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Renegade [NSFW] (ThenThereWereNone & MoldaviteGreen)

So close, was his Ghost. So very, beautifully close. Eishrin should not have been as ensorcelled as he was. Shouldn't have been so very keen to subdue the tight of his throat, to train away the gag of it, as he took his Ghost deep beyond his mouth. But he was, and he did, because Ghost was angelic in his half-slumbered pleasure as pale toes curled and pink lips parted. The threads of pale hair were like spun silver over the sheets, and Eishrin's large hand moved to tangle deep. The crescents of his nails raked gentle over scalp; tender.

The flutter of his tongue quickened with the hitch of Ghost's breath. Eishrin watched with dark, smouldering eyes as the Keeper tensed, trembled, and eased. He learned what Ghost preferred—the flick of a tongue over the eyelet and the gentle webbing, the circle of the flat of his tongue over the plush head before it was plunged deep and plentiful. It was these things that Eishrin continued, wishing to work his Ghost into a stage of warm, molten ecstasy.

This was the gentlest he'd been, Ghost. This was the closest thing to human and tender that he'd seemed. Sleep was like that, Eishrin supposed. It left people vulnerable, left them open, left them kinder than their true wakeful selves. Eishrin didn't linger on how long this would last, nor how long Ghost would seem gentle. He simply sucked, swallowed, pressed his nose into Ghost's hip until his body learned better than to gag. The scruff of his beard at his chin was wet with the slick weeping from Ghost's cock and the shimmer of Eishrin's own spit.

Encouragement came to him across the bond, and Eishrin was careful with it. He knew better than to try something different as bliss approached. Instead, he kept the thrust of his mouth consistent, the swirl that same pattern. What had edged Ghost so very close was what would tip him over the edge.

And when the warm of his spill struck the back of Eishrin's throat, a name came between them. Eishrin had little time to react, Ghost spilling over his tongue in his climax, as Eishrin's hand tightened within the silvery threads of hair and upon the back of a thigh. He swallowed, but it was done so not with the same warm tenderness as how this had begun. It was done with a bitter cold, as Eishrin tore himself free of their tangle.

Ghost had wanted his heat. He'd wanted more. Eishrin had granted the Keeper both, and some. Why was it that another's name cried out in Ghost's climax left him feeling so cold, so acidic, so venomous? Ghost's words, hanging between them, only added to that sour.

"You wanted this," Eishrin hissed through grit teeth. He stood over the bed, bare, the slopes of his shoulders tense as they rose and fell with heavy, ragged breaths. Rage was filling him, and he had no place to put it safely. "You wanted more. You wanted me close. You wanted me to stay. You begged me for more." A flash of fangs, white against the ebony of him. "You said another's name."

Footsteps heavy, Eishrin tore himself away. He could not stand over the bed, the tangled sheets, the lingering warmth and the image of Ghost in his subdued gentleness. So beautiful, he'd been, and it was gone in an instant to be replaced with something so very foul. "I gave you what you asked for, and you have the audacity to cast me as a rapist. The fucking irony."

Eishrin wrenched open doors he assumed to be a wardrobe, and did not care if it was rude to help himself to what lay within. He'd take whatever cruel punishment Ghost would throw at him. How much worse could it possibly be than what he'd already suffered through?

"Who is he?" Eishrin pulled a black robe from a hanger. Shrugged it on despite the bulky size of him and how it strained at the seams. He crossed it over his chest, knotted the belt, and turned to look at Ghost. The dark of his eyes were stern, furious, but not cruel. "Is he the man that I saw in your memory?"
 
The change was instantaneous. Sharp and arctic frigid, a dramatic drop in temperature filled the room as Eishrin all but threw himself off the bed. At least Bellamy now had that space he so desperately needed. Was it any better to have the larger man, seething, a slight tremor beneath his skin from rage threatening to spill forth? Bellamy rubbed at his eyes, ignoring the presence of moisture against the soft pads of his fingers. He stretched, slow, unbothered, loosening sleep-heavy muscles as his Guardian snarled above him. The man was all shadowed, sharp angles and restraint. Barely.

Bellamy laughed, sharp and sudden, shaking his head as Eishrin stormed away from his post at the side of the bed. His words had cut deeper than even he'd expected. With a mirthful sigh, he pushed himself up, scooting back to settle against the headboard, one leg outstretched, the other he drew up, draping his arm over his knee as he watched the other man rummage through his closet.

His dream was fading, the edges soft and blurry. But he could still feel the thorned stalks of something lost piercing the tender places in his chest. He'd said his name.

He'd said his name aloud.

It wasn't something Bellamy wanted to dwell upon. Not then. Not ever.

It was a careless slip of the tongue in a most vulnerable moment. This was why he slept alone.

Still as a statue carved from marble, Bellamy's expression was impassive, a deliberate blank of any emotion or thought. The questions were needle pricks beneath his skin. Sharp, pointed stipples of pain. He cocked his head, gaze steady upon his Guardian, "Are you jealous?" Where Eishrin's dark gaze lacked cruelty in spite of his fury, Bellamy's held a glint of something less than kind. A cold searching patience. Forever stalking the darkness, seeking the vulnerable places to sink his teeth.

