Finally, my Phantom/Alviss lime. Next time, it'll be a lemon. Anyway, this was written while I heard Muse, Vast and the Cure, whose songs resemble me of the pairing not only in the lyrics, but in the melody too. If you could hear Our Time is Running Out or Hysteria, by Muse, while reading this, you'd get it. Vast' songs Temptation and Pretty When You Cry do the trick, too.

Warnings: Slightly AU (let's just pretend Alviss turned into a living corpse for this fic), dark lime (like dark lemon, only not so explicit) and extremely dubious consent.
Akari

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"Yeah it's holding me, morphing me
and forcing me to strive
to be endlessly cold within
and dreaming I'm alive"
Hysteria - Muse

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The Death of Me

"You'll be the death of me," it was a soft, husky whisper, muttered between rustling sheets and muffled noises. It sounded more like a pleading wish.

It was damn ironic. If he would think about it, it was so hilarious Alviss could probably laugh, had his mouth not been occupied with a frantic search for oxygen. His chest hurt slightly from the pressure put on it, and the dizziness that came with the asphyxiating sensation made him feel like he was drowning – Alviss tilted his head, gasping for air, his hands grabbing the deadly cold skin of the man on top of him as if he could take him back to the surface.

"I can't breathe," he saw no use in saying that, but he did, anyway. A grin was pressed against his lips and Alviss opened his mouth willingly. Phantom's ghastly breath made his head spin, the freezing kiss only working against his favor. He felt a shiver running down his spine, and touching the other man felt like dying. Even though his own body was burning with pain and something he could quite not identify with desire, Phantom's skin had no heat, neither did his gaze. "I can't breathe."

"Breathing," Phantom begun, and the irony was there staring at him. Alviss wondered if it was only an hallucination, but he could vividly see the it there, in the man's face. You'll be the death of me. It was such a deliciously sadistic expression. Alviss hated it. "Breathing is luxury. It's not a necessity. Not for us."

Not us, you, you, he replied desperately in his head, until he remembered the 'you' were 'us' now. How Alviss wished Phantom's painfully cruel hope was real.

"I hate you," he moaned as his body gave in, the forceful pain diminishing as soon as he stopped fighting his curse.

It was not there anymore – not in the way it could be seen like before. His body was pure, clean white, as it had been once. The only remain of the blood tinted tattoo was an ugly mark in shape of a flame burnt in his chest.

It didn't took the engraved mark to remember him everyday he was not human anymore, though.

Idon'twantthatIdon'twantthatIdon'twantthat-

I need it.

"I need it," Alviss could hear himself voicing it out loud, and Phantom's grasp tightened. Acceptance – and Phantom's body felt like humanity all over again, like bliss and heaven, like he could breathe. Phantom was the only way he could pretend he heard his heart beating faster in his ribcage, and he could forget what he was now.

Still, it took a look at the man's eyes to remember. And then, and then...

What he was...

Phantom's eyes reminded Alviss of the cold of his skin, the ugliness of his distorted smile. Alviss then could see Phantom's lost arm, the way the red, bloodied skin hung carelessly between bones and stones, the pieces of ÄRM stuck between the flesh, the way his veins and arteries tried not to pop out, disgustingly hidden by stitches, and he wasn't bleeding to death all over the place mainly because he was already dead-

And Alviss was just like him.

"I hate you!" sudden realization hit him, and his voice came suddenly with more force, his hands searching to push Phantom away. The hurt and the disgust of thinking, for a moment, he could wrap his arms around the man and pretend they were something different made him nauseated. His throat was closing again and – oh god I can't breathe, I can't breathe, I- someone save me!

And there was no one because he had attacked them all. He was alone again, and it hurt more than Phantom's body clinging to him like he was some sort of marionette moving according to it's master's wishes.

Phantom must have seen his horror, because his smile was the sweetest of them all.

"Shhh," Phantom silenced him with a brush of their lips. The man could feel Alviss' nails digging in his skin, bruising and cutting in a desperate attempt to search salvation, even when the boy knew he wouldn't find it, not in Phantom. Not when the man pushed his body against the bed, not when every thrust made the man closer to pleasure, and him, closer to an edge he didn't want to fall of. "You gave up for a moment, didn't you, Alviss-kun? And it felt good, no?"

Alviss numb mind would recall how Phantom's caresses were merciful then. If he wished, if only he closed his eyes, he could feel those were not Death's kisses. With the world disappearing around him, he could feel the inexistent heat between the two bodies, he could feel lust, a desire of something he longed for and he could attain, much unlike the rest of his wishes.

