[Hector's words simmer with something Isaac can only interpret as resentment. He's resigning himself to being fucked out of principle more than anything else, he supposes. But so be it; he's earned this. It's his turn to collect - and his body is as recklessly determined as it has ever been, lightening trembling under his skin as he settles behind Hector, wanting him with the same primal, voltaic rush of need as he did first time. He guides the knob of his cock to him, lets his eyes slip shut as he makes to push inside him.
In that darkness, he sees teeth. A steely flash of teeth and blood and a clawed arm thrusting out for his neck, his knife jerking up and down through the air. A log splits in the fire and he snaps back to awareness, flinching and angry, sinking the nails of one hand into Hector's hip and bracing him harder than he needs to.]
[Hector feels the prod of Isaac’s cock against his hole, heated and throbbing, but Isaac hesitates before shoving in.
It’s not out of concern for Hector, he’s sure of that. The nails clawing into his hip and leaving beads of blood are proof of that.
Teasing? The playful mood from their kissing is gone beyond recall, evaporated into dark cold of the cave.
Once more, Hector wants to turn and see Isaac’s face. He doesn’t. Isaac wants him bent for mounting like a dog.
He bucks backwards, nudging Issac to action. Hector’s angry with both of them about how this has turned out, but damned if he’s not going to at least date his darker urges now that he’s here.]
[Hector rocks into him, demanding. He feels it from half-outside his own body, feels his cock twitch in his hand with all the screaming impatience in the world while the rest of him slowly goes hollow, staring and staring at the slow trickle of blood he's drawn. Like he had, frozenly, powerless, at her torn dress, her bare legs, too late.
Not real, he insists, fiercely. She was never there, looking up at him with drowning eyes. But it had felt real enough to make his stomach swoop then and now, pushing bile up into his throat.)
He sucks down a breath. He doesn't know when the darkness around him and Hector grew cold, when it became intimately threatening. But there's an understanding that if he doesn't break through this moment pressing in on him, locking him in, it might just quietly break him instead.
Brute force isn't always the answer to everything, but it's often the quickest. And he remembers that neither him nor Hector expect anything less or better of him than for him to bullishly push through whatever wall he's hit. Anger is bigger than fear, because it has to be - and he clings to it as he doubles down and plunges into Hector, into the hot grip of tight, flexing muscle, chasing pleasure with everything he has.]
[Hector is better prepared for Isaac's entry this time around, both in knowing what to expect and having been prepped. Isaac shoves in, and Hector groans and ducks his head down between his arms. The pressure and relief and shame and anger have his eyes watering, and that's not something to let Isaac catch sight of.]
Yes, do it! [He grunts. His ass, slick and worked open, is ready, and he's greedy for it now. He can lose his thoughts of Rosaly and his aching heart in the pure animal rushing of blood to his cock.
He braces himself on one arm, muscles flexing with the strain of supporting his weight against Isaac's force, so that he can get a hand between his legs to frantically stroke. There's a steady breathy pant of 'yes'es streaming from his lips.]
[The one who penetrates holds the most power. He's always known that to be true.
A snap of his hips and he's in to the hilt, metal and swollen flesh and aggressive, iron desire, nails gouging deeper into Hector as he tugs him into the next thrust and the next, panting. He throws his head back, drowning in relief, sense and reason sinking with him. He thinks about fucking Hector brainless until blood slicks them both. Thinks about fucking him inside out and turning him over and laying his hands on him, slotting the webs of his thumbs around his throat and clamping his hands around him again just to feel the wild pulsing of muscles and blood vessels against the pads of his fingers. Relishing in the crazy thrill of toeing the line between here and too far gone while watching the stricken look in Hector's eyes soften as they glass over.
He's an animal. Taking and taking and taking. And Julia - if fate is so cruel as to bring them together again - could preach of the hope she held for everyone, could tell him he still had a human heart beating inside him. But he had seen the way she looked at him when she found him, alone, the year before Rosaly burned. He remembers the shades of hurt and doubt in her eyes, a look that seemed to say there was only so much more she could take of feeling like she was watching something slowly dying.
Not everyone can be saved. Not everyone wants to be.
What he know for sure is that it takes spearing Hector on his cock, hurting him, to come close to feeling alive. Like more than a dead man walking.
Nothing new. But he feels this open a pit in his stomach like it never has before, their ragged panting and the slap of skin on skin growing sharper and louder, scraping his eardrums.
He doesn't realize he has pulled out until he drops back, like the air's been slammed out of his lungs. Blood roars through him, a useless throbbing. His body has never failed him; it's begging for more, even if more is never enough. Even as he feels a deep, sick rage rolling through him and sucks in a breath through his teeth and knows it's over.]
Fuck! [He snarls at the wall, scrubbing a hand down his face.]
[Maybe the one on top has the power, but so long as the fucking doesn't stop, Hector doesn't care. It's a bruising, frenzied pounding, but there's not the same pain as last time. The burn and ache and the tearing of Isaac's nails are dwarfed by the blinding pleasure of the studded cock driving into him. Fuck, last time was too quick and brutal to focus on it, but the damned piercings....
Hector is close, so close, and his mind is blessedly empty of everything but the need for release, when Isaac jerks back and away. His hole body twitches with the sudden loss of heat and the emptiness.
For one beat, Hector waits to be re-mounted, but it's not just a momentary readjustment of position. He turns over his shoulder, flushed and panting and wild with need.]
There had better be enemies at our door....
[He growls, because if this is just another one of Isaac's power plays, and he's planning on leaving Hector teetering on the threshold of orgasm, Hector's going to need to murder someone.]
[Isaac jerks his head around to stare at him like he's been slapped, his chest heaving.]
Shut up!
[His voice tears through the dark, jagged and vicious.
Between Hector's desperation and his own hitting a peak, all of him is pulling apart at the seams. He grinds the heels of his hands into his forehead, into his eyes, until he sees stars, wanting to scream. It's tempting to drive his fist into the wall until his knuckles shatter. But it's as if his whole body has given out on him, consumed with a sense of helplessness as absolute and huge and terrible as the anger shaking his bones.]
