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There’s no ceremony. No magical words are spoken. No candles lit. No crowd gathers around dressed in robes, humming broken Latin over Algernon’s form bound naked to an altar. The goat is still alive down in the garden. Tabitha is wholly occupied elsewhere—with Stella, Algernon assumes. Or hopes, really. It means she’s less likely to come back to the manor in the middle of this. It means she’s far less likely to interrupt. The forbidden wing is deserted. The full moon shines through the windows, casting the great space in an eerie blue light, and Algernon’s thoughts keep circling around the same thing: that this is all far more mundane than he’d assumed it would be and all those late night Hammer movie marathons he had when he was a kid didn’t prepare him for anything.
(Later, he’ll laugh about that. The word ‘mundane’ will flash through his mind and make him choke on his own spit as he giggles like a little girl, euphoria still rushing through his veins. Later, however—not now.)
“It won’t hurt.”
Wayne’s voice washes over Algernon like a warm rain. It tears his attention away from the window, away from the moonlight. He turns around and a pleasant shiver races down his spine at the glowing pinpricks of Wayne’s eyes directed at him.
“If that’s what troubles you,” Wayne says, “it shouldn’t. You and I are made for one another. Our bonding won’t cause you any harm if you don’t fight it.”
And what if I do fight it, Algernon thinks, but it’s a fleeting notion. Intrusive and irrelevant. He has no desire to fight anything.
“I’m not worried about it hurting,” Algernon replies. “I’m just not sure about what it actually involves.”
When it’s wanted, Algernon doesn’t add. When the person accepting the Entity into their body agrees to it, when they’re a healthy man and not an injured one or a child, when they’ve had something of the Entity in them already—and Algernon’s face burns at remembering the last bit: the overwhelming pleasure of Wayne’s ‘kiss’ in this same room that had left Algernon barely able to remain standing.
Wayne tilts his head, eyes glowing brighter as though he can sense the direction of Algernon’s thoughts—something that’s all but confirmed a moment later.
“It can be like before,” Wayne says.
His hands twitch at his sides and a beat passes before he takes a step forward—then another and another until he and Algernon are but a hairsbreadth away from one another. Wayne reaches out, hesitant, and Algernon’s breath hitches in his throat, releasing as though it’s been punched out of him when Wayne’s fingers drift across his cheek.
The graze is gentle, but Algernon’s skin is left burning when Wayne’s hand drops back down.
“It can be more than before,” Wayne goes on. “Or less. It’s your decision.”
“Not ours?”
“Every decision we make after tonight will be ours. Every second of every day, every thought, every feeling, every experience. There is nothing that we won’t share.” Wayne pauses, breathless, visibly attempting to steady his heavy breathing. “You can have this last thing for yourself. I want to give it to you. Think of it as a—wedding present.”
Algernon bites the inside of his cheek at the pleasant jolt that sends through him, but he can’t quite tamper down his shiver. He knows, of course, that it’s the wrong reaction. He knows the anticipation coiling through his body isn’t the sane thing to feel, that anyone else would be terrified—would, most likely, be running screaming as far as they could away from this. Algernon has enough knowledge of Scarlets past who certainly wished for the opportunity. He wonders how naive he is that he genuinely feels that he’s different, but he casts that aside easily.
It’s not naivety, not really. It’s—loneliness. It’s being out of place in both his life and his lineage. It’s the fact that Wayne is the first being he’s met who he felt any kind of connection to beyond the superficial.
Well.
Wayne and Dustin, Algernon mentally corrects, but it’s hardly the same thing.
“And if I say I want more than before,” Algernon answers, “where would we start?”
Wayne’s breath audibly catches before he exhales in a heavy shudder that Algernon can practically feel vibrating across his own skin.
“By getting undressed,” Wayne replies.
Algernon’s heart jumps in his chest and heat flushes over his skin. He swallows hard, nods shakily--
“Right.” The word comes out nearly strangled. “Right, I suppose that makes sense.”
But neither of them move. Not for the span of one breath, or two, or three. Wayne’s glowing eyes drill into him and Algernon feels pleasantly trapped in place beneath his gaze.
“You first,” Wayne finally says, and heat throbs beneath Algernon’s skin.
He doesn’t even consider disobeying. His fingers fumble on the buttons of his shirt and his hands shake even harder when he casts the garment aside and steps back from Wayne so that he might crouch down to begin working on the laces of his boots. His heart beats faster and sweat prickles at the nape of his neck, but it isn’t fear driving him—it’s desire. Pure, burning, the likes of which Algernon has never known before. He takes his boots off to the knowledge that this will be the first time anyone has seen him naked in his adult life. He works off his belt thinking of his only prior experience with anything intimate, the lackluster peck of a kiss he’d had at a middle school dance, and considers in a nearly hysterical sort of way that Hammer probably prepared him more for the kind of act he’s about to participate in more than anything else after all.
