Editing Bound Fate (Warhammer High) (section)

===Something===
----


An hour or a minute later, she couldn't tell, Furia walked home, the direction that felt like home.

She couldn't tell.

It was the rain, that was the problem. She couldn't see it or hear it or hear anything, really, but she could feel it flowing over her lightly scarred cheeks, running down the imperfect cut of her jaw, pooling under her not completely feminine chin, dripping onto her second-rate chest. 

It was warm.

Rain wasn't supposed to be warm. 

Furia felt Someone behind her, a presence, a familiarity, seeming to be from an eternity ago, welled up from her mind.

The rain got worse, made it hard to see. Someone touched her shoulder and she lashed out, the punch flying straight and true, but failing nonetheless.

Something wrapped around her arm, Something she couldn't wriggle out of or power through, Something she couldn't break or smash or tear. 

Someone stepped around and Something slithered over Furia's other shoulder, Someone patting it gently. Her arm flailed, rocking along with her body.

"Shh, shh." It was a strange hiss for a Someone, not nearly as snake-like as she thought it would sound. 

Someone tugged her arm, ever so gently threading it through the unbreakable Something.

Furia still didn't look, her eyes blind, not until her left hand dipped down into the leather jacket's pocket.

She shuddered and felt something break loose. Not the clean snap of a glass rod breaking, but the thundrous roar of a dam failing. Not shattered into pieces, but abrogated completely by a simple act of kindness.

Furia buried her face in Doug's shoulder, torrents flooding from her eyes and nose and sobbing mouth. Her right arm wrapped around him, feeling the familiar heartbeat, thumping oddly with concern, and feeling the arms wrap around her in turn, comforting and loving.

Still, she was angry, even as she sniffled and convulsed Furia tried to fight away the rush of emotion with incandescent rage.

"WHY-agheh-WHY DON'T YOU GO FUCK MISS PERFECT AND LEAVE ME ALONE YOU BASTARD?!"

A chin, jaw and neck settled onto her bowed head, soft and vulnerable.

"I'm afraid I never had much interest in spelunking, Furia." The words were impossible and impossibly soft, seeming to originate from inside her ears, mellifluous and warm.

''So warm.''

"What the fuck is spelunking?" Furia sniffled again, and pressed herself tighter.

"Cave diving." Doug quipped.

She started to sniffle, but it mutated, transformed into a snort, the snort she hated so much when she laughed, really laughed. She felt his mouth curl into a smile against her scalp as he kissed it, and she cried more.



Furia and Doug walked towards her house side by side, their pace agonizingly slow because time seemed now to be passing too quickly. Her hands were in the beat-up leather jacket's pockets, and she refused to take them out. His arm was threaded through hers, and she also refused to let that go, a notion he was happy with.

Furia sniffled again, the lho-stick burning bright and clear. "So how'd you get it out of her house?"

"Ah, yes. You'll like this." Doug reached over and patted her arm with his free hand, then cleared his throat melodramatically. "I suggested to her that our, ah, evening would be better spent in her father's room." 

Furia's eyes flew open. "What?" She stopped walking, staring at him with a mixture of complete shock and unmistakable mirth.

"Hush now. That is only the beginning." Doug tugged her slightly, resuming their snail's pace. "And so, we left her clothes in her room and departed for her father's. I then requested that she," He looked down, coughed lightly into his free hand, "warm herself up for me." Furia blushed more than a little at this, turning and exhaling heavily, the fwoosh turning into a soft chortle. Doug capitalized on the reaction. "I must admit some alarm at the... ardor, the ''fervor'' with which Victoria took to task." He shuddered, only slightly, but more than enough to get the point across. After she finished laughing he started up again. 

"It was then a simple matter to take the robe, slip out the door," Doug opened his coat and produced a small case. He thumbed it open, revealing a small assortment of picks and tensioners, and a wicked-looking rigid breakdriver, "and lock the key-only, pin-and-tumbler latch closed from the outside."

Furia started to laugh again, a long, evil cackle, warm breath pouring into the cold air.

"I returned to her room, retrieved the jacket and was out the window before she, ah, finished."

"That's gonna suck, for sure." Furia felt herself warm at the story, and sidled a little closer to her walking companion. "Bitch got what she deserved."

