A self-imposed challenge of my own creation, running from February 1, 2016 to February 29, 2016. I only plan to start these stories (producing around a thousand words for each), not to finish them within the month.
Title: Inverted Pairing/Rating: Sparrow/Frost NC-17 Challenges: 23. Spoiled Rich Girl and a Poor Boy [50harlequins] Summary: And now for something completely different: Sparrow is a Circle debutante, and Frost is a victor. (It's funnier if it's still him who's obsessed.) Warnings: background noncon/dubcon
Note: I considered a straight reversal of Sparrow and Frost's roles--i.e., making Frost a victor and Sparrow the Chancellor of Parabellum--but ultimately decided it doesn't fit with what I feel is the core of Sparrow's character. While she's not an apolitical person, she's not one to desire (at least in canon proper and at the onset of this story) the role of a political figurehead. In both her canon incarnation and this version, she's more a surly anti-government type at first (and will only later begin shifting into something of a philanthropist).
I also briefly considered putting her in a Loretta-esque role in which she would manifest as the daughter of an OC Chancellor, but I felt that came too close to the "never a self-made woman" stereotype (should I decide for her to become more political later) and also risked introducing another strong male figure (presumably but not definitely a sympathetic one) that could too strongly influence both her character and the plot. So, what I'm going with here is that Sparrow has a very Frost-esque background; she was born to an elderly man in the Circle (a previous Chancellor, in this case) and his much younger "trophy wife".
Their romantic roles, however, will be much the same. Frost is obsessive, aggressive, and much more sexually open, while Sparrow is cold and distant and though lacking in childhood sexual trauma still suffering from the unwanted affections of Octavian Donahue, who no doubt intends to use her as a way to strengthen his campaign for Chancellor.
So let's see how this works out.
Sparrow had been surprised when she'd heard the news. She wasn't one to pay much attention to the Culling normally; honestly, the entire thing sickened her, and it would probably be more merciful to simply let everyone that entered the arena die there. For every Isadora Bitya, there were five Nadia Sens, wide-eyed and innocent and scared and wholly undeserving of the fate they would suffer for the rest of their lives. The men and women who could, like Izzy, actually enjoy their new lives could be counted on one hand.
But the number of men and women like this one, on the other hand... well, she was sure there must have been more, but there weren't any she could recall. The Circle had a type when it came to the Culling, and that type hadn't varied much in the last few decades, as far as she knew. There was a bit more leeway with women, a healthy range of colors and sizes, though there of course wasn't an unattractive specimen in the bunch, but the men were held to much stricter roles; they all had the same dark features, the same fair skin, the same general build. And yet somehow this newest victor bucked the mold.
He wasn't even young she realized. Certainly, he wasn't as old as the current generation of patriarchs--no one that far along in life stood a chance of winning the Culling, after all--but he was probably about forty, more than old enough that she doubted the Circle had actually chosen him, and wasn't that a laugh? How long had it been since their plans to pick out the new victor had failed?
And, more importantly, what did it mean for the poor bastard who had the gall to win instead of whatever pretty little thing they'd chosen?
Sparrow sighed and stood, setting her glass of wine down on the coffee table, barely touched. German was up in an instant, setting his book aside and rising from the armchair diagonally across from the couch. "You can take it," she said reluctantly, gesturing toward the glass. She would've prefer to stay and finish it, of course, but there wasn't going to be any getting out of this tonight; it wasn't just a Debut she could "forget" to RSVP to. The Circle begrudgingly tolerated her disinterest in their system because of who her father had been and the rewards one of them might reap one day if they she so completely lost her mind as to marry, but they wouldn't let her avoid a Victory Ball. If she didn't come, her absence would be noted, and there'd be hell to pay.
"Should I call Gigi?" German asked as he carried the neglected drink away.
"Pax no," Sparrow exclaimed, watching him disappear through the doorway on his trek toward the kitchen. "I might have to go to this thing, but I'm not putting myself through that kind of torture!"
She heard him chuckling as he returned, sans glass. "Is there anything you'd like me to get you, then?"
Sparrow considered it a moment, then shook her head. "Just help me get my hair up once I'm dressed, and I'll be fine." He nodded, and she headed toward the bedroom as he sank back down into his chair and took back up his book. She would never understand his fascination with reading.
If Sparrow could firmly say that there was one genuinely good thing in her life, that would be German. She hadn't thought so at first, of course, but that was to be expected; when they'd first met, German had been just Sparrow's father's most recent errand boy, just another in a cascade of servants that neither cared about Sparrow or earned her consideration in turn. At least, he was just another servant until the late Chancellor had decided to assign him as Sparrow's own personal manservant.
Had her father been anyone else, Sparrow would've known exactly what that meant: that he was giving the young man to his even younger daughter, intended to let the thirteen-year-old to as she wished with him, whether what she wished was something technically legal or not. And upon their official introduction, it had been clear that German Etzel had not known that Sparrow's father wasn't anyone else; from the genuine panic in his eyes, the twenty-five-year-old had been thoroughly convinced for a few horrible hours that he'd just been handed over like a plaything to a little girl.
