And If I Don't...?

A Gorgeous Carat Fic by The Queen of Blueberry Toast.

Not mine.  Written by Higuri You.  Ok, so maybe I wish it's been my idea, 
and produce bits of fannish adoration like this but I'm still not making any 
money, no matter what I do.

~*~

The rain had started, silver and bright, in the middle of the afternoon.  
Towards evening, it seemed ready to surrender itself just as easily as the 
smoking river gave herself over to Paris; but Florian found himself 
crossing archipelagoes of singing puddles as he hurried up the steps 
towards his master's mansion.

Master.  As much as it smote cold rage through his veins, there was 
nothing else in the world to call Noalle.  Not in French, not in English, not 
in any of the dead tongues that lurked in the library he presently stole 
through, dripping cloak and all.  Apparently, he hadn't been missed.  Or 
had his master tired of him already? 

A smile stained his pale lips.  Oh, that would be the day.  And how far 
away could it be for a man so possessed of dark whimsy as Noalle was?

Florian wondered.  He wondered until he felt the warm, brandy-wet mouth 
settle on his cheek.

"As much as I would love to know where you've been, I think it would be 
more punishment for you if I didn't ask," breathed the gauzy voice at his 
side.  

His ear tingled with familiar nibbles and his velvet cloak tumbled from his 
shoulders with a sound like a kiss broken off too soon.  Florian would 
have flown his own sopping shadow but for the embrace that shortly 
encircled his waist, the snuffling caress through his soaking, tangled hair.  

He did manage to whisper though, as if he feared the drops gathered on 
the window were listening from beyond the glass that held them, "You  
know, I really fail to see how you NOT doing something to me could be 
punishment.  For instance, if you DIDN'T come bursting into my room 
just before dawn and..."

The words left him at the very last moment, and he felt the lips that held 
his ear creep into a feline grin.  "...and do what, Florian?  Darling."

"You know."

"Put my mouth on your pretty, little cock and suck you dry?"

The cheek beneath Noalle's nose blushed a brilliant rose.  

"Why, if I'd known doing so caused you such pain, I surely wouldn't have 
hurt you, so: not my lovely prince, not on purpose." 

With a murmured growl, Florian made his best attempt to wrench himself 
free and stride, as if nothing at all was the matter, into the aurora of the 
fireplace.  Noalle held him fast though, and once the struggle had dripped 
from his companion, offered with his best gentleness, "But look what I've 
brought you.  It's just the color of your eyes."

Caught in the subtle shine of the library was a single stud of pale and 
flawless amaranthine crystal.  

The boy simply pushed it away.  "Lovely, and what am I to do with 
THAT?"

"Wear it and be grateful to your master who thinks so highly of you, no 
matter how spiteful you are."

The earring flickered out of his site, and Florian thought for an instant the 
his master- yes, he even called himself that when so inclined -was in a 
mood forgiving enough to let him flee.  Of course, a forgiving mood of 
Noalle's usually meant no more than feathers fallen against his skin rather 
than the cat-o-nine.

And today, it meant the earring driven through his virgin left lobe.  It came 
as a quick pain.  At first Florian didn't know what had happened to him.  
Only the blood that followed the click of the fastener gave it away, and by 
then he was too stunned to speak.

"Oh, it looks so beautiful on you," Noalle purred.  "Let me take you 
upstairs and hold you in front of my looking glass for awhile."

The boy simply wheeled away into the pewter-limned shadows that wound 
around the stairwell, his fingers all the while playing in the sanguine stains 
that had caught in his hair.  "You depraved bastard!  I'll have you arrested 
for this, I swear!"

Footfalls rattled after his own this time.  He ran faster, cast off his bloody 
shirt, almost skidded on one of the upstairs rugs.  No stumbles greeted his 
eager flight; none of the usual sighs and romantic-age laments.  He 
couldn't even hear Noalle laughing, just the chiming of the roof, and 
shortly, his own sharp cry as his captured ankle sent him sprawling to the 
ground just outside the bedroom door.

That was how Noalle caught him for that day, persuaded him to lie still 
enough he could dandle his knees with his lips; fought him to the reaches 
of marshmallow white their bed was.  