He patted the bed. The vacant space Eishrin had abandoned. He smiled; a slow, placating tilt at the corner of his mouth, "Come back to bed. Redirect your fury." His tongue dragged across the sharp points of his teeth, pale gaze tracing the strain of the black robe against the bulk of his Guardian's body. How he longed to drag his claws through the fabric, catching against the man's skin beneath and licking at the pearlscent drops of crimson that would form against ebony skin, "I can make it worth your while."
 
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"Are you jealous?"

Could the bitterness Eishrin felt be wrapped up neatly into a single word? Was the anger that he felt, hot and lashing, be defined as such? Eishrin wasn't familiar with the emotion that was envy, for he'd had very little that was ever his. He'd been denied so much in his search for freedom, and what he did have was spent like currency. Eishrin had never had the space nor opportunity for envy to simmer. Was this what it felt like; sour and vicious? And was it so inherently wrong to be jealous of a thing such as a name or a memory?

Eishrin didn't answer. Not verbally. He took the softness of Ghost, the way that he'd been so malleable in his restful pleasure, and slipped that silken memory across into the ether of Ghost's cold mind. It wasn't for any other reason than for Ghost to see the vision that he'd been—all breathless soft mewls, all gentle hands and angelic face, and all languidly tired limbs. He'd been beautiful, and so ethereal in the morning streams of light, and so otherworldly gentle. A contrast to the sharp, hawk-like gaze that was surveying Eishrin now, an edge of something assessing within those silvery pale eyes.

See? Eishrin almost seemed to say as he stood, unmoving, by the open wardrobe. There is gentleness to you, on occasion. Even if it is another whom manifests in it. It would have been pathetic for Eishrin to confess that he was grateful someone had earned Ghost's unwavering want within that softness. A person within a place of Ghost's mind that slipped forward in moments of gentle, sleep-warmed ecstasy. It also wouldn't have been the entire truth. For as much as Eishrin had revelled in this other, milk-drunk side of Ghost, there did exist jealousy in its most primal form. An ache for praise, for it to have been his name in Ghost's mouth and mind when he'd came. But he wouldn't say that. Just as much as he wouldn't deny it, either. For he knew Ghost was a most wicked creature, and take either confession to twist into something nasty and double-edged.

"That's what you said to me," Eishrin's deep voice was calm and even. "At the start." He remained still and unmoving by the wardrobe; not to be drawn forth by the lure of Ghost's inferred promise and invitation. Eishrin wanted nothing now, no matter the hardness that still hung heavy and swollen between his thighs, a bead of want drooling to stain the robe's satin.

The fury, indeed, needed redirection. Much of Eishrin's uneasiness came from a place of detachment. In his craze, his trial of burning Ghost from his mind with body and cock and mouth, Eishrin had foregone a shift. He'd felt it calling to him, that monstrous piece of himself, but it had been drowned out by the agonising want. The need. And now, because of the damned ring of gold nestled at the root of his cock, Eishrin was denied it still.

"I need to shift," Eishrin said, stern. In truth, it was more than that. The crunch of his bones, the pain that came with the reshaping of them, would mellow this festering feeling within him. He knew the ache as tendons stretched and muscles reformed would make everything else fade. More than that, he felt the pull of it, the need for it, as if it promised to solidify the new manifestation of this tether between them. Maybe then I'll be rid of his voice within my head. Eishrin doubted it, but hoped for it still. With a shift, perhaps everything would become even and calm again; just as it had always been before Ghost's rushing madness.

"You want for me to redirect my fury," Eishrin said calmly as he drew just a step away from the bed's edge. "Then let me shift, Ghost. Let me run."
 
The room sat in silence, thick and sticky, and yet beyond the nonverbal lay a loud cacophony of chaos; images, downy soft, memory, sharp and vivid. A muscle twitched in Bellamy's cheek as he sidestepped the intensity of the memory. He observed from a detached distance. Dark, barbed coils of emotions curled in on themselves, demanding to be acknowledged. But he shoved it away. Not today. Not tomorrow. Not ever. Never again. Perhaps there were wraiths of what he once was; could've been. But life's lessons were cruel. And if one failed to learn, they were doomed to make the same mistakes.

Bellamy had made that mistake once, allowing himself to want. To need another. Allowed himself to fall. In the end, he'd paid with his heart. And what remained in the wake of that destruction was a void. A thorned reticence. Apathy in place of love. Serrated viciousness in place of kindness. Whatever it took to not simply survive, but to thrive in the viper’s den.

He hummed out a low sound of agreement, "I'm aware of what was said." His eyes drifted low to linger on the evidence of Eishrin's desire. "And you were more than willing. Why deny yourself now?"

Bellamy gave a ‘maybe-maybe not’ bob of his head. "It will not kill you, being unable to shift." Between his fingers, liquid dark trickled with the lazy sway of ocean waves, "It may present discomfort. Pain. But it will not kill you. And you have proven yourself a most resilient creature. You will survive this, too."

Perhaps it was the residual echoes of what had just transpired between them, of desire given, felt, taken, of their bond finally consummated, but his spine straightened ever so slightly at the other man's approach.

You just need to feed, it's not him.