Luckily for him, of course, the Katharos family did not operate that way, no matter what the Donahues and Freeds of the world let their children get away with. German was to be almost everything to her--friend, confidante, assistant, and chaperone--but not that. And she was fairly sure they were both quite pleased to know that they still weren't, almost a decade later. They never would be.
The role German served, indeed, was much more important than something so petty; he had been her rock for years, to the point that she genuinely wasn't sure what she would do without him. She was as devoted to him as he was to her, even if there was a small part of her that still wondered how much of that devotion revolved around his paycheck. And, really, she didn't want to know that answer.
Tonight, she knew, German was going to be serving as her "date", for lack of a better term; she was well aware that the majority of the Circle was quite convinced that there wasn't anything remotely platonic about their relationship these days, whether or not it had ever been so in the past, and that was a surprisingly effective way to keep the majority of them from bothering her. They certainly weren't about to stop propositioning her altogether--she was the sole owner of a large fortune and without any heirs to her name, after all--but it deterred the worst of the so-called wooing, and for that, she couldn't have been more grateful. Some of these bastards were willing to go quite a long way in the name of pursuing a woman they felt was unattached. And since she was usually quite single, German found himself playing arm candy more often than not. She didn't think he minded, and if he did, he certainly never said.
Sparrow dressed quickly that night, putting the absolute minimum of thought into what she was draping around herself. Tonight it was a short, dark green dress she was fairly sure she'd bought for herself and whatever reasonably matching jewelry she could find in her mess of a jewelry box. She knew her mother would be rolling over in her grave if she could see her now, and, honestly, Sparrow took a certain kind of satisfaction in that. Her mother had been a vapid, vain woman with whom she'd never gotten along, nor even particularly known; she couldn't give less of a shit about the woman's judgment, hypothetical, postmortem, or otherwise.
Once she was clothed as thoroughly as she cared to be, German helped her with her hair, twisting the cascade of wavy, dark blonde locks into a braid that ran from her forehead to the top of her neck. It was tight and not particularly comfortable, but it was a reasonably simple style to both create and dismantle, and she certainly wasn't about to spend any more time on hair than she had to, no matter what Loretta and the rest of them had to say about it.
Pax, she wished she didn't have to go to this thing. What Sparrow wouldn't have given to live in a world where there were no victors and no Circle to advise them was infinitesimal; dealing with this every year was excruciating, and there was nothing she could do to stop it from happening. All she could do in the end was try to ease the pain.
"Let's go," she said quietly, turning to German with a distinct lack of enthusiasm. She wasn't going to be able to his that, she knew, but by now and managed to create enough of a reputation for herself that the others would no doubt misinterpret it, as they always did. If anyone in the Circle suspected that the rumors about her weren't true, they weren't saying so publicly; she could only assume that they would take her disinterest in the Victory as a desire for privacy. But, as always, she would need the new victor's help to maintain that illusion.
That was her risk every year. Every time there was a new victor, he or she put the others in danger of losing what little she could offer them. If they cost to play along with her deception, if they choose to lie to the Circle like Simon and Nadia and the others before them had agreed to do, the new victor would share in whatever meager freedoms she could offer them. But if this new man refused--if he proved, as Izzy had, a devotee to the Circle--she would have to take care t be never caught on to what exactly she was trying to arrange. The rest of the Circle would not take kindly to learning that Sparrow's many "appointments" with the various victors are little more than covertly scheduled downtime they weren't supposed to receive.
"Alright." German, she knew, was as displeased by tonight's impending ordeal as she was--but he was much better at masking it. "Anything else you need before we leave?"
Sparrow shook her head. "Unless I've forgotten something, no--or unless you have, which I think we can both agree is even less likely." She signed, mustering up whatever fake enthusiasm she could. "And I'll apologize in advance for anything that goes wrong."
German have her a faint smile. "Everything will be fine."
She certainly hoped so.
Simon was not optimistic. He had been with this new victor for all of an hour, and he was fairly sure already that this was not a man he was going to like. From his reaction to Simon's cautious attempts to gauge him, Simon had gotten the distinct and uncomfortable impression that they might have another Izzy on their hands. Simon want she what Izzy had been like when she'd first arrived--she was the new victor the year before his own Victory--but this man certainly wasn't acting like either he or Nadia had. He seemed to answer that something was wrong--that something very bad was coming very soon--but he hadn't yet asked what it was, and there was something downright off about the was he looked at the two of them. No one outside the Circle had looked at him like that in a long time.
It didn't bode well at all.
Sparrow walked into the Theatre with German on her arm and watched a few heads turn in her direction. That they did proved the victor hadn't arrived yet himself; very few of them would've been looking at her if their new toy was in the room.
As the onlookers' attention slowly returned to their various conversations, and Sparrow and German were allowed to withdraw as subtly as possible into a dark corner of the room. They took their seats on a small, two-person couch, sitting much closer to one another than they would have at home. But as uncomfortable as Sparrow always was with their public facade, German seemed as at ease as ever, resting against the back of the couch with his arm draped around Sparrow's shoulder while she leaned in close enough to let them speak to one another without being overheard. So far, their romantic act had never gone past the occasional chaste kiss of two people who had been in a stable relationship (however imaginary) for years but still wanted to keep the public displays of affection at a minimum. But Sparrow always wondered if this was going to be the time when they would be forced to take their physicality further in hopes of maintaining its illusion. She could only hope they stayed so lucky as to have the answer keep falling on "no".
