But You Promised - As Told By Iron Eyes Cody

Many years ago Indian braves would go away in solitude to prepare for manhood. One hiked into a beautiful valley, green with trees and bright with flowers. There as he looked up at the surrounding mountains, he noticed a rugged peak capped with dazzling snow. "I will test myself against that mountain," he thought. He put on his buffalo hide shirt, threw his blanket over his shoulders, and set off to climb the pinnacle. When he reached the top, he stood on the rim of the world. He could see forever, and his heart swelled with pride. Then he heard a rustle at his feet. Looking down, he saw a snake. Before he could move, the snake spoke. "I am about to die," said the snake. "It is too cold up here and there is no food. Put me under your coat and take me down to the valley." "No," said the youth. "I know your kind. You are a rattle snake. If I pick you up, you will bite me, and your bite will kill me." "Not so," said the snake. "I will treat you differently. If you do this for me, I will not harm you." The youth resisted awhile, but this was a very persuasive snake. At last the youth tucked the snake under his coat and carried it down to the valley. There he laid it down gently. Suddenly the snake coiled, rattled, leaped, and bit him on the leg. "But you promised," cried the youth! "You knew what I was when you picked me up," said the snake as it slithered away.

Chapter Two

I had driven a full four fucking feet away from the curb when I screeched the car to a grinding halt. Stupid piece of shitfucker that I happened to be, I had left something behind. The bag that was in my hand before I realized Kathryn was baring herself completely on my bed had not been in my hand when I walked back out the door. I ordinarily wouldn't have bothered to fetch it, especially after what just occurred, but like I said I was a fucking idiot and I had to go back. My journal was in that bag.

I almost slammed my door in my anger but obviously I would never let such a thing as my temper damage any inch of the only thing I actually cared about materially. My car was safely parked but if Kathryn had noticed my journal lying there, I was going to have to kill someone.

"Fuck off." I grunted to the parking meter lady as I ran by. I heard her cursing at me but I was too busy almost running down a toy poodle to notice. God, I hated the yuppie fags I lived near.

I barged through the door to our apartment and suppressed the wheezes that were trying to erupt from my throat. Kathryn was still sitting on my bed, except now she was examining her body in my full length mirror attached to the wall. I quickly asserted that she wasn't holding the journal or my bag and started to quell the panic in my chest.

"Well. Aren't we vain?"

"I'm checking to see how badly I'm bleeding, actually." Kathryn said, keeping her voice bland. Is it horrible that even though she looked like she had been mugged and beaten, she still exuded a primal, almost unconceivable amount of sexiness? The regret I felt at being such a dick returned to me but I pushed it away for the moment because, for the moment, I had the upper hand. I think I did, at least. Jesus, why did I have to sleep with her? Kathryn turned to me when my silence finally broke her patience and asked, "So. Came back for thirds? What the fuck do you want?"

"Let me remind you that this is my room, that is my bed, and you're bleeding on my sheets. And it's nothing; I just noticed that I forgot something."

She smiled darkly and I realized with a sickening thud that she didn't buy my casual tone. "That must have been something quite important that you forgot for you to nearly ram your beloved car into the curb to retrieve."

She was sitting on my bed with her back to the window; it figures that I would just assume she had been in that position the entire time. Idiot. "Oh, you know. It's just this and that."

I was at this point becoming increasingly worried again. I couldn't see the bag and I knew I had dropped it in front of the bed.

"Brother, you're dallying a lot for someone who just came back to pick up an item."

"I can't find it." I responded, matching her polite tone. The smile I inserted on my face was paining me and it was everything I could do to stop myself from just telling her to leave my room.

"You didn't forget a bag, did you?" She picked up the bag from beside the bed, pushing away the duvet that had been concealing it.

"Oh, there it is." I reached my hand over, putting on an expression of gratitude. She wouldn't give it to me, this I already knew. But there was still a shot that she didn't know what it was that I wanted in the bag. Oh, who was I trying to reassure? Kathryn found it. She finds everything.

