~~A Vox/Val Origin Fanfic~~
It's the late 1970s, and VoxTek has been growing steadily ever since Vox landed in hell. Not as fast as Vox would've hoped, though. The company is lacking something, and Vox isn't quite sure what. But he gets a new idea for improvement when he discovers a discarded notepad left after a shareholder meeting...
Rating: Explicit
Pairing: Staticmoth, Vox/Val
Tags: Vox, Valentino, Vox is Bad at Feelings, Vox is in hell for a reason, Vox being a jerk, Vox's one-sided psychosexual obsession with Alastor, Valentino is in hell for a reason, dubious consent, non-consensual, explicit sex, violence
For more accurate tags, make sure to read the ones on the AO3 post! Click here to read!
Also made a small sketchy sketch of the outfit Val had for the party, just to keep track of my own work. I'm not the greatest art there but I think it does the job!
This is a partial rewrite of my original short fic, an origin story for Alastor. It's extensive enough that it warranted its own new entry rather than an edit to the original. (And the original has its fans, so its still there for folks to read if they want.) This essentially expands on the second half, the part that focuses on Alastor's deal. There are updates and edits to the beginning as well, and the ending has been reworked to reflect the new information. As before, heads up for historical references to racially charged violence and cruelty. The intensity on the gore has also gone up by a not-inisignificant margin.
I'm really pleased with it and hope you enjoy it.
Thanks again to my husband @zaebeecee who provided most of Bael's dialogue, along with some additional narration. <3
Read on AO3 here
This backstory is the one Zae is using for Alastor in Loveless Bond! Read that amazing fic on Tumblr or AO3!
CW: References to historical bigotry, references to SA, canon-typical violence, graphic torture
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It was always said that the boy had been born wrong.
On a long and sweltering night in early August, deep in the swamplands of Louisiana, Ezora Castrie was lying in her broken down shack at the edge of the village screaming with the pains of labor. Well over two hours passed before her help came in the form of Miss Eugénie and two other ladies whom she enlisted to assist her as midwives. They had made frequent stops to check on Ezora over the course of her condition in the early months, but this kindness lessened as the days grew hotter and thicker, even though her belly was growing bigger and bigger. As the resident medicine woman, young as she was, it was usually Ezora who handled the responsibilities of the midwife, and she had intended for it always to be that way. This was never meant to happen. But happen it did, and there was no choice but to find a way to make do.
It was a difficult pregnancy, and everyone agreed that it was because of the ill nature of its conception. Even Ezora conceded the ugly truth, and though she would not give many words to the matter, she knew it was wrong in some way beyond the transgression of that white vagabond, the man nameless and unknown even to the other white folks who dwelt outside the swamplands. Whatever signs and portents she had gleaned through her conjuring, she was keeping them all to herself. Her secrecy would have caused the village to lose much of their trust in Ezora, but they never trusted the girl to begin with. She was known to be skilled, and a hoodoo practitioner was a valuable asset and usually much loved in her community. But Ezora was not like others who worked hoodoo. She had strange ways about her, and she was not friendly. Even when she first came to them as a child of nine only five years ago, she was strange, bearing abilities far beyond her years. Most folks believed that she had dabbled with forbidden things, things that turned her into a madwoman. They could not have guessed how mad she would become after she brought those things into the mundane world.
Miss Eugénie and her helpers attended Ezora as she wailed, bleeding on the floor, writhing in an agony even the other mothers could not understand. Beads of sweat were as pearls along her brow, glistening in firelight before coalescing, falling, then forming again. Orange, brown, and black waves were cast over the walls, flickering in and out over an ocean of red. The midwives thought for sure that the child had been lost, but Ezora screamed that it was still squirming inside of her. When they pulled him out he was silent, and they had to unplug his mouth of primordial slime before he would breathe. But he wouldn't cry. They smacked the child's backside. Still he did not cry. Then the baby's unsettling demeanor was quickly overshadowed by the sudden bloating of Ezora’s stomach, and her cries that it was not over. Miss Eugénie had to face a terrifying realization.
There was a twin.
It took two of them to ease its passage while the third held the first infant, and Eugénie wondered if maybe there were two more of them, maybe even three, and their flesh was fused up together. She'd heard of that sort of horrific thing occurring with some folks. It was abnormal, but so was that man that they never did find. The white man with the cold face and foul tongue who forced his seed into their medicine woman, then vanished with no trace save for the results of his foul crime.
The strength left the mother, and she hollered with one final cry, “That's not my child! I have one child, one child!!” Then her head rolled back and she slept the empty sleep that came when the body could handle no more pain. Her skin stretched and tore, and the thing fell out of her and into the arms of the terrified midwives. When the horrid lumps of pink and yellow flesh squirmed and gurgled in some attempt to live against every law of nature, the first baby, the real baby, finally made a sound. And the midwives all said that his sound was like the most horrible, beautiful music they had ever heard.
Ever since that night, Miss Eugénie and the others swore that what Ezora brought into the world that night was not of this or any other place they knew. Both the boy and the thing were foul and strange, and they said that only bad things could come of them being around. Not that they ever did anything about these beliefs, content merely to gossip and wonder and spread even stranger stories as the years went by. Most of the village didn't believe them about the thing. Eugénie said that they threw it away into the creek behind the house and hoped it would just drown. If it was alive – and they swore it was alive – it had to have a mouth. And it had no proper limbs to save itself, so it was surely the best thing to do. It must have died in the creek, they said. To the baby, they could do no such thing. It was a baby after all, by all appearances, and Ezora came back around too quickly for them to trespass further than mere contemplation. She agreed that the thing was better left for dead, but was furious when they told her they left it so close by to her home. All the same, by sun up the thing was gone. And no one but the four women who were there that night ever saw it, or even truly believed that it existed at all. And only Ezora believed that the thing was still out there somewhere, still clinging to the facsimile of life that it wore like a cloak of viscera and blood. Ezora called the boy Alastor, and even though his skin was lighter than hers and would remain a constant reminder of the monster he came from, she determined that she loved him and that she always would. What became of the thing that was his twin – because of course it didn't really die – Ezora never lived long enough to see.
•
The Horror made its way through the village some fifteen years later, emerging from the bayou much larger than it had been, but unseen by any eye that attempted to observe it. Houses were destroyed, families vanished, and then it seemed to leave. It was only when a white family was wiped from existence and their house caved in like a broken eggshell that things got so much worse. They had heard of no Horror, they refused to believe that unknowable things could and did exist in the world and in the space between worlds, and chose to blame the entire village instead. One excuse to fuel their cruel actions was as good as any other. And they came with weapons and with fire and with hatred in their hearts. Alastor saw it all happen. He saw the creeping Horror when no one else could, bigger than a house, bubbling and oozing and with a form that defied any attempt at description. He saw his people – distrusting though they were – being rounded up and beaten. And his mother… he heard the shouts that Ezora was chased into the swamp. He had been outside of the village when it all began, gathering materials for his mother’s work.
He was too late to save her.
And he was too late to catch the ones who did it.
But the Horror, the thing that was Alastor's twin, did not survive. It brought death and destruction to the village, it skulked about the marshlands in an incomplete agony, and when Alastor caught up to it eager to take out his rage on the thing, he heard it cry out a name that shook him and crawled into his blood. He didn't know to whom the name belonged, only that it would live in his blood forever. The thing then died, and Alastor was left alone.
The strange boy called Alastor held onto every wicked thing he ever saw, and each wicked thing he gathered was stored in a different place within his mind. Some wickedness brought fulfillment, whether through vindication or the pursuit of knowledge. Some wickedness was pointless; cruelty for its own sake was not always satisfying. Those who could not defend themselves were never to be targeted (save for very particular circumstances), and often it felt good to defend them. As for who qualified as a defenseless victim… Alastor observed that those parameters were often subject to change. His aim, however, never changed. His mother had spent his childhood teaching him everything she knew, from the ways of root conjure to cooking proper creole meals. The people of the village called him a monster, and his mother did too. But even though he was a monster, his mother still loved him. And he knew that if anything he had ever felt was love, it was what he felt for his mother.
With the feeling that was like love and the wickedness he calculated, Alastor developed a plan. It could be said that once his mother was murdered, there was nothing left in this world to keep the boy tethered to it save for the music of his voice, which he kept alive ever since the song he sang on the day he was born. So he went to the crossroads, carrying his journal which possessed all the notes he scribed from the books he'd gotten his hands on, candles and charcoal and matches and water in a flask. Other things too were in his pack, all for putting together his strange ritual.
