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imagine-darksiders · 2 years

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The Human Influence.

Samael X Reader.

This is a 10,000 word continuation from this little ask I received a while ago.

Summary: Lilith brings her Prince a 'gift,' all trussed up in a silver chain and collar. To her credit, if anyone were to ask her if she thought Samael had a soft spot, she would never in a million eons dream that the answer might be 'yes.' Unfortunately for the demon queen, Samael's little 'soft spot' just so happens to be attached to the chain she grasps in her sleek, black claws.

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Samael won’t even vaguely pretend that he’s pleased to see Lilith when she comes strutting with a purpose through the doors to his throne room, her pretty, painted lips black as night and twisted into that self-assured grin he so detests.

The demon prince’s cragged chin sits perched upon his knuckles as he lounges inattentively in the seat of his throne, tracing Lilith’s sauntered path towards him over the black, basalt floor.

Neither of them bothers to pretend they’re especially pleased to see the other, even if it has been several months since Lilith set foot in Shadow’s Edge. She, however, puts in just slightly more effort than Samael, lifting her lips into a sultry smile when she catches him looking her way.

Just as he begins to wonder what kind of favour she might try to curry from him today, something glints in the light cast by the moat of lava that surrounds the room, and he drops his gaze slightly to find a silver chain clutched between his mistress’s talons.

Thick and cumbersome, it disappears behind her inverted wings, pulled ever so taut, doubtlessly locked fast around the neck of her latest little plaything.

Heaving a great sigh through his nostrils, the prince casts a bored glance between Lilith’s coiled horns in an idle attempt to catch a glimpse of the unfortunate creature that’s stumbling along in tow.

If he weren’t such an expert in maintaining his impenetrable countenance, he might have lurched forwards in his seat and crushed the armrests beneath his claws at what, or rather who he spies at the end of his mistress’s chain.

As it is, Samael’s only outward reaction is in the barest twitch of his pointed tail and the quirk of a scaly brow.

Inwardly however, a spark ignites.

‘She didn’t,’ he seethes to himself as an ugly, howling rage begins to stir in his belly, whipped up like flames in the wind, ‘Not this human… Any human but-…’

You.

His little storyteller…

It can’t be you. Not so soon after the Horsemen took you back from him the first time.

Questions fly around his skull like rapid, biting gnats. It’s hardly been a full Earth month since you were here last. He’s been keeping close tabs on your movements, not to mention the Four have barely let you out of their sight for a moment – How could Lilith have sunk her claws into you!?

Mistaking the subtle shift of his attention as a show of interest, the demoness’s lips carve upwards into a sharper smile as she blows a lustful breath between her fangs, prowling to a halt at the foot of Samael’s throne with her hips cocked.

“My Lord,” she all but purrs, dipping into a low bow and very deliberately exposing more of her chest than Samael finds either tasteful or necessary, “It has been far too long~.”

Alluring, golden eyes flick up to peer at him through her lashes, yet her smile wavers ever so slightly when she finds that his attention is fixed elsewhere.

He can’t tear his eyes from your face.

Samael’s nostrils flare wide to inhale the tangy scent of iron on the air. He’d know that smell a mile off. After all, he’s well acquainted with blood. It rises above the chamber’s usual aroma of brimstone and dank moisture, with a source that his well-trained nose can trace directly back to you.

Lilith, it would seem, hasn’t brought you to him unscathed.

Even the Prince of Hell himself is taken aback as the anger churning in his guts starts to boil, bubbling up from his stomach like putrid smoke and rising to fill the crevices of his chest.

A trickle of scarlet blood runs a track from your swollen, purpling nose down over quivering lips to gather at the bottom of your chin, where it drips steadily to the ground by your feet with soft, little splats that permeate the silence sitting like a smog between you.

One of your captivating eyes has swelled shut behind a dark bruise, and from your other eye – the one he tries and fails to meet – streams a veritable river of tears, cutting a path through the dirt on your cheek and mingling with the blood in the dip of your chin.

Like an ancient building falling to ruin, Samael’s unshakable composure slowly starts to crumble. Lowering his fearsome, yellow eyes to your neck, he locks his sights on the metal collar that Lilith must have fastened tightly around your throat, causing every breath to leave you in tiny, pitiable wheezes.

The delicate skin below it has been rubbed red and raw…

Inhaling sharply through his nose, Samael barely manages to compose himself, ducking his head and attempting to catch your eye again. And yet, your gaze slides away from his, fixing itself resolutely on the ground below your bare feet.

Lilith must have snatched you away in the dead of night, if the white, cotton sleepshirt hanging from your frame is any indication.

She stole you when you were at your most vulnerable…

Coward.

Easing his clenched jaws apart, the prince aims a poisonous glare over at his queen, his lips curling down at their corners. “Lilith,” he utters, his voice like tar moving under the earth, low and dangerous, “What… is the meaning of-?”

“- A gift, my Lord,” she interrupts smoothly, proud as a cat with a dove in its jaws, “A present, in part, to…. apologise for the time I’ve spent absent from your side…”

Frankly, he muses, her absence in itself has been gift enough.

Twitching her head sideways to peer over her shoulder at you, Lilith’s expression suddenly contorts into a snarl that mars her attractive features as she gives the end of your chain a jarring, vicious yank.

Samael’s spine snaps straight as you’re wrenched forwards by the neck with a strangled croak, collapsing onto your knees and throwing your trembling hands up to claw feebly at the collar, but the hateful piece of silver has been cinched so tightly around your throat, you can’t even squeeze your fingertips beneath it to relieve some of the pressure.

Curling his enormous hand into a fist, Samael raises his chin and stares down at you, his burning, fire-laden stare aflame with anticipation.

As much as he dreads the thought, he half expects a groan of pleasure to tumble from your lips.

Lilith’s… obscene influence is as powerful as it is repulsive. It’s an ancient, inherent magic that can pervert the mind of even the most pious angel and turn them into just another of the demoness’s depraved and lustful thralls.

She’s tainted the sanity of far more powerful souls than yours, through no effort at all on her part. And yet…

And yet, to the prince’s astonishment – and surprisingly, his relief - there are no needy moans, no adoring looks at his mistress, no grasping hands that stretch out across the space between you and her skin as if you couldn’t possibly live for another second without feeling her scales roll beneath your fingertips.

All Samael can see in your eye is a bone deep terror, all he can hear from your lips are quiet, wheezing breaths. Your hands are still your own, still clutching and scrabbling at the collar locked around your throat.

As twisted as it seems, he’s glad to see your terror, but… How are you still in your right mind?

“Bow before your betters, Ape!” Lilith spits, hauling on the chain once more so that you’re yanked forwards, thrown off balance and landing harshly on your hands and knees beside her with a strangled sob, “Or else I shall feed your legs to the Hell hounds!”

Now, Samael is the furthest thing from a saint. His cruelty, depravity and occasional grabs for power might be considered by many to be on par with Lilith’s own, craven deeds.

He’s a Prince of Hell, after all. The enemies he’s slain could fill all the rivers of Eden with their blood.

