These Fragile Things - Ch 1
Pairing: The Creature x Reader
Tags: Eventual smut, non-human sex, loneliness, monster sex
Chapter Summary: Caught in the worst ice storm in decades, you decide to ride it out as best you can. But when you see a distant glow coming from your barn, you decide to investigate.
AO3
The snow came early this year, brutal and biting and unforgiving.
Ice storms were rarer these days. The changing climate made some places warmer, often caught in deluges as the ocean levels slowly rose. Others experienced devastating ice storms courtesy of a destabilized jet stream, the polar vortex reaching further south with every year.
You were new to living this far north, with its endless winter nights and vast summer days, sometimes not saying goodbye to the sun until after 10 PM.
But the winters. The winters left you in the cold by 4 in the afternoon, the sun reluctant to rise until well after 7.
But fleeing away from the equator was becoming the norm when it came to the comfort and survival of the human species. Sometimes, you wondered if it was worth it. If only those who came before you had bothered to try and stem the tide before it loomed over your collective heads.
But the state of the world was farthest from your mind as you huddled around your heater, powered by the portable battery you’d kept charged and on hand. You wanted to buy a generator, but they were costly, and you could barely afford the upkeep on the farmhouse.
You certainly couldn’t afford to fix it up. And as the old structure groaned and shifted against the freezing winds, you shivered from more than cold.
How long could one ice storm last? It had persisted in the day and grown worse into the night. You were too scared to sleep, and more than once you’d considered going out to your car, keeping the engine on and the heater running. You couldn’t drive it anywhere, not with it already boxed in by snow, but it would keep you alive.
When the battery is drained, you thought. It was rated to last several hours, and when it gave out, you could admit defeat and slink out to your car.
So, you huddled on your couch, the blanket wrapped tight around you, the heater on the floor at your feet. Despite yourself, you fell asleep, only to awake by a violent shiver.
The battery was dead. With a heater long grown cold, the ice storm raged outside.
Already fully dressed in your overcoat and boots, you grabbed your keys and a water bottle, and after several attempts you pried open the front door. A wall of white nearly as tall as you blocked your path, the ice and sleet and wind pushing against your door until it created an impenetrable barrier of frozen snow.
Even if you could get out, your car was most likely buried by now. You closed the door and locked it, the knob so cold you felt it through your gloves.
Panic tightened your throat as you realized the situation had gone from worrying to alarming. The phone lines were down, your cell phone had no service, and the storm was supposed to continue until tomorrow.
You glanced once more at the empty hearth, no firewood in sight. In the safety and warmth of day, you’d decided against buying any; the fireplace was old and you weren’t sure if the flue was safe to open. You’d heard of trapped gas killing people, and you didn’t want to die to an explosion either.
You regretted it now. Freezing to death didn’t sound much better.
You returned to your couch, shivering with the blanket over your head. You could make it to morning and dig out your car, or maybe call for help.
You drifted off with those thoughts, shivering and trying not to cry. You needed all the energy you could spare.
When you awoke again, you knew you were in trouble. Your breath billowed before you, the tip of your nose was going numb, and your fingertips were soon following. When you raised your head to gaze over the couch toward the kitchen, thinking maybe you should see if there was something you could break apart and burn in the fireplace, you saw it. A faint glow in one of the windows.
It was long frozen over so you couldn’t be sure, and you dragged yourself off the couch and into the kitchen. You tried to wipe away the frost with your sleeve, but it was plastered to the outside. Still, the glow remained. Maybe a trick of the light. You couldn’t be sure until you looked outside.
You almost didn’t. The closest neighbors were a mile away and the power was out. Nothing alive could possibly be out there, and you didn’t want to let the frigid air inside the house with its poor insulation.
But the glow remained, and the longer you stared, the more your curiosity tugged at you.
Pulling your hood over your head and yanking down your coat sleeves over your hands, you unlocked the back door and opened it.
It took several tries, the wood refusing to budge in your hand. When you finally pried it open, something fell off the jamb, a piece of frozen wood broken off. It was unlikely the door would fit into the jamb now, leaving the inside of the farmhouse further exposed to the storm.
