[o4] FANFIC: Six Days At The Bottom Of The Ocean
title: six days at the bottom of the ocean
author: proboscus
rating: r
pairing: belphegor/fran
summary: So they dressed him in satin while he slept a drugged sleep, and they took off his boots and replaced them with red slippers. And they brushed his hair and decorated it with flowers and afterwards they tied him up and carried him to the castle, laughing and rejoicing because for now, their daughters were safe.
misc: standard disclaimers apply, written for lycorisc ♥, with lots and lots of love, and as a christmas present! au and plot basically ripped off "beauty & the beast". nothing stellar here but pseudo angst and some sexing. i took liberties again and they're probably ooc but you tell me, it's au. written while this song was on loop. merry christmas everyone!
Look Up - Stars [download]
I laughed and said, Life is easy.
What I meant was, Life is easy with you here,
and when you leave, it will be hard again.
- Miranda July, No One Belongs Here More Than You
i. once upon a time
They bound him, hands and feet, an unsuspecting stranger passing through town on his way to another. He needed a place to stay for the night; the weather had been unforgiving in the weeks leading up to winter, and they slipped something into his drink out of love for their daughters.
They weren’t bad people, you must understand. But even good people do terrible things because love often clouds the judgment. People start wars because of love, they kill people out of jealousy, and this stranger, he was perfect, pale face, pale hair. They would rather see him go than see their daughters go and wonder what became of them. And the prince, he was going to love him, a small boy pretty enough to be a girl.
So they dressed him in satin while he slept a drugged sleep, and they took off his boots and replaced them with red slippers. And they brushed his hair and decorated it with flowers and afterwards they tied him up and carried him to the castle, laughing and rejoicing because for now, their daughters were safe; every mother and father could finally sleep without a wrinkle of worry.
It was evening when the stranger came to. His wrists were chafing badly from rope burn, his wrists were sore. He lay on the ground among dead leaves and wet snow, and someone’s castle loomed over him like a thick dark cloud.
Hello, he said, and the sound of his voice echoed off the walls. Anyone out there? Hello?
He was in a courtyard, but as it was winter, the courtyard was dark and frozen in ice. Gargoyles stooped over him, sneering and sharp-clawed. The mayflowers were dead and the trees were barren and covered in snow. There were double doors in front of him. They opened slowly, creaking on their hinges.
Out of the shadows stepped a young man, pale hair, ashen face. He wore his hair over his eyes and a crown on his head. He crouched in front of the stranger and ran the blunt end of a knife along his cheek. He twisted the knife up the stranger's hair and then cut the chain of flowers loose.
They sent me a good one this time, ushishishi, the young man trilled, and finally cut the stranger free of the ropes. Then he stood up and smiled a blood curdling smile. He pocketed his knife, turned on his heel, and then told the stranger to follow him inside.
ii. there were monsters
There were monsters and there were monsters, and Fran understood the difference between them. The prince was mad, and he was called Belphegor and his castle was a maze of a thousand rooms and doors. It was always cold inside. The windows were frozen shut. The curtains were torn to shreds, and there was a rat infestation. The prince lived alone, in the shadows, with the sharpest of knives and his solitude.
Every winter, the villagers offered him a young lady whom he took as his bride. Every winter, without fail, unless they felt like risking Belphegor’s wrath.
Fran wondered what happened to these young women. Were they killed, their body buried somewhere in the courtyard? Or were they freed after winter, to return to their families and the old lovers they must have left behind?
I just want to go home, Fran said at first, and the prince laughed at him and stooped over. There was his knife again, glinting against the light. He twisted it around Fran’s hair and Fran shivered as the cold metal pressed against his skin.
You are mine now, he said, this will be your new home. You may never leave.
iii. december is darkest
It was cold outside. Snow was falling and Fran had become a prisoner. In the morning he cleaned the furnace. In the evening, he made dinner and washed vegetables under sprays of warm water. He mopped the floors, he swept the stairs and Belphegor watched him with the eye of a hawk. They rarely spoke to each other though they shared a dinner table in a castle full of rooms, in a castle with only one kitchen and a rat infestation.
Fran took care of the rats with poison. When he wasn’t cleaning up after Belphegor he stayed in his room and slept or read a book with a broken spine or watched as it snowed outside. It was a quiet existence that he led and he didn’t really mind at all. Belphegor didn’t pay much attention to him; it seemed all he needed was someone to look over the castle, put food on the table, wash his clothes and press them and fold them neatly by color.
