One shot - First love
Snow falls thick and white over the countryside that night. The inhabitants of the area have cooped themselves up indoors with tea and blankets to keep the cold away, and the white layer that covers everything dims the noise of cars and busses, creating a silence that can only be found in wintertime. Lamp posts cast dull, yellow light onto abandoned sidewalks.
Sullivan stands motionless and lets the snow pile up in his hair. There is no warmth in his skin to make the snowflakes on his face melt. From time to time he blinks his eyes slowly and draws a breath to watch the mist rise from his mouth and dissolve.
Hunger gnaws at his insides, ever present and persistent, weakening him. If not for the need to feed he would be indoors, curled up against Nathaniel’s chest before the fire place. Although, the human has not been well today; the shadows and demons in his mind plague him when he is awake now and do not give him rest. Sullivan wishes there was something he could do -anything- but he can’t cure him.
Muffled footsteps and music reach his ears; he turns his head to see a teenager coming his way, a female dressed warmly with a thick, knitted hat on her head to protect the headphones that are blasting music. Her eyes look right at him, yet they do not see him, and the hunger coils tightly in his stomach.
This one will be his only chance tonight.
Just as she is about to pass him, his hand shoots out and locks around her arm. The veil of ignorance that covers the eyes of most humans vanishes the second they touch, and the female’s eyes grow wide with shock when he wraps an arm around her. He closes the gap between them and crushes his mouth to hers, not concerned with being gentle to his prey. The threads of her voice are thin and slippery on his tongue. She tastes of abandonment, orange juice and arguments, a combination of sour and unpleasant tastes.
He swallows every last one of them down and parts from her with a noise.
Her mouth opens wide to release a scream.
Of course, none comes. She cannot scream when he has stolen her voice. She stumbles away from him, still screaming without a sound, tears popping in the corners of her make up clad eyes.
Strength rushes through him, absolutely delightful and warm, bringing heat to his normally cold skin. He tips his head back and closes his eyes while it spreads throughout his body.
“That’s a pretty neat power you’ve got there, innit?”
His head snaps up to search for the source of the voice.
A boy sits perched atop the nearest lamp post.
No- not a boy.
His eyes widen with confusion as he notices the other’s grey skin and bright, yellow eyes. A mouth too wide to be human flashes a grin at him, filled with sharp teeth, and Sullivan takes a step back in mild horror.
“What are you?”
The creature’s laugh puts a pang of hunger in his stomach, despite having just fed. It’s rich and beautiful, laced with pearls and smooth honey. It reverberates through him like an echo. In one fluid movement the other jumps and lands softly on the ground without hurting himself. It occurs to him that he isn’t wearing a coat, shoes or mittens, even though they are ankle deep in snow.
“That’s like a pot callin’ a kettle black,” the other says, smiling, and slowly approaches him. “I’m wha’ you are. A monster.”
They stand half a foot apart. Up close he can see that those yellow eyes are too large to belong to a human, the lashes thick and black like the hair that sticks up from his head in funny angles. His eyes are drawn to the smile.
And Sullivan thinks that the other, whatever he is, is absolutely breathtaking.
“A monster,” he repeats.
“Yes. You’re no’ aware of wha’ you are, hm?” He cocks his head, observing him. “I see. That’s alright. I’ll teach you.”
He stares at the hand offered to him by the strange, non-human boy, then back at his face. Something prompts him to take it, and the fingers that curl around his own are curiously warm, considering how little clothes the boy wears.
“I’m Frikk.”
Another smile.
“Sullivan,” he replies, confused at how his throat tightens.
He lets Frikk pull him along, away from the snowy street, without second thought.
-
“What is your world like?” Sullivan turns his head on the pillow to look at him. “How is it different?”
