✗ || THE SPIDER

| ♡ | ~ @poxsonmenace

The harsh morning light pierced the grime-caked window of Sebastian’s flat, a cruel punishment for the rhythmic, violent pounding behind his temples.( He shoved the front door closed with his shoulder, the deadbolt sliding home with a metallic scrape that set his teeth on edge. ) His left eye was swollen entirely shut, the surrounding flesh blooming into vivid, ugly shades of plum and ochre.

He dragged his battered frame into the cramped kitchen and cranked open the cold tap. Cupping the freezing water in his hands, he splashed his face, hissing sharply as a scraped knuckle caught his split lip.( A night spent shivering on the concrete bench of a police holding cell had stripped away the fleeting, euphoric high of the pub brawl. ) Now, all that remained was a sour, rolling nausea and an acute physical ache settling deep in his bones.

Snatching a threadbare towel from the counter, Sebastian pressed it against his throbbing cheekbone and limped into the living room.( He collapsed onto the sagging sofa, ignoring the sharp protest of his bruised ribs. ) His gaze dropped to the clear plastic property bag resting on the scuffed coffee table. Inside lay his watch, his keys, and his leather wallet.

‘You’re lucky, mate. Someone posted the cash an hour ago. You’re free to walk.’

The desk sergeant’s bored voice played on a loop in Sebastian’s mind. The portly officer had shoved a release form across the scarred linoleum counter, barely glancing up from a half-eaten breakfast roll. Sebastian dry-swallowed two paracetamol, his solitary functioning eye fixed intensely on the plastic bag. ( The mystery gnawed viciously at his alcohol-soaked brain. His old military contacts wouldn’t piss on him if he were on fire, and the fractured remnants of the criminal underworld were too busy slitting each other’s throats to care about a drunken sniper rotting in a drunk tank. ) He operated as a ghost, a nameless shadow haunting the worst dive bars he could find. Absolutely no one tracked his movements. No one gave a damn if he caught a charge for aggravated assault.

Except, evidently, someone did.

The anonymity of the bailout felt incredibly deliberate. It lacked the messy, desperate nature of his current street-level associates.( Supplying a stack of untraceable banknotes to a random precinct desk without leaving a name possessed a cold, surgical precision that made the hairs on the back of his neck stand at attention. ) Sebastian leaned his head against the damp wallpaper, his jaw ticking. A heavy, unsettling suspicion settled in his gut as he stared blindly into the quiet room, wondering exactly who was watching him from the dark.

Jim Moriarty remained seated in the armchair furthest from the window, swallowed almost entirely by shadow. He had been there long before Sebastian’s key had found the lock, listening to the scrape of boots across the floorboards, the hiss of cold water over fresh WOUNDS, the weary collapse of a man who no longer cared whether he woke tomorrow.

He had watched the deterioration from a distance for months. The reports had grown increasingly monotonous. Another bottle. Another fight. Another arrest. Another morning survived through nothing more than spite. Sebastian Moran had once been terrifyingly efficient. Now he was simply trying to DIE slowly enough that nobody could accuse him of suicide. Jim found it deeply disappointing. Upsetting.

He had ensured Sebastian walked free before dawn. Cash had changed hands through people who would never know whose orders they had followed, the trail VANISHING almost as soon as it had been made. Jim had watched from afar as the desk sergeant accepted the money without question, signed the release, and handed Sebastian back his property with little more than a grunt.

Then Jim had slipped into the flat that did not belong to him with ease, settled into the armchair furthest from the window, and waited. Waited until Sebastian’s eyes drew towards the darkened room before deciding to make his presence known. Ever one for theatrics. Even now.

‘Fuck.’

The rigid plastic of the first aid kit gave way with a sharp crack, the lid popping back to expose the sterile supplies inside the exact moment the familiar voice hit his ears. His jaw locked tight, grinding bone on bone while he tipped his head back against the baseboard, his dilated pupils scanning the room until they hit the man standing in the doorway holding a wine glass. The immaculate counters, the layout of the flat, the unmistakable scent of the criminal bastard; the reality of his location hit him like a sledgehammer.( Raven had bypassed his conscious mind during the panic on the streets, dragging him to the one place he had sworn never to approach. ) Three years Jim had played dead, spinning grand theatrical lies for the rest of the world, and Lucien had swallowed the hook right along with them.

