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sablin27, who wanted something from Carogne. This sort of turned into ... a kind of smushing of both her prompts, in a weird way. From this meme.
Title: Old Games
Rating: R
Universe: Carogne
Continuity: set two weeks after Ghosts
Characters: Sebastien, Stefan, mention of the General and Jan
Summary: The past crawling forward. What does the General's son want?
Wordcount: 2386
Warnings: Dark, very dark things. Past torture, among others
Claimer: Mine
sablin27, who wanted something from Carogne. This sort of turned into ... a kind of smushing of both her prompts, in a weird way. From this meme.Title: Old Games
Rating: R
Universe: Carogne
Continuity: set two weeks after Ghosts
Characters: Sebastien, Stefan, mention of the General and Jan
Summary: The past crawling forward. What does the General's son want?
Wordcount: 2386
Warnings: Dark, very dark things. Past torture, among others
Claimer: Mine
Old Games
The smell was the first thing to give him away. Almost always was. Soft-soap. Clean as a whistle. Smooth as silk. Rich and warm and princely. Crawling night.
Sebastien curled down, hunched close to his worktop. Flinched into a ball, shielded himself behind his counter, one paw skittering towards the cane, pulling itself back. Clenching the wood instead. Not long enough. Two weeks, not near long enough. Better that the ghost had never come back at all. But Sebastien was never so lucky. Tchu. Never that.
His visitor, from grace or sadism, Sebastien wasn't quite sure which, did not say anything. Left it for Sebastien to open, left him gather himself. Simply waited, breathing calm and measured, at the other side of the room. Somehow, for some reason, smaller in presence than his size should allow. Patient as the mud, waiting to drag the city down. Briefly, Sebastien wondered how long the General's son would wait, how long would he indulge Sebastien's fear. Briefly, he considered testing it. Briefly, he considered finding out.
But no. Not yet. Not just yet. Learn first, little rat. Caution first. Testing later. If there is a later ...
"General's son," he acknowledged finally, some spark of defiance straightening his spine, some ghost of old hate firming his voice. "And how may I help you?"
The lordling didn't respond, for a moment. The silence weighing, considering. Such a difference from the past meeting. Tempers running too high, that time. The past flashing so close, too much for either to bear, and Sebastien had lashed out, flashed threatening in desperation. Revealing too much. Hiding so much more. This time, this time, the lordling wanted to watch. To see.
To learn. Night and riverdank. But that was the game. Until the last moment, that was the game.
"... Stefan," that soft voice said. Warm and smooth, mild as milk. Sebastien quivered. Just faintly.
"Your pardon?" he snapped out. No respect. Tss! Unwise, unwise. Go more carefully, little rat. But he didn't know how. Not yet. And he must relearn. This game was too old, and he'd forgotten how to play. But he had to remember, or all was lost. "Forgive me."
A smile, now, in the voice. "Nothing to forgive," said the General's son, gently enough. Moving forward. Resting against the other side of the counter. Leaning back. Away from Sebastien. Granting space, escape, despite the nearness. "Call me Stefan, I meant. If you please." A darkening, a lowering, distance in the voice, now. "I am not ... I am not my father's son."
Sebastien held the snort. He held it. "No?" he murmured, soft and low, and there was viciousness in it. A crackle underneath. He could show that. Even the General had allowed that. The General had found it amusing.
"No," Stefan repeated, heavily. "Believe or not, Herr Doctor. As you choose. But call me Stefan. I cannot bear the other."
Sebastien felt the frown, at that. Felt the twitch roll through him, the compulsive fluttering of his paws. Pain, in that. He heard it. He knew it. Knew so well, of pain. He leaned forward, almost unconsciously, turned his head to find the shape of the lordling in the air, whiskers turned to test the tenseness of him. Vibrating, gently. Quivering, minutely. The lordling hurt. The lordling flinched. But so small it could not be seen, Sebastien thought. Only felt. Only if one knew to try.
"Stefan," he allowed, after a moment. Sensed, somehow, the sudden give in the air. The faint release. "And how ... may I help you, my lord?"
