Rating: M
Pairing: Jak/Erol,
Seem/Errol
Warnings: Non-pairing-pairing, mention of
torture and non-con, unbeta'd..
Word Count: 1,430
For:
Anti-Pairing Challenge on jakfanfics
Notes: Heart of Mar
canon.
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Metallic Chill
Fingers brushed her face, hard and cold even through the fabric of his glove, and she fought against the flinch that seized her muscles at the contact.
"Do not touch me," she hissed, scarlet eyes narrowing.
A half-metal mouth curved in a horrid mockery of a smirk.
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His hands were always cold, colder against his skin than any flesh ever should have been. The metallic chill seeped into his bones at the instant of contact, and he ground his teeth to keep from biting at the fingers cupping his chin.
"Don't touch me," he growled, violet electricity crackling around him at the surge of emotion.
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Even his voice was wrong, the rattle of breath over steel that sent a shiver down her spine. "Oh, but you're such an interesting specimen," he jeered. "You remind me of someone, in fact."
She didn't need to ask who, the sudden taste of fear in the air was proof enough for her suspicions. She forced a smirk of her own, still glaring. "He will destroy you," she swore. "Unless, of course, you destroy yourself first."
His yellow eyes—matching shades but mismatched nonetheless—narrowed. His hand was suddenly gone from her skin, drawn back to the opposite shoulder for the instant it took in preparation to strike.
It hurt, when he swung his almost human arm and backhanded her. The shock was enough to make her recoil, the tang of blood sharp on her tongue as her teeth rattled. But she was no stranger to pain, and righted herself in the time it took to inhale a steadying breath. Her pale painted lips curved in a grin once more.
"You cannot break me, abomination."
He laughed. "Where have I heard that before?"
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"You won't break me. Not now and not ever."
One fiery eyebrow arched as yellow eyes met narrowed blue, slits of clear sky amid cloudy, bruised skin. "And what," he inquired, voice a hiss and promise and threat all at once, "makes you say that?"
The other grinned, baring perfect white teeth. "You haven't yet, have you?"
He drew back one hand and lashed out at the boy, backhand swift and hard and enough to knock him down onto his creaky cot. "Maybe not yet," he replied, taking a step to loom over the fallen youth, "but I have plenty of time."
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He stepped closer, every move a mechanical whir and boom of metal on stone, and reached out with his other hand, the one that was anything but human, to take hold of her neck. "I might not have as much time with you as I did with him, but I won't need that much."
Fine eyebrows jutted downward, crimson eyes narrowing in rage as one lip curled in disgust. "You ran out of time long ago, Errol," she whispered. "You are more than dead and less than alive. There is no soul in you, no time to fill that void with others' pain." White light flashed behind her eyes, silent reminder that this girl had been touched by her creators. "You are finished."
He lifted her up, tightening his grip on her neck. "This planet is finished. There will be nothing left when I am through!" He threw her to the ground, hard enough to send her cap askew and jar loose several of the cords running up and down her tunic.
A single lock of white hair fell into her face as she turned to glare up at the metal monster that had once been not unlike herself. Teeth bared, skin flushed under white face paint, she surged to her feet and tackled the abomination with all the force she could muster.
It was enough. Barely.
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Hot breath ghosted over his skin, cold hands on his neck and one knee planted firmly on his chest. The cot creaked under their combined weight, metal threatening to break at any moment.
"You are mine, boy. Don't try fooling yourself into thinking otherwise."
Cold skin pressed over his mouth and frozen hands danced over the collar of his tunic.
The youth drew back and slammed his head into the older man's, the crack of bone on bone loud amid the silence of his cell.
The man recoiled, rising to his feet, but not in time to avoid a hard kick to his midsection. The blow was rough but not debilitating, painful but not unbearable. Yellow eyes lifted to meet blue again and the youth grinned, that blue flashing to violet-tinted black.
Another blow, this one a swift backhand to the jaw, and he was on the floor.
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Machinery hummed and buzzed as his metallic body struggled to keep upright in spite of the sudden weight and the hard blow to the only flesh he had left, but it wasn't enough. With a great crash he fell to the ground, girl on top of him scrambling to right herself before he could.
He reached out with his human-sized hand and grabbed hold of her as she hastened to flee, fingers working their way into fine white hair now that her cap had been completely pushed back. He pulled her back down to him, roughly enough to pull a few strands free from her pale half-shaven scalp, as he too rose to his feet.
"I knew there was a reason you remind me of him," he murmured, pulling her close enough to feel her breath on his skin, close enough for her to feel the cold air pushed out through his mouth at perfectly regular intervals. He took a deep breath, wishing suddenly that he could smell her. "I wonder if you taste the same."
Her skin, barely visible beneath her smeared face paint, flashed perfect white as she held both hands to his face and forced out all she had, blue-tinted light burning his skin and charring the metal beneath.
It was barely enough to loosen his grip, and she tore away in that single instant, dropping down for a heartbet to lift the coppery orb they had fought so roughly over from the ground where it had fallen. Clutching the artifact to her chest with one hand, she reached to her belt with the other and drew out a fine mechanical device, pressing down on the single red button and speaking hurriedly into the end tipped with foam and metal mesh.
"Jak, Errol is attacking the monk temple." She turned a corner, the steady stomping of the abomination's footsteps loud behind her. "He wants the secrets we have kept regarding the Dark Makers."
She raced past one of the libraries and three of her monks emerged; the look in their eyes as she darted past was the greatest of promises, the reminder that they had taken the same oath as she, given up their lives in exactly the same manner.
The stomping slowed, she felt a flash of light as she drove on, heard the unholy crack of bone and flesh on stone.
"Please, help us."
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"I don't belong to anyone." Too-dark eyes narrowed to slits as emerald-gold hair bristled behind the scarlet band about his head. One foot came down on the older man's chest, just rough enough to send his heart racing. "And I'm not going to give you what you want."
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The stomping returned with full force, far further back than before. Her monks' sacrifice had not been in vain.
She didn't hear if the hero replied, couldn't have heard it over the pounding of her heart in her head and blood screaming in her ears, but knew nonetheless that he had gotten the transmission.
Running up stairs and racing through the massive stone doors that opened just before her—sliding closed again when she passed—she reached the small metal ring at the entrance to the temple just as the sound of metal against stone exploded behind her.
Dust fogged the air as the monster forced his way through the moving walls, obscuring his vision and scrambling his sensors just long enough for her to key in a set of coordinates and leap through the ring, artifact still clutched tightly to her chest.
The air cleared, and he gave an angry roar when he found her no longer in his sight.
"Yes," he said softly, tone dripping with rage, "I think you two would taste exactly the same."
End
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