There were many ideas as to how to summon a spirit at the crossroads, and many ideas as to what the spirit might do. Some things were constants. A crossroad was a place in between places, that much was agreed upon. And as an in between place, it was one where spirits walked more easily, especially those that still meddled with life on this earth. Then there was a book Alastor had acquired in his quest for knowledge and his hunger for things no one else could grasp. It talked of different spirits – demons, they were called – who granted different boons to those who called on them. He found the one who could grant him what he desired, the first in its number, and he drew its sigil in the ground. It even looked a little like a crossroad, or perhaps like the cosmogram. He lit the appropriate candles, burned the appropriate herbs, then rose and slowly crossed his arms in front of himself. He crossed his legs, one before the other, then began to twist his body and writhe to music only he could hear. It was a strange dance, one that drew energy from inside himself and spread it out into the world around him. After only moments he was sweating, but he did not stop until the wordless song in his mind had ceased. Panting, he raised his knife and sliced his arm open over the seal, his blood glittering under a full moon. Already a piece of him was laid out as a sacrifice to the endless abyss, But he would not be drawn from his course. He looked to the moon, and called out for the demon with the words he had read and committed to his memory. For some reason Alastor himself could not discern, the words came out in a haunting melody he had never heard. But he let it flow out of him, singing into a bright night with his desires flowing freely from his heart.
The night air, so warm and balmy, suddenly grew chill as it swept past where Alastor stood, teasing his hair and rustling his clothes. Underneath that chill was a smell, something odd and unnatural; it was so faint as to be difficult to discern, but it was distinctly unpleasant in the moments before it seemed to vanish, never staying long enough to identify.
A voice whispered something to him, but they weren’t words he knew. It may have simply been the wind.
Yog ot ah'ehyeagl ng ph'nglui n'ghftog
With a flutter of wings, a black bird lit onto the old wooden signpost that stood in the grass just off the crossroads. It was the size of a largish crow, strange in a way he couldn't explain, its upper beak broken into a jagged point and its plumage ratty around its neck and tail. It stared at Alastor with an eye that somehow bore a shimmer of brilliant green—a green so bright that he could only say he had seen it from a distance in the finest dyed silks—in the moonlight overhead. It opened its mouth and released a sound that Alastor had never heard before; it was the sound of a bird, surely, but no bird that the boy could identify. The sound echoed in the still air like many voices, and to Alastor’s ears, it sounded like a question.
Excitement took hold more than fear or uncertainty, though it would have been a lie to discount any one of the three. He steeled himself and addressed the bird.
“I call upon Bael, head of the infernal powers. He who possesses knowledge, love, compelling voice, who moves unseen and understands ambition and growth. I demand he speak with me upon these crossroads, a meeting point between worlds.”
The bird let out another cry, and this one seemed to double over itself, and then again, growing and doubling and growing, until the sound echoed all around him. As the noise bled into itself and began to lose meaning, it changed: laughter, somehow both subdued in nature and rich in tone, from an unseen man. It was joined by more laughter, other voices turning to a chorus of sound that cut off with an abrupt snap so visceral Alastor nearly lost his balance.
“And what might a mortal child, not yet possessed of his own manhood, desire from the embryonic birthplace of spirit? What demands might a boy presume to make of the immured voices?”
The voice did not come from the bird, for the bird was no longer there. The voice didn’t seem to come from anywhere. But Alastor could feel something stalking around him, unheard and unseen but so very cold and so very present.
He kept his hands firmly at his sides but could not keep his body from shivering, his jaw clenched against the unpleasant feeling, cold and hot all at once. Even beholding the Horror had not gripped his heart so. But no matter what, he could not falter. No matter what, he had to remain true to his goal. “I call on you, Bael, to demand your gifts. The gifts you bestow on those who show the will to take them.”
“To demand?” the voice asked, as amusement immediately flooded the tone. “What a daring mortal, to so brazenly command the Goetia. And what, child, do you expect me to give you?”
”I demand… I need…” Alastor turned where he stood as the voice flowed around him, seeking desperately for a source. “...I need power. I need knowledge. I know there is something special dwelling inside of me, I know I am not like my fellow humans. I need the ability to reach my true potential.”
The amusement bubbled into laughter, something hysterical and grating and terrifying as it echoed in the air all around Alastor. A black liquid began seeping up from the ground, forming a small pool that shone like dark glass or polished stone. From the center of that liquid, Alastor watched as a head began to emerge, long black hair obscuring the face. A pale hand rose up from the pool and slammed into the ground, followed by a second, and the entity began to push itself up out of the strange liquid.
As Alastor stared, the form began to change, paper-white hands gaining an undefinable gray color and the body surging in height until it towered over him. The creature leaned down, a split in the black hair revealing a single acid green eye and a wide, wide smile full of far too many sharp teeth.
“So… is it knowledge you seek?” The strange, layered voice was gone, replaced with a singular deep baritone that resonated all the way into Alastor’s bones. The eye didn’t blink, and the smile didn’t fade. “Knowledge I have, knowledge that even the King of Hell could not comprehend. And you…” Bael inhaled deeply through his nose, his smile somehow widening. “You truly are not like other humans, are you, boy?”
Something thick was obstructing his throat, pressing against his mortal flesh, but it was mundane in origin, impossible to blame on some otherworldly bewitchment. It was simply fear, albeit a fear unlike anything Alastor had felt in his short life. The boy was rarely frightened, so he was perhaps even more ill-prepared for the experience of perceiving this great evil than another human might be.
“I am not,” Alastor said, his voice forcing out through his tensed muscles, emerging far weaker than he intended. He wanted to look away from that horrible staring eye, but he couldn’t bring himself to do it. But all the same it might help him, he reasoned, by granting him the facade of resilience. “I was born by cursed seed, under a cursed sign. I faced the Horror that was called my twin and watched it die.”
“Your twin…” The pupil in that bright green eye dilated, holding Alastor’s gaze unflinchingly and unblinkingly. “And for what, child, do you desire knowledge? What… potential… is it you seek to unlock within?”
“I want… I want to know how to make others kneel,” he said, the flame of his desires starting to build, making his confidence grow, even in the face of this foul demon. “I want the ability to discover all things hidden, to remake my world in the shape I want it… to destroy those who have wronged me. No. I want to do more than just destroy them. I want them to suffer, to be trapped in blinding, ceaseless agony that only I can end.” Bubbling up from his tormented heart came the image of his mother, the last image of her that he possessed or would ever possess, mutilated beyond recognition.
Bael’s smile seemed to stretch at that, and he slowly tilted his head to the side until it was laying parallel to the ground. He then abruptly straightened, throwing his head back and laughing in that same unhinged cackle that made the hairs along Alastor’s arm stand up like the fur on a frightened animal.
The demon remained at his full height, towering over Alastor by at least three feet, and smiled down at him with those glowing eyes. “I think I like you,” he purred. “You have a unique quality, one I so rarely see in mortals. Too many humans would feel guilt, spilling the blood of another… but not you.”
“Not me,” Alastor agreed, finally able to smile, his confidence rising back to where it belonged. “I am worthy of your gifts, Bael. I was told it was nearly impossible to call on you, the first of the Goetia. Few mortals can handle the force of your presence, fewer still can even reach you in the strange shadows where you dwell. Isn't that so?”
“Oh, it is so, ahnah ehye. In fact, I believe you could be of great assistance to me.” Bael leaned down again, tilting his head at a neck-breaking angle. “Should you agree, I will give you access to my knowledge. Seals, magic, torture, madness, the Space-Between-Spaces, Heaven and Hell… all of it shall be at your disposal.”
Every hair on Alastor's body prickled in a slow wave over his skin, an answer to his bottomless hunger that was finally going to be fed. And his precious mother… she would be avenged.
Don't go dealing with things you can't understand, my little curse. Don't go calling on them, but if you see them, don't you trust a word they say.
I'm sorry, Mamán.
I've got to.
“And what is this assistance you want from me, then? What can I give you that is worth the exchange?” He tried not to sound too desperate, too eager. Bael couldn't know that Alastor was willing to pay any price. Any price at all.
“Nothing you’ll take umbrage with, I’m certain,” Bael said. “I want you to kill. I want you to take life. And I will give you every tool you could possibly imagine to spill blood, provided that you give me one thing.” Bael raised his hand and prodded Alastor in the center of his chest, his claw sharp and his hand cold. “Your soul.”
The shudder that went through the boy’s body was not of this world. That cold, it was a cold that shouldn't have been allowed to exist.
This was the moment, the moment that would define every other moment throughout the rest of Alastor's existence. It was a moment that would affect the future in ways the boy could not anticipate, let alone imagine.
Not even his own precious mother could sway him away from this course. His fate was his own. And this was how he was going to seize it.
