Title: Cut Your Strings

Fandom: Trinity Blood

Pairings: Isaak x Dietrich

Disclaimer: Trinity Blood, Isaak Fernand von Kampfer, and Dietrich von Lohengrin are not mine.

Summary: Isaak is only unable to control one thing, but is it control he truly wants?

It was always about control. It was what he always wanted, what he always craved. Even after so many years of living, he had not acquired that level of control. And only one man... one boy, stood in his way. Dietrich von Lohengrin, the puppetmaster of the Rosenkreuz Orden. That boy, nothing he did could enforced a level of control on him, absolutely nothing.

He hated it.

There was something about the boy which angered him, in a way he could not explain. The way Dietrich maintained that level of control over people, objects, and even himself, he wanted that. Isaak wanted to break that iron grip of control the boy had. He wanted him to come undone, to beg for release, to have his fate in his hands so completely, on a level it frightened even the Magician himself.

The wine glass trembled in his elegant, white gloved fingers, pale gold swirling around almost haphazardly around in the glass which held it. His eyes followed the movement of the liquid, lost in his reverie of thought, until a beautifully mocking voice sliced through what would have been an otherwise perfect evening.

Hazel eyes and chocolate brown hair came into sight as he turned, tearing his eyes away from a sunset which reminded him ever more about the boy who now stood before his desk. A single cloud had drifted across the sky, tainted the otherwise perfect scene. Just like he was, so beautiful, so innocent, so... tainted.

"Evening." Isaak looked up briefly at Dietrich, eyes distant, not truly focused on him. Hazel eyes narrowed slightly, not in annoyance, almost in curiosity, mind curious upon as to what the raven haired magician was thinking.

The wine glass trembled again, ever so slightly.

Click.

Moments later found the puppetmaster sitting upon the desk, the fabric of his pants pulled taut against slender legs, belt resting on his hips, a casual smirk on his beautifully innocent face, toying with one of his many, various fountain pens. Isaak felt his anger rising, knowing that the boy was purely taunting him, sitting with that improper, yet oh-so-tempting posture on his table, on his documents, and playing with his stationary, but yet at the same time, he felt something else, lust, perhaps?

That old feeling came back, he wanted to break the boy's control.

It was a hunger he could not quell, rising so quickly there was simply no time to restrain or muzzle it. He did not recall when he had risen, taken hold of the puppetmaster's wrists in such a rough fashion, pinning him against the window, which gave a rather retaliatory crack in response to the magician's rough treatment of his protégé, but when the fog cleared he found himself leaning scandalously close to the puppetmaster. The wine glass was shattered at his feet, its contents soaking into the carpet.

A smirk curled the edges of Dietrich's lips.

"Something the matter, Magician?"

For those long moments edged with silence, Isaak spent searching futilely for an answer, wondering if the puppetmaster had truly laced his nerves with his organic strings, guiding his thoughts in the way only he could do in that oh. So. Infuriating manner.

Long, elegant fingers removed themselves from what would have been a stiff, crisp sleeve cuff if not for the crushing pressure he had applied on it.

Isaak had wanted to kiss him, deeply, passionately.

And at the same time, he had wanted to kill him, in a slow, painful manner.

His thoughts conflicted, the desire for the young man before him clashing violently with his want to hurt him, to see red blood trickling from wounds too deep to heal, licking the blood away and healing him and loving him and seeing his cold, dead body on the warm carpeted ground, straddling it and wrapping his gloved hands around the boy's cold neck. To his surprise, Dietrich was surprisingly compliant today, no brilliantly sarcastic or mocking remarks from that sweet, pouty lips. Lips he wanted to bite and nip at and kiss until they were swollen and -

"I understand that the glass in your office is made to withstand bullets, Isaak, but I'm not sure if it can withstand our combined weight."

The mocking tone in that beautifully melodic voice unnerved him, and yet brought out his lust even more. He had not realized that he had been leaning forward in an all-too-suggestive way, and once again, his paranoid mind suggested to him that the fallen angel before him was manipulating his mind.

Isaak shook it off, stepping back and re-seating himself on his chair. His hand near trembled as he lit a cigar, desperately searching for something to distract himself with. Nicotine flooded into his lungs, but to his surprise, it did nothing to calm his frayed nerves. Dietrich smirked, lips curling, seating himself upon the magician's desk again, making no effort once more to clear away the documents before he made himself comfortable on it.

"And pray tell what would the purpose of your visit here today be?"

