Caring is Hell on the Conscience, Star/Zan
Nov. 8th, 2007 01:27 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sirona_ficsSomething I came up with as a result of a Metanoia overdose. Slightly re-edited (in 2010).
Author:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
sirona_gs
Title: Caring is Hell on the Conscience
Summary: Star works his way through a few things that have been bothering him about the situation he's somehow found himself in.
Word Count: ~1,400
Warnings: Slightly dorky. Some angst.
Rating: PG-13 for some swearing and discussion of sex and violence. All the wonderful things we love about Metanoia!
Disclaimer: Metanoia characters and universe are property of Jesse Hajicek
Beta: Myself, two years or so later.
Caring is Hell on the Conscience
Star felt confused. This was a rare enough occasion that it merited attention.
Basically, he wanted to get laid. Hell, he needed to get laid. The events of the past few weeks had tuned up the friction to a new level in Star Tyrian’s experience. First there had been the killing. He did more in an average week than he had done this week, but there was something… new and exciting about chasing prey that could rip his throat out if he wasn’t being twice as careful as usual.
Then, there had been the people. He was so much of a habitual loner, barring the brief time he had spent shacking up with Milo (mistake in the end, but hindsight is always prophetic), that he was feeling a little awkward and threatened, out of his depth. He wouldn’t admit as much, but the people thing bothered him. He had spent the last 10 years not really interacting, not bothering to chat up his victims, barely connecting with anyone. Now he was being forced to. Being around this many people all the time, living in the same building as the people he worked with, was bound to backfire. He knew he was screwed up. He knew that there wasn’t much that could be done to pull him out of the hole he had dug out for himself, refurbished, and inhabited with relish. If he hadn’t known this, he might have gotten a little worried. People were trying to care. The only other person… Nevermind that. What he wanted to know was, was he going to be responsible for ‘taking care’ of them in the same way he’d had to before? He was tired of the killing. There was a little part inside him that he didn’t know too well, wasn’t sure he wanted to, that whispered to him every time the blankness descended after a kill. It forced him to admit that there was more to it than just skill. He knew stuff he shouldn’t, had no way of knowing. This made him feel unbalanced. And it brought him to number three.
This was the really disturbing part. Okay, he needed to get laid, to release the tension a little, break the cycle that was starting to make him feel trapped and off-balance. The thing was… Well, the thing was…
After Jamie he had found it impossible to fuck anyone else. Oh, he’d wanted to, was on the rebound so to speak, wanted to do something, anything, that would shut down the voices, erase Jamie’s face in that last moment, the loneliness he’d seen there, the purity of his desire for an end, to go home. He felt that desire deepen in him with every kill, every following blankness, and was finding it more and more difficult to fight back, not to let it flow, wipe him out, let him go… Anyway, so the thing was that it had taken him years before he could fuck anyone again. Not the fuck-over he did with every job. The fuck, the connection with anyone, be it just bodily. He’d got over it, of course, but it had taken a really long time before he could stop himself cringing at the thought of betraying Jamie with some bum.
The point was, it was happening again. Only, this time, it wasn’t Jamie’s face that was haunting him. This had never happened with Milo. The headgames had pretty much guaranteed he would not get hooked on him, even though the sex had been fantastic. No, it was another face, skin like caffe late, the real thing with lots of cream and sugar; dark fluid hair like the best espresso, eyes like liquid… something. There was a feeling in those eyes that defied description. He was pretty sure coffee had never looked at him that way.
He needed to nip this in the bud. It was a bad idea of universal proportion to get hooked on your work partner. Zander was trying to care. It would be so easy to screw this up so badly death would be the only cure. And he wasn’t too worried about himself here. He was worried about what he might have to do. This could go bad really fast. If only he hadn’t lost control of himself as he was walking to his truck, if only he hadn’t looked in Zander’s eyes and seen the feeling shine through, if only he had handled himself better… He would not be replaying the moment his lips met Zander’s, how they’d both trembled, holding on to each other for dear life, Zander’s shoulders shuddering under his draped arms, the softest skin of his neck, his life blood pumping liquidly against the inside of his arms, that silken hair caressing his fingers… and then the pain of rejection, being pushed away from the haven of the arms embracing him, was almost too much to bear. He had slammed up his shields, snapped at Zander - just standing there looking almost horrified at what had transpired - and gone, smoked some rubber as he sped the hell away from the feeling in the pit of his stomach that he had ruined everything, another failure, God just take me home already.
Now everything was so hard. He had swallowed down the meds and thrown himself in bed to try to escape the look on Zander’s face as he had slammed the door on him. What did Zander want from him? He couldn’t believe he had lost it so badly. He thought he had learned his lesson. Facing Zander in the morning was going to be a fucking chore.
