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He hated this dream.
Edgar lay on his back on his bed, grey walls and grey light, a twilight moment during the day where time doesn't really feel relevant or important. Everything, at first, normal - not going to sleep, not going to work, just wearing a t-shirt and jeans, as though he was about to go out on an errand.
And there, just as out of place as he always was in what had been Edgar's very normal life, was Scriabin. He was sitting on top of him, low on his stomach, his knees folded on either side of his torso, looking down at him. Cruel smiles from him, he was used to. This look, a cold and judgmental regard, made him nervous.
Scriabin's growing power and influence over Edgar's dreams led to him exploring various weaknesses in ways he'd never anticipated. Exerting physical power over him was simple, that Edgar could understand - what he really dreaded were the subtler things, the new ways Scriabin had found to undermine and poison things within his psyche that weren't possible without some kind of physical presence, even if it was just in a dream.
Edgar couldn't get out from under him - he was too heavy, and he didn't have the leverage to try to push him off, or much of the inclination. Resisting often ended badly for him, as much as he wanted to at times. He'd had to learn that lesson the hard way.
Scriabin didn't say anything. He just raised a hand, slowly, with his fingers together and palm open. His intent was clear, and Edgar tried to brace himself. Adrenaline always made it hard to focus, his heart beating hard, something cold running along his arms, his breathing getting faster. Some part of him, instinctually, tried to get out from under him or escape, but another part of him knew there wouldn't be much point to it. It was going to happen, he could play it out clearly, and all he could do was try to prepare himself for it.
The slap landed with a sharp sound, which Edgar complemented with a short gasp, and it was hard enough to send his face to one side. There was a moment of numbness, then pain started to burn outwards like a flame through paper. Warmth spread in its path along his face, down his neck, down his arms and the entirety of his body like a wave as he tried to coil up, bring his limbs in close like that would do anything.
And then, what he'd actually been dreading. The pain lingered on his cheek, he tried to catch his breath, and adrenaline shot through him again anyway, even though he'd already been hit. A wave of tingles went through him, something in him twisted and made him arch his back, grab at the sheets under his hand for want of something to do, as he groaned through his teeth. A sudden flux of heat that went straight to his brain, that focused and surrounded the pain and made it addictive, a kind of sweet throbbing that accompanied a good bruise. He hated this most of all because he didn't want it. He didn't want to react like this, he didn't want that. Pain, he knew how to react to. He knew how he should react to it. This wasn't it.
Scriabin watched silently as Edgar strained to control it, struggled faintly to get out from under him, tensed muscles to try and escape that feeling to no avail. Both of his cheeks were warm now, his breathing heavier than it should be.
"I don't know how many times I've said the same thing and still, you refuse to believe it. Even when I demonstrate it to you, hold it right in front of your eyes, you refuse to accept the reality of it. You've always had trouble accepting reality, Edgar," Scriabin said, and he reached out and grabbed Edgar's chin to turn his head back to face him. "There are so many things inside you that you refuse to acknowledge, like that will get rid of them. Like your disregard will make them disappear. Here I am, living proof that it does not work, and still, you refuse."
Edgar knew what Scriabin wanted him to say. This wasn't the first time this had happened. He tried to calm his breathing as Scriabin held him in place. It was always much scarier when he wasn't smiling at him.
"I'm sure right now you are still attempting to deny it, rewrite reality to match what you think it should be. I can feel it, just like I can feel what you are actually experiencing. There is only so much control you can have, Edgar. Perhaps, if I wasn't here, you'd have better luck in lying to yourself. But I am here, and I'm not going anywhere."
Edgar just stared at him, breathing through his mouth. His cheek ached.
"You always want to put yourself in these places where things just happen to you. So many things about you that you choose to ignore unless you can be a victim of them, unless you can maintain some form of innocence. If it happens to you, and you do not invite it, then it is not real. It doesn't count. You do not want these feelings, so you want them to be forced on you, then they aren't your responsibility." Scriabin tapped a finger on Edgar's chest. "They come from you, you know. No one is putting them there, not even me."
This was just happening to him. It wasn't like he'd asked Scriabin to do this.
"I can hear you doing it now, just as I described. You can really be depressingly predictable at times. Do you know how boring it is? It's like there's a TV in here but there's only one channel." Scriabin crossed his arms and sighed. "In one sense though, you are lucky."
Edgar looked him over, wary.
