#Azul Ashengrotto/Floyd Leech | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

thateldribitch · 6 months

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A Red Sky's Interlude

Chapter Three: Chekhov's Molotov

TW: Body Horror, Torture (oops), Murder Bois be Murdering. You've been warned.

Honestly I just post these on tumblr to make the mood boards lol. Here's AO3!

The click of a lock soothes the savage beast. After all, he’ll feed it soon. Azul takes a breath. His heartbeat calms. His eyes skim the water-stained walls with disgust and sharp interest, like he’s looking for the cheapest meat in the butcher shop. That’s what this bastard is, in a way…. Something so unsavory isn’t worth being called his prey.

Though, that doesn’t mean he can’t appreciate Floyd’s predatory grace. He moves like he’s still in water—effortlessly twining through the narrow channels between too-small, too-cramped tables and cheap chairs. But there’s not a soul in sight. Sunshine-olive eyes instinctively dart to the flickering neon signs advertising different beer brands… and linger on one. Azul shakes his head ruefully and taps his cane as he heads towards the bar. He skims the shittily scrawled menu, before he slips into a rickety seat. It creaks. A hand immediately settles against his back.

Floyd looms. He leans against the counter, barring Azul in with an arm. Smack! His palm against the counter finally summons the stumbling bartender from a smoke-filled room. Azul taps his cane against Floyd’s leg. But, his eel remains, slitted eyes never leaving the bastard’s… throat. He’s not going anywhere, is he?

Azul sighs, shelving his palm and glancing at the smog seeping under the shutter door. “How nostalgic.”

“Hm?” The man grunts, hazily blinking at him. Perhaps he’s the namesake for the bar—the squat, ugly building rather resembles its owner.

“Robbie, I assume?” Azul smiles, all caustic charm.

“Who’s askin’?” Robbie glances at Floyd. To his credit, the eel hides his teeth in a thin-lipped smirk.

“Only someone who appreciates high quality cigars,” he chuckles, adjusting his glasses slightly.

“Yeah?” Robbie proudly shoves his stupidly thick tobacco stick back between his yellowed teeth. Thick gray clouds slide like oil down the stubbled rolls of his neck. His jaundiced eyes fall to a serpent’s lid. The thick knots of his knuckles crack, stiffen, crack again. There’s a wince to his dry lips.

Azul’s only known Robbie for a few moments, but he knows him. He’s arthritic, an addict, and loves money. The fact he flaunts cigars means he likes the status symbol, but can’t afford the lifestyle. Yet he can’t seem to see the ashes he drowns in trap him in the life he lives now. Stupid. Predictable. But even a blind rat can smell money. He subtly shifts so the genuine-gold rings glitter on his tailored gloves. Oh, how this slime of a man clenches his fingers into his knock-off watch….

Actually, it might be genuine… ly stolen. Hm.

“Indeed. Is it….” He pauses, tapping just near his mole. Floyd shifts. Robbie leans back, greasing a cloth over his disgusting hands. “Guhrka, perhaps?”

“Ha!” He shakes his head, then takes a proud puff. “ Ideales . Limited Cohiba. Premium Cuban.”

Almost $17,000 a box. Azul’s eyes appraise the man, and the bastard appraises him in kind. But, a pawnbroker can’t match the eyes of a jeweler. His pupils shift to a caecilian slit. A trick of the light, surely. Robbie sees, he gets greedy, and he forgets. Too stupid to even smell blood in the water. But, he’s either good at something, or he’s in debt with a lot of people. Pouring every extra cent into his expensive little sin. And who knows what he’s done to accomplish that. Not that Azul cares about that part….

But the bastard certainly wouldn’t have pissed him off if he hadn’t kept feeding his bad habit with a worse scheme.

“Oh, I never managed to find one of those,” he taps his chin. Floyd shifts to squat next to him. His chest still brushes the bar top. Azul brushes a hand over his head. “Hm. Would you give me one for the price of another box?”

Robbie swallows, eyes never leaving the more obvious threat. “I uh. Just one?”

“It’s the experience of it, isn’t it?” His grin is enough to poison an emperor. “Having something no one else can have?”

Eyes filling with gold-glitter greed, he immediately nods. His eyes leave Floyd for a moment… then dart back. “Er… anything for your friend?”

“Got anything with Everclear?” Floyd finally pipes up.

“On the house!”

“Bring the whole bottle,” Floyd waves him off, but curls like a spring as Robbie scurries away. Azul settles a hand against the back of his neck, and settles to thumb at those teal baby hairs. His eel shifts closer. He ruffles his fingers through his hair in the wild pattern that he likes, before smoothing it down. Floyd exhales, and nods.

There’s a huff-puff-wheeze from the back room. In eerie unison, the two mermen lock on to the re-emerging Robbie. If the man’s unnerved, he forgets the moment Azul starts to shift through his wallet. The cigar, displayed on a napkin-clad plate, totters into view. “Rob—may I call you Rob?” The man might well agree to anything, with as hypnotized as he is by the hundreds flicking through gloved fingers. “I’ll be taking one of your signs as well. Which one is your best?”

