Title: Perfect and Poisonous

Author: Silk

Fandom: Gormenghast

Pairing: Steerpike/Titus

Rating: NC-17

Summary: Steerpike discovers that his feelings for Titus are not what he thought.

Archive: If I sent it to you, please feel free.

Email: silkn1@att.net

Series/Sequel: Not yet. Thinking about it, though.

Disclaimer: Gormenghast and its characters were created by Mervyn Peake. This work is not for profit.

Warnings: m/m, mild coercion, but not non-con, no violence, but a fair amount of angst. Spoilers for Gormenghast.

Notes: This story is based on the BBC mini-series, Gormenghast, not the books written by Mervyn Peake. It is AU in the sense that I have deviated from the way the mini-series ended. This is set after Steerpike has killed the Secretary, thus inheriting his job, but in this version, he is *not* hideously scarred and masked. In addition, Titus has not yet assumed his role as Earl nor has he taken off for parts unknown. Any mistakes are my own. This is a new fandom for me, so any feedback is welcome.

Perfect and Poisonous
By Silk

Steerpike flattened his body against the stone wall. He was hiding from someone. Someone who thought to know him better. Someone who had no right to stand in his way to make his ambitions reality.

He could smell the herbal shampoo that Nanny washed the Groan heir's hair with. Titus was nearby. Lurking, always lurking. Titus deserved to be confronted. Mayhaps even end up the way some of the others had. The twins Clarice and Cora. The late unlamented Secretary.

He was a person of some importance in his own right now. He shouldn't have to hide any longer. They thought he had no feelings. They were wrong.

He had feelings. Feelings he could scarcely control.

He was celibate. But not by choice. He burned with sexual frustration that sublimated itself in the most hideous of crimes. Murder.

Fuschia wanted him. He could tell. But she would never lower herself to lay with someone not born into the aristocracy that ruled Gormenghast.

That didn't matter.

Steerpike grinned. The darkness hid his exquisitely wrought features in much the same way that his beauty concealed his true nature.

Titus was nearby.

That was what mattered.

*****

"Why do you follow me?" Steerpike demanded with an innate hauteur that he didn't need to fake.

"M-me?" Titus Groan stammered. The future Earl of Gormenghast. What a laugh, thought Steerpike. The boy had become a man in years only. Though he was 17, he had been sheltered for too long to be of any use to anyone.

Except perhaps...Steerpike.

"Do you see anyone else here?" Steerpike derided the young man.

"No."

"No, what?" Steerpike asked with a wicked curve of his full sensual mouth.

"No, Secretary Steerpike."

"Good boy. You may be trainable yet."

"You don't frighten me," Titus spat bravely, quaking inside. The truth was...he found Steerpike undeniably attractive. The fact that he did so...repulsed him. What sort of man could he be if he found that appealing?

Steerpike was charismatic. He had the most compelling gaze that Titus had ever seen on man or woman. And he knew how to use it.

Steerpike gave the would-be Earl a sidelong glance from beneath luxuriant dark brown eyelashes. Titus was pretty. Pretty enough to be taken advantage of...again and again...in his bed. If he willed it.

He had waited so long for Titus to achieve manhood. He had thought the young heir a threat of the greatest magnitude. Or an obstacle to overcome. But he had never before contemplated taking him to his bed.

"I shall hold you like a girl," Steerpike whispered, noting the way that Titus' eyes, an unearthly shade of violet, widened.

"No," Titus said automatically. But his breath quickened and his lips parted.

Steerpike drew closer and stroked the other man's face with one long elegantly-shaped fingertip. "Yes. And you will like it."

"I cannot," Titus declared, giving the lie to his vow when he began to tremble.

Steerpike's eyes, an indeterminate color that was neither blue nor green, lit up with otherworldly intensity. "You can. Because I say you can."

"I don't want to."

"You do."

Steerpike cocked his head and rearranged his features into a more pleasing expression. "You do," he repeated, realizing that it was true. Titus was hard beneath his satin-smooth leggings, a fact that was painfully obvious to both of them.

"I should like to kiss you, I think," Steerpike mused out loud.

"I would bite you first!" Titus shouted.

"I think you will not," Steerpike drawled.

He claimed the Groan mouth for his own, pushing Titus roughly against the stone wall that had given Steerpike cover earlier. The young heir's lips were unexpectedly soft and pliant and a puff of a sigh escaped him as Steerpike nudged those lips apart. He closed his lambent eyes and savored the sweetness of Titus, something he might never have dared to taste before, but something that he knew would prove to be quite addictive.

His hand slid below Titus' waist, cupping the younger man's rigid arousal. Titus froze, as if he'd only just registered how fervently he was responding. To a kiss from a man. And from Steerpike at that.

"What new ritual shall I endeavor to conjure to describe this occasion, my dear?" Steerpike murmured against his mouth.

"There are no words to describe just how despicable you truly are, Steerpike."

It was a good try. It nearly convinced Steerpike. But the proof remained between Titus' legs. The painfully hard erection that throbbed beneath Steerpike's hand even now.

Steerpike leaned close and licked the side of Titus' face. Titus groaned submissively and pressed himself against the wall behind him.

"You are quite beautiful, Lordship," he whispered into the young heir's ear. "Are you as beautiful on the inside, where I cannot yet see or feel you, I wonder?"

"Do it. Do it then and be done with it," Titus ground out, but it sounded like begging to Steerpike. And it was.

"Oh, I will."

Steerpike released the young man's erection and the stunned royal could only watch, transfixed, as Steerpike slid to the ground between his legs. Moments later, Titus felt a warmth that compared to the fires of Hell surrounding him, engulfing him, swallowing him up until he thought he would swoon like a maiden.

He could not speak. He could only make inarticulate noises that Steerpike took into his mouth along with the rest of him.

He gasped as his climax came upon him, so swiftly that he had no time to give warning, if he even chose to be so considerate. Steerpike sucked eagerly, the taste of the soon-to-be Earl like ambrosia on his tongue.

When it was over, Titus stood unsteadily, his body every bit as uncertain as his will. Steerpike tucked him away with a curious tenderness and kissed him.

Then his changeable eyes flickered over Titus with some emotion that the young man could not yet identify. "We have never loved, you and I," Steerpike said softly.

"Nor shall we," Titus said in apparent agreement.

"Perhaps..." Steerpike's eyes swept hopefully over Titus, only to fall away in disappointment moments later. "But no..."

They were utterly perfect for each other.

Which was, of course, why they could never have one another.

Steerpike would have cried if he only knew how.

Titus would have laughed, but the pain was too great.

How great the stars were that they could conspire in their sky to set such men at odds with themselves.

End