Eryiss

He/Him | Gay | Icon created by @nixxyss.

[eryiss]

INTRODUCING: Alpha Gamma Corpses - Lucifer & Ty Weller

As some of you might know, for the past year or so, I've been working on writing my original novel. It's an afterlife based romantic comedy focusing on the self appointed best frat house in the realm: Alpha, Gamma, Corpses.

I'd like to introduce you to the main characters of Lucifer's Pledge; the first of the Alpha Gamma Corpses novels, which I'm currently in the process of editing.

So, please meet: Lucifer & Ty Weller

---

Lucifer

Lucifer is the king of the afterlife, known as the realm, and is perfectly fine. Discounting, of course, his self-enforced solitude in a colourless castle tucked in the middle of nowhere, his only active role being to mediate the arguments of the worst of humanity, and the fact he's so disconnected from reality that he's losing his sense of taste.

As stated, he's perfectly fine.

But never let it be said he's not one to take action. Per an agreement with his living-world alternative Eden, Lucifer has been going on nightly walks around the realm, and getting involved in anything interesting he stumbles across. It's a total waste of time and does nothing for him, but he does it anyway, which is further testimony to how perfectly fine he truly is.

But when he happens across a frat house that seems like a disaster waiting to happen, something occurs to him. He's not fine. Not fine at all. How could he have been fine if one night at the frat, tended to by it's ridiculous so-called king as they played the most stupid of games together, made him feel more alive in those few short hours than he's ever felt before?

Worse still, how fine could he be when a horrible truth comes to light. He wants to go back.

He wants to pledge, even if he has to hide who he is to do it.

---

Ty Weller

Ty wasn't just the life of the party; he was the creator of the party. He built his frat from the ground up. He came up with every stupid tradition, weathered every bad day where the stupidity of his afterlife seemed to oppress him, and collected every lost guy who needed something to laugh about and somewhere to call a home away from home.

So what if he didn't talk about his family? So what if he'd been hiding his phone? So what if memories of his death still crippled him? So what if he sometimes wondered what the hell he was doing with his eternal time?

Ty was the perfect bro, and that's all he needed to be. A hunk wrapped in workout spandex, never lacking a joke or a stupid stunt to pull, and always there to shoot the shit with anyone who wanted a laugh or just someone to talk to.

What else did he need to be, other than that?

But he also wasn't stupid, and wasn't one to pass up an opportunity when it was presented to him. So when some weirdo dressed like a fancy pirate came to the frat house and let himself be dragged into a stupid game of consequences, Ty had only one course of action.

Get Luc into the frat and finally find the match to his freak, one pledge night at a time.

---

I hope that gives you a taste of who these two men are, and what their weird, wonderful romance will be.

The story will follow them falling for each other, becoming the weirdest of friends, and engaging in a courtship ritual made up of games with the stupidest of forfeits, food fights, an endless assault of ridiculous costumes, camping trips, and occasional moments where they finally let down their barriers and pretences, just for the moment.

I'd love to hear what you all think of this idea. I hope you all like the wonderful art of the characters I've commissioned, and the front cover - which includes my silly little pun pseudonym - below.

Image Commission by Anze Ban V. of Fiverr

[rocket-sith]

Reblog if you write fic and people can inbox you random-ass questions about your stories, itemized number lists be damned.

[eryiss]

[Fraxus] The Demon Of Drenchwich Moor: Chapter Nine

Summary: In the quiet moors of England, at the turn of the nineteenth century, a lowly coachman catches the desire of a man who is anything but gentle. Laxus finds himself haunted by the bones of infernal creatures, a house of impossible architecture, and enchanting eyes that are always on him. Terror is logical, and yet under the gaze of Lord Freed Justine, there can only be desire. Endless, morbid, wonderful desire.

Notes: Hi all. Ready for some demonic courtship, some fun with paint, wasabi, and completely unnecessary naked Laxus fan service. Get it here. Hope you all enjoy and please let me know what you think.

Links: Ao3

Chapter Nine: Painting

After his stunt, Laxus had no idea what to expect of Freed.

He had taken a damn big risk with everything he’d done, driven by madness and frustration and confusion. He had made demands of a lord who could have ruined his life with nothing more than a letter and a grudge. He had asked questions that had satanic answers. He had set up an unwinnable bet which was always going to result in a lord and a demon being forced to do menial, disgusting work while Laxus sat back and watched. By all logical conclusions, everything he had done could have resulted in a beating and a lost livelihood.

Instead, there hadn’t been much of anything. Laxus had walked out of the courtyard, returned to his rooms, and had wasted the day away. He had read pages from a novel that had seen better days, he had taken a walk around the lake he had bathed in that very morn, and he had waited for hell to take him. More than anything, though, he had thought about the last thing he had said to Freed.

“You have my permission to court me. Better make it count.”

In the moment, it had felt entirely right to say. This beautiful liar who had apparently been spoiling him from afar had passed a test, and Laxus had deemed him a man worthy of knowing. Their conversation had almost framed it as the only option that was worth exploring; they had a shared want, and to reach the point of mutual satisfaction, courtship was the road they would travel.

Thinking of it now, though, it was entirely odd. Ladies were courted, and men did the courting. Laxus had never been shy about his lust being centred on men and men alone, and as such thought quite a lot of fuss about gender wasn’t worth the time it took to think it, but still the oddity of it lingered. Laxus was not someone delicate, and he cared not for gifts, or gentleness, or the frivolities of what it meant to be part of the gentry.

He wouldn’t have to go to galas and balls, would he? He wouldn’t have to give the pretence of respectability? He wouldn’t have to pretend that one of his most wanted outcomes wouldn’t be to chain the demon down and fuck him to mindlessness? That all sounded so boring.

Conventionality had never suited Laxus, and he wouldn’t go for it now.

It was useful, given the situation, to be able to think in such a way. It was useful to be able to be able to classify all the ways this strayed from normality into one little subsection of his thoughts. The fact that Freed wore his hair longer than the modern style suggested could sit comfortable in the subnormal box, right beside the fact that Freed was a monstrous demon who claws his way out of hell and now had his eyes set on Laxus.

But Freed was a demon, and Laxus shouldn’t dismiss that. But it was terribly easy to do so. Better a demon than a true lord, Laxus had to stop himself from thinking.

All in all, the day had been a long, confusing, and slightly tense one of waiting and thinking.

Three sharp knocks came from the hallway, and Laxus hauled himself off the bed, rolling his shoulders and standing at full height. He forced himself to remember he had committed Freed into actions that could have truly angered him, and that in the time Laxus had been mulling things over, Freed might have turned to stewing in that anger. Best to be prepared for a fight, and to remind Freed who held the height and bulk in the situation.

The demon was bigger than Laxus though. That ought to scare him. Instead, all Laxus could think of was how much pain the demonic create could take before it wept. Enough for Laxus to not have to hold back, he was sure.

On the other side of the door, Freed smiled up at him after a quick full body glance and an even quicker smirk. “Mister Dreyar.”

“My lord,” Laxus greeted, still cautious. Freed smile dimmed just slightly.

“Please, address me entirely to your pleasure,” Freed stated.

“And if the name it pleasures me to call you offends you?”

“Then you shall be as honest as you please, and I shall move passed my offense,” Freed shrugged a little. “Anyhow, it occurred to me that I don’t actually know how human courtship works. A bit of an oversight, I suppose. Even after all these years of play acting, I never did learn the minutia; a risk of seclusion I expect.”

He laughed a bit at himself, and the show of amusement struck Laxus. This was Freed being himself. Not entirely different but lacking the need to sensor himself and give away a secret or a scandal. It was compelling.

“I digress,” Freed waved himself off. “Demonic courtship isn’t possible between us right now – far too many mortal injuries, you understand – so we can’t exactly do that. So, I’ve devised a way of courtship that I think will suit us both, even if it is a little odd.”

“Which is?”

“I’ve set out a spread of some of the finest foods this world has to offer. I would like to spend the evening with you, talking and getting to know each other in a less… let’s call what happened in the stables a goal-orientated moment.”

“So we eat?”

“And drink, should you like to. It really is a wonderous array of foods. I’ve even snagged some dishes that don’t quite exist yet. Restricting oneself to what is available at one moment in history is terribly dull. That’s the wonderment of hell, you see. As we get deceased from all moments of time coming in all at once, culture is so varied.”  He gave Laxus a small smile. “It’s very freeing being able to speak with you plainly at last.”

Laxus stared down at him. “You’re certainly speaking plainly.”

“A rush of excitement. I’ll calm down, I assure you,” he waved off. “But, to get back to the topic of focus, we shall eat, drink and be merry. Should you want to, of course. I know people have some ideas about demons, so I think it best to make it clear you are not bound by any supernatural means to keep to your promise. Duck out of this if needs be, and you will face no repercussions.”

The casual out he was given was enough for Laxus to step into the hallway and close the bedroom door behind him. “Just drinking, eating and being merry?”

“Well, I won’t lie, I’d very much like to paint you. You’re the most exquisite creature I’ve ever had the pleasure of seeing. And after this morning, having seen you in your totality,” Freed slowly looked Laxus up and down again, and Laxus felt a stirring in his balls at the open show of appreciation. “I fear you’ve brought out the artist in me.”

Laxus found his biceps had flexed and his posture had gotten taller under Freed’s gaze, and reprimanded himself for the peacocking of it all. “I’m not one for standing around posing.”

“Nor would you have to,” Freed assured him, before turning towards the door. “Come.”

Laxus followed Freed, and allowed himself to get a truly good look at the man. Freed wore dark purple clothes that were tailored to his body perfectly, and the steady slope of his spine that turned into a swelling, muscled arse was accentuated by the cut of his coat. He wore no gloves, and Laxus could see finally how long and slender his fingers were, taunting the potential of light and teasing touches that would be so at odds with what Laxus would be giving him. His profile revealed the slightest crook in Freed’s nose, and his pale skin looked almost alien in an alluringly indescribable way.

The height of his beauty came in the presence of the only blemish on his face. A small mole under his eye that humanised him despite him not being human at all. Laxus would press a kiss there, eventually. Soft and tender. Loving, almost.

He was a man of pleasure, in all ways that could be seen, and he was practically offering himself up to Laxus. It made the events of the morning all the more confusing, and Laxus found himself speaking. “What were you thinkin’ when you were mucking out the stables?”

“Quite a lot of things,” Freed claimed as they walked into the courtyard. “In the interest of keeping things honest, as you wished of me earlier, I’ll speak plainly. I thought the work was disgusting, and beneath me. I thought it was degrading. I thought it was unconscionable that you were forced to rely on such work to keep yourself fed and watered. I thought you might not like hearing that, and that I was likely more of the elitest lord than I had assumed. I thought you might resent me for that.”

Laxus let the words gestate. The scornful way Freed spoke of his work – honest hard work that had done him well – did rankle Laxus, and yet Freed also recognised this and took ownership of it in the same breath. He nodded slightly. “That’s a lot of thoughts.”

“I also thought that being masterful and a little nasty suited you, and that feeling your eyes on me as I did as bid was a resplendent feeling,” Freed admitted, and Laxus’ footing wavered just slightly. He heard a tiny exhalation of amusement. “I also thought if you could get my prick hard there, what might you be able to do to me when that fire has been fully stoked.”

“Fuck,” Laxus whispered, running a hand over his face.

Freed grinned a little, seductive and taunting in equal measure. “You wanted honesty, and I live to serve.”

When Freed turned his back on him and walked through the front doors, showing off the beautiful tapering of his shoulders to his waist, Laxus thought of near hundreds of ways in which he would put that claim to the test.

Disarmingly, walking through the front door took them straight into a second floor library, where an array of foods – both recognisable and not – sat waiting for them. Laxus turned back to the door, to see it changed entirely. No longer was there was the grand doorway with the courtyard outside of it he’d just stepped through, and instead there was a simple little wooden door leading to an upstairs carpeted hallway. Freed truly had lost all patience with presenting himself as anything but all powerful. It made Laxus smile in a way he wasn’t quite sure about.

Gentle piano trilling rang through the room, and Laxus turned to see a piano playing itself just as it had in his dream.

What would it be like to dance with Freed in here?

Hold him close?

Get his hands on him?

Lead him and move with him?

“Feel free to eat at your own pleasure,” Freed said, removing his coat and slinging it over the back of a chair.

The shirt and waistcoat clung to his firm physique, showing off the strength of his arms and the prominence of his chest wonderfully. Laxus was momentarily entranced; he had expected Freed to have some bulk and was grateful for the confirmation. There was no fun to be had with a man who was as pliant and as weak as a leaf in a windstorm.

“Or perhaps eating is not where you will find pleasure right now,” Freed teased, and Laxus tore his eyes away, cheeks heating. Freed just laughed. “No need to be bashful. I’m aware of my own beauty just as much as you’re aware of yours.”

“I don’t think I’m beautiful.”

“Oh, you do. Maybe that isn’t the term you’d use, but you know the appeal you have,” Freed laughed, and he stepped up into Laxus’ space. Laxus felt breath on his lips and watched with wide eyes as Freed raised a hand and pressed it to Laxus’ chest with firm strength. He ran it down to his stomach, pushing in firmly, feeling the strength of Laxus’ body. “After today, I fear we’ve entirely lost the ability to play at being subtle.”

Laxus swallowed. “Suppose so.”

“Acting accordingly, I am here today to allow you to indulge in your pleasures any way you wish. Whether that be by eating, by sating your curiosity and asking me any questions, or by fucking me against the nearest window,” Freed laughed at the shocked expression Laxus surely wore. “Anything you wish, I shall supply.”

“Anything?”

“Burn down the damn house if that’s what takes your fancy. Either I can rebuild it, or we shall dance in the ashes,” The look of total seriousness on Freed’s face told Laxus it wasn’t a joke. He would actually let that happen, but before Laxus could question such a ridiculous statement, Freed frowned slightly and stepped back. Laxus mourned the loss of heat instantly. “Though, if we do go down the route of eating, I might warn you off from the far table. There’s a little more spice than you might be used to. Best to be cautious.”

“That stuff?” Laxus asked, nodding to a table tucked in the corner.

Freed nodded, and Laxus walked to it. There were chicken legs a distinctly more vivid shade of red than Laxus was used to, bowls containing noodles and both with chopped up chillies, and small crackers smeared with a lime green paste. He picked one of the crackers up and frowned at it.

“Even this?”

“It’s called wasabi. Has a bit of a kick. I’d avoid it.”

Laxus, of course, ate the entire thing in one bite. Then he coughed. Quite a few times, actually. Freed gave him an amused look, and walked to the table where bottle after bottle of drinks laid. Laxus tried to breath through the heat that flooded him, yet that only seemed to make it worse somehow. Freed popped the cork of a bottle of champagne and handed it to Laxus, who took it gratefully and swallowed down five large gulps. Either it cooled the spice, or just tipped him into a tipsy enough state where it didn’t hurt as much.

When he lowered the bottle, Freed made something of a show of biting into a wasabi covered cracker, not reacting to the spice at all. They looked at each other, Laxus’ stomach roiling from the heat and the bubbles of champagne, while Freed looked entirely unbothered. Laxus had to laugh slightly. “You’re smug.”

“Endlessly.”

If there had been tension before, it was gone now. Laxus took another swig of the champagne, Freed opened his own bottle of what seemed to be whiskey, and Laxus found comfort in the realisation that courtship was well and truly happening.

They ate, and the talked. Laxus had a lot of questions, and Freed had a lot of answers.

Laxus learned that he had been right on his first day at the house, and that his bedroom had been too big for the space it possessed. The entire house was essentially made by whatever whims Freed saw fit and could change with just a thought. Freed had wanted to give Laxus a luxury suite, realised it wouldn’t make much sense to do so, hastily fixed it but got the size just a little wrong.

It had also not been a fit of madness when he had seen bones on his pillows and blood drenching the walls. That would be the instigation of typical demonic courtship; a signifier that they appreciate beauty in how they constructed the bones, and a show of power in how dominating their illusions of blood were. Freed looked a little bashful as he explained it, reasoning that he got overexcited at the prospect of a match, and acted without thinking too hard. Laxus let the topic drop, and instead enjoyed the flush of red that dotted Freed’s cheeks, and wondered how far down his body it might spread.

Of course, the topic of the man’s wife was breeched. Mirajane and him were married by the church, though more for a lark than anything. They bore no romantic love for each other, nor any desire to lay together. They were friends in a world where marriage was advantageous. And, Freed laughed as he recounted, it was funny for two demons to wed in a church that would quake in fear of them.

Mirajane being a demon should’ve have been a shock, but it wasn’t. Neither was the revelation that Bickslow was demonic also.

Bickslow and Freed were the same type of demons, apparently. Born and bred in hell, but had been summoned to the human realm for whatever reason – it was so many years ago neither remembered what the deal they struck was – and had simply stuck around. The lure of polite society had taken hold, and for the last century or so they had been playing the roles they chose, and toying with people they met along the way. Freed wore the title of lord as convenience, and Bickslow chose to be a part of the staff simply because it amused him to be so.

Unlike them, Mirajane was a half demon. Her grandparents had sold the soul of their firstborn’s firstborn, which had been her. Her soul had been infested with a demon upon birth, and she grew up with uncontrollable transformations. As an adult, she had found Freed and Bickslow, learned to control her transformations, and had become the person she wished to be while accepting her demonic side.

Then there were other things. Freed revealed what he liked about the world, how funny he found certain aspects of human society, and the fascination he had in living life day to day. Laxus, in turn, spoke of what his normal life was like, and found himself oddly pleased by the open anger Freed showed at his situation.

“It’s unacceptable,” Freed all but grunted, looking up to face Laxus. Laxus didn’t remember exactly when Freed left his own chair, and instead sat at the floor beside Laxus’ feet, nor did he know when he had started to play with Freed’s hair, but it had certainly happened. “Sleeping on the streets, not being able to eat, all the while you are kicked and-”

“You don’t need to tell me it was a bullshit situation,” Laxus cut him off. “Not going to deny that. I just have to think I got lucky enough to get out of the gutter again somehow.”

“And into the employ of that man,” Freed muttered.

The reference to Mard Geer soured Laxus’ stomach, but he knew that the topic could not be avoided forever. “Right. Mard,” he sighed, then forced himself to say it. “What happened to him?”

Freed looked at him for a long, lingering moment. He was clearly considering his words, and even in that moment Laxus knew that whatever Freed said, it would be true. He seemed to take the promise to be honest as some sort of sacred bond. So what he must be considering before speaking, Laxus dreaded to think.

“I suppose it makes sense you noticed his absence,” Freed eventually commented.

“Heard him and Bickslow getting into a fight of some sort. I was sick when it happened so was out of my head,” Laxus scratched at Freed’s scalp. “What did you do with him?”

“Is it enough if I just say that, for now, he isn’t a problem you need concern yourself with?”

Laxus thought on it. He thought through the implications. He thought through what it would mean for him if Mard was gone. If he ran away screaming in terror, or if he was buried in the marshes, or if he swore a vendetta against Freed and had left Laxus to fend for himself. In the end, he just nodded slightly and let the problem belong to another day.

“You said,” Laxus began, clearing his throat a little. “You said you wanted to paint me.”

Freed jerked his head around, a pleased smile on his handsome face. “You’d accept that?”

