#ira:grey

[gravitysrainbow-1x1]

The tears had stopped, but Ira couldn’t stop shaking. He sat on a stool beside the bed in the witch’s bedroom. Face buried in his hands, he stole quick glances of the unconscious man lying peacefully underneath the sheets to watch the rise and fall of his chest - fearful of it stopping. Fearful of him dying.

Ira felt helpless as he watched Grey’s attempt to break his curse fail miserably. He begged him to stop the moment it became clear that it wasn’t working, but his cries fell on deaf ears. When the witch collapsed, the ghoul scooped him up into his arms immediately to try to wake him, but the dark magic had drained every last joule of energy from his body.

In the back of his head, he could hear his tormentor, Cecily, cackling at the failure. ‘Be damned for eternity, then.’ Her final words to him when he refused to submit to her demands rang in his ears.

The panic and fear in Ira had been so thick that he couldn’t bear it. Watching the witch come close to the brink of death at his expense overwhelmed him to a point that he could not cope in his human form. For hours, he laid by Grey’s side in the hyena form that he’d been cursed with. Once, he’d despised it, but it’d become a crutch for him to hide and bury the flood of human emotions that he ran from.

But even in that form, now, small whimpers escaped the beast as its large head rested against the sleeping man’s side, peering at his handsome face with beady, yellow eyes.

Ira lost track of time. It could have been a few days. Maybe a week. He didn’t know. When color returned to Grey’s cheeks and his breath became steadier, he returned to his human form to sit patiently beside him. Hunger clawed at his stomach, but he forced down the hunger pangs. A single eye had become murky black in the whites, and his hazel pupil now yellow. Dark veins visibly crept up his neck from beneath his hoodie and snaked all the way down to his fingertips. Internally, he was screaming for food, but he would allow nothing to take him away from the man’s side ever again.

“Please wake up,” Ira murmured, a trembled in his voice. “I can’t -- I can’t lose you again.”

@scasonofthevvitch​

[gravitysrainbow-1x1]

Grey didn’t see the way Ira couldn’t take his eyes off of him while he was checking into the hotel. The way he moved, spoke and even handled the people and creatures around him was reminiscent of haunting memories that he was sure was playing tricks on his lonely, still heart. He felt deceived, wounded, and curious all at the same time, and by the time they had gotten into the hotel room, his emotions were overtaking him. As soon as Grey had cast the spell of protection over the room to cloak the ghoul’s whereabouts from hungry hunters and unfriendly witches, he quietly asked him to leave for the night so he could rest. 

Ira couldn’t make sense of it. His nerves kept him on edge, glancing out the peephole and the window of the hotel room every so often. His mind refused to let go of the idea that this was all too good to be true and that he’d been lured into a trap with a pretty face that he couldn’t resist. Was this all a siren’s song, or had he found someone, a descendant of Sebastian no less, to connect with?

Ira thought he would never see that face again, and here it was, three hundred years later with a different name, a different life. It left him confused and frustrated, emotions from the past shoving themselves to the forefront of his thoughts. He tried to hide it, but he was transparent in the way he kept his distance and watched the strangely familiar man carefully as if he expected the facade to break at any moment. Reality had a way of crushing the hope out of him. 

Hunger pains started to twist up his insides. It never ceased to annoy him that his existence was driven by hunger. He could go a week before it would start to be an issue to his control and how much he could pass for human. The hunger was ever-present, but his mind was too wrapped up in disbelief to care about his next meal after finding a Grimm. To stumble across one in a graveyard, no less. It was such a Grimm thing to do. 

When Ira heard a knock on the door, he stood up immediately and went to the door to peer out the peephole. Spying the grin of the dark-haired man that had given him sanctuary, he unlocked the door and opened it with a creak to let him in. 

“You were gone for a long time,” Ira commented, a little suspicious in his tone. He couldn’t help to look over his shoulder to peer out into the world, half expecting to see the hunter behind him. “What were you up to today?” He tried to sound casual, but his words prodded at Grey anxiously.

[gravitysrainbow-1x1]

@scasonofthevvitch​ Festive fall fun; The leaves began to turn into deep colors of red, yellow, and orange, like each leaf had been meticulously dipped into the sunset overnight. A chill fell over the city. Citizens bundled up into jackets and plaid scarves and clutched an apple cider, pumpkin spice, or hot chocolate tightly to their chest as they scurried about to prepare for the holidays. 

Ira sat on a hay bale, one leg drawn in close to his chest while the other rested on the ground. Stalks of corn in the corn maze reached up towards orange sky surrounding him while he waited on Grey to return with his warm beverage of choice. Ira wondered briefly what the holiday treats that his generation raved over might have tasted like, but then he quickly let the thought go. It didn’t matter. He had very specific preferences and his body would be damned if he let himself get too curious. It was easy to remember not to indulge in his curiosity; it was painful to vomit it - and some of his insides - back up when he rejected it.

But that didn’t matter. Long ago he’d gotten over the preferences that were forced upon him. All he cared about was the pretty, black-haired young man that inconceivably came into his life. For hundreds of years, he’d been haunted by his memories of Sebastian’s face, and, somehow, here he was. Still, Ira held his breath, fearing it too good to be true, but his suffocating heart couldn’t bare to be alone anymore. 

Despite the festive fun they were having, when he was separated from Grey for even a moment, the sad, distant look in his eyes as he could not help but ruminate on the countless years that he’d spent alone this time of year, watching others enjoy their families and holidays traditions with gleeful enthusiasm. When Grey returned, he forced himself to smile briefly, looking up to meet the other’s gaze as he tried to shake it off. “What drink did you decide to get?” He asked curiously, “If you’re still cold, you can take my jacket. I don’t need it. I don’t want you to be uncomfortable.”