"You and I, we are mirrors of each other. Inversed, often, although not always. But in this way, we perfectly complement each other. You, my boy, are a masochist. I've told you this many times before, and you always deny it. It does not match the image you hold of yourself, all the little matchsticks that comprise your 'identity'. You act as though your pitiful protests can erase undeniable proof. You promised your life to a serial killer, you barely even hesitated, and you try to tell me you don't want pain? I'm not blind."
Scriabin was sitting down low enough on him that he could feel any reactions he had to his words, or what he did, and he knew it. He shifted his weight a little, enough to provide a bit of pressure and friction, and Edgar hissed through his teeth, closing his eyes hard.
"You can't hide anything from me. I felt the pain go through you and how you lingered on it, how it cut through your inhibitions, how you embraced it like a lover. And I told you, we are closely matched."
Scriabin leaned forward, and this time, there was a hint of a smile on his face. One that Edgar knew well and accompanied a sinking feeling, along with the pinpricks of adrenaline as he tried to brace himself for what was coming.
"You are a masochist. And it so happens..." Scriabin leaned back, and he raised his hand again. "I am a sadist."
Edgar's breathing got quick as he winced and tried to prepare himself. It was a backhand this time, sending his head the other way with another sharp sound, and another pained gasp. He supposed Scriabin would want to make sure each cheek matched. He struggled to gasp for breath as it went through him again, another bloom of pain from his face outwards, mixing with the other, nerves all set alight as everything in him tightened and strained. It hit his heart, sent his stomach fluttering, an ache he wanted to touch, and he made a strained kind of whine through a long breath. It was more wanting than he would have liked.
"It's possible you made me this way for your own gratification." Scriabin sounded strangely detached from the possibility. "It's possible also that I saw your weakness, and decided to exploit it for my own gratification. It's hard to draw these kind of lines between us, isn't it? I suppose that's not what matters to you." Scriabin grabbed his chin to straighten him out again, and Edgar made another strained sound, something in him shuddering at his touch. "You just want to hurt, and here I am to do it for you."
He did not, he was sure he didn't, and he would have shaken his head if he could clear his thoughts enough to do so. He was breathing so hard, his mind felt cloudy and hot. His face was burning, and he wasn't sure it was entirely the pain.
"Something in you is broken, you know." Which wasn't the first time Scriabin had said something along those lines to him, by any means, but Edgar never wanted to hear it. He didn't want to hear it now. "Bad connections, faulty wiring. Pain linked to pleasure, pleasure linked to pain. It's convenient for you, then, that I can satisfy this for you. Give you what you want. And you do want it." There wasn't any doubt in his voice. "You really want it."
Edgar was breathing hard, his heart was pounding, he could still feel the pain of it echoing through him, but he couldn't let it win, he couldn't accept this. He just couldn't, and he weakly tried to shake his head.
"And see, you ask for it. You know what will get you what you want. And it's only luck that means that giving it to you will give me what I want. Do you know how satisfying it is for me, to be here, like this? To have you under me? To feel your body giving in under mine, even though you don't want it to? How powerful it feels to force you to confront your true self, regardless of how you try to fight me? You can't imagine how that feels for me." With a long and pleased sigh, and he reached to adjust Edgar's glasses, setting them straight on his face. "Much like I can't imagine how this feels for you. Well... that's not true. I don't have to imagine it, I can see the impulses traveling your frazzled, tangled little wires. I don't understand them. But I don't have to."
Edgar's heart was still beating hard, it was still hard to breathe, his face still ached and all he could do was stare at him. There were no words he could find, nothing that would stop this or change what was going to happen. There was nothing he could do.
"You never do listen to me, you never have. I'm sure you're thinking now that I must be placing these feelings inside you to coax them out like they were your own, even though I just said I have nothing to with them. I can inflict pain, God, can I inflict it..." Scriabin said, with a faint shiver at the thought. "But you are the one who enjoys it. That's about as incontrovertible as evidence can get for how broken the connections in your mind and body have become." And he smirked. "Well, if I wasn't already proof enough of that."
"If I'm broken for feeling this way," although Edgar was sure he did not, and Scriabin was lying, "then you must be broken for enjoying doing it."
Scriabin regarded him for a few moments, his smile gone. This could be a lot worse for him, and Edgar wondered if he'd just made it worse.
"Do you really want to spend our time together like this, going around in circles? Would you like me to sit here, doing nothing, while this torments you?" Scriabin shifted his weight again, and Edgar shuddered and again tried to get from under him to no avail. "Do you want to play Who's-the-most-damaged, or do you want me to give you what you actually want?"
