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morvantmortuary · 1 year ago

Text

paint the town red --

(Maxi Morvant x non-binary/genderqueer plus-sized Reader, 18+)

(summary: Maxi returns to you after some night work. You don't hate the result.

warnings: smut, minors dni. dead dove do not eat for the following: blood kink, minor descriptions of gore, Maxi goes down on Reader after some light cannibalism. oral (afab receiving, some anatomy mentioned), oral wound fucking (reader giving), pain kink, handjob. some possessiveness, mentions of stalking. some allusions towards a homophobic/transphobic politician who gets got. serial killers are serial killing, don't act surprised. needless to say: don't fucking try this at home, for all sorts of health reasons.

general: Reader is, as always, non-binary/genderqueer, fat/plus-sized, and also just plain Queer. afab anatomy is referenced for reader, so just be advised. otherwise, everything else is meant to be relatively neutral to let people have a more seamless experience, and suggested tweaks to that language are always appreciated.

general: well. this was meant to be part of @jmathesonandsiblings's Spooky Season in the Barrens (for 'covered in blood' and 'gore', in case you couldn't guess!) but life was Not Cooperating. :'D so! here's this, better late than never!!

'...hey rae wtf is with that warning section' buddy, your guess is as good as mine, honest to god.)

Standing on the back porch in the dark always reminded you just how far the House was from anywhere else in Greymoon.

The autumn chill was still nowhere to be found, the last crickets of the warm weather singing uneasily around you. The cicadas had fallen silent weeks ago, leaving the evening air feeling almost… too big. Too capacious.

Like something else would ooze into where the familiar bayou lullabies should have been, concealing itself in the silence until it jumped out to surprise you.

But tonight, you couldn’t bring yourself to worry as usual. The moon was full, pendulous, threatening to drip harvest honey all down the dangling strands of spanish moss and throwing your world into soft, gauzy focus.

You, however - your mind, your sight, the sense of certainty in the center of your ribs - had never felt clearer.

Your senses felt like the scalpel’s cold edge; the sussurrus of every breeze sounded like a chorus of whispers. The shadowy shapes in your peripheral vision, in the darkened corners of the porch and near the waiting light of the kitchen door, couldn’t draw your attention like they would have before. Like they wanted.

It was impossible to even think of those late shades when you were too busy listening to the sheer life all around you. Pulsing just beneath the night and your own skin was your heartbeat, calm and dependable and steady —

And one more besides, providing a counterpoint to the rhythm you could swear was filling the air around you.

You glanced down at your wrist again, the scarlet mark as fresh and vibrant as an open wound, glowing to rival the moon in your own tiny universe.

You hadn’t put much stock in any kind of invisible string when you were younger, red or otherwise. But when you brushed the sigil with two of your fingers, you almost swore you felt an answering tug from some distant spot.

A tug that you swore was growing stronger, more insistent, with the passing minutes. Something in the vast night was pulling you towards it, or itself towards you, already on course for an inevitable collision.

It must have gone well, you thought. Maxi had told you that the full moons always had more magic in them, even for that as necrotic as the Morvants’.

But the seasonal moons, the ones the world quietly turned around without anyone noticing anymore? Those were best of all.

All three of them had crept out tonight with some mysterious errand or another, each of them notably distracted during the daylight hours. You knew Hex and Rora wouldn’t be coming back before daybreak — they had their own people to visit, after whatever terrible deeds they’d done in the dark.

Maxi - or the Reaper - one of them - had promised they would come back for you, though.

They had even asked you, all sweetness and kisses, to wait for them, right at this spot.

So of course, there you stood. The unseasonably warm autumn caused your nightclothes to cling to your skin and every passing breeze to ghost a finger down your spine, somehow leaving you chilled and sweating all at once.

But he was near. He was so close, you were certain of it.

You had no idea how you knew — you’d barely seen him leave, already asleep in his bed when he’d kissed you goodbye and slipped near-seamlessly into the pitch black. But somewhere in the last hour, you had awakened instantaneously, as though you’d never even dreamed. You’d been walking down the stairs before you fully knew why, with not even a phone or a flashlight to guide you.

You had, however, at least paused to light the lone backyard jack-o-lantern to keep you company. You knew - again, no idea how - that he wouldn’t need it to guide him back to you. But you thought he might at least enjoy the welcome when he did arrive. A cheerful diabolical little smile he could see even from far away.

Your body sang, heady without so much as a single glass of wine. You wondered if your heartbeat always filled the world around you like this, consistent and assertive, and you’d just never bothered to really listen.

And there, again, just underneath - what had to be his, slightly slower, slightly harder. The reverb to yours, solid and deep.

Something dark to it, though you couldn’t say what or why.

Inhaling felt like drinking the warm, perfumed air, and you closed your eyes to let it wash more completely through your lungs. Your nerves twisted agreeably in anticipation of something, everything in you straining against the shroud-like black to catch every rustle, every ghostly step —

The taste of copper hit your tongue, heavy and brash, even before something took your hand.

You didn’t even realize you’d been extending it to the empty dark, only seeing when you finally opened your eyes that you’d been standing on the edge of the top step, your palm facing out as if expecting something.

And in answer, Maxi’s chilled hand clutched yours in his long fingers, the whole of it awash in clotting burgundy.

He was staring up at you from the bottom of the porch steps, eyes fully black behind his blood-spattered glasses. The usual red of his iris was everywhere else tonight - all over his face, clinging in his damp hair, utterly soaking his clothes. You knew immediately there would be no saving any of the fabric, even with hours of soaking. The knees of his trousers in particular were blooms of something near-black — stomach or arterial blood, you were willing to bet.

If you had been anyone else - if he had been anyone else - this would have been a vision that took away every chance you’d ever get at sleeping soundly again, until you finally breathed your last.

But instead, you found yourself smiling.

You stepped back, gently tugging him to follow you.

He walked up the steps as if asleep himself, almost immediately leaning down to be eye-to-eye with you as soon as he stepped onto the porch. For his perfect silence, his gaze felt searching, his face close to yours but still careful to leave you just enough room to lean away. To choose to remain clean of this, whatever new stain he’d brought home with him.

When he had you backed against the wall, his hands came to rest slowly at either side of your head as he continued to stare unblinkingly, his gaze an inescapable void. You knew from the way his palms were light as gossamer against the wall that you could break his stance and turn away if you really wanted. You could go back upstairs, leave him to come to and clean himself up. Pretend this whole thing wasn’t the life you had decided you wanted after all. He would understand when he was… sober, to speak. He really would. You knew that with absolute certainty.

With the slightest stuttering tilt of his head, there was an unspoken question he let hang between the two of you, as pendulous as the moon.

You reached up to his face, his skin sticking slightly against your palms as the blood continued to cool, and fully licked the waiting red from his lips.

The space between you was sealed by this. He was ravenous at your mouth, claiming yours with tongue and nipping teeth and a hunger that felt like the edge of a bottomless dark pit. You were caged between the sticky warmth of him and the solid wall behind you, his hands clutching at your waist, your stomach, his hips pressed impatiently to yours.

You shivered as his mouth moved lower, down your throat that you willingly exposed to him, at your clavicles, leaving bites sharp enough to bruise like they were jewelry. His knees dropped to the wood of the porch with a thud that would’ve made you wince if you hadn’t been so distracted, and you felt him mouthing, needy, at your chest and your stomach through your shirt.

