Archive of Our Own

Martin knelt. The confession booth was small and dark, and he had little room to shuffle on his knees. It would remind him more of the Forever Blind or the Buried if it weren’t for the way the Eye permeated the space. Although perhaps that was just the scent of the priest Elias, heavy here even when he wasn’t. 

He’d be there shortly, but he always liked to make Martin wait first. And to make his parishioners wait, too, anxiously trying to catch a glimpse of the priest through the ornate shutter between the tiny booths. Sometimes they seemed to sense Martin was there, out of sight, but he wasn’t allowed to answer their timid “Hello? Is anyone there?” A facet of the Eye, he figured. Unsure if they were being Watched or not as they waited. Unsure if they were being Judged. 

Martin had read in one of the older texts, the ones he wasn’t supposed to read as an apprentice but were easy enough to thumb through during his endless days in the catacombs, that structures much like this one were used in the time before the Fears. People would ask to be resolved of their sins by a single omnipotent God. Martin imagined another one of the Fears declaring themselves the one true God and the turmoil that would follow. Already, the Eye’s higher status caused tension at the domain borders, although the Church kept things in order. Elias kept things in order.

The door opened silently; one of Martin’s tasks was to keep the hinges very well oiled so Eias could slip in undetected. He smiled down at Martin as the last sliver of light passed over his face, and then pulled his cock out through his robes. It was only semi-hard with the anticipation of the confession, and Martin took it into his mouth obediently, his eyes fluttering closed when Elias could no longer see him. 

“Tell me why you are here,” Elias said. Martin knew he grinned wider when the person on the other side gasped at his sudden voice. He could tell by the mirrored twitch of him on his tongue. 

“Father, feast upon this wretched thing and intercede if you should so choose,” the visitor said in a hushed and worried voice. 

Elias’ cock grew harder. “You may begin,” he said, a heavy hand resting solidly on Martin’s head. He was talking to both of them. As the man on the other side began nervously detailing a recurring nightmare, full of crawling things, Martin slowly started to bob his head, working more of the priest into his mouth. 

He was good at this task by now, knowing Elias’ preferences by heart and wrapping his fists easily over his aching thumbs to keep his throat from flexing against Elias’ length.  Confessions ran from a few minutes to over a half hour, depending on how desperate the parishioner was.  Elias would not stand for being pushed to the edge before he’d drunk his fill of fear, and Martin was expected to patiently warm his cock until he was allowed to leave.  An easy job, compared to scrubbing each of the fourteen shrines along the walls of the Sanctuary, or the mountains of dusty tomes Elias had him painstakingly copying down every second he was free.  Martin hated copying. 

To distract himself from the wavering voice floating from the other side of the confession booth, Martin started thinking about the books he’d stashed beneath his tiny cot that awaited him at the end of the day.  He was allowed a candle in his cell - the oppressive Dark was one of the Fears Elias disliked the most - and Martin often spent his meagre sleeping hours hunched over his latest find from the catacomb libraries.  Yesterday, he’d come across another supposedly apocryphal text that was referenced often in the lists of outdated church literature.  It was one of the ones Elias so despised, that reflected badly on the name of their founder, Jonah Magnus.  He’d explained to Martin that in the early days of the change, the other Fears had been so furious at being brought in to serve underneath the Eye that some of their followers had maliciously begun writing false histories of how it came about at all.  That’s all it was, according to Elias - but Martin had always preferred to come to his own conclusions.

Still, he knew better than to tell the priest about his research.  Martin researching at all was a sore spot for Elias, who had agreed to take him in so benevolently all those years ago, when his mother had surrendered him here.  Martin’s tasks were what kept him fed and housed and protected from the landscape of fear he served, and individual study, while allowed in small doses, came secondary.  He’d tell Elias about his latest interest, eventually.  But how could he now, when his mouth was so full?

The visitor on the other side of the booth began crying, and Elias’ cock swelled and filled to its full length inside Martin’s throat.  He coughed silently, wrapped his lips firmly around the base, and swallowed.  Elias put a warning hand in his hair, and Martin relaxed as much as he could.

“That’s it,” Elias sighed. He was hardly hiding his pleasure, although it could always be dismissed as the joy of serving the Fears and not the shallow thrusts he was making against Martin’s spasming soft palette. “Revel in the terror. Feel it burrow into your skin.” The visitor sobbed harder, and Elias’s hand twisted sharply in Martin’s curls. “Feel it feast on you, and thank the Corruption for its infinite mercy in not consuming you whole.”

“Thank you,” the visitor repeated, although his voice was shaking and broken, and he sounded anything but grateful. “Thank you, Oh Crawling Rot, thank you, thank—“

His voice seized as he was plunged into his waking nightmare, and Elias groaned, his cock throbbing and hot in Martin’s mouth. He was close, the confession almost over, but not quite. Not enough for Martin to swallow. Drool spilled from his mouth and landed in a damp patch on his thighs, and he struggled to breathe as Elias’ thrusts got harder. Thank you, Choke, Too Close I Cannot Breathe , he thought deliriously, just to keep his panic from welling up. Thank you, Forever Deep Below .

Elias spilled into his throat, and Martin swallowed dutifully, the bitter taste cloying on the back of his working tongue. “To be gifted with the Priest’s Blessing ,” Elias always said when he did this outside of confession, “ is an honour you do not truly deserve.” It was why Martin was only ever “blessed” in his mouth — he didn’t deserve it anywhere else. 

Martin didn’t mind so much now. It was better than cleaning the confession booth later. 

The visitor was sobbing again, hacking, awful noises that drowned out the wetter ones from Martin’s mouth. “Go, and be guarded by the Ceaseless Watcher and the Rot,” Elias said, sounding almost breathless, and utterly dismissive. He wasn’t talking to both of them this time, though, holding Martin in place. Martin breathed slowly through his nose. His knees and throat ached and the corners of his mouth were raw. 

“We have two followers today,” Elias whispered, sounding darkly thrilled. “Stay.”

Martin dug his nails into the meat of his palms and settled deeper into his position, and they started again. 

By the time he was free to go, Martin was hot and slightly dizzy, and his entire body ached with the tension. Stepping blearily back into the light, he stretched as he took in the huge and empty Sanctuary with its high windows. They felt like they showed the whole world, so close and yet so far away. From the outside, Martin knew, they were black and reflective. No one outside the Church could know who — or what — was watching, when.

Elias was waiting for him at the door to the catacombs, as unruffled and stern as ever, tapping his foot impatiently as if he didn’t just roughly take Martin’s mouth twice . Martin shuddered. The second confession had been in regards to the Desolation, one of the entities that scared him the most. He would never say that to Elias, but he had the sinking sense Elias knew just from the extra glint in his eye he always got when it came up and Martin was around.

If he did, he didn’t bring it up this time at least, instead gesturing at the gaping door, annoyance clear on his face. “Come now, Martin. The tomes won’t copy themselves.”

Martin ducked his head, stepping past Elias into the long and narrow stairwell. “Yes, Elias,” he said, trying not to sound as disappointed as he felt. It had been weeks since he was allowed more than an hour out of the catacombs and confession, and already the monotony and isolation of the work pressed close to his skin. But who was he to argue? 

Before he could turn away, however, Elias grabbed his chin and made him look into his flashing eyes. “May the Ceaseless Watcher guard you,” he said. His grip was firm, his gaze appraising, and Martin hated the muted thrill his attention always twinged in his stomach. Years of craving someone’s impossible approval could do that to you. 

“And may you never be free from Its sight,” Martin answered.

Elias smiled and tapped his hand against Martin’s cheek, hard enough to make him wince. Then he turned away, saying, “And clean yourself up, Martin. You’re a mess.”

It was as he pulled himself wearily into the washing chamber to splash cold water on his sticky face that he heard voices floating from the open door to the Sanctuary.  Martin shivered and left the bowl half-empty as he hurried out and down the stairs to the catacombs before the new visitors could see him.  Elias didn’t like it when he talked to the worshippers; he was too cheerful, too instinctively comforting, even under the long hood of his robes.  The role of an acolyte was to silently herd the frightened masses to their chosen shrine, swing foul-smelling incense as they prayed and remind them of Beholding’s constant gaze.  Martin was, it couldn’t be denied, fundamentally unsuited for such expectations.  

The only thing he was good for was scratching down copies of ancient books and warming the high Priest’s cock, and Elias took no small pleasure in reminding him of this.

He sighed heavily as he reached the beginning of the long, rough-hewn hallway at the bottom of the stairs.  His cell was at the end, but he didn’t feel like returning there just yet.  And besides, he was hungry, and Rosie in the kitchen had slipped him an extra hunk of cheese and a large apple that morning.  It had lingered on Martin’s mind all day, the anticipation made sweeter by where he’d stashed it to find later.

His fingers tingling in muted excitement, he made a right turn and opened a small, dark wooden door that rubbed harshly against the floor as he pushed it open enough to slip through.  The stairs that welcomed him behind this doorway were smaller, dirtier; they made dangerous creaks as Martin placed his weight carefully on each one.  He reached into his pockets and retrieved one of the tiny candles he carried for just this purpose, then scrabbled around in the dusty crevices of the wall to find the flint and steel he’d hidden there.  Candle lit, he proceeded giddily down the rest of the stairwell until he reached the open alcove where his snack was hidden and the mural awaited.

The mural took up an entire wall, maybe 20 feet tall. It was lit by a series of mirrors facing the smallest of skinny windows allotted to the catacombs, especially this deep, but it seemed to glow with a light of its own. Martin sat slowly on the old stone altar in front of the painting, staring up at it reverently. He never tired of it. 

The figure was striking, dramatically taking up the space. It was a man, thin and angular, his arms outstretched. His hair, long, dark, and streaked with grey, floated around him as if he were underwater. There were scars littering his body, and Martin could make out the distinct evidence of at least six of the fourteen entities. His expression was stoic, and he stared brazenly out into the darkness, as if in challenge. And he stared and he stared and he stared, the many bright green eyes dotting his face and arms and chest breathtaking, like precious stones set in their array. He was beautiful. 

The Messenger. 

A burning part of Martin wanted to ask Elias about the mural — who painted it, and when, and how accurate it was, and what was it and the altar for anyways — but he didn’t want to let on that he’d found it. It was a secret place, special to him, and he wasn’t quite willing to let his curiosity kill the cat, as it were. Not yet. 

Pulling out his apple, he shook his head. It wasn’t as if Elias would likely answer him, anyways. He’d probably just forbid him to return, and brick over the door just to spite him. 

He stared back up at the mural. Maybe the Messenger could tell him himself. He almost laughed at the idea, biting into his apple. The Messenger, coming down to tell him whether the painting he was enamoured by was accurate. 

At least he wouldn’t lie. There was no Twisted Deceit in those eyes. The Messenger wouldn’t allow it, if the parables were true. 

Martin sucked in a startled breath. That was borderline blasphemous. Of course the parables were true. In the beginning, the Messenger had travelled through the fourteen realms to bring the Fears into the world. Before, they had been trapped and writhing in terrible agony, and now they oversaw the world as they should. 

The Messenger had endured fire and destruction, pest and plague, war and slaughter, gore and viscera, loneliness, suffocation, the void, the darkness, the creatures of the night, the serpents, and the End, although it did not claim him. All under the watchful Eye, until he had suffered enough that he was able to break the barrier between this world and the next, and unleash the entities to their rightful seats of power. 

It left him beyond human, but not quite deity. He relayed the secrets of the gods, and kept a record of their agonies.

Well, he relayed secrets to prophets , but there hadn’t been one of those in at least a century. Now there was just the Church and its Priest, Elias. 

Martin placed the core of his apple back in his bag, pulling out the bread and cheese instead. The books hidden in his cell did not dispute the parables. They simply added to them, filling in gaps otherwise discouraged to be filled. 

For example, the Messenger’s name was Jon.

Martin tugged a small book out of his pocket, and then a stunted quill and stained inkwell. They were scraps he was able to negotiate from storage for his own use. He flipped through the mostly full pages, and settled on a new one. “Jon,” he muttered to himself. It felt like a key detail for his next poem. “Now given only title, never name…”

For a while, his repast laid forgotten, the echoing chamber filled with only the scratching sound of his quill. But when the sun had shifted enough for the light to cast only faintly across Jon’s— the Messenger’s eyes, Martin realised how long he’d been there, and how very much he needed to get back.

Luckily, Elias wasn’t waiting for him when he rushed into his small bedchamber where he was currently copying a very old and very dull text. Even better, Tim and Sasha were. 

“Martin! There you are!” Tim said, stepping forward and pulling him into a hug.  Martin tried not to show how delighted he was to be crushed into Tim’s strong arms, how much he’d missed the gentle touch of another besides Elias.  Sasha wasn’t as much of a physically affectionate person, but she ruffled Martin’s hair and nudged his bare foot with her own booted one.  The two of them had been travelling for the past year, rarely able to make it back to the Church and its old library as they used to as novice scholars.  Martin still found it hard to understand why they had bonded with him of all people, but he had precious few friends as it was and was hardly about to complain.

“How was, um, how was your trip?” he asked, shuffling over to sit on his bed and let Sasha have the desk chair.  Tim leaned against the edge of it, and Martin winced at how close his elbow was to the pot of ink.  “Learn lots of things?”

Sasha laughed.  “Yes, as it happens.  Lots of material for our thesis on the intersection between the Dark and the Hunt.”

“Did you, ah. . .” Martin hazarded, and glanced down at the floor, his face heating.  “Make the pilgrimage?  Like you wanted?”

Tim’s eyes flashed in excitement, and he pulled his shirt up to reveal two curling scars beneath his nipples.  “There and back again, mostly intact.”

“Wow,” Martin sighed.  “You’re so lucky.  How did it f-feel?  To um. . .”

“It hurt,” Tim said seriously, letting his shirt back down, “but it was amazing, Martin.  The domain we visited was an old one, and the Flesh avatar there hadn’t had someone like us in a long time, but she. . .” He grinned, and turned around proudly, showing off his new body.  “She knew exactly what to do with me.”

“I just asked her to take away my cock,” Sasha volunteered.

“How fast was it?”  Martin’s own transition was being slowly, painstakingly overseen by Elias and his limited ability to wield the powers of the Flesh.  Some days he thought nothing was happening to him at all, that Elias was lying about all of it.  Other days, he cried tears of joy when he saw his reflection and could find a difference between the child’s face he remembered and the man he hoped he was now.  He would give anything to go on the pilgrimages others like Tim and Sasha had taken, to instantly mould his body into what it should be.  Elias, obviously, wouldn’t hear of it.

“Immediate,” Sasha told him, seemingly oblivious to his inner struggle.  “Our studies went by much easier after.”

“Wow,” Martin repeated wistfully.  “I can imagine.”

He couldn’t, really, but he could imagine imagining , all the restless daydreaming about the journey, about how exactly to request the changes he wanted. He wasn’t exactly sure what they would be. He never allowed himself to dream that far; it hurt too much to wake up, after. 

“What about you?” Tim asked, throwing an arm over Martin’s shoulders. 

Martin winced a bit. “Just…this, I suppose.”

Sasha nodded. “That makes sense.”

But Tim nudged Martin’s ribs with his knuckles. “And your extracurriculars? What forbidden knowledge have you been squirrelling away?”

Sasha did look interested then, turning to Martin with those curious eyes of hers. She never stated she was Eye aligned, but Martin had his suspicions. 

Martin couldn’t help but glance around a bit nervously, just in case Elias had suddenly appeared. “Well—“

“Oh I knew it,” Tim said delightedly. “Go on, then.”

Martin sighed. He knew he was going to get teased about it, as always. “I found out more about the Messenger.”

“You and the Messenger,” Sasha said as she rolled her eyes, although not unkindly. “I don’t think I’ll ever get your obsession.”

“It’s not an obsession! ”

“Really.” Sasha gave him a dry look. “And where were you before you came here?”

Martin bit his lip, avoiding her eyes. “Well, I, er—“

“You were at the mural again,” Sasha answered for him. 

Martin blushed. “Yes, okay, yes.” He held up his hands in surrender. “It’s still about him. I found a book that says he had a name before the Messenger.” He took a small breath. “Jon.”