Dangerous question, of course. Dangerous, tchu. Because Sebastien didn't know what the answer might be. Strange, worrying. Terrifying, from such power, to not know what was desired. But in two weeks, he had been able to find nothing. No whispers, no moving pieces. No plans, at least none easily seen. Nothing to show the movements of this creature before him. Nothing to show his desires.
And Jan was still safe. Safer, maybe. A guiding paw, only lightly felt, easing the young Polizei officer away from contested areas, out of the flash-fire zones of conflict where Wekha and Polizei clashed, and every moment was a risk of betrayal for a young rat who had once been one, and was now the other. Sebastien had seen, caught the edges of that guiding paw.
Didn't dare be grateful. Couldn't help but be afraid. Subtle, this General's son. Gentle. Sebastien feared that more than anything.
Stefan stayed silent, still. Simply there, his presence a press on Sebastien's senses. Not a threat. Simply ... a weight. A watching thing. Studying. Sebastien wondered, sometimes, if that was how the General had watched, when Sebastien had been young, when he hadn't thought to listen for the silences he couldn't see.
"I saw you, you know," the General's son said. Gentled his voice through Sebastien's flinch. "Before. When you were ... When you were my father's thing. I saw you."
There was ringing, now. In Sebastien's ears. His spine curved, and no defiance, no spark of pride, could stop it. My father's thing. Oh, night and water, fire above. Crawling night.
"He would bring me to watch you," Stefan went on. His voice was flat. So flat. Not daring to let anything through. Not daring to let anything show. The presence of him wavered. Shook, a trembling thing on the edge of Sebastien's senses. Sebastien remembered ... scars, ropes, bitten into powerful shoulders. Things one does not earn in a fight. "He'd take me to see you working. Make ... make me promises."
"Not ... not mine," he rasped, suddenly desperate. Suddenly pleading. "You were not ... one of mine."
"No," Stefan agreed. No comfort at all. No joy at all. The world quivered, cold about Sebastien's ears. "Never yours. But he promised. Promised me, if I was not the son he needed, if I was not the servant he required. He promised me there were things in the dark, blind things that didn't need the light. And they would take me, if I failed him. They would ... make me scream."
Sebastien's breath caught. Tore. Hitching through him, the memories swarming beneath his paws, the sounds drowning in his ears. Shuddering breaths. Cries. Blind pleading. He never saw their faces. Never could. But he'd heard their voices. Felt their flinching. Remembered, those bright-dark moments, what he thought red might be like, where they screamed. He hunched down, curved, all the way. Pressed a blind head to the wood. Clung to it.
"I am not my father's son," Stefan said. Moving, coming about. Standing over Sebastien, some shape looming above the screaming in his ears. Paws coming to rest over Sebastien's, to hold them as Sebastien tried to claw into his skull. "I am not my father's son." Such hate, such fear, buzzing in the voice, so familiar. Sebastien had sounded like that, once. In his head, in his heart. He had begged like that. Not to be that thing. Not to remember that thing.
"What do you want?" he asked, nearly soundless, crushed to nothing. He remembered this, too. Remembered how small he was. How frail. How terrible a kindness could seem, when you knew you were so weak, knew you were so fragile that the least show of strength could shatter you, and your tormentor did not. Did not strike. Soothed. Just enough that you couldn't shatter. Just enough that you couldn't escape. He remembered.
"You didn't run." And surprisingly, it was ... as though the lordling was trying to explain, trying to offer. Not wound. His paws were light over Sebastien's. They didn't crush at all. "You knew I was coming. You didn't run."
"I can't," Sebastien sobbed, his paws clenching, convulsive, tightening in his own fur, tearing at his own ears. Jan. Anyone else, he would have run, he would have left, let them fall or fight on their own, but it was Jan. Jan, who didn't know. Jan, who had no idea. Jan, who had never seen the General, and never, never would. Not if Sebastien must burn all of Carogne first. He couldn't run. He could not run.
"... Neither can I," came the answer, soft, with a hitch like a sob, or like a smile. Stefan held his paws, the General's son held him trapped, and it was breakingly gentle. "I ... You were not what I thought, Herr Doctor. Not what I feared. I didn't know. I didn't think. You were a monster in the dark, the lurking thing, and I ... forgot. That he ... That all the brightness in the world couldn't protect you from him. He was the brightest thing there was. And ... and he could hurt you, and hurt you, and all the world would watch, and no-one would do a thing. I was afraid of you. I should have been ... I should have remembered to be more afraid of him."
