Gift for Argendriel
Title: Crimson
Author/Artist: fairandfey
Gift for argendriel
Pairing(s)/Characters: Raphael/Ivory, Rook, hints of Rook/Ivory
Summary: Rook has pissed off every man in the airman but one.
Prompt: You asked for a knife fight between Rook and Ivory; my brain was mightily inclined. x)
Rating: R?
Word count: ~2,300
Warnings: Cursing (Rook in general), fighting, bloodshed and sexual content
Author's notes: No Thom, sorry, but I think Ivory stole the show. I’m actually pretty pleased with the way this turned out- hope you enjoy! :D
It’s a game they used to play in Molly, as kids in the dusty streets. He can’t remember the name anymore, but that’s not real important. Like all Molly games, there’s a bit of danger involved- danger of being hurt, of bleeding. Life in Molly is danger. After that, anything else is just boring.
The fingers of one hand spread, knife drawn, and the blade dances. From one gap to another, into the empty space between skin and bone, too fast to follow. Precision. Skill. Practice. There are little nicks on his ring finger, scars mostly healed now, from the days when he wasn’t so nimble. Now it’s practically habit. Just another children’s game.
Also, to anyone from the upper city, not so used to a man with a knife, it’s damn intimidating.
Rook sheathes his blade.
The lot of them are in the common room, drinking and shouting and playing bad darts. Someone’s left horse shit in Merritt’s boots, apparently, and Rook is vaguely annoyed that it wasn’t him. But he can’t quite focus on the redhead’s shouts, though he does make sure to smirk in the right general direction. His attention is caught by the man at the piano, the stillness in the midst of chaos.
Rook’s been in the Corps for a few months now. He knows the lay of things. He’s fought his way up, mostly by knocking out the fuckers who tried to give him a hard time, and he’s made a game of sorts out of it. He’s always had a knack for pissing people off. Only now he’s done it on purpose.
It doesn’t take a lot to get some men going. Merritt, for one glaring example, barely needed a reason to get off on a shouting rant. Compagnon cared for his damn imprints like they were his children. For some, like Ghislain, it was subtler. You had to figure out the weak point, the one thing they couldn’t stand, and drive at it mercilessly. Find the thing-or the person-they care about most and use it like a weapon to the heart.
Ghislain had been a tricky one, but he’d gotten there in the end, mostly by pissing Jeannot off first. Had some real nice bruises to show for it, too. The big man could fight. Not like that was any sort of surprise. Even trickier, though, the last airman. The only one who hasn’t lost his shit yet, and that’s despite Rook’s damn impressive efforts.
Ivory plays a quiet, rippling series of notes and ducks as a dart soars past his head. His face remains as impassive as a statue, and his hands never falter.
The fucker.
Rook is so busy glaring in Ivory’s direction that he very nearly misses what happens next. One of the idiots playing darts is tripped, or pushed, and the result is that the next throw goes very wide-zips past Compagnon and Magoughin and hits Luvander’s fucking vase. (It is Luvander’s, no matter that he might claim it was a gift from his mother, no fucking man would put a vase in the common room unless he chose it and fucking liked it, the cindy, because shit in the common room is only going to get broken unless you’re fond of it and ready to defend it to the last. Madeline is the exception to this rule.) Anyway, the vase shatters. Raphael, who’s sitting on the couch next to the fuck-ugly thing, gets a face full of porcelain shards. He yelps like a wounded dog. Merritt, who is apparently the thrower of the dart, curses with feeling. And Ivory plays a wrong note.
It’s the last of these that has Rook blinking, his head snapping around like a hound scenting blood.
Ivory doesn’t give a fuck if he gets hurt. He doesn’t give a fuck if anyone gets hurt. The sound of a goddamn vase breaking doesn’t faze him a bit, but when Raphael shouts like the girl he is, Ivory notices. Rook may not be a music expert, but he knows wrong when he hears it. Ivory has just made his mistake.
Rook’s eyes narrow and Raphael makes some dramatic speech about retreating to the kitchen to tend to his wounds, which really aren’t more than scratches, the wimp. Ivory plays on, but Rook still watches.
