Kindred Spirit Lodge Presents
Klancy7's Fan Fiction
Paradise Revisited
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(I decided my ten-year-old Magnavox went on the blink last week while I was watching "Paradise Found." This is what actually happened after Xena impaled that Aden guy and everything starts to melt. This is strictly for fans of bondage, whippage and kick-assage. And sex, consensual or otherwise.)
Gabrielle sighed. She considered throwing up and decided against it. Her forehead rested heavily on her knees, and her arms were clasped around her ankles. She wasn’t even sure how her body had gotten into this position, but it would do for now. Until she could lift her head, and see where she was, without her vision shimmering into waves of light.
"Gabrielle? Look at me."
Well, shimmering waves be damned. Gabrielle’s head came up fast, and she almost fell over with the vertigo that accompanied the movement. The bard braced herself quickly with one hand and blinked rapidly, trying to bring Xena into focus.
She had to look up. Xena was right in front of her, chained by the wrists to a standing wooden frame. Rusted manacles kept her arms raised and spread tightly between two splintered posts. She wore a tattered brown shirt and breeches, and her dark hair was tangled around her flushed face. She was studying Gabrielle with an intensity that unnerved her. She looked more closely, and saw that the warrior’s extraordinary eyes were shining with tears. Alarmed, the young woman scrambled, awkwardly, to her feet.
"Hey, go slow." Xena’s voice was soothing.
Wise advice. Gabrielle swayed, and had to catch herself on Xena’s shoulders or she would have fallen. She shook her blond hair out of her eyes, and looked around, dazed.
They were in some kind of prison cell, obviously, a large one, but Gabrielle had no idea where, or how they’d gotten there. The air was musty and slightly cold, and three torches on the walls provided the only murky light. In addition to the standing frame, there was a low stone platform, with manacles and chains at all four corners, in the center of the chamber. There were tattered furs piled against one wall. It was a shadowy, grim little cell, and the bard shuddered convulsively.
"Are you all right?" Gabrielle asked, shaken. "Am I all right?"
"We’ll both be fine," Xena answered firmly. "Tell me what you remember."
"Wow." Gabrielle rubbed a hand across her eyes. "Aden. You, screaming -- at me, I think. Aden, dead, and melting . . . "
"Slowly," Xena reminded her, and her voice was gentle.
"Things started to fade." Gabrielle looked up at Xena. "And then I saw you, here."
"That’s it?" the warrior asked. "That’s all?"
"That’s all."
"Good."
"Xena, what’s happening?" Gabrielle looked up at Xena’s wrists, and winced at the pinching grip of the rusted manacles. "How do I get you out of this?"
"There’s a key in your cleavage."
"What?" Gabrielle looked automatically down at her breasts, then up at Xena again as she felt the cold, metal shape between them. She snuck her hand into her top and withdrew a small silver key. "How did this get here?"
"You put it there." Xena’s blue eyes were shadowed and worried.
Gabrielle stared at the key, and her fingers trembled. Then she remembered the light tingling that still filled her belly, and she turned her back to Xena quickly. She’d been aware of the sensation ever since she awoke, but until now its undeniable source hadn’t entered her conscious mind. A small thrill of horror went through Gabrielle. "Xena. Something’s been . . . inside me."
Xena said nothing, and Gabrielle faced her again. She made an effort to control her voice, but it still shook. "Look, I have nerve endings! I know I’ve been touched. Recently. You know what happened, Xena, I can see it in your eyes. Tell me."
"You did it yourself, Gabrielle," Xena said carefully. "I know you don’t remember, but I’m afraid you will, soon. You need to be ready, because I don’t think it’s -- "
"That’s enough." Suddenly Gabrielle didn’t want to hear any more. "We’re getting out of here. You can explain later." She stood on her toes and inserted the key in the manacle holding Xena’s right wrist.
"There’s something you should -- "
"Later, Xena," Gabrielle snapped. She couldn’t explain her sudden sense of urgency, but it was strong. "We're not safe here, I know it."
She succeeded in freeing Xena’s other wrist, and the warrior’s left arm dropped to her side. Her tall form swayed a little, and Gabrielle’s hands braced her shoulders quickly. She saw Xena wince.
"What?" Gabrielle asked softly, releasing her. "Are you hurt?" She glanced down, and saw a smear of blood across her inner wrist. She looked at the top of Xena’s shoulder, and saw the bleeding welt capping it. "Hey -- "
"Gabrielle, you need to listen to me." Xena swallowed, and looked down into her lover’s troubled green eyes. "Aden fed off your purity, your goodness, it was like food to him. Do you understand?"
"Yes," Gabrielle whispered.
"And the same power brought out everything in me that’s still corrupt and ruthless. Yes?"
Gabrielle nodded.