He nodded, looking into Bael’s eyes without falter.
“I agree.”
The words had barely left his lips before pain seared into Alastor’s throat, a nauseatingly green light beginning to glow from somewhere beneath him. It felt like rusted metal, wrapping around his neck and hauling him back onto the ground. Before he could speak, something pierced into his neck, like hooks on the inside of a metal collar digging into his skin and ripping him open.
He tried to scream, but all that came out was the thick gurgle of a throat unable to swallow. His hands reached at the point of violence, trying to grasp the wicked tool. He could feel the edge of a heavy iron shackle, but it was fastened so tightly to him that he couldn’t get his fingers between the metal and his flesh. As he grappled with it, his fingers caught the open wounds he could feel forming above the metal rim, blood pouring hot and wet across his hand.
In the very next moment, it was gone. Or, at least, he could no longer feel it with his hands. He could breathe, he could move… but he could still feel the ghost of that collar binding his throat. The echo of pain continued to ring.
With a gasp he sat up, running his hands over his skin in a panicked rush. He looked up then, eyes wide and manic. “That's it?”
Bael’s eyebrow quirked; from where Alastor sat, it made him look as though one of his eyes was quite a bit larger than the other. “Do you mean the shackle I have placed on your soul that signifies that I own you, will always allow me to know where you are and what you’re doing, will permit me to monitor whomever you interact with, and will grant me a not insignificant amount of control over both your body and mind? Yes, I suppose that’s it, as far as obtaining your soul is concerned.”
Alastor's gut bottomed out inside him. His hand hovered over his throat. “You're going to control me…? You never said–”
“I said I was going to take one thing from you,” Bael interrupted, holding up his index finger; Alastor could see blood on his nail, blood from where the demon had touched his chest. “And you agreed to give me your soul. What is it, ahnah eyhe? Did you believe your soul was unimportant? Did you possibly think it fictional, that I would give you so much power in exchange for a triviality?”
He shook his head, the disbelief stunning him. “But… but you will give me the knowledge and power you promised. I will crush the ones who wronged me.”
“Of course I will,” Bael said, sweeping down until he was on one knee, looming over Alastor’s nearly-supine form. “You will become the most feared human soul on whatever ground you tread. And, to show I am no monster, I will make a deal with you.” Bael raised his left hand, his mouth spreading into that supernaturally wide smile again. “I will return your soul to you when there is no more you can learn from me.”
It felt like a trap. Or if not that, then some wicked irony that the beast would continually hold over him until the end of time. But it didn't change what Alastor was receiving, and it was far too clear that Bael had all of the control here anyway.
“And if that happens? What will happen to all you've already given me?”
Bael chuckled. “Oh, what I give you is yours to keep, Alastor. Even while I own your soul, you are free to do whatever you wish with the gifts I pass to you.”
Alastor sneered in spite of his own defeat. “Unless you see fit to take control.”
That smile widened to the point that Alastor was certain Bael could bite his head off. “Keep me fed and you’ll have no fear of me, Alastor,” he said. “Try to defy me and I may just consume anyone you’re foolish enough to grow close to.”
The boy’s eyes grew wide with barely restrained terror, yet his lips hitched up in a manic grin. “Threatening my hypothetical loved ones? You’ll… you’ll have to try harder than that to frighten me, demon.”
“You say that as though you have not been frightened ever since you first called my name, little one. But, very well; you have expectations for what a demon is like. I would be remiss to leave you wanting.”
Bael raised his hand and snapped his fingers. The shadows swirled beneath Alastor’s feet, then slowly began creeping up his legs. It was bitterly cold, yet completely insubstantial, something that felt so real but couldn’t be touched. He pulled one leg, trying to step away, but he was held fast, an almost wet feeling seeping through his clothes. Like a second skin it grafted itself to him, winding up and around his hips, coursing over his stomach. It looked like fingers sprouting veins. In a growing panic Alastor tried to swat the blackness off himself as it made its way up his chest. This did nothing of course, only causing his hands to be caught up and Bael to start laughing again. He watched the demon, gritting his teeth, wondering if the beast was able to betray him after all and had simply decided to kill him.
Then he started to sink.
Shadows wrapped around his throat, crept up his face, and Alastor screamed. The darkness was pulling him down steadily into the earth, and no matter how he struggled, he was being steadily devoured. The sound of his screams abruptly cut off, and he tasted the nothingness of the living shadow pouring over his tongue and invading his throat. Still he sank, his vision obscuring, his spectacles torn from his face and cold shadow covering his eyes. The last thing he saw before he was subsumed completely was that terrible, unblinking green eye.
Alastor was floating in nothingness. He felt both weightless and crushingly heavy, still covered in shadow, yet completely exposed. Taking stock, he registered that his eyes were open, and in fact there was something about the black void that surrounded him that made it appear as though it were shifting. Different blacks were somehow flowing in and out of each other like an abysmal wake on a cursed shore. Half imagined images were swirling past his sight, and if he tried to focus on what they looked like, another piece of his sound mind was chipped away. When he looked down, he could see his own body as well. He had been stripped completely, fully exposed to the nightmare Bael cast him into. The light that allowed him to see had no source he could locate, and it was that awful bright green that nature didn’t allow.
He didn’t see the demon anywhere, and when he tried to speak he couldn’t hear his own voice. The boy trembled, and it was now that, finally, he could no longer pretend to be brave. He was terrified. He was lost. He wanted his mother.
Trying to move proved difficult, Alastor moving one foot forward, placing it on the black nothingness. While it appeared to make some sort of contact with something, when he brought the other foot in line with the first, he was struck by the distinct impression that he had not moved at all. A new panic hit him, and he ran. He ran, and he kept running, swirling endless blackness whipping past him, the void ever expanding and never ending. Still he continued, on and on, unable to stop. How long was he running? It might have been only moments when he felt like he had been running for hours. Hysteria took hold, and he started laughing while he ran. He laughed and laughed and laughed, his throat aching but the sound not ceasing. A strange, high-pitched cackle, one that was not him, cracked out of his throat. One foot caught on the other, and he flew forward, tumbling onto the false ground, rolling onto his head, his shoulder, his ass, skidding to a halt.
Since there was no ground he could perceive, he reasoned that it must have been his own expectation that caused the perception of one to rise up beneath him. If it was the only way he could perceive anything in a space that wasn’t real in the sense of mundane comprehension, it did stand to reason. How he was lucid enough to even come to this conclusion, he didn’t know, and it only served to frighten him further. He pushed himself up onto his elbows. That laugh… it wasn’t him. He knew it wasn’t. It couldn’t be. He knew his own voice, he knew his own body!
Shoving himself onto his knees, he screamed into the void. “Alright, beast! You’ve made your point! Let’s end this little game, shall we?”
All that answered him back was laughter. And for the next backwards eternity that would be the only real answer he would receive. The things he felt, the things he saw, were so difficult to quantify that he would spend the rest of his life revisiting them in his dreams, night after night.
First, there was the pain in his neck. He pulled and recognition struck him like a bolt of lightning. That horrid collar had returned to his throat, and there were hooks digging into his flesh. Hooks so long and deeply curved that when his fingers curled around the engraved metal collar and he started to tug, skin and sinew only stretched and tore, warm liquid pouring over his palms. The blood pooled and pooled, pouring over his body and disappearing into the nothingness.
Devastation of the flesh is the most sublime form of suffering.
He felt the voice more than he heard it. It was Bael, cutting through the panic in Alastor’s mind like it took precedence over all of his senses.
To injure the heart and to injure the mind are both sweet, to be certain, but a wound to the flesh can scar the body as well as the mind and the heart. It is a tool to harm, to humiliate, to humble. You can kill, of course, but more than that… you can cripple. You can mutilate. You can disfigure.
Bael was behind Alastor; he felt him even if he did not see him. He only had a moment to think before he felt the demon’s heel slam down into his Achilles tendon. His chest hit the ground that wasn’t ground, his chin following. Dully he thought his teeth were cracking, but it was pointless to wonder in the face of the agony this creature was putting him through.
Something impossibly sharp stabbed into Alastor’s back, followed by a second something, and then a third, and then a fourth. Fingers twisted into Alastor’s hair from behind and began to drag him upwards, forcing his body to slide further onto whatever it was stabbed through his torso and into the ground. For some unfathomable reason, in spite of the crippling pain, Alastor’s mind was clear. Even as blood pooled at the back of his throat and began to flood his mouth, even as it continued to stain his bare flesh, his consciousness did not even begin to falter. It was for that reason, and that reason only, that he could see the things stabbing through his body and into swirling black: they were black, like obsidian, and they looked like they were… moving.