The darkness between his fingers rose, writhing twin tendrils reaching across the distance between them, caressing over Eishrin’s hip, drawing lower to where the black robe stood damp with want, ignored. “Do you really believe you’ve earned the privilege to shift?”

At the door, someone knocked. A quick double rap of knuckles against heavy wood, followed by a soft but determined voice, “I apologise for the disturbance, but your sister demanded I bring your Guardian breakfast.” A pause, “And she wants to run tests as soon as possible. Today.”

Bellamy raised a pale brow, a silent question in his gaze as he looked from the door to Eishrin. Aren’t you going to get that?
 
Eishrin wasn't denying himself. Not truly when the softness between them had manifested with his desire to please. Eishrin had nuzzled close into Ghost's quiet warmth, had reaped the opportunity for tenderness in their lazy morning. He hadn't been seeking something for himself. He hadn't been seeking bodily pleasure, at the beginning. Eishrin had sought a comfort he hadn't ever realised he'd craved, let alone had been denied.

It had been Ghost that had twisted and transformed it into something else. His mouth was sticky and salty with it. Eishrin wasn't denying himself, now, because he'd never wanted for something to begin with.

His request to shift was denied and that should not have surprised him. Eishrin watched Ghost with narrowed eyes. Would the pain that he'd felt after Ghost's venom be the same that would tear through him in the absence of his soul? Would he melt away, his mind becoming a soup?

"You remember that agony," Eishrin said lowly. The threat remained unspoken, but there all the same. It hadn't taken Eishrin long to master opening the channel between them to stuff his hellfire pain down into the other. It wouldn't take him long to do it again.

Eishrin watched the darkness manifest at Ghost's fingertips. He held still against the reach of those tendrils before he grit his teeth and gripped one in a fist.

But before he could say anything, there was a rap at the door. A welcome and unwelcome interruption. Eishrin had been raised under the scrutiny of medical tests. He'd been poked, probed, injected, cut open. He'd been carved open, his organs pulled out into dishes and inspected. He'd been awake for it all. He knew the colour of his own viscera.

The cold steel of the medical table, more fit for an autopsy than anything else, was vivid in his memory. It was that same cold that had Eishrin shivering and pressing back a step, slipping out from Ghost's touch.

The Wendigo said nothing as he moved to the door. Obedience at face value as he opened it and accepted the tray of breakfast. The swell of repressed trauma in truth. Eishrin was moving like a carefully wound mechanism. His footsteps like clockwork bringing him back to the edge of the bed. He'd held out the tray to Ghost before he'd realised what he was doing, and then set it aside on the mattress with a snarl.

"What fucking tests is it that your sister wants to subjugate me to?"

He'd forgotten to close the door.
 
The threat, spoken in the negative space of silence, crashed with the wild brutality of a raging sea storm. Rage was a spiked shard of ice twisted deep in the centre of his chest. It manifested in the deep flush that crept across his chest and up his neck; in the howl of his blood in his ears. He saw the liquid writhing of darkness that Eishrin took in hand solidify, saw it morph into a serrated point that punched through the Guardian’s chest. His vision blurred with the sort of soul-deep fury that made eyes glitter with tears unshed. A fucking threat. Hysteria, itchy, bubbled up in his chest.

The knock at the door came like a clap of thunder. Bellamy blinked slowly, his mind rising from the void of no thought. The room sat heavy, choked in a twin fury denied a target. It seeped, festering in the walls. Pale eyes looked away from the retreating figure of his guardian, a momentary reprieve. He looked down at his hand, turning that darkness inwards, the tendrils shrinking, coiling like writhing snakes into the palm of his hand. Thorned vines, perhaps a more apt description that dug into the soft of his palm, parting skin with a cold, spreading sting that caused blood to well to the surface.

The pain was temporary, but it lingered even as his skin sealed itself closed, the barest pale of a line beneath the crimson in his palm. A snarl drew his eyes up, as the darkness dissipated into smoke, and his fingers curled into a loose fist. “Whatever tests she deems necessary.” The cruel edge was gone from his voice, replaced with an apathetic coolness as he slid off the bed without so much as jostling the mattress, and the covered tray of food sat there. “Eat.” Bypassing the closet doors, he pushed open the door to the en-suite, pausing on the threshold, “Or don’t. It makes little difference to me.” The door shut with a soft click behind him.

The guardian who’d brought breakfast still stood outside the room, hands clasped loosely in front of them. Large brown eyes, partially hidden behind the curtain of unruly curls, stared out. They shifted quietly from foot to foot. “It’d probably be best if you ate after, especially if you’re squeamish with needles or bodily fluids.” Their voice, mousy soft, was as small as they were, barely five feet even. “The tests aren’t intrusive or anything like that. Just a general checkup, make sure you’re healthy, you know. In your case, they’ll probably want to see if you’re a good fit for the Farm. Your pups would practically be royalty!”
 
Eishrin almost preferred the cruelty of Ghost than this coldness. It lashed at him far worse, and left him chilled to the bone. Apathetic. Distant. Dissociative, almost. He stepped aside and watched as Ghost slipped from the bed without so much as a glance. The fire of before was gone. So, too, was the softness they'd shared. Instead, in its place, was nothingness.