In the castle there were portraits. There used to be a royal family. Belphegor used to have a mother, a father, servants, and a twin brother. He wondered what happened to all of them, why the rooms often stank of mold and dried blood and secrets and despair. He wasn’t afraid of Belphegor, but he was terrified of his unpredictability. He could kill Fran if he felt like it; bury him in the courtyard where he probably kept the bodies of his former brides. Maybe it was where Belphegor kept the bodies of all of those he had killed, his mother, his father, his servants, his twin.
You had a brother, Fran said over dinner one day. They sat at opposite ends of the table, twenty feet of marble separating them and rows of candles flickering poorly and making the silver shine.
I killed him because he was a nuisance, Belphegor said and stabbed his dinner with a fork. The plates clattered along with the glass and silver and Fran nearly jumped out of his seat in surprise.
I mistook him for a cockroach, Belphegor continued. He smiled around his glass of wine.
iv. inside a castle
Without Fran’s consent, time passed.
The young women before Fran were given a room each and these rooms had closetfuls of dresses and fur-lined shoes and satin gloves stitched in gold. The beds in these rooms were queen-sized and Fran often wondered what other tasks besides cooking and cleaning Belphegor’s brides were supposed to undertake. Here he was, given all the luxuries in the world in exchange for a little freedom, and yet there seemed to be something else that Fran was missing.
Brides weren’t just expected to cook and clean, and Fran dreaded the day Belphegor would think of asking for more. Love and servitude were after all two very different things and one didn’t necessarily entail the other. They barely spoke to each other, Belphegor hadn’t asked Fran for anything but his name.
They ate dinner in silence. They passed each other in the hallways the way shadows often passed each other on the walls. They had tea in the study, surrounded by the smell of musty books and fire, Belphegor sprawled on a stuffed arm chair sipping wine and watching Fran who read to him while the fire burned quietly in the hearth. The back of his neck prickled under Belphegor’s gaze, but Fran kept on reading with his head bowed and his cup of tea untouched, until Belphegor fell asleep and his crown slipped off his head.
There would come a time when simply reading him to sleep would not be enough.
v. of glass & snow
The nights were growing longer and colder, and they needed more wood. Fran took the cape he’d made from old bed sheets and someone else’s ball gown, and stepped into a pair of old boots he found lying around the castle. He plodded through the snow in his makeshift clothes which were a lot more comfortable than the dress he was made to wear when he had first arrived at the castle. The clothes were warm and he had missed the comfortable heft of a pair of winter boots crunch crunch crunching through the snow as opposed to the slippery slide of red slippers.
Fran rubbed his hands together and turned his head to the clouds. He blinked the snow out of his eyes and wondered if Belphegor noticed he’d left at all.
He ventured where there were wild strawberries growing just north of the castle, a forest Belphegor told him to stay out of, but he had enough wood now, and there were wild strawberries untouched by the cold as if by some miracle of nature. He knelt by the bush and filled his basket with strawberries and pressed one to his lips and bit through the fruit. The soursweetness bled into his mouth and slipped past his lips and Fran licked his fingers clean and wondered if Belphegor liked strawberries too, if he wouldn’t mind strawberries with his tea or strawberries for dessert, or just strawberries in general.
And then there was a crunch behind him, and Fran whirled around him, expecting Belphegor with his sneer and his: idiot I told you not to go anywhere near here. But instead there was a pack of wolves, silver eyed, their teeth gleaming. Fran stood frozen to the spot, hands and lips stained in red.
vi. death to death
He was called Prince the Ripper. One day, a few years ago, he had gone mad and slaughtered everyone: his mother, his father, the servants, his twin. He buried them in the courtyard under dead leaves and mayflowers. He burned the family portraits and let the ashes collect on the ground with their blood. There was only one family portrait left. It hung in Fran’s room right above the hearth: Belphegor and his twin and his mother and father standing glassy-eyed behind them, decked in the finest silk, wearing expensive jewelry.
He was an assassin sent to kill Belphegor. The villagers had hired him to rid them of the Prince. He was a nuisance; sometimes he came over and took young women hostage. Sometimes he burned a place down.
