#king in yellow/arthur

[fellpyrean]

So we all agree the ‘personal pet’ line messed us up, yeah? 

So here’s some King in Yellow/Arthur. CWs for uh. Gore, torture, mindbreak??, eldritch horny.  This is not nice. Dare I say, dead dove do not eat. (Edit: BODY HORROR ALSO! I forgot orz) 

Slice of an AU where ep20 went badly below the cut. ~1400 words. 

_______________________

Humans can adapt to anything. 

It probably wasn't the thought Arthur should have had. He probably wasn't in a state to still have any thoughts at all, if he was being honest, but he didn't have much else to do. Not anymore. 

John was gone. Had been for… well. Probably quite a long time. 

The King had taken him back - pried him from Arthur's flesh, with clever words and cruel fingers that had driven him to such bright, piercing agonies that he could almost still hear John pleading through them. Defiant to horrified to begging until the King hadn't even needed to pull very hard for John to dive back into him; as long as the King didn't kill him. 

Well, haha. He didn't. It would have been a mercy. 

The King stayed true to his promise. 

Arthur had been far, far too bloodied and weak to fight the tentacle that oozed between his lips and began to spill something thick and vile down his throat before he lost consciousness. His last delirious, relatively peaceful rest before he awoke - still blind, but his body feeling oddly whole - before he heard the muffled singing and learned his new reality.

He was the King's pet. 

After that first… visit. He had wanted nothing more than to die. The King had dismantled him. Slowly, methodically. Narrating as he sliced skin from muscle, as his claws and tentacles slipped across bare, bloody muscle and dug down between his sinews, sliced into his stomach and examined him inside and out, pawing at his organs like fruits at a market. The dreadful sounds above his screams as the god cracked open his chest, all so he could more easily stroke and squeeze at his heart. 

And all, vividly, viscerally described in his low, purring voice as the King made sure he understood every word, every action, and kept him conscious until Arthur was sure he no more resembled a human than a lump of hideous flesh. How he did not die, he did not know. He tried to die. Tried to bite off his tongue in a stage of delirium, but all he got for it was choking on his own blood as the King tutted.

Then the tentacle came back, stuffing its way back through the ruins of his body, and Arthur fell back into blissful darkness. 

So it began. 

The King's special pet, locked away in a tower far and above the city, whose screams would rain down entwined in the King's beautiful song. 

The King's special pet, who slowly learned each and every way a god could take a mortal man apart. He thought the King would tire of it. Began to pray beneath his hideously cruel touch that it would end. That one day, he wouldn't bother to feed him his essence. That the King would hum and pet his bloodied hair and let him fall at last into the abyss. But he never did. 

He began to know when he entered, where his touch first fell, what he might expect. Whether he would be flayed or slowly ripped apart, whether the King would grab his hands with his tentacles and force Arthur to pry open himself. Whether their hands would be tangled as he was vivisected, what songs the King might hum as he inserted strands of himself into Arthur's spine and hijacked his nerves, his mind, and allowed him to experience such pure, inhuman agonies he could almost feel his soul shatter. 

Without the King to speak, he could describe what was happening to him. And oh, he liked that. Arthur remembered the way the monster had shuddered with unspoken delight when first he ordered him to narrate his own skinning. 

The tentacles had been eager that day. Eager to tangle in his muscles, eager to plunge into his mouth and feed him as he blankly drank it down. 

He belonged to the King now. 

Every bit of him by this point he knew was more formed of the King than anything human. 

Everything except the eyes. One of them at least. Never once had the King taken those. Arthur had taken one of them, once. But he'd only managed to gouge out one before the King had caught him and chained him in soft, unbreakable silk and. Fixed him. 

That had been new. Unique. He'd never felt tentacles swarming his eye socket before. Plunging into his skull and oozing about against the inside of him, wrapping in barely repressed rage about his brain as Arthur screamed and thrashed and begged until more tentacles stuffed his throat. 

It had been a brief incident. 

When he'd woken up, still shaking on the floor, he felt silk bound about his eyes. 

He couldn't remove it. It was… affixed to his skin. 