Tonight, thankfully, Sparrow wasn't expecting issues on that front. The victor would hold most interest tonight, removing the likelihood of any wandering eyes straying to and staying upon Sparrow herself. So long as she could get through tonight without accidentally drawing any unwanted attention to herself, she would be fine. Everything would go back to normal soon, and then she could stop worrying about this for a few months.
For a few minutes, Sparrow and German sat in silence, German's body beside hers a comforting presence in a tense situation. Finally, after what seemed like far too long and yet nowhere near long enough of a delay, the door on the opposite side of the room opened, and when it did, Sparrow saw the Circle's newest victor in the flesh for the very first time.
He was an older man, older than her by at least ten or fifteen years; she would have put him at about forty, but perhaps he would have seemed younger if not for the silver-white color of his hair. If he was dyeing it that way, it was certainly unique; all of Parabellum's fashion revolved around hiding the signs of aging, but this man seemed to have embraced at least the idea of going gray. But in this room, any such connotations--assuming they existed in the first place--were lost, and it simply served to emphasize how different he was from the other victors--how much older he was than the rest of them and how unintended his victory must have been.
He was dressed as the victors always were, of course, modest by the standards of the Circle and yet primed for easy access--because no one here was under the delusion that those clothes weren't going to be very swiftly taken from him. All he had to cover himself tonight, the poor man, was a pair of dark pants and shoes and black button-up top. He was undeniably attractive, Sparrow had to admit, just as she always did; the Circle didn't put so much faith in their ability to preselect the victor as to allow anyone unattractive into the Culling. If there had ever been a victor who could be described as anything less than gorgeous, Sparrow had certainly never heard seen them--nor had she heard a whisper of their existence. The Circle was looking for beauty above all else, with the next requirement--obedience--trailing far behind the first. (Most of them, much as they were always eager to claim otherwise, were actually looking for a bit of a fight, and a victor who, like Izzy, accepted his or her new life right from the start lacked the perverse challenge they seemed to so enjoy.)
Sparrow watched the man walk into the room, her eyes surveying every visible inch of him. Unlike some of the victors, he wasn't restrained, nor did he appeared particularly frightened. He seemed wary certainly, and that, at least, proved there was something going on inside his skull; but the way he was tensing as he walked worried her. He had the posture of a person who was bracing himself to fight, not to run, and those were the ones who always got it the worst on their first night; the Circle planned to rape him--there was no getting around that reality--and there was little either she or he could do to ease that blow. And trying to resist them physically was perhaps the worst thing anyone could try.
Much as they craved the chase, they also weren't the kind of men and women who wanted to risk their pretty faces in an actual fight.
The man and his little entourage of unofficial captors walked straight, into the heart of the room, where Octavia Donahue was waiting for them. Octavia had been Chancellor of Parabellum for a few years now. He was, as well, an older man, in his early fifties if she recalled correctly, though one certainly couldn't tell from looking at him; like all the rest of the Circle, he didn't look a day over thirty five. But he had a daughter around her age, just a few months older than her, she believed, and the both of them were people Sparrow would've been quite content to never know.
But know them she did. Donahue had been a contemporary of her father's, and he had succeeded the man as Chancellor after his death. And, in addition to a reputation she found truly horrific, Octavia had also been expressing an interest in her since her father had died. Bloodlines, after all, were important to these people, and folding Sparrow's into his own would be something of a victory for him. One she certainly wasn't willing to allow.
Sparrow watched the victor eye Octavian warily; Octavian was grinning at him with no considerable amount of subtlety, the expression almost a downright leer. This man hadn't been the one the Circle had wanted, of course, but Sparrow expected that to a man like Octavian, that would only make him more interested in conquering the one they'd gotten instead.
When the victor stopped in front of him, flanked on either side by men easily as big as he was and well-practiced in the art of keeping the victors in line, Octavian turned from him to address the room. "Our guest of honor," he said, as theatrical as he always seemed to be during these monstrous parties, "has arrived." He turned back to the new guy. "Stelian Frost, our new victor. Welcome to the Circle."
Frost said nothing, just stared at Octavian with slightly narrowed eyes. Octavian, of course, wasn't deterred. "Tonight, the most power men and women in all of Parabellum have gathered together to celebrate your Victory. Your life," he told him, "has now changed forever. You have earned yourself power, luxury, and leisure beyond what you could've imagined before… and all that we ask in return is your cooperation."
That was normally the cue for them to falter, for their unease to deepen or their suspicions to finally be voiced. Frost, though, remained silent. Even Octavian seemed a bit surprised. "So, Stelian, if you would be so kind as to disrobe, the rest of us are quite ready to give you your reward."
She watched his muscles tense even further, every inch of him freezing for just a moment before he visibly forced himself to relax. "I take it this isn't an offer I can turn down?"
He said it so calmly, Sparrow almost didn't believe her ears. Octavian, however, looked only amused. "I'm afraid not, no."
The victor nodded once, and then, much to Sparrow's surprise, he actually started to do as he was bid. She watched uncertainly as he started unbuttoning his shirt, holding Octavian's gaze almost challengingly as he did so, and the longer it went on, the worse a feeling Sparrow had about it. Whatever Frost thought he was doing with that, it wasn't what he was accomplishing; all he was going to get by challenging Octavian Donahue was pain and humiliation, and unless he turned out to be another Izzy, he was certainly not going to like that.