“So long as I don’t have to spend hours standing still lookin’ like an idiot.”

“I assure you, you won’t,” Freed stood up and made a gesture with his hands. Paintbrushes and a pot of black ink formed in his hands as he turned to face Laxus fully. “Clothes off.”

Laxus blanched. “Excuse me?”

“Strip your clothes off for me, please. All of them.”

He gave Freed a long look. Out of all the things that he could tolerate and simply let happen, the idea that Freed wanted to paint him nude apparently wasn’t one of them. Freed looked at him confused, and it prompted him to sleep. “You want me to get naked?”

“Of course. How else would I-” Freed halted, and had a pained look. “I believe that there might have been a misunderstanding. I don’t wish to paint a portrait of you, Laxus.” He stepped forward, and grazed a paintbrush down Laxus’ chest. “I want to paint you.”

Laxus swallowed, the tease of the brush down his shirt almost toe curling.

He stood, he stripped, and he laid himself bare for Freed.

Freed showed no signs of subtlety as he looked Laxus up and down. There was open desire in his eyes, a level of arousal Laxus never thought anyone would have the balls to be so obvious with. Freed’s gaze lingered on the broadness of his strong chest, the cut abs of his stomach, and the thickness of his half hard cock, and then the amusement expression on his face. His smile was magnanimous, if a little teasing.

“And you still wish to claim you don’t know your beautiful?”

“Maybe I just wanted to hear you say it again,” Laxus rumbled, and Freed’s eyes darkened at the teasing tone.

Despite being the one naked, and bare, and exposed, Laxus felt power cracking throughout him. He sat back in the upholstered chair, spread his legs wide and sat as though he were a king. Freed took in the sight of it, and Laxus truly believed he could have done anything he wanted in that moment. This man – this demon – was his. It was a fact so clear, and so sudden, Laxus hadn’t known when he had realised it.

“Arrogance suits you,” Freed whispered, then shook his head slightly and grasped his paintbrush tighter. “For what I wish to do, I’ll need to get rather close to you. Is that something you agree to?”

Laxus spread his legs a little wider, and caught Freed tracking the movement. He decided to throw Freed’s words back at him. “Do whatever brings you pleasure.”

Freed visibly swallowed, and then stepped into Laxus’ space. He placed his knees either side of Laxus’ thighs, somehow managing to straddle Laxus on the small chair while not requiring Laxus to make any space for him. It might have been impressive, if it weren’t so heart stopping.

This was the closest they had ever been. Laxus could feel heat radiating off the mas like a furnace. He could see the patterns of pores that decorated his skin. He could feel every shift and movement Freed made, so close that even the slightest of action caused body to graze body. This was an intimacy Laxus had never known before, and he placed both hands onto Freed’s waist, just to be able to hold him. Freed looked at him, eyes a little while, smile a little smug.

“What,” Laxus asked, and found his throat dry. “What exactly are you going to be doing?”

“When a demon finds a partner, and their partnership is made eternal, a mark appears on the partner’s body. A protection. A claim. An allowance for the partner to enter hell not as a member of the damned, but as a person of power and influence among demons,” Freed glanced away. “If you’ll indulge me, I’d like to paint what I imagine what that mark might look like on you.”

Laxus processed that. “I’d like that.”

Freed smiled almost shyly – as shy as a man with endless confidence can achieve – and dipped his paintbrush into the pot of ink.

To have gentle brush strokes over his chest was not something Laxus ever thought he might experience, and yet he loved it. It allowed him to watch, sit back, and indulge a look of total concentration and contentment in Freed. Freed was smart, and powerful, and dangerous, and entirely focused on imagining what Laxus might look like marked as his own.

He painted sharp black lines over Laxus’ chest, his shoulder, and his arm. There seemed to be no meaning behind the lines, though Laxus was sure that they had strict reasoning and intention. No man looked so serious when they were drawing without thinking.

Freed always had a goal in mind, Laxus realised, and he made them happen. Which raised one big question.

“Why me?”

Halting his brush, Freed looked up, caught Laxus’ gaze, and said what might be the most important thing Laxus had ever heard. “Who else could it possibly be?”

“You don’t know me.”

“I know enough.”

“Before today, we’ve barely spoke.”

“I don’t need to speak with you to know you,” Freed said, placing the brush down to fully give Laxus his attention. God he was so close. So present. So powerful. “Demons, we have something of a sixth sense. It lets us feel a soul. To experience the very essence of a person. It’s like the scent of flower, or the taste of a supper. Impossible to explain when called upon, yet it makes so much sense when you experience it.”

“And my soul?”

“For as long as you’re willing, you are my match. You are the very concept of exhilaration to me, Laxus,” Freed whispered. “And I wish to do nothing more than to make you feel as I do. If I can bring you even a fraction of the thoughts, feelings, desires and hopes that you gift to me in every moment of your presence then… well, if I can do that then I think you might feel more love, cherishment, and kinship than any human ever has before.”

Laxus swallowed down the emotion such honest, vulnerable words elicited.

Instead, he moved a hand to the back of Freed’s head, leant forward, and pressed their lips together. Freed fell into him, chests pushed together, bare skin against clothes. The kiss was slow, tender, and utterly unimaginable. His mind fizzed, his eyes rolled back, his spine shivered and his cock hardened.

He ignored it all, though. He just held Freed close, kissed him like he deserved, and indulged in this utterly perfect moment in a way he never could have before.

[eryiss]

[Fraxus] The Demon Of Drenchwich Moor: Chapter Nine

Summary: In the quiet moors of England, at the turn of the nineteenth century, a lowly coachman catches the desire of a man who is anything but gentle. Laxus finds himself haunted by the bones of infernal creatures, a house of impossible architecture, and enchanting eyes that are always on him. Terror is logical, and yet under the gaze of Lord Freed Justine, there can only be desire. Endless, morbid, wonderful desire.

Notes: Hi all. Ready for some demonic courtship, some fun with paint, wasabi, and completely unnecessary naked Laxus fan service. Get it here. Hope you all enjoy and please let me know what you think.

Links: Ao3

Chapter Nine: Painting

After his stunt, Laxus had no idea what to expect of Freed.

He had taken a damn big risk with everything he’d done, driven by madness and frustration and confusion. He had made demands of a lord who could have ruined his life with nothing more than a letter and a grudge. He had asked questions that had satanic answers. He had set up an unwinnable bet which was always going to result in a lord and a demon being forced to do menial, disgusting work while Laxus sat back and watched. By all logical conclusions, everything he had done could have resulted in a beating and a lost livelihood.

Instead, there hadn’t been much of anything. Laxus had walked out of the courtyard, returned to his rooms, and had wasted the day away. He had read pages from a novel that had seen better days, he had taken a walk around the lake he had bathed in that very morn, and he had waited for hell to take him. More than anything, though, he had thought about the last thing he had said to Freed.

“You have my permission to court me. Better make it count.”

In the moment, it had felt entirely right to say. This beautiful liar who had apparently been spoiling him from afar had passed a test, and Laxus had deemed him a man worthy of knowing. Their conversation had almost framed it as the only option that was worth exploring; they had a shared want, and to reach the point of mutual satisfaction, courtship was the road they would travel.

Thinking of it now, though, it was entirely odd. Ladies were courted, and men did the courting. Laxus had never been shy about his lust being centred on men and men alone, and as such thought quite a lot of fuss about gender wasn’t worth the time it took to think it, but still the oddity of it lingered. Laxus was not someone delicate, and he cared not for gifts, or gentleness, or the frivolities of what it meant to be part of the gentry.

He wouldn’t have to go to galas and balls, would he? He wouldn’t have to give the pretence of respectability? He wouldn’t have to pretend that one of his most wanted outcomes wouldn’t be to chain the demon down and fuck him to mindlessness? That all sounded so boring.

Conventionality had never suited Laxus, and he wouldn’t go for it now.

It was useful, given the situation, to be able to think in such a way. It was useful to be able to be able to classify all the ways this strayed from normality into one little subsection of his thoughts. The fact that Freed wore his hair longer than the modern style suggested could sit comfortable in the subnormal box, right beside the fact that Freed was a monstrous demon who claws his way out of hell and now had his eyes set on Laxus.

But Freed was a demon, and Laxus shouldn’t dismiss that. But it was terribly easy to do so. Better a demon than a true lord, Laxus had to stop himself from thinking.

All in all, the day had been a long, confusing, and slightly tense one of waiting and thinking.

Three sharp knocks came from the hallway, and Laxus hauled himself off the bed, rolling his shoulders and standing at full height. He forced himself to remember he had committed Freed into actions that could have truly angered him, and that in the time Laxus had been mulling things over, Freed might have turned to stewing in that anger. Best to be prepared for a fight, and to remind Freed who held the height and bulk in the situation.

The demon was bigger than Laxus though. That ought to scare him. Instead, all Laxus could think of was how much pain the demonic create could take before it wept. Enough for Laxus to not have to hold back, he was sure.

On the other side of the door, Freed smiled up at him after a quick full body glance and an even quicker smirk. “Mister Dreyar.”

“My lord,” Laxus greeted, still cautious. Freed smile dimmed just slightly.

“Please, address me entirely to your pleasure,” Freed stated.

“And if the name it pleasures me to call you offends you?”

“Then you shall be as honest as you please, and I shall move passed my offense,” Freed shrugged a little. “Anyhow, it occurred to me that I don’t actually know how human courtship works. A bit of an oversight, I suppose. Even after all these years of play acting, I never did learn the minutia; a risk of seclusion I expect.”

He laughed a bit at himself, and the show of amusement struck Laxus. This was Freed being himself. Not entirely different but lacking the need to sensor himself and give away a secret or a scandal. It was compelling.

“I digress,” Freed waved himself off. “Demonic courtship isn’t possible between us right now – far too many mortal injuries, you understand – so we can’t exactly do that. So, I’ve devised a way of courtship that I think will suit us both, even if it is a little odd.”

“Which is?”

“I’ve set out a spread of some of the finest foods this world has to offer. I would like to spend the evening with you, talking and getting to know each other in a less… let’s call what happened in the stables a goal-orientated moment.”

“So we eat?”

“And drink, should you like to. It really is a wonderous array of foods. I’ve even snagged some dishes that don’t quite exist yet. Restricting oneself to what is available at one moment in history is terribly dull. That’s the wonderment of hell, you see. As we get deceased from all moments of time coming in all at once, culture is so varied.”  He gave Laxus a small smile. “It’s very freeing being able to speak with you plainly at last.”

Laxus stared down at him. “You’re certainly speaking plainly.”

“A rush of excitement. I’ll calm down, I assure you,” he waved off. “But, to get back to the topic of focus, we shall eat, drink and be merry. Should you want to, of course. I know people have some ideas about demons, so I think it best to make it clear you are not bound by any supernatural means to keep to your promise. Duck out of this if needs be, and you will face no repercussions.”

The casual out he was given was enough for Laxus to step into the hallway and close the bedroom door behind him. “Just drinking, eating and being merry?”

“Well, I won’t lie, I’d very much like to paint you. You’re the most exquisite creature I’ve ever had the pleasure of seeing. And after this morning, having seen you in your totality,” Freed slowly looked Laxus up and down again, and Laxus felt a stirring in his balls at the open show of appreciation. “I fear you’ve brought out the artist in me.”

Laxus found his biceps had flexed and his posture had gotten taller under Freed’s gaze, and reprimanded himself for the peacocking of it all. “I’m not one for standing around posing.”

“Nor would you have to,” Freed assured him, before turning towards the door. “Come.”

Laxus followed Freed, and allowed himself to get a truly good look at the man. Freed wore dark purple clothes that were tailored to his body perfectly, and the steady slope of his spine that turned into a swelling, muscled arse was accentuated by the cut of his coat. He wore no gloves, and Laxus could see finally how long and slender his fingers were, taunting the potential of light and teasing touches that would be so at odds with what Laxus would be giving him. His profile revealed the slightest crook in Freed’s nose, and his pale skin looked almost alien in an alluringly indescribable way.

The height of his beauty came in the presence of the only blemish on his face. A small mole under his eye that humanised him despite him not being human at all. Laxus would press a kiss there, eventually. Soft and tender. Loving, almost.

He was a man of pleasure, in all ways that could be seen, and he was practically offering himself up to Laxus. It made the events of the morning all the more confusing, and Laxus found himself speaking. “What were you thinkin’ when you were mucking out the stables?”

“Quite a lot of things,” Freed claimed as they walked into the courtyard. “In the interest of keeping things honest, as you wished of me earlier, I’ll speak plainly. I thought the work was disgusting, and beneath me. I thought it was degrading. I thought it was unconscionable that you were forced to rely on such work to keep yourself fed and watered. I thought you might not like hearing that, and that I was likely more of the elitest lord than I had assumed. I thought you might resent me for that.”

Laxus let the words gestate. The scornful way Freed spoke of his work – honest hard work that had done him well – did rankle Laxus, and yet Freed also recognised this and took ownership of it in the same breath. He nodded slightly. “That’s a lot of thoughts.”

“I also thought that being masterful and a little nasty suited you, and that feeling your eyes on me as I did as bid was a resplendent feeling,” Freed admitted, and Laxus’ footing wavered just slightly. He heard a tiny exhalation of amusement. “I also thought if you could get my prick hard there, what might you be able to do to me when that fire has been fully stoked.”

“Fuck,” Laxus whispered, running a hand over his face.

Freed grinned a little, seductive and taunting in equal measure. “You wanted honesty, and I live to serve.”

When Freed turned his back on him and walked through the front doors, showing off the beautiful tapering of his shoulders to his waist, Laxus thought of near hundreds of ways in which he would put that claim to the test.

Disarmingly, walking through the front door took them straight into a second floor library, where an array of foods – both recognisable and not – sat waiting for them. Laxus turned back to the door, to see it changed entirely. No longer was there was the grand doorway with the courtyard outside of it he’d just stepped through, and instead there was a simple little wooden door leading to an upstairs carpeted hallway. Freed truly had lost all patience with presenting himself as anything but all powerful. It made Laxus smile in a way he wasn’t quite sure about.

Gentle piano trilling rang through the room, and Laxus turned to see a piano playing itself just as it had in his dream.

What would it be like to dance with Freed in here?

Hold him close?

Get his hands on him?

Lead him and move with him?

“Feel free to eat at your own pleasure,” Freed said, removing his coat and slinging it over the back of a chair.

The shirt and waistcoat clung to his firm physique, showing off the strength of his arms and the prominence of his chest wonderfully. Laxus was momentarily entranced; he had expected Freed to have some bulk and was grateful for the confirmation. There was no fun to be had with a man who was as pliant and as weak as a leaf in a windstorm.

“Or perhaps eating is not where you will find pleasure right now,” Freed teased, and Laxus tore his eyes away, cheeks heating. Freed just laughed. “No need to be bashful. I’m aware of my own beauty just as much as you’re aware of yours.”

“I don’t think I’m beautiful.”

“Oh, you do. Maybe that isn’t the term you’d use, but you know the appeal you have,” Freed laughed, and he stepped up into Laxus’ space. Laxus felt breath on his lips and watched with wide eyes as Freed raised a hand and pressed it to Laxus’ chest with firm strength. He ran it down to his stomach, pushing in firmly, feeling the strength of Laxus’ body. “After today, I fear we’ve entirely lost the ability to play at being subtle.”

Laxus swallowed. “Suppose so.”

“Acting accordingly, I am here today to allow you to indulge in your pleasures any way you wish. Whether that be by eating, by sating your curiosity and asking me any questions, or by fucking me against the nearest window,” Freed laughed at the shocked expression Laxus surely wore. “Anything you wish, I shall supply.”

“Anything?”

“Burn down the damn house if that’s what takes your fancy. Either I can rebuild it, or we shall dance in the ashes,” The look of total seriousness on Freed’s face told Laxus it wasn’t a joke. He would actually let that happen, but before Laxus could question such a ridiculous statement, Freed frowned slightly and stepped back. Laxus mourned the loss of heat instantly. “Though, if we do go down the route of eating, I might warn you off from the far table. There’s a little more spice than you might be used to. Best to be cautious.”

“That stuff?” Laxus asked, nodding to a table tucked in the corner.

Freed nodded, and Laxus walked to it. There were chicken legs a distinctly more vivid shade of red than Laxus was used to, bowls containing noodles and both with chopped up chillies, and small crackers smeared with a lime green paste. He picked one of the crackers up and frowned at it.

“Even this?”

“It’s called wasabi. Has a bit of a kick. I’d avoid it.”

Laxus, of course, ate the entire thing in one bite. Then he coughed. Quite a few times, actually. Freed gave him an amused look, and walked to the table where bottle after bottle of drinks laid. Laxus tried to breath through the heat that flooded him, yet that only seemed to make it worse somehow. Freed popped the cork of a bottle of champagne and handed it to Laxus, who took it gratefully and swallowed down five large gulps. Either it cooled the spice, or just tipped him into a tipsy enough state where it didn’t hurt as much.

When he lowered the bottle, Freed made something of a show of biting into a wasabi covered cracker, not reacting to the spice at all. They looked at each other, Laxus’ stomach roiling from the heat and the bubbles of champagne, while Freed looked entirely unbothered. Laxus had to laugh slightly. “You’re smug.”

“Endlessly.”

If there had been tension before, it was gone now. Laxus took another swig of the champagne, Freed opened his own bottle of what seemed to be whiskey, and Laxus found comfort in the realisation that courtship was well and truly happening.

They ate, and the talked. Laxus had a lot of questions, and Freed had a lot of answers.

Laxus learned that he had been right on his first day at the house, and that his bedroom had been too big for the space it possessed. The entire house was essentially made by whatever whims Freed saw fit and could change with just a thought. Freed had wanted to give Laxus a luxury suite, realised it wouldn’t make much sense to do so, hastily fixed it but got the size just a little wrong.

It had also not been a fit of madness when he had seen bones on his pillows and blood drenching the walls. That would be the instigation of typical demonic courtship; a signifier that they appreciate beauty in how they constructed the bones, and a show of power in how dominating their illusions of blood were. Freed looked a little bashful as he explained it, reasoning that he got overexcited at the prospect of a match, and acted without thinking too hard. Laxus let the topic drop, and instead enjoyed the flush of red that dotted Freed’s cheeks, and wondered how far down his body it might spread.

Of course, the topic of the man’s wife was breeched. Mirajane and him were married by the church, though more for a lark than anything. They bore no romantic love for each other, nor any desire to lay together. They were friends in a world where marriage was advantageous. And, Freed laughed as he recounted, it was funny for two demons to wed in a church that would quake in fear of them.

Mirajane being a demon should’ve have been a shock, but it wasn’t. Neither was the revelation that Bickslow was demonic also.

Bickslow and Freed were the same type of demons, apparently. Born and bred in hell, but had been summoned to the human realm for whatever reason – it was so many years ago neither remembered what the deal they struck was – and had simply stuck around. The lure of polite society had taken hold, and for the last century or so they had been playing the roles they chose, and toying with people they met along the way. Freed wore the title of lord as convenience, and Bickslow chose to be a part of the staff simply because it amused him to be so.