"Yes, I do not envy her position, to choose between facing her father in that... messy situation, or to break the elegant door and explain the reason behind the act to Terra's premier perfectionist." Furia tossed her cigarette aside as the long-awaited sprinkle started, and looked over at Doug, wearing a small smile, stepping jauntily in the light rain.

''He looks so stupid in his black coat. So much older and more noble than he is.''

"Still I feel, I must apologize." He turned to look at her, a fat raindrop hitting him directly on the nose, spraying water everywhere. "I should have let you know, rather than risk your feelings. I wanted to surprise you, so much so that I ignored your feelings." His face turned somber. "I'm sorry."

"Eh, it's fine. It turned out pretty good in the end."

Doug stopped at that. He turned, left hand cupping her cheek gently, lifting her chin, eyes boring into hers one at a time. "I'm sorry, Furia."

She smiled in response, a bright streetlight gleaming off her teeth, off the water streaming down her face, dripping from the tip of her nose. Furia looked achingly beautiful, and the rain seemed to wash away the sadness and despair she'd experienced.

He couldn't help but smile back. ''It's nice to have a good memory in the rain.''

The rest of the trip passed in a comfortable silence, interrupted occasionally by small talk, and they were soon at the gate to Angron Manor.

"I would have to say..." Doug put a finger to his lips, then gestured suddenly, pointing to the sky as if the answer had just descended from the heavens. "Her father's obsession with Old Earth art and decor."

"How did that make it easier?" Furia smiled, sure the explanation would either be ridiculous or simple, sure that it would make sense, to him at least, either way.

"How many Primarchs do you know who willingly install ''pin-and-tumbler'' locks in their homes? Form follows function, after all. Or at least it should." Doug shook his head woefully, as if lecturing a millennia-old galactic conqueror were par for the course. Furia looked nervously through the gate, at the fallen letters on the mailbox. At the, for a Primarch's residence, cozy and understated rustic home.

Most of all, though, she looked at the enormous red truck in the driveway, an old combustion model, like her bike, and far too large to fit in the capacious garage.

"My, uh, my dad's home. Maybe?" The word trailed off. Furia looked up, her eyes imploring, even though the risk was terrible.

Doug couldn't turn her down. "Say no more." He pulled out her right hand and kissed it gently, the sensation oddly dry as his lips pushed away the rain. He slipped easily away as Furia turned to look back at the house, to see if her father was watching.

When she turned back Doug was gone.





Furia hung up the dripping jacket, then peeled off her sopping clothes, spreading them out over the cluttered desk and tilted chair. She turned back around to see Doug looking out the just-closed window, hands clasped behind his back. He whispered gently.

"Marvelous. Not as inspiring as the genuine article, but impressive weather nonetheless."

"What are you doing? It's not like..." Furia suddenly realized why Doug had whispered, barely audible to her from a meter away above the patter of rain. She started again as he removed his earplugs, now in a loud whisper. "It's not like you haven't already seen me naked."

Doug turned at that, slowly and steadily, his eyes meeting hers and anchoring there beatifically.

Furia felt oddly offended, so she stretched luxuriantly, like a cat. Doug knew his anatomy perfectly, the information burned in his mind, and relied on it to distract him. In his peripheral vision he saw triceps straining against chest and shoulder muscles, flexing and emphasizing the contents of her damp striped top, itself suggestively revealing her midsection. Furia put her legs into it as well, feet levering up, pulling her calves into sharp relief, initiating a sequential tension that shot through the thigh muscles in a teasingly slow inward progression, finally coalescing in the remainder of the still concealed hip flexor muscles.

Doug's eyes remained firmly on hers, as if exploring.

Furia's midriff seemed to lengthen, ascending from underneath the already dangerously low-cut shorts, she relented for just a moment, to let the last piece slide off and then, one leg at a time, step out of the wet bicycle shorts pooled around her feet, leaving only the hiphuggers. She finished stretching and held the pose easily, satisfied when she felt, more than heard, the surging blood and heartbeat, the quickening and deepening of Doug's breathing as his attempt to distract himself failed.

Even compared to Doug's previous speech the response was barely audible and only the slightest bit suggestive.  