When he was finally bare, his clothes discarded in a pile at his feet, there still wasn't a single hint if modesty about him. He seemed wholly unaffected by what was about to happen to him (and there was no chance now that he somehow didn't realize what that was); he just kept staring at Octavian, looking unimpressed and unintimidated, and the smirk on Octavian's lips made her skin crawl.
She looked away from the Chancellor, her gaze falling instead upon the naked man standing in front of him. What she wouldn't have given to save him from this, she thought idly, but after everything that she'd seem the past few years, she knew better than to get involved right now. He was going to have to endure the Circle, and after they were done, she would be able to do for him what she could. She only wished it could be more.
German's presence at Sparrow's side was her only comfort as she watched Octavian's useless posturing. She wasn't sure whether it was safer up say that he hated this new victor's defiance or that he loved it; that distinction, she supposed, would become clear later. Octavian liked the fight, after all, but what he liked better was the victory. If he couldn't bring Stelian Frost to submission--if there weren't at least a few cracks in his resolve by the time the night was over--Octavian wasn't going to be pleased. And when he wasn't please, Donahue was dangerous.
"On your knees," came the next order, and Sparrow watched Frost's jaw clench for a moment, seemingly about to resist. Then he sank to his knees, just as he was told, and Octavian's smirk grew only smugger. "Good. That obedience will take you very far in the Circle, Stelian, I promise you. It's a lesson most victors have to be taught."
Frost, kneeling two feet in front of a still fully-clothed Octavian, held his silence. Octavian stepped forward, and Frost stared up at him, head and neck craning back just to keep him in sight, and for all he'd been obedient so far, Sparrow could still see the defiance on his face. He wasn't doing anything to stop this, but the man clearly didn't want it, either.
Not that she'd ever seen a victor who had. Even Izzy had been overwhelmed on her first night.
Sparrow watched with growing discomfort as Octavian's hands moved toward his waist, and she watched him undo the front of his pants with a kind of practiced leisure. He wasn't rushing into this, not by a long shot, because he knew every one of them was going to wait for him; they were all going to let him take his turn with their new toy, the Circle's new little pet, and only then were they going to start fighting amongst themselves about who was going to go next
Sparrow, of course, had no such plans. Last suited her purposes quite nicely.
With Octavian taking his cock out of his pants, there was no Sparrow could avoid the sight of it any more than she could've given this victor his privacy. She'd seen Octavian so many times before, after all, tonight's show was hardly anything new. Nor was it anything she was eager to see again.
Instead, Sparrow's gaze turned to the victor. He was handsome, even with that look of passive defiance on his face; not quite the Circle's ideal, especially in his coloring, but attractive nevertheless. He was modestly muscled, skin smooth and pale beneath the dim lights of the Theatre, and even from across the room, Sparrow could see dark roots growing out beneath the pale dye in his hair. Octavian positively leered down at him, clothed save for the erection jutting out from his open fly, and Sparrow's stomach churned. She wished she didn't have to see this every year; wished there was anything she could've done to stop it.
"I think you know what to do," Octavian said, smiling like a particularly unfriendly shark, and for a moment, Frost simply stared at him. Then he shifted forward, and he brought his mouth to Octavian's cock.
It was… unusual, the way Frost was acting. Sparrow watched him closely, silently contemplating what exactly was going on in front of her. That was the least fight she'd ever seen anyone put up during their Victory, in spite of the way the man had been acting before; perhaps he was merely wiser than most, or else more self-preserving. Usually, a victor had to be forced into this first step of their humiliation, but Frost had let himself be easily coerced; Octavian had done nothing more than ask him, and Frost had given him exactly what he'd wished. How that resistance of his was going to inevitably come out, then, she had to wonder; she was starting to get the feeling that perhaps the Circle had finally gotten their hands on someone more dangerous to them than they realized.
Oh, how she hoped that turned out to be true--provided it didn't get the poor bastard killed.
Sparrow watched with a distinct distaste and a barely-suppressed frown Frost pleasured the other man, his hands coming to rest on Octavian's thighs while he sucked his cock. From the look on Octavian's face, he was good at it, too; Sparrow hadn't seen Octavian that delighted in quite a while, and she feared it didn't bode well for this new victor, at all. She would need to watch them both closely, she realized; if Octavian got it in his head that he wanted to have someone, that he wanted to take someone apart at the seems and remold them into what he wanted them to be, just as he had done to Izzy a few years ago, there weren't many who could stand in his way.
As it stood, Sparrow could only hope to deter him at the first signs of any potential obsession, and even that might not be enough. With any luck, Frost wouldn't capture Octavian's eye for long.
Octavian's head rolled backward as he came, his hand on the back of Frost's own head as his mouth hung open and his eyes fluttered shut. Sparrow hated that she knew what this looked like--that she knew what any part of him looked like, from the expression of his orgasm to the shape of his cock--but she certainly couldn't do a thing about it. She had to be here just as everyone else did, and now that it seemed Octavian was done, everyone else was about to get their turns to play.
