Greek mythology AU anyone?
Alright, I need to get this out of my system, so... I know I don't share much of my personality on this blog and that's on me and my anxiety (I swear y'all are so cool and talented and I love your stuff, I'm just too chickenshit), but there's a little bit of info about me - I love mythology of any kind. I even took a Greek mythology course at uni, as any self-respecting finance graduate does... That being said, I've been playing with this myth-inspired idea for a while.
Have you heard about the story of Ganymede? A Trojan prince whose looks captured the eye of Zeus, who then decided to swoop in, snatch the youth and take him to Mt. Olympus to become his new cup-bearer? You might see it framed as a love story. I'm more inclined to see it as a tragedy - a young person being objectified and preyed upon by someone much older and then subsequently losing their mortal life for it. I would say the myth in itself is actually pretty dark. Ganymede doesn't ask to be taken to Mt. Olympus or to be made immortal. In most versions of the myth that I've read, he's not given any choice at all.
Anyway, I couldn't help but see sort of a parallel with Billy's story, as he's also heavily objectified and his looks seem to play a pivotal role in his arc, from all of the adult attention he gets to Neil's obvious disapproval. It could also be argued that it's this objectification that at least partially leads to his end (because no one can tell me that goddamn Karen was interested in his personality). All in all, another tragedy. You see where I'm going with this?
Anyway, rant over. Sorry for the long post.
The painting itself was inspired by Pierre Julien's Dying Gladiator (1778). A closeup of the face is under the cut.
Steve wakes up in stages, he leans in to the solid warmth behind him, the heavy arm around his hip tightens around him. His pulse starts racing as his brain catches up to him that the body behind him is very naked and of the male persuasion.
He he starts panicking as he's momentarily disoriented and confused about how he ended up in this situation. He gets pulled back against a hard chest, a nose nuzzles into the nape of his neck as an exhaled 'baby' reaches his ears. A cold dread creeps up his spine he does his best to swallow down the bile he feels churning in his stomach.
Bloody kisses flash past his minds eye. His skin crawls as he remembers the tacky feeling of Nancy blood drying against his skin. He slowly and carefully leaves the bed. He forces himself to walk on unsteady legs to his bathroom. He can feel Billy's bloody hands ghosting along his body. Images of Billy kneeling between his legs flash in his mind.
He can still feel him caressing the side of his face with such reverence. He let's him tilt his chin up, a soft gasp leaves his lips as Billy gently presses their lips together.
Steve grips the edges of the sink tightly as he stares at himself in the mirror. He hardly recognise himself. His face is still the same, his hair has it's normal shine. Billy had carefully washed and conditioned his hair the night before. Had lovingly cleaned all the dried and flaking blood from his body.
He quickly moves to the toilet and drops to his knees as he starts dry heaving. His ears as suddenly filled with the squelching of an axe hitting flesh. The memory of a frantic Johnathan finding them in that comprising position. His desperate please about finding help because someone had killed nancy.
Steve looks up at Johnathan with pleading eyes as Billy turns his head and glares at him. He sees the moment that Johnathan sees the discarded axe next to them and the blood smeared between them. Steve watch Billy and Jonathan diving for the axe at the same time. Neither gets it as they start grappling with each other. Johnathan is yelling at them about how they killed Nancy. Billy laughs hysterical with manic glee as he taunts him.
Steve's frozen in place, chest heaving as he watches them grappling, punching, kicking, biting anything to get the upper hand. What feels like an eternity, Jonathan has Billy pinned to the floor with a rock in hand. Billy's chest is heaving heavily, his face is bloody as he turns his head to Steve and smiles " hey pretty boy".
He doesn't realise he's moving until he hears Jonathan groaning, the sickening squelch and thud of the axe getting embedded in the back of his head and the warm unexpected gush of blood that hits him. Steve's eyes widen in horror, he let's go of the axe as he steps back. Jonathan's body slumps against Billy's.
The next flashes are off Billy cooing praises in his ears. Connecting the police, destroying evidence and fudge others. The trip to the hospital where Billy gets his wounds looked at. The police preliminary interviews, every step of the way Billy is there. Praising him, enveloping him with petnames and words of love.
A heavy warm hand lands gently between his shoulder blades as gentle fingers card through his hair. He's quickly pulled out of the memories of the last 72 hours and leans in to the gentle warmth and love. He close his eyes and sighs, letting himself be luld into a false sense of safety.
His pulse starts racing as he realises that he's trapped in a prison of his own making.
Companion piece to my micro fic. Billy's pov. Again, thank you, HunnyStufff, for making my brain fire on all synapses. Seriously, check out her art!
