InsaneJournal

Current mood:	sick
Entry tags:	all that time silent still

AI Fic: All That Time, Silent Still (12/29)
TITLE: All That Time, Silent Still
AUTHOR: Mari
RATING: NC-17
PAIRINGS: Mavid, Tiedam, miscellaneous hints of others both slash and het.
DISCLAIMER: I do not own this sandbox, and all of the sandbox games played within are entirely fictional.
SUMMARY: Civilizations have crashed before under the impact of one great catastrophe. Make it two, and what’s left behind is barely recognizable. Slavefic AU.
CONTAINS: Coercive themes by definition; sex, violence, language, and torture both onscreen and off. Contact me if you want or need to know more.

Part One
Part Two
Part Three
Part Four
Part Five
Part Six
Part Seven
Part Eight
Part Nine
Part Ten
Part Eleven



Part Twelve

David only woke up when he realized that he was not quite as warm as he had been before. He stretched and rolled beneath the blanket, then grimaced and made a note to himself to clean both it and the rug before Carly got in here. Neither of he nor Michael had banked the fire before they had dozed off, so it was nothing more than a few slowly burning coals from down deep in the wood, looking out at David like eyes. He shivered without knowing why as the electricity in the room flickered once, twice, before the generators kicked in to assure the house that it could go back to sleep, they had this well in hand. David stretched a few more times and then turned over so that he didn’t have to look at the embers. He looked instead for the other person that had been under the blanket with him when he had gone to sleep.

Michael had not gone far. He had refastened his pants and drawn his shirt back on; David stuck his hand out from under the blanket and noted that the house had been turned down to its customary nighttime cold. Michael was standing by the bookcases that lined every piece of wall not taken up by sofa or window and running his fingers lightly along the spines, many of which were so old that they cracked beneath the pressure and sent flecks of leather drifting lightly down to the floor.

“‘S cold out in the middle of the room like that,” David said. He rubbed his hand over his face, trying to wake up, before he reached out and drew a poker from the fireplace so that he could stab at the few coals still living, trying to stir them back into life. A few sparks managed to turn themselves into tentative flames that then licked at the extra blocks of wood that David tossed onto them.

Michael turned towards the sound of David’s voice, but he was wide-eyed, and David didn’t think that David’s actual words meant a single goddamned thing to him. “Do you realize what you have here, David?” he asked.

“I like reading,” David said as he shrugged off the blanket and stood, putting his own clothes back on.

Michael had a soft, snorting laugh that David already knew he wanted to hear more often. “Yeah, you like reading, all right.” He raised his eyebrows at the easily hundreds of books that David had in his possession. “And you’re not even trying to hide these?”

There was an edge to Michael’s voice, that soldier’s tone that slid in and out when David was least expecting it and made him tilt his head to the side each time. “Why?” David asked. “No one comes in here expect for me and Carly.” He shrugged. “And now you.”

Michael was in the process of pulling one of the books from the shelf and examining it more closely; he startled so hard when David spoke that he nearly dropped it. “You’re actually serious.” David probably should have been irritated by the pure and naked wonder in Michael’s voice. As it was, he took The Collected Works of George Orwell out of Michael’s hands and slid it back into a safe place. It was one of the oldest books in the entire library, and even when being handled with care it had a tendency to creak and crack.

Michael shook his head and reached for another book. This one was Shakespeare, a newer copy. It had taken the House longer generations to decide that he was rotten through with dangerous anti-government sentiments than they had with Orwell, Vidal, Aquinas, King. “This is a lot further than being kind to your slaves in public, David,” he said. David look a seat leaning back against the edge of his desk and watched as Michael flipped through a few pages of Shakespeare, put it back, selected another. “This is stuff that can get you hanged.” Eyes dark and troubled, he looked at David and asked, “You don’t think you need to take any further precautions at all?” Even at questioning David that much--he was wearing that you’re an idiot, mate look that David was starting to find so inexplicably charming--he tensed and leaned back slightly, watching David to see what he was going to do.

I’m already doing things that will get me a lot worse than hanged if the House finds out. David sighed and studied the hands that were gripping the edge of his desk for several seconds. Hell, he finally decided, it wasn’t fair that Michael should be the only one in the house who didn’t know; even Archuleta had to have picked it up at this point.

“I’m not just kind to my slaves in public,” David said. Always in tune with David’s movements and thoughts, Michael stilled so that he could watch him. “I’m a spy for the Resistance. I have been for nearly a year and a half now.”

David was lucky that he had taken the Orwell away from Michael and slid it back onto the shelf. The book that Michael had replaced it with was not so lucky. It fell to the floor with a solid thud, flying open on a broken spine, pages scattering everywhere. Michael went briefly white over destroying his master’s things, or so David thought, until the color did not come back and Michael did not so much as glance downwards at the pages drifting about his feet.

