Tags: M/M, Guide/Original Character, Character Study, Romance, Hurt/Comfort, Obsession, Possesiveness, Mutual Pining, Blood, Death, Angst, Horror
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chapter 5: sung between the flesh and hope
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The first night of having the doll in his home is mostly alright, although Zach doesn't particularly like how it keeps moving around when his back is turned. Initially when he had come home from that unsettling trip to the fiery pits, he had set the doll immediately on the dresser near his bed; wanting nothing more than this impromptu living arrangement to remain as impersonal as possible. The doll had been shaking the entire trip back, not used to the milder climate of above ground, so instead of leaving it flopped limply on the top of his dresser he props it against the freshly lit oil lantern. As he stares at it, bit by bit the trembling calms, but as soon as his back is turned the doll sets off once more.
So far he's found it in seemingly random spots in his home; the top of his kitchen table facing the fireplace. On his bookshelf balanced precariously on a ledge of a shelf, button eyes pointed towards the tomes as if browsing for something to read. He's even found the doll sat on the floor by the most recent pile of bloodied clothes that were waiting to be burned the next day. Out of all the things he finds the doll next to the bloodied clothes seemed to have kept it's interest the most.
When he settles into bed that night, having skipped dinner because he felt extremely nauseous, he looks around his home for the doll, finds it nowhere in sight, but when he blinks and makes up his mind to get up and look, he next finds it sat on his pillow right in front of his face. Startling, he falls off the bed in a heap of sheets and feathers. Gulping in a breath, he steadies his resolve and peeks at his bed. The doll remains on his pillow having not moved an inch but something about the way the light from the fire catches its gray button eyes makes it seem as if its amused. Beyond tired and wanting to just settle down for the night, he allows the doll its fun and drags himself back into bed.
"Cold?" He feels the need to ask because now that the fireplace and lantern have been snuffed out for sleep, the doll is doing that shaking thing again. He doesn't get an answer, which he's thankful for. The last thing he needs is for this thing to start talking and sound like the person it resembles.
Truthfully the doll would probably just move back towards him anyways if he moved it, so he makes peace with showing the thing kindness and let's it stay where it is. He even tucks some of the sheet over it and leaves a respectable amount of space between the two of them as if the doll was a real person.
--
Things get progressively worse.
For one, he hardly sleeps. How can he, when he's plagued by nightmares that have him jolting awake in a cold sweat? It's now that he realizes how lucky he had been before all this; before he remembered each and every gory details of the dreams that now haunt him. In these dreams he becomes a violent, terrible thing. It feels almost exactly like how he does when the Blood Moon rises but even on the nights like that he never once had the urge to hurt anything other than the monsters.
And maybe himself- although that sort of frenzied malice is nothing compared to the purposeful violence of these nightmares.
It gets to the point that he starts to think that maybe there's truth to these nightmares; that he is in fact a violent, terrible thing and that sooner or later he's going to get sick of slaying monsters and start slaying his friends instead. Too often the one at the receiving end of his abuse is Kieran and what is infinitely worse on top of that is that Kieran never stops him in his dreams. Not once.
Kieran doesn't thrash and fight back like the others. No, even until the bloody, bitter end, they try their best to soothe him. He could use some soothing- tonight has been particularly bad. Earlier that day just as the sun had risen he had been sent shambling off into a corner of his home; drenched in sweat and cowering. The reason? He's not entirely sure- there had been an awful noise just outside of his door.
He knows deep down that he cannot open his door for any reason.
Keeping his eyes to the floor the entire time in the off chance he makes eye contact with something he shouldn't, he pushes his kitchen table in front of the door as a barricade. That had been hours ago and as time had progressed more and more of his furniture had been added.
Now, alone and still just as tired and frightened as he had been the previous day, he sits on the floor of his home and hopes very, very much that tomorrow will be different.
--
Tomorrow is different in that he's not sure if it is tomorrow as of yet.
He's not sure of how much time has past. However long it's been, he's not sure he can take much more of it. There is something about the constant, unyielding horror that's taken root in his core that prevents him from adapting and adding this misfortune to the gray blur of monotony.
Maybe it's the fact that whatever this threat is remains unknown.
The fear that whatever it is that's watching him finally making a move reduces him into a paranoid animal, one not even capable of eating or cleaning itself. When he's not panicking of what lies in wait he sleeps fitfully; waking up every few hours to the hellish sound of someone or something trying to break down his barricade.
