judas_ophidia (judas_ophidia) wrote in darkcarnivale, @ 2011-09-19 15:29:00 |
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Entry tags: | arkady von wulf, judas / ophidia |
WHO: Ophidia and Arkady
WHAT: An incubus wears a pleasing form to offer the Ringleader some comfort
WHEN: Backdated approximately a week and a half ago
RATING: Erm...R? NC-17? There's smex. And vampire feeding.
STATUS: Complete
It was incredibly hard to keep white things white at the carnival. Especially white, semi-sheer saris, the likes of which Ophidia was wearing as she stepped out of her trailer, hair carefully knotted at the base of her neck, skin glimmering with a faint sheen of lotion, makeup soft and neutral.
She was going to see Arkady.
One good turn deserved another, she thought; Mary had helped to pull her out of the shell she'd built around herself when Faelan left. Around herselves, she supposed. Not that she had multiple personalities...she was just as innately Judas as she was Ophidia, these days.
It was difficult to keep white things white, and yet here she was wearing a white sari, moving carefully through the trailers, with sandals on her feet that had ankle-ties with tiny bells. She chimed pleasantly as she walked, and somehow managed to make it all the way to the Ringmaster's trailer without getting so much as a speck on her outfit...
Lifting her hand, she knocked, lightly. It was just turning dusk; she knew Arkady would be awake.
Arkady was indeed awake, though in truth he was finding less joy in that than usual. It seemed these days something at the carnival always needed tending to, someone always needed a shoulder to cry on or a comforting word or a favor granted, and it grew exhausting, stretched him thin and weary in the absence of Adair. She had been like sunshine in the darkness of his existence and without her he was too happy to go back to black. But the knock on his door made him lift his head, the dreadlocks falling over his cheek. Annabelle, maybe, he thought as he got up, moving barefoot toward the door and opening it. No. Much better. Ophidia, and his lips curled, a flash of fangs. "Good evening."
"Hello, Arkady..." Ophidia smiled, a little, up at the ringmaster. As always, she was arrested for a moment at his impossible attractiveness, at the forbiddingly dark and somehow alluring nature of the man...but her eyes looked past that, searching his face. She'd heard about Adair leaving, of course. She didn't think there was a person at the carnival who hadn't heard about Adair leaving.
"I've...recovered, as you can see. May I come in...?"
"Of course," he said, stepping to the side with a slight inclination of his head. "And how are you, dearest? You look lovely... I rather enjoy that outfit. It's very regal on you." Not that Ophidia needed much help in that department, but he knew that a woman could never resist a sincere compliment.
The smile grew a little, and Ophidia ducked her head, acknowledging the compliment. "Thank you, Arkady...I decided that if I was going to come over, especially in this skin, I should dress well. But..."
A pause, while the incubus considered how best to frame her thought; she lifted a hand, brushing it lightly across the vampire's cool cheek.
"...How are you doing? And please don't brush me off, like I hear you've been doing with the others..."
"I miss her," he said honestly, but the tiniest shrug of broad shoulders. "I'll survive, Ophidia. Centuries behind me and always losing someone, people are like spare change these days." He was truthful but playing down his own pain; he wouldn't allow her to see how shaken this had made him feel. How alone.
"...Arkady..." Ophidia sighed, softly, and wound her arms around the ringmaster; she held him, gently, fingers moving carefully through his hair.
"...I know you loved her." Her voice was quiet, breath warm against his throat. "I know you did. You pledged yourself to her...and she's left. I know you feel like...like you have to play strong for everyone else, and I know I haven't even known you for as long as some of the people here, but...you don't have to play strong for me...I can handle it..."
"There's nothing to handle," he said quietly. "Adair was supposed to be different. She was a lost soul who was... mothering, nurturing." He went quiet for a moment, then smiled a bit, his fingers moving through the hair at the nape of Ophidia's hair as he gave her an affectionate little look. "Do you know that before Adair, once upon a time, Annabelle was my lover? And she was... lost and broken and very, very confused, and she was full of anger and hurt. And I taught her to unleash that hurt, to embrace that anger's burn... and I helped her slaughter people by the dozens."
Ophidia's lips quirked, and she glanced up at the vampire. "Trying to scare me away, Arkady? I know the novels are a poor excuse for facing the real thing, but I've never exactly thought you were a saint. People...have pasts they regret. I'm young, and I know I regret...the things that I did. Or even if it's not regret, it's...things we'd rather not be known for. Point being...you act like this pillar of strength for all of us, sir."
