memento mori;

[dealwith_them]

Title: Memento Mori
Setting: Modern AU
Character(s): Marcel, Jean Louis & Mireille
Summary: JL might aim to be Augustus, but he looks more and more like Antony.
Warnings: Language. Mentions of abuse.

JL might think he’s the next Augustus, but whenever Marcel watches him and his whore from the sideline, the situation leads his thoughts one generation back, to Mark Antony and Cleopatra, not the golden age and the revered one or whatever JL once told him ‘Augustus’ meant.

Not that he’s any history scholar or big on Latin, in general he doesn’t care much about what’s past and forgotten, but Wikipedia doesn’t require you to be a genius and he looked it up. He’s wearing the same tattoo, after all, though he got it as an afterthought, because JL sold the idea to him. The first emperor of the Roman Empire. Later to be worshipped like a god.

Sounded like a promise.

They’re not that far off, really. After they finally put down the old man, like a lame dog, JL’s got his kingdom, he’s got his palaces and his temples, he’s got the infinity of fame which is the only divinity worth of notice. Today. Along with all of that, though, he’s also got a problem and she might be straight out of some fancy designer’s collection, but she’s also dangerous as fuck. That wife of his.

Power dynamics is something he picks up on quickly, something he understands better than French and speaks way more fluently than Luxembourgish. Marcel can deal with most situations that way. Hell, he doesn’t need a knife or a gun to kill a man. He hasn’t exactly tried, but give him a toothbrush with the end broken off or the handle of a spoon and he could probably find a way to jam it up their nose and see them fall like Goliath.

So. He knows JL hits her. He can tell when and mostly guess why. The bitch doesn’t know how to be quiet and even when JL doesn’t suffer from migraines, he hates pointless noise. A pity that bitches rarely speak in terms beyond yap, yap, yap. A lapdog is no threat, of course, and neither is the hitting in and by itself. Marcel doesn’t refrain from hitting women when they deserve it. To be honest, he likes the sound. Skin slapping against skin. The way their breaths hitch, their eyes filling with tears. Violence is a massive turn-on; why would he even be in this line of business if it weren’t? It’s not the hitting – the hitting’s fine and she undoubtedly deserves it, each and every time. No, it’s the way she makes him crawl. Afterwards.

Even since they were little kids, JL and him, JL’s been the one with all the ideas and all the visions. Might have started off with those cockfights and the spurs, but it quickly escalated, didn’t it? JL found his way into politics and Marcel tagged along, because he recognises a winning horse when he sees one. He lives in a materialistic world and fits right in – he likes the money it earns him, likes eating well, dressing nicely and getting a quality hooker when he wants one. In addition… Somewhere beyond the job description and the dirty work, JL’ll never stop being the scrawny eleven-year-old who almost held out against 3 big thugs from one of the infamous street gangs, wanting his clothes because it could sell and they needed a high.

He’s not sentimental, really, but growing up he never had siblings. Once JL moved in, he did.

Whenever JL’s hit her, however, the days that follow are positively painful to watch. He clears his calendar like he has no ambitions to speak of, like his bills and his deals don’t matter or will sort themselves out – while taking her out for dinner and buying her stuff she doesn’t need like he owed it to her, like he owes her anything. Sure, a man’s got to turn it up a notch during the stage when he doesn’t know whether he’ll get laid or not, but they’ve been married since she was 22 and Marcel knows she won’t leave. Not now, not anytime soon. Not ever. It’s been going on for years and she stays at his feet, loyally, like the high class pedigree she is; well trained and decked in gold medals she’s done nothing to earn.

Buy her some sort of harem headwear and no one would be able to tell the difference. Between the Egyptian whore and the Luxembourgian one. What a shame that he can’t count on her to off herself with poisonous snakes like the real deal did. It would be fitting.

That’s where the fantasies come into play, he’s decided. For that very reason. She stays out of trouble, but it wouldn’t be too difficult, removing her from her clinical context and make a real mess of her cold mask. All it’d take is a small group of his men, his bedroom door locked and the cameras rolling… She’d be a pile of broken porcelain, complete with whipped cream and jam scones within just a couple of hours. The DVD would sell, no doubt, but the recording has another purpose. Another purpose entirely.

Once he read up on Augustus, Mark Antony and the fucking Queen of Sheba, he also stumbled across the legend about the Roman general celebrating his victory, parading through the streets in those togas they wore and some laurel wreath to go with the rest. Behind him stood a slave. A slave who told him to remember his mortality. It’s not a perfect analogy, because Marcel’s no one’s slave, but it paints the picture well enough. Around his pretty little woman, whom he’s gone through fire and water for, JL forgets that he’s still not there. Not yet and with that disgusting attitude, he won’t get there either. He’s not a god and he’s not invulnerable. Marcel knows better than most, because he spends his days making sure that none of their shit gets in the way. JL’s shit, most of it.

That’s the purpose of the recording. Find it a striking cover, wrap it in a bow and ship it JL’s way, providing him with a good look of the facts: What seems the peak is just a death trap waiting to happen. In the end, Cleopatra wasn’t Antony’s peak either, no matter how hot she was or how great a prize she seemed. She was suicide by choice and God, he would hate to see JL go down on something so insanely stupid. A little girl who hasn't learned her place. A pussy that can easily be replaced. He knows more than a few who’d happily take it.

Marcel doesn’t doubt that JL has it in him. To become emperor of whatever he wants to conquer. To eventually rise to divinity. But like Mark Antony before him, his mind has wandered off into Cuckoo Country and unless he starts steering in the opposite direction, returns to his senses, he’ll fall down a petty mound, break his neck and lose everything. Definitely not worth the questionable pleasure of fucking the Ice Queen forever.

Even so, it stays a fantasy. The image of the whore sobbing around a mouthful of cock and the innocent-looking DVD carrying the unmistakable message, written in stains and gaping holes. Just a fantasy. Something he imagines when he has to tail them down luxury lane number two, carrying bags of jewellery and sexy underwear that doesn’t leave anything to the imagination except the need to puke.

Because, the legend may not include it, but he’s pretty sure the slave got his head cut off. At the end of the procession.