You could only curl your fingers through his hair in response, your hands having to force their way through the tissue and heavy clots of blood that had tangled in it somehow. You would’ve worried about pulling if you knew he didn’t enjoy the pain, and when you broke through a lock plastered to his scalp, you felt him shiver lightly.

The hiss through your teeth was unbidden as his mouth dropped to the underwear you were wearing under your borrowed nightshirt, his tongue pressing a curious lick to the thin layer of fabric between your sex and his heat. When you pulled on his hair a little harder reflexively, he looked up at you, resting his chin on the softest part of your stomach under your navel.

He still said nothing, his eyes blacker than space itself, but the tiny exhale through his nose was all you needed to know what he was asking.

He stayed still as a statue as you bit your lip, pondering, scanning the backyard. There was no one here, you knew that. The nearest living neighbors were miles away. The dead ones — well. There’s nothing to say they wouldn’t watch.

But between the elemental contrast of his eyes and the moon above, you’d already made your decision.

When you looked back down at him and nodded, one hand left your thigh to yank your underwear down your legs with a force that nearly ripped it. You had barely enough time to see him lick his own lips in anticipation before there was a searing heat against your slit, and you gasped aloud to the now-silent yard.

There was the distinct smell of blood warming as he voraciously devoured you, sucking at your clit in a way that made your head fall back against the wall. He kissed your entrance like a man condemned receiving a reprieve a minute to his execution, like he thought he’d never get to taste you again. His hands clutched at your thighs, and every so often he would turn his attentions to one of them, kissing and nipping at the inside with a fervor that would’ve seared your face if the blood wasn’t already elsewhere.

Whenever you tried to move, your body shuddering and writhing at white hot electricity racing down your nerves, he would force your hips back against the wall with an iron certainty, pinning you there as he laved your clit and pushed his tongue into you the best he could.

As you gazed upward, unfocused, struck speechless and your breath elusive, you swore your vision was flickering.

Snippets of scarlet flashed in and out, your senses overwhelmed briefly with the impressions of somewhere else entirely: a ribbon of red that followed the sleek, precise strike of something silver.

Flesh opening itself to the impatient ripping of hands and steel, a rib cage being revealed like a boudoir.

A heart that still trembled in its home of muscle and bone even as an echoing scream died away, as the bespoke-suited man ( you recognized him, distantly - a state senator?) trapped and pinned between your (his - your?) thighs started to convulse from shock.

When the hands that now clutched your hips tore the heart from its proper place, holding it aloft as it ceased to clumsily twitch and spurt, the sound you made was something unholy.

You remembered faintly why you usually avoided wearing white, even to bed — the borrowed undershirt of his was now blooming with rust-colored stains, handprints overlapping over where the cloth covered your hips and stomach, swipes of red where his head had rested as he dipped the hard bridge of his nose just so to make you gasp, or grazed his cheek against the fabric as he circled your clit intensely enough to make your leg begin to shake.

You were barely aware of the world around you, but just enough to feel an insistent grinding against your shin, your surroundings coming into focus just enough for you to put together that he was already aching for attention from this alone. When you moved your leg just a fraction of an inch closer to his hips, he groaned gratefully while he still had the tip of his tongue in you, which in turn had you seizing his hair again just for the sake of having something to anchor you to earth.

You were trying your best not to double over him or fall, but your thighs were traitorous, too-warm and shaking slightly as you felt your juices already dripping down them - from your own cunt or Maxi’s panting mouth, you weren’t entirely sure, but it was all the same. Distantly, you were still aware of him rutting lightly against your ankle, and just the faintest sensation of something slick through the fabric of his pants.

You heard a sound that it took you a moment to realize was a word, and then a repetition to realize what was being said —

“Please,” a voice with an echo like something frigid rasped between lingering strokes of his tongue. Against your leg, you could feel the slightest shaking of his own thighs, the muscles taught with need.

Your hand clenched in the hair at the back of his neck as you finally let out a groan from the shadowed parts of you, shoving your clit roughly against his waiting tongue as you rode out the storm that felt like it had been building in you all night. He moaned low in his throat, holding admirably still so you could grind against his mouth with abandon until every last drop of your orgasm had pooled like liquid fire onto his tongue.

When your knees finally gave out, sending you sliding down the wall, he wordlessly moved his body further between your legs so he could catch you against him.

The two of you sat like that for a while, you straddling his lap, your chests heaving against one another as the smell of blood and sex permeated the air with every gasp and pant.

Your hands found their way to his chest, feeling almost blindly down the fabric of his vest, then his arms and his mussed rolled sleeves, as if to make sure he would stay solid under your touch. He pressed his forehead against yours in response, and you felt a mixture of blood and sweat transferring to your own skin with a heat that was near-searing.

His eyes were still pitch black as he gazed at you, mouth still slightly slack as he tried to catch his breath.

You couldn’t help but smile once more, your hands catching at his shoulders to pull him closer. Planting kisses to either side of his mouth, you hummed, soft in your throat. “What’d you do with the heart, lover boy?” He had to have known you’d seen. There was no way he hadn’t felt the memories, visions, whatever they were, passing from him to you as if he’d licked them into your skin.

The demon behind your beloved’s face leaned back slightly to give you a slow grin that exposed almost every tooth, tell-tale pieces of thin red tissue caught between a few towards the back.

“Oh yeah?” You were still checking him over, palpating flesh and bone gently in your palms to search for any sign of something wrong, something that might have been missed in the adrenaline of the chase and the subsequent catch. “You could’ve brought it home. I would’ve at least seared it with some seasoning for you.”

He made a sound from somewhere deep in his chest, pushing his face into the side of your neck to lave his tongue lovingly over the marks he’d left in his frenzy.

You giggled at this blatant affection — until a feeling under your palm made you suddenly still. A spot on his side was too warm, the blood too fresh even after his journey back. When you pressed cautiously, another warm wave covered your skin.

“Baby,” you said, leaning back to inspect the spot more thoroughly. “This is yours.”

Maxi followed your gaze even as his hands remained clawed at your hips, his still-pitch eyes looking more distractedly curious than concerned.

Your fingers discovered a rip in the fabric before you could tell it apart from any other bloodstain, parting the damp cloth to discover a wound that made you hiss through your teeth again.

“Maxi,” you whispered, even though being overheard had hardly been a concern mere minutes ago. “What happened?”

Your lover’s ribs had been grazed by something — experience you couldn’t imagine having years ago now told you, based on the angle and the specific marks of damage, that it was something close-range but not too sharp. An attempted defensive wound from the quarry, you guessed, remembering the brief scarlet flashes of Maxi pinning the man down for the prize between his ribs.

His own flesh was torn: too deep for some hydrogen peroxide and a bandaid, but hopefully able to fix itself relatively quickly with his own magic and a couple of sutures to hold it closed through the night.

“Come on,” you coaxed, trying to force yourself to your feet despite your body’s exhausted protests. “Let’s go get that clean.”

Maxi - or the Reaper, or the combination of them that had made enough peace to share his flesh for now - made a sound that was somewhere between a protesting groan and a sullen whine, caging you more insistently in a hug and nestling his ear over your own heart. You knew this now for the tell it was.