“Uh—the Pink Fairy Absinthe is an antique—?”

“Floyd, grab that one and whatever else you want.”

Rob laughs nervously, but nods. He’s sweating bullets as he stares at the bills, trying to count the green blurs flying through Azul’s fingers. He pauses, stares with his thumb over far too few bills. At least the man’s smart enough to pounce to offer the cigarette to him. It’s mahogany brown-red, rich with expensive tobacco and crisped by a slightly crinkled black and gold tag. But those blue eyes keep boring through him. The Everclear bottle miraculously smacks down on the counter as well.

Anything to taste riches, hm? Not an ounce of pride once there are dollars in his eyes. Azul plops his jaw open, curling a fist under his chin expectantly. Mesmerized, Robert delicately places the cigar in his mouth. He’s so enamored with his proximity to youthful wealth that he doesn’t notice Floyd taking the signs down with brutal efficiency. Knowing him, even the screws are probably fully intact….

He closes his teeth around the smokey-flavored paper, cocking his head away from Rob’s plastic-white Bic lighter. Jaundiced eyes fixate on the way he cocks his cigar at an elegant angle, meeting the elaborate end of a gilded coral lighter. The warm light barely catches the glint of Floyd darting his tongue over his teeth—there and gone. Their eyes lock. He puffs a cloud into those sunshine-yellow pools. Floyd’s nostrils flare; his pupils dilate.

“So, uh—about the money?” Rob reaches forward, drawn by the siren stack of bills. His jaw hangs down. Ah, so he is good at counting.

That’s all he’ll ever be good for.

Floyd snaps forward. Rob gurgles out a blood-choked scream, staggering back into the unfortunately cheap glass shelves. Crash! Shards coat the palm that bore his weight. Yet he still clutches his mouth, writhing his oil-slick ham legs against the filthy floor as if it’ll stop the red waterfall flowing down. Those pig-like eyes bug out as his tongue splats against the ground next to him.

“Fuck, ah fuck—that wath so grossth—” Floyd sputters pink-tinged spittle against the counter.

“There’s some in your teeth,” Azul exasperatedly pokes his chin off the shoulder of his ‘business’ suit.

“Uuuuuuugh,” Floyd lets himself be pushed away by a single fingertip. Oh, the impulses of this terrifying eel of his. Though, he has to admit the results are rather satisfying. Robbie is far too panicked to even move. The ‘freeze’ part of the instinctive human reactions to danger etches into his horrified features. He’s just lying there , suffering and panicking and unsure of what to do.

Perfect .

Azul just flashes his teeth in a wide, near deranged smirk. Meanwhile, Floyd peels the aluminum with his teeth, scraping a few grisly chunks off the points before spitting the cap off and to the side. He spits shrapnel at the writhe-wailing bartender—and in one, smooth motion, dives over the counter with the Everclear. Azul settles into the rickety seat, flicking ash onto the dismembered tongue as Floyd looks up at him expectantly.

“Do what you like. Just make it slow.”

“Hot.”Floyd drops to his heels, and, with one hand, yanks Robbie up to face him. Gravity causes thick, black-red rivers to gush from the stumped remains of his tongue. He kicks and wetly squeals. Floyd smashes the Everclear over his knee. Thick glass shards scatter, sliding into paper-thin skin, digging deeper with each, pained writhe. A pitched-hoarse giggle masks a gargle-scream.

“So you really thought ya could give away our shrimp?” His single, gold eye burns through the man’s rotten soul. Slowly, he drags him up. Red leaks down the sides of his head, as the hairs strain against the weight of his whale-bloat gut. Up and up. Just far enough that he can jam a piece of glass into the vulnerable joint of his knee. “How much did you get from that Lionfish, huh?”

The glass jerks out. Dives back into the skin with a far more vicious strike. “One cigar?” He drives the shard deeper. Something severs. His leg falls limp. “Two?” Deeper–it splinters before it can pierce through to the other side. Floyd pouts, drops him, and stands. “Ugh. Boring.”

His foot cracks down on Robbie’s other knee, shattering it with the sheer force of the stomp. Limp in a pool of his own blood, he only knows peace for a moment before Floyd jolts a spell through his system. He chokes awake, eyes wide with fear.

“Nuh uh.” That sharp, wild grin pounces back down. “We’re done when I say we’re done.” Pausing, he cocks his head to the side, then scratches his cheek. “Or Azul does.”

“You’re fine,” he chuckles as he leans over the bartop, waving his hand like a king giving some royal decree. Floyd’s eyes lurch back, like one predator snapping to acknowledge another… and melts as Azul pets his head. “Don’t mind me. I’m just enjoying the show.”

A pleased hum accentuate’s Floyd’s pleased blush, unsettling over his sadistic grin. He whips around. Crunch . His fist drives into his nose. And he just. Keeps. Swinging. It looks barbaric, wailing on a worm barely able to moan in pain. But it’s precise. Ribs! Pelvis– femur! Humerus , carpals. Fingers . He snaps those like wooden sticks, each joint splintered like a crippled lightning bolt. At least twice more, Floyd must use the spell to keep. The bastard. Awake.