"But -- Gabrielle -- no one is without those qualities." Xena’s eyes sharpened with the need to make the bard understand. "No one is simply pure, or totally evil. It’s the human condition, isn’t it? We all struggle with demons, no matter how loving our hearts."
"Xena -- "
Xena lay a cold fingertip on Gabrielle’s lips to silence her. "You’re not exempt from that mortal law, Gabrielle, you know that. Aden’s palace brought out the best in you. This place -- " Xena nodded at the cell with loathing, "feeds off whatever darkness is yours."
Gabrielle stared up at Xena, and her eyes filled with foreboding. She took a step backwards, and nearly stumbled. She looked down, and saw a strip of dark leather beneath her foot. Gabrielle bent, and picked it up. It was Xena’s bullwhip. And it wasn’t just one smear of red on Gabrielle’s inner wrist -- the hand that held the whip’s shaft was sticky with blood. Gabrielle looked up at Xena again, and then silently walked around behind her.
The warrior’s brown shirt was torn, ripped in half. The smooth planes of her back and shoulders were striped with lashmarks, some still seeping blood. Gabrielle stood still, her eyes dull with disbelief. Then she lifted her hand, and with one finger, gently touched one of the abraded welts, because she couldn’t believe it was real. She stared at the blood on her fingertip, and then the world swam away.
____****____
"You know, payback is a lot sweeter than I thought it would be." Gabrielle’s fingers snarled in the worn cloth of the warrior’s shirt, and she ripped it open with a gusting sigh of satisfaction. She lifted the tattered halves over the tops of Xena’s shoulders and spread them wide, baring the sculpted, muscular curves of her back. She ran her palms feverishly over the warm skin, and laughed aloud when Xena shuddered beneath her touch. She snatched the coiled bullwhip from the ground and backed up several steps, snapping it out with relish.
"Gabrielle, be careful with that thing, it’s no toy," Xena said evenly. "You can take an eye out with it if -- "
"An eye for an eye." The bard coiled the whip in her hand, her green eyes shining with a fierce light. She shook her hair out of her eyes impatiently, to clear her vision. If Xena could have seen Gabrielle’s face at that moment, she would have recognized the high blush of arousal. "I don’t think we have to take things that far, Xena, you haven’t killed me yet. Not for lack of trying, to quote my daughter."
Gabrielle clenched her tongue between her lips and took careful aim. She sent the bullwhip out in a fast arc, and it cracked across Xena’s broad shoulders. Until that moment, Xena hadn’t really believed Gabrielle would strike her, in spite of the screaming of her internal alarms. The quick, burning pain caught her by surprise, and she surged against the manacles gripping her wrists.
The blond woman almost cried out with pleasure, but she stifled the urge and brought the whip carefully back over her shoulder again. "You taught me pretty well, Xena, I’ve learned a lot from you. You’ve kept this whipping thing to yourself, for the most part, but I’ve watched you do it often enough to get the general idea." She threw the whip forward again, and it snapped against Xena’s lower back, this time drawing blood.
"Gabrielle." The loved name emerged as a guttural sigh. "Try to think. You don’t want to do this."
"Honey, I’ve wanted to do something like this for years," Gabrielle protested. She was beginning to breathe faster. "You think you’re the only one carrying a grudge over past wrongs, Xena? Want me to list them?"
Xena’s eyes clenched shut as the whip snaked over the top of her left shoulder, leaving a thin line of fire. "I probably remember them better than you, Gabrielle."
"Somehow, I doubt it." The hectic color seeped out of Gabrielle’s face, and her mouth hardened with anger. "You hang on to power more tightly now than you ever did as the Destroyer of Nations, Xena. You’ve held Hope against my throat like a dagger, ever since she killed Solan, and you still do it today. You were so wrapped up in your own pain that it never occurred to you that -- that losing that beautiful little boy hurt me, too." The whip sang out again.
"And with all the talking we’ve done, all those bathetic verses in Illusia, you’ve never once mentioned the fact that you watched Dahak rape me." Gabrielle grimaced and threw the lash forward, then hissed with gratification as it striped the long planes of Xena’s back. The dry, explosive cracking of the seasoned leather was an aural aphrodisiac. "I’ve told myself ever since that you stopped him as soon as you could, Xena. But that doesn’t change the fact that you allowed a demon to spawn with the woman you claim to love, and promised to protect -- "
"All right, that passes best." Xena found she was capable of anger in this treacherous place, but it wasn’t the destructive rage that filled her in Aden’s realm. Oddly for her, other emotions were proving far more distracting.
She had told herself repeatedly, since Gabrielle picked up the whip, not to listen to what the bard said. But her gut still heard her, and accepted the truth in her partner’s charges. Part of Xena withered with sadness. "I’m not sure what’s happening to us, Gabrielle, but I am sure that talking to you is not going to accomplish much now." Xena heard the small grunt of effort behind her, and she braced herself to absorb another sizzling strike across her shoulders. Blood was beginning to trickle down her back.