You grit your teeth but the frustration quickly faded, replaced by confusion and a small dose of fear. You hadn’t imagined the light. It was coming from the barn.
Even with the white sheets coming down around you, you were able to glimpse the light through the storm. It had the warm glow of something powered by fuel, not electricity, and it contained a flicker that warned of flames. Had something caught fire in the barn?
The wind buffeted you, biting every inch of exposed skin with a ferocity that felt purposefully mean. But you pushed against it, your boots slipping against the slick stone steps. There shouldn’t be a source of ignition in the barn, no reason for it to burn in an ice storm. No, someone was out there.
Pulling up your scarf over your mouth, you bent your head and pushed against the wind. You were blind as you walked, but it didn’t matter. The yard and a field lay between the house and the barn, and only the snow blocked your way.
The angle of the wind shifted again, clearing some of the snow from the back porch. It was the only reason you’d been able to open the backdoor at all, and why the front door had been buried in snow. You continued to stumble, the wind biting at your face. The waterproof jacket and pants were rated for zero degree temperatures, but with the wind chill, it was far below that.
You could die very quickly out here, but the thought of that distant glow drove you onward. Someone might need help. You didn’t know what aid you could provide except to offer shelter in the farmhouse. It would be better than the barn, anyway.
The distance would have taken you under two minutes to walk on a normal day. You felt like you’d been walking for hours by the time you reached the barn. Your body was strange, disconnected. Your face burned, your lungs ached from the cold that leeched through the scarf, and you only kept moving because standing still meant death.
The main barn doors were locked shut, but the side door had clearly been broken into, the padlock missing. You pried open the latch, your fingers insensate and clumsy, and you stumbled inside, too exhausted to close it behind you.
Your feet dragging, ice clinging to your eyelashes, you weaved into the open loft of the barn. A fire burned before you, bright and hot, lined with stones to keep it from spreading to the rest of the structure.
At the fire sat a man. A very large man, you noted through your blurring vision. He wore furs, but it wasn’t a fur coat. It was mismatched, rudimentary, like he’d sewn the coat himself and didn’t know how.
You couldn’t see his face past the dark curtains of his hair. You only saw the eyes. Black, vast, and watchful.
You opened your mouth to ask if he needed help, and the world tilted sideways. You hardly felt the dirt floor as it came up to greet you, though it wasn’t gentle when it did.
The man rose to his feet. He walked toward you at a slow gait. Cautious, maybe, as if you were the intruder and this was his home.
He must be cold, was your sole thought as you closed your eyes.
***
Warmth. Blessed, life-giving heat.
It didn’t warm all of you, not with the chill against your back. But heat suffused your face and chest and legs, and light danced beyond your closed eyelids.
You opened them. Everything looked unfamiliar, and for a moment, you couldn’t even remember your own name.
The confusion receded just as quickly. You were in your barn, lying on your side in front of a fire, your heavy coat removed. And on the opposite side of the fire sat a large, hunched figure wrapped in black furs.
His face was covered by the wide, lumpy hood, though you could see the strands of his long hair hanging down.
“Hello?”
It was the first word you’d spoken in a long time, far past the existence of the ice storm, and it cracked with disuse.
The man didn’t move, though he must have heard you. Unless he was deaf? Or maybe he spoke another language.
You didn’t know. You found it difficult to talk yourself, your head still fuzzy and your body not entirely warmed yet. The howl of the wind outside beat in the high rafters. The barn was probably a hundred years old, and you hoped it would survive the night.
“I’m not angry,” you added.
The man flinched. Just a little, but enough for you to realize he could both hear and understand you.
“For using my barn,” you clarified, some of the rust finally shaking from your voice. “It’s okay. In fact, you probably saved me.”
He said nothing, so you continued on, probably from nerves more than anything else. You always talked too much when you were uncomfortable.
“The power was out and I didn’t have any firewood. And this storm is supposed to last until tomorrow. I probably would have frozen to death—” You shivered violently, nearly choking on your own words.
