Just discovered that LJ ate my italics *Grrrr* so I thought I would repost this. Bouncing up and down from all the feedback I've recieved so far.
Echoes of Voices - Mort/Mort
Warning: May contain traces of plot. And slash. And advertent plagiarism.
Random quotes/misquotes are from the following: Peter Morwood, Lois McMaster Bujold, The Last Unicorn, Pirates of the Caribbean, Desperado, Once upon a time in Mexico, Dead Man, The Princess Bride, Moody Blues, From Hell, Sleepy Hollow.
Starring:
Screwdriver, as potential suicide aid, and really nifty plot-device/murder-tool.
Morton Rainey, as Mort#1 (the original fluffy confused Mort.)
Mortimer Rainey, as Mort#2 (the second and cooler, more-controlled-but-still-fluffy Mort.)
John Shooter, as Mort’s ‘imaginary’ personal assassin who refuses to be fired.
The colour red.
***
The setting sun grows dim
And night surrounds me.
There are no stars.
The Darkness has devoured them
With its black mouth.
Issaqua sings the song of desolation
And I know that I am lost
And none can help me now...
Issaqua comes to find me
To take my life and soul.
For I am lost
And none can help me now.
Issaqua sings the song of desolation
And fills the world with Darkness.
Bringing fear and madness.
Despair and death to all.
- Peter Morwood, The Demon Lord
***
( Read more... )
Title: Echoes of Voices
Author: Darklady Erisa (Lurker#178), of the Order of Chaos
Fandom: Secret Window
Rating: NC-17
Summary: Mort tries to kill himself, but Mort stops him.
Fic description: "This doesn’t make any sense."
***
The sunset was smeared in red across the sky, reflected in the lake - a reminder of blood and death.
Insanity.
"Call the police and tell them to come and put you away. Before you kill anyone else."
Issaqua sings the song of desolation.
An attitude of tenuous despair, where the world ceases to have meaning.
The contents of an old dressing-gown sprawled on the couch as if he couldn’t muster the energy to pry himself upright. Which was right - he couldn’t.
Everything that you’re doing is wrong.
Mort studied the screwdriver contemplatively.
The words echoed. Everything.
Red handle, red blood.
I didn’t kill them.
It was the sort of gaze the suicidal would usually turn on a pistol.
Some are born to endless night.
"But then, you aren’t exactly usual, are you?"
Mirror images without the mirror. I killed my mirror.
His muscles tensed. Moved.
A hand caught his, forcing his arm down viciously.
"Don’t even think about it," the other Mort hissed.
A scratch of blood welled from his temple, where the screwdriver had stopped too late.
Too soon.
"Why did you stop me?" Mort asked tonelessly. "You wanted me to do it." I wanted to do it.
Blood curved sullenly down his jaw line. Red.
And I know that I am lost... and none can help me now.
"That’s not true."
"How dare you try to claim that you don’t want me dead. You drove me to this, pilgrim." The bitterness faded in and out as if Mort couldn’t muster the energy even for that.
"Did I?"
True, he’d loved the power, shattering his true-self’s confidence to so many glass splinters.
I am lost.
But he couldn’t live without him.
He snorted. Well, obviously, but...
"But I don’t. Don’t want you dead. Gone."
He hadn’t meant to go this far.
"You’re me. You must know... what you’ve been doing to me." The whisper threaded out.
And why did his other self look panicked?
I can’t live like this any longer. I won’t.
...Before you kill anyone else.
Mort dropped the screwdriver and concentrated on willing himself out of existence.
The world faded.
I know that I am lost
None can help me now.
"You’re wrong."
He was familiar. A mocking voice, dizzyingly there, wherever he turned. "Let me go."
"What you’re doing is wrong."
"Morton Rainey don’t be an idiot. You can’t want to die. I’m you. I don’t want you to die."
"Wake up."
No answer.
"Please wake up."
"He took the coward’s way out." Shooter’s voice drawled.
"He’s not dead yet, dammit." Mort picked up the screwdriver Mort had dropped earlier and snarled. "You are not helping."
"Oh, I think I am. Mr Rainey here wants to die, see. I’m just here to stop anyone from disobliging him."
John Shooter wasn’t real enough for a screwdriver impaled in his throat to do any lasting damage, but it made him feel better, so he did it anyway.
The cowboy vanished, blood-red screwdriver clattering abandoned to the floor.
It just so happens that your friend here is only mostly dead.
"Mort."
Mort means death, does it not?
***
Death cannot stop true love. All it can do is delay it for a while.
His true-self was curled on the couch, blood smearing across the visible side of his face and matting into his hair.
Still bleeding. "Can’t even kill yourself right, then."
Relief.
He eased himself onto the couch and tugged Mort awkwardly into his arms. And since when did he do anything awkwardly? That was Mort’s job.