“I’m not saying we won’t still cuddle,” you said, unable to help a smile at his peculiar priorities. He was always clingy, but especially so when he wasn’t… entirely his human self. “But you can’t have an open wound in our bed, babe. You’ll drive yourself crazy with the bleach in the morning trying to get it clean before we open. Not to mention, you just changed the sheets yesterday, remember?”

Your demon was quiet, and though it was harder to tell when his eyes were monochrome, you got the distinct impression he was glancing off to the side as he always did when trying to recall something.

“Please?” You angled your head to kiss the end of his nose, causing him to blink in an owlish way that was almost entirely human. “You said I needed the practice, after all.”

He sat there, seeming to consider this, and for the briefest moment, a tongue that was slightly pointier than it usually presented probed absently at his teeth, as if searching for remnants of the evening’s ritual.

Before you could entreat him again, though, his eyes locked back on yours - and for an instant, you wondered just how that snide little grandstander, one who’d whipped his constituents into a frenzy about the ungodly corruption lurking in schools and public libraries, had felt when he realized just what kind of “demonic influence” he’d failed to take into account.

A secret part of you, one you would’ve refused to acknowledge not too long ago, hoped he’d felt every second of it.

But before you could linger too long on this thought, Maxi gave a small sigh through his nose - assent, you guessed, combined with a sleepily satisfied urge to return to closeness quickly.

“That’s my good boy.” Your smile grew to a grin. Demon scion of an ancient line of necromancers or not, he was still quite agreeable when it counted.

The grin stretched his features again, eager and weirdly sweet despite the deep red stains on his teeth.

As you tried to stand again, he lifted you to your feet as though you weighed next to nothing, taking a touch too long to gaze at your exposed thighs at his eye level before he drew himself up to his full height.

“Come on, you.” You rolled your eyes, taking his cold fingers in your own and leading him back inside.

He followed, a deeper, darker version of his familiar laugh echoing as the door closed behind you both.

The jack o lantern snuffed itself, though neither of you had bothered to check.

—

The bright lights of the embalming room activated as you walked through the drop-off door together. The tools needed were already carefully laid out on the embalming table, pre-sterilized and arranged in order of procedure as always. You hardly ever needed them - thankfully - but it was still a ritual he performed before every solo trip out of habit.

Too many years of having to fix himself alone made him overly prepared, you’d realized. There was still some part of him - you didn’t know how much - that always quietly expected the worst.

“Up,” you said as you washed your hands at the sink, too light to be a real order. You were already glancing nervously at the curved needle — it was new, fresh out of the wrapping, but the severity of the tools for the dead always made you a little gun shy when applying them to your still-mostly-alive soulmate.

Maxi hopped up on the table, his feet kicking just slightly as he watched you with keen interest. He could do this in his sleep — hell, he could probably still do it now, not entirely in his own mind. But you doing it seemed to delight him in some strange way.

“Shirt off.” You’d crossed to the table, now focused solely on trying to thread the thing, your hands shaking just a little as you were watched. You knew he would only ever offer gentle correction or guidance, but still. There were studies about how people were worse at things if they knew someone was looking at them, right?

There was motion in your peripheral vision as he wriggled free of the sticky dress shirt and the thin undershirt, the two of them tangled together as they were soaked all the way through. He tossed them lightly towards the crematory, as if also having come to the conclusion they were unsalvageable. His skin still had a rust-ish tinge even bare, small crystalline red clots occasionally dotting his dark chest hair.

“I’ll get your glasses next,” you added, glancing up at him as you set the needle down to pick up a sterilizing solution for the wound itself. “It’s a wonder you could see at all on the way home, handsome.”

Something laughed, too deep to be human. As used to the sound as you were now, it still set off goosebumps as some deep primal part of your brain tried to warn your body.

Run for your life, it whispered, generations of your ancestors echoing in your ears. Death is here, and it won’t leave until it has you.

He already did, though, you thought. Body and soul.

“I say something funny, love?” You looked back to him, the eerie grin, the empty eyes. You could tell the difference by now between a threat display and genuine amusement - this really did seem to be the latter. “This might sting,” you warned, reaching towards him with the cotton pad and stopping short so he could give you permission.

He nodded, and when you dabbed at the wound, you heard the sluice of air between his teeth. It wasn’t a pain reflex, though — at least, not all of it. It sounded too close to when he had his hair pulled.

“Didn’t need to see,” he hissed softly, his voice still double-layered. He closed his eyes, shuddering lightly as if enjoying you tending to the raw wound.

“No?” You trapped the tip of your tongue between your teeth as you cleaned, making sure you could tell where his prey’s blood stopped and his own continued to run and start to clot. “So why’d you need your glasses, then?”

Maxi made a soft, exasperated huff and nudged you gently with his elbow. The Reaper, as familiar as the two of you had gotten with each other — as intertwined as it was with the man you loved, as much as you didn’t quite understand where it ended and he began — was at least becoming more willing to joke around with you about its dark agenda.

“S’different,” he rasped again, his voice submerged in the otherworldly presence that still possessed him.

“Yeah?” You were stalling a little bit, the needle clutched in your dominant hand as you stared down the wound. For your relative lack of squeamishness with everything else about this arrangement… you still hated this part. The actual piercing of flesh.

He was already hurt, and you knew at his rate, it would be a mere flowering bruise by morning. But you were still somehow scared of hurting him more, despite everything. Despite the violence that had engendered it, the life that had already been taken.

A bloody hand covered your wrist, and you turned your attention back to the thing sitting in your partner’s body.

The fathomless eyes were somehow gentle, watching you, and you realized they were just beginning to lighten: the voids were sliding slowly from black to deepest maroon, the iris starting to somewhat distinguish itself from the sclera. The Reaper was giving the reins back, at least a little.

“I saw you,” their voices spoke again, and the ominous timbre had given way ever so slightly, like someone was fiddling with knobs on a speaker for balance. “Through the darkest parts of the night, I saw you there, bright as fire.”

You tilted your head, trying to figure out the metaphor, but he only nodded at the wrist he was covering.

“You think you don’t call to me like I call to you? I can always find you,” he said, and there was more of Maxi there. “Anywhere. In the pitchest black of this world or the next, you are mine.”

That would be utterly terrifying, if those teeth and eyes and that voice were coming from anywhere else.

But it was Maxi that tapped the back of your hand softy with his index finger - twice. Two squeezes, two taps, two knocks: your universal signal for ‘are you okay?’.

You exhaled slowly through your nose, trying to force your heart rate to slow so you could think clearly. “I’m fine,” you said, trying to sound more certain than you felt. “I do want to do it,” you added, looking at him so he could see you were genuine. “…Unless you rather would.”

You looked back to the wound again, frowning. You didn’t blame him; he’d been doing this so long, he could probably stitch up a whole body with his eyes closed when he needed to.

…Okay, maybe not quite, but you bet he could get pretty close.

“Try,” the thing said, and there was a stronger undercurrent of your partner in there than there had been yet. The smile was less tooth-y, but still a touch manic. “You can’t hurt me, pretty baby.”

“I wish I was that sure,” you mumbled. Even just looking at the wound again made your mouth automatically tug downwards at the corners.

But you took another deep breath, and the thing in your boyfriend’s lean frame sat up straighter, giving you better access to the angry red gash that split his pale skin.

You reached forward with the needle… before your hand stopped itself mid-air, second guessing yourself.

