49 - [Katekyo Hitman Reborn] The Body's Memory
Rating: M
Characters: Xanxus + Squalo
Fandom: Katekyo Hitman Reborn!
Summary: For those who carve bodies out of stone and keep them.
Notes: AU artist-and-model tag team galore
The body has a memory of its own and you're convinced that if it doesn't want to remember, then you'll force it to remember. Today his skin is blank. Today he lies naked on your white sheets like carved ivory, cold and beautiful. He is thin and you see his ribs poking out on the side. He is nothing but carved bones and skin stretched over lies. You never knew his real name. He drawled out "Superbi" when you asked for it; it's a first name, he said, and you jabbed your cigarette at the tip of his hair. Bullshit, you said. It'll be too intimate to be calling you by your first name. Give me something I can work with, you said. There is a sharp curve at the edge of his lips because you both know that it's bullshit. So he gives you "Squalo" instead, and you shrug and move to the easel. Asking for names was a formality; the truth is you never cared hard enough; you never cared enough, period.
Superbi is reclined on mounds of pillows naked and washed with antiseptic white light and there is a bored look on his face. What are you doing here, why are you still here, why are you still pretending that this is the actual thing that matters? You wet the paintbrush with your tongue and paint him on the intrepid cloth. "Act like this is the best thing in the world," you say, and Squalo just rolls his eyes and adopts a face made for glossy magazines and fashion shows, a glittering albino snake with scales so pale, but very deadly. In this distance he looks too fake. You shake your head. "Fuck, you call that modelling? You look dead to me." To which he replies, "it's a fucking canvas, of course everything in there is dead." Yes, but they have to look immaculate. Yes, they look dead, but they always have to be beautiful, even in their chaotic lack of spirit. Yes, but they have to look like they're alive. It's a magic window. But you're too lazy to give a lecture on a vapid model and so you shake your head and take dabs of hoarfrost white and stormy grey. "For personality," you say, grinning madly, and from the bed Squalo eases, relaxes into your lair and he loses some of his tension. "I like you, you stupid son of a bitch," he says.
*
The second day he comes in you tell him that you want him sitting down, this time near the window sill by the sunlight, naked. Squalo complies, strips off his shirt and his pants, grey and black and a red necktie to bind them together. "I just came from university," he was saying. "My prof is a drag, he always wants me to suck him off. I fucking hate chemistry." You take your glass of whiskey (one in the morning and a hundred at night, keeps a man warm and safe without dreams) and drink from it, then light your cigarette and sit behind the easel, watching him with intense eyes. "So go drop the course," you say. Squalo is taking off his boxer shorts and you watch them drop elegantly from his bony hips to his ankles. "I need it to get into med." Squalo stretches his limbs and you see long, lean muscles well-defined down to the very last form. "So don't go med." "I want to. Vuoiiii, you're being annoying than usual! Why the fuck are we talking about this?" This is when you grabbed your glass, drained it of alcohol, and chucked it to his head. There was a crash, the glass tumbles to the floor and smashes, Squalo shrieks like a banshee as he steps on a shard. You laugh, and there is a wonderful, delectable shade of red that creeps into his cheeks as he watches you laugh. "Stay where you are, and don't even move," you purr. "I want you to bleed, fucking trash. Throw your head back. Not too far, you look like a goddamned puppet -- alright, stop there, that's enough. Now don't act alive for the next hour or so."
He breathes gently and for a while there is only the sound of your pen on paper and your breathing and his. Today Squalo has his nails painted an obnoxious shade of red and you love it, so much, because it ties everything perfectly well. Squalo is growling from where he was standing. "Fuck my foot hurts. Hurry up." You have an excellent growl in your body reserved to scare the shit out of people and you demostrate it in him. The sound makes him shiver and you watch him shudder pleasantly, lips set on an attractive thin line, eyes half-lidded from the glare of the sun, body a clean ivory stone. "When I'm done you can heal yourself." The truth is you need more days like this. The truth is you'd like to lick that dusky hollow at the place where collarbone and neck meet. The truth is you'd like to wrap his hair around your fingers and bury your head around his neck. Squalo's neck is long and elegantly pale. It has no memories of being touched.