He tried to keep the dreaminess out of his voice, but judging by Tim’s borderline guffaw, he did not manage it. 

“You’re in love, admit it!”

Martin lightly shoved Tim’s shoulder. “I’m not in love with a god , Tim, come off it.”

Tim raised his eyebrows. “One, he’s not a god, and two, you’re at least in love with his portrait.”

Martin just scoffed at him. He didn’t really have the words to argue. At best he could discuss possible blasphemy, but neither Tim nor Sasha truly cared about the sanctity of the parables. They’d never say so in mixed company, but all three knew Martin was the only religious one. And technically Tim was right. He wasn’t a god. 

“ Anyways ,” Martin said, purposefully turning to just face Sasha, “I also found a first century text that suggests Jonah Magnus…” He dropped his voice to a whisper. It would be the switch if Elias heard him now. “It suggests that Jonah Magnus orchestrated the entire change in a grasp for power, to establish the Church for the Eye. Jon was manipulated into completing the travels through the realms against his will.”

Tim’s face paled, while Sasha’s only grew sharper with interest. “Oh, the Church would absolutely hate if that got around,” she said. Then, a bit eager, “Do you have it here?”

“Uh - um,” Martin said foolishly, his mind catching up with him to remind him that yes, the Church would hate it if that story started spreading around, and Martin would probably hate being the one who let it out even more once Elias got a hold of him.  “I don’t know - if -”

“Oh come on, Martin, I just want to read it,” said the woman who had once confided that her sole goal before she died was to lessen the grip that the Fears had on the world through information and research.  “See if the Messenger really is named Jon, or if you made that up so you could have a crush with a human name.”

“He is named Jon,” Martin said sullenly, toeing the book in question out from underneath his bed reluctantly.  “He didn’t know what the world would turn into, and he - he’s the reason it’s all held together right now.”

“Uh huh,” Sasha said, picking up the tome and flipping it open to scan, making interested noises in the back of her throat as she read.

“I have to admit, Marto,” Tim said, glancing over Sasha’s shoulder.  “Never took you for the blasphemous type, but I’m proud.”

“I’m not blaspheming!” Martin felt his face go red again.  “Jonah Magnus might have founded the Church, but that doesn’t - he’s not representative of what it means, you know, plus he’s dead, so what does it matter if he wasn’t a good person?”  What mattered, though he wouldn’t say it to Tim and Sasha, was the growing evidence that the Messenger, when he’d been in human form, had tried to be a good person.  And that - that meant something to Martin, the trying, even if it had all been moot in the end when the Change happened. 

“Your Priest is pretty tetchy about not slandering your founder’s good name,” Tim pointed out.

“Well,” Martin said, and sighed.  “Well, that’s Elias.”

“Yes, Martin,” Sasha said delightedly.

“Anyway, Elias was raised to be a Priest,” Martin said, more defensively than he meant to.  Unthinking, he reached out to the small shelf behind his cot and took hold of the tiny stuffed cow he’d brought with him on the day his mother had left him here.  But for the clothes he’d had on, it had been his only worldly possession, a reminder of the sweet animals he’d left behind.  He held it to his chest as he continued, “His father was a Priest too, and his father was the second Priest to take office after Jonah Magnus’ death.  Of course he doesn’t want to criticise the man who started the Church.”

“Hmm,” Tim said doubtfully.

“But you believe this?” Sasha asked, tapping the page.  “You think this - Jon - he was manipulated by Jonah?”

“I - I do, yeah.  It makes way more sense than him just choosing to do it, you know?  He doesn’t seem like the kind of person to, um.  To choose to go through all that.”  Martin winced.  What did he know about what kind of person the Messenger had been?  It was all just wishful thinking, if he was being completely honest with himself.  

Luckily, that was something he rarely ever was.

Martin made a sputtering sound when Tim started patting him down. “Where is it then?”

“What— stop!— Tim what are you doing?”

Tim took a step back with a small, disappointed huff. “I was looking for that little book you carry around. I wanted to check how sappy your poetry has gotten with your new revelations.”

Martin crossed his arms defensively across his chest. “I wouldn’t let you read it even if you did find it.” Trying not to be too obvious, he surreptitiously touched his inner pocket. 

His stomach sank to find it empty, and he glanced around to make sure it wasn’t on the floor somewhere. Tim could not get his hands on it. 

And he…wouldn’t. The book was nowhere to be seen. He must have left it—

“—Martin!”

All three of them winced at the sound of Elias’ voice. Martin tucked the stuffed cow hurriedly into his bedcovers, not wanting Elias to see it and take it away.

“Sorry,” Tim whispered under his breath as Elias’ steps came rapidly towards them. Sasha reached out to give his hand a quick squeeze. They all faced the door to Martin’s room, holding their breaths, as Eias rounded the corner. 

Elias stopped when he saw the three of them, his hands clasped behind his back. His face steeled in firm disapproval. “Ah. Sasha and Tim. I didn’t know we were expecting you.”

“Your Grace,” they both said, bowing slightly and averting their eyes. 

Martin bowed too, grimacing, “Elias, I—“

“— you were supposed to be doing your work in service of the Church that so kindly took you in.” His eyes flashed. “Or did you forget?”

Martin made a pained noise as Elias’ eyes intensified, and static began to fill his ears. The feelings came over him in an awful wave, tugging him under and into himself. He was suddenly crushed under the weight of how he’d felt that day, the day his mother had dragged him to the gates of the Church. She had been yelling, screaming at him that if they wouldn’t have him, he might as well feed himself to a Fear, because he couldn’t come home. All these years later, and the heartbreak was just as overwhelming as it had been when it happened, the tears streaming down his face just as hot. 

“Please, don’t leave me! I’ll be better! I promise, I promise, mother, please. ” Martin fell to his knees, his nails digging into the withered grass at the Church gateway, and at the same time scrabbling against the stone of his cell floor. His voice broke. “ I’m sorry. Please.

 “I love you .”

Elias’ voice overtook the shrill sound of his mother and the static as Martin slowly came to. He was shaking, weeping into the floor, his already abused knees screaming in protest. Beside him, Sasha and Tim stood stiffly, trying to give him his privacy as Elias yanked his worst memories out of his head. When Martin glanced up from this angle, he could see Elias was hard beneath his robes, and it nearly made him sick. 

“You really ought to know better,” he was saying. “Insolence never ends well for you. Hopefully learning your lesson in front of your friends will make it stick.” He made no secret of his dislike for the travelling scholars. They were only allowed in because the Eye so craved knowledge. The Church, on the other hand…

“I’m sorry, Elias,” Martin said around shaking breaths. “I’m sorry, please, no more.”

Elias looked down at him with no forgiveness in his eyes. “Thank the Forsaken,” he said archly. 

It might not have been a command, but Martin, desperate to be released from his torment, took it as one.  “Thank you, Forsaken,” he sniffled into the floor.  “Thank you, oh One Who Walks Alone.  Thank you.”

“I expect a finished copy tomorrow morning,” Elias told him coldly.  “Or by the end of the week, if you truly can’t force those useless hands of yours to go faster.”  He nodded at Tim and Sasha.  “Good day.  May the Ceaseless Watcher guard you.”

“And may you never be free from Its sight,” Sasha spat.  Tim mumbled the words along with her, his eyes cast down worriedly at Martin, who hadn’t risen from his knees.  When Elias slammed the door shut on them, he crouched next to him, placing hesitant hands on his shaking back.

“Don’t - don’t cry, Martin,” he said awkwardly.  “Sasha and I will copy it for you.  We're faster at it..”

“Yes,” Sasha agreed, pulling the half-copied book towards her and beginning without another word.  Martin shook his head and tried to control his heaving chest as Tim helped him from the ground and settled him down on his cot.  He wiped his eyes, trembling.  Elias would know.  Elias always knew.

He couldn’t bring himself to tell Sasha to stop, though.  His fingers ached from the long hours of transcribing yesterday, and the day before, and every day before that since he could remember.  He curled up into his pillow, smothering his tears.  For just a moment, he imagined running away, hiding somewhere in a domain of the Stranger, or even taking refuge in the halls of the Twisted Deceit, though he knew they would be no less onerous and ultimately might make his suffering worse than it was here with Elias.  And Elias would find him eventually, if he was displeased enough with Martin’s impudence.  No, Martin was trapped here in the Church until Elias saw fit to set him free.  It seemed more and more likely that such a thing would never come to pass.

“Hey.  Hey, Martin,” Tim was saying gently, nudging his shoulder.  “Why don’t you tell us more about the Messenger?”

It was a transparent ploy, but Martin allowed it to distract him.  “I. . . I’ve been dreaming about him,” he said eventually, into the tense air of his cell.  He’d refused to acknowledge the dreams even to himself, but now?  Now, with everything awful and crashing down around him?  The memories were the only thing keeping him from breaking down and crying again.  He allowed himself to float back into his most recent one; he’d been walking alone, without sight or sound to ground him, feet whispering through the dense fog.  It was a familiar dream, as the Lonely fed from him often as Martin slept in his tiny cell, and Elias allowed it - but this time, it had been different.  This time, blinding green eyes had cut through the mist sharply from within, banishing it to the edges of Martin’s sleeping mind.  Then, as he floated slowly to awareness in his bed, the Messenger had reached out.  Martin had remembered the warmth of the scarred hand in his own long after he’d awoken.      

That couldn’t have been real, right?  Only a figment of his fixated imagination?  Still, Jon’s hand had felt so real, so human.  Martin flexed his own where the memory grasped him, and said as much to Sasha and Tim.

Sasha looked up from the book for a brief moment. “That’s…” Seemingly unable to come up with a word, she threw an apologetic look in their directions and returned to copying. 

Tim clicked his tongue at her. “I think it’s nice. It’s good to be pulled out of nightmares like that.” He shuddered dramatically. “Even if it’s with all those eyes.”

“Hey,” Martin said with faux-indignance. “I’m in love with those eyes, remember?”

Tim just shuddered again. “I can not see how, but to each their own, I guess.”

“Maybe if we saw the mural…” Sasha ventured. There wasn’t much of a push behind it. Martin kept the mural closely guarded, even if he felt slightly guilty about keeping it from his friends. It was special. He didn’t want it to be… dissected under Sasha’s shrewd eyes, or mocked by Tim. Or discovered by Elias. They weren’t exactly quiet . 

And more than that, it felt wrong to share. Wrong to be there not alone.  Maybe that was selfish of him. Maybe it was just a projection of his feelings for the man behind the mural, as intangible as he was. It was his space, their space, and no one else’s. The only time he wished someone would come down was to hold a ladder for him when he got the urge to scrub those eyes to their full shine, but even then it was something…intimate he wanted to do himself. 

And now, with Elias’ wrath still stinging, he wanted to go back more than ever, wanted to sit in the silence, or even tell the mural how he was feeling as if that would help. It was a stupid wish, but—

“Oh! My journal. I left it there.”

Sasha perked up a bit. “So we can come?”

Martin tensed like a prey animal being spotted. “Um…”

“Oh, let him go, Sash. Just because you don’t have a cock anymore doesn’t mean you can block Martin’s.”

“ Tim! ”

“Sorry, I meant we really have to focus on copying, don’t we? Can’t make any mistakes or the boss man will have our eyes.”

Sasha tsked. “You don’t know that Elias takes eyes. That’s just a rumour.”

Tim shrugged. “I wouldn’t put it past him.”

Martin bit back protests about obscenity and left them bickering in his room. He was grateful for their help, even if he may regret it later. He had stopped crying for a moment, but the minute the small stairwell door closed the tears came back quickly, pinpricks of heat spreading across his face. He could barely see his way down to the mural, and his journal wasn’t even there . 

Oh god. What if he’d dropped it somewhere else? What if Elias found it? He couldn’t even imagine what the punishment for presumptive poetry about a religious icon would be. Something about being put in his place surely. Although if he were put in his place anymore than he already was, he may as well be shoved into the bosom of the Buried. 

“I’m sorry,” he whispered to the mural in a broken voice. “I’m trying, I swear. I just…” He sat down on the altar and buried his face in his hands. “I keep doing everything wrong.”

“Well, you must be doing something right.”

Martin stood up and spun around at the unfamiliar voice, his eyes wide and terrified. He’d been found, and by a stranger no less. A worshipper maybe? 

The stranger stepped into the small circle of light in front of the mural. It was late, and the light shouldn’t have been there, but Martin couldn’t question it for long as the newcomer spoke again. “Don’t be too upset,” they said dryly, “you’re not even in it yet. I’m just the introductory course.”

They were tall, and thin, with deathly pale skin and long black hair. Their face was gaunt, their eyes shaded with something like kohl. And all over their entire body were small drawings, like someone had taken a quill to them. As they stepped closer, Martin began to make them out. 

Eyes. There were eyes on their throat, their wrists, each individual knuckle. Martin swallowed painfully. Someone marked like this must be aligned with the Eye, and that usually meant they were part of the Church , and that meant Elias—

“Slow down there,” they said, holding up their hands as if to show they weren’t a threat. “If you hyperventilate and pass out we’ll...” They looked away, smiling softly as if to themself. “I actually don’t know what we’d do. Just have to start over, I guess.”

“Who are you?” Martin asked, his panicked breathing finally beginning to calm. “Start what over?”

They cocked their head at him, looking him over. Martin felt like he was being stared by all of the drawings of eyes at the same time and it made him take a step back. “I’m the— Gerard,” they said finally. “I’m just Gerard. And you’re about to start the Trials, prophet.”

Martin nearly did pass out then. He was going through some kind of psychotic break. Or torment by the Throat of Lies, maybe. Or else Elias was just being particularly cruel. He should leave, or demand answers, or tell his visitor that even if they were right about the first Trials in over a century, they definitely had the wrong person.

But all he could choke out was, “Prophet?”

Gerard sighed. “Right. I suppose I should say 'potential prophet.'” They leaned casually against the wall, and Martin choked on a bit of protectiveness over the mural, carefully holding his tongue as Gerard continued. “But the others will probably call you prophet already. They do so love their pet names."

“The others?”

“You’ll meet them soon enough,” Gerard said dismissively.  “I’m here to pass the torch, as it were.  You do know what the Messenger’s prophet is, don’t you?”

“Yes,” Martin said in a small voice.

“And you know there hasn’t been a new one appointed in a century?”

“Yes, that’s - that’s because he’s not as well known as he used to be, I think, or - because he isn’t worshipped as much as the Fourteen?”  Martin could hardly believe he was here talking about the Messenger with someone who’d interacted with him directly, if Gerard’s inference that they had been the last prophet was to be believed.  “Why m-me?  If I can ask?”

“You can ask, but I don’t know,” Gerard told him.  “If you pass the Trials, you’ll know.  He’ll tell you everything you want to know.  But I can’t tell you anything but that he wants you to try.”

“I don’t understand,” Martin said faintly.

“I know.”  Gerard looked almost sympathetic, their pale face illuminated in the dark room.  “But I promise, if you choose to go through the trials, you will.  You’ll know and understand everything about Jon.”

Martin’s heart leapt.  “Jon?  You know his name, too?”

Gerard chuckled dryly, shaking their head.  “I did.  When I was his prophet, I did.  But I died, Martin.  I’m just a spectre of the prophet, here to prepare you to take the place I left empty all those years ago.” 

“I. . .” Martin said, twisting his hands together.  “What about Elias?  He won’t - he doesn’t know I’m down here, and he doesn’t like when I talk about the Messenger, he won’t -”

Gerard snorted.  “I appeared to your Priest first, Martin.  He may not like it, but he can’t stop you from going through the Trials, not when he’s bound to be part of them if the Messenger demands.”

Demands.  Martin felt dizzy.  Jon had. . . demanded that Martin become his prophet?  This couldn’t be real, he was definitely still getting tortured inside his own head for not copying fast enough, and soon enough Elias would whisk it all away and everything would be normal again.  He shut his eyes, opened them again.  Gerard was still there, staring at him tiredly.

“Elias is part of it?” Martin asked timidly.

