Courtship rituals

DISCLAIMER: Spiral and Marrow belong to Marvel.

WARNING: This story is a look into a possible future of two characters of X-Men: Genesis RPG. Canon timelines = different.

NOTES: Enabled by Magikfanfic. Damn her eyes.

Spiral held Marrow’s hand in one of hers and licked along the palm of it, cleaning off the slick of blood with a long movement of her tongue. Eyes fixed on the Morlock’s as they watched each other warily. Trust? What was that? Copper tang exploded in her mouth as she turned Marrow’s hand to the side, letting her tongue trail along the side of the girl’s fingers, running against skin and bone. Cut your mouth open on her skin, one could. The dancing dolls would cower, afraid of this bone child other.

They already did.

“Brought you something.” Marrow half-closed her eyes, reaching out to hold onto the lapel of Spiral’s coat. Pushed it off her shoulders, because she wanted to see. Arms and muscle, daggers gleaming and there wasn’t nearly enough blood on her when Marrow was painted in it. Drips running down her neck from her hair and she could feel it clotting against her skin. Red handprint against Spiral’s chest as she leaned in, turning her face into the woman’s hair. Felt hands, too many hands, settling across her body and bared her teeth, restraining the urge to give the pale skin lying near her mouth a sharp bite. They brought each other inside the circle of their defences. And waited to see who would hurt first.

“Bone child’s been acting outside her script,” Spiral murmured against the palm of the girl’s hand, feeling the heat of Marrow’s breath against her skin. The girl was wet with blood, and it couldn’t all be hers. She’d been playing with the pink dolls, breaking them into pieces and rolling around in their remains. Spiral wished she could have seen it. The way their blank doll eyes would have widened in fear, desperate jerkings against their strings to keep their mockery of life as she blazed through them like a fire. Marrow would have been a bloody silhouette against their world, all bones outside and angry mouth and sparking eyes. Horror movie monster in their doll house. “You should have waited for the cameras.” Stank of sewer slime and copper sweet smell of blood. It was not unfamiliar.

“You wanted to watch me.” That was a surprise. Though, maybe it shouldn’t have been. Marrow grinned, and lowered her mouth to the side of Spiral’s neck. Sucked on what she had fastened her teeth around, leaving a dark purple mark as she felt the hands on her hips tighten. “Weren’t you hiding in your wild ways, watching?” Seemed like every time she turned around, Spiral was prone to stepping out of nothing with a riddle and flash of metal. Hard hands pressed her against the wall of the alley, and Marrow shuddered, feeling the claws on her fingertips slide deeper into Spiral’s flesh as the woman pressed in closer. Cradled within the bones that spiked out from her ribs, but only just. She could feel the hilt of a dagger digging in against her stomach, cool kiss of a blade’s edge against her forearm as Spiral held her arms up against the wall above her head. If she wanted, she could just flex and leave Spiral bleeding and punctured from a hundred wounds, bones skewering her against the opposite wall.

But she didn’t want to. Not yet.

“Not this time.” Arch and roll of Marrow’s body underneath her own, and she could smile now. Feel the ache of the wound on her neck against her pulse, because Marrow had sharp teeth. She made Spiral feel...something. It didn’t let her step outside of her director’s role, because Marrow was just an actress moving across her set. She had never thought that she would be directing pornography, it was vastly different to what her usual fare was. This was not the place she wanted for this scene. It didn’t fit the mood. Not exactly. But she’d wait to see her offering before she cut and pasted the action from this location to another. “What did you bring me, Marrow other, bloody bones?”

“Bag at my waist,” the Morlock rasped, rubbing her thigh between Spiral’s legs as she felt the stones behind her break a bone and cut into her back. Square marks against her skin. Usually her wounds were more organic in shape, curved and sinuous. Scars crawling across her skin like snakes, writhing silver marks against pale skin that didn’t see the sun very often. Two hands held her arms above her head, two hands stroked the bones that flowed through her skin, while the other two hands stopped running over her hips and went to investigate the bag. “Hope you like it.”