The pack of wolves circled Fran the way predators often circled their prey. Fran put down his basket of strawberries and wiped his palms on his cape. Then there was a flash of red and black and then there was the Prince. There was Belphegor who stood laughing his blood curdling laugh with knives at his side and his cold smile gleaming against the wintry light.
I told you to stay inside the castle.
We needed more firewood.
You could have used the chairs, the furniture. The bookcase. You shouldn’t have gone out.
I like the book case, I like the furniture. I don’t want to use them for firewood. Fran picked up the strawberries that had rolled onto the ground and put them back inside his basket.
I’m going to kill you when we get back, Belphegor spat, sneering at him and tightening his grip around his knives. In a blink of an eye, there was blood on the snow. In the blink of an eye, the wolves were dead.
Guess we’ll be having wolf for dinner, Belphegor snickered, dragging the body through the snow.
That’s not funny, Fran said. I don’t eat wolf.
You can starve.
You can try making yourself dinner for a change.
Belphegor stopped walking. I just saved you; you should be more grateful, brat.
I didn’t need saving. You just sort of came by and stole all the action.
Belphegor stared at him. Fran stared back. He wished he saw what color Belphegor’s eyes were. He wished he didn’t have to wear his hair in front of his eyes. But a moment passed and still Belphegor said nothing. He continued to plow through the snow, expecting Fran to follow after him. Fran stood, knee-deep in snow, and did.
vii. and barricades
He’d cut himself trying to make dinner, of all things. He was a killer, and yet here he was, a gash on his palm, wolf’s blood on his face and his hair, his shirt. It suited him, Fran thought; red suited him, it was the color of royalty.
Fran took out the bottle of antiseptic and pushed Belphegor down a stool. You’re an idiot. Now shut up and let me fix you.
I can kill you, Belphegor said, One clean cut and you’re dead.
Fran smiled and didn’t say he could kill Belphegor too. Not with knives, but with his charm, and whatever he decided to put into the food. He patted Belphegor’s palm clean and wiped the blood from his face. Belphegor didn’t move, didn’t flinch or shiver even when the antiseptic stung the cut on his palm. Fran wrapped his hand with gauze as fresh meat sizzled on the stove.
There, finished. Leave the kitchen to me and I’ll make dinner myself. Fran looked up at Belphegor and was surprised to find him staring, mouth pulled down, not a sneer, not a smirk, not a smile this time.
The stool clattered on the floor when Belphegor shot out of his seat. And then he seized Fran by the collar, spun him around against the counter and pressed himself against his back, one hand wrapped around his throat but not tightening, the other looped loosely around his waist.
Boys shouldn’t wear dresses, he whispered into Fran’s ear. He tugged at his ear his teeth, nose and lips following a smooth path down Fran’s neck. His lips were soft for someone whose hands have killed so many people. They were warm and chapped and moved down Fran’s neck to rest above where his spine began.
I know your secret, Belphegor said, why don’t you just kill me now, I’ve been dying for a fight. He slipped a hand down Fran’s stomach, closing his hand between his legs and kneading. Come on, kill me now Fran. Do what it is you were paid to do.
He twisted a hand around Fran’s hair, and frowned as the strands slipped clean through his fingers. Your hair is too long, he said after a moment, breath warm over Fran’s ear. You should cut it.
Then he stepped back, kicking the stool aside so that it clattered again and the sound echoed in the emptiness of the room. He turned to leave with his hands inside his pockets. Fran lay with his head on the counter, and his knees trembled. He clenched his fists at his sides and tried to stand.
viii. the big fight
Cut it, Fran said and placed a sharp pointy knife on the bed and stood with his back to Belphegor. You should cut it if it bothers you. I’m not really attached to it. I wouldn’t mind a new hairstyle. Fran bent his head and pulled his hair over his shoulders and down his back, and then he waited as the fire burned quietly in the hearth and the bed creaked when Belphegor rose from it.
The cool press of metal against Fran’s neck made him shiver. Belphegor pushed Fran’s hair aside, over his neck again, over his shoulder. He nosed the soft spot behind his ear, pressed his lips there fleetingly.
Don’t think you can trick me little boy, he whispered, these little games of yours don’t work on me. He pinned Fran to the wall and stabbed the knife just above Fran’s ear, missing him deliberately. Fran shook, but it was neither from worry nor fear.
