By
TraceAce
DISCLAIMER: Sadly, I don't own either characters in this fic. I just have an active imagination. Basically, I'm not making any money on this so don't sue me!
A/N: I wrote this in less than an hour for a challenge fic group. The challenge was to write a fic with mention of either claustrophobia or being trapped, physically or mentally. This was my challenge answer.
~~
It was
supposed to be a game.
Games were easy to get out of; they were fun. He always thought he could call a
mental time out or could quit entirely if he really wanted to. Things had been
like that in the beginning - fun, exciting, dangerous but not too
dangerous for his tastes. He liked toying with the idea that he could commit
crimes. He liked calling himself a super evil genius.
But things finally came crashing down.
Fun was replaced with horror. There was a dead body at his feet, flopped
unceremoniously on the staircase of their once cool secret lair. Jonathan's
panicked, stuttering voice grated on his brain. And Warren…well…he was already
trying to explain himself - why she was dead, why he had killed her, what they
had to do...
The need to run as far away as possible seized his brain but he did not move,
frozen in his spot.
There was no time out anymore, no leaving. There was only a dead body and
screaming and the panic and guilt welling up inside him. He had been part of a
murder. When did things get so crazy? When did Warren become able to do that to
someone? How could he…?
It was only much later, when Jonathan had fallen into a fitful sleep and they
had "disposed" of Katrina, that Andrew had time to look at Warren
alone. The newly formed scabs where her nails had dug into his cheek were
slashes of red across his mostly unflawed skin. It was hard to imagine that was
the last action she would ever make. A sickening feeling returned to him when
he thought about her death again and he felt as if he wanted to either just
puke or curl up and cry somewhere.
"I had to do it," he murmured as Andrew stared steadily at him. He
could read his face like a book - a talent that, before the murder, Andrew had
found almost endearing. "You understand, right?"
He didn't, not at all in fact, but found it hard to protest when Warren ended
his question by walking forward and kissing him. He was always rough, but
Andrew could feel just a little more power and urgency behind it, as if the
kiss demanded his compliance and complete submission.
Andrew did nothing to fight it.
"I know," he whispered after the kiss was broken. Warren's face
hovered near his own, a smile - a sneer - curling on his lips. So close up,
Andrew could see the curve did not show happiness but anger and smugness and,
especially, victory. There would be no more talk of her again and he knew it.
It was exactly how it always was. Warren was always right. When Andrew wasn't
sure, all he had to do was just had to kiss him. He would continue going lower
until eventually he won, every time. He hated it, but he knew the right buttons
and pushed them at will - and there was nothing he could do about it. Already
the memory of the lifeless eyes of Warren's former girlfriend had been hazed
over, replaced by the hard nips at his neck and shoulders. He dimly felt
Warren's hands roaming under his shirt. The shock of his cold hands made his
skin jump a little under his almost too tight grasp but soon enough even that
was forgotten by the other sensations surging inside him.
"I love you," Warren whispered in his ear. The words sounded somewhat
dirty, almost tainted, coming out of his mouth. There was no feeling behind it,
only coldness and even a twinge of cruelty and maliciousness. Andrew knew he
only said it just because he thought it was what he wanted to hear. He never
meant it-he only loved himself and that would never change.
The thing was, it was easier to pretend that wasn't true. It was easier to
think that no one had been killed and Warren loved him and that if he wanted
to, he could walk out the door and never come back. Things were undoubtedly
better when disappointment was cleared from his life and he had no worries at
all. Stories were already being woven over the truth, where Katrina had simply
fallen by accident, and Warren really didn't mean to bruise his skin with his
touch and the red marks so glaringly obvious on him were from a random cat and
not human nails.
And, in the end, he was trapped again by his own carefully constructed lies,
unable and unwilling to face the reality he had always been running from.