Spiral’s eyebrows arched as she went to investigate with her lowest pair of hands. The relentless grind of Marrow’s thigh between her legs and the twitch of her wrists under her hands made her want to get this over with, move the scene, change the movie. Crinkle of plastic against her hands as she opened the bag and glanced down. Something red and wet inside, pale skin and curved fingers reaching upwards towards her. Marrow’s sense of display really needed to be worked on, but the thought behind the gift couldn’t be faulted. Doll’s hand, a female’s, with slender long fingers and manicured nails. A golden wedding band glinted.

The doll would have screamed. Had it been alive or dead when Marrow had removed its hand? Hands, she saw now. Had it whined and begged, voice as soft as the wind and as worthy of heeding? Putting one of her own hands in, she touched the cold soft flesh, stroking the pads of her fingers against the ones that curled up to meet her own. Cold wet and blood pooled around the ragged stumps.

“Is it good?”

“Bone child, you do the most surprising things.” Spiral closed the bag, and dropped it so it fell against her coat. “Paint it for me.” She rocked her hips against Marrow’s knee, feeling her breath starting to come a little faster, the plot moving apace. “Tell me.” She wanted to have been able to see it, as director she should been on the scene, even if she was out of shot. Licked at a bone that was jutting out from Marrow’s cheek, feeling the different textures under her tongue. Shiny taut skin stretched around the base of it, rough bone and softer flesh behind. “Make me a movie, other daring girl.” Quick tug at the top that covered Marrow’s torso made it rip, bones shredding the cloth as she pulled it down and let the rags fall to the ground.

Marrow made an inarticulate sound as Spiral’s thumbs brushed against her nipples, arching up and trying to grind her hips against the other woman’s body. “Nnngh, fuck!” Sparks of electricity trailing from her breasts down to her stomach and further down. Rotated her hips and bit at Spiral’s neck, just out of reach, maddened for a moment with pleasure so intense as fingers dug down into her pants that she had to bite something. Fix her teeth in something before she yelled. Gnaw like a rat and hurt somebody.

“Dancing dolls, pink and soft.” Spiral tasted blood against her tongue again as she cleaned up a crimson splatter against the side of Marrow’s face, sliding her hands down the front of the girl’s pants. Nothing underneath but bone and skin and wiry curls. Wet flesh that when touched made Marrow jerk and yelp and swear. “How did you dance with them, bone studded warrior?” Stopped moving her fingers until Marrow was looking at her, green eyes angry and glistening like glass.

“Danced them until they were bloody, upworlder.” Marrow lunged for Spiral’s mouth, kissing and biting, feeling the other woman bite back just as hard, hands tightening their hold on her wrist to the point where it hurt. Bucked her hips and felt the fingers start to move again. Bright Lady, yes. Rules of the game this time was that she talk, obviously. Had her games, had her ways, did the mad woman. But they were fucking fun to play, edge of danger running along underneath like electric along railway tracks. Had to watch your step on the tracks. But that was half the fun of walking along them, waiting for the train to blow you away or the electricity to make you jump and squall. “I – unh – stalked her. Followed her. Pretty little sun child, walking...” Hissed in a breath as Spiral’s teeth closed around the side of her throat, arching her neck and trying to pull her hands free. She wanted to touch her, run her hands along that body and make her squirm as much as she was making Marrow do it. Bitch. Had to have her way all the damn time. Fucking uplander bitch. “No – no idea I was behind her.”