He ends up staying that afternoon in your studio, walking naked and slightly limping after he bandaged his feet. You smoke another cigarette sitting by the window sill, finishing the lines and the shadows on your sketch. Your lines are always hard and cruel, and the lighting that you use is always honest. Squalo comes near you, looks over your shoulder and watches you work, brow furrowed in concentration as you try and define his calves. "I look pretty good so far," he admits. You snort in return. "It's not to scale. And stop snooping over my shoulder, I can't draw your calves properly." There is a smirk that creeps its way on his face and makes itself comfortable there. "Well, why don't we do an anatomy lesson?" The truth is, you don't mind doing a few more hours of research on the human body and how it moves and how to make it move; specifically, how Squalo moves effortlessly with grace, even when in throes of orgasm as he lies moaning and gasping on your silken sheets. And that was how he ended up sleeping with you later that afternoon in your studio, hands over your chest, breathing gently near your neck. It's not a bad arrangement, you decide, but the hair really must go. It chokes and wraps around you when you try to sleep, like it's some sentient thing.
*
The truth is you always like it when he comes over. You always insist that's he's here on business though the two of you have divided business like this: one in front of the easel, the other lying down in bed. Later on it had more divisions and it was hard to keep track of how many businesses you conduct in one roof: sometimes in the living room, sometimes in the couch, sometimes in the kitchen, lots of times in the bathtub, sometimes on the hood of the car where you indulge him and suck him off, kneeling in the dust. It's always business. The body has a memory of its own and Squalo has red and purple bruises blooming on his skin whenever you're done, and it's the best picture you can ever hope for. He doesn't even need to act anymore. He just lies down, tired and drained, face contorted in some emotion akin to passion and something else you would never admit existed; a feeling you believe is never yours to keep or to earn. You don't care enough and you just don't care, period. But the ghost of his lips, spending a night with yours, lingers on. In the morning you remember the shape of the inside of his mouth and the taste. You like to think that you carved him out of stone.
*
When he doesn't come, you are all alone in your house shredding canvases with exacto knives because they never come out right.
When he doesn't come, you mix swatches of colors in tiny little bottles, all of one hue: hoarfrost. Storm grey. Icy winter. Blizzard-season. You put fancy little labels on their sides and you find yourself thinking what color should you paint his eyes with next. Last time you swathed it with December blue.
When he doesn't come you smoke more and you drink more in the silence, and you begin hating the silence because it has already betrayed you, without your consent. It's not familiar anymore; it's that cold, violated kind of silence, the kind which makes you wonder where the sound went and how to get it back.
When he doesn't come you pay a trip to the shooting range and your aim is always perfect when you shoot and you wonder why the hell did you decide to go with the stupid career of being an artist when you could've been something else, and you get even more mad for admitting a fault of your own and the gunshots echo loud and late.
When he doesn't come the rain feels a lot more cold and you find yourself shivering in a bed too large for one man and the shadows that someone has made before.
When he doesn't come ....
And when he doesn't come ....
When he doesn't come you are lonely and whole, you are wolf and rabid dog, you are artist and prisoner, you are hunter and the hunted.
And you can't tell anymore at what point did things get this bad.
*
When he does come, you tangle your fingers around his hair, looped like a chain and you pull him against you and you bury your face around his neck, inhaling a scent that is definitely his, rain and antiseptics from the med labs in his university and that cologne he bought a month ago for you that you never use. Squalo smiles sharply against your cheeks. "What, you missed me?" "Yeah," you reply in a mock-sad tone. "I needed to fucking pay the rent." Squalo rolls his eyes and pushes you away gently, then goes to the couch and strips his clothes off for the next matter of business at hand. "What, afraid that I've ran away with some other artist or something? Or with that prof of mine, who still keeps insisting I should suck his dick?"
You watch him undress. His body is pale ivory and clean again, like nothing happened, and you know that must be rectified. "None of that matters," you tell him flatly. "Given the chance, I'm pretty sure you would actually go and never look back." Squalo smiles sweetly at you, that bastard. Like he actually would. Why wouldn't he? You never knew his real name, never really cared enough. But you watch him catiously because there might be a chance, that someday, maybe he will just reach for the knob of the door, because he wants to leave, wants to leave forever, and what will happen to you? But then --
He lies down on your bed sprawled and inviting and you take your brushes with you and your paints, the autumn set -- reds and yellows and golds, liquid fire in your hands. "What are you gonna do, turn me into fire?" "Close enough," you say, grinning. The truth is you want to consume him. The truth is, you know you're already consumed.