Florian gave into the uselessness of his thrashes and cast himself down on 
the mattresses with a puff of stray feathers and sigh for his latest wasted 
days.  He watched the tiny flames spring into being all around him as 
Noalle stole around him with his crystal case of matches.  The whole room 
glowed like the heart of an amber shard shot with glittering inclusions.  
Florian did too- most of skin shone with liquid still, or the places where 
the other fragments of down fell.

Noalle always took his time.  With the most insidiously slow touches he 
stripped away what remained of the boy's clothing, and let his tongue lap 
the cold from him.  He rubbed him, scratched him, clawed and bit him; 
tumbled against him as if he was a perfumed carpet of flowers.  When he 
at last rose to kiss him, he uttered with only the softest simper, "Come 
now, my pet.  Isn't it time for you to play with me?"

"And if I don't?" he hissed against the other man's lips.  Outside the rain 
blossomed from a shower to a deluge, but only for a single, roiling blue 
instant; like a breath between slips of a clock's hands.  The candles 
shuddered, but no voice brushed the naked, bleeding curve of his ear.  The 
amethyst stud newly driven through his skin winked and winked and the 
sheets moaned and Noalle said nothing.  

"Hmm, so then, nothing changes.  You're still the beast you were 
yesterday, and I am still your pretty, captive prince.  I bet that suits you 
just fine." From the dish beside their bed, Florian plucked a handful of 
loose gems, and held them between his quivering fingers so they blinked 
like little stars against his skin.  The mouth that had nearly claimed his 
own fled over the old whip marks on his chest before coming to light upon 
the tiny, glimmering facets.

But he didn't let Noalle fondle him there with his tongue for long.  The 
crystals fell from him, and he snagged Noalle's hair in his hands.

"But then again, no matter what I do to leave you, you find me, you want 
me, you're... pleased with me.  I've done everything I can think of to make 
you hate me.  Over and over again.  Nothing works." 

"You sound surprised."

His master's words stunned him, shook him, made his heart race so fast 
that the jewels spilled on him sparkled with the cadence of his tripping 
heart.

"I could never hate you, Florian," Noalle went on.  "There's nothing in all 
the world that could make me give you up."  His fingers came skating 
down the fair flesh laid out before him then: flowed from his ribs to his 
flinching stomach, into his navel... when his rough caress finally ended, it 
was with one of his thumbs pressed into the boy's navel and the other 
latched around his dripping cock.

"But you whip me, you beat me, you keep me like a cat- letting me out 
during the day and then luring me back with your lies!" But his breath 
caught, and the words were ruined under the drippy faerie voices 
splattered on their window.

"Is that so?" His whip creaked when he picked it up, and so did the 
muscles that lined Florian's staining sex.  With a sigh, he let it fall- once, 
twice, three times over his chest and what silky scars lay there.  "It's true- I 
don't love you.  I love your eyes.  That is all.  But as for you coming back 
to me: notice, my friend, how tonight you aren't chained to this bed where 
I've so often fucked you.  Notice how you don't flinch."

"And if I don't flinch... answer me!"

The whip answered Noalle.

But he was right, Florian didn't cower, didn't even scream.  He simply shut 
his eyes tight, and pressed his fingers, into the raw skin rather than the 
storm clouds of pillows over his head.  The salt still clinging to him left 
crystal shards in his veins where it fell, left him shivering with far more 
than the cold.

"And if I don't! Noalle, what then?"

Three more quick stings raced over him- two upon the marks already 
highlighting the lines of his chest, and once across the softness of his 
belly.

The whip fell then- he thought the sound of it might be thunder oozing 
down onto the city at first, but then he saw the tiny, black stain wound in 
the corner.  The other man's body once more covered his own, every inch 
of his him and the liquidy floss of his hair brushing his cheeks.  He was 
still soft, Noalle, but he usually was.  Florian marveled over how he could 
remember that now, caught between his hot eyes and the mingled glare of 
their world, and the other world outside.

"It means," he said softly, "That you are mine.  Do you accept that at 
least? Will you wear the thing that says you are mine, and will you do it 
willingly?"

Florian thoughtfully fumbled the earring, and the blood his skin had wept 
around it.  His sanguine fingers reached for the other man's mouth.  He 
meant to quiet him, and what other blasphemies he had to utter, but he 
took the gesture as an offer to drink, and he did drink, until the boy's hands 
were bare of blood.

"Yes."   

~*~

Fin