He was rooted in place by the bed as he turned to watch Ghost over his shoulder. The blonde lingered upon the threshold, spoke words that carved at Eishrin more than they should have, and then disappeared. It was only in his absence that Eishrin smelt the copper of blood, faint but entirely there in the wake of his Ghost. The dark of his eyes swept down to the tray cast aside as the Guardian by the door shared a warning.

Eishrin would eat later, and not because he feared the aftermath of whatever awaited him. It was punishment, of sorts, for the threat he'd thrown at Ghost of the agony he knew the both of them remembered. It hadn't been fair, but none of this was.

Footsteps heavy over the floor, Eishrin moved to the door but lingered by that which separated himself from Ghost. He reached between them, a brush of warmth.

I'll come back for you.

It was a promise.

And it was sealed inside Ghost's room by the door as Eishrin left.

He followed, silent and brooding, and did not give in to the expected curiosity. The mention of pups would not get a rise. The mention of a farm, of inferred breeding, would not elicit a reaction. Eishrin's mind was stretched thin, tethered there within Ghost's room. Had he gone too far? Did Ghost remember that pain and fear it? Why had he smelt blood among the sharpness of Ghost's scent left in his wake? And why could he still feel the tight grip of the black tendril curled about his fist?

Eishrin rubbed at his knuckles as he followed the meek Guardian to the elevator. He said nothing as the doors closed and they descended. He would say nothing, still, as he was brought before a woman who looked so very much like his Ghost and yet also not. The only time Eishrin would speak was when his gaze fell to the table of glinting instruments.

"You'll need blades sharper than that."
 
Despite the wall of ice erected in Bellamy's mind, Eishrin's words still slipped through with the stubborn sear of a fire-hot poker. Given that he couldn't block him out completely, he did the next best thing.

Ignore.

Stood before the marble white sink, Bellamy peered back into the reflection of the mirror. The creature that stared back at him was a stranger. A wretched broken thing: Twisted horns tipped in black as deep as the void poked through his hair, one snapped down to a stump, Writhing black peered up from over his shoulder, limp and shredded wings like that of a bat, and eyes that were empty and void of colour. A deep spiralling dark that threatened to drag him down into an endless abyss of nothing. He tore his gaze away and down at the sink, watching as the blood on his hand swirled from a deep crimson to soft pink, before running clear again.

How long he hid away in the bathroom, he didn't care to count. But eventually his body was as clean as his hand now was, vacant of any evidence of what had occurred.

Beyond the bathroom door, the bedroom sat quiet and vacant. Bellamy stepped out, lingering only as long as it took to pull on clothes, and then he was out of the room.

Eishrin could return if he so wished, but he would not find Bellamy waiting.

Down the hall he walked, off to seek out Cerise.

Reaching her room, he knocked, shoving his fingers through his hair, tucking the loose strands behind his ears as he waited. The walls of the tower were closing in at that moment, and he needed to get beneath the expanse of sky before he lashed out at some unfortunate bastard. But his time with his best friend was limited, and this was a killing of two birds with one stone, as he intended to request that she join him.

~~*~~​

Anaïs, who hadn’t looked up from the tablet she was jotting away on, finally lifted her dark blue-grey eyes from the screen when Eishrin spoke. There was a quiet bemusement in her gaze as if she were about to arch a brow in response, but not a muscle in her face so much as twitched. Her pale hair was pulled back in a slick bun without so much as a wisp of hair out of place, her white lab crisp and void of a stain, near blinding beneath the harsh glare of the lights. The Keeper was a porcelain doll, still and expressionless. “We’ve been expecting you,” she said. Holding out the tablet to the younger Guardian who darted to take it from her hands, she nodded towards the exam table, “Please. You can remove the robe. Taven will take you for a fitting once we’re finished here." A pause. "Unless you feel more comfortable with it on." For as impassive as she was, Anaïs was not sadistic in her work. Her demeanour was one of a professional clinical distance. Nothing more. Nothing less.

"Do you have any allergies?" Rising from her chair, Anaïs moved to the sink in the corner to wash her hands. The young Guardian would note Eishrin's answer. “When was your last shift?” Drying her hands, she pulled on a pair of medical-grade gloves as she approached. "Open, please." She examined the inside of Eishrin’s mouth. Quick and methodical. She hummed a low sound of approval as she withdrew, her gloved thumb pressing lightly against the sharp point of a canine. "Beautiful teeth." She commented. And onward she moved.

She took a blood sample with an innocuous-looking needle that slid with unhindered ease into a vein. All vital signs were checked and murmured aloud to be noted down. As she worked, she inquired into Eishrin’s recent sexual history to the best of his knowledge. Any known illnesses? Overall health history. Had he ever been fed upon by any Keeper other than the one he was bonded with? If yes, how recent was the occurrence?

“Reflex and motor skills will be tested later in the ring.” She said, as she moved to one of the metal cabinets behind her desk, from which she retrieved two plastic cups. Both of which she held out towards Eishrin. "One is for pee, the other is for semen. If you need assistance with the latter,” she nodded to the young Guardian, “Taven can offer assistance, unless you would prefer another. That too can be arranged." The faintest furrow shadowed between her brows, "Of course, privacy is an option. Taven can show you to the restroom."