"Gabrielle, you've got all night." It could have been high noon as far as Xena could tell, but her she tried to make her tone reasonable. "It’s not going to hurt you to slow down for a moment and try to focus -- " Xena’s words cut off, abruptly, as the stinging warmth of Gabrielle’s hand on her lower back told her that her lover was right behind her.
"You didn’t even hear me, Xena, did you," Gabrielle said softly. "Too full of your own words to listen to mine, as usual." Her fingers tickled over the bleeding stripe that curled around Xena’s side as she ducked beneath her raised arm and straightened in front of her. She stood very close to the chained warrior, her breasts brushing her shirt.
The difference in their heights was more vivid when they faced each other. Gabrielle threw the whip aside and looked up into the crystal blue eyes above her, and for a moment her predatory smile faltered. She knew there would be no fear in Xena’s gaze, but she hadn’t expected the compassion she saw there, or the tenderness in her features. The warrior was hurting, she had to be, but little of her suffering showed on her face. Gabrielle’s own expression darkened. She felt cheated.
Xena released a muffled exclamation when Gabrielle’s hand clenched the back of her neck, and her head was pulled down into an abrupt, heated kiss. The bard’s tongue darted into her mouth and ravaged it, guttural sounds emerging from her slender throat. When she finally released her, Xena had tears in her eyes. Gabrielle stared up at her again as one fell, unnoticed, down the side of her face.
The bard’s hands rose and rested on Xena’s hair, then moved gently, brushing the wild tresses off her damp forehead, stroking her cheek, curling around her neck to massage the tight muscles there, sliding forward again to cup her face. Xena’s eyes closed, and more tears fell. This touch was so familiar, and so dear.
"It's ironic that the one thing that’s always worked between us, every time without fail, even with glorious success, is bed." Gabrielle stroked Xena’s forehead, her beautiful green eyes thoughtful. "I mean, you’d think physical passion would be the first thing to go. Wouldn’t you?"
Xena’s eyes opened again as Gabrielle’s tongue rested just below the strong line of her jaw, and then skated slowly down her taut throat. Gabrielle lifted her head and smiled. "But even when things were worst between us, Xena, you could look at me with those candlelit eyes, and I’d go wet where I stood."
Keeping her own gaze locked on Xena, Gabrielle stepped back and lowered herself to the cold stone floor of the cell. She rested back on her elbows, her dark eyebrows quirking playfully up at the chained warrior. "You’ve always wanted to watch me pleasure myself, haven’t you? Even before we got physical, when I was just a green kid. And I’ve never agreed to it. It’s probably the least savage thing you’ve asked of me, Xena, and the only thing I’ve refused you."
"Don’t change your mind now," Xena interrupted sharply. She pulled futilely at the cold circlets of iron squeezing her wrists as Gabrielle began to unlace her green top -- this could be worse than the whipping, if the bard remembered it. Ardent she might be in the privacy of their blankets, but Gabrielle carried a dignified but stubborn strain of modesty that was rare in a woman from a small village. "Listen to me, Gabrielle. I can’t help you with this, no more than you could help me in Aden’s palace. You’re going to have to stop yourself."
"Then I guess you’ll have to watch me be raped again," Gabrielle said softly, spreading the halves of her top wide to bare her large breasts. She lay back on the stone, smiling slightly at Xena’s fierce glower above her. The bard wiggled both hands beneath the waistline of her skirt, and wormed them down between her legs. She parted her knees, and covered her naked, pulsing vulva with both hands. Merely touching herself sent the trembling in her sizzling higher, and Gabrielle closed her eyes as her lips formed a loose oh.
"Gabrielle, you’re only hurting yourself." Xena felt some of her old rage returning, and she blessed the clarity it brought with it. "Look, the loss of your blood innocence was one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to bear, but it was far worse for you. And you’re doing it again -- you’re throwing away something you hold precious, because it feeds this -- ravenous anger inside you." Xena heard a note of pleading enter her voice and she hated it, but she had to finish. "You’d cut off your hand before you’d hurt me, Bri. You’d bash yourself senseless -- "
"Maybe you’re right." Gabrielle closed her eyes and her head turned on the stone. Her tongue snaked out and licked her upper lip as her hands worked, busily, beneath her skirt. Her naked breasts bulged between her constricted arms, the nipples red and swollen now. "But a girl’s got to have some recreation, doesn’t she? Shut up and let me enjoy this, Xena, I’ll worry about the state of my immortal soul later." Gabrielle gasped and bucked up slightly, then renewed the vigor of her rubbing.
