maybeElse

content warning: noncon licking, blood, self-hatred, realizations.

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Hero pinned to the floor, glaring up at the beast who's finally gotten the better of him. Trying not to notice the thin lines of blood welling out of where its claws grip his neck, trying not to think about how easily it could end all his struggles—

(if he thinks those thoughts his luck will break, or so he's always been told. there are so many things he doesn't think about.)

Broken tiles warm his back, the sun's heat slowly leeching into the night; the beast laughs, its breath hot and strangely floral on his face.

He starts to speak and it squeezes tighter, a warning and a threat; he spits a curse at it anyway, something noble and heroic and utterly cliched. They both forget it a moment after. A hero says heroic things by reflex, no more significant than the piss tricking down his leg.

(he does his best not to notice. not to think about how his body has betrayed his fear, or the way the beast's snout twitches at the smell. he tells himself that he succeeds.)

(he's wrong.)

The beast's tongue is rough against his face, and far too long: a sinuous strand of muscle exploring the sweat dripping from his brow and the chapped expanse of his lips and the tears of humiliation dripping from his eyes.

He tries to struggle, to push it off him; he fails.

The beast seems almost thoughtful as it pulls back, as it licks its lips. Certainly there's something different in its many eyes, in the watchful tentacles draped like tangled scarves around its slender neck.

Its grin has far too many teeth, and its voice is full of song.

“Little hero, caught and trapped! Not how you thought this would go, not how you expected it to, is it?” He doesn't answer and it twitches its claw, that threatening sharpness forcing his head to shake. “Not at all. Meddlesome things like you never expect to be caught.”

At this, he can't help but spit out another cliche. It's something about how good will always triumph over evil in the end, about how the arc of history bends towards the light.

It laughs at him again, its entire body shaking, and for a moment he thinks he can break free—

But his struggle is cut short by another squeeze of his throat, by its long tongue carefully licking the blood from the cuts which ring his neck.

(he doesn't think about the shiver that echoes through his traitorous body. it's not real as long as he doesn't think about it.)

“Is that really what you think, little hero? Do you really truly believe that?” Of course he does. “You're pathetic. There's no light in you, not the faintest speck. I've tasted and taken more chosen ones than you'd ever believe and you have none of their spice.”

As it speaks its mane of tentacles are busy cutting away his armor, worming their way inside; thick corrosive slime drips from their tips where they cannot find the right strap to cut, melting away god-forged metal and sturdy leather and thick-spun wool cloth.

His armor runs across his skin in thin rivulets, pools beneath him in a sparkling mass of false protection. He braces himself for pain, for the slime to eat away at his skin, but the thick streaks and globs running off his body feel like nothing more than a slimy caress.

(all he thinks about how it feels is that it's disgusting, that it's wrong, that it's a violation in a way that none of the beast's many crimes can match. he doesn't think about how his skin tingles beneath the slime. he doesn't think about the way his body reacts.)

It runs a claw along his wrist, opening a fresh gash alongside all those healed scars. He spits another curse at it as its head dips down, as its tongue curls around to catch every drop of blood—

“All I can taste in you is hatred, little hero.”

It's lying and he knows that it's lying and he screams his certainty at it. He was chosen! Picked by the gods, by the light, by the divine spark trailing down to meet his too-boyish frame and fill him with the strength to fight!

Its laugh sounds almost sad.

“I wouldn't lie to you, little hero. If you were full of the light I'd crack you open and slurp it out and fill you with myself. I'd send you back to your friends and your cities and your temples to taint their pools and poison their incense and gobble up all their power.”

It's so matter-of-fact. He can't help but remember all those childhood stories of broken champions, all those rumors that sprung up every time a hero was out in the ruins for too long—

(but he can't believe it. without the light, without being chosen, he would be nothing.)

But …

He's so good at not thinking things, and not thinking is such a fragile wall to build: he does not understand how to meet doubt with certainty, only how to shove that doubt so deep that he never knows it's there.

But if it is right, he thinks, what then?

Above him, still pinning him with its claws around his throat and its knees against his arms and its thick tentacles wrapped around his legs, the beast watches emotions flit across his face. It always loves this part, loves watching and feeling his body shift beneath it and all those little twitches that it's sure he doesn't even notice.

Thought the chorus of voices that make its mind are full of satisfaction, full of the reflected light of its new toy's mind struggling to make sense of its thoughts, one doubt echoes up—

What has happened in the light, the beast thinks, if this is the only hero they can make?

Its mane of tentacles twitches, eyes dilating and squishy lenses shifting modes, scenting the air and tasting the ambient magic; for a moment it considers whether this could be an ambush, a trap, a trick that the light never seemed able to pull—

But there's nothing.

Just an abandoned courtyard, just the falling spires that dot the ruins, just the moon squinting down at it from far above.

Beneath it the hero struggles, thrashes, screams incoherently; their mind burns with doubt and betrayal and the weight of all the thoughts forcing their way through that tiny crack, the voice in the back of their head screaming, the twisted ball of hatred that gobbled up the light their gods poured into them and cloaked itself in the illusion of its corpse—

Beneath it the former hero is sobbing.

The beast relaxes its hold on them, shifts its weight ever so slightly; not enough to let them free. Just enough to enable a last heroic struggle if this is a ruse, if their hatred turns upon it. It gives them a chance to die.

They don't even notice.

Its claws fade away as it slips its hand beneath their neck, tentacles shifting from restraints to supports, and when the once-hero finally blinks the tears from their eyes they find themself nestled against the beast's soft chest, its skin wet with their tears and snot; they hear its heartbeat, and a gentle humming rumbling through it as it sings something very like a lullaby.

For a moment they think they should be embarrassed, should be struggling, should be trying to get away. They think that they don't deserve this affection from an enemy that they would have killed without a second thought, that they wish it had showed them the same mercy of a quick death.

But it is so very relaxing …

And it's so much easier just to listen to the beast's gentle voice, to let its words worm their way into its head. Words can't hurt them, after all, not when they don't even understand them.

It's so much easier just to let themself fade.

They can decide what to do tomorrow.