The Fine Print: I don't own It or Them; HBO and Daniel Knauf do, however.
This is my first Carnivale fanfic, the product of frustration over the lack of Justin/Iris fics, having watched that damn Season 2 trailer too often while I wait for Amazon to send me my DVDs, and teaching T. S. Eliot all week. The fragmented style is an experiment for me. It may read a bit like a long poem.
Her Name and Other Five-Letter Words Starting with I
by EllisBelle
The first time it happened. When they were young and he was scared and so was she. When they had never been separated. Not since home, not since the river. The night before he left for seminary. The irony of this has never been lost on her. The night before his life became devoted to God or some higher power yet unknown. She remembers that when he came, he whispered Irina in her ear.
She listens to the sounds upstairs. Knowing what he is doing and knowing that it is because of her. The monotonous, painful licking of leather against flesh. A distinctive sound, one that thunders in her ears. Even as the hymns swell. A sound that makes her both ashamed and pleased. Ashamed that this is happening again. Ashamed that he is ashamed of her, of them. That he would rather punish himself than be with her again. That he would rather pour out his own blood, than to pour himself into her. But pleased that he did think of her. That it hurt him how much he thought of her. She feels each blow too. Feels them across her back, feels them licking across her breasts, over her thighs. Still feels him between them. She wonders if her name falls from his lips. Indistinguishable from the other cries of pain.
And when he kissed her again. Kissed her like he meant to break her. She wanted to be broken. To brake apart what called itself Iris and Justin, but answered to Irina and Alexi. And to be put back together again, resurrected as some strange beast rising from the sea, from the river. Some amalgam of the two. To be a sacrifice just like the lambs.
He only calls her by her real name at moments like these. When he stood above her, his sister gasping on the sofa like some common whore. He said her name then. Each slip of the knife against the plate, calls her name again. Reminding her of each time his shirt scratched her stomach and each time she felt the buttons from the cushions bite into her back under his weight. He wrote her name across her skin, her wrists, her throat. She reads it over and over in the bruises. Each time the knife slides against the plate.
And he will call her Irina. Will whisper it against her ear. When she delivers up her own Isaac. Their own sacrificial lamb. Screaming and breathing into the dust and the blood. Out of the belly of the exquisite whore writhing on the sofa, delivered into the hands of the Father. Isaac means laughter. The irony of this will not be lost on her.
And she prays that when he walks down the aisle of the church again. When he searches not his own soul, but other's. That he won't hear that she is really praying to hear her name once again.