Unlike them, Mirajane was a half demon. Her grandparents had sold the soul of their firstborn’s firstborn, which had been her. Her soul had been infested with a demon upon birth, and she grew up with uncontrollable transformations. As an adult, she had found Freed and Bickslow, learned to control her transformations, and had become the person she wished to be while accepting her demonic side.

Then there were other things. Freed revealed what he liked about the world, how funny he found certain aspects of human society, and the fascination he had in living life day to day. Laxus, in turn, spoke of what his normal life was like, and found himself oddly pleased by the open anger Freed showed at his situation.

“It’s unacceptable,” Freed all but grunted, looking up to face Laxus. Laxus didn’t remember exactly when Freed left his own chair, and instead sat at the floor beside Laxus’ feet, nor did he know when he had started to play with Freed’s hair, but it had certainly happened. “Sleeping on the streets, not being able to eat, all the while you are kicked and-”

“You don’t need to tell me it was a bullshit situation,” Laxus cut him off. “Not going to deny that. I just have to think I got lucky enough to get out of the gutter again somehow.”

“And into the employ of that man,” Freed muttered.

The reference to Mard Geer soured Laxus’ stomach, but he knew that the topic could not be avoided forever. “Right. Mard,” he sighed, then forced himself to say it. “What happened to him?”

Freed looked at him for a long, lingering moment. He was clearly considering his words, and even in that moment Laxus knew that whatever Freed said, it would be true. He seemed to take the promise to be honest as some sort of sacred bond. So what he must be considering before speaking, Laxus dreaded to think.

“I suppose it makes sense you noticed his absence,” Freed eventually commented.

“Heard him and Bickslow getting into a fight of some sort. I was sick when it happened so was out of my head,” Laxus scratched at Freed’s scalp. “What did you do with him?”

“Is it enough if I just say that, for now, he isn’t a problem you need concern yourself with?”

Laxus thought on it. He thought through the implications. He thought through what it would mean for him if Mard was gone. If he ran away screaming in terror, or if he was buried in the marshes, or if he swore a vendetta against Freed and had left Laxus to fend for himself. In the end, he just nodded slightly and let the problem belong to another day.

“You said,” Laxus began, clearing his throat a little. “You said you wanted to paint me.”

Freed jerked his head around, a pleased smile on his handsome face. “You’d accept that?”

“So long as I don’t have to spend hours standing still lookin’ like an idiot.”

“I assure you, you won’t,” Freed stood up and made a gesture with his hands. Paintbrushes and a pot of black ink formed in his hands as he turned to face Laxus fully. “Clothes off.”

Laxus blanched. “Excuse me?”

“Strip your clothes off for me, please. All of them.”

He gave Freed a long look. Out of all the things that he could tolerate and simply let happen, the idea that Freed wanted to paint him nude apparently wasn’t one of them. Freed looked at him confused, and it prompted him to sleep. “You want me to get naked?”

“Of course. How else would I-” Freed halted, and had a pained look. “I believe that there might have been a misunderstanding. I don’t wish to paint a portrait of you, Laxus.” He stepped forward, and grazed a paintbrush down Laxus’ chest. “I want to paint you.”

Laxus swallowed, the tease of the brush down his shirt almost toe curling.

He stood, he stripped, and he laid himself bare for Freed.

Freed showed no signs of subtlety as he looked Laxus up and down. There was open desire in his eyes, a level of arousal Laxus never thought anyone would have the balls to be so obvious with. Freed’s gaze lingered on the broadness of his strong chest, the cut abs of his stomach, and the thickness of his half hard cock, and then the amusement expression on his face. His smile was magnanimous, if a little teasing.

“And you still wish to claim you don’t know your beautiful?”

“Maybe I just wanted to hear you say it again,” Laxus rumbled, and Freed’s eyes darkened at the teasing tone.

Despite being the one naked, and bare, and exposed, Laxus felt power cracking throughout him. He sat back in the upholstered chair, spread his legs wide and sat as though he were a king. Freed took in the sight of it, and Laxus truly believed he could have done anything he wanted in that moment. This man – this demon – was his. It was a fact so clear, and so sudden, Laxus hadn’t known when he had realised it.

“Arrogance suits you,” Freed whispered, then shook his head slightly and grasped his paintbrush tighter. “For what I wish to do, I’ll need to get rather close to you. Is that something you agree to?”

Laxus spread his legs a little wider, and caught Freed tracking the movement. He decided to throw Freed’s words back at him. “Do whatever brings you pleasure.”

Freed visibly swallowed, and then stepped into Laxus’ space. He placed his knees either side of Laxus’ thighs, somehow managing to straddle Laxus on the small chair while not requiring Laxus to make any space for him. It might have been impressive, if it weren’t so heart stopping.

This was the closest they had ever been. Laxus could feel heat radiating off the mas like a furnace. He could see the patterns of pores that decorated his skin. He could feel every shift and movement Freed made, so close that even the slightest of action caused body to graze body. This was an intimacy Laxus had never known before, and he placed both hands onto Freed’s waist, just to be able to hold him. Freed looked at him, eyes a little while, smile a little smug.

“What,” Laxus asked, and found his throat dry. “What exactly are you going to be doing?”

“When a demon finds a partner, and their partnership is made eternal, a mark appears on the partner’s body. A protection. A claim. An allowance for the partner to enter hell not as a member of the damned, but as a person of power and influence among demons,” Freed glanced away. “If you’ll indulge me, I’d like to paint what I imagine what that mark might look like on you.”

Laxus processed that. “I’d like that.”

Freed smiled almost shyly – as shy as a man with endless confidence can achieve – and dipped his paintbrush into the pot of ink.

To have gentle brush strokes over his chest was not something Laxus ever thought he might experience, and yet he loved it. It allowed him to watch, sit back, and indulge a look of total concentration and contentment in Freed. Freed was smart, and powerful, and dangerous, and entirely focused on imagining what Laxus might look like marked as his own.

He painted sharp black lines over Laxus’ chest, his shoulder, and his arm. There seemed to be no meaning behind the lines, though Laxus was sure that they had strict reasoning and intention. No man looked so serious when they were drawing without thinking.

Freed always had a goal in mind, Laxus realised, and he made them happen. Which raised one big question.

“Why me?”

Halting his brush, Freed looked up, caught Laxus’ gaze, and said what might be the most important thing Laxus had ever heard. “Who else could it possibly be?”

“You don’t know me.”

“I know enough.”

“Before today, we’ve barely spoke.”

“I don’t need to speak with you to know you,” Freed said, placing the brush down to fully give Laxus his attention. God he was so close. So present. So powerful. “Demons, we have something of a sixth sense. It lets us feel a soul. To experience the very essence of a person. It’s like the scent of flower, or the taste of a supper. Impossible to explain when called upon, yet it makes so much sense when you experience it.”

“And my soul?”

“For as long as you’re willing, you are my match. You are the very concept of exhilaration to me, Laxus,” Freed whispered. “And I wish to do nothing more than to make you feel as I do. If I can bring you even a fraction of the thoughts, feelings, desires and hopes that you gift to me in every moment of your presence then… well, if I can do that then I think you might feel more love, cherishment, and kinship than any human ever has before.”

Laxus swallowed down the emotion such honest, vulnerable words elicited.

Instead, he moved a hand to the back of Freed’s head, leant forward, and pressed their lips together. Freed fell into him, chests pushed together, bare skin against clothes. The kiss was slow, tender, and utterly unimaginable. His mind fizzed, his eyes rolled back, his spine shivered and his cock hardened.

He ignored it all, though. He just held Freed close, kissed him like he deserved, and indulged in this utterly perfect moment in a way he never could have before.

[eryiss]

[Fraxus] The Demon Of Drenchwich Moor: Chapter Eight

Summary: In the quiet moors of England, at the turn of the nineteenth century, a lowly coachman catches the desire of a man who is anything but gentle. Laxus finds himself haunted by the bones of infernal creatures, a house of impossible architecture, and enchanting eyes that are always on him. Terror is logical, and yet under the gaze of Lord Freed Justine, there can only be desire. Endless, morbid, wonderful desire.

Notes: Hi All. Time for Laxus to get some control over the situation at last. Hope you all enjoy and please let me know what you think.

Links: Ao3

Chapter Eight: Games

Perhaps emboldened by the morning’s earlier performance, Laxus walked into the house using the front door. He strode through lavish hallways without hesitation, trudging mud onto the carpet from his boots, his back straight and his jaw set. His stride was purposeful and his goal was single-minded and steadfast. There was one thing and one thing only Laxus needed to do today, and it wasn’t mucking out the sheds or resting after his fever. It was becoming himself again.

Laxus was a lot of things, but more than anything else, he was a pragmatic arsehole.

He had needed to be like that to survive in the streets or even survive in his family. He took things on headfirst, by the horns, and he didn’t cower. He didn’t let the world kick him without kicking back. He stormed forward and forged his own pathway, no matter what.

Except he hadn’t been doing that for a long time. Ever since he found himself under Mard’s heel, he had been slowly losing himself to his indentured servitude. He’d been trapped in a position that destroyed his sense of power, little by little, day after day, like a drop of water eroding a stone. It had happened so slowly, but so surely, that Laxus hadn’t known when he’d given up hope. There was a point where he’d gone from thinking his employment as a coachman was a temporary roadblock, to the best he had got. He had turned from a man who would tear down a city to get what he wanted, to a grovelling, shit-shovelling spec of nothing.

Then he’d arrived at Albion House. A damn near microcosm of who he had become. A house where he was more a passenger than a participant. Where things happened to him, instead of because of him. And he had allowed it. Made excuses or denials, or simply let the madness around him happen without question.

No more.

No more ignoring that his bedroom was bigger than it should have been. No more dreams that felt too real and were too vivid to fade like all his other dreams would. No more dismissing the fact he happened to find a hidden passage at the exact right time for him to see his honour being defended. No more accepting a house that shifted and changed and made no damn sense. No more pretending he hadn’t seen a fucking demon in the moors!

Complacency wasn’t working. It was time to take life by the balls, dammit, and that would start with the lord of the house.

Knowing where to go despite never having stepped foot in this part of the house, Laxus found himself at the door to the main sitting room. He didn’t knock before entering, and charged into the room to see Lord Justine with a teacup half raised to his mouth. He turned, and watched silently as Laxus walked towards him.

Laxus towered over Freed. He towered over most people, but standing just too close to him, casting a shadow over him as he sat in his chair, Laxus truly felt how much bigger he was than Freed. The man was not small in any way, and yet in this moment, Laxus truly felt the worth of his bulk and height. Something about making Freed look up – forcing the issue and being the reason the lord had to cast his eyes upwards – had Laxus’ blood burning in a way he greatly enjoyed.

They looked at each other for a moment, and Freed raised an eyebrow as if telling Laxus to speak first. Laxus happily complied.

“It’s not just that you want to fuck me,” he stated, and saw the beginnings of forced shock bloom on Freed’s face. “Don’t. I’m not in the mood to be toyed with, so why don’t we just speak as men rather than playing whatever weird fucking games you’ve been playing.”

Freed seemed to consider the motion, then nodded. “I suppose that’s fair. What is it exactly what you wish to talk about?”

“Everything. I want to know what you want out of all of this, because I don’t think it’s just that you want me in your bed.”

“’Just’?” Freed repeated. “For such an illegal, and often considered immoral act, you seem awfully confident in accusing me of wanting it.” He leant back in his chair, still looking up at Laxus, a self-satisfied smile forming on his face. He spread his legs just a little wider, and Laxus was distracted by the movement for a second. “What exactly has given you such confidence?”

“You ain’t the first lord who wants a rough night with a man like me,” Laxus stated, and it was true. He had been subtly propositioned and looked upon by many men, all lusting for a roll with some rough man. “And you didn’t exactly look away this morning, did you?”

“Ah, that’s what that was? I did wonder,” Freed laughed slightly. “You cut a handsome figure, Mister Dreyar. If a little test allows he to see you in your entirety – and soaking wet, no less – then please test away.”

“That’s not what that was,” Laxus scoffed, then grinned a little. “I just wanted to get in your head.”

“Well, you succeeded. I’ve been thinking about it all day, truth be told,” his eyes skittered down Laxus’ figure, shamelessly lingering on his crotch just a second longer. “You’ve a body that is… resplendent. As you insist we speak plainly, I think I’ll find it difficult to think of anything else for quite some time.”

“It’s what you deserve, after that little dream you gave me,” Laxus crossed his arms, and didn’t miss the small intake of breath that the movement brought out of Freed. He’d forgone a jacket, and his shirtsleeves strained against his biceps. He flexed them a little, and grinned at the slight dilation of his eyes.

“How exactly does one give a person a dream?” Freed asked, and his smirk was almost subtle.

“Thought we weren’t playin’ games anymore,” Laxus huffed, and his arms tightened. The way Freed followed the movement was a slight balm for his irritation. “But I’d guess you’d do it the same way you do all the other… cultish things that happen around here.”

“Cultish? I feel we’re winding up for an accusation, Mister Dreyar,” Freed leant forward slightly, and Laxus felt the man’s scent with the closeness. “One that perhaps you’re not ready to deal with the implications of.”

“Not an accusation, but a lot of questions,” Laxus said plainly, flexing and unflexing a fist. “And I’m done waiting for all this makes sense, so don’t make assumptions about if I’m ready or not for the answers.”

“And if I don’t wish to give you the answers you want?” Freed asked, leaning back again. “The wrong thing said in the wrong place can have rather… ugly consequences sometimes. Perhaps it’s best to be cautious.”

Laxus stepped back, irritation flaring at the almost condescending tone Freed had spoken in. It was part of Freed’s game, being obnoxious and getting under Laxus’ skin. Laxus had realised this earlier in the morning, finally understanding what Freed had meant when he’d said he wanted to stoke a fire inside of Laxus. After a dream of having Freed at his mercy, and the realisation that Freed was the kind of man who liked men with rough hands and rougher fantasies, it became obvious that Freed was being antagonistic on purpose. He couldn’t let him be dragged into Freed’s side of the game until he knew what the end point would be.

But, fuck it would be satisfying. Just to reach down and grab him by his shirt. Maybe throw him to the ground, or split his lip, or make him crawl just for the hell of it. Slap him around and make him thank Laxus for the pleasure of it, just because he could get away with it, and maybe even because Freed would enjoy it.

No. Not now. Not yet.

“I’m gettin’ sick of being cautious. And I’m sick of rich pricks telling me what to do, actually,” Laxus said, turning back to face Freed. It looked at is Freed hadn’t for a moment looked away from him. “But you’re right about one thing. This ain’t the place to be having this conversation.”

He turned and left the room, his pulse thrumming hard and heavy as adrenaline coursed through him. He walked down the main hallway, not looking back but somehow trusting that Freed would be following him. He saw no reason to linger and hold the doors open for Freed, nor did he think it was appropriate to let Freed know where they were going. Laxus had been swept up in the tide of Freed’s control and whims for over a week now, a little revenge was allowed.

In the courtyard, Laxus pivoted and walked towards the stable yard, grinning a little at the scent of unfettered animal hit him. It wasn’t a nice scent, and the warmer weather of the day would only make it worse. He stepped into the yard and grinned; it was a mess.

After bathing in the lake, Laxus hadn’t done any of his work. He hadn’t done much of anything, really. He had lied on his bed and thought about everything. He had indulged in picturing how his little performance, as Freed had put it, might have affected Freed. He’d enjoyed the breakfast that Bickslow had brought him, which seemed to be twice the size as his regular breakfast at the house, and found himself smugly satisfied with the turn of events. As such, the stable was covered in manure, straw, and was altogether awful.

Lord Justine needed to be uncomfortable, Laxus decided. He needed to be in a place he had never been in control of, even if he might have thought he had.

There was a small, rickety old set of table and chairs tucked in the corner, with smatterings of moss growing over it and wood that might not be able to hold all that much weight. Laxus hauled them up and set them in the centre of the yard, looking back towards where Freed was for the first time. The lord wore an expression of indulgent curiosity, which Laxus didn’t mind. While there would be satisfaction in seeing him unsettled, but Laxus knew that the expected result of something would never actually happen with Freed.

Sitting in the sturdier looking chair, Laxus motioned for Freed to take the other. Freed acquiesced, walking through the yard with a bit of an upturned nose. He sat carefully, managing to still look elegant despite the surroundings.

“So,” Freed said as he straightened his waistcoat. “You have me, how do you intend to use me?”

“I’ll ask questions, you’ll answer them.”

“And if I don’t.”

“Then I’ll leave.”

A look of surprise, then displeasure, then confusion flashed across Freed’s features. It was the most honest emotions he had ever seen from him. “No.”

“You’d stop me?” Laxus challenged, hackles rising slightly.

“No. I suppose not. If you wanted to leave then I wouldn’t… entrap you here,” Freed looked entirely annoyed at the prospect, and his hands fidgeted in his lap. The movement was small, but Laxus noticed it. “Would you really leave, if I don’t answer you?”

“I suppose we might find out,” Laxus shrugged, and decided he wouldn’t allow Freed to dither him to distraction. “First question: why are you so shocked that I might want to leave?”

Freed ran his hands down the front of his thighs, a small nervous gesture that might almost look bashful on another man. “Well,” he said, then swallowed as if he needed the second to consider what he might say next. “Have I not made your stay here a nice one? I thought I had. I made sure your room was warm, and your baths were prepared without asking, and your meals were both hearty and well flavoured. I would have liked to do more, of course, but within the confined of this country’s rules, giving you much more of what I wanted might have shocked you.”

“Shock me how?”

“I’m given to understand that, when a person is not born into a family that has institutional power, giving them luxuries and kindnesses are seen as either mocking or inappropriate,” he scratched at his finger with his thumb. “I didn’t wish for you to feel like I was… setting you up for some sort of test simply by spoiling you. Nor did I want you to face ire by other people for the luxuries I provided you.”

Even now, Laxus felt like he was being manipulated. Just slightly. Not being lied to, nor being laughed at. But it felt like he was being guided one way in the conversation, as not to look elsewhere. Mentions of being spoiled, and hints at the injustice of the country were conversation starters, and distractions. Mulling what Freed had said told him what he was being distracted from.  

When Freed spoke of people, he didn’t speak of himself. Laxus let that settle, and decided he would play Freed’s game. For now.

“So, if we didn’t live in a country that treated men like me as if were dirt, what would you have done?”

“I shall have liked to treat you like a king,” Freed said, and the steadfast gaze in which he held with Laxus almost made Laxus believe him. “I should have lavished you with all the luxuries this world has to offer. I will have had you served by the finest men you could imagine, if only so you had something nice to look at. I should have made sure you want for nothing and never had to lift a finger, should that be how you find pleasure.”

“So you wanted to make me feel good?” Laxus asked, almost mockingly. The idea that anyone would want to do anything for Laxus simply out of some sort of kindness was a flight of fancy Laxus had long since given up on. “Then what the hell was that first conversation we had? You were fucking nasty.”

“I was,” Freed conceded. “I wanted to give you the space to be angry, and not keep that anger inside. People are all as good as they are bad, within the rules and thoughts of the moral world. I believe anger, and resentment, and cruelty are an important part of a person, and should be allowed to fly as freely as the more… acceptable emotional reactions. I admit I acted hastily, and without forethought of how you might be affected, but I wanted you to feel comfortable being yourself.”  

Laxus scoffed out a laugh, and ran a hand through his hair. “And what, you’d do that for any man who works your stables?”