“Oh, yes ,” the man in question purred, stepping from out behind the mural.  Martin jumped in startled shock as his Priest approached, disapproving eyes fixed on him.  Gerard sighed.  “Don’t think you’ll be beyond my gaze for a moment, Martin.”

“Of course not,” Martin assured him, and then actually looked at the Priest.  He blinked, taking a minute step back at the sheer muted fury in Elias’ eyes.  He glanced from him to Gerard, confused.  “Why - Elias, why are you so angry with me?”

“He thought that he would be the next prophet,” Gerard said flippantly, and Elias rounded on them with a barely concealed snarl beneath his brightly smiling visage.

“Don’t spread dirty lies like that, you filthy apparition.  I can banish you back to the hell you belong in now that you’ve done your duty, remember that.”  

Gerard raised their hands and grinned at him, winking at Martin.   Elias turned away and back to Martin.

“I have my own role in this Church, as do you, Martin.  I would never desire to be anything else but the Priest, serving and feeding the Ceaseless Watcher.  The role of prophet has been outdated and unnecessary for decades.  There’s a reason there was never another after the last prophet died.”  He sneered at Gerard, waving his hands distractedly.  “You have the option to say no to this, Martin.  Trials like these are not for the weak-minded, and if you fail them, you will never be allowed back within these Church walls.  You will be set loose to roam this world unwanted, homeless and unprotected.”

 Martin’s eyes widened, and all of a sudden he knew it was true.  Jon wanted him, Martin - not Elias, the high Priest, and Elias hated Martin more than he ever had because of it.

“I’m not weak-minded,” Martin said. The words came out stronger than he thought they would, and he stood up straighter. 

“You?” Elias laughed, but it was hollow, somehow. A harsh, barking sound, too bitter to be properly mocking. “You’re nothing but weak. I know you, Martin.”

“But you don’t,” Martin said, even managing a step forward. “You don’t really know me.” Another step. “The Messenger does. The Messenger knows everything, and he chose me .”

Elias, the rage back but lacking bite, spat on the floor at Martin’s feet and turned sharply away. “Very well,” he hissed, before thundering up the creaking steps. The moment the door slammed shut, Martin wilted a bit, his heart thudding loudly. That was probably a mistake, a huge one. Even if he did reject the Trials, he’d be thrown out just for that . 

“So…” Gerard was leaning against the wall again, regarding Martin with a look equal parts impressed and amused. “No turning back now, then?” Martin, still unable to speak, just nodded. Gerard clapped their hands together, although the sound felt muffled and distant. “Grand! Get undressed.”

“… What? ”

“Get undressed,” Gerard repeated, ignoring the obvious scandalised expression in Martin’s gaping face. When he still didn’t move, Gerard shrugged. “You don’t have to, I suppose, at least not until the first Trial starts. But if you want to keep those robes, you should know that some of the Avatars are a little…” They wiggled their fingers. “…slicey.”

Martin clutched at the ties of his robe as if Gerard was going to come tug it open themselves. “The Avatars?” he whispered. 

There were countless Avatars, of course, people that had given themselves completely to the Fear they were aligned with, to the point of altering themselves and their humanity. Gerard could mean any few of a thousand. 

But Martin got the sense that if he was meeting any Avatars, they would be the ones in the parables, the original pantheon. He ran through the list he’d learned as a child in Church in his head, his heart sinking lower and lower. Each one was worse than the last. He couldn’t imagine having to face them. 

Gerard’s voice was low and gentle when they drew Martin out of his rote memorization. “It’s not so bad,” they said. “You don’t have to meet all of them. Just…three or four?” Martin started to ask which ones, but Gerard cut him off with an almost-apologetic grimace. “I can’t tell you which. Or what the Trials are. I’m sorry. I promise if you get through them, everything will make sense.”

“And if I don’t?”

But Gerard just grinned widely again. “You will. I have faith in you.” They turned towards the stairs. 

“Wait!” Martin said. He still had so many questions. Was he supposed to stay here? Did the Trials start now? Why did he need to disrobe?

But Gerard simply…faded. One moment they were there, and the next they weren’t, and Martin was alone in front of the mural again. Bewildered, he sat down heavily on the stone altar. The rough edge of it was grounding against his palms, telling his scattered brain that he wasn’t actually dreaming. At least not in this moment.

His mind didn’t let him hold on to the idea that he’d been dreaming for very long. There was no way out of it, now. Dragging a hand down his face, he looked up at the mural and tried to catch his breath. 

Tried being the operative word, because the air in the catacombs suddenly felt chill and thin, and an impossible wind stirred from the darkness behind him. He turned towards it, both to gasp deeper and because the slightest part of him hurt for it. It had been years since he’d been outside. This wind wasn’t quite like the buffeting gales Martin remembered from childhood, out with the herd, but it was closer than he’d been in ages. Even with the light-headedness the thin air was bringing, he couldn’t help but smile and close watery eyes against the wind. 

“Hello.”

The wind stopped. When Martin opened his eyes again, he couldn’t find it in himself to be surprised at yet another sudden guest. It didn’t feel like they were beneath the Church anymore. They were somewhere else, somewhere suspended; all that existed was Martin, the mural, the small circle of light, and the altar within it. And now, whoever this was. 

“He-hello,” Martin answered a bit uncertainly as the man stepped further into the light. He was a striking figure, his hair pale, jaw square, and his eyes…his eyes were shockingly blue, like an endless summer sky. And branching across one side of his face and disappearing below his neckline, a familiar scar, one Martin had traced over and over in the Church literature. 

As if to confirm his sudden realisation, the man smiled and held out a hand. “Michael Crew,” he said. 

Martin took his hand, and there was the sudden scent of ozone between them, sparking in his lungs. “Martin.”

“I know.” 

He let go of his hand, walking around the altar to look up at Jon’s mural. “Never expected him to be such a show off when we met,” he said wryly. Then he turned back to Martin. “You should be undressed.”

Martin eyed him warily. Michael Crew didn’t strike him as slicey , but his defences were still raised a bit. He couldn’t help it. “Why?”

He received a downturned smile. “Of course he’d choose someone that asks a lot of questions.” He passed a hand through his hair, seeming to consider things. Finally, he said “I can’t touch you properly if you’re clothed.”

“Touch…” Martin stared down at himself, biting his lip. The questions bubbled up again, but he had the sense they were pointless. He’d only ever been naked in front of his mother and Elias, and neither involved pleasant memories. Of course the Trials would take something from him. They were probably torture. That’s how you proved yourself to the Fears, wasn’t it? His hands shaking, he pulled at the fastenings of his robes. They fell heavily to the floor. 

When Crew said nothing, he removed his tunic as well. His nipples pebbled instantly in the cold, and he resisted the urge to cover himself. He’d agreed to the Trials, hadn’t he? And the man was an Avatar: he couldn’t possibly care about Martin’s still-present breasts, the fuzz trailing between them, down over his belly to…

Practically trembling, he shoved his breeches to his ankles, revealing the whole truth of it. He was too afraid to look up, not just at Crew but at the mural , and realised to his horror that he was crying again. 

A soft hand held his chin, the slightest spark of lightning in its touch. Crew raised his face to meet his piercing blue eyes directly. “Good, little prophet,” he said.

Martin felt the pit in his stomach fall away in a wash of shock at the words.  Good, the Avatar had said.  His lip trembled and he ducked his head again, tears leaking down his cheeks.

“It’ll be all right,” Crew murmured, putting a finger to his chin and tilting it upwards again.  “Follow my instructions, and the others’, and it will all be all right.  I’ll take care of you, and you’ll get through this as long as you continue being good.”

“I’ll - I’ll be good,” Martin promised, trying desperately to slow his tears.  “Please, will - will it hurt?”

“No, Martin,” Crew told him.  “I won’t hurt you.”  He circled Martin slowly, and he couldn’t help but follow the short man’s movements with his eyes.  His legs trembled where he stood, and Crew put a slim hand on his shoulder, patting it gently to guide him to his knees.

Martin knelt, but instead of the dull ache he expected to feel in his abused kneecaps, the pressure was barely there as he settled himself.  He glanced down, expecting to see the rough stone floor beneath him, but instead it was - it was -

Instead, the Avatar of the Vast had taken him somewhere high above the clouds, somewhere he could feel nothing beneath him but the gasping wind.  Martin inhaled sharply and found he couldn’t - the air whistled thinly through his throat and left his lungs aching.  He looked up wildly at Crew, who was staring down at him pensively.  Everything around him was the same - the alcove walls, the mural behind him, Jon’s many eyes close on him.  It was just below him that was sky. 

“I want you to put your mouth on me, Martin,” Crew said, and Martin’s eyes widened as he took in the words, took in the casual way the man pulled out his cock and stroked it a few times.  “Just to ease into it.  Have you done this before?”

“Yes,” Martin said, mouth dry and eyes fixed on the truly impressive length before him.  Crew was bigger than Elias, though the rest of his body was hardly proportionate.  Martin’s tongue darted out to wet his lips, and Crew laughed.  

“Hungry for it?”

“I -” Martin stammered.  “This is part of the Trials?”

“Doing what I tell you is part of the Trials,” Crew told him firmly.  “Open up.”

Martin, properly chastened, let his mouth fall open.  He stared up at the Avatar, who offered him his cock with a raised eyebrow.  Instead of taking it into his mouth immediately, as he did so often with Elias, Martin leant forward and hesitantly darted out his tongue to lick delicately at the tip.  Crew groaned, tilting his head backwards and holding his cock at the base to keep it steady for Martin.  

Elias would never allow such teasing.  Not that that was what Martin was trying to do, but - he’d always wanted to take this kind of thing slow.  Crew didn’t dissuade him, tapping his cock up and down on Martin’s tongue.

“You have a sweet mouth,” Crew told him.  

Martin flushed, and leaned forward to seal his lips around Crew as far as he could reach.  He felt the man’s cock pulse with heat inside his mouth and whimpered around it, suckling and letting his tongue dance in swirling patterns. He let his eyes drift to Crew again, and almost lost his nerve at the sheer heat in the man’s stare. Then Crew let his hips roll ever so slightly, and Martin moaned as the cock in his mouth slid forward and breached the tightness of his throat.  For once, Martin didn’t feel the urge to choke, and he barely had time to wonder at the absence before Crew was pulling back, and he almost whined at the loss.

“You want more?” Crew asked him.

Martin nodded without thinking, leaning forward eagerly to take Crew into his mouth again.  He was curious now.  Despite Crew reaching the back of his throat again, Martin didn’t gag this time either.  He stared up at Crew, puzzled, and the man shook his head.

“Little prophet, you know that the Vast and Too Close I Cannot Breathe are at odds,” he told him, rocking further into his mouth, stretching his lips even more.  “I would not let you choke.”

Martin’s thumbs felt odd, free from their places inside his fists.  He lifted his hands awkwardly and placed them on Crew’s thighs, then slid one further to wrap around the untouched base of his cock.  Crew sighed, settling his hands in Martin’s hair, and - that was a little bit reminiscent of Elias, but not so much that the novelty of an absent gag reflex wore off.  Martin hummed enthusiastically, and bobbed his head up and down.  One more thing Elias never allowed him to do with such vigour.  He felt daring and excited, the filthy sounds of saliva at the edges of his mouth only spurring him on further.  

It was only when he’d worked up enough of a sweat to notice that the heat between his legs was radiating from inside him that Crew pulled away, his cock stiff and shiny with Martin’s spit.  He left it out of his robes, one hand moving up and down absently, and circled Martin again.

“I was one of the first Avatars Jon met, did you know,” he said from somewhere behind Martin. Martin suppressed the urge to twist and see him. It felt like he was to stay in place. Especially because, now that Crew wasn’t so close, he was keenly aware of the nothing below him. If he listened too closely, he swore he could hear the whistle of the wind. 

“I did,” Martin said dutifully. “You were the first to welcome him into your home — but not the first to mark him.”

“Indeed.” There was a silence, and the whistling grew louder. Martin had the sense of teetering at a very sheer edge. “Would you like to know how I did mark him, Martin?”

The texts were vague about the details. They said only that each Avatar left their mark, beginning with the Web. There were countless speculations through the ages, and popular favourites children especially parroted. Martin hadn’t thought about them in years, and he stuttered a bit. “Yes, erm, yes, please.”

There was a soft puff of laughter behind him, and then Martin was falling. 

He tried to cry out, but his voice was taken from him as the wind whipped across his face. He could barely open his eyes, but when he did all he saw was sky. His stomach dropped and flipped and did somersaults, and he had no idea which way was down. It all was, and it was all up, and it wouldn’t matter because he’d always be falling. It was terrifying, like nothing he’d ever experienced, his lungs were useless, his breath stolen before he could try to catch it. 

He loved it. 

If his voice was still his, he would have laughed. He would even have screamed Thank you Falling Titan , which he’d never said outside of recitation. He felt like he was flying. He knew that if he hit the ground, he’d die. 

He also knew he hadn’t moved. He was still kneeling, Crew slowly circling him. Despite the roar of air in his ears, he could hear Crew perfectly. “And there’s so much more, Martin,” he said, the excitement in his voice pure and palpable. “If you pass the Trials, you’ll get to feel all of it, to know all of it. It will be yours, in service to the Fears, and they will hold you in their terrible fist. You need never be afraid, and you always will be.”

Martin was crying, but the tears were wicked away before they could fall. There was a hand in his hair, and something nudging against his lips, and he parted them easily, eagerly. He could barely feel the drag of Crew’s cock against his tongue over the numbing rapture of his fall, but it was enough to make him moan. 

“There we are, little prophet,” Crew sighed. There was no harshness in his grip, simply guidance. Martin couldn’t breathe, but it somehow didn’t mean he choked. No matter how far back Crew pressed himself, there was no bruising pressure in Martin’s throat. 

Martin, struggling against the strength of the wind, fumbled his hand towards his own cock. 

The falling stopped. Martin didn’t so much land as suspend, frozen in the air, back on his knees. His hand froze as well, the pressure slight and maddening. He didn’t dare move it closer— but he couldn’t bring himself to move it away, either.

“Do not come without permission, Martin.” Crew’s voice, while not cold, had a chill like the air that had accompanied his arrival. He stared down at Martin, those eyes as encompassing as the infinite sky. “Touch yourself if you’d like. But be careful . Do you understand?”

Martin nodded as much as he could. Crew smiled, and his cock twitched, both of which made Martin blush. “Good, little prophet,” he said once more. “Again?”

Martin’s stomach sank in anticipation of that heady, dizzying fall.  He let his mouth fall open in lieu of an answer, and Crew stepped forward.  Martin let out another soft moan as he wrapped his lips around the shaft and the floor fell away beneath him once more. 

Crew smoothed the palms of his hands on the side of Martin’s head, caressing his hair gently as he continued to rock back and forth out of his mouth.   “I marked the Messenger by choice, but not with full knowledge of what my action would lead to,” he continued, and part of Martin that was not focused on his fall thrilled at hearing more about Jon.  He surged forward, hollowing his cheeks against Crew’s cock, and the man’s fingers curled at the base of his head for a moment.  “I was happy to serve my god and mine alone, little prophet, and now I am trapped in this new world and the Ceaseless Watcher is present in every inch of the void.  Do you understand?  There is nowhere I can go to be free.”

Through the swirling wind, Martin heard him, and he peeled his eyes open, eyelashes fluttering, to stare up at the Avatar.  Crew’s face was wreathed in darkening sky.  Somewhere behind him, lightning flashed.

“If he had gone to anyone but me, they would have killed him.”  Crew’s fingers tightened in Martin’s hair.  “I thought I was being merciful, teaching him a lesson in respect.  But I was used, Martin.  Every one of us, we were used.”  He pressed into Martin’s willing mouth, circling his hips in tight motions as Martin tentatively raised his other hand to cup Crew where he tightened, close to release.  “Listen to the others, Martin.  Obey them.  And try to put the pieces together.”

“Mmgh,” Martin affirmed, shutting his eyes against the wind again.  He could barely summon the strength of mind to parse Crew’s words into meaningful sentences - everything in him narrowed down to the cock in his mouth, the adrenaline of the fall, the sharp smell of ozone around them.  Martin’s lips met his fist where it wrapped around Crew’s cock one final time, and Crew groaned and shoved harshly into him once, twice, spilling into his throat and over the back of his tongue.  For once, Martin didn’t think about the taste - he worked his mouth eagerly as he swallowed, desperate for it, desperate even more to hear Crew call him good again.  

