Disclaimer: Characters from the Blade Universe are used without permission but with no intent to defraud.
Author's Notes: Okay, so an obscurish fandom, a very odd pairing, but I LOVE this film. Betad by the wonderful mayalaen. It's a missing scene. Asher is the first to pay the captured King a visit. On his own.
This story contains SLASH so if you do not like it - or don't know what it is - then DO NOT READ. Thanks :o)
Masks
Hannibal King was scared - downright fucking terrified, in fact - but there was no way he was going to admit it to anyone. So, when the door to the room opened and Asher Talos strolled casually in, King clenched his fists, lifted his chin, and smiled brightly.
"Well, fuck-a-doodle-do, if it isn't Danica's bitch."
Asher flashed teeth, gleaming and sharp, in his direction as he dragged the chair across the room. "Thought that was your job, King-shit." The chair thumped down inches in front of King and the vampire slid onto it, his knees touching King's naked chest. He leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. "We missed you. There's been no one to crack jokes around here, lately."
Sweat prickled on King's brow, and he tried to ease back without making it too obvious, but the chains tethering his wrists to the ground were taut already, and he had nowhere to go. "Man, Asher, have you still not heard of deodorant? It's a revelation, you know."
The vampire's grin never faltered, and he eased further forward on the seat, pressing his knees against King's, and deliberately nudging the stab wound on King's chest. He smirked as King hissed in pain. "You used to be rather partial to my scent, if I remember correctly."
"Hey, I was doped up by your she-bitch of a sister's blood. I was partial to a lot of things that were, quite frankly – and please take offence to this – disgusting." King said the words, but his skin was prickling with tension. Asher's fingers, inches from his skin, were drumming a silent rhythm on the air; the vampire's taut frame was positively thrumming with energy.
"Really?" The fingers reached out and tweaked King's nipple sharply. He gasped and tried to jerk back, the chains clinking noisily.
"Fuck off."
"What? No witty comeback?" Asher grinned; he had a filthy grin, wide and toothy, and he knew when to use it. "Don't tell me I'm making you nervous."
King desperately tried to gather his wits, to hide his growing tension, but shirtless and bound at the knees of a lecherous vampire, it was hard to hide anything. Despite what he'd said, the scent of Asher was intoxicating: musky and distinctly masculine, something King hadn't craved for a very long time.
The vampire's fingers were hovering over the skin of King's chest, tracing the path of a bead of sweat as it rolled down his neck and trickled over his rippled abdomen. The hand trailed lowered, still not touching, and Asher pointed a long finger at the swell in King's trousers. "So, I'm disgusting, am I?" Asher said softly, tipping his head toward King and positioning his lips near King's ear when the human turned his face away. "Some parts of you are disagreeing."
King swallowed heavily. Focus, dammit. "I…I…" He stumbled over the words, and took a shuddering breath; he cleared his throat and turned back to face Asher, trying to ignore the smug grin on the face only inches from his own. "I can't be to blame for what Little King does; he has a mind of his own and absolutely appalling taste. Me? I think you're a blood-sucking piece of shit that I'd rather die than have touch me again. Ever."
A flicker of annoyance, and something less definable, passed across the vampire's features, and he tilted his head to the side. "Really?" he said. "'Cause I dunno, King, I think that maybe you're lyin'." In one smooth movement, his hand tangled in King's hair and his lips slamming against the human's, viciously.
For a moment King was lost; he forgot the chains, Abby, Blade, the fact that his life was hanging by the barest of threads. He only felt the harsh familiar pressure of Asher's lips, the touch of his hand sliding around his neck, the other brushing against his beard in a petting caress. King's hips arched forward involuntarily, and the chains clinked as he lifted his hands to touch the blond.
And then Asher opened his mouth and let his tongue slide into King's welcoming mouth, and King tasted the blood: the blood of a recent kill.
He panicked, wrenching away from the vampire with such force that pain rocketed through his shoulders pulled taut by the chains. "No," he gasped, "Fuck, no." He twisted his head away and retched, his body shaking violently as every memory slammed back into place.
Asher was on his feet in an instant, sending the chair crashing across the room in a fit of rage. King looked fearfully at him, expecting a blow, but still wasn't ready when it came; a solid right hook, scraping the skin from his cheeks as Asher's ring crunched against the bone.
"Big mistake, King," he snarled, looking down at the bleeding human. "I could have helped you, stopped Danica from-" He cut himself off, and rolled his neck in a circle, letting the joints crack. When he looked back down at King, the grin was back in place, but this time it was spiteful. "This never happened," he said. "You're my sister's toy now, and I don't give a fuck what she does with you."
King looked up at Asher's cruel expression; he could think of nothing clever to say. He was still scared, still downright fucking terrified, and this vampire – who he had known so well once upon a nightmare - knew it. And it amused him; he chuckled.
"See you later, King-shit. I suggest you try to get some sleep. You've got a long night ahead of you."
King watched, silently, as the vampire walked over to the fallen chair and set it upright, then moved toward the door.
"Asher?" King whispered, and for a second thought the vampire hadn't heard him; he should have known better.
Asher's hand paused on the door handle, but he didn't look back. "What?" he said.
"I'm sorry."
The vampire's body went rigid, and his knuckles whitened where they held the handle. After a long moment of silence, he spat, "Fuck you, King." And then he was gone, the door slamming in his wake.
King's chin dropped to his chest and he shivered. He needed to focus; if he didn't get his game face back on then it was all for nothing. He had to forget about Asher, forget what just happened, and sort himself the fuck out.
Fuck them all. He was Hannibal fucking King, and he wasn't going to be a vampire's bitch ever again. Not in this lifetime.
And so later, when the he saw Asher again, he threw insults, and Asher, well, he just laughed.