Fuck me--! [He hears himself spit out the words like threat. He gulps down another breath through a sharp swooping feeling inside him, searching every part of himself for the man he knows he's supposed to be: the Isaac who would've looked at Hector now, flushed and trembly-weak and begging for cock, and let out a throaty laugh, the laugh of a mad king; the Isaac who fears nothing, looking for trouble before it could find them; the Isaac who could only sneer at the sad shell of a forgemaster he's become and pulp his skull against the rocks, doing them both a favour.]
[Hector’s eyes flick to the cave’s entrance, but there’s no sign of intruders. This is just Isaac in a panic.
He grits his teeth, and forces himself not to take Isaac’s cursing as an invitation. What had Rosaly done for him, when Hector had worked himself into a state of alarm when they’d been together?
Soft, reassuring words, feather-light touches, and a steady presence to draw him out of his own head and back into the light. All things that Hector craves that he imagines Isaac would laugh off.
It’s hard to think with most of his blood still pumping in his cock, but Hector tries. Grounding. Distraction. A physical reminder of his presence that Isaac can’t ignore.
He crawls over to Isaac, who is scrubbing at his face, and reaches out to hook fingers into his collar to drag him down into a kiss. Biting, bruising, filled with the taste of coppery blood.]
[By the time he notices Hector closing in, he's already got him by the collar, crushing his lips to Isaac's - a language that, unlike tenderness, is something Isaac understands. A snap of adrenaline shoots up his spine and his body locks for a moment, alarms screaming in his brain, cutting through a haze of nausea, arousal. A kiss is never just a kiss, not from Hector. Not while aggressively hard with no give in either of them, hot breath and lips and tongue suffocating him. Isaac's hand clamps around Hector's cock, still holding on when he wrenches his mouth from his, panting. His lips are raw, peeling back in a wolfish snarl. Slapping Hector's hand from his collar, he pulls back, feeling a sharp jolt of emotion - something jerking in his chest - when their eyes meet, his own fierce behind his lashes.]
Fuck. Me. [He pushes the words out, grits them out through his teeth, shoving against Hector as if he knows what he's doing. While the past and the present play tug of war for his sanity, pain may be the only thing that makes sense.]
[Hector follows forward as Isaac pulls back, not willing to surrender just yet. Needing pain, needing punishment, he can understand at least in part. He'd felt despair, early on with Rosaly, though she'd soothed it away with gentleness instead of forcing it down with pain and pleasure mingled.
He pushes further into Isaac's space, claiming his lips again while his hands push Isaac's legs down. He straddles Isaac, returning to the very position Isaac had rejected from the start. His cock, still in Isaac's death grip, prods Isaac's abdomen as Hector positions his ass so he could, if Isaac allows it, sink down and take it all in.]
'm not...fucking you...'til we have a proper bed....
[And on that day, he will have prepared Isaac for him, have worked him open 'til Isaac begged for more. That day will likely never come, but Hector has a vision of it and he's not going to let Isaac compromise it with a rash decision they'll both regret.]
...tell me you want it.... [He pants into Isaac's ear, then bites down on it. Not enough to mark or tear, but certainly enough to force Isaac to feel it, to make him stay within his own skin.]
[Isaac's lips push together, a hard, white line carved into his face.
The only thing more unexpected than hearing himself ask for - beg for - what he does and nearly convincing himself that he'd throw what's left of his pride and dignity for it, is being refused, and by a man seething with lust. By Hector.
He doesn't know what to do.
Nothing seems like it's really happening. Half-pushed and half-leaning back, he expects for the bottom of this fever dream to drop out and for him to fall through, to fall back into his body. Waking, like he has before, once or twice, to the reality that he isn't alone and there really is a succubus or incubus on him, grinding down on him, feeding off his energy. But the rocks burrowing into his shoulderblades and the goosebumps that chase the chill sweeping across his neck and chest feel real. And, lust or not, he's more wired than he should be for scraping by on a few hours of sleep.
He bristles when Hector mounts him, legs framing his hips. Like the victor. Were this anyone else, he'd have thought about twisting his fist and tearing their dick from the rest of their body, lodging it down their howling throat. And for just a moment, while Isaac stares into the face looming over his, Hector does become someone else, something else, his features flickering so subtly, shifting out of alignment, throwing everything he thinks he knows into question. It's like the spores all over again, filling his throat and lungs and every hollow in his skull.
His hands shift to brace Hector's waist when the man lies on top of him, the magic in Hector's blood and bones vibrating at a keening frequency in harmony with his own. Isaac shivers into him at the sly sting of teeth catching his earlobe, at his voice as it slides, boldly, under all the layers of scar tissue he's built up and pries them loose, lifting them away, wanting and not wanting and twisting his face away. A twitch curls his lip, his muscles tightening like an uncocked spring.
Then comes a knee-jerk burst of power, an effort to heave Hector off him, to flip him onto his back.]
[Hector knows Isaac wants him, can feel it in the electricity sparking between their bodies, but he won't force Isaac against his will. Push, yes, but not rob him of agency.
So Hector lets Isaac shove him back, but he seizes Isaac's wrists and pulls Isaac down on top of him, not letting him retreat from this.]
...fine, like this, then....
[He parts his legs to make room for Isaac's body between his thighs. His nails scrap Isaac's skin where he can get to it around his gauntlets. He glares up at Isaac, face flushed and demanding satisfaction.]
Fuck me like you would if you weren't a coward.
[Hector with either get himself fucked or strangled. Either way, he'll at least find some form of release by Isaac's hands.]
[With their long stint at the castle behind them, he never thought Hector had it in him to challenge him again, threaten his ego, to push back, much less while wounded and weak. And on some level he can see this for what it is: an attempt to goad him to action, urging him to finish what he started the way he's never left loose ends untied, before. But even knowing this, they are only ever a single word away, a single word at the right time - or wrong time, from waking a rage inside him that would see Hector dead in the ground.