He landed softly on his knees in front of the mural. Crew leaned heavily forward against the altar, his arms locked as he rode out the last of his orgasm. Martin leaned back as well, until his head was leaning against the rough stone edge of it. Crew thrust forward, and Martin did feel his airway being cut off this time, but he didn’t care. He relished the feeling of his mouth being completely full with someone he trusted not to punish him for it. And he did trust Crew. Perhaps he shouldn’t. But he remembered the rush of falling through the sky, the euphoria in the cavity of his chest as his lungs flattened, and he felt safe in the hands of the Vast. He felt that he belonged to it. 

Crew pulled out of Martin’s mouth with a wet sound, and Martin panted a bit, watching him through hooded eyes. “On the altar,” Crew said, voice slightly rough and lacking his previous refined edge. Martin felt a thrill of pride knowing he’d affected him so. Elias was always so composed after, like Martin hardly did anything at all. He had no idea he could take someone apart like that. 

Martin stood up slowly, and then lay on the stone altar. He shivered against it, and his hands gripped the edges, seeking that grounding presence again. Especially when Crew passed a hand down his chest, over his stomach, and then hovered between his thighs. Martin could hardly breathe, for much different reasons this time. 

“What were your instructions, little prophet?”

Martin struggled to think, so very focused on the potential of Crew’s touch. “Listen,” he said, “and obey.”

“And?”

“And…” Martin but his lip. Oh god. Had he forgotten already? Was this the actual Trial, now? Trying not to panic, he racked his addled brain for an answer. “…don’t come?”

Crew smiled. “Very good.” Then he slipped a single finger between Martin’s lips, grazing it against his cock. Martin moaned, arching his back against the cool, smooth stone. The touch was barely a touch, but he hadn’t been… handled by anyone but himself in some time. Crew pressed a bit harder, and Martin rolled his hips with a low whine. Crew didn’t move, just let Martin rut up against the digit until he was sure he was dripping on the altar. Then he took a tragic step back, and Martin was bereft. 

“These are not going to be easy for you, are they,” Crew muttered. Martin’s heart seized. What did he mean? What was coming?

Before he could so much as formulate a question, Martin was shocked into silence as Crew leaned down and pressed a kiss to his forehead. Martin felt one more rush of falling before Crew straightened. “You’ve passed the first Trial, little prophet,” he said. 

Martin gazed up at him in astonishment. “I did?”

“Yes. The Awful Deep is pleased.” 

As he said it, Martin felt it solidify into truth, like something forming in his abdomen, a new growth of understanding. He felt so impossibly small, and longed more than ever for the windswept hills of his childhood, the screaming sky. 

As Martin reveled in the new feeling, Crew frowned a bit, although not at him directly. “When was the last time someone took you in hand, prophet? The last time someone touched you like I did?”

He was rather confused by the question. Martin wanted to say no one had ever touched him quite like Crew, but he had a sense that wasn’t the question. “Erm, Elias- the Priest- he, ah, uses my mouth often.” Crew made a displeased hum, and Martin hurried to continue. “And besides that, there was a boy once in my village, but- we never-“

Crew tsked . “You’re about as touch-starved as he is, I suppose,” he said. At Martin’s questioning look, he glanced up at the mural. “Then again, it wouldn’t be a Trial if it were easy for you, would it?” The corner of his mouth twitched. “I’d say something about ‘ purity ,’ but that isn’t really something that concerns him.” 

Stepping closer, his voice dropped to a low whisper. “I’d stay there if I were you,” he said as if in confidence. “Annabelle is much stricter than I am, and she’s awfully eager to use her binding skills.”

Martin swallowed thickly. He knew who Annabelle was, Avatar of the Mother of Puppets. He couldn’t imagine what she expected from him. He felt exposed again, bared defenceless to the room and the formless darkness beyond it. 

Crew inclined his head, and Martin watched him leave until he was abandoned by the light and swallowed by the hungry edge of something, one last wind brushing over Martin’s body like a final caress. 

Staring up at Jon’s mural for comfort, Martin awaited the second Trial. 

It was only when he noticed a twinge of discomfort in his back as he lay there, flat upon the stone altar, and tried to wiggle to move into a different position that he realised that he couldn’t.  No matter how much he willed his body to obey him, it remained still.  He couldn’t fight it, either.  His body seemed happy to relax, and even as Martin’s breath quickened and panic rose in the back of his mind, he knew what was going on.  He knew that if he had Sight to behold them, shiny, silvery strands would reveal themselves all around his frame, binding him to the altar.  He noticed, with a flush of heat, that his legs were slightly open, made even more obvious to him now as he was unable to close them.

“Look at our little prophet, laid out like an offering,” said a voice from behind his head, and Martin would have flinched if he was able as a delicate hand landed on his cheek, tapping pointed fingernails across his face.  He stared upwards, trying to catch a glimpse of Annabelle.  The hand on his face felt textured, as if she were wearing a lace glove.

“I’m here to go through the Trials,” he said unsteadily.  So he could speak, then.  

“I see,” Annabelle said.  “Do you understand what being the Messenger’s prophet entails, then?”

“N-no,” Martin admitted, “not - not really?  It’s very vague.  Gerard didn’t explain a lot.”  He inhaled as Annabelle’s hand travelled further down his body, onto his chest.  Her fingers danced, and then two nails enveloped his stiff nipple.  Martin whimpered, but the Avatar simply rolled the sensitive bud between her fingers until Martin was near tears from the stimulation.  He gasped, and tried to press his legs together to no avail.

“Hmm,” Annabelle said.  She moved to his other nipple.  “I see you are familiar with candles, Martin.  Imagine, for me, a wildfire.  Imagine it growing so hot and so bright that it cannot contain its own power.  It provides light and heat, but it cannot do so without being a harbinger of destruction.  A wildfire can take, but it can never give.”

Martin tried to understand where she was going with this.  “What does that have to do with a candle?  Or being the prophet?”

Annabelle laughed.  “Impatient little thing.  What do candles and wildfire have in common?”

Martin floundered for an answer amidst the maddening sensation of having his nipples toyed with.  “Both - have fire?”

“Close.”  Annabelle’s fingers seemed to sharpen, but Martin could see nothing.  “A candle is a representation of the power of the wildfire.  It illuminates the dark and brings warmth to the cold, but all within the limits of the one who holds the candle.  Imagine then, how important whoever holds the candle has to be.”

“I don’t understand,” Martin told her.

“You will,” Annabelle said.  “Please touch yourself for me, Martin.  Put one hand on your left nipple and play with it just as I have.  Spread your legs and use your other hand to hold yourself open.”

Martin was surprised to find that his body was his own again. He knew Annabelle could easily make him do whatever she wanted, but he had to listen, now. It had to be his decision. Biting his lip, he did as she said. His nipple was sensitive from her targeted touch, and exposing himself to the room made him tense. Every twitch of his cock felt obscenely on display. 

With a sickening drop to his stomach, Martin remembered Elias’ promise that he wouldn’t be out of his line of sight. He shivered at the thought of those keen eyes watching him now. 

But then he couldn’t think anything, focused solely on the insistent burn of overstimulation growing steadily in his left nipple. But when he tried to approach it lightly, Annabelle took the other and twisted . She leaned down and hissed, “I told you to do it as I did, didn’t I?”

“Yes, Annabelle,” Martin whined, obediently matching her cruel fingers. “I’m sorry, Great Spider,” he followed automatically. 

Annabelle threw her head back and laughed. It felt like it reverberated through the space: like a thousand harp strings catching the sound. The frisson rolled up Martin’s spine. “Are you calling me the Mother of Puppets, little prophet?”

Martin’s face twisted. “No? But you are so closely aligned with it, are you not? There have been so few Web Avatars, and none of them have your…”

Martin’s eyes traced the concave space on Annabelle’s head, crisscrossed with webbing. Annabelle looked back at him with an amused smile. “Very much, poppet. Your reverence for the Spider does not go unnoticed.” She released his nipple, and he sighed in relief. 

It was short lived as she zeroed on to where he was spread open. She tcked her tongue in thought, looking at him. Then she said, calm as anything, “Stop touching your nipple. Wet your fingers, and toy with this little cock for me.”

Martin hiccuped, but complied. It was vulgar , the shock heavy in his bones, but the smile it earned him curled his toes. He’d only done this furtively in the dark, his eyes screwed shut, desperately willing himself not to be blasphemous in his fantasies. Doing it now, with someone watching — Annabelle Cane, no less — was practically as terrifying as falling with Crew. 

But when he touched himself, he couldn’t help but moan, the pleasure like ice in his veins, sharp and overwhelming. Touching himself beneath Jon’s mural — he couldn’t allow himself to dwell on it. He mimicked Crew with a single steady point of pressure, rolling up against it like a blatant whore. 

“Lovely!” Annabelle said, sounding delighted. “What a show you’re putting on for me. Given back your hands and you only do the smallest of touches. You darling thing. Do you know more than you’re letting on?”

Martin made a questioning noise, searching out her face as if her meaning would be written there. He found her already watching him. Her dark eyes glinted slightly. Not unlike a spider’s.

“Squeeze it between your fingertips,” Annabelle instructed. Martin did, the firm head of his growing cock slipping out of its hood. He sucked in a harsh breath at the feeling, near painful in its intensity. He found he was staring out into the dark, lost in the sensation of his own hands. 

Annabelle wasn’t done. Each time he thought he could get used to what he was doing, she changed it. “Roll it under your thumb,” she said. That made his leg spasm, his head jerk up in alarm at the rush of feeling. “Press it hard against your palm,” she said. That made his hips roll, and his eyes followed suit with the pleasure. “Circle it with just a finger, slowly, just like that,” she said. Then Annabelle’s voice grew sing-song, like a pleased warning. “Little prophet...”

Martin focused back on Annabelle, his hands still working. He felt like his legs were going numb, all nerves shutting down except the ones beneath his hands, one still spreading his lips and the other following Annabelle’s instructions. Annabelle’s smile felt threatening, and his touch faltered. Was he doing something wrong?

It came to him all at once, and he was honestly lucky it occurred to him when it did, because he had been so close already — “Please may I come, Annabelle?” he asked, voice breaking into a whimper. 

Annabelle smiled. 

“No.”

Martin gasped as his hands snapped back into place at his sides, his legs staying splayed open but unable to move. His cunt throbbed, hot and pulsing, and he longed to writhe at the feeling. Annabelle trailed those textured fingers up his side again, tapping them as if lost in thought. “You did very good in asking,” she allotted, as if deigning to acknowledge something very slight and to be expected. “You even said please.”

Martin nodded. He felt that if he opened his mouth he’d be lost in begging, and the parables suggested Annabelle didn’t care for it. Annabelle walked out of sight, and he couldn’t see her return, as she was at the head of the altar. “Remember what I said about candles, little prophet?” she asked. 

“Yes, Annabelle,” he answered. His whisper felt quiet in the expectation of her voice. He looked up and saw her looking down at him, her teeth white against the darkness, the web across her face illuminated by candlelight from the elegant stick in her hand. 

Her hand tipped. 

Martin wailed at the hot splash against his belly, shock forcing the noise from his mouth rather than any true pain.  The wax pooled and ran down his side in cooling rivulets that hardened against his trembling skin, and Martin hiccuped and gasped as the sensation faded.  He cast his eyes to Annabelle, huge and pleading, and the Spider pursed her lips sympathetically against her teeth.

“Oh, I know,” she said soothingly.  “Hold still for me, now.  I want all of these wax runs intact for the next Trial.”

“Yes, Annabelle,” Martin promised, tensing in anticipation.  The Avatar shook her head and tapped his nose firmly.  

“Relax, little prophet.  Hand back down on your cock now, pressing hard with your palm just as I showed you before.”

Martin hurried to obey.  The relief of having a hand on himself again was palpable, and he groaned in pleasure even as Annabelle tilted her candle once more.  This time, the wax landed on his thigh, and Martin jumped minutely.  He managed to keep his noise to a minimum, though.

“Is Jon the wildfire?” he asked, before he could lose his nerve.

Annabelle paused in her circling, and looked up to smile at him.  “What a clever pupil. ”

She poured her wax again, and Martin whined pathetically as it landed between his breasts.  It dripped down his abdomen into the first roll of his belly, puddling into the curve of it.  Annabelle tweaked his nipples again, one after the other, and Martin tried to keep his head level as the pleasure spread intensely down his body.  He pressed his palm to his cock and felt his entrance pulse with slick heat, fingers brushing the tight, eager hole hidden within the wet curls.

Annabelle dripped wax on his nipple, and he moaned, desperate and wanton and uncaring of the Eyes he knew were on him.  The sharp heat intensified a thousand fold on his abused flesh, and the sensation was trapped there as it cooled.

“Oh, look at you taking it so beautifully,” Annabelle praised, and Martin flushed hot, hotter than he had ever before, and he gasped out, “ Please, please may I come, please -”

“No, little prophet.”

Martin sobbed as he took his hand away.  On an instinctive, animal level, he hated himself for not disobeying and finishing it, but - if he wasn’t worthy of Annabelle how could he be worthy of Jon? 

“Very good.  Hands at your sides, now.”  Annabelle turned away, and when she returned she had somehow produced a smaller red candle.  A criss-cross web design in black wax decorated the outside.  As she tilted it to light it from her first candle, Martin breathed in and out, trying his best to tame his beating heart.  Meditation had never worked for him, he just got bored, but the deep breaths had to be doing something.  

By the time Annabelle had lit her second candle, Martin’s chance at an orgasm had drifted out of reach.  He closed his eyes.  That was good.  Annabelle hadn’t given him permission to come, so he had to obey her.  Martin’s pleasure was secondary for these Trials, he’d known that from the start.  If he got to see Jon, even for a moment, it would be worth it.  If he could somehow please the Messenger, Martin would be okay with never coming again.

Was that what Jon wanted from him?  Proof that he could resist base pleasure in service to something greater than him?  Martin had been doing that his whole life, of course he could do it now.  He resolved to be strong, to prove to the Messenger that he was someone to be trusted.  Even now, lying naked on a slab of stone.

“Fingers inside you now,” Annabelle told him.  “Two to start.  Work yourself up to three.”

Martin obeyed.  He had very little experience in this particular activity - he just didn’t have long enough fingers that it felt like anything particularly nice.  Still, he hooked them inside his cunt with little effort, spreading them and stretching himself.

“So pretty,” Annabelle told him.  Then her second candle tilted, and Martin made a strangled noise as the wax landed hotly on his stomach again, just below his belly button.  It ran tantalisingly down his mons and caught in the wiry hair of his bush, and Martin could swear this time it didn’t cool as easily, sending pulses of heat through him with every heartbeat.  He hissed between his teeth as she did it again, splashing the wax directly next to the first red puddle.

“What a delightful canvas,” she said to herself. Another splash, and Martin couldn’t hold back a high pitched hum, his lips pressed tightly together. The heat definitely lingered, especially in the sensitive skin she was targeting. The more it scalded him, the more sensitive he got, the more it stung. She did a quick stripe across his stomach, and the motion it inspired cracked lines of wax along his sides. 

Annabelle tsked . “Oh that won’t do,” she said. She stepped away and returned with the white candle. “We’ll just have to start again, won’t we?”

Martin whined, his fingers pressing deeper. He couldn’t tell if the harder touch was from his own desperation, or the Web’s influence, guiding him straining to fill himself even more. He skated the tip of a third finger between the other two, but wasn’t quite ready. Annabelle had said to work his way up to it , and he was once again grateful. He could be careful. He could—

“ Ah! ”

Martin yelped when red wax dripped on his ribcage, all the way up to his nipple again. Annabelle held it there, held it close , the wax hotter and hotter as she covered the bud. Martin had to grit his teeth to not squirm, and his third finger slipped in almost without his notice. She whispered something he didn’t quite catch, something like “I hope that ridiculous door appreciates my work. ” 

Martin was about to sob, which did not bode well for the solidity of Annabelle’s wax lines, when she finally stopped. Martin would never light a candle again without thinking of that feeling, the fierceness of sensation like a tongue of flame flicking against his skin. He imagined welts, and the splatter of red and white made him look similarly torn apart. His fingers worked themselves as far as they could in his squishy heat, and he was surprised at their range, worked up as he was. 