Long minutes later-long enough, Rook notes, for the airmen to have basically forgotten about Raphael, and for Ivory to work through two new songs-the pale pianist slowly gets to his feet and walks to the kitchen without a word. Rook is the only one who notices, or cares. He smiles a wide predator’s smile.
Rook waits. It’s not something he’s good at. He’s a man of action, fists and feet and blades, but he can wait. He’s had a lot of practice, in between raids, all of them biting their nails and fucking whores and doing stupid shit like playing darts when they’ve got nothing but time. So now he knows this waiting, the slow stalk of a predator before the kill.
He still fidgets, though, because shit really ought to happen when he damn well says it will.
Finally he gets to his feet and mutters something about a fucking sandwich, which starts Compagnon off on the joke he’s only heard about forty bastion-damned times, so Rook aims a kick in the direction of his shins on the way to the kitchen. That’s probably going to bruise.
He enters the kitchen, and sees the pair of them just as he’d thought. Ivory is touching the bandage on Raphael’s face, feather-light, his touch hesitant and careful like a young man with an old whore. Rook can’t quite resist the snorting noise he makes then, but it’s worth it to see the not-quite-frantic movement of Ivory’s hand as he brings it back to his side. Raphael just smiles at him.
“I suppose I shall live to fight another day. I do appreciate it, m- Ivory. Some of the airmen are so useless, you know.” That fucking smile. Rook’s going to let that comment slide, just for now, because he’s got bigger fish to fry, but Raphael’s got it coming to him later. Ivory murmurs something just too low for Rook to catch, but Raphael takes a step back and turns towards the door. Then, carelessly, he throws a comment over his shoulder.
“I’ll be in my room, I suppose.” It’s a useless, idle sort of comment, but now Rook is really looking, and he sees the way the glance between the two other airmen is charged and laden with secrets.
Hell. How could he have ever fucking missed this? Does Raphael really think he’s being subtle?
In any case, it’s a prime sort of opportunity, and Rook decides not to waste a moment of it. He picks at his teeth for a moment, obnoxiously, and lets his gaze skim around the room. Then he lets the words slip out, free and easy.
“So what’s it like to get done up the ass, then?” He can feel the exact moment Ivory’s gaze comes to rest on him, a little bit startled and a little bit mad and burning in all the best ways. Rook grins, slow, like yeah, I just said that. And he’s not done.
“I mean, I always pegged Raphael for a cindy, but looking at the two of you I’d say he’s the one doing all the work, you catch my drift.” Ivory is still staring at him, breathing slowly. One of his hands is resting on the back of a kitchen chair, and his grip is starting to tighten. Rook kicks it up a notch.
“He does have those lips though, don’t he? Like they were made for sucking cock. Bet he’s pretty good at it, probably had a hell of a lot of practice. Always sneaking off to coffee shops and shit, yeah, like we all didn’t know what the hell was going on there. Still, thought it’d be Luvander he bent over for first, you know? Guess when you’re a cindy in the airman you ain’t got a whole lot of choices.” Rook is still talking, calmly musing, even as he eyes Ivory carefully. There’s a feeling in the air like the sky before a storm, and he can see he’s getting close, that the barbs are starting to pierce the skin. Ivory’s knuckles are white, white, white.
“He’s a pretty ugly fuck, though, truth. Don’t know what you see in him, unless you’re that desperate to get fucked.” Ivory twitches. It’s a definite movement, just the slightest hitch of his shoulders, and it makes Rook lean in a little closer, speak a little softer, like a perverse kind of intimacy.
“Oh, I’m sorry,” Rook croons. He’s got his best sneer on now. “Y’don’t fuck, do you, you make love.”
And that, finally, is the last straw. Ivory lunges forward, the glint of a blade in hand, and Rook allows himself a whoop as he pulls his knives out of his belt just in time for them to meet, crashing together around the kitchen table. Rook wears a berserker’s grin as he parries the first blows. There! That’s what he’s looking for, knew was underneath the whole time. Now the beast’s come out to play, he can see it lurking under the angles of Ivory’s face, and a kindred animal in him rises to greet it.