It figured. Scriabin said he enjoyed it when Edgar fought back, but it was always only on his terms.
"I... I don't want you to..." Edgar's voice trailed off, and Scriabin grabbed the front of his shirt to haul him up a few inches. He raised his hand again, causing another flood of fear and anticipation to go through him, sending his heartbeat to his ears.
"We always play the same games, every time you feel like going through this, every time you want to indulge this disgusting part of you. Your ritualized absolving of responsibility. Always, it ends the same way."
"Unh-!" The slap connected heavily, it nearly knocked off his glasses, and pain grew easily with pain already in place. It radiated through his face now, left him trembling, weak in his grip and unable to hold himself up in the face of it. Edgar panted for breath, his eyes watering, grasping feebly at nothing. He could feel heat running through him, pooling in one place, he found himself thinking of Scriabin's movement in spite of himself, he didn't want it, he didn't want it but he wanted it.
"Always, in the end, it comes to the same conclusion." Scriabin waited until Edgar looked back to him, until he saw his hand raised again and a fearful kind of whimper worked its way into his breathing. "Always, in the end, I can feel you asking, I can hear it. 'Please, sir, may I have another.'"
Shame ran through him for that, a kind of self-loathing that sent the pain on edge, twisted it in some way, heightened it and made it impossible to think of anything else. His feet slid helplessly across the comforter, his body ached to do something with all this frantic energy, to escape from the pain or do something he didn't want to name, he didn't want to acknowledge.
Scriabin waited, his hand poised, and he let Edgar fall back onto the sheets. Edgar felt drained, empty, hollowed out in some way, a vessel only now for the fear and the adrenaline and the anticipation of it, the prickling running all the way through him, the wanting he couldn't find a focus for.
"Well? You heard me. Go ahead. Say it. I know you want to."
Edgar struggled to control his breathing, tried not to think of it and only of how he didn't want this, this wasn't who he was, this wasn't how he felt, his body must have been someone else's because this was not how his body reacted. He didn't react to this like this. As pain grew weaker he didn't want it to come back. He didn't want that sudden spark of shock and fear to blaze through his thoughts, that electrical burst of pain that cleared everything in him and everything he'd done and made it all disappear into something much simpler.
"We can stay here, like this." Scriabin settled back against him, heavy but unmoving, so close he could feel the pressure but he couldn't move easily enough to get friction on his own. It burned, it wanted, it demanded, the thought of waiting for it to go away on its own impossible to bear. Waiting it out was what he knew he should do, what he wanted to do, what Edgar as he knew him would do, and he couldn't make it happen. His face hurt, it ached and it was all he could think of, and all he wanted to think of. Turmoil, agony, self-hatred and loathing, disgust and shame, all of that went away when pain shot through him like a lightning bolt, scattering everything else in its wake.
"It is, in its own way, a form of oblivion. A way to destroy the self, if only temporarily," Scriabin said, reading his thoughts because of course he would, he always did. "And of course, it's obvious why you wouldn't want to exist. I can give that to you, if you ask me for it. I know you want it."
Edgar shuddered at the thought of it, his back arching as he moved against the covers, clawed at them like some kind of other sensation could replace the one that was fading now, but it didn't work.
"Nnnnh..." A shaky sound that broke into a breathless kind of moan, a request without words, but that wouldn't be enough.
"You are begging for it already. Is it really so much worse to say it outloud at this point? It's a formality at best." Scriabin leaned over him, lowering his voice in a way that went right to Edgar's stomach, sent heat through his lower body again. "I can give you all the pain you ask for. Every bit of it you want, all of it you're craving. I can give that to you, if you ask. I know you want me to. You want me to."
He couldn't, he didn't, he did but he fought it. He didn't want it.
"I can wait." Scriabin leaned back again, this time smiling, with his arms crossed. "I have all night, you know. You can fight it, if you want, but I know you'll give in eventually. You are addicted to it, and one small taste of it is enough to send you crawling back for more. I know it as well as you do. You can deny it, but your self-control isn't that strong. You'll give in. You always do."
Edgar struggled again to get out from under him, but he wasn't budging, and he wasn't giving him what he wanted. When he tried to sit up, Scriabin set a hand on his chest and pushed him back down firmly, and that in and of itself left him weak once again.
