superhuman power and speed. His fist knocks her to the ground and her face lights up as she readies a kick. He doesn’t give her time. In seconds he has her pinned beneath him, his body coursing with arousal as she pulls against his iron grip.
Kara’s eyes brighten with fear as she struggles ineffectually.
Leoben shoves her away angrily. She has to love him.
IV
Kara rubs her fingers along her arm. No one has touched her in months.
“Frak off,” she snarls as Leoben enters.
He approaches, very close. “I won’t hit you, Kara,” he murmurs. “I know that’s what you want.”
She can feel his breath. “Then kiss me,” she says roughly.
His hand cups her cheek; his mouth covers hers hungrily. For a moment she indulges the raw power of the kiss. Then she slashes a fragment of mirror across his throat. The only thing that makes this life bearable is the rush of pleasure as his blood spills over her hands.
IV
The man’s eyes are fearful as he passes Leoben, twisting his body away to hide the child in his arms. The other humans are looking at him, too, now, and Leoben smiles at them.
It’s almost offensive, their ignorant fear, the assumptions they make. And then he remembers the strength of his body, the way Kara thrashed helplessly beneath him.
His smile grows. They believe he has power so he does.
“Give me the baby,” Leoben commands. The man breaks into a run. Leoben catches him in a few steps, breaks his neck with a single blow. The child wails.
V
There’s horror in her face, but also acceptance. Leoben nods. He’s finally getting what he always knew was his.
She pronounces her love: hesitant first, then sure. He almost believes she can feel the truth.
Kara’s lips are yielding, and she parts them even before his tongue darts forward to find hers. Pleasure flares through him. He presses her against the wall; she thrusts a knife inside him.
It hurts. it always hurts with Kara.
He sees understanding in her eyes, though: they are the same, in this way. Violence is their native tongue. There’s more between them than pain.
V
For four months she relearned her mother’s language at Leoben’s hands. Now it’s the only one anyone seems to speak. Adama threw her to the floor; Lee offered her death. They know the truth about her.
And then he’s there in front of her, helpless and weak. Kara winks: a promise, a threat.
The guards pull him aside when she asks, wait outside the brig as she throws Leoben to the ground.
He grins that infuriating grin and she wants to beat it off his face.
“Your turn,” he grunts.
He’s dying anyway. She clenches her fist.
Somehow she can’t.
VI
He has always had dreams, has always had this dream: Kara painting over the truth of her life.
He sees her fear. She feels too weak for her destiny, too broken.
He has always known her strength.
In the dream he kisses her fiercely, drags her with him to the floor, into the paint, takes her hard and fast and out of control until she screams out in pleasure, nails digging into his skin. For one instant they both understand what awaits her. The mandala burns through them, inescapable. She will have to be strong. He will make her strong.
VI
She has a destiny, he says. Kara feels the truth behind it: her life is not her own. She has fought this every day since her mother first hit her, first told her to be disciplined, ready, because something was coming. Something she needed to be ready for.
Kara reacts on impulse, snatching a bottle and flinging it away from her with all her strength, her rejection of his words absolute. The bottle shatters against the mandala, falls to the floor in a rain of slivers and shards. It doesn’t leave a trace. Kara’s starting to think she won’t, either.
VII
As his fist meets Cavil’s face, Leoben sees fear in his eyes and feels a sense of rightness he can’t explain. His brother staggers back, eyes narrowing. “There’s nothing to be gained by releasing the centurions willy-nilly,” he snarls. “Power comes from control. Join us.”
“I don’t want power.” Leoben struggles to find his composure.
“Don’t you?” Cavil mocks.
Leoben advances, fists tight at his sides. “We each have our roles to play.”
“Then I’m the leader. Follow. We’ll destroy them all, together.” Cavil’s voice is eager suddenly, cajoling.
Leoben shakes his head, rains punches until his knuckles bleed. “No.”
VII
Pain pounds through her, emanating from the knot on her head where Adama slammed her against the ground. Kara closes her eyes, smiling faintly.
She knows what it means now, so much better than she ever did before. Her mother looked up at her with love, in spite of everything. Adama wasn’t lying when he said he was her ally.
She thinks of Lee, of all their fighting. Of Leoben, kissing her even as she stabbed him. The world is a storm of confusion, but for the first time in her life Kara knows with certainty that she is loved.
VIII
The skin on his cheek is darkening to a bruise from her marines’ blows as Kara faces Leoben in her quarters.
She traces the torn skin, presses hard.
He winces, then stills.
“My turn, huh?” she murmurs.