Ivory is fast though, damn fast, and Rook finds himself on the defensive real quick till he figures out what the other man’s got going on. He doesn’t fight like a Mollyrat, dirty and underhanded, no real skill but plenty of desperation. Ivory fights like a madman. He’s quick and fierce and crazy, pulling shit that Rook wouldn’t believe unless he saw it with his own two eyes. Rook throws the nearest thing at hand-it’s an iron pot, and doesn’t fly really well-then backs up till he can shove a chair in between them. Then Ivory, still blank-faced but with eyes that scald, jumps up on the chair, jumps over the chair, with the kind of real grace Rook only ever has up in the air.
The next few blows have Rook backed up against the kitchen counter, which is shit, especially since Ivory doesn’t show any sign of letting up. He gets in close, that knife glimmering all the while, polished to a shine. Rook makes his move, then, whips his hand up into the space between him and punches Ivory square in the nose. He hears nothing but the sound of their harsh breathing, the sickening crunch of bone under his fist, the sharp hiss of Ivory’s knife as it encounters some kind of resistance. They both leap away to access damage, Rook sliding until his back is towards the closed door. Ivory wipes blood away with the edge of one sleeve, and Rook realizes belatedly that his crazy attack saved him from a neck slice- but the bastard managed to chop off one of his braids.
You shit-eating pig-fucker. He hasn’t been mad till now. Up till now it was all just his game, let’s make the madman lose it, but now this shit is serious. Ivory messed with his fucking hair. Rook doesn’t roar, doesn’t curse, doesn’t make a noise. But he moves across the floor real sudden-like, and this time his expression is all business. One strike, clean between the ribs, that’s all he needs, and Ivory is so close-
Something that feels like a bastion-damned brick wall shoves him out of the way. It’s wearing a uniform and it’s yelling like only an army-trained man can yell.
Fuck fucking Adamo. Fuck him to bastion-fucking hell.
They get a lecture. It isn’t pretty. All the other airmen are lurking in the doorway like they’re the day’s entertainment and they haven’t seen anything like it before. Well, they probably haven’t, not like this. Fights among the airmen have never had Ivory in them.
Rook ignores the sergeant, like he usually does when he’s spouting shit about discipline and cooperation and are you animals or men, goddamn it? Instead he’s glaring at Ivory, who is glaring right back across the kitchen floor. The blood from his nose drips, slowly, and he makes no move to wipe at it, even as a single drop slides down one pale cheek and splatters obscenely on the floorboards.
It’s funny, really. He’d have thought that Ivory’s blood would be just as colorless as the rest of him, but the stain on the floor is brightly, unforgivably crimson.
He storms off to his room once Adamo’s shouted himself out and everyone’s done with their fucking gaping. Rook slams the door shut behind him and it makes a loud, sharp noise, but it’s not enough. His blood is still boiling as he slumps back against the warped wood of the door, throws his head back until it meets the wood with a solid thunk. The pain ought to bring him to his senses, but instead he becomes even more uselessly angry, which is fucking stupid, because he got what he wanted, after all, didn’t he? And Ivory fights like the real bastard Rook always knew he was. So that should be that.
Instead, Rook is breathing heavy and shifting his jaw as he stares unseeing at his mess of a room, a blow-by-blow reimagining of the fight dancing before his eyes. One hand slides down, careful, as though not to alert the rest of him, and settles at the front of his trousers.
He’s hard as a fucking rock. No wonder he can’t focus.
It’s a matter of moments to unfasten his trousers, slick his hand, give the first few rough strokes. He arches and stifles a grunt, free hand clenching reflexively about the doorknob. His brain is near numb but the scene in his head keeps playing, he is attacking and retreating, and a broken nose is spilling blood. He closes his eyes tight, grits his teeth against the thought.
Rook comes, hard, determinedly thinking about the girls at the Fans and not the way Ivory’s fingers looked wrapped around the hilt of his knife.