"Think about it, Edgar," Scriabin said, in that smooth and low voice again, smiling now. "I know you are. Think about how it feels, how sweet it is, that pain. That ache you can't leave alone, how it goes all the way through you. The sharpness of it, how it softens, how it leaves you trembling. The heat of it, how it wakes you up, internally and externally. How it makes you feel alive, how it makes you feel things. How it feels as it goes through you, when it ravages you from the inside out. Think about it, think about how warm it is, how sensitive it makes you." He ran a finger lightly over Edgar's bruised cheek, and Edgar whimpered in spite of himself. "Think about how it takes control of you, how helpless you are to it, how powerful it can be. It can be yours, as long as you like, as hard as you like. You just have to ask, my boy. You just have to ask."
Everything in him was twisting, he writhed underneath him, trying to get away from him and himself, away from any of this, towards and away the ache of it and the thought of bruises, dark bruises on his skin. His words, his voice, he couldn't get away from it, he couldn't get away, he hated it, he hated this, he was so hot, everything burned, it could burn brighter and he wanted it to until it blocked out everything else, until there was nothing left to tie him to anything, until he could let go and give himself over to something else and just stop being this awful thing.
"Please..." Trembling, and he swallowed and shuddered as shame swept through him with no mercy.
"The whole thing." Scriabin touched one fingernail to his cheek, the lightest of scratches, and Edgar groaned as something like electricity ran along his spine, reservations making one last and pointless stand, and then he fell back against the sheets, panting and helpless.
"Please..."
"Please, sir."
Edgar swallowed, his face burning but not the right way, the ache fading, and he wanted anything but this awful shame, something to wipe it away, wipe everything away.
"Please, sir," Edgar managed to get out, breathless, shivering as his stomach clenched at the words, at the humiliation of it, that the words came out of his mouth. Something like terror ran through him, it felt like his heart was going to beat out of his chest as he stood on the edge of a terrible drop. It fought its way out of him, he didn't want to fall but he couldn't move away, he couldn't think, not like this. It came as the weakest whisper. "May I... have another..."
He couldn't look at him, it felt like the shame of it would immolate him from within, but he heard Scriabin laugh in that smug, satisfied way he always did when he'd won.
"I told you you would."
This time, he didn't see it coming, and the slap hit hard. He gasped, loudly, and the pain went through him again, cleared everything in his thoughts except the sensation of it, the hurting, the life it brought into him, and he bucked against him, tried to bring his legs to his chest but Scriabin blocked the way and that made it worse, or better. It echoed through his lower body, between his legs and he threw his head back, gasping for breath through a tight throat.
"Again," Scriabin said, and Edgar made a faint whine. Scriabin grabbed his chin to make him face him, set him in place for the next, and the pain from the last hadn't even faded, and he thought about the next on top of that.
"Another," through a fervent gasp, and Scriabin was happy to oblige. It stung through flames, he could still feel it against his face as it hit, as it crackled through his body. "Aagh-!"
Rational thought was fading, dying, all that was left was the pain, just as addictive as Scriabin had said, just as sweet in the agony of it, just as powerful. He couldn't think, he couldn't see, he struggled to breathe as effort and some kind of pleasure colored each of them, inside and out. The lines were crossed, had crossed, he wanted more of this, he wanted to be nothing but this, feel it all the way through him, the satisfying burn of it. Pleasure, pleasure, he was delirious, he was high on the sensation of it, he was nothing but this beautiful, beautiful pain.
"Another- nngh-!"
It was hard, just as he wanted, just as he'd hoped for, just as he would have expected from Scriabin, to show him no mercy. He didn't want any, he wanted to feel nothing but this, be nothing like this. His face burned, pain all along the sides of it, up to his head, down to his neck, and he was crying now and he wasn't sure when it'd started, and that in itself was satisfying. The tears were proof it was happening, they were proof that it hurt, that it hurt so much he couldn't bear it, he couldn't bear it.
"Another-"
He was gasping with it now, close to sobbing with something that blended pain and fear and some kind of relief, a trembling anticipation each time his hand raised and the satisfaction as the crack of it landing drove out anything else. It shuddered through his body like it'd drive him apart, and Scriabin made a pleased sound at each pained noise he made.
"Another... another, please... hhHN-!"
