Candlelight: Gen, NC-17

[cradle-song.livejournal.com]

Disclaimer: I love my Jackets and I think Nikky is the soul of sweetness. This fic is here because I wanted to write fic, and doesn't say nuthin' about how I think the players are or how they act or how they interact.

Title: Candlelight
Rating: R NC-17 (bit of bondage, bit of violence)
Genre: I wouldn’t call it angst, and calling it romance would be laughable. Erm. Gen? Psych-fic, anywho.
Players: Nikolai Zherdev/Sergei Fedorov(POV)
Summary: "Nikolai’s fingernails rake down my legs, and they leave red welts in their wake."

-

          I had known that it would be like this when we first began this relationship.

          I had known the instant I saw those flashing grey eyes, half-hidden between long eyelashes and a head tilted toward the ground in deceptive shyness. I had known from the first time we had played together—the first time he tackled me against the boards, celebrating his goal and my assist; his grip achingly strong and tight as he held me pressed against his chest. I had known from the way he moved, sultry and sensual, predatory no matter what action it was the he engaged in. I had known from the first time he had kissed me, fingers clenched around my arms hard enough to bruise as he pressed me against the wall, and I had known from the time he had laid his head sleepily on my shoulder during a flight and talked to me in Russian about the cold in Moscow and how warm I felt. I had known.

           And even now, willing and wanting beneath him, I can’t reconcile my mind with how very damaged he is.

          The heat in the room is almost stifling, suffocating, and every gasping breath I take is deep as I try to fill my lungs with enough oxygen to keep me alive. Tapered red candles illuminate the room, at least one on nearly every available surface; flickering and dancing and emitting warmth in waves that I can almost see in my hazy vision. They ring the bed and, with my arms bound tight above my head and my ankles affixed to the posts at the foot of the bed, I feel almost like an offering—or a sacrifice. Blinking away the sweat in my eyes, I can look down and see perspiration sheening my chest, my legs, my body; rolling in meandering trickles down my sides, the sheets damp beneath me. My world has narrowed to what is lit by the quivering candles: narrowed to dark eyes and dark hair and skin that is almost as gold as the light itself.

          Nikolai’s fingernails rake down my legs, and they leave red welts in their wake. I groan, and a sweet smile curls that devilish mouth.

          I had tried to help him. We had been thrown together almost immediately upon my arrival, and I strove to restore him in any way possible. I calmed him down after losses, when he would pace back and forth in our shared hotel room with angry tension in every line of his body, spitting curses in Russian and Ukrainian. I explained why he was getting the brunt of coaches’ ire, why his defensive play made them shudder—and explained how he could improve it. I was patient with his moodiness and I was patient with his sudden bouts of giddiness, and all year long worked to repair the damage that hid behind cool grey eyes. The pain deep down that had somehow morphed, contorted by endless abuse and disappointments and sharp words that warped into an intense, violent anger that he wasn’t even aware of, kept bottled up within.

          Usually he kept it in. Usually he was able to channel it into something else, something better; fierceness on the ice, and determination off. Usually he was able to keep it in check.

          Sometimes, he wasn’t.

          The first time he hit me came sometime after the first time we’d kissed, and it was just as savage. But instead of his teeth bringing blood to my lip it was his knuckles, and my head had snapped back with the force of the blow. I’d wiped the iron taste from my mouth and just watched him, his eyes wide and nearly black as he’d panted, waiting until he’d come down from wherever it was he went. The granite-grey had returned and he had taken me in his arms, his kisses commanding and demanding and apologetic.

          It wasn’t that I couldn’t have stopped it—I’d known he was going to hit me before he himself did. I could have blocked, I could have dodged; but I didn’t, because of that rage in his eyes. Because of that single-minded intensity that didn’t even see me, but saw some other obstacle in his memory that I couldn’t comprehend. Because he needed it.

          He is stronger than me physically, but I am stronger than him mentally; and I don’t want him to break more than he doesn’t want to see me hurt.