Author/Artist: fairandfey
Gift for argendriel
Pairing(s)/Characters: Raphael/Ivory, Rook, hints of Rook/Ivory
Summary: Rook has pissed off every man in the airman but one.
Prompt: You asked for a knife fight between Rook and Ivory; my brain was mightily inclined. x)
Rating: R?
Word count: ~2,300
Warnings: Cursing (Rook in general), fighting, bloodshed and sexual content
Author's notes: No Thom, sorry, but I think Ivory stole the show. I’m actually pretty pleased with the way this turned out- hope you enjoy! :D
It’s a game they used to play in Molly, as kids in the dusty streets. He can’t remember the name anymore, but that’s not real important. Like all Molly games, there’s a bit of danger involved- danger of being hurt, of bleeding. Life in Molly is danger. After that, anything else is just boring.
The fingers of one hand spread, knife drawn, and the blade dances. From one gap to another, into the empty space between skin and bone, too fast to follow. Precision. Skill. Practice. There are little nicks on his ring finger, scars mostly healed now, from the days when he wasn’t so nimble. Now it’s practically habit. Just another children’s game.
Also, to anyone from the upper city, not so used to a man with a knife, it’s damn intimidating.
Rook sheathes his blade.
The lot of them are in the common room, drinking and shouting and playing bad darts. Someone’s left horse shit in Merritt’s boots, apparently, and Rook is vaguely annoyed that it wasn’t him. But he can’t quite focus on the redhead’s shouts, though he does make sure to smirk in the right general direction. His attention is caught by the man at the piano, the stillness in the midst of chaos.
Rook’s been in the Corps for a few months now. He knows the lay of things. He’s fought his way up, mostly by knocking out the fuckers who tried to give him a hard time, and he’s made a game of sorts out of it. He’s always had a knack for pissing people off. Only now he’s done it on purpose.
It doesn’t take a lot to get some men going. Merritt, for one glaring example, barely needed a reason to get off on a shouting rant. Compagnon cared for his damn imprints like they were his children. For some, like Ghislain, it was subtler. You had to figure out the weak point, the one thing they couldn’t stand, and drive at it mercilessly. Find the thing-or the person-they care about most and use it like a weapon to the heart.
Ghislain had been a tricky one, but he’d gotten there in the end, mostly by pissing Jeannot off first. Had some real nice bruises to show for it, too. The big man could fight. Not like that was any sort of surprise. Even trickier, though, the last airman. The only one who hasn’t lost his shit yet, and that’s despite Rook’s damn impressive efforts.
Ivory plays a quiet, rippling series of notes and ducks as a dart soars past his head. His face remains as impassive as a statue, and his hands never falter.
The fucker.
Rook is so busy glaring in Ivory’s direction that he very nearly misses what happens next. One of the idiots playing darts is tripped, or pushed, and the result is that the next throw goes very wide-zips past Compagnon and Magoughin and hits Luvander’s fucking vase. (It is Luvander’s, no matter that he might claim it was a gift from his mother, no fucking man would put a vase in the common room unless he chose it and fucking liked it, the cindy, because shit in the common room is only going to get broken unless you’re fond of it and ready to defend it to the last. Madeline is the exception to this rule.) Anyway, the vase shatters. Raphael, who’s sitting on the couch next to the fuck-ugly thing, gets a face full of porcelain shards. He yelps like a wounded dog. Merritt, who is apparently the thrower of the dart, curses with feeling. And Ivory plays a wrong note.
It’s the last of these that has Rook blinking, his head snapping around like a hound scenting blood.
Ivory doesn’t give a fuck if he gets hurt. He doesn’t give a fuck if anyone gets hurt. The sound of a goddamn vase breaking doesn’t faze him a bit, but when Raphael shouts like the girl he is, Ivory notices. Rook may not be a music expert, but he knows wrong when he hears it. Ivory has just made his mistake.
Rook’s eyes narrow and Raphael makes some dramatic speech about retreating to the kitchen to tend to his wounds, which really aren’t more than scratches, the wimp. Ivory plays on, but Rook still watches.