"Do you know what I’m thinking about, warrior princess?" The blond woman purred, her eyes glistening with heat as she stared at Xena’s face. But not heat alone -- Gabrielle’s eyes were filling with tears, and her voice seemed strained. "I’m picturing that whip across your back. I’m remembering the way you jerked when I really hurt you, Xena, it was the most erotic thing -- I’ve ever -- "
Xena closed her eyes and lowered her head as Gabrielle climaxed, convulsing on the stone floor. The girl’s long, drawn out gasping finally quieted, but not until tears had filled Xena’s eyes again, and coursed down her face.
When it was quiet, Xena opened her eyes and looked down at Gabrielle, and her eyes widened. The bard was sitting before her, tying her top properly closed and adjusting her skirt, her eyes remote and blank. Then she rested her head on her knees and clasped her arms around her legs. Gabrielle sighed.
____****____
Gabrielle screamed. It was a roar of such fury and hatred it terrified her, as much as it would have if she’d heard it in a dark cave. She felt arms restraining her, and she fought them, hard, in instinctive panic to be free.
Gabrielle was seated, leaning back against a surface that yielded when she threw herself against it. Some part of her knew Xena held her, and that small comfort reached her, and allowed the bard to thrash out her horror in the safety of those strong, loving arms.
"Stop this." Xena’s voice was tight. "I am not letting go, Gabrielle, you know I won’t, now don’t make me hurt -- "
"Xena," Gabrielle gasped, and then she was crying so hard she couldn’t speak.
Xena heard the fear in the young woman’s sobs, and her body went limp with relief. "You’re back," she sighed. "Thank the gods."
Gabrielle wept like a bereft child, for a long time. She sagged in Xena’s arms, her head falling back against the warrior’s chest, tears streaming unchecked down her face. She made no effort to stifle her sobs, which echoed their bleak desolation around the implacable walls of the cell.
"All right," Xena murmured, finally. She never interrupted a woman’s tears unless she had to, but she wasn’t sure how much time they had. She hugged the bard. "Try to focus, Bri."
"I can’t," Gabrielle wept.
"Sure you can." Xena smiled through her exhaustion, and rested her head back against the stone wall. "I’ve seen you focus in a runaway chariot, on a sinking ship, on the lip of a lava pit. This cell is candy, Gabrielle."
Gabrielle hitched a half-laugh through her sobs. She quieted, gradually, until she lay limp and spent against Xena. The tall warrior rocked her, and Gabrielle’s eyes fluttered closed.
"Don’t drop off on me," Xena warned softly.
"I think sleep sounds good," Gabrielle mumbled. "Just a few minutes, Xena, okay, I’m really, really tired -- "
"No you’re not." Xena shook Gabrielle, a small shake, but not a gentle one. "Gabrielle, don’t escape into sleep, that’s a coward’s choice, and you’ll never be that." She waited, until she felt the bard’s ribcage expand with her deep sigh, and her blond head nod in resignation. "Good," she said, more kindly.
"You can let me go, Xena." Gabrielle’s voice was regretful.
"No, you sit tight for a moment. This time -- "
Gabrielle’s eyes shut, quickly, as she remembered. "Gods -- Xena, your back. We need to find -- "
"Gabrielle, you’re not listening!"
And instantly Gabrielle was four years younger, scared to death that she’d pissed off the warrior princess badly enough this time that she’d send her home. That had been the worst possible charge Xena could make against her, in those early days, sponge that Gabrielle was for everything around her. She lay still and alert in Xena’s unyielding embrace.
"Gabrielle, part of you still hates me for what Dahak did to you. For Hope, and for Lao Ma." Xena waited, and finally Gabrielle spoke.
"Is that it? Are you finished, I can speak now?" The young woman’s tone was clipped.
"Yes."
"Why you are bringing this up now, Xena, I have no idea. This just doesn’t seem like the right environment for relationship counseling." Gabrielle's head turned on Xena's breast. "Look, we’ve both been through the wringer, and we have to figure out -- "
"That’s what we’re doing," Xena cut in, calmly. "We’ve both tried to exorcise the . . . more painful feelings we’ve had for each other, and for the most part, we have. Illusia helped, but mostly it’s been time. Working together and waking up together, seasons of just trading off footrubs after a long day."
"You’re right," Gabrielle admitted quietly.
"But those tragedies are every bit as much a part of our history together as our happier times." Xena felt weak tears filling her eyes -- not honest tears of love or grief, these were of cheap sentiment, and she blinked them away with impatience. She was just so ungodly tired. "Look, you know I’m no good with these stupid sensitive chats. But the point is -- while we’ve forgiven each other, we haven’t forgotten. Neither of us, Gabrielle."
"Uh, Xena, I’m getting really scared, here." Gabrielle frowned, the skin of her upper arms rising in goose bumps. "I know I whipped you. What else have I done?"
Xena nodded. "Fair enough, I’ll just say it. This place is bringing all your hatred up to the surface, Gabrielle. You kind of -- phase out, or something, when it happens, because I don’t think your conscious mind allows you to hate me when we’re awake. It’s happened twice, now. This is going to be hard to hear, Bri, but when you’re in the grip of this thing, you turn into some kind of sexual lunatic, and you try to beat the holy hell out of me."
