Until We Have Faces

[ninefox]

Krell had to pin him with the Force to get him on the altar, and not gently. The back of his head might be bleeding, but it's hard to tell: the antechamber already smells of iron. The whole station is a bristling-black hulk of ancient ore, nickel and iron and ice and stone. The lack of anything resembling alloys or right angles makes it feel horribly unreliable, not a machine guaranteed to keep the air in, but an ancient brooding piece of debris untouched by the steadiness of engineers. It did have an airlock, that Krell and a few shame-faced clone guards shuffled him through, and iced-over doors somewhere in the dimness of their crisscrossed headlamps that must lead back into the warren of Ninefox Point.

The benighted promontory did not orbit so much as a brown dwarf or black hole: it was a rogue planetoid, drifting through the ragged stretches of starless, lifeless space. Here, old Strife, the Dark Side of War, had been confined ever since the ascendancy of the Jedi, noble Combat, and the rest of the Light pantheon. But even reviled and relegated Gods were due certain honors, and retained certain powers - and certain appetites. And Krell - who had his own suspicions about the future of that ascendancy - had come to give Strife his due and be rid of his most vexing problem in one blow.

It's pitch-black with him and the others gone. The heavy magnetic manacles embedded in the alter are utterly immovable; the stone beneath him is pitted and rough and cold, almost untouched since the creation of the universe - except, of course, for all the sacrifices that have come before.

Comments

[ninefox]

"No," it snaps, in a bedraggled half-animal growl, less angry than scared, almost as panicked as Fives, grabbing him tight for a moment before relaxing its hold deliberately, letting Fives squirm most of the way away, with just one hand resting somewhere on his skin, on his ribs or on a hip.

"You're greedy," it accuses, in a miserable hiss. "You're going to die someday, even I can't stop age, but I never will."

And it could almost hate Fives for that, for the fathomless bitter jealousy that fills him up like a body is filled with blood.

[callmefives]

Fives scrambles back as far as the narrow shelf will let him, pushing his back into one of the corners and drawing in on himself. The hand on his bare hip makes his skin crawl, and he wishes he'd bothered to dress.

"It's... not... my... fault," he manages to rasp, making himself stare into the darkness where a face that belonged to that hand might reasonably be. "Didn't make... you. Didn't... put you here."

His voice is barely audible by the end, and he gives in to the childlike terror welling up in him and presses his face to his drawn up knees. You're greedy, he thinks, bitter and angry and terrified. You want... you want someone else to suffer just because you do.

[ninefox]

"I don't," he insists, voice soft and sulky; he lets his hand slide down until it's just fingertips on Fives' ankle bone. "I just...don't want to be alone for a little while. I want to make you happy here. It's not my fault you hate me too much to let me."

[callmefives]

Fives answers with a bitter, strained gasp of unsteady laughter. "Happy?" It's half whisper half croak before his voice fails again.

How am I supposed to be happy, when I've lost everything that matters? He's not sure he's ever been happy, that he even knows what happiness is, but how could he ever experience it without his brothers or his purpose? How could he ever be happy trapped in this strange place with a monstrous god?

You just want... a toy. Entertainment.

[ninefox]

"Well I don't know, but at least I haven't given up already," he mutters grumpily. "I'm damn well going to try, anyway."

There's a rustle amid the cushions as it shifts around, but ultimately doesn't come any closer. The hand cups the back of Fives' calf and strokes up and down.

"I'm a soldier too, you know," he adds, so softly that it could almost be a thought like Fives'. "No matter what's been done to me. I remember what it means to love the men beside you."

He thinks he remembers, anyway.

[callmefives]

What starts out as another strained, almost silent laugh shifts quickly into a dry, wracking sob, and he tries to pull his leg away from the creature.

"Love," he croaks between heaving breaths. "You love-" You love their blood and their deaths and their dishonor, he thinks bitterly. God of rape and pillage and senseless slaughter. Defiler of the Dead.

[ninefox]

"You loved your men more than your orders, and she threw you away for it," he hisses, claws digging into Fives' ankle. "She doesn't love anything but rules and obedience. I love people more than my own precious honor, I love fierce enough to cheat and betray and burn for it. You don't know anything about what I've loved."

[callmefives]

The pain of the claws digging in is welcome, and he focuses on the burn and the hot blood coursing down his ankle. "Liar," he hisses, pushing farther, finding enough strength to keep talking in the fierce need to keep needling the creature. "Every... being who ever followed you... died... betrayed and dishonored... filthy and damned. You don't... love... you just use"

[ninefox]

He screams, an eerie ear-splitting howl with undertones and overtones, deep vibrations that rattle Fives' ribs and shrill shrieking notes that hurt his ears. He pulls Fives back toward him by his leg, and covers over him, a writhing mass of fur and and claws and slick, smooth, cool skin. He presses a jagged, twisted face into Fives' shoulder, only half muffling the echoing yell that bounces and batters them inside the small bubble of rock.

"And who damned us," he demands, long webbed fingers clutching Fives tight. "Who stripped our banners and buried our cries and named us dishonored, who stamped us into the mud? I failed them and I pay for it every endless moment, but She's the one who uses you. Who made you for nothing but to die, who doesn't even let you have a life first, you think She ever cared about you? She doesn't. She never did, not even when you tried everything to be perfect for her, never."