And Mort wasn’t doing it.
Oh.
Hair dishevelled. Skin surprisingly soft.
Too fragile-thin and in need of protection.
"You need to eat more, fuckmook. And not potato chips."
You’ve been eating chips like that for thirty years, for thirty years...
Mort’s body flickered like a candle flame, real then not real.
Colours fading.
Red is grey, and yellow, white.
No. No no no no no.
But we decide which is right,
And which is an illusion.
Too light. Don’t...
...leave me alone.
You are alone.
You are alone.
You are alone.
Flicker.
"But you’re the real one. I’m the illusion. You can’t do this to me."
Do what to you?
Die.
Mort, listen to me.
This is how it happens
This is how it happens to people.
World spinning, voices spinning, round-and-round-and-round.
"Wake up."
"Wake. Up."
Why bother. You and Shooter can manage just fine without me. Let me go.
"I can’t."
"Mort, listen to me. I can’t..."
Everything that you’re doing is wrong.
Can’t?
"The only thing that matters is this, what a man can do, and what a man can’t do.
Now me, I could let you drown. But I can’t keep my head above the fucking water without you, savvy?"
The world spun, falling to pieces around him and all he could think was ‘is this how Mort was feeling?’ He knew it was.
I Savvy, Pilgrim. Mort sounded weary, but at least he was listening.
"So. Don’t. Die."
The only thing that matters is the ending.
That one was wrong.
Or would have been.
No dying.
Mort’s smile smugly satisfied.
Delete.
No more bad endings.
Mort stopped trying to die, and fell asleep instead.
***
He was warm.
Arms wound around him in a linked, stubborn death grip.
Not Amy’s.
Amy never held him like this.
Not like I’m the whole world.
Sense of security. Was it false? It was unfamiliar.
A barbed arrow that would tear bleeding wounds when it came out. Better not to feel that content in the first place lest the loss destroy him.
Too late.
Mort twisted to get a glimpse of who was holding him.
Impossible.
Sarcastic. Too blunt and too cruelly honest. Never a source of comfort.
His double was asleep.
Mort never saw him sleep.
Nope. Didn’t happen.
As if in response to his thought, the other stirred and opened his eyes, looking every bit as fuzzy and reluctant to wake up as Mort usually did.
He didn’t think he could possibly be quite that adorable about it, though.
***
"But you are."
"Hm?"
"You are that adorable." He would flick to appearing in front of Mort as usual, everywhere he turned, but that would mean letting him go.
Not an option.
***
Everything that you’re doing is...
"Wrong?"
"No. Not wrong. Mort, listen to me."
You are that adorable.
Don’t listen to me, listen. They passed down all the roads long ago, and the red bull ran close behind them and covered their footprints.
Give me the strength - to love who I am. And... forgive me for what I was.
Three sets of footprints on a sandy beach. Sometimes two, sometimes one.
I carried you.
"Or I carried you."
Does it matter?
"No. You’re me." Quiet certainty.
Acceptance.
Give me the strength.
***
They reached out at the same time, fingers tracing identical red lips, sliding back to tangle in a mass of corn-silk-blond hair.
Mort tugged his other self closer and darted his tongue out to taste, the gesture met with a gasp as his double allowed him entry, returning his kiss with a nibbling one of his own.
Clothes disappeared, half torn off, half melting into non-existence.
Traces of fire, - and if that’s not a cliche what is? - burned their way down his chest, following the path of his fingers on his double’s body. Sensations echoed... reflected from one to the other and then back, until they could barely tell themselves apart.
Please.
The kiss intensified, tongues tangled together, battling for dominance. Sparks were dancing at the corners of their vision before they paused.
Stalemate.
They sagged against each other, breathing hard.
"Who takes who?" Mort gasped.
"We could flip a coin." Amusement coloured Mort’s answer, muffled laughter against the other’s neck.
Puffs of breath washed over him. He shivered at the sensation, and decided he didn’t care who did what. Please. He tumbled backwards, pulling the other with him.
"Never mind, just take me. Now," he demanded urgently.
Watched as his shadow’s eyes dilated at the words, his breath hitching uncontrollably. Then hands were circling Mort’s wrists, pinning them above his head while the other darted down to seize his lips in another kiss, this time with no battle as Mort surrendered himself utterly, whimpering slightly as he allowed his mouth to be ravished.
Please.
They broke apart because they were suffocating, Mort using the bare flicker of concentration he had left to fumble for the lubricant.
Released, Mort’s arms stayed where they were - with the desperate haze fogging his mind he couldn’t remember how to move them.
Slick fingers flicked against his nipples, trailing cool sensation down his chest. Burning past his abdomen to his groin. Infuriating spirals teasing round and around his fully erect cock before moving further back to pause motionless at his entrance.
