((Under the cut for violence/gore/sadism))
He wants to answer. He wants to say I remember these cuts. He wants to say I remember how your body twisted beneath my knife, how your neck bent back as you screamed. But the elf’s hand is closed around his windpipe, and while he does not need to breathe to stay alive, he needs air to speak. The muscles in his throat clench uselessly under the vice of Maehdros’s palm, producing only the weak, wet clicks of one choking.
And he is excited. Because the pain is terrible, but worse would have been disregard– if this stone-faced, savage elf had ignored him, let the memories of his torture fade to distant hurt, forgotten the name behind his scars, his name– that would have broken his heart.
Every time the knife enters him he makes sure to watch his face; he is fascinated by the tension in the elf’s jaw, the hard curve of his lips, the way his nostrils constrict when he inhales sharply, drunk with cruelty.
He has so often been on the other side of the blade, watching with pleasure every twitch, every grinding of clenched teeth, every whimper; he knows he is meant to savor the irony of it. Every flourish of the knife is a love note from an avid pupil.
In the pause between cuts there is the hope of a release that does not come; that a part of him hopes will never come until Maedhros is finished, and they understand each other fully. He hopes. He wants to ask do you love me the way I loved you, when I pressed the brand to your thigh, when I looked into your eyes and broke the bones in your hand, one by one? Am I as beautiful as you were?
But his lungs are empty, and there is too much blood in his mouth to speak.
MisbehavingMaiar: Tumblr Archive 