Baby, You’re a Haunted House - Chapter 6 - Hurting Just to Feel Something
The ghouls discuss what happened to Cumulus and Dewdrop goes through the horrors again.
Some NSFW
TW: self harm, mentions of previous abusive relationships
2563 words
Read here or on AO3 https://archiveofourown.org/works/80718756/chapters/229913401
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
Dewdrop was sat on the side of the bed in Cumulus and Cirrus’ room. Rain was in there now too and everyone else was discussing what was going on. He was thinking though.
The clergy had to be behind this. There was no other explanation. There was a few clergy ghouls that would come on the tour with them to oversee some things, though they were on another bus. And of course one of them was Sister Imperators. They were a quint too and if a ghoul was doing this, it obviously had to be a quint doing it.
He leaned into Aether, who had been sitting next to him, and looked up at him. He didn’t really want to be thinking about this. He didn’t want anything to be wrong with his pack.
“I’m going to kill whoever is responsible for this!” Cirrus was pacing around the room.
“Stop yelling we’re going to get in trouble” Aether pulled Dew a little closer.
“I’m not going to stop yelling!” She did stop pacing for a moment to glare at Aether. “I have been in love with her for years! I was going to ask her to be my mate when we got back from tour! And now there is something wrong with her and I don’t know if I’m going to ever get her back! And we don’t even know who’s behind this!”
“We do know…” Dew finally decided to join the conversation.
“What the hell is that supposed to mean?” She flopped down on the bed, finally calming down a little.
“Well there’s no way it’s not the clergy’s doing and there’s a high chance the worst woman we all know is behind it.” He thought that gave enough information. He didn’t like speaking about Sister.
“She wouldn’t do this…” Rain interjected, also having decided to join the conversation.
“Really? She wouldn’t? This seems pretty tame seeing that she changed my entire fucking body and nearly killed me in the process” he had enough of his conversation. He had enough of speaking about her. He got up and left the room, heading back to his own. He only then realized he didn’t bring a key out with him.
He knew Aether would be following him out so he waited outside the door. He was pissed off and there was no way he was going back to sleep. At least not for a while.
When he heard Aether walk up he didn’t say anything and he apparently got the memo because he said nothing as well. Once the door was open, he walked in. He stood there for a moment before turning around and starting to kiss Aether.
He had a lot of pent up anger at the moment and there was one thing that helped him release it that he really enjoyed. He continued to kiss him, ravenous.
He stopped for a moment when Aether didn’t kiss back. “Please… I need this…”
“I don’t know if it’s a good idea. You’re not in a good head space.” Aether scooped him up and brought him over to the bed.
“I will feel better after you rail me into this bed.” He was desperate.
“Are you sure?” He was worried about him but he knew this would help him calm down.
Dew didn’t even respond. He went back to kissing him, just as desperate as before. He started to undress himself, only breaking the kiss when he needed to. He also helped to get Aethers shirt off because he was that desperate and he thought he was being too slow.
It had taken him a while to be comfortable having sex again after everything that happened. He still wasn’t comfortable with his body, but seeing Aether looking at him with so much love in his eyes, looking at the same body that he was disgusted with, it made him feel a little more confident with himself.
He let out a whine when Aether had to move away to remove his pants. He wanted this to go faster. He didn’t want to have to wait.
“Always making me wait.” He shifted around some, it was taking a lot of his focus to not lose his shit with the anger bubbling just beneath the surface.
“Well where’s the fun in that.” As soon as he got his pants off, he went right back to kissing Dewdrop.
He then trailed kisses down his neck and chest, stopping over a nipple, beginning to suck on it.
Dew let out a soft moan. He could feel his body heat up more though. He hadn’t gotten used to it yet. How his body actually heated up when he was angry or when he was aroused. This time it happened to be a little too hot.
“Ow, shit,” Aether had scrambled back from Dew, having been physically burned from touching him.
