MONSTER MONDAY - BAT X GN!READER
✦ WARNINGS: 18+・mild body horror・monster transformation ✦ TAGS: established relationship・domestic fluff・happy ending・monster romance ✦ WORD COUNT: 1.9k
The villa sits on a cliff overlooking the Aegean Sea, all white marble with a sparkling infinity pool. He always picks somewhere beautiful, and, more importantly, remote. Somewhere you can watch the moon rise over the water while he frees himself from his human form.
It’s your fifth vacation together—
(your sixth maybe; you’ve lost count by now)
“Tell me about the view.” He floats on his back in the pool, face turned toward the late afternoon sun. His nose—up-turned, and slightly bat-like even when he’s human—twitches as the water laps at his cheeks. The tips of his ears peek through his wet, black hair, already more pointed than usual.
You describe it from your lounge chair, waxing poetic about the endless blue of the sea and the far off islands just a smudge on the horizon. When you run out of scenery, you start telling him about the villa’s terrace where you’ll watch him transform tonight.
He hums, pleased. Then, with a small smirk, adds, “You forgot the olive trees.”
You scoff out a laugh. Of course he’d know; he’s been here before. He brought you here three years ago for your second vacation together.
“The olive trees are still there, gnarled trunks and all.” You roll your eyes, watching him drift through the water.
He stretches an arm out, and snaps his fingers twice as he approaches the edge of the pool. It’s a habit he only indulges in when you’re alone, ears twitching as the clicks help him map the space around him. He kicks his feet, floating through the water until he comes to the edge. He turns gracefully, planting his feet on the pool wall to kick off and drift back into the center of the pool.
You’ve been together for years, since before the money and the fame. You’ve been there for all the sold-out concerts and the Grammy nominations. You’ve helped him navigate dealing with too curious fans who don’t know that his hauntingly alluring voice truly is otherworldly.
It’s been so long—
(years and years, and hopefully more still to come)
—that you have a routine for this.
Every few months, when his body starts preparing—when his hearing sharpens and you catch him clicking his tongue against his teeth in the middle of conversations—he books a trip. Somewhere expensive and scenic, where he can spoil you to his heart’s content and isolated enough no one will hear him scream.
This week it’s been massages and private beaches. At night, you indulge in dinners that cost more than most people’s rent, and sunrise swims where you float beside him in comfortable silence. He’s bought you clothes you don’t need, and jewelry you’ll never wear anywhere but here.
“I want you to have good memories,” he told you the first time, years ago in Scotland. “Before you have to watch me become a monster.”
You’d kissed him, promised that you’d love him in any form, and you’ve kept that promise through a dozen transformations. Maybe even more.
The transformation begins at sunset.
You’re on the terrace, your love standing at the railing in loose linen pants and nothing else. His skin has been sensitive all day, hence the extra time in the pool. You’d learned early on that clothes become unbearable as the change approaches.
“It’s starting.” Already his voice is rougher, harmonics creeping in at the edges.
You move to his side, but don’t touch him. “What do you need?”
“Just…be close. Talk to me, if you want—” he tilts his head, listening for something you can’t hear, “—The moon’s almost up.”
Through him, you can feel it. His breathing goes shallow, fingers gripping the railing as his shoulders hunch and roll. His spine curves first. Bumps of new vertebrae press against skin, his shoulder blades pushing outward. He gasps, head falling forward. You move behind him to help with his pants before the change makes them impossible to remove.
“I’ve got you,” you soothe, and he laughs breathlessly.
“You always do.” There’s an edge of his excitement to his voice, anticipating the coming change.
The skin on his back splits cleanly. Membrane pushes through, folded dark, and wet with fluid that isn’t blood. His wings unfurl slowly, extending wider than the terrace, blotting out the sunset.
You step back to give him room. This part is familiar, but you’re still not quite used to the sounds of his bones cracking and reforming. His face elongates, the lower half squishing in. You’ve seen it enough times that the horror has dulled to mild discomfort and mostly wonder.
(he’s stunning, even like this—nothing can change your mind about that)
When the transformation completes, he turns to you. Seven feet tall, covered in dark fur, wings mantled high. Those milky blind eyes are the same, though, fixed on you even though he can’t see.
“You’re staring,” he speaks, words limited in his true form and layered with high-pitched tones that make your ears ache slightly.
“Sure am.”
A purr escapes him, rippling through the fur of his body. “Going to hunt. Maybe sing. Don’t wait up.”
“Be safe.”
“Always.” He launches himself off the terrace, wings snapping out to catch the wind, and then he’s gone, melting into the dark sky.
For hours, you watch him from the terrace.
Sometimes he disappears, hunting in the mountains behind the villa. Other times he circles overhead, singing with that unearthly voice that make your chest ache and brings tears to your eyes. He flies for hours, testing his wings against the wind, diving and climbing in patterns that you’ve learned are joyful.
(you brought a book—you always bring a book—but you don’t read it, happy to just watch)
Around midnight, he lands on a cliff outcropping across the ravine. You can spot his silhouette against the moon, wings folded and head tilted back. He’s singing properly now, the echo carrying over the distance.