An exchange of the tablet took place, and Anaïs skimmed over the information with a thoughtful nod. “After your fitting, I would like to discuss your first Heat." She looked up from the screen, "Will that be a problem?"
 
When that bedroom door opened with a soft groan, Cerise was already smiling. She had one hand upon the handle, the other running knuckles across the fat of her lower lip, her head turned back as if she'd been caught answering someone over her shoulder. The motion was only smearing red across the cream of her skin and, perhaps, if this were any other time that red might have been lipstick. As it were, the thick of it was syrupy and beginning to congeal. Cerise hadn't fed since she'd arrived.

Dark eyes focused upon the face before her, but the glee didn't fall away. It brightened and transformed into something else. Something warmer. Cerise, mouth and chin bloody, found a conspiratorial smirk blooming upon her lips as she noted the stark absence of a hovering, mountainous shadow behind Bellamy's shoulder.

"Give me a minute to wash up," Cerise grinned, all red-smeared teeth, "and I'm yours. I have just the place in mind."

The two of them, soon enough, were leaving the building arm-in-arm; that near bled-dry Guardian left semi-lucid upon her floor.

'Just the place', as it would turn out, was right in the heart of the city and several floors up. The earth had tumbled away beneath them, strewn out like stars. They sat side by side upon the edge, legs tucked under the railings and a stolen bottle of high-quality red sat just behind them. The security guard lay incapacitated at their dark station.

The wind rushed by, nearly carrying Cerise's words as she spoke out into the night; "I've missed this." Dark eyes slid sideways, observing the profile of Bellamy's face. "I've missed you." She turned back to the sprawling city, peeling forward a little more against the thick metal bars to watch the blink of a police-car far below. "The world out there isn't as terribly large as I thought it would be, but I still feel like I'm drowning, sometimes. Do you ever feel that? Like you're being carried on some tide, but don't know which way is up?"


~~*~~​


Where his Ghost was a noxious thing, this one seemed eerily clinical. Too clean. Too crisp. Too put together. She observed Eishrin for a moment, and he felt the weight of her gaze. He took that moment, seized it, to find the things within her face that were similar and, yet, still dissimilar from his Ghost. There were many.

"I will keep the robe." Because Eishrin had always hated forced nudity, and being within the sterile white of a medical space only served him flashes of memory. He'd been naked, then, because it made it easier for them to carve him apart when he was. His footsteps to the examination were heavy, and the table groaned a little beneath the bulk of him as Eishrin sat, legs draped over the edge and feet still firmly on the floor. Eishrin was nothing if not mountainous.

So many questions. The first answer left Eishrin unchecked.

"Ghost." Was it humour? Was it sarcasm? Eishrin couldn't be sure be he composed himself still and corrected himself, "No allergies."

Eishrin answered only with as much information as was asked for. Little over a month ago—his last shift. Unable to remember the exact amount but an estimate of dozens of recent sexual partners as result of the fever. That answer had come with flashes of white hair and pale skin, and how none had staved the agony like Ghost had.

No illnesses. No inherited conditions. He'd been bred in a lab, after-all, for genetic success. He wouldn't have been chosen as an implantable embryo if he'd held a weakness such as that. Eishrin confessed neither of those things, though, because they were not asked for.

No other Keepers, he'd killed all others that had approached. Only Ghost had survived him.

Instead, he opened his mouth despite the beginning curl of a snarl in his upper lip. He resisted the urge to bite down on the wandering finger within the cavern. Eishrin held out his arm when it was asked of him, kept still as the needle punctured. He was compliant, but he was so with a brewing, deep growl in his chest.

Eishrin did not look to the other Guardian, the one's whose assistance had been so freely offered. "The restroom." Forgetting his manners, he heard the cold cut of Ghost's words about politeness. This woman, to her credit, was granting Eishrin liberties he hadn't expected. So, Eishrin added through clenched teeth; "Please."

He'd begun to move before the Keeper's words had Eishrin's steps stuttering. Will that be a problem? Eishrin kept his breaths even. Kept his gaze forward. Tried to steady the beginning thunder of his furious heart. Did not turn to flash teeth at the woman whom shared colouring with his Ghost, but almost nothing else.

"Yes," he said with a frost. "That will be a problem." Eishrin was slow to turn, and the dark of his eyes fell heavy upon the woman. "My natural rut comes in conjunction with a partial shift. With the blockage and refusal of one, my rut will not manifest. I doubt anything induced will prove to be different."

Eishrin lifted the specimen jars. "But, as you said, that's to be discussed after the fitting. Let me give you the samples."
 
The state of Cerise when she answered the door drew an arched brow from Bellamy, a question in his eyes: ‘Am I interrupting?’ And if he was, he was very much unapologetic about it.

The moment the towers’ doors slid shut behind them, Bellamy felt that he could breathe again. And he’d paused a moment to inhale the polluted night air, a hint of briny sea air beneath the familiar stench of the city, always awake, a living, breathing entity that consumed souls as readily as the most insatiable of Keepers. Then Cerise was pulling him along.