Algernon takes off his pants and only realizes then that this would likely have been more pleasant in a room with a bed, but it’s hard to care about such a thing when his cock is out, erect and leaking, and Wayne’s eyes are dragging over his body like he wants to do nothing more than devour it.
“You’re perfect,” Wayne says, voice choked. Hoarse.
Algernon’s cheeks burn at the compliment—at the emotion heavy in it.
“Not nearly,” he manages to reply.
Wayne makes a harsh, nearly offended sound. His eyes drag over Algernon one last time before their gazes meet.
“Agree to disagree,” Wayne says.
Pleasure thrums violently through Algernon’s chest, twisting his heart and making his already hard cock throb a little more. He swallows the overwhelming need down and tries to steady himself.
“I think it’s your turn,” Algernon says, faintly.
“My turn,” Wayne repeats. A beat passes. “I won’t be able to speak to you again until we’re joined. Things will become...messy before then. You might be frightened.”
“I won’t be,” Algernon denies immediately.
“If you are,” Wayne presses, “know that it’s still me. Everything that happens is meant to happen. You only have to allow it.”
Algernon’s mouth is dry, his tongue heavy. He can do nothing more than nod in response—and it must be enough.
Wayne takes in a deep breath and wastes no time before reaching up and pulling the covering from his head.
Algernon’s throat tightens at the sight, a sharp jab going through his chest at the face that greets him. Pallid, waxen skin like a bar of soap left in the water for too long. Black veins. Matted hair and a gaping wound on the side of a head that still drips with viscera, brain matter visible and rotten. The scent of decay that he’s become used to wafting from Wayne is stronger than ever and nausea curls in Algernon’s stomach along with something else—something perverse and illicit. He has to take care to control his breathing. A deep inhale followed by a long exhale, again and again and again. He focuses on the twin glows coming from two hollowed out eye sockets. He doesn’t look down at the black decay of Wayne’s lips. He doesn’t look too hard at the white bone visible where a cheek used to be.
Wayne says nothing. He wastes no time in removing the rest of his clothing, his movements perfunctory and quick as though he means to get this prelude over with as quickly as possible. The top layer goes and reveals more of that soapen flesh, open lesions and gaping holes smattered throughout. Wayne’s ribcage is visible, a slowly beating heart long turned grey nestled inside, and a curl of intestines begins slipping out of a particularly large wound as Wayne bends down to take off his shoes. A bloodless cock is revealed when his trousers are pushed to the floor, and Algernon is aware then—horribly aware—that his own cock is still hard. That he still throbs. That desire still burns through him even as bile crawls its way up his throat and it takes an effort to swallow the acid of it back down.
Algernon wants to close his eyes, but he forces them to stay open. He forces himself to look, to not turn towards the denial he has refused to embrace since coming to Scarlet Hollow.
For a moment, nothing is said. Nothing is done. Wayne just stands there. At his full height, in all his decomposing glory. He stands and he watches Algernon back more keenly than ever. In the overwhelming quiet, Algernon supposes that this is his last chance. The last opportunity Wayne will give him to change his mind, to say no, to run out of the forbidden wing and see how far he can get away from Scarlet Hollow before the curse on the town snatches him by the scruff and drags him right back.
(In the back of Algernon’s mind, he knows that running isn’t an option. He knows that Wayne won’t allow it—that for as much as Wayne wants him willing, as much as he is enamored by Algernon’s receptivity, that if it comes down between forcing Algernon to comply and allowing him to leave, it’s no mystery what Wayne will choose. Algernon knows that. He believes with his entire heart that Wayne will take no pleasure in it. Still—Algernon has been trapped in Scarlet Hollow for barely a week and it’s been enough to make him want to claw his own skin off to get out. Wayne’s imprisonment has been far longer than that and his prison cell far more enclosed.)
Algernon doesn’t change his mind.
He doesn’t breathe a word.
Wayne’s head tilts, some tension leaving his body. Relief, Algernon thinks. He’s relieved.
It’s only a moment later thatWayne’s flesh ripples and begins splitting apart.