Long minutes later-long enough, Rook notes, for the airmen to have basically forgotten about Raphael, and for Ivory to work through two new songs-the pale pianist slowly gets to his feet and walks to the kitchen without a word. Rook is the only one who notices, or cares. He smiles a wide predator’s smile.
Rook waits. It’s not something he’s good at. He’s a man of action, fists and feet and blades, but he can wait. He’s had a lot of practice, in between raids, all of them biting their nails and fucking whores and doing stupid shit like playing darts when they’ve got nothing but time. So now he knows this waiting, the slow stalk of a predator before the kill.
He still fidgets, though, because shit really ought to happen when he damn well says it will.
Finally he gets to his feet and mutters something about a fucking sandwich, which starts Compagnon off on the joke he’s only heard about forty bastion-damned times, so Rook aims a kick in the direction of his shins on the way to the kitchen. That’s probably going to bruise.
He enters the kitchen, and sees the pair of them just as he’d thought. Ivory is touching the bandage on Raphael’s face, feather-light, his touch hesitant and careful like a young man with an old whore. Rook can’t quite resist the snorting noise he makes then, but it’s worth it to see the not-quite-frantic movement of Ivory’s hand as he brings it back to his side. Raphael just smiles at him.
“I suppose I shall live to fight another day. I do appreciate it, m- Ivory. Some of the airmen are so useless, you know.” That fucking smile. Rook’s going to let that comment slide, just for now, because he’s got bigger fish to fry, but Raphael’s got it coming to him later. Ivory murmurs something just too low for Rook to catch, but Raphael takes a step back and turns towards the door. Then, carelessly, he throws a comment over his shoulder.
“I’ll be in my room, I suppose.” It’s a useless, idle sort of comment, but now Rook is really looking, and he sees the way the glance between the two other airmen is charged and laden with secrets.
Hell. How could he have ever fucking missed this? Does Raphael really think he’s being subtle?
In any case, it’s a prime sort of opportunity, and Rook decides not to waste a moment of it. He picks at his teeth for a moment, obnoxiously, and lets his gaze skim around the room. Then he lets the words slip out, free and easy.
“So what’s it like to get done up the ass, then?” He can feel the exact moment Ivory’s gaze comes to rest on him, a little bit startled and a little bit mad and burning in all the best ways. Rook grins, slow, like yeah, I just said that. And he’s not done.
“I mean, I always pegged Raphael for a cindy, but looking at the two of you I’d say he’s the one doing all the work, you catch my drift.” Ivory is still staring at him, breathing slowly. One of his hands is resting on the back of a kitchen chair, and his grip is starting to tighten. Rook kicks it up a notch.
“He does have those lips though, don’t he? Like they were made for sucking cock. Bet he’s pretty good at it, probably had a hell of a lot of practice. Always sneaking off to coffee shops and shit, yeah, like we all didn’t know what the hell was going on there. Still, thought it’d be Luvander he bent over for first, you know? Guess when you’re a cindy in the airman you ain’t got a whole lot of choices.” Rook is still talking, calmly musing, even as he eyes Ivory carefully. There’s a feeling in the air like the sky before a storm, and he can see he’s getting close, that the barbs are starting to pierce the skin. Ivory’s knuckles are white, white, white.
“He’s a pretty ugly fuck, though, truth. Don’t know what you see in him, unless you’re that desperate to get fucked.” Ivory twitches. It’s a definite movement, just the slightest hitch of his shoulders, and it makes Rook lean in a little closer, speak a little softer, like a perverse kind of intimacy.
“Oh, I’m sorry,” Rook croons. He’s got his best sneer on now. “Y’don’t fuck, do you, you make love.”
And that, finally, is the last straw. Ivory lunges forward, the glint of a blade in hand, and Rook allows himself a whoop as he pulls his knives out of his belt just in time for them to meet, crashing together around the kitchen table. Rook wears a berserker’s grin as he parries the first blows. There! That’s what he’s looking for, knew was underneath the whole time. Now the beast’s come out to play, he can see it lurking under the angles of Ivory’s face, and a kindred animal in him rises to greet it.