“Well, the sky’s yellow, for one. And the moon’s crimson, no’ white.” Smiling, Frikk rolls onto his stomach and rests his head right next to his, slipping a leg in between Sullivan’s. Heat seeps through the clothes. “It’s sort o’ old fashioned, but you’ve got magic an’ brawls an’ all sorts o’ monsters. Weres, vampires, sirens, ghosts an’ ghouls.”
“Monsters like me?”
“Perhaps. I’ve never seen anyone like you before.”
Frikk rises to his knees and straddles his hips, and Sullivan stills completely. The proximity feels strange, in a way he can’t quite describe, and something in his gut tightens uncomfortably. Their eyes meet and Frikk smiles and leans down, touching their noses together. Not even that smile can chase away the unease- or is it anticipation? Excitement? He can’t tell. Minty breath fans his lips, mingling with his own. He swallows hard, whispers the other monster’s name.
Fingers brush his cheeks gently, moving to slip into his hair and rub lightly at his scalp. They curl into the red strands and cause him to shudder.
And then there is a mouth on his own, kissing him, tongue sweeping across his bottom lip to tease his mouth open. Sullivan lets the tongue in and touches his own to it, tentatively, and hears himself moan when Frikk deepens the kiss. His hands come up to bury themselves in the monster’s hair, to keep him locked there in the kiss with him.
It’s his first kiss.
Something warm and unfamiliar gathers low in his abdomen, between his legs, and he groans at the alien sensation. His mouth and skin grow sensitive to touches.
He knows about kissing. He knows about sex.
But he’s always assumed it was a human thing, that he could not melt together with another person the way he’s seen the humans do in movies and on the television. He thought it was for a male and female to do.
Hands grasp the hem of his t-shirt and pulls it up, over his head, and tosses it away. His breath hitches at the way they run over his chest, stroking up and down his sides, and Frikk bends to lavish his collarbones with kisses, nips and licks. He is light headed from the attention, arching up at the touch of a tongue to a nipple, then lips, teeth, biting gently, then harshly, sliding over it until it’s puckered and sore.
“Frikk-“
The monster hushes him and assures him that it’s alright with a quick kiss to his mouth before he moves down his body. His pants are undone and tugged off. Sullivan groans softly, looking down at him just in time to see Frikk’s tongue dart out to lick at-
Oh God.
It’s overwhelming, this odd, intense sensation that washes over him, and he shivers and shudders and arches up, moaning, fisting his hands in the blankets under them. Warmth envelops him, wet and delicious, and god, he’s never felt anything like it before. Frikk’s hands hold down his hips, but he doesn’t notice.
He moans shamelessly and pants, unsure of what’s going to happen, of what to do. There is pressure building up within him, delightful and pleasurable, and he can only squeeze his eyes shut against it. He sees white behind closed eyelids as his whole body tenses and arches off the floor, gasps and noises flying from his open mouth.
It is over almost as suddenly as it began, and Sullivan feels exhaustion set in. Frikk comes to rest on top of him, smiling lazily. They share another kiss, tongues rubbing together slowly, and Frikk tastes strange.
“You’re delicious,” Frikk hums. “So innocent.”
“Sleepy.”
His laughter puts a warmth in his chest. “Then sleep, Sulli.”
His last coherent thought is can monsters love?
-
Frikk teaches him magic. In the start he can’t do anything, much less copy what the boyish monster shows him, but with practice he slowly manages to call on the magic that has lain dormant inside of him for years. It’s weak, barely there, just a trickle of power that tingles in his skin. The monster -his lover now- encourages him when his confidence deflates, and rewards him with kisses when he succeeds.
They stay up entire nights in the small attic where Frikk lives, curled up together, and he listens to stories about the monster world and the creatures in it and can’t suppress the longing to visit his lover’s birth world. He wants to see it for himself. It is Nathaniel that ties him to the human world. Although he spends less time with the man now, he is always on Sullivan’s mind.
Nathaniel’s sanity has been slipping steadily, more noticeably, in the past years. There are times when the man drowns in the hallucinations and night terrors and forgets that he exists, and being with Frikk eases the loneliness.