"Don’t stop. Please." Almost a whisper.
Those words were Yes.shutting his brain down, until Please. nothing but his counterpart existed.
He thrust two fingers in and twisted until Mort was writhing and hissing under him, impossibly aroused.
One more, that burned, but he was shoving himself down in an attempt to impale himself still further.
He wailed as they were removed, slumped back against the couch, empty and trembling and motionless...
Take me take me just take me please.
Just as well they didn’t need words to hear each other.
He pulled Mort’s legs up and settled his cock at his opening, waited until the other was shaking and crying for him to move before pushing in slowly.
He buried himself to the hilt, moments stretching out to eternity - far too long, torture to both of them and... Please, faster, I need...
Mort pulled out, slammed back into his double as hard as he could... more.
Their control shattered around them at every thrust.
Harder. Harder and harder and faster plunging in and out and this was...
...Too much and...
Pleasure crashed into him as he tried to match the pace and he was filled so good but his cock was aching he needed...
A hand wrapped too-light around his erection... still teasing, tantalising as it tightened, pumped once, twice... over and over until his world whited out with ecstasy and his eyes slammed shut, and he was screaming, spilling over...
...plunging into his double one last time, tight passage clenching around his cock, wringing him dry as he screamed, his seed spurting into Mort as he came.
***
The world took its precious time to stop spinning, matched heartbeats steadying ever so slowly.
Eyes cracked open. Mort gazed warily at his other half, not quite certain of his reception.
Hello, darling.
Clear brown eyes blinked up at him in pure contentment, utterly unable to move as he finally allowed himself to collapse, head buried in the other’s neck and one arm draped across his chest.
He snuggled closer, and Mort remembered how to move his arms, to wind them, lazily possessive, about his neck.
Sleep ambushed the two before they could react, tucking them gently away for a spell of time.
***
Mort turned the tube of lubricant over in his hands. "I don’t remember buying this."
"Me neither." The other Mort looked equally confused, fuzzy and lazy and golden, sprawled across his counterpart.
That didn’t answer the question, though.
"Shooter?"
Twin stains of red coloured the cowboy’s cheeks. "I did them things, so you wouldn’t have to." Angry and antagonistic as ever, despite the blush throwing off the whole impression.
It is the truth, but the truth is not always appearance.
"Shooter?"
"What?" The question was automatically suspicious.
"Thanks." Mort smiled.
Oh.
***
No more bad writing.
"No dying."
Huh?
"Promise me. No dying."
Okay, okay.
***
"Stop." A hand on his wrist again.
"Hmm?"
"Don’t delete that. I like it."
Mort hesitated.
"It’s beautiful. Look. Keep writing."
Trace patterns with his tongue on the back of Mort’s neck. Gust of an outdrawn breath that fails to make the mess of gold-dyed hair any messier than it already is.
Tickles.
Tingles down his spine, Mort wriggles. Fingers fly over the keyboard.
This one’s perfect.
***
He hasn’t for weeks, but now, thoughtlessly cruel, he sneers at Mort. "Don’t lie to yourself."
Mort laughs. He’s stronger now. Knows his double for what he is. "I’m not."
***
Red is grey, and yellow, white...
"No-one shall harm me or mine."
"I’m you."
"Yes."
"I’m yours." The barest hint of a question.
"Yes."
...but we decide which is right, and which is an illusion.
***
The phone rang. Mort laughed as his other self flinched. He had too, of course. Still...
Scissors. Phone cord. Scissors - Phone cord.
Well, why not?
Snip.
***
Mort glared at Shooter, but this time he was in control.
Both of him.
"You’re mine."
"You’re mine."
"If you kill me, you’re still mine."
"Well now, Mr Rainey, I can’t be killin’ you. A’cos you don’t want to be dead. Pity really."
"Doesn’t matter. You won’t be afraid for long."
"Shut up, Shooter."
"Thank you. Don’t mind if I do."
***
There are few problems that can’t be solved via the suitable application of a screwdriver.
***
The only thing that matters is the ending.
Mort tugged his other self closer.
This one’s perfect.
Crowded in here?
Not really.
***
Cold-hearted orb that rules the night.
Removes the colours from our sight.
Red is grey, and yellow white.
But we decide which is right. And which is an illusion.
*****************************************************************
(And a bonus drabble. Was anyone else thinking the same thing when watching this scene?)
Corn-pokes of DOOM
"I know what you did." Warning him to stay away, threatening him almost. Idiot.
Corn-pokes.
One in each hand, hiss of metal against metal like the sharpening of a knife.
A creepy, too cheerful smile.
"Oh?"
One for each temple. Stab in, then twist to make sure.
"Sure."
Their deaths will be a mystery even to me.
*****************************************************************
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