They have a complicated relationship.

Etienne repost, for the sake of neatness and everything being in one place.


AN: Fanfiction for my own work...by me. Does that even count as fanfic? Well an original ficlet for Ideas of Sin, set sometime after that. Take it as canon if you want, pir8fancier does. :)

Adults Only, violence, sexual content, and it probably won't make sense if you haven't read IOS.



It was the slick, cool press of the knife at his throat that made him stop, his feet alone no longer moving as he arched his neck forward, into the blade until the hand holding it would feel the pressure and know his anger.

There was an ache in his head that had been there for the past hour and promised to grow stronger and yet there was still much to be done. He had no time for the games of a mocking demon.

"I do not have time for your nonsense." Etienne pitched his voice low, making his annoyance obvious even if he could not shout for worry of disturbing the creature now housed only a few yards away. Where she would stay, it seemed. Father had managed to see to that, making plans as though Etienne were not aware of both his honour, and his duty. How pleased his sisters had been, to see the duty no longer on them.

He allowed his lips to curve, not at all amused, then inhaled sharply through his nose as the heat his back increased, pressing closer. It touched him everywhere, the back of his legs, protected only by stockings, seemed to burn, his back scorching beneath his just-a-corps, what could not have been a bead of sweat falling down the length of his spine, sticking to once-crisp linen.

He would not and did not shiver, lifting his chin instead and waiting as the metal at his neck warmed. The blade was no longer as cold as it was once, even if it still hungered for him. This time real amusement made him smile, safely, where it could not be viewed by the dog at his back.

"We will speak later." The calm in his own voice at issuing such a dismissal was no match for the sudden jump in his heartbeat at the expectation of the consequences. Servants and nobles alike had learned to run at his voice in the past year, trembling at his very lack of rage and the way in which he could, if he so chose, show his displeasure. Only those who had felt the kiss of the leash would share in his excitement.

The pressure at his throat did not ease. The blood racing through him now seemed to flood before his vision, only red before his narrowed eyes as he slid his own slim blade from his sleeve and slashed at the arm over his shoulder. "I am not joking!" he snarled as he turned quickly, some of the blood splashing onto him as he did and ruining what had been a costly ensemble.

His body felt tight, his flesh still burning, the pounding in his skull grow hard enough to make him think fondly of vomiting. But he kept his grip tight on the pretty blade now spotted with blood, sweeping his gaze carefully over his enemy's body until he came to the hit he had scored.

Teeth bared like the beast he was, Deniau still had his weapon ready, letting the blood drip from his arm to the floor as though he did not know it was there. It was a pain he denied now, though he might feel it later, and Etienne opened his mouth wide in a silent laugh. If his own teeth were bared, it was only a reminder that he had his mouth now, to bite as he pleased.

Spots of red also marred the white shirt that the black man had chosen to wear while here in the city. Opened to the waist, as it always was, in the wetness of rain or the heat of a sunny afternoon, exposing thick muscle lined with scars. Those too, had been dotted with the man's own blood. It would feel hot, stinking of his iron hatred. It would taste of copper and salt, lingering on his teeth if he did not take a sip of wine, and Etienne pointed the tip of his knife in Deniau's face.

"I did not invite you to my chambers, dog." His breath came to him harshly, making his words slower than they should have been, and Deniau's nostrils flared to detect even this small victory.

"Afraid your wife will hear you pleading for my cock, rich man?" There was no emphasis on the word, and yet Etienne felt the ache in his head throb anew at the reminder, knew he glanced in the direction of her rooms, through the walls of his own. Almost the apartments of a real wife, though she was not that, not yet.

"You have never heard me plead," Etienne sneered at him when there had been silence for a moment too long, tossing his head coolly despite the sting at his cheeks. "How would she?"

A hiss left Deniau's mouth, a curse in his peasant's French, a rage in his eyes that he did not hide as he lifted his arm to his mouth and bent his face to it. His skin gleaming with perspiration as he tasted the wound Etienne had given him. Etienne watched his lips part even as he own did the same, gasping softly at the pain.

