Work Text:
Prompt: Handcuffs
I am, at my core, a thoughtless, selfish creature. Fortunately, Integra is a fair mistress and, while strict, never excessively cruel. She punishes me with silence and denial rather than physical torture. That's not to say she's never used pain to keep me in line. There's a room deep within the manor's bowels that has a set of wrist and ankle shackles chained to a wall. I know it well. Abraham used to lock me up when I wasn't hunting for him or enduring his alchemical experiments. With Integra I'd only returned there once when I'd eaten a maid. My explanation of her being coffin bait had not assuaged Integra's ire one bit and I'd spent a week in bondage with a sword buried in my chest. However from then on out, Integra insisted no other attendant aside from Walter could reside in the manor.
I knew what I was risking when I turned the police girl. When Integra yelled and made a fuss, I thought I was in the clear, but when we were home, she ordered Walter to tend to the girl and me to that cold, stone chamber. Of course she made me wait.
In the meantime, I shackled my own ankles and one of my wrists after stripping to the waist. I hoped my obedience and the sight of my naked flesh soothed her anger. Not fucking likely but a monster could hope. At least she was lovely when she finally did arrive. She wore anger like some women wore seduction.
Without a single word, she shackled my free arm then back handed me hard as she could. It stung but pain rarely registered properly to me. The force of her blow turned my cheek, and I grinned despite myself.
"What in blazes were you thinking?" Integta demanded angrily. A cigar was clenched between her teeth and her breath on my face was hot and smokey. In other circumstances, it would be quite arousing, but in this case.... Well, it still left me stirred but I thought better than to express that fact. For now.
"Are you jealous?" I teased her because I am what I am and she is who she is and we all have our roles to play.
Integra hit me again, called me a bastard, and paced away from my bound form. While not as livid as earlier, she was still awash in aggravation. She puffed at her cigar as she paced and I felt an odd sense of nostalgia. Integra was so like her father sometimes.
"Do you have any clue what kind of trouble this little stunt of yours will land me in?" Her voice was deadly low.
I did not because I honestly couldn't give two shits about the Royal Order and their Round Table of dithering old men. All I could do was shrug. Even I couldn't tell you what had compelled me to make that girl my kin. She had a spark, a strange, dark power buried deep within her very being, and I'd known we needed her.
She continued to rant. "You're lucky the Queen Mother likes you so bloody much or else I'd likely be ordered to exterminate that girl and lock you up until kingdom come!"
Her voice cracked a bit on that last part. She was torn between righteous indignation and fear of our separation. When she finally stopped pacing and turned back to me, she just looked so damned tired. I hated to see her this way, even more so when I was the cause.
"Help me understand," Integra asked plaintively.
"We needed her," I replied with another shrug. "Do you really think this spike in vampiric activity is normal?"
Integra scoffed a little. "Do you expect to believe that? I've no need for some newly minted blood sucking trollop! How can you be sure she won't go rampaging across the countryside the first time she gets a taste of blood?"
"She won't," I assured her.
"What makes you think that? For that matter what makes you think she'll listen to me?"
"She is my servant. Who is she to disobey the one who holds her master's leash?"
Her shoulders sagged a little and she stepped closer to me. She was bothered and not in the way I prefer to make her feel.
"Why do you think we need her?" Integra asked softly.
"A feeling," I sighed as I looked up at the ceiling. "War is coming."
Finis.