| Title: "Penitence" 1/1 Author: Mala E-mail: malisita@y... Fandom: "Witchblade: the series" Rating/Classification: 'R', Sara/Ian, angst, nongraphic smut, language, violence. Disclaimer: I don't own them...I really don't. Even if I abuse them like I do. Summary: Some people "say it with flowers." Ian Nottingham says it with corpses. Will Sara Pezzini give into his mad devotion and stop the killing? Dedication: To Lex...for inspiration, some of the dialogue, and our mutual obsession with stalker love. We are SO screwed up. He kneels on the cold pavement, touching her face...tracing the slack features that were once beautiful and are now merely blank...merely dead. She begged for her life. She wanted to know why this was happening. All the things one does in those precious moments before their existence is forever wiped from the surface of the earth. She did it well, he has to admit. Tears trembling on the lashes of her bright eyes...hands knotted and wringing...full lips quivering as she tossed her kinky mane of black hair. But to no avail. She was nothing. She is nothing. "You shouldn't have gone near Sara Pezzini." "I-I didn't know! Sh-she just picked me up at Badlands. She was gorgeous a-and she said she was single!" He had smiled...because he smiles so rarely and he knows it's power, it's danger. "There was no way you could have known she was mine," he'd agreed, quietly, genially. "So...?" The brief flicker of hope in her eyes, in the twist of her slick mauve mouth. "You see...I didn't mean it...I couldn't have known..." And he'd simply shaken his head. "I see. I do see. But you'll still have to die." Her throat had been warm and soft beneath his fingers. He wonders, now, if Sara had kissed her there. Had felt the pulse when it grew stronger and stronger and stronger with arousal just like he felt it grow weaker and weaker and weaker with death. He wonders exactly how long they made love last night...how many times. He wonders if Sara was there when the woman woke up or if she left...escaped to the station and left the sordid memory of her one night stand behind. For him to clean up. For him to erase. Because he will. He will always erase her mistakes...allow her the chance to start anew...to do it right. To choose *him*. *** "Strangulation, eh? Check for prints. Even a partial." "No fibers, no hair...*nada*...it's like whoever did it knew what he was doing. Planned it and wiped away all traces." "Bag her...tag her...send her to the box." She hears the business-like orders being bandied about...the typical buzz of a crime scene. The yellow Caution tape lays, useless, to one side...but the chalk outline...oh, it's bright and glaring. Just like the white sheet and the slender brown hand that pokes out from beneath it. Aisha. Was she scared when she walked into the alley? Did she scream at all? Or did she simply sleep...the way she had in that cheap motel bed...curled up against the pillows and dreaming of sweet, hot lust in the middle of the night? She rubs her arms, vigorously, trying to work warmth in through the ice cold leather of her jacket. This is the second body she's i.d.'d on a scene in as many months. The second person she picked up in some cheap bar for a fast, quick, no-strings fuck. The first was a nice biker guy named Dex who looked like Sebastian Bach and partied like Vince Neil. He didn't look so nice when they found him beneath an overpass. And she no longer believes in coincidences. "Nottingham," she whispers, closing her eyes. The Witchblade pulses, telling her he is near...behind a wall, in the shadows...watching, always watching. Her body tightens with fury, with unshed tears...and she shakes her bent head. "Oh, God...*why*...?" Everything tilts and melts away. Day turns to night and her brothers in blue and their sirens are gone. Aisha rests somewhere in a cold morgue drawer, awaiting her autopsy and her release to whoever loved her in life. But Nottingham is here. Before her. Kneeling in the center of the white outline. His wavy black hair hanging in his face, obscuring the penetrating dark eyes she knows are focused on the pavement. He is always kneeling. Always so damn intent on his false subservience. "You know why, Sara." "Do I?" she demands. "Because I think I need you to tell me, Ian. I think I need you to tell me exactly *why* you're killing people I've been with...and why I shouldn't put your ass on Death Row." And still he doesn't look up...but she can see the hint of a smile gracing the shadowed lower half of his face. "The answers are yours to discover. You know them. They are all ready within you." "Now is not the time to talk in riddles, Nottingham. Not unless you want to wind up cuffed and having your rights read to you." Almost automatically, he raises his hands for her, offering his wrists out of the billowing sleeves of his black wool coat. "I have the right to remain silent. I have the right to an attorney. If I cannot afford an attorney, one can and will be provided to me by a court of law," he recites, softly. "I also have the right to *you*, Sara Pezzini." Her jaw tightens, and she feels her fist clench and unclench, singing for the Blade. "The hell you do." He cocks his head. Part bird of prey, part man. "You disagree?" His upturned palms reach for her, grazing the edges of her jacket. "I don't belong to anyone, Nottingham," she assures stepping back just slightly, hoping her eyes are blazing with as much fury as her blood is. "I'm not anyone. I'm *the* one. Your only one." He says it so seriously, so calmly, that