summary: you and ais indulge each other, in strange, strange ways.
pairing: ais x reader
word count: 0.9k
content warnings: gn!reader ✦ canon typical violence ✦ suggestive themes ✦ blood kink ✦ rated A for Ais :)
notes: HAPPY BIRTHDAY AIS!!!!!
The next time you see Ais, he is cracking open the skull of a thief as if it were a jeweled egg.
You flinch and step away as blood splatter ricochets and dots the tip of your boots. You sink into the tired grooves of a wall against your back; a tide of red apples rolling out of your bag teemed around your feet.
There’s a part of you that wants to turn away and squeeze your eyes shut, an anxiety-ridden voice yelling at you to melt into the worn brick and curl into the crushing safety of the mortar.
But there is a malevolent light sparking to life in the pit of your belly, an insidious thrill flowing like sterling water in your veins. You keep your eyes open to the violence and drink it all in.
You watch the thief crumple to Ais’s feet, body limp and shattered, like an oak tree felled by a raging thunderstorm, and you wrestle with the grim satisfaction singing inside you.
Ais had lovely hands. Even if they were adorned in the red silk of blood, they were still a sight to behold, a cruel beauty. He studied them, the very ones that split open the scalp of a man as if searching for the white tissue matter that lay inside, and trailed the pad of his thumb over a bloodied knuckle in contemplative silence.
You try to be discreet with your glances as you knelt to pick up your apples.
“Should be more careful,” he murmured, and his voice tickles like tendrils of smoke at the shell of your ear.
You scoff softly, glaring up at his imposing form above you, a bruised apple clutched in your hands. “Careful is no match for crazy.”
Ais tilted his head down at you, and there was a dark light to the curve of his lips, a soot-stained flame sparking to life. “‘Spose not. But I would prefer it if you knew how to watch your back.”
The sun slithered down the horizon, stealing light from the world, blanketing everything in a velveteen darkness, but Ais’s eyes were warm, too warm, as he looked at you, the hopeful red sunrise before the break of dawn.
You hate that you enjoy basking in it.
From where you still knelt on the ground, you reached a bandaged hand out and pulled at one of his pant legs, gripping the fabric and tugging with more force than you ought to. “Yeah, yeah, whatever. Stop being irritating and help me pick up these apples.”
Ais stared at where your hand was placed on his leg, and you witnessed a shadow rushing to speckle the light dancing in his eyes. You felt a heady twist in your gut, hot like blood baking on the pavement in the sun.
Ais sunk to your level, quite close to you, too close, on the girt and grim of the alleyway floor, and suddenly you felt both smothered and comforted, his musk enveloping you in a cloying embrace; the spice of cloves undercut with the metallic melody of blood, kissing your nose as if in affectionate greeting. The husk of blood that you smelled on his body made you feel warm and slightly dazed, red clouds filling your head.
Ais scooped one apple up, turning it this way and that, considering it in silence. You stared at him, stared at the redness of the apple that matched the redness of his gore-slick hands, of his bright crimson eyes, his existence, and his hands blood-staining the dark that surrounded the both of you.
His eyes slid over to you now, and there was something strange glittering in the shadowy depths of his eyes, dark embers flickering in the heart of them, sparking against your skin. You have never felt so raw and vulnerable; you have never felt so elated to be seen.
“Sure,” he said, and there was a lightness in his tone that belied the honeyed darkness that festered in his eyes, “but I’m afraid you’re in debt to me now, little sparrow.”
You narrow your eyes at him, trepidation and excitement warring inside you. “Since when have I ever been in debt to you?”
“Since right now.”
Making use of his strength, the apple held in his hands was suddenly split into two perfect halves. The juices from the fruit snaked a clean river through the blood coating his hands, a sweet baptism of the violence, the crisp aroma perfuming the iron-leaden air hanging heavy above you.
Eyes not leaving your face, Ais lifted one of the apple halves to his mouth and swallowed in one whole go, quick yet silent. You were too stunned to question what he was doing when he raised the other apple to your lips, waiting. “Open up.”
You could see his bloody fingerprints marring the flesh of the apple, his scarlet whirlpools imprinting himself on the delicate fruit. You felt angry. You felt disgusted.
But above all else, you felt very, very hungry.
You open your mouth tentatively, and he slides the apple half into your mouth, almost tenderly. Your heart skipped a beat and your gut curdled at the taste melting on your tongue, at the bitter sugar of metallic blood and saccharine wetness of fruit exploding your senses and sliding down your throat.
Ais hummed his satisfaction, his thumb pressed gently to your lips, ensuring that you every little piece. “Good job, sparrow. Didn’t think you had the stomach for it.”
“You’re sick,” you muttered, but you felt yourself relax under his warm, crimson gaze.
His bloodied thumb was still against your mouth, radiating heat. You fight the compulsion to suck it deep into your mouth and lick him clean.
"Don't look at me like that. You'll make me wanna unwrap my gift early."
Happy Birthday Ais! ❤️🔥
According to the anonymous source who gave us this sketch, it fell out of Vere's sketchbook one day when the fox fantastically tumbled down the stairs of the Senobium.
“What do you mean you found this floatie on a corpse?”
With your help, Vere and Leander successfully moved five and a half bodies off the beach before succumbing to the heat and too many Extra Bloody Marys.