Work Text:
"It's almost what we planned, sweet thing, just shut your mouth for two seconds and let me... there. Good girl, no more shrieking, no more tears. Don't worry, I'm not going without you, not after all that mess..."
Ianthe woke up in a dead lyctor's room that she was gradually cannibalizing for parts, to hear her sister laughing. Coronabeth had not adjusted well to life on the Mithraeum so far, to put it mildly. The trip through the River had done a number on her. Ianthe couldn't remember hearing her laugh at all in the last six months. She got up and pulled on a violently pink dressing gown and wandered out to see what was happening. At the back of her mind lurked the fear that Corona had finally broken into full-blown madness, her laughter a portent of doom.
Instead, she found the Saint of Patience talking with her twin in the shared sitting area, each of them with a mug in one hand and a cigarette in the other. Corona was doing something that Ianthe recognized very well, which was flirting without trying to look too hard like she was flirting. It was usually quite effective on older men, for whom a more obvious come-on might be too vulgar. In this routine, Corona was an ingénue, young, charming, and a bit air-headed, who needed guidance from an authority figure. She knew just how to temper her vapidity to keep it from passing from cute into annoying - except where Ianthe was concerned.
"So I just hold it like this?" she was saying, wide-eyed, as if she'd never so much as seen a cigarette before, bringing it to her plump, pink lips.
"Just so," Augustine replied.
Corona took a tentative puff, then gave a tiny cough that sounded like it had emerged from the throat of a newborn kitten. "Oh my goodness!" she exclaimed, "it feels like it's going right to my head!"
Ianthe was not fooled for one second. Striding forward to snatch the cigarette out of Corona's dimpled hand, she said, "Don't be an idiot, stop that."
"You're not Mother, why do you care?" Coronabeth pouted. Her hair was a cloud of disorderly tangles, slept on and uncombed.
"I didn't go through all that to save you just so you could throw it all away!"
"If I give myself lung cancer you'll just fix it, won't you? You want me all pretty and clean and perfect for you, after all, pristine inside and out." The words were said sweetly but with an undercurrent of venom that a sister's ears were trained from years of experience to pick up.
The Saint of Patience didn't speak up or move to interfere in the dispute, but took a drag on his own cigarette. Ianthe was holding the foolish little burning stick in her hand like a dead mouse, furious and ridiculous at the same time. She brought it to her lips, thinking that at least she could take its poison into herself and keep it from Corona, and wound up coughing - not in Corona's delicate kittenish way but more like a half-drowned rat hacking up its own guts.
"Takes a while to get used to it," was all Augustine said, in that dry, almost bored way he had. "Don't try to take in too much at once."
"That's not what you said last night," Corona replied with a playful grin, and to Ianthe's visceral disgust, Augustine smirked back. His tongue slid against the edge of his teeth in an unconscious gesture that made Ianthe's skin prickle. She tried not to think about where else that tongue had been.
In some sort of brief flash of mercy from a usually indifferent deity, the Emperor Undying wandered into the common room just then and offered to make toast since everyone was up anyway, and the subject was dropped, but Ianthe's mind continued to churn over it. She didn't want to believe Coronabeth was spreading her legs for Augustine, but there was just enough doubt there to gnaw at her. Why were they both up early, sharing coffee and cigarettes? Had Corona even come to bed last night? Ianthe couldn't be sure, and she hated the idea of not knowing something about Corona's life almost as much as she hated the idea of Corona letting Augustine lay his hands on her.
"Don't be stupid, Corona, you know what Babs is like, he's not worth getting upset over. It's Babs, he just wants to be told he looks pretty while someone blows him and then deliver five minutes of unsatisfying finger-banging. He won't even go down on you in case it messes up his hair. I'm the only one who really knows how to...mmm... that's right, like that..."
That afternoon, she was meant to have lessons with her designated mentor and elder brother, and even in the depths of her sordid discontent, Ianthe was not the sort to skip a class. She had even done the assigned reading, a tedious treatise on spirit magic that made her want to gouge her own eyes out. Augustine had written it himself, because of course he was the type of teacher who assigned his own work.