She smirked, "Say please." I sighed. Her smirk widened and she covered herself with my robe once more. While her arms were busy, I lunged for the bag but she snatched my hand in hers and safely shifted the bag out of my grasp.

I was about to yell at her when something in her eyes threw me off.

She stared at me. "What's the matter? Aren't you going to shrug me off like some sort of insect? You had so much trouble hitting me before. Continuously. For no discernable reason."

"You were being a bitch."

"And I'm being one now, aren't I? So go ahead, motherfucker, hit me."

I knew what she was doing. She was trying to get me to apologize. To feel bad. And I wanted to say sorry, because honestly, Lord, she looked roughed up and I did feel bad.

"Give me the bag, Kathryn."

"Or what?"

I made another grab for it but she swung her knee up and held me at bay. "Tsk. Tsk. Manners, Sebastian."

I glared at her for a moment. She was a complete piece of work.

"Hit me." She turned her cheek so that it was facing me, her expression defiant.

"Fuck it, Kathryn! I'm not going to hit you!"

"And why not?"

"You aren't worth the exertion."

"Wrong answer." Kathryn snapped and tried to move away.

I caught her wrist in my hand and calmly said, "Do you honestly believe that I wouldn't be able to get it back from you if you forced me to use drastic means? Be a good girl."

"Oh, fuck you!"

"Well you already have, haven't you?"

"You know what? Fine. Screw this. Go run away from everything and pretend that you don't care about everything you've been caring about for the past few years. Go lie to yourself that you are all different. You're more ruthless now than you ever were before. Be proud." She thrust the bag in my hands and shoved me away.

Despite myself, I stopped her. "Kathryn." This was so fucking frustrating. I couldn't even read my own desires anymore. I didn't want to see her upset but I didn't want to see her happy. If she was happy it would always be at my expense and I knew she wouldn't hesitate in reveling in every single heart killing second of my pain if she were given the opportunity. That was how I landed myself in this position to begin with- I let my guard down thinking we could have a truce. She pounced every time I did that and I couldn't keep being a fool by falling for her same stupid tricks even if she somehow made me want to just give up. I don't know how she does it, but she manages to suck the victory out of all my wins and make me want to apologize for winning the game she usually initiated to begin with.

I told myself I always wanted revenge more than I wanted her. That was the way we functioned. No, no, that was the way she functioned. I never did care so much about getting even as I did about finally having her but I finally realized I never would have her and it really was just better for me to play her games before she could play me. I let her play me before, I had to win this round. My feelings weren't like hers, if I let myself be honest with her today and she stung me (and I knew she would, it was impossible for her to pass up such a chance) I wouldn't recover. I cared about her too fucking much. I have such a sadistic way of showing it but I know that the only way I can possibly escape unscathed is through acting colder than she is. I don't know what she feels about me any more but I do know that she will never admit to loving me if she does in fact love me- not unless it was to set me up. Kathryn has no concept of happiness. Her world is so twisted and painful that she doesn't even see that the dolts we make fun of might be truly happy as well as stupid. I had to hurt her, even if it didn't give me nearly as much pleasure as I knew she received from hurting me.

"I can go and tell people it was rape, you know."

I rolled my eyes. "Cut the bull shit-"

"Look at me. Look at you. I could easily say that you wanted sex and I didn't, you forced me and I couldn't fend you off. We're both bleeding and you tore into my vagina so ruthlessly it might as well have been rape."

"Please. You wanted it just as much as I did-" I wondered for a second if it was a mistake to admit that I wanted it. I dismissed the thought. It was sex. It's a given that I wanted it.

"Did you want it? You come here all pissy and difficult and then suddenly you're hitting me and next thing I know we're in your bed. It's a very confusing sequence of events and it's just so traumatic…" Kathryn pouted.

"You were lying here with no clothes on, waiting for me to come in."

"You know that and I know that. And again, look at us. Who do you think they will believe?"

"You wouldn't-"

"Don't tell me what I would or would not do, you son of a bitch. You don't know anything."

"You're being unreasonable."