“Are you insane?!” David hadn’t known that Michael could shout, either, but he jumped when he heard the sound and wondered if the others weren’t hearing it all the way in their quarters, too. “That has to be the single most selfish thing that I’ve ever heard in my entire life, and trust me, mate--” Michael’s throat worked up and down until David thought that he was going to say something else before he finished, “I know from being selfish.”

David felt blood rushing into his face in spite of himself. “Hey, hey, easy there,” he said, but he knew from his tone that there wasn’t going to be any soothing Michael like a skittish mare this time, and the lightning on the horizon look that Michael threw him said plain and clear that he was in no mood to be soothed. “Look, I’m doing this to try to stop the way that things are, all right?” He made a gesture towards Michael that was meant only to indicate the scars that he had seen on Michael’s shoulders and back while Michael had been sucking him off hours before, but Michael flinched backwards as though there had been a real possibility that David was going to hit him. The gestures were the same as Michael had been before, but his eyes weren’t, and David was left sprawling as a result.

“Isn’t this what you were talking about yesterday?” David finally demanded, hearing the rasp of anger coming into his voice and unable to stop it. “That with the Resistance you were doing the fucking right thing, and that I was just playing at it? Fine, I’m doing the right thing. Was for a long time before I met you.” He nearly cringed when he realized how petulant he sound, see I’m playing with the big kids, too, and then again when he remembered that a man who had actively run with the Resistance and been caught had seen a lot worse than one of his masters in a bit of a pout. And legally and spiritually, I’m supposed to be the creme de la creme of the human race. God, the House must spend half of their days rolling around on the floor.

Michael dragged his hand through his hair and rocked back onto his heels. “I only had to look out for me,” he said. Liar, liar, David thought suddenly. “You have to look out for everyone here, don’t you get that? How many fucking times do I have to explain that to you? You’re our master.” That was interesting, David wanted to point out, because Michael sure as hell wasn’t acting like it right at the moment, but that also would have shocked Michael back into the old roles, probably, and David didn’t want that, either. “You get hauled in for treason, it reflects on us. You’re convicted, it’s assumed that you taught insubordination to us. We have to be purged, David.”

David started to ask what Michael meant by “purged”, but looked at Michael’s face and decided that he already knew. Michael looked back at him and said only, “Yeah. Torture. Clever man, David, once you’re given enough room to run.” David bit hard at the inside of his mouth so that he would not snap back, listening to the growing fire crackle instead and letting both of their heart rates slow. This had played out much better in his head, in the handful of seconds in which he had actually paused in order to think about it.

“Michael,” David said finally, in the firmest and most reassuring voice that he could muster. “Will you calm down? I’ve been doing this for a long time. I have it handled.”

Michael started to rub at the back of his neck and then abruptly dropped his hand back down to his side when he felt his collar there. “There’s no fool like a noble fool,” he muttered with his eyes directed towards some dark inward place where David was not invited, and that was when the power went out.

David jerked and spun automatically towards the door, still visible by the orange-crackle glow of the fire. “Oh, for fuck’s sake,” he blurted out. He was glad that he and Michael hours before had been a spontaneous crush of bodies rather than a romantic evening that he had planned out in advance, or else he would have to be more than just a touch aggravated by how quickly everything had gone wrong on him.

David didn’t need to look behind him to know that Michael had gone entirely and watchfully still; even the pattern of the man’s breathing changed. “You have generators,” he said.

“You want to lay odds on anyone being alert enough after we staggered back in here to remember to double-check them?” David snapped over his shoulder. “Goddamnit, and they always suck fuel when we have to start them up again cold--” He reached the door and laid his hand upon the knob.

Whoever was on the other side either kicked or slammed their shoulder into it with such force that the knob tore in spite of the door not being locked. David heard the wood snap and even saw a few splinters going flying off of the frame; all of this happened almost faster than the eye could follow while his body was trapped moving at a speed slower than cold molasses. The door caught David along his cheekbone so hard that he thought the cracking noise was the bone giving way and realized only as he was striking the floor on his back that it had been his teeth coming together.

Lucky boy, David thought in a dazed way as the first waves of pain radiated from his face to take over his entire body, realizing that he could have taken the tip of his tongue off. He watched gray uniforms filling the doorway, not making a sound, and went on, Oh, this is pushing irony maybe just a little far--

One of the uniforms slammed the butt of his rifle into David’s head, and he stopped thinking about his cheek for a long while.

End Part Twelve

Continue to Part Thirteen