But… you’re not one of Samael’s enemies…

You’re not even a political target, despite your affiliation with the Four Horsemen.

You’re just…

You’re you.

For what you’ve had to endure, during the Apocalypse and your journey alongside the Horseman, Death, to bring your species back from extinction, for being the foremost intermediary between Humanity and the rest of Creation, you’re worthy of respect. Not… this.

Seeing his little storyteller bloodied and broken, bound on your knees in front of him doesn’t stir anything in the demon except a… a heaviness in his chest. He’s never once given his cold, ancient heart much consideration, but he certainly notices it now when it gives a sudden and unexpected twist.

He can only think to attribute such a sensation to the rage swelling behind his ribs.

Fire ignites beneath his scales and burns a path through his veins until he’s contemplating simply tearing Lilith to pieces for laying her vile claws on you. But… that would be showing his hand…

And Samael hasn’t been on the throne this long by showing his hand…

If Lilith catches the slightest whiff of a weakness in him, she’ll try to exploit that weakness to her own advantage.

She could kill you if she thought for a moment that your death would get to him.

As much as he’s loathe to admit it, it would.

Unfortunately for her, Samael was always better at playing high-stakes games than she ever was…

Plastering a sultry grin on her lips, she watches as her Prince leans himself forwards in the throne, balancing his chin atop steepled fingertips.

She must think him a fool…

You were never intended to be a gift for him.

This isn’t her attempting to win her way between his sheets after several months spent away from his fortress.

All this is, is Lilith drawing the Four Horsemen right to his doorstep.

When he brought you here the first time and the Horsemen arrived to rescue you, the only reason he came out unscathed was because you yourself were unscathed. Unharmed. Untouched. He’d kept his word to you, and never once laid a finger on you in malice.

You’d even vouched for him when War exploded into his all-powerful Chaos Form and charged hell-for-leather at the demon.

“War! Don’t!” you’d pleaded shrilly, hurling yourself between the charging behemoth and a bemused Samael, “He didn’t hurt me! Look at me! I’m fine! Please, just… just take me home…”

You knew the demon wielded powers that could easily match those of the Horsemen, and you weren’t willing to risk the safety of your friends.

Samael had been counting on your intervention. Without it, he’s sure his fortress wouldn’t have been left standing in once piece after an all-out battle between himself and the Four.

But if the Horsemen were to turn up now to find you in this state…? And they surely will, because Death won’t neglect to investigate the prince’s involvement for a second time.

Well… Samael is sure to come out of it losing something, even if not his life.

The tenuous reinstatement of peace between Hell and the other realms would no doubt be ripped up.

The Horsemen would declare war on him in your name. You’re one of theirs, after all.

And Lilith knows that.

“Let me see if I understand your intentions here,” Samael rumbles, planting his massive palms on each of the throne’s armrests and curling his black claws into the stone, “You have brought me.. this human…“

He has to bite his tongue before he almost says your name, though Lilith gives no indication that she’s noticed the near miss.

Sweat has begun to bead between her scales, and the stench of it drifts into his nose.

She’s nervous.

“Not just any human,” she rushes to assure him, twisting her fist into the chain and hauling you -hacking and spluttering – back up onto your feet, “Allow me to introduce you to the little pest that belongs to those treacherous Horsemen.”

Samael’s fangs grind together as she extends a sleek, ebony claw and slides its point beneath your chin, pushing your head back, and for the first time since she brought you before him, your eyes finally lock with his.

He almost wishes they hadn’t.

Samael must favour you more than he assumed, because the look you’re sending him empties the fury in his chest until it merely feels hollow and cold.

Even with one eye wedged shut and blood painting your lips crimson, he can easily make out the betrayal pinching your expression. It’s an expression he’s well-accustomed to.

But on you, it’s hard to look at. Predominantly because there was a moment, however briefly, where you seemed to trust him, if only a little – which was a damn sight more than anyone ever has before.

It wasn’t… an unwelcome feeling, to have someone believe him at his word. Not even his own troops would trust him. Lilith – the very demoness who used to share his bed – knows better than to trust him. And, yes, while it was terribly naïve of you, Samael had ended up proving you right, in some small way.

You trusted him when he said he wouldn’t hurt you, and he hadn’t.

Until now, evidently.

He can understand why he’s getting this look from you now.

He once swore you’d never come to harm within his walls, not by his hand nor any of his ilk’s.

Of course, it would be Lilith who shattered what fragile and hesitant faith you’ve granted him. In your eyes, by mere affiliation, Samael is responsible for his former mistress’s actions.

“You’ve brought the Horsemen’s human right to my doorstep?” he growls heavily, pushing himself up onto his taloned feet.

His chest gives an unexpected twinge when you take a step back, though he’ll admit it’s gratifying to see the confidence drain from Lilith’s face as he rises to his full, imposing height.

“And what do you suppose they’ll do, Lilith,” he adds, “When they find their precious friend in this condition, hm?”

A heavy, thundering step carries him down the stone staircase towards her.

The demoness’s forked tongue darts out to moisten her lips. She matches his advancement with a backwards step that brings her up alongside you. “This,” she starts apprehensively, “This is your chance… to take revenge on-!”

“-Revenge!?” Samael’s thunderclap of an interruption stifles the last remnants of cockiness in her tone and she hastily retreats as he draws closer, letting a few links of the chain slip through her slender fingers.

As soon as it goes slack, you take the opportunity to stagger sideways, putting as much distance between yourself and the two, massive demons as the chain will allow, your wary eye affixed on Samael, as if he’s the greater threat.

“And what offence have the Horsemen cause me that would warrant revenge?” the demon prince demands, endeavouring to keep his gaze trained on Lilith.

Her slitted pupils shrink as badly concealed irritation flashes across her face and her lips twitch with the beginnings of a snarl. It must have occurred to her, at last, that she isn’t fooling anyone.

This was never about Samael’s tenuous alliance with the Horsemen. It’s only ever been about Lilith, as always. Once again, her desire for vengeance for what the Four did to her Nephilim children has superseded her common sense.

Even thousands of years after the massacre at Eden, she still seeks retribution.

She always has been a master of manipulation - Pit the Horsemen against the Prince of Darkness, and no matter which of them emerges the victor, it’s Lilith who ends up reaping the spoils.

If Samael succeeds, she’ll have finally had her revenge on the Horsemen, but if the Four succeed, she’ll be free to move in and take the prince’s throne.

She certainly knows how to play the game.

It’s just unfortunate for her that he’s been playing it a whole Hell of a lot longer, and he always has so hated to lose.

Her first mistake was taking him for a fool.

Her second, and far more grievous, was taking you at all.

She’ll face retribution, for that he’ll make certain, though her punishment won’t necessarily be for the reason she expects.

Lilith’s mouth twists. He can already hear the venomous words curdling on her tongue, no doubt readying a jab at his cowardice for being unwilling to face the Horsemen’s wrath. She never gets the chance to voice whatever cruel sentiment rises behind her gorge.