“No. You’re unique.”

“Why? What would you do all that for?”

Freed looked considering. “In a word,” he said carefully. “Courtship.”

A laugh slipped out, nasty and disbelieving. “What, you want to marry me?”

“As a start, yes,” Freed said plainly, and raised hands in surrender when Laxus shot him a vicious look. “You wanted honesty, Mister Dreyar. I don’t want to risk you leaving the house before time, therefore I am being honest.”

“You don’t even know me.”

“I know enough,” Freed stated, and he sounded offended to have to say it. “I know you are strong, and beautiful, and angry, and twisted, and moral. I know you have a vicious sense of honour that isn’t in line with your countrymen, and that if you were allowed to act how you wish rather than how you are told, you would be one of the most impressive men ever to live.”

“You don’t know anythin’ about me. We haven’t even had a conversation, and you’re discussing fuckin’ courtship. You’re just… saying shit to get in my head.”

“Since I have sat down, I have not lied. I promise you.”

“Then you’re fucking deluded then. We’re not courting. We’re not getting married. We’re not anything. We’re two people who have been… somewhat close to each other for a week and now you’re saying whatever you feel like you have to get in my head, or get me into bed, or some other twisted fucking thing. You’re a… a damn stranger to me.”

A stranger who had a house that didn’t make sense. A stranger who had infested dreams that Laxus was unable to forget. A stranger who had defended Laxus while he seemed to know Laxus could hear. A stranger who didn’t seem possible.

Fuck it; Laxus had promised himself he would be the one in charge again. No more dancing around the topic.

“What the hell are you?” He demanded, and the moment the question burst from him, he found himself unable to stop. “Because you don’t make any sense, and you speak about people like you aren’t one, and this house keeps fucking with my head, and the thing I saw in the moors was a damn demon, and I’m not stupid just because I learned not to ask questions in places like this. I know that there’s more to the world than most people know about – I’ve seen Mard casting spells, and sacrifices and people being dragged into portals, so I’m not some stupid fuckin’ kid who-”

“Laxus,” Freed spoke with a calm authority that cut Laxus off entirely. “I am what you think I am.”

Leaning back, Laxus nodded. He ran a hand over his jaw, looked Freed in the eye and demanded, “Which is?”

“A demon.”

Laxus nodded again. “That was you in the moors?”

“It was.”

“Show me.”

Freed seemed to consider, before he rolled his jacket sleeve up to his bicep, then did the same with his shirtsleeve. Laxus glanced just for a moment at his forearm, noticed the strength of it, then schooled himself. Freed gave him a quick look as if to confirm he wanted this, then whispered a word Laxus had never heard before.

Purple lettering burned into his skin, and warped the flesh into jet blackness. Scales and feathers burst out, and Laxus winced as if he were feeling the inevitable pain of it himself. Freed’s fingers cracked and snapped, the bones breaking and reshaping into longer, sharper, gnarled claws. He flexed them and moved his arm, and rolled his shoulder, accommodating for the added weight. The scent of sulphur and ash filled the courtyard.

Instead of succumbing to the fear he felt building, Laxus fell back to fascination. He reached forward without thinking, running a nail through the groove between scales. He heard Freed breath in sharply, and smirked a little.

“You’re really a demon,” Laxus whispered.

“Yes,” Freed nodded slightly. “I would have fully transformed, but I rather like this outfit.”

Laxus turned Freed’s arm over to look at the underside of it. He tightened his grip, feeling scales digging into the palm of his hand, and grinned when he felt Freed tried to pull away just slightly. The demon could still feel pain. Good.

Being confronted with undeniable proof of what Freed was, it was as if his brain kicked into gear. Whispered conversations and explanations of forbidden tomes came back to him, and answers came to him without having to ask questions. For a demon, their home was their domain, and they had complete control over it. That explained the room that didn’t make sense, the passageway that can’t have been there the night before, and the hot baths and lit fired that appeared from nowhere. Demons had magics that made doctors look incompetent, which would allow Laxus to heal from such a terrible fever overnight.

“So,” Laxus said, still with a firm grasp on Freed’s arm. “Courtship?”

“That is my desire, yes.”

“I don’t know anything about you. Don’t know if you’re worth my time.”

“I’d like to prove that I am, now that I can be myself around you.”

Laxus considered, then released Freed’s arm and reached into his pocket. He pulled out a small coin, which he flipped around his fingers as he thought through the best way to do this. Freed was still Lord Justine, even if he was a demon, and Laxus wasn’t going to forget that. He might be beautiful, and dangerous, and interesting in a way nobody else had been, but Laxus wasn’t going to fall for the tricks of a lord who might just want a shag with someone bigger than him.

But Laxus was smart, and he’d spent his whole life learning how to read people. Who he needed to be careful around, who he could pickpocket, and who he could trust not to waste his time. And if Freed was as desperate for a chance at Laxus’ attention as he seemed, then Laxus could bait him into a little test of sorts.

“This is a double-sided coin,” he said. “It’ll always fall on heads no matter what; won be a lot of bets and got me out of a lot of trouble when I was living on the streets.” He showed Freed the coin to prove he wasn’t lying. “I don’t know who you are; that’s the issue I’m havin’ right now. I don’t know you. But I believe that you can judge a man based on how he works and how true he is to his word. That’s all I need to know if someone’s worth my time. That make sense to you?”

“It does,” Freed nodded.

“Then I propose a wager,” Laxus released Freed’s arm and leant back, flipping the coin between his fingers again. He grinned a little, and found his legs spreading slightly, cocksure in a way he hadn’t been for years. “We flip this coin, and if it lands on heads, you have to clean the entire yard. You muck out the stables, change the water in the trough, brush away the hay. All of it. You do it to my standards, or I make a mess of it, and we start all over again.”

“An unwinnable wager with a threat of a task you yourself despite,” Freed surmised.

“Yessir.”

“I agree to the terms.”

Rather than giving him a chance to back out or debate terms, Laxus flipped the coin. It clattered onto the table, one of the two heads landing upwards. Laxus made a motion for Freed to get to work, and Freed did.

It was a hell of a sight, truth be told. To see a clean, beautifully dressed, demonic lord grabbing a shovel and cleaning up the worst a horse had to offer. Laxus had done this work  time and time again, and hated it every time, and it was clear Freed wasn’t enjoying it either. But he put in the effort, allowed his clothes to be made dirty despite claiming he liked the outfit, and didn’t gripe. He was made a sweaty, ruffled mess by the end of it, and Laxus thought it might be the most beautiful form of the man.

“Well,” Laxus hummed. “You shut up and did the work. No complaining, no arguing the terms. You did better than I thought you would.”

“Thank you.”

Laxus turned his back on Freed. As he walked away, he looked over his shoulder and grinned. “You have my permission to court me. Better make it count.”

[eryiss]

[Fraxus] The Demon Of Drenchwich Moor: Chapter Seven

Summary: In the quiet moors of England, at the turn of the nineteenth century, a lowly coachman catches the desire of a man who is anything but gentle. Laxus finds himself haunted by the bones of infernal creatures, a house of impossible architecture, and enchanting eyes that are always on him. Terror is logical, and yet under the gaze of Lord Freed Justine, there can only be desire. Endless, morbid, wonderful desire.

Notes: Hi all. This chapter starts off with a pretty intense adult scene, which you can read the content list for in the Ao3 link. If you want to skip it, the line break takes you to the next part. Hope you enjoy and let me know what you think.

Links: Ao3

Chapter Seven: Lust

Chapter Seven – Lust

With the click of a key in a lock, Laxus became all powerful.

He stepped back, looking away from his prisoner for a moment. He allowed himself to take stock of the room before him. A lavish and extravagant bedroom parlour, with walls lined with hooks for torturous equipment. Whips, canes, oils and ropes were laid bare for him, all there for him to use at his discretion and pleasure. He had anything and everything that a man could desire when wanting to take a man, and turn him into a weeping, pain filled shell of his former self. It was hard not to enjoy the rush of it.

Slowly – slow enough to let his boots really thud on the bare floorboards of the room – Laxus turned. Trapped by manacles on the four-poster bed devoid of sheets and pillows, Lord Freed Albion Justine waited for him. Chest pressed against the bed, though head turned to the side, he was entirely bound. The chains were taut enough to offer him no relief, and his body was stretched to discomfort. He was entirely at Laxus’ mercy, and it was a gift Laxus would take full advantage of.

For as long as he was dreaming – he assumed that’s what was happening, but Albion House did have a way of surprising him – he would be entirely himself with neither sensor nor reprieve.

“Everythin’ I’m about to do to you,” Laxus said, rolling up his sleeves as he approached Freed, “is all for me. Not because you might want it. Not because you deserve it.” He grabbed a fist full of Freed’s hair and pulled it, sharp and nasty, and forced Freed to look at an angle that had to hurt with his binds. “It’s just because I want this.”

Freed lips parted slightly, and Laxus spat on his face. He released his hair and watched as Freed’s head fell back onto the mattress.

After procuring a sharp knife from the shelves, Laxus ran a taunting finger down Freed’s clothed back, making sure to trace the line of his spine. Freed writhed as much as he could, raising his arse slightly as Laxus neared it. Freed was dressed in one of the more ostentatious outfits he owned, which flattered his figure to perfection, and the plumpness of his firm arse had Laxus wanting nothing more than to smack it black and blue. But not yet. He had a man to put in his place.

With perfectly calculated pressure, Laxus placed the tip of the knife between Freed’s shoulder blades, and pushed through the fabric. Once blade hit skin, he slid it down, again tracing the ridges of Freed’s spine, revealing inch after inch of skin as threading split and stitches parted.

The coat, waistcoat and shirt cost more than Laxus made in a year, and he’d destroyed it in seconds.

Taking either side of the split in hand, he pulled them apart and wrecked the clothing fully. Freed’s back – perfectly curved, pale, and tapered down to his hips – presented itself to him like an unmarked canvas. He made quick work of splitting open the sleeves and left the remnants of fabric spread out under Freed, offering him no dignity of protection.

A firm slap on the mans lower back pulled out a moan from him, followed by a pitifully needy, “Laxus.”

“The fuck d’you think your doin’, speaking to me?” Laxus demanded fuelled by an anger that had been stoked after years of patronising gentry speaking how they pleased while he was forced to hold his tongue.

Not affording Freed the ability to answer him, he took hold of Freed’s hair and held him firm against the mattress, entirely face down. It would hurt, just a little, Laxus hoped. He reached around and yanked out Freed’s cravat from under him. The damn thing would have fed Laxus for a week if he’d been able to sell it on the streets, and the fucking lord had the balls to wear it around his neck.

He stuffed the cravat into Freed’s mouth and yanked it back, tying it so tight Freed retched around it. Good.

Happy with the pliancy of his plaything, Laxus took the knife in hand again and sliced down the lengths of his trousers. He made sure to push in just enough for Freed to feel the graze of the blade, but not so far that he should bleed.

Wonderfully, Laxus was presented with the fact that Freed wore no underthing’s below his trousers, a tantalising thought that he hoped would be true in the waking hours. Laxus now had an uninhibited view of the firm, muscled ass of a man who was powerless against him. Hefty balls and a hard cock could be seen, pushed down by the position and signifying that Freed wanted to be nowhere else but here.

“This is what you want, ain’t it, fucker,” Laxus growled, slapping Freed’s right arse cheek then squeezing it tight to draw out the pain. Freed raised his hips up as if desperate for more. “Pain. Punishment. Attention.”

He slapped Freed’s arse five times fast, grinning at the crack of skin against skin that each spank brought. Freed let out a gargled sound in response.

“You wanna know what I want?” Laxus asked, trailing a thick, probing finger down the creese of Freed’s cheeks, but not breaching them. Freed moaned like a whore in heat. “What I want, more than anything, is one moment. One small, deniable, little moment.” He removed his finger, walked to the head of the bed and forced Freed to look at him with a hand full of his hair. “Where I make you scared of me.”

Freed’s eyes rolled back slightly in a look that could only be described as incumbent bliss, Laxus’ spit still smearing his face and his mouth still firmly gagged.

From the wall of toys, Laxus picked out a gnarled wooden cane, with knots and splits running down the length of it. He sliced it through the air to get a sense of it, and grinned a little madly at the vicious whip that filled the silence. A good weapon that could cause a lot of pain, no doubt. Freed must have thought so too, as he writhed and humped into the ruins of his clothing.

“Let me make somethin’ clear to you, fucker,” Laxus snapped, and Freed froze, seemingly in obedience. “If you spend without my permission, I’m locking your cock in one of those cages and throwing the key to the moors, so you have to crawl around in the mud to procure it. You understand me?”

Freed gave a nod, and made a sound that Laxus was sure meant, “Yes, sir.”

“Good. Then let’s have some fun.”

Laxus cracked the cane down onto Freed’s lower back without further warning. Then again. Then again.

The reverberations that shot up Laxus’ arm with every strike had Laxus blood thumping. His cock plumped in his breeches as he lined up his next hit, making sure to strike where previous hits had landed. It was the most vicious strike yet, and Freed lurched upwards despite his binds and roared out in gagged pain. Laxus teasingly stroked the reddened line, dragging a knot of wood to further agitate the pain.

He left Freed alone for a few moments. Not to allow himself relief from the pain, but toy with him. He walked to the shelves and pulled a thick black spool of fabric from it. Treading lightly, he walked back to Freed’s head and yanked it back from the mattress. He covered Freed’s eyes with the fabric and tied it up, blinding him completely.

“You suit a gag,” Laxus commented as he picked up the cane again. “This country’d be a lot more tolerable if all you lords lived like this. Quiet and hurtin’.”

Freed moaned through his gag and raised his arse up again as if presenting himself for agreement.

“You’d like that, My Lord?” Laxus asked, voice scornful and derisive. “You want me to wake up, hunt you down and treat you like a dirty fuckin’ whore? Hurt you and make you scream for real?”

With a nod and a slight split of his legs, Freed gave his agreement. Laxus tightened his grip on the cane and, given that Freed’s new position granted him perfect access, whacked it as hard as he could against Freed’s contracted balls. The roar of pain and the hampered crumpling of Freed’s body was one of the most sensual things Laxus had ever seen, and he wanted more.

Spurred by cruel energy and gusto, Laxus began a barrage of pain. He caned Freed wherever he pleased. His back, his thighs, his arse, his arms. Freed could do naught but writhe and moan and rut as he was marked by the cane again and again.

Lost in a maelstrom of pain – pain he was finally safe to give and indulge in after years of shortened fantasies and bitter moments – Laxus unleashed everything he could think of. The racks of toys gave him much to enjoy and to consider, and ideas flew wide and wonderful on how he could hurt his bound little lord.

With whips and chains, paddles and canes, candles and clamps, he hurt Freed however he pleased. He beat and bruised him. Made him moan and roar and desperate for more. Freed’s cock never once wavered, and he all but begged with his eyes for the next source of pain. He was Laxus’ toy entirely, and it was as if he were meant to be so. Like he was fuelled by the pain. Like he had been waiting for it all his damn life and wanted nothing more than to indulge, and take his damn fill.

Laxus himself felt like he was a burning fire. A sun fuelled by spite and vitriol. A man who had been pushed around, and fucked up more times than he could count, now had the power he wanted. A willing man to hurt and claim. A man who could take Laxus, not from fear, but from desire. A man made for him.

It could have been minutes, or days, but Laxus never once stopped his barrage of agony. He dropped hot wax onto cold skin and let Freed sit with the burn. He slammed a wooden paddle lined with sharp metal spines against the tenderness of Freed’s already well beaten arse. He pulled at his hair so hard that he thought it might come out in great clumps.

Freed took the pain in earnest – truly hurting and in agony yet loving it in a way Laxus didn’t understand and didn’t need to – and all but begged for more. Better yet, Freed remained himself. He was still the powerful lord, not reduced to anything nor revealed to be weak in some way. In the bound man who jutted his leaking cock against a bare mattress, Laxus still saw the lord of the manor, who had put Mard in his place and ran his home how he saw fit, saying to hell with what society expected of him.

In Freed, there was an obvious truth. True power and dignity didn’t come with a title. It came with how a man held himself and was honest with himself. Freed was one of the most dangerous men in the country, almost definitely wielded powers of devilry in some capacity, and could do almost anything he wanted. He was also a man who possessed a prick and a mind that loved to be the victim of a beating, and deferred to a man like Laxus simply because he knew that was where his pleasures lay. There was no shame in that, Laxus realised. Having such predilections did not make a man pathetic, or weak, or warped. It made him unique.

That was who Freed was. A unique man who knew himself, and lived as himself without fear of judgment nor repercussions. The ideas of who he was meant to be mattered not, for he simply was who he was.

Hence why he unnerved Laxus so.

Could Laxus do that? Live life honestly. Live as a man who fucked men for his own pleasure, and liked to cause pain while doing so. Could he accept that didn’t make him cruel, or fucked in the head, or destined for solitude? Could he be himself, if given the chance to have a man who fit his needs perfectly share his bed?

This was a dream, he reminded himself. This wasn’t Lord Justine. This was a made up version of him, warped by Laxus’ desires and wants and confusion over who the man truly was.

But he felt real. So real. With every strike and tease and slap, it was as if he had a real man below him, ready and waiting for him. A real man who wanted him, and wanted his dark sides, and wanted him in his totality.

Laxus would not waste this. If this dream was all he could have, he would make use of it.

He stripped his shirt off, tossing it to the floor and standing their slightly sweat damp, glowing in the candle light. His body flexed and hummed with adrenaline as he rid himself off his boots, trousers and draws. Freed remained bound, gagged and blindfolded, but the sound of discarded clothing must have been obvious to him. He froze for a moment, before shifting as best he could in his chains, raising his arse and spreading his knees as much as he could.

Laxus wordlessly climbed onto the bed, taking a firm handful of Freed’s left arse cheek. He squoze it tight and relished the moan of pain he got. The Lord wouldn’t be able to sit comfortably for a week after all Laxus had done to him.

“Ready, My Lord?” Laxus asked, and never before had the title been said with such wonderous distain.

Freed barely had time to nod before Laxus had his thick, hard cock lined up with Freed’s puckered little hole. Laxus was a beast of a man, and his size and girth had previous lovers apprehensive and excited in equal measures. With them, Laxus had used plenty of oil and a few stretching fingers to lessen the pain. Freed would get no such mercy, and Laxus doubted he would want it.

Hands grasping Freed’s waist with blistering strength, Laxus fucked into Freed without reserve. The hot heat had his eyes rolling back in his head, and he pushed further and further. Freed accommodated him completely, in a way no man ever had before, and Laxus groaned at the feeling of his balls resting against Freed.

With mindless brutality, Laxus began to fuck Freed. Fast. Cruel. Uncaring. All that mattered was his own pleasure, which burst into sparks of fire with every thrust. The tightness of being fully taken was ecstasy, and damn Laxus loved it. Freed was meant for him. Meant for his cock. Meant for his pain!

Tightening his grasp, Laxus doubled his pace. He saw spots and stars dancing in his vision as fizzling sensations ran down his cock. Fuck, this was too much. Too good!

His eyes clenched shut.

He was close.

Releasing Freed’s waist  with one hand only, Laxus reached down and took Freed by the base of his own juddering cock and squeezed it tight.