“I-I’m sorry I didn’t m-mean to…” he looked down. This had been his worst fear. That he would hurt Aether somehow with his new powers. He was trying not to freak out but it wasn’t working.
“It’s okay. I promise.” It did hurt but he knew Dew didn’t mean to. He didn’t blame him. He tried to pull Dew close but he stopped when he just avoided his touch.
Dew was afraid of hurting him more. He didn’t want to touch him. Not right now. He started to cry. He always fucked things up.
“I-I didn’t…” he felt cornered at the moment. He wanted to be alone but he couldn’t get any words out to tell Aether what he wanted.
Aether tried to reach out to him again, but Dew only moved further, getting up and backing towards the wall.
“D-dont… please…” he could feel himself starting to tremble. He needed Aether to go. He needed to be alone just for a little bit. He needed some space before they were crammed back onto a bus.
“I… I should go tell Copia what happened with Cumulus” he looked at Dew for a moment, deciding if he should leave him alone or not, before getting dressed and heading out the door.
As soon as the door closed, Dew fully broke down. Even if it hadn’t been on purpose, he still couldn’t believe that he had hurt Aether. He didn’t know if he could forgive himself for doing that.
He deserved to be punished for doing that. He knew Aether wouldn’t do anything. He was sure he was already forgiven. He had to do it himself.
He knew that he was limited in his options. He couldn’t do anything that would make him bleed, surely one of the other ghouls would smell it. That's also why he couldn’t do anything loud. He wouldn’t have much time either. He was sure as soon as Aether felt something was off, he would come running back.
Aether headed down the hall. Copia’s room was the farthest from theirs. He didn’t want to be that far from Dewdrop but he knew someone had to tell Copia what was going on.
He knocked on the door and, after a couple minutes, a disgruntled Copia opened the door. He always forgot that humans weren’t nocturnal, like Ghouls were. This couldn’t wait until morning, though.
“Aether… what..?” Copia was not awake enough to be dealing with any bullshit his ghouls were causing, but he knew it had to be important if he was being woken up before the sun was up.
“Something happened to Cumulus.” Aether got straight to the point. There was no reason to beat around the bush.
Copia stared at him for a moment, trying to process what he said before stepping aside and letting him in the room.
“What happened?” He was concerned. Even if he had only had his own ghouls for about half a year now, he already cared for them all deeply. He didn’t know if he could stand something happening to another one of his ghouls.
“Whatever happened with Mountain, it’s happened to her too.” He looked down “I can’t feel anything wrong with her either so I don’t know what it could be. I’m worried about it happening to the rest of us… and I’m pretty sure Sister has something to do with it.”
“Is she okay?” He knew that she obviously wasn’t okay, but he wanted to know if anything else was up with her.
“I didn’t sense anything else wrong but I don’t know.” He sighed.
“I’ll talk with Sister, see if I can figure anything out.” He didn’t see any harm in doing that.
“I don’t think that’s a good idea. It’s better if she doesn’t think you care about us.” It was hard to say, but it was the truth. “It won’t stop her. If anything, she’ll just do more to hurt us.”
Neither of them knew how they could fix this. But that wouldn’t stop them from trying to figure it out together. Even if it meant they would get less sleep.
Dewdrop was standing in front of the hotel bathtub. He was glad this one had a bathtub. The last one just had a shower, and while being much more spacious than the small bath in front of him, it wouldn’t have worked nearly as well for this.
He made sure the water was as cold as it could get. For anyone else, it would most likely just seem uncomfortably cold. For fire ghouls, water this cold would sting a little bit.
He was already freezing from how long he had been sitting on the cold bathroom floor, shivering from it. Another new thing that sucked from being a fire ghoul. Even on an 100 degree day, he could enter a bathroom and still find it cold. Stupid tile and ceramic, always fucking freezing.
He stuck his finger into the bath. It could be colder but he didn’t have any time to wait longer. He got up and got into the bath, hissing at the cold.