Characters: Xanxus + Squalo
Fandom: Katekyo Hitman Reborn!
Summary: For those who carve bodies out of stone and keep them.
Notes: AU artist-and-model tag team galore
The body has a memory of its own and you're convinced that if it doesn't want to remember, then you'll force it to remember. Today his skin is blank. Today he lies naked on your white sheets like carved ivory, cold and beautiful. He is thin and you see his ribs poking out on the side. He is nothing but carved bones and skin stretched over lies. You never knew his real name. He drawled out "Superbi" when you asked for it; it's a first name, he said, and you jabbed your cigarette at the tip of his hair. Bullshit, you said. It'll be too intimate to be calling you by your first name. Give me something I can work with, you said. There is a sharp curve at the edge of his lips because you both know that it's bullshit. So he gives you "Squalo" instead, and you shrug and move to the easel. Asking for names was a formality; the truth is you never cared hard enough; you never cared enough, period.
Superbi is reclined on mounds of pillows naked and washed with antiseptic white light and there is a bored look on his face. What are you doing here, why are you still here, why are you still pretending that this is the actual thing that matters? You wet the paintbrush with your tongue and paint him on the intrepid cloth. "Act like this is the best thing in the world," you say, and Squalo just rolls his eyes and adopts a face made for glossy magazines and fashion shows, a glittering albino snake with scales so pale, but very deadly. In this distance he looks too fake. You shake your head. "Fuck, you call that modelling? You look dead to me." To which he replies, "it's a fucking canvas, of course everything in there is dead." Yes, but they have to look immaculate. Yes, they look dead, but they always have to be beautiful, even in their chaotic lack of spirit. Yes, but they have to look like they're alive. It's a magic window. But you're too lazy to give a lecture on a vapid model and so you shake your head and take dabs of hoarfrost white and stormy grey. "For personality," you say, grinning madly, and from the bed Squalo eases, relaxes into your lair and he loses some of his tension. "I like you, you stupid son of a bitch," he says.
*
The second day he comes in you tell him that you want him sitting down, this time near the window sill by the sunlight, naked. Squalo complies, strips off his shirt and his pants, grey and black and a red necktie to bind them together. "I just came from university," he was saying. "My prof is a drag, he always wants me to suck him off. I fucking hate chemistry." You take your glass of whiskey (one in the morning and a hundred at night, keeps a man warm and safe without dreams) and drink from it, then light your cigarette and sit behind the easel, watching him with intense eyes. "So go drop the course," you say. Squalo is taking off his boxer shorts and you watch them drop elegantly from his bony hips to his ankles. "I need it to get into med." Squalo stretches his limbs and you see long, lean muscles well-defined down to the very last form. "So don't go med." "I want to. Vuoiiii, you're being annoying than usual! Why the fuck are we talking about this?" This is when you grabbed your glass, drained it of alcohol, and chucked it to his head. There was a crash, the glass tumbles to the floor and smashes, Squalo shrieks like a banshee as he steps on a shard. You laugh, and there is a wonderful, delectable shade of red that creeps into his cheeks as he watches you laugh. "Stay where you are, and don't even move," you purr. "I want you to bleed, fucking trash. Throw your head back. Not too far, you look like a goddamned puppet -- alright, stop there, that's enough. Now don't act alive for the next hour or so."
He breathes gently and for a while there is only the sound of your pen on paper and your breathing and his. Today Squalo has his nails painted an obnoxious shade of red and you love it, so much, because it ties everything perfectly well. Squalo is growling from where he was standing. "Fuck my foot hurts. Hurry up." You have an excellent growl in your body reserved to scare the shit out of people and you demostrate it in him. The sound makes him shiver and you watch him shudder pleasantly, lips set on an attractive thin line, eyes half-lidded from the glare of the sun, body a clean ivory stone. "When I'm done you can heal yourself." The truth is you need more days like this. The truth is you'd like to lick that dusky hollow at the place where collarbone and neck meet. The truth is you'd like to wrap his hair around your fingers and bury your head around his neck. Squalo's neck is long and elegantly pale. It has no memories of being touched.