Without warning, Samael’s hand snaps out, his fingers curled over and aimed straight at his former mistress. Before she can even utter a squawk of alarm, a dark, festering tendril of magic slithers into existence, ripped from between the fabrics of space itself and sent to coil around her neck like a serpent, crushing in on her throat with a pressure that only increases with every flex of Samael’s fingers.

At once, and as he’d hoped, Lilith drops your chain to throw her hands up and scrabble uselessly at the magic strangling her. But magic, by nature, is intangible. Her claws can’t make purchase.

“What say you, Lilith?” he growls, a vindictive smirk revealing two rows of gleaming, wicked fangs, “Is this still as gratifying as you remember?”

The demoness’s mouth hangs agape as she collapses heavily onto her knees. ‘There,’ he muses, letting a wave of sick satisfaction roll over him, ‘At last.’

Poetic justice if he’s ever seen it.

The feeblest sound twitches his ear, and he stills, flicking his gaze down to the human in their midst.

A single, undamaged eye shines back up at him, sparkling in the firelight that glints off the tears rolling down sodden cheeks. In a lone blink, Samael’s dark magic falters and the snarl on his lips withers as he studies your face.

You’re still crying… A sight that should have gladdened and satisfied him only renders the demon unpleasantly hollow. Perturbed, Samael tries to shake off the unexpected weight of your distress piling up on his shoulders… He soon finds, however, that he can’t.

Lilith’s wheezing gargle that sounds a little too much laughter snaps his attention back onto her and he growls, his fingers quivering with the pressure of closing the magic coil even more firmly around her throat to cut off any other, sinful sound she tries to make.

Sudden movement to his right draws his scorching glare down to the spot you’d been hunching in mere seconds ago, only to find it empty.

Inverted, leathery wings stiffen as he whips his gaze up and finds you stumbling away from him as fast as your wobbly legs can carry you, heading in a backwards run for the exit of his throne room to the corridors beyond. The silver chain rattles along in your wake.

It’s only by a fraction... just a fraction… but Samael’s wild and wrathful gaze starts to soften.

Heaving a sigh, he turns his focus back to Lilith once more.

She’s still on her knees, still choking on the magic locked tight around her throat, but her eyes are fixed coldly on the prince’s, her pupils narrowed to thin, catlike slits.

He knows then that she saw it. She saw the malice fade from his snarl as he looked at you…

Bristling, Samael peels his lips back and bares his teeth down at her. He can tell she’s trying to do the same, throwing as much hatred into her glare as she can, despite the agony that no longer seems to bring her any semblance of sick pleasure.

Right now though, he has more important matters to attend to.

“Begone from my sight,” he hisses. And with a final, dismissive flick of his wrist, he disperses the band around her neck.

Lilith’s gasp is loud enough to echo through the cavernous chamber.

Crumpling forwards onto her hands and knees – just as you had only moments ago – she greedily sucks down several lungfuls of air as Samael sweeps past her, his nostrils flaring, hoping he’ll catch your scent before you can run too far.

He barely makes it to the entrance before a cold, breathless chuckle reaches his ears.

“Oh~” she rasps in a haggard voice, “Oh, isn’t that precious…..”

Like a dark moonrise, Lilith picks her head up and spins it over a shoulder, glaring maniacally after his retreating back.

Samael doesn’t linger to hear what else she has to say, but the fortress rings with the shrillness of her cackles, her voice chasing his shadow as he in turn follows after the trail of blood droplets you’ve left to seep into the cracks of the basalt floor.

“The Horsemen will hear of this, my love! They will know! Who would have guessed that a human will be your doom!?”

-----

If nothing else, at least the stench of blood is easy enough to track.

Samael is not the kind of demon to hurry, but he’s well aware that his fellow demonic hordes can sniff out a wounded human from a mile away. So, if his thundering footsteps fall a little more hastily that usual… well, that’s his business.

For someone so injured, you’ve made good ground.

Unrelenting in his pursuit, the prince follows your scent up a winding, spiralling staircase and along a vast corridor all the way to a room that had seen much use just last month.

“Ah,” he muses aloud. Of course, it would make sense you’d come back here.

He finds himself standing outside the doors to your old prison.

The bed chambers he’d kept you in after he stole you from Earth.

His fortress is large and labyrinthian. It’s likely you fled along the only path you could recognise.

The moment he ducks his horns through the entrance and steps into the dimly lit room, he’s struck by an acrid concoction of blood and terror.

The bed to his left sits innocuous and innocent, perfectly unassuming.

But he’s the one who had it put there, so he knows of the small space between the springs and the floor, just enough of a gap for a human to squeeze themselves into, should they be so inclined.

Turning towards it, he carefully lowers himself onto a knee, breathing a sigh as he reaches for the silken, burgundy sheets that hang over the side and drape all the way to the ground.

“I wish I could tell you I’m not glad to see you again so soon, little one,” he rumbles, pinching the sheets between his thumb and forefinger and raising them slowly off the ground, “But in truth, I’ve been hoping our paths would cross again, though perhaps not under these circumstances…”

Stooping low, his burning gaze illuminates the dark, dusty space between the mattress and the ground, and there, in the shadows, he finds you.

“There you are…”

Curled into a tiny ball, you peer up at the demon’s colossal face, your pretty eyes blown wide with horror. That wretched, silver chain is still digging like teeth into your neck, rendering each breath that passes your lips small and lacking.

The prince’s browbones dip into a frown. “Come here…” he utters, neither commanding, nor passive. Just a request.

Yet still, you flinch at it despite its gentleness.

The smell of liquid iron – once so tantalising – now itches at the insides of his nostrils. You’re still bleeding freely, but…

That isn’t all that troubles Samael.

He doesn’t know how long Lilith has held you, and you haven’t yet said a single word to him.

He doesn’t like this silence, not from you.

A sudden urgency strikes him in the chest, though he mistakes it for impatience, and he emits a low growl from his throat, a sound of frustration, not anger.

Without giving you a moment to prepare, he promptly slides one, enormous paw beneath the bed frame and simply tips the entire thing up onto two of its legs, exposing you completely to his searching glare.

Recoiling in shock, you immediately heave yourself off your stomach and try to get your feet underneath you, only to find the escape attempt thwarted by a gigantic, leathery hand that closes swiftly, yet gingerly around your torso, plucking you up off the cold ground.

Samael’s shoulders drain of tension once he has you safe in his clutches. Swallowing back a throaty rumble, he raises you towards his chest and stoops to lower the bed once again, all the while subjecting you to his unflinching scrutiny.

The demon’s lips peel back to reveal his teeth as he takes a closer look at the swelling around your eye and the crookedness of your bleeding nose. At the sight of his fangs lingering dangerously close to your face, you utter a pitiable whimper and clutch frantically at the fingers circling your waist, making a valiant, yet futile attempt to shove them away from your night shirt.

You may as well be trying to bend steel beams.

“Did she touch you?” he suddenly urges, his voice strangely thin and ragged.

He needs to know… He needs to confirm for himself that Lilith hasn’t spoiled his little storyteller’s soul.

Your struggling pauses briefly as you tip your head back and fix him with an incredulous, pinched look, your bruised eyelid twitching as if to say, ‘What the Hell do you think?’