Isaak exhaled, smoke curling gently upwards. Dietrich shrugged a little, removing his glove and dropping it on the table, beside the ashtray. Isaak's breath caught, his mind running wild, imagining what it would be like to see the crisp, white shirt roll off the puppetmaster's shoulders, exposing skin and flesh so teasingly slowly, wondering what it would be like to have those slender fingers on his skin.

"I was bored."

It took all of his already cracked self restrain to resist from lashing out, hitting that oh-so-pretty face and hurting the young man before him. It took a few more deep breaths of nicotine to finally calm himself down enough and formulate a reply. His fingers trembled, scattering ashes over the carpet, before Isaak pulled himself together, crushing the cigar with unnecessary force in the ashtray.

Dietrich merely arched a slender eyebrow at the gesture.

Control.

Snapping.

Every single gesture from the puppetmaster made it harder to restrain the beast, he knew that it would eventually break free and he would do something he might but probably not regret while in that incoherent state. Lust could override logic and as much as he did not want that to happen, he did not have the same level of control the puppetmaster did. And how badly he wanted to wrest that control from him right now, pin him on the table without care for the carefully arranged and filled papers on it and hurt him until he cried and begged for mercy and release and -

Isaak did not realize that while his mind had been carefully laying out the one thousand and one possible scenarios, his body had already acted, a hand snaking around that slender waist, the other curling painfully tightly around Dietrich's beautifully pale, slender neck, forcefully pulling him from the table and crushing his lips against the puppetmaster's.

Logic returned to him much later. His lust had warred with his logic and logic had lost, spectacularly. With a pop and a bang too, he fancied, but for the moment, the magician was simply too busy, fingers working off the layers of clothing which separated him from skin and -

Slender, beautiful fingers closed over his wrist, curling sensuously around his neck, drawing him down. Lips, nipped at and bitten and vaguely swollen from the abuse the magician had inflicted, caressed skin gently, tongue flicking out to tease heated skin. Everything they did was about control, one struggling to wrest control from the other and the other keeping it wrapped around him so firmly it was almost that control was a part of him.

Isaak refused to give in. He wanted that... control, but no matter how much he tried to deny it was always Dietrich he wanted. Wanting that control was just an excuse to him, to get close to the puppetmaster and seduce and draw him into his lair, or in this case, his bed.

And Dietrich could not say he did not enjoy this, in all its complexities. There was a certain perverse pleasure he derived in being able to bend and break these little puppets he controlled, and the sadistic beast in him wanted Isaak as part of his 'collection'. The magician had power, he wanted it, the same way he had control and Isaak craved it.

Even if they did not want to admit, it was still, in the end, a cycle of give-and-take. The chains which bound them was simply too long for them to disentangle or break out of, each link leading to a dozen others which in turn trapped them in their own never-ending cage. One stole power, the other seized control, but in the end it still slipped away; it was never theirs to take nor theirs to keep but still they tried.

In the end, It didn't even matter.

Though young, youth still had its limits, and this was where his ended. Chest heaving with unseen effort, porcelain skin damp with sweat, back arching so finely even the magician near paused in his actions to admire the beauty only this young man possessed. Silent pleas tore loose from his lips, showing in his eyes, and as fingers tightened their grip on his skin, Isaak knew Dietrich had relinquished that control.

It was his.

The surge of power he felt was exhilarating.

"You've taken what you've wanted, Isaak." Amber brown eyes opened slightly, lazily focusing on the magician beside him. An elegant hand lifted, a cigar flaring to life and fire, smoke drifting into the air. Quiet exhalations mingled with harsh pants, one suitably relaxed, the other looking as though he had run a race.

"Have you truly given up control, marionettenspieler?" The magician remarked, letting out a long breath of pale gray smoke, which curled almost snake-like, before dissipating, as a pale, unmarred hand batted lightly at it. There was a long pause as the young man contemplated his reply, lithe figure reclining on the bed, tangled in the sheets.

"Well?"

A soft grunt slipped past Dietrich's lips, not yet having the chance to reply as cold, wine-tainted lips closed over his own. Cool fingers crept over his skin, curling around his waist, drawing him closer. There was no resistance from the young man, and perhaps, perhaps yes, Isaak had seized the control he so badly craved. Finally, as they broke apart, a smirk curled at Dietrich's lips.

"I have not."

He should have known, the puppetmaster was not easy to break. But yet, he had succeeded in breaking a chink of that control, the reddish welt on the boy's neck a clear mark of that. Their vicious cycle would have to continue, Isaak still craved control and Dietrich power.

In the end, it was still all about control.