He ends up staying that afternoon in your studio, walking naked and slightly limping after he bandaged his feet. You smoke another cigarette sitting by the window sill, finishing the lines and the shadows on your sketch. Your lines are always hard and cruel, and the lighting that you use is always honest. Squalo comes near you, looks over your shoulder and watches you work, brow furrowed in concentration as you try and define his calves. "I look pretty good so far," he admits. You snort in return. "It's not to scale. And stop snooping over my shoulder, I can't draw your calves properly." There is a smirk that creeps its way on his face and makes itself comfortable there. "Well, why don't we do an anatomy lesson?" The truth is, you don't mind doing a few more hours of research on the human body and how it moves and how to make it move; specifically, how Squalo moves effortlessly with grace, even when in throes of orgasm as he lies moaning and gasping on your silken sheets. And that was how he ended up sleeping with you later that afternoon in your studio, hands over your chest, breathing gently near your neck. It's not a bad arrangement, you decide, but the hair really must go. It chokes and wraps around you when you try to sleep, like it's some sentient thing.
*
The truth is you always like it when he comes over. You always insist that's he's here on business though the two of you have divided business like this: one in front of the easel, the other lying down in bed. Later on it had more divisions and it was hard to keep track of how many businesses you conduct in one roof: sometimes in the living room, sometimes in the couch, sometimes in the kitchen, lots of times in the bathtub, sometimes on the hood of the car where you indulge him and suck him off, kneeling in the dust. It's always business. The body has a memory of its own and Squalo has red and purple bruises blooming on his skin whenever you're done, and it's the best picture you can ever hope for. He doesn't even need to act anymore. He just lies down, tired and drained, face contorted in some emotion akin to passion and something else you would never admit existed; a feeling you believe is never yours to keep or to earn. You don't care enough and you just don't care, period. But the ghost of his lips, spending a night with yours, lingers on. In the morning you remember the shape of the inside of his mouth and the taste. You like to think that you carved him out of stone.
*
When he doesn't come, you are all alone in your house shredding canvases with exacto knives because they never come out right.
When he doesn't come, you mix swatches of colors in tiny little bottles, all of one hue: hoarfrost. Storm grey. Icy winter. Blizzard-season. You put fancy little labels on their sides and you find yourself thinking what color should you paint his eyes with next. Last time you swathed it with December blue.
When he doesn't come you smoke more and you drink more in the silence, and you begin hating the silence because it has already betrayed you, without your consent. It's not familiar anymore; it's that cold, violated kind of silence, the kind which makes you wonder where the sound went and how to get it back.
When he doesn't come you pay a trip to the shooting range and your aim is always perfect when you shoot and you wonder why the hell did you decide to go with the stupid career of being an artist when you could've been something else, and you get even more mad for admitting a fault of your own and the gunshots echo loud and late.
When he doesn't come the rain feels a lot more cold and you find yourself shivering in a bed too large for one man and the shadows that someone has made before.
When he doesn't come ....
And when he doesn't come ....
When he doesn't come you are lonely and whole, you are wolf and rabid dog, you are artist and prisoner, you are hunter and the hunted.
And you can't tell anymore at what point did things get this bad.
*
When he does come, you tangle your fingers around his hair, looped like a chain and you pull him against you and you bury your face around his neck, inhaling a scent that is definitely his, rain and antiseptics from the med labs in his university and that cologne he bought a month ago for you that you never use. Squalo smiles sharply against your cheeks. "What, you missed me?" "Yeah," you reply in a mock-sad tone. "I needed to fucking pay the rent." Squalo rolls his eyes and pushes you away gently, then goes to the couch and strips his clothes off for the next matter of business at hand. "What, afraid that I've ran away with some other artist or something? Or with that prof of mine, who still keeps insisting I should suck his dick?"
You watch him undress. His body is pale ivory and clean again, like nothing happened, and you know that must be rectified. "None of that matters," you tell him flatly. "Given the chance, I'm pretty sure you would actually go and never look back." Squalo smiles sweetly at you, that bastard. Like he actually would. Why wouldn't he? You never knew his real name, never really cared enough. But you watch him catiously because there might be a chance, that someday, maybe he will just reach for the knob of the door, because he wants to leave, wants to leave forever, and what will happen to you? But then --
He lies down on your bed sprawled and inviting and you take your brushes with you and your paints, the autumn set -- reds and yellows and golds, liquid fire in your hands. "What are you gonna do, turn me into fire?" "Close enough," you say, grinning. The truth is you want to consume him. The truth is, you know you're already consumed.