His cracked and gritted teeth pulled into a grimace that Alastor mentally commanded to become a grin. Even as his eyes widened and his mind shattered, those things moving inside of him, those things not of this world… they were not of any world he might have fathomed.
“Wh–” he managed to gurgle out, the sound pairing with a thick glob of blood that oozed out of his mouth like sludge. “What… are… y-you…”
The question, malformed, had no clear meaning, but if he could speak properly, he would probably still have no idea what he was really asking.
Bael was in front of him. He knew it was Bael, it could be no one else. But it didn’t look the way he looked at the crossroads. It – was ‘it’ not the only thing he could call it? – had a form Alastor couldn’t define. There were colors yet not, shapes yet not, and it was terrifying. Only one thing seemed to make sense, and that was the awareness that Bael’s eyes had grown in size, and so did his grin, and all of it was green. The thing that was Bael leaned down enough to look up into Alastor’s eyes. He held one tenebrous hand up between them.
Opening your mind to infinite possibility.
The creature flexed his hand, and sharp, black claws jutted out of his fingertips. He then seized Alastor’s shoulders and dragged his hands down the boy’s arms.
Finally he screamed. For some moments it didn't seem to come from anywhere near him, let alone from his own lungs. And then, from somewhere beyond this space, as though sounding from the copse of trees that he knew sat by the road where he had performed his dreadful summoning, he heard his own scream echo back and then grow. It grew into the sound of a great gathering of whippoorwills singing, turning into a frenzied cacophony. It drowned out his own screams, yet somehow Alastor could still hear the splattering of his own blood hitting, waterfalls cascading from the deep lines Bael drew upon his arms.
Ahaha… the song of the whippoorwills
Bael’s laughter echoed with the cries of the birds.
Ygnaiih… ygnaiih… thflthkh’ngha…
The words were strange yet somehow familiar, a sharp reminder of the recent horror that had rampaged through Alastor’s village.
He didn’t have the breath to ask. And those words in that strange tongue were the only words he would hear from that point forward into more time he could not measure.
The form without form that was Bael continued to appear and vanish as the torment continued. A chain, a horrible chain blacker than black, only truly visible by the violent green glow that outlined its entire length, extended from his neck, inescapably present. This length went on forever, with no visible source. Then it was held by a dark hand, wrapped around it many times, dragging the boy’s helpless body wherever it pleased, always with more laughter. Breath on his neck suggested the demon was right there, but when he managed to turn his head, he saw nothing. It would trail up the length of his naked body, burning his skin while feeling impossibly cold. He knew now, far too well, about how sharp those teeth were, how long and wet that tongue was, leaving him bleeding even more, and dripping with more than just his own blood. Many hands grabbed him, pulled him against a form he couldn’t define. There was sick humor, amusement, at Alastor’s desperate frenzy, his sheer terror. Claws kept dragging, pulling along his hips, his ribs, his shoulders, always to bring him closer and closer to the thing that held him there.
At its very worst, Alastor was certain that he was being pulled into an enormous mouth. The cavernous maw had a high arch above him, the long teeth like prison bars. The tongue was massive, wrapping about his entire body. Sometimes he would be chewed, his body mutilated beyond recognition. And yet other times he was simply swallowed whole, pulled into the endless tunnel of a tight and undulating esophagus. He was devoured and digested, still conscious, still terrified, still aware of every terrible moment.
While Bael gorged himself again and again on Alastor’s very spirit, the boy was hungry. With every nameless moment his body grew more ravenous. His thirst was unbearable. His only hope to feel sated was to consume what was around him. But the slimy tentacles only burned his gut. The same was true of the chunks of Bael’s tongue he tore out in retribution for his own consumption. It was when he then turned to his own flesh – as long as it appeared to still exist – that he felt any sense of satisfaction. Miserably he would rip into his arm, his leg, with his own teeth, screaming while he tore flesh from bone, crying while he chewed, then laughing as he swallowed.
Alastor often found joy in the strangest things. He would laugh at things that made others scream or faint in terror. In this special torment that Bael crafted only for him, laughter became his greatest defense. He assured himself it was just his defense, and not a sign that his mind was truly snapping far, far beyond the point of no return. Soon enough, he could do nothing but laugh at his torture, and his smile never left his face. Not matter how he ached, he smiled on.
It suits you, ahnah eyhe. It suits you so… very… well…
All he could do was stand there, bleeding without blood, in agony without physical pain, as long fingers pulled a wickedly sharp needle in and out of the flesh of Alastor’s cheek, his lips. The green string glowed, only lightly tinged by his blood, moving up and down with the deft movement of a practiced tailor. His wicked crafting danced across the boy’s face, until the work was done. Stitched in place, Alastor’s grin would last. In spite of anything, in the face of any horror, any sleight… any heartbreak… he would always wear his smile.
Whether he liked it or not.
Kill those who wronged you, ahnah eyhe. Make them bleed. Make them suffer. If you believe a living soul deserves death, then serve it to them, for that is how you will reach your true potential.
He felt Bael’s clawed fingers one last time, at Alastor’s abdomen just below his navel. He only had a moment to contemplate the meaning of that touch before they carved into him, slicing him open all the way up to his sternum. And one last time, he felt his insides spill out, splattering wetly around him. And the laughter, high-pitched and frenetic, deep and resonant, rang out through his skull, imprinting forever upon his shattered mind.
Then, with a sharp snap, the black tendrils holding him coiled and slipped from his flesh, dropping him hard onto the cold, bloody ground.
The ground. It was the real ground.
He could hardly believe it, could hardly even recognize it after so much time – not that it was really time, now was it? – in that Space Between Spaces. Alastor remained face down in the chillingly cold dirt, fingertips braced, hyper aware of the individual grains slipping beneath his nails. They shifted against each other like two particles preparing a reaction of a size far outclassing their insignificant nature. He didn’t dare look up, his senses overwhelmed already by the nightmares that were forced into him, so he didn’t see the demon depart. He only knew that it had. And once more he felt Bael’s words more than he heard them, though it was strange now, surrounded by the chirping of frogs and the rustling of dead leaves on the old oak tree.
Do not disappoint me, child, or you will regret the day your own reflection makes you scream.
For hours he lay there, aware that it was the same night it had been when first he summoned the fell beast. With a turn of his head, he could see that the candles were still lit, not yet melted down to the dirt. The book he’d stolen, possessing the seals and incantations to summon the demons of the Ars Goetia, was laying open, its pages fluttering in the faint breeze. When he forced himself to roll onto his back, he saw the stars, the full moon, all in the same position where he left them. He was clothed, he was whole, and he was not bleeding. But when he inspected himself, he saw scars. They were faint, only visible upon the closest inspection, but they were there all the same. They covered nearly his whole body, grim souvenirs from his journey beyond existence. Save for one. Long and mottled, it was where he cut his arm to perform his grim summoning. It was raised and inflamed, and appeared infected. But it remained closed thanks to rough black cording that had been used to suture it. He found the skein the cord had come from paired with a long sharp needle, set beside his ritual book, and he took them home with him. And of his smile, it was no longer plastered across his face. He only felt it as Bael had secured it. But when he laughed up at the moon, he knew it would always be there for him. All he needed was to find the strength to call on it.
•
The boy had been born wrong. Everyone said it was so.
And now the boy, the monster who was loved by his mother and feared by all others, had taken hold of what was wrong, and was turning it into power.
For the rest of Alastor's living days he felt Bael’s presence. He was with him when he slaughtered the families of the men who butchered his mother. Bael was with him when he finally ended their lives as well and he laughed at their agony. It was so for every life Alastor stole. And for every life Alastor stole, another of his faint scars darkened on his own body, reflecting the brutality he suffered at the hands of the one who now owned his soul. The demon was there in all of the moments in between, distant yet present, tearing away little by little at what sense of sanity Alastor still possessed. Merely by looking upon him, Bael had known what he was. And now, so did everyone else. They looked at his face and they seemed to know everything. A glance at a single one of his cursed scars, and they truly knew.
There was nowhere to hide.
There would never again be any place he could hide his true face.
Not from everyone. Not from Bael.
Not from himself.
In the dingy old mirror, his eyes looked back at him. They looked through him. It became true to Alastor as he watched and was watched that he had given up a piece of himself that left him forever changed. An emptiness ate away at him now, and he was certain he would never feel whole again without it. He could see what he was, the monster he had been born as, and the monster he had become. And it was a horror unlike any he had seen before.
The cord was rough in his hands, and pulling it made his fingers bleed. It was in this way that Alastor stuck the needle into his own face, piercing and pulling, dragging twine through flesh in the same strokes as when it was first crafted, black glowing green. Over his lips, from cheek to cheek, pulling over his own screams. Because he was screaming.