--
There is something watching him from the foot of his bed.
He knows that because the fine hairs all over his body have spontaneously stood on end all at once and his heart begins to feel as if fingers were squeezing around it. Thinking it to just be the doll, he hazards a glance at the pillow next to his head first and finds with apprehension that no, the doll is for the first time exactly where he had left it.
No matter what he hears that night, he does not look towards the end of his bed.
--
There is only so much terror a person can experience before either the threat itself dissolves or the person themselves becomes liken to the terror and Zach doesn't doubt at all that he has become a terror in this moment. Half-naked and covered in fear slicked sweat, filth and small wounds, he stands in the middle of his home with a lit match in hand ready to burn the accursed place to the ground.
This had all started with fire, he rationalizes.
He had ventured too deep into the earth, found a place he should have left undisturbed and now he was paying the ultimate price. He would not wait until the thing makes its move, nor would he wait for the last of his sanity to be chased off. In these last vestiges of clarity he resolves himself and makes peace with not his first death, but the first ever caused by his own hand.
But when he drops the match, the faint ember warbling in the air as it descends, he sees with dread that the flame is snuffed before it even hits the floor. Panicking, he grabs another match from the box, strikes it, but it fails to light. No matter how many matches he strikes a flame refuses to come alive.
The fireplace itself dies and he's left alone in the dark of his home, the temperature suddenly frigid. There's a tapping on one of the windows although which one he's not sure because the sound echoes around his home as if it were a cavern instead. He spins on heel, searching, and the tapping only seems to grow louder.
At the sound of glass suddenly shattering, he yelps and makes a dive for his washroom, already regretting not bringing anything with him inside in order to barricade the door. Whatever is is that's been haunting him was now once more on the move and worse yet had made it into his home.
He curls himself into a nervous wreck in the furthest corner from the door; arms crossed over his bent legs and wings flared out to conceal himself from whatever threat awaits on the other side of that door. There is the sound of glass crunching underneath shoes, the sound of steady, calculated footsteps proceeding deeper and deeper into his home and then worst of anything yet- the sound of the washroom door slowly creaking open. Silence, thick and oppressive fills the washroom after and he nearly opens his mouth to shout just to get rid of it. What breaks the silence instead is approaching footsteps, one that makes him curl further inward on himself. He can feel eyes on him and after a long minute he also feels a hand on his shoulder.
He startles badly, crying out.
"It's only me." He hears someone say, and thinking on it- that voice was extremely familiar, wasn't it? The hand on his shoulder is nearly as cold as the chill in his home. Bravery seems like a foreign thing these days, but it's with bravery that he takes the chance of peeking up.
Standing above him, knees bent slightly in order to rest a hand on his shoulder, is Kieran and only Kieran. There's no beast beside him, no terrible apparition lying in wait- just his dear friend.
"It's only me here. You're safe, Zach." Kieran assures him and hearing their voice in a tone other than the resigned agony of his dreams breaks him out of the panic that's had a hold of him.
Being safe- it's hard to believe such a concept, although he tries his best for Kieran anyways.
"...You're shaking." Kieran remarks. Their tone is familiar in its' gentleness but even in his delirious state he can catch the thread of steel lingering just below the surface. Slipping down onto a bent knee, Kieran slides their hand off his shoulder and raises it to his face to cup his jaw. Their gray eyes flicker all over his face, searching.
"What are you so frightened of?" They ask.
His eyes immediately go away from Kieran's face to the small table table behind them in the washroom where the doll has since moved to sit. Following his line of sight, Kieran spots the doll as well. Their entire face hardens and a wild look of hate burns in their eyes.
Taking the anger as repulsion for having brought such a thing home, he becomes very quick to explain himself.
“I wasn’t sure what to do with it when I found it, but I didn’t want to leave it behind. Maybe I should have.”
“Were you unable to abandon it because it looked like me?” Kieran asks delicately.
He doesn’t have the courage to answer that with words so he merely nods before lowering his face.
“I don’t think it’s just a doll.” He can at last confess now that he isn’t alone. “Or maybe it is, but there’s something wrong with it. It moves when I’m not looking directly at it. I was going to keep it on my desk until I figured out what to do with it, but it seems determined to keep sleeping in bed with me.”
“You sleep with it?”
“I hadn’t meant to. I’m sorry, I know that probably sounded weird but-”
“It’s alright.”