He puts his head on Frikk’s chest to listen to the slow beat of his heart. It’s a comforting sound. When they touch this way the sound echoes within himself, and he can pretend, for a while, that he too has a physical heart. Fingers trail through his hair. The petting touch makes him sigh.
They are both naked, tangled together under the blankets. Frikk radiates warmth that seeps into his skin and warms him up from the inside. On those rare occasions that he can’t warm up that way the monster kisses him until he is breathless and flushed, shivering with arousal, and slips between his legs. The sex isn’t always gentle. Urgency takes hold of them, sometimes, and it’s all about satisfying the arousal then; they claw at one another, biting, sucking and hissing at the pain and pleasure. Sullivan is content to be the one getting fucked. He wouldn’t know how to go about it if Frikk wanted to switch the roles.
He shivers with hunger. It stings sharply in his stomach, unwelcome but impossible to ignore.
“Frikk…” He sits up.
“Go ahead.”
Sullivan touches his mouth to Frikk’s and initiates the transfer, moaning softly at the taste of that voice on his tongue. Hands pet his neck and hair and reawakens the arousal from a little while ago. He feels Frikk’s mouth curl into a smile.
When they part he is drunk with the taste of honey, silk and amusement.
Frikk laughs at the look on his face and puts a hand on the back of his head to pull him into a kiss.
At times he feels like he might drown in the sound of his lover’s laughter.
-
“Nathaniel! Nathaniel!”
He pounds his fists on the wall.
Sullivan is screaming for the man, but the humans can’t hear him. Can’t see him. To them, he might as well be non-existent.
Somewhere behind this wall they have hidden Nathaniel, and Sullivan can’t reach him, try as he might. He knows why the white coats have taken him, had thought that it would happen sooner or later, but not yet. The other humans have deemed Nathaniel unfit to live by himself anymore -they don’t know that Sullivan takes care of him- and have thus decided to isolate him from society.
From the outside one might think the building to be a prison; the walls are tall, windowless, with few entrances, and none that he can enter without tearing down the heavy, secured doors.
He howls with anger and longing, screaming his throat raw for hours, until dawn breaks and he is too worn out to stand on his own two feet. With the coming of daylight he sinks to the ground and presses his forehead to the cold wall, crying without shedding tears.
Three days later Frikk finds him, and the monster calls his name with such a soft tone that it makes him cry again, long after he has lost all energy to sob. And though he is a small and delicate creature compared to him, Frikk picks him up and carries him all the way home. Sullivan falls asleep before they get there and does not notice that he is taken to the twin bed where he always slept with Nathaniel. The two of them curl up under the covers, and when he wakes in the late afternoon his lover is curled protectively around him. The nights and days blur, melting together; they stay in the house, curled up, and Frikk whispers words in his ear and slides warm hands over his skin when he needs the distraction of pleasure or comfort.
How many days have passed when Sullivan finally finds his voice again he does not know, but the plants on the windowsill are dead and newspapers have piled up on the front porch.
“What should I do?” He looks down at the monster resting on top of him. Frikk raises his head and looks at him with those beautiful, yellow eyes.
“Come with me to the monster world. You don’ belong here.”
“I was born here.”
“But you’re a monster, Sulli. No’ human. Monster,” he insists and reaches up to cut off any protests with kisses. They kiss slowly, tongues and lips teasing, and Sullivan feels himself grow aroused despite the dull ache in his chest. Frikk plays him like a violin, stroking just the right strings to get him where he wants him, and soon enough his legs are wrapped around him, their mouths seared together in wanton kisses that drown moans and harsh pants. Sullivan digs his fingers into his lover’s back and clings to him, rocking back against him to meet his movements.
In the aftermath they rest together, sated, and he closes his eyes and lets Frikk kiss his eyelids.
“Come with me.”
There is a moment’s silence, then a whispered, “Okay.”