‘Ah…’ he realises, ‘You misunderstand.’

“I can see she has hurt you,” he elaborates with an uncharacteristic patience, lowering his gaze to that intimate place that’s safely hidden behind his fingers, just below your naval, “I need to know if she touched you…”

Perhaps the angle of his stare is a little crass, but at least you catch on swiftly, and begin to squirm unhappily in his grip.

The fact that the fierce shake of your head is delayed does little to ease his flaring temper.

“I need to hear your words, little storyteller,” he murmurs in his low, resonant timbre.

Your good eye grows wide as he raises the forefinger of his free hand and brushes it over the silver collar wound around your neck.

The anticipation screws your face up tight and you flinch back, eye squeezing shut. Yet rather than pain, you’re instead hit with shocking and blessed relief.

At the demon’s touch, the collar comes apart with a jarring snap and the whole thing slides from your throat, rattling down to the ground below your dangling feet.

A gasping breath is sucked down into your lungs too quickly, causing you to lurch forwards over his thumb with a grating cough, lifting your hands up and stroking at the tender, red flesh left behind with trembling fingers.

Without the chain obscuring them, Samael is given an uninterrupted view of the dark band of bruises that have been burned like a brand around the circumference of your throat.

Sparks of white-hot fire burst from his lips as he spits a curse in the demonic tongue.

You’re still breathing raggedly, choking on each grateful sip of the tepid air.

Samael’s tail coils and lashes as he waits for you to catch your breath before his patience runs thin and he bites out, “Do not make me ask you a third time…” Raising you up to dangle in front of his fiery eyes, he makes sure you meet them. “Did she touch you?”

“N-No!” you finally manage to gasp, watery and weak, thumping at your sternum, “Jesus, not… not like that.”

You shrink as best you can within his fingers as a hot breath washes across your face, averting your attention to the ground beneath him when he spins himself about and sinks down on his haunches, lowering you both onto the bed. The demon’s tail drapes across the silken sheets and a tension he hadn’t yet acknowledged drops from his mighty shoulders.

Mortified at the relief your words lend him, he furrows his brows into a scowl, his eyes fixed on your neck.

“You… lied…”

He blinks at your words, flicking his gaze to your face as a sardonic laugh, devoid of humour, bubbles up and falls out of your mouth. “Of course… you did,” you continue, shaking your head, “Prince of Lies, right? Can’t believe I trusted you…”

It’s an expected remark, but it still hits the demon like a hammer to the chest.

He’d worked damn hard to maintain that tiny little flicker of innocence. To have lost it feels like a devastating blow.

A prince of Hell never apologises, not even to the object of his… concern. But he will at least try to explain himself.

“If I had known what she planned,” Samael begins, carefully lowering you down to his bent knee and settling you onto it as gently as a brute like him ever could, keeping his fingers coiled securely around you lest you try to wriggle free, “I would have tried to stop her.”

You snort sceptically, though you soon cut yourself off with a gasp as the motion sends a shock of burning agony shooting through your nose bone. “Ah! Shit,” you hiss, tugging an arm out from the cage of his fingers and dabbing your own underneath your nostrils, feeling about tentatively for fresh blood.

The most abnormal urge nearly seizes him then, an impulse to bend down and brush his lips tenderly against the skin below your broken nose, using his coarse tongue to wash you clean of blood as he might have done when he first begun courting Lilith, aiming to show her that she’d be well-taken care of should she choose him.

That was, of course, before he discovered how much she abhorred a gentle lover.

Which was a pity. For all his strength and power, Samael rather prides himself on his ability and inclination to remain gentle between the sheets.

Still, he can’t imagine you’ll appreciate the gesture of a cleaning, regardless of his benign intentions.

As swiftly as the urge arrives, he’s beaten it back and sealed it behind a wall of stoic self-restraint.

Perhaps he ought to be less concerned with how you’d react to his courtship, and more concerned with why he’s considering courting a human at all.

A conundrum, he decides, that can wait for another day.

Right now, there’s damage to be undone, not least that which afflicts your nose, eye and neck.

Samael would rather not have you despise him, not after he’s had the fleeting taste of what a cordial rapport with you could feel like…

He begrudgingly finds himself shying away from the term ‘friendship’ because demon lords don’t have friends, especially a lord with his grim and destructive duties.

Absently, he lifts his unoccupied hand up and aims to crook a long, warm finger beneath your chin. His movements pause however, once you catch sight of the claw in your peripheral vision and throw your hands up, catching the tip of his approaching finger before it can come anywhere near your throat.

“Don’t!” you snap, aiming for stern but landing on squeaky.

Samael’s pupils expand to soft, round pits of darkness in a sea of gold as he takes in the miracle of your comparatively tiny hands pushing back against just one of his fingers. A wayward rumble sputters to life in his chest and threatens to travel up his throat where you’re sure to hear it, but with a hard swallow, he smothers the sound of contentment before it can gain traction.

That could have been embarrassing.

He presses his finger closer.

“Don’t touch me!” you reiterate with a particularly hard shove that gets you nowhere.

It’s almost a relief to see the spark of fire behind your eyes. There’s still fight in you. Lilith hadn’t managed to snuff that out either.

“You think I mean to hurt you?” he hums curiously.

Quick as a flash, you retort, “I wouldn’t put it past you.”

Hm. He supposes that would be fair… if it were anyone other than yourself.

Scolding eyes flare with dangerous luminosity as they scan across your face, and the damage his former bed mate has left behind like cruel reminders of his failure.

“Contrary to popular belief, I hold very little sway over Lilith’s actions,” he points out, “I did not orchestrate what she’s done to you.”

With a resentful huff, your arms sag and he’s allowed to freely bring his fingertip to your chin, tilting your head back to take some of the pressure off your nose. You’ve been hurt – badly – because of him, which is……

… disquieting.

“Perhaps,” he begins slowly in that bone deep murmur, “You would allow me to amend her transgressions against you.”

Suddenly, you grow very still between his fingers, sitting rigidly as suspicion creeps into your brows. Squinting up at him dubiously, you ask, “Why… would you do that?”

Honesty has never been Samael’s favourite policy, and even now, he avoids answering you directly, instead opting to tell you just a fraction of the truth.

“You were not hers to take,” he growls, the undertones of a possessive prince almost broiling up to the surface. He can see your brow furrow even further as you no doubt try to read his expression in that way humans are so adept at, but Samael won’t allow you to ponder too long.

“Do you know any healers?”

Blinking, you fling your eyebrows up at his unexpected query. “Do I…. I’m sorry? What?”

By way of an explanation, the demon flexes his hand on the bed sheet and flicks his tail, grumbling, “I imagine it won’t surprise you to learn that I’m not well-versed in healing magic… So, if you can think of someone who is, I’ll…”

His statement remains unfinished, hanging like a hushed confession, bright and glaring in the air between you.

He’ll take you where you want to go. All you need to do is ask.

What you can’t figure out is why.

