This really should have been one chaptered fic, but by the time I realized that it was too late... This picks up right at the end of the last installment however many years ago, and that it exists at all is purely due to staubengel. :)
I'm thinking one more chapter to finish us off with Dustfinger, out soon ideally before I lose the buzz again.
"No!" Orpheus called, taking a single step forward. "Don't!"
Basta's grin widened, furious. He felt hot all over, filled to the brim with rage. He wasn't sure who in this room he hated most at the moment, but he hated them all, that much he knew and that much could be worked with.
Under the blade of his knife, Dustfinger was still. He looked up at Basta with something horribly like trust, leaned back into his chest and let him cut, and it sent a burning thrill all through him. For all that the situation was a mess, Dustfinger was finally his, in his arms, at his mercy, on his side. It made him feel powerful.
He cut deeper into the fire-dancer's skin. The Magpie watched impassively, and oh, he hated her all the more for that little trick, but it didn't matter. She wasn't the target. Orpheus was, with his pitiful obsession, his weak ardor for secondhand tales of someone he'd never truly know, never possess like he wanted. Like Basta was, right now.
"Stop, stop, wait," the fool begged, and Basta barked a laugh.
"I will if you read, Silvertongue," he ordered.
In his arms, Dustfinger stiffened. Basta pulled the blade back a little, not wanting to accidentally slice too deep, and glanced down. His breath caught, another roll of heat went through him as their eyes met. Dustfinger's dark eyes, wide with shock and fear, so familiar like this. His throat gleamed red, his hair lay limp across his face, his back bent slightly to fit his head against Basta's shoulder, he stared up at his captor and slowly, slowly relaxed again.
The Magpie shook her head. Her hand reached into a pocket, clutched tight around something hidden, no doubt deadly. Her eyes gleamed greedily.
"He's not going to do that," she said, old crone's voice twisted, trembling with glee. "He knows that if he does that, I'll kill him next, won't I? He knows that my men have him surrounded. He knows."
Orpheus trembled, but the hand he held in the air subsided. Basta glared at him, disgusted all the more – then turned, releasing Dustfinger and pulling his arm back. The fire-dancer crumpled to the floor, and in the same moment Mortola snatched her hand out of her pocket. There was a little bag held in her fist, her eyes were gleaming, Basta flipped the knife in his hand and threw it, hard.
The hilt of the blade hit her hand, knocking the bag loose. Powder spilled out on the floor behind her, and she gasped, stepping away. Basta stepped over Dustfinger, plucking the second knife from his belt, and held this one tight in his hand as he stabbed forward. One hand caught the old witch by the throat, squeezing, choking any sound out of her; the other swung forward, then back, again and again until blood spattered everywhere and she fell still at last.
He dropped her with a snarl. Basta turned around and grinned wide at Orpheus, who was staring at him like he was a monster from the dark, stepped right out of a forgotten nightmare. Dustfinger, on his knees next to his marten's cage, looked far less shocked. He was already brutally familiar with Basta's worst, and only looked up at him with a wary expression.
Basta stepped over to him, reaching down with a bloody hand to curl his fingers deep in that red hair. Red on red, he pulled up and Dustfinger rose to his feet silently, wincing a little as he clutched the cage to his chest. Basta let go of his hair once he was up, let his arm fall heavy around the fire-eater's shoulders, shivering when the man didn't even try to pull away. Basta felt shaken, entirely out of control. This world had finally eaten it all away: now, his master was dead, his master's mother dead by his own hands, finally. That woman with her poisons, indirect and insidious, her mistake had been made the instant she came here alone. Killing her was satisfying, in a way murder so often wasn't. Killing her, and cowing Orpheus, and Dustfinger in his grasp, finally, and Basta felt completely wild, vicious indeed and willing finally to follow his impulses and desires without hesitation. He'd waited for this; now, it was time to take.
"Like I said," Basta told Orpheus, "read us home."
The liar licked his lips, swallowed. His eyes darted around the room, lingering on the powder across the floor, Basta's arm over Dustfinger's shoulder, the window, the door. Finally, they came to rest staring down at his desk. He took two steps towards it, picked up the loose papers resting there, and his smile up at Basta was a wicked clever thing.
"I'll read for you," he said slowly, voice smooth as honey running down a knife, "on one condition: I come along too. You heard her, I'm not safe here anymore. I need to add myself in, to join you."
Basta's first instinct was to refuse, to threaten and crowd in, wave the blade still dripping the crone's blood in Orpheus' face. He wanted to force the situation to his liking, to shove at it until it broke –
"All right," Dustfinger said, his first words in long minutes emerging soft. There was a strange edge to his voice; he hooked his fingers into the bars of the birdcage that held his marten, ignoring the way it gnawed at his fingers. "You can come with us."
He turned slightly, tilted his head back to meet Basta's eyes. A hunger rushed through the killer at the sight, a seamless blend of hate and desire and far worse things; he felt it shaking him, like a purr rumbling deep in his chest. Some kind of satisfaction he'd never known before now.
"Let's go back, Basta," Dustfinger said, his first words to the fire-starter since their kiss all those weeks ago, and there was a bright flare in his eyes, something burning out of control. Hope, or something like it, strengthened his hoarse voice, and he still made no move to get away, but Basta tightened his grip anyway, bringing the edge of his knife up to trace a scar down his cheek. It left a trail of Mortola's blood behind; the fire-eater flinched.
Basta smiled wide. Dustfinger tensed further.
"All right," he echoed, voice a low pleased rumble rising up from his chest. He let his knife fall from Dustfinger's face once again, lazily aiming it at the Silvertongue across the room. "You're along for the ride. Just get us back there."
He didn't look away from Dustfinger. There was a heat building in his fingers, an itch to push further. He had nothing holding him back. Mortola had sated his bloodlust but that was only one type and he had Dustfinger now, finally, the man couldn't and wouldn't even try to escape. There was no reason not to do as he wished.
As Orpheus finished his scribbling and began to read aloud, Basta leaned down.
Magic building in the air, word-pictures of the Wild Woods and their love for the fire-dancer, of the assassin's panther prowl through the forest, of their endless circling round one another, predator and prey: it was to this that Basta bent his head and kissed Dustfinger a third time.
Again, Dustfinger kissed back.