Annabelle sighed, but it was a happy sound, satisfaction at a job well done. “Very good, little prophet,” she said. “Are you up to three fingers now?”

“Yes, Annabelle,” Martin gasped. 

“Let me check.”

Martin’s hands were pulled away from himself again, and he watched Annabelle approach with wide eyes. It only took her three steps to be at the foot of the altar. She wasted no time with her fingers then, pressing three of them insistently inside. 

Martin froze. The only time someone had put their fingers in him had been during initiation at the Church; a clinical test of maidenhood, which Martin suspected was really a ritual of the Flesh, at least with the way his stomach had twisted. But this was so much more , and Martin couldn’t even process it as Annabelle tested his work. Her fingers were slimmer than his, but so much longer, and she touched parts in him he didn’t know existed, not directly. There was no way to sort the feelings, to parse them from the still throbbing pain of the wax, his flagging desire for orgasm, and the trepidation of the Trials in general. 

“Do you want power, little prophet?” Annabelle asked. Her voice was insanely casual, as if she wasn’t opening him up. Martin could only shake his head, unable to find his voice. “You don’t want to put your Priest in his place?” Her other hand drummed nails against his thigh. “He’s been lying to you, you know. Taking his time with your body changes, isn’t he? Citing traditions with no evidence?” She did something with her fingers, and it almost hurt with its intensity. “Having you kneel in confession booths, is he? Wielding power over you like a guillotine?” 

Martin shook his head again. Every word hurt like a knife to his gut, every confirmation of his deepest fears another twist. He’d always known Elias wasn’t being fair — but what was fair, at the Church, worshipping the Fears? Who was he to protest?

Annabelle’s fingers spread inside of him like she was getting him ready for something larger, and he bit the inside of his cheek until it threatened blood. It hurt, and it felt good, and the pleasure-pain mottled his brain into wordless noises. 

Annabelle leaned over him, which only drove her fingers deeper. “Would you hold power for the Messenger, little prophet? Would you listen as well as Jon did? Would you do what it takes to tear the entire world down?”

“Annabelle, please—“

“Answer the question.”

“ Yes , I would do anything , Annabelle ! Anything for the Messenger, please.” Tears ran down his face, but he didn’t even try and wipe them away. He was being good. “Anything for Jon.”

Annabelle removed her fingers, and Martin swore he could feel himself clamp shut in her absence. She stepped up to his side, and he braced himself for more wax. 

Instead, she hiked a heel up on the altar, exposing her dripping centre beneath her skirts. “Would you like to play a game?” she asked. Then she said, “Good,” before he could answer. “You put three fingers in me, and I’ll put three in you, and I won’t stop until you make me come, hm? Doesn’t that sound fun?” She tapped a textured digit against his bottom lip. “You can’t come, of course, so you better focus, and I’ll tell you about poor little Jon. How’s that?”

Martin said nothing. He didn’t think he had to. Annabelle had decided on the game. 

“Or I can try some wax directly on your cock—“

“No!” Martin said. Her eyes glittered. “I mean yes, please, Annabelle, let me serve you, Spinner of Schemes.”

Even from where she was, Annabelle’s fingers dipped much further into his cunt than he could, and the pressure against his front wall almost made him jolt. With a small pained noise, Martin tentatively pressed his own fingers into Annabelle. She was wet, and silken, and his fingers sunk in easily, although she was tight around them. Her expression didn’t change as her hand began to move. 

Now that she wasn’t focused on overwhelming him, the pleasure built rapidly, and Martin realised he wouldn’t last long. He needed to make Annabelle come, and quickly . Struggling to focus, he tried his best to mimic what she was doing, his fingers clumsily searching for a spot that would make her hard smile falter. He watched her expression for the slightest twitch, the smallest quirk of her lips that meant he was doing right. He could listen. He could be good. 

“That’s it,” Annabelle sighed, as he slowly found a rhythm equivalent to what she was doing to him.  “What would you like to hear, little prophet?  A story about how the Messenger lost his last prophet?  The tale of how he was marked by the Spider?  Perhaps you’d like me to tell you how he spends his lonely hours when he thinks no one is around to see.”  She winked at the mural, and dug her fingers a little deeper into Martin.

“Will you - will you tell me about who he used to be?” Martin asked shyly.  “When he was human?”

“That’s hardly worth a story,” Annabelle said laughingly.  “You wouldn’t understand his life as it was before the Change.  The world was different then; humans were different.”

“I want to know, please.”  Martin twitched his fingers inside her, the slightest experimentation of movement, and Annabelle smiled again.

“Very well.”  She dropped her unoccupied hand to rub small circles on her clit as she began to speak.  “The man Jonathan Sims was a researcher of the esoteric and supernatural - for in the world before the Change, the Fourteen only influenced reality in small ways, trapped behind their curtain.  Every day, he read accounts of how they moved through our plane of reality, hoping to find a common thread that would let him defeat them.  He was driven by an intense desire to understand the dread powers, and it was this desire that undid him.”

“What -” Martin ventured.  “What did he like?  Besides researching?”

“His life was torn apart by the Spider’s mark when he was only eight,” Annabelle said dismissively.  “He never put faith in any level of comfort, seeing it as a false promise.  Whenever he enjoyed people or activities, he made himself leave them within the year.  He was terrified of having connection stolen from him, as his childhood innocence had been.  So he never pursued it at all.”

“Oh,” Martin said faintly.  That revelation put a bit of a damper on the growing arousal Annabelle was still creating within him, and he came back to himself enough to put more effort into curling his fingers forward.  “He never had any friends?”

“He had one,” Annabelle allowed. “One whom he trusted beyond all else, who acted as a mentor and teacher to Jonathan in his quest to understand the Fourteen.  Can you guess who it was, Martin?”

Martin was silent for a moment, the stillness broken only by the wet sounds of fingers through slick.  “Was it - was it Jonah Magnus?” he asked, heart beating wildly.

Annabelle’s face split in a slow, wide grin.  “So it was.”

“I read a text that suggested Jonah Magnus was the mastermind behind the Change,” Martin blurted, before he could think better of it.  “It was old, and Elias said it was apocryphal, but all of the details matched.  Did he m- manipulate Jon?”

“Poor little Jon,” Annabelle sighed.  “Poor, naive Jonathan.  He only realised what was happening to him as the last mark was given, and by that time. . . well, it was far too late to turn back.  Jonah Magnus has been dead for centuries now - or so the texts tell us.”  She rolled her hips into Martin’s hand.  “But for the rest of his life, he lived as the most powerful man in the world.  And the Messenger?  Well.”  She laughed again.  “Power was never something he desired, and so he faded into the halls of memory.”

Martin bit his lip hard as anger flowed through him.  

“Oh, baby prophet.  It’s a sad story, is it not?  Tragic, how someone can be led down a dark path, misinformed of what destination lies at the end.”  Her eyes glittered.  “He wants you for a reason, Martin.  Don’t forget that.”

With that, Annabelle’s fingers circled faster on her clit and her head dropped back, a deep, pleased growl coming from her throat.  Martin got the hint and started curling his fingers faster, crooking them forward to press along the sensitive front wall of Annabelle’s cunt, hoping it was what she wanted.  Hoping he could keep himself from falling over the edge with her.

When Annabelle came, it was with a harsh snarl and the air bursting around her into a thousand fractured cobwebs, trailing down slowly to land in her hair, her shoulders, Martin’s face.  She pulled her fingers from him, and they seemed longer, thinner somehow.  He barely had time to wonder at it before she was delicately grasping his wrist to withdraw his own fingers from her cunt.  She pulled them to her mouth and licked, and Martin watched her with wide eyes.

“What a good effort,” she praised him, and he flushed despite himself.  When she set his hand back down on his chest, she leaned over and pressed her lips to his forehead just as Crew had.  Martin froze as he felt the sudden spreading crawl of a thousand tiny legs skitter out across his face, down his neck, and disappear.  For a moment, he vividly envisioned the Mother of Puppets adding another strand to her web.

“The Hidden Machination is pleased,” Annabelle told him.  “You’ve passed your second Trial, little prophet.”

Martin heaved a sigh that was nearly a sob, almost too relieved for words.  “Thank you,” he managed, trying to keep the wax from cracking in his movements.  “Thank you, thank you.”

“I do hope I’ll see you again,” Annabelle told him.  She gave him one last smile.  “Stay put now, and wait patiently.”

“I will,” Martin promised.  He felt nervousness coil in his belly.  One Avatar left, and it could be anyone.  He barely held himself back from begging Annabelle to tell him who it would be before she left.

But he stayed still, and silent, and watched as Annabelle’s form folded in on itself smaller and smaller, until there was nothing left of her but a tiny black arachnid that scurried across the stone floor and into a waiting crack.

Martin waited. And waited. And waited. Time was meaningless to him right now, and honestly the respite was needed. His breathing slowed and his heated blood cooled. He didn’t dare move; Annabelle’s wax works were still fragile on his skin. He would have thought candles would be something from the Lightless Flame, or wax from I Do Not Know you, not the Mother. But the design she’d left behind did look suspiciously like a web, one interlaced with blood and smiling teeth. The overlap should probably not be prodded at. The thought of passing fourteen trials, one for each fear— he shuddered. No, just one more. So he waited. 

Still, eventually he had to wonder. Annabelle had told him to stay put , but it felt like no one was coming. Was he supposed to do something? His ears strained to hear something from the darkness (regular darkness, not Pitch), and his eyes watched the edge of the strange light for any disturbance. They rolled towards where the staircase usually was, no longer visible, and then up Jon’s arm in the mural, his bare shoulders, the sharp curve of his jaw and his aquiline nose, the many eyes. 

He’d counted them once. Eighteen, fiercely shining, daring you to be displayed beneath them. He couldn’t be more displayed , now, could he?

His eyes continued their drifting past the muted colours of Jon’s strange clothes, the scar on his ribcage shown through a large tear, the yellow door at his navel. 

The yellow door at his navel. 

The laughter started then. Shards of sound flashed and collided. The laugh echoed around and through Martin, clattering between his ribs and buzzing in his teeth. It came from nowhere and everywhere at once, and specifically, the door . 

Martin realised what the door meant only seconds before the long sharp fingers curled one by one around the edge of it. 

Martin wanted to run. Every muscle tensed in preparation, his lungs halting so his breath wasn’t too loud. Fight flight or freeze— Martin felt split into three, like he would be rendered into stained glass by those impossible hands. 

It was only the sudden weight, the feeling of being Watched through Jon’s ancient eyes, that kept him pinned in place as the thing’s face came into view. 

Its eyes were a nauseating swirl of violent colour, its expression dangerous, its smile wide. Its golden curls hovered abstract around its face. It looked exactly like its renderings in the ancient texts. The ones thought to be too stylized to be real. 

“Hell-o lit-tle pro-phet,” it said. Each syllable was emphasised by a disconcerting twist of its head, its neck at an impossible angle. It laughed again, and Martin swore he could see the sound like broken pieces of glass slicing through the air. 

Michael .

“Quite a predicament you’re in,” Michael said, suddenly appearing closer. It moved like a mirage. “The Spider certainly did a number on you, didn’t she?” Its eyes roved hungrily over the patterned wax on Martin’s chest, now starting to move again with quick and frightened breaths. 

Aside from Asag, Michael was the only Avatar Martin was significantly afraid of, and he had the terrifying notion that it knew.

“Of course, the Trials are a predicament in and of themselves, aren’t they?” it sighed, sounding almost bored. “All this effort for the Messenger, and you do not even know him.”

Martin’s voice found him, the moment too important to miss. “D-do you?”

“ What a question.”

Martin turned his head quickly to the other side of the altar where Michael suddenly appeared. It was much closer now, leering over him, that smile curling up towards its temples. “Do we ever know someone, little prophet? Do you even know your self ?”

Martin’s head spun. Did he? Did he know where he was? What had he been doing, again? He knew that Michael was above him, close enough to touch. Its curls fell down to brush his shoulders, and it almost felt numb. Its smile seemed close enough to kiss. 

Martin strained to brush his mind against something real - something that didn’t fizzle at the edges with intense colour and make his ears ring.  He stared wildly, chest heaving with short breaths that let his nipples rhythmically come into contact with Michael’s incomprehensible form perched directly above him.  It was on the edge of painful, but the wax, thick as it was around his softened peaks, formed a barrier between him and the creature.  He couldn’t find the wherewithal to be grateful, couldn’t calm his mind long enough to feel anything resembling a full-fledged emotion.  Just the terror, and the slowly widening smile of the Avatar above him.

In desperation, Martin cast his gaze towards - something he held faintly in the rapidly flooding halls of his memory, something that he recalled bringing him comfort.  With a concerted effort, he unfocused his eyes from the Distortion and rolled his head to the side.

“Jon,” he whispered, and the mural came into view.  

“Oh,” the Distortion chided, and suddenly those long, long fingers were clasped around his face, squeezing his cheeks with its blunt knuckles and turning it back to face Michael.  “None of that, little prophet.”

“M’s-s-sorry,” Martin stammered.  Even as he said it, he couldn’t remember what he was apologising for.  He looked up at Michael confusedly, wondering why its hair was so bright.  

“The Spider left me a present to unwrap,” the Distortion told him.  “You’ll want to be very, very still for this.”  And it laughed, long and broken and shattering in pieces through Martin’s ears.  He trembled, obediently holding himself as still as possible.

“What -” he started to ask.  Then Michael’s finger was nudging underneath the cooled wax upon his right nipple, the edge impossibly sharp, peeling the substance off and up.  Martin choked, cursed his breast for its movement against his will, frozen with the anticipation of the cut.  

But it never came, and Michael held up the fragment of red wax to Martin’s eye, waving it in front of him.  He shuddered and let out his breath.  Before he could inhale again, those knife-edge fingertips were sliding down through the valley of his chest, playing delicately with the string of wax Annabelle had left.  Martin’s fear pooled icily in his gut.  

The Distortion giggled.  Martin’s eye sockets hurt from the sharpness of it, and he felt his head loll to the side again, instinctive though he didn’t. . . couldn’t remember what he was looking for, what he knew was there but. . . he couldn’t. . .

Michael rolled his head back to its original position, and went on peeling the wax from him like Martin was nothing more than a mildly interesting puzzle.  Martin closed his eyes, opened them.  Blinked, lifted his head to stare down at his chest.  His vision swam and his eyes drifted from each other, beyond his control.  As Michael held up a long strip of red wax, barely visible through Martin’s altered state, his heart pounded.  Was that. . .?  Was - what if Michael was holding a piece of his flesh?  And Martin had simply not noticed, had lost hours while the -  how long had the Avatar been working away at him?  What if there was no wax left and Michael was simply carving into him bit by bit?  Would he never see Jon again?

“Jon!” he gasped, flinging his head to the mural.  He saw the face of the Messenger at the same time that a sharp pain carved itself into his side, and in an instant Martin understood that if Michael had been peeling him, he would have felt it.  It would have felt as it did now, as Martin’s sharp movement caused the Distortion’s finger to slice shallowly into the sensitive skin underneath his breast.

“You want to bleed?” Michael asked him.  “You want Jon to watch your life ebb and flow here on this table, while I cut you?”

“If - if -” Martin managed, and bit his lip to keep from crying.  “If you’ll let me look at him.”

Michael’s features sharpened. “You do not wish to look at me?” And then its face got… quieter , melting into something closer to this reality, solidifying. It was simply a person, tall and severe, curls golden and spilling past its shoulders. Its eyes were no longer spinning fractals. It regarded Martin with a resigned amusement — especially when it reached for him, and he flinched. It drummed cold but human fingers on his stomach. 

“Even the Eye has trouble sifting through It Is Not What It Is. I suppose I shouldn’t expect you to see any better, two Trials past or not.” It leaned over and took a long breath. “The Spider and the Vast touched you, did they not? Did you look away from them?”