There’s a reason the Horsemen are so wary of Samael, why they were all so agitated when they got you back from him the first time. He’s dangerous. You knew that when he took you, and you still know it now.

What does he have to gain by letting you go?

Peeling your tongue from the roof of your mouth, you decide to ask him as much. “You’re… gonna let me leave?” Though you tremble in his grasp, you manage to jut your chin out at him in what little defiance you dare to show.

Samael has always privately commended you for your courage, or at least, your ability to pretend that you’re brave. He knows you’re afraid of him.

Wise. And yet, ironically, you’re perhaps the sole human in existence who has the least reason to fear him.

His great, horned head dips slightly and you don’t miss the throaty hum that sounds far too much like a purr to suit such a brute.

“If that is your wish,” he breathes across your face, raising the hairs on the back of your neck.

His gargantuan face looms even closer, unblinking, yellow eyes peering into your own with unnerving scrutiny that renders you suddenly and painfully shy, enough that you drop your gaze to the massive expanse of scarred flesh that stretches over his chest.

“I… don’t need a healer,” you mutter, “I just want to go home. Please?”

‘Please.’

How could he refuse you when you continue to be so genial with him, despite your pain, despite being back here in this dreary place? He’s never been granted kindness so freely before - kindness without an ulterior motive hidden behind it like the blade beneath a matador’s cape.

You are… an interesting change to the monotony of his gloomy existence.

It isn’t a change he doesn’t intend to lose.

While he’d much prefer to keep you in his fortress a little longer and let your laughter and stories chase away the lonely shadows, Samael’s pragmatic side reminds him resolutely that it would be far more beneficial in the long run to return you to your true home on Earth before the Horseman come kicking his door down.

The demon’s nostrils widen and close as he draws in a long, lazy breath, inhaling the soft scent of your shampoo that sits just below the smell of blood… You must have bathed only a few hours before Lilith took you...

If home is where you want to be, then that’s where he’ll take you.

“Very well,” he announces, raising his unoccupied hand and turning his palm to face the wall nearby.

He doesn’t need to look at your face to know it’s fallen slack with shock. Apparently, his easy acquiescence wasn’t expected.

Smirking to himself, he concentrates on pulling the threads of the Universe apart at their seams to create a hole – a doorway.

Deep in the depths of his mind, an image of your house emerges – your second house, the one the Horsemen had hurriedly moved you into because they thought the old one was compromised with his knowledge of it.

He latches onto the image fast, feeding powerful and ancient magics into the tips of his fingers, sensing the air around him grow hot and charged with energy.

After another moment of letting his magic build, he finally releases it in a rush.

The portal swirls into life right in front of him. One moment, there was nothing, and the next, a large, glassy surface ripples and hums gently on the opposite side of the room, beyond it, the unmoving image of your den beckons.

The change in you is immediate.

“That- that’s my house!” you exclaim in disbelief, leaning forwards over the demon’s thumb to stare gobsmacked at the view beyond the portal.

Flicking his gaze down at you, Samael grants himself the luxury of a rare, genuine smile.

By the time you twist around in his grasp to peer up at him, his usual frown is back in place.

“Shall we?” he asks.

-----------

“Samael?”

“Mm?”

“How’d you know they moved me here?”

All at once, the demon’s long tail ceases to drag itself back and forth across the plush carpet of your bedroom, plunging everything into a heavy silence.

He doesn’t turn to face you, though he can feel your eyes drilling a hole into the back of his skull.

Samael’s own gaze stays adhered to the little bookcase that sits proudly in the corner of your room, its shelves filled to bursting with dog-eared tomes and well-loved stories you couldn’t part with for all the world.

He should have known you wouldn’t miss such a glaringly obvious detail.

The Horsemen had moved you to a new house a little further out from Haven’s suburbs after they got you back from Shadow’s Edge last month. It was laughably easy for your former captor to track you down again – solely for the purpose of keeping a watchful eye on you, of course…. Though look at the good that had done, in the end…

Still, for once, he doesn’t think it’ll make much difference if you know the truth.

“I’ve been watching you,” he hums casually, swinging his clawed hands behind his back, clasping them together just below the juncture of his wings. As he starts to haul his body around to face you, the tips of his spiralling horns scape the ceiling, forcing him to duck his head a little to spare the plaster.

He’d asked, upon setting foot inside for the first time, why it seemed a place more adequately suited to accommodate a maker than a human. It came as little surprise for him to learn that it was, in fact, makers who built the place, and it had been at your own request that they fashioned a home that could easily fit all manner of guests, regardless of their size or species. All of your usual amenities – your bed, your kitchen, are perfectly suited for human use. But the ceilings, doorways and even the windows are grand enough that even Samael can move almost entirely freely inside without having to bend-double to avoid piercing the ceiling with his horns and leathery wings.

Once he’s turned towards the sound of your voice, he has to suppress a smirk at what he sees.

You’ve just emerged from your adjoining washroom, face clean of blood and dressed in a new set of fluffy, blue sleep clothes. In addition to your fresh ensemble, you’ve slapped a bag of frozen vegetables over your bad eye, apparently to relieve the swelling, or so you claim.

And yet, despite the amusing state of dress, you somehow still find it in you to look downright affronted.

“You’ve been watching me?” you echo accusingly, taking a bold step across the room towards him before you seem to think better of squaring up to a prince of Hell and halting in your tracks, “What, it isn’t bad enough you kidnapped me, now you’re keeping tabs on me too?”

A look of abject horror passes across your visible eye and you hasten to glance at each corner of your room as if you’re going to find something heinous lurking in the shadows. “Oh god, have you bugged the whole place?”

Samael hasn’t heard the term, but he can connect the dots.

“I can assure you,” he says, “I have only caught the occasional glimpse of your home from the outside…”

A half-truth. Those ‘occasional glimpses’ had turned into hours of lounging on his throne whilst gazing through a window into your world as you pottered around it. When the weather was fair, he’d see you in the allotment beside the house.

He found it restful to watch you go about your tasks, digging your trowel into the soil, gasping in delight if a bird were to land on the fence nearby.

You’re his own little taste of nepenthe.

“Is that supposed to make me feel better?” you huff, pulling the bag of vegetables away with a grimace, “God… why are you even… Why are you doing this?”

“Doing what?”

“Watching me!” you wheeze, throwing a hand up in exasperation.

You may have gulped down a couple of painkillers the moment you got back, but straining your voice still twinges your damaged neck. “Why bother!? I’m not a threat to you! Or are you just keeping an eye on me because you plan to steal me again?”

Admittedly, he’s been tempted to do just that several times, but each time, he’s refrained, if not to spare himself from the Horsemen’s wrath, then to keep himself as endeared to you as possible.

“You have nothing to fear from me,” he hums.

“That’s not what I asked.”

You stare him down for several seconds through one, narrowed eye, when all of a sudden, your face breaks apart into a wide yawn that seems to catch you wildly off guard.

Throwing a hand up to cover your gaping mouth from view, you half turn from the demon, fighting off the uninvited wave of fatigue.

With the grace of a predator but not the intent of one, Samael pads towards you over the carpeted floor. “You’re exhausted,” he remarks coolly.