He lifted his head just enough to peer at you, and yes, you’d been right about the dark eyes. But that was all you could see with the black cloth over his mouth, but there was something about his left eye. It glittered in the firelight, just for a moment, like an animal looking at you from the dark.
Another shudder wracked your body. It was a trick of the light. Maybe he’d had cataract surgery or something.
Either way, he stared at you with an intensity that would have frightened you in any other circumstance. But if he’d wanted to hurt you, he could have left you where you’d collapsed. He didn’t have to bring you close to the fire and pull off your wet jacket, turning it inside out and draping the dry side over your body.
“Thank you,” you said quietly. “For warming me.”
He dropped his eyes. The gesture was quick, almost shy.
You didn’t speak again, shivering hard as you pulled your coat up to your chin. You considered asking him if he wanted to go with you back to the house, but decided against it. You wouldn’t be able to start a fire this large in the fireplace, if it was even safe to use, and the storm sounded like it had gotten worse.
So, you stayed, and tried not to stare at the man. The fire danced in the small breaches of wind that managed to slip through the wooden slats of the barn, and each time you felt those icy fingers against your face, you shuddered.
You carefully rolled over, turning your back to the fire to warm it next. It also meant you were turning your back on the man. A stranger, an intruder on your land, one who could clearly overpower you if he wanted to.
But you closed your eyes, wondering why the discomfort and anxiety you normally felt around men was absent.
***
Cold, so cold. Your body twitched, little trembles that barely did anything to warm you. You rolled over and saw the fire had nearly died out. Worse, the man was gone.
You let out a pathetic, confused noise. Had he left? You could still hear the storm pelting the barn with wind and snow. Surely, he hadn’t gone outside. The furs would keep him warm and dry, but what little you’d glimpsed of his pants didn’t look waterproof at all.
You dragged yourself to your feet and stumbled toward the door you’d come through. When you unlatched it, the door nearly knocked you off your feet from the force of the wind on the other side. You’d left your coat back by the fire, and you raised your gloved hand in front of your face to shield your eyes from the biting, flying ice. You took a breath and plunged into the storm.
Misery. Every step you took and every pull into your lungs was a punishment. If there was a Hell with fire and brimstone, there had to be another made of ice and wind. In that moment, you couldn’t even remember what warmth felt like, or if you’d ever experienced it before.
Ice clung to your hair and every exposed inch of flesh had long gone numb. You were right about the storm growing worse since you came to the barn, and you could no longer see your house.
You spun around, panic squeezing your throat. You couldn’t see the barn, either. It had vanished into the white.
You tried to call out, but even the inside of your mouth hurt when you opened it. You coughed violently, which turned into a half-sob. Why had you come out here? How could you be so stupid?
But you couldn’t do nothing while the man went out into the storm. He was probably lost too, just as you were.
You didn’t know his name, didn’t know if he’d simply left you to fend for yourself. All you could feel was the tightness in your lungs, the frustration at yourself for having moved to the wilderness unprepared, and most of all, the loneliness that had driven you here. At least in your exile, your loneliness was your own doing and not a result of being forgotten and ignored by the people in your life.
You let the fear and anger and suffering build in your throat until you released it in a scream. Not even the wind could snatch the sound of your agony from your mouth, though it didn’t travel far in the storm, greedily eaten by its hunger.
You covered your face with your hands and tried to push down the sorrow that bubbled up your throat. Get your shit together. You were disoriented, but you’d only turned around once. If you walked straight forward, you should be back at the barn. You could find something to build up the fire. You would be fine. Alone once again, but alive.
When you lowered your hands, dark fur and black fabric filled your world. You looked up, an automatic gesture when facing someone’s chest, and those eyes froze you as solidly as the storm did.
He was covered in scars, you could see that much even with the cloth covering him. A delicate marred line ran over the bridge of his nose, another across his forehead, leading to others, as if he was made of marble and someone had tried to break him apart.
You barely noticed the cold, though that could have been because your skin had returned to numbness. You simply stared at him, would have continued to stare until you were found the next day as a standing, frozen corpse.
Instead, he bent down and grasped you under your knees and back, lifting you into his arms as if you were a child. You didn’t object, snow covering your boots up to your ankles, and the path you’d tread had already been filled in, leaving no trace of your footsteps.