He closes his mouth and takes a few deep breaths. Kieran tucks some of his hair behind his ear, uncaring of how badly it needs to be washed. “You’re unwell. At first I thought you just needed more time to yourself, so I didn’t come by the first two days.”
“...First two? I thought-” He pauses to collect himself. "-I thought it had only been two days at most. How long has it been?"
"Four." The dead seriousness in which Kieran says it or maybe its just the absurdity of the situation finally dawning on him causes him to finally crack and he starts to laugh ruefully, half near to tears.
“I think it’s trying to influence me. I keep having these dreams-” Guilt, acrid and foul rises up from within. “-dreams where I’m not myself. I’m doing things I would never stomach doing in real life. I’m scared you’ll see me differently. That you won’t want to be around me.”
“Nothing you can say or do will make me stop caring for you. I’ll always be here for you.” Kieran says.
He wants so badly to believe that.
“You can tell me.” They insist. Kieran moves their thumb to brush the spot just at the corner of his mouth. He closes his eyes.
“In my dreams my head is full of all these urges. All I can think about is hurting everyone; about hurting you. Sometimes I hurt you so badly and it- it all feels so real, the blood on my hands. The smell of it. It’s awful. What scares me the most is that I’m not being influenced at all; that maybe these urges are my own. If that’s true, I shouldn’t be here. I shouldn’t be around other people, I- I should leave.”
But when he tries to stand, his knees immediately buckle and he starts to fall. Kieran catches him partly, pulling him back to standing and they pull him forward until he can rest his weight against them. One of their hands slips into his hair.
“These dreams of yours? They’re exactly that- dreams. We can’t control what our brains decide to conjure up while we’re sleeping.” Kieran whispers. “These dreams don’t make you a bad person. These urges, real or not, don’t make you a bad person.”
“I just don’t want to hurt anyone. I’m so scared to sleep. I don’t want to see these things anymore and I don’t know what to do to make it stop.”
“Let me help.” They offer.
“Even though I made things weird between us? Even though I’ve been avoiding you?”
“You needed time to think.” Kieran corrects. “We don’t need to talk about that right now. You need to eat and rest.”
He could cry from the relief he feels.
From his spot on the washroom floor he watches Kieran begin to start running a bath. More interesting than that is the way they approach the small table where the doll is seated. The doll is plucked with a casual air as if just picking up a discarded piece of clothing but Kieran's already pale knuckles are bone white with the force of their grip.
Wordlessly, Kieran slips out of the washroom with the doll and when they next return it's without it, their arms filled with fresh clothes and towels. Feeling weak, his knees practically giving out as he struggles to stand, he allows Kieran to bring him over to the tub. It isn't until they've left, the door now mostly closed save for a crack, that he shrugs out of his clothes and slips into the water.
The heat eases the tension in his muscles immediately and he can't help but sigh at the relief. The only reason he doesn't fall asleep right there in the bath is because he can smell Kieran cooking something, although what, he's not sure. There hadn't really been anything to eat in his cupboards, seeing as how he'd locked himself in his home for four days. He winces again at that and reminds himself that as soon as he's slept and felt a bit better that he needs to go visit Will and all the others. Had some of them come knocking and in his delusion he had turned them away thinking it to be a threat of some kind?
He groans and dunks his head underneath the water and keeps it there.
Sooner or later he has to get out of the now tepid water, so with as much effort as he can muster he hauls himself out of the tub, dries off roughly, and redresses.
"Take a seat. I've just finished." Kieran says the moment he steps foot out of the washroom. He watches their back straighten as they stand from the fireplace; his iron skillet hefted in one hand and full to the brim with delicious food. Food that could have only been gathered from their own home- he hadn't heard them leave.
He's thankful that they hadn't.
While being assured that he hadn't actually lost his mind gave him catharsis to a degree he still felt overall weak when it came to his mental faculties. If he had been left alone with the doll again even for another moment he's not sure what would have transpired while he was naked and vulnerable. A part of him wonders if when he had dunked his head underneath the water if he would have been allowed to bring it back up to the surface.
Dinner passes by in a sort of comfortable haze. He eats with gusto and nearly falls face first into his cleared plate several times after as his body processes days worth of calories all at once. About to slide off his chair entirely and slam to the floor, Kieran rises from their seat across from him and is at his side at once. He leans comfortably against their side.
"Careful." Kieran tells him, slipping an arm around his shoulder and holding him a little closer to their side. "You're exhausted- let me bring you to bed."