He shakes his head, too in awe to feel the pain. “You’re something new now, Kara. Something glorious.”
She presses harder. “Shut up.”
Leoben smiles. “That cycle is over, Kara.”
She freezes. Her eyes are lost. “Then what?” she whispers.
He tugs her hand away from his face, laces their fingers together.
Kara stares at the bruising, leans in to kiss his cheek.
VIII
Leoben’s lips on hers are fierce. The kisses on New Caprica, those other people they once were, are left behind as they come together, a new cycle beginning. Kara bites Leoben’s lip and he wrenches at her pants with one hand, tearing seams. She digs her nails into his scalp as he sucks hard at her neck.
Leoben slams into her and Kara finally loses herself to the moment, to the overpowering sensation. He clutches at her as he thrusts. His fingers mark her skin as he comes, surging inside of her. Kara screams. Beyond all reason she is alive.
IX
Leoben slams his head against the eroded concrete wall of an old monument.
He was wrong. His visions were false. He had no idea she was going to be dead.
Their pain was for nothing.
She will never love him now.
Blood streams down his forehead, tastes metallic on his tongue.
He has no purpose now. Death will last forever, and he wants it to.
One more blow and the world goes black.
Then Kara is there, reaching out to him, her eyes just as lost. She kisses him softly, and the pain is gone. They will be lost together.
IX
She raises the visor, just like always, feels the helmet shift too easily against rotten flesh.
“Kara!”
She jolts awake, lifting her head off the bar, and wrenches away from Leoben’s hand.
“You were having a nightmare,” he admonishes her.
Kara turns to him sharply, agony in her eyes, as he watches her sadly. “I need you to tell me what it means,” she begs. “What am I? Tell me!” She slides off her stool, shoves him hard. Leoben stumbles, then straightens, doesn’t bend again as Kara pummels his chest. When her knuckles start to bruise, he catches her hands.
XX
He finds her standing alone, running her fingers through the tall grass. Kara looks up as he approaches and Leoben nods to her.
“My journey is over,” she says softly, certainly.
“Mine, too.”
Her eyes flicker warily to his.
Leoben feels the grass tickle his palm. “I was created for you, Kara. That’s all.”
Kara looks at him skeptically. “Ellen and Tigh couldn’t have known--”
He laughs. “You still don’t believe?”
She doesn’t answer.
Leoben draws the knife from his pocket. “I want you to do it.”
Her mouth falls open as Kara begins to shake her head. “But--”
“Kara.” He lays a hand against her cheek, pleading. “I need it to be you.” He holds her hand a moment, leaves the knife behind.
She clutches it tightly, then opens it. She looks up at him, her throat tight. “I love you,” she whispers, and means it. She kisses him, soft and sweet. For a moment as he leans into the kiss she lets herself go, lets him have everything he ever wanted from her.
The knife slides in easily. Leoben’s blood on her fingers is slick and hot.
His hand covers hers again. They fall together, their cycle ended.
Rating: R
Pairing: Kara/Leoben
Word Count: 2,000
Disclaimer: I just write about them, they're not mine.
Author's Note: Okay, so warnings. WARNINGS. This is a companion to my ship-swap piece for Kara/Leoben, Prayer. That story is about their religious sides and is not, in my opinion, triggery much at all, and non-Kara/Leoben folks seem to like it. THIS IS THE OPPOSITE. So: warnings for child abuse, violence, character death, sex, and dark themes.
Violence
Kara Leoben
I
It was just a joke. She knew, knew there would be trouble but it doesn’t stop her from screaming as she lies here on the floor. Her throat is raw and hoarse and the world is blurred by tears.
Socrata glares from across the room. “You knew exactly what you were doing,” she accuses.
Kara blinks, trying to see her, and reaches up to wipe away the tears. When her fingers brush her face the world goes black.
When she wakes again there are casts, and nurses, and lies to be told. And Kara tells them, because it’s true--she knew.
I
Leoben cringes behind the dresser as Daniel screams in agony.
Blood splatters across the wall and Daniel falls silent.
His brother is dead and Leoben can’t breathe.
Until this moment, he didn’t know that fear would make him hide, would leave him damp with sweat and trembling with horror. His hands are shaking. They have this same power for destruction. He presses them over his eyes, reaching into the stream, away from this place.
John’s blow comes without warning, pain blossoming sharply as Leoben learns what made Daniel scream.
Even after John wipes the memory away, nightmares plague his sleep.
II
There’s something about the way the bead of sweat rolls down his brow that makes Kara crazy. As if humanity is something they can copy, can steal. They’ve destroyed her entire world, and now they’re claiming it as theirs.