It was like something broke in him at that hit, whatever resilience he had pushed past its limit, and he went boneless and trembling under him, sobbing for breath as tears wouldn't stop coming. He pressed his head back against the sheets, like he could lose himself further in a bright cloud of agony that had blocked out everything else, that encompassed every aspect of his being. He had no power in him to ask again, he was so utterly drained and he felt so terribly weak, so powerless in the face of it, so helpless in its hold. Everything in him burned too brightly and too hot for him to approach any semblance of coherence.
"You look so good like this," Scriabin purred from above him, and he shifted his weight against him and Edgar took in a stuttering, frantic gasp. "Just utterly, completely, broken..."
Edgar tried to rise up to meet him but he couldn't find the strength, his heart thudded so loud in his head, it throbbed underneath that burning ache, and all he could do was fall back and try to breathe along with its rhythm.
"Bruises blooming, all those tears and you ask for it..." Scriabin shifted his weight further back, so the two of them could press properly against each other, leaning his head back as his own voice got velvety and shaky, pleasure running clear through every vein of it. "You always ask me for it... mmh, you want me to hurt you..."
Proper pressure and movement after all this was too much, and everything in Edgar went tense, something cutting through all of the pain, building under it to push it further, movement he'd been aching for for entirely too long, and he was all too willing to move with him, to work with him to the final resolution of all of this.
"God, you want it..." Scriabin seemed to be talking to himself now as throaty gasps began to space his words, as he shuddered and moved harder and faster against him. "Ngh, I can feel it... I bet, if I kept going, you wouldn't even need this, would you... I could make you..."
Edgar's gasps got faster, deeper, as he felt it rising, felt control slipping away from him, that sudden drop that came with his body acting without his input. Goosebumps swept over him, heat rushed to his face, he felt dizzy and lightheaded as it grew.
"That's right..." Scriabin still breathless, still moving, although he could tell from his voice that he was also close. He could feel him shaking, imminent release running between them like a current. "You give in to me, like you always do, you come for me, you're- ah, you're my-"
His voice, his movement, the ache and the throb of it, it dragged him under without warning, and Edgar went tense with a loud, shivering gasp as he came, harder than he could ever remember. Everything in it sparked through him, set off other reactions, an invisible web of fireworks that left him trembling and breathless, tingling all over and still hurting, still hurting in that dark and sweet way.
And they did mirror each other, just as Scriabin said. Scriabin's breath caught just when it hit Edgar, like he'd been startled, and Edgar felt it go through Scriabin's entire body and shatter his voice into a long, wanting gasp. There was no room or time for solitary pleasure, as connected as they were - always, with release, it was joined. Sensation built on itself between them in a storm of echoes, amplified it until it was almost unbearable.
As blended and blurred as they were at times like this, Edgar could still feel him within it all. Scriabin's satisfaction, the open rawness of it, of his self, foreign against his own, mixed into something delirious and ecstatic, and the pain kept burning through him, glowing like embers, unable to let him rest.
Everything in him had been strained to its limit, Edgar had no endurance and no thought left for anything. He luxuriated in the ache of his face and the heat of it still, the pinpricks that still ran through every bit of him, his heart pounding and his breath shivering. Scriabin was leaning over him, his arms on either side to hold him up, although with how they shook it wouldn't be for much longer.
"Nnh, god." He shuddered with a long exhale of pleasure. "You get off so hard to that. It's fantastic. You don't know what it's like." He was flushed underneath his mirror glasses, and Edgar could see in his own reflection how red his face was, the darkening bruises just as Scriabin had described. It was, something in him insisted on saying, what he wanted to see. "Mmm... or maybe I get off that hard to it. Things get so blurry when we're in agreement."
Something felt significant about that, like he should remember it, or think about it, which probably meant that Scriabin would erase it when Edgar woke up. Right now, Scriabin's satisfaction and pleasure in what he'd done was so powerful he felt helpless to it, all he could do was echo it and soak it in.
"What we did." Reading his thoughts again as he lowered himself down to one elbow, using the other hand to trace an idle pattern on his chest. "Don't forget, you asked me for it..." He gestured vaguely between the two of them, and he knew somehow he was referring to the ambient warm afterglow that surrounded them still. "At least half of this is you, you know..."
Warmth, and pain. Scriabin settled down over him with a long breath, his head by his own, and with their chests pressed so closely together, he could feel his heartbeat, a perfect mirror of his own.
He hurt in a way he couldn't remember, he hurt more than he could recall, he hurt as Scriabin murmured something beside his head he wasn't listening to, and in the dark red mist of it, that light and unknown pleasure of it, he didn't want it to stop.