Soundless Imaginings | One-Shots

The Terror of Perfection

The knife slipped from his grasp, and he watched vacantly as the blade found purchase in his forearm, driven in so deep that it sliced through skin and muscle and tendon and vein without pause or restraint. He heard a faint thunk and decided the knife had slipped between the curved bones of his arm and embedded itself in the ground it rested on.

That was great, really. He'd bleed out soon if he didn't manage to free himself, judging from the dizzying volume of blood that was seeping into the dirt and staining his pristine white shirt. That irked him slightly; he liked this shirt, had just had it cleaned.

"Oh, is the little pauper-prince hurt?" a teasing voice asked silkily from above him. He was tempted to spit in his general direction but figured he had probably conserve what bodily fluids he could; his back was rapidly becoming damp with the viscous blood flowing, unobstructed, from the gaping wound carved into his arm. "How ever will I console your precious princess when I finally get to hold your beating heart in my hand?"

He was referring to Aoi, of course. His counterpart delighted in making infuriating insinuations about the relationship between Dracule Aoi (always spoken about as though he were female) and Angelus Timor, all of which were based on groundless claims.

"Go die," Timor said flatly, and his counterpart's lips flickered with undisguised amusement.

"Now, now - should you really be speaking to me in such a blase tone when I quite literally hold your life in my hands?"

From seemingly nowhere he produced another of his intricate knives, identical to one that had skittered out of Timor's reach some time ago, before he'd had to resort to hand-to-hand combat, and the needling tip was brought to the hollow of Timor's throat. Frost spread out from the point of contact, icing his skin and chilling the blood that pulsated beneath.

Timor reiterated his point.

His counterpart was less amused the second time around.

"You're getting quite uppity, aren't you, my lesser self?" G.S. Timor asked in a charmingly affected voice as he ground his heel into Timor's sternum, agitating a wound he'd inflicted just moments before their scuffle hit the ground; a wet gasp built up in Timor's throat, though he was careful to seal his lips, the only sign of his discomfort being the wavering look that passed through his gaze. "I really regret that I haven't been able to do away with you myself in all our time together. You're always having that princess of yours ride in on her white horse at just the right moment. It's a bit vexing, you know, how a brute like you has managed to garner enough affection that you have people who actually wish to save you."

Timor couldn't help but roll his eyes, knowing this would spill into a monologue of some sort that he had no interest in suffering. He carefully flexed individual muscles, straining to pinpoint a weakness in his double's grip. No luck so far. He was meticulously pinned, one foot braced against his chest, the other driving his uninjured wrist into the ground; his opposite arm was still fairly useless, and was even growing numb with blood loss. Then there was the knife still perfectly poised to slit his throat.

Only his legs were free.

"I admit, Aoi-chan is cute, but I've no clue what she sees in you, dear counterpart," G.S. Timor went on, with the air of one who'd been holding onto to a substantial grudge and was only now able to air his grievances. "You lack basic manners, for one, and then there's your typical brooding look that makes you resemble a serial killer. Really, there's nothing salvageable about you, and yet you're the one who gets to spend all his time with Maddy--"

G.S. Timor cut off in a strangled gurgle as Timor's knee made contact with his groin; the pressure at his arm disappeared and he quickly hooked his fingers beneath the foot crushing his rib cage, upsetting G.S. Timor's balance in the process and forcing him back lest he topple onto his ass. Without hesitation, Timor slid the knife from his arm and lunged from his half-crouch, and in a complete role-reversal, it was Timor who crouched over the stupefied body of his counterpart, breathing heavily but doing a damn good job of hiding it as he angled the blood saturated knife over G.S. Timor's throat.