Setting up your razor-wire shrine (Closed RP: River and Stephen Maturin)

[r-tam.livejournal.com]

River was silent as she led Stephen into their bedroom, not looking at him. "Get undressed and lie down on the bed." Her voice was empty of everything but the words. She ignored him and went to get the barbed wire--- this time remembering to set the ward on it, the same one that they used on the scalpel.


((OOC: Angst. Blood-play. Bondage. Punishment. Barbed wire....

... in other words, business as usual. R+ for all of the above.))

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[estebanmd.livejournal.com]

Stephen wondered vaguely what she intended, or if there were any intent at all; if she were improvising, making it up as she went along; not that it made any difference in the end.

The spikes of wire against his skin made him tense, holding limbs and tongue carefully still. He watched her retrieve the chair and sit.

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River sensed his uncertainty of her own control of the situation and suppressed a spike of annoyance.

She curled in the chair silently, letting him wait for a long moment. "Here's how it's going to be," she said finally, not uncurling, barely moving. "We're going to sit here, just like this, until you understand that I'm not going anywhere. That it's got nothing to do with whether you lock me up or not, that there isn't anything in the 'verse you could do to keep me here if I didn't... didn't want you. Because there wasn't anything in the 'verse you could do to keep me away--- don't you remember that?"

She took a deep breath, and went on. "We're going to sit here, because I should leave you. It would serve you right, for wanting to... do that to me. But I can't leave you, dong ma? Not because of anything you do to me. Because I... can't. This is all I can do, even when you scare me. I can try to... put sense into you... but I. Can't. Leave. You.

"So until you understand that, we're going to sit here. Well, I might have to get up now and then, but you're sort of stuck. You can try to move, if you want, but I don't advise it." In contrast to her initial tone, which was flat, deadly serious, the last two sentences were delivered almost offhand.

...it wasn't until she fell silent that she realized there were tears on her face.

[estebanmd.livejournal.com]

True enough; he had not been able to keep her away; and he would not be able to keep her from leaving if she wanted to leave. (I told you I would stand aside, if you wanted that.) But there was a difference between knowing something in one's mind and knowing it in one's heart. He could listen to her say these things, comprehend them as words that came together logically and made sense, even accept them as intellectually true. None of that dispelled the utter conviction, deep down, that he would one day return home to find her gone; and none of that dispelled the desire to make sure that could not happen.

He wished he could yield in the way she wanted. All he could do was to acquiesce to the physical discipline she imposed. So he waited.

[r-tam.livejournal.com]

River curled up in the chair to wait. She knew only too well what could happen to someone... locked up. She had stopped believing in Simon, after a while; she wondered how long it would take for Stephen to start believing in her.

Or what else she might have to do.

Because she couldn't leave him. She hadn't been lying. He had admitted to her, mind to mind, that he wanted her locked up--- and she still couldn't leave him. This was all she could think of to do about it. Drive the thoughts out of his head--- because the thoughts couldn't drive her out of his life.

[estebanmd.livejournal.com]

Stephen waited. All there was to do was wait.

He did want her locked up. He wanted to keep her like a jewel, like a priceless artifact, under glass. He wanted to be the only one with a key.

-- and this was why she had been so angry -- the remarks over the no-kill notebook about the chastity belt, all of it a joke, not even a joke that he came up with -- but that incident had taught him she could not abide even the hint of such a thing, no matter why he might want it or what it meant to him. And he knew it was wrong, to want it, but he did not know how to stop.

[r-tam.livejournal.com]

"You are the only one with the key. The only one who gets to touch," River answered his thought. "The only one allowed inside. But they get to look. See what they can't have. And I don't have to suffer for it. That's part of the... point--- I don't lose anything. Anything I'd want. Because I don't want them. Don't want anyone but you. But I do want to walk in the sunshine and talk to people and read and fly and... live." I am deep down and I do not make... a sound. She swallowed, forced herself to go on before she could panic, remembering the Academy, remembering being... trapped. "It's the rest of the world that doesn't get to have us--- either of us, because you're mine too. But we get to have the world. As much of it as we want. Or as little. They just don't get to have us." She tilted her head. "Are you sure you'd like no one knowing that you have something... valuable? So sure you don't want the world to see what you've won? See how proud I am of you? See that you have me and no one else ever will?" Her tone would have been playful, except for the hard edge.

[estebanmd.livejournal.com]

This is not about you. That was as plain a truth as he could manage. It was about him, and about Diana, and about Jack and Diana together, and about Sweden and Ireland and Diana leaving Brigid with Clarissa and about the fact that after all that, loving Diana still despite all that, he could not let it happen again.

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"I know it's about you. It would have to be. But I'm not her. What do I have to do to get that through to you? How am I like her? Besides the fact that you love me? Tell me that. Tell me what I'm doing that's like her so that you think I'm going to do what she did."

[estebanmd.livejournal.com]

Oh, there were any number of things: being young, being beautiful, being possessed of a certain natural grace; there was something of a physical resemblance, true, though not all that pronounced; the essential similarity was that both women were eminently desirable, and the essential difference was that Diana was rather more keenly aware of her desirability.

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River laughed at him. It was cruel, and maybe she could have helped it, but she didn't want to. "Desirable? Me? Stephen, I'm feng kuang--- crazy. Not quite right. And you said it yourself--- most people aren't comfortable having someone answer their thoughts out of their heads, or sleeping next to a woman who can kill them as easily as I can. And even if they were, how many men do you know who not only let their wives tie them up with barbed wire, but enjoy it? I'm asking your professional opinion here," she added sarcastically. "How many men do you know who'd do half the things you do with me? You're so much fun--- when you're not being a complete idiot and driving me even crazier. And what I'd rather be doing is tying you up with something a little more friendly so that you could arch as much as you wanted while I humped you senseless. But no, you had to be scary and crazy so that I have to teach you a lesson instead of having fun. You really are stupid sometimes, for someone smart enough to keep me interested." She rested her chin on her hand and looked at him. "You seem to have this basic problem with believing that I don't want anyone else. Why is that?"

[estebanmd.livejournal.com]

((dying))

All this made a certain amount of sense, on a purely objective level. Stephen could not quite maintain objectivity with regard to River, however. To him, it seemed perfectly natural and reasonable that everyone in the world should want to marry a somewhat unstable telepathic assassin with a taste for bloodplay.

[r-tam.livejournal.com]

River rolled her eyes. "In the first place, they don't--- I'm the reader here, remember? Because if you could read me, you'd know that I don't want any of them. Just you. Only you. I want you enough to let you get away with scaring me like you did. Enough that all I can do when you tell me you want to lock me up forever is sit here and try to get through your thick skull. So it doesn't matter how many people want me, Stephen. It's only you I want. Only you. Why can't you believe that?"

It must be said that River lacked a certain amount of objectivity with regard to Stephen as well; she was vaguely conscious that most of the women in the school didn't seem to regard him with the same ravenous lust she felt for him, but she certainly didn't understand why he didn't expect her to want him. Especially after all the demonstrations of said lust that she'd given him.

[estebanmd.livejournal.com]

He loved hearing it, even now, even under these circumstances, knowing how badly he had frightened her. He would do anything to hear it again.