On the day his own reflection made him scream, Alastor crafted his perfect mask, one he would never remove, even after his death.
You will regret the day your own reflection makes you scream
Even as his chains grew tighter, and the reality of his decision became clear, Alastor never stopped reaching for greater power…
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the
Organization for Transformative Works
"The macaque did not expect to meet the Princess again after she caught him in her temple. But the winds are not in his favour as she invades his jungle"
Heyo! I'm back again. This chapter is shorter but also required a lot more research. I'm kaput. Still, please enjoy!
Fic art done for Lofi Beats to Capture Children to, one of my favorite Sun & Moon centric fics.
Just copying from my og post: I had a BLAST playing around with this - the perspective, details, color~ It’s been a long time since I’ve done anything fancy and ambitious, and I’m really happy with how this turned out in the end.
There was only one thing that made sense for me to give to you for your gift of 2K followers to me.
I love you. I would not be here without you.
Daddy Steve and Baby Bucky would not be here without you.
So without further ado...
Rating: T (Teen)
Pairing: James “Bucky” Barnes/Steve Rogers
Wordcount: 6.8K
Tags: Meet-Cute, First Meetings, Steve Rogers Feels, POV Steve Rogers, Developing Relationship, Bucky Barnes Feels, POV Bucky Barnes, Fluff, Fluff and Humor, Nat is the best Wingman, Clint is also the best Wingman, Mentions of Past and Toxic Relationship, Insecurities, Only Happy Endings Here
Summary: How it all began.
Bucky doesn’t even hesitate once the beer is set down in front of him, doesn’t even grimace as he swallows down his first swig of it.
“This is disgusting,” he remarks flatly, going in for another gulp. If he drinks more, he’s sure it won’t be long before he doesn’t care about the taste of the beer in the slightest. Then again, was it even possible for him to get drunk from beer? This local IPA that Nat insisted he get makes him hopeful of just that.
“Mmm, good thing we’re not picky,” Nat responds with, reaching for her own glass and tipping it back. Bucky grimaces, agrees to disagree, and instead dips a fried pickle deep into a cup of ranch.
“You know this might be the best decision you’ve ever had. Why talk about our feelings when we can just…eat them?” Bucky asks rhetorically and with a flick of his fingers towards their tabletop. Lamb meatballs, spinach artichoke dip, truffle fries— treat yourself comfort bar food at its finest.
“Right, but also when we were at home like thirty minutes ago you were crying after having communicated with me very clearly what your feelings were so…”
Bucky smiles, taps a few fingers under Nat’s chin two times before reaching for a few fries.
“It’s the best of both worlds, baby.”
It’s been one hell of a week for the two of them, one thing after the other, encouragements of keeping their head up fading and becoming weaker as the days passed. Nat has spent the majority of her time at work, her asshole boss overworking her, taking advantage of her thinning kindness. Bucky has barely seen her this week, their paths crossing between classes and work, showers and breakfast. And with his schedule and his workload from classes, he spent most of his time at the library preparing for Dr. Banner’s midterm exam.
The two of them finally reconnected, Nat crawling into Bucky’s bed once she got home well into Thursday night, Friday morning. It felt good to let his feelings out, to talk to his best friend, to cuddle close and have his hair played with.
“Just us today. We’re gonna do whatever we want to do today, Buck. Fuck everyone else,” Nat had told him, and he wholeheartedly agreed, mind already light from letting out the stress of the week with a good cry.
“Yeah, fuck ‘em…”
Bucky likes this bar. It’s a bit dingey but somehow charming, the music soothing and low, the warm chatter of other patrons surrounding him. It’s comforting and everything that would come to mind if Nat were to suggest a bar, which she had with an easy, “I know one of the bartenders, c’mon.” Bucky is about to give Nat shit for the way the bartender’s eyes lit up when he saw her, for the way he said her name and the way she replied in kind, when Bucky sees him.
Holy shit.
Bucky has to pull his eyes away almost immediately as soon as they land on the man at the bar. His chest grows warm and it isn’t because of this bitter beer.
“Holy shit,” he repeats out loud, dropping what’s left of his handful of fries into the basket of fried pickles. He wipes his hand on his jeans, adjusts in his seat, chances a glance back up to the man at the bar.
“What?”
“Nothing, it’s…n-nothing.”
“Oh my god, did you stutter? Why? What’s—”
“Nat! Don’t look!” he hisses, gives his best attempt to avoid making a scene when Nat turns in search for what it is that Bucky has seen to cause such an immediate reaction. It fails. Nat spots him immediately as well, head slow to move back in Bucky’s directions, eyes wide nonetheless.
“Holy shit.”
Bucky’s cheeks go up in flames. He can feel it where he sits, that throb of color, that wave of sensation. He reaches for his beer, manages to look over it and back at the bar as Nat whistles lowly.
“Buck…”
“I know, I know.”
“Jesus fucking Christ, is that your walking wet dream?”
“I don’t…oh my god.”
He doesn’t even have the space in his mind to protest any further, knows anyone who has ever crossed paths with this man would know Bucky is full of shit if he made an attempt to.
Bucky’s never seen anyone so beautiful before in his life.
This man has a face and physique for a runway, a Vogue catalogue, for in front of a camera. His side profile alone has a ball of arousal dropping into Bucky’s stomach like a stone, a boulder, sharp and rugged. A strong nose, a neatly trimmed beard, a pout Bucky can see from here, effortlessly swept back hair. Even sitting down, Bucky knows this man is a large man, that he takes up space in more way than one, is broad.
Bucky swallows heavily.
Casual yet professional, a dark polo that gorgeously clings to curvature of his arms and the span of his shoulders, jeans that miraculously fit and stretch around thighs so thick they make Bucky’s mouth water. A simple pair of brown boots and to top everything off, what Bucky thinks is a watch. Simply looking at him has Bucky wanting to think up incredibly inappropriate thoughts starring this man and this man alone.
Bucky is inexplicably drawn to him.
“Buck—”
“Nat, don’t,” he mumbles, eyes not leaving the man at the bar as he speaks and sets his beer down. Nat turns around against, chances another glance of her own.
“Bucky, you have to talk to him.”
“What?” Bucky squeaks, leaning forward in his seat to make himself clear. “Are you insane? Not a chance in hell. He...he's probably just looking at you anyway. Maybe he's...maybe he's not into men!”
Natasha grabs for his wrist, the closest part of him she can get a grip on, leans forward to face him head-on.
“You’re going to talk to that man before we leave here tonight.”
“Thanks, Clint,” Steve sighs as the other man brings him another glass of whiskey, not even the good stuff. That rightfully made Clint’s eyebrows raise when Steve requested it, “Well is fine.”; this isn’t the kind of place to drink shitty whiskey. It is almost painfully harsh, no depth, just pure burn, but it’s what Steve wants in this moment.
“Y’alright, Rogers?”
Steve is sure his smile falls flat so he covers it up with another drink, nods his head.
“Yeah, yeah I’m…m’okay.”
Clint doesn’t look convinced but nods his head and blessedly leaves it at that and moves onto the next customer. Steve’s sigh is long and is a relief that racks his body. He fills up his lungs with air, holds it momentarily, breathes out, brings his glass back up to his lips.
“Right, Steve but…you’re not happy. And I’m tired of seeing you try and pretend that you are. You know who you are, you know how important having a loving and doting partner is to you. You need to be consumed. That’s just who you are! I hate seeing you go through these patches where you pretend you’re alright with somethin’ physical, but then when the time comes for that conversation, that ‘what is this’ talk, you lie and say you’re fine with what you have with someone because you think you are protecting yourself and saving face. But you’re hurtin’ yourself, man. You’re hurting yourself. I’m sorry…”
Steve hasn’t stopped thinking about Sam’s words since he heard them three nights ago. They’ve kept him up at night, have been ringing through his head, have weighed heavy on his heart. They are words he has been thinking for months, years, words that Sam has tried to slowly tell him over time but in an emotional outburst ended up saying all at once over dinner.
They were long overdue but stung nonetheless. Steve didn’t know who he was trying to fool anymore, words out there for him and the person closest to him to see, crystal clear. He’s spent months bed hopping, trying to make the most out of physical relationships, yearning for more yet pretending he was okay with merely fucking around when that kind of relationship was the last thing he desired.
His age, his job, his lifestyle, his personality—every part of Steve, everything that makes up who he is, is desperate for a partner in life.