Except… there was something wrong with this picture of self-pity. He never did this. Okay, maybe once or twice, when he had been beaten up almost as badly as tonight, bleeding from every limb and then some. There was something else there. Crap. As if he wasn’t having enough introspection already to kill an elephant. His mind just wouldn’t shut up! It picked and picked at that grain of truth he had felt buried in his stomach a minute ago. He had responded to something. It was that something that helped him find his target every time, know where to aim and when to shoot. It was that part of him that had been awakened as he stared at Zander by his truck tonight. In that instant he had felt desire as wide as the stars, a hollow need for comfort, pain at his loved one’s injuries, happiness that they were both alive and able to connect, the feeling of coming home. He had responded to those feelings, thinking they were his own. But… Zander hadn’t been injured. And the connection thing – well, we’d already established this wasn’t Star’s speciality. He had felt these emotions in the same way as he usually felt the fear and pain of his targets before the silence took everything. They must have been Zander’s feelings. He had wanted to comfort Zander, let him know that he was there to take care of this.
Shit. So now Zander’s face wouldn’t leave him alone. And he wouldn’t be able to get laid – unless that person was Zander, which was in a whole world of no.
Star’s back twinged badly. He had almost sat up as the last revelations pulsed through his head full of pain. Just now there had been a trickle of something from behind the door. It had felt like a caress on his tired, bruised face. He lay down again, rolling with the pain, and tried not to move. The caress came again. It moved down his body, soothing his aching and sore muscles. He felt himself drifting on a wave of calm and peace. “Enough thinking,” he heard the softest trace of a whisper in his mind. “Sleep now, and dream of the truth. Rest and recuperate, dear Star. Zander wills it so, and because I love him, I obey.”
Star drifted into sleep. Z stood over his bed, barely visible as tendrils of whiteness. “What a troubled boy. I wish Zander’s love would be enough to restore him, but until he knows the truth about himself he will never rest.” Z sighed. It wasn’t his place. He drifted to Zander’s room to soothe his brother into sleep. It was time for both of them to learn the truth.
Author:
sirona_gsTitle: Caring is Hell on the Conscience
Summary: Star works his way through a few things that have been bothering him about the situation he's somehow found himself in.
Word Count: ~1,400
Warnings: Slightly dorky. Some angst.
Rating: PG-13 for some swearing and discussion of sex and violence. All the wonderful things we love about Metanoia!
Disclaimer: Metanoia characters and universe are property of Jesse Hajicek
Beta: Myself, two years or so later.
Caring is Hell on the Conscience
Star felt confused. This was a rare enough occasion that it merited attention.
Basically, he wanted to get laid. Hell, he needed to get laid. The events of the past few weeks had tuned up the friction to a new level in Star Tyrian’s experience. First there had been the killing. He did more in an average week than he had done this week, but there was something… new and exciting about chasing prey that could rip his throat out if he wasn’t being twice as careful as usual.
Then, there had been the people. He was so much of a habitual loner, barring the brief time he had spent shacking up with Milo (mistake in the end, but hindsight is always prophetic), that he was feeling a little awkward and threatened, out of his depth. He wouldn’t admit as much, but the people thing bothered him. He had spent the last 10 years not really interacting, not bothering to chat up his victims, barely connecting with anyone. Now he was being forced to. Being around this many people all the time, living in the same building as the people he worked with, was bound to backfire. He knew he was screwed up. He knew that there wasn’t much that could be done to pull him out of the hole he had dug out for himself, refurbished, and inhabited with relish. If he hadn’t known this, he might have gotten a little worried. People were trying to care. The only other person… Nevermind that. What he wanted to know was, was he going to be responsible for ‘taking care’ of them in the same way he’d had to before? He was tired of the killing. There was a little part inside him that he didn’t know too well, wasn’t sure he wanted to, that whispered to him every time the blankness descended after a kill. It forced him to admit that there was more to it than just skill. He knew stuff he shouldn’t, had no way of knowing. This made him feel unbalanced. And it brought him to number three.
This was the really disturbing part. Okay, he needed to get laid, to release the tension a little, break the cycle that was starting to make him feel trapped and off-balance. The thing was… Well, the thing was…
After Jamie he had found it impossible to fuck anyone else. Oh, he’d wanted to, was on the rebound so to speak, wanted to do something, anything, that would shut down the voices, erase Jamie’s face in that last moment, the loneliness he’d seen there, the purity of his desire for an end, to go home. He felt that desire deepen in him with every kill, every following blankness, and was finding it more and more difficult to fight back, not to let it flow, wipe him out, let him go… Anyway, so the thing was that it had taken him years before he could fuck anyone again. Not the fuck-over he did with every job. The fuck, the connection with anyone, be it just bodily. He’d got over it, of course, but it had taken a really long time before he could stop himself cringing at the thought of betraying Jamie with some bum.
The point was, it was happening again. Only, this time, it wasn’t Jamie’s face that was haunting him. This had never happened with Milo. The headgames had pretty much guaranteed he would not get hooked on him, even though the sex had been fantastic. No, it was another face, skin like caffe late, the real thing with lots of cream and sugar; dark fluid hair like the best espresso, eyes like liquid… something. There was a feeling in those eyes that defied description. He was pretty sure coffee had never looked at him that way.