You wrapped an arm around his neck, burying your face into his hood to hide from the cold. He smelled like animal musk, soil, and pine. He smelled like wild places and untamed things, and with the added storm, almost supernatural in its severity, you wondered if any of this was real.
But his arms under you were solid, as were his hands resting on your legs and side. He was cold though, even the inside of his hood lacked the body heat you were expecting, and by the time you entered the shelter of the barn, you were shivering again.
The man didn’t release you once inside, instead carrying you all the way to the fire. You spotted a large stack of branches and broken chunks of wood, as if they’d been splintered from the trunk of a tree.
“Y-you- you didn’t—” You struggled to speak through your clacking teeth. “Didn’t l-leave?”
He stared down at you for a long moment, long enough for you to observe him in the firelight. His lashes were long, thick, pretty. So were his eyes, even if they were reflective pools of pitch.
“No.”
The word startled you. Both because you hadn’t expected it, and because his voice was deep. Something rumbled beneath it, like thunder. Or a growl.
You blinked at him, but he dropped his eyes again, refusing to look at you as he carefully set you on your feet. You wobbled, immediately missing his solidness, even though he was as freezing as you were.
In fact, your sweater was drenched, clinging to your skin and soaking the shirt underneath.
“Shit,” you muttered. You saw the turn of the man’s head at your curse, but when you stripped the sweater over your head, he quickly looked away. He focused on putting the chunks of wood on the fire, placing the branches in a ring around it. The wood chunks were mostly dry, as if they’d just been cut, while the branches were damp with snow and would take time to dry enough to burn.
“Thank y-you.”
He paused in his work, though he didn’t look at you as he nodded and continued.
As he did that, you stripped off your shirt, also wet. You’d read somewhere that patients of hypothermia needed to have their soaked clothing removed before being placed in a warm area.
You glanced at the man, eyeing his coat. The fur had stayed free of ice, and therefore dry, but his fabric pants were definitely soaked.
“You should remove anything wet,” you said, returning to your spot by the fire and laying down, no longer shaking as badly. Not having camped much in your life, you’d underestimated how hot a fire could actually get, chasing the chill away quickly. When he didn’t move, seemingly frozen by your words, you said, “It won’t bother me. Avoiding frostbite is more important than embarrassment.”
He didn’t respond, so you pulled your coat over you, once again shivering. Only in your bra and pants, you might have to take your own advice soon. Water had leaked past the waistband of your waterproof pants, leaving you damp and uncomfortable.
The fire soon roared to life, and when you peeked your eyes open to see the man had returned to his spot opposite you, you reached down and shimmied off your pants. Your underwear was beyond saving, but you weren’t removing that last piece of protection when your coat only reached mid-thigh.
Even with the heat of the fire, the chill bit at your back, and your body went from a confusing mixture of hot and cold.
You dipped in and out of consciousness, jerking awake with a shiver, opening your eyes to make sure the man was still there. He was, and always, his dark eyes stared right at you.
Eventually, you stopped opening your eyes, unable to fully rise to consciousness as the chill seeped deeper into your bones. You thought you felt fingers on your forehead at one point, the touch tentative, as if afraid of hurting you.
You moaned, chasing after that feeling. Your body ached, your skin too tight, and distantly you recognized the familiar signs of chills and a fever.
When you shifted, you felt something solid next to you, and you immediately curled around it. It was chilled, damp, and your face scrunched in discomfort.
“Cold,” you complained. Immediately, the solid mass vanished, and you made a pitiful noise. Fingers briefly touched your face before they, too, disappeared. When you opened your eyes again, it was to something so odd that it woke you out of your stupor.
The man shrugged the coat off his shoulders, setting it aside before also removing his undercoat and shirt. Strange marks lined his body, bisecting segments of skin that didn’t seem to match. You didn’t see any suture marks, so they must have been made by precise surgical incisions.
Some of the lines were smooth and graceful, such as those along his forearms and biceps. The muscles were large, well-defined, continuing down into his chest and taut stomach. But at the same time, he seemed a little too thin, gaunt, as if he never ate enough.
