Notes:
You get one warning, folks. This is not a nice piece about a loving, healthy romance. This is about two very disturbed people who like to mess with each other. This is not a healthy relationship, not does it resemble anything you should emulate. There is unsettling imagery in this piece. There is death. There is Cassandra.
That said, enjoy. I love writing horror.
I. Fools
He has always thought Cassandra a fool. A vestige from an age of absolute rulers and divine lineage. A stranger to the coldness of the mechanical world. No, Cassandra luxuriates in imagining himself as king of his minuscule domain. A fool of a king, then, seeking only the sins of the flesh—the flesh Jizabel desperately longs to separate him from. Desires even, in that terrible habit of his, the thrill of ending another filthy human life.
But as he leaves Father, his orders to assist Cassandra unpleasant and yet indisputable, Jizabel realizes, his heart stilling, that they both are.
II. Horses
Cassandra once remarked, half drunk with anticipation, that beauty could only be found in the fragility of an object. As Cassandra's thoroughbred—his pale Arabian—writhes in the pain of a broken ankle, as Jizabel contemplates the knife-thin divide between breath and death, mercy and cruelty, Cassandra leans down.
"Does it pain you, love?"
Only a cold stare in response. Trembling hatred.
"Your word keeps it here, love." A mocking grin. "Tell me what to do."
The horse kicks at the clods of grass. Loosening the soil it will soon join.
Jizabel decides that mercy and cruelty are only synonyms. He shakes his head slightly at the prospect. The choice that is not a choice. Yet the words he does not want to say are lodged in his throat.
"I can wait," Cassandra continues. "But can it?" His hand rests on Jizabel's shoulder. "Every moment, in agony."
And the words come in clipped tones. "Kill it, Cassandra. " He moves to turn away from the scene, but Cassandra's practiced hand prevents him.
"Remember, you did this," Cassandra whispers, loading the revolver. Savoring the weight of death. "It's because of you."
He aims the gun, lazily, at the struggling beast, and—
III. Questions of Love and Death
He doesn't love him. Not in the way he loves Father. (There's not enough gauze and pain and warmth for it to be love.)
No, this is only a game of wills between two men who cannot let go.
And so, Jizabel is not affected when Cassandra takes a knife to the last man he slept with—some valet Cassandra assigned to him. (Nineteen and foolish. He didn't think to flee when Jizabel made a noose of his hands.)
Jizabel stares into the distance, as Cassandra's jealous rage makes itself known, as warmth stains the silk of his dressing gown, as the valet's innards spill down the bed. A final, clumsy stab—the mark of a man who has never had need of a blade.
Cassandra's anger, however, soon turns to Jizabel.
"You whore." Again and again, Cassandra screams at him, repeating Father's words. Brandishing the knife, flecked with viscera.
And in that moment, an opportunity presents itself. Jizabel rises from the rumpled bed, one shoulder carelessly bared. Daring him to take the knife to him. To settle this game.
But Cassandra gives him only a long, hard look, before flinging the weapon aside, and Jizabel cannot decide if it is an act of forgiveness or hatred. Cassandra presses the back of Jizabel's hand hard to his lips. Not a sign of deferment, but possession.
"You belong to me," he pants. "Only me, love. You forget that at your peril."
His hand slides under the dressing gown, and just to infuriate him, just to have the final say in this ruinous game, Jizabel pulls him close enough to whisper into his ear. Twisting his fingers into the back of Casandra's ruffled shirt. Pressing their bodies together in the way that maddens Cassandra.
"You're the one in love with a whore."
IV. Choices
Sometimes, in the laboratory, the air stills at the stroke of midnight. The birds hush, and spiced smoke trails through the meager room. Inspecting the empty jars and meticulously cleaned tools. (Blood rusts, after all.)
It's not enough to have his dreams. Cassandra has always wanted more—no, required more. Beautiful things, beautiful men.
Cassandra's voice always returns first—deep, indulgent, amused. Always faintly amused.
And in those moments, Jizabel turns over the opium jar, unable to decide which outcome is worse. Unable to make the choice that Father will, no doubt, make for him one day soon. (That was written into his bones a lifetime ago. That he knows.)
Cassandra leans against the doorframe, his head open like a bowl. And yet, still opulently dressed—ruffles and embroidery and mother-of-pearl buttons. Pressed seams and a jacquard tie at his throat. (For all Cassandra's luck, it might have been a noose.)
Jizabel does not know if he has gone mad, or if this is merely divine will. Perhaps, there is no difference. Perhaps, in the morning light, he will find himself clutching at a hollowed-out corpse. (No, no, he sent that corpse away. To anywhere, but London.)
Life and death shade into each other, so slightly that they become a continuum. After all, his research has proven that one can be both alive and dead, as if that is a fact he has not been aware of since, since—
And there's not enough gauze to put him back together again. The jar breaks in his grasp, and the decision is made—for now. It is always a temporary decision.
(Cassandra has always loved breakable things, breakable men.)
He sinks into the dirty floor, as blood swells amid the pinkness of half-healed scars. From the rooftop, violin music invades. Cassandra's favorite piece—Wagner, or some Romantic. All fury and bombast. (How many times did he insist that the Fool play the piece just for him?)
Cassandra raises his arms, pretending to conduct the shrill notes with a wide grin.
A final, longing glance at the opium, interspersed with glass slivers—still more than enough to ensure an end, albeit painful—before hands comb through Jizabel's hair, lifting a handful to smell. Then, a deep, satisfied sigh.
"Eat all the opium you desire, love." A knowing chuckle. "In the end, you belong to me."
Jizabel closes his eyes, as the game continues.
Notes:
So, this was more of a structured piece than I usually write. The first section begin at 100 words, and each subsequent section increases by one hundred. I wanted to write a drabble of precisely one hundred words, but found that I had a problem telling a story within those limits. So I adjusted them. It was fun to work within limits. I might do that again. Someday.
This is, weirdly enough, the companion piece to "The Crucifixion of Casandra Gladstone", in which the roles are reversed.
Thank you for reading! I'd love to hear from you!