With a nod, Kieran once more leads him to his bed which he sees all the linens have been changed and it's been made up. It's really on instinct at this point that before he truly settles into bed that he scans his eyes across his home for the doll. Funnily enough, he spots it on his workbench in the corner; it's burlap face pointed to the wall as if in timeout.
Or scared.
"I admit," Kieran starts, their voice stealing his attention back and when he looks up to where they stand in front of him he finds that their jaw is clenched. "the thought of you curled up next to that thing does upset me a little."
And while not cold at all in his home, not anymore, he notices in the corner of his eyes how badly the doll begins to shake.
"Does it?" He asks.
To accentuate the sentiment, Kieran offers a smile. "If this impostor of mine has been a poor bedmate, I'd like to make up for it. Would you let me spend the night?"
"Of course. You know that I always sleep better beside you. I'm just surprised you'd still want to, after..." At that, Kieran only stares at him harder. He swallows audibly and tries to keep his heart from bursting.
"I want to." They assure.
There isn't much he remembers after laying down to sleep although he's positive he and Kieran spoke a little more before he inevitably knocked out. Whatever the case he sleeps and while shorter than anticipated it's still more restful than the handful of hours he managed alone.
Blinking awake finds him still in bed but this time he's alone. Not even the doll has ventured back into bed. It's nearly witching hour he thinks yet despite the time the fireplace is still burning steadily. It's unsurprising, seeing as how Kieran is seated in front of it, half turned towards the bed as if to watch over him while he slept. Clutched in one hand is the doll.
Kieran's face is turbulent, almost looking as if in pain by the choice of something.
"Kieran?" He speaks into the quiet of his home, sitting up in bed and pushing the sheets away until they bundled near the foot of the bed.
"There are constants in this world," Kieran says suddenly and with striking finality, their attention still to the doll. "-things we cannot avoid or influence despite how badly we might want to. Pain, being the first that comes to mind. Death, the second. We are all destined to die and be reborn, to experience this pain just as much as the sun is destined to set each time it rises."
Slowly, deliberately, he watches Kieran slip off their chair to stand, leaving the doll to sit alone. Turning to face him, the lit fireplace behind Kieran illuminates the light brown hair at the crown of their head while simultaneously swathing their front in darkness. As always, despite the sudden dark or the void that enshrouded their face at times, their cool gray eyes are visible.
Spurned to stand as well, he slips off his bed and idles just near his bookshelf, feeling pinned to the spot.
"Another constant," Kieran continues, voice barely above a whisper as they steadily walk over to where he stands. "-is my place here with you. For you, the world. I've meant it each time I've said it. And yet, there are some things I cannot share with you; things I cannot physically speak of and it feels like a betrayal."
It's the quietest he's ever heard them and he wonders if it is the fear of how he will react to their words or if its the fear that there is something or someone listening.
"Then tell me what you can." He offers placatingly.
"...There is a deep part of me that wants to hurt you just as much as it wants to care for you." Kieran confesses and he can see the entirety of their face once more now despite the light not having changed places. Their eyes are flecked with red and there's a warmth to their cheeks that is rarely, if ever present.
"Is the urge to hurt me like the ones I had in my dreams? Do you feel influenced?" He asks delicately, going as far as to eye where the doll still sits.
Kieran gives him a pleading look as if asking to spare him from answering.
He offers an understanding smile. "It's alright not to know. Or to say. You said pain was a constant in this world. I agree with that. I think we're both past the point of fearing it and I think," He hesitates for a moment, before resolving himself. "I think I'd like to be hurt if it's you."
In between one blink and the next, Kieran is suddenly upon him, looming over him and he's left with no other choice than to be backed up against the bookshelf. Kieran carries a strength that surprises him as they capture both of his wrists and pin them to either side of his head against the bookshelf and crowd him. The same hands that day after day care for plants so tenderly, that care for him so tenderly, now squeezed around his wrists firmly enough to bruise.
"What is it you feel for me?" Kieran asks with a shred of despair and hope peppering their tone.
He smiles up at them, eyes creasing with fondness.
"I feel so much when it comes to you. I'm always thinking of you. Always missing you. I feel selfish; like I feel too much and too strongly. I don't know if a person can be born loving someone else, but I've died many times loving you and I'll happily die many more times if it means keeping you safe and here with me."