Glancing (what you thought was) surreptitiously to him, you startled ever so slightly when you realized he was still watching you, unblinking.

“All you have to do is look first,” he said. “Just look. See the shape of it.”

Nodding, you set the needle down on the steel surface, grateful for any excuse to get it out of your faintly trembling hand.

You stared at the wound instead, just as he said. You winced automatically at the angry red edges - you supposed you should be grateful whatever swiped him hadn’t been more serrated. But even if it wasn’t as deep as it could have been —

You didn’t realize what you were doing until your fingers rested, feather light and unsteady, at the very border of the torn flesh.

The Reaper inhaled sharply through his teeth, reminding you exactly what you were touching, what it was, and you went to withdraw your hand like it had been scalded…

Until you heard the tiniest little sound at the end of that hiss that made you pause.

A small, punctuating groan from deep in his chest, rich and dark — But one you recognized from another context entirely.

…No, you had to be getting some wires crossed somewhere. You leaned back in the chair, searching his face while your hand still hovered anxiously in place.

Once again, his gaze was riveted on you — but this time, rather than finding the void of space waiting in the sockets of his skull, you recognized the color of a deep wine.

No pupils still, so Maxi wasn’t alone. But he was definitely in there. No words passed between the pair of you, but the twitching, jerky tilt of his head was a question.

When you didn’t immediately voice the logical response - ‘no,’ obviously, there’s no way, not to mention the sanitary concerns… the response any other person would have given by now - the frozen, toothy smile somehow spread even wider.

Your brow furrowed. This was… not something the two of you had discussed before, as extensive as your discussions of desire often were.

And yet. Your eyes drifted to the wound again, scarlet and dark and… inviting. A split pomegranate, red with promise.

…Well. This was… new.

The Reaper shifted ever so slightly where he sat, and you clocked the way his thighs were pressed together, hopeful. The way the dress trousers seemed tighter than they had when you’d walked down here.

You sat all the way back in the chair, taking him in, nervously wetting your lips with your tongue. Even with the feeling of a double pulse racing now under your skin, you had to be totally sure.

“…Use your words,” you prompted, your voice hushed even in the sterile silence of the embalming room.

His head tilted the other way. “Kiss it better?” the layered voice asked, higher than usual, a note of pleading. He knew what he was asking, then.

Your eyes moved between those of the thing sitting in front of you, to the wound in its side, and back again.

You recognized a point of no return when you saw one.

A distant facet of you reasoned from the depths of your mind, as if in a dream: Did Thomas the Apostle not inquire of the wounds of his returned Lord, after all? Did he not part the flesh with his own to find his own proof of divinity, to alleviate his fear?

Was this really any different? Another form of worship, without the doubt?

Did that not make your love all the stronger, that you already knew you had nothing to be afraid of?

You got to your feet, resting your hands on the embalming table on either side of Maxi’s knees.

“Come here,” you whispered, but it was somehow less tentative than your earlier hush.

Maxi moved to the edge of the table, taller than you again when he was this close, and you leaned up to kiss the questioning smile.

You could taste yourself on his tongue, still, and more besides. Just the faintest trace of blood, not yours, not his.

Blood from too deep down to taste like a surface wound.

Maxi’s hand curled possessively around the back of your skull, and you wondered what it would feel like for your teeth to pop the thin membrane around the human heart.

Your hands were steady now in their purpose, moving between the two of you to free his cock. It was already hard again and leaking, and when your thumb slid the pre-cum along his slit, his hips bucked into your hand.

“Please, pretty?” he rasped against your lips, the need returned in full force.

As your hand moved lazily along his shaft, causing him to shiver and sigh, you looked again at the wound, leaning down as best you could without giving up your grasp on your prize.

The scarlet mouth waited in his flesh, hopeful, expectant.

With a bit of careful angling, you leaned closer. Your breath shook just slightly before you probed it with the very tip of your tongue.

Maxi was abruptly racked with a full-body shudder, his hissed curse somehow ethereal and unholy.

In your hand, you felt him spasm and flex, warm and heavy against your palm.

You swallowed the first mouthful of your lover’s blood like communion wine, searching inside yourself again first. Making sure.

Anything given in less than total faith in your love - in him, in you, the life you were building amidst the bones of those before - would be sacrilege.

The way he moaned when your tongue pushed further in relieved you of all doubt, however.

You weren’t entirely sure what to make of the feeling of blood flooding over your teeth and tongue as you kissed the gash in his side, lapping at the edges with the same greed he’d shown you. But you could feel the way his cock was achingly hard in your hand, the way his thighs began to shake as you could feel your mouth being coated with a red in a mirror of his when he’d arrived here. When he’d found you.

You used your free hand to hold his hip firmly in place when he tried to thrust against the hand gripping him, his fingers curling in your hair possessively.

“More,” he growled from somewhere down deep, and it was hard to tell which of them you were hearing speak. “Please, pretty, more, that’s perfect, that’s exactly…” He lost his words to something between a keen and a groan as you deepened the kiss, the warmth slicking your cheeks, your lips, dripping hotly down your chin.

You picked up your pace, your strokes faster and harder now as his mouth fell open and he outright panted, unable to hide just how much he was enjoying this. You sucked delicately at one edge of the wound, laving the place where the skin parted, and his head fell back with a moan.

“There, just there, that’s—” Maxi did his best to restrain a whine, his hips nearly arching off the table to meet your hand as your face was smeared in his blood.

You ran your tongue along the length of the injury, a bit dazed yourself in just how warm it was. How soft and willing the flesh was to part, even when it shouldn’t.

You heard his breathing hitch and felt him shift under your attention, turning slightly.

When your eyes flicked upwards to see what had changed, they locked with his, and his hips spasmed hard as his now-visible pupils ballooned black again to swallow the lingering red.

With a strangled guttural shout, he came over your hand messily, warm, coating your palm and fingers almost as much as you’d coated your face at his side.

You stroked him through his orgasm as he shook and whined desperately, wanting everything he had to give just as you’d given him.

You only stopped when he seized the front of your ruined night shirt and pulled you upright, seeming just as eager to taste his own blood in your mouth as you’d been to taste your orgasm.

There was an instant where the change from your tongue in him to his tongue in your mouth felt seamless, where you weren’t sure whom was gently probing at the delicate insides of the other, and the shiver down your spine was electric even as your stomach flipped dizzily.

“Thank you, sugar,” he whispered, peppering your face with kisses after the initial claiming. His hands were everywhere again, on your hips, in your hair, his arms encircling your back to keep you close. “Thank you, thank you, thank you, you damned beautiful creature.”

You laughed, half-breathless, one hand tangling in his hair to kiss him fiercely again. “What,” you whispered, your lips brushing his as the two of you half-swayed together. “The fuck?”

Maxi giggled, high and manic, and he tucked his face against the side of your neck - his favorite place. “I don’t know,” he whispered back, and there was a shake to his nervous giggle. “I don’t know. But god, did I like it.”

“I’ve - I’ve never done that before,” you turned, your lips against his cheek now as he pressed needy, open-mouthed kisses to your throat. “I’ve never thought to… I don’t know.”

“Well, I should hope not,” Maxi’s arms tightened their embrace slightly on your back, and you caught the scarlet gleam of his eyes through his hair and his glasses, his tell for ‘mine.’ You knew the Reaper was still there — if it had been just him, he would’ve been less concerned with that than other logistics.