He has the house for another person, a stable career, the space in his heart. Maybe this is a wakeup call, one that he has needed for a long time, one that he has been too stubborn to see himself. Sam is right—he doesn’t deserve to take this treatment from himself. His immediate follow-up thought is a negative one, is how difficult it is to find someone who is open to and accepting of his intensity, of how he thoroughly enjoys falling head over heels for someone. People tend to not take to that well, don’t like that about Steve, that he’s an all-or-nothing kind of guy.
Steve is bringing his glass back up to his lips, is ready to toss the rest back and ask for another, when he seems him.
“Holy shit.”
“What’s that?” Clint asks, Steve blindly unaware that he was within ear’s reach, but he sets his glass down onto the bar top anyway.
“Nothin’, nothin’. Another?”
Steve thinks Clint nods before he turns and takes Steve’s glass with him, Steve diverting his eyes to the floor. He blinks a few times, maybe he hadn’t seen correctly, glances back up at the man sitting across the room.
Holy shit.
He releases the breath he hadn’t realized he had been holding out, low and slow, as soon as his eyes rake over this man’s face once more. Steve feels his heart hammer against his chest a few times, the aching thing making a reappearance that he tries his hardest to tamp down. He’s almost certain he’s never seen someone more beautiful in his life, has never been swept away by someone’s physical appearance before. He’s met beautiful people, has seen them, has been intimate with them, but this is something entirely different.
This kid has a face that would make angels weep. A pair of sinful lips, rose-tinted cheeks, caramel-highlighted hair that curls and wisps as it pleases and is artfully effortless—Steve wants to tuck this one close to his chest for fear of others setting eyes on him. He has boyish charm that Steve has never come across and when he watches this man laugh, eyes wrinkling in the corners, nose scrunching up delightfully, Steve feels something he hasn’t felt in so long stir in his chest.
Hope.
The realization that this feeling is indeed hope has another one tucking in alongside it.
Doubt.
This final awareness that Sam has brought to the forefront of his mind has Steve uncharacteristically doubting himself. He’s on shaky ground, slipped footing. Where he is normally confident and self-assured, he is overthinking and questioning every action and thought he comes across. He feels like he once did when he first started dating, unaware of what is acceptable and what is not, overthinking every possible future scenario inside of his deafening brain.
“Here ya go, man,” Clint announces, placing Steve’s glass down in front of him. He pauses before reaching for it, pulls it towards his body a bit, yanks his eyes away from the man across the bar.
“Clint,” he starts before he can stop himself. He picks up his glass, uses it as an excuse to lift his finger. “Do you know them by chance? That redhead and the…the guy with her?”
He sips his whiskey as Clint turns and looks across the bar. He smiles.
“Eh, kinda. I know the girl’s name is Natasha, been tryin’ to get her number for weeks. She’s stubborn. I like her.”
Steve doesn’t hesitate.
“And what about the man with her?”
Clint shrugs his shoulders, “Yeah, not sure. Sorry, guy.”
“Nah, don’t…don’t worry,” he brushes off, lets his hands cup his glass as he feels nerves he hasn’t felt in years slip through his system. He wants to keep his eyes downcast, wants to reel himself in, but he feels an undeniable pull, an unavoidable urge, to take in as much of this man as he can while he’s been given the chance. When he looks back over across the bar, his heart leaps up into his throat as he sees the man looking over at him.
Shit.
He would like to think it’s the small amount of mustered up confidence that keeps his gaze locked across this busy room, locked onto what he swears is a pair of summer sky eyes, but he’s only fooling himself. It’s like he’s in a trance. Steve swears this is what people feel like when they claim they are “lovestruck”. It feels more like “dumbstruck” though. His palms grow sweaty, his heart races, he tries to find something to do with his hands and fumbles with his whiskey glass.
Either way, he meets this man halfway, looks on for a time that is more that socially appropriate, but one that feels so very right. When Steve lets his eyes wander down this man’s face, the curve of his jaw, to the delightful dimple in his chin, and back up, he’s broken his gaze and is turned towards the redhead with him.
“You…you wanna know what he’s drinking?”
Steve looks over at Clint, had entirely forgotten he was standing so close. Steve swallows, noise loud in his own ears but to no one else, looks down at his hands.
Does he?
It’s a simple and generous question, one with a heavy implication. Steve cannot ignore the timing of this moment; how divine it almost feels to be sitting here questioning what he wants in a future relationship and being in the middle of promising himself things will be different when he sees this breathtaking man.
"You...you think he'd be interested?"
"Only one way to find out, bud," Clint answers easily enough.
Sending a drink over is harmless, is something he would normally have no reservations in doing, would in fact take it over himself. But if he’s trying to be changed, if he’s seeking out a different kind of relationship, is this the way he wishes to go about it?
When his eyes cross the bar again and land on a blush that makes Steve’s gut curl pleasantly, hid decision is made.
“Yeah, why don’t you lemme know what he’s drinkin’…”
“He keeps looking over here, Buck…”
“Nat, I swear to god,” Bucky starts, unsure of what he is swearing about and unable to finish his sentence because her statement is true. The man at the bar keeps looking over in their direction, has continued to do so since he mortifyingly caught Bucky looking over at him. The only reason Bucky knows this to be true is because of the fact that he too cannot stop looking up and over at the man at the bar.
His stomach flips pleasantly and nervously when he sees the bartender talking to the man at the bar, unable to contain his noise when he sees them gesturing gently over to them.
“Oh god, they’re pointing over here, they’re looking over here!”
“I’m so serious, Bucky. If he doesn’t make a move and if you still sit here struck stupid, I’m going to get involved somehow. This will happen.”
Bucky has no comment in response, finds no use in refusing her efforts when he is almost certain he wants to talk to this man. Who wouldn’t? Panic rises up in his throat, thick and heavy, familiar. Why would a man to whom everyone would wish to talk to have an interest in Bucky? His eyes wander over to the bar once more, greedy for any crumbs of this man he can tuck away into his brain, when he sees the bartender start to walk over to their table, mischievous smirk on his lips, beer in hand.
“Oh my god, Natasha.”
“No fucking way. Clint didn’t take another order of ours, did he? That’s gotta be—”
Clint is all sparkling and tickled eyes when he saddles up to their tall table, sets the beer down in front of Bucky.
“My good sir,” he starts, shifting his body in a way that doesn’t block the man at the bar from Bucky’s view. “Another beer for you from my dear sweet friend sitting at the bar all alone over there.”
Clint gestures towards the man, arm extended, and when Bucky follows the movement, his eyes meet a gentle smile followed by a wink that has a physical force to it.
Oh.
Bucky’s tongue is thick in his mouth, a pleasant tingle at the nape of his neck, the warmth of his no doubt opaque blush creeping down his neck as he looks down at the beer. The smile that blooms on his lips is a slow one, but a loud one that is accompanied with a giggle, one that a bitten lip cannot hold back.
“I hate this beer,” is what he stupidly says in response, his giggle uncontrollably growing as Nat rolls her eyes and begins to laugh with him. She turns to Clint, lays her hand on his forearm and says, “Thanks, Clint. Looks like I need to take it from here.” The way her touch and his gaze linger is not lost on Bucky.
Clint claps his hand down onto the table, goes to turn away and walk back towards the bar, when Bucky asks, “What’s…what’s his name?”
“That’s not how it works, pal. The drink is an invitation to go over there and find out for yourself.”
Damn.
Bucky stares down at the amber-colored beer, mind racing, practically begs himself to not look up and across the bar. He feels Nat’s hand on his arm, a squeeze then.
“Are you freaking out?” she asks even though it is quite obvious that he is indeed freaking out. He speaks before he can think to keep his thoughts to himself.
“Why…why did he buy me a drink?”
Nat’s eyebrows knit together, Bucky looking up at her.
“Buck, he’s hitting on you. He wants you to talk to him.”
Bucky shakes his head.
“No like…why did he buy me a drink?”
Nat’s eyes soften as she brings her other hand up to grab for Bucky’s hand. Her eyes are specifically soft for a reason only she is aware of. Bucky reaches to squeeze for her fingers, swallows down the lump in his throat.
“Buck…” she starts, and Bucky knows what is coming yet needs to hear it anyway, even nods his head to encourage her.
“You deserve positive attention. You deserve to be wanted. This man is requesting your attention and you have every right to say no or walk away at any time.”
Bucky will not cry. He’s done that already today. This is too positive of a night and too exciting of a moment to ruin it with more tears. Nat’s words are one hell of comfort, one that settles over his shoulders and runs down his back, into his mind. These are words she has told him before, words she has lovingly given him time and time again when he needed them the most.
Brock didn’t treat you right. You aren’t the names he calls you. One day you’ll find someone who worships you and loves you the way that you deserve, someone who doesn’t make you feel bad for the things that are you and the way you are made. You are stronger and better than he’ll ever be.