He didn’t doubt that she knew ‘Just the place’ because, of course, she did. And he couldn’t help the start of a smile that tugged at his lips. The security guard’s blood was still tacky in his mouth, and he reached for the bottle, swishing the liquid round in his mouth, before swallowing with a low hum. The wailing cacophony of the city below drifted upwards on the wind, and yet this far up, between the stars and asphalt below, it was as if they were removed from it. “And I’ve missed you.” The confession came easily, and Bellamy bumped his booted foot against Cerise’s.

It would have been easy to shrug off her question, to poke fun at her melancholy. But this high up, away from responsibilities he continued to avoid, he had nothing to hide. Least of all from Cerise. “It has been ever persistent since Yvain’s passing.” His brother’s name was a lump in his throat that he had to forcibly swallow around. Grief was a strange monster he was simply not equipped to handle. Nor did he want to. “There’s an underground group of Keepers who claim to have a means to return to our world. They’re more of a cult in all honesty, who are obsessed with the Old Ways.” A fringe group of Keepers made of outsiders and exiles, claimed by no clan. There were rumours that these Keepers saw their Guardians as equals, and an equal exchange of power across the bond. It was also whispered that they had a way of reversing a bond, removing it entirely. But it was also claimed that they traveled between this world and their own. It was all just stories. Every Keeper, regardless of clan affiliation, knew that their world was destroyed, uninhabitable following the final war that tore the seams of the universe in two.

Bellamy leaned forward against the railing. “If it were true, would you go back?”

~~*~~​
Ghost. Confused as to the context of the name or its relevance, Anaïs did not ask for clarification. Whether this was some play at humour or a scathing sarcasm, she didn’t know. Nor did she care to ask. Anaïs asked, and Taven noted. They worked like a well-oiled machine. She had yet to announce it publicly, but already she had decided to take on Taven as an apprentice. The tiny Guardian had proven to have an excellent bedside manner and made up for Anaïs’ lack of.

Anaïs did not surprise easily. But she was pleasantly content to note that the Boogeyman of Guardians and Keepers alike was a well-behaved patient. She had anticipated much more difficulty in trying to accomplish her task. She had a team on standby should they have a need to sedate, said Guardian. But he was, for all intents and purposes, playing along.

There was even an inkling of manners beneath that barely held back hostile exterior. And she nodded at the clenched out ‘Please’, suppressing her surprise. "Taven." The Guardian darted for the door, silently waiting.

Her final parting question came with a prolonged pause that hadn’t been present previously. Taven shifted nervously, their eyes darting everywhere but on the two other souls in the room. Anaïs met the caged fury in the larger Guardian's eyes, her expression one of focused consideration. "No, I would prefer we avoid any chemical induction. My data needs to be as authentic as possible." What she didn't say was that she’d have to talk with her brother. The thought of which came with a niggling pinprick of pain in the back of her head. "But as you said, we will discuss it later. You may proceed.”

With both Guardians finally leaving the room, Taven leading the way, Anaïs returned to her desk. She pinched the bridge of her nose with an irritated sigh as she sank into the chair. She had tests to run, a discussion pending, more analysis before this new Guardian could be sent on his way, and most headache-inducing of all... a conversation with her younger brother. Yes, quite the work cut out for her.

Turning down a second brightly lit hall, with more nondescript bare white and steel doors, Taven stopped at a third door on the left. "I'll just wait here for you to finish." They nodded to themself, eyes glued to the floor in front of their feet.
 
Death was an enigmatic thing. Cerise had delivered it so often that it had always seemed far closer than before. Yet, each time, she could recognise the cold linger of it. How Death stood in the corner of a room, watching, biding its time until her fangs sunk that little bit deeper and the artery finally fractured. Cerise had thought, quite often, that if she'd raised her blown-wide pupils to the shadow of the corner that she'd find the lurk of a figure there. That she would, perhaps, meet the ice cold gaze of a creature, endless. Yet, each time that she'd lifted her eyes from her prey and looked into that ominous corner, Cerise had found nothing.

Still, there was always the weight of it. It shifted, some, but it never truly left. Cerise wondered whether Bellamy felt that with the vast absence of his brother. Did Death stalk him, as if he were next? As if he were the one that should have been taken that night? But giving power to Death was a dangerous thing, and it was made by sacrificing names, offering places never ventured again and promises of an end too soon. Death swallowed the dead, but Cerise had always denied it.

"I think Yvain would be telling us off for being up here," she said casually. As if saying the name of the dead wasn't uncomfortable. As if society didn't deem such a name a curse, something to never be uttered again lest it draw Death's attention. Cerise knew there was something far worse than that; the living who remained, but were left with a love and a grief forbidden to be spoken. Cerise said Yvain's name because Bellamy would always be able to speak of it between them.

Cerise reached across and plucked the bottle up from Bellamy's hand, taking a deep swig of her own. She wiped her mouth on the back of her hand, smearing the dried blood and red wine. "At what cost?" Because nothing was ever free, least of all from madmen.

"I'm not sure that I'm made for back there," she confessed, earnestly. "I like my phone. I like being able to walk down the street and get whatever the fuck I want—human, beer, a packet of chicken-salt chips. I like being able to up and leave, because I can but also because it's simply convenient to."