Too quickly, Deniau moved, rough hands grabbing Etienne by his upper arms and then yanking him forward, using his body to close the door behind them even as Deniau slid to the side. His body would bruise, and for that Etienne snarled, panting into the hard wood of the door as he was held there. His hold on his knife remained, and he knew that to be deliberate too, just as Deniau's act of kissing his wound had been meant to disarm.

"If you leave me the knife, I will kill you for this," Etienne vowed easily, shuddering as the fierce heat returned to his back, familiar breath at the back of his neck.

"You made no mention of a wife, rich man," Deniau's words were for his ear alone, though no one else would dare enter this room, he still kept their secret sacred. Only the flatness of teeth scraping the soft lobe of Etienne's ear promised any threat otherwise.

"I do not recall you asking me, when I was bound in the dark," Etienne lifted his chin and kept his voice icy, aware of the trembling of his legs, the tightness in his stomach that had little to do with sickness now. It was a score for him once more, always a score for him, when the weakness of honour reminded a dog he was a man.

Retribution came in the form of a hard embrace, swift and sudden to hold all of him as a hand went to his cock. Clothing, no clothing, the difference did not seem to matter to Deniau as he squeezed. He took what was his because it was his, and others needed the reminder.

Etienne bit his lip to hold back any careless words, feeling his breath pushed back against his face, hot on his skin, the wood unrelenting against his forehead as his footing slipped. No hand reached out to save him, and he smiled, for he had not expected one to. There was a soft stroke to his prick instead, just one, but enough to leave his cock pounding as his head had been only moments ago, and he closed his eyes.

"She seems charming," he murmured, his tongue like water, cool against his lips as he smiled. She seemed a fool. And he thought himself the same, his cock hard for the beast at his back, his legs spread in order to be mounted. But he would not beg.

"Quite lovely." His teeth were sharp against his cheek, shoved to the door with the force of sudden invasion, his grunt to be taken as one of pain. Perhaps it was. "Beautiful," he praised easily, feeling the slice of flesh, catching the scent of blood that was not his own.

He arched up, his back pressed to Deniau's chest, held fast with one strong arm as though Etienne were not already full with him. Short, hot breath under his ear and the threat of teeth at his neck, impatient with want for his fairness, furious at his defiance. Careless and weak with lust, supposing Etienne to be the same.

One shiver at last slid down his back, where a kinder hand might have soothed him, brushed circles of apology. A weaker hand. And Etienne laughed, breathless and quiet against the door, moving his hips to thrust against a warm, wet palm, shaking at the rough touch.

The dog pulled out in response, not completely but enough to ache, and trapped as he was Etienne still felt the storm along his veins, his muscles twitching at Deniau's slow drive back in.

"I will bed her tomorrow," Etienne promised, thrusting into a hand that would never be soft. Not for him. Hard and waiting and he felt himself longing for release, if only to have that hand pressed to his face, to hear the order to clean it as Deniau continued to fuck him.

His tongue tasted of iron as he darted it to lick his dry lips, and Etienne thought perhaps he had bitten his cheek.

"Shut up, rich man." The dog could barely speak, the thrill as hard in Etienne's prick as the teeth at his throat. Such need for him. Etienne almost pitied him for such weakness, grunting his pleasure as his own thrusts were pushed forward by Deniau's cock into him.

"Do you…" Words came slowly now, at odds with his furiously rocking body, and he swallowed his own blood in order to speak, to reach the end. So fucking close. "Do you object to that, dog?" he asked, his voice rising as Deniau shifted, as the hand tightened, and he was left to nothing but a wet agony, a scream against a door that the servants now knew well.

And still Deniau thrust into him, unsatisfied, unendingly hungry, and Etienne smiled through his body's pain, the caresses to his sore prick, his own seed used to coax him back to hardness. He would bruise, and the dog would again know weakness.

"Yes…" he hissed softly, echoing the word that he had not imagined hearing from Deniau's mouth, carefully whispered as Etienne had sank in sated delirium. The mouth at his neck was almost soft, fangs hidden until Etienne wished them bared once more.



(Ah, Etienne…) The End