          A candle to my right sputters as Nikolai lowers his teeth—not his mouth, not his lips, but his teeth—to my chest. I arch up into it as he clamps down on my nipple, worrying the hard nub to the brink of pain; and then past it. Burning flares erupt down my sides as his fingernails claw across my ribcage, and when I shout out the pads of his fingertips return to stroke across the reddened skin, his tongue lapping at the sweat pooling in the hollow of my throat.

          I push up against him, tugging at the straps around my wrists, and he growls and slaps me back down to the bed with a hand splayed across my stomach. The command is tacit and with a shaky moan, I subside.

          It isn’t that he is violent—not with people, not with anything. He loves children and he loves the fans; he loves the team, and he loves the city. He loves me, too, but there is a difference between myself and the others: I give him free reign. I let him do what he wills and don’t demand anything in return for it; giving him all that he wants out of me. He’s gotten better, he’s been good, and usually now he is able to translate any fury that he has into concentration and hard work.

          I’m there for the times that he can’t.

          I’m there for the times that he won’t.

          Tonight is one of the latter, stemming from a crappy game where just about everyone failed him. Pascal had let in soft goals, Rick hadn’t been passing when he should have, Rusty hadn’t stifled the offense as well as he could have; and we had lost one to three, with Nikolai scoring the only goal. The frustrated anger in his body had been palpable when we’d retreated to the locker room, and if he had been able to convey his emotions in English instead of Russian, I knew he would have chewed out the rest of the team, respect be damned. As it was, he only caught my eye across the dressing room, a burning look in those grey depths. Furious. Unwilling to accept a defeat that should have been a win. Unwilling to accept a mediocrity in others that he never allows with himself. With a clipped nod he had turned on heel and stalked away; and I had come to meet him, here, in his apartment, with the candles the only light and the black straps attached to the posts of the bed and the headboard striking and stark against the white sheets. I’d walked into his bedroom and he had closed the door behind me, fisting my hair in his hand, his breath hot against my ear as he ordered me to strip. Which I had done, obediently, efficiently, lying down on the bed as he wanted with my legs spread and my wrists high above my head. The look in his eyes was dark, enigmatic and almost completely unreadable but for the fact that I knew him so well. I knew the anger in his body, tightly controlled.

          Only when the first lash of his belt bit into my skin did the fury start draining away.

          My body is covered in red: strips of red where the raw leather had snapped against my pale skin, splotches of red where his mouth had sucked at; flecks of red in the wax that had been dripped on my thighs and abdomen and scraped off only after I’d stopped screaming. I am red and the room is red and Nikolai’s eyes are jet-black as he kneels between my spread legs, covering my mouth with his and shoving into me.

          I tense.

          I scream, into his throat, my entire body going taut with the pain and the pleasure of it. I slam my head back against the pillow and squeeze my eyes shut as red spots dance beneath my eyelids, agony pulsing through my body. He thrusts into me experimentally and I scream again, hearing his breathless moan above me. I open my eyes and he’s watching me, transfixed by my face. His pupils are dilated in pleasure and he licks away the tears that I hadn’t noticed trickling down my cheeks. I gasp for air, for oxygen, for that sweet essence that keeps us all alive—and am denied it, only allowed to inhale Nikolai; his scent, his taste.

          He thrusts into me again and this time, it’s white-hot ecstasy. The muscles in my straining arms and legs spasm as euphoria races through my veins, and I keen and moan and search out Nikolai’s lips with my own, sucking his tongue into my mouth and unconsciously tugging at the straps holding me down. He establishes a rhythm and I see the rage dissipating as he loses himself in me, receding back down as he gains control through control, his face a study in hedonism as he rocks us into nirvana.

          And I’m lost.

-

Comments

[skye-chan14.livejournal.com]

Eee, yay! ♥

Indeed they are. *sniffs as well* So are non-slash peoples.

Souls are always good. *nods*

Eee, yay, new friends are always good too! I sometimes ramble. Most of the time, I just ramble about Nikolai and hockey. XD At least, recently, I have.