"I am? I'm unreasonable? After you fall into a whirlwind romance and pledge yourself to being a changed man in the time span it takes to light a cigarette, I'm the unreasonable one? You're the walking cliché."

"I don't care about you, let it go."

She smiled again. "I know and you know very well that you're lying, Sebastian. And you can chuckle and lie all you want, I'm not going to turn into an insecure puddle when it's so clear you're pretending. You would have bent over backwards to have my attention before. I'm quite stable in the belief that you do, in fact, care very much about me. You're just all huffy because Annette died and in doing so took away your blinding sense of false redemption. You don't want to be exposed, you don't want me to get to you again so you say you don't care about me and you try to hurt me before I can do anything to you. But dear, don't you remember who it is you're trying to get back at? Every show of emotion I happen to reveal isn't a crack in my mask, it's a feigned act to lull you into a false sense of security. Don't you ever forget that I am always smarter than you are, I am always stronger than you are, and you have never nor will you ever win. It's my game and you're still my little toy. Did you enjoy the five minutes where you thought I was upset and you had won? Did you enjoy feeling like I was downgraded to a one night stand? I hope you relished the moment. Think of it as a token of sympathy since you lost your girlie."

I clenched my jaw. I hated her. I fucking hated her. How could she just know these things? How could she be this way?

"I'm not playing any more then." I smiled grimly.

"You're the one who came back. You can't walk away from me, Valmont. You never will be able to." Her eyes were dark with glee and I felt the familiar sickness in my stomach that signaled that she had again gotten to me.

"I forgot my bag. That's the only reason I came back."

"Mmhmm. You have the bag. And yet you're still standing here."

"You were threatening to cry rape."

"You take things so seriously, brother."

"I wouldn't put it past you to pull something so vile."

"Do you think I'm vile?"

"You disgust me."

"Mm. Now who's more disgusting- the vile woman or the man who loves the vile woman despite being disgusted by her? Who's more pathetic?" She crossed her legs and idly picked at a few loose fibers on the chair she had just seated herself at.

"And do you still cling to the sad little belief that I love you?" I laughed hollowly. "It's sweet that you think so. Again, I'm going to have to say that a good fuck doesn't equate to love. I don't think I could love a crack addicted, satanic minion of a whore."

Kathryn frowned again and I seemed to have touched a nerve. "No, but you can love a manipulative lying blonde hypocrite like Annette. Fine. I'm not going to sit through and take this." She stood up and made for her bathroom.

"Oh, with a reaction like that, one has to ask- did I hurt your feelings, dear sister? It must be love if you're giving up so soon."

"Maybe it's always been, idiot." She snapped.

I jerked at that response and again stopped her from leaving. "Kathryn-"

"Would you care if that's what it was?"

Was her lip quivering? "Are you crying?" I exclaimed.

"You threw me around the room- I'm in pain." She roughly answered, turning away from me.

"Are you saying you love me?"

"Just leave. You were planning to, weren't you?"

I sighed and followed her to the bathroom. "Don't be like this."

"Like what? You get upset when I say you're nothing to me. You get upset when I say you do mean something to me. What do you want from me? Maybe you forget sometimes, but I do happen to be an eighteen year old girl and I am still capable of feeling things. And I thought you understood me, but clearly you do not. Clearly I wasted my time trying to do anything with you since you're just going to leave me like they all do; choose the virgin over me like they all do. Call me a whore and disrespect me like they all do. Despise me for not being Miss Mary Sunshine like they all do."

"You're getting emotional." I stated suspiciously. "Don't play me, Kathryn. I'm not a fool."

"Of course I'm lying. Of course this is an act. I say I love you and you ignore it because you just can't accept that I have always felt something for you. I'm not going to try to win you back anymore, Sebastian."

"What are you talking about? You've never tried to win me back-"

"Why do you think I was such a tool? If I made you angry, you'd always come back to retaliate. It was a guarantee that you wouldn't get bored and leave me. But you've gone and changed the rules."

"Who are you?" I was completely confused. What was she doing? Why was she behaving this way?

She glared at me and turned the water on in the shower. "Fuck you. Just, fuck you." I stopped her from shutting the shower door.

