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niennandil-me-writes · 2 years

Text

touch

CN: unhealthy/abusive relationship, descriptions of violence, gore

Marlowe belongs to @arocalyptic, whose artwork also kinda inspired this.

“Touch, sweet touch You've given me too much to feel Sweet touch You've almost convinced me I'm real I need something more I need something more”

Daft Punk – Touch

From the outside, it might have almost looked peaceful. Two figures huddled together, one holding the other in a tight embrace. You could pretend the other was sleeping or just very exhausted, and easily overlook that neither of the men were breathing. You could ignore the blood splattered all around them and over their armour and clothes and the blade of the axe lying next to them. There was a tranquillity to it, if you ignored everything else…

Slowly, Marlowe started shifting around as life - or at least a facsimile of it - returned to his body. He opened his eyes and flinched when he saw Teo over him. For a while they just stared at each other, Teo’s arms around Marlowe, Marlowe’s expression turning from fear to confusion, his muscles tensing under his skin, like he was expecting an attack any moment.

“What are you doing?”, Marlowe asked.

“I don’t know”, Teo said. “I just… I didn’t want to let go.”

“Are you going to kill me again?”

Teo considered the question for a while. “I don’t think so. Not right now, at least. Right now, I just want to hold you. Is that okay?”

Marlowe thought for a long while, the white irises of his pitch black eyes darting around, ears twitching, before he said: “Yes.”

Teo was surprised at the feeling of relief that brought him. He pulled Marlowe closer, cradled him in his arms. Marlowe didn’t return the embrace, but he also didn’t push him away, and that was enough. That was more than Teo had hoped for. More than he deserved.

Marlowe shifted around a bit, his battered armour rattling.

“You want to take that armour off?”, Teo asked. “Doesn’t seem comfortable to you, with all that blood and gore.”

Marlowe considered this, suspicion in his eyes. “Only if you also take off yours.”

Teo nodded. He let go of Marlowe for just a short while (immediately missing his touch) and started removing first the shoulder pieces and braces strapped to his coat, before taking off the coat and moving on to the plates. He actually couldn’t remember when he had last doffed the armour, if he had even done so since they first got to this place. Mildly surprised, he noted some bruises and wounds on his skin that he hadn’t taken notice of before, some from the fight from before, some maybe days old. As he let the last piece of black plate fall to the ground with a clatter, he looked over to Marlowe, who had started taking of his armour as well with clumsy fingers. With some satisfaction, Teo noticed that Marlowe had trouble using his left hand, which he had sliced off during their fight.

“You need help?”, Teo offered.

Marlowe looked up, surprised. “Uh. I wouldn’t mind it”, he said after some deliberation.

Teo came closer, started undoing the buckles. Now that he was closer to him again, he realized the main reason Marlowe had taken so long.

“You’re trembling”, Teo pointed out.

“It’s just very cold here”, Marlowe explained. “And I’m already always feeling cold. Especially when I’ve just died.” If that sounded accusatory, Teo took no notice of it.

“Can’t be of any help there”, Teo said. “Not like I have any body heat left.” Which didn’t matter because he never felt cold. Never felt anything, really. Even though now, when his fingers touched Marlowe’s skin on accident while he was removing the armour, he could feel how cold it was.

“You’re warmer than me”, Marlowe said, slight discomfort in his voice. “At least right now.”

Teo furrowed his brow. He could distinctly remember all the times someone (usually Dexter) had touched him and immediately flinched away, startled by his sickly cold skin, even if they pretended nothing was wrong.

“Maybe it’s because I just killed you”, Teo said, shrugging. “I always feel more alive when I kill someone, so maybe it also changes things about my body.”

Or maybe he’s just extremely cold after getting killed by you and losing a lot of blood, was Dex’ theory. Teo shot the axe a quick glance and chose to ignore him, even though he was probably right, as always.

He decided to focus on helping Marlowe with his armour again. Much like Teo’s, it was very battered from the countless fights against demons, undead and each other it had to withstand. Teo’s fingers grazed the big hole in the middle of the chest plate.