When she entered his study, he was sitting in his usual armchair, cigarette in one hand and book in the other. He glanced up at her in grudging acknowledgement of her presence and gestured for her to sit down in the chair opposite his. "So, tell me what you've gathered about the creation of anti-thalergy and anti-thanergy spaces, and how this differs when one is in the River," he said, prompting her to begin the discussion.
Instead of catering to his overweening ego, Ianthe sat there, tapping her gilded bone fingers on the arm of the chair in barely-suppressed frustration. "Why don't you tell me what you've gathered about my sister first?"
He looked bemused. "Do you think I've been studying her like a curious specimen? Having a non-lyctor around is novel, but she isn't interesting enough to merit that much attention. No necromantic ability, your enhancements aside, and not enough of a personality to be captivating in her own right."
Ianthe bristled in her sister's defense even though she had said uncomfortably similar things to her in the midst of arguments when they were younger. It was just different when someone said it who hadn't earned the right, she thought. "Did you fuck my sister?" she demanded.
Augustine continued breezily, ignoring her increasing annoyance. "She was up early, couldn't sleep. I killed a little time with her, nothing more. Don't be jealous, little sister, it doesn't suit you."
Ianthe stood up, taking a step towards him. "Did. You. Fuck. Her."
Eyeing her levelly, Augustine took a lazy drag on his cigarette. "Does having her come on my fingers even count as fucking? Nobody even took their clothes off, and it was over in five minutes."
Somehow this only made Ianthe angrier. "If you're going to fuck my sister," she said, putting in a valiant effort to keep her voice from quavering, "at least do a good job."
"I'm firmly of the view that anything you can half-ass, nay, even quarter-ass, you should," Augustine told her.
"Sounds like just the sort of thing a pathetic old man who can't get it up would say."
Augustine rose from his seat and planted a hand in the middle of her chest, pushing her back down into her chair, sighing as if there was an incredibly boring but necessary task that only he could do. "Baby sister," he said, disappointed, "I had better plans for today than this." Ianthe opened her mouth to retort but found suddenly that she couldn't move, couldn't even twitch an eyelid. She tried desperately to draw on her necromantic power to free herself, but it was like there was nothing there, only emptiness. Augustine stuck two fingers between her parted lips, sliding them against the wetness of her tongue. Her gag reflex was triggered as he probed deeper but her body couldn't move to choke it back, leaving her drooling uncontrollably.
Her mind was spinning furiously as drew back and unfastened his trousers, pulled out his cock - an ample if not extraordinary specimen of the breed - and said, "Your sister was more pliable, but it seems you need to be taught a lesson in obedience." He pushed into her mouth, and Ianthe briefly tasted the salt-slick on his head before it was buried against the back of her throat. Her heart seemed to be all that could move, hammering frantically. Even her lungs seemed unable to quite work as normal, expanding in short, jerky bursts that couldn't reach their full capacity. Her eyes, unable to blink, overflowed with tears, which made her irritated in case he thought she was crying.
However, Augustine seemed indifferent to her plight - and rather indifferent to his own satisfaction, for that matter. He didn't thrust into her as she expected, but simply rested there, occasionally taking a drag on his cigarette, with his cock encased in the warmth of her mouth. When he reached the end of his smoke, he drew back and stubbed it out on her tongue with a hiss, grinding the ashy residue into her. Ianthe would have screamed then, if she could, but all she could do was glare at him from streaming eyes.
"Now," Augustine said, crouching down to look her in the face, "if I let you go, will you be a good girl about all of this? Dilate your pupils for yes, you should still have that much control at least, it's just the large muscle groups."
Ianthe contracted her pupils to pinpoints in a petulant gesture, and Augustine shook his head. "Disappointing. I could have made this quite enjoyable for you, you know. I'm not the anatomist Joy is, but I'm not incompetent by any means. Right, up you go." He hoisted her up, still in a fixed sitting position, and carried her over to his desk, laying her face-down on it. Ianthe could feel him push her skirt up, and then pick up some scissors from the desk and cut off her underwear, leaving her exposed. Then his finger was inside her, sliding in with surprising ease - Ianthe hadn't realized how wet she was, and was disgusted with herself.