She poked his nose, lightly.
"But sometimes even a pillar needs support."
"The point is," he corrected her gently, "I was a different man then. I destroyed things because I could... I reveled in their pain because I fed into the monster within me. I caught it and stopped feeding it, caged it inside myself... I became the man you know now. And Adair... she tried to show me that I was not that beast anymore, that I was sane and civilized and good within. That I was still a man." He smiled sadly, ruefully. "And she left because I could not make her happy."
"...She left because nothing could make her happy, Arkady, not when that boy went away..." Ophidia framed the ringmaster's face with her hands, thumbs moving once more across those angled cheekbones.
"You are not a beast except when events call for such a thing. You are a good man, Arkady, and more than that...you are a protector and a father-figure and a confidante. ...Let me help you..."
Her voice dropped, a little, as she looked into his eyes.
"Let me take the pain...for a little while."
He bowed his head softly and let her touch his face, her warm hands on his cool, unaging skin. Then he leaned in and kissed her, his mouth gentle and devoid of breath. He drank in her essence, the subtle intoxication of her kiss. "You know I care for you, Ophidia," he said in a quiet murmur. "I do not wish to use you the way others allow themselves to be used."
"Who says it's using me...?" Ophidia's lips quirked, a little. "Do I play the role of normal so well that you forget what I am, Arkady...? I am offering myself. All of myself...I would rather use what I am to help someone I care for than find some stupid mark to waste it on."
He was quiet for several beats, then touched her cheek with his fingertips, those long black nails. "You are exquisite, Ophidia," he said very softly, as reverent as someone worshipping at an altar. He stroked dark hair out of her eyes and smiled faintly. "You are so much more than you give yourself credit for, little succubus. Never place your worth on your blood. There is immeasurable power inside of you."
"Oh...?" Ophidia laughed, softly, though she leaned into the ringmaster's touch. "I'm not so powerful as you, or Riley, or Vered, or many of the others. I can only do...one thing, really...but I'd like to think I do it fairly well..."
"You do much more than you think," he murmured. "Love is so much harder to come by than power, Ophidia... love is something that few people can possess. But you are filled with it to the point of spilling over." He bowed his head again and kissed her temple, the edge of her cheekbone, the bridge of her nose. "Come to bed with me."
She found herself blushing, cheeks heating at Arkady's words; sometimes, when the vampire spoke, the things he said were pure poetry. She hadn't...felt overflowing with love, not recently. Recently she'd felt hurt, broken, like the love she'd had to give wasn't good enough...only Mary's forcing her out of her shell--in her other skin--had given her this desire to be around others once more. And now Arkady was telling her she was filled with love...that he wished for her to come to bed with him...well.
Even if it was what she'd come here intending to give him, there was still something...special, about how he'd said it. And so she bowed her head, a little, palm resting flat against the vampire's chest.
"...Of course I will..."
He led her back into the bedroom, the sheets that had been washed thoroughly and so did not smell of Adair. She had no natural odor anyway, only the soaps and perfumes of her decorum, and he lay Ophidia back slowly, undoing the sari she wore, his hands reverent and tender over her skin.
The benefit to wearing something that was essentially one long piece of fabric was that it came unwrapped incredibly easily; it didn't take much effort on Arkady's part to have Ophidia down to her undergarments, shivering at his touch. He was cool, but she didn't notice...he made her heart beat fast, her cheeks grow flushed just from the way his fingers idled over her skin. He always had had that affect on her...
He kept his hands moving, sliding them over her flesh, removing pieces of underclothes with that same quiet respectfulness until she was naked. He was still fully clothed and somehow that made it more intimate, more exposed. His head bowed, kisses over her belly and breasts, downward until he reached her thigh, his tongue laving over smooth flesh.
"Hah..." It was so strange...being exposed like this. She felt...an odd mixture of worshipped and...object-like, an animate doll...but in the oddest way. Not as though it was bad...more as though she were something precious, but in an abstract way.
Sometimes, she didn't make sense. Not even in her own head. Closing her eyes, she ran her fingers through his hair, spreading her legs to him, silently surrendering herself.
He lowered his face, his tongue sliding against her, a familiar flavor like brackish lake water, like sugar, like snowflakes. He was skilled and experienced, certainly, but he dipped his tongue into her, his fingers carefully joining suit and mindful of those talons.
