Metempsychosis: 1. Dies Irae
Disclaimers: Well, I don't own any of these characters, much as I love them. They belong to JMS and to whichever institutions he lets take care of them. So there is really no point at all in yelling at me for using them – after all, I don't get to go home with them afterwards. Sigh.
Warnings: Minimal spoilers for the end of Season 5 – i.e. the whole of the series. There is excessive violence in this little vignette [I needed to get something out of my system, so if this not your cup of tea, please go back now. There is no explicit sex here. Sorry. ;-)
Note: A big thank you to my beta-readers [you know who you are!, who must have gone over this with a fine tooth-comb twenty eight times and never once lost their tempers. I owe you guys one, big time. ;-)
Setting: Mars, 2264 [two years after the end of Babylon 5.
Garibaldi loosened his grip on Bester's throat, letting the blood flow down freely to pool on the ground, watching the psi cop convulse in a losing battle with death. With the aid of Lyta's little 'adjustments' he had been able to overcome the psi cop, but now, when he finally had Bester right where he wanted him, there was none of the triumph he had expected to feel, none of the fury or sense of sweet, long-denied revenge. It tasted bitter; and that barren feeling nourished him as no other had.
He felt the psi cop swallow convulsively, and smiled, slowly caressing the bloodied and exposed throat of the man he held pinned beneath him. He hadn't snapped Bester's neck; that would have been too easy. Ripping out his jugular – now, that had been interesting. The sensation of killing a man with his bare hands was unlike anything he had experienced – or expected. It was… exhilarating, in a savage kind of way, to rip at Bester's exposed throat and watch him fight to breathe – and fail, suffocating slowly, drowning in his own blood.
Absentmindedly, his hands slippery with Bester's blood, he cupped the psi cop's chin, rubbing contemplatively across the scratchy stubble he felt there, looking down at him. The pale face was still, silent in its pain. The eyes, hidden for the moment behind a veil of dark lashes, spoke of the pain Garibaldi could feel echoed in the sands that swept through the garden, whipping at them mercilessly. Suddenly curious, Garibaldi brought his face down, inhaling deeply the scent of blood and the fear of death radiating from the psi cop. So fragile, for all his seeming strength. So easily crushed.
It was time to end it. Now, quickly, before he lost his resolve. He lifted his head up, away from his prey, and let his bloodstained hands slip down around Bester's throat. In a flash, Bester's gloved hand lashed out and fixed an iron grip around Garibaldi's throat, bringing him down again, onyx eyes open, staring into Garibaldi's soul. His trembling lips tried to form the words his ripped vocal cords could not allow him to say. But Garibaldi knew. Oh, he knew those words and what they meant, and his head dropped down involuntarily, allowing the psi cop to spell out against his lips the truth that howled around him. No vocalisation, no telepathy here. Just flesh against flesh, as it had been thousands of years ago, signalling now, as then, the victory of the vanquished. The death of innocence.
Your soul is mine. I own you.
Those words. Unspeakable, unthinkable – just flesh against flesh, as Garibaldi closed his fist, slippery with red, wet human blood, snapping Bester's neck as his mouth still rested gently on the sweet, silent lips beneath him. I own you. Your soul is mine. A white flash of pain seared through Garibaldi's mind as something inside him was wrenched open viciously. A violent flood of incoherent thoughts and emotions swept through him to intermingle with his own, until he couldn't tell where they ended and he began. He cried out in pain and fury, or tried to; his voice froze in agony. He could do little more than stare blindly at the wall the sky formed around him, trying desperately to erect a similar wall inside his mind.
At last the tumult of voices dimmed to an angry murmur, violent and accusative, tightening their grip on him slowly as he sat bowed over Bester's alabaster form. He stood up then, bathed in the red brilliance of the Martian sunset and of the crimson blood that stained his hands. He stood up, and walked away, and didn't look back to see the sun throw down rays on the bloodied corpse that lay broken where a living, breathing man had lain moments before.
Later, much later, when he was alone, he tried to wash the blood off. Scrubbing at his hands, at the handprint etched into his throat. The blood was washed away; the stains on his skin disappeared, but the stain on his soul tormented him every time he looked in the mirror. He could still see his own face, a rictus of hatred and delicious abandon, reflected in Bester's dark eyes as the psi cop's blood flowed into his mouth, sealing them in a silent, unspeakable pact. That blood was still there, on his lips and tongue, hot and spicy and vibrant and violently alive as Bester had been – and no longer was. Garibaldi could still feel Bester's accusatory glare, the heated, restless movement of his mind as he fought for just another moment of life. The unexpected, ill-prepared for guilt threatened to consume him whole. Every time he spoke, he could feel blood on his tongue, the salty taste of the life he had smothered in a suffocating grip. He scrubbed hard, trying to clean himself of the stench of death that permeated the room, his clothes, his very being. And still, however much he scrubbed, however much he washed his hands, the echo of Bester's blood, and his dying words [flesh upon flesh upon flesh upon flesh were still there. Still there, no matter what he did, no matter where he went. Just flesh upon flesh upon flesh, where it couldn't be erased. Those words, echoing in the eyes and minds of every person he met; their necks red with the blood that would pool on the ground if only he closed his fist.
His dreams were violently red that night, and every night thereafter; the walls covered in blood, slowly dripping down from fists that closed around naked flesh as the lips mouthed the unthinkable, unspeakable truth. I own you. I own you. Your soul is mine
The fist, bare, naked, closing on bloodied flesh, kept him awake for days on end, torturing him with the peace that lay in closing his grip just a little, to watch the blood flow down and pool on the red sand. The fist, his own fist, torturing him in his dreams as in reality, making him scream to whoever was listening, whoever had taken the soul of the man that lay dead in that same red sand, a scream of please, make it stop, make it stop, makeitstopmakeitstopstopstopstop…
Screaming, crying, he tried to shut out the red walls, the red sand and the red blood on Bester's lips, blood he had swallowed as his tongue learned the unspeakable words the psi cop had not spoken. His arms curved involuntarily around his head, crushing the soft fabric of the pillow to him as he sought to forget the terrible truth that had found an outlet through the dead lips of a dead man.
He washed his hands again, a habit formed long ago in what seemed to be another life. No blood on his hands anymore, but still in his mind's eye he saw the savage stare of dark eyes, bloodied lips that didn't scream but formed the words that still beat at the inside of his head, screaming to get out. When at last he couldn't stand to look at himself in the mirror and see another man's reflection, he turned away, resignedly, to pick up the leather bundle that lay on the corner of his bed. Slowly, he slipped the soft black gloves on, covering the blood that refused to be washed away. Turning back to the mirror, he smoothed down the tall collar that hid the clawing fingers forever at his throat; rubbed futilely at the blood still on his lips. A final glance, adjusting the shining gold and silver badge on his breast, and he turned away, walking out into the world. His world. The blood still fresh on his lips, reminding him of the unthinkable, unspeakable feeling of flesh upon flesh, carving into his soul the words that still, years later, kept him awake at night: Your soul is mine. I own you. Unspeakable truths. Buried in the sand.
NB: Metempsychosis means the supposed transmigration of the soul of a human being or animal at death into a new body of the same or different species. Dies Irae is a Latin hymn sung in a Mass for the dead. It means Day of Wrath. So, now you know.