Cerise gave a shrug, and then cast a bright smile at Bellamy. "I don't think I'm made for a place where I can't ask Google to set me a timer so I can see how long I can leave a mortal to linger on the edge." The edge of what, she didn't say, and it didn't really matter. Orgasm. Life and death. It was all interchangeable for the victims of Cerise.

Offering Bellamy back the bottle, there was a curious cock to her head. "Would you?"

​
~~*~~​


Authentic data would require an authentic rut, and Eishrin had spoken honestly of his rut initiating with a partial shift. Ghost held his soul chained and apart from him; caged like a beast. If Eishrin tried to reach for it now, he'd feel nothing but the empty blank slipping through the webs of his mental fingers. Ghost would deny him, he knew. Ghost would deny him because it offered the Keeper nothing, and also simply out of spite. Eishrin was learning that there was nothing his Ghost did that was fruitless. It was always because it gave him something in return.

Eishrin lingered for a moment more, before turning to follow the small Guardian down the corridor. He watched the grace of their short steps, the hurriedness of them. He watched the bounce of their hair beneath the bright LED lights high above. Eishrin observed and he followed, and when Taven stepped aside with their eyes downcast, Eishrin snatched. He caught Taven's upper arm in a vice-like grip. Hard enough to ache, to scare, but not enough to break.

"She offered you up like a tool to use," Eishrin seethed. He was standing over Taven, the length of his shadow creeping over them. "And you stood there with nothing to say." His fingers curled harsher when Taven's eyes remained low upon the floor; meek and mild. "Does that not disgust you?"

"Mistress requires fresh, clean samples to complete her work. It is my honour to assist with the supply and collection of them."

It sounded like a fucking recording. Like a practiced answer spoken over and over again in the mirror until it was believed. Brainwashed and reduced to something shallow.

Eishrin tore his hand away, repulsed. He shoved himself through the door and locked it closed at his back. The specimen containers felt heavy in his palm, but he didn't glance down at them. Their weight came only from expectation.

This is fucking bullshit.

What did any of it matter, when Ghost was to use him as he saw fit; for pleasure, for violence, for a place to direct his cruel and cold fury? What did any of it matter when Ghost would deny him a glimpse of his soul? Eishrin did not doubt that they would have him bend a female Guardian over, stuff her full and breed her, even without a rut. He didn't doubt that they'd resort to chemical induction, regardless of what she had said. They'd get what they wanted at the end of the day. It was only a matter of how.

The belt of the robe slipped undone with the haste of Eishrin's rough hand. Into one jar, he took his soft shaft in hand and filled the plastic halfway with warm, dilute yellow. The lid was screwed back on. The jar set aside upon the wash basin beneath the mirror. The empty specimen container mocked him. Eishrin took the sink in both hands and hunched forward, snarling.

He knew how this would go. He knew because he'd spent the better part of the last several weeks trying to achieve something that could only be solved with one, haunting answer.

Eishrin washed his hands, glanced down at his rough palm, and then grit his teeth. His cock was stubborn in his own grip as he stared down at white porcelain. Pale and cream, like someone's lush skin. Smooth and glistening, like the threat of someone's teeth. Shimmering and wet, like someone's hair soaked with water.

Ghost.

His cock lay stiff in his hand, and it fucking disgusted Eishrin that staring down at a milky porcelain wash basin was what got him hard. Because it reminded him of Ghost. Because it had him thinking of how Ghost breached the surface of the water, glistening like a pearl, all predatory grace and siren song. It disgusted him because this should have been difficult, but the hard, increasing strikes of his fist against his pubis echoed through the restroom and Eishrin came not even a minute later, the taste of a name in his mouth and in his mind. ​

Ghost.

He nearly missed the first rope of his seed. He caught it, and the second thick rope, his other hand shaky in his climax. The third was shorter, and slid down the porcelain to swirl down the drain. Eishrin was struck with the vision of his cum painted across Ghost's belly. He rinsed the basin clean.

Eishrin did not meet his own eyes in the mirror as he gathered the jars in one hand and stormed out. Nor did he take pause to allow Taven to lead the way. He stepped around the Guardian, stalking forward and back into that white, clinical space. The jars were set down atop the table he'd sat upon, and Eishrin crossed his arms over his chest over the neatly tied robe. He said nothing, and waited. ​
 
There was a rare kind of warmth that bloomed from the centre of Bellamy’s chest at hearing his brother’s name spoken aloud. He huffed out a low breath of amusement, imagining the stern lecturing that would follow Yvain’s discovery of them being where they shouldn’t be. “Always so serious that one.” He muttered, a true smile flickering across his lips. He could never verbalise just how much it meant to him that Cerise didn’t tiptoe around Yvain like the very sound of his name spoken aloud was a curse cast. She was the only one he would dare be so open with. And he would miss her when she eventually trotted off to place her mark of chaos and carnage upon the world anew.

“Ah, yes,” Bellamy rolled his eyes, “always a fucking price. Consider for a foolish moment that there was no price.”

He shoulder bumped her, meeting her smile with a shake of his head, “A slave of convenience, are we?” Accepting the offered bottle, he took a long swig as he considered whether he would go if given the choice.

