aviary | open | prompt six

[ He leans in, then, to press a kiss to her lips.

(He's a creature of humors, a beast caught in the too-too small form of a man. But the beast, too, can be tamed, and has been by Claret's hand. He's still not good, not really, but he is gentle, caring, sweet. And considering the sort of carnage he has left in his wake thus far, that is nothing short of a miracle. A pity that their sister cannot see it the same way, and a pity that their father will not live long enough to, either.) ]

And what d'you think I think about you?

[ He kisses her and she kisses him back, her legs lengthening as she pushes herself up onto tiptoe to meet him, a smile tightening against his mouth, making the kiss awkward but earnest in its intent. When she breaks away again, her teetering attempts giving way to flatfootedness, Claret exhales a breathless laugh, burrowing close to his chest, looking for him to hold her. ]

I think you like me okay, [ she teases (though buried deep beneath the surface there is the thought that she cannot help, that insecurity that says you like Vermillion better. ]

[ He folds his arms around her and seems to envelop her entirely, neck craned so that his forehead presses to hers. ]

I love you, [ he tells her, nose wrinkling once as if he meant to chide her for being so modest. But he knows, somewhere in his heart, that that doubt she carries is well justified. She makes him gentle, but outside of her presence that Duke blood takes dominance again — it's an unhappy truth. Though his attitude toward his sisters has changed since the first time he and Claret made love, the hunger that sits in the very base of his belly has yet to subside. ]

[ He loves her but he loves cruelty as well — the same way he loves this girl's ass and that girl's smile and the collarbone of the serving boy who disappeared last fall. He loves her but he loves Vermillion, too, loves doing terrible things with her (to other people but also to one another); he loves his appetites and he loves indulging them. He loves a lot of things, she knows. Not just her.

She looks at him longingly for a drawn-out moment, wishing that his love was singular, that it was hers and hers alone. But Claret knows that Titian is not built that way and to love a thing is to love it completely.

(And god, she does, she does.)

Tilting her head back she pecks lightly at the round of Titian's chin. ]

I know you do, I just— y'know. Don't wanna be selfish about it.

'S not being selfish. [ Not that he'd know. He doesn't even think of himself as selfish despite his own behavior. If he sees something he wants, he takes it, and if he doesn't like the way something works, he changes it. He's considered it his birthright as a Duke and in many ways he considers it hers, too, but it is because he knows that she has never taken advantage of the fact that he feels free to say anything at all.

He noses at her hair, glancing down briefly to line his feet up with hers. (A pointless, childish gesture, but a tell nonetheless.) ]

Don't have to worry about that with me.

[ A beat. ]

Alright?

[ She sets him with a gaze that says I'm not being stubborn, just honest. ] It is being selfish, [ Claret tells him, her bare feet inching forward so that her toes cover the tops of his shoes. An equally childish gesture, but not nearly as pointless. (A careful treading of lines; my side and yours; like she's tiptoeing through somebody else's property and that somebody else is Vermillion.)

Her hand lightly costs across the line of Titian's shoulder, then closes over the round of it loosely, giving him the gentlest jostle (as if somehow that would make him suddenly see it her way and provide him a sense of perspective). ] And— [ A shrug. ] —y'know. [ He doesn't know. ] That's not how sharing works.

Edited 2012-08-03 18:18 (UTC)

[ When she jostles him, he meets her gaze for just a split second before he looks down again, carefully inching his feet further under hers as his lips pull to one side in a tempered expression of discontent. (No, he doesn't know. Sharing isn't something he was taught how to do and the word barely registers in his vocabulary as it is.)

As soon as she's standing on his feet, he slowly starts to walk, keeping his gaze fixed down as he tries not to topple her over. ]

I love you, [ he says again, following a long silence. ] 'S not— it's not selfish or unselfish. It's a fact.

[ (Isn't it?) ]

Edited 2012-08-04 05:29 (UTC)

[ It's breathtaking, really, how gentle he can be. How sweet and careful, like she's made of spun glass and his hands are lead (destined to break her). Titian Duke will never be soft but he's already learning how to dull his sharp edges, how to smooth down those barbs to his personality so that his baby sister's skin won't catch and tear. Each nuzzle, each kiss, each slow step as he walks them in a careful circle across the carpet — they're an I love you, I don't deserve you, an I'll die without you.

But those confessions are simple and the Duke children are complicated — bond together by blood and lust, by sex and codependence. By madness; by loyalty; by love.

Claret looks up at her brother and wishes somehow there were a way to express it simply and elegantly and knowing that the words won't hurt him. ] You don't— you don't love me all the time, [ she says carefully but then quickly shuts her eyes and shakes her head. ] No— no, wait. That's not right, it's just—

[ It's just sometimes you forget. It's just sometimes you love me less. It's just Vermillion, Vermillion, Vermillion. ] If Vee knew—

[ You don't love me all the time. She's right, in a sense. When he's not with her, he forgets what makes him good in her presence. Without the taming hand the beast runs free. The truth cuts to the bone — he doesn't stop moving but his brow clouds over and the line of his mouth twists even further — but he can't argue the point.