He needed to nip this in the bud. It was a bad idea of universal proportion to get hooked on your work partner. Zander was trying to care. It would be so easy to screw this up so badly death would be the only cure. And he wasn’t too worried about himself here. He was worried about what he might have to do. This could go bad really fast. If only he hadn’t lost control of himself as he was walking to his truck, if only he hadn’t looked in Zander’s eyes and seen the feeling shine through, if only he had handled himself better… He would not be replaying the moment his lips met Zander’s, how they’d both trembled, holding on to each other for dear life, Zander’s shoulders shuddering under his draped arms, the softest skin of his neck, his life blood pumping liquidly against the inside of his arms, that silken hair caressing his fingers… and then the pain of rejection, being pushed away from the haven of the arms embracing him, was almost too much to bear. He had slammed up his shields, snapped at Zander - just standing there looking almost horrified at what had transpired - and gone, smoked some rubber as he sped the hell away from the feeling in the pit of his stomach that he had ruined everything, another failure, God just take me home already.
Now everything was so hard. He had swallowed down the meds and thrown himself in bed to try to escape the look on Zander’s face as he had slammed the door on him. What did Zander want from him? He couldn’t believe he had lost it so badly. He thought he had learned his lesson. Facing Zander in the morning was going to be a fucking chore.
Except… there was something wrong with this picture of self-pity. He never did this. Okay, maybe once or twice, when he had been beaten up almost as badly as tonight, bleeding from every limb and then some. There was something else there. Crap. As if he wasn’t having enough introspection already to kill an elephant. His mind just wouldn’t shut up! It picked and picked at that grain of truth he had felt buried in his stomach a minute ago. He had responded to something. It was that something that helped him find his target every time, know where to aim and when to shoot. It was that part of him that had been awakened as he stared at Zander by his truck tonight. In that instant he had felt desire as wide as the stars, a hollow need for comfort, pain at his loved one’s injuries, happiness that they were both alive and able to connect, the feeling of coming home. He had responded to those feelings, thinking they were his own. But… Zander hadn’t been injured. And the connection thing – well, we’d already established this wasn’t Star’s speciality. He had felt these emotions in the same way as he usually felt the fear and pain of his targets before the silence took everything. They must have been Zander’s feelings. He had wanted to comfort Zander, let him know that he was there to take care of this.
Shit. So now Zander’s face wouldn’t leave him alone. And he wouldn’t be able to get laid – unless that person was Zander, which was in a whole world of no.
Star’s back twinged badly. He had almost sat up as the last revelations pulsed through his head full of pain. Just now there had been a trickle of something from behind the door. It had felt like a caress on his tired, bruised face. He lay down again, rolling with the pain, and tried not to move. The caress came again. It moved down his body, soothing his aching and sore muscles. He felt himself drifting on a wave of calm and peace. “Enough thinking,” he heard the softest trace of a whisper in his mind. “Sleep now, and dream of the truth. Rest and recuperate, dear Star. Zander wills it so, and because I love him, I obey.”
Star drifted into sleep. Z stood over his bed, barely visible as tendrils of whiteness. “What a troubled boy. I wish Zander’s love would be enough to restore him, but until he knows the truth about himself he will never rest.” Z sighed. It wasn’t his place. He drifted to Zander’s room to soothe his brother into sleep. It was time for both of them to learn the truth.
no subject
Date: 2007-11-08 12:29 pm (UTC)I've always been a fan of Star's personality and this just seethes with it.
Thank you.
Thanks!
Date: 2007-11-08 05:48 pm (UTC)Sirona
no subject
Date: 2007-11-08 09:50 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-11-09 10:41 am (UTC)Hopefully more inspiration strikes you! And if not, then thank you for writing this!
no subject
Date: 2007-11-20 04:36 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-11-21 01:01 pm (UTC)As for Star's abilities - I sort of think that they're as natural and unconscious for Star as breathing or blinking, or being able to tell the difference between 'sweet' and 'bitter'. I think to some degree he's conscious of his empathy, but it doesn't register as an extra-sense to him; he just assumes that all people have this sort of reciprocal function wherein they can tell what others feel. He might even just wave it off as heightened fluency in body language on his part - I'm not saying he's stupid, because I agree with you that he's anything but - just that with something life-long and unconscious, it might not occur to him that his abilities are not the norm - or that they're abilities at all.
Conversely, if he were aware of his empathy, then that would also be interesting - would he try to shut it down? I can't see him willingly be open to others, though if he thought he could some sort of advantage out of it, he might try to train it - which could be an interesting idea to explore for its own merits.
I'd love to chat ~ my email is slob.child@gmail.com in case you didn't want to clog up comment threads.
no subject
Date: 2007-11-20 08:27 am (UTC)Favorite line: "He was pretty sure coffee had never looked at him this way." XD
no subject
Date: 2007-11-20 04:20 pm (UTC)Sirona
"He was pretty sure coffee had never looked at him this way...."
Date: 2008-01-28 02:59 am (UTC)Absolutely wonderfulliness!!!