Algernon chokes in surprise, alarm shocking through his chest as Wayne’s skin sloughs from his form like a wet coat that’s been unzipped and allowed to drop carelessly to the floor with a heavy plop. Veins and muscle, tissue and rot—what remains after the soapy white is gone is a horror of red and brown and black, white bone peaking through here and there until all color bubbles away, dripping and slipping down, melting, and only the white remains. The skeleton stands there for a moment, fleshless and stark, twin glows for eyes the only thing separating it from a prop in a B movie. The skull tilts. The teeth chatter.
And then it collapses. All the bones drop down, falling into the heavy pile of clothing and organs, flesh and skin—everything of Wayne—on the floor, crumbling to a fine white powder on impact.
Algernon stares at the pile. He stares at it—heart aching in his chest from how fast it’s beating, throat tight and a cold flush along his skin. It’s impossible to think this was supposed to happen. It’s impossible to remember Wayne’s words, to believe that he knew what he was talking about. His head is so light and it seems most impossible of all that he’s still able to stand.
It feels like an eternity before the pile begins to shift and even then—
Even then, Algernon can’t comprehend what he sees. The bloody mound with its bone dust on top begins to pulse, throbbing as the red of it darkens into deep brown, wet goop changing to the consistency of deep earth. A tremor spreads from the mound, growing in intensity until a low-frequency thrum begins vibrating beneath Algernon’s bare feet. Pulsing, pulsing, pulsing, gaining in strength. The scent of rot in the room gives way to something sweeter, less harsh to breathe.
The smell of it is—mouthwatering. It makes his cock ache more than ever.
The white dust of Wayne’s bones squirms in the dirt, turning golden with the movement, and crowns of fungus begin to sprout out in a perfect circle around the mound. The fungi expands and contracts as though breathing and finally, on one exhale, something begins to emerge from the center of the mound. Dirt shifts and from beneath comes a rounded dome of pale, translucent flesh. A collar surrounds the head of the Entity, a veil of lacy, white fungal growth that floats in the air and gives way to a longer body, golden segments sectioning it like rings, and countless fine, glowing filaments writhing along its length.
There are no eyes on the Entity but as it shakes the soil from its flesh and ripples towards Algernon, he is caught in the distinct sensation that he is being observed.
The Entity comes to a stop in front of him, holding its head at the level of Algernon’s face though it could easily stand much taller. The air between them is thick—sweet with the scent of fermented honey and dirt—and the thrumming beneath Algernon’s feet is strong enough that he feels it in his limbs, all the way up to his skull. It feels—pleasurable.
It’s beautiful.
“I think I was promised more than a kiss,” Algernon says, his voice little more than a hoarse scratch.
The thrumming grows in frequency and the Entity doesn’t hesitate. It closes the distance between them, curling itself around Algernon’s bare flesh, the tendrils of its filaments tickling him as though thousands of eyelashes are blinking against his skin at once. The flesh of the Entity is warm, the texture of it silken—the thrumming begins to echo in Algernon’s mind as it writhes around him, a drumbeat of sensation, a heartbeat that only pounds more quickly when Algernon moans, the filaments stimulating his aching cock. The air is humid and Algernon is—heavy. He feels as though he’s been buried alive but can breathe more easily than ever. A rhythmic constriction encircles him and in between one clench and the next, there is a pressure against his ass that makes him groan, a slick prod of something thin that enters easily and begins to expand once it’s inside.
The penetration is slow. Never ending. It doesn’t stop, not even when Algernon can feel it in his stomach, curling around his intestines, in his throat—less of the Entity becomes visible as more of it enters him, the impossible stretch of it making him feel heavier and heavier until there is nothing left of the Entity to see and Algernon finds himself curled upon the floor, gasping, cock throbbing, swollen at the belly and everywhere else beneath his skin. He twitches and shudders, aching with pleasure that reverberates from head to toe and makes the hairs on his body stand on end.
Something squirms inside of him.
Something—melts.
His stomach deflates. The bulging beneath his skin sinks away. Algernon is left shaking, hot all over, moaning as he rolls onto his back.
A hand grasps his cock and it takes him a moment to realize that it’s his hand—and that he hadn’t been the one to move it.
‘More than a kiss,’ Wayne says, but Algernon doesn’t hear it with his ears—the voice comes from his own head.
From their head, he corrects immediately.
‘This is as new to me as it is to you,’ Wayne goes on, hand already moving with the exact grip and speed Algernon likes using on himself. ‘Forgive me if there’s a learning curve.’
But the hand twists—and Algernon comes all over himself, back arching, and he means to say there’s nothing to forgive but it’s lost in a long, drawn out moan as waves of pleasure wash over him one after another, far more intense than it’s ever been before as though he’s feeling it twice over.
He understands as soon as he comes down from the euphoria that there’s no need to speak the words aloud, that Wayne heard them already.