A secret is only skin deep (Patreon)

Could you do a continuation of your March 25 tumblr post about the villain capturing a hero whose skin shows the secrets of anyone who looks at them?

First part included for ease of reading.

“There,” the villain murmured, hands fluttering to adjust the last of the hero’s outfit. “Don’t you just look a treasure.”

The hero supposed it could have been worse. The villain could have paraded them through the hallways completely naked except for the expensive jewellery dripping from their ears and throat and wrists and fingers like shackles. It was still difficult to feel any great rush of gratitude.

They shifted uncomfortably, resisting the urge to tug at the skimpy little bodycon dress, more a scrap of silk and lace than anything substantial. The jewellery, heavy and shining and paid for in blood, did almost cover more. But the point wasn’t coverage. The point was that the hero’s skin - usually scrawled through with a flickering array of secrets - was visible. It displayed the confessions and private sins of anyone who looked at them. Except, of course, the villain’s. Next to them, the hero was a blank slate.

The outfit was designed, like a beacon, to make people look. The jewels shimmered in the light. The stupid dress hugged every curve.

“Your allies won’t thank you for this,” the hero bit out, as if that was truly the point. “No one likes having their secrets stolen, tugged away from them against their will for all the world to see. It will be carnage.”

Usually, the hero wore joggers and hoodies and essentially anything that let them blend into the background where no one looked at them.

The villain smiled, all smugness, and caught the hero’s chin so that they could smudge blood red lipstick along the hero’s lips. Like they were a doll, instead of a person. Worse, the hero’s hand twitched to bat them away, to fight, but -

They knew what would happen.

The villain’s smile broadened.

“I love carnage,” the villain whispered, like that was a secret too.

The hero turned their head away, because it wasn’t one.

The villain’s grip tightened, delighted to look upon them, delighted to bend the hero to their will. Their nails scraped along the hero’s jaw, light enough not to cause damage, hard enough to promise it.

“But if you’re worried,” the villain said, “they could just not look at what’s mine, couldn’t they?”

The hero swallowed. It did nothing to ease the dryness in their mouth. They started to wrap their arms around themselves, gold and diamonds clinking like chains and -

The villain caught hold of their wrist like a vice.

“No.” All amusement dropped from their voice.

The hero drew in a steadying breath, teeth gritting, but they let the tension go out of their arm. Let it fall loose to their sides, leaving everything the villain wanted uncovered just so.

The villain smiled again, radiant.

The smile was terrible, but it was worse when they stopped.

“You don’t need to be shy, love,” the villain said. “You’re exquisite. A vision. You should flaunt it.”

The hero was sure there was death in their eyes, but unfortunately they didn’t have the powers of medusa.

“You mean,” the hero said. “You should flaunt it.”

“Well,” the villain showed their teeth, and dragged the hero closer, pulling them flush. “I do have it, after all, don’t I?”

The hero jerked back like they’d been burnt, and knew it was more novelty than mercy that had the villain laughing instead of lashing out. Because they knew it was true. So why, then, be angry? The hero’s squirming was just that, a mouse temporarily released from a cat’s paw, only for the cat’s joy.

“Mm,” the villain said. “My pretty, pretty weapon.” They offered their arm, for the world’s deadliest arm candy. “Shall we?”

The hero wanted to run.

They took the villain’s arm.

And it was, as expected, carnage.

***

The hero knew a lot about secrets, being what they were. Some secrets were big – buried murders, cheating, high-security projects sworn never to be shared beyond a select few. Others were smaller, more private, and yet no less excruciating when suddenly exposed. A secret shame, a crush, a hurtful opinion. Little human things, done long ago, that could tarnish and tatter a reputation.

The hero’s gift always started with the biggest thing and worked back to the small. Maybe, if it was the other way around, there would have been some reprieve.

“Well that.” The villain dabbed a speck of blood off the hero’s cheek with a napkin, “was delightfully chaotic.”

The hero closed their eyes but it didn’t wash the memories of destruction away.

If the villain wanted secrets to use – for blackmail, extortion, or simply for the exclusive power of knowing what others didn’t – the hero may have known what to do with them. They may have hated it, but they would have been able to bear it. They had met a lot of people like that over the years. They usually (especially) had their secrets too, that the hero could see and use, if they had to. They weren’t immune like the villain was.

The villain wanted to expose everything, until there were no secrets left in the world, no matter how bitter or dangerous or bloody the act of unwilling confessional might get in a room full of people with only the big, nasty secrets to hold. People who would kill to make sure no one left with their new knowledge.