Abruptly, he stops. Elegantly, he dives back up to place a blood-stained watch over Azul’s waiting wrist. He nips his finger, grins as it flicks him, and then dives back down. It’s one, smooth motion—a predatory, primal swoop. As if he were one with the air as he was with the water. A ribbon of motion. Pure, primal grace. And so sweet. He rolls his eyes and smiles, admiring the brass against his cuff. It’s an antique. What a find.

And what a cheapass.

“This was an Oro Blanco, by the way,” Azul flicks the cigar with the hastily-wrapped black label on to the sputter-screaming man. An ember sparks on his clothes, ignites into wildfire along the pools of strategically soaked skin. The Everclear burns with frightening speed. The smell of cooked flesh fills the area, as Robbie writhes and thrashes and gargles. But he looks on, glasses shining unimpressed before the flames.

“Disgusting old man,” he drives the heavy cane tip into Robbie’s sternum. Drives hard enough to feel the bone splinter. The grease-stained wife-beater drowns in strangled chunks of boiling blood. But the thick clots can’t escape the throat fast enough. Unable to scream as he drowns in his own lifeblood, Robbie feels his skin crack from the heat. Pink muscle bursts from seared fissures. He can smell himself cooking. Perhaps it’s the panic, perhaps it’s the pain, but he begins to contort wildly, uncontrollably. A body’s final twitch of life before—

Floyd waves his pen. Robbie chokes as he’s robbed of the chance to die. Because he’s not allowed to leave so easily. Oh, they won’t stick around long…. But they’ll make him suffer long enough to make sure his tinderbox bar will be his coffin.

“They’ll never know, you know,” Azul removes his glasses to look Robbie in the boiling pits where his eyes once sang their silent screams. “They’ll think you drank the alcohol equivalent to gasoline, stumbled into your bar, and bit your tongue off. And then the rubble crushed you. The. End.”

No one will bother to look further. No one will avenge him. He’ll die in the smoke he once craved. The realization tears another gargling wail from the man…. But blue eyes only glitter with hellfire. “You underestimate pretty things, don’t you, Rob? That’s why you think they’re easy money….”

“You are pretty small, though,” Floyd plops his chin on Azul’s shoulder. “Like this, anyway.” His hands hook around his waist, dragging him closer. He doesn’t care about the slow gasps in the wheezing cries. He doesn’t like the smell, though. Doesn’t like the heat. He all but drags Azul off the chair, away from the fire.

He just dangles, plopping his head back with a hum. “I’m still not our smallest.”

Not anymore.

Floyd hums back at him, drumming his fingers against Azul’s stomach. He drags him up to flip him around and bury him in his chest. Compliantly, he wraps his legs around his lover’s middle, letting himself be carried off into the night. By the way Floyd hunches around him further, he knows he’s pleased by the gesture….

Possessive and protective in one.

On their way out, Azul flicks his pen three times. Once to clean the blood from their outfits; once to remove their tracks; and a final flick makes Robbie gasp in one more lungful of smoke. And with that, he can contently settle into his lover’s neck. He nudges his nose against the old imprint of his teeth against Floyd’s steady pulse.

“I’m assuming you teleported those signs home?” He drapes his arms gracefully over broad shoulders.

“Mhm.” Floyd drags his cheek across his like a pleased cat. “Gonna give that pink one to Shrimpy.”

“Cute,” he hums. Content silence spirals between them. People bolt past. Screams ring out of ‘fire, fire!!’ Smoke blocks out the moon. But no one pays any mind to the sweet couple doting on each other. Believe it or not, humans tend to look away from one lover being whisked away in the other’s arms. And it’s dark.Their more aquatic features are hidden by the cover of night.

“You think you can breathe underwater like this?” Floyd’s voice shatters his schemes, makes him focus on the rare, sheepish tint to the question.

“Oh? And why, pray tell, are you asking that, Dear?” He purrs.

“...You’re really small like this,” he mumbles. He squeezes Azul closer, fingers kneading at the small of his back. “Just. You’re usually bigger. Y’know?”

“Mm. I suppose I probably can—”

That’s all the encouragement Floyd needs.

Splash!

The last thing he thinks he hears is some smug little giggle about hogging him. Something about Jade. Revenge. Petty brotherly squabbles. But then sharp teeth skim over his lips, water bubbles around them, and his thoughts slip away in the slide of Floyd’s tongue against his. There’s no need to worry, after all….

He knows both of his other mates are fine.

They’re together, after all.

Some people were probably like "But where's Jade?!"

Oh we'll answer that eventually, don't you worry.

#Psychological Horror #Body Horror #Dark Themes--but mostly implied somehow #Oh yeah we're up to torture now (oops)#Floyd/Azul #Azul Ashengrotto/Floyd Leech #Azul Ashengrotto/Reader #Floyd Leech/Reader

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