"Please," Cain coaxed Riff with his every mannerism. His eyes had been stained orange by the flickering candle on his bedside table, and his lips, hovering close to Riff's, curved into a smile as delightfully crooked as the Cheshire cat. "You will not be missed, I swear it. Please, stay with me tonight." He leaned forward to close the space between their lips. The night was hostile and frigid, and Riff was shivering in just a night shirt. He could feel the cold climbing from the floor through his toes and ankles to reach the rest of his body, but still his arms guarded Cain, who was completely bare and freezing, from the temperature. He could not help but let out a violent, involuntary shiver, and Cain looked at him as if he were a pitiful child left alone in the cold. Cain kissed him again, moving their embrace closer to his bed before mentioning, "My bed is warm."
Riff would have endured many more nights of biting cold to see the fire in Cain's eyes, which burned only for him that night. He could never determine whether it was love that shined back at him, or a desperate, primitive instinct for human companionship.
He decided he didn't need to determine what lay hidden in his eyes, though, as Cain pulled back the sheets and lay down in only his soft skin. Riff was not yet convinced to stay, but he slowly found his better judgment disappearing as Cain's eyes caught his. At this moment, his eyes still contained traces of the innocence he had vowed to protect when they had first met, but this was mostly masked by the heavy, seductive lust glimmering in the borders of his irises. Could he again squander that lovely innocence to satisfy Cain?
The candle continued to burn, as it always did in the rare moments when the deep of night suffocated the sound of Cain's heavy breathing. His skin was Riff's to navigate, by grasping hand, or kissing lips, both means hasty yet loving. The sheets were already wrinkled. Cain had locked his servant under the weight of his body, his scarred back open to the night air.
Cain's fingers yearned for Riff's skin, blocked by the fabric of his nightshirt. The clean linen smelled like Riff, the same scent which inhabited his tea, and every one of Cain's thoughts about Riff. For a while, Cain was satisfied to kiss his neck and run his fingers through Riff's soft hair, naturally bleached to be a few nuances different from the pillowslips. But, the soft locks of snowy hair, and the soft skin of Riff's neck only provoked him. Slowly, his hands traveled down to the hem of Riff's nightshirt, which had rode up slightly during their embraces.
He began to lift it, until an anticipated protest came from Riff. "No, Cain, please don't." Riff's eyes were darkened in the night, but still noticeably nervous, possibly even frightened. Cain ceased removing his servant's clothes, but kept his hands steady at the hem. He was not about to give up on his abilities to persuade Riff.
"What is it?" Cain asked. Riff, not knowing how to answer, looked up at his master. His eyes glittered, concerned, but not plagued with troubles, as he had often seen them, lost in thought, cowering from memories of Alexis. But, now, his back was open to the biting night air. He had never kept his scars from Riff, and never hid them when they were alone. This didn't change as years passed.
"I… It is not proper…" Cain smiled and even let out a small laugh as he bent down to kiss Riff again. He laid his body on top of his servant, and wrapped his arms around Riff's neck.
"You cannot expect me to believe you care for such conventions." The traces of amusement still hung on the corner of Cain's mouth. "How many nights have you stayed with me before, never caring for proprieties until tonight? Just now, you called me Cain." Their lips met again. "I don't want to be your 'lord' tonight. I just want to be Cain. I want to be able to touch you the places you can touch me every day. I never get to touch your beautiful skin." He kissed his neck, and Riff could not stop himself from taking in a sharp breath as Cain bit down into his skin. "Let me see you," he stated rather than asked as his lips fell away from Riff's skin, and his hands began to pull his shirt up again.
Quickly, Riff's hands grabbed Cain's and their movements froze. Riff shook his head. Cain's eyes looked into his face, confusion spelled out across his face. "Are you too tired? Do you want to just lie with me? Or go back to your quarters?" Cain asked, placing a fallen piece of his hair behind his ear.
"Of course not." That was not what he wanted at all. Not after looking up at Cain's beauty, feeling his hot breath in his ear. "I want to be here; I want you." He could not have lied even if he wanted to. The prospect of leaving Cain at this moment was unfathomable.
"I want you too. Won't you let me?" The candle wax dripped down. Cain rested his head on Riff's chest, and his servant hugged him close. His fingers traversed the pattern of bumpy flesh crossing his back. Those scars which showed his suffering, and also showed his strength… Riff couldn't show Cain the guilt of his past, the self-inflicted, deserved scars which ran deep across his wrists. Even now, when he had sworn himself to the purpose of the guidance and protection of his beloved master, he struggled not to deepen the wounds. These marks were the least he could do to justify the pain he never experienced: losing a son, disappearing in a fury of flames, waking up to realize that you and your love would never again share the air on this earth… He did not think of Lucinda often, but when he did, it was impossible not to feel her suffering. He could not bear to put himself in her place—the thought of losing Cain made him feel feverish, nauseous, every kind of awfulness in the world entered his body, as if Pandora had released her box into his bloodstream.
Why had he survived the fire when Clyde had died? He had no love, no holy purpose of the heart to preserve him, and still God had reached down and raised him from those flames so that he might descend into them once again. Sin had splattered like black paint on his whole body. Nevertheless, he persisted to guard the boy who was now on top of him. His stomach churned with these thoughts. Why would he let Cain into the darkest corners of his mind, why would he reveal his scars, when the young master had experienced his fair share of pain in the first seventeen years of his life?
"Can we blow out the candle?" Riff asked. The room was illuminated by it and the dying embers of the fireplace. "It makes me anxious." Cain rose from their embrace and bent over his bedside table. With a hushed blow, the candle was extinguished and Riff let out a long sigh. His lips were trapped in the softest kisses as Cain's hands moved back down his body to his shirt. A few seconds later, Riff was exposed to the night air, his clothes thrown onto the floor, and his body closer to Cain's than he had ever imagined it would be.
"Riff?" Cain breathlessly released the name into the cold. His hands had been exploring the beautiful, white skin of the man under him, until his fingers had stopped on what appeared to be a pockmark on Riff's chest, around his heart. "Is this…?" He stopped as he saw Riff's discomfort. The dark had failed to hide the marks.
"I didn't want you to see... that I too am scarred." He turned his arms down so that his wrists would face the bed. "I am not as perfect as you suspect." The number of scars his body harbored had increased significantly since he had been in Cain's employ, but he would never blame it on his master. The ones he had from serving Cain, in whatever way he found himself serving, he could even learn to be fond of. The others, well, they were necessary, nevertheless detrimental to his appearance.
"You're right," he said. He bent over and kissed the scar made by Lord Dudley's bullet. That scar had saved Cain's life. "You are not perfect, but your scars make you more beautiful." Cain took Riff's hand into his, and turned his arm so it faced Cain's golden eyes. On it was one of the twin indentations, crossing at the wrist in uneven clumps.
They never spoke of these scars.
Cain had always known they were there, but something prohibited him from asking Riff about them. Perhaps he knew that they were so pained and miserable, or else because he knew they were a result of his past life, which Cain knew little about. Often, they had caught his notice, as Riff rolled up his sleeves to keep them dry or clean—out of his peripheral vision Cain saw the stripes of flesh, at times still scabbed and tender. It seemed that the scars spoke for themselves, and the rest stayed silent.
Once again, no words could be spoken to explain the act of Cain's lips brushing across them in the black of winter. Riff's heart beat slowed to a temperate pace, his mind cleared, and his body ever so slightly loosened from its tightly-wound cogs, twisted into framed cycles of self-loathing.
"They're beautiful to me."