With a cracked half-scream, he swings his forehead into Hector's, pain splitting into his skull, half-blinded by flashes of light and blood dripping into his eye as he winds back to hit him again. He jerks his hand free from Hector's grasp. His right finds his own cock and he pumps fiercely, a beast in heat, thighs and abdomen flexing and frantic energy popping off the ends of his nerves as his balls pull tighter, tighter. Huffing, he shudders and comes, finally, hot ropes slapping Hector's skin, over chest and face. As if all he is and ever will be is as good as the dirt he walks on. He wrings himself dry, his breath short and rasping and hard. No sense triumph or bitter satisfaction. Only anger boiling black in his veins, all of him shaking with unspent violence.
It crosses his mind to let Abel finish on his behalf. To give Hector more than he ever bargained, driving home his mistake with every brutal, tireless thrust. But he waits for another careless word out of Hector's mouth, as if he needs permission, an excuse.]
[The crack of Isaac's skull- the hardest part of him, by far- has Hector seeing spots for a moment.]
Fuck!
[He kicks and scoots himself back, though not in time to avoid the jets of seed Isaac squeezes out of himself.
That. Fucking. Bastard.
Hector's anger has always burned cold within him, and when he finally reaches the tipping point into fury, he goes quiet and distant.]
We're done.
[A low, unwavering tone. Hector stands while Isaac is still shuddering from orgasm, snatches his discarded pants from the ground beside him, and stalks out of the cave. The fairy flits out after him.]
[He hitches up his pants and smudges away the trickle of blood from his face, hardened to the note of icy finality Hector takes with him. They were done minutes ago, as far as he was concerned; they were done when he pulled out and sat off to the side, raw and vulnerable, and everything that came after is what Hector brought on himself.
The pain in his skull is like an ice pick chipping into it to the rhythm of his heartbeat. A vicious, nagging pain. But it's worth it.
He spits off the side, balefully watching Hector as he turns his back and leaves before he reclaims his cloak and slings it around his shoulders, summoning a glowing magic circle that whisks him away to the edge of the woods closer to the mountain pass. The space to breathe what he needs -- and in the silvery light and cool dew of the early morning, he unleashes his wrath on the first animal to wander into view and is left with more half-raw rabbit than he has the appetite for. But he's in no mood to share, not with Hector or other woodland creatures.]
[A long soak in the icy water of the pond freezes Hector's fury into numbness. He scrubs away every trace of Isaac from himself, inside and out. The fairy heals the torn skin on his hips and the welt forming on his forehead, and he puts an extraordinary amount of energy into healing the stab wounds until not even a scar remains.
The next time Isaac sees his bared chest --if he sees it at all, and Hector isn't planning on stripping for him again-- he will see that he has left no mark on Hector at all.
He finally wades back out of the pool when he looses feeling in his fingers and toes, and he lays out on the rocks to dry as the sun rises.
This is all his own fault. Hector should never have given in to his carnal desires. No more. Hector will take his satisfaction into his own hands, and rely on no on else from now on. It is what he should have done after Rosaly's death. Isaac can find some other warm body, if anyone else can stand to be around him long enough to finish the job.
Hector feels the feeble warmth of the rising sun, but he does not thaw. Future plans...where will he head now. Not back to Julia, except maybe to collect his belongings. That door, he closed the moment he fucked her brother. But having his weapons and supplies would be helpful.
He must find and rejoin Isaac eventually. Hector had let him live, and the lives that Isaac takes from now on will be on Hector's hands as well as his own. Hector has no purpose in life now, except to try to temper Isaac's darker impulses and make sure he does not wreck havoc on the common folk. It is Hector's penance and Isaac's punishment.
When he is dry enough to dress, Hector pulls on his pants and returns to the claim. That Isaac has left is no surprise. Hector gathers up the rest of his possessions and packs them up. The vague awareness he has of Isaac's presence feels like it is not too far off from Hector's chosen path, so he starts off that way.]
[It comes as no surprise, when he senses Hector's approach on the edges of his awareness. But it doesn't make it any less frustrating, reminding him that one of his many regrets is never learning how to suppress his magic and cloak his presence, making himself invisible to men and monsters. His pursuit of raw power had come first, starting early, from when he was still fresh meat among the human arrivals to the castle. For close to a year he'd request the same grimoires from the library, reading and rereading them cover to cover until he had memorized entire passages and basic magical seals, having no more need to glance over the notes he had taken.
Most of the library's keepers wouldn't give him or anyone else the time of day, absorbed in their own studies or with making copies of yellowing, disintegrating tomes when not preserving the dignity of the space and the priceless collection of books and maps and blueprints it housed through brute force. But after a whole year of the barest of exchanges between them, one demon scholar began sharing a few quotations from the latest philosophical text or work of poetry it was reading. Hell, boy, is not the world beyond these doors, but a door locked from the inside, it had told him, once. It all smacked of pretentious bullshit to Isaac, an annoying waste of time for a kid desperate to get his hands on some books on alchemy and devil forging. But it's only now that Isaac thinks he understands what it meant.
His mind is his own worst enemy. And he's rattled by how little it has taken for his defenses to crumble and for him to feel like a stranger in his own body and trapped in his own head, like he had for years, back when all it would take is a simple touch, a careless few words, to jack fury or panic into him.
That anger is all he has now, keeping him alive and alert and willing him to pay at least some attention to the path Hector's taking. It's not quite as much of a beeline towards him as Isaac suspected -- and he can only wonder what Hector's intentions are, hating that it matters in the least to him.
He might not know what to do with himself, but any thought of joining Hector on the road again has soured. Let him board a vessel and plunge to watery grave. If destiny called from the other side of the world, Isaac is sure he'd find a way across without him.]
Edited 2019-09-30 03:21 (UTC)
imma fudge some travel times here so Isaac doesn't have to wait around for days
[Isaac's locations stays static as Hector moves; he supposes Isaac has no need to hike when he can teleport where he wishes. It should be a full day's travel back, supposing he does not have to contend with the hunter attacks, injuries, and other distractions that had increased the time it had taken them to get this far out.