Kieran shuts their eyes tightly, inhaling shakily. "My heart beats for you." They speak breathlessly in the space between their faces, face tilted towards the ground. "There won't be a day that it doesn't. " And when Kieran glances back up, their eyes peeking out from the hair that's fallen into their face, he sucks in a breath.
There's always been something about Kieran's eyes that always invokes a hungry, trembling feeling within him and its with that same hunger that he strains forward and kisses them. He sighs against the soft, cold press of their lips and engraves the taste into his brain. There's stillness initially as he kisses them, but only for a moment. It's with relief, with pleasure, that he hears a noise like a starving animal escape from Kieran before they return his kiss with fervor.
It's good- being trapped by the wrists in this cage of their affection, but its entirely made that much more good when Kieran tilts their face marginally to the side, their face slotting perfectly against his and like this now, impossibly close, he sighs with the feeling. Not to break free, but to merely see how much strength lays behind their grip, he flexes his wrists and is pleased when Kieran's grip tightens once more. He moans entirely more loud than he means to and it doesn't go unnoticed, not at all, and he finds Kieran's hands freeing him all of a sudden, releasing his wrists as if burned to jump quickly to hide the bottom half of their face.
There's a familiar crunching sound.
Kieran blinks a few times with obvious discomfort. Carefully, he reaches out and pushes their hands away. He can see clearly now why their jaw had made such sounds; it was to make room for the knife-like teeth that had grown. The skin at the corners of Kieran's mouth look threadbare with how far it's pushed to accommodate their teeth.
Their eyes are completely rusted over, the red of them the exact shade of Nasrin's and Raziel's. It probably speaks leagues of his character that the first thing he thinks of when he sees those teeth is how nice it would feel if he ran his tongue up the sharp points. Smiling, he squeezes their hands between his own before leaning up and dragging his tongue up one of their teeth, not even flinching when the sharp edge cuts and draws blood.
He licks his lips, smearing the blood like rouge and Kieran watches him watching them- that is until they don't- surging forward, Kieran slips an arm around his waist and curls the other around his back to cup the back of his head as they lick and suck at his bottom lip. His lips get parted by an urgent tongue and his head pushes against the bookshelf as Kieran melds themselves against him. He's never felt more alive than with their weight against him. Warmth radiates off Kieran in waves, a familiar scent tinging the space between them; like rust or ash. When sharp teeth press against his bottom lip tentatively he hums his approval and is immediately rewarded with the thorn like sting of those same teeth sinking into his flesh.
His eyes water and his hands twitch and blood, ticklish, runs down his chin in thin but steady rivulets. Kieran slips from him, only far back enough to regard the blood still free falling before they press kiss after kiss to follow the trail, lapping at his lip then his chin and then the curve of his jaw.
"Kieran." He breathes out, shivering a little, and scants his head to the side to once again offer his neck. He knows that by how Kieran stares back at him that the need he feels is more than evident, maybe even more than the drunken night that had been the catalyst to this.
Slowly, as if he'll change his mind, Kieran moves their face down from his and hovers their lips just near his jugular. Their breath, warm and smelling of blood, his blood, sends a thrill through him that manifests in him tugging Kieran closer, hurrying, his hands still looped around them.
He knows they're smiling, he doesn't know how, but when he feels their mouth widen he shuts his eyes closed tightly with anticipation and the hand he has on the crown of their head might even stutter wildly with nerves. Unlike how they had bitten his mouth, Kieran doesn't act with threadbare control this time, no, they latch onto his neck with a fervor that he had hoped they had been keeping in check this whole time, that they had struggled to keep in check with, just as he had-
Something like a gasp and a moan bursts from him and he clings onto Kieran, tears spilling past his eyes from the pain and the subsequent pleasure. Briefly, Kieran stiffens at the sound of his wet inhale, concerned, but he cradles their head to his neck and keeps them there and by the time another broken sound has left him all hesitation has dissolved. Kieran breaks from his neck to regard the injury, eyes smoldering, and when those same eyes flicker up to meet his, he sees for sure the smile he had thought might be there. Kieran's entire face lights up with it, it isn't just one of their secret smiles, no, it's bright and bloodied and leagues away from being human and he has never felt more sure of himself and what he had awoken to do than he is now at this moment.
Dizzy, he brings his hands up to cup their face, holding it to keep Kieran's eyes on him as he tries to parse through the all blindsiding urges he's got racing through his head. He's not sure how to ask for what he wants. How do you ask for everything? How do you admit that you have always wanted more than you've let on and had felt the shame of it so piercingly that the memory of it staggers him to this day? To this moment?