He looked up at him, at Belphegor with his hair over his eyes, his sinister face and the tight clench of his jaw. He was trapped into place by Belphegor’s knees. They stood knee-to-hip-to-wall, Belphegor leaning down, Fran leaning up.
Fran moved his hands up and cupped Belphegor’s face. He pushed his hair back from his eyes. The knife clattered to the floor.
They stood staring at each other for a very long moment, motionless, no words passing between them. Fran tipped his head up and wrapped his arms around Belphegor’s shoulders.
You have the saddest eyes I’ve ever seen, he said, and tightened his arms.
ix. rest easy
They ran away, all those would-have-been brides. They ran away winter after long winter after long winter. They must have not made it this far, Fran thought and put a hand on Belphegor’s face again to push the hair out of his eyes. Belphegor caught his wrist, pulled it above his head and leaned over his face, sharp white teeth gleaming.
Don’t ever do that again, he hissed, and then pulled Fran’s other arm up above his head. He left teeth marks and bruises as mementos for the morning after. Fran clawed at his back at every inward slide of his cock; he shuddered and whined and bucked his hips and moaned, tucking his face into Belphegor’s shoulder, leaving tiny red marks with his teeth.
They bit each other. They pushed and pulled and licked and yanked. The mattress dipped and creaked with every quick snap of the hips and every smooth stroke and
Belphegor slid his fingers up Fran’s hair. Fran kissed him without his consent.
x. the beginning after the end
Spring came, a step away from the chill of winter, warming the trees. They ate dinner in silence. They passed each other in the hallways invisible as shadows.
They had tea in the study, surrounded by the smell of books and fire, Belphegor sprawled on a stuffed arm chair sipping wine and Fran sitting by his knee, reading to him.
You should get new books, Fran said.
You should go back to wearing dresses, Belphegor said. He put his glass down then placed a hand on top of Fran’s head, letting his hair slip through his fingers.
You should cut your hair. It’s getting too long.
You should cut it, Fran said. I’m not good with scissors. He put the book away along with his cup of tea, and put his head down on Belphegor’s knee. And then a little later they lay on the floor, on top of the carpet, side by side. They pulled their clothes out of the way. They stripped each other clean and laid each other bare to the bone.
author: proboscus
rating: r
pairing: belphegor/fran
summary: So they dressed him in satin while he slept a drugged sleep, and they took off his boots and replaced them with red slippers. And they brushed his hair and decorated it with flowers and afterwards they tied him up and carried him to the castle, laughing and rejoicing because for now, their daughters were safe.
misc: standard disclaimers apply, written for lycorisc ♥, with lots and lots of love, and as a christmas present! au and plot basically ripped off "beauty & the beast". nothing stellar here but pseudo angst and some sexing. i took liberties again and they're probably ooc but you tell me, it's au. written while this song was on loop. merry christmas everyone!
Look Up - Stars [download]
I laughed and said, Life is easy.
What I meant was, Life is easy with you here,
and when you leave, it will be hard again.
- Miranda July, No One Belongs Here More Than You
i. once upon a time
They bound him, hands and feet, an unsuspecting stranger passing through town on his way to another. He needed a place to stay for the night; the weather had been unforgiving in the weeks leading up to winter, and they slipped something into his drink out of love for their daughters.
They weren’t bad people, you must understand. But even good people do terrible things because love often clouds the judgment. People start wars because of love, they kill people out of jealousy, and this stranger, he was perfect, pale face, pale hair. They would rather see him go than see their daughters go and wonder what became of them. And the prince, he was going to love him, a small boy pretty enough to be a girl.
So they dressed him in satin while he slept a drugged sleep, and they took off his boots and replaced them with red slippers. And they brushed his hair and decorated it with flowers and afterwards they tied him up and carried him to the castle, laughing and rejoicing because for now, their daughters were safe; every mother and father could finally sleep without a wrinkle of worry.
It was evening when the stranger came to. His wrists were chafing badly from rope burn, his wrists were sore. He lay on the ground among dead leaves and wet snow, and someone’s castle loomed over him like a thick dark cloud.
Hello, he said, and the sound of his voice echoed off the walls. Anyone out there? Hello?
He was in a courtyard, but as it was winter, the courtyard was dark and frozen in ice. Gargoyles stooped over him, sneering and sharp-clawed. The mayflowers were dead and the trees were barren and covered in snow. There were double doors in front of him. They opened slowly, creaking on their hinges.