Sebastien shuddered. Small. So small. So breakable. He had always known, how breakable. Learned, from the first. Monsters came from the dark, they'd told him, but all his world was dark. All his world was dark. The monsters came from everywhere.
"I can't run," said the General's son. "Not anymore. Not from him. Not from you. I had to come. Had to see. Had to ... to feel your paws on me. To know ... To know what it was I feared, for all those years. To see you. I had to know. So I could ... find it in myself, not to run. Please. Please. You understand? Please, you must understand." Soft, and as small as he. As small as Sebastien, a child talking to the monsters in the dark, a rat, proud and strong, standing up. Standing in the dark. When was the last ... When had Sebastien last known that?
A young ratling, a great and brawny thug, with gentle paws. All the force in the world, trembling as he held Sebastien in blind gratitude for the least, the very least, he should have been owed. I couldn't let people like you keep getting hurt.
When had Sebastien known that? Jan.
"What do you want?" he rasped, softly, into the table. All his world was dark. But he felt the tremble in the lordling's paws.
"... To fix it," Stefan whispered, soft into the darkness. "To be not him. To help. If someone will let me. If someone will tell me how." A pause, small and bright, with hope that was the closest Sebastien knew to light. "Do you ... Do you know? Herr Doctor? Can you see?"
He laughed, at that. Low and ragged, raising his head at last. Letting his paws fall, letting them still be cradled. Stefan didn't think to let him go. Sebastien ... didn't move to make him. He raised his head, tilted it up, towards the ghosts of the past. The monsters in the dark. Because he had to know, didn't he? He couldn't run. So he had to know.
"Never, General's son. Stefan. Never and nothing." And then, while the paws around his flinched, tightened, he smiled. Rich and dark and vicious. Because he couldn't see, and all the world was dark, and he was, he was the monster. But he was a monster who knew a brightling thing, a precious thing, and he had heard the standing of children in the dark. He didn't know how to fix it. All the healing in his paws, his doctor's paws, nothing more than shadows of the monster he had been, seeping useless into the dark. He couldn't fix it. Not him. Not anything.
But he knew who could. Who might. And he knew ... what he would do to let them.
Stefan gazed at him. Sebastien felt it, the itch of it, ghosting over his shattered eyes, his bent spine. Measuring the ruin of him. The monster in the dark. Seeing ... something. He didn't know what.
It didn't really matter.
"Don't be him," he whispered, hissed, low and savage. As much a threat as poisons, as knives where you did not think to look. Because they knew. Oh, they knew. He and this broken boy. "Stefan, who is not General's son. Just that. And we will ... take care of the rest."
"... Just that?" Soft, dubious. Strong. Defiant. No. Not his father's child. He would not be so strong, were he his father's child. He would not be so dangerous.
Sebastien tilted his head, tugged back his paws, his small, obsequious smile creeping forward. "Tchu. What more could I ask so proud a lordling, my lord? Little rat doctor? Am I not asking too much already?" So much. So very much. To ask the General's son to be not him. To ask the shadows to stay in the past. To stand before his ghosts. Too much, too much to ask?
Silence, then. Long and thoughtful, and Sebastien felt the shift inside it. Felt the rat before him straighten, stand. Gather presence about himself, large again, with Sebastien so small before him. So frail. So weak. Sebastien felt him shift. Felt Stefan stand.
And smiled. Only a little. Tchu. Such a little thing.
"I will ... watch him for you," Stefan said at last. Warm and blank and bland. Mild as milk. "Your friend. I will keep an eye on him." A twitch, a lift. Sebastien thought he heard the smile. "Out of ... the goodness of my heart." Not fear. Not for a threat. Not again. Never again. "You will tell me, Herr Doctor, if ever I can help you, yes?"
Sebastien flashed teeth. A smile. Or something like. "Oh yes, my lord," he murmured. "And I you. If you should ever need ... my services. You will call, yes?" He bowed, low and smooth, and curved his smile into the darkness at the danger in the air.