Giving your head a rough shake, you sigh and grumble, “Yeah, well… It’s been a long night…”

His encompassing shadow falls across you, blocking out the light from the fixture overhead. Whipping your head around, you glance up and blanch upon realising he’s crept close enough to snatch you.

However, rather than make a move to sweep you off your feet, Samael only flicks a pointed glance down at your cozy, inviting bed. “You should rest.”

“I’ll rest when you’re gone,” you retort, crossing your arms.

‘Fine,’ he snorts to himself. And that’s when he finally makes a move.

All at once, you’re sent stumbling backwards towards the bed as he drops onto his large hands with a thud and begins to prowl towards you like a wolf stalking a doe.

“Woah! Hey!” you bleat, all bravado vanishing in an instant, “What’re you doing!? Stop that!”

The backs of your knees hit the bed and you tumble backwards onto it, dropping the vegetable bag in the process as you scramble to pull yourself upright again, raising your legs off the ground and retreating towards the headboard.

“Perhaps…” Samael growls – or does he purr? “… I am not yet ready to leave…”

He lays one, colossal paw on top of the mattress.

The bed groans suddenly under his weight as he pulls his upper body onto it and begins to settle down amongst the crumpled duvet. Letting out a rumble of contentment, he folds his arms beneath his chin and slumps heavily onto the mattress, causing the springs below you to buckle and screech in protest while he merely gives you a lazy blink.

The sight is so strikingly familiar, you feel the fear drain out of you with a whoosh.

‘Son of a bitch…’ you gripe to yourself, ‘The overgrown lizard’s just getting comfortable for story time…’

Slowly, your brows ease into a flat, unimpressed frown. “Are you serious? Right now?”

Samael only offers a warm chuff and sticks his nose into your heaped duvet, drawing a massive lungful of your smell into his airways.

‘Ah…. There you are…’ he muses.

It seems you’re the only one to have slept here, which he’s glad for. The sheets don’t stink of another’s flesh, nor can he detect the scent of sex…

The prince’s pleased hum is powerful enough to rattle the bed knobs against the wall.

“Don’t you dare start getting comfortable,” your voice pipes up warningly, and he drags a half-lidded eye up to meet your defiant glare.

“I’d like to go to bed,” you forge on, “And I’m not your prisoner anymore. I don’t have to tell you another story for as long as I live.”

You know this routine of his all too well.

When he’d held you captive, he’d often crawl up onto that gigantic bed and drape himself across it whilst you lay in your little corner beneath the silk sheets with his chin resting near your feet. For hours, he’d laze there like a massive, deadly lion, his tail flicking idly as he listened to the stories you’d spin for him, those you could remember from books you read and retained as a child.

You never thought, for one minute, that he’d want to continue that practice outside of his fortress walls.

“I mean it,” you hiss, shoving your legs under the covers and prodding his heavy arm with your toes, as if you might be able to nudge him off the bed, “Thank you for bringing me back, but I am still in a lot of pain, and I’m not in the mood to entertain you tonight.”

Blinking his luminous eyes at you slowly, Samael disregards your protests and utters, “You never finished your tale of the little monarchs by the creek…”

Something in your expression shifts at that, a mote of surprise soothing the wrinkle of your brows.

“You… you remember the Bridge to Terebithia?”

It was the last story you tried to tell him, recounted from memory on the night the Horsemen finally tore the doors down to save you.

“I remember every one of your stories,” he thrums deeply.

“Well… They’re not mine,” you point out, “I just told you what I could remember of the books I used to read…”

“Will you indulge me, little storyteller?” he presses, cocking his horned head sideways until his cheekbone rests upon a broad, scaly forearm, “The tale intrigued me. I’d like to hear how it ends.”

It’s selfish of him to do this, to stay when you’re in dire need of rest… but once the Horsemen see your injuries and inevitably convince you to tell them what happened to you, he anticipates that he won’t be seeing hide nor hair of you for a long, long time. If Death is sensible, he’ll take you off-world and stash you somewhere even Samael can’t reach you. Maybe to that family of makers you’re always gabbing on about.

This moment here and now may well be the last chance he has to speak with you until you persuade the Four to return you to your home on Earth.

“Tell you what,” you grumble, taking him off guard by kicking away the covers and sliding your legs over the side of the bed, “You can read what happens for yourself. I’ve got the book right here.”

The demon raises his head, watching as you cross the room to your bookcase. Drawing to a halt in front of it, you run a finger delicately along the collection of spines before you eventually stop and dig out a book that’s nestled snugly between a pair of thick, glossy tomes.

Flicking this pointed ears forwards, the prince chuffs softly in his throat - a sound born of instinct intended to call you back to the nest. He barely even registers having uttered it.

Soon enough, you’re slipping back underneath your duvet and retrieving the bag of not-so-frozen vegetables, pressing them tenderly to your eye once again.

As Samael lays his head back down, you toss the book across the bed where it lands with a dull thwack beside his chin.

“There,” you huff, sagging backwards into the pillows, “Happy?”

You nearly let out a loud groan when the book is promptly nudged back towards you with the tip of his forefinger.

“Oh, come on, big guy,” you complain, oblivious to how the impromptu nickname sends a spark of interest shooting up the demon’s spine.

“I want you to read to me,” he sighs and settles down again, allowing his eyelids to droop halfway shut, his pupils blown wide like black holes in a thin ring of gold.

“Ugh!” Exasperated, yet more than aware that the prince isn’t one to take no for an answer, you snatch the book off the duvet and start thumbing irritably through its pages. “Why do I have to be the one to read it?”

Your fingers pause briefly, however, when Samael shifts and a warm, solid knuckle suddenly alights upon your arm.

The breath catches in your throat. You hardly dare move. Frozen, you dart a glance down to see his colossal, red hand hovering beside you, the back of his forefinger stroking a gentle line down the bare skin of your shoulder.

His voice reverberates up through the bed, deeper than the purr of a motorcar.

“I like the sound of your voice,” he utters.

The words fall softly, like a prayer sliding off a sinner’s lips.

Hesitant, your gaze moves up to his cragged face and you have to swallow a gasp, admittedly startled by the look you’re receiving.

Why is he staring at me like that?

The demon’s knuckle rolls up to the top of your shoulder again, sending the hairs along your arms standing to attention.

He’s watching you closely through hooded eyes, his smile lopsided and his pupils abnormally large and round and...

Oh dear.

Oh dear, this… could be bad.

Perhaps it’s just your imagination, but… It might explain the gentle looks, the lingering stares, the rage in his eyes when he took in your bloodied face in the throne room… It would definitely explain why he’s still here in your room, and the slow stroke of his knuckle up and down your arm.

You don’t want to even entertain such a foolish notion.

‘I like the sound of your voice.’

Your stomach twists itself into anxious knots as you start to wonder if Samael likes more than just your voice…

Wetting your dry lips, you try to give your arm a slight shrug under the guise of opening the book, conveniently shifting backwards closer to the wall and pulling away from his tender strokes.