Stalk and kill. Hunter chasing its prey through an urban jungle, tangle of streets flowering like flowers after rain. She could see it. Marrow drifting along in shadow like a tiger, cool and without conscience. The flickering frames that raced across her mind’s eye were beautiful. Spiral kissed the edge of Marrow’s gasping mouth, letting her tongue flick out and taste another droplet of blood as it clung stickily to unsunned skin. “Keep speaking your words. Make me see your starring role.” Marrow would have been a star, gleaming brightly against this shadow world. Dancing her way through the role of predator, killer, like she’d been born to it. Maybe she had. Like Spiral had been born for hers. It was a pity she’d only just stepped into her winning role. So much time, wasted.

“Hnn...” Spiral liked it when she talked to her, she could feel it in her bones. Liked to watch. Maybe, next time, she’d let Spiral watch her kill. But a first was special. Should be done alone. She’d be better at it next time. This time had been...messy. Like she was coming to think all good things should be. “Sun child walked somewhere she shouldn’t. Dark and lonely, all alone.” Moaned, harsh and breaking as fingers thrust inside her, nails scraping along the walls of her cunt. Fingers caressing curves of bone, making her feel dazed and hungry. But not dazed enough to not jerk one hand away from the clutch of Spiral’s fingers, and grab for the woman’s shoulder. Squeezing in time with the rapid beat of her heart, claws flexing in and out of flesh slowly. It just made Spiral smile, mad and glittering as any of her knives. “Sewer entrance. Dragged her into it.”

Oh yes, yes. Descent from light into dark, always a hit with the audience. Showing the brutal nature of the world. How easy it was to fall from grace. Slick and wet around her fingers as she hummed against Marrow’s neck, feeling the beat of the girl’s pulse against her lips. Like a soundtrack to the movie that was unfolding in her head. “What did it look like, the doll you played with?” Any thought of moving from the location was forgotten now. The rub and arch of Marrow’s body against her own, dragging pain of the bones as they caught at her skin like brambles wiped it out.

“Brown – brown hair. Business suit. Brown eyes. Pink lipsticked mouth.” Marrow let her head fall back against the wall behind her, banging her skull hard deliberately. It drowned out the pulse that made her not think. Had to keep some sort of mind on what Spiral’s daggers were doing. Too dangerous not to. Any time, Spiral could decide that the way the movie should end was in a flash of Marrow’s blood and skin gaping wide as a blade left its fatal mark. If she did, Marrow wanted to take her down into death with her. “White. Pale. Soft. Screamed like a dying cat, aaanh...”

“Where did you cut it first? Did it run?” Hands roamed almost without thought, letting Marrow’s last wrist drop from where she’d had it pinned. They stripped each other to the id, pulsing blood and raw muscle, exposed bone and racing breath. It was something beautiful. And barbaric. Pure. It was something that could win awards. Shiny and glittering.

“Dropped her into the dark.” The way she’d gasped as Marrow let go, the sound of her splash as she hit the sewer water raced through the Morlock’s mind again. The sound of her disgust. The woman had paid for that. Mostly she’d been paying for the sin of being human, one of the people who had forced Marrow’s face into the slime since she’d been born. Deserved it, they all did. “Ran. Ch-chased her. Let her think she was getting away.”

Panicked struggle of the doll through a world it didn’t understand, chased by a monster that belonged there in bone and blood, bonded to it in a way the dolls would never see. Never ever understand. Spiral gasped, feeling her eyelids flutter as she saw it in her mind, Marrow’s hand cupping against the front of her pants. Heel of her palm rubbing against the place that made her see sparks. “Oh, yes.” The movie reel was spinning in her mind. The darkness of the sewers meant lighting would be tricky. How to preserve the terror of the place, while letting the light in to make everything visible would be difficult. But it would have been worth it. Maybe she could make Marrow do it again, play the scene out again with a new unbroken doll.

