Nero Shall Fiddle Again - Chapter 6

[Nathan Saniti]

Nero Shall Fiddle Again - Chapter 6

(Author's note: I'm sorry this is so long-winded, but as I indicated before, I had 1600 words of this written even before the results were up. Either way, I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it.)

Fate twisted both Naomi and Rasputin's faces in the early morning sunlight of their breakfast nook, catching glimpses of their unseen, unknown spell. "Tell me," he began still examining them, half-amused, half-concerned. "Have the two of you had a lover's kiss since you met The Stranger?"

Naomi scoffed. "That's ridiculous! Of course we have."

"Show me."

Rasputin chimed in silkenly, "Why, Fate, you dirty old man."

Fate scowled at the uncharacteristic quips of his hosts, "Indulge me for a second. Show me your most passionate lover's kiss."

Naomi raised a suspicious eyebrow while Rasputin giggled like a school girl, and even blushed, a talent his face has lacked for centuries. Slowly, they leaned into each other, the tension betwixt them building to a crescendo the closer their lips came to each other. They sat there, face to face, inhaling in each other's expended breath. A sly smile grew on Naomi's face, as if she were showing off for a group of friends. Rasputin turned coyly and slightly to his side, teasing the end result until finally...

They pecked each other quickly, more akin to schoolchildren experimenting for the first time than to bed partners. In unison, they sat back, satisfied with the result, returning their gaze to a flabbergasted Fate. "That was a lover's kiss? That was passion?" He paused in disbelief. "Have you been kissing like that since your congregation with The Stranger?"

They both nodded in synch. Fate brushed his face with his hand in frustration. "Stand up," he commanded, himself rising to full stance. The lovers obeyed, still unsure of the reasoning for Fate's direction. "Now, do you remember how lovers kiss in the movies?" Again, his hosts agreed wordlessly. "That's what I want you to do. I want to see all of your love in a single, deep, adoring lip lock."

Again, they leaned towards one another, Naomi and Rasputin, threatening to display eons of love in a childish peck. Gently, but firmly, Fate placed his hands on their heads, sending a bit of energy into them, guiding their motions as he spoke. "Embrace your love for one another. Demonstrate how being at each other's side for eons has only deepened your need for the other." Light from Fate's hands caressed the two confused lovers. Naomi tilted her head, softening her gaze. Rasputin brought his hand up to her cheek, softly caressing her flawless features as their lips met, opening and closing, their tongues tasting each other.

Fate removed his grasp, allowing the pair to unite in their ardor. A blackish glow engulfed their heads as they kissed. The enraptured pair grew wide-eyed in horror as the spell became evident; Naomi's face covered in a leathery grotesque as Rasputin's silky hood materialized. They attempted to pull from each other in surprise, but their kiss had seemingly welded their faces together.

"Continue looking at each other!" demanded Fate as they struggled. "Keep your undying affection alive as you break the embrace!"

They obeyed, still besieged by their inability to part. The incantation they had been under made it appear as if they were tearing each other's faces apart, nasty tears beginning at the mouths and the back of their heads, rushing to meet each other from the effort. Their faces outstretched a good foot or so in front of them, the lovers never broke their gaze as instructed, even through the horrific imagery. Fate grasped the intertwined masks peeling free between them, assisting with a violent yank, finally freeing them both from the experience.

Grigori and Naomi gasped deeply, nearly spent from the ordeal. Fate opened his hand, displaying the silken and leather masks that they believed they had removed after their encounter with the whistling Stranger.

Rasputin's face deepened a new shade of red; one he was more familiar with. "Who does The Stranger work for? I'll drink from his skull!" He took one step before becoming light-headed, Fate catching him and seating him before he fell sound asleep.

Naomi sat down hard, gentle, befuddled tears rolling down her sweet cheeks. "Nathan," was all she could muster before fatigue took her as well.

"Rest, my dear friends," cooed Fate like a father tucking in his children. "Nathan will be a much bigger challenge. Removing his mask will be the testament of his love for Kelli Starr, a her love for him. If it's not too late. Only a lover's kiss will do."

*******

Nathan sat at his favorite writing desk, a raven in a gilded cage perched just above it, occasionally croaking "Nevermore" at a whim. Beside the desk, a wire bin with several balls of crumpled paper inside, idled, awaiting another piece of refuse. Feeding the waste basket frantically, Nathan tossed another into the growing collection of rejected musings. He himself didn't look bemused by his attempts at writing. Befuddled, distressed, perplexed, frustrated; those adjectives are much more apropos. If one had the inclination to unfold the discarded writing, each would begin the same gentlemanly way:

"My Dearest Miss Starr,"

After that, each page seems to drip with venom unlike any he had ever expressed, much less aimed at the one woman in this world who makes his heart flutter. Again and again, he put quill to parchment in a desire to put into words how he felt in his soul for the colorful Candy Girl. An antique gramophone blurting out a scratchy version of the Archie's "Sugar, Sugar," as if to either lighten the mood or drive his inspiration. Instead, the tune has the opposite effect.