Gabrielle sat up, and this time Xena let her, her arms dropping woodenly to her sides. Gabrielle pivoted and looked up at her lover, and the blood fell out of her face in an alarming rush. She made a soft, strangled sound, and her fingers rose to touch the ugly, glowering bruise darkening below Xena’s left eye. Then Gabrielle’s gaze moved over the rest of Xena’s battered face, to the firm, exposed breasts -- the warrior’s shirt was torn open in front as well, now. The paleness of her breasts was covered with angry scratches, and more bruises, ominous ones, were emerging on Xena’s ribs.
Even if Xena had been at her best, she might not have been able to keep Gabrielle beside her. The girl lunged back, away from the seated warrior, and got to her feet so quickly she was a blur. She whirled and ran to the far wall of the cell, and her hands ran over the rough rock surface feverishly.
"Where do you imagine you’re going?" Xena called, reasonably.
"Away from you." Gabrielle threw Xena a look of fear as she darted to the next wall. "This could happen again, right? Couldn’t it? Any minute I could black out, and then I wake up, and you’re dead?"
"You’re not going to kill me, Gabrielle."
"You’re bloody right about that," Gabrielle yelled, slapping both hands against the doorless wall in a surge of frustration. There was no way out.
"Gabrielle, get back here." Xena cranked an arm wearily at her.
"No way, Xena, not for at least two weeks."
"Look," the warrior said, and grimaced in disgust. "I’ve got a few cracked ribs. That’s not as bad as broken, but I still would appreciate a lift, and it’s embarrassing enough to ask for it once."
Gabrielle stared at Xena, then whispered a curse. She started to run to her, but then stopped herself. "Wait. You’re going to have some kind of warning before I zone out again. Right?"
"IF you zone out again. Who knows?" Xena shrugged, then regretted it. "I didn’t the first two times. Come on."
"Then I don’t think I should come any -- "
"Gabrielle, I may not be in top form," Xena said, with fragile patience, "but I think I can manage throwing you across the room if you -- "
"You didn’t last time." Gabrielle folded her arms and her green eyes narrowed. "I’d gotten you out of those manacles, I remember that clearly. I could never best you in a fight, Xena, any kind of fight." She looked down at herself. "There’s hardly a mark on me. Why didn’t you defend yourself?"
"Damn it, Gabrielle." Xena’s pride wouldn’t allow a third entreaty. She threw her elbow against the wall and heaved herself upright. It was a terribly ungraceful movement, and costly as well. Xena sank against the wall in a flood of weakness.
"Hey, I was just asking." Strong arms were around the warrior’s waist, and the low voice near her throat was calm. "It's all right, I’ve got you. Where are we going, Xe."
Xena forced her eyes open, and managed to nod at the altar of stone that stood at the center of the cell. It was waist-high and wide, made of coarse granite. Gabrielle eased Xena onto it carefully, but then stopped her before she could lie flat. "Whoops. No way your back’s touching this." She lifted her hand from Xena’s arm, then looked at her sharply. "You steady?"
"Sure," Xena mumbled. She was already feeling foolish about the near-faint. Hera’s tits, she’d had arrowheads carved out of her raw flesh without the benefit of so much as a swallow of wine, and now she let a few tender ribs fold her?
"What are you mumbling?" Gabrielle was back, frowning as she tossed a thick fur over the rough stone. She smoothed it in place, then took Xena’s arms at the elbows. "Okay, get horizontal, please."
Xena did. The stinging in her back sang higher when her raw back touched the fur, but not beyond bearing.
Gabrielle brushed Xena’s hair off her forehead. "Does lying flat hurt?"
"Not appreciably more than standing upright," Xena answered, her blue eyes drifting closed.
"Hey, my turn to keep you from falling asleep." Gabrielle started to squeeze Xena’s hand, but then noticed the red and abraded knuckles, and cradled it gently in her own instead. "Xena, I’m so sorry about this." The words seemed wildly inadequate. "I hate seeing you hurt, I really do. I always have."
Xena softened. "I know you do, kid. Rage brings the most horrible associations, doesn’t it?" She shivered, more in dread than in pain. "The things I saw myself do to you, in Aden’s den . . . "
"But you stopped yourself from acting them out." Gabrielle moved Xena’s arm and touched her side, very carefully, feeling for any sign of fracture.
"I wouldn’t have, if we’d stayed longer. I was going to leave before I hurt you."
Gabrielle’s hands went still for a moment, then continued their gentle probing. "You were going to just take off, weren’t you?" She smiled, lifelessly. "You weren’t going to say goodbye."
"Gabrielle." Xena winced at a brief twinge as Gabrielle pressed again.
"Sorry," she whispered.