"Mmm." A low, throaty rumble, real humour, a real laugh, as he turned to leave. Bright. Sebastien thought that was bright. "Yes, Herr Doctor. I think ... I think I will."
... Games. Such dangerous games. Old games, these, though not the same. Not quite the same. And perhaps Sebastien was too old to play. Perhaps, even still, too weak. But he had always been that, hadn't he? Always been weak. And age ... well. Age had its own advantages. And he remembered, he thought. He remembered how to play.
This time ... there was something, worth playing for.
The smell was the first thing to give him away. Almost always was. Soft-soap. Clean as a whistle. Smooth as silk. Rich and warm and princely. Crawling night.
Sebastien curled down, hunched close to his worktop. Flinched into a ball, shielded himself behind his counter, one paw skittering towards the cane, pulling itself back. Clenching the wood instead. Not long enough. Two weeks, not near long enough. Better that the ghost had never come back at all. But Sebastien was never so lucky. Tchu. Never that.
His visitor, from grace or sadism, Sebastien wasn't quite sure which, did not say anything. Left it for Sebastien to open, left him gather himself. Simply waited, breathing calm and measured, at the other side of the room. Somehow, for some reason, smaller in presence than his size should allow. Patient as the mud, waiting to drag the city down. Briefly, Sebastien wondered how long the General's son would wait, how long would he indulge Sebastien's fear. Briefly, he considered testing it. Briefly, he considered finding out.
But no. Not yet. Not just yet. Learn first, little rat. Caution first. Testing later. If there is a later ...
"General's son," he acknowledged finally, some spark of defiance straightening his spine, some ghost of old hate firming his voice. "And how may I help you?"
The lordling didn't respond, for a moment. The silence weighing, considering. Such a difference from the past meeting. Tempers running too high, that time. The past flashing so close, too much for either to bear, and Sebastien had lashed out, flashed threatening in desperation. Revealing too much. Hiding so much more. This time, this time, the lordling wanted to watch. To see.
To learn. Night and riverdank. But that was the game. Until the last moment, that was the game.
"... Stefan," that soft voice said. Warm and smooth, mild as milk. Sebastien quivered. Just faintly.
"Your pardon?" he snapped out. No respect. Tss! Unwise, unwise. Go more carefully, little rat. But he didn't know how. Not yet. And he must relearn. This game was too old, and he'd forgotten how to play. But he had to remember, or all was lost. "Forgive me."
A smile, now, in the voice. "Nothing to forgive," said the General's son, gently enough. Moving forward. Resting against the other side of the counter. Leaning back. Away from Sebastien. Granting space, escape, despite the nearness. "Call me Stefan, I meant. If you please." A darkening, a lowering, distance in the voice, now. "I am not ... I am not my father's son."
Sebastien held the snort. He held it. "No?" he murmured, soft and low, and there was viciousness in it. A crackle underneath. He could show that. Even the General had allowed that. The General had found it amusing.
"No," Stefan repeated, heavily. "Believe or not, Herr Doctor. As you choose. But call me Stefan. I cannot bear the other."
Sebastien felt the frown, at that. Felt the twitch roll through him, the compulsive fluttering of his paws. Pain, in that. He heard it. He knew it. Knew so well, of pain. He leaned forward, almost unconsciously, turned his head to find the shape of the lordling in the air, whiskers turned to test the tenseness of him. Vibrating, gently. Quivering, minutely. The lordling hurt. The lordling flinched. But so small it could not be seen, Sebastien thought. Only felt. Only if one knew to try.
"Stefan," he allowed, after a moment. Sensed, somehow, the sudden give in the air. The faint release. "And how ... may I help you, my lord?"
Dangerous question, of course. Dangerous, tchu. Because Sebastien didn't know what the answer might be. Strange, worrying. Terrifying, from such power, to not know what was desired. But in two weeks, he had been able to find nothing. No whispers, no moving pieces. No plans, at least none easily seen. Nothing to show the movements of this creature before him. Nothing to show his desires.
And Jan was still safe. Safer, maybe. A guiding paw, only lightly felt, easing the young Polizei officer away from contested areas, out of the flash-fire zones of conflict where Wekha and Polizei clashed, and every moment was a risk of betrayal for a young rat who had once been one, and was now the other. Sebastien had seen, caught the edges of that guiding paw.