The only modern piece of equipment in the study, a laptop his much more tech-savvy sister gave him with a video paused, Kelli Starr the central focus of the screen. It appeared to be the same promo that Kelli cut for Psychadelica's Return to Glory match against the Unholy Alliance. Nathan laughed and wept as he watched it over and over again, his heart and mind shattering simultaneously.

They had won their match, their golden Tag Team championships at the Pay-per-view, but it came at the cost of a beating, courtesy of Phineas Grimm and their unsurprising new member Justin "Stormm" Michaels, post-match. Derek Cosmos and the Hall of Famer Nacho Grande has interjected themselves, giving both Starr and Saniti a chance to prevent further injury.

Now, all four teams faced each other, paired off into the unlikely combinations of Grimm and Stormm beside the UnHoly Alliance, and Psychadelica partnered with the duo now calling themselves the Late Night Express. Though tensions would still be ever-present with Nathan and Kelli teaming with those who desired to unseat their new titles, the rift between the UnHoly Alliance and the Black Hand had become ever more apparent with the rumors that the Hand may be left to stand alone against four.

Nathan inwardly hoped the rumors to be true, if only to get his hands on two members of the Black Hand and garner a measure of revenge. He even plotted including the entire (un)Stable, risking disqualification for some blood-letting, but the Late Night Express would still be a wild card in this equation. Would the two do-gooders insert themselves to protect his enemies or perhaps gain a future advantage? It was guesswork he didn't have the focus for right now.

Everything he had created crumbled around him. The shelter in the woods reverted back to an unhindered forest. His powers had taken a hiatus, or had been removed permanently, he was unsure at this point which. There was strife between he and Alexa. Even Crazy Boy had become a bit more distant, giving Nathan as much space as possible.

It was all more than his psyche could handle, and that didn't become more apparent until he has sat down to compose a reassuring letter to his love. Each time, he set pen to paper, only to review it and get horrifying results.

"My Dearest Miss Starr," he dictated aloud as he wrote. "I viewed the video you submitted for our Return to Glory match. In doing so, I was heartbroken to see how you felt. Perhaps I may clear the air a bit better with this letter, since I'm not one for public speaking very often."

"I never gave up on you, my dear. In fact, the opposite is true. Everything I did was because of you, even the deception of impersonating Mr. William Dillinger. As you obviously deduced, I take to subtlety much in the way a tree takes to a chainsaw. I can't deduce what's happening until I've fallen. For that, I am deeply apologetic. It was not my intention to frighten you, I simply had to let you think you were with Mr. Sadistic so that you could more easily open up and give me the information I needed. As much of a master of the entendre as I may be, I'm blind to when it's cast back at me.

"The events that happened in Hangtown were not your fault. It was my doing, I'm afraid. You were simply the catalyst I used to bring forth an uprising on the Dillinger's home turf. I never meant for anyone to get hurt, least of all innocent children. Truth be told, if it weren't for the deep seated fear of losing you to Mr. Dillinger, I'd have nothing to do with the Black Hand at all. Their war with the Order has caused me nothing but heartache for eons. It seems that much has remained unchanged.

"Even forming the (un)Stable was all in your honor, my dear. I had hopes of evening the numbers game in order to demonstrate just how far I am willing to go to regain your love, to keep you safe. I don't regret bringing Miss Black aboard, along with the new handlers. In fact, if nothing she is becoming a masterpiece that I have a hand in forming. I cannot take full credit, but she has become less uncontrollable and more focused. My pride swells when I see her show her skills without unnecessary bloodshed. While it's true she can be beyond frightening in her bloodlust, rest assured that I would keep you safe from her grasp beyond the ring.

"I've kept my distance because I wanted you to come to your own conclusions about where you stand on these events. Upon seeing your video, it has become increasingly apparent that we have a communication issue. One would think that my prolonged existence in this world would have garnered me this as a lesser fault. That is apparently not the case.