Out of the shadows stepped a young man, pale hair, ashen face. He wore his hair over his eyes and a crown on his head. He crouched in front of the stranger and ran the blunt end of a knife along his cheek. He twisted the knife up the stranger's hair and then cut the chain of flowers loose.
They sent me a good one this time, ushishishi, the young man trilled, and finally cut the stranger free of the ropes. Then he stood up and smiled a blood curdling smile. He pocketed his knife, turned on his heel, and then told the stranger to follow him inside.
ii. there were monsters
There were monsters and there were monsters, and Fran understood the difference between them. The prince was mad, and he was called Belphegor and his castle was a maze of a thousand rooms and doors. It was always cold inside. The windows were frozen shut. The curtains were torn to shreds, and there was a rat infestation. The prince lived alone, in the shadows, with the sharpest of knives and his solitude.
Every winter, the villagers offered him a young lady whom he took as his bride. Every winter, without fail, unless they felt like risking Belphegor’s wrath.
Fran wondered what happened to these young women. Were they killed, their body buried somewhere in the courtyard? Or were they freed after winter, to return to their families and the old lovers they must have left behind?
I just want to go home, Fran said at first, and the prince laughed at him and stooped over. There was his knife again, glinting against the light. He twisted it around Fran’s hair and Fran shivered as the cold metal pressed against his skin.
You are mine now, he said, this will be your new home. You may never leave.
iii. december is darkest
It was cold outside. Snow was falling and Fran had become a prisoner. In the morning he cleaned the furnace. In the evening, he made dinner and washed vegetables under sprays of warm water. He mopped the floors, he swept the stairs and Belphegor watched him with the eye of a hawk. They rarely spoke to each other though they shared a dinner table in a castle full of rooms, in a castle with only one kitchen and a rat infestation.
Fran took care of the rats with poison. When he wasn’t cleaning up after Belphegor he stayed in his room and slept or read a book with a broken spine or watched as it snowed outside. It was a quiet existence that he led and he didn’t really mind at all. Belphegor didn’t pay much attention to him; it seemed all he needed was someone to look over the castle, put food on the table, wash his clothes and press them and fold them neatly by color.
In the castle there were portraits. There used to be a royal family. Belphegor used to have a mother, a father, servants, and a twin brother. He wondered what happened to all of them, why the rooms often stank of mold and dried blood and secrets and despair. He wasn’t afraid of Belphegor, but he was terrified of his unpredictability. He could kill Fran if he felt like it; bury him in the courtyard where he probably kept the bodies of his former brides. Maybe it was where Belphegor kept the bodies of all of those he had killed, his mother, his father, his servants, his twin.
You had a brother, Fran said over dinner one day. They sat at opposite ends of the table, twenty feet of marble separating them and rows of candles flickering poorly and making the silver shine.
I killed him because he was a nuisance, Belphegor said and stabbed his dinner with a fork. The plates clattered along with the glass and silver and Fran nearly jumped out of his seat in surprise.
I mistook him for a cockroach, Belphegor continued. He smiled around his glass of wine.
iv. inside a castle
Without Fran’s consent, time passed.
The young women before Fran were given a room each and these rooms had closetfuls of dresses and fur-lined shoes and satin gloves stitched in gold. The beds in these rooms were queen-sized and Fran often wondered what other tasks besides cooking and cleaning Belphegor’s brides were supposed to undertake. Here he was, given all the luxuries in the world in exchange for a little freedom, and yet there seemed to be something else that Fran was missing.
Brides weren’t just expected to cook and clean, and Fran dreaded the day Belphegor would think of asking for more. Love and servitude were after all two very different things and one didn’t necessarily entail the other. They barely spoke to each other, Belphegor hadn’t asked Fran for anything but his name.
They ate dinner in silence. They passed each other in the hallways the way shadows often passed each other on the walls. They had tea in the study, surrounded by the smell of musty books and fire, Belphegor sprawled on a stuffed arm chair sipping wine and watching Fran who read to him while the fire burned quietly in the hearth. The back of his neck prickled under Belphegor’s gaze, but Fran kept on reading with his head bowed and his cup of tea untouched, until Belphegor fell asleep and his crown slipped off his head.