He surges forward with a gale from his wings and leaps into their arms; his legs and arms looped around their hips and shoulders respectively. With obvious adoration, Kieran keeps their muddled red eyes locked on him as they easily adjust to hold him, his weight nothing substantial, and walk the two of them over to stand by his bed.
He's gently set down at the edge of it, Kieran hovering just in front of him. He starts to take his shirt off but Kieran's hands stop him at once. He's not heavily dressed, he never is when he's out of his armor and really it should only take a minute at most to have all his clothes in a messy pile on the floor but Kieran takes their time with slipping his shirt over his head and carefully around his wings. Takes time with falling down to one knee and slipping his leather pants off. When he's fully naked and seated in front of them, Kieran remains where they are on the ground below him to take in the sight. Quiet as the grave, Kieran's eyes look terribly soft with affection as they gaze up at him.
He isn't given the choice of undressing Kieran because they suddenly stand to their feet and do so with striking efficiency. Their thick wool long sleeve is rolled over their head, along with the thin shirt underneath it and dropped to the floor. Their pants are carefully toed out of and settled in a pile with the rest.
It astounds him; the difference between the two of their bodies. His own body is well defined with muscles in his arms and legs from adventuring and killing thousands of monsters and his skin his bronze from the sun and covered from head to toe in a myriad of scars.
Kieran is taller and more lean than him, with broader shoulders and a perfectly straight back. Their pale skin heralds many death scars, but nowhere near as many as his own. He's thankful that before meeting him that the world had either chosen to be kind or that Kieran's resourcefulness had never wavered. What catches his attention most of all is the mark that's right over where their heart lays.
He thinks it might be a brand, but on closer inspection it looks more like someone had heated a dagger and carved into their skin. In neat, vertical rows are runes that start just over their heart and end just over their left hip. Placing a hand flat over it, he finds that the brand is hotter than the rest of their body and that there's a heavy thrum of magic emanating from it.
He doesn't ask about it and he can see the relief in Kieran's eyes when he retracts his hand.
"Lay down." Kieran tells him, so he does. He scoots over to the middle of his bed to lay down on his back, but stops when they speak again. "On your front." Only fumbling marginally, he settles onto his stomach and rests his face on his folded arms; wings folded neatly at his back.
The bed shifts as Kieran slips onto it and he sucks in a breath when they settle to sit next to him, their naked hip pressed to his side, and they place their right hand flat on the center of his back. Without any warning, their hand slips into his feathers and he chokes on the sound that leaves him.
He has to ask: "Did you know how good it felt for me when you touched my wings last time? That I-"
"I did." Kieran answers immediately. "I think about that evening a lot; how you didn't tell me to stop. How you sounded so tortured while you tried to stop from coming apart by my hands."
He grits his teeth and buries his face deeper into his arms; flushed with embarrassment.
"You don't think that was out of line of me?" He asks.
"I don't. I was happy that you stayed. I'm not sure I would have let you leave."
"That's-" He gasps, arching his back and Kieran rewards him by slipping their fingers deeper into his feathers and massaging their knuckles against his glands.
"Is that cruel of me?" Kieran asks.
He breathes hot and heavy against his own arms before managing to peek at them over his shoulders, some of his hair falling over his eyes.
"No. No, Kieran it's fine. I trust you with everything, but most of all I trust you with myself. You've always had a way of knowing me better than myself; of knowing what I need. I don't mind if you takes you forcing my hand to make me realize what it could be."
And that stops Kieran for a moment, but only one. Their mouth parts and remains open marginally in delighted surprise, red-gray eyes flickering over his face as his words settle into their mind. Slightly dipping their face down, Kieran makes a small sound like a laugh, their lips spreading unnaturally wide into a smile and some light from his window catches on the sharp of their teeth and he feels his heart skip.
"Let me take care of you." Kieran offers the same as always, but there's a significant weight to it now- or, maybe there always had been, but he had been blind to it until now.
Offering a nod, he settles back fully onto the bed. The hands at his back pick up the work and now that he isn't trying to hide himself, he freely lets each and every sound leave him as Kieran gives attention to his wings.
"I heard you, you know." Kieran says in between slipping their slender fingers deep into his plumage. "I could tell you were trying to be quiet; that you desperately didn't want me to hear. But I did."
His face lights up nearly as red as his hair.
