"Addictions" - RPS - Lou Reed/David Bowie - R

Title: Addictions
Fandom: Bandslash/RPS
Pairing: Lou Reed/David Bowie
Rating: R
Warnings: Drug use, BDSM, violence, bloodplay
Notes: Not to be confused with my OTHER story titled 'Addiction' (no 'S'). This basically fits in to the plotline of 'The Art of Discipline', but that isn't required reading to 'get' this.
Disclaimer: It's all a lie (and that's the truth).
About: Again, the title syas it all. It's a bit ambiguous, so if you're not familiar with 'The Art of Discipline', the first part is from Lou's POV, the second is from David's, and the third is from Lou's again. Enjoy.



In the cold blue light of streetlamps and so many neon signs pressing their way through the drawn shades over the window, the different coloured pills seemed to gleam slightly, some looking slick and wet, others giving off a dull matte glow that teased the eye, inviting, like a hooker bent in a doorway. He could never be bothered to scoop the pills into their proper bottles; even if he had wanted to, he'd smashed them two days ago on the kitchen tiles in frustration. The whiskey that had washed today's dose down lingered hot and heavy at the back of his throat, a complex flavour that weaved through the twisted maze of his mind, provoking feeling but not thought. He didn't mind. Any feeling besides blankness was a godsend, these days.

He'd been up for three days and his mind had descended into the familiar territory of hyper-reality and paranoia. It was a vague feeling at the moment though, the sort of nagging fear that hung bat-like in the dark rafters of his psyche. It was funny, the way seeing the world like this, so very real and alive, as if the room were some living beast who's great sides heaved with each breath, made him feel so false and plastic. He felt two-dimensional, like a slip of paper that at any moment might be caught by a stray wind and whisked away into oblivion. It was times like these that made him hate the speed, and hate himself for his own helplessness, his inability to stop. It disgusted him to need something like that, to need anything - or anyone. That was weakness. Weakness was intolerable.

But he couldn't stop. All the clinics, all the medications, all the fucking electricity pumped into his brain wouldn't stop him. He knew that well enough. In two days he'd be back on the scene again. He did not want to stop. He told himself he did, but he didn't.

'This is addiction,' he thought as he watched his hands trembling and tried to ignore the omnipresent sound of his teeth grinding together.

***

He's not sure why he comes back here. It's not about pleasure. Pleasure is always part of it of course, but that was easily obtainable anywhere else. It was the part that he didn't enjoy - the cruel bruises and cuts that lingered days afterwards on his flesh, the humiliation of being bound and helpless on his knees, the cruel lashings of the whip that whistled through the air and lay long thin lines of agony across his skin that kept him coming back. That was something no-one else had ever given him - something he adored but despised, longed for but shunned, always torn between the stern reprimands of guilt and shame and the delicious beckoning of the forbidden fruit.

He was a slave to it, the faceless whore who came running every time no matter how many times he told himself 'never again' the next morning. He did not want to stop. He told himself he did, but he didn't.

There were times he hated himself for that, and times he hated this man for all those bittersweet floggings he dealt him in the velvet darkness. But now, when he felt the supple leather of the whip slowly sliding up his back, he found himself trembling not from fear or hatred but from yearning, silently begging the leather tail to crack across his skin, lay open his flesh in a torrent of blood. 'This is addiction,' he thought, and closed his eyes as he waited for the lash to land.

***

Feeling the weight of this whip on his palm was like holding on to his own cock; he felt he could reach orgasm merely by touching the smooth black leather, fingers tracing the outline of tight braided thongs that former the long tail. In his mind's eye, he could see visions of what he already knew was to come: laying the lash down over and over, watching the red welts rise on the soft white canvas of flesh, blood trickling down creamy thighs and dropping unheeded to the floor. This was a scenario he knew all to well. This was bittersweet just like everything else; a double-edged sword that felt so good to thrust into the heart of someone else, but ripped him apart when it sliced into his own soul. It was unsettling to think just how enjoyable it was to watch this boy writhe under the repeated licks of the whip, the delicious strokes of the belt, the vicious torture of any implement he could find that would cause pain to explode across the man's psyche.

The funny thing was the lack of emotion when he executed these punishments. He felt no hate, no anger when he beat him; he did not even feel arousal, really, at least not in the way he did when he took the trembling creature to the bed and fucked him mercilessly, lapping up all the blood he had spilled during the lashings. What he felt was almost not a feeling at all - different from the blankness of too much speed and insomnia. No, this was much more primitive than that. Animal, instinctual. A disconnected sort of feeling, like standing in the shadows and watching someone else. It was that feeling that scared him the most. It would be so easy just to go a little too far. All the times when he was alone, when he would swear to himself that he would not let that happen, that he would control himself, were all for not. Because when he was holding the whip in his hand, watching the other man trembling as he kneeled on the carpet, he didn't want to stop. He told himself he did, but he didn't.

'This is addiction,' he thought, and with bated breath drew back the hand that held the whip.

***