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Having a delightful conversation with someone seconds before tearing them open is exactly your expertise. You've done it hundreds of thousands of times across eons, and it always ends up more or less the same.
On second thought, the "delight" is mostly on your end. The "conversation" part too. Most days, it doesn't matter that there's no reciprocation. You are the parasite, and parasites don't intend mutualism—it simply isn't the way you function. But of course boredom, a wily thing, always finds its way to you, one way or another. It's an ear worm in your many-throated mind, repetition in its rawest form. And it is your harshest critic, finding the cracks, laying heavy its mockery.
Look at the play you've put on
again.
and again,
and again,
and again.
Funny, it almost sounds like us.
The same actors, same lines, same screams and bloody tears. You don't like to be scrutinized, but even you can tell it's getting trite. And you're your own director, due for a rewrite.
Enter Arthur Lester. Your English rose, your songbird, your Romeo if you want to be dramatic. He's one of many, millions of others scattered across crimson keys like blood-red nebulae.
He's horribly melodramatic. It's almost cute. He cries much more than he should, really, and god is he loud when he screams. You can't hate it though, the sound is quite beautiful. His heart is in the right place though, and he always knows what he wants. He's like you, in a way. So of course, you need to talk to him.
He's nowhere near calm when you call him in, all wide-eyed and anxious, typical of young and bright actors. But it's always hard to hold a conversation with him, only because of how he feels about you.
That's the problem. Arthur Lester hates you. He's always hated you. You do not think there's a world in which he doesn't hate you. He hates you like one would hate the wind for blowing. And he regards you like you're full of thin, sharp teeth, like you have devil's horns that curl inward like they might deceive you with the facade of a halo. He's right of course.
He hates you for good reason. He knows what you are.
He's about to get up and run, always so rascally. You tell him he'll barely feel a thing. You don't know if that's actually true.
You take Arthur’s head in your hands, directing it to face you like a marble bust. Sharp claws chisel into his skull, peeling back scalp and skin. You just need to pull around some things—a quick rearranging, that’s it.
You make a bit of a mess of his head when your hand is forced through, a deep crater of thick crimson, pooling and congealing with bits of bone sticking out like shrapnel. You can't help but think he's like a head of raw stone, rough around the edges until he's hewn to perfection.
He screams as you slip your fingers through the cracks in bone, breaking like plaster. You hold your other hand to his jaw tightly, willing him to be still, be silent.
“Shh, darling, it's only for a little bit,” you say. Your nail reaches something soft and warm, and you carefully flick away loose bone with your other fingers. “There we are.”
Arthur makes a thin, strained whine, and his eyes roll back into his shattered skull. He shudders, just a bit, and his body goes slack.
“Aw,” you coo. “Almost there.”
You dig your pointer in further, and there’s blood dripping along your fingers and pooling at your wrist, soaking in your shirtsleeve. Pink and gray brain matter is caked along his head and bleeding thick black blood like sap from the center. You loop your finger through a ridge, gently tugging it loose. There.
“All done! Was that so bad?”
Arthur’s breathing heavily in your hands, and his eyes have settled again. You were worried you might’ve killed him, but he’s still awake. The both of you are sitting on the floor, legs sprawled beneath you, and he leans his head back against the wall of whatever house you've stuffed them in now. His eyes are fixed on you, still and glazed over in the dim moonlight.
Arthur blinks once, a faint noise of confusion in his throat. “What?”
“Well?” you ask, a grin tugging at your lips. “How do you feel?”
He’s always so quick to fill in the blanks, connect the dots. You can’t help but love that about him. Most mortals are such vapid, infantile creatures, filth and flesh and blood that writhed no different than maggots. But him. He had teeth strung around his neck like he was dancing the edge of death. He was a hunter of blood, a killer of stars. He could weave golden fabric between lithe fingertips with the grace and charm of a king. How romantic.
You watch Arthur bring a hand to the gaping wound in his head. “I– what? Why doesn’t–” he quints, and his brows furrow. “It doesn’t hurt.”
“Fun little trick, isn’t it?”
You made sure to choose an Arthur who can see you. It makes it all the more satisfying when his gaze touches yours, limned in accusation. “What did you do?”
You smile, teeth bared like a wolf. “Well, I simply made a few adjustments, of course!”