Didn't dare be grateful. Couldn't help but be afraid. Subtle, this General's son. Gentle. Sebastien feared that more than anything.
Stefan stayed silent, still. Simply there, his presence a press on Sebastien's senses. Not a threat. Simply ... a weight. A watching thing. Studying. Sebastien wondered, sometimes, if that was how the General had watched, when Sebastien had been young, when he hadn't thought to listen for the silences he couldn't see.
"I saw you, you know," the General's son said. Gentled his voice through Sebastien's flinch. "Before. When you were ... When you were my father's thing. I saw you."
There was ringing, now. In Sebastien's ears. His spine curved, and no defiance, no spark of pride, could stop it. My father's thing. Oh, night and water, fire above. Crawling night.
"He would bring me to watch you," Stefan went on. His voice was flat. So flat. Not daring to let anything through. Not daring to let anything show. The presence of him wavered. Shook, a trembling thing on the edge of Sebastien's senses. Sebastien remembered ... scars, ropes, bitten into powerful shoulders. Things one does not earn in a fight. "He'd take me to see you working. Make ... make me promises."
"Not ... not mine," he rasped, suddenly desperate. Suddenly pleading. "You were not ... one of mine."
"No," Stefan agreed. No comfort at all. No joy at all. The world quivered, cold about Sebastien's ears. "Never yours. But he promised. Promised me, if I was not the son he needed, if I was not the servant he required. He promised me there were things in the dark, blind things that didn't need the light. And they would take me, if I failed him. They would ... make me scream."
Sebastien's breath caught. Tore. Hitching through him, the memories swarming beneath his paws, the sounds drowning in his ears. Shuddering breaths. Cries. Blind pleading. He never saw their faces. Never could. But he'd heard their voices. Felt their flinching. Remembered, those bright-dark moments, what he thought red might be like, where they screamed. He hunched down, curved, all the way. Pressed a blind head to the wood. Clung to it.
"I am not my father's son," Stefan said. Moving, coming about. Standing over Sebastien, some shape looming above the screaming in his ears. Paws coming to rest over Sebastien's, to hold them as Sebastien tried to claw into his skull. "I am not my father's son." Such hate, such fear, buzzing in the voice, so familiar. Sebastien had sounded like that, once. In his head, in his heart. He had begged like that. Not to be that thing. Not to remember that thing.
"What do you want?" he asked, nearly soundless, crushed to nothing. He remembered this, too. Remembered how small he was. How frail. How terrible a kindness could seem, when you knew you were so weak, knew you were so fragile that the least show of strength could shatter you, and your tormentor did not. Did not strike. Soothed. Just enough that you couldn't shatter. Just enough that you couldn't escape. He remembered.
"You didn't run." And surprisingly, it was ... as though the lordling was trying to explain, trying to offer. Not wound. His paws were light over Sebastien's. They didn't crush at all. "You knew I was coming. You didn't run."
"I can't," Sebastien sobbed, his paws clenching, convulsive, tightening in his own fur, tearing at his own ears. Jan. Anyone else, he would have run, he would have left, let them fall or fight on their own, but it was Jan. Jan, who didn't know. Jan, who had no idea. Jan, who had never seen the General, and never, never would. Not if Sebastien must burn all of Carogne first. He couldn't run. He could not run.
"... Neither can I," came the answer, soft, with a hitch like a sob, or like a smile. Stefan held his paws, the General's son held him trapped, and it was breakingly gentle. "I ... You were not what I thought, Herr Doctor. Not what I feared. I didn't know. I didn't think. You were a monster in the dark, the lurking thing, and I ... forgot. That he ... That all the brightness in the world couldn't protect you from him. He was the brightest thing there was. And ... and he could hurt you, and hurt you, and all the world would watch, and no-one would do a thing. I was afraid of you. I should have been ... I should have remembered to be more afraid of him."
Sebastien shuddered. Small. So small. So breakable. He had always known, how breakable. Learned, from the first. Monsters came from the dark, they'd told him, but all his world was dark. All his world was dark. The monsters came from everywhere.