No. That wasn’t quite right. The villain wanted to expose everything, until there were no secrets left in the world, except the villain’s own which never quite made it to the terrible canvas of the hero’s skin.

“Where shall we go next?” the villain whispered to them, eyes aglow with glee. “The police department? I’m sure they have some secrets we can spill like so many guts too.”

This, despite the blood still warm and drying on the napkin, was only a trial run after all.

“I would like a shower,” the hero said, in as measured a voice as they could manage, which wasn’t all that measured. “And I think my dress needs dry cleaning.” Or, perhaps, a bin and a fire. They itched to be rid of it, to be clean, as if their hands had felt clean in any second of the last forever.

“Nonsense.” The villain wrapped their fingers around the cold, heavy jewels around the hero’s throat, and used the necklace to reel them closer. “You look even better like this. The living embodiment of the cost of keeping secrets, no?”

The hero flinched. At the guilt. At the sheer hypocrisy of the villain. At the terror still buzzing in their brain, sliced through with shame, when they didn’t yank away. When they let it all happen.

“Because secrets.” The villain brushed their lips along the hero’s mouth, not quite a kiss, only the mocking taunt of one. “Always have a way of coming out, don’t they? They want to be told.”

The hero could try to run, of course. Maybe, if they thought the villain would kill them for trying or defying them, they would. But the villain wouldn’t do that. The villain would kill their family. And the hero…well, revealing someone’s secrets on sight was a great trick for a spy, but it wasn’t going to do much against the villain. The villain was a juggernaut of terrifying immortality and magic. What were they against that? It wasn’t like they could even have a team, without immediately revealing the weaknesses of all of their allies.

Maybe they just weren’t a very good hero. Maybe that was what the hero would see, if they could see their own secrets written large.

“Privacy is a natural thing to desire—" the hero still began, because it was still a safer than ‘can I see them now? I did what you asked, please can I see them?’

“—If they had nothing to hide, they would not be so concerned about the new world we will bring.” The villain’s voice turned sing-song. “Only the guilty keep secrets.”

But the hero knew, as they had known since they first began to understand their cursed gift, that simply wasn’t true.

It didn’t make a difference. That wasn’t something the villain would ever understand. They thought they had a right to everything, didn’t they? They were the justice and the reaper, god and the devil.

The villain laughed and bit the hero’s lip just hard enough to hurt, before letting go.

The hero stumbled back, feeling light-headed.

“Oh, the way you look at me,” the villain breathed. “It’s delicious.”

The hero looked away.

(Did they deserve to look away?)

“Go on then,” the villain said, oh so indulgently. “Go clean yourself up. I suppose we don’t want to get stopped before we even get close to our target, and I do have other outfits I want you to try. I think I’ll make sure the next one is broadcast, you know? More of a statement piece, then the secrets of criminals, you know?”

The hero nodded, not really listening anymore and turned, only for the villain to catch their arm lightning quick.

“Thank you,” the hero remembered themselves, with a twist of sickness, a snap back to attention. “Sorry. Thank you.”

The villain considered them a beat, but was perhaps still too high on their own success to be angry.

“Good little weapon.” The villain patted their cheek, the one they had dabbed free of blood, and let go again.

The hero stumbled for the fine showers upstairs, leaving the expensive jewels carelessly on the bed. They felt a little lighter without the weight of them. They turned the heat up as high as they could tolerate it. There was no one to see them through the haze of steam fogging up the room, the frosted shower cubicle a small shield against the inevitable. The blood, none of it their own, washed slowly away.

Maybe they should have kept it. Maybe that would have been the real kindness, the real mercy. If they were drenched in blood and grime than their skin wasn’t visible, was it?

The villain waited with their new outfit.

They had a wardrobe full of them, like the hero was something to be kept in fine clothes or occasional novelty wear, depending on the villain’s particular mood. It was all just a reminder, wasn’t it, that nothing of the hero was their own anymore?

Instead of a scrap of a dress, the outfit on the bed was some perverse copy of a Sherlock Holmes costume. The deerstalker was more a fascinator, the clothes once again covering as little as possible.

“Feeling better?” the villain asked, the very picture of solicitous.

“Thank you,” the hero said again, dully. They reached, with a humiliated pang of resignation, for their latest clothes.

“Good,” the villain said. “Then let’s go find the truth.”