“It’s just you, Maxi,” you soothed, kissing the corner of his mouth. You stood between his thighs as he sat on the embalming table’s edge, and he tilted his head to catch your mouth again, the two of you still out of breath even as you couldn’t let each other go.

When you went to clean the mess off your hand, still waiting for you, he leaned over, his tongue brushing against and even caressing yours as you licked your palm clear together.

Maxi continued to suck hard on your index finger after, his eyes never leaving yours, until you pulled ever so slightly on the hair at the back of his neck. He shivered agreeably, and you kissed the other corner of his mouth.

“I don’t know what possessed me,” you said quietly, resting your forehead against his. “I’ve never done… anything like that. You’re just the only person I’ve wanted to let under my skin like this.” You nodded dreamily at your wrist with your mark, the obvious thing, but your other hand rested just at the edge of the open gash you’d just tongue-fucked.

Maxi chuckled, the sound still layered underneath by something demonic, and he tilted his head without separating from you. “You’re the only one I’d trust enough to undo me, darlin’.” He kissed the end of your nose, weirdly gentle even as both of your faces were still thoroughly coated in drying blood. “It’s not a wound when I’m with you. It’s just… opportunity.”

You actually laughed - a real, genuine sound, both your arms wrapping around his neck as he kissed your cheek with all the sweetness in the world.

The two of you lingered like that for a bit in the silence of the surrounding dead, your hearts beating confidently in sync despite the separation flesh between them.

If this was your forever, you thought to yourself, captivated by the hush of your shared breath, then you were fine with that. More than fine.

You weren’t sure who moved, who decided it was time, but at some point, the two of you wordlessly took your original places. In a comfortable, sleepy silence, you thoroughly cleaned the wound like you would have cleaned him off in your bedroom. Like he’d cleaned you countless times, lovingly and with ardent attention.

You were halfway through closing it, your stitches surprisingly even and measured, when he spoke again.

“There was a part of me,” Maxi said quietly, and it was all him. The Reaper had fully abated now. “That was convinced I could only ruin you.”

You glanced up at him, automatically skeptical as you continued your work. “Yeah?”

Maxi laughed, and it was low, with only a sliver of nervousness still. “I was convinced you were too good for all this. That you should have somethin’ else. Somethin’ better than… well.” He gestured around at the embalming room, at you working on his side. “A nice house in some suburb. Someone who loved you who was… safe. Who would never come home to you with so much dark at their heels. Who would never dream of — of contaminatin’ you with it.”

He looked away from you, and when he spoke again after a time, his voice was small. “I guess that part was right about me, huh.”

You snorted audibly, pausing what you were doing to meet his gaze. “Maxi. Look at me, baby.” When he complied, you spread your arms wide. “Do I look I’m here against my will?” You gestured to handiwork as you picked up the needle again. “Do I look like I’d be content to just sit and twiddle my thumbs in someone’s dollhouse, somewhere?”

He gazed at you, and you saw his eyes were just his again, a rich brown bordering on burgundy and looking vaguely dreamy as he studied your face.

Slowly, tentatively, he shook his head.

A part of you melted inwardly at how, even after all this time, a small smile crept over his face the longer he drank you in. Like he was always pleasantly surprised to recall just who had his heart, and vice versa.

“Really look, now,” you urged softly, leaning close to him again so you filled his vision. You gestured with a hand to the blood that thoroughly covered the lower half of your face. “Do I look like I think I’m ruined?”

Maxi’s eyes moved from yours down your face, lingering briefly on your lips before they met your gaze once more.

You leaned your forehead against his again, closing the gap between you. “All I see in this is a mirror of the person I love more than anything,” you whispered. With the hand that wasn’t hold the needle, you smeared some of the blood from your face on your fingers, then added it to the blood coating his skin. “That’s all.” You repeated the gesture in reverse, adding some of the blood from his skin to yours - even though you were sure it had transferred in your original acts, as well. The important thing was that he needed to see you choose it.

“I love you,” you reminded him softly. “And everything that comes with you.”

You returned your attention to the wound, tying off your stitches before opening a fresh bandage. “So what if that looks different on us?”

You smoothed the bandage and some clean gauze over the incision, sealing it off behind its protective barrier. You knew by morning, it would have no need of any of those things, already miraculously closed.

Your eyes returned to his, your hand lingering over your work nonetheless. “I already told you, there’s no one else I’d let under my skin,” you said, your lips barely an inch apart. “And you’re the only person I’d want to be with when I do something that scares me. When I might even scare myself.”

You didn’t think your eyes glowed like his, but for just an instant, you swore this is what it would feel like. This certainty. This resolve.

You let him see it on your face. “I chose you,” you said quietly. “And I chose this too. Whatever shape it takes. Or I take.” You wrapped your arms around his neck. “You’re the only person I’d trust with whatever I become, love.”

Maxi’s arms encircled your waist, and the way his eyes sparked with light again, you could swear the two of you would burn if you stayed this close.

“The dark is so much better with you in it,” he whispered. “If you’re happy, then I’d spend an eternity here with you.”

“Good.” You smiled, reveling in his closeness. “Because I’m happy.”

The moon outside was the only thing that came close to how bright you felt against that endless night when he kissed you again.

— If the mortuary opened an hour later the next morning, no one complained.

It couldn’t be helped — it had been a hell of a time getting all that blood out of your bed sheets.

Even then, with all the remaining tinges of rust, you’d both eventually conceded to relegate them to being for “fun” rather than for regular sleep.

They wouldn’t be the last set you ruined, by far.

(so uh. a very dear friend of mine mentioned they'd sent this blog to someone they liked irl. and I would just like to say, on the offchance they're still reading this at all -

sup ig. [waves]

anyway! if you've read this far, as always, you're a saint and also wow what are you doing a the devil's sacrament buddy :'D

this might be the last long-ish piece I post for a while bc I have to make a mad dash on my dissertation before the end of the semester, but I will still be here, circling, reading every word directed my way, thinking deeply on them, appreciating them, taking forever to respond as always

Ilu all <3 happy belated halloween, cheers to spooky season year-round for the believers)

45 notes · View notes

morvantmortuary · 2 years ago

Note

12, 56, or 67 for the ask prompts - whichever of these you find most inspired by for our Maxi 🖤

12: "I'll love you til my breathing stops"

56: "I am not myself anymore, I'm yours"

67: "You're so perfect, why do you want me?"

hi bee! :’D sorry I’m an idiot! 🖤

I’ll be honest, this one is definitely more… personal than I intended. I started writing it when I was really Going Through It w/r/t some depression stuff, a minor existential crisis where I wondered if it was worth staying in my program, dealing with the fact that my closest friends were also going through it and nothing I said seemed to help, just a whole slew of stuff that left me feeling rock bottom.