"I can't run," said the General's son. "Not anymore. Not from him. Not from you. I had to come. Had to see. Had to ... to feel your paws on me. To know ... To know what it was I feared, for all those years. To see you. I had to know. So I could ... find it in myself, not to run. Please. Please. You understand? Please, you must understand." Soft, and as small as he. As small as Sebastien, a child talking to the monsters in the dark, a rat, proud and strong, standing up. Standing in the dark. When was the last ... When had Sebastien last known that?
A young ratling, a great and brawny thug, with gentle paws. All the force in the world, trembling as he held Sebastien in blind gratitude for the least, the very least, he should have been owed. I couldn't let people like you keep getting hurt.
When had Sebastien known that? Jan.
"What do you want?" he rasped, softly, into the table. All his world was dark. But he felt the tremble in the lordling's paws.
"... To fix it," Stefan whispered, soft into the darkness. "To be not him. To help. If someone will let me. If someone will tell me how." A pause, small and bright, with hope that was the closest Sebastien knew to light. "Do you ... Do you know? Herr Doctor? Can you see?"
He laughed, at that. Low and ragged, raising his head at last. Letting his paws fall, letting them still be cradled. Stefan didn't think to let him go. Sebastien ... didn't move to make him. He raised his head, tilted it up, towards the ghosts of the past. The monsters in the dark. Because he had to know, didn't he? He couldn't run. So he had to know.
"Never, General's son. Stefan. Never and nothing." And then, while the paws around his flinched, tightened, he smiled. Rich and dark and vicious. Because he couldn't see, and all the world was dark, and he was, he was the monster. But he was a monster who knew a brightling thing, a precious thing, and he had heard the standing of children in the dark. He didn't know how to fix it. All the healing in his paws, his doctor's paws, nothing more than shadows of the monster he had been, seeping useless into the dark. He couldn't fix it. Not him. Not anything.
But he knew who could. Who might. And he knew ... what he would do to let them.
Stefan gazed at him. Sebastien felt it, the itch of it, ghosting over his shattered eyes, his bent spine. Measuring the ruin of him. The monster in the dark. Seeing ... something. He didn't know what.
It didn't really matter.
"Don't be him," he whispered, hissed, low and savage. As much a threat as poisons, as knives where you did not think to look. Because they knew. Oh, they knew. He and this broken boy. "Stefan, who is not General's son. Just that. And we will ... take care of the rest."
"... Just that?" Soft, dubious. Strong. Defiant. No. Not his father's child. He would not be so strong, were he his father's child. He would not be so dangerous.
Sebastien tilted his head, tugged back his paws, his small, obsequious smile creeping forward. "Tchu. What more could I ask so proud a lordling, my lord? Little rat doctor? Am I not asking too much already?" So much. So very much. To ask the General's son to be not him. To ask the shadows to stay in the past. To stand before his ghosts. Too much, too much to ask?
Silence, then. Long and thoughtful, and Sebastien felt the shift inside it. Felt the rat before him straighten, stand. Gather presence about himself, large again, with Sebastien so small before him. So frail. So weak. Sebastien felt him shift. Felt Stefan stand.
And smiled. Only a little. Tchu. Such a little thing.
"I will ... watch him for you," Stefan said at last. Warm and blank and bland. Mild as milk. "Your friend. I will keep an eye on him." A twitch, a lift. Sebastien thought he heard the smile. "Out of ... the goodness of my heart." Not fear. Not for a threat. Not again. Never again. "You will tell me, Herr Doctor, if ever I can help you, yes?"
Sebastien flashed teeth. A smile. Or something like. "Oh yes, my lord," he murmured. "And I you. If you should ever need ... my services. You will call, yes?" He bowed, low and smooth, and curved his smile into the darkness at the danger in the air.
"Mmm." A low, throaty rumble, real humour, a real laugh, as he turned to leave. Bright. Sebastien thought that was bright. "Yes, Herr Doctor. I think ... I think I will."
... Games. Such dangerous games. Old games, these, though not the same. Not quite the same. And perhaps Sebastien was too old to play. Perhaps, even still, too weak. But he had always been that, hadn't he? Always been weak. And age ... well. Age had its own advantages. And he remembered, he thought. He remembered how to play.
This time ... there was something, worth playing for.
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