La Petite Mort
Disclaimer: I don't own any of Penny Dreadful. I merely worship at its feet.
Disclaimer Take Two: I also don't own 'Take Me To Church'. That definitely belongs to Hozier.
Rating: Will be M for sexy times but for now it's doggy-paddling at a steady T.
A/N: I absolutely adore this show. It's beautiful, camp, dramatic, horrifying, and heartbreaking all in one neat package, and it encapsulates all the books that I loved when I was a kid but somehow makes them even cooler. What I love even more about this show is its ability to create a ship that simultaneously makes you love and hate it. Victor and Lily is my absolute favourite pairing right now and they completely slayed me across the most recent series. So much fanfiction fodder that I couldn't wait to get my sticky little paws all over (euphemism SO not intended!) but I wanted to wait until I found the perfect hook and I was listening to Hozier on repeat and suddenly I started to see all of the VictorxLily scenes from this season in my mind and knew that it fitted perfectly. This fic charts their relationship from Brona to Lily and beyond.
A/N Take Two: Reviews feed the writing monster in my brain and make me a very happy bunny. Pretty please with a beautifully broken scientist/crazy-sexy werewolf on top?
...
'There's a line from Shelley that haunts me, a single line from Adonais...
"No more let life divide, what death can join together."'
…
Death
'I was born sick, but I love it. Command me to be well. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen.'
…
Fear is something he is well acquainted with. He has faced it and conquered on many an occasion. The Master of Death cannot well baulk at his task, separating that flicker, that split second; the sand in the hourglass. Yet her fear fills him with something uncharted. His Nile source, perhaps; the fear that choices within life dictate our path afterwards. Religion. That thin veil between what is known and what we strive to understand. Her sweet acquiescence that she has not been good, that childlike innocence that fills her shaking voice and wide, honest brown eyes; all things he could never hope to encompass. Innocence. Naivety. She is beautiful in her unswerving stupidity. To cut off her dying breaths would be a kindness, and he is capable of that at least, surely.
Somehow his composure slips a little as he sends her watchful lover to aid her passing. The tell-tale shake of the addict would have betrayed him if Ethan had not been so wrapped up in the mortal curse of emotion and grief. He was glad of his vow to suffer neither as he watched the sharpshooter's hulking frame disappear through the door, stooped and defeated. In truth, he had not lied; it wouldn't be long, but the embellishment of her condition was purely his own.
The speech he spins her is trite; contrived, even. Talking of the price to pay; pay the piper, meet your maker, coins on your eyelids for your passage across the River Styx. All nonsense, but she submits to the muffled silence that the soft cushion promises, a bubble from the cold, cruel world outside. Like passing under a fluffy white cloud. She doesn't struggle – well, how could she? – and he finds it strange how easily the act of murder comes to his hand. He should call it euthanasia since he is shortening her misery, but considering his darker purpose for hurrying her passing, the harsh finality of 'murder' seems to suit him better. She looks so peaceful. He finally finds that death can be serene.
He is itching to remove her corpse, to feel the excitement of the chase; the intense wait to find out if nature will out or whether he will be triumphant yet again. He allows Ethan his moment, though. Anything less would be a disservice considering what he is about to do. Still, he watches her out of the corner of his eye, wondering what she will be, then what she could be under his guiding hand. How he can mould her, perfect her. What he will change, what he will keep, what almost immaterial tweaks he will make to make her his. This new possessiveness surprises him, but then again, she is different to his previous subject if only because of her sex. Men he understands, there is no complexity there – except anatomically – but a woman… Another species entirely.
As he watches her being lowered into the water by his first-born, he can't help but stop and stare. The destruction wrought by her consumption seems smoothed away, leaving her porcelain; peaches and cream. He wants to taste her, to bite into her flesh.