Billy grunted as he tried pulling his axe free from Nancy's smashed skull. He placed his left foot on her neck, digging his heal down into a deep laceration for extra leverage. His mind was finally blissfully still.
He didn't remember what finally pushed him over the edge, but the outcome of snap was glorious. For the first time he felt like he was truly in control and free. As his axe finally comes free, splattering his face in blood and brain matter, movement catches his eyes. There in the periphery of his sight stands Steve Harrington, the object that haunts his every thought and dream.
He angles his head down to look at the body at his feet, a smirk gracing his lips as he squeezes his forming chub. He can't believe his luck. He must be dreaming, to have had his pretty boy watching him butcher the bitch that broke him.
His body screams at him as he gives chase. His muscles feel heavy and start cramping, but his desire to catch *his* pretty boy keeps pushing him forward, past the stabbing pain in his legs, the coppery taste of blood filling his mouth as he pulls in air.
Again his luck holds true as he watches Steve trip and fall. He uses those precious moments to catch his breath and center himself. He can't help himself as he ogles Steve scrambling to get up. He reaches down, gripping himself as he watches Steve realizes who was chasing him down.
He smirks as their eyes lock, his grip on the axe behind his back tightens. He briefly mourns at the thought of having to killing Steve. His breath hitches and his eyes widen as he watches Steve baring his neck in submission and spreading his legs open. His eyes are glued to Steve's mouth as he whines his name and bites his lips.
His lips part in a groan as he hears Steve's involuntarily whine. He rubs the heel of his palm against his quickly hardening dick. He can feel his shorts growing damp under his ministrations.
Micro rambling inspired by a pice of Harringrove art by the lovely HunnySheep. It has Billy covered in blood, Axe behind his back groping himself while looking down at a freighted Steve cowering on the ground. Go check out her art!
Steve trips and falls as he runs away from the axe wielding killer that he saw hacking up Nancy's struggling body. He scrambles trying to get back up but in the fall he twisted his ankle. He turns around feeling the ground for anything he could use as a weapon to defend himself with. His heart stops beating for a second before kicking into overdrive as a shadow falls over him. Panicked he looks up, his breath hitches as his eyes lock with Billy's blown out dark orbs. He licks his lips and swallow trying to find his voice, a whine involuntarily leaves his throat. His eyes get drawn to Billy squeezing and palming his dick. He makes a split second decision, he bares his neck, and let's his knees fall open, as an invitation. He bites his lower lip and let's out a whine ' Billy ...'. His fingers dig into the ground, to hide their trembling. He trys to lean into the trembling of his body, hoping, praying Billy will interprete it as a sign of lust and not the fear paralysing him.
Letters by Lois Buhalis are perfection. Colors better than I dreamed they could be. Was really worried about the reds and blues. Incredibly rich and deep.
About a month left, then test, and corrections, and final printing.
Interview With The Vampire AU piece for @harringroveweek
My favourite moment with my other favourite boys and a Billy kills Neil ficlet below the cut (TW: Mention of abuse, violence)
Billy let out a harsh laugh. Far too loud for its purpose but there was no one there to hear it apart from the terrified man pressed against the wall on the other side of the room. The same man who held Billy against many a wall throughout his life, his human life. Now, it was his turn. His turn to scare the man he once called his father, who he feared and begged for acceptance but now he saw him he truly was. A pathetic excuse for a man.
"Get out!" he demanded but his voice lost its volume as the vampire stepped closer ever so slightly. "Please."
"What was that?" Billy asked with a mocking shocked expression. "Begging are we?"
He shook his head as the grown man trembled, his legs weak but his fingers gripped tight around the fire iron in his hand but he seemed too scared to actually use it until Billy got close enough to attempt a swing. With a smile and a simple step to the left, he missed completely but stumbled sideways at the shock of his son being suddenly beside him.
Fumbling for purchase on his desk, he slipped and landed on the floor but continued to move back towards the door. Billy watched him with pure amusement as he listened to everything running through his mind.
"I would never hurt Susan or Maxine. Especially, Maxine but you?" he laughed just as he did before. "I've waited too long."
With little effort he moved too quick for the man he called father to see, appearing behind him to block the door before leaning down to grab his face with one hand and lift him to his feet with it. He held him there as he reached out to try and grab him which was of course a useless attempt until finally, he started to kick.
"Let...me...go," he groaned unable to open his mouth properly and so Billy did. He slumped back onto the floor but somehow he fell wrong and with a snap and a scream Neil Hargrove broke his left leg. "Why are you doing this?" he cried.
"Do you really need to ask?" Billy shook his head, his blond curls slipping forward from his shoulders. "Do you remember when I was seven and you slapped me so hard I fell down the stairs but instead of helping me up you left me there alone with a fractured wrist?" Billy asked kneeling down to lean into his face.