Hector takes it at a run, pushing his body more than he has since his quest for revenge. It's a relief to focus on the burn in his muscles, the cadence of his breathing. Unhindered by a traveling companion, other than his winged fairy, he can determine his own grueling pace.
He doesn't take the path that will cross with Isaac's, for now. He wants to do that when he's rested, properly supplied, and most importantly, completely cool-headed. So to Julia's cottage it is.
It is well into night when he reaches her home, but she rouses at the sound of his knock- a pattern they worked out together, to be cautious of her opening a door in a world of vampires and shapeshifters.
Hector's account of the past few days is brief and vague to the point of dishonestly, but Hector still gives Isaac enough respect to honor that wish of his. He makes no mention of another traveling with him, just that he'd been beset by hunters, wounded, and had needed to lead them away before he could return.]
It is safer for both of us for me to leave. I thank you, Julia, for your kindness and hospitality. Be well when I go.
[She sees in his eyes that he won't be persuaded otherwise, so with a sigh, she insists upon at least seeing him fed and rested before he wanders off into the wild unknown. She reheats some stew for Hector's dinner, and they divide up his devils as he eats. Julia is bequeathed Hector's strongest battle type Rasetz for protection, a Crow to keep watch without drawing too much attention, and a chef Pumpkin, in theory to help with cooking and chores, but really because Hector can think of no other use for it. Julia will accept no more fully-forged devils than that, saying the shards she still has will be more than enough.
When Hector sets out at dawn, he does so with his inventory full weapons, coin pouch, and enough supplies to actually support him on a journey. He also goes with Julia's resigned blessing, which lifts a weight he had not realized had been burdening him so heavily.
Turning back one last time to wave at Julia before she fades from view, Hector then takes a deep breath and reaches out his senses to pinpoint Isaac's direction. It is time for their reunion.]
[The small castle he returns to is not home in any sense.
More of its stonework has crumbled in his absence, though it otherwise has largely remained the same, frayed tapestries and rugs and furnishings slowly rotting away and the few books left on it shelves blackening with mold. But it offers a roof over his head he doesn't care enough to mind sharing with spiders and snakes and the odd, wandering ghost. There's no point putting work into repair and reinforcements on a larger scale when he doesn't imagine staying long. It's just a place to haul in and skin carcasses from the hunt, to eat and rest, and consider his next move as Hector closes in. The world feels smaller and smaller by the hour as he does, and the silence doesn't help. Just magnifies his bleaker inner-narratives in the echo chamber that is his skull, his wariness sharpening as he waits up in a tower for sounds other than the wind whistling through the cracks it finds in wood and stone and glass.
His growing restlessness sees him flexing his magical prowess, daring to break away from existing templates and visual references to create new creatures from his own visualizations instead. It's harder than it has any right to be after the years of practice he's poured into the devil's art; but he knows, as the ancient incantation rolls off his tongue and he gathers his energy into the palms of his hands, drawing one of the lingering spirits from the castle walls to toy with, that his headspace isn't what it should be, what it could be. With Hector more on his mind than he isn't, Isaac ends up giving shape to a screeching, swollen mass of flesh and bone fighting for life. The second struggling, desperate attempt is less abstract in form: a beast-demon that thrashes into being like Abel had in its earliest evolutions, lashing out at him and drawing blood before it bends to his steely will. It's an imperfect being in all regards: small and asymmetrical, patches of its tawny fur missing along its chest and back. While responsive enough to commands, it stares blankly when left on its own, not noticing or recognizing the threat in a spider nearby that rears up on its back legs until it has already been bitten.
Isaac growls, refusing to give either mistake of his a name.
He's always taken failure hard. But he has the sense, even the maturity, to remember that, when it comes to dabbling with magic, setbacks are only temporary and his persistence would be rewarded. There has always been a sense of fairness, that way, when it comes to working with magic. Someday, he's sure he could surpass what was thought possible and impossible. Maybe even coast briney ocean air currents on a devil's back, casting a shadow over vessels slicing through the water below. It's something to look towards, to work towards. A thought he takes to the wooden tub with him where he soaks for a while, scrubbing a film of grime and sweat and blood off his skin, still feeling dirty afterwards. But it's not too long before another thought shoves its way to the forefront of his mind and sticks when he settles into one of the beds.
Sleep never comes, and at dawn he can't stand it anymore, cursing everything under the sun as he throws on the armour and leathers he had only just cleaned and sets out into the woods to meet Hector halfway, sword in hand. His expression darkens, his nerves on edge. That Hector and Julia met last night doesn't need confirming; he knows what he felt. It's the question of whether Hector's word still means anything at all that is begging for an answer, curiosity and suspicion eating him alive.]
You came all this way seeking my sister's company -- why?
[He demands, forgoing a more civil greeting. But at this point, his scathing bluntness should come as no surprise.]
[Traveling with Isaac these past few days has strengthened Hector's sense for him, and he senses Isaac's presence before he shows himself. Hector is armed now, but doesn't have steel bared. The fairy is gone, replaced for now with a wingosaurus, which he has been using to shorten his journey by gliding down the mountain.
Hector is dressed in a fresh pair of clothes, a new sash around his waist, looking as put together and aloof as he ever did in the castle.]
I went to collect my things, and to make sure she is well. Julia is compassionate, and leaving her to worry over my fate did not rest well with me.
[He knows what Isaac really wants to know, but in this regression into the colder version of himself, before Rosaly had melted through his walls of ice, he does not offer the information. If Isaac cares to know, he will have to ask it.]
[He meets that coolness and distance with disdain, teeth and claws out, ready to draw blood while the weaker, wounded parts of himself pull deeper inside him. Shoulders squared and chin tipped up, it's as though what happened in and around and the cave was never more than a sweat-soaked dream and he hadn't left feeling shaken and unbalanced. But the resentment in his eyes says otherwise.
He lifts his seven bladed sword to point at him with it. Gloved hand squeaking as it tightens around the hilt.]
What did you tell her?