He falls asleep to the sound of Frikk’s slow breaths and heart beat.
-
The monster world is everything he imagined it to be, yet entirely different from the picture painted in his imagination. He learns that monsters are violent, angry creatures that need little more than a vague excuse to get into fights. He learns that they eat naught but spoiled food here, and for him, it tastes foul and strange. Their technology is out dated; they don’t have refrigerators, CD-players or televisions and get around in carriages.
But the music, oh, the music, the monsters love music. They need music and dancing like humans need air. It is in their blood and genes, in the fabric of their being, and Sullivan learns, for the first time, that he can dance, though he has hardly tried the subtle, graceful art of it before. Frikk takes him dancing at night and shows him that he too can dance.
In those first weeks Sullivan’s eyes are perpetually wide from new surprises, both pleasant and unpleasant. It makes Frikk laugh at him.
The first monster voice he eats is that of a young female. Frikk brings her to him, urging him to eat it and satisfy his hunger before it grows out of control, so he does, and is puzzled at how sour and oily it tastes on his tongue. Still, it is not so different from a human’s voice.
His magic is stronger here. Perhaps it is because magic is not a thing of fairy tales in this world, but real and true, and his lover instructs him in how to make use of it. They live in a small room and share a bed in which they sleep curled up during the day, touching and kissing without restriction. Save for the absence of Nathaniel, Sullivan is content, and tries not to think of the man. With so much to keep him occupied he succeeds, for the most part. It is only in the mornings, when Frikk sleeps soundly on top of him, that he remembers the pancakes his human companion made him on Sunday mornings, and the violin piece that he wrote for him alone.
At times, though, he thinks something is off about Frikk’s voice or choice of words, but he discards it as figments of his imagination and doesn’t dwell on it. Not even when his lover returns smelling of other people does he truly suspect, for it is not in his nature to be distrusting of those that matter to him.
The first crack in their relationship appears when he understands that Frikk sleeps with monsters other than him. He aches at the thought of his lover lavishing someone else’s collarbones and stomach with kisses and licks, or moaning for them when they sink their teeth into his sensitive throat. For a long time he keeps quiet, hoping that it will eventually pass on its own, but no such thing happens, and he grows angry with him.
They fight.
It’s an awful, violent fight, and Sullivan is too bruised and battered to move after. Frikk leaves him bleeding on the floor of the room they share and does not return until the following night, bringing another monster for him to feed from. He steals the poor monster’s voice, and though he and Frikk make up, things never go back to normal. Part of him understands that what he feels for his lover is not as mutual as he believed it to be, but he is too blinded by love to let himself notice the warning signs.
On the morning of October the 17th the charade ends.
Sullivan shudders as the last traces of pleasure fade from his body and leave him pleasantly tired. He brushes his fingers over his lover’s cheeks and blinks sleepily up at him.
“This has gone on far longer than I intended it to.”
The words ring alarming bells in the back of his head at the lack of an accent. He frowns, confused. “Frikk?”
The monster climbs on top and straddles him, pinning his wrists down. His eyes are abnormally large and alert, nowhere near clouded from sex or sleepiness as he murmurs the words of a spell. Magic locks the wrists together and glues Sullivan's ankles to the bed, leaving him unable to move.
“What are-“
“Shut up, Sullivan.”
The harsh tone puts a pang of hunger in his stomach, but he doesn’t understand what is happening. Why is Frikk looking at him like that? Denial still sits firmly lodged in his mind and refuses to let him see his lover’s true intentions. He shivers at the touch of fingers to his cheek and looks up at him with questions in his eyes.
Frikk’s smile is cruel.
“You’ve made it all too easy for me, silly boy,” he coos and smiles sweetly. “I’ll admit, I enjoyed myself. For a while I was tempted to play with you some more. That’d be rather cruel of me, though, don’t you agree?”
He swallows hard. His mind reels too fast for him to speak.