“Sobbed, begged me not to hurt her.” Marrow raked her fingers down the front of Spiral’s body, feeling her nails catch in cloth and drag downwards. Scraping through to the skin underneath. It made Spiral twitch and gasp, like it had hurt her in the best way possible. Silver strike of a knife against her side made Marrow arch, pressing her hips forward as the wound spilled blood over her hip, eyes half closing for a moment in agonizing pleasure. “Bled her, high cut on her shoulder.” The first cut had made the woman squeal, shriek and run faster like a frightened mouse. Coming out of nowhere as it must have, as far as she was concerned. Weak, stupid, powerless human. No match for her. “Red on the water.” It had gleamed against the slime. Like the flowers she had seen once, above ground.

It would have left red gleaming tracks on top of oily water. Maybe it could have been an art film after all. Make it silent, kill the bleating noise from the doll and pan across the random yet artful designs of the blood sprays. It was amazing how much a doll mimicked a person, in the way they were inside. “Life is pain. Anyone who tells you otherwise is selling something.” A bone rubbed against the underside of her breast, as Marrow’s fingers worked at the fastening of her pants. Opened them so she could get inside, like a schoolgirl with a chocolate box. Hasty and eager, panting under her hands. Snarl quick to rise to the surface underneath the smooth surface of the moans. Junkyard bitch, surly and edgy but wanting.

“Tagged her with the bones.” A glancing cut here and there, making the woman cry and sob and moan. Fading out of darkness to leave blood behind before she disappeared again. Spiral’s fingers made her skin ache, hot feeling surging through her insides almost ruining the ability to talk. “Stopped playing. Opened her gut up with a quick stroke.” The bitch had tripped over her own intestines, things that should never have seen the light of day. Or the black of a sewer.

“Snakes...” Writhe and push against the fingers that were teasing her, more lost in the movie then what was happening down below. Lightning and thunder. Gotterdammerung. Timpani and kettledrums, suspenseful music score rushing to the climax. “Did it scream?”

“Ye-eah.” She’d fallen, wallowed in the sewer water, screaming and bleeding and dying. Eyes saying it was so unfair. Marrow had been happy to make her wake up and see the unfairness of the universe. The injustice of living. She lived with it every damn day. “Screamed and screamed.” Wails bouncing off the walls. “I picked her up. Started to chop off her hand.” It had taken so long. Sawing away at stubborn bone and flesh with the serrated edge of her knife. While the woman thrashed and screamed and bled, painting her in red as she severed the arteries and veins in the wrist. Warm against her face and all along her body. Wet on her hands. It was familiar, in a strange way. She’d always known what blood felt like, it was one of her earliest memories. The taste and the scent and the liquidity.

“You need to get it at the joint. Dolls come easily apart when you know where to cut their strings.” Spiral could hear her voice, clinical and cool before she moaned. Gasped for breath. Felt Marrow’s wicked chuckle against the side of her neck as the Morlock held her tight with her only pair of hands. Grabbed onto the muscled body in front of her, twisting her fingers hard inside the wet slick of the girl’s channel to make her feel just as lost in the heat as Spiral was.

“She died when I started on the other one.” Just gone silent, and stopped moving. She’d been wriggling weakly all the way through the first one, all pale like a maggot as her white pretty face flashed in the dim light. Crying. She’d been hot since she’d started cutting her, and thinking about Spiral while she did it. “When I got both her hands off, I slashed up her face.” Just kept cutting and hitting and destroying until there was nothing left that resembled a human. Wet bloody meat, lying at the bottom of the sewer to feed the rats. That little bit of the story made Spiral shudder against her hand as she moved her fingers, something desperate and reaching in the quick movement. “I cut, and cut, and cut -” The rage hissed through her voice like a snake rearing up to strike, hatred burning just as fierce as the fire Spiral’s fingers woke inside her body. “Stabbed the bitch, over and over and over -”

Violence was something sexual to both of them, Spiral noted as she rode the thrust of Marrow’s fingers, let the girl do the same on her own. The plunge and strike of knives in their hands, tearing through the vulnerability of the dolls and bringing something pure into their hollow mock lives. Phallic symbols and all that brought to the table. Didn’t say anything as they moved and raced towards the inevitable climax.