[It's not like Hector to hurt her, not even out of spite for him. But he needs to hear it, needs to search his face for any trace of a lie if and when he says it.]
[Hector pauses before responding, just a little longer than needed. The old Hector, the Hector at the castle, never jumped to answer to anyone but Lord Dracula. He pulls that old persona around him like a cloak against the cold.]
Nothing about you. She still thinks you dead.
[The drawn sword and the hostile tone are nothing. That Isaac thinks that Hector would be so petty as to run to tell Isaac's secret? That offends him. It's a confirmation that he is best off keeping his distance.]
Where were you? Off at your castle?
[That was the right direction, and the right level of melodrama....]
[There's no sweeping sense of relief, hearing this; when he finally lowers his blade, his breath is still tight in his lungs and there's a readiness to his stance, as if something might jump out from the trees at any moment. They fucked here, only a few feet away, the air between them thrumming with another memory he's tired of keeping alive, giving so much of his power to. A lot has changed and hasn't changed at all in a week's time.
He's not sure what he expected when they banded together and set off, for Julia's sake - and in a way, he's grateful he's had the chance to see more of Hector, enough to suppose that he's better off breaking the last of this monstrous codependency and living alone but free than keeping the company of a man intent on controlling him, softening his edges, robbing him of his choice to end his life if and when he sees fit. He has survived without Hector before, for years, and he would again.
There's little left to say that he's willing to talk about. It has always been a challenge, the act of willingly exposing some emotion other than rage, let alone letting himself feel it. And now a wall has come back up between them that neither may be able to break through again.]
Yes - [a muscle jumps at the corner of his jaw] ...although I'm afraid there is no vacancy.
[He finds himself eager to return to his work, if sleep won't have him.]
Nonetheless, if you are bound to return there, I am coming. You’ll have to make room.
[It won’t happen without a fight; Isaac is worse than a wild horse, bucking at any sort of rein. Hector expects to be attacked, or for Isaac to teleport away and leave Hector to chase after. Hector’s penance, indeed.
He doesn’t draw a weapon, but his stance is open, ready to dodge or summon up a devil to serve him if he needs it.]
How many times have we parted this week, only to find ourselves forced back together? We may as well accept that our destinies are intertwined.
[A sick little laugh bubbles up in his throat.] ...Is that so?
[He was prepared for pushback and channels his fight into generating a portal for himself, his exit plan, willing to bounce around from one location to another ad nauseum to make a point. All the more incentive to invest more time and ambition into devil forging until he gained the means of pushing even further out, far enough to put Hector out of his mind and attempt to fill that gaping void he'd leave behind with something else.]
I escaped one curse already; I have ill need of another. [He declares, unsmiling. The sigil's steady, pulsing glow accentuates his sloping nose, the unyielding sharpness of his jaw.] Perhaps we shall meet again in ten years' time, assuming you haven't managed to drown yourself in the ocean.
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In that darkness, he sees teeth. A steely flash of teeth and blood and a clawed arm thrusting out for his neck, his knife jerking up and down through the air. A log splits in the fire and he snaps back to awareness, flinching and angry, sinking the nails of one hand into Hector's hip and bracing him harder than he needs to.]
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It’s not out of concern for Hector, he’s sure of that. The nails clawing into his hip and leaving beads of blood are proof of that.
Teasing? The playful mood from their kissing is gone beyond recall, evaporated into dark cold of the cave.
Once more, Hector wants to turn and see Isaac’s face. He doesn’t. Isaac wants him bent for mounting like a dog.
He bucks backwards, nudging Issac to action. Hector’s angry with both of them about how this has turned out, but damned if he’s not going to at least date his darker urges now that he’s here.]
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Not real, he insists, fiercely. She was never there, looking up at him with drowning eyes. But it had felt real enough to make his stomach swoop then and now, pushing bile up into his throat.)
He sucks down a breath. He doesn't know when the darkness around him and Hector grew cold, when it became intimately threatening. But there's an understanding that if he doesn't break through this moment pressing in on him, locking him in, it might just quietly break him instead.
Brute force isn't always the answer to everything, but it's often the quickest. And he remembers that neither him nor Hector expect anything less or better of him than for him to bullishly push through whatever wall he's hit. Anger is bigger than fear, because it has to be - and he clings to it as he doubles down and plunges into Hector, into the hot grip of tight, flexing muscle, chasing pleasure with everything he has.]
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Yes, do it! [He grunts. His ass, slick and worked open, is ready, and he's greedy for it now. He can lose his thoughts of Rosaly and his aching heart in the pure animal rushing of blood to his cock.
He braces himself on one arm, muscles flexing with the strain of supporting his weight against Isaac's force, so that he can get a hand between his legs to frantically stroke. There's a steady breathy pant of 'yes'es streaming from his lips.]
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A snap of his hips and he's in to the hilt, metal and swollen flesh and aggressive, iron desire, nails gouging deeper into Hector as he tugs him into the next thrust and the next, panting. He throws his head back, drowning in relief, sense and reason sinking with him. He thinks about fucking Hector brainless until blood slicks them both. Thinks about fucking him inside out and turning him over and laying his hands on him, slotting the webs of his thumbs around his throat and clamping his hands around him again just to feel the wild pulsing of muscles and blood vessels against the pads of his fingers. Relishing in the crazy thrill of toeing the line between here and too far gone while watching the stricken look in Hector's eyes soften as they glass over.
He's an animal. Taking and taking and taking. And Julia - if fate is so cruel as to bring them together again - could preach of the hope she held for everyone, could tell him he still had a human heart beating inside him. But he had seen the way she looked at him when she found him, alone, the year before Rosaly burned. He remembers the shades of hurt and doubt in her eyes, a look that seemed to say there was only so much more she could take of feeling like she was watching something slowly dying.
Not everyone can be saved. Not everyone wants to be.
What he know for sure is that it takes spearing Hector on his cock, hurting him, to come close to feeling alive. Like more than a dead man walking.
Nothing new. But he feels this open a pit in his stomach like it never has before, their ragged panting and the slap of skin on skin growing sharper and louder, scraping his eardrums.