Her stomach churned, and German pulled her just a bit closer, his fingers moving over her skin in that same repetitive stroking he'd used to calm her for years now. She had no idea what she would do without him, she reminded herself again, and she snuggled up against him now as intimately as if they were the actual couple they claimed to be.
"Wonderful, Stelian," Octavian said back in the center of the room, and Frost pulled back as soon as the larger man let him. Sparrow watched his Adam's apple bob as he swallowed, eyes as defiant as ever, and Sparrow truly had to hand it to him; for having no idea what was going to happen to him before the very moment it did, Frost certainly knew how to play the Circle's game almost as well as they did. Provided nothing particularly unfortunate happened, he might get through this far easier than most.
Then again, she didn't know much about his psyche yet; perhaps he was more fragile than he let on. She'd find out soon enough.
"You weren't the one we wanted," Octavian went on, and somehow he managed to make even praise sound like utter degradation, "but I think we might've gotten lucky this year anyway." He stroked the still-kneeling man's cheek in a kind of twisted, pseudo-affectionate gesture, and Frost didn't even flinch. "If you can be as good for the rest of us as you just were for me, you've got quite the future ahead of you here. I think we might have a new favorite on our hands."
There was, to Sparrow's endless disgust, a cheer that went around the room at that, and Octavian smirked like the smuggest snake in the fucking world as he took a step back from Frost. The other man hesitated, staying on his knees as if he was sure trying to rise was a bad idea (and it was), and his eyes followed the first man with enough balls to dare stepping toward him.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
[50harlequins] Spoiled Rich Girl and Poor Boy | Circle!Sparrow x Victor!Frost
Pairing/Rating: Sparrow/Frost NC-17
Challenges: 23. Spoiled Rich Girl and a Poor Boy [50harlequins]
Summary: And now for something completely different: Sparrow is a Circle debutante, and Frost is a victor. (It's funnier if it's still him who's obsessed.)
Warnings: background noncon/dubcon
Inverted [1/?]
I also briefly considered putting her in a Loretta-esque role in which she would manifest as the daughter of an OC Chancellor, but I felt that came too close to the "never a self-made woman" stereotype (should I decide for her to become more political later) and also risked introducing another strong male figure (presumably but not definitely a sympathetic one) that could too strongly influence both her character and the plot. So, what I'm going with here is that Sparrow has a very Frost-esque background; she was born to an elderly man in the Circle (a previous Chancellor, in this case) and his much younger "trophy wife".
Their romantic roles, however, will be much the same. Frost is obsessive, aggressive, and much more sexually open, while Sparrow is cold and distant and though lacking in childhood sexual trauma still suffering from the unwanted affections of Octavian Donahue, who no doubt intends to use her as a way to strengthen his campaign for Chancellor.
So let's see how this works out.
Sparrow had been surprised when she'd heard the news. She wasn't one to pay much attention to the Culling normally; honestly, the entire thing sickened her, and it would probably be more merciful to simply let everyone that entered the arena die there. For every Isadora Bitya, there were five Nadia Sens, wide-eyed and innocent and scared and wholly undeserving of the fate they would suffer for the rest of their lives. The men and women who could, like Izzy, actually enjoy their new lives could be counted on one hand.
But the number of men and women like this one, on the other hand... well, she was sure there must have been more, but there weren't any she could recall. The Circle had a type when it came to the Culling, and that type hadn't varied much in the last few decades, as far as she knew. There was a bit more leeway with women, a healthy range of colors and sizes, though there of course wasn't an unattractive specimen in the bunch, but the men were held to much stricter roles; they all had the same dark features, the same fair skin, the same general build. And yet somehow this newest victor bucked the mold.
He wasn't even young she realized. Certainly, he wasn't as old as the current generation of patriarchs--no one that far along in life stood a chance of winning the Culling, after all--but he was probably about forty, more than old enough that she doubted the Circle had actually chosen him, and wasn't that a laugh? How long had it been since their plans to pick out the new victor had failed?
And, more importantly, what did it mean for the poor bastard who had the gall to win instead of whatever pretty little thing they'd chosen?
Sparrow sighed and stood, setting her glass of wine down on the coffee table, barely touched. German was up in an instant, setting his book aside and rising from the armchair diagonally across from the couch. "You can take it," she said reluctantly, gesturing toward the glass. She would've prefer to stay and finish it, of course, but there wasn't going to be any getting out of this tonight; it wasn't just a Debut she could "forget" to RSVP to. The Circle begrudgingly tolerated her disinterest in their system because of who her father had been and the rewards one of them might reap one day if they she so completely lost her mind as to marry, but they wouldn't let her avoid a Victory Ball. If she didn't come, her absence would be noted, and there'd be hell to pay.
And she certainly had no time for that.
Inverted [2/?]
"Pax no," Sparrow exclaimed, watching him disappear through the doorway on his trek toward the kitchen. "I might have to go to this thing, but I'm not putting myself through that kind of torture!"
She heard him chuckling as he returned, sans glass. "Is there anything you'd like me to get you, then?"
Sparrow considered it a moment, then shook her head. "Just help me get my hair up once I'm dressed, and I'll be fine." He nodded, and she headed toward the bedroom as he sank back down into his chair and took back up his book. She would never understand his fascination with reading.