It was working for now, the pain the water was causing would be enough punishment for hurting Aether. But it wouldn’t last for long. Eventually, it would stop hurting.
There was something else he could do. It would hurt a lot more. He was scared to do it though. It was too painful and a reminder of the horrible thing he went through. He needed to hurt though. This was the best way.
He dunked himself under the water, counting down the seconds to when he ran out of air and his body switched to using his gills. He knew it would work. This is how he found out how much it hurt to use them now. It’s why he avoided it. He couldn’t even force himself to use them, the pain of it creating some kind of mental block to using them.
It honestly felt a little peaceful at first, laying under the water, looking up at the ceiling above him. It was a way he used to decompress when he was overwhelmed. It seemed to work even now because he felt calmer.
Then it hit him. The pain as his gills started to work. It shot through him and he couldn’t withstand it for even another second. He struggled under the water for a moment before sitting up in it, scrambling to get out. He slipped in the process, hitting the ground hard.
He started to sob. On top of the pain of his gills, now his elbow hurt from where he slammed it into the tile. There was also a bruise already starting to form on his leg. His shivering was bad enough at his point that it was visible.
In less than a minute, Aether came barging into the bathroom. The sight of his mate on the floor, in pain, hurt him. He quickly scooped him up, setting him on the toilet and grabbing a towel to dry him off.
“Sweetheart, what happened?” He already had an idea of what had been going on in here, but he wanted to give Dew the chance to tell him.
“I-I hurt you…” was all he could get out. He could barely get a breath in from how hard he was hyperventilating.
“You didn’t mean to. I’m not mad at you.” He knew there wasn’t anything he could say. If this is how Dew was going to deal with it, it would take a lot to change his mind.
Dew shook his head, trying to get more out, but all that came out was a distraught whine.
“There’s still a few hours before we need to be up. How about we go cuddle in bed and you can get a few more hours of sleep?” He kissed his forehead and got up, picking Dew up and bringing him out to the bed.
Dew wanted to shake his head, say no. He didn’t deserve this. However, the thought of being curled up with his mate behind him, under a bunch of warm blankets, sounded amazing.
Aether sat him down on the bed and started to dig through the bags. He pulled out Dews warmest clothes and even grabbed a jacket. He had to get him warmed up before he could turn into a personal heater.
“Do you wanna talk about it?” Seeing as Dew had calmed down a little, he was going to try and get him to talk again. He started to dress Dew, being careful not to make him hurt more.
“I hurt you…” he had to think for a moment to know how to continue. “I hurt you so I had to hurt too.”
Aether stopped for a moment, before kissing Dew on the forehead, looking into his eyes. “You don’t need to punish yourself for an accident. You didn’t mean to hurt me. I don’t blame you.”
“But… I still hurt you…” he didn’t know why Aether was just forgiving him. Any of his previous partners would’ve beaten him if he’d done that to them. “You’re too nice to punish me… I have to do it myself…”
He had been in many relationships before he was summoned. None of them had been healthy. Being a runt, he couldn’t really protect himself from other ghouls. He had to get other ghouls to protect him. He usually would get them to do that by being in a relationship with them. Most of them know that’s what he was doing, so they treated him like shit. They knew he wouldn’t leave. Part of his ruined self esteem stemmed from that.
“Dew. I don’t want you to hurt yourself. Not for any reason.” He climbed into bed, pulling Dew down against him. “I don’t like it when you do that. You didn’t hurt me on purpose. There’s no reason to hurt yourself because of that. It was an accident and I’m fine.”
Dew didn’t say anything else. He knew Aether was right. It was ingrained in him though. It was a hard mindset to break out of. He started to cry again.
Aether kissed the top of his head, starting to use his quintessence to calm Dew’s pain. He wanted to make him feel better.
As the pain started to disappear, Dew’s eyes began to drift shut. He had a lot to think about. But, he would probably do what he usually did and push it all down.