A/N – I am only posting one chapter right now, seeing as I have gotten hopelessly behind and I want to post something. It occurred to me that this chapter really is best as a stand-alone one, anyhow. So just a short one now, and we’ll see what happens after this. I just know that the next two months or so are going to be fairly busy for me, so this fic probably won’t get nearly as many updates as I would like until I’m out of school for the semester. Or at least until I get my junior thesis in.

This fic as a whole is rated R. This chapter is PG. This chronicles the Isaak-Dietrich relationship, from a father-son bond to eventual lovers. But starting here, you can get a fair way into the fic before their relationship begins to change. I will put warnings as necessary, but this fic is predominantly an IxD one, and it isn’t all pleasant. This fanfiction is rated R for a reason. There is much to be offended by in this work, and I don’t want any complaints on the matter. There is language, violence, sacrilege, angst, death, pedophilia, necrophilia, homoeroticism, incest, rape, sex, (you get the idea…).

Dedicated to Shunshou, as this whole work is.

The Devil’s Harlot

By PikaCheeka

Part Two

This is the story of the education of the devil. And all that I had to play in it. This is the story of my repentance, unworthy as I am. And all that he had to play in it.

Chapter Nineteen – Epiphany

The first thing I noticed when he slipped into my study one evening was that he wasn’t entirely dressed. It was one of those late-spring nights that couldn’t decide whether it wanted to be summer or not yet, and lately he had been spending a lot of time in his room, whining and miserable from the heat that was hardly even heat yet. His shirt was unbuttoned and not even completely around him, the sleeves carelessly pulled up. He was barefoot, as he rarely wore socks to bed, and I wondered if he had started to dress for sleep before getting distracted by the need to harass me. “Di, fix yourself.” I quickly lowered my eyes back to the newspaper. I was not going to be tempted tonight, not going to let his pretty little eyes bore into mine until I could not tell who was who.

He said nothing, only stopped just beyond my reach and waited for me to glance up at him. It was something I did quickly despite myself, as he normally could not resist the chance to argue with me, and his silence surprised me.

“Yes?” I sighed. I wasn’t expecting what came next, and that night haunts me still.

He smiled, and his smile was entirely empty. I wondered again if there wasn’t something very wrong with him, and the moment the thought entered my head he slowly held out my handgun. I’ve always kept it loaded, it never having even occurred to me that I would have a child in the house, much less a child with a death-wish.

I moved to stand, to rush towards him, to grab it from his hand, before I realized it was not aimed at anyone, and I realized he had clearly held a gun before. Something in the way his smile was so detached, the way he had cradled it with affection before he held it out. Dietrich knew exactly what a gun was, what a gun did. “What are you doing?” I whispered.

There was not a sound from him as he stepped forward and pressed the cold metal into my hands. I could only stare at him, and a flash of irritation shot through his eyes. I watched it change to shock, then to sadness, all within a moment. His fingers wrapped around mine, bringing the muzzle of the gun up against his bared chest. I felt that it was an extension of myself somehow, and I was now stroking the small scar. His skin was hot and his heart was beating fast, so hard under his fragile ribs I could crush with my own hands. I was frozen, unable to move, unable to think. I could only stare at him.

“I’ve lived two years too long,” he finally whispered, arching his back, leaning into me. He was almost gasping in anticipation of what he was convinced I would do, and he could not ever possibly understand just how erotically he breathed, moved, with his small thin fingers hot around me as he continued to press the gun to his chest. He stood between his legs, his head back, eyelashes quivering against the skin just below his eyes. His pants were low-slung and his belly was heaving with every breath he took and I could not keep myself from seeing this in bed, seeing him under me like this, with his face flushed and his breathing hard and fast and hot and his body trembling as I touched him, pressed against him.

Then he opened his eyes and it was gone. I only saw terror, confusion, betrayal. Did he know? Did he see what I saw? Something shifted in my hand and the trigger tightened and again there was nothing in his eyes but death.

I wrenched my hand from his thin grasp and pulled him towards me in the same motion, letting him collapse against my chest as I knew he would. He sobbed, inhaling deeply and biting it back just as quickly.

“Go ahead,” I whispered, touching his face gently with the back of my free hand. I won’t hit you for crying. Two years ago he had been shot. Two years ago he had killed his own parents, and for two years he had carried that burden of certainty. I had always supposed it had bothered him, but not to this extreme. He was too preoccupied with himself and his self-preservation. I could never have foreseen, could never have imagined he would ask me, beg me, to kill him. Was his guilt so strong?

He was sobbing heavily, loudly, now, and I gently pulled him up into my lap. He seemed about to resist, but gave in quickly, a dead weight in my arms as I supported his backside, one thin naked foot still pushing off of the floor as if it was a brace against me. I could not even comprehend what had just happened. I knew he sometimes cried at night. I knew he had nightmares, as that was the real reason he would crawl into my bed late at night and press his warmth to me, never asking or explaining, only taking. But if I ever asked why he had done it, if he was all right, he would grow tight-lipped and angry, just as he did whenever I caught him crying. He had never openly broken down before me, and now all of a sudden I felt I really was caring for a child, not just an object or even just another person, as Cain was. He was helpless, lost, and afraid.