Ivory is fast though, damn fast, and Rook finds himself on the defensive real quick till he figures out what the other man’s got going on. He doesn’t fight like a Mollyrat, dirty and underhanded, no real skill but plenty of desperation. Ivory fights like a madman. He’s quick and fierce and crazy, pulling shit that Rook wouldn’t believe unless he saw it with his own two eyes. Rook throws the nearest thing at hand-it’s an iron pot, and doesn’t fly really well-then backs up till he can shove a chair in between them. Then Ivory, still blank-faced but with eyes that scald, jumps up on the chair, jumps over the chair, with the kind of real grace Rook only ever has up in the air.
The next few blows have Rook backed up against the kitchen counter, which is shit, especially since Ivory doesn’t show any sign of letting up. He gets in close, that knife glimmering all the while, polished to a shine. Rook makes his move, then, whips his hand up into the space between him and punches Ivory square in the nose. He hears nothing but the sound of their harsh breathing, the sickening crunch of bone under his fist, the sharp hiss of Ivory’s knife as it encounters some kind of resistance. They both leap away to access damage, Rook sliding until his back is towards the closed door. Ivory wipes blood away with the edge of one sleeve, and Rook realizes belatedly that his crazy attack saved him from a neck slice- but the bastard managed to chop off one of his braids.
You shit-eating pig-fucker. He hasn’t been mad till now. Up till now it was all just his game, let’s make the madman lose it, but now this shit is serious. Ivory messed with his fucking hair. Rook doesn’t roar, doesn’t curse, doesn’t make a noise. But he moves across the floor real sudden-like, and this time his expression is all business. One strike, clean between the ribs, that’s all he needs, and Ivory is so close-
Something that feels like a bastion-damned brick wall shoves him out of the way. It’s wearing a uniform and it’s yelling like only an army-trained man can yell.
Fuck fucking Adamo. Fuck him to bastion-fucking hell.
They get a lecture. It isn’t pretty. All the other airmen are lurking in the doorway like they’re the day’s entertainment and they haven’t seen anything like it before. Well, they probably haven’t, not like this. Fights among the airmen have never had Ivory in them.
Rook ignores the sergeant, like he usually does when he’s spouting shit about discipline and cooperation and are you animals or men, goddamn it? Instead he’s glaring at Ivory, who is glaring right back across the kitchen floor. The blood from his nose drips, slowly, and he makes no move to wipe at it, even as a single drop slides down one pale cheek and splatters obscenely on the floorboards.
It’s funny, really. He’d have thought that Ivory’s blood would be just as colorless as the rest of him, but the stain on the floor is brightly, unforgivably crimson.
He storms off to his room once Adamo’s shouted himself out and everyone’s done with their fucking gaping. Rook slams the door shut behind him and it makes a loud, sharp noise, but it’s not enough. His blood is still boiling as he slumps back against the warped wood of the door, throws his head back until it meets the wood with a solid thunk. The pain ought to bring him to his senses, but instead he becomes even more uselessly angry, which is fucking stupid, because he got what he wanted, after all, didn’t he? And Ivory fights like the real bastard Rook always knew he was. So that should be that.
Instead, Rook is breathing heavy and shifting his jaw as he stares unseeing at his mess of a room, a blow-by-blow reimagining of the fight dancing before his eyes. One hand slides down, careful, as though not to alert the rest of him, and settles at the front of his trousers.
He’s hard as a fucking rock. No wonder he can’t focus.
It’s a matter of moments to unfasten his trousers, slick his hand, give the first few rough strokes. He arches and stifles a grunt, free hand clenching reflexively about the doorknob. His brain is near numb but the scene in his head keeps playing, he is attacking and retreating, and a broken nose is spilling blood. He closes his eyes tight, grits his teeth against the thought.
Rook comes, hard, determinedly thinking about the girls at the Fans and not the way Ivory’s fingers looked wrapped around the hilt of his knife.