“I could repair that, if you want”, he said. “I’m not the best blacksmith, not by far…” He couldn’t help looking over at Dex as he said that. “But I do have some practice. Should be enough to fix it up a bit.”

Marlowe nodded, letting Teo help him take off the chest plate. The sweater he was wearing underneath was completely drenched with blood and sweat and was barely more than shreds at this point. No wonder Marlowe was shivering like that.

“I’d just need to get some good material somewhere”, Teo said. “Maybe we’d get some new warm clothes for you there as well.”

“I can mend that myself”, Marlowe said, never taking his eyes off Teo.

“Sure”, Teo said, glancing over at Dex, hoping he’d remind him later to pick up fabrics and yarn somewhere. Then he looked back at Marlowe, now unarmored, his scar-covered skin laid bare. He couldn’t help but notice how beautiful the man was. And then he wondered if he only thought that because he had seen Marlowe die, knew what his face looked like when it was distorted in pain.

But he didn’t want to think about that. Right now, all he wanted was to be with Marlowe. He moved closer to him again, laid his arms around him, waiting for any kind of protest, and when none came, he pulled Marlowe into an embrace again, running his hands up and down his back.

“Why are you doing this?”, Marlowe asked after a while. “I thought you were only interested in killing people. Why are you suddenly trying to be… nice?”

“I thought that, too”, Teo said. “But this… here, with you… it’s different. You’re different.” He had started absent-mindedly tracing the scars on Marlowe’s skin with his fingers. “Remember when you said that the only feeling I talk about is where I want to hit with Dex? Well, you were right because that’s the only feeling I’ve been able to have in years, ever since I died. But now that’s changed. You’ve changed that. Because I can feel for you. And I’ve missed that so much.

“So you don’t want to kill me anymore?”, Marlowe asked.

“Of course, I still want to kill you”, Teo grinned. “But right now, I don’t want to hurt you. Or I want to hurt you, but I don’t want you to hurt. Does that make sense?”

Marlowe didn’t answer and Teo took it as a no.

“Hurting you just feels too good to give up”, Teo tried to explain. “It makes me feel so close to you.” He let his hands wander under Marlowe’s sweater and the top he wore beneath, feeling the skin and scar tissue, fully aware how much better it would feel to trace those scars with Dex’ blade rather than his fingers, how much he wanted to pin Marlowe to the ground and slice into his guts, cut him open from side to side, until they were both completely drenched in his blood and his screams filled the entire Abyss…

“But right now, this can be enough”, he said. “Right now, I can push that aside and just be here with you, without hurting you. And I want you to be happy. Maybe because I just killed you. Maybe because I already killed you 63 times. Maybe that’s why I can feel something for you. Probably. I mean, the only time I felt something for Dexter after I died was when I killed him.”

There was a long silence between them, which felt peaceful to Teo, and uncomfortable to Marlowe.

Then: “You counted?”, Marlowe asked, incredulously.

“It’s just something I can’t forget”, Teo explained. “If you want to know, you killed me 45 times. Don’t get frustrated about the difference, I killed you 28 times before you finally started fighting back, so that hardly counts as a win.”

“You know, sometimes I almost start feeling bad for you, but then you do or say something like this, and I remember that you are just a horrible person.”

“You’re right”, Teo said, pulling Marlowe closer. “I am. And you have every right to hate me. After everything I did to you…” He hesitated, his eyes wandering to Dex. “There’s something I should… Dex told me to talk to you about.” He lifted the sweater a bit to expose Marlowe’s belly and chest. His eyes immediately fixed on the big scar across Marlowe’s chest. One could tell without closer inspection that the scar tissue went far deeper than skin. Teo pulled the sweater off him, the tanktop right along with it. Marlowe didn’t protest, not like the wet wool was any comfort to him anyway. But his ears were twitching nervously again.

Teo laid his hand on Marlowe’s chest, brushing aside the necklace with the ram pendant. He gently touched the scar, running his fingers over it. A shiver went through Marlowe and Teo couldn’t tell if it came from the cold.