And it crossed my mind that he had only come to me at all because he was desperate. I remembered how thin he had been, how pale his skin was and how weak and tired he seemed. He still refused to tell me how he had survived that year without his parents, but however he managed, he had barely done so. I had long doubted his comment about keeping a servant. No; if he had managed to use his powers at all during that year, he dedicated them fully to keeping the police and everyone else away. Maybe he had simply seen the interest in my eyes and accepted it, not caring to understand what it was. “Di.” I traced his cheekbone gently. “Were you really that desperate?”

He looked up at me for a moment, eyes swollen with tears. “To live or to die?” His voice was small, so small and frail I almost doubted I had heard it at all.

“Why did you come to me?”

The question disoriented him and he pushed his face to my chest again without answering. He was hot and quivering in my arms, feverishly so, and I held him still tighter, wanting to make him stop. Stop trembling or stop breathing. It hardly mattered. I just wanted his pain to end. I heard the clock ticking steadily on the other side of the room and sat there waiting for what I did not know, watching my cigarillo gradually burn up to nothing in the ashtray.

I don’t know how long I held him, but after a time he began to relax, and I could tell by the way his breathing slowed that he had fallen asleep. His heart still beat frantically, as it always had. Whether it was my Methuselah blood or his small size and childhood that made his life seem so delicate, fragile, I couldn’t know. But I knew it haunted me. Haunted me in just the same way the pistol on the table did.

I loved him. I loved him more than anyone ever had, as I was the only one who ever had, and despite all of that, I still pressed the revolver to the back of his head and considered. I could save him, save him from the pain he felt now and all that was yet to come for him, could end his life and he could only be better off for it. It wasn’t despite of my love, it was because of my love. It was because of my love that I wanted him dead, dead so that I could never hurt him, because if I, the only one who had ever loved him, hurt him, then he would have nothing. He would still be, but he could never have. And I have felt that hideous loneliness. I will not let him feel it.

I could not let myself have him. And if I could not have him, no one could. And we could both die together right here in this room and no one would ever have to know that I dreamed of hurting him, dreamed of making him my own.

He stirred suddenly, his small fingers touching the hand I had wrapped around his waist, so frail and hot that I could feel his pulse pounding. I had to kill him. It was why he came to me. He came to me because he saw the love in my eyes, and he trusted me to do what he could not, what his instinct did not dare let him do. Yet he knew if he were to place himself fully into my hands, I would do it for him. It was all he felt he deserved. Some hideous, ancient sense of justice ran in his blood, and he could never forgive himself for existing, though he did not understand or even seem fully aware of this.

I wanted to do it for him. I wanted to kill him, protect him. But when I felt his slight hand in mine and breathed in his scent, so full of life and innocence and dumb need, I could not bring myself to pull the trigger. I was too weak. What had caused me years ago to viciously turn outward, to not kill myself but kill another, would not act again in his presence. I could not destroy he whom I wanted, needed, in my life, though I knew his continued existence would only cause him agony.

That night was one where every minute seemed endless, but it was an endlessness that I myself did not feel. It wasn’t until I heard the clock strike one that I realized he belonged in bed. I found myself almost laughing at the sudden absurdity of it; that one, practical, mundane thought prevailing over a hundred so much more sinister. He was already changing me.

He awoke as I carried him up the stairs, though he remained so still I did not notice until I laid him on my bed that his eyes were open. His fists convulsed and he almost refused to let go of my shirt, but after a moment he relaxed.

“You can stay here tonight,” I whispered, sitting down beside him.

“I—”

“Forget it, Di.”

He seemed taken aback by this, and he sat up a moment before crawling over and twining his fingers around mine. When I did nothing, he rested his head on my thigh, tugging at my arm. He did not want me to leave, not even long enough to change, and I didn’t dare shake him off. There was something in his eyes that terrified me as he rolled over and gazed up at me, gently running his fingers over the arm I had draped across his waist. The skin of my wrist touched the hot skin of his still-bare stomach and I felt as if I were touching him intimately. Something had changed.

I couldn’t even begin to understand the look he gave me that night, calm and steady and closed off. He lay with his head in my lap, staring up at me with that look, so unreadable and penetrating. I didn’t realize until years later what it meant, for the second time he ever looked at me like that was the night I left him broken and violated in my sheets. It was the look of blind, dumb forgiveness. All of my betrayals were accepted, forgiven, and forgotten.

His love for me was deplorable, terrifying, and fathomless. I saved his life. I did not kill him when he begged, and I kept him alive for my own selfish desires. I ruined him. And it was all the same to his love.