“N-no,” Martin said, his voice small. 

“No.” Michael laughed, and Martin felt it like pressure against his skull. It began to walk around the altar, its edges beginning to unfurl as it sang, “No, no, no, no, no.” It glanced sideways at Martin, starting to lose its shape a bit more, its fingers elongating. “View your Messenger if you must. However.” It sounded infinitely pleased. “It will hurt worse if you do.”

Martin shuddered, and the leftover spots of wax cracked and tugged at his skin. His eyes trailed from Michael to Jon and back again. It got disconcertingly closer each time. “I…”

“ Look at me .”

Martin’s head spun. He stared up into Michael’s smile again, filling up the room. The sharp tip of a finger pressed against Martin’s bottom lip until he opened his mouth. Michael made a pleased sound that raced like insects beneath his skin. 

“Now look at him,” it said. Martin didn’t know what it meant, until it took his face in hand again and tilted it to face Jon’s mural. There was a sting as its sharp hands bit slightly into his cheeks. “Do you like it, little prophet? Me or him?”

“…Jon,” Martin finally managed to gasp. 

Michael slid its fingers away from him, and Martin felt blood begin to ooze down his face. The Avatar prickled in his peripherals, but he kept his gaze focused. 

“What to do, what to do,” Michael mused. It scratched lightly down Martin’s front, making him flinch and moan. The skin, free from the wax, still felt heated and sensitive. Michael did it again, making that bubbly hum that dripped through Martin’s skeleton. 

A sudden stinging line on his thigh, and Martin jerked his head to look down. A line of red welled up under Michael’s touch. When it saw Martin looking, it smiled, and sliced another one across the first. Martin hissed, and its smile grew. 

“Is it hard to stay focused on the Messenger when your body is in peril, little prophet?” it asked around a sighing laugh. “You’ll have to get over that, and soon.” Its hand cut another line on Martin’s opposite thigh. “Or else the Flesh may have a field day with you.”

Martin’s stomach rolled at the implications, and he struggled to look back at Jon, his fists clenching with his resolve, even as Michael drew another line across his stomach. They were superficial cuts, just enough to draw blood, although they were searing the longer they were open to the air and the spiked presence of the Avatar. It was hardly digging fingers into his body to rearrange bones. He could withstand that. 

Michael drew his attention slightly back with a tap against one of his nipples, the threat of it like the point of a knife. He didn’t look at it, but he did gasp when it pressed a bit harder. He felt the moment it broke through the skin, and he bit the inside of his cheek to keep still. 

“What if you’re wrong?”

Martin didn’t turn, but his brow furrowed. “Wrong?”

“Yes. About everything.” It pulled its finger away to circle his nipple lazily. “The Church and your place in it, the Trials, the Messenger. What if this is all a dramatic ritual to sacrifice you to the Fourteen?” It leaned close. It didn’t have breath, but Martin felt its words in his ear. “What if it’s all in your head?”

“No,” Martin said. 

“No, no, no,” Michael echoed. “We should get on with the Trial, then, shouldn’t we?”

There was a moment of nothing, where Martin waited with suspended breath for the thing to show what it meant. 

And then its tongue wrapped around his nipple, and blunted fingers pressed against his dick. 

Martin spasmed, his body instinctively trying to curl against the sudden buzzing onslaught. All of his cuts pulsed, and he cried out when his body was held in place by a sharp, dangerous grip. A few fingers dug unpleasantly into his hips, sure to leave more shallow but bleeding marks. And still, the smiling mouth worked at his breast, and those impossibly long fingers danced in the space between his cunt and cock. 

“Despite how I look, I’m not one for blood,” it said clearly, regardless of what its mouth was doing. “You just seemed as if you needed to be opened a little.”

Martin screwed his eyes shut and shook his head, still fighting to understand how he was being touched. Not looking made everything a surprise, harder to ignore, and Michael’s touch felt expert and precise. He felt himself get wet, and his legs fell open without his notice. First Crew, then himself, and then Annabelle — his body was worked up so much beneath the surface, and it was ready to boil over so quickly. 

“Please, Michael! Please, Twisting Deceit, Throat of Deception, I need to, I have to come, please!”

But Michael replied with its familiar mocking, “No, no, no.”

With an enormous effort, Martin clenched his stomach tightly and held his breath, thinking of horrible things, tragic things.  Even as Michael’s cold fingers trailed down from his twitching cock and into his entrance, he fought the sensation, fought to obey.  He shook his head harshly, scratching it on the altar’s stone.  “Please,” he panted, not knowing what he was asking for.  “Please, please, please. . .”

Michael’s smile lengthened again, impossibly wide, curved edges twisting in on themselves and teeth multiplying in Martin’s blurred vision.  It pushed deeper into him, and Martin gasped thickly, the pressure inside him further up than he had ever imagined feeling.  It wasn’t enough for him to feel the threat of climax, but it was heady, intense.  He moaned without meaning to, and shivered as his own slick gushed out around Michael’s exploring digits.

“Oh, prophet,” the Distortion purred, and Martin cried out as another long, slim finger - still blunt, he noted with relief - entered him and started to spread wide.  The stretch was wider than it had been with Annabelle, and he squirmed back and forth underneath Michael as it continued to patiently finger him open.  For a moment, Martin tried to imagine what he was being prepared for - was the Distortion going to fuck him?  He truly didn’t think he could hold on through that.  He had only the faintest idea of what it meant to sleep with another man.  Even Elias, for all he made constant use of Martin’s mouth, refused to touch him elsewhere.  He prayed that he would have the strength to hold on if Michael did want to. . . well, if Michael put something other than his fingers inside him.

He’d had no idea that any of this could feel this way.  As the fingers inside him moved with sharp, scissoring motions, he began to truly understand what Crew had meant when he had said that the Trials would not be easy for Martin. With the Distortion’s tongue swirling around his oversensitized chest and flicking teasingly over his sore nipples, Martin felt like a raw nerve, flayed open for dissection.  The wet tongue on his skin felt like an alive thing, and Martin trembled as Michael’s mouth moved further up, nibbled and laved teasingly on his neck, behind his ears.

It was when the Distortion’s maw closed around the place where his shoulder met his throat that Martin jumped, twitched stiffly in its grasp and tightened around its fingers.  It was too much, it was - he needed to -

“I’m going to - please, oh - oh, please,” he groaned.  “Let me come, please!”

Michael pulled away from him, shaking its head disapprovingly.   “No, no, no, no, no, little prophet, no.”

“Please!” Martin blurted, twisting in place miserably.

“No.”  The Distortion added another finger - that was four, Martin’s bleary mind informed him, four long fingers inside him, wiggling insistently against hidden bundles of pleasure, stretching him to his limit and beyond.  It began to slide its fingers in and out, twisting them and punching back in with an incomprehensible rhythm.  Martin felt heat rush up his chest, caught on the edge of his orgasm and yet so far from it.  He sobbed, breath hitching despite his efforts to inhale deeply.

“Ask me to cut you.”

Martin turned wet eyes towards Michael, his thoughts oil-slick and sliding from him. “What?”

Michael laughed and its fingers twisted further into him. “Ask me to cut you,” it said again. “Ask me to distract you from the pleasure. Ask me to make you bleed again, little prophet. Ask me for a kindness.”

Martin dug his hands into the rough sides of the stone altar, and found the pain did distract him from the heat coiling in him. Shuddering, fear congealing in his veins, he whispered, “Please c-cut me, Michael.”

“No,” Michael said. 

But even as it spoke, a new line of fire slid up Martin’s side. His lips parted on a wail, and Michael kissed him.

Kissing Michael felt like pressing his lips to lightning. He had the sudden image of Crew’s fractal scars, and understood at once the connection with the Spiral. It felt like colour poured into his throat, tasting of adrenaline and metal. Martin’s face felt numb, and he couldn’t tell what his tongue was doing against Michael’s insistent one, like nettles in his mouth. The pain and intensity dragged him from the edge of orgasm harshly, and the fingers inside of him lost a bit of their pleasure, feeling angular and crowded. 

Michael laughed again, and it went straight to Martin’s head through his soft palette, reverberated and fragmented behind his eyes. He made a muffled moan, overwhelmed, swallowed eagerly by the thing’s encroaching smile. He felt himself lost in its never ending halls, feet bloodied, exhausted, hands raw from trying every door and only finding more nauseating walls. 

And something in him, buried deep in his stomach and wrapped in layers of terror, delighted in the challenge of unravelling it all. 

With a piercing noise, Michale drew away from him, the fingers inside him gone, the smile retreated across the room. “You!” it said, pointed a serrated finger in his direction. “You cannot reach the heart of me. You can try to pull me apart, little prophet ,” it spat, “but you will not succeed.” It sneered, its face jagged. “Filthy servant of the Eye.”

“I’m sorry,” Martin said, sitting up. “I didn’t mean to.”

Michael laughed and it was ragged and like grinding metal on metal. “No, no, of course not. You’re simply hungry for every Fear, aren’t you, little one?” It stepped closer, but still out of Martin’s reach. It almost looked…afraid. “No wonder he wants you.” 

It turned away, back towards its door. “And he can have you,” it said dismissively. “It Is Lies accepts you and you have passed the Trial.” A flashing, swirling glare. “But it is not pleased.”

The door closed with a screeching noise, and it was simply not there. 

Martin collapsed against the altar. His entire body ached, and he’d begun to shiver against the stone. He was bleeding from several cuts, and wax still dotted his chest. He looked a mess, but—

The realisation hit him all at once. Grinning toothily up at the mural, he said, “I did it, Jon! I passed!”

“Not quite yet.”

Martin froze.

“I have to admit, Martin,” Elias continued, as he strolled out from the hallway to the stairs, “you performed much more admirably than I ever expected you to, though the Trials of Breath, Body, and Blood are usually much more. . . sanguinary.  I would have loved to see you squealing and split open on the Spider’s fangs, but the Messenger had a different idea in mind, I suppose.”

“What?  Elias, I don’t underst -”

“You need my Blessing to complete the Trials,” Elias interrupted him, staring him down with a glint to his eye that Martin didn’t like at all.  “I’ve given it to you before, so I’m sure you will have no problem taking it now, is that right?”

Martin swallowed.  His mind called back the thickness of Elias’ cock stuffed down his throat that morning, the bitter taste of his Blessing running down Martin’s tongue.  He wrapped his arms around himself, suddenly self-conscious of his nakedness.  

“I will also extend forgiveness if you choose to abandon the Trials now,” Elias continued magnanimously.  “Come home with me, Martin, and all will be forgotten.  You haven’t failed yet.  There is still time.”

“No!” Martin exclaimed, before he could hold himself back.  “Please, Elias, Bless me and let me finish the Trials.  I want to complete them, I want to see Jon, please.”  He remembered Gerard telling him that Elias was bound to participate whether he liked it or not, and knew there was little point in begging for something Elias had to give him.  Still, he had a feeling that he was missing something, wriggling nervously under Elias' calm gaze

“You’ve wanted this for some time, now, haven’t you, Martin?” Elias asked. 

“Wanted what?” Martin asked, confused.

Elias smiled coldly at him.  “I think you finally deserve a proper Blessing.”

Martin barely had time to wonder what he meant by that before Elias was grasping the edges of his heavy robes and flinging them to the floor in one harsh, dramatic motion.  Martin gaped at him as he stepped forward, bare but for the shock of dark hair at his groin that Martin knew from touch and smell alone.  His eyes flitted from Elias’ toned waist to his chest to the the slim muscle of his upper arms as he reached forward to gently brush Martin’s hair from his forehead.  Martin felt his eyes flutter closed without realising, leaning into the Priest’s hand.

“Of all people,” Elias muttered darkly, and Martin’s eyes snapped open again.  He felt the familiar hurt pang of rejection in his chest as he remembered how unfit Elias thought he was for the role of a prophet.  He pulled away.

“Ah ah ah,” Elias tutted, gripping Martin’s jaw harshly. Martin hissed as his thumb dug into one of Michael’s marks on his cheek. “Hold still. I want you to watch .”

Martin had little time to wonder as Elias gripped him by his hips and yanked him further down the altar. He cried out as the rough stone dragged against his back. Elias settled himself between Martin’s knees, and began to line himself up. 

Martin twisted and struggled until he was able to close his legs enough to block Elias’ way. He was still so on edge from Michael, everything over sensitive and on the verge of overwhelm. And more than that, this was Elias . It was one thing to kneel and take him in confession. Martin was just a tool then, and the Blessing was little more than a joke. He’d never been laid bare like this before, and he did not miss the hunger in Elias as he looked him over, his body still wrecked and bleeding. And wet, between his legs. But that didn’t mean he could just—

“If you want my Blessing,” Elias said, beginning to breathe a bit more heavily as he fought to hold Martin down, “and to finally be the Messenger’s Prophet, you will submit. One way or the other.” He managed to pin his wrists, leaning his full weight into Martin. “The only benefit to this entire ordeal is my chance to pick you apart. I’d advise you handle this with some semblance of grace .”

“There has to be another way,” Martin said, trying his best to keep the desperation he was feeling out of his voice. “Just…take my mouth, Elias. You’ve blessed me that way before.”

“I’m afraid that won’t do,” he said. His smile was practically feral. “I could give you a thousand reasons, most involving your precious Jon , but I’ll just say— I want this, Martin. You have to earn my Blessing, and the way to do that now is to surrender that sweet cunt to me.” Martin whimpered. “What, you could whore it out to the Avatars, but not to the Priest who has so cared for you?” 

“I didn’t—“

“ I know you want this, Martin.” Elias’ voice was a whisper, and he slipped a little further between Martin’s legs in his position. “Not just my Blessing so you can meet your Messenger. You want this .” Elias’ cock bumped against Martin’s own, making him gasp. “You’ve wanted it for years. You’ve begged for my attentions with those eyes so many times.” Elias brushed his lips against Martin’s cheek. A suggestion of a kiss. “You can have it, then. A parting gift. Just for you.”

Martin started to speak again, to protest. But he knew the words wouldn’t matter. There was some truth to Elias’ claims, moments in the dark of his room where he’d cried for touch and comfort. Elias was the only consistent contact he had with someone else, and the feelings had blossomed in that dank cramped space between them. They were stunted, withered things, but they did exist. He didn’t think he could get away with lying. 

A part of him knew they would all burn away under Jon’s watchful eyes. But right then, he had to face those desires and reject them. He could do that. 

Frowning, Martin forced himself to relax, his legs falling open. Elias smiled at him, shifting to stand and line himself up again. “And remember,” Elias said, looking down at where he waited, wet and open, “if you come, you fail.”

And he pressed into him. 

Martin couldn’t have imagined what it felt like to have something more than hands in him. Even the Distortion’s terrifying touch had not felt close to this. Elias felt impossibly hot , and his cock touched every part of Martin’s walls at once. He swore he could feel it pulse inside of him, and suddenly something ached at the possibility of feeling Elias come, the flood and rush of warmth filling him up. He moaned and arched his back, subconsciously willing him deeper. A small part of him tucked away in the back of his mind lamented that they could have been doing this all along. 

“There we are,” Elias groaned. “I knew you could take it, you pathetic thing. You were made for this. Finally something you’re good for. ” He scoffed. “And to think I was saving you, ageing your service to the One Alone like a fine wine, when you were ready to take my cock from the beginning, weren’t you, you useless tart.”

All Martin could manage was a whining, “ Elias…”

“Little prophet,” Elias threw back at him.  “Hold on, now.”

Martin’s hands opened and shut where Elias held his wrists captive above his head.  He twisted his thighs tightly around Elias’ waist, trying to brace for whatever awaited him.

Elias smiled thinly down at him, squeezing his wrists harshly.  “Too late to be sweet, Martin.”

With that, Elias began to move, slowly and deliberately, drawing out of Martin’s cunt and pushing back in inexorably, further with each thrust.  Martin stared up at the ceiling in choking shock, gasping in shallow breaths, staccato moans.  It was all too much - the pressure inside him bled into the pain from Michael’s cuts where Elias carelessly rubbed against them, and he sobbed dryly, trying to keep from falling apart with each slow, firm stroke of Elias’ cock.