"You were so worried about me hearing that you didn't at all hear when I walked over to the door. You didn't hear when I leaned against it, pressed my ear to the wood and listened to each and every beautiful sound you made." Kieran relays this to him in the same calmly intense way of theirs as they would anything- but this isn't anything.
Not at all.
This is the realization that while he had been pressed flat against the door of their washroom, pants down and hand around his cock, they had been eagerly listening and wishing almost, if not more, that the door would simply dissolve. Arousal burns through him just as hot as the embarrassment, but there's no real sting to it this time. How could there be, when Kieran sounded so pleased when retelling it?
When he sucks in a gasp, leaning into their touch, Kieran hums.
"Yes- that was exactly how you sounded."
"Kieran." He says weakly, practically delirious with arousal.
"I know." They say, and he feels their hands slip from his wings entirely and the absence of the touch leaves him twitching to get up and seek it out. He doesn't have to because Kieran carefully slips further onto the bed and crawls over his thighs to settle between them on their knees.
When he starts to push up to be able to peek behind him, a single hand on the middle of his back stops him. Wordlessly, he remains where he is. A kiss, soft as anything, is pressed dead center between his wings before another is left on his lower back. Kieran drags their lips across his skin, searing, and he yelps when sharp teeth sink into his ass cheek.
Kieran apologizes quietly between their even quieter laughter, kissing the abused spot, and he's about to share in the laugh as well, that is, until he feels their warm breath fanning across the curve of his ass and he feels their fingers grip the fat and muscle with a bruising grip.
All the air in his lungs leaves him when Kieran's tongue, warm and wet, swirls it's tips around his entrance. Clenching his eyes shut tightly, he moans. It's ticklish in an alien way at first as they lap their tongue against him, but when he feels the slick press of Kieran's tongue pressing against his hole and then slowly slipping in, it sends such a shock of pleasure through him that he's positive he must have shouted at least a little.
Bit by bit Kieran's tongue slips deeper into him, the width increasing marginally but never thicker than the breadth of his own two fingers. He'd seen their tongue- it had only draped outside of their split mouth by two and half inches. He's positive by now he should have felt their face pressed against him, but still, somehow, he feels them going deeper.
When their tongue rubs against the spot he can only rarely seem to reach with his own hands, the pleasure of it blindsides him. Having no doubt heard the near sob that had left him, Kieran latches onto the spot, even going so far as to keep him held down. All he can do is squirm and cry and gasp out their name as they relentlessly stimulate him to the point he can hardly recall what his own name is. All he can comprehend at the moment is that every nerve in his body feels like it's on fire and there's this pressure building up and up and-
"ngh, Kieran!" He cries out, wings unfurling to expand as far out as they possibly can, his back a taut curve as he arches against them and falls to pieces. His hips stutter sporadically as he cums in the space between his belly and the mattress. Body weighing as much as lead, he flops back down completely.
The feeling of their tongue leaving his body makes him shiver.
A single kiss is pressed between where the dimples above his ass lay. Sucking in a breath, he turns over onto his back and peers down at Kieran, who's still laying on their front. Their eyes are sparkling with mischief and their tongue, still retreating back into their mouth like a snake into its hole, swipes across their lips. He crawls over to them, or no, he's pretty sure he actually had lunged and cups both of his hands to their face and guides them to stand on the balls of their knees along with him so he can taste himself on their lips.
"Please." He says after another kiss, one hand slipping from their face to glide down their chest, his blunt nails dragging across their skin and catching a nipple. A rumble starts in Kieran's chest and rises to their throat. If he kisses them hard enough he thinks he can taste the sound too.
His hand slips lower and he curls his fingers around their cock and grips firmly. He starts to pump them slowly, letting his nails catch here and there because Kieran makes a soft noise each time he does and he'll never be able to get it out of his head.
Before Kieran can ask him what is is in fact he's pleading for, he loops his arms around their shoulders and nudges them into sitting fully on the bed. Kieran acquiesces, legs neatly crossed and their lap now a fetching spot for him to sit. The two of them surely look more like an amalgamation of limbs then two individual people with how close they press against each other.
Not quite fully against them yet, his hips still hovering just over where their cock stands at attention, Kieran quirks their face to the side, curious about something.
"It'll hurt without more preparation." They warn him and he fixes them with a grin, some of his hair clinging to his forehead with sweat.
"I know." He says and slowly starts to lower his hips, one hand steadying their length to keep it aligned just right.
