Disclaimer: These characters do not belong to me.
Notes: Written for nirejseki, who wanted AU where Coward and Blackwood are evil overlords and rule the world between bouts of filthy sex. (LOL, she really had to twist my arm to get me to write it, too. XP) This could sort of follow my earlier fic, in that it has similar characterizations of Blackwood and Coward? :D
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When England crumbles to its knees, it isn't long before the rest of the world follows suit.
Coward has never doubted that this day would come, not even for a moment. He has always known that no one—not even the great Sherlock Holmes with his impossible intellect—could stand in the way of Blackwood's rise to power (Holmes tried, and failed, and died knowing that even his logic and deduction could not save his Doctor Watson from dying in his arms, riddled with bullets and whispering Holmes's name). In those early days when Coward's acquaintance with Blackwood was still new, and he was learning what it felt like to be in the presence of a true ruler, he realized quickly that the secret to leading is having ambition on an unimaginable scope. Blackwood set his sights on the world, did not consider any other option, and lo! The world has fallen at his feet.
Coward stands amidst the bodies of England's past, locks eyes with Blackwood and thrills all over. To be a part of this—it's the best thing he has ever done. His life has been made meaningful by this event alone.
"It's done," he says to Blackwood later, half-laughing with giddy excitement. The planning, the plotting, having to bite his tongue as he watches those blind fools leading the country in his lord's place, it is done. He wants to run, shoot something, burn away the trembling in his limbs. He wants to drop to his knees and swallow Blackwood down until he's choking on it, until his eyes sting and his mouth is sore and he can somehow convey that his life was empty and colorless until Blackwood came along.
Blackwood studies him, then lifts a hand to cup his cheek. Coward almost flinches away, so used to hiding hiding hiding himself and this integral part of him from those who would not understand, but then he remembers that they need not hide any longer. The world is theirs. Anyone who dares to disapprove will be dust in their hands.
Blackwood's fingers are strong and trace lightly over Coward's mouth, and all Coward can see is the tight spiral of Blackwood's eyes, fixed on him; there is no other person who receives the full weight of Blackwood's attention like this, and there is nothing in the world Coward treasures more.
"Daniel," Blackwood says, quietly amused, strong and commanding like the leader for which this world has been yearning, "Daniel, this is only the beginning."
[ ]
Of course, Blackwood needs more followers than he started with in the beginning. Not all of those who join him will have been with him from the start; some of them ally themselves with him out of fear, when otherwise they would have railed at him as a tyrant and a madman.
No matter; Blackwood is willing to forgive, if not to forget. An empire must run on the backs of many, and he will not turn away those who help him, no matter their motivation. He is willing to forgive.
To a point.
From the moment it becomes clear that Blackwood's rule is inevitable, that there is no corner of the world that will remain shadowed from him, an underground revolution gathers, splintered into many groups everywhere. Their purpose is always the same—to throw Blackwood out of power. To return to the state in which they were governed before, a mess of tangled allegiances and immoral, incompetent men in power.
As Blackwood's right hand man, it is Coward's position to read those reports that come in concerning such matters, and advise Blackwood as to what actions the situation entails. He reads accounts of those men who arm themselves and gather in secret, crying out against the injustices they perceive in their foolish little brains, and he cannot stop his lip from curling in contempt and fury. Those imbeciles. Totally unable to recognize the value of what they have been given—a ruler who will never falter, who will guard their lands with a strong hand, who is more brilliant than any hundred of them combined.
There are no wars anymore, not when everything belongs to Blackwood. Carefully, he appoints his most loyal servants as guardians of those individual pieces of land (no longer nations, as all of them are now part of Blackwood's empire), governing in Blackwood's name. Any man who becomes so drunk with power that he forgets his place is soon educated. Thoroughly.
The revolutionaries call themselves Seekers of Justice. They wish for their nations to be separate once more, for their lives to be subject to a group of squabbling petty man, going to war because their leaders cannot assert their self-perceived dominance in any other way. They wish for that? A return to uncertainty and ineptitude?