Lowering the bottle, he nodded, "Curiosity demands that I do. But I don’t believe I would stay. I'll not be forced to choose between one place or the other." He unapologetically not only wanted his cake, but to eat it too. And perhaps that was the crux of why he sometimes found himself considering their world of origin. The lack of choice. This planet, this dimension, universe, whatever one wished to call it, was the only home he'd ever known. The only one he had. They had. Would he go to their world of origin if the choice were presented to him? Yes, he'd be a fool not to. But to be forced to choose between one or the other? The very thought of it disgusted him.

... No.

No, this disgust was coming from someplace else. Inside and outside of him.

Ghost.

Bellamy jerked his head over his shoulder, tension crawling up his neck. That stupid nickname whispered directly into his ear. No, worse. It was in his head. And there was a strange, low simmer of heat creeping beneath his skin.

What. the. Fuck!

It was right there on his periphery to tell the other man to fuck off. But to do so, Bellamy would be forced to acknowledge the Guardian’s presence.

A blazing wall of heat crashed towards him, and he knew what was coming. Goosflesh prickled across his skin, and electricity fizzed and sparked down his spine. Bellamy shoved that glacial wall of indifference between them.

Ghost.

The glass bottle in Bellamy’s hand shattered.

“How long…” Bit out through gritted teeth on a false start, Bellamy drew in a deep and slow breath. Refusing to meet Cerise’s eyes, he tried again. “How long after the bond did it take for your mind to be your own again? I… think I’ve been unbonded too long, it isn’t as easy to shut him out as it should be.”

~~*~~​

Taven jerked with a startled squeak, but they didn't dare attempt to disengage from Eishrin’s steel-trap grip. This was familiar territory; they were small for a Guardian, and the others made sure they never forgot it. Fighting back only made it worse. Eyes firmly downcast, the words tumbled out of their mouth like a well-kept vinyl. No skips or hesitation. They would do whatever Ms. Busson asked them. Anything to stay away from the others, if only for a few moments longer.

The relief that flushed through them when Eishrin finally let go was disgustingly palpable. Taven shrank back against the wall as they waited, all the while shying away from the acidic disappointment of their foolish fantasy crushed beneath the weight of Eishrin’s disgust. Was it so ridiculous to have hoped they might've become friends?

Yes.

Stupid.

They’d slumped down in their posture, expecting to wait for a while. So when the lock turned barely a handful of moments later, they straightened up with a haste that had them stumbling. That was fast! “Are you su—” The question was abruptly bit off. Eishrin had shown what he’d do unprovoked; best not to give him a reason to live up to any of his many monikers. Relegated to follower, Taven focused on keeping up with Eishrin's longer strides, though they were careful to keep out of arm's reach.

Anaïs looked up at their approach, her eyes following Eishrin's entrance as he relinquished the specimen jars. "Very good." It wasn’t quite a smile, but her features softened a fraction. "Thank you."

Her pale gaze drifted to where Taven lingered in the doorway. Anaïs studied them for a moment of silence. "Taven?" There was an unspoken question in her voice.

The smaller Guardian appeared to shrink inwards, but their voice was steady when they said, "I’m fine. I can take him to get fitted now... "

Anaïs looked back at Eishrin, her gaze searching, but she said nothing. "Yes, very well.” She stood from her chair to collect the jars. “Off you go then. And no need to hurry back. Taven is your guide, use them as such.”

Taven led them to the nearest elevator, which took them two floors down to where the clinical harshness of the lights on the previous floor gave way to a warmly lit lobby. They stepped out into a chaos of tower occupants, busy with everyone having somewhere to be and no patience for stragglers. Though they gave Eishrin a wide berth, some with wide-eyed looks that lingered long after he'd passed, some with barely a passing glance up from whatever was in their hands occupied their attentions. Through a maze of halls that appeared to twist and turn with no rhyme or reason, Taven led them away from the chaos of noise and bodies and into a darkened cavern of a room where the noise was muffled by the plethora of clothes and fabric strewn about tables, racks, and the surrounding walls. Taven brought them to stop in the centre of the room, which was the only clear area of floor space, save for a full-body mirror that appeared to be floating a few inches off the floor.

Taven cupped their hands around their mouth and called out, “Grady!”

There was a loud clattering from the back of the room, and an unfettered flurry of cursing followed.

From behind a stacked mountain of neutral coloured fabrics, a short and squat, frazzled, grey-haired man appeared. Thin-wired spectacles sat low on his nose, a tape measure draped over his neck, and a blooming ink stain on the chest pocket of his smock, where sat a singular pen. Muted brown eyes cast a critical glance over the top of smudged lenses. "You can remove that ridiculous robe. I’m going to have to measure everything, and we don’t have time for any delicate sensibilities ‘round these parts."

Grady gestured towards the centre of the floor space, “Stand right there, toss the robe wherever. We’ll find you some proper clothes.”
Shooing Taven out of the way with an impetuous batting motion, Grady tugged free a stepping stool and flicked it open. "They just have to breed you fuckers so damn big." He clambered up the stool steps, tugging his tape measure loose. “Arms out.”

The old man muttered to himself as he measured. Stopping only momentarily to ask, “What’s your shoe size?” Upon receiving an answer, he’d throw an exasperated glare in Taven’s direction, “You heard the man! Why do I still see you?”
 
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