Work Text:
What am I to you?
Headtilt, curled lips, voice of velvet and the thrill that runs through him is hazy and warm, snags his insides like a thornwhip, like a fishhook, like a barbed arrowhead. He opens his mouth, finds his voice caught in his chest as they curl their hand around the delicate metal lacing of his robe—
—more decorative than anything, and the metal on his skin feels good but their hand feels better, the slightest brush of claws over the raw ragged gasp of nerves as they tug him closer—
Breath warm across his lips, his hands heavy on their shoulders, meatbone muscle under his palms and everything in him meltingsoft clamouring moremoremore —
He laughs; he remembers.
What am I to you , desperate, bloodsick, their hands shaking lips splitting bloody, crimson gleam of their teeth (of their God) ever-encroaching.
One. The red of—
Hands too hot, too tight, holding him like a sword, a grip made for violence. A body built for death, with a brightbroken heart buried within. In the tight animal curl of his memory, they swing their sword and the (goblin) (hag) (dragon) falls bloody, falls to pieces, falls dead. They swing their sword and chains sever, pacts shatter, and the earth shifts beneath his feet.
Two. If you were a song—
Their spine a carnivoran hunch, teeth clashing in the dark, black claws on his throat. The blood they draw from him is hot and red, empties willingly into their hands as they (bite) (kill) (beg). He opens his scars along the seams and whets their claws, their appetite, colours their skin crimson (bone white sinful red a chorus of stained glass and scattered light) and prays that the call of their blood quiets under the song of his own.
Three. If you were a psalm—
They still pray: headbowed handclasping fingers knotted until they draw blood sluggish from crushed veins, the slow crawl of knitting flesh of closing wounds the entropy of healing as they drag (themself) (him) piece by saintedmartyred piece back into place. Raw flesh never touched, wounds unmade, their hands a sacrament bathed in red, and all the while Wyll prays, too. His hands ache with it (loveraptured heartspasms handsclasped), his mouth bleeds with it (forgiveness a razor under his tongue), his spine bends with it (they kneel at his feet, his holy killer), and the Grace of it swallows him whole.
No God to answer: he performs his own eucharist, hands bloodwinered and salt heavy on his tongue.
And now, this:
Their eyes, blackbright.
Their lips, carved open.
Their hands on his hip, over his heart. Holding him like they know how to let go.
He flexes his hands on the ridge of their shoulders, soft fabric under his palms. Melts into them, and takes up the challenge.
What am I, to you?
“You are,” he says, and their skin is silk under his fingertips, bloodhot under the surface, “My yesterday, my today, and my tomorrow,” and their hand tightens on his hip, lips parting (he sees a flash of that hunger of that wolf no longer rabidsick but still starving and his stomach clenches hot), their breath fanning over his jaw.
He tilts his head, exposes his throat (deliberate, deliberate, take what you need ) and feels the tremor run through them.
Says, “fortune willing”, and their lips brush his soft enough that he can feel the ridge of a scar and nothing more, soft enough to snare his breath in his throat and spool it out in a silvery thread, “as the seasons of life pass into winter”, as they breathe deep and press their brow against his until he can feel the pressure on his horns, their hands maddening on his spine, his wrist, anchoring him in place by the chain over his heart, “and my hair turns to grey”—
—Wyll takes a breath, fills his chest with them, fills his throat and his mouth and tips his head back to (speak) (plead) (pray) against their lips.
“You'll still be within my quivering arms’ reach.”
Their hand at his throat, fingers neat against the lash of his scars. Their thumb is warm against his pulse, his heartbeat echoed in their blood.
Their lips brush his, and again his scars open.
Their lips brush his, and (again his Father dies) (again the Gate falls) (again Tiamat rises)—
—again, he tastes Avernus, copper and sulfur, razorbright.
Their lips brush his. Wyll breathes in deep, and closes his eyes.