He didn't dare answer but his mind did and what Billy saw, his recollection of that moment made him sick to his stomach. The way he smiled at the sound of his cries for help, he still thought Billy deserved to be taught a lesson for what he had done but Neil couldn't even remember what that had been.
The vampire grabbed his hand and snapped it backwards until his fingernails were touching his arm. "I'd left a toy in the study," he said as the man howled in pain. "You can't even remember why you hurt me? Your own son?"
"Stop!"
"What about when I had stayed out a little too late?" he backhanded his father just hard enough to do damage but not enough to kill him. "Or when you saw me with Thomas in town getting all close?" Slap. "Who could forget when I dropped my knife at dinner?" Slap. "Oh and of course when I apparently let Maxine sneak out?"
He blinked before coughing blood right into Billy's face but to Neil's horror, he didn't flinch. No, instead he licked his lips and let his teeth extend as he smiled right into the face of his father who had almost lost his mind at this point. "You're...you're a monster."
"Like father, like son."
In one final attempt at escape, Neil reached for the fire iron he had abandoned moments ago and swung it at Billy's head but the vampire stopped his arm from even getting close. His fingers tightened until he dropped the poker and stared up at Billy. A silent moment began as Billy saw what he had done, the blood covering both of them as his nails cutting into his arm. Just as a wash of sympathy came over him he saw what his victim was thinking and it was far from what he was himself.
Some of his thoughts moved too quickly, intermingled with each other but there was one that he caught perfectly and it hit just the right nerve. "That Italian freak has ruined my son."
"I've been fucked by more men than you can even imagine. Men from all over the world who come to visit this city looking for fun and they found it," Billy grinned at the shock on his face. "It wasn't Stefano. I was ruined well before he arrived."
"You pervert," he spat more blood in his face.
Billy was already hungry and that final taste was enough to make his instincts kick in properly. To make him reach out and push his hand right through his father's stomach, making sure to watch it all in his eyes. Just before he could slip away, finally drop to the deepest point in the underbelly of hell itself he moved his tilted his head to the side and drank from his neck. Just enough until his heart gave out and his body went limp.
Stained with the blood of his own father, Billy closed the front door to his new home and thought of what would happen when Susan and Maxine return home from the theatre Billy had bought them tickets for. Would they connect it all or stay silent as the ownership of the Hargrove name and business fell into his hands? Something that he did not want in the slightest and planned to hand over to his sister the moment he could.
"Tesoro Mio!" the brunette vampire exclaimed rushing down the stairs to wrap his arms around Billy's waist. "Did you eat well tonight? You are a mess. I love it."
"I did it," he replied rather quiet.
"What?" Stefano smiled as he waited to know what he had done to result in such a bloody mess.
"I killed him," Billy let a smile slowly grow on his lips. "I killed my father."
The other vampire paused before letting out the most joyous of laughs. "Baciami!"
So, Billy did. He gripped Stefano tight and kissed him, the taste of the blood igniting once again as he melted into his companion in a way he never had before. A moment of true understanding meshed the two of them together as they smashed into the wall with such force the painting hanging above the stairs fell to the floor.
Suddenly he pulled away before lifting his hand to push a curl behind the blonde's ear and look deep into his eyes. "You never fail to surprise me, Billy."
Overwhelmed Billy kissed him again, this time pushing him away to tackle him onto the sofa in the next room and lean over him in the lamplight. "Ruin me," he breathed.
Hey, sorry to bother you but I just wanted to know if you had any news about "Nachtklang" ? Cause I ordered mine in November last year and I really can't wait to read it.
Hey! I'm so sorry for being so slow with everything- I have the Comics at home right now and I'm trying my best to send everything out until the end of October!
I've had a few struggles with printing and then some personal struggles + a death in my family so it all took a lot longer than I though 🥲
Have something to look forward to every thurday for half a year. A week to build up excitement and theories between episodes (or to yk, be too busy to watch). Time to create art about it.
please i love you i'm begging you bring back suspension of disbelief bring back trusting the audience like. i cannot handle any more dialogue that sounds like a legal document. "hello, i am here to talk to you about the incident from a few minutes ago, because i feel you might be unwell, and i am invested in your personal wellbeing." "thank you, i am unwell because the incident was hurtful to me due to my childhood, which was bad." I CANT!!!!
do you know how many people are mad that authors use "growled" as a word for "said"? it's just poetics! they do not literally mean "growled," it's just a common replacement for "said with force but in a low tone." it's normal! do you hear me!! help me i love you please let me out of here!!!
turnnoffyourmind
dailybridgerton
gummygunk
romaincrisis