He wouldn’t allow Freed to cum from this.

This pleasure was Laxus’, and Laxus’ only.

He was allowed to be selfish here. With Freed. He could finally be selfish.

All at once, orgasm struck. Shivers and boundlessness overtook his body, and he all but collapsed as he shot cum deep into Freed. He felt it leaking around his cock, squelching as he rutted his way through the endless pleasure.

The binds holding Freed down were gone, all at once. Laxus reached up and tugged both the gag and the blindfold off him and was met with the face of a man so thoroughly fucked and beaten, and peculiarly smug about it. He took Freed by the back of the neck and acted on instinct. He leant up, pulled Freed to his body, and-

---

 Laxus woke with a start, and felt his cock covered in spend.

Things came upon him in a rush. Waking up to the sound of Mard Geer yelling at him about the horses. Traversing the moors to find Pantherlilly, and coming face to face with a demonic creature. Being sick and tended to by Mirajane. Hearing a fight break out from behind the door between Mard and Bickslow. Feeling a soft yet firm hand stroking through his hair, and a gentle voice wishing him pleasant dreams.

And then the dream. The brutality he had shown was even foreign to his own mind. The exaggeration that could only come from a dream. He wouldn’t enjoy causing that much pain to a man, no matter how willing they seemed. Would he? It had felt so wonderful in the moment. So… affirming. He had loved it.

As evidenced by the cum that stained his stomach and chest, it would seem he had. He must have kicked off his sheets in the night and had spent over himself spectacularly. Three weeks’ worth of chastity – even from his own hand – had left him rather a mess. A mess he would have to clean up.

There was no bath ready for him, nor washing jug set up. He considered the pump he’d used to wash off after his night in the moors, but that had been nary more than a trickle at the best of times.

It was dark outside though. Early morning. The house had little staff. Laxus doubted anyone would be awake at such an hour. The lake beside the house had looked oddly pristine, despite the marshland surrounding it.

Fuelled by adrenaline that lingered from the dream, Laxus did something intrinsically stupid.

He adorned his previous days clothing as best he could without letting the remnants of his spend touch him. This resulted in him walking out with draws he would have to get rid of, tied trousers and an unbuttoned shirt, striding towards the lake with a bar of soap in one hand, a towel tucked over his arm, and a complete deficit of shame.

The sun was still not close to rising, and as such he had to take a candle with him to light the way, highlighting his state of partial dress to anyone who might wake and check the grounds.

It was odd how, just one week prior, when he arrived at Albion House, he had been almost fearful of it. Now, it almost felt like the house should fear him.

He reached the edge of the lake and faced a moment of hesitation. The house looked over the marshes and the lake, and while Laxus couldn’t be sure either way, he would not be surprised if the Lord’s bedroom might look over them too. But, well, Laxus had made something of a resolution during his dream to be more himself, and stop halting his own actions to fit in with the rules of society.

A brisk bath in cold water to wipe the spend off his body was what he wanted to do, and he would do so. To hell with the consequences.

As such, he stripped himself naked then and there. His trousers, shirt and towel were hung up on the branch of a tree, and his now stained draws were left in the mud. The morning breeze struck his naked body and he felt an odd thrill. A cocky sense of power. A man of his stature, his musculature, his power was meant to be like this. Unashamed, uninhibited, unsanctioned.

He waded into the water, and loved the coldness of it. The blunt ferocity of the cold was almost taboo, somehow, and Laxus shamelessly dunked his head under the surface to wet himself fully before he started to soap himself down.

What a sight he must look. Taller and broader than most, with firm abdominals and strong pecs. The water slid down his body, which he rubbed and teased with the soap. He let his eyes fall close, cock plumping slightly despite the cold. He pumped it once, then twice, just for the thrill of doing something so obscene. He wouldn’t bring himself off, but the mere concept of doing so in such an open place had his toes curling.

When he opened his eyes, he was met with open curtains, a lit-up room, and a silhouette of a man watching him from above. Lord Freed Albion Justine.

Maybe it was adrenaline. Maybe it was lingering madness of his fever. Maybe it was the roiling power still coursing through him from his dream. But Laxus did not cower, nor cover. He was in charge here, and the lord was his voyeur.

Laxus simply walked out of the lake, shameless and proud, and let the lord get his fill.

[eryiss]

The Demon Of Drenchwich Moor: Chapter Six

Summary: In the quiet moors of England, at the turn of the nineteenth century, a lowly coachman catches the desire of a man who is anything but gentle. Laxus finds himself haunted by the bones of infernal creatures, a house of impossible architecture, and enchanting eyes that are always on him. Terror is logical, and yet under the gaze of Lord Freed Justine, there can only be desire. Endless, morbid, wonderful desire.

Notes: Hi all. Hope you enjoy this chapter. I'll be going to uploading it on Tuesdays, Fridays and Sundays from now on so that there's a space between this ending and Fraxus Week. Hope you enjoy, and I'd love to know what you think.

Links: Ao3

Chapter Six: Sickness

The world shifted and swirled more than it settled when Laxus woke. His head thudded and groaned, he clenched his eyes tight to fight against the brightness of the sun, and he shifted so that at least one of his ears was pressed against the pillow. There was shouting going on somewhere near him, and he didn’t care to listen to it. He had far too much encroaching on his comfort to allow yelling to be added into the mix.

With the smallest shift of his body, the graze of sheets on bare skin set off a flood of chills and shivers over him. He remembered – vaguely and sporadically – that he had dressed in his nightclothes before getting into bed. He had wished for a bath to appear from nowhere as they seemed to do in this house, made do with the limp and trickling pump in the stables, dried himself off while hoping for a fire to be waiting for him in his room, and adorned his nightclothes before burying himself in his sheets.

Now, though, his clothes were kicked off and piled on the floor, and he was shivering.

He groaned and considered reaching for his night clothes before the idea of getting out from under the sheets made him nauseous. He pulled them tighter around him, wrapping them between his legs, under his arms and tight on his chest. It was like they were warmed from within, and Laxus was happy to leech the heat. A quiet, distant part of his mind said that the sheets shouldn’t have been able to wrap around him so tightly. Had they always been this big?

“Get out of my way!” Came from the other side of the door, and the sharp yell could only come from Mard Geer. Laxus buried himself further into his sheets, smiling a little as he was cocooned in heat.

“Afraid I can’t do that, Milord,” another voice, exuberant and cheerful and entirely unbothered by Mard Geer’s anger. “Got orders to let the man sleep.”

“I am his employer,” Mard growled out, and Laxus found himself so enraptured by his dreary state that he let himself roll his eyes.

Typically that might get him a beating of some sort, if Mard Geer saw him do it of course, but there was an odd sense of safety in this little room. Either that, or he was just too damn tired to get up out of this bed and do anything. Had last night truly happened? None of it felt all that real? A demon and a bolting horse and a woman in a tree? It was more of a dream, of course. People sometimes remembered dreams with full clarity, without them fading away and without the jumps in logic and gaps in the narrative. It happened sometimes.

“I understand that, Milord,” The cheerful voice said, and Laxus took a moment to remember who it belonged to. Bickslow.

Peculiar name he had. Peculiar man. Laxus had caught another glance at him, and there had been this odd little figure that covered his face, one that a child might draw when distracted during their studies. It must have been a trick of the light, though, because he’d seen Laxus glancing at him and gave him a tip of his flat cap and faced him fully. The figure was gone, and Laxus decided that he must have seen something not there. Talks of devilry must have gotten in his head again. It happened sometimes. Odd man, though.

Fuck, his head hurt. Could they stop yelling?

“You don’t understand anything,” Mard sneered with his voice somehow. Arsehole. “For as long as I’m paying that man his wages, he’s as good as property to me. Stopping a man from having access to his property is tantamount to thievery, and I am not above contacting the local constabulary and telling them as such.”

“By all means, go ahead,” Bickslow offered, and the brazen balls of the man had Laxus laughing into his pillow. As weak as the laugh was, though, his head thumped and his vision blurred.

“I shall.”

“Wonderful. Might I ask, how do you intend to get a message to them?” Bickslow taunted, and it sounded like he was smiling as he said it. “Your poor coachman is a little indisposed at the moment, the lord and lady of the house aren’t going to trouble themselves with your tantrum, and the only other person around for miles is me. Can you imagine that I’m willing to do you a favour, Milord?”

A thud came before another word. “Now listen here you fucking prick,” Mard snarled, voice a little closer than it had been before. Like he was right by the door now. “That man fucked up,  and when he fucks up it makes me look bad-”

“I’d advise taking your hands off me now.”

“I don’t know how things work up here in the arse-end of nowhere, but when the staff fucks up in my house, they get punished. If it doesn’t happen today, then it will happen tomorrow. That bastard hasn’t shown a scarp of competence since he got here, and I’m damn near done with it. Right now, he gets a beating with the cane and loses his wages for the fortnight. But if I have to wait until tomorrow, or whenever the so-called lord of the house decrees him ready to his damn job, then it’ll only get worse.”

“Can’t help but notice you’re still holding me to the wall, Milord,” Bickslow sounded like he was close to laughing. “I’d advise against it.”

“Right by my house, there’s a forge that’s constantly in work. A big brute of a man works it, and I’ve always founds him to have a vicious side,” Mard’s voice was like poison, and there was another thud that quickly followed. “They brand cattle, that forge. I think a good course of ale and enough money to sooth over the objections would get me anything he wanted.”

“Right, you’re getting nasty now, and I’d warn against that.”

“Brand the fucker, make him realise just how much he belongs to me now,” Mard was ranting, and Laxus screwed his face up. These pillows were so thick and nice, why weren’t they any better at blocking out the noise? “He’s always had one foot out of the door, you know. I’ve seen it. He thinks he had a chance of living well on the streets again. As if I’d allow that. He’s far too useful to be fighting in some club or spreading his legs in some brothel. No. And he’s far too useful to be allowed to rest after a fuckup like that.”

“I really would stop talking.”

“The damn fool let one of my horses bolt, and he needs a beating to be corrected, and a branding to be told exactly to whom he belongs. Now get the hell out of my way, boy, or I will make you.”

Laxus looked up for a moment, wondering exactly what that meant, but when he heard laughter, he decided it wasn’t his problem to worry about, and let his head fall back to the pillow. It really was all soft and thick.

“Okay, Tartaros, we’ve been playin’ nice with ya for quite some time now, and it’s all funny seein’ you think you have any sense of power in this place,” Bicsklow said, and his voice was tinted with darkness. “But for as long as you’re here, you follow the rules that have been set. The lord of the house, he’s a big fan of rules. Likes ‘em. Makes it so he can have more fun when he’s in a fucked-up mood. Right now, though, a rule has been set. Laxus Dreyar is not to be disturbed until he’s well, and there’s nothing you’d do in that room that wouldn’t disturb him, I’m sure.”

“I will have your job.”

“Oh please, this is play for me,” Bickslow laughed. “Only person who should be playin’ by the rules of society while they’re here is you, and that’s for your own safety.”

“Are you threatening me?” Mard demanded.

“Oh fuck yeah I am,” Bickslow’s voice got a slight snarl to it.

“How… how fucking dare-” Mard must have cut himself off, and subsequently done something to make another loud thud.

“Are you chokin’ me right now?” Bickslow laughed. “You’ve been too deep in your little cult books and can’t see the forest for the trees, Milord. They all promise ya power and riches and influence, and that’s what drags you in. But that’s not what you should have focused on. A real big part of stayin’ alive when you’re dallyin’ with demons. You wanna know what that trick is?”

“What?”

“How to spot one of us.”

There was the sound of a flame scorching at wood, the scent of sulphur slipping in from under the door, and the sound of a scream of pure terror being cut off by dead silence.

Laxus forced his head up to look, and saw that the fireplace in his room had lit up bright and warm, and just a little hint of purple. A wave of tiredness that he had never felt before hit him, and he collapsed back onto his pillow, sleeping almost instantly and letting the lovely warmth of the room treat him like a king.

--

“Knock knock,” Mirajane almost sang as she walked into Laxus’ room, though kept her tone quiet. “Ah, you’re awake. I didn’t want to knock properly if you were sleeping, but I also didn’t want to catch you unaware if you were awake.”

Laxus could do nothing but gawp at her. He wasn’t anywhere near at his best, and the world still span with every movement of his head, but even he knew that having the lady of the house in your quarters was not something to be taken lightly. He sat up, and almost went to stand to greet the lady, before he realised his night clothes were still piled up on the floor. He grabbed the hem of the blanket and held it up to his neck, as not to shock the poor woman with the sight of his chest.

She smiled a little. “I didn’t take you for the shy type, Mister Dreyar?”

“There’s a lady present,” Laxus said lowly.

“So you wouldn’t do it for a gentleman in your room,” she murmured to herself. “That will certainly be productive.”

“I’m not sure what that means, Ma’am.”

“Oh, don’t worry about that. What we need to focus on is the fact that you’re sick, and it’s entirely our fault,” she waved off, and took a small tray off of the breakfast table. “As such, I’ve prepared an array of foods that will help get you on the mend as quickly as can be expected. Some of it has a bit of heat to it, if that’s your favour in the moment, and others are milder. I know how people can get with their temperature when they’re sick.”

“This is entirely unnecessary, ma’am,” Laxus tried to argue. “And can I ask what you mean when you say my sickness was your fault, ma’am?”

“Enough of the ma’am. Freed and Bickslow are the ones who go into that, I think. Mirajane is fine,” she patted the bed as if she wanted to pat him instead. “And the reason your poor horse got out last night was entirely the fault of my husband. He does like to wander the estate, and don’t let it be known, but there’s never been a lock that he hasn’t wanted to pick in his life. I’ve no doubt at all that he is to blame for all of this, and as such it is our responsibility to amend his mistakes.”

Spurred on by sickness and the show of camaraderie, Laxus spoke without censor. “Surely if it’s his fault, then he should be the one putting in the effort, not you?”

“Well, yes, probably,” Mirajane laughed. “But he’s a socially inept disaster of a man in a lot of ways and could do with a firm shaking to get him off his arse, so sometimes it falls upon me to be a good influence. He often doesn’t know what’s acceptable and needs guidance.”

Laxus looked at her for a long moment. “Should you be speaking to someone like me about a lord in such a way?”

“Oh, when the lord in question is Freed, I absolutely should,” Mirajane looked to the window, the same one Lord Justine had been watching him through, and smiled. “He’s the smartest man I’ve ever known, but he’s an idiot and needs to be told it from time to time. Now, you eat up and I’m sure you’ll be back on your feet and feeling better in no time.”

“Thank you, ma’am,” Laxus gave her a small nod, then frowned. “There was a little… argument outside of my room earlier. Mard gets nasty when he’s angry. Is your footman okay?  He is a footman, right?”

“Bickslow is fine,” Mirajane assured him. “And don’t worry about Mard Geer, he won’t be bothering you anytime soon.” She patted the bed again. “Eat, sleep, and don’t worry. Everything will be fine, I promise you”

--

Laxus could feel nails scraping down his scalp. It was nice. He pushed himself a little further upwards to really feel the drag of it, and felt his lips curling upwards in a lazy smile. His body ached and shivered and complained with every movement, and the scratch and tug of his hair was a mercy he didn’t know he wanted.

Blearily, he opened his eyes. The entire room was wrong, and that made sense. Everything about the past twenty-four hours had been wrong, so why not his room too?

The fireplace was lit but the flames were black. The sound of soft music trilled through the space as if a harp was being played right at his bedside, and the rain outside was falling upwards. None of it made any sense, and it made it easier for Laxus to write this off as a fever induced dream. Because, if it was anything else other than a dream, the presence of Lord Freed Justine sitting on his bedside, running a hand through his hair tenderly, and looking down at him as if he hung the moon wouldn’t make any sense at all.

Damn, he was handsome. Laxus couldn’t help but smile as he looked up at the sharp jaw, pale cheeks, and coy smile. The man looked  fragile but felt anything but. There was a strength in him that told Laxus he could take… just about anything Laxus was willing to unload on him.

Nice hands, too. Big. Firm. Sure of themselves. Like they needed to be taken down a peg.

“Is any of this real?” Laxus asked, voice a bit of a slur.

“It is,” Freed replied, soft and low.

“And was it really your fault the horse got out?”

“You won’t remember any of today when you wake up tomorrow,” Freed told him, and managed to scratch at Laxus’ scalp in just the right place. Laxus let out a soft moan, and he didn’t allow himself to be bothered by the laugh he heard in response. “But yes, it was my fault. Mostly mine; a judgmental fairy with a love for animals also had a little something to do with it, but I bare the burden of responsibility.”

“That monster. Or demon. Whatever it was…” Laxus shifted to move closer to Freed, his side pressed against his thigh. “That was you, wasn’t it?”

“Why would you think that?”

“Don’t know. Just know it was you. It was, right?”

“Weren’t you scared?” Freed asked instead of answering.

“No,” Laxus’ voice was hoarse. “Probably should have been. This place should scare the hell out of me, I think. But it doesn’t. I don’t know why.”

“Because you belong here, of course,” Freed said.

Laxus laughed. “You sayin’ this place is my, what, destiny?”

“Oh not at all. This place is a single drop of your eternity,” Freed ran a finger down Laxus’ cheek. “Though I do hope you enjoy it for as long as you’re here. Indulgence and enjoyment will look good on you when you let it happen.”

For a moment, Laxus just looked up at Freed. “You said I won’t remember anythin’ from this, didn’t ya?”

“I did, and you won’t.”

“Then, I gotta tell you somethin’,” he shifted, sitting up and letting the blanket fall down his chest to reveal his still bare torso. He caught Lord Justine’s gaze flicker down and his lips tighten into a smirk, before looking back at Laxus’ face. “You’re one of the most beautiful men I think I’ve ever seen, with yer hands and your legs and your… face.” He smiled weakly. “I wanna fuck the prettiness right outta ya.”

Freed laughed. “You will,” he promised. “But now, I think you should sleep. What you want to do to me requires strength.”

“That’s true,” Laxus nodded. “I ain’t ever talked to someone about it before, findin’ men pretty. Wantin’ to fuck ‘em. Wantin’ to hurt ‘em a little bit when I’m doin’ it. I was told even one of ‘em was enough to condemn me to hell. Don’t know why I feel like I can tell you any of this.”

“Because you’re safe with me,” Freed assured him. “And hell isn’t so bad, the way we’ll be entering it. Rather pleasant when you get used to it.”

“What?” Laxus slurred.

“Nothing,” Freed shook his head. “Now, I must insist that you sleep. I’m sure you’ll find your dreams to be… satisfying.”

Laxus had just enough time to look up at Freed before his eyes fell closed, and sleep overtook him again. The last thing he saw before falling unconscious was Freed dissolving into purple letters, leaving him alone, warm, and entirely safe.

[eryiss]

The Demon Of Drenchwich Moor: Chapter Five

Summary: In the quiet moors of England, at the turn of the nineteenth century, a lowly coachman catches the desire of a man who is anything but gentle. Laxus finds himself haunted by the bones of infernal creatures, a house of impossible architecture, and enchanting eyes that are always on him. Terror is logical, and yet under the gaze of Lord Freed Justine, there can only be desire. Endless, morbid, wonderful desire.