another part of it, I think, is that I have this weird thing where even though these were yandere prompts, I just… had this thing where I couldn’t just write the Reader hearing them? like, I thought for even someone like Maxi, who worships the ground his reader walks on, to out and say some of these things, I had to like - justify them somehow. Like I couldn’t hear them unless I was emotionally bleeding out, almost. maybe it’s because I’m a sucker for hurt/comfort, or something else I need to go to therapy about idk

and then once I got so far in, I was like “rae wtf this is such a fucking bummer, no one is gonna want to read this,” and so for a while I thought about starting over again just for something more fun

but, eventually, I reread this piece again, and decided that even if it’s kind of a sad start, maybe someone else could use something for the worst kind of days. I meant to post this on Yule, bc “longest night of the year” and all, but we all know how I am with doing anything remotely on time :’D

so, if anyone else is maybe having a hard time on this xmas eve, I hope maybe this is a small something to help

warnings for some really vicious self-talk on the part of the Reader, v v v brief discussion of su!cidal thoughts (like I said, I was going through it), descriptions of an anxiety attack, Maxi being a little too happy to murder anyone who hurt you, Maxi and his Reader swearing their deaths to each other, descriptions of necromancy, patricide, etc.

merry xmas, and rora and hector both have pieces coming too - this was just the one that got finished first 🖤 thanks for being kind enough to request, and I’m sorry again it took so long! I hope it’s okay 🖤

it hurts because you’re alive

(maxi morvant x gn!reader)

It wasn’t often you still had to contend with the voice from the darkest part of your brain. The one that had stalked you through the left-hand mirrors from the Masquerade, the one that some demonic presence - essence? Whatever - imitated in Maxi’s own mouth when it was trying to convince you to let yourself lay down and be prey. Since you’d been building yourself a pleasant life in Greymoon, one that you were more than happy to share with the man who’d stolen your heart, it had retreated back to whatever noxious neural fold it called home.

That didn’t mean there weren’t hard nights. Ones where it found you left vulnerable by an insomnia that refused to abate.

This was one of them.

You weren’t sure what had set it off, really: maybe it was the fact that Murphy’s Law had been in full effect at work, and nothing you tried had been enough to turn the day around. Maybe it was the phone call with your mom after, where more than one she’d suggested (albeit gently) that despite all the progress towards feeling like yourself again you’d made since moving here, there was still more you could be doing. Maybe it was the texts you’d swapped with Pavi that afternoon, where she rehashed the latest fight she’d had with a girlfriend she would’ve readily called awful if she’d been yours, Em’s, or Laurie’s. As carefully as you’d tried to point out that Pavi seemed to accept things for herself that she would’ve found intolerable for any of her friends, the two of you had just gone in circles, with Pavi insisting that she was probably just being biased in her recounting of the argument and you nearly pleading with her to consider how she’d feel if anyone else she loved was being treated the same way. When this proved fruitless, you’d eventually stopped and just let your friend vent until she felt better. It was the least you could do.

But long after you’d said goodnight, you were still sitting cross-legged on the end of your bed, lost in thought as you worried the skin on your lower lip with your teeth. After years of living with your specific brain curses, your usual self-soothing method was straightening up your house while listening to music as loud as you could stand it on your headphones; the idea being that bouncing between tasks with something drowning out the Voice would eventually convince it to give up and let you focus on anything else. But tonight, that had only left you more restless than usual. Your brief attempt to sleep had just ended in you plugging your string of fairy lights back in and returning to your playlist, trying to ward off your internal darkness with external stimuli.

How did you think you would be enough?

You trapped a piece of skin between your teeth, and bit down.

No, really. How did you possibly think anything you had to offer, to any of them, would be enough?

“It’s not about me,” you muttered aloud. “It was just a bad day. Shit happens. I’ll live, it’s fine.”

Your teeth, however, bit down once again on the spot. You could just taste the faintest trace of blood.

And now you’re talking to yourself. Just like old times.

Fuck off, you thought instead, but the Voice just seemed to crow in the fact that it’d made you change.

Oh, you little idiot. Just as spineless as you’ve always been. Your job knows that, you know - you weren’t smart enough or quick enough to improvise today. They all saw you fail. You let everyone down. Again.

This is unhelpful. You knew this was unhelpful. This was just wallowing. Everyone had bad days. This would pass. You would be fine.

…Right?

Your progress is not enough for your mother. She knows you can do more, do better. Be more. You can dress up laziness as contentment all you like, it’s still obvious to her. She must be so disappointed in what you turned out to be.

Your teeth kept sawing at the skin, and you winced at the sting of its separation from raw flesh, even as the taste of blood spread across your tongue.

Your love is not enough for your friend. It doesn’t matter how ferociously you care for her - it isn’t ever going to outweigh the hurt she’s willing to endure for even a taste of someone else’s. Someone real.

Stop, you begged yourself. You knew what came next.

How long until that ‘soulmate’ of yours sees all this and realizes his mistake?

You didn’t hear yourself whimper at this over the bass in your ears, the volume hurting now more than helping. You made no move to turn it down.

I’m curious. You suck at math, but make me laugh with an attempt: how long, exactly, do you think it will take for him to realize you weren’t worth the pain he went through? That he’s scarred, now, for nothing that could actually matter?

Your teeth picked a new spot and bit, but the tears were already there.

How long do you think you have until he resents you for your weaknesses? For everything you couldn’t be?

How long until even a creature of the utmost darkness finds you, and your broken little brain and heart, intolerable?

No, you pushed back. He’s not that. He isn’t, even with what he did. Does. He could never be. He’s good, his heart is good, despite everything that tried to force him to be otherwise.

Fine, the voice amended. Then how long until he gets restless because he’s stuck with a burden like you? Because you could never amount to more than everything you are that no one should ever have to deal with, much less love?

You blinked, feeling your breath begin to shake as something warm slid down your face.

There we go, the voice purred. You aren’t completely stupid after all. Gold star for effort.

You tried to force yourself to pick up your hands and wipe your face. Try to stem the flow of tears that turned your eyeliner into so much grime under your eyes, something else that added to the pathetic ineptness of your mien.

But they sat, listless and useless, on your thighs that took up too much room.

You can still exit gracefully, you know. …Well. As gracefully as possible for you. You owe everyone that much.

This was a lie. You knew, on some level, this was a lie. But it felt like the conscious You was locked at the back of your brain, kicking uselessly as this creature that seemed to slither and circle around the rest of your skull - and squeeze.

Your boyfriend’s a mortician, for crying out loud. He’ll at least make you look decent so you’re not a total embarrassment to anyone. Your mom won’t even have to clean up the mess when they find it.

…You had to admit. This made a certain, pragmatic amount of sense. It was tidy. Convenient.

Easier, perhaps, than the mortifying alternative of staying. Of letting anyone look too close.

He might even think one of your friends at the service is cute. Two birds, one stone. Provided any show up, of course.

That’s fair, you figured, this would be fairly short notice. People might still have to work, or have other plans, and you couldn’t expect people to drop everything for—

You let out a small shriek as you felt a chilled hand settle on your shoulder, nearly falling off your bed as you pushed hard away from the direction of your door.

When you just caught yourself on the edge of your mattress, you whipped around to see Maxi standing there, flattening himself as best he could against the doorframe and showing you his palms with an equally startled expression.

He mouthed something at you, and you could only blink, still not quite firing on all cylinders. He pointed to his own ear, looking concerned, and you jumped, quickly pulling your earbuds out.

“Sorry,” you managed. “Didn’t hear you come in.” You winced as you could hear your own voice crack, and before you could clear your throat, Maxi’s face changed.

“Hey now.” In one fluid motion, he crossed the space between you and fell to a knee where you perched at the end of your bed, peering up into your face with a familiar, scalpel-sharp scrutiny. “You okay, gorgeous?”