"A-ah!" The incubus arched, into that mouth, those fingers, that uniquely Indian scent beginning to grow potent; cardamom and chilis and cinnamon, desert-heat and sweet palm wine. He was so good at this, always...centuries of practice, her mind sniped. But it didn't matter...it never mattered who he'd been with before, because he was with her now.
His lips pressed to her thigh again, the big vein there, and he licked and sucked but did not bite. He bent his body against hers and moved up slowly, shedding his t-shirt off the side of the bed, cool and impassive as he slid between her lithe cinnamon thighs.
"You can..." She'd held her breath, when Arkady's lips had pressed against her thigh, when he'd sucked on the skin. It had made her heart jump, and she felt a strange sense of disappointment when he didn't bite...
"You can bite...I mean. I don't...I like it...I don't mind..."
He kissed her softly upon the lips, letting her taste herself, and then his fingers slid up to caress those secret muscles, the nerve endings to make her squirm. His head bowed when he finished, moving across her jawline, and he nestled her throat, kissed the collarbone, sucked gently to bring blood to the surface.
"H-aaaah..." Ophidia exhaled in a low, breathy moan, fingers tightening in the vampire's hair, hips arching into those skilled, teasing fingers. Her chin lifted, when he marked her throat, baring her skin to him, exposing herself to those cool, talented lips, to the hunger that lurked deep in him.
Let go... was the whisper of her scent in the air. Just let go...
He drew his lips back slowly, and the fangs were needle-sharp, electric, clear at the tips. He pressed them into Ophidia's throat as delicately as hypodermics and he punctured the flesh, sucking gently until the blood began to flow.
Gods, this feeling...she could never get over it. In the times he'd taken from her, before...in this skin and her normal one, the one she'd been born with, it was always like heat, like fire, like agony and pleasure rolled into one throbbing wave that rolled from her throat to her toes and back again. She groaned, body thrilling to him, arching into the ringmaster, naked and exposed while he still wore most of his clothing...
"Arkady...!"
He drank deeply from the new wounds in her neck, slow and thorough, his tongue caressing the wounds to keep them open; his fingers kept moving within her, careful not to scratch with those wicked black nails, his other hand sliding up her forearm to lace their fingers.
Oh, oh she felt as though she was going to explode on those fingers, the fangs, as though she was going light-headed and dizzy from the pleasure...she rocked up into him, desperate, insistent, fingers clutching Arkady's for dear life.
"Please...oh, please, Arkady...! Please!" She'd always been responsive in bed, wanton and needy...she loved to feed into the desires of who she was with, but right now...? Right now it was Arkady feeding her, pulling her to the heights of pleasure, playing her like a skilled musician plays an instrument, and she writhed like a wild thing on the bed beneath him.
"Gods...just...a little more..."
He was quick to appease, his fingers moving deeper into her, sliding across what felt like expensive imported oil; she was so slick and soft around him, and she squeezed his fingers with those rhythmic thrusts of her hips, the clamping down of those pelvic muscles. His mouth drew back, lips trembling and wet with blood, his eyes dilated as if he'd taken an excellent drug.
Close...so close...there...! Ophidia cried out, legs clenching down on Arkady's wrist, holding him in place as she twisted and tensed around him. Her release exploded from her, a warm, wet wave, the pheromones unique to her practically swimming in the air around them...he had woken her, teased her to her first release, but even as she shuddered through the electric jolts of the aftershocks, her hand squeezed his almost desperately tightly. She wanted...oh. She wanted more, she wanted everything.
He licked the beads of her blood off his lip, swallowed, kissed her neck. The tiny holes were already fading and would be gone in ten minutes or so, his saliva helping her to heal faster. He slid his hand down her forearm, touching the veins in the crook of her elbow, and he drew away from her, sucking his fingers clean slowly before dropping his hands to undo his jeans.
"You're beautiful..." She'd opened her eyes again, when he pulled away, watching him strip; the words were almost....reverent. And perhaps beautiful wasn't normally the correct word to use, but...it was true. He was perfect, in the way that vampires were perfect, carved out of porcelain and immortalized, ever-so-slightly better in their form. And she wanted to feel that form against hers, that mouth against hers, wanted to bring him to pleasure as he'd drawn her to it...sitting up, her hands ran over his skin, up his thighs, over his hips, before closing around him, stroking, teasing, coaxing.