His blood-slick fingers dug into the open box, pulling out a thick wad of gauze and pressing it hard against the ruined flesh of his side. Ribs screamed a brutal protest, joints popping as he braced his heavy weight against the edge of the counter and forced his battered frame off the linoleum. He ignored the white pain shooting up his spine, leaving a dark smear of crimson across the spotless cabinets as he found his footing. ( He had mourned the man for months, hollowing himself out with grief before he picked up the trail, the betrayal burning like battery acid the exact second he realised the beautiful bastard was still breathing. ) His gatekeeper knew his stubborn pride would have let him bleed out in some nameless alleyway rather than cross the threshold of the man who had left him out of the loop.

He held the cotton tight against his ribs, his free hand curling into a fist as his gaze darted to the glass of fermented grapes before locking back onto Jim’s dark eyes. He refused to give the man the satisfaction of a stunned reunion, his posture rigid despite the heavy toll of the demon hardware pulling him down.( He had kept tabs on the criminal for a long time, making certain his own presence remained hidden in the dark, watching the man enjoy a quiet retirement while he dealt with the fallout of the lie. ) A sudden spasm seized his left shoulder, the trauma of the night misfiring his nerves, but he forced the tremor down and tipped his chin up.

‘You think I never figured it out? Cute. I mourned you for months before I caught on. I just had too much pride to come knocking after you let me believe you were a corpse. Don’t worry, drink your fucking wine. I’ll be leaving soon, dickhead.’

Jim could imagine it. The betrayal. The hurt. Three years of believing the man he loved had painted the pavement with his own blood while the rest of the world declared the story finished. Three years of GRIEF that had slowly curdled into suspicion, suspicion into certainty, and certainty into a quiet, simmering anger that refused to die.

He could imagine the confusion, too. Trying to reconcile the memory of a body on the rooftop with the impossible reality of a man standing comfortably in his own kitchen, wine in hand, looking as though he had merely stepped out for an extended holiday. Wondering which parts had been real, which parts had been LIES, and whether there had ever been a line between the two to begin with.

Jim knew exactly how it must have felt, and if their positions had been reversed, if Lucien had vanished without a word, leaving Jim to believe he was dead for years, he knew that he would have burned cities to the ground in OUTRAGE.

Only, it hadn’t been years for Lucien. No. It had been mere months. Of course he would figure it out. Of course he would let the play drag on as intended, no doubt waiting for Jim to make his next move. Surprise had his lips fall agape for a moment, before he pressed them into a thin line with an accompanying FROWN as he pocketed his gun. Guilt trying to sink its nasty talons deep into his chest.

R☆ckstar☆ ★ ✮ ★ ☆: Moriarty's switch of preferred language to converse in earns him a raised eyebrow. Lestat narrows his eyes at the fingers that play with his car keys. He almost feels offended over how this stranger (meal, arson enabler, a little weirdo) toys with an extension of the rockstar. Not really; at least, not so deeply, because this very vehicle is going to be crashed in a near future and torn apart by insurance claims, leaving Lestat perusing another shop for his pleasure. His attorney is going to have a headache about it, but this is a spoiler.

"It gave me a," he moves his hand, gesturing from side to side, indicating himself and capturing Moriarty in the same movement. "Stomachache." It was the static of thoughts that weren't just bundled into a basket but let loose in a small, mortal cranium. A vampire's curse is how sensitive and involved they are with blood. The more intuitive a bloodsucker, the more the burden. With each draw from the man's neck, Lestat felt his emotions and the relationships between him and his brain. He could read thoughts, but each one was a run-on sentence, chasing after a new idea within milliseconds of forming. Grotesque layers and spiteful existence. Lestat gathered something detached, it made the blood taste different, but he is unsure what exactly the flavor made him feel. It increased his thrill-seeking; made him hateful for a moment. The fire wasn't Moriarty's grandiose suggestion; it was a straw that broke the camel's back. Lestat has been dealing with enough in a month, especially with the recent shootings, to care for the lives of a dozen. His mind numbed. To kill innocents so easily was not only against the Great Laws Lestat enjoys breaking, but also, it somewhat tugged at him. He would have liked a reason, even if the witnesses were to find a charred body. Again, he has no understanding of it.