If Sparrow could firmly say that there was one genuinely good thing in her life, that would be German. She hadn't thought so at first, of course, but that was to be expected; when they'd first met, German had been just Sparrow's father's most recent errand boy, just another in a cascade of servants that neither cared about Sparrow or earned her consideration in turn. At least, he was just another servant until the late Chancellor had decided to assign him as Sparrow's own personal manservant.
Had her father been anyone else, Sparrow would've known exactly what that meant: that he was giving the young man to his even younger daughter, intended to let the thirteen-year-old to as she wished with him, whether what she wished was something technically legal or not. And upon their official introduction, it had been clear that German Etzel had not known that Sparrow's father wasn't anyone else; from the genuine panic in his eyes, the twenty-five-year-old had been thoroughly convinced for a few horrible hours that he'd just been handed over like a plaything to a little girl.
Luckily for him, of course, the Katharos family did not operate that way, no matter what the Donahues and Freeds of the world let their children get away with. German was to be almost everything to her--friend, confidante, assistant, and chaperone--but not that. And she was fairly sure they were both quite pleased to know that they still weren't, almost a decade later. They never would be.
The role German served, indeed, was much more important than something so petty; he had been her rock for years, to the point that she genuinely wasn't sure what she would do without him. She was as devoted to him as he was to her, even if there was a small part of her that still wondered how much of that devotion revolved around his paycheck. And, really, she didn't want to know that answer.
Tonight, she knew, German was going to be serving as her "date", for lack of a better term; she was well aware that the majority of the Circle was quite convinced that there wasn't anything remotely platonic about their relationship these days, whether or not it had ever been so in the past, and that was a surprisingly effective way to keep the majority of them from bothering her. They certainly weren't about to stop propositioning her altogether--she was the sole owner of a large fortune and without any heirs to her name, after all--but it deterred the worst of the so-called wooing, and for that, she couldn't have been more grateful. Some of these bastards were willing to go quite a long way in the name of pursuing a woman they felt was unattached. And since she was usually quite single, German found himself playing arm candy more often than not. She didn't think he minded, and if he did, he certainly never said.
Sparrow dressed quickly that night, putting the absolute minimum of thought into what she was draping around herself. Tonight it was a short, dark green dress she was fairly sure she'd bought for herself and whatever reasonably matching jewelry she could find in her mess of a jewelry box. She knew her mother would be rolling over in her grave if she could see her now, and, honestly, Sparrow took a certain kind of satisfaction in that. Her mother had been a vapid, vain woman with whom she'd never gotten along, nor even particularly known; she couldn't give less of a shit about the woman's judgment, hypothetical, postmortem, or otherwise.
Inverted [3/?]
Pax, she wished she didn't have to go to this thing. What Sparrow wouldn't have given to live in a world where there were no victors and no Circle to advise them was infinitesimal; dealing with this every year was excruciating, and there was nothing she could do to stop it from happening. All she could do in the end was try to ease the pain.
"Let's go," she said quietly, turning to German with a distinct lack of enthusiasm. She wasn't going to be able to his that, she knew, but by now and managed to create enough of a reputation for herself that the others would no doubt misinterpret it, as they always did. If anyone in the Circle suspected that the rumors about her weren't true, they weren't saying so publicly; she could only assume that they would take her disinterest in the Victory as a desire for privacy. But, as always, she would need the new victor's help to maintain that illusion.
That was her risk every year. Every time there was a new victor, he or she put the others in danger of losing what little she could offer them. If they cost to play along with her deception, if they choose to lie to the Circle like Simon and Nadia and the others before them had agreed to do, the new victor would share in whatever meager freedoms she could offer them. But if this new man refused--if he proved, as Izzy had, a devotee to the Circle--she would have to take care t be never caught on to what exactly she was trying to arrange. The rest of the Circle would not take kindly to learning that Sparrow's many "appointments" with the various victors are little more than covertly scheduled downtime they weren't supposed to receive.
"Alright." German, she knew, was as displeased by tonight's impending ordeal as she was--but he was much better at masking it. "Anything else you need before we leave?"
Sparrow shook her head. "Unless I've forgotten something, no--or unless you have, which I think we can both agree is even less likely." She signed, mustering up whatever fake enthusiasm she could. "And I'll apologize in advance for anything that goes wrong."
German have her a faint smile. "Everything will be fine."
She certainly hoped so.
Simon was not optimistic. He had been with this new victor for all of an hour, and he was fairly sure already that this was not a man he was going to like. From his reaction to Simon's cautious attempts to gauge him, Simon had gotten the distinct and uncomfortable impression that they might have another Izzy on their hands. Simon want she what Izzy had been like when she'd first arrived--she was the new victor the year before his own Victory--but this man certainly wasn't acting like either he or Nadia had. He seemed to answer that something was wrong--that something very bad was coming very soon--but he hadn't yet asked what it was, and there was something downright off about the was he looked at the two of them. No one outside the Circle had looked at him like that in a long time.
It didn't bode well at all.
Sparrow walked into the Theatre with German on her arm and watched a few heads turn in her direction. That they did proved the victor hadn't arrived yet himself; very few of them would've been looking at her if their new toy was in the room.
Updated Challenges List
Inverted [4/?]