“Um, in that case, you’ll have to remind me where I left off…” you manage to eke out, clearing your throat.

If the prince of Hell is stung by your subtle rejection, he makes no mention of it, though his pupils shrink by a fraction as he lays his palm down on the mattress beside you, exhaling warmly across your face.

“The young human… Jess,” he mumbles into the scales on his arm, “He had just returned from the gallery with his tutor…”

Good memory.

“Yes,” you reply quietly, “Yes, that’s right.”

Trying desperately to ignore how suddenly suffocating the demon’s proximity has become, you prop the book up in your lap and start to read.

-------

“The boy was right.”

You startle awake from a light doze, jerking upright on your pillows with an undignified grunt.

‘Did I fall asleep?’

The book sits open in your lap, held loosely between limp fingers.

And Samael is-

You have to resist the urge to kick out your legs when you raise your eyes to find his colossal face resting peacefully between your parted knees. You’ve never been more thankful that you’d put your legs under the covers earlier, though suddenly the duvet doesn’t feel like such an adequate barrier against monsters as it used to be when you were young.

“Huh?” you blurt eloquently, still in the clutches of sleepiness.

Two walls of flesh shift on either side of you, and it’s only then that you realise you’ve been more or less surrounded on all fronts.

A pair of thick, muscle-bound arms are curled loosely on the bed to your left and right, close enough that you can feel the demon’s preternatural heat radiating off his skin. To your back is the bedroom wall, while ahead of you lays Samael’s red, rough-hewn face. The black horns jutting from his chin create deep divots in the mattress where they’re pressed.

“The boy,” he repeats, prying an eyelid apart and casting a yellow glow over your face, “He was right. She should not have trusted that rope.”

Oh… Right. The story…

Raising your hand, you nearly pinch the bridge of your nose before a painful throb reminds you not to do that. You’ll have to take some more painkillers soon…

Emitting a sleepy hum, you flop back down amongst the pillows and give a rough exhale. “Wasn’t the rope’s fault it snapped.”

“… Her caretakers did not blame him.”

Ugh. If this is going to turn into another long-winded discussion like the Rainbow Fish….

“Of course they didn’t,” you sigh, tilting your chin down to meet his gaze, “It wasn’t Jess’s fault either.”

“But he could have prevented her death.”

Samael’s probing insistence drags you a little further into the waking world and you start to sit up, propping your weight on your elbows to squint at him.

The demon’s face is like stone, hard and cold. “He could have asked her to accompany him,” he adds in a growl, “But his selfish infatuation with the older human kept him from doing so.”

A gentle frown tugs at your brows. “Jess wasn’t to know what would happen,” you point out, wondering why Samael seems so fixated on the matter.

Lifting his chin off the bed, his nostrils flare and his eyes flick down to the bruises on your neck, staring at them unblinkingly as he retorts, “He knew the rope was untrustworthy. He could have kept her away from it.”

“Well… Sure but… then it wouldn’t have been such an effective story.”

“Mph,” he grumbles, scowling at the wall behind your head, “I seem to recall telling you that I prefer stories with happy endings…”

You chew on that for a minute before closing your eye and offering him a drowsy shrug. “Good stories don’t always have to have a happy ending,” you tell him, your voice thick with fatigue, “Happy endings are nice, but it’s important that we’re told stories that… you know, like, challenge our morals and stuff.”

“… Go on,” he nudges when you fall silent.

Heaving a sigh, you whine, “I don’t know. I am way too tired to be having in-depth discussions like this at the crack of dawn.”

“Why read stories of tragedy and death? The tale only upset you.”

“Oh my god,” you whisper in exasperation, resigning yourself to the conversation, “I guess, because… if all we’re consuming is clean and good and happy, then when bad stuff does inevitably happen to us, I don’t think we’re ever really prepared for it. If that even makes sense.”

Samael’s lips quirk up at their corners, and he slides his gaze down to you again. “The way your mind works never fails to intrigue me.”

“Pft, it’s not working much at all at the moment,” you huff.

He hadn’t realised before meeting you, that this is what his relationships had always lacked. This is what he’s been missing.

Dialogue.

Nothing more than that. The simplest thing of all.

This sleepy conversation with you is ten thousand times more preferable to the cold, empty silences that would stretch across the massive void of bedsheets between he and Lilith.

His smile fades slowly as he finds himself drawn, as ever, to the band of bruises around your neck.

He knew not to trust Lilith. He should have kept you away from her. But he didn’t.

“The boy,” he murmurs deeply into the quiet of your room, “Do you suppose he was right to blame himself for what happened to her?”

“Right?” Humming, you lean back on one arm and exhale a slow breath. “No… Not right. Normal, though? Yeah. I reckon it’s normal that he’d blame himself. I think most people would do the same in his shoes.”

“Does that not then make them right?” he puts, “If that is the general consensus? To blame oneself?”

After a longer pause, you eventually shake your head and reply, “No.” Then, parting your jaw in another wide and toothy yawn, you add, “It just makes them human.”

Human…

How can blaming himself for what Lilith did to you make him like a human?

Hmm… While not the feel-good ending he’d been hoping for, it wasn’t necessarily a bad one either, and once again, whether knowingly or not, you’ve given him much to ponder over. He plans to do just that while you sleep. Already, those dainty eyelashes are fluttering against your cheeks as your head droops, exhaustion proving a fierce adversary on this long night.

Perhaps it’s time he let you rest. Of course, that doesn’t mean he’ll be leaving your side just yet.

Tyrants are seldom granted solace. Most would argue that they don’t deserve it.

Ironic, that it almost feels sacrilegious for Samael to be laying here on your bed with his mouth resting a mere foot from the most confidential part of you, and doing nothing but talking to you in soft, dulcet tones. Talking… it’s more intimate than the depravities he’s performed with his former mistress.

How laughable.

It’s inevitable, then, that the prince’s wonderous moment of peace should be so rudely shattered by the dull thud of a door closing downstairs.

Samael’s head shoots off the mattress with a snarl so quickly that it startles a yelp out of you.

Heavy footfalls – too heavy to belong to any human – pause in the room directly below your own. Then, all at once, there’s the unsettling sound of them starting up again at a far more urgent pace.

Your yelp hadn’t gone unnoticed.

The demon’s tail twitches irritably as he glares hard at the door.

… Just when he was really getting comfortable…

“War…”

The name whispered breathlessly from your lips draws Samael’s focus back down to you, silencing the growl in his throat. You’re staring at the bedroom door, brows screwed together in worry.

For the Horseman? Or for him?

Somewhere a few rooms away, metal boots begin to thunder up a flight of stairs.

Samael parts his lips and flicks a hot, red tongue over his canine, lowering his gaze to your exposed neck. He knows he has to leave. He isn’t about to let your night be ruined by a brawl in the middle of your bedroom. But… there’s one last thing he’s compelled to do.

Demons don’t apologise.

Not aloud, anyway.

Trapped below his bulk by enormous arms, you tear your eyes from the door and shakily raise them to his, swallowing a thick lump of apprehension that sends a dull ache through your bruises.