“I wanted to apologize to you”, Teo said without looking up.

This time Marlowe seemed genuinely surprised. “You mean for killing me – what was it? – 63 times?”

“No.” Teo couldn’t help grinning at that. “I don’t feel bad about that at all. Well, maybe a little, because it’s you. But it feels bad in a good way, in a “at least I’m feeling something” way. But this was something I had no right to decide for you. It’s my fault you’re here. That’s what I want to apologize for. I’m sorry you’re stuck here with me. And I’m sorry you’re undead because of me.”

There was a slight shift in Marlowe’s expression that Teo couldn’t quite place.

“At least Dex can stop nagging me about this now”, Teo said quickly, “He has been for some time now. Said the least I could do was apologize.” Because Dex knew him too well to suggest that he should try being better. Because even as he had held Marlowe the past hour, debated with Dex whether he should try to stop hurting him, and tell Marlowe that he would try that, Dex had warned him to not make promises he knew for a fact he couldn’t keep. “So I just wanted to say that I’m sorry. At least, as sorry as I can be. It’s not like I can actually feel sorry. But I know what I did was wrong.”

“Because Dex told you?”

He nodded. In fact, Teo’s relationship to Dex had been complicated ever since they had arrived in the Abyss, Dex insisting that Teo should try to figure out a way to help Marlowe, while Teo was trying to avoid that subject. It had been a frequent argument between them, whenever Marlowe was out, whether it would be better for him if this time he stayed dead for good. Of course, Dex was correct in most of his points, but Teo would be damned to admit that. And anyways, it was not as if Marlowe needed to know all that. And Teo didn’t want to think about that now.

He grabbed Marlowe around the waist, gently but firmly pulling him closer. Marlowe tensed, but didn’t object. Teo bent down, to Marlowe’s chest, and placed a kiss on the scar over his heart.

“I’m sorry”, he whispered, and then kissed him again. “I’m sorry for dragging you into this mess.” Since Marlowe didn’t resist, he relaxed his grip a bit, but still held on to him.

“Is that the only thing you’re sorry for?”, Marlowe asked, his voice bitter.

For a second, Teo wanted to give the same answer he always gave Dex: I’m a murderer, we all know that. We know I won’t change.

But now he hesitated.

“I don’t know”, he said. “I mean, Dex has always judged me for killing innocent people. I’ve learned to tune it out by now. He’s just always been a better person than me. I know I’m a bad person, Marlowe. I sometimes wish I weren’t. I wish I could go back to being the man I was before. But I can’t. I’ve tried being a good person, and I’ve failed miserably. It’s easier just not trying at all. It’s easier just giving in. At least that way, I can feel almost alive now and then. Like right now.” He put his arms around Marlowe, felt the cold skin, the grooves of his scars, his slight quivering from cold and maybe also fear.

Teo picked up his coat from where it was lying next to him. “Should keep you a bit warmer. Not like I need it.”

Marlowe let him drape the coat around his shoulders. “Don’t think that means I trust you”, he said. “Or that I have accepted your… apology.”

“I understand that you hate me. I’d be surprised if you didn’t.” In fact, he would be concerned. Worried. That he had broken something inside Marlowe not even Teo in his endless cruelty had meant to break. “I understand I could never make it up to you, what I did.”

“Yeah, no, you really can’t”, Marlowe said.

Teo couldn’t remember when words had last hurt him like this, but he was happy they did. At the same time, he wished it could be different. That there was any way he could make Marlowe feel different about him. That he could make it up to him somehow. But he knew he couldn’t. There was nothing good he could ever give Marlowe. All he could do was take.

Even now, if he was being honest, he wasn’t holding Marlowe to comfort him, or warm him, or help him in any other way, really. The reason he was clinging to him was that it felt good. And that he was scared of letting go. With the exception of Dex, Marlowe seemed the only real thing in the world, and he needed to hold on to that, and he couldn’t let go. Was that selfish? Probably. But when hadn’t he been?