Notes: Hi all. A dramatic chapter this time, when Laxus ventures into the moors. Hope you enjoy it.

Links: Ao3

Chapter Five: Moors

Shucking on his boots and tugging on his thickest coat, Laxus tried to marry the reality of the moment with the fantasy of his dream.

He was still there, or at least a quiet corner of his mind was. He could still feel the weight and press of a man half resting against him, with the graze of his shirt’s fabric rubbing his chest with each of Freed’s movements. The scent of his cologne – heady and spiced – still lingered in his senses. Quiet breathing still rang out in his ears, a taunting melody and relaxation and calm. The lure of eyes both mischievous and alluring haunted him still. The moment was an eternal one, filled with indulgence and heat and safety.

Again, thudding rang through Laxus’ cramped, cold bedroom. Mard was slamming his fist on the door again. “Hurry the hell up, Dreyar!”

The illusion shattered with the rattling of the doorknob, and Laxus had to take stock of where he was. In a small room in a house that wasn’t his own, trapped here for another week while he bent to the whims of a madman and their host. A host who had been cruel to him for no reason and likely wished to demolish the walls of hell and make it his own domain. That was the truth of Lord Justine, not the version Laxus had pathetically dreamed up for himself.

Lightning lit up the room from behind the curtains, and thunder made the walls shake with each crack. Rain hit the window pain and Laxus winced at the ferocity of it. He reached for a cap and popped his coat collar up in an attempt to keep himself as dry as he could when he went out.

“Dreyar, for fuck’s-”

Mard’s further yelling was cut off when Laxus tugged the door open and barrelled past him, too tired and snappish and not awake enough to be tolerant. He stormed down the coach house corridor and stepped into the thunderstorm without hesitation, not sparing his employer a glance. He slammed the door behind him, spitefully wishing that perhaps it could strike Mard as it moved.

The rain dropped cold and dirty onto his face as he charged towards the stable gate, which he knew he had locked after securing the horses safely inside. As he approached, however, the gate creaked and swung with the wind, butting against the attached wall. A quick glance at it showed it had splintered and was scorched, as if stuck by the damn lightning. The stable doors were limply rocking back and forth on their hinges, and the hay Laxus had spread out for them was scattered and spread haphazardly.

Charla was tucked in the corner of her sable, looking more perturbed by the storm than scared, and gave Laxus a slow look that belied her mood. Pantherlilly, however, was nowhere to be found.

“Fuck,” Laxus hissed.

He turned on his heel and barrelled out of the stable and towards the courtyard. A few wisps of hay gave him a vague direction as to where Pantherlilly had bolted, but once he was out through the gates of the house, he was presented with the moors. Fog rested thick and heavy over the ground, pungent scents rose and assaulted Laxus’ nose, and no sight of a horse could be seen.

“Fuck,” Laxus repeated, before storming forward.

Mard wouldn’t be following him, nor anyone else in the house. Lords and Ladies wouldn’t dare dirty their souls with the menial work of finding a bolted horse, nor would they entertain the possibility that labour so menial wouldn’t be completed by the time the sun rose. A task was set, and the staff would get it done, no matter how impossible it was in reality.

Hand held above eyes to shield them from the rain, he walked down the dirt track they’d come up from. Pantherlilly was a smart horse, and shockingly adaptable. Laxus simply had to put faith in the fact he might have simply been retracing his steps. He trudged down the road, clutching his coat closed, eyes scanning through the fog as best he could.

If he didn’t find Pantherlilly, he didn’t know what would happen.

He would be blamed, that was certain. He almost certainly already was. Even with the obvious signs of singing on the gate, Mard would find a way to twist the story to Laxus’ deficit. Maybe that would mean he lost his job and Mard would find some other poor sod to take advantage of, while Laxus trudged the gutter yet again. Perhaps there would be some form of punishment outside of his employment. Mard had never grown the balls to take the rod to Laxus, but perhaps pushed by both the pressure and protection of Lord Justine, he might finally make good on his threat. Or maybe this would just add to the power that Mard held over him, abused and warped to the point of total servitude.

Whatever Mard had planned for him, Laxus knew that finding Pantherlilly with expedience would be the best course of actions. Mard was twisted, but creative too. The longer he had to think, the more his warped thoughts could fester.

The damn moors, though. They were endless.

Surrounded by trees and fog, Laxus was disoriented fast. He could barely manage to remember what way the house was yet alone find a black horse in the darkness of night. The rain was heavy and thick, merging with the fog to create a total miasma. Flashes of lightning and crackles of thunder sought to break his concentration, and he shivered and the ice cold that hammered at him.

One of his shoes sunk slightly, and he looked down to see it was ankle deep in thick and viscous mud. He pulled his leg upwards, but found the mud unmoving. With a short squat, he took his trouser leg in hand and yanked, managing to force his foot from the swampland at the price of stumbling backwards. He fought for his balance, but the uneven land got the better of him, and he landed arse first into the path.

Something featherlight and sharp coiled around his wrist the moment he propped himself up.

Without looking, Laxus yanked his arm away, and felt something snapping. He climbed to his feet at the strike of another bolt of lightning and turned to see the thinnest line of a thorned plant stem lying limp where his hand had been.

Thunder boomed loud, as if it were right by his ear, and shocked him into blinking and lurching back. The stem wasn’t there when his eyes opened again. It hadn’t been there at all. He had been seeing things. Fog and rain and lightning had him seeing things. The sensation must have been his cuff tickling at his risk, and his imagination had gotten the best of him.

Upon looking up, he couldn’t find himself. There had been an oak tree he had been using for reference, he was sure of it. It was tall and proud, silhouetted often when the lightning struck the ground. Where was it now? Where had it gone?

It can’t have gone.

“Panther!” He yelled, dismissing the doubting of his own thoughts.

He was on the same damn path as he always had been. The fog must have just been getting thicker and restraining his sight further. As he walked, he felt mud giving way below him, and somehow heard the sound of twigs cracking and breaking under his weight despite the cacophony battering down at him.

Catastrophic thunder preluded a sharp bolt of lightning, before fire exploded and sent heat flowing through the moors.

A whistling of wind struck him head on, making him stagger back a few steps, hand extended to stop the stray flecks of grass and dirt from hitting him head on. He turned to see the large oak tree he had been looking for burning, fire scorching through the leaves, consuming it and turning it into a beacon of light despite the wet and cold and frigidity of the moors. Standing beside it, a mass of black, and Laxus was forced to squint and lean forward to see what it was. A horse. Pantherlilly.

Laxus lurched forward, stepping off the track for the first time. The squelch of muddy water filling his boots had him wincing, and the wind turned as if to push him back to the path. He forced himself to keep going. Pantherlilly was smart, but a horse was still a horse and Laxus could see how quickly the poor thing might spook and hurt himself, especially being so close to such a burning inferno.

Jaw tight and eyes clenched nearly shut, he walked on. Each step was laboured and he felt the chills running down his spine with each passing moment. He could just hope that Pantherlilly wouldn’t find the walk back to the path too deep and thick to manage.

“Come on, boy,” he coaxed as he got closer to the clearing of dirt the tree sat atop. “Come over here now. That’s a good boy.”

The damn horse barely paid him a glance, and instead absently leant down to take an apple that was resting on the ground. Contemptable thing wasn’t at all bothered by the fire and the lightning and looked perfectly at home in the chaos and danger. Laxus surged forward, eyes hard and resolve still clinging on despite everything.

As his feet hit more sold ground, he took a breath. Lightning struck the land close enough for him to spin on his heel and face it.

In the after-flickers of light, Laxus saw something.

Something wrong.

A silhouette of disturbed proportions.

It stood tall. Humanoid in figure but not much else. Feathers bristled and shivered in the wind, clinging to what could only be described as a carapace which had been warped into gnarled and twisting spikes. Blades of translucent purple protruded from it’s back like the spread wings of a most monstrous bird, and two jagged horns shuddered from its head. In the flashes of light, Laxus could see a thick shock a hair, and saw it was coloured a dark, wet green.

All at once, Laxus found himself frozen and filled with power. The monstrous beast was looking at him, Laxus somehow knew, and with the next flash to lightning it lurched closer. Laxus could see a thick, ink black fur, a scar reflecting the wings stretched out around it, and dull red eyes surrounded by cracked and dry scales.

The breathing was the worst of it, though. Distorted and throaty. Heavy and intent. Getting closer.

It was approaching him.

No time to consider the stupidity of the action, and doing so without forethought, Laxus shucked off his coat and threw it to the side. He rolled his sleeves up, wincing at the cold and the harshness of the rain. His shirt provided little protection and grew near transparent as if to proclaim the cheapness of fabric, but he needed the access of movement. If he was going to die – if this fucked up monster of the moors was going to kill him – then he would go down fighting.

The demon before him – and what else could it be other than a demon? – tilted its head slightly. It walked forward, not lit by the flaming tree that burned beside them. The red eyes were trained on him as if he were nothing more than a curiosity. Laxus took up a fighter’s stance, the move natural from his time on the streets.

“Fascinating,” the demon used a disgusting facsimile of a voice. “You intend to fight me.”

Laxus didn’t respond to it. He glanced to Pantherlilly out of the corner of his eye, to find the horse just as unbothered and watching them both with curiosity. “Get on home boy.”

“And for the horse, too,” the demon sounded near jubilant. “You’ll throw your life away and be ripped to shreds, all to save the life of a pitiful little utility animal.”

The wind picked up and another burst of thunder shook the ground, and Laxus kept his fighters stance firm. His legs were shaking as the demon took another step towards him, slowly and tauntingly raising a claw. Laxus found himself unable to move, body frozen still as the demon dragged a claw up the length of his neck, scraping his throat until it could tilt his head up to look right at him.

“Still not running. How charming you are.”

At the end of the sentence, Laxus was jerked to his knees. Coils of something searingly hot yet somehow not burning coiled around his arms, dragging him down into the mud. His breath came short as he tried to fight against the binds but found them immovable. He could do nothing but look at the monster before him, eyes blown wide and pulse hammering as it reached forward and dragged a claw through his hair.

“Certain death,” the demon continued. “You could have ran, you know. You didn’t have to come here at all. You could have left well enough alone and left the poor creature to perish in the endlessness of the moors, as you so clearly thought would happen. You could have turned cheek and ran from me, leaving me to feast on your beast and eat well with it too. You could have gone. You didn’t”.

The claw dragged down his cheek, slid over his lips, before cradling his cheek in a way that could almost be seen as tender.

“You’re not nearly as scared as you should be, Laxus,” the demon taunted, and the use of his name had Laxus’ eyes blowing wider. “I do hope that it’s more than a simple resignation to your fate. It would be terribly boring if that’s all this is.” He gave another contemplative tilt to the head. “I suppose I’ll never know, will I, given you’ll be a little preoccupied with being dead to answer me. A shame.”

Dark ink flickered between the demon’s claw, its eye glowed a deep purple, and Laxus felt the horror of acceptance settle deep and rancid in the pit of his stomach.

The world quietened around him. There was no lightning or thunder anymore, the fog receded slightly, and the wind calmed to a gentle gust. Laxus only had eyes for the monster and its twisted magic, which was getting closer and closer to him. It would kill him, whatever the black poison was, and Laxus could only hope that it would be fast.

And that Pantherlilly would be okay. Poor thing didn’t deserve this.

Light flooded the moors all of a sudden, as the sun rose and the fog dissipated all at once. Laxus could see Albion House in the distance, behind the demon, which smiled a little and laughed as much of a laugh as something like that could.

“Consider my curiosity your protector,” the demon said. “I’ll rather enjoy seeing what you do next. Promise me that it’ll be… explosive.”

Not giving Laxus a chance to do much of anything, the demon disintegrated, fizzling away into purple fluttering, then into nothing. The demonic chains that held Laxus down went with it, and Laxus jerked upwards with the sudden release. He panted, looking around as if the demon might spawn behind him, and saw nothing but the brightening marshlands that surrounded him.

“Well well well,” A woman’s voice, amused and trilling, laughed from above. Laxus looked up to see a woman of perhaps twenty years sitting atop one of the branches of the oak tree, no fear from either the demon or the fire above her obvious. “I do love a show, and the darling is one of the more dramatic men I’ve ever seen.”

Laxus took a step back, and his fists came up to a defensive position more by instinct than conscious thought. “Who are you?”

“Oh, darling, we’ve time enough for that later,” she hummed, and jumped down from the branch she sat on. She fell just a tad slower than she should. “You may call me the Queen of the Faries.” She tittered. “Admittedly, that’s not true, but I’m trying to start the rumour off. This far up in the country, who else could take the title.” Her face went dark. “And if you suggest Miss Erza Scarlett, I can assure you that the battle hungry welk is a hapless, pointless, cake scarfing- I’m getting distracted, aren’t I?”

“What are you saying?”

“You must have asked so many questions since you got here; surely you’re tired of not getting answers now,” she patted him on the shoulder. “Off to the house with you, I think. The lord will surely be missing you.”

Despite everything, that was the most absurd notion of the night. “Don’t think Mard bares any kind thoughts to me.”

“Mard?” The woman laughed. “I wasn’t speaking of him. I only speak of – and to, mind you – important people.”

“I can assure you ma’am, he thinks himself important.”

“Most boring people do,” she shrugged. “But not all men are made equal, not in spirit at least. Most of them end up in the mud and the dirt or flung across the skies as nothing but ash.” She waved her hand through the air, and it seemed to glint and glimmer with the movement. “But the interesting ones, those rare few with something worth exploring, end up in places much more unique.”

“What does that mean?”

“Oh, that’s not for you to know right now. All in good time,” She shook herself out of a distant thought. “Speaking of, I do have to insist you head on back. I went a little hard on the weather, I realise, and I don’t want the sickness setting in when you’re my problem to deal with.” She turned to Pantherlilly and took him by the head to deliver a soft kiss just above his nose. “You’ll see the idiot human back safely, won’t you darling? Big dependable darling like you, you can do anything you want. And so brave, too.”

She cooed over the horse for a little while longer, before stepping back with a wide smile. Where before there was nothing, not a soft and loose harness hung from Pantherlilly’s neck, limp and waiting to be taken. It looked, Laxus considered, a little like the thorny stem he had thought he’d seen earlier in the night. 

“Off with you both,” she insisted. “The trip back will be easier, I’m sure, but best to start while you have the goodness of health at your side.”

There was no reason for Laxus to follow the order, but he did so anyway. He took Pantherlilly’s lead and guided him back, throat dry and coat left in the mud. His mind was oddly quiet, as if too filled with thoughts to produce anything more than a black whiteness of presence. 

All he could do was walk a path that hadn’t been there moments before, pretend he hadn’t seen glinting wings the woman bore, and trudge back to Albion House, tired, confused, and desperate for a bath.

[eryiss]

[Fraxus] The Demon Of Drenchwich Moor: Chapter Four

Summary: In the quiet moors of England, at the turn of the nineteenth century, a lowly coachman catches the desire of a man who is anything but gentle. Laxus finds himself haunted by the bones of infernal creatures, a house of impossible architecture, and enchanting eyes that are always on him. Terror is logical, and yet under the gaze of Lord Freed Justine, there can only be desire. Endless, morbid, wonderful desire.

Notes: Hello all, hope you enjoy the chapter. They talk to each other again! Also, as I've finished writing this fic, I'll be uploading it twice a week from now on. Once on Sunday, once on Wednesday. Hope you enjoy.

Links: Ao3

Chapter Four: Dance

A gently trilling piano was all Laxus knew before the world unfolded around him.

It was an ostentatious room that practically glittered and shone. Chandeliers were hung high above him, hundreds of candles lit bright and reflected through the glass and crystals surrounding them. Evening sun flooded through the wall to ceiling windows that lined every room, shadows cast as if the sun shone from all angles somehow. The marble floor clicked with every step, echoing through the room.

Laxus was dressed not as himself. Rather than his typical threadbare and stained shirtsleeves, vest and trousers, he was adorned in the most fashionable dance suit he’d ever seen. The silks were soft to the touch, lined with golden threading and tailored to his body perfectly. He wore a cravat he had no idea how to tie, and a shirt that must have cost more than his yearly earnings.

This wasn’t real, but Laxus had little time to process that.

Ferociously, the piano blasted out a note, before fingers danced across the keys with a speed and practice that could only belong to a master of the craft. The tempo was relentless, but not a note seemed out of place. Pressure was forced when needed, but delicacy permeated through the piece, and slowly it faded into a soft and gentle repetitive pattern Laxus could be sure he knew but had no idea where he might have heard it before.

Fairy Tail maybe? They’d had musicians from time to time, and once or twice the piano had been dragged out.

“Do you intend to just stand there, Laxus?” A teasing voice – one both familiar and entirely foreign – asked over the playing. “You’re a terribly beautiful man, you see, but even you struggle to play the role of a lost spare part without a deficit of dignity.”

Walking without thinking, Laxus approached the piano. As he turned, the lid no longer afforded the player their anonymity, and Lord Justine looked to him with a pleased, subtle smile. His fingers danced across the keys, long and skilful at their craft. Lord Justine, too, was dressed out of his usual style. He wore a dance coat a few shades darker green than his hair, with the same gold lining as Laxus’ own. His cravat was ruffled and crisp, with a jewelled pin holding it in place. His hair hung loose, resting below the bench he sat at. He looked at home here and relaxed in a way that only the poised and proper gentry could be.

With a slow, almost lascivious look,  Lord Justine looked Laxus from head to toe, and Laxus found himself standing taller to better accentuate his posture. A near smarmy, pleased smile graced Freed’s lips, and obvious attraction flooded the man.

That was all it had taken for Laxus to realise that this was a dream, which of course made sense.

“Ah,” Lord Justine scolded. “Let’s not poke holes in things. We wouldn’t want a deterioration before we can enjoy ourselves, do we?”

“What’s happening?” Laxus asked, looking around and seeing the anacronyms of the room. There was no door, the sun came in from all angles, and the ceiling was far too high for any architect to design. “What is this?”

“Poking holes, Laxus,” Lord Justine repeated, then stood up.

The humming of the piano continued to play despite nobody pushing the keys, and Laxus found himself entranced by the sight of them clunking down without reason. It was a sight that was entirely wrong, and yet Laxus felt wholly at home watching them. The piano was playing for them – for their enjoyment and entertainment – in a way beyond nature that Laxus accepted and consumed without question.

Gently, a hand took Laxus by the waist and guided him towards the centre of the ballroom. Laxus let himself be moved, oddly at ease with being manhandled and corralled by the lord. But when he found himself face to face with Lord Justine, who had a hand extended in an obvious invitation for a dance, Laxus had to take a step back.

“I don’t- I’m very flattered,” Laxus warbled slightly. “Lord Justine-”

“Please, call me Freed. At least while we’re here.”

“Freed,” Laxus obeyed, and found the word far too comfortable on his tongue. “I don’t dance. I’m not… I just can’t.”

“Nobody will see, I can assure you,” Freed promised him, eyes bright and shining. “And, as you thought, this probably isn’t real. Situations like this practically demand that we act on the urges we might typically smother, no?” He lowered himself into a low, almost subservient bow, and Laxus felt a rush of adrenaline flow through him at the sight of Freed like this, looking up with handsome face, confident ease, and eager eyes. “Lead me in dance, Laxus. I would be honoured.”