"Boucle-la et conduis." Lestat snaps at the playful tease as he sucks on the filter on his cigarette, blowing smoke directly at Moriarty's face. "We just met, you don't get to hear what I think about you just yet." Then, his icy eyes snap to the empty ignition hole, waiting for the clue to be captured with that widely-cast mind net.

Jim considered the reason given in silence and very soon after, suspicion settled within him, not because he thought Lestat was lying outright, but because the explanation felt… incomplete. Too CONVENIENT. He had watched the vampire lose himself after feeding. Watched the distant look cloud those pale eyes. Watched him emerge from the blaze like a man sleepwalking through a memory no one else could see. Now he sat in expensive leather, nursing a headache and snapping in French like a man inconvenienced by a delayed train. No. There had been more to it than an upset stomach, and Jim conveyed his doubt by squinting at him.

That squint only lasted a second before it was replaced by a CUNNING smile, weathering the smoke with little more than a slow blink, before he turned his attention to the empty hole. The keys stopped their lazy dance between his fingers as he slot it into place and turned, the engine waking with a smooth, expensive growl.

❝You know… you’ve told me very little about what you think, but you have shown me.❞ Pressing a foot down on the pedal, he eased the car away from the curb, the burning apartment block shrinking in the rear-view mirror. ❝You react easily to insults. You answer to a lawyer. You lie rather badly. And when you’re pushed just enough… you become exactly what everyone thinks you are.❞ He shot him a SMUG look from over his shoulder, shifting gears effortlessly. ❝I’ve learned quite a lot tonight. And you’ve only learned that I give you a stomachache.❞ He chuckled under his breath.

R☆ckstar☆ ★ ✮ ★ ☆: the kneeling vampire beams in his triumph as a limb hooks around his neck to tug him closer into another painful embrace. The rockstar sneers through the kiss, surrendering his lip to a dangerous bite that bursts his skin and feeds his counterpart another metallic layer. They are covered in each other's greed, red-stained, and unforgivable. A crime against flesh that is discarded as an appetizer and toy both. The vampire kisses back with equal vigor, ripping up his lip underneath Jim's invitation to send it all to Hell. Through the bubbling mix of blood and tongue, Lestat mutters. "Yes, I am, dear." A matter set in fact by a man made for a big show. He knows Moriarty can agree. They've been showing off to each other all night, starting with a simple argument, and finishing up, well, whatever this was.

In the middle of their exchange, Lestat slows the kiss down from its feverish tempo. This time, he threads their lips in a swaying rhythm, leading with depth, rather than speed. His hand comes up to cup underneath Moriarty's jaw, keeping him there for a while longer to taste the mixed flavor of their blood. Then, the vampire pries his mouth away with a hoarse sigh and casts his eyes to the thigh trapping him within. Smiling, he dives to it, kisses the inner side until he finds a spot to sink his fangs in. The blood rushes anew, filling the vampire's gut to stitch the seams of his cuts and bruises. The static in his mind returns, and he hums aloud, reaching up to spread his fingers over Jim's abdomen, keeping the man pressed down on his seat in case he got any ideas lost in that cacophony of thought.

Triumph bloomed low in his gut as he felt the flesh SPLIT between his enamel, forcing Lestat to share his blood as his own was repeatedly taken. He swallowed that morsel with an eager growl, managing to suck the lower lip into his mouth before the lip was torn free from his violent embrace.

The relentless pace that had carried them through the evening ebbed without warning, the FRENZY giving way to something slower, more deliberate. Jim’s first instinct was to resist it, his impatience surfacing with a snarl as he clamped a hand against the vampire’s nape. Yet despite that, he eventually found himself matching the change, delving his tongue deep to explore the mouth rather than fight to dominate it. The quieter rhythm felt no less dangerous than the violence that had preceded it, if anything, it demanded a different kind of surrender. And Jim, for the moment, relented. Played into the push and pull.

On anon or not

Jim hadn’t the faintest idea he’d stumbled into someone’s apartment. Not that he cared. The only thing occupying his mind was staying upright for one more step, then another, while his hand desperately tried to put pressure on the WOUND. Whatever door he’d forced his way through had simply been the nearest one between him and collapsing face-first onto the ground. Home, office, storage cupboard, it was all the same to him.

Oh, I may be on the side of the angels, but don’t think for one second that I am one of them.