"This isn't like you. Why are you acting like one of those girls? Who's the cliché now?"

"I don't want to talk to you."

I stepped into the shower with her and grabbed her hands. "Stop being such a fag."

"You're getting soaked, idiot."

I shut the water off in frustration but she turned it right back on. I rolled my eyes and again shut it off.

Kathryn leaned into me and dully gestured to herself. "I'm bleeding and dirty and completely sick right now. Would you just get out?" She savagely turned the knob again.

"You're not sick."

"Excuse me?"

What was I thinking? Mayday! Abort! Leave the fucking room before you do something moronic! I stared at her form as the water hit both of us and I seriously couldn't help but think about how beautiful she was and my body ignored my brain. I have to say that the only explanation possible for what I next did is that I stopped thinking completely. If I was thinking properly, I wouldn't have been such a weak willed chump.

I stared at her angry eyes and watched as her blood trailed down her body and pooled around our feet.

"I'm sorry for being so violent."

"Go away."

"You know, you still look hot even if you're torn and bruised."

"Go away."

"I shouldn't have hit you."

"GO AWAY!"

"You did make me bleed pretty badly too, you know."

"Are you just going to stand here and mutter nonsense all day as your ruin your shoes and your new shirt and completely kill what's left of the styling of your hair?"

"God, Kathryn. I… fucking Christ." I leaned into her and kissed her. My brain didn't turn on again so I ended up not pulling back- though she did.

"What the fuck do you think-"

I bit down hard on her lip and grasped her ass in my hands, hoisting her up against me and the shower wall. She instinctively wrapped her legs around my waist and slipped my sleeves off my arms, pushing the drenched coat off my body. I shut my eyes and was consumed by her, gasping in the intensity of the desire that I was hit with.

As she held on tightly to me and as my lips covered her skin, it didn't occur to me how ridiculous I was being. How stupid it was to have sex with her yet again.

It felt amazing.

I moaned in complete exhaustion after we finished our second round in the shower and I maneuvered her over against the bathtub gently and submerged her in warm water, going for a final lap. I collapsed against her, propping my elbows up to avoid crushing her body as I climaxed for what felt like the hundredth time today. Panting heavily, I allowed my body to relax ad rested my head against her neck, kissing her collar bone affectionately.

"Was I too rough this time?" She shook her head and I continued pressing my lips softly against her skin.

"Stamina." Kathryn grinned. She patted my bare back good naturedly and I met her eyes. Mine were clouded with fatigue and content but they cleared up instantly when I realized what expression was quickly forming in hers. Her grin was dark and she unceremoniously pushed me aside, making a loud splash in the tub as I flopped over.

"I told you not to be an idiotic fucker, but you had to be both, didn't you? Don't try to win with me, Sebastian. I always win." She stood up and looked down at me cruelly. "Like I already warned you earlier, every show of emotion I exude is an act to lull you into a false sense of security. Look at you all lulled." Kathryn's eyes raked over my body slowly and a slow smile spread across her face. "But I do have to admit, you are a brilliantly amazing fuck."

"You said you-" I began as she stepped out of the tub and towards the door.

"You knew what I was and you always did. It's not my fault you're a fool.You're just a toy, honey." She laughed. "Never forget that."

I fell back into the water, knocking my head painfully against the ceramic and half wishing the water would drown me. I hated myself and God I hated her.

Eventually I would leave the tub and dress and go back to my car only to realize that my journal had been in the glove compartment all along. I had gone back for no reason and had forfeited my biggest victory.

This game of ours was going to end up killing me very soon.

AN: I think Kathryn was slightly OOC earlier here but that was just her reaching out to desperate measures in order to get revenge.

And she already mentioned it, but no I'm not yx. Though it is pretty flattering since she is a brilliant writer.

I happen to be one of those people who doesn't believe that Sebastian or Kathryn can ever really 'win'. Either they both lose or they both win or their victory is short lived or bittersweet. So yes, Sebastian is fucked up and Kathryn isn't going to take that sitting down. Thanks for the input, all.