another speedy little mini-fill; this time for MerianMoriarty's prompt over at Gayreign (gayreign (dot) livejournal (dot) com):
Pairing: Daken/Lester
Scenario: day-to-day life is a series of control games
Kink: breathplay and/or bloodplay

thiiiis is what i got. sorry. i can't really seem to get a good handle on bloodplay. or Victoria, in spite of the way she elbowed her way in here...i think my Victoria comes out a little too clinical. *shrug*

warnings: implied sex. slash. violence. voyeurism (sort of). language: pg-13 (for s***).

pairing: Daken/Lester.

timeline: some indeterminate time before the siege of Asgard.

disclaimer: all characters are property of Marvel.

notes: 1) VICTORIAAAAAA. like i said, i don't think i have a good handle on Victoria. but this is what i got.

Control

It's never quite clear which of them is in control. Victoria suspects they don't know, themselves—and that probably it changes from moment to moment, a lithe and shifting thing. A delicate balance of power.

She doesn't consider herself a curious woman by nature, and she has no particular interest in men (she's on the verge of disinterest when it comes to these unstable villains), but balances of power intrigue her.

So she watches.

Much of the time, it's empty bickering. Daken says things in a low, secretive tone, and Bullseye flips into catty, raised-hackles retorts. They scuffle a little, on occasion, but it's nothing like what Victoria expected when Norman first outlined his ideal roster to her. Half-hearted fistfights, like some kind of strange flirtation. Bullseye often gets the better of these minor physical spats, but the damage he deals is gone in minutes and Daken is still smiling, smiling like he's asking for it.

Masochistic tendencies never showed up in his psych profile. Maybe it's just another way of showing off. Yes, that would slot nicely into Daken's narcissistic complex.

Maybe even that is part of the off-kilter courtship that seems to be taking place between Daken and Bullseye.

Look what I can do.

She watches.

Partly, it's because they're far more useful alive, so it would be extremely inconvenient for their whatever-it-is to get out of hand. Partly, it's because they're like a pair of wolves circling each other, and she's dying to know who comes out on top.

Wait, no, not like that…although…

Hm. An interesting train of thought.

Today, they're raising a hell of a ruckus. They're behind closed doors, locked in Bullseye's room, but Victoria can still see them. She believes in thorough observation of an investment (especially where national security is concerned). She believes in multiple cameras and microphones in each room so that she can see all, hear all.

Ensconced among security monitors, Victoria Hand is God.

Or Santa Claus. Hm. That might be closer. She can't smite them for misbehaving, but she can certainly stuff their stockings with coal.

She watches.

The fight is a bit more serious today. A lot of furniture is being turned into weaponry, a lot of blood is being drawn.

Victoria lets her hand hover over a red switch. If one of them starts to go too far, she'll gas the room and knock them both cold.

Bullseye swings a floor lamp with enough force to send one of Daken's teeth ricocheting off the lens of the least unobtrusive camera (that particular camera is for show, because they'd be suspicious if they thought they weren't being watched). He turns his head to flash the camera a very vulgar and demeaning gesture that Victoria does not appreciate.

Daken pounces with four claws out, bloodstained teeth gleaming as he smiles.

Victoria feels vaguely as if she were watching a documentary on the social habits of a particularly volatile predator. Alligators, perhaps.

She tilts her head, curious and only distantly appreciative of the ongoing back-and-forth of strength and speed and leverage and sharp edges. Men are such forceful, ungainly creatures…it's hard to imagine that they can be capable of the feline grace she associates with women, but Daken is graceful in the act of violence. There's an almost feminine beauty to his movements, and Victoria suddenly wants Bullseye to lose.

Is that subconscious resentment of the psychological entity that is the oppressive heterosexist misogynist American male? Hm. She usually doesn't have that problem.

It's ambiguous when exactly the morbid courtship transitions to bloody consummation. One moment, they're beating the shit out of each other; the next, they're ripping each other's clothes off. There's still no clear winner.

Victoria purses her lips in impatient dismay.

Half-nude brawling, how tediously Neanderthal…

At some point, Bullseye gets a hand around Daken's throat and pins him to the floor. Daken puts one set of claws through Bullseye's shoulder—a flesh wound, but an associated threat. The ribs and humerus may be plated, but that won't keep him from shredding an artery if he turns his hand just so. Dark blood slowly oozes its way down Daken's forearm.

The sex is ugly and rough, and she will never in all her life understand how anyone can think a penis is sexy. What Victoria watches raptly is the minute slide of Daken's claws through Bullseye's flesh, the downward-bearing pressure of Bullseye's hand on Daken's windpipe. One of them will give in. One of those hands will back off.

There!

Bullseye's hand slackens.

Victoria is smug without justification. Again, that bizarre subconscious alpha-male resentment…how strange. Perhaps this is what Norman feels, this bemused detachment to his own uncontrollable and nonsensical emotions. She wonders if she's losing her mind. Clearly, she needs to go to a bar, meet a nice girl, and get laid.

Daken smiles again, uses his free hand to smear bloody patterns over Bullseye's chest with the man's own blood. By this point, it looks like Bullseye is just along for the ride, a marionette having his strings plucked (perhaps he's the one with the streak of masochism; it wouldn't be outside the realm of his profile).

An awkward jerk and stutter, a slow uncoiling of tense muscles. Daken pulls his claws free and says something Victoria can't make out.

Bullseye scores a point back by slitting Daken's throat with a blade Victoria never saw him draw. She rests her hand tentatively on the switch. This much is all right. This much is still within the realm of catharsis. Just as long as he doesn't cut Daken's head clean off.

And anyway, Daken seems amused by it, grinning like a maniac and gurgling in a way that would be laughter if not for the blood bubbling up.

Victoria is obliquely half-disappointed, but she supposes this is still according to Daken's plan, a minor and meaningless concession.

Bullseye gives the cameras the finger as he saunters into the bathroom to take a shower.

She waits until he gets in, then she gasses the room. She may take a little too much pleasure in the cracking sound of a metal-plated skull thudding against bathroom tile.

.End.