There would come a time when simply reading him to sleep would not be enough.
v. of glass & snow
The nights were growing longer and colder, and they needed more wood. Fran took the cape he’d made from old bed sheets and someone else’s ball gown, and stepped into a pair of old boots he found lying around the castle. He plodded through the snow in his makeshift clothes which were a lot more comfortable than the dress he was made to wear when he had first arrived at the castle. The clothes were warm and he had missed the comfortable heft of a pair of winter boots crunch crunch crunching through the snow as opposed to the slippery slide of red slippers.
Fran rubbed his hands together and turned his head to the clouds. He blinked the snow out of his eyes and wondered if Belphegor noticed he’d left at all.
He ventured where there were wild strawberries growing just north of the castle, a forest Belphegor told him to stay out of, but he had enough wood now, and there were wild strawberries untouched by the cold as if by some miracle of nature. He knelt by the bush and filled his basket with strawberries and pressed one to his lips and bit through the fruit. The soursweetness bled into his mouth and slipped past his lips and Fran licked his fingers clean and wondered if Belphegor liked strawberries too, if he wouldn’t mind strawberries with his tea or strawberries for dessert, or just strawberries in general.
And then there was a crunch behind him, and Fran whirled around him, expecting Belphegor with his sneer and his: idiot I told you not to go anywhere near here. But instead there was a pack of wolves, silver eyed, their teeth gleaming. Fran stood frozen to the spot, hands and lips stained in red.
vi. death to death
He was called Prince the Ripper. One day, a few years ago, he had gone mad and slaughtered everyone: his mother, his father, the servants, his twin. He buried them in the courtyard under dead leaves and mayflowers. He burned the family portraits and let the ashes collect on the ground with their blood. There was only one family portrait left. It hung in Fran’s room right above the hearth: Belphegor and his twin and his mother and father standing glassy-eyed behind them, decked in the finest silk, wearing expensive jewelry.
He was an assassin sent to kill Belphegor. The villagers had hired him to rid them of the Prince. He was a nuisance; sometimes he came over and took young women hostage. Sometimes he burned a place down.
The pack of wolves circled Fran the way predators often circled their prey. Fran put down his basket of strawberries and wiped his palms on his cape. Then there was a flash of red and black and then there was the Prince. There was Belphegor who stood laughing his blood curdling laugh with knives at his side and his cold smile gleaming against the wintry light.
I told you to stay inside the castle.
We needed more firewood.
You could have used the chairs, the furniture. The bookcase. You shouldn’t have gone out.
I like the book case, I like the furniture. I don’t want to use them for firewood. Fran picked up the strawberries that had rolled onto the ground and put them back inside his basket.
I’m going to kill you when we get back, Belphegor spat, sneering at him and tightening his grip around his knives. In a blink of an eye, there was blood on the snow. In the blink of an eye, the wolves were dead.
Guess we’ll be having wolf for dinner, Belphegor snickered, dragging the body through the snow.
That’s not funny, Fran said. I don’t eat wolf.
You can starve.
You can try making yourself dinner for a change.
Belphegor stopped walking. I just saved you; you should be more grateful, brat.
I didn’t need saving. You just sort of came by and stole all the action.
Belphegor stared at him. Fran stared back. He wished he saw what color Belphegor’s eyes were. He wished he didn’t have to wear his hair in front of his eyes. But a moment passed and still Belphegor said nothing. He continued to plow through the snow, expecting Fran to follow after him. Fran stood, knee-deep in snow, and did.
vii. and barricades
He’d cut himself trying to make dinner, of all things. He was a killer, and yet here he was, a gash on his palm, wolf’s blood on his face and his hair, his shirt. It suited him, Fran thought; red suited him, it was the color of royalty.
Fran took out the bottle of antiseptic and pushed Belphegor down a stool. You’re an idiot. Now shut up and let me fix you.
I can kill you, Belphegor said, One clean cut and you’re dead.
Fran smiled and didn’t say he could kill Belphegor too. Not with knives, but with his charm, and whatever he decided to put into the food. He patted Belphegor’s palm clean and wiped the blood from his face. Belphegor didn’t move, didn’t flinch or shiver even when the antiseptic stung the cut on his palm. Fran wrapped his hand with gauze as fresh meat sizzled on the stove.