Before he could stop himself, his own hips rolled up to meet Elias on the next thrust, and the pleasure hit him like a wave of boiling water, sending prickles of cold sweat up his spine, the back of his neck, and he cried out in surprised ecstasy.  His vision whited, and he pushed his head back against the altar so far that it brushed the top of his scalp, his neck bowed upwards.  “Oh, God. . .” he groaned, and Elias laughed above him, dark and pleased.

“Yes, I think that’s appropriate,” he said, and drew back.  When he shoved in again, Martin didn’t move to meet him, fighting against that rush of pleasure.  He knew he needed to focus on passing the Trial of Elias’ Blessing - “If you come, you fail,” Elias had said, explicitly spelling out what the Avatars had only hinted at - but more than that, the idea of orgasming with Elias inside him scared him, terrified him in a way beyond the pale of understanding.  He didn’t want it.  He wanted it more than anything.

“You can let go,” Elias told him, pushing back inside him with a satisfied grunt.  “If you let go, you’ll feel so much better.  Don’t you want to feel that again?”

“N-n-not,” Martin gritted out, “not from you.”

Elias’ eyes went icy.  Without another word, the Priest picked up his pace, driving into Martin with a fury that he’d obviously been holding back.  Martin sucked in a startled breath, and then he was screwing his eyes shut, crying out with each hard thrust.  He was shaking with them, and Elias let go of his hands to take hold of his breasts, digging his fingers in and using them as a handhold.  Martin grabbed Elias’ wrists where he had hold of him, hanging on as best he could.  If this had been too much before, the cruelty of Elias’ onslaught was the only thing holding him back from the edge now.  

“Praise to the Viscera for this sluttish body,” Elias panted, squeezing Martin’s chest harder. “And to the Blood, for giving me such primal hunger.” His hands slipped down to Martin’s waist, using his grip to drive himself even deeper. “And to the End, for making this so bloody inevitable.”

Martin shook his head, hands still gripping Elias’ wrists as if he could move them. As if he wanted to. He was letting out one loud long keening wail, now, every thrust of Elias’ hips scraping him back and forth on the stone altar. Elias’ words slipped new Fears into his mind, and the effect was heady and confusing. The approval from the Dread Powers of the Trials made fear ring differently through his body, sing along his sinews. The air in his lungs spoke of the Vast, his tendons the Mother, his rolling eyes the Spiral. Everything in him teetered on a sheer edge, about to fall and break heavy on the rocks below. He cast blindly for a safety line. 

He found one. He’d never lost it. Jon’s mural stretched protectively across the wall, those green eyes shining, hands outstretched in a show equal parts of power and benevolence. The tidal wave of pleasure in his stomach subsided before it crashed. He managed a smile. 

Elias, gripping him painfully by the jaw again, tore him back to kiss him. He’d never kissed him before, and it was rough and possessive, his tongue insistent, the pressure unbearable. It was exactly the kind of kiss Martin had imagined he’d gain some day, when he finally proved himself worthy of the Church and Elias by extension. Yesterday, he would have collapsed against this violent touch. He would have wept for it. 

Today, though, he bit him. 

As soon as Martin’s teeth caught Elias’ lip, Elias came with a startled sound. His entire body stilled, every muscle tensed as he spilled into Martin. The heat and pulsation was pleasant, but Martin was too distracted by the acrid taste of blood in his mouth to notice. Elias didn’t pull back, huffing a broken noise against Martin’s lips, his fingernails digging into the flesh of his hips. Martin bit harder, and finally, he stumbled away, shock and rage warring on his face. 

Martin sat up, looking down between his legs as come bubbled out of his swollen cunt. He’d been Blessed. 

Elias shoved his hair back from his damp forehead, his eyes brilliant and crazed as he stepped towards Martin. His teeth were stained with blood. He raised his hand, and Martin braced for his strike. “You little—“

“ Do not lay hands on my Prophet.”

Elias and Martin both looked towards the bottom of the stairs to find a short, slender man, his long brown hair tucked neatly behind his ears, his body tense, his jaw squared. Although his clothes were odd, he was largely unremarkable and unintimidating - until several eyes opened on his face and the insides of his wrists, seemingly calm but flashing underneath. 

Martin’s heart swelled. He couldn’t speak. A few of the eyes focused on him, and the light there nearly had him falling into the orgasmic bliss he’d been so thoroughly denied. The eyes were…fond. Borderline affectionate. 

Jon. 

The eyes steeled when they turned back to Elias, who still had his hand raised. “The Messenger,” he breathed in awe. “You’re really here.”

“Step away from him, Magnus,” Jon ordered, taking a single step towards the two of them. 

“I’m not Magnus,” Elias said. Martin noted he didn’t sound confused by the accusation. 

“Maybe not in this life,” Jon replied, voice hard and cold. “And no matter what you’re called now, I am telling you to step away from my Prophet .”

The timbre of his voice sent Martin into chills.  He glanced at Elias.  The Priest looked furiously back at him, hand lowering reluctantly.  

“You’ll never be good enough for him,” he hissed at Martin.  “You weren’t good enough for your mother, and soon enough he’ll abandon you just like she did.  Remember, now.  As a parting gift .”

Martin trembled and shut his eyes, already feeling the first bite of the memory's ice-cold air.  His mother’s face swam into view, distorted with hatred and the force of the words she spat at him.  He bent his head, shuddering apart on the altar as hot tears began to flow down his cheeks unbidden.

“Enough.”

The vision burst.  Martin raised his head in confusion, only to behold the most terrified expression he’d ever seen on Elias’ face.  He spun to look at Jon again, but - but -

Jon’s feet hovered above the ground, his hair floating around his face as if through water and blinking with eyes in their multitudes.  The eyes covered his skin, glowed underneath his clothes.  Every one of them was alive with rage.

“Be gone from my sight,” he snarled at Elias.  Something beyond the edge of Martin’s comprehension snapped and crackled at the edges of his fingertips.  “Ceaseless Watcher - excise this rot from my place of worship and return him where he belongs.”

The words drove the color from Elias’ face.  “Messenger, I -”

“Go!” 

Elias pulled his robes hastily from the floor and ran for the stairs.  Every step he took seemed to be one of agony, and Martin noticed, with a sudden queasy feeling, that he was bleeding from his eyes.

The door shut, and the two of them were alone once more.

Jon sighed heavily as he began to return to the ground.  His hair fell down around his shoulders messily, and his many extra eyes blinked shut one by one, returning him to the appearance of a mortal man.  Martin felt his own hands start to cover himself again, suddenly afraid of Jon seeing him like this - his wounds still bled sluggishly, his eyes were dazed and his stomach throbbed with held-in tension.  He dared not to move, lest he invite Jon to notice the state of his body.  What would happen now?  What did Jon expect from him, at the end of the Trials?

“I’m sorry,” the Messenger said lowly, and Martin looked at him quizzically.  Part of him still ached with the apprehension of finally seeing the man he’d dreamed about for ages.  But a larger part of him was alive with a bone-deep need to wrap his arms around those bent, thin shoulders and let Jon rest.  He looked so tired.

“What - what are you sorry for?” he asked.  “You just saved me from him.”

“I didn’t -  I wanted to - I didn’t want you to see me like that, not until you - aren’t you scared?” Jon stammered, stepping closer to Martin and the altar.  “I knew you cared for him, and I didn’t think, I - I don’t deserve to have you as my prophet, Martin, I know you went through the Trials for me, but - you don’t need to.  You don’t -”

“You don’t want me?” Martin asked in a small voice.

“I do!  I want you,” Jon said, and then, adorably, blushed.  “As, as my prophet.  But -”

“I’m not scared of you,” Martin said firmly.  “I was scared of Elias.  But I’m not scared of you.”

Jon’s face minutely relaxed.  Martin wondered, absurdly, what he would look like when he slept, if he ever slept at all.  “So do you. . . wish to complete the Trials?  With me?”

Martin could have wept.  “Yes, Jon.  Please.  Please, let me complete them.”

Jon walked slowly towards Martin, and the air felt thick with static between them. His eyes raked over his body, and Martin once again resisted the urge to cover himself. Given the choice, this was not what he would want to look like meeting the Messenger. 

But Jon reached out. He didn’t touch, but Martin could feel the heat from his palm as he passed it over his body. “Beautiful,” he whispered. Martin started to protest, but Jon interrupted. “You look like this because you passed my Trials, to become my prophet.” He stepped down to the foot of the altar, hand passing down Martin’s leg. Martin choked back a sound when Jon dipped careful fingers between his legs and pulled them back. There were sticky strings between his fingers. “You even received the Priest’s blessing.”

“Y-yes,” Martin panted, unable to stop staring. “For you.”

Jon smiled. A third eye opened briefly on his temple, also squinting happily. “For me,” he echoed. His warm hands guided Martin’s legs open once more; he was careful to keep his wet fingers off of Martin’s thigh, which was absurd considering the mess he already was, but spiked a sense of warmth through the core of him. “And now, Martin, you get to let go.”

Martin wasn’t sure what Jon meant — until his smiling face lowered, and his tongue darted out to flick against Martin’s cock. 

Martin’s back bowed, and he tangled his hands in his own hair just to have something to hold onto. A frantic part of his brain tried to grapple with the fact that Jon the Messenger was tasting him , but his body, strung high and trembling, won out. He couldn’t think of anything except the gentling heat at his cock, the prodding fingers stroking at his opening, the lips now wrapping around him and humming. “Please,” he gasped, voice hoarse with desire. “Please, I’m—“

Come for me. 

Jon’s voice erupted in Martin’s head as his mouth continued its fervent work, and the orgasm broke over him like a true blessing, an anointment, a baptism of pleasure that rolled through his body and out of his mouth in a singing scream. And still, Jon mouthed at him without letting him escape, his touch gentle but insistent, his eyes hungry where they stared over Martin’s mons. Martin forgot how to breathe.

“Jon,” he choked out, his lungs burning, legs moving against his will to wrap around Jon’s shoulders, “Jon, Jon, Jon -”

Jon’s fingers slid into his entrance with an obscene, wet noise, immediately locating the node of pleasure that the Avatars had taken such delight in tormenting.  He bent his fingers, callouses rough against the soft heat of Martin’s cunt.  Martin wailed, and as Jon’s lips wrapped tightly around his twitching, oversensitive cock he fell back against the altar and came again, waves of shuddering pleasure rolling through him harshly, burning him alive.  He dragged in a breath and it tasted like ichor, like amber, like Jon.  

“Fuck,” he moaned.  “Oh, please, don’t - don’t stop, Jon, please, I -”

Jon pushed his fingers in further and Martin felt the roundness of his knuckles against his entrance, stretching him tight.  He bit his own hand to make it through the moment of overstimulation that wracked him until it tipped headily back into pleasure, and as Jon let his tongue drag tantalisingly through his wet cunt and back to his cock, Martin groaned throatily, his strength stolen as he twisted helplessly in the Messenger’s grip.  For a moment, it seemed as if Jon were happy to let him stay there on the edge, and Martin could think of nothing he wanted more than this - an endless, timeless breath whistling through his throat, sweat prickling coldly over every inch of his body, Jon laving firmly on his cock.  He forgot what he’d begged for, forgot everything but the movement of fingers inside him, unspooling him rapturously from the base of his neck down to his aching, throbbing core.  He was babbling wordlessly, weakly, his stomach clenched painfully tight, and then Jon made a sound - something so pleased, so dark, it was almost a groan, almost like he was savouring Martin’s taste - and Martin fell over the edge without warning, his body dragging him through a third orgasm with such inevitability that he had no choice but to stop thinking, let himself shake to pieces beneath Jon’s patient hand.  His mind was gone, and he didn’t care.

He didn’t know how long he writhed there, slowly coming down from intensity he’d never known he could experience, before he realised that he was crying.

“Oh, Martin,” Jon said, and he was there, he was there, he’d moved to stand next to Martin’s head, and Martin wept.  Jon’s dry hand was on his cheek, wiping the hot tears away.  “Martin.  My prophet.  Will you breathe for me, sweetheart?”

Martin nodded blindly and tried; he gulped air like a lifeline, pushing into Jon’s palm like a kitten in search of milk.  He trembled as he inhaled, but with every breath, he felt his mind coming back to him.  For one last, drunken moment, he worried about nothing at all.

Then he remembered who was touching him, who had just made him come three times, and he sucked in a startled breath and turned to stare at Jon.

The Messenger smiled tiredly down at him.  His mouth had been wiped clean, but his eyes were still dark with intent.  “There we are.  Good, good, Martin.  Come on, keep breathing for me.” Martin’s mouth opened, and a dry finger fell across his lips. “No questions, yet,” Jon said gently. “Let me enjoy you as you are, my prophet. You’ve been through so much for me and now I’m here.”

Martin yearned upwards, and Jon’s kiss was claiming, starving, stole away the breath he’d only just gotten back. Touching Jon wasn’t like the Vast or Web or any of them. He felt like he was finally being let into the light, like the brilliant sun was taking him in, like he’d been missed all along. Like he’d been wanted . 

Jon used a hand in Martin’s hair to guide his mouth how he wanted, his quick tongue tracing Martin’s lips. His mouth was salty-sweet, but any recoil from the familiar taste of the Priest’s blessing was overruled by the warmth of Jon’s touch, the taste of Martin’s own cunt a balm over them both. 

And then it was just Jon, smoke and flowers, and Martin drank of it like a dying man. 

“You did so beautifully,” Jon said between kisses as he pulled Martin to a seat on the altar. 

“You saw?” Martin asked, parting his legs for Jon to stand between. Jon was still fully clothed, but he pressed close, and every inch of them that touched left Martin electrified. 

Jon’s eyes sparkled, not unlike the gemstones in the mural (although the artwork hardly did him justice, now). “I saw everything ,” he said. 

And then his hand slipped down to palm at Martin’s cock again, and Martin pressed himself closer to his patron, whimpering against his shoulder. “You gave your breath, will, and fear over to me, Martin, along with this body.” Jon’s fingers moved faster. Every time Martin wished he’d change his speed, his angle, the slightest curve of pleasure — it happened without a second’s wait, and another peak was rapidly approaching. “You listened so well, and you were so captivating.” Jon kissed the shell of his ear, and his breathing was rough and wanting. “I thought your first offering was stunning enough, and then you offered yourself on my altar, and thought only of me. Oh, Martin .”

Jon’s other hand brushed light fingertips across Martin’s nipples, still flecked with wax and still sensitive. Martin keened, rolling his hips deeper into Jon’s hand, his cock beginning to throb. He was almost too close to register the words Jon said. (But they were holy words, credences from his patron, his Messenger, and he held them each like precious things, turning them over and over in his hands).

“First—ah! First off-offering?” he asked while his voice still belonged to him.

Jon hummed in agreement against his collarbone, and raised an arm. In his hand was a tattered scrapbook, covered all over in cramped handwriting and drawings with bleeding ink. 

His journal . 

Martin was about to explain, or argue, when Jon did something unexpected with his hand and he couldn’t speak again for the moaning. 

“You left this at my altar,” Jon panted into his ear. His fingers were working so fast on Martin it made his voice shake. “And I knew it was time to claim my Prophet.” 

Martin had a thousand questions, a hundred protests, a dozen pleas, but all he could do was echo what he wanted most, what burned deepest in the pit of his stomach and pounded a rhythm into his throbbing cunt— “ Claim .” He wanted to be claimed. He wanted to be his , Jon’s, the Messenger’s cherished, speaker of the Fourteen and under the watchful care of the Eye. “Claim, Jon, yours .”

“Mine,” Jon agreed fervently, and Martin felt him put the journal down on the altar before his free hand was taking Martin’s chin between careful fingers and turning him for a kiss, soft and heated.  “I’ve never seen anyone like you,” he whispered between kisses.  “So kind.  So human.  You want to be free?  You want to leave these church walls?  Come with me, Martin, I’ll take you anywhere, my prophet, my love.  Come for me.”