It’s been months, almost a year, since Bucky finally walked away from his last relationship, one that was very unkind to him in many ways, one that Nat had begged him to leave for fear of his physical safety.
“It’s words now, Buck. It’s the words and the manipulation but it could become physical. Please.”
He had gone back to therapy, moved back in with Nat, worked on his physical health, even gone on dates and had purely physical relationships with others. All things he is immensely proud of, that anyone would be proud of, yet here he is questioning his self-worth in a bar.
This has turned into one hell of a night.
“I’m gonna go over there,” he decides with a squeeze of Nat’s hand. As soon as the words are out of his mouth, his body is wracked with nerves, so much so he has to let out a whooshof air, a few more to follow.
“Holy shit, I’m gonna go over there.”
“Thank god. I was going to go over there if you weren’t. Buck, look at that man. He’s a sweet talker in the best way possible, I know it, I can tell. And you not only need a sweet talker, you want a sweet talker.”
“Nat, don’t…don’t get my hopes up, please. Shit.”
He slips from his chair, his feet hitting the floor, and the second thoughts come rushing in. He wishes he had put on a nicer outfit, wishes he would have put on some moisturizer, done up his hair—all of those physical alterations that can enhance a first meeting. He’s got on dark jeans, some old college robotics club shirt on, a jean jacket. He’s certain his face makes it look as if he’s been crying recently, and he has, but this man doesn’t need to know that.
He grabs for the beer, takes a few steps.
“Don’t leave without me, please,” Bucky mumbles to Nat as after he kisses her on the cheek. She squeezes his arms once more, nods her head.
“Remember, Buck—you look sexy as hell when you bite your lip.”
Steve signals for Clint to bring him another round the moment he looks up to see the kid walking over to Steve with the drink he had delivered to him in hand.
The rejection stings more than usual. He isn’t used to it and it happens to be right as he is feeling his most vulnerable. It most certainly doesn’t help that the closer this man gets to him, the more Steve wants him. He’s gorgeous, devastating, has features and carries himself in a way that has Steve’s insides yearning, pulling, aching.
Steve turns towards him as he approaches anyway, softens his features, looks as welcoming and confident as he can knowing what is about to happen. He’s bashful, this one. Doesn’t look up at Steve until he’s all but three steps in front of him, but when he does, good lord.
“Hi,” he says, simple and nervous, his crippling smile growing once he sees Steve’s own welcoming one. He sets the beer down on the bar.
“Hi,” Steve starts, ready to get this over with so this kid can get back to his friend. “I’m sorry if this was forward of me and I understand why you wouldn’t be interested in my forwardness, it’s just—”
“No, wait,” the man says with a quick shake of his head, his eyebrows knitting together. Steve stops talking immediately, a bit startled. “I…I’m very interested in your offer of a drink I just…I hate beer.”
Oh.
“But you’re drinking it?” Steve inquires gently, a smile playing with his lips, unable to hold it back as relief and hope sweep in through his chest. Cutie huffs, rubs the back of his neck and leans, rests an elbow on the bar.
“Yeah, umm…my friend said I’d like it and she uh, she was very wrong.”
With every passing second Steve spends in this man’s presence, the more comfortable he feels, the more he can sense his confidence returning with the undeniable pull between them. It slips off of his tongue easily, naturally—
“Alright, well lemme get you one you actually enjoy drinkin’, sugar.”
The reaction to his words is immediate and absolutely delicious. If Steve was a tad nervous saying these words out loud, throwing around a pet name, this reaction has his mojo solidifying like concrete underneath his feet. The man’s cheeks glow pink, he bites his lip, almost preens into the sweet name Steve gives him. Steve doesn’t know if it’s intentional, but he also tilts his head, exposes his neck as he wiggles where he stands. This one may be bashful but he’s dangerous.
“I’d love a Moscow Mule?”
“Excellent choice.”
Steve waves his hand, knows Clint is busying himself nearby on purpose, unable to prevent his knowing grin from shining through. He turns back to the man by his side, holds out his hand.
“My name is Steve.”
“Bucky. My name is Bucky.”
Bucky.
Their hands meet, Bucky’s skin as soft as it looks, grip firm, a tight shake. Steve doesn’t want to let go and that’s cheesy, awful, but it’s true and Steve lets himself feel the want coursing through his body and his heart in full, doesn’t shy away from it. Bucky doesn’t seem to want to let go of Steve’s hand either, but as he does, he sinks down into the seat next to Steve, right where he belongs.
Clint returns with a twinkling eye and Steve orders his drink for Bucky, turning his attention back to him once Clint has walked away with a wink.
“It’s nice to meet you, Bucky. What’s brought you into this bar on this rainy and gloomy Friday night?”
Steve is grateful that Bucky chooses to turn his body towards him instead of sitting next to him, almost face to face and not shoulder to shoulder. It makes him feel more at ease, calmer, to have someone’s attention in such a way, for it to seemingly be on him and no one else. Steve likes that.
“I was feeling pretty gloomy myself,” Bucky tells him, voice gentle and pleasant. Steve is taken aback by his honesty. “My friend and I decided to cheer ourselves up, ease our spirits with some bar food. How about yourself?”
The two of them share a laugh, but Steve is quick to address Bucky’s emotions.
“I’m so sorry you’re feeling gloomy, Bucky. This sounds like a reliable plan to make yourself feel better though,” he hesitates before continuing, cautious of oversharing himself, but Bucky deserves the same level of vulnerability he’s given Steve. “I’ve been feeling down as well. Thought a bit of a moody moment, a drink in a bar on a rainy night, might make me feel better.”
Bucky thanks Clint, drink in his hand as he immediately grabs for it. Steve watches as he eyes it for a moment, takes the tiny straw between two fingers and stirs. When he looks back up at Steve under his lashes, the look is coy, is gutting, his little lip bite sexy as hell.
“Do you feel any better after your drink in a bar on a rainy night, Steve?”
Steve lowers his voice purposefully, meets Bucky’s gaze.
“The drink isn’t the thing that’s makin’ me feel better, sugar…”
Bucky is in love.
He’d never admit it out loud, to Nat, to himself, but he’s certain that Steve is so very special and that this is a moment that Bucky will remember for years to come. Even if they part ways tonight and never see one another again, he knows in his being that he’ll remember this night he spent at the bar with Steve.
Steve Rogers.
Bucky’s never felt more comfortable with another person so quickly. Their shared conversation rarely stops flowing, nor do the winks and the chiding, and Bucky knows Steve has to be exhausted of hearing Bucky giggle or seeing his cheeks glow red at his flirtatious behavior. Bucky doesn’t care. Steve makes him feel at ease and Bucky is three drinks into their conversation and Steve’s eyes are full of warmth and Bucky doesn’t care.
Steve is kind. He listens to Bucky as he talks, eyes on him, not distracted, like what Bucky has to say is the most important thing in the world at the moment. He asks Bucky about school, his majors, what interested him in pursuing such a lofty double-major. Steve even compliments Bucky, tells him how impressive that is, how smart Bucky must be. It has Bucky practically melting right through the floor.
“What do you do, Steve?” he asks, wanting to divert the attention away from himself, wanting an excuse to hear Steve talk more, to say his name. Bucky hadn’t realized the two of them have gotten so close, chairs already near one another, their bodies even closer, leaning towards the other. Steve has to be a warm person. Bucky knows that if he touched Steve, he’d want to wrap all of his limbs around him, would absolutely cling to him.
Bucky wants to touch Steve. He wants to do more than touch Steve.
Bucky needs to start drinking some water.
“I’m a lawyer,” Steve says easily, tilting his head into his hand, watching for Bucky’s reaction as he takes a sip of his own drink. Bucky is impressed, transparent as his eyebrows raise.
“That’s impressive.”
“Well, thank you. It’s not a bad gig.”
“If it ain’t that bad, why don’t you sound excited?”
Bucky doesn’t expect Steve to smile softly, for his eyes to wrinkle handsomely at the corners. It makes Bucky’s lips curl in kind, hopefully one that pulls Steve’s answer out of him. To seal the deal, Bucky mirrors Steve’s head tilt with his elbow on the bar.
“That’s a really good question, sugar.”
Sugar.
It’s been dropped a handful of times already and Bucky never wants to be referred to as anything else from this moment on. It makes his tummy turn pleasantly, indeed makes him feel sweet. It feels old fashioned and makes Bucky feel desired and Steve says it with such confidence it makes Bucky ache.
“I think…” Steve hesitates, looks over at Bucky with a thoughtful grin. “I think I’ve reached the point in my life where work isn’t my everything. It has been easy, ya know, up to this point in my life to throw myself into my work and let it be my all. I just…I don’t think I want it to be my all anymore.”