Tonight, thankfully, Sparrow wasn't expecting issues on that front. The victor would hold most interest tonight, removing the likelihood of any wandering eyes straying to and staying upon Sparrow herself. So long as she could get through tonight without accidentally drawing any unwanted attention to herself, she would be fine. Everything would go back to normal soon, and then she could stop worrying about this for a few months.
For a few minutes, Sparrow and German sat in silence, German's body beside hers a comforting presence in a tense situation. Finally, after what seemed like far too long and yet nowhere near long enough of a delay, the door on the opposite side of the room opened, and when it did, Sparrow saw the Circle's newest victor in the flesh for the very first time.
He was an older man, older than her by at least ten or fifteen years; she would have put him at about forty, but perhaps he would have seemed younger if not for the silver-white color of his hair. If he was dyeing it that way, it was certainly unique; all of Parabellum's fashion revolved around hiding the signs of aging, but this man seemed to have embraced at least the idea of going gray. But in this room, any such connotations--assuming they existed in the first place--were lost, and it simply served to emphasize how different he was from the other victors--how much older he was than the rest of them and how unintended his victory must have been.
He was dressed as the victors always were, of course, modest by the standards of the Circle and yet primed for easy access--because no one here was under the delusion that those clothes weren't going to be very swiftly taken from him. All he had to cover himself tonight, the poor man, was a pair of dark pants and shoes and black button-up top. He was undeniably attractive, Sparrow had to admit, just as she always did; the Circle didn't put so much faith in their ability to preselect the victor as to allow anyone unattractive into the Culling. If there had ever been a victor who could be described as anything less than gorgeous, Sparrow had certainly never heard seen them--nor had she heard a whisper of their existence. The Circle was looking for beauty above all else, with the next requirement--obedience--trailing far behind the first. (Most of them, much as they were always eager to claim otherwise, were actually looking for a bit of a fight, and a victor who, like Izzy, accepted his or her new life right from the start lacked the perverse challenge they seemed to so enjoy.)
Inverted [5/?]
Much as they craved the chase, they also weren't the kind of men and women who wanted to risk their pretty faces in an actual fight.
The man and his little entourage of unofficial captors walked straight, into the heart of the room, where Octavia Donahue was waiting for them. Octavia had been Chancellor of Parabellum for a few years now. He was, as well, an older man, in his early fifties if she recalled correctly, though one certainly couldn't tell from looking at him; like all the rest of the Circle, he didn't look a day over thirty five. But he had a daughter around her age, just a few months older than her, she believed, and the both of them were people Sparrow would've been quite content to never know.
But know them she did. Donahue had been a contemporary of her father's, and he had succeeded the man as Chancellor after his death. And, in addition to a reputation she found truly horrific, Octavia had also been expressing an interest in her since her father had died. Bloodlines, after all, were important to these people, and folding Sparrow's into his own would be something of a victory for him. One she certainly wasn't willing to allow.
Sparrow watched the victor eye Octavian warily; Octavian was grinning at him with no considerable amount of subtlety, the expression almost a downright leer. This man hadn't been the one the Circle had wanted, of course, but Sparrow expected that to a man like Octavian, that would only make him more interested in conquering the one they'd gotten instead.
When the victor stopped in front of him, flanked on either side by men easily as big as he was and well-practiced in the art of keeping the victors in line, Octavian turned from him to address the room. "Our guest of honor," he said, as theatrical as he always seemed to be during these monstrous parties, "has arrived." He turned back to the new guy. "Stelian Frost, our new victor. Welcome to the Circle."
Frost said nothing, just stared at Octavian with slightly narrowed eyes. Octavian, of course, wasn't deterred. "Tonight, the most power men and women in all of Parabellum have gathered together to celebrate your Victory. Your life," he told him, "has now changed forever. You have earned yourself power, luxury, and leisure beyond what you could've imagined before… and all that we ask in return is your cooperation."
That was normally the cue for them to falter, for their unease to deepen or their suspicions to finally be voiced. Frost, though, remained silent. Even Octavian seemed a bit surprised. "So, Stelian, if you would be so kind as to disrobe, the rest of us are quite ready to give you your reward."
She watched his muscles tense even further, every inch of him freezing for just a moment before he visibly forced himself to relax. "I take it this isn't an offer I can turn down?"
He said it so calmly, Sparrow almost didn't believe her ears. Octavian, however, looked only amused. "I'm afraid not, no."
The victor nodded once, and then, much to Sparrow's surprise, he actually started to do as he was bid. She watched uncertainly as he started unbuttoning his shirt, holding Octavian's gaze almost challengingly as he did so, and the longer it went on, the worse a feeling Sparrow had about it. Whatever Frost thought he was doing with that, it wasn't what he was accomplishing; all he was going to get by challenging Octavian Donahue was pain and humiliation, and unless he turned out to be another Izzy, he was certainly not going to like that.
Inverted [6/?]
She looked away from the Chancellor, her gaze falling instead upon the naked man standing in front of him. What she wouldn't have given to save him from this, she thought idly, but after everything that she'd seem the past few years, she knew better than to get involved right now. He was going to have to endure the Circle, and after they were done, she would be able to do for him what she could. She only wished it could be more.