"Gabrielle," Xena repeated, her voice strained. "I was losing it, fast. I couldn’t risk a -- an emotional farewell scene with you. You’d have tried to talk me out of leaving, you know that. What if you’d made me angry?"
"Okay," Gabrielle said softly, and brought her hand to Xena’s forehead. "Okay, I’m sorry, you’re right. I’m glad you did what you had to do to take care of us, it worked. At least, it got us out of there." She looked around the murky cell, and the desolation in her lovely features pulled at Xena’s heart.
"Gabrielle, I hate to inflict deja vu on either of us, but this is going to get worse before it gets better."
"What do you mean?" Gabrielle looked down at Xena, troubled, (and suddenly her lover was sailing across the cell. She crashed, horribly, against the far wall.)
"Hey! Gabrielle!" Xena struggled into a seated position on the altar, grimacing at the searing pain in her side. The bard had gone stark white. Her lips were parted, and her eyes were fixed and staring. Xena gripped the bard’s shoulders and shook her, one quick, authoritative snap.
Gabrielle started violently, and caught herself on the altar. Xena steadied her, ducking to try to see her eyes through the blond hair. Gabrielle looked at her with horrified wonder -- Xena was obviously right in front of her, not crumpled against the far wall.
The bard began to shudder. "Xena, is it starting again?"
"Tell me what you saw," Xena coached gently.
"I thought I’d just kicked you." Gabrielle swallowed; her throat was dry as papyrus. "You went flying against a wall."
"Could you see yourself?"
"No."
"Then it wasn’t a vision. It was a - flash, backwards, into the past." Xena nodded, satisfied with the concept. "A flashback. That trip into the wall, that did happen, that was this." Xena tapped her bruised side.
"Ah, gods," Gabrielle moaned, "will I see everything that happened?"
"I don’t know."
"Does this mean I’m about to black out again?"
"Your guess is as good as mine."
"Xena!" Gabrielle clenched Xena’s upper arms. "I am going to nerve-pinch you!"
"Gabrielle, I honestly don’t know," Xena apologized, trying not to smile. "I’m not being enigmatic, I promise. But just in case, listen fast."
"Okay."
"You trounced me awhile ago fair and square. I wasn’t taking any punishment I could have stopped. Believe me," Xena emphasized, dryly. "Look, for some reason, this place is making me weak as hell. It’s not bloodloss, it’s not shock, I don’t care what it is, the upshot of all this is I can hardly make a fist."
(Gabrielle’s fists where joined, her fingers intertwined, when they pounded into Xena’s face in a roundhouse swing. The warrior spun with an odd grace and fell.)
"Stay with me," Xena yelled, shaking her.
"Okay," Gabrielle yelled back. She opened her eyes and clenched Xena’s arms again. "Xena, you have to knock me out. Come on. Nerve-pinch me, or just deck me, hurry."
Xena grabbed her fingers back -- Gabrielle was trying to jam them into her own throat -- and took the bard's hands. "I have a better idea, okay? Do you trust me?"
"Always."
"Then get horizontal."
"Xena -- " Gabrielle tried to stop the tall warrior when she shifted off the stone slab, but Xena's hands settled on either side of her waist and lifted her, with effort, onto the altar.
"That yoga stuff is sure paying off, Gabrielle. I’m trying to distract you with flattery. Lay down."
Gabrielle did. She heard the rustle of irons.
"Hand up here, please." Xena stood at the head of the altar, snapping her fingers. Gabrielle extended her left hand to the upper corner of the rough stone square, and Xena slipped the manacle over the slender wrist.
(Gabrielle gleefully ground a fistful of dry, scratching straw into Xena’s bleeding back, and the warrior gasped with pain.)
"Xena, please hurry!"
Xena had the bard’s left ankle manacled, then her right. She moved swiftly up toward the front of the altar, but stopped when Gabrielle’s right hand snaked out and smacked against her injured ribs.
____****____
Gabrielle had her down and she was all over her, swarming over Xena’s body like a predatory cat. She clawed her shirt open, and her nails scratched hard and fast over the cool, firm globes of Xena’s naked breasts. Xena hissed, and managed to grab the bard’s wrists.
"You don’t like this, Xena?" Gabrielle’s greedy eyes were inches from Xena’s as she easily freed her hands. "I thought this would be your favorite part."
"Damn you, Gabrielle," Xena gasped. The bard’s knee caught her right in the stomach, and she folded, breathless.
Gabrielle pushed the warrior’s shoulders flat again, and then she finished snatching her trousers down around her knees. She jerked the tall woman’s knees apart, and her hand plowed up into her with shocking suddenness, her wrist twisting with relish. "By the gods, Xena, you’re so wet for me," Gabrielle breathed. "I guess that little sex show earlier wasn’t just for my benefit, after all."