"Fetching." His eyes still did not waver, did not move, but they seemed to suggest something, urgent almost to the point of begging. Something deflated in the back of Furia's head, a sudden realization, a resurgence of what she felt an hour ago when she saw Doug in Victoria's room. It was quickly accompanied by an awareness of her father's presence. Furia looked down behind her, pointedly, and he nodded. 

"We should talk." Furia began to step at his words, and Doug timed his own movements with hers, deftly slipping out of the coat, the shoes, the shirt and pants.

He lengthened his stride to catch up, feet arching and flexing to remain as quiet as possible, to mask the sound of his movements under hers, and reached the bed just before Furia, sliding in nearly at the same time. For a long moment they were separate, silent. Doug, comfortable at the wall quarter, she less so at the open edge, thinking, her mind now tinged with despondence again.

They began to talk, the words susurrant like the rustle of silk sheets over bodies.

"So, how was she?" Furia turned her head down, a finger circling lazily on the side of the bed, hand searching for the pack of lho-sticks. ''Oh, yeah. Not there.''

"Pardon?" Doug was relaxed, completely relaxed. He was primed to deliver honesty, completely and thoroughly. ''It is necessary.''

"Come on, you saw her naked. Where does she rank?" ''Where do I rank?'' Furia realized after the fact how transparent it was, but she had to know.

"I will admit, she has her charms. She seems to be almost too charming, in fact." Doug stopped for beat, reconsidering. "No, not almost, ''exactly'' that. Too charming, too attractive. 'An embarrassment of riches,' so to speak." The words poured out, slow and sure as honey, even dribbling at the end.

"What the fuck does that mean, are you saying she's too hot? Like it's a flaw?" Furia was loud now, unexpected anger surging freshly in her mind. She reflexively pictured how easily a limb could break, bone could splinter.

Doug's heartbeat and breathing were steady despite his keen awareness of the same.

"Not precisely. She is..." He drew the last syllable out as he tried to find another word. He failed. "Inhuman." Doug continued, rather than letting the idea sink home in Furia's already distraught mind. "I've seen, in some of my seedier assignments, men and women who purchase a luxury servitor." 

His eyes rolled back slightly, the visual cue sharpening his memory. "A ''literally'' perfect simulacrum of a human being. Yet, I could always pick them out of a crowd easily. No matter how rigorous their design and programming, no matter how elegant their construction."

Furia frowned, not quite sure where he was going with this, "And?" The images remained in her raging mind, limb twining in limb, a travesty of intercourse. Love replaced by hate, carnal unity twisted into violent, bloody struggle.

"Well, you see, they were too perfect. Every person, no matter how composed, has their subtle flaws. Even Isis has her share of inadequacies, and while only she may recognize them consciously, on some level we are all aware of such foibles." Doug relaxed a little more, speaking comfortably, easily.

Furia snorted at the last word, and covered it by taking a drag of her lho stick. ''When did I light that?'' She slid onto the open quarterline of the bed, a little closer, a little surer.

"Furia, when I looked at Victoria, even my subconscious couldn't notice any deficiencies in her appearance. It's almost as if she is a... parody, a mockery of a human being.” Doug paused for a moment, then added , "I firmly believe that our flaws define us as much as our virtues."

"I just... I don't see how that's bad, a bad thing." Still, Furia scooted again, the pressure of her body against Doug's rolling him over, spooning around her. The seething, razor heat in her head began to subside, diffusing to a comforting warmth. "I'm not the only one who notices, Furia." Doug let a hand slide up to her arm, then brush hair from over her ear. It returned, gliding gently up and down her tricep on spidery fingers, an imitation of the afternoon massage.

He looked pointedly down at her, "I may have," He waved his free hand, his other miming the gesture against her side, tickling, "picked up on this more quickly than most, but I'm certainly not the only one who has noticed. Haven't you ever wondered why she has so many suitors?"

Furia snorted again, but listened, "Why her friends are poorly looked upon by their peers?" She began to inhale, then pulled the lho-stick from her lips and looked at it strangely. She licked her left hand and stubbed out the nearly whole lho stick, then tossed it easily into the small trashcan in the corner.