The words pierced Martin’s dumbstruck mind like a knife.  He wrapped his arms tightly around Jon’s slim frame and cried out, pushing unabashedly into his hand, fighting for one final orgasm.  He wanted to obey, he needed to.  And Jon - Jon had called him -

“F- fuck, Jon - !” he gasped brokenly, and then he was surging forward to capture his Messenger’s lips as he came like a shattering dam, the last twist of anxiety in his chest unmoored, blinded with the rush of emotion that welled up in its place.  He clutched Jon desperately as it came in waves, each receding burst of carnal pleasure replaced by a stronger onslaught of deep, heavy feeling.  He pressed his face in between Jon’s neck and shoulder, seeking the warmth there.  He noticed that Jon had no pulse.

“That’s it,” Jon murmured.  He was trailing his fingers slowly through the mess between Martin’s legs, coaxing the last dregs of sensation from him patiently.  “Let it all go, Martin.  Feel your body giving you over to its primal state, and feel your mind releasing itself from its worldly troubles.”  He lifted both his hands to gently wrap around the back of Martin’s neck, and pulled him down for another slow, reverent kiss.  “Open yourself to me, and I will give myself to you.”

“Jon. . .” Martin moaned against him, unable to think of anything else to say.  He found a word and grasped onto it eagerly.  “Please.”

Jon smiled softly.  “Close your eyes.”

Martin obeyed, and clung tight to Jon as the wind whistled in his ears. There was the sense of movement, a kind of rolling in his stomach, and then a sudden stillness. The wind became gentle and smooth against his skin, and the air smelled sweet. Martin waited for a long moment before opening his eyes, just listening to the sound of Jon’s breath so close to him. 

And then a lowing sound. Like a cow. 

Martin’s eyes fluttered open. They were both seated on a large green hill; now that he was aware, he felt the grass prickle slightly against his thighs. They were partly shaded by a sprawling oak tree, dappled in shadow. There was nothing but grass for miles, rippling like ocean water, and spotted occasionally with doe-eyed highland cows, a few of which looked up at them with no alarm. Martin gaped at it, his eyes squinting in the sunlight. Were these the fields of his childhood? Could he recognise them, anymore?

He turned towards Jon, about to ask — if anyone would know it would be the all knowing Messenger — when he realised— 

“Jon!” Martin squealed a bit, curling in on himself. “I’m still naked!”

“Yes,” Jon confirmed, sounding delighted with the information. 

Martin buried his blushing face into Jon’s shoulder with a small groan. “Well, are there people around?” He started to check, but couldn’t bring himself to do so. “It’s— it’s one thing, being naked on your altar. It’s another thing being naked out in the open .”

Jon gently pulled him back until he could take his chin in his hand. He stared at him, a few more eyes opening and flashing with a startling heat. “Do you think I would allow anyone to see you whom I didn’t wish to?” he asked. Martin felt the breath of his silent laugh against his lips. 

“No, I suppose not,” he whispered. He wanted to be kissed again. And again. And again. He wanted to tumble down the hill together until they became one, the Messenger and his prophet. His his his .

Jon smiled, and Martin managed to relax. The wind still felt like a familiar lover, and the shadows looked beautiful against his uncovered skin, and it was so warm…He lay back on the grass, closing his eyes and sighing. “I haven’t felt the sun in years,” he admitted, although the thought made his voice tremble with the weight of that acknowledgment, the lost years in the shadows of the Church. And he hadn’t exactly been naked in the sun before then, either. He looked up at Jon. From this angle, his jaw was especially sharp. His many eyes stared out into the distance, but also stared at nothing. Maybe everything at once. 

“Martin,” he said without looking down. He sounded nervous, which made Martin nervous. What had he done wrong this time? “Being my prophet will be…strenuous.” He glanced over at Martin and quickly away again. “It can be frightening. It will be frightening. You will need to travel through all the realms and interact with a lot more Avatars — and perhaps the ones you’ve already met as well.” His voice dropped, as quiet as the gentle breeze. “But I promise you I will do anything in my power to keep you safe. And you will be free.” He smiled at Martin, some of the sudden sadness draining from his tired eyes. “Free to see your cows.”

“How did you know?” Martin asked. He rolled his eyes at Jon’s smirk. “I’m sure you just Know , but I didn’t think my favourite hill would be something…significant.”

Jon’s face grew abruptly serious. He reached out to hold one of Martin’s hands in both of his, his palms warm. “Everything you love is significant, Martin,” he said. Martin tried to hide from the weight of his gaze, but found he couldn’t move for a long moment, caught in the intensity of Jon’s feeling. 

Then, with another smirk: “You also wrote about it in your journal.”

“Uh, yeah, about that,” Martin said in an embarrassingly squeaky voice.  “That really wasn’t supposed to be - finished work - I guess, what I’m saying is, there’s a lot of stuff about you in there and I don’t think I ever intended you to really read it, but obviously it’s okay that you did because - offering on your altar, I get that, but - sorry, is what I’m trying to say, I really wouldn’t have written about your um, body like that, you probably saw a lot about your navel and hips and - if I knew you were actually going to, you know, read it, which - is fine!  But I’m sorry that -”

Jon laughed.  Martin shut his mouth, shocked into dumb silence.  Unlike the silent puff of amusement he’d heard before, this laugh was rich and full-throated, sending Martin’s heart into silent thrills as the Messenger shook beside him.

“I was flattered,” Jon told him, and leaned to press a kiss to his temple.  “I don’t, ah, see the appeal, personally?  But it made me. . . curious.  I already looked forward to your visits.  When you left the poetry, I was able to manifest physically for the first time in a while.  I hope you don’t truly mind that I read it.”

“No, Jon, no, of course I don’t mind,” Martin hastened to say.  Then, “What do you mean, manifest physically?”

Jon bunched his eyebrows together.  He looked unfairly handsome like that, and Martin buried his face in his patron’s shoulder again, blushing.  

“The best way I can think to describe it,” Jon said slowly, “is comparing the place I reside to the in-between that the Entities themselves were bound to before the Change.”  He sighed.  “Before I broke the world.”  There was a weighted pause as Martin tried to grapple with what he’d just said, but before he could attempt a clarifying question Jon was speaking again.  “I am only able to interact with this plane of reality through a human prophet, to anchor myself to and through whom I am able to translate my very being.”  He pulled back, looking fondly down at Martin.  “Your offering let me put one foot on the earth, as it were.  Then once you’d completed the Trials, I could fully appear.  I haven’t. . . haven’t been here in so long.”  He looked pensively out at the skyline again.  “The last few prophets I had. . . the Church began to understand how they helped me manifest.”

“What happened to them?” Martin whispered, seeing the pain cross Jon’s face.

“Georgie, Gerard, they - they were killed.”  Jon’s face darkened.  “It’s hard for me to Know how, and there’s only a few things I have trouble Knowing - the machinations of the Spider, and the actions of the Eye, as I cannot see inside myself.”  He tightened his hand in Martin’s.  “I am in complete certainty that the Church knew what I planned to do if I was allowed to stay on this plane too long, and took care of what they saw as the - the weakest link.  After Gerard, I - I couldn’t do it anymore.  I stayed in my in-between.  I didn’t want to be responsible for any more death, especially of the people I’d grown to. . . to love.”

There was a long silence.  Martin twisted to look Jon in the eyes.

“What did you plan to do?  That the Church was so afraid of you?”

“I want to destroy them.”  Jon set his jaw and looked into the distance.  “I want their rule over this world to end.”

Martin’s eyes widened.  That was - that was blasphemy.  But how could it be blasphemy, when it was Jon saying it?

“The Fourteen - this world circles around the Eye, and they hate it.  And their Avatars, the ones who were here before the Change, they hate it as well.”  Jon sighed.  “The new Avatars - they just thirst for control.  They don’t remember what it used to be like, before.  But the others - Crew, Annabelle - they’ve had two hundred years to feel their patrons grow bored of the same flavour of fear.”  He laughed, no humour in his voice this time.  “When you’ve gorged upon the same meal for centuries, you begin to appreciate the memory of its rarity.  If I can find a way to take down the Church, their hold on the world and the Fourteen ends.  The Fourteen go back behind the veil, and - and the world will be as it was.  They will still feed, but they will not be able to directly manifest, as they do now.”  He glanced down at Martin.  “They will be as I am, only able to influence this reality through their Avatars.”

Martin considered this for a moment.  He remembered the way Crew had spoken of feeling trapped, how he was bound to this new world under the service of the Eye.  He remembered how Elias let the Lonely feed on him in his sleep, the thousands of penitents that flooded the Church halls with their terror.  He remembered the sob of the man next to him in the confession booth as Elias revelled in fear that did not truly belong to him.

“I understand that - that you probably instinctively reject everything about what I just told you,” Jon was saying, his voice heavy.  “You don’t have to say yes, Martin. You still have a choice, you can still refuse to be that anchor, refuse to put yourself in that position of danger.”

Martin worried his lip between his teeth.  “And if I do say no?” he hazarded, feeling his heart beat wildly.

“I’ll have to return to where I was.  The in-between.  Somewhere both existing and not existing, like the halls of the Spiral, but even less tangible.  Watching without words.”  He smiled bitterly.  “Knowing with no agency.”  Then he glanced quickly down at Martin again.  “I don’t want that to be the sole driving force of your decision.  You deserve happiness, regardless of me, regardless of - where I go.”

“I don’t know what happiness is without you,” Martin said quietly.  

He realised, as he said it, that it was true.  He’d had pleasant moments scattered throughout his life - days in the sun as a child before he was called sharply back to his chores, brief visits from Tim and Sasha in between his drudgery in the Church - even moments where he felt the dizzying anticipation of Elias’ approval.  He hadn’t had a miserable life, certainly not compared to most.  But the only time he’d felt true joy, the lightness in his heart that buoyed him for days after, was sitting in front of Jon’s mural.  He felt it now, even with the revelation of what Jon’s goal was.  He turned swiftly to the Messenger, and kissed the surprised shape from his mouth.

Martin felt Jon stiffen for a moment, before melting into him, the kiss softly reciprocated. They pulled slightly apart, still close enough to know they weren’t through yet. 

“I accept,” Martin said. This close, Jon was all eyes, albeit blurred from the nearness. An unfocused sea of brown and white and green. 

“Even if it goes against everything you’ve been taught?” Jon asked without shrinking away. “Everything you’ve believed in? Even if it turns the entire world upside down?”

“With you?” Martin answered. “Where you go, I go.”

Jon groaned, low in his mouth, the groan of a satisfied man still going in for second helpings. “ My Prophet ,” he breathed. 

Their kiss thickened, turning into honey in their mouths. Their tongues slid past each other, and Jon’s final sigh filled Martin’s lungs. 

Jon laid Martin out on his back. The sun dappled them both; Martin swore he could feel every thumbprint’s worth of shadow on his skin. And then Jon’s rough hands followed. He drew his hands from Martin’s thighs, up his stomach, past his chest, and into his hair as he kissed him. Martin’s back arched a bit into his touch. “Holding you is an act of worship,” Jon said like a prayer. 

Martin looked up at him, all of his eyes open to take Martin in, the power in them a tangible thing. He laughed, bright and bubbly. “I’m supposed to worship you ,” he said. 

Jon smiled. “Why don’t we share it?” He kissed Martin’s forehead. “I believe an act of such holiness must be shared to be divine.”

“An act of— oh, Jon .” Martin’s head fell back onto the soft grass and he bit his lip as Jon glided his fingers back over his cock. His body had mostly forgiven him his early strains of passion, but it stirred back immediately. Already he could feel himself grow slick between his folds, and he would be embarrassed if he didn’t hear the want in Jon’s voice. 

“Every sound you make is a benediction, Martin, my prophet,” he said, almost dropping into a growl . “And I only wish to give you praise.”

Martin whined, high and desperate. He thought he’d fall into flame if Jon kept talking, praising him. Him! Martin Blackwood! Ward of the Church and little else, now being pleasured by the Messenger underneath the Watchful sky. Later, there would be strategy, and secrecy, and terror. But now, underneath his favourite tree, Jon nibbled a mark onto his neck, and he prepared himself to go up in flame, a glorious testament to Jon. 

“I don’t want you to burn,” Jon chided. “I want you to come again.”

“Same…thing…” Martin huffed between quick inhales in time with Jon’s clever fingers. 

Jon licked teasingly underneath his ear, and Martin moaned wantonly, unashamed of his noises out here in the sun, out here on the hill where no one could see.  His patron slid down languidly to kneel between his open legs, and Martin felt his hands move almost against his will to tangle in that lovely, soft hair as Jon bent to press a hot, open-mouthed kiss against his slit.  Martin saw the familiar pleased squint of Jon’s third, fourth - yes, and a fifth eye opening between Martin's fingers, blinking happily at him as he wrapped the soft tendrils around his knuckles and encouraged Jon with a happy sound.  Then it was beyond his concern what noises he made, because Jon was flicking his tongue against his cock, and sinking it into the tight heat between his folds, and - and - Martin let himself float, caught there between the sun and Jon’s eager mouth.

When Jon bumped his aquiline nose firmly against his cock and started licking him with broad, flat strokes from his hole up, Martin lost all control of his words.  He twisted his hands more harshly than he meant to, but Jon was pushing back into him with a hum that insisted on more when he tried to loosen his grip.  He was vaguely aware of his own voice, vaguely aware that he was declaring something he’d only ever dreamed of saying, but it all washed away beneath the tide of feeling Jon was stirring within him.  He bucked his hips into Jon’s willing face, unable to be ashamed of his body’s actions, unable to acknowledge anything but Jon, the hungry way he pressed into Martin like he needed him more than air.  And maybe he did, Martin thought deliriously.  For all he knew, Jon needed nothing more in this plane of reality than Martin.  And wasn’t that a thought that made him want to wrap his legs even tighter around his patron, a thought that he would have flushed shamefully at and secretly written down in tiny script only a few days ago.  Now he had everything.  Now Jon had given him everything.

“I love you,” he cried out, falling back against the grass, pressing his hands to his eyes in helpless rapture.  “I love you, I love you -”

There was a flash of light behind his eyes - in a dizzying moment, he saw himself from above, spread out on the lush grass, body rolling and rippling with his squirming, patterned with bruises and slowly healing cuts.  His hair looked like a halo laid around his head, his legs spread wide to accommodate space for the creature of eyes that was Jon, all flashing green and radiating with power.  He gasped, and Jon looked up to meet him.  

He saw approval in those eyes, and fell back to his body with a rushing, shuddering scream, coming harder than he had ever before - the orgasm ripping through him like a physical being, a wild thing searching for escape. 

Once he’d caught his breath that Jon had so rudely stolen from him with an indulgent tongue, Martin whined and shook his head. “N-no more, please, Jon,” he panted. A tiny part of him wished Jon would continue, insist— but his body threatened pain more than pleasure, and he relaxed tension he didn’t know he held when Jon pulled away. He came back up next to him, and Martin was surprised but delighted when Jon rested his head on Martin’s still-heaving chest. 

“I never thought I’d come back,” Jon said. Martin couldn’t see his expression, but he felt the sadness in his voice with a twinning throng in his own throat. 

“I never thought I’d be released,” Martin answered. 

Jon looked up at him, entwining their fingers and pressing kisses against each of Martin’s knuckles. “I’m here to rescue you,” he whispered. 

“And I’m here to keep you,” Martin said. 

Jon laughed again. It was soft and gentle and flowed over Martin like its own touch. “Keep. I like that. I would be honoured to be kept by you, prophet.” The distance to Martin’s lips was so small that Martin felt the kiss before Jon went for it. “Martin, my love.”

“Jon,” Martin answered. 

“I love you.”

“I love you, too.”

Jon sighed and rested his head back on Martin’s chest. They both looked out over the hills with the dark dots of cows, the sunset beginning to break golden and rose over the horizon. 

Tomorrow, they would start a journey, treacherous and tiring. They would be working to unravel the fabric of the world Martin had always known, and Jon helped to create. They would make enemies and companions; there would be allies and betrayals; there would be blood. But there would also be the two of them, together, the Messenger and his Prophet, there to bear witness to the end of the world. 

Martin squeezed Jon’s hand, and Jon squeezed back. 

It was time for a new one.