But when it all ended, what would he have?

"I don't want to feel any good," Alviss spat, his eyes burning in anger and desperation. His voice was hoarse, lost between his ragged breath and his attempts at not ignoring how heavy Phantom felt pressed against him, how it hurt so bad. "Not if it comes from you."

His pride was all he had left. He didn't want to lose that, too.

How he loved his precious conscience.

Alviss could see Phantom's smirk turning into something more. A tint of sarcasm, words left unsaid – "So maybe you like pain with the same intensity I like to cause it" – and in the back of his head, Phantom's words bugging him again.

"All you wish, then, Alviss-kun."

Oh, he longed to be Phantom's death.

"All you wish..."

"I wish your death, Phantom!" it took all his will power to say that, all his strength was robbed from his bones. Alviss was sure he'd have collapsed if his back wasn't already pressed against white linen. It was not like Phantom was angry – maybe disappointed, yes, but not angry, never angry, never losing control of his own self – but he could feel the man depriving him of the sweet numbness that came with the loss of conscience, he could understand that Phantom wanted to harm him, not to make him learn, but to make him know he was there. To remember he was sprawled on a bed in his back, with the man he hated most on top of him. Hurting him.

"You can't live without your guilt, can you?" Phantom whispered in his ear, not really questioning him. The man licked his neck, kissed it as if that could make him feel better. Alviss could feel the mouth wrapping and biting and sucking, and he knew it was only to mark him, like a red tattoo that wasn't there anymore.

Phantom couldn't wait for an answer that was not quick, shortened breaths, gasps, moans he knew belonged to suffering and not to pleasure at all.

"Such an honorable boy... You know, Alviss-kun," Alviss didn't knew. It was impossible for him to know a thing that not the man with his mouth all over him, his strong, pale body between the boy's legs. "Nobody thinks you're to blame for being what you are. For attacking your friends."

"...ut up ...tom..."

"Just you."

"Shut..." Alviss tried again, his tongue rolling to the back of his mouth til he found himself coughing the words. "... up-"

"Are you looking for redemption in me?" Another question, another cynical remark. "Do you think you'll make up for being a monster like me if you spend all eternity suffering?"

Phantom would find it awfully amusing to discover he was only half right.

Alviss lifted one hand. It barely made to Phantom's head, and his fingertips had only brushed softly against the white strands when he couldn't stand the heavy weight gravity pushed on it. Not that it was a tender gesture. But he needed to reach out for something, anything. He needed something to hold onto. He couldn't feel more desperate if Phantom was strangling him, his head wouldn't spin if someone had just planted a rough kick in his temples. He arched his body to try and get free out of his captor's grasp – and Phantom gladly took it as an invitation instead.

Alviss could feel himself aching, the feelings becoming unbearable. And Phantom wouldn't allow him to drift into the painless sleep, pushing him further than he could go, with words as much as actions.

He opened his mouth – no, please, I can't take it anymore, - and tried to speak - but I need it, I don't want it but I need it so badly – and his throat was dry as his parted lips, and when he forced words out it felt like sand in his tongue, and he could taste blood and death and it was so sickening it twisted his stomach and-

It all came to a sudden stop.

He hadn't noticed how Phantom's grasp on him had become stronger, how the man's fingers clenched in his waist.

His movements had stopped by them, and it took a moment of blissful satisfaction and pleasure for him to pull away a second later, his eyes not leaving the boy.

"You're a monster now, Alviss-kun. Nothing is going to change that," his words were said almost in a secretive whisper, and Alviss could notice how much Phantom was enjoying the look in his eyes. "You can pretend you're still human for how long you want to. Or you could have it all so much easier. I have all eternity to prove it for you, Alviss-kun. Because after all, you know, you couldn't kill me."

A smile.

He couldn't get the heavy weight out of his chest.

When Phantom left the room, Alviss was still trying to breathe.

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I beg you, please, ignore biology (and logic) for this fanfic. I just realized that, if Phantom's dead, his heart doesn't beat, thus, he has no blood circulation, le gasp. He can't have sex. Hmnn, how did Anne Rice solve that problem anyway...?

Oh, yeah, by not making them have sex.

Great.

Well, if in MÄR the characters could be crushed against a wall and the wall breaks and they don't, let's just pretend that 'getting it up' when you want is included in the zombie tattoo curse. Because a whole eternity of not having sex would be too boring. Plus, we have Phantom drinking wine – if that's possible, having sex must be, too!

Akari