"Bravo." Doug took the hand and gently blew on it. Furia giggled, a wholly agreeable sound to his ear.
A momentary pause ensued, filled with quiet listening, then a simple resumption, as if the interruption never happened.

"What're you doing?" Furia didn't resist as his arm slipped a little further, down to her stomach, gently tracing the high linea semilunaris outlining her abdominals.

"I want to smell you, not tar and nicat." Doug blew again, more gently, then inhaled, drawing his nose along the length of her arm. "Ah. Much better."

Furia slapped him on the head, a little harder than necessary. He'd come to expect it by now. They stopped talking, breathing even, waiting to see if the sound roused the slumbering beast below. All remained silent, a largely enjoyable silence.

Doug's arm appeared under her armpit, as if springing fully formed from her body, and snaked along her free arm. His hand twined in hers. 

"So what, you're saying I don't like her 'cause she's too perfect? And that's the source of all her problems?" Furia scoffed and pantomimed brushing away an invisible annoyance fluttering in the air above. She let her hand fall on his against her stomach, still gently plying the tissue there.

"Not exactly. She ''seems'' perfectly composed, perfectly collected, confident far beyond the point of arrogance. By the grace of her pedigree she even appears to fulfill that promise at a second glance." Doug stopped the tracing as he thought, and started again when he finished.

Furia felt warm inside.

He leaned in just a little closer to her ear, breath warm on her in the cold air. "Her looks would guarantee envy from the less secure. However, the rest who dislike her are explained by something more complex." He stopped moving again as he formulated his larger response.

Doug inhaled deeply, now fully prepared. "In a nutshell, Victoria is compensating, Furia. She's been unwittingly raised with impossible expectations by Fulgrim, himself attempting to live up to the unattainable standards of his own father. I suspect she suffers from ''tremendous'' self-esteem issues. Victoria attempts to counteract this by delving further and further into her father's goal of objective perfection. What she does not understand is that Fulgrim considers it unattainable, not a goal of its own but simply a motivation; whereas Victoria believes it her birthright. She falls ever short of this goal that, in her mind, should be easily within reach. This only increases her drive to attain the absurd ideal, intensifies her hidden self-loathing and propels the cycle ever further toward breakdown or... insanity."

He exhaled deeply, slowly after the talking. "Suffice to say she will fall from her perch eventually, if her father does not help her down. It will be devastating."

"And I thought I was fucked up." It was Furia's turn to breathe, in time with his breathing, so deep and calming.

"That's the point, Furia." Doug clenched her a little tighter, their bodies now sculpted together. "We are all damaged in some way, we all have problems. Denying the problem only exacerbates it. Ignorance is weakness, and whether Victoria will admit it or not, she is weak."

They lay for a little while longer, the long day spooling down, finally releasing all the tension of the school day, of the fighting, the work, the feeling of betrayal.

"That is why she snubs you, Furia. Why she admires you. Why she tries to emulate you by theft, the lowest form of imitation. That is why it was so simple for me to deceive her, with your smell on me." Doug sighed, the sound thick with pity. "She envies you, Furia, because you are strong, because you ''don't'' hide your flaws. You embrace them." He caressed a scar gently, one of a thousand crisscrossing her body.

Furia turned after a moment, a rapid movement. "You sound pretty sure about that."

"I speak from experience, Miss Angron." Doug smiled. "I admire you for that as well."

She smiled back and kissed him on the lips, only once and only for so long, then turned away and drew his arm tighter. She suddenly felt something blossom. Not sadness, but empathy, the smallest sympathy for Victoria.
 
"Do you think she can be... helped?"

"Yes, of course. But it will be a monumental effort if she isn't removed from her father, or if he isn't goaded into action first." Doug kissed the back of her neck. "Victoria still has a chance to mature, to ripen."

Furia snorted again, now not hating it so much. "I think she's 'ripe' enough, Doug."

Doug smiled against her, his hand massaging her diaphragm gently, fingertips just grazing her bosom, "If Victoria is given the proper care, by her father or another, if she can find someone kind, determined and understanding, she should be able to... mellow. Become normal, content with herself."

"It's a good feeling." Furia whispered, so quietly she knew even Doug couldn't hear it.