You don’t like the way he’s suddenly staring at your throat, the points of his fangs gleaming out from behind barely parted lips.

He looks agitated.

He looks hungry.

Your heartbeat steadily begins to reascend the mountain it had worked so hard to climb down from.

“Samael?” you peep.

The footsteps are on your landing now, shaking the foundations of your home with their weight.

Towering high above you, the demon’s fiery eyes flash with intent, like a predator tensing to pounce.

You aren’t even given a second to admonish yourself for letting your guard down before that mouthful of wicked, sharp teeth lunges for your neck, stealing a final cry of alarm.

It’s instinctive when you throw your head up and to the side so as to avoid having to see the enormous fangs flying in your direction.

You brace for agony.

However, what you feel instead is the furthest thing from it.

… The gentlest press of rough, warm lips lands upon the column of your throat, directly over the purpling bruises stained into the flesh.

Your good eye wrenches itself open like a shot.

You’re too stunned to turn your head, and your chest feels tight with the breath you’re keeping trapped inside it, afraid of what the slightest exhale might provoke.

The corner of your vision is almost entirely swallowed up by Samael’s head and horns. His flared nostrils glow with internal fire as he puffs swathes of hot air across your jaw, whilst the scratch of his lips tickles your skin when they seal together into a tender kiss just below your bobbing gorge - far too tender and painless to be given by a demon, let alone one of his size and reputation.

Up until now, you might have been able to convince yourself that the prince’s attentions had been born of mere curiosity.

Now though? The hope that you’ve just been misinterpreting his advances flies out of the proverbial window.

Samael, prince of Hell, Head of Satans and Chief of Devils… is placing a kiss on your bruised throat so gently that the only coherent thought flashing through your brain is that you must still be dreaming.

A resounding ‘boom’ alerts you to your bedroom door being kicked viciously off its hinges and the clank of metal announces War’s entrance.

The unswollen eye in your head swivels away from Samael and for one, damning moment, your fearful gaze locks onto the wild, infuriated blue shining out from beneath your Horseman’s crimson hood.

"Something to remember me by..."

The single lap of a scorching tongue coaxes a gasp from you when it eases over your bruised neck, and then, in a flash of fire that sends you screwing your eye shut against the intruding light, the pressure on your throat, and the weight on top of your bed vanishes, as if a demon prince had never been there at all.

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nieves-de-sugui · 1 year

Text

A Quick History of BL

As someone who wrote a thesis on this very subject a few years ago, here is the short version of how BL has evolved throughout the years. For the new comers ❤

a minute of silence for the original form of this post that tumblr decied to not save right after I saved it

I am going to go with a chronological approach. Unfortunately, I cannot put everything in one post so if there’s any questions about this or that aspect of the history of BL that you want to know and it’s not talked about here, you are welcome to ask me directly :)

Context and influences - Japan in the 60′s

Before the US forced Japan to open its borders to the outside world in the 1800s, homosexual practices were common place between budist monks, samurais and kabuki actors. During the Edo period (1600s to 1800s) there was a very rich amount of poetry, art, books (such as Nanshoku Okagami (The Great Mirror of Male Love) by Ihara Saikaku) and codes of conduct about how to have a good master/aprentice relationship, kinda like the greeks if you know what I mean. However, with the arrival of western influences, in order to become a more “civilized” country, it was all put in the closet.

Yet, in the 60′s Japan started to pick it up again through literature about young androginous beautiful boys (aka bishounen). On one hand, in 1961, the novel Koibitotachi no Mori (A Lover’s Forest) by Mari Mori was published. It tells the story of a young and beautiful 19 year old worker and a half french half japanese aristocrat, and their tragic romance. On the other hand, Taruho Inagaki wrote Shounen ai no Bigaku (The esthetics of boy-love), an essay on aesthetic eroticism (of which he wrote a lot of). All this was know as Tanbi (lit. aesthetic) literature. It generally refered to literature with implied homosexuality and homoeroticism such as works by Oscar Wilde, Jean Cocteau, etc. And of course, Mori and Inagaki.

In chinese tanbi is read as danmei (term used to refer to BL novels in china today, ie: The Untamed it’s all connected friends).

From the birth of Shonen Ai to Yaoi - 70′s to the late 80′s

Around the beginning of the 70′s, shoujo was being revolutionized by the Year 24 Group, a generation of women manga authors (mangaka) who started to explore new themes. Among them, their interest in tanbi gave birth to a new subgenre: Shounen ai.

Their most known manga were:

Kaze to Ki no Uta (The Ballad of the Wind and Trees) by Keiko Takemiya, and Toma no Shinzo (The Heart of Thomas) by Moto Hagio

Their stories are characterized by having suffering eurpoean bishounen in boarding schools, living an idealized perfect love (meaning passionate) that, despite the tragic end of one of them, lives forever in the other.

As this genre starts getting popular, more and more fans of these stories start making their own self published manga, aka doujinshi, of the genre. It is around this time that the term Yaoi is coined. Meaning “YAma nashi, Ochi nashi, Imi nashi” (no climax, no fall, no meaning). Basically PWP fanfiction, for the most part. Doujinshis could be considered an equivalent of fanfiction in manga form. It is also here that the term Fujoshi (aka Rotten Girl, for liking rotten things) starts being used to refer to women readers of yaoi.

With this rise in popularity come the start of the commercialization of the genre. Which meant the publication of magazines dedicated solely to yaoi/shonen ai/BL. The most popular yaoi manga magazine at the time was June. The common trait of their stories being the therapeutic power of the love between the mains. The traumatized character would heal throught this newfound love.

Most of the stories at this time happened in the West (Europe or the States) as the exploration of these dark themes intertwined with homosexual romance and homoeroticism still feel safer to explore as a foreign concept. One example would be Banana Fish (1985).

Commercialization and Yaoi Ronso - 90′s

As more publishing houses pick the genre up, the term Boys Love is used to include every type of manga about homosexuality made for women.

The increasing amount of BL series sees a changes in its themes:

the start of the “gay for you” trope where one mantains their heterosexuality despite being in a homsexual relationship,

the uke/seme dynamic (mirroring hetero realtionships) also relating to physical appearence (one being more feminine, the other being more masculine),

the use of rape as an act love (sexual violence has always been present but here it becomes a staple),

anal sex as the only type of sex,

older and more masculine men start to appear

they now happen in Japan

Good examples of the presence of these themes in manga are Gravitation (1996) or Yatteranneeze (1995).

However in 1992, Masaki Sato (a gay activist/drag queen) wrote a letter in a small scale feminist magazine attacking yaoi and pointing out how it “represented a kind of misappropriation or distortion of gay life that impacted negatively upon Japanese gay men”. The female readers of yaoi responded, defending the genre as a means to escape gender roles and explore sexual themes that was never meant to represent the realities of gay men. This is know as the Yaoi Ronso (Yaoi Debates).

The debate ended with both sides understanding more of each other, with mangakas starting to include queer views in their works. It also started the academic reasearch of BL.

Yet, it is a debate that has been restarted more than once, as it is still relevant despite the evolution of the genre.