At that, Kieran blinks slowly as if making sure they had heard him right.
"I see. In that case," And without warning Kieran settles both of their hands on either of his hips, the grip like a vice, and he's forcefully helped down onto the tip of their cock, the press of it suddenly at his entrance enough to make his breath punch out of his lungs. He's still slick from saliva and sweat and his own mess so the gradual push inward isn't as bad as he had expected.
"Fuck." He curses, sinking teeth into his bottom lip and closing his eyes tightly as he's opened up further and further. Behind him his wings unfurl and spread out full length, spasming here and there as pleasure and pain spikes.
When his thighs finally meet Kieran's and he successfully bottoms out, a sort of full body shiver wracks him and he takes a moment to breathe. He presses his forehead to Kieran's, breathing hard in the space between their faces.
When the two of their eyes lock and he sees that hungry look in their eyes all he does is offer a nod. Without preamble he's knocked flat onto his back, Kieran now looming over him and still very much inside. The movement pushes them impossibly deeper and a half shout leaves him.
He's not given a moment to breathe before Kieran starts to move, their hips thrusting deep and unyielding into his tight heat. The pleasure and pain blindsides him; each nerve in his body feeling as if now on fire. With a gasp he arches his back and holds onto their shoulders tighter, now slipping a hand into their hair to cup the back of their skull. It makes good leverage in pulling them down and kissing them, which is nearly impossible because each thrust knocks a heady sound from him. After another few failed attempts at kissing he just contents himself with looking like a fool with how his mouth hangs open uselessly.
"Not going to last." He huffs, eyes clenched tightly.
Kieran hums, encouraging, and he expects them to speed up the pace to chase their own climax but they don't. The same steady, unrelenting pace continues and its that steady pace that has him falling apart for the second time; a litany of curses and praises spilling from his lips.
"Kieran. Kieran-" He pleads, overly sensitive, and he lets his arms fall from their shoulders so he can drape one across his eyes. His chest rises unevenly as he sucks in breath after breath.
"Tell me its enough." Kieran says with remarkable intensity. "Tell me that you're content."
And just like that he shuts his mouth; face scarlet with embarrassment.
What was it within him that made him such a greedy little thing? He was a glutton for food, sleep and drink and now it seemed he was insatiable even when it came to this. There's a bone deep exhaustion within him and all of his muscles are twitching with overuse and overstimulation- and yet that burning need still smolders.
Making peace with the fact that Kieran will always have a sense of what he needs, he shakes his head before whispering a singular plead of 'more'. He doesn't see it but he can feel Kieran's smile. It's not long at all that he's feeling much more than that as Kieran starts to fuck him in earnest.
The wooden headboard of his bed bangs rhythmically against the wall with each piston of Kieran's hips and the overstimulation of his prostate is both agonizing and blindsiding in its goodness. He wants to shout just as much as he wants to cry and with frenzy he grabs at whatever he can of Kieran and holds on. He doesn't pay attention to the way he drags his blunt nails across their back or the way he curls his hand into a fist in their hair but Kieran rewards him endlessly for it; speaking dark, foreign words against his forehead and sealing it with a burning kiss.
He's been babbling the past minute, he's positive of that, but whatever he's saying is entirely lost on him. Still, Kieran listens to him and soothes and kisses away any wetness that builds near his eyes. It consoles him but only marginally. Opening his mouth wide and sinking his teeth into the curve of Kieran's neck is the only thing that tethers him to this realm of existence when he feels his climax arrive sharply and abruptly. There's blood in his mouth and tears running down his face and Kieran is saying his name so prettily right now, soft and reverent and it only makes him bite down harder. He feels their cock press into him once, twice, throbbing, before he feels the satisfying heat of their seed filling him.
In a mess of desire and blood, the two of them lay closely.
His bedroom for the first time in many days is quiet in the comforting way all homes should be. There are no figures waiting in the shadows to accost him and there is no monster knocking at his door. There's only himself and Kieran, the latter laying atop him. It takes some effort, mostly because his brain is quickly absconding somewhere to sleep, but he manages to pull the sheets over the both of them and settle Kieran a little more comfortably on his chest.
There isn't any way that Kieran isn't just as tired as him now, but he falls asleep before them and as always remains ignorant to what they might look like while they slept. He might not ever see Kieran sleep.
He might not ever know them fully as they in turn know himself.
That's alright.
Greedy though he may be, it is more than alright.