His hand slid into Freed’s without Laxus even thinking, and the cool graze of his own callouses against Freed’s alabaster palm had his breath stuttering short. He squoze it firmly as he pulled Freed into his space, catching the sharp intake of breath Freed let out when took a step forward.

He didn’t allow himself to think too hard about that, and instead wrapped an arm firm and possessive around Freed’s lower back, and pulled him close. The brush of their bodies had Laxus’ blood setting alight. His shirt grazed his chest with the movement of Freed’s body against his own, and for a moment he let himself imagine that it would be like to have Freed’s nails clawing at him, dragging chills through him.

“Settle,” Freed instructed, mirth in his voice. “For now, anyway.”

“Thought I was leadin’ this,” Laxus said, and found his tone had picked up a gravely quality.

“You most decidedly are, I assure you,” Freed promised. “But there is still a fire in you that needs to be tended to, and I’d rather be burned by an inferno than a matchstick. So for now, I think the best thing would be for us to dance.”

So, they danced. The piano sang out a rhythm, and Laxus led Freed through a dance he had no right knowing the moves to. Freed followed his silent orders with neither complaint nor distrust, and Laxus guided him across the dance floor with perfect steps. He held Freed close, not allowing him the luxury of space when their bodies could be pushed together, just enough to graze and tease them both to distraction.

He looked down at one point, and found Freed had his eyes closed and was wearing an expression of such contentment that Laxus almost faltered. He pulled Freed a little closer, and kept on dancing, his own eyes closing too.

For how long they danced, Laxus could not guess, but at some point, he found himself longing on a chaise, cravat dismissed and shirt buttons undone. Freed was practically lying atop him, their legs a slight tangle and their bodies flush together. They were surely the picture of hedonistic, sacrilegious indulgence, and Laxus found himself unwilling to try and fix the problem. If this sated, wonderful, lazy feeling was how the rich and powerful lived, perhaps he could understand why they thought so hard to retain their power.

Set atop a side table, a tray of fruits, wines and melted chocolate. Freed reached towards them, taking a strawberry from the array and dipping it into the chocolate. Laxus might watch, were Freed not forced so close to Laxus that he could feel the man’s breath on his lips. There must be less than an inch between them.

Freed really was a beautiful man. Skin like silk and lips like roses. He was so… clean. So obvious a target for rough hands and firm treatment.

When Freed pulled back, Laxus tracked the movement. He watched as Freed brought the strawberry to his lips and allowed it to push them open, sucking the chocolate from it before biting down and swallowing. Laxus’ eyes were blown wide at the movement of his throat, the flushing of his cheeks and the parting of his lips. A quick glance at Freed’s eyes told Laxus that he knew exactly what he was doing, and he gave the lord an unimpressed look.

“Thought you said you wanted to keep things settled?” Laxus growled, bringing a hand up to Freed’s neck, taking it authoritatively, digging his nails into the skin.

“I do, but a little teasing never hurts,” Freed smiled, breath coming slow as Laxus dug his nails in deeper. “And, as I’ve said repeatedly, that fire needs to be tended to, and I think I’m doing so excellently.”

“Drivin’ me mad, more like,” Laxus grunted.

“Two interchangeable terms, I assure you,” Freed smiled, then he ducked his head. “Speaking of my behaviour, I think that perhaps I should apologise for how I treated you when we first spoke. I got a little excited, you could say and jumped the gun on some things.”

The memory of their conversation in the stable soured Laxus’ stomach and mood. “Treated me like the dirt on your shoes, y’mean?”

“Yes, I did do that,” Freed admitted, ducking his head slightly as he averted his gaze. “I sometimes forget that the way I act, and the way I am, is not the typical way to be in this country. My wife, my staff, my friends, they’re all like me one way or the other. Our culture is comparable in terms, but entirely different in actions, so I sometimes get a little muddled in my head. I forgot myself, and spoke to you as if you knew what I was doing. For that, I am sorry.”

Laxus let the words settle. “What were you doin’, exactly?”

“Giving you permission to be yourself,” Freed said, and when Laxus opened his mouth to argue that Freed put a hand up. “Please, let me explain that I know how ridiculous that sounds. A lord of my station degrading and being cruel to a man of your position is the very opposite of letting you be yourself. If anything, you would have had to smother the truth of yourself in the moment because your job would have been taken from you. I know that now, I should have known it in the moment too and acted accordingly. But I didn’t think, and again, I am sorry.”

“How is treatin’ me bad letting me be myself?”

“I wanted to coax out a reaction,” was the shameless admission. “How I was raised, the less palatable a personality facet was, the more we were encouraged to indulge in it. Something for good, other times for bad, but I believe an open acceptance of our negative sides can only make us better people.” He ran a hand up Laxus’ chest, then his neck, before cradling his cheek. “There’s an anger, and a cruelty inside of you Laxus, and it’s beautiful. It’s beautiful and it’s mine. I want it, and I was a little too enthusiastic at trying to procure it.”

“You don’t know what you’re talkin’ about,” Laxus argued.

“I know all too well, Laxus. I see those thoughts you dismiss. The fantasies you can’t indulge in. The fury you have to tamper. The nastiness that would have you hanged if you let it out on those who deserved it,” Freed’s eyes were half lidded and heavy. “I can take it all, Laxus, and I want it. I will have it. I will have you.”

The proclamation, so bold and unwavering, had Laxus’ pulse rocketing. “You’re awfully confident.”

“I’m smart and aware of myself, it often manifests as confidence,” Freed shrugged. “This isn’t to say I shall rush you, or demand it soon, or that I will take no for an answer. This is simply an apology and an explanation for what is to come.”

“What’s to come?”

“Ah, well, that would be telling, wouldn’t it?” Freed laughed, hand stroking down Laxus’ cheek. “I believe in equity in a relationship, if you can believe that. I will afford you the space to be all of who you are, but will want the same in return. Parts of me might scare you, of offput you, or wrongfoot you, but they are mine as much as your anger is yours. I will show you all aspects of myself, or this process will be for naught.”

“What process?”

Freed grinned. “The process of courtship, of course. We’re already well on our ways as far as I’m concerned,” Freed tilted his head, and his hair fell to the side. Laxus wanted to pull on it just for the sake of the pain. “Did you enjoy the flowers I left on your pillow? Dragged from the deepest pits of hell, I assure you.”

“That was you?” Laxus demanded, and flickering images of his blood drenched bed, bones warped into flowers, and a room that screamed its objections came to him in a flash. “That was you… fuckin’ courtin’ me?”

“As much as me defending your honour and feeding you was,” Freed agreed.

Freed had done that, hadn’t he? He’d put Mard in his place while Laxus had been watching, and given him the only food he’d had that had been worth eating in years. The bones were definitely meant to be flowers, now he could picture them without the lingering thudding and warping of his vision. Courtship made sense, in a warped sort of a way. Why would Freed want that from him though?

Even in this dream, with its nonsense room and indulgence impossibility, Laxus didn’t think that would be possible. But now, while he could be here and do this, he would take the chance.

“What if I don’t want to wait?” Laxus asked, voice low and throaty. “Or settle? Or let you stoke the fire or whatever it was you said? What if I want it now?” He pulled Freed closer, still holding him by the back of his neck. “What if I want you while I can have you?”

“Laxus…” Freed said softly. “You can always have me, and I hope you remember that?”

“What d’you mean, remember?”

---

“Laxus, wake the fuck up!” Mard’s snarl came through the walls, making Laxus lurch. “The damn horse has bolted!”

Laxus blinked, looked around his room, and took in a breath. The fantasy was done, and reality , shit and cruel, was back in place.

[eryiss]

[Fraxus] The Demon Of Drenchwich Moor: Chapter Four

Summary: In the quiet moors of England, at the turn of the nineteenth century, a lowly coachman catches the desire of a man who is anything but gentle. Laxus finds himself haunted by the bones of infernal creatures, a house of impossible architecture, and enchanting eyes that are always on him. Terror is logical, and yet under the gaze of Lord Freed Justine, there can only be desire. Endless, morbid, wonderful desire.

Notes: Hello all, hope you enjoy the chapter. They talk to each other again! Also, as I've finished writing this fic, I'll be uploading it twice a week from now on. Once on Sunday, once on Wednesday. Hope you enjoy.

Links: Ao3

Chapter Four: Dance

A gently trilling piano was all Laxus knew before the world unfolded around him.

It was an ostentatious room that practically glittered and shone. Chandeliers were hung high above him, hundreds of candles lit bright and reflected through the glass and crystals surrounding them. Evening sun flooded through the wall to ceiling windows that lined every room, shadows cast as if the sun shone from all angles somehow. The marble floor clicked with every step, echoing through the room.

Laxus was dressed not as himself. Rather than his typical threadbare and stained shirtsleeves, vest and trousers, he was adorned in the most fashionable dance suit he’d ever seen. The silks were soft to the touch, lined with golden threading and tailored to his body perfectly. He wore a cravat he had no idea how to tie, and a shirt that must have cost more than his yearly earnings.

This wasn’t real, but Laxus had little time to process that.

Ferociously, the piano blasted out a note, before fingers danced across the keys with a speed and practice that could only belong to a master of the craft. The tempo was relentless, but not a note seemed out of place. Pressure was forced when needed, but delicacy permeated through the piece, and slowly it faded into a soft and gentle repetitive pattern Laxus could be sure he knew but had no idea where he might have heard it before.

Fairy Tail maybe? They’d had musicians from time to time, and once or twice the piano had been dragged out.

“Do you intend to just stand there, Laxus?” A teasing voice – one both familiar and entirely foreign – asked over the playing. “You’re a terribly beautiful man, you see, but even you struggle to play the role of a lost spare part without a deficit of dignity.”

Walking without thinking, Laxus approached the piano. As he turned, the lid no longer afforded the player their anonymity, and Lord Justine looked to him with a pleased, subtle smile. His fingers danced across the keys, long and skilful at their craft. Lord Justine, too, was dressed out of his usual style. He wore a dance coat a few shades darker green than his hair, with the same gold lining as Laxus’ own. His cravat was ruffled and crisp, with a jewelled pin holding it in place. His hair hung loose, resting below the bench he sat at. He looked at home here and relaxed in a way that only the poised and proper gentry could be.

With a slow, almost lascivious look,  Lord Justine looked Laxus from head to toe, and Laxus found himself standing taller to better accentuate his posture. A near smarmy, pleased smile graced Freed’s lips, and obvious attraction flooded the man.

That was all it had taken for Laxus to realise that this was a dream, which of course made sense.

“Ah,” Lord Justine scolded. “Let’s not poke holes in things. We wouldn’t want a deterioration before we can enjoy ourselves, do we?”

“What’s happening?” Laxus asked, looking around and seeing the anacronyms of the room. There was no door, the sun came in from all angles, and the ceiling was far too high for any architect to design. “What is this?”

“Poking holes, Laxus,” Lord Justine repeated, then stood up.

The humming of the piano continued to play despite nobody pushing the keys, and Laxus found himself entranced by the sight of them clunking down without reason. It was a sight that was entirely wrong, and yet Laxus felt wholly at home watching them. The piano was playing for them – for their enjoyment and entertainment – in a way beyond nature that Laxus accepted and consumed without question.

Gently, a hand took Laxus by the waist and guided him towards the centre of the ballroom. Laxus let himself be moved, oddly at ease with being manhandled and corralled by the lord. But when he found himself face to face with Lord Justine, who had a hand extended in an obvious invitation for a dance, Laxus had to take a step back.

“I don’t- I’m very flattered,” Laxus warbled slightly. “Lord Justine-”

“Please, call me Freed. At least while we’re here.”

“Freed,” Laxus obeyed, and found the word far too comfortable on his tongue. “I don’t dance. I’m not… I just can’t.”

“Nobody will see, I can assure you,” Freed promised him, eyes bright and shining. “And, as you thought, this probably isn’t real. Situations like this practically demand that we act on the urges we might typically smother, no?” He lowered himself into a low, almost subservient bow, and Laxus felt a rush of adrenaline flow through him at the sight of Freed like this, looking up with handsome face, confident ease, and eager eyes. “Lead me in dance, Laxus. I would be honoured.”

His hand slid into Freed’s without Laxus even thinking, and the cool graze of his own callouses against Freed’s alabaster palm had his breath stuttering short. He squoze it firmly as he pulled Freed into his space, catching the sharp intake of breath Freed let out when took a step forward.

He didn’t allow himself to think too hard about that, and instead wrapped an arm firm and possessive around Freed’s lower back, and pulled him close. The brush of their bodies had Laxus’ blood setting alight. His shirt grazed his chest with the movement of Freed’s body against his own, and for a moment he let himself imagine that it would be like to have Freed’s nails clawing at him, dragging chills through him.

“Settle,” Freed instructed, mirth in his voice. “For now, anyway.”

“Thought I was leadin’ this,” Laxus said, and found his tone had picked up a gravely quality.

“You most decidedly are, I assure you,” Freed promised. “But there is still a fire in you that needs to be tended to, and I’d rather be burned by an inferno than a matchstick. So for now, I think the best thing would be for us to dance.”

So, they danced. The piano sang out a rhythm, and Laxus led Freed through a dance he had no right knowing the moves to. Freed followed his silent orders with neither complaint nor distrust, and Laxus guided him across the dance floor with perfect steps. He held Freed close, not allowing him the luxury of space when their bodies could be pushed together, just enough to graze and tease them both to distraction.

He looked down at one point, and found Freed had his eyes closed and was wearing an expression of such contentment that Laxus almost faltered. He pulled Freed a little closer, and kept on dancing, his own eyes closing too.

For how long they danced, Laxus could not guess, but at some point, he found himself longing on a chaise, cravat dismissed and shirt buttons undone. Freed was practically lying atop him, their legs a slight tangle and their bodies flush together. They were surely the picture of hedonistic, sacrilegious indulgence, and Laxus found himself unwilling to try and fix the problem. If this sated, wonderful, lazy feeling was how the rich and powerful lived, perhaps he could understand why they thought so hard to retain their power.

Set atop a side table, a tray of fruits, wines and melted chocolate. Freed reached towards them, taking a strawberry from the array and dipping it into the chocolate. Laxus might watch, were Freed not forced so close to Laxus that he could feel the man’s breath on his lips. There must be less than an inch between them.

Freed really was a beautiful man. Skin like silk and lips like roses. He was so… clean. So obvious a target for rough hands and firm treatment.

When Freed pulled back, Laxus tracked the movement. He watched as Freed brought the strawberry to his lips and allowed it to push them open, sucking the chocolate from it before biting down and swallowing. Laxus’ eyes were blown wide at the movement of his throat, the flushing of his cheeks and the parting of his lips. A quick glance at Freed’s eyes told Laxus that he knew exactly what he was doing, and he gave the lord an unimpressed look.

“Thought you said you wanted to keep things settled?” Laxus growled, bringing a hand up to Freed’s neck, taking it authoritatively, digging his nails into the skin.

“I do, but a little teasing never hurts,” Freed smiled, breath coming slow as Laxus dug his nails in deeper. “And, as I’ve said repeatedly, that fire needs to be tended to, and I think I’m doing so excellently.”

“Drivin’ me mad, more like,” Laxus grunted.

“Two interchangeable terms, I assure you,” Freed smiled, then he ducked his head. “Speaking of my behaviour, I think that perhaps I should apologise for how I treated you when we first spoke. I got a little excited, you could say and jumped the gun on some things.”

The memory of their conversation in the stable soured Laxus’ stomach and mood. “Treated me like the dirt on your shoes, y’mean?”

“Yes, I did do that,” Freed admitted, ducking his head slightly as he averted his gaze. “I sometimes forget that the way I act, and the way I am, is not the typical way to be in this country. My wife, my staff, my friends, they’re all like me one way or the other. Our culture is comparable in terms, but entirely different in actions, so I sometimes get a little muddled in my head. I forgot myself, and spoke to you as if you knew what I was doing. For that, I am sorry.”

Laxus let the words settle. “What were you doin’, exactly?”

“Giving you permission to be yourself,” Freed said, and when Laxus opened his mouth to argue that Freed put a hand up. “Please, let me explain that I know how ridiculous that sounds. A lord of my station degrading and being cruel to a man of your position is the very opposite of letting you be yourself. If anything, you would have had to smother the truth of yourself in the moment because your job would have been taken from you. I know that now, I should have known it in the moment too and acted accordingly. But I didn’t think, and again, I am sorry.”

“How is treatin’ me bad letting me be myself?”

“I wanted to coax out a reaction,” was the shameless admission. “How I was raised, the less palatable a personality facet was, the more we were encouraged to indulge in it. Something for good, other times for bad, but I believe an open acceptance of our negative sides can only make us better people.” He ran a hand up Laxus’ chest, then his neck, before cradling his cheek. “There’s an anger, and a cruelty inside of you Laxus, and it’s beautiful. It’s beautiful and it’s mine. I want it, and I was a little too enthusiastic at trying to procure it.”

“You don’t know what you’re talkin’ about,” Laxus argued.

“I know all too well, Laxus. I see those thoughts you dismiss. The fantasies you can’t indulge in. The fury you have to tamper. The nastiness that would have you hanged if you let it out on those who deserved it,” Freed’s eyes were half lidded and heavy. “I can take it all, Laxus, and I want it. I will have it. I will have you.”

The proclamation, so bold and unwavering, had Laxus’ pulse rocketing. “You’re awfully confident.”

“I’m smart and aware of myself, it often manifests as confidence,” Freed shrugged. “This isn’t to say I shall rush you, or demand it soon, or that I will take no for an answer. This is simply an apology and an explanation for what is to come.”

“What’s to come?”

“Ah, well, that would be telling, wouldn’t it?” Freed laughed, hand stroking down Laxus’ cheek. “I believe in equity in a relationship, if you can believe that. I will afford you the space to be all of who you are, but will want the same in return. Parts of me might scare you, of offput you, or wrongfoot you, but they are mine as much as your anger is yours. I will show you all aspects of myself, or this process will be for naught.”

“What process?”

Freed grinned. “The process of courtship, of course. We’re already well on our ways as far as I’m concerned,” Freed tilted his head, and his hair fell to the side. Laxus wanted to pull on it just for the sake of the pain. “Did you enjoy the flowers I left on your pillow? Dragged from the deepest pits of hell, I assure you.”

“That was you?” Laxus demanded, and flickering images of his blood drenched bed, bones warped into flowers, and a room that screamed its objections came to him in a flash. “That was you… fuckin’ courtin’ me?”

“As much as me defending your honour and feeding you was,” Freed agreed.

Freed had done that, hadn’t he? He’d put Mard in his place while Laxus had been watching, and given him the only food he’d had that had been worth eating in years. The bones were definitely meant to be flowers, now he could picture them without the lingering thudding and warping of his vision. Courtship made sense, in a warped sort of a way. Why would Freed want that from him though?

Even in this dream, with its nonsense room and indulgence impossibility, Laxus didn’t think that would be possible. But now, while he could be here and do this, he would take the chance.

“What if I don’t want to wait?” Laxus asked, voice low and throaty. “Or settle? Or let you stoke the fire or whatever it was you said? What if I want it now?” He pulled Freed closer, still holding him by the back of his neck. “What if I want you while I can have you?”