"Tighter than your sister," he said in a clinically appraising tone. "Rather snug, as a matter of fact, but that might be a positioning issue." His thumb sought out her clit as he fingered her with a bored detachment - Ianthe actually heard him lighting another cigarette during the process - but considerable, undeniable skill. Ianthe couldn't cry out or squirm, which somehow made it worse and better at the same time. She wanted it, and hated that she wanted it, and couldn't even call him a bastard while he was getting her off. Her pussy clutched at him frantically and he chuckled, pulling his hand free before she could finish properly.
He flipped her over onto her back, knocking several books off his desk in the process, so that she was staring at the ceiling, legs stuck ridiculously in the air, immobile and bent at the knee. "Frustrated? I'm sure you are. But you know you can stop this any time, if you've learned your lesson. Try applying a bit of thought for once in your life."
"Don't cry, you absolute baby, it's just some homework. I'll do it for you like I always do, so there's no need to kick up such a fuss. Nobody will know, as long as you do just exactly what I say, all right darling?
Ianthe's mind whirred busily at that statement, even as Augustine worked at angling her in some more convenient way. "Should have had you spread your legs first," he grumbled, giving her a twist so that she was half on her side, her hair flopped across her face in an annoying swathe. "This works, though." He teased her cunt with the head of his cock, and Ianthe tried to focus her thoughts. If he thought she could stop this, then there must be something she could do. Something at the back of her brain... the reading... anti-thanergy and anti-thalergy spaces... it fell into place just as his cock began to breach her, and she relied on his momentary distraction to reach out with her mind and collapse the bubble that was blocking her access to draw on her power.
Her first response upon being able to move again was to gasp, a huge, sucking lungful of air. Her second was to swear loudly and try to kick him in the face. Augustine chuckled and grabbed her ankles, not even dropping his cigarette in the process. "Got the hang of it, did you? I wondered if you could."
He was still halfway inside her, and Ianthe, chest heaving, managed to say, "Don't even think about stopping." Augustine gave a little grunt and shoved into her the rest of the way, and Ianthe could have sworn she felt her pelvis open for him just a little, as if her body was making room. It wasn't enough, though - she wanted as much as he could give.
"So tight," Augustine gasped, thrusting into her again. "Show me how you like this, sister dear."
Ianthe nodded. It wasn't enough that he was inside her - she needed him to tell her she was good, to tell her she was better than Coronabeth, to salve the sick, helpless jealousy at her core with his praise. Her hand fumbled blindly on the desk, came up with the metal weight of his scissors. With one hand she plunged them into her belly below the navel, ripping through skin and guts in one quick motion, opening herself up for him. A spray of blood decorated his pristine white shirt like a garland.
Of course, the wounds immediately tried to heal themselves, so she shoved her gilded hand into the gaping hollow she'd created in her womb, refusing to let it close completely. Augustine arched an eyebrow, but didn't seem fazed by the gesture - in fact, he thrust into her even harder. Presumably after ten thousand years, a spot of light evisceration in the middle of sex was nothing shocking. "I should give you a modicum of credit," he managed to say between strokes, cigarette still hanging from his lips, "you're a more interesting lay than Coronabeth."
Ianthe writhed, strumming the nerves of her clitoris from the wrong side, pain and pleasure mingling together, feeling how her guts shifted and stirred with each increasingly deep thrust. She rummaged around inside herself until she found the head of his cock through a thin layer of tissue and muscle, surrounding it in her bony fist to let him thrust into it. "You want it tighter, brother dear? I can make it tighter for you," she grinned, squeezing him, and Augustine, to her satisfaction, came hard enough that his semen gushed up between her wrist bones and out like a fountain through the hole in her guts.
Extricating her hand with a wet gush of blood and other fluids, Ianthe lay back, exhausted but pleased with herself. She could accept 'interesting' as praise. Her wounds resealed themselves as soon as her arm was no longer in the way, and the pain receded to a low ache. Augustine bent to pull his pants up, then leaned back against the cluttered desk, finishing his smoke. "I suppose you can consider that your lesson for the day," he said evenly.
"Nothing further?" Ianthe said, almost disappointed. She rose, smoothing her skirt down over unsteady legs, waiting until the queasy sensation of her organs sliding and rearranging themselves into more correct positions had passed. "Then I trust you won't touch my sister ever again."