“Tore her pretty face right off!” Marrow’s voice broke, as she came hard, orgasm crashing down through her body, flick of Spiral’s fingers just exactly right. Memory and reality mixing, made the pleasure bigger, brighter. She could get used to this. Was this the way it felt when you killed? Heat building up underneath the skin until you found someone who could make it explode? Or was this just a monster thing, something that normal people would find revolting? If that was so, then she loved it even more. “Left her ruined and bleeding in the water...” Voice trailing off as she kept moving her fingers, trying to get Spiral to break, her face to flush and make those annoyingly cute little noises when she came. Now that she had finished talking, she could watch.

“Petty, useless puppet, you cut its strings and left it broken,” Spiral moaned, grinding herself into the hardness of Marrow’s hand. Rough rasp of bone, cutting herself on it and feeling blood slick down her skin. Her blood, Marrow’s, the nameless doll’s. Covered in it. They left each other painted in crimson and scarlet, sins of lust and rage. Velvet mouth hiding sharp teeth as they kissed, clashed, fought each other even when in each other’s arms. It made the movie interesting, the edge of danger that could tip just that bit too far one way beyond the edge of return. Rollercoaster ride to hell. “Bone other, dancing wild.” Cut off by Marrow’s mouth again, pressing in against the girl and holding her to the wall as one hand slid up her back. Spikes of bone leaving ribbons across her chest, across her legs, her arms, everywhere. Until the climax of the action shattered her into pieces, making her eyes blind and the scene white out.

For a moment, they just held each other. Slow lazy drip of blood puddling on the ground underneath them. Breathing returning to normal, slowing, heart beats calming until they were once again at ease. Marrow lifted her head from Spiral’s shoulder, shaking damp hair back behind the small curve of her horns, arms dropping back to her sides. Her shirt was ruined. Again. Spiral seemed to have a thing about the sound they made as they shredded along her bones and the way the bones cupped and curved around her breasts.

The sun was burning away the shadows she hid in. Time to go. Slink back to the sewers and another fight with Callisto. All they did now was argue. She wondered if Callisto would see the life she’d taken on her skin. What she’d do about it. Today was going to be an interesting sort of day. If nothing else, Spiral broke up the monotony that her life had been before. Wildfire with her wild ways, mocking smile and chaotic statements.

“Come dance my wild ways with me, Marrow Morlock,” Spiral murmured, nuzzling the side of Marrow’s neck and feeling the pulse of her heart underneath her teeth and tongue. It was intoxicating. The languor of a scene well played made her soft, made her want to invite the girl back to the metal mountain with its shifting passages and see what she’d make of it. What the hopping one and the man whose face needed cutting would do, how the actors would spin and speak. She asked the question often. And the answer was always the same. One day, she’d have to show Marrow exactly what her role in the script was.

“Not today.” Marrow put one hand on Spiral’s shoulder and pushed her away, feeling the hands let go of her as the woman moved. She bent to pick up the remains of her shirt as Spiral did the same so she could pick up the bag and her coat. Touched her fingers to her mouth, tasting salt mixed with copper as she stared at Spiral and licked the sheen off her hand.

“Style, bone girl...I need to teach you some sort of style.” Spiral cupped Marrow’s face between her hands, shrugging her coat back on and hiding the plastic bag inside one of its many pockets. Kissed her, slower this time, the farewell kiss. Should be back lighting for this shot. Make them into silhouettes. “Here’s looking at you, kid.”

And she stepped back, disappearing and leaving blood and taste of her in Marrow’s mouth to remind her of what had just happened. The Morlock pulled her pants back up and zipped them before fashioning the ruined shirt into a sort of breast band. It’d have to do until she got a chance to grab a new top. Stared around at the dirty alley again, then sauntered out of it to head for a sewer entrance.

Time to go snarl at some more people.

- Quotes from 'The Princess Bride' and 'Casablanca'.