“You were simply too delightful to resist, and so innocent that it nearly hurt to deceive you.” Frikk leans down to press a kiss to his forehead. “You latched onto me like a child latches onto an imaginary friend. Lying comes as naturally to me as loving does to you, but with you…I hardly needed to make an effort, even, with how eager you were to believe me.”
Smirking, the monster trails fingers over his pale cheeks and nose, trails them through red strands the way he knows Sullivan loves. “And look at you now- you never should have left your precious, insane human,” he says. “Oh, I didn’t string you along simply for fun’s sake. Hardly. Not even someone as delicious as you would be worth that. No, you have something I want.”
The hand slides down to his throat. Fingers close around his and squeeze until he gasps for air and wheezes. “I want this. Your voices. Your ability to steal them. I want to eat every last drop of you and obtain that for myself.” The smirk vanishes, and in its place is a hard, unkind look. He chokes him and bends down to sink teeth into his throat. Pain flares hot and sharp in his skin as Frikk begins to suck the very essence out of him.
“Frikk.” He struggles against the bonds. “I lo-“
A hand closes over his mouth. “I told you to shut up, no? Keep your confessions to yourself.”
Sullivan crumbles hard and fast.
He thinks of the beautiful boy he meet that winter night in the human world, of the boy that first kissed him and taught him what pleasure means, of the boy that laughed so richly that he never wanted him to stop.
Inside, something breaks.
He sees Frikk’s mouth moving, but can’t hear a word of what he says over the roaring of voices within himself. Pressure builds under his skin. It boils and burns and presses, wanting out, wanting to kill, to eat, eat, kill, kill, eat-
It bursts free in an impossibly loud, deafening, bone shattering noise.
Magic restraints snap as their spell caster doubles over, screaming and clutching at his ears. Sullivan knows that he is moving, sees himself reach out for Frikk to tear him apart, to shed blood-
He screams until there is nothing left in him, and only then does he return to his senses.
There is blood on his hands and arms, his chest, his face. It drips from his fringe and onto his eyebrows, getting in his wide eyes. He exhales shakily and looks down at the mutilated body on the bed.
Frikk’s chest has been torn open. Through the gaping hole he can see that the heart is gone, simply torn from its place. His skull is cracked open, and Sullivan feels sick to his stomach when he realises that the brain too has been ripped out. Where are they? Where-
Something thick and gooey slides down his chin. He reaches up to wipe it away, only to end up staring at what clearly is a bit of the missing brain. There is more of it in his mouth.
Revulsion washes over him so fast and hard that he gets dizzy and bends over the edge of the bed, dry heaving and whimpering, pleading for it not to be true, it’s not true, it’s not-
But it is.
Sullivan tore his lover to pieces, cracked open his skull and ripped his chest in two to take out the heart and brain and consume them in pure, undiluted anger and heartbreak. He killed Frikk because he was deceived, and it can’t be undone. He crawls out of the bed, can’t stand to smell the blood that is soaking the sheets -the same blood that stains his skin- and stays on the floor. The dry heaves give way to sobs.
“Frikk, Frikk, Frikk.”
The monster’s name leaves his mouth again and again.
Later, when the shock starts to wear off, he washes and scrubs his skin raw with soap and water, and though he leaves the bath as pale as he ever was, he feels the dried blood on him still as he gets dressed and stumbles out the door. He takes none of his belongings with him.
He goes to the Hills, a lonely, barren place outside the city, and digs himself a deep hole in the ground, then climbs in and covers his body with dirt. The moist ground sucks the tension right out of him and puts him to sleep.
-
It is in that very same place that he meets Anton Nachzehrer seven years later. Little does he know then, as he climbs out from the ground and finds Anton staring at him, that the man will become his world, and the memories of his first lover will pale in comparison.
(a/n: Even though I know Sulli gets his happy ending, I feel really bad for him right now :/ Too tired to spell-check right now.)