[callmefives]

He's torn between struggling to try and get away and covering his ears against the eerie, painful howling, and in the end he does a bad job of both, finding himself pressed down into the cushions lining the little hollow of rock with the monster writhing over him. He can hardly breathe for the panic at first, as strange hands clutch him close, push him down, and when he does breathe it's in ragged, sobbing breaths. But in the end he can't let the thing's accusations stand.

"She gave us purpose!" For all the rage and pain and fear he feels his voice is still just a rasping croak, but he pushes the words out. "She made us perfect and clean and strong so we could protect those who can't protect themselves! You just destroy! You leave filth and destruction in your wake! You dishonored yourself and your followers, She brought peace and healing where you left rubble and ruin!" The peace of a drawn gun and a strictly enforced orthodoxy, but it's only right and good that anyone who dishonors Her or Her will should be punished. It's the law he's lived his life by.

[ninefox]

The yowling whistles slowly out of him, and he's still a sliding bulk on top of Fives, but it's easier to breathe, the silence ringing almost as loudly.

"She made you with nothing else," he breathes, soft and raspy. "So you'd be grateful. So you'd be that much easier to use. Her peace isn't worth what she did to you. I'd rip it apart again no matter how many times she crushes me down."

[callmefives]

"And kill and maim and ruin how many billions to serve your own ego?" Fives demands, though his voice is shaking and his face is turned away. "You left the whole galaxy burning in your wake. We keep people safe, we serve. We're... I-" His voice cracks into silence, his whole body quivering- "I served," he whispers brokenly. "I served Her peace. I protected Her people. I was... I was pure." And he's lost his chance to die that way, threw it away in his panic and pain.

"I just... I wanted to die serving Her. I wanted to die pure for Her. I just want to die." I want to die. Please, I just want to die.

[ninefox]

"Some people," it murmurs fractiously; there have always been people unacceptable to the Jedi orthodoxy, or she wouldn't need an army for her Peace at all. But it's his only interruption.

"I know. I know," he murmurs softly, nuzzling Fives' neck. But it only makes Jedao feel more wild about Fives; only makes him more perfect, only makes Jedao feel even less alone.

"I know you did." That Fives served with everything he had in him, that he wanted the only thing he was allowed to want with all his gallant heart.

[callmefives]

He tries to turn farther away, tries to escape the nuzzling, the offer of unasked for comfort. "Stop," he whispers. "Stop... just... stop... just let me... leave me-" He can't find his breath or his words, he just knows that he doesn't want this comfort, that he's not going to compound his sin by repeating it. "Not yours... don't want this. Just... just stop. Leave. Let me... let me go." Let me die.

[ninefox]

"Ask me for something else," he says, and the hands digging into Fives' arms now are only hands. "Ask me for anything else."

He sounds almost like he's begging.

[callmefives]

He doesn't know how to want anything else, he's never been allowed the space or time or freedom to even imagine wanting more than to serve honorably and die serving, and he's lost that chance. He doesn't see any point without his brothers and his honor and his service. Doesn't see a way to want anything but for the short, tattered misery of his life to end when he's lost the only things that ever gave it meaning, and he struggles weakly to turn away, eyes clenched shut because the dark is just as fearsome with them open.

[ninefox]

Jedao lets him turn, although not escape, so that they're lying with Jedao pressed against Fives' back, arms still around him. He feels almost all the way human again, except for soft patches of fur that seem to shift over his body when Fives is paying attention to them.

"You did serve," he murmurs. "Serving your brothers first, no matter what. I think that's brave. I think that's the bravest, most honorable thing I've heard in an age."

He drops a soft kiss on Fives' shoulder blade.

"And don't start with how I'm too awful to know. Just because I'm ugly doesn't mean I can't tell you're beautiful."

[callmefives]

He shivers as the monster presses itself to his back, keeps his legs tight together though he doesn't have the energy to curse himself for putting himself in this position. "Ruined now," he whispers, and barely has the energy for that. He's ruined, his service is ruined, what love his brothers might ever have had for him is lost.

"Ruined and done... just want it over." He wishes he'd died with Hardcase, he's the only one who came out of this debacle with his honor intact.

[ninefox]

"Yes, but it's not."

It's never over. It's never, ever -

"We're just ruined together. It's not as nice as death, but it's better than being ruined alone, isn't it?"

[callmefives]

"No," he whispers, voice so weak it's barely audible. He doesn't know how much time has passed, how long he spent in the blackness of the thing's belly, how long it's been since he ate or drank, but he feels like he's barely clinging to consciousness, and it's only fear of the beast curled close against him that's keeping him from succumbing to the darkness. "If I was alone... I could die."

[ninefox]

"Well, you can't," Jedao snaps at him, and sticks a few fingers in his mouth, because he's tired of hearing the same thing for a bit.

[callmefives]

Fives bites down with reflexive viciousness, even knowing it'll do no good. Hell, he's weak enough now it wouldn't have done much good anyway. But it's all he can do in response, and it's better than simply taking the assault. It's all the defiance he has the strength to muster right now.

[ninefox]

Instead of tasting like ash or iron or even like flesh, this time biting makes his fingers taste like something cool and clear and almost sweet: fresh water gently trickling into Fives' mouth.

[callmefives]

He swallows almost as reflexively as he'd bitten at the first taste of water. He's so dehydrated, so dry, but then he spits snarls and tries to jerk his head away, to escape this latest trick.

[ninefox]

Jedao laughs and nuzzles Fives' neck, trailing his wet hand down Fives' chest, rubbing gently over a nipple.

"No matter how despairing you are, you're so fierce," Jedao murmurs, obviously pleased with it.