Fools. Coward gathers his reports and enters Blackwood's private office. It is his recommendation that Blackwood immediately take steps to erase every last trace of this group.
Permanently.
[ ]
"What is it about you, Daniel?" Blackwood muses, pushing Coward forward until he is bracing himself over his own desk, thighs already trembling with excitement. He spreads his legs before Blackwood can kick them apart, and Blackwood rewards him for his enthusiasm by turning his head to the side and kissing him so hard he nearly draws blood. Coward fights to keep his legs from buckling as Blackwood holds his mouth against his own and refuses to release him, even as the air slowly burns away from Coward's lungs and he feels a tingling start up from the tips of his fingers and travel throughout his body.
Blackwood releases him and watches with a glittering triumph in his eyes as Coward gasps for breath and licks his swollen lips. "I am no fool," Blackwood continues. "I know that most of my men follow me only out of fear. I know that there is not one of them that has not doubted me for at least an instant." He trails a proprietary hand down the curve of Coward's bare back, down, down, until his fingers stop at Coward's entrance, slick with oil, made ready for him by Coward's own hand. Just as Blackwood ordered. "Except you," Blackwood muses. "You've never doubted, have you, Daniel? You've always been mine."
Coward gasps as Blackwood's fingers breach him, rough and forceful and inescapable, and he says breathlessly, "Always. I always will be." He waits, keens out loud, a high sound of need he cannot hold back, as Blackwood enters him slowly, so slowly, grasping his hips in an unshakable hold that keeps him from pushing back the way he wants to. "Please," he begs shamelessly, and chokes on what air is left in his lungs as Blackwood draws out and slams back into him, rattling Coward's desk and knocking stacks of papers to the floor.
"I know you will always be mine," Blackwood murmurs into his ear, breath hot, tongue a light flickering touch. "The question is why."
He punctuates the last word by wrapping a hand around Coward's length and giving it a brutal stroke, and Coward—who has been kept waiting, endlessly waiting for Blackwood's touch for nearly two hours during which Blackwood wordlessly watched him prepare himself, eyes black with lust, and implacably ordered him not to release—cries out, a wordless near-wail that rings in his own ears, and he comes all over his desk. The only thing that keeps him from folding shakily to the ground is Blackwood's strong grasp on his hips. Coward shivers at the feel of Blackwood inside him, still hard and splitting him open from the inside.
"I am no fool, either," Coward says in the reverberating silence, voice rough and heavy with absolute certainty. "And to doubt you would be unspeakably foolish. I am yours because you are what this world has been waiting for. You are what I have been waiting for my entire life."
Blackwood expels a breath, a slight shudder of sound, and when he thrusts into Coward, again, again until he finally comes, they stay locked together for what feels like an endless amount of time; Coward licks at the slight split in his lower lip from where he bit himself when he came, and wonders at the idea that he could ever want anything other than this.
Blackwood pulls away and takes a moment to return himself to his former pristine image. Coward turns around but makes no move to clean himself up. Blackwood likes to look at him like this, the immaculate Lord Coward spoiled like a whore by Blackwood's touch.
"There are none who can defy me as long as I have your loyalty," Blackwood says, an admission staggering in all that it says. No one else will hear its like, but Coward has earned it. He has earned this, the right to stand at his lord's side and be his strong arm, to know those things about him that no other person will ever know. To have the chance to see the true man behind the ruler's hard mask.
Coward smiles. "Then you have nothing to fear," he says, vowing forever with his words and his direct gaze.
Blackwood's name will be remembered forever in history; he will be spoken of as the man who united the world into an empire the likes of which have never before been witnessed. Coward's name may be mentioned in passing, perhaps not. It is of no matter.
It only matters what the two of them know—that Blackwood rules but he does not do so on his own. Coward does not need his name remembered by millions. He has only ever needed one person's regard.
Blackwood's mouth softens a trace, what would be a smile in anyone else. He leans forward and trails a long finger down Coward's stomach, and brings it up coated with Coward's own release. He lays the finger across Coward's mouth, and when Coward sucks it in, scraping lightly with his teeth, Blackwood tells him, "Clean yourself up, Daniel. We have a world to rule."
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