You looked away, trying to avoid his searching gaze, but he caught your jaw gently, guiding you by his fingertips at your chin to look at him again.

He made a small noise of alarm in his throat when you faced him, and when you finally met his eyes, he looked stricken. “Darlin’, talk to me, what’s wrong?” he murmured. His fingers traced over the tracks of your tears, wiping them away. He turned his hand slightly to examine his own fingertips, looking increasingly worried, before he moved closer to your knees to look up into your eyes. “Did someone upset you?”

For the most part, he still sounded like your partner - sweet, thoughtful, a habitual worrier - but you could hear the edge of something else creeping into his question. Something darker, lurking at the back of his own skull.

But how could you explain? If you told him what was going on - what was really happening - wouldn’t that just prove your inner darkness right? That you were a burden, demanding of care?

You kicked yourself internally, feeling guiltier now. Maxi already had to deal with a lot at his job, people grieving real losses. Why should he have to come home to even more crying from you, who was just wallowing in their own despair?

“Hey,” he urged again, softer, snapping you back to reality. He reached up, gently intertwining his fingers with yours where your hands still sat on your lap. “Angel, c’mon. You’re scarin’ me a little here. Tell me what’s goin’ on, okay? Let me help. Do I need to have words with someone?” He traced his thumbs across the back of your hands, trying to soothe you - but you fixated on the way he subconsciously rolled his shoulder, the one you had marked on that dark Halloween in the cemetery.

For some reason, it was that gesture - so innocuous, yet obvious in how you seemed to inflict yourself on him, on everyone - that finally broke the dam between your sinking heart and the world outside. The spiral had you fully in its grasp, and there was no getting out.

Your eyes blurred over as you looked resolutely down, feeling tears escaping their bounds faster than you could hold them back. A few of them made splattered constellations on the skin of your legs, just adjacent to where Maxi’s hands where intertwined with yours. You bit down on your lip, trying to muffle the sob that had been building for what felt like the entire evening, but the smallest of sounds still managed to wriggle its way out around your teeth.

Maxi let go of your hands abruptly, and you couldn’t blame him for his withdrawal - until the cold clutch of them encircled your face, guiding your head gently upwards to meet his eyes.

What you found waiting for you was the color of blood from deep in the body, seeming to burn of their own accord in the dim of your room. He was practically nose to nose with you, staring at you over the tops of his glasses with a look like a knife’s edge. “Give me a name,” he said, so soft it was barely more than a whisper. His fingers stroked your skin, but his grip was firm. “And they won’t see sunrise. I promise.” He leaned forward to close the distance between you, kissing gently at one of the tracks of your tears - but you still felt the brief, hot touch of the tip of his tongue to the spot. “Let me take care of it for you, please.”

You sniffled, trying to rescue some shred of composure. “It’s n-nobody. Really.”

“Oh, angel,” Maxi cooed, pulling just slightly back. He traced a new trail down your cheek with his thumb, hovering close to you. “You don’t have to defend anyone who doesn’t deserve it. Whatever it was, whatever they said to cause - this,” his hand flipped to stroke your skin with a knuckle. “It’s justified for me.” He kissed your forehead before meeting your eyes again.

You shook your head as the last of your composure slipped through your grip. “It’s not even a-anybody’s fault,” you managed around the lump in your throat. “I s-swear, it’s just…” You swallowed hard, but the ache just caused you to stop. “It’s just my fucking broken-ass brain.”

“…It’s what now?” You could practically hear the record scratch in Maxi’s brain as the murder dropped out of his expression entirely, leaving him blinking as the glimmering red seemed to cool like the last embers of a campfire.

You hurriedly wiped your eyes with the sleeve of your hoodie. “It’s nothing, I told you,” you mumbled. “I’m just fucking sad again over some stupid shit that doesn’t m-matter, like always,” you tried to inhale, but your breath shook too hard for you to get any relief. “And I c-can’t change it—“

Your heart was thundering in your ears, washing out all other sound. You were drowning.

“B-because I’m not g-good at making anything better, for anyone—“

Your skin was too hot. You felt seasick. This was really it, wasn’t it. The moment that you finally tipped your hand and showed how much of a wreck you really were inside, and he would make the only logical decision. One you could never blame him for, really, because it was inevitable.

It fell out of your mouth in a rush, insensate almost to your own ears: “And I’m just going to be like this forever, and you’re going to get sick of me and leave, and why shouldn’t you, when I can’t even keep my shit together and just be a n-normal fucking functional—“

You were aware of the words dying on your lips, the sudden movement causing the ache to leave your lungs in an exhale, but you weren’t sure of the cause.

You also weren’t quite sure why the room shifted, or why you were suddenly staring up at your ceiling rather than down at your feet, but you were conscious of being cocooned in the essence of your partner: the faintest hint of embalming fluid, something like wood polish, the cologne he put on this morning, and the touch of laundry detergent that had started to smell like home to you.

You realized he’d taken you both to your mattress in a near-tackle, cradling you before you could realize what was happening. You were caged in his arms now, laying sideways next to him with your hands pressed against his chest between the pair of you. The pressure you felt around your torso was him squeezing like he was trying to keep you from coming apart at your ribs.

Like you were something fragile.

It took you a moment to realize further that his lips were against your hair, and the hiss you heard was him shushing the tiny, cracking sobs that were finding their way piecemeal out of your chest.

“No, baby, I’m always gonna be yours,” Maxi murmured into your hair. “It’s okay, baby. You’re my life, I’m not goin’ anywhere.” He kissed your head like he was trying to kiss your skull itself. “Mine’s broke too. It’s okay.”

You half-sobbed, half-hiccuped. “I’m sorry. I didn’t— you shouldn’t have to—“

“Nothin’ to apologize for,” Maxi insisted, somehow managing to hug you tighter without bruising your sides. “You’re mine. I won’t ever go somewhere without you.”

“But I’m a mess,” you blurted wetly against his vest, your chest kicking like a horse from the inside. “I’m such a mess, Maxi, I’m gonna wear you out. I wear everyone out, you don’t understand.”

Maxi shifted so instead of keeping you against his chest, he was eye-level with you, squeezing your shoulders in his hands as his glasses were somewhat crooked against your pillow. “Darlin’, I know everything feels wrong right now, and your brain’s not fightin’ fair,” he said softly, his eyes wide as he searched yours. “But I think your sense of scale is a little bit… skewed, here.” He smiled weakly. “I’m not tryin’ to make light of anything, but I think I have a little more reason to be worried about somethin’ like that.”

Your heart was racing in your chest like you were trying to drive with no way to steer. “I don’t wanna make you tired of me,” you managed, not entirely sure if you were making sense anymore. “I don’t want to make your mark hurt anymore, I don’t want you to come home from a long day to me being a drain, I don’t want you to realize you got a bad deal.”

“Angel,” Maxi soothed, running a hand over your hair. “You’re not thinkin’ straight. That’s not somethin’ I would think about you, ever. You’re talkin’ to the serial killer here, remember?” he added, with a laugh that sounded more nervous than anything. “You’re the one who got more than you signed up for.”

“You had to go through that whole thing with your dad, and They Who Decide,” you went on, as if he’d proved your point. “You wouldn’t have had to if I wasn’t here. You wouldn’t have had to get hurt, or get possessed, or—“

“For you, I’d do it all again tomorrow,” Maxi said, his voice soft. “In a heartbeat. I don’t care.”