You’re so focused on listening that you don’t notice him take off again. Circling closer, diving until he’s almost on you. You gasp as clawed hands close around your waist, lifting your feet clean off the terrace.
“Trust,” he calls over the wind, and then you’re flying. Actually flying.
He’s never done this before. In a dozen transformations, he’s never grabbed you and taken you with him. Your heart hammers as the villa drops away beneath you, wind rushing past and his wings beating steady and strong.
“Oh my god!” is all you can manage.
His laugh rumbles through his chest into your back. He climbs higher, over the olive trees and the ravine. The moon turns everything silver, and below, the sea stretches in infinite waves of darkness.
“Feel,” he says when he finally plateaus, “What I hear. What it’s like.”
There’s so much of his world that he’s already shared with you, but this… It’s different to experience this way, seeing first-hand what it’s like when he’s unbound by gravity and human limitations.
“It’s beautiful,” you admit, adjusting in his arms to make yourself more comfortable.
His grip tightens, claws lightly digging into your waist. “You’re beautiful.”
He makes that purring sound again, diving low over the water. You shriek—half terror, half delight—and his wings beat, pulling up just before you’d hit the surface so the sea spray kisses your face.
“Show off!” you shriek in laughter.
“You love it.”
(god help you, you do)
He flies you for another hour. Over cliffs and forests, through clouds, and up to where the air grows thin. When he finally glides back to the villa, your legs are shaking and your cheeks are wind-burned. Yet, you’ve never felt more alive.
He lands on the terrace with surprising gentleness, setting you down but not letting go.
“Thank you,” you breathe, trying to steady yourself. “That was… Thank you.”
He nuzzles into your hair, wings folding carefully to cocoon you both. “Wanted to give. Something Good. To remember.”
You lean into his arms, laying a kiss over the rapid drumming of his heart and giggling at the purr you get in reply.
Around three in the morning, he starts changing back.
You’re dozing on the terrace lounge when you hear him land, heavier than before. Your eyes open just in time to catch his wings retracting, and bones shifting back to human proportions.
“Hey,” you call, sitting up. “Come here.”
He stumbles over, and you guide him to take your seat. The transformation back is usually slower than the first. More painful, you think—though he’s never admitted it—but you help him through it like you always do.
You fetch water, and he drinks with shaking hands that slowly pop back into fingers. You wipe blood from his mouth—he hunted well tonight, it seems—and don’t ask what he caught. You run your hands through the fur that’s receding into skin, and over the knots where his wings shrink back into shoulder blades.
“Hurting?” you ask.
“Some. Worth it.” His voice is losing its echo, becoming “normal” again. “Did you…like flying?”
“I loved it.”
He leans into you, still massive but shrinking with every deep breath. “Good. I’ve been…wanting to take you with me. Finally…felt brave enough.”
“I don’t think I’ve ever seen you not be brave,” you laugh lightly.
“Not with you. With you I’m…terrified.” He’s mostly human now, just traces of fur and the memory of wings. “I…I think I keep waiting for you to realize what I am…and leave.”
“Never.” You punctuate it with a kiss to his forehead, then another to his cheek, and several more to his lips. “Never, never, never.”
By the time the sun rises, he’s fully human. Naked and exhausted, and happily curled in your lap on the lounge chair like a spoiled house cat.
“Let’s go to bed,” you suggest softly, running your hands down his warm sides.
He whines, nuzzling into your lap. “Carry me.”
“I don’t think so,” you laugh, nudging at his shoulders.
“Then I’ll carry you.” He stands with sudden, surprising energy, scooping you up despite his exhaustion. “My turn to spoil you.”
“Isn’t that what you’ve been doing?”
“More, then.” He carries you inside, straight to the massive canopied bed with its ocean view. He lays you down gently and crawls in beside you, pulling you tightly to his chest. His up-turned nose presses to your temple, inhaling deeply.
“Love you,” he murmurs.
“Love you, too.”
He snaps softly, checking exits before he lets himself settle into familiar territory. He waits five extra seconds, ears twitching as he listens for anything his clicks may have missed.
(you don’t know what he waits for when he does this—a part of you hopes you never do)
“Sleep,” he says once he’s satisfied you’re safe and alone. “Tomorrow I’m taking you to that restaurant. The one on the cliff.”
“You’re going to spoil me rotten like this. I hope you know that.”
“Have to make sure you remember why you deal with me.”
You turn in his arms. Those striking white eyes flit toward you, finding you through sound and heat.
“I’m not just here for fancy dinners, you know? I stay because I love you. In every form,” you tell him firmly, sealing it with another, stubborn kiss.
He grins against your lips, nipping lightly with his fangs when you pull away. “Guess we’ll have to keep doing this then.”
“For as long as you’ll have me.”
Outside the sun climbs higher, bathing you in soft golden light. You’re lulled to sleep by the rustling of olive trees in the breeze and the distant crashing of waves and his quiet promise of:
“Forever, then.”