Her skilled hands on him, her infectious warmth... and alright, Adair had not been an ice queen, but she had been reserved and cool in these activities. She was not, for example, a beautiful succubus who was running her fingers across him like she wanted this more than anything. Arkady was using the precious blood he'd taken from her; his own impotence came from lack of circulation, lack of a pulse, but the blood he'd divested Ophidia of filled his veins and swelled his skin, made him hard as stone under her touch.
"Come..." Her voice was low, soft, silk caressing his ears even as her hand continued to caress him; she laid back, fingers never leaving him, pulling him after her--but gently, gently. And she wondered...full of her blood, in this moment, what would it do to him? It was not normal blood, after all. Would it make him lose himself...?
His hands eased her legs apart, up onto his shoulders, and his hips rolled forward, sliding himself deep into her in a single thrust. She was electric neon liquid under his touch, and he pumped forward into her deeper, his hands on the mattress now, rocking against the slight, soft body.
"H-ah!" Rock-hard, like granite, but given warmth from her blood and her body; the muscles supporting his weight were corded steel, and her hands gripped his arms without fear of unsettling him. Arkady was the strongest person she knew, after all...the strongest she'd ever known, and she rose to meet him, to take him in, to feel. Her lips parted, a gasp, a moan, fluttering eyes and flushed cheeks...
"Let go..." It was, very nearly, a plea. "Oh, please!"
Arkady didn't need much more encouragement; she was delicious and warm, pliant, eager for him. He absorbed her wamrth, her body, her willingness, soaked it in like a sponge. Within moments he was thrusting hard into her, near-violently, the two of them rocking hard into the bedframe, his arms bracing him like tattooed pillars of cement. It didn't take long before he bowed his head, shuddering, dreadlocks pouring over her.
It was almost-pain but better, and she didn't mind a little hurt. Feeling him shuddering over her, surrounding her, inside of her...when he bowed his head, her fingers twisted in his dreadlocks and pulled him down further still, rising to meet his mouth in a kiss that was hungry, desperate, wanting. She was bent almost double, like this...it was certainly a good thing she was flexible. Very, very flexible.
The kisses were quick and hungry, eager, and he buried himself in her. He couldn't climax the way a human would, because it wouldn't really matter even if his biology would allow such a blasphemy. He did reach a peak though, absurd pleasure coursing through him, heady from the blood he'd ingested, and he pulled his head back, fangs bared, a wild animal with blazing eyes above her as he finished her off.
The feel of him...the look of him above her as he reached his own peak, as he drove himself into her again and again and again...it wasn't hard for Arkady to bring her to a second climax, body contorting beneath him, yanking hard on his dreads. And oh, she did feel a little dizzy, after that...but what did it matter...? Her scent was sated, pleased, as she sank bonelessly back into the bed...
"Wonderful..." It was a whisper, fingers caressing Arkady's cheek, his throat, his shoulders, his arms. "You're wonderful..."
He rolled off of her, his skin without sweat except what had transferred from her own body beneath his, and he lay beside her on the tousled, flesh-warmed bed, his cool dry hand sliding over her belly. "You... you are moreso."
"Mm...flatterer..." Her lips quirked, amused, and she shifted onto her side; it was easier to rest her head on his chest, this way, to lace her fingers with his, to let their hands rest together on his stomach. She was quiet, for a moment, before pressing a gentle kiss to his skin.
"...You know I love you, right, Arkady...?" Her voice was quiet. "There are so many people here I love...and cherish...Mary, and Toby, and Aden, and Riley, Vered and Sioux...and you. When you hurt, I hurt so much...I only...hope that I helped the hurt of your heart, a little."
Arkady touched her hair softly, and when she said that she loved him a bright lance of pain spiked through his heart though he kept his face schooled perfectly neutral. "I love you as well, Ophidia," he said softly, kissing her temple, "Judas," another kiss to her forehead. "and everyone else you may be." He stroked her hair back once more, then pulled her to his chest a bit tighter, nestled his arms around her lithe, naked form. "Your love helps everything heal."
"Good..." She nuzzled into him, like a kitten, sighing softly and letting her eyes drift closed. "I want it to...want you to be healed. Know I can't make things right overnight or anything, but...I like it when you smile, Arkady."
He laughed softly into her hair, then tightened his arm, protective and quiet. Without the pesky need for breathing or a pulse, he was free to be quiet and still, an excellent bedfellow. "Good," he whispered. "Sweet dreams, Ophidia."
"Goodnight, Arkady..." It was easy to fall asleep, like this. Cradled in the vampire's arms, held as though he would never let her go...she was breathing peacefully in minutes, loose-limbed and relaxed in his arms.