You shook your head, not sure how you couldn’t make him see what was right in front of his eyes. “I’m not worth that, Maxi, that’s what I’m trying to tell you now rather than you waste more time.”

“And I’m tryin’ to tell you,” Maxi argued, his eyes plaintive. “That I don’t care what that demon in your head says, baby. I got one too,” he insisted, loosening an arm so he could gesture at his temple. “The real one and the one that comes from growin’ up thinkin’ I’m dead already, and nothin’ would ever change that. You have no idea how many times a day I wish to god,” he smiled, and it was strained. “I wish I could go back, somehow, and tell me when I was livin’ through the worst parts — every dark basement, every broken body, every night feelin’ absolutely fuckin’ inhuman — that we were gonna find you. That all this bullshit was gonna turn out to be worth it. All the years of feelin’ like I couldn’t tell anyone the truth, and we survived.”

Your shoulders bucked slightly as you fought your sobs. “I don’t want to let you down. I’m so scared of disappointing you, you don’t understand—“

Maxi took your face in his hands again, his gaze pleading. “No, you don’t understand,” he said, and you could hear him fighting to keep his voice steady. “You don’t have to be the one that’s afraid of that. You could never disappoint me in a way that matters. I’d swear it to you on our future tomb. I need you to listen to me, baby, I will love you ’til my breathin’ stops and long, long after. There’s nothin’ you could do, no part of you that you hate that would ever make me think otherwise. You could put a bullet through the dead center of my chest, and not only would I think you were in the right, I’d still love you when I hit the ground.”

The idea of causing him harm of any sort squeezed your throat harder than the lump that was already there. “I don’t know how you can say that,” you whispered, shaking your head. “I keep waiting for you to realize that I’m not enough to justify that kind of pain. I’m so scared of hurting you. Of being the reason you get hurt.” Your hands found his shoulders and your fingers curled tightly into the fabric of his shirt, desperate for something to hold on to. “You’ve already been through so much, you don’t deserve to suffer when you can avoid it. I couldn’t stand myself if I brought that on you, on top of all my shit you already have to put up with.”

The red returned to Maxi’s eyes, and oddly, you were more soothed than alarmed. You almost wanted his darker self there as a form of assurance, to know that it could protect the man you loved from the fathomless chasm that felt like it was splitting your chest.

“Listen to me,” he demanded, that shadow from his eyes creeping into his words. “I never… I never got to belong to myself, you understand? I was always my family’s next chess piece on the board, or They Who’s next prize monster, or the reaper’s host. I knew that. I spent my life knowin’ that, and I didn’t see another option.”

You recognized the way his fingers of his left hand moved against your back, his tell for weighing his options. The way his eyes went briefly distant, you realized he was making a decision.

His free hand moved to his chest, tracing the scar there through the fabric of his clothes. “…This wasn’t…” He trailed off, his lips a frustrated line as he chose his words. His eyes met yours again, the red still there, brighter now. “…This wasn’t just my dad,” he said at last. “I mean, he put the first one there. The original.” He hesitated a moment longer, the tip of his tongue briefly tracing his lip. “…When I thought my family’s legacy was all I had — all I’d ever have — I reopened it.”

You flinched in horror at the very idea, knowing just how deep that scar tissue went, how thick it was over the muscle. “Oh, Maxi… why, baby?”

A corner of his mouth twitched into a grimace “There’s all sorts of things you can do with a heart when you know how, babydoll. Unnatural things that no one can undo… that no good person would ever dream of.” His eyes moved to a point in the distance over your shoulder, something in them dimming. “And for a long time, I studied it. I read everythin’ I could find about it. It was all I could dream about anymore.” His eyes flicked back to yours. “I was ready to give up blood, skin, and bone for just the chance that it would work.”

Your tears were sticky on your face where they were drying, and you fought a shiver from somewhere deep in your gut, like it recognized something in Maxi’s words you didn’t. “…So what happened?” You couldn’t help but whisper, despite the fact that it was just the two of you in your room.

Like you were afraid something else would hear you.

An exceptionally grim smile bloomed on Maxi’s face. “Not my proudest moment, is what.” He looked away from you again, as if he couldn’t bear to hold your gaze. “Or maybe it was, I don’t know. It was the night I buried my mother. I wasn’t sober by any means, but my father was dead drunk. He interrupted me, we got to arguin’, then screamin’, and before I quite realized what I’d done… he was just dead.”

Silence settled over the pair of you as he met your eyes again, watching you like he was waiting for you to recoil from him. To suddenly realize in that moment what kind of monster had been sharing your bed for all this time.

“…Yeah, well,” you murmured. You reached up, gently brushing a lock of his hair away from his eyes as you held his gaze. “Good riddance.”

Maxi’s smile softened into the one you knew best, his eyes relieved despite the shade lingering in them. “I didn’t realize just how lucky I was that night. Not by half.” He reached up, moving some of your hair on your pillow away from your face. “Because later, after so long of never belongin’ to myself, you let me be yours. And you gave me back what was left of me, you hear?” He swallowed hard, and you could finally see the glow that had swept in with the familiar red gleam was at least partially tears of his own. He traced the line of your cheek. “You reminded me I was still a person, somewhere under all of this. That I was allowed to want more than just grittin’ my teeth and gettin’ through what brief mortal life I was meant to have.” He shifted on his pillow again, closing the distance between the two of you. “I spent ages askin’ myself, ‘they’re the closest thing to perfect I’ve ever had, the hell do they want with me?’ And—“ He stopped, forcing himself to take a breath that wasn’t quite steady anymore. “And you took such… care of me,” he went on. “You loved me so much, I started to believe I could just… be human, after all this time. Could deserve to be loved, even.”

He moved his hands so his arms encircled your waist again, hugging you tightly while giving him enough space to keep eye contact. “You have no idea how many times in my life I went out in the dark and didn’t care if I saw daylight,” he said softly. “But that night we walked into the Masquerade together, I knew I’d fight Hell itself just to stay alive with you for one more hour. I’d never been more certain of anything in my entire life.”

The heat that seemed to fill your own eyes, lingering at your lash line, was from something entirely different now.

“Your brain chemistry can run its miserable little mouth all it wants, darlin’.” Maxi rested his forehead gently against yours. “And I’ll be here to hold you until it quiets down, whenever you need me to. But it’s dead wrong. I know that for a fact.” One of his hands, still cool to the touch, cupped your cheek like you were something wondrous. “There is nothin’ about my life you haven’t made better just by bein’ in it. And we’re gonna live a longer one still. A happy one, despite everythin’, together,” he took one of your hands in his, bringing it gently to his lips. “I love you exactly as you are. I always will.”

Fresh rivulets formed on your face, but these felt… different. Like rain after a drought.

You wound your arms around his neck, trapping his chest — scar and all — against your own. “I love you the same,” you whispered. “Exactly as you are. All of you.” You pressed a single kiss to the corner of his mouth. “And there’s nothing that can ever change that.”

Maxi’s grin was unmistakable. “Y’know, it’s the damnedest thing,” he said quietly. “For the first time, I’m lookin’ forward to livin’ through whatever’s next.”

You smiled for what felt like the first time in days. “I’m glad I get to be here for it.”

Maxi leaned forward to kiss you properly, long and slow as though to make it last the rest of your lives.

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