Just as it was selfish that he wanted to tell Marlowe what he felt for him, even as he still didn’t know what that was himself. All of this was so new to him, and he didn’t know what to do with all the emotions that flooded him when he looked at Marlowe. All he knew was that he never wanted to let this go again, that he never wanted to let go of Marlowe again.

So, as he buried his head in Marlowe’s chest, all he could say was: “Please, just let me feel alive for a while with you.”

For some time, they were just sitting there, huddled together on the ground, Teo’s arms around Marlowe, who seemed lost and not entirely comfortable with the situation. Teo’s lips pressed to the scar.

Then, keeping his hands on Marlowe’s hips, Teo moved his head, started kissing the other scars on Marlowe’s chest, then, slowly, moved upwards, kissing the scar on his shoulder. The one he had inflicted when they first met. The only one stemming directly from him. Then he moved his head a bit, started kissing Marlowe’s neck, the skin so soft and vulnerable, thinking about how easy, how beautiful, how exciting it would be to slit his throat. He pushed the thought aside and pulled away from him a bit. He took Marlowe’s head in his hands, ran his thumb over the scars stretching from the base of his left horn over his face, while his other hand caressed the soft fuzz on the back of Marlowe’s head.

He looked so beautiful. It made Teo think of an even more beautiful sight: Marlowe, covered in blood, every scar torn anew, one horn broken off lying next to him, his abdomen slashed open, body distorted from broken bones, his face streaked with tears and blood, teeth knocked out, his tail sliced clean off, but only after he’d already cut into it multiple times.

To drive this image from his mind, Teo leaned forward and kissed Marlowe on the lips. Gently at first, then more hungrily, keeping his eyes half-open to take in Marlowe’s reaction. Marlowe just sat still, mouth closed against the kiss, staring into Teo’s eyes. That was alright. He didn’t need him to kiss back.

Teo put his right hand to the back of Marlowe’ head, laid the other to his chest and pushed him to the ground. He ran his fingers through Marlowe’s hair, matted together with sweat and blood, his other hand wandering over his body, feeling the scars on his skin, like he wanted to memorize them. Like he wanted to take in every detail of Marlowe, while he still had some capacity to feel.

“I love you”, he murmured against Marlowe’s lips. And then: “I’m sorry.”

Marlowe stared at him in disbelief, but he still didn’t push him away, so Teo just kept kissing him, kept feeling him.

Then Teo could feel some of the tension leave Marlowe’s body. He parted his lips a little, letting Teo’s tongue enter his mouth. Teo noticed a soft pressure on his back that had probably been there for a while and realized that Marlowe had wrapped his tail around him.

Fuck, this still wasn’t enough! He needed more, needed to feel Marlowe in a different way, a closer way. Left hand grabbing Marlowe’s hip, his other hand wandered around Marlowe’s body, his chest, his stomach, then went somewhere else, and then he pulled away from the kiss and held Dex to Marlowe’s chest.

Slightly out of breath, Teo said: “We should have both seen that coming.”

At the exact same time, Marlowe called out something in a language Teo didn’t understand but recognized by now. His hand was on the holy symbol around his neck. Teo felt a familiar tension go through him.

“Well, I did see it coming”, Marlowe said and pushed Teo’s paralyzed body off him.

Teo was surprised at how little offence he took when Marlowe pried Dex from his hands. If anything, the sight of Marlowe wielding Dex excited him. Still unable to move, Teo’s glance shot back and forth between the glinting blade and Marlowe’s black eyes, wordlessly begging him to bring this to its only natural conclusion.

So, when Marlowe finally brought Dex’ blade down on him, cutting through his throat in one swift motion, a last wave of joy went through him along with the pain, before everything went dark. After all, there was no better feeling left to him than being killed by the two people he loved.

#my writing #oc writing #teo dagger #marlowe spade #dex #into the abyss #cn violence #i have been editing this for ages #might rework it in the future but i also don't want it to catch dust on my laptop #the first draft is old enough that the 'don't want to let go' isn't even a reference to the interlude #in retrospect i think teo talks too much but that's also how he is with people he cares about #do i tag this as a ship?

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