she finds herself backing up even more...shaking her head blindly, remembering Dex...Aisha...cold...so cold. This *man* is cold. Kills without a thought...without a care for anything...except for *her*. She shivers. "You...you can't do this. You can't just kill people for... just because they..." He rises, slowly, stalking towards her like an avenging angel. "Because they touch you? Because they 'fuck' you? Because they see your face when you find your pleasure?" he offers, as unruffled as if he's listing groceries. "The crime is not mine...it's theirs. And yours. This is in your hands, Sara. *You* have the power to stop this," he whispers, matching her retreating steps stride for stride...until she has nowhere to go but flat against the alley wall. "All you have to do is choose, Sara." She can barely breathe. She is afraid to ask. "Choose *what*?" "Me." Penitent no more...his head is raised and his eyes pin her more efficiently than the arms caging her on either side. His *eyes*. Full on. Intense. Deep. Black. Not the blank, icy eyes of a killer. The turbulent, fiery eyes of a man who...who..."Ian...I...I--" "Shhh." His fingertips dance down the side of her face, tangling in the wild ends of her hair. "Don't fight it, Sara," he urges, lips just faintly brushing the line of her jaw. "You *can't* fight it." "Why...are...you...doing...this to...me?" she demands, raggedly. "Why are you doing this to yourself?" he counters. Any answer she has flees as his lips move up to hover over hers. So close. Centimeters away. Half of her wants to reach for her sidearm and shove it into his ribs...the other half of her wants to lean in--to close the gap that is more metaphorical than physical--and taste the death. But the decision is taken out of her hands...like so many other things he has taken from her...and he covers her mouth with his own. A kiss. Just a kiss. A surrender...just a surrender. Taste...touch...smell...sight...sound...flashes of color, chain mail under her palms and the rasp of beard against her cheek. Her head falls back and she is helpless to everything except the onslaught of his lips and tongue...of his hands yanking her hips towards his as rows of torches flicker somewhere in her peripheral vision. "Sara...?" "Yes...Goddammit *yes*..." Shirts are pushed up and aside...buckles and zippers undone...she cups his face in her hands, knowing, now, that it is her turn to attack, to devour. She offers kisses with tenfold the power...opening her thighs to him, ushering him in with no more reservation...or perhaps just resignation. She can't deny his sociopathic need. His contagious insanity. They have done this before as they do it now...this union of mouths and hands and straining bodies. It is familiar and she knows it couldn't be. It is unearthly and she knows it shouldn't be. Did he disembowel Dex with the very fingers that are sinking into her thigh and slamming her against his pelvis? Did he strangle Aisha with the very fingers that are wrapped, lovingly, around her throat? She can't seem to care. To stop clawing at his shoulders and kissing him back and fucking him with every molecule of her traitorous body. He's right, she thinks, deliriously. He's hers. He belongs to her and she belongs to him. He has mastery of her just like the Witchblade does but the power to control them both lies within her. In *this*. *** "Pez? Pez...you here?" He rounds the corner and moves into the alley, eyes darting over to the white chalk outline where the Badlands bartender was found earlier in the day. His partner has been AWOL for hours...and he tells himself it's just out of platonic duty that he's out looking for her...totally platonic...because he has no interest in her whatsoever...never mind that she's completely hot...he's just being a good cop...and-- "Holy *shit*." There is a *man*. The man is kneeling at Pez's feet...clutching her legs, face buried between her...Oh God. It's a tableau out of a pornographic Bible...something sacred and obscene at the same time. He stumbles back, unable to take his eyes away from her face...from her half-closed eyes and the tears sliding down her cheeks. Pleasure. And horror. He'd never known the unflappable Sara Pezzini to be capable of either. Until now. Until this... "Nottingham," she moans, softly...and it's a broken sound. A desperate sound. He recognizes the name...but he can't--won't--glance down again to tie it to the bowed head, the black coat. To do so would be blasphemy...would be a betrayal. He drags his sleeve across his eyes, blinking back the images he knows are seared on his lids forever, and forces his feet to pivot...to change direction. He has to go...to get away...before they see him...before this gets any worse. And that is when he hears the soft, almost inaudible words. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry, Sara." Even as he flees towards his car and fumbles for his keys, he is aware of one shining thing: the guy is lying. Lying through his teeth. Nobody could fuck Sara Pezzini and be sorry about it. *Ever*. *** He kneels on the cold pavement, touching his face...tracing the slack features that were once handsome and are now merely blank...merely dead. He didn't beg for his life. He didn't want to know why this was happening. None of the things one does in those precious moments before their existence is forever wiped from the surface of the earth. It was admirable. Almost touching. But not enough. He smiles. "You see it now, don't you, Detective McCarty? *This* is why I was sorry." --the end-- |