Bucky can’t hear anything but Steve’s words and the meaning behind them. The noise and words of the people around him turn into a dull roar. Steve shares his thoughts with Bucky with such emotion, he almost feels as if he should apologize to Steve for asking that sort of question within their first meeting. Did he push too hard? Should he not have asked? This doesn’t feel like a conversation he should be having with someone he’s met just an hour earlier but that thought is the only thing that makes this feel wrong.
It feels very right to be communicating with Steve this way.
Which is why, heart racing as he asks the questions of, “And what do you want to be your all now?”, he knows the answer will be—
“Love.”
Bucky is going to remember this night for the rest of his life.
He feels as if he is sealing some sort of deal when he murmurs, “Yeah. Love is…love is a pretty valid thing to throw your everything into.”
Steve’s soft smile feels like a warm blanket draped right around Bucky’s shoulders. There have been few times in Bucky’s life where he has not regretted being so vulnerable and open with someone and this moment will be added to that short list. Eyes locked, knees almost knocking, belly warm with vodka, ginger beer, arousal, and sugar, the two of them resort to sitting there and drinking each other in instead of their drinks, of sharing any more words.
Bucky maps out every minute detail he can of Steve’s face, from how soft the hairs in his beard look to the way his eyes seem like storm clouds ready to break, back to his bitten, cherry-red bottom lip. Do people do this? Stare at each other longingly, no words being shared, all in dimly lit bars? Maybe Bucky has been doing this whole dating thing wrong for the past few months. Maybe this feeling is because it is Steve.
Shut up, heart.
“You two want another?”
Bucky doesn’t even jump back at Clint’s boisterous interruption. That’s most definitely the vodka’s fault. Maybe it’s the whiskey coursing through Steve’s own body that that has him reaching forward, closing the short distance between them with a hand. Bucky’s heart doesn’t have enough time to even stutter by the time Steve is brushing Bucky’s hair back from his face, his fingers gently tipping Bucky’s chin as his eyes dance between his own, over the features of his face. Bucky almost whimpers when Steve’s hand falls from his face, when that warm touch is broken.
“I think your friend might be gettin’ a bit restless, Buck,” is what Bucky hears Steve murmur, watches him say, eyes locked on the older man’s lips. A tap on the underside of his chin has him comprehending what Steve’s words mean. He forgot all about Nat to be honest, but that realization doesn’t have him pulling away from Steve in the slightest.
“I think that’ll be our last, Clint. I’ll pay for their meal as well,” Steve tells Clint, eyes not leaving Bucky’s as he speaks, merely glancing down once to retrieve his wallet before his eyes are back on Bucky’s. Bucky’s gut burns pleasantly hot at Steve’s show of money, of his show of providing and taking care of Bucky. It scratches an itch that is a deep one for Bucky, one that hasn’t been scratched properly before, one that Bucky wants Steve to keep scratching.
If Steve asked, Bucky would go home with him. He’s only done that a few times before, but he’d do it for Steve. One question and that’s all it would take for Bucky to go home with Steve.
“Bucky,” Steve starts, and Bucky watches as Steve stands from his chair, and fuck, he’s bigger than Bucky thought he was. Even sitting in a barstool seat, even with Bucky being six-foot himself, Steve is a large man. Bucky’s mouth waters. Just one question, just that one question and Bucky would be out the door with Steve in a heartbeat.
“Can I give you my number?”
That isn’t the question Bucky was expecting but it’s…it’s better. You don’t give your number to people you intend to never talk to again once you spend the night with them. Right? Bucky isn’t sure but he likes this question more, likes the idea of having Steve Rogers’s number in his cell phone to utilize for whatever purpose he deems necessary in the future.
Steve smells so good and he’s so warm, and Bucky isn’t even touching him. He’s incredibly close though, and when he looks up at Steve, tilts his head up while still feeling that tap under his chin from seconds prior, Steve steps in close.
“Yes,” Bucky breathes, almost stutters, as Steve slips his hand into Bucky’s jacket pocket, pulling out his phone on his own accord. Bucky reaches forward and naturally rests his trembling hands onto Steve’s hips, nothing Bucky would ever feel confident doing it this weren’t Steve. He is warm. He’s sturdy as well, feels like all things strength and power underneath Bucky’s hands. Steve holds out Bucky’s phone, Bucky types in his passcode. The confidence has the tremble in Bucky’s hand shifting and rolling throughout his entire body.
Bucky doesn’t want to let go of Steve.
“I’d like to see you again, Bucky. I know we didn’t have long together tonight but I think you’re special and I’d like to take you out on a proper date,” Steve practically purrs as his fingers work on Bucky’s phone, and Bucky feels like he’s about to combust on the spot.
“I’d…I’d like that, Steve,” Bucky breathes, still in awe at his luck, how this night has turned out, and how someone like Steve Rogers wants to take him out on a date. Steve’s smile reaches his eyes and then some, makes his features glow. Bucky’s fingers twitch where they rest on Steve’s hips.
“That’s good, sugar,” Steve tells him and oh, Bucky is going to be thinking of those three words all night, all week, all month. Steve slips Bucky’s phone back into his jacket pocket, taps it and lets his hand linger on Bucky’s body. “You just let me know when you wanna see me and I’ll make it happen, I’ll be there.”
“Now?” Bucky presses too quickly, too eagerly. He’s mortified for a moment, swiftly thinks of a way to play it off as a joke, but Steve’s smile is growing, features going soft and mischievous.
“Buck,” Steve breathes, coos, and this time a soft, strangled noise does slip passed Bucky’s lips. “Now doesn’t give me the proper amount of time I want with you.”
Oh.
Oh.
Bucky burns.
“Steve—”
“You’ve been drinkin’ and I don’t think your friend over there would like it if you left with me anyway, no matter how much I’d try to convince her I’d do nothin’ but take good care’a you.”
“Steve…”
Bucky doesn’t know why he says the other man’s name a second time, maybe as an excuse to watch the way Steve reacts to it, heavy eyelids and slick lips.
“Text me. Call me. Please, Buck?” he requests, hand rising back up to Bucky’s chin, the back of his knuckles running along the front of Bucky’s throat in a casual show of touch that has Bucky struggling to take air into his lungs.
“I will, I promise.”
“Mmm, I’ll talk to you later then, sugar,” Steve whispers as he ducks his head, presses his lips into Bucky’s heated cheek. Bucky wishes it were a kiss on his lips, wishes he could push Steve back into his chair and follow him, climb right into his lap. But that’s probably the vodka talking. Or his hindbrain.
Steve is slow to pull back, is slow to remove his fingers from Bucky’s chin, is slow as Bucky drops his own. He looks down at Bucky as he does so, lets his fingers slide to squeeze at Bucky’s hand as he turns, tucking his wallet back into his pocket, Clint returning with the bill.
“I’ll see you later, Buck.”
“Bye, Steve,” Bucky smiles and Steve turns on his heel and walks towards the front door and out, Bucky’s eyes on him every step of the way. As soon as the door closes, he has no choice but to turn and press his forehead against the bartop, to let out a heavy and loud exhale as he does so.
“Oh my god.”
“Well, I for one am horny after seeing such a display,” Clint shares, a low whistle following his words. Bucky giggles, Clint’s thought amusing and his own mind and body unsure of what to do with all of this pent-up energy.
“Yeah, you aren’t the only one, Clint. Jesus fucking christ, Bucky. I can’t believe what I just witnessed. Did that just happen?”
Nat settles into Steve’s old seat, Bucky reaching for her as soon as he hears her voice.
“I was hoping you could tell me. Holy shit, Nat. Is this a dream?”
Clint hums.
“Hmm, let’s see, kid,” he starts, turning to Nat. “You wanna utilize this newfound horny and capitalize on it together, Natasha?”
Bucky doesn’t see the look that Nat gives him in return but it’s enough to have Clint quickly conceding with a, “Nope, nope— not a dream. This is real life, my friend.”
“Did you get his number? Are you seeing him again?” Nat presses without much patience and Bucky is huffing out a giggle once more, raising his head up to look at Nat. He squeezes her hand.
“He gave me his number, I’m…I’m gonna see him again. Oh my god, Nat—I’m gonna see him again.”
“Hey, it’s…god I’m so sorry I had to push back plans. No, I know it’s like the fourth time I’ve done this, but I swear I have a good reason this time, swear. No, I can—yeah I can meet you there instead. I uh…no I met someone. God, Sam he’s…this one’s different. A fucking hour and I know he’s different. He's so special. I feel…god I feel so good. No, yeah I’m gonna see him again, I’m…I’m gonna see him again.”
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