(I wish I did. I could, Claret, in time. I promise. But they never get that time. She is torn to shreds by their sister and he is torn to shreds by his grief.) ]

I don't care. [ The words are abrupt on his tongue. ] I don't care if she knows or she doesn't. I love you — I'm the next Red, I can— I can—

[ He doesn't quite know what he means to say. ]

Don't say that. Please.

[ It's telling that, of her elder siblings, Vermillion is the one Claret is afraid of. (Not Titian. ) They may both be monsters steeped too well in that Duke madness, so near to two of a kind that — in the dark — you can hardly tell the difference, but it's Vermillion who never turns her face towards the sun, Vermillion who has no gentle laugh or closed-lip smile or secret place inside her heart. It's Vermillion who loves only dragons, who is a dragon herself; with talons instead of fingernails and a barbed wire heart and a maw that feasts. The beast in Titian's soul and the lioness in his bed and Claret knows — she knows in her heart of hearts — that there is no comparison. (Blood is blood is blood, and Vermillion lives in Titian's blood. Not her. She just has his heart.) ]

You're the next Red, [ she concedes her faced turned upwards to his, something like pain (exquisite and keen and profound) pinching at her brow. With both hands she takes his face and cradles it between her palms. She loves hm, she loves him and — in a way — pities him. Oh, to be a slave of such terrible appetites. ] And when it's your turn, no one will be able to stop you. Not even me.

[ She fears her father's death and what it will mean for all of them. Part of Claret wants to believe it means that Titian will chose her, in the end, but Claret has always been practical where her siblings are grossly impulsive. What it means is that Titian will feast and feast; he will paint the town red; he'll reign.

Carefully, she hazards a smile. ] You'll have the family, and Red, and the whole city. You'll have Vee. [ There isn't a place for her in that picture. Claret shrugs. ] And I'll still love you. It's okay.

Edited 2012-08-04 20:45 (UTC)

When it's my turn, no one will be able to stop me if I want you.

[ That same pain (though not nearly as delicate, not nearly as exquisite) pulls at his features, and his words are barely even a whisper. Leaning forward, he presses his forehead to hers, attempting not to let his heart weight too heavily upon him. No, there is no comparison between Claret and Vermillion and that is why Titian loves Claret so much. Vermillion is his blood, his birthright, what he was supposed to be (a monster) but Claret, his heart, has more than that. Throughout his life he has warred with what has been expected of him and what he has wanted and now is no exception (a conflict that will never truly be resolved). ]

Not even Vee.

[ (This is the only — and the worst — lie that he ever tells his youngest sister. It's a cruel kind of metaphor — that the madness had steeped in his blood for so long that it was able to wipe out the very last vestiges of good, that Vermillion could get rid of Claret so easily — but one that will come into bloody fruition before the end is through.) ]

[ Hope is a dangerous thing in a world like theirs, for creatures like Claret and Titian and Vermillion. It can come simply, couched in a younger sister's smile, in the touch of her small hands upon a brother's face and his throat. Or it can come cruelly, in promises made but never kept, in the possiblity that love can and will survive when it has no room and no right to in the first place. Of all the crimes that have been committed both by and against the name Duke, none were as hopeful and as well-meaning as Claret's. (To believe in brother who did not deserve faith, to entrust her heart to a creature ruled by sentiments much baser than affection or love.)

This is the only — the worst — lie that he ever tells his younger sister and almost immediately its venom sets to work. Claret's cheeks flush and her eyes grow wet and even though she holds her enthusiasm in reserve its obvious by the look she gives that she wants to believe. (More than anything.) Part of her — foolish and feckless and lovesick — already does. ]

Do— [ Her voice is small. Almost childlike. Claret's teeth worry at her bottom lip and she looks away. ] —do you? Will you?

[ Her gaze is shy and reluctant, worried perhaps of the answer she'll find in Titian's expression. ] Could you want me that much?

[ Here is the worst part about that lie: he believes it. He believes, through and through, that there is nothing that could keep the two of them apart, that they could truly be happy. He believes it to the point that it fills up his entire body with hope, and the smile he wears is bright and simple and happy. ]

Yes, yes, I could. I do.

[ As much as he wants to believe in his own capacity to change and his own capacity to rule his actions, no, he does not deserve her faith. He never did. Even in his retribution for her death, he will be ugly, wheedling each person who had laid hands upon her closer and closer to their deaths as painfully as possible over as prolonged a period of time. (You will know how she suffered — how I suffer. And by the time I am finished with you, Vermillion's word will hold no capital in this world. By the time I am finished with you, you will wish you had never been born. I will carve away everything that you have — your family, your friends, your loved ones. I am Red. My word is law. And I will show you what a Duke truly is.)

But for now, the monster is cowed, shut away by the brilliance (found too late) of his love for her. ]

open | prompt six | DEMONS

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