He doesn't realize he has pulled out until he drops back, like the air's been slammed out of his lungs. Blood roars through him, a useless throbbing. His body has never failed him; it's begging for more, even if more is never enough. Even as he feels a deep, sick rage rolling through him and sucks in a breath through his teeth and knows it's over.]
Fuck! [He snarls at the wall, scrubbing a hand down his face.]
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Hector is close, so close, and his mind is blessedly empty of everything but the need for release, when Isaac jerks back and away. His hole body twitches with the sudden loss of heat and the emptiness.
For one beat, Hector waits to be re-mounted, but it's not just a momentary readjustment of position. He turns over his shoulder, flushed and panting and wild with need.]
There had better be enemies at our door....
[He growls, because if this is just another one of Isaac's power plays, and he's planning on leaving Hector teetering on the threshold of orgasm, Hector's going to need to murder someone.]
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Shut up!
[His voice tears through the dark, jagged and vicious.
Between Hector's desperation and his own hitting a peak, all of him is pulling apart at the seams. He grinds the heels of his hands into his forehead, into his eyes, until he sees stars, wanting to scream. It's tempting to drive his fist into the wall until his knuckles shatter. But it's as if his whole body has given out on him, consumed with a sense of helplessness as absolute and huge and terrible as the anger shaking his bones.]
Fuck me--! [He hears himself spit out the words like threat. He gulps down another breath through a sharp swooping feeling inside him, searching every part of himself for the man he knows he's supposed to be: the Isaac who would've looked at Hector now, flushed and trembly-weak and begging for cock, and let out a throaty laugh, the laugh of a mad king; the Isaac who fears nothing, looking for trouble before it could find them; the Isaac who could only sneer at the sad shell of a forgemaster he's become and pulp his skull against the rocks, doing them both a favour.]
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He grits his teeth, and forces himself not to take Isaac’s cursing as an invitation. What had Rosaly done for him, when Hector had worked himself into a state of alarm when they’d been together?
Soft, reassuring words, feather-light touches, and a steady presence to draw him out of his own head and back into the light. All things that Hector craves that he imagines Isaac would laugh off.
It’s hard to think with most of his blood still pumping in his cock, but Hector tries. Grounding. Distraction. A physical reminder of his presence that Isaac can’t ignore.
He crawls over to Isaac, who is scrubbing at his face, and reaches out to hook fingers into his collar to drag him down into a kiss. Biting, bruising, filled with the taste of coppery blood.]
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Fuck. Me. [He pushes the words out, grits them out through his teeth, shoving against Hector as if he knows what he's doing. While the past and the present play tug of war for his sanity, pain may be the only thing that makes sense.]
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He pushes further into Isaac's space, claiming his lips again while his hands push Isaac's legs down. He straddles Isaac, returning to the very position Isaac had rejected from the start. His cock, still in Isaac's death grip, prods Isaac's abdomen as Hector positions his ass so he could, if Isaac allows it, sink down and take it all in.]
'm not...fucking you...'til we have a proper bed....
[And on that day, he will have prepared Isaac for him, have worked him open 'til Isaac begged for more. That day will likely never come, but Hector has a vision of it and he's not going to let Isaac compromise it with a rash decision they'll both regret.]
...tell me you want it.... [He pants into Isaac's ear, then bites down on it. Not enough to mark or tear, but certainly enough to force Isaac to feel it, to make him stay within his own skin.]
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The only thing more unexpected than hearing himself ask for - beg for - what he does and nearly convincing himself that he'd throw what's left of his pride and dignity for it, is being refused, and by a man seething with lust. By Hector.
He doesn't know what to do.
Nothing seems like it's really happening. Half-pushed and half-leaning back, he expects for the bottom of this fever dream to drop out and for him to fall through, to fall back into his body. Waking, like he has before, once or twice, to the reality that he isn't alone and there really is a succubus or incubus on him, grinding down on him, feeding off his energy. But the rocks burrowing into his shoulderblades and the goosebumps that chase the chill sweeping across his neck and chest feel real. And, lust or not, he's more wired than he should be for scraping by on a few hours of sleep.
He bristles when Hector mounts him, legs framing his hips. Like the victor. Were this anyone else, he'd have thought about twisting his fist and tearing their dick from the rest of their body, lodging it down their howling throat. And for just a moment, while Isaac stares into the face looming over his, Hector does become someone else, something else, his features flickering so subtly, shifting out of alignment, throwing everything he thinks he knows into question. It's like the spores all over again, filling his throat and lungs and every hollow in his skull.
His hands shift to brace Hector's waist when the man lies on top of him, the magic in Hector's blood and bones vibrating at a keening frequency in harmony with his own. Isaac shivers into him at the sly sting of teeth catching his earlobe, at his voice as it slides, boldly, under all the layers of scar tissue he's built up and pries them loose, lifting them away, wanting and not wanting and twisting his face away. A twitch curls his lip, his muscles tightening like an uncocked spring.
Then comes a knee-jerk burst of power, an effort to heave Hector off him, to flip him onto his back.]
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So Hector lets Isaac shove him back, but he seizes Isaac's wrists and pulls Isaac down on top of him, not letting him retreat from this.]
...fine, like this, then....
[He parts his legs to make room for Isaac's body between his thighs. His nails scrap Isaac's skin where he can get to it around his gauntlets. He glares up at Isaac, face flushed and demanding satisfaction.]
Fuck me like you would if you weren't a coward.
[Hector with either get himself fucked or strangled. Either way, he'll at least find some form of release by Isaac's hands.]
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With a cracked half-scream, he swings his forehead into Hector's, pain splitting into his skull, half-blinded by flashes of light and blood dripping into his eye as he winds back to hit him again. He jerks his hand free from Hector's grasp. His right finds his own cock and he pumps fiercely, a beast in heat, thighs and abdomen flexing and frantic energy popping off the ends of his nerves as his balls pull tighter, tighter. Huffing, he shudders and comes, finally, hot ropes slapping Hector's skin, over chest and face. As if all he is and ever will be is as good as the dirt he walks on. He wrings himself dry, his breath short and rasping and hard. No sense triumph or bitter satisfaction. Only anger boiling black in his veins, all of him shaking with unspent violence.