German's presence at Sparrow's side was her only comfort as she watched Octavian's useless posturing. She wasn't sure whether it was safer up say that he hated this new victor's defiance or that he loved it; that distinction, she supposed, would become clear later. Octavian liked the fight, after all, but what he liked better was the victory. If he couldn't bring Stelian Frost to submission--if there weren't at least a few cracks in his resolve by the time the night was over--Octavian wasn't going to be pleased. And when he wasn't please, Donahue was dangerous.
"On your knees," came the next order, and Sparrow watched Frost's jaw clench for a moment, seemingly about to resist. Then he sank to his knees, just as he was told, and Octavian's smirk grew only smugger. "Good. That obedience will take you very far in the Circle, Stelian, I promise you. It's a lesson most victors have to be taught."
Frost, kneeling two feet in front of a still fully-clothed Octavian, held his silence. Octavian stepped forward, and Frost stared up at him, head and neck craning back just to keep him in sight, and for all he'd been obedient so far, Sparrow could still see the defiance on his face. He wasn't doing anything to stop this, but the man clearly didn't want it, either.
Not that she'd ever seen a victor who had. Even Izzy had been overwhelmed on her first night.
Sparrow watched with growing discomfort as Octavian's hands moved toward his waist, and she watched him undo the front of his pants with a kind of practiced leisure. He wasn't rushing into this, not by a long shot, because he knew every one of them was going to wait for him; they were all going to let him take his turn with their new toy, the Circle's new little pet, and only then were they going to start fighting amongst themselves about who was going to go next
Sparrow, of course, had no such plans. Last suited her purposes quite nicely.
With Octavian taking his cock out of his pants, there was no Sparrow could avoid the sight of it any more than she could've given this victor his privacy. She'd seen Octavian so many times before, after all, tonight's show was hardly anything new. Nor was it anything she was eager to see again.
Instead, Sparrow's gaze turned to the victor. He was handsome, even with that look of passive defiance on his face; not quite the Circle's ideal, especially in his coloring, but attractive nevertheless. He was modestly muscled, skin smooth and pale beneath the dim lights of the Theatre, and even from across the room, Sparrow could see dark roots growing out beneath the pale dye in his hair. Octavian positively leered down at him, clothed save for the erection jutting out from his open fly, and Sparrow's stomach churned. She wished she didn't have to see this every year; wished there was anything she could've done to stop it.
"I think you know what to do," Octavian said, smiling like a particularly unfriendly shark, and for a moment, Frost simply stared at him. Then he shifted forward, and he brought his mouth to Octavian's cock.
Inverted [7/?]
Oh, how she hoped that turned out to be true--provided it didn't get the poor bastard killed.
Sparrow watched with a distinct distaste and a barely-suppressed frown Frost pleasured the other man, his hands coming to rest on Octavian's thighs while he sucked his cock. From the look on Octavian's face, he was good at it, too; Sparrow hadn't seen Octavian that delighted in quite a while, and she feared it didn't bode well for this new victor, at all. She would need to watch them both closely, she realized; if Octavian got it in his head that he wanted to have someone, that he wanted to take someone apart at the seems and remold them into what he wanted them to be, just as he had done to Izzy a few years ago, there weren't many who could stand in his way.
As it stood, Sparrow could only hope to deter him at the first signs of any potential obsession, and even that might not be enough. With any luck, Frost wouldn't capture Octavian's eye for long.
Octavian's head rolled backward as he came, his hand on the back of Frost's own head as his mouth hung open and his eyes fluttered shut. Sparrow hated that she knew what this looked like--that she knew what any part of him looked like, from the expression of his orgasm to the shape of his cock--but she certainly couldn't do a thing about it. She had to be here just as everyone else did, and now that it seemed Octavian was done, everyone else was about to get their turns to play.
Her stomach churned, and German pulled her just a bit closer, his fingers moving over her skin in that same repetitive stroking he'd used to calm her for years now. She had no idea what she would do without him, she reminded herself again, and she snuggled up against him now as intimately as if they were the actual couple they claimed to be.
"Wonderful, Stelian," Octavian said back in the center of the room, and Frost pulled back as soon as the larger man let him. Sparrow watched his Adam's apple bob as he swallowed, eyes as defiant as ever, and Sparrow truly had to hand it to him; for having no idea what was going to happen to him before the very moment it did, Frost certainly knew how to play the Circle's game almost as well as they did. Provided nothing particularly unfortunate happened, he might get through this far easier than most.
Then again, she didn't know much about his psyche yet; perhaps he was more fragile than he let on. She'd find out soon enough.
"You weren't the one we wanted," Octavian went on, and somehow he managed to make even praise sound like utter degradation, "but I think we might've gotten lucky this year anyway." He stroked the still-kneeling man's cheek in a kind of twisted, pseudo-affectionate gesture, and Frost didn't even flinch. "If you can be as good for the rest of us as you just were for me, you've got quite the future ahead of you here. I think we might have a new favorite on our hands."
There was, to Sparrow's endless disgust, a cheer that went around the room at that, and Octavian smirked like the smuggest snake in the fucking world as he took a step back from Frost. The other man hesitated, staying on his knees as if he was sure trying to rise was a bad idea (and it was), and his eyes followed the first man with enough balls to dare stepping toward him.