Arthur looks no short of horrified. It’s a wonderful look on him. “Adjustments?”
You reach over, lightly running your thumb along the broken edges of his skull, layers all even until the center like tree rings. You sigh, “No pain, no fear. Isn't it nice?”
Arthur’s breath goes infinitesimally ragged, before it stops, settling again into something uniform. There’s no dread to be had, and his mind can search for it again and again only to come up empty.
“Y-You… what the fuck did you–?”
“I just said, darling. Do I need to repeat myself?”
“No, I– I suppose not.” He lets out a short, disbelieving breath. “I don’t feel… it doesn’t hurt. It just feels like– well, like my head is open.”
“And are you scared?”
“No,” he says, and then his eyes widen, like he’s shocked at his own answer.
“Good, that means I didn’t break anything. At least not accidentally.”
“Wait, wait, hold on– What’s– What’s going on?” he asks, lightly touching his fingers to his head, then wincing before pulling away. “How am I not dead?”
You slide closer to him. “Because! I don’t want you to be.”
“That– That doesn’t make any sense.”
“Oh come now, Artie. After all you’ve seen?”
“...I suppose.” He tilts his head so the blood drips less intrusively down his jaw, instead in a slow and oozing stream. "What are you going to do now then?"
You lightly push him back against the wall by the shoulders, and he follows your lead, staying still. You take the top button of his shirt in your hands, carefully undoing it.
"Wh– What are you doing?"
"Juuuuust be patient, Artie." You undo the rest, until his chest is bare and his shirt is stained with your bloody fingerprints.
You're tempted to just– look at him. Drink up every detail of his body, every starburst scar mapped out across his skin. But he's watching this time, so you pull your gaze from his stomach.
"Now, fair warning," you say, laying a hand on his chest. "I'm going to tear your heart out,"
"What–"
Arthur splutters up a mouthful of blood as you shove your hand through, skin and muscle and bone breaking between your fingers. There's a crunch as you do so, louder without the usual accompaniment of Arthur's screaming. His ribs crack as you push your hand deeper, and he flinches hard at the feeling.
You curl your hand around his beating heart, and there's the brush of his hitching lungs against your knuckles.
"Oh– Oh my God," he gasps, words garbled by blood. "Jesus fucking Christ."
"Did that hurt?"
"N-No– Give– Give me a second," he breathes, slowly taking in gasps of air. He winces, looking down at your hand in his chest.
You grin. "Can you feel that?"
"Yes… I– I don't think I like that."
You chuckle, shifting your hand slightly. His skin stretches around your arm, and you see the slow chug of his innards. "You have very nice lungs, darling. They almost look healthy."
His face sours. "I don't know how I feel about you complimenting my lungs."
"Aw, can't I be nice?"
"Well, it wasn't very nice of you to shove your hand in my chest."
"I did tell you beforehand."
Your fingers slip between his veins, and his breath catches, shoulders tense like a prey animal.
You glance up at him. You want him to watch this part.
Your hand rests on the apex of his beating heart, and tugs it loose. It points towards you like an arrow, pulling outward to your own chest like Cupid willed it so. Arthur holds his breath, watching with not-quite terror as you hold his heart in front of him. The arteries and veins are still attached like power lines, overlapping and winding back to beneath his collarbone, tied to him like an anchor to a ship.
The thing is beating in a way someone lesser would call grotesque. It's like a dying animal, only breathing so it can reach the next breath, the next pump of blood, the next destination. It's him, him at his core, his most vulnerable. Skin and bone and muscle stripped down to nothing, he was this—a raw, frail creature, with chambers like a bulging stomach gorged on its own corpus. Insignificant in his form and yet, you can never pull your eyes away, like it's something divine and incomprehensible. He's blood and raw tissue and myocardium wrapped in rings like a halo, everything you long for. His blood looks nearly black in the dim moonlight, but if you squint, you can catch the barest hints of bright red where it runs thinner. And your breath catches, because it's all of him, right in front of you. He's beautiful.
Arthur is just barely breathing. "That's my…"
"Your heart, yes. Lovely isn't it?"
He stares, for maybe a second too long, and then scoffs. "Only you would think so."
"Why?"
He's stunned. "S-Sorry?"
"Why only me?"