"Everything I have done was to have you back in my life. Without your voice in my ears, I may as well be deaf. Without you to color my world, I might as well be blind. Without you to make my soul complete, I may as well be a powerless, empty, fragile shell. And yet I've done nothing except drive you away. I can't make you love me. Even if I had that power, I couldn't misuse it in that way. Now, it seems that I have driven you perhaps into the arms of another. It's so difficult for me to tell, just as it still is with your fixation with Q. I want to win your hand because you chose me, not because I forced your decision. The tag titles mean nothing without you by my side. I never wanted to win them for me. I wanted to win them for us. I promise you that I'm not using you, playing your heartstrings like Nero played his fiddle at the burning of Rome. I can only hold on to the hope that you will be mine eventually, of your own free will.

"Sincerely yours,

"Nathan Saniti."

Even though he wrote these words in his mind, it wasn't until he set his pen down that his eyes opened to what he truly wrote. Just as had been the case with the mangled predecessors, his quill betrayed him and his parchment twisted his words. Instead, the paper blared words more horrifying than the last:

"My Dearest Miss Starr," it began innocently enough. "I'm writing this to you because you are a stupid, clueless trollop. How dare you deride me for not picking up on subtlety when you are even more blind to the fact that everything I've done was for you? I'm even writing it to you in Comic Sans, not only because I'm just that pissed and this font is pure, unadulterated evil, but also because my options for a more proper font are limited. Stoopid boards.

"I made you believe I was Billy Sadistic to get you to open your mouth for something besides a lollypop. I should have known it all lead to Q. Q. Q. Fucking Q. It's always about Q. I've been here for you this entire time, yet it has always been him, his memory, his whereabouts, his safety that haunted you. I never seemed to cross your mind, until it was convenient for you.

"Those chuckleheads in that backwater burgh the Dillingers call home deserved everything that happened. I laughed my a-double-crooked-letter off watching that ramshackle town ablaze. That should keep the population of stupid that is the Black Hand down to a minimum. I owe those bastards all the blood they can bathe in for the centuries of pain they've brought me. I lost my faithful friend Tarrant, my sister lost her leg, I made an enemy out of my best friend Grigori, and now they've alienated you from me beyond the point of return.

"That's why I formed the (un)Stable; to show those wretched bastards the true meaning of chaos, the very definition of unleashed anarchy. Alexa has the right idea. She's the kind of psychotic brutality I'm going to bring to the halls of PCW. Mark my words, as soon as Joka pulls his head out of his ass, we will stamp our mark in the annals of this organization, branding ourselves over the Black Hand like a rustled head of cattle. You're right to be afraid. Your instincts to keep your distance serve you well. In due time, you will see the darkness you have brought forth from my soul. Run away, little Candy Girl. The game is afoot. If it's the quirky bad guy you want, then maybe I'll finally turn you on.

"I've tried to get you to love me, but it was never good enough. I've had to sideline my feelings for you all so you could rave about how good a friend Q was. I've watched from the sidelines as Sadistic bored his way into your heart like an abusive lover, bent on staying in your life despite the horrors he puts you through. And yet I'm the bad guy? I don't pay enough attention to you? If I tried any harder to get you to love me, I'd have to cut off an ear like Van Gogh.

"What more do you want from me? I play the gentleman, and you look to the guy who manipulates you like a marionette. I beg for your affection, and you give it to the one man who has never been here for you, the ever so mysterious fucking Q. He's your motivation, so much so that you willingly joined forces with a group of people that are despised at every turn. I form a team of people who are blatantly unhinged and have no need for subterfuge in their motives, but you vilify me as if I'm chopped liver.

"I don't know what you want any more, Kelli Starr, you eternally ungrateful bitch. So run to Sadistic, run to Q. The only thing I want from you is for you to pull your weight in our team. That's all I want from you now. There's nothing left between us. You've made sure of that.

"Sincerely,

"Nathan Saniti."

Nathan gazed at the screen of the monitor in utter dismay. He never remembered writing that. In fact, all of his senses showed that he penned the letter formed in his mind, yet the quill and paper conspired against him, transforming into an already-submitted post on the internet. Nathan slowly, horrifically, looked at the blank parchment, and then gazed at the other, equally unscrawled, wads in the trash can. He cautiously scrolled upwards at the blog comments section.

Abject terror at the unseemly words he had previously posted, each matching what he thought was a blank parchment, what he believed he had merely written in private, had now become a very twisted, very public, very personal jab at the core of his heart's affection. He never put a pen in his hand at all. He never displayed affection in prose, but malcontent in public forum. No one would believe that the words weren't his. More importantly, Kelli would never love him as he longed for.

He headbutted the desk, denting both wood and skull with the impact. He felt nothing but grief as he realized he may very well have killed with his own hands the rarest creature in the entire world; his love for Kelliska Staranova, or worse yet, her love for him.