Perhaps… that was when Arthur accepted it. This was his existence now; his tiny room, the faint sounds of the city below, the cycles of light and dark that warmed and froze his skin, and the King. No others ever entered the tower. He doubted even if the Dancers approached it. Certainly, the King's only herald was the click of a so normal sounding door latch. 

The only other voice, the only other presence in his life became the King. His everything. 

How far gone was he, he would laugh to himself, that he was almost relieved when he heard that latch click? That it was a relief that the King still came, that his tormentor still traced so meticulously over his skin every time before he began to peel? That his breath came, hot and cold and close above his nape as the King laughed and sighed and sang and narrated his red, red blood spattering on to shining gold? 

There was a collar now. 

Arthur knew it was gold, just as he knew the silk around his eyes was. The King had slipped it around his throat with a hum, had choked him and purred out Arthur's struggles until he'd gone limp. And when next he had awoken, the collar still rested against his skin. 

Whatever it was, it was soft and supple, embossed with some twisting, coiling pattern, and a cold, metal pendant hung from its front. 

It made part of him pleased. God he hated that. But the broken, twisted part of him - larger far than Arthur wanted to admit - nearly preened at the damn thing. 

He blamed that part of himself when the King yanked him by the collar, and he couldn't stop the moan that tore from his choked throat as he hung in the god's grasp. Breaths fast, body oddly warm, fingers clammy as he clutched at the King's in that eternity long moment. 

And oh. 

Oh how the King had laughed.

Genuine, like hundreds of bells tolling at once in his mind, and then. Then, something new. 

Almost tenderly, the King pulled him close. So close. He felt the robes part, felt his skin prickle in danger he could not name, and then. Felt the tentacles pull him in. 

Into what, he could not… dare imagine to say. Into the King, though the words did so little to capture it. 

He had been torn apart on a level he couldn't comprehend. And he had clung to the King as he did it; as his body devoured him, as Arthur clutched at him, as Arthur's screams mingled with the god's slow, steady breaths and heady laughter. As his too long, too sharp fingers stroked his hair, urged his tear-streaked face to nestle on his shoulder. 

Idly, Arthur thought he could picture it. From the outside, it probably looked tender. Wrapped up in his cloak, none would have been any the wiser as to the shattering agony/ecstasy Arthur experienced as the King did… something horrible to him. As the King entangled them. 

Did he plead for him to stop, or beg for more? 

He didn't know. 

But the King. When. When he finished. When he deposited the remains of Arthur's body on the floor, when he felt the god begin to piece enough of him back together that the tentacles would have something to feed, he stayed. He stayed and he pet Arthur's head and. Praised him. 

Good pet.

And fuck. Fuck.

Arthur remembered it. It was seared into his fucking mind like a beacon; how he'd whimpered and sucked so obediently when that dripping tentacle slithered into his mouth and he fed on the god's slick like it was ambrosia.

How had it ever tasted vile, when it was so honey sweet? 

[mangozic]

🦑

[zookie-art]

Shadows and light ~

[potato-lord-but-not]

FIRE4FUN

[mishoru]

the woods are lovely, dark and deep,

but I have promises to keep,

and miles to go before I sleep

(Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening BY ROBERT FROST)

[capesch-arts]

Part 20 in a nutshell

I made this in like, 2 days. My butt hurts akdnakfs

[endrae]

more long-time wips resurrected from my work folders, finally got this rendered!

[bajablastflavoredsaxreed]

i’m enjoying myself thus far

[scooterscoob]

“No nonono I don’t want to play piano right now…”

[mintybagels]

winner of the most tortured podcast man in my books

[mikokat]

anyone here fw malevolent the podcast?

[dekuboya]

Some initial Malevolent sketching bc it’s making me go just a little crazy haha

[cherrytenmei]

i keep forgetting to post inktober here aaaaaa

[arrimorr]

Ok, I completely missed the reveal of Yellow being the real king in yellow in the S4 finale and caught up with the fact only when it was confirmed in the last Harlan's interview AND GOTTA SAY this situation is peak comedy to me

[potato-lord-but-not]

hi hi hi girlies I’m doing a Maltober prompt list teehee

[sydneighsays]

May have dipped my toes into the malevolent pool.

My take on Arthur, I'm only on s3, don't crucify me if I'm wrong.