Xena couldn’t deny her arousal, it would be futile. Her passion was intricately connected to Gabrielle’s body, and it had been for four years. She had watched that body change from that of a teenager into the lovely curves of a young woman, at the brink of her first lasting beauty. Xena believed she would never tell Gabrielle of the other fantasies she’d had in Aden’s realm. Gabrielle naked and screaming, writhing under Xena’s whip, impaled by it, Xena’s white teeth chewing her swollen pink nipples --
"You can’t help yourself, can you." Gabrielle sounded almost sympathetic as she fucked the warrior, relentlessly. "Look at yourself, Xena. You’re just lying there, with your arms and legs splayed and limp, while your little sidekick ravages you." Gabrielle laughed and tossed her long, damp hair over her shoulder, her green eyes sparkling cruelly down at Xena, and in that moment she was a goddess.
"You could kick me into the next county if you wanted, Xena, but I think you’re having too much fun." Gabrielle’s teeth touched her lower lip as her narrowed hand punched in especially deep, relishing Xena’s helpless groaning. The bard resumed her pistoning motion, the muscles of her slender forearm strong as wire from years of stavework.
"You’re wrong," Xena moaned, her dark head tossing on the stone floor. "I would stop you, if I could. Gabrielle, you’re taking my strength. It’s you, draining me."
"It’s me reaming you, Xena." Gabrielle bent over Xena, pinning her with her intense gaze. Her voice grew lighter and became a musical sing-song as she worked her. "I’m reaming you, Xena, I’m reaming you . . . I’m reaming you, Xena."
Xena’s hips began to jerk with the force of Gabrielle’s surging thrusts deep in her cunt. But her true nature -- one of them -- began to assert itself, with what was left of Xena’s strength. The tall warrior made herself lie still. The torchlight shone off the full curves of her wet body as the fucking continued, the light bouncing off her with the percussion of Gabrielle’s twisting penetration. Xena could smell herself, and she could hear the copious sloshing noises the bard was drawing from her vagina.
Xena’s austerely beautiful face assumed the implacable expression she would have worn if she were watching the fatal descent of a sword toward her breast. She looked up at Gabrielle with something like pity, on the brink of explosion, her body rigid but still. "Why are you crying, Gabrielle?"
Gabrielle didn’t answer, and the tears were shaken quickly and angrily from her eyes. Instead she bent, lowered her mouth to Xena’s mound, and snarled like a bacchae as she chewed her clit.
Xena came, titanically. She let out a full-throated roar that Gabrielle, and most other lovers, had never even heard. Her fists, at her sides, squeezed shut with tendon-straining force, and she lifted her body inches from the ground, her weight, and Gabrielle’s, on her heels and the backs of her shoulders.
There was time, when Xena could think again, to pull up her trousers; the shirt was a fatality, but she left its tatters over her bruised shoulders. Gabrielle just sat there, with that spooky blankness in her eyes, even when Xena took her in her arms. The warrior wrapped her securely in her embrace, checked her breathing, and then rested her own head against the stone wall of the cell. Please, she thought, just a few moments of rest.
That’s when Gabrielle’s awakening scream almost lifted the top of her head off.
____****____
The bard didn’t scream this time. She came to groggily, aware that Xena was stripping her, ripping the remnants of her clothing off. Gabrielle opened her eyes, and looked down the length of her chained, naked body -- and then she wasn’t sure she was awake at all. She almost hoped not, she hoped she was still in the nightmare. Because Gabrielle was consumed with the most scathing rage she had ever known.
"You’ve wanted to take me since the day we met, Xena." Gabrielle’s voice trembled with fury as Xena climbed painfully up onto the altar. "Like this. You’ve wanted to chain me down and force -- "
"Looks like my wish is about to be granted," Xena panted. She looked down at the spread-eagled young woman, her full breasts bouncing as she struggled to free her wrists. She began to lower herself over her, then straightened quickly as Gabrielle’s head shot up, her teeth snapping at Xena’s pale face. "Whoa, the bacchae's back. All right, Gabrielle." Xena’s piercing blue eyes zeroed in on the bard’s bulging nipples. "I’m not especially limber, right now, so I’ll concentrate on your more vulnerable assets."
Xena latched on to a nipple and began to suck. She swirled the engorged nub between her full lips, chewed it lightly, and then not lightly at all. Gabrielle gasped beneath her, her back arching sharply. Xena raised her head and looked into the searing green eyes. "I love you, Gabrielle."
"Tartarus take you, witch!" Gabrielle screamed, the tendons in her neck standing out.
"I love you," Xena repeated softly, and lowered her head again. She took most of the girl’s left breast into her mouth, and flattened the nipple with a strong tongue, scrubbing it with long, dragging strokes. Xena growled as she feasted, a deep-chested feline rumbling.