He slipped off his boots and pants as well, the lines continuing down his thighs and calves. Lastly, he removed his gloves, and your eyes fastened on the dark blue color of them. Alarmed, you noticed his feet were discolored as well, as if he were in an advance stage of frostbite.
He hesitated at the waistband of his underwear before stripping that off too. You quickly looked away. It had been easy to talk about not caring about embarrassment when you’d still had all your clothes on.
But the man didn’t move toward you. Instead, he crouched next to the fire, far closer than you would have been comfortable with. You watched him out of the corner of your eye, wondering what he was doing, but mostly wishing your body could settle on one temperature so you could just sleep through the rest of this shitty night.
Your gaze eventually drifted back to him, a moth to flame. His pale skin glowed with it, his dark eyes reflecting the fire as he stared into its depths. You couldn’t stop looking, curiosity overriding any trepidation you might have. Everything felt a little strange tonight, slightly unreal and outside of the normal rules. He had come out of the storm, a creature that almost seemed to be a part of it, and he’d saved you twice now.
It was about to be a third, you realized, as he warmed himself by the fire. He was doing it for you. It had been his cold skin that made you complain and shrink away. He didn’t seem to mind the cold, or the blazing fire inches away.
He met your gaze. You almost looked away, out of shame and guilt of getting caught, but you didn’t. You didn’t want him to think his scars and marks scared you. If anything, you found them fascinating. Lovely in their twisted beauty. Even the way he held himself was with inhuman grace, as if he’d learned to move his body in a way entirely different from yours.
Without his hood or the cloth over his mouth, you could finally see his face. Lined with scars, his cheekbones sharp and the rest of his face hollow, it gave him a sorrowful look, or maybe that’s just what he felt.
You said nothing, simply watched him. At least until he stood and turned toward you, as if he didn’t have a shred of shame or modesty. You stared down at the dirt, a little horrified at the trip your gaze had taken before it had arrived there. Like a fucking pervert, you’d looked at the one place you shouldn’t, directly at his cock, before quickly glancing away.
The image was burned into your mind. Even flaccid, it had hung with considerable weight, pale and smooth unlike the scarred tissue of the rest of his body.
You stiffened as he walked behind you, laying close to your back but not touching you.
“Cold?” He repeated the word back to you, and you nodded. Yes, you were still very cold, and the heat radiating from his skin could be felt even across the space between you. Your body craved it like a drug, and with only a pathetic brief show of hesitation, you shifted backward until you were pressed against him.
You relaxed and let out a long exhale. He was practically burning up, somehow heated by the fire well past the normal temperature of a human body. Making a satisfied noise, you lifted up your coat to lay over him as well, shielding you both from the intruding, frosty air.
“That’s nice,” you said, a smile in your voice as the chills finally left, leaving only warmth behind. “Thank you.”
After a long moment, he spoke again, the words vibrating against your back.
“You are welcome.”
It was a pleasant voice. Deep and slow, thoughtful almost. An English accent. You liked it.
Closing your eyes, you let yourself enjoy the heat, allowing it to start to pull you back to sleep. It was almost funny. All of a sudden, you didn’t want the ice storm to end. Not yet.
Your breathing had slowed and you were on the cusp of sleep when the man spoke again.
“Why did you leave the fire and go into the storm?”
You pulled yourself from the edge of sleep to answer, your words slurred.
“Was… worried.”
“In regard to?”
You smiled a little. He hadn’t spoken at all, and now when he did, he sounded strangely formal.
“You.”
He had been tense against your back since he’d laid down, but he went even more rigid.
“You fear me.”
You shook your head, and in your fever, or exhaustion, or maybe it was the insanity of the night, you reached behind you until you found his arm and pulled it around your waist. His heat wasn’t searing now, but it still felt like warm stone against your skin.
“I was worried for you.”
You thought you heard a small, sharp inhale, but nothing more than that, as if he were holding his breath. But his heart pounded slow and steady, so strong you could feel it against your back.
A reminder that, at least for tonight, you were no longer alone.
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