Kara grins at him, eyes fierce, and begins.
He taunts her, tries to engage her, but this is what she’s good at, this is what it seems she’s always known: how much pressure to bruise, to bloody, to break. She feels his head crack against the table like it’s her own. Leoben is her enemy, a cylon. She doesn’t hold back.
II
All day long he’s played her game, has provoked her with his knowledge of her past but let her think she was in control. She smirked and hit him and believed it.
Now though, alone with her, aware every second of her body and her blood and they way they respond to him, Leoben wants Kara to know his power. He flips the table, pins her to the doorframe. Her pulse hammers against his fingers as she chokes out words. Leoben sees their connection, knows she feels it, too. His blood pumps harder as Kara struggles. She will be his.
III
Kara falls down the stairs, jagged concrete scraping against her skin. She lands, orients herself, takes in the apartment.
Her blood freezes at the sight of Leoben. Does he remember the cell, the torture? She stands defiantly, slowly descends. “It’s your turn now, is that it?”
Leoben smiles, his eyes intense. “You know what the scriptures say.”
“This has all happened before...”
“That’s right,” he murmurs. “Except this time...this time you’ll love me.”
He’s so sure that a frisson of fear lances through her. Kara lashes out, striking the first blow.
Leoben laughs, doesn’t hit back.
Kara doesn’t stop.
III
You’ll never be a man. Her words ring in the air.
Something snaps inside him.
Three days, two deaths, and his patience is gone. Leoben whirls, sees Kara’s eyes go wide as he moves with superhuman power and speed. His fist knocks her to the ground and her face lights up as she readies a kick. He doesn’t give her time. In seconds he has her pinned beneath him, his body coursing with arousal as she pulls against his iron grip.
Kara’s eyes brighten with fear as she struggles ineffectually.
Leoben shoves her away angrily. She has to love him.
IV
Kara rubs her fingers along her arm. No one has touched her in months.
“Frak off,” she snarls as Leoben enters.
He approaches, very close. “I won’t hit you, Kara,” he murmurs. “I know that’s what you want.”
She can feel his breath. “Then kiss me,” she says roughly.
His hand cups her cheek; his mouth covers hers hungrily. For a moment she indulges the raw power of the kiss. Then she slashes a fragment of mirror across his throat. The only thing that makes this life bearable is the rush of pleasure as his blood spills over her hands.
IV
The man’s eyes are fearful as he passes Leoben, twisting his body away to hide the child in his arms. The other humans are looking at him, too, now, and Leoben smiles at them.
It’s almost offensive, their ignorant fear, the assumptions they make. And then he remembers the strength of his body, the way Kara thrashed helplessly beneath him.
His smile grows. They believe he has power so he does.
“Give me the baby,” Leoben commands. The man breaks into a run. Leoben catches him in a few steps, breaks his neck with a single blow. The child wails.
V
There’s horror in her face, but also acceptance. Leoben nods. He’s finally getting what he always knew was his.
She pronounces her love: hesitant first, then sure. He almost believes she can feel the truth.
Kara’s lips are yielding, and she parts them even before his tongue darts forward to find hers. Pleasure flares through him. He presses her against the wall; she thrusts a knife inside him.
It hurts. it always hurts with Kara.
He sees understanding in her eyes, though: they are the same, in this way. Violence is their native tongue. There’s more between them than pain.
V
For four months she relearned her mother’s language at Leoben’s hands. Now it’s the only one anyone seems to speak. Adama threw her to the floor; Lee offered her death. They know the truth about her.
And then he’s there in front of her, helpless and weak. Kara winks: a promise, a threat.
The guards pull him aside when she asks, wait outside the brig as she throws Leoben to the ground.
He grins that infuriating grin and she wants to beat it off his face.
“Your turn,” he grunts.
He’s dying anyway. She clenches her fist.
Somehow she can’t.
VI
He has always had dreams, has always had this dream: Kara painting over the truth of her life.
He sees her fear. She feels too weak for her destiny, too broken.
He has always known her strength.
In the dream he kisses her fiercely, drags her with him to the floor, into the paint, takes her hard and fast and out of control until she screams out in pleasure, nails digging into his skin. For one instant they both understand what awaits her. The mandala burns through them, inescapable. She will have to be strong. He will make her strong.
VI
She has a destiny, he says. Kara feels the truth behind it: her life is not her own. She has fought this every day since her mother first hit her, first told her to be disciplined, ready, because something was coming. Something she needed to be ready for.