She spent a long time on the bard’s large breasts; she knew their tips were exquisitely sensitive. Xena could make Gabrielle’s nipples rise and harden just by using a certain tone of voice, even if they were merely discussing the supplies they needed. The warrior knew this body well, and knew what to do to it.
Gabrielle’s thrashing became an undulant dance, her head turning more sensuously on the stone altar as Xena’s mouth took each nipple in turn, in pitiless and thorough repetition. The bard’s gold-red hair fanned out on either side of her sweating face as her arousal coursed higher, but her expression was still contorted with anger.
"Y-you call this love," Gabrielle sobbed, as Xena’s lips moved from between her wet breasts, down the center of her body. She kissed the small birthmark on Gabrielle’s waist, and her tongue dipped briefly into her navel.
"I do," Xena whispered, moving lower. "This is my love, Gabrielle, forcing you, taking you. I will always love you. And I’ll always have darkness, and the need to take you is part of that."
The injured warrior shifted, stiffly, until she knelt between Gabrielle’s wide-spread legs. She winced the sweat out of her eyes. "You’ll always have darkness too, my love. Just a little, just this much. It’s my darkness that takes you -- it’s yours, that wants me too so badly."
Xena let out a quivering breath as her mouth settled between the moist lips of the bard’s splayed cunt. She sucked, gently, on the tip of her clit. Gabrielle groaned, enormously, and twisted, forcing Xena to hold her hips down with her aching arms.
The warrior lifted her dark head. "Gabrielle, I love you with all of my heart."
Xena began to feed.
Only Xena knew each quivering nerve ending in the vulnerable, wet cunt before her. No other lover could ever pleasure Gabrielle with her mouth with such mastery, such sweet, searing intensity. And even through her irrational rage, Gabrielle knew the warrior was making love to her. Her moaning became a continuous, breathless chant, and then it turned into grunting, as Xena slicked her swollen clit between her teeth again, and nibbled it rapidly.
"Xena . . . . " the bard’s voice was thready and weak. "Xena, please . . . h-help me."
Xena sucked her, hard. And Gabrielle crested with an abandoned ecstasy, writhing in delirious pleasure on the stone altar. Her hips ground deeply into the fur beneath them, rooting, digging, as Xena held on, humming into her cunt now.
The walls of the cell melted around them.
____****____
Xena lay curled on her side, her cheek resting on something soft. She lifted her head, groggily, and was rewarded with a face full of bare bard bosom.
"Behave yourself," Gabrielle murmured. She tapped Xena’s head gently. "Down."
Xena relaxed into Gabrielle’s lap again, gratefully. She heard water being wrung from a cloth.
"We’re safe. We’re back in the cave." Gabrielle patted the wet cloth very lightly against the whipmark capping Xena’s shoulder. "I was hoping I could take care of the worst of these while you were still out."
Neither of them spoke for a time, while Gabrielle tenderly washed the warrior’s striped back. She kept her free hand in Xena’s thick hair, tickling her scalp gently. It was a comfortable and healing silence.
"Xena."
"Hmm."
"Back there. You said I was draining you, making you weak. Do you remember?"
"Yeah." Xena sighed. "I’m not sure, Gabrielle, I just know that rage can -- use up all the air in a room. That spell you were under seemed to suck the energy out of me, somehow."
"I think it was more than that." Gabrielle rinsed the cloth again. "I doubt you would have gotten so weak if it had been anyone else, attacking you. The fact that it was me . . . . " the bard paused. "It's so horrible to be hurt by someone you love."
Xena said nothing, remembering Argo’s terrible gallop toward the cliffs, Gabrielle’s helpless body dragging on the ground, her ankles snarled in Xena’s bullwhip. She opened her eyes, and stared into the empty space in front of her.
"Xena, I’m so glad it’s over." Gabrielle shivered. "It might take us both a long time to get over what happened in that cell, but at least we’ll never have to go through anything like it again." The fingers holding the cloth to Xena’s back were cold.
Xena was silent. Hatred could prove as resilient as love. And it was far more insidious, if it was suppressed. She would have to watch her young partner carefully, very carefully, for awhile.
"I think you’re staunched," Gabrielle sighed finally, and helped Xena sit up.
Xena pushed a hand through her dark hair to clear her eyes, and saw that Gabrielle’s face was streaked with fresh tears. Her eyebrows rose in concern, but Gabrielle just smiled and shook her head. "Hey, my eyes leak sometimes, it’s got nothing to do with me."
Xena smiled back, and brushed her thumb gently beneath Gabrielle’s eye to catch a tear. "You feel up to wrapping some ribs?"
"If you are." Gabrielle looked down at the thunderhead bruise on Xena’s side, and her eyes darkened. "It’s going to hurt, Xe."
"I’m not worried." Xena lifted Gabrielle’s hand and kissed it, gently. "Like I said, Gabrielle, you’ve got the hands of a poet."
____****____
The End - 'Paradise Revisited' - by Klancy7