It crosses his mind to let Abel finish on his behalf. To give Hector more than he ever bargained, driving home his mistake with every brutal, tireless thrust. But he waits for another careless word out of Hector's mouth, as if he needs permission, an excuse.]
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Fuck!
[He kicks and scoots himself back, though not in time to avoid the jets of seed Isaac squeezes out of himself.
That. Fucking. Bastard.
Hector's anger has always burned cold within him, and when he finally reaches the tipping point into fury, he goes quiet and distant.]
We're done.
[A low, unwavering tone. Hector stands while Isaac is still shuddering from orgasm, snatches his discarded pants from the ground beside him, and stalks out of the cave. The fairy flits out after him.]
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The pain in his skull is like an ice pick chipping into it to the rhythm of his heartbeat. A vicious, nagging pain. But it's worth it.
He spits off the side, balefully watching Hector as he turns his back and leaves before he reclaims his cloak and slings it around his shoulders, summoning a glowing magic circle that whisks him away to the edge of the woods closer to the mountain pass. The space to breathe what he needs -- and in the silvery light and cool dew of the early morning, he unleashes his wrath on the first animal to wander into view and is left with more half-raw rabbit than he has the appetite for. But he's in no mood to share, not with Hector or other woodland creatures.]
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The next time Isaac sees his bared chest --if he sees it at all, and Hector isn't planning on stripping for him again-- he will see that he has left no mark on Hector at all.
He finally wades back out of the pool when he looses feeling in his fingers and toes, and he lays out on the rocks to dry as the sun rises.
This is all his own fault. Hector should never have given in to his carnal desires. No more. Hector will take his satisfaction into his own hands, and rely on no on else from now on. It is what he should have done after Rosaly's death. Isaac can find some other warm body, if anyone else can stand to be around him long enough to finish the job.
Hector feels the feeble warmth of the rising sun, but he does not thaw. Future plans...where will he head now. Not back to Julia, except maybe to collect his belongings. That door, he closed the moment he fucked her brother. But having his weapons and supplies would be helpful.
He must find and rejoin Isaac eventually. Hector had let him live, and the lives that Isaac takes from now on will be on Hector's hands as well as his own. Hector has no purpose in life now, except to try to temper Isaac's darker impulses and make sure he does not wreck havoc on the common folk. It is Hector's penance and Isaac's punishment.
When he is dry enough to dress, Hector pulls on his pants and returns to the claim. That Isaac has left is no surprise. Hector gathers up the rest of his possessions and packs them up. The vague awareness he has of Isaac's presence feels like it is not too far off from Hector's chosen path, so he starts off that way.]
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Most of the library's keepers wouldn't give him or anyone else the time of day, absorbed in their own studies or with making copies of yellowing, disintegrating tomes when not preserving the dignity of the space and the priceless collection of books and maps and blueprints it housed through brute force. But after a whole year of the barest of exchanges between them, one demon scholar began sharing a few quotations from the latest philosophical text or work of poetry it was reading. Hell, boy, is not the world beyond these doors, but a door locked from the inside, it had told him, once. It all smacked of pretentious bullshit to Isaac, an annoying waste of time for a kid desperate to get his hands on some books on alchemy and devil forging. But it's only now that Isaac thinks he understands what it meant.
His mind is his own worst enemy. And he's rattled by how little it has taken for his defenses to crumble and for him to feel like a stranger in his own body and trapped in his own head, like he had for years, back when all it would take is a simple touch, a careless few words, to jack fury or panic into him.
That anger is all he has now, keeping him alive and alert and willing him to pay at least some attention to the path Hector's taking. It's not quite as much of a beeline towards him as Isaac suspected -- and he can only wonder what Hector's intentions are, hating that it matters in the least to him.
He might not know what to do with himself, but any thought of joining Hector on the road again has soured. Let him board a vessel and plunge to watery grave. If destiny called from the other side of the world, Isaac is sure he'd find a way across without him.]
imma fudge some travel times here so Isaac doesn't have to wait around for days
Hector takes it at a run, pushing his body more than he has since his quest for revenge. It's a relief to focus on the burn in his muscles, the cadence of his breathing. Unhindered by a traveling companion, other than his winged fairy, he can determine his own grueling pace.
He doesn't take the path that will cross with Isaac's, for now. He wants to do that when he's rested, properly supplied, and most importantly, completely cool-headed. So to Julia's cottage it is.
It is well into night when he reaches her home, but she rouses at the sound of his knock- a pattern they worked out together, to be cautious of her opening a door in a world of vampires and shapeshifters.
Hector's account of the past few days is brief and vague to the point of dishonestly, but Hector still gives Isaac enough respect to honor that wish of his. He makes no mention of another traveling with him, just that he'd been beset by hunters, wounded, and had needed to lead them away before he could return.]
It is safer for both of us for me to leave. I thank you, Julia, for your kindness and hospitality. Be well when I go.
[She sees in his eyes that he won't be persuaded otherwise, so with a sigh, she insists upon at least seeing him fed and rested before he wanders off into the wild unknown. She reheats some stew for Hector's dinner, and they divide up his devils as he eats. Julia is bequeathed Hector's strongest battle type Rasetz for protection, a Crow to keep watch without drawing too much attention, and a chef Pumpkin, in theory to help with cooking and chores, but really because Hector can think of no other use for it. Julia will accept no more fully-forged devils than that, saying the shards she still has will be more than enough.
When Hector sets out at dawn, he does so with his
inventory fullweapons, coin pouch, and enough supplies to actually support him on a journey. He also goes with Julia's resigned blessing, which lifts a weight he had not realized had been burdening him so heavily.Turning back one last time to wave at Julia before she fades from view, Hector then takes a deep breath and reaches out his senses to pinpoint Isaac's direction. It is time for their reunion.]