“Laxus…” Freed said softly. “You can always have me, and I hope you remember that?”

“What d’you mean, remember?”

---

“Laxus, wake the fuck up!” Mard’s snarl came through the walls, making Laxus lurch. “The damn horse has bolted!”

Laxus blinked, looked around his room, and took in a breath. The fantasy was done, and reality , shit and cruel, was back in place.

[poltergoast]

Perhaps some more thunder legion pls :3

ty for request i missed them.. they r so chopped + ever

[lessthanpogo]

The Trimens rizzing up Freed, this idea came to me outta nowhere.

[yellow-guiding-lantern]

Dragon AU

[yellow-guiding-lantern]

Bunnuys

[eryiss]

[Fraxus] The Demon Of Drenchwich Moor: Chapter Three

Summary: In the quiet moors of England, at the turn of the nineteenth century, a lowly coachman catches the desire of a man who is anything but gentle. Laxus finds himself haunted by the bones of infernal creatures, a house of impossible architecture, and enchanting eyes that are always on him. Terror is logical, and yet under the gaze of Lord Freed Justine, there can only be desire. Endless, morbid, wonderful desire.

Notes: Hi all, thanks for coming back for the next chapter. Thank you for the likes and reblogs I've got for this fic so far, I hope you're liking this. It's definitely a new type of fic for me and it really helps to know people are enjoying how it goes.

Links: Ao3

Chapter Three: Mirrors

Four days into his stay at Albion House, Laxus had rationalised away what he’d seen in his bedroom. It had been a fit of madness brought upon by weeks of poor sleep, a rush of adrenaline from the fury of his conversation with Lord Justine, and an overactive imagination fuelled by the ever-present spectre of devilry and hellishness that Mard brought along with him. It was a tenuous rationalisation, and one that wouldn’t survive under much scrutiny, but it was working for him.

There had been no other spectres, visions, or delusions since, but there had been a lot of work.

 Laxus couldn’t fathom what they were feeding the horses, but Laxus had no shortage of work presented to him every morning. The weather in the moors was seemingly willing to change with the wind. The first moments of each morning had been cold enough for Laxus to adorn a thick woollen coat and vest, only for it to sway to an oppressive heat that had him sweating and rolling up his shirtsleeves, which were practically transparent with moister by the time he was done. Every morning he convinced himself that dressing for the cold was the obvious course of action, and every morning he had ended up looking obscene and exhausted.

He might not have minded, had he not simply come to terms with the fact Lord Justine was always watching. That’s what it felt like, anyway. Whenever Laxus looked at the house, he wouldn’t see the lord, but he would feel him somehow. It was as if looking at an unoccupied window was looking at a lie, and Lord Justine was there, just not seen.

Lord Justine hadn’t spoken a word to him since their conversation in the stable, and that was fine by Laxus. Or, it would be, if his silence wasn’t so… confusing.

Only once since had Laxus been in the man’s vicinity, and it had been when he had taken both Lord Justine and Mard through the moors in the carriage. The uneven marshland had been as difficult for the horses to traverse in the warmth of the midday sun that day as it had been on their journey, and as such it had been a slow and bumpy, and had finally had to be called off when an upended tree had cut off the only road Laxus could see. When they’d arrived back at the house, Mard had stormed out of the carriage and demanded Laxus climb down before berating him.

“What the hell do you think I pay you for?” Mard had seethed, voice low and acidic. “You take my money each week and you humiliate me like that?”

He was barely paid a pittance, and Mard could do with a good humiliation, but Laxus couldn’t say this. “I’m sorry, Milord.”

“Oh well, that fixes everything then, doesn’t it?” Mark growled. “I don’t think you understand exactly what’s happening here, Dreyar. I am on the precipice of a breakthrough with my studies, and I need access to Lord Justine and his wife. To have a conversation, uninterrupted and uninhibited by outside forces, where nobody can listen in and we have no need to censor ourselves is vital. You, though, managed to find a way to fuck that up!”

“I’m sorry, Milord,” Laxus repeated, and the words were ash on his tongue.

“That doesn’t matter!” Mard yelled before schooling himself, voice doing into a hiss again. “I gave you a chance, Dreyar! Nobody else would after you walked up to their door. Nobody. It was stupid of me to be so damn kind to you, and you dare fuck this up with your own incompetence. You think that’s acceptable? You think you deserve pay after that?”

“No, Milord.”

“Exactly. Consider your pay docked today, and if you-” He cut himself off when the door to the carriage opened again. Lord Justine stepped down without need of assistance, and Laxus found it an effort not to look to him. It didn’t need saying that, after how Lord Justine had treated him initially, this was prime fodder for a repeat performance. “Lord Justine, again I have to apologise for our ride being cut short so much. Had I known, I would have had Dreyar take us elsewhere.”

“The moors are an unpredictable place,” Lord Justine waved off.

“Still, he should have found us a route. What else do I pay him for? Needless to say, he knows not to let it happen again if he wants to keep his work,” Mard laughed, then made a show of turning to Lord Justine. “Unless you have your own form of consequences for incompetent help in this part of the country? With a staff as stripped back as yours, I can’t imagine you suffer fools.”

“That I don’t,” Lord Justine said with firmness in his tone, voice lacking any mischievous elegance that it’d had before.

“I’ve heard that it can be useful to… ration food for an incompetent member of the house. A hungry stomach is apparently second to none when it comes to an enthusiastic worker,” Mard laughed again. “Though, I wouldn’t dare press my own views on the inner workings of your house. Simply, I wouldn’t be put off if you enacted such a punishment. Your choice entirely, I assure you.”

“Yes,” Lord Justine agreed. “It is.”

Laxus only looked towards Lord Justine then, and found him staring right at Mard, eyes hard and uneven. If looks could kill a man, Mard would be dead on the slab. Lord Justine didn’t even spare Laxus a glance, let alone take the chance to pile on with the abuse. Laxus didn’t say anything in question, and Mard decided now would be a good time to ask Lord Justine to show him to his library, as apparently was previously discussed.

For the rest of the day, Laxus didn’t know what to expect from his supper. Previously he had been given hearty, if slightly bland meals that filled him and warmed him in equal measure. That night, he had been given a leg of lamb, an array of vegetables, a hunk of bread and even a small pot of gravy to pour over his food at his own discretion. It was the best food he’d eaten for years, since he’d left his grandfather’s pub, and a lesser man might have cried over the wonderment of it.

Lord Justine was a contrarian, elitists, confusing arsehole, and Laxus was glad to be nowhere near him, even if his presence never seemed to lift.

The morning after Laxus woke early and changed into an outfit befitting the coolness of the northern air. He took a drink of water from the jug that always managed to be filled when he was out and trudged towards the stable. His breakfast and a tin bath of wonderfully scalding water would be waiting for him when he got back, though he’d never see it set up. Bickslow had made good on his word to disappear after their single conversation, but his professionalism spoke for itself. He needed that bath more than ever. He hadn’t slept well, racked with confusion and anger and restlessness after Mard’s dressing down and the meal he felt he hadn’t earned.

Rolling back his shoulders, he stepped into the stabled and halted. It was clean. Totally clean. As if nobody had stepped into it since he last cleaned it. As far as Laxus knew, the Justine’s didn’t employ any stableboys nor master’s and didn’t even seem to have horses.

But Mard’s horses must have made some sort of a mess. Unless they were sick, but a quick examination of Pantherlily and Charla showed them to be in high spirits and perfect health, almost cheerful in a way Mard never allowed them to be. He didn’t even let them have names, technically. Charla and Pantherlily were what Laxus called them when nobody else was around. Charla looked down her nose at Laxus, but approached anyway, and Pantherlily gave his shoulder a nudge followed by a little chew in place of a hello. They were content and fine, and apparently freshly brushed and happy to be so.

Unsure of what he should be doing, Laxus wandered back into the coach house, telling himself that maybe the Justine family did have stableboys, and they had simply forgotten about Mard’s offer of Laxus taking over the role for the fortnight. They must have just been keeping their horses somewhere else. A house this size maybe had two stables. It made sense.

Just as he was going to enter his room, a flickering of light caught his eye. A vertical line was cast on the door, where there had never been one before. The windows lining the hallway had no reason to flicker, and yet the light on his door looked as if it were cast by candlelight.

He placed his hand on the door, and used it to find the source, bringing his hand back in a way that kept the light cast on his palm. He was brought to the painting and found that the source was from behind the frame. With a quick glance over his shoulder to make sure he was alone, he took the frame of the painting in hand and lifted it, removing it from the wall. A small, cramped, torchlit passageway was presented to him.

“The fuck is this?” He whispered to himself.

Every logical part of his mind said to leave it alone, and to let sleeping dogs lie, but the cultist houses that Mard would take him too always felt like powder kegs that were waiting to explode. If there was some sort of passageway right by the door to his room, it would be smart to at least see where it went. Either to be aware of how quickly someone could get to him, or as a way to escape someone who saw him as an easy mark. It would be idiotic not to at least check it.

Cautiously, Laxus contorted his body so he could get through the gap in the wall, which was barely less than an inch smaller than the painting that had hidden it. He spared a final glance down the coach house hallway, before turning and walking down the passage.

His heart hammered in his chest as he took corner after corner, to the sound of dripping water and the echoing of his own footsteps. The torches only barely managed to light up the passage, and Laxus tried hard not to wonder why they had been lit at all. Someone must have been using them, and had been either entering or exiting right by Laxus’ room.

It would be Bickslow. That was how he was going unseen, and he seemed the theatrical sort. That would be all.

A different type of light, one that didn’t flicker nor smell of ash, loomed ahead, accompanied by the sound of muffled conversation. Laxus halted, and pushed himself against a wall as if that could provide him any protection. If someone else was in the tunnel, there would be no point in trying to run. The thudding of his botos against the cold stone would echo around the tunnels and give him away instantly. At least with this, he might get lucky and find the other occupants walking in another direction. Houses like these were labyrinthian in nature, so surely there would be at least one fork in the road ahead.

Trying to quieten his breath, Laxus closed his eyes and put all his focus into what he could hear. The conversation that was happening was unintelligible from where he was standing, but it wasn’t getting any louder or quieter. More to the point, there was no sound of feet against stone. Wherever they were, the people speaking weren’t getting closer.

As quietly and as cautiously as he could, Laxus approached the next corner, stepping closer to the source of the sound. It was a stupid decision, and he should take the chance to return to his room while he still had it, but he pushed on anyway. Something inside of him screamed that he needed to go on. That the thrill of this mistake was one that he should not miss.

“The fuck are you doin’ Dreyar,” he whispered to himself as he turned the corner.

The source of the light revealed itself to be a large, rectangular hole in the wall, and the conversation was taking place on the other side of it. Laxus approached with caution, his blood thrumming loud in his ears. He made sure not to get too close, and to stand at an angle where he couldn’t be seen, and looked through the hole to find a pane of glass splitting him from the adjacent room. A room he had seen a few times since he had arrived.

Every morning, when Laxus had to fill the trough for the horses, he walked past the grand dining room. The windows were large and ostentatious, and Laxus had more than once glanced inside. He had the room mapped out in his mind – a habit from his time on the street after leaving Fairy Tail – and quickly tried to figure out where he was standing in relation to the room. It took barely a moment to understand what the pane of glass was that separated the passage from the dining room. A mirror. A large, decorated, functional mirror.

To replace a mirror with a pane of glass looking into a pitch-black passage would be ridiculous. Pointless. All logic suggested that the mirror remained where it was. But Laxus could see into the room unhindered. The idea of a one-way mirror wasn’t beyond him, and if one were to exist then it would be in a place like Albion House, but the theatrics of it took him aback.

Who would care to make on, and put it here? And why had there been a passage of lit torches that seemingly guided Laxus straight to it.

“I noticed you don’t seem to have a copy of Frederick Gordino’s ‘Ash of the Land’,” a voice that could only be Mard’s, given its smarmy self-satisfaction, came through the glass. “I must say, for a man with such an extensive collection of the occult, I do find it a glaring gap of knowledge.”

“Do you?” Another voice, equally confident but infinitely more appealing, responded. Lord Justine. “I hardly see how taking up space with farcical rot such as that would improve my knowledge.”

Laxus blinked a little. It was the closest anyone had ever come to calling Mard stupid, at least as far as Laxus had heard.

“I fear you might be mistaken, Lord Justine,” Mard said, slowly, as if he was deciding whether to be patronising or willing to learn. He would always decide on patronising. “I myself have found it to be a rather useful tool in unlocking a wealth of knowledge.”

“Very much in the same way a child might think of their first year of school, no doubt. But a teacher of the youngest children does not always belong in the halls of a university, do they?” Lord Justine mused, and it was the closest to being dressed down Mard might have ever experienced. “Light reading of obvious facts is not something I indulge in.”

“Dear,” A woman’s voice, and it took Laxus a moment to even remember that the Lord had a wife, cautioned. “Let’s not be rude to our guest.”

“Of course. Of course,” Lord Justine agreed. “You need to start somewhere, don’t you? To clarify, I speak of the royal you, lest you get offended.”

“Freed,” Lady Strauss said again, lowly and warningly.

“That book might not be the best of the lot, but to dismiss it as anything other than a revelation of the occult is frankly absurd,” Mard argued, voice strained and angry sounding. “Perhaps you might have access to rarer volumes, but I know very well that ‘Ash of the Land’ is a powerful tool in the right hands, and I suggest-”

“You do that a lot, don’t you? Suggest things. It does tend to bring out the spiteful side of my personality,” Lord Justine laughed, and Laxus found himself walking forward into the frame of the mirror.

When he found nobody looking towards him, he took another step to better look at the room. Lord Justine was sitting at the head of the table, with his good lady to his right. Mard had been placed opposite of Mirajane, but two seats down, awkwardly sitting in the centre of the table with no obvious position to reflect his status. An array of freshly baked looking breads, plumb cakes and spreads decorated the table, with three silver teapots resting proud and shining. They were all just a little too far out of reach for Mard to get without standing or asking for a servant’s help, none of whom seemed to be nearby.

 “Such as your little suggestion on how to deal with Mister Dreyar yesterday,” Lord Justine went on, lifting his teacup to take a sip of tea. “You suggested that I starve him as punishment for a tree falling in the night, and in turn I found myself giving him a rather lovely shank of lamb. Funny, I suppose, but a man must treat his staff well if he wants to breed loyalty.”

“Dreyar is my staff,” Mard was clearly biting back a growl as he spoke.

“For as long as he remains here, I claim him as my own,” Lord Justine waved off the complaint, and Laxus shivered at the words. “And if you’re frustrated with the lamb, you’ll fall into an apoplectic rage to discover his breakfast will be more luxurious than our own.”

“Lord  Jutine, to undermine my authority like this is a grave insult, and-”

“What is a grave insult, Mr Tartaros-”

“I am Lord, dammit!”

“An insult is that you believe that our meeting is in any sense an exchange of ideas and knowledge,” Lord Justine kept on going. “I did not agree to have you here because I thought you had something of worth for me. I agreed to host you because I thought it might be entertaining to answer your questions.”

“Meaning what, exactly?” Mard snapped, and Laxus stepped closer to the mirror. Mard was facing away, but Lord Justine had an expression similar to that of a bully in a schoolyard who knew he had no chance of losing a fight.

“Meaning,” Lord Justine echoed. “I am more knowledgeable than you about the thing you care about more than anything else, and I am a stumbling block for you. If you want to know the truth of the world, you will do so at my behest, because I will make sure you know nothing of of hell, of demons, or of the devil himself without my permission.”

“You cannot be so arrogant as to think-”

“Oh I think you’ll find my arrogance to be a never ending well of which I love to drink from,” Lord Justine laughed. “And if you wish to test out that little theory you were trying to propagate, then by all means. You use some tricks from the little book you’re fond of, and I shall put an end to them in a way that has proven most painful in the past.”

Laxus watched as Mard’s grasp on his fort tightened and loosened, then tightened again. While he couldn’t see his face, Laxus could picture it, and found himself grinning. Lord Justine seemed to be a hell of a prick but seeing him use that against Mard was something Laxus wasn’t going to forget.

“If you’ll excuse me,” Mard grunted through gritted teeth. “I find my appetite weaning.”

Mard all but stormed off, and once he was out of the room Lady Strauss was on her feet and muttered to her husband. “You do make things difficult for yourself, don’t you Freed?” She left the room, her elbow slamming into the side of Lord Justine’s head as she passed him, which only elected a genuine laugh from him. Laxus could barely hear Lady Strauss as she proclaimed. “Lord Tarrtaros, you simply must ignore my husband.”

With her words fading away, Laxus was left with nothing to do other than to watch Lord Justine on his own. He raised a small piece of bread, slathered with a jam so red that it nearly looked like blood, and ate it. He did so with dignity, his head held high and his throat bobbing tight with the swallow of it. His lips seemed a little more plump in the morning somehow, and watching as the stretched to take the girth of the bread had Laxus shifting where he stood slightly.

Beauty was a commodity of the wealthy, and Laxus wasn’t going to forget that, but the man was damnably handsome. A good shag would shake off the visage of perfection. Ruffled and crumpled, Lord Justine might just look like a human. A thick cock down his throat and the marks of a sound beating would only elevate the man to perfection.

The clinking of a fork on a plate had Laxus halting, shutting down those thoughts as he always had to do.

He watched as Lord Justine stood, taking his teacup with him. He rounded the table, slowly and without care in his expression, and turned towards the mirror. Laxus froze entirely, knowing logically now that the mirror was still there from that side of the room, and there was no chance of Lord Justine seeing him. But if Laxus could hear them with barely any issue, then Lord Justine would be able to hear him if he made even the quietest of sounds.

Somehow though, defying all sense of logic, Lord Justine managed to catch Laxus’ eye. Laxus’ heart hammered in his chest and he dared not move, and found himself trapped in the gaze of a man who was looking right through him.

With a tilt of the head – the same tilt the lord had used in the stable – Lord Justine raised his teacup in a facsimile of a toast, gave an enticing little grin, and turned away.

He couldn’t have seen him.

He couldn’t!

The mirror was still a mirror, and Lord Justine could not have seen him through it!

Once the dining room was empty, Laxus stormed back through the passage, fast and chaotically. The torches were extinguishing as he passed them, but he refused to look back and told himself that the dimming light was just a trick of the panic he was feeling with. He stormed to the end of the passageway, climbed through the hole in the wall, hung the painting as straight as he could and all but slammed the door to his bedroom behind him. A hot bath and a plate covered by a silver cloche was waiting for him.

Hand shaking ever so slightly, he raised the cloche and revealed his breakfast. A slice of cake, still warm bread, many spreads, and even some potted meat was there for him. Nicer than what he had seen in the dining room. Nicer than any breakfast he’d had in years. He’d have to rationalise all of this but had no damn clue how to do that. Instead, he ate.

[bluessom1]

Soft moment 💚💛

I miss making greyscale pages like this !!😩😩

Also, sorry for the lack of updates here…I’m a mom now 😁🤣

[freedjustinemywife]

ive just realised fraxus week is nearly here so i thought i might as well post all my unfinished pieces from last year that i swore i would get done (oops)

sorcerer weekly

masquerade

(i like freeds face in this one) blood

i really think you can tell who my favourite is based on the fact freed is way more rendered in all of these and laxus is just. there