Kara reacts on impulse, snatching a bottle and flinging it away from her with all her strength, her rejection of his words absolute. The bottle shatters against the mandala, falls to the floor in a rain of slivers and shards. It doesn’t leave a trace. Kara’s starting to think she won’t, either.
VII
As his fist meets Cavil’s face, Leoben sees fear in his eyes and feels a sense of rightness he can’t explain. His brother staggers back, eyes narrowing. “There’s nothing to be gained by releasing the centurions willy-nilly,” he snarls. “Power comes from control. Join us.”
“I don’t want power.” Leoben struggles to find his composure.
“Don’t you?” Cavil mocks.
Leoben advances, fists tight at his sides. “We each have our roles to play.”
“Then I’m the leader. Follow. We’ll destroy them all, together.” Cavil’s voice is eager suddenly, cajoling.
Leoben shakes his head, rains punches until his knuckles bleed. “No.”
VII
Pain pounds through her, emanating from the knot on her head where Adama slammed her against the ground. Kara closes her eyes, smiling faintly.
She knows what it means now, so much better than she ever did before. Her mother looked up at her with love, in spite of everything. Adama wasn’t lying when he said he was her ally.
She thinks of Lee, of all their fighting. Of Leoben, kissing her even as she stabbed him. The world is a storm of confusion, but for the first time in her life Kara knows with certainty that she is loved.
VIII
The skin on his cheek is darkening to a bruise from her marines’ blows as Kara faces Leoben in her quarters.
She traces the torn skin, presses hard.
He winces, then stills.
“My turn, huh?” she murmurs.
He shakes his head, too in awe to feel the pain. “You’re something new now, Kara. Something glorious.”
She presses harder. “Shut up.”
Leoben smiles. “That cycle is over, Kara.”
She freezes. Her eyes are lost. “Then what?” she whispers.
He tugs her hand away from his face, laces their fingers together.
Kara stares at the bruising, leans in to kiss his cheek.
VIII
Leoben’s lips on hers are fierce. The kisses on New Caprica, those other people they once were, are left behind as they come together, a new cycle beginning. Kara bites Leoben’s lip and he wrenches at her pants with one hand, tearing seams. She digs her nails into his scalp as he sucks hard at her neck.
Leoben slams into her and Kara finally loses herself to the moment, to the overpowering sensation. He clutches at her as he thrusts. His fingers mark her skin as he comes, surging inside of her. Kara screams. Beyond all reason she is alive.
IX
Leoben slams his head against the eroded concrete wall of an old monument.
He was wrong. His visions were false. He had no idea she was going to be dead.
Their pain was for nothing.
She will never love him now.
Blood streams down his forehead, tastes metallic on his tongue.
He has no purpose now. Death will last forever, and he wants it to.
One more blow and the world goes black.
Then Kara is there, reaching out to him, her eyes just as lost. She kisses him softly, and the pain is gone. They will be lost together.
IX
She raises the visor, just like always, feels the helmet shift too easily against rotten flesh.
“Kara!”
She jolts awake, lifting her head off the bar, and wrenches away from Leoben’s hand.
“You were having a nightmare,” he admonishes her.
Kara turns to him sharply, agony in her eyes, as he watches her sadly. “I need you to tell me what it means,” she begs. “What am I? Tell me!” She slides off her stool, shoves him hard. Leoben stumbles, then straightens, doesn’t bend again as Kara pummels his chest. When her knuckles start to bruise, he catches her hands.
XX
He finds her standing alone, running her fingers through the tall grass. Kara looks up as he approaches and Leoben nods to her.
“My journey is over,” she says softly, certainly.
“Mine, too.”
Her eyes flicker warily to his.
Leoben feels the grass tickle his palm. “I was created for you, Kara. That’s all.”
Kara looks at him skeptically. “Ellen and Tigh couldn’t have known--”
He laughs. “You still don’t believe?”
She doesn’t answer.
Leoben draws the knife from his pocket. “I want you to do it.”
Her mouth falls open as Kara begins to shake her head. “But--”
“Kara.” He lays a hand against her cheek, pleading. “I need it to be you.” He holds her hand a moment, leaves the knife behind.
She clutches it tightly, then opens it. She looks up at him, her throat tight. “I love you,” she whispers, and means it. She kisses him, soft and sweet. For a moment as he leans into the kiss she lets herself go, lets him have everything he ever wanted from her.
The knife slides in easily. Leoben’s blood on her fingers is slick and hot.
His hand covers hers again. They fall together, their cycle ended.