LOL fucking pumpkin
More of its stonework has crumbled in his absence, though it otherwise has largely remained the same, frayed tapestries and rugs and furnishings slowly rotting away and the few books left on it shelves blackening with mold. But it offers a roof over his head he doesn't care enough to mind sharing with spiders and snakes and the odd, wandering ghost. There's no point putting work into repair and reinforcements on a larger scale when he doesn't imagine staying long. It's just a place to haul in and skin carcasses from the hunt, to eat and rest, and consider his next move as Hector closes in. The world feels smaller and smaller by the hour as he does, and the silence doesn't help. Just magnifies his bleaker inner-narratives in the echo chamber that is his skull, his wariness sharpening as he waits up in a tower for sounds other than the wind whistling through the cracks it finds in wood and stone and glass.
His growing restlessness sees him flexing his magical prowess, daring to break away from existing templates and visual references to create new creatures from his own visualizations instead. It's harder than it has any right to be after the years of practice he's poured into the devil's art; but he knows, as the ancient incantation rolls off his tongue and he gathers his energy into the palms of his hands, drawing one of the lingering spirits from the castle walls to toy with, that his headspace isn't what it should be, what it could be. With Hector more on his mind than he isn't, Isaac ends up giving shape to a screeching, swollen mass of flesh and bone fighting for life. The second struggling, desperate attempt is less abstract in form: a beast-demon that thrashes into being like Abel had in its earliest evolutions, lashing out at him and drawing blood before it bends to his steely will. It's an imperfect being in all regards: small and asymmetrical, patches of its tawny fur missing along its chest and back. While responsive enough to commands, it stares blankly when left on its own, not noticing or recognizing the threat in a spider nearby that rears up on its back legs until it has already been bitten.
Isaac growls, refusing to give either mistake of his a name.
He's always taken failure hard. But he has the sense, even the maturity, to remember that, when it comes to dabbling with magic, setbacks are only temporary and his persistence would be rewarded. There has always been a sense of fairness, that way, when it comes to working with magic. Someday, he's sure he could surpass what was thought possible and impossible. Maybe even coast briney ocean air currents on a devil's back, casting a shadow over vessels slicing through the water below. It's something to look towards, to work towards. A thought he takes to the wooden tub with him where he soaks for a while, scrubbing a film of grime and sweat and blood off his skin, still feeling dirty afterwards. But it's not too long before another thought shoves its way to the forefront of his mind and sticks when he settles into one of the beds.
Sleep never comes, and at dawn he can't stand it anymore, cursing everything under the sun as he throws on the armour and leathers he had only just cleaned and sets out into the woods to meet Hector halfway, sword in hand. His expression darkens, his nerves on edge. That Hector and Julia met last night doesn't need confirming; he knows what he felt. It's the question of whether Hector's word still means anything at all that is begging for an answer, curiosity and suspicion eating him alive.]
You came all this way seeking my sister's company -- why?
[He demands, forgoing a more civil greeting. But at this point, his scathing bluntness should come as no surprise.]
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Hector is dressed in a fresh pair of clothes, a new sash around his waist, looking as put together and aloof as he ever did in the castle.]
I went to collect my things, and to make sure she is well. Julia is compassionate, and leaving her to worry over my fate did not rest well with me.
[He knows what Isaac really wants to know, but in this regression into the colder version of himself, before Rosaly had melted through his walls of ice, he does not offer the information. If Isaac cares to know, he will have to ask it.]
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He lifts his seven bladed sword to point at him with it. Gloved hand squeaking as it tightens around the hilt.]
What did you tell her?
[It's not like Hector to hurt her, not even out of spite for him. But he needs to hear it, needs to search his face for any trace of a lie if and when he says it.]
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Nothing about you. She still thinks you dead.
[The drawn sword and the hostile tone are nothing. That Isaac thinks that Hector would be so petty as to run to tell Isaac's secret? That offends him. It's a confirmation that he is best off keeping his distance.]
Where were you? Off at your castle?
[That was the right direction, and the right level of melodrama....]
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He's not sure what he expected when they banded together and set off, for Julia's sake - and in a way, he's grateful he's had the chance to see more of Hector, enough to suppose that he's better off breaking the last of this monstrous codependency and living alone but free than keeping the company of a man intent on controlling him, softening his edges, robbing him of his choice to end his life if and when he sees fit. He has survived without Hector before, for years, and he would again.
There's little left to say that he's willing to talk about. It has always been a challenge, the act of willingly exposing some emotion other than rage, let alone letting himself feel it. And now a wall has come back up between them that neither may be able to break through again.]
Yes - [a muscle jumps at the corner of his jaw] ...although I'm afraid there is no vacancy.
[He finds himself eager to return to his work, if sleep won't have him.]
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[It won’t happen without a fight; Isaac is worse than a wild horse, bucking at any sort of rein. Hector expects to be attacked, or for Isaac to teleport away and leave Hector to chase after. Hector’s penance, indeed.
He doesn’t draw a weapon, but his stance is open, ready to dodge or summon up a devil to serve him if he needs it.]
How many times have we parted this week, only to find ourselves forced back together? We may as well accept that our destinies are intertwined.
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[He was prepared for pushback and channels his fight into generating a portal for himself, his exit plan, willing to bounce around from one location to another ad nauseum to make a point. All the more incentive to invest more time and ambition into devil forging until he gained the means of pushing even further out, far enough to put Hector out of his mind and attempt to fill that gaping void he'd leave behind with something else.]
I escaped one curse already; I have ill need of another. [He declares, unsmiling. The sigil's steady, pulsing glow accentuates his sloping nose, the unyielding sharpness of his jaw.] Perhaps we shall meet again in ten years' time, assuming you haven't managed to drown yourself in the ocean.
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no real kids for them is probably for the best, lol
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HOW DARE HECTOR HAVE NEEDS OF HIS OWN
HE’S NOT SAYING IT SHOULD totally absolutely BE HIM
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hope this timeskippery is okay -- let me know if you wanted anything changed
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