There, finished. Leave the kitchen to me and I’ll make dinner myself. Fran looked up at Belphegor and was surprised to find him staring, mouth pulled down, not a sneer, not a smirk, not a smile this time.
The stool clattered on the floor when Belphegor shot out of his seat. And then he seized Fran by the collar, spun him around against the counter and pressed himself against his back, one hand wrapped around his throat but not tightening, the other looped loosely around his waist.
Boys shouldn’t wear dresses, he whispered into Fran’s ear. He tugged at his ear his teeth, nose and lips following a smooth path down Fran’s neck. His lips were soft for someone whose hands have killed so many people. They were warm and chapped and moved down Fran’s neck to rest above where his spine began.
I know your secret, Belphegor said, why don’t you just kill me now, I’ve been dying for a fight. He slipped a hand down Fran’s stomach, closing his hand between his legs and kneading. Come on, kill me now Fran. Do what it is you were paid to do.
He twisted a hand around Fran’s hair, and frowned as the strands slipped clean through his fingers. Your hair is too long, he said after a moment, breath warm over Fran’s ear. You should cut it.
Then he stepped back, kicking the stool aside so that it clattered again and the sound echoed in the emptiness of the room. He turned to leave with his hands inside his pockets. Fran lay with his head on the counter, and his knees trembled. He clenched his fists at his sides and tried to stand.
viii. the big fight
Cut it, Fran said and placed a sharp pointy knife on the bed and stood with his back to Belphegor. You should cut it if it bothers you. I’m not really attached to it. I wouldn’t mind a new hairstyle. Fran bent his head and pulled his hair over his shoulders and down his back, and then he waited as the fire burned quietly in the hearth and the bed creaked when Belphegor rose from it.
The cool press of metal against Fran’s neck made him shiver. Belphegor pushed Fran’s hair aside, over his neck again, over his shoulder. He nosed the soft spot behind his ear, pressed his lips there fleetingly.
Don’t think you can trick me little boy, he whispered, these little games of yours don’t work on me. He pinned Fran to the wall and stabbed the knife just above Fran’s ear, missing him deliberately. Fran shook, but it was neither from worry nor fear.
He looked up at him, at Belphegor with his hair over his eyes, his sinister face and the tight clench of his jaw. He was trapped into place by Belphegor’s knees. They stood knee-to-hip-to-wall, Belphegor leaning down, Fran leaning up.
Fran moved his hands up and cupped Belphegor’s face. He pushed his hair back from his eyes. The knife clattered to the floor.
They stood staring at each other for a very long moment, motionless, no words passing between them. Fran tipped his head up and wrapped his arms around Belphegor’s shoulders.
You have the saddest eyes I’ve ever seen, he said, and tightened his arms.
ix. rest easy
They ran away, all those would-have-been brides. They ran away winter after long winter after long winter. They must have not made it this far, Fran thought and put a hand on Belphegor’s face again to push the hair out of his eyes. Belphegor caught his wrist, pulled it above his head and leaned over his face, sharp white teeth gleaming.
Don’t ever do that again, he hissed, and then pulled Fran’s other arm up above his head. He left teeth marks and bruises as mementos for the morning after. Fran clawed at his back at every inward slide of his cock; he shuddered and whined and bucked his hips and moaned, tucking his face into Belphegor’s shoulder, leaving tiny red marks with his teeth.
They bit each other. They pushed and pulled and licked and yanked. The mattress dipped and creaked with every quick snap of the hips and every smooth stroke and
Belphegor slid his fingers up Fran’s hair. Fran kissed him without his consent.
x. the beginning after the end
Spring came, a step away from the chill of winter, warming the trees. They ate dinner in silence. They passed each other in the hallways invisible as shadows.
They had tea in the study, surrounded by the smell of books and fire, Belphegor sprawled on a stuffed arm chair sipping wine and Fran sitting by his knee, reading to him.
You should get new books, Fran said.
You should go back to wearing dresses, Belphegor said. He put his glass down then placed a hand on top of Fran’s head, letting his hair slip through his fingers.
You should cut your hair. It’s getting too long.
You should cut it, Fran said. I’m not good with scissors. He put the book away along with his cup of tea, and put his head down on Belphegor’s knee. And then a little later they lay on the floor, on top of the carpet, side by side. They pulled their clothes out of the way. They stripped each other clean and laid each other bare to the bone.