Arthur pauses. It's odd having him look you in the eyes like this. He was always a one-way door—you could dive however deep you wanted into him, pick apart his brain and bones just by looking through his eyes like a keyhole. But he could never look back. He was a prince locked in his own golden tower, never breaching past the gates to your horrible kingdom. He was not your prince.
Who's the melodramatic one now?
But he's here, eyes laid bare in front of you. And for the first time in your eternal life, you let yourself be seen.
"Because," he hesitates at the gates. "who else would?"
You might, you want to say.
"You tell me, Artie."
He swallows, "Monsters, maybe. Conniving, and– and– treacherous things like you."
You almost laugh. His view is not so narrow. But he keeps it like that, so he doesn't have to look at the all encompassing you.
"You're right," you say. "But I'm much more than a monster."
You turn his heart over in your hands. He's not scared, because you didn't want him to be, and so it beats evenly. Carefully, you press your nail in the center, slicing downward in a clean cut. Blood beads at the wound, slipping fast down your finger.
You open his heart in front of him. It can almost be called romantic.
"What– what are you doing?"
He's more beautiful inside than out. A mechanism within, atria and valves and ventricles, an everchanging castle's chambers and its doors. Spindly heartstrings strung across walls like ceremonial lights, beseeching you to enter, to stay. And how can you say no?
He's in your domain now, and this is what you do—
You stain your teeth with blood again, the same beat of the same story. But you have plans this time. This time, it'll be different. His ichor is in your mouth, more lavish than ever, and the muscle tears wetly as it breaks beneath your teeth.
This time, he doesn't scream. Of course he doesn't. But some kind of shock still lines his eyes— and because it can't be terror, it must be awe instead.
He looks away, looks back, and you can see his morbid curiosity, his perverse desire to know.
"What does it… taste like?"
You smile at him, his blood dripping down your lips. You lick it off your teeth. "Like you."
He's never asked you this before, and you feel intensely giddy at how novel it is. He's finally taking your hand, letting you guide him.
You take another bite, and he winces. You know it's not pain, so it must be pleasure instead.
"What are you then?" he asks.
"Hm?"
"You said you're much more than a monster. What are you?"
You speak around a mouthful of blood. "There's more important things than what I am."
"I'd still like to know."
You catch his gaze. "Is that so?"
"Yes. What are you?" And then, more quietly. "Who are you?"
He's trying to humanize you, of all things, all while you eat his heart. How cute.
"I've always told you what I am is irrelevant," you say, ripping more muscle with your incisors, less than half of it now remaining. "I'll do you one better. What do you think I want?"
"You're deflecting."
You almost think it's one of us speaking, but no, his lips moved. Arthur Lester is challenging you. He's not afraid of you, and it's a brilliant look on him. He will never best you, but some days you think you want him to.
"You think so?"
"You always avoid it, don't you? Answer my question."
He's right, you know. He often is, about you at least. He might not show it, but he knows what questions to ask. If you let him in, he might just find the loose bricks, the hidden doorways.
So, answer his question.
It's the same reason we're here, and why you speak like this. What are you hiding? Why is it never about you?
Oh, look at you. You're remembering now, aren't you, why you always put on the same play. Why it's always about him and only him and not you and he together, or what it all means for you.
It's all superficial, and you find your hands running through his innards everyday like it brings you some satisfaction. But you're a raw and frail creature too, and you ignored the way his heart made you think of yourself, of what you so repulsively, humanly desire. But we saw it.
He'll find out, one day, how similar you two really are. You're both chambers in a heart, split by the septum.
And because you won't admit it, we will. You're both builders. Yes, you. How very human. For all your wicked carnage, someone still needs to lay the bricks of your new world, with dirty hands and a dream. Oh, you hate to hear it. It's your little secret, we know, and why you refuse to answer the one fucking question—
What are you?
Your hand is in a fist, and his heart is crushed and weeping blood between your fingers.
You're shaking, darling. Settle down. Look at him.
He's not scared. Isn't that what you wanted?
"Fine, I'll answer your question." he says. "You want to torture me."
Your gaze meets his again, and you consider this.
What do you want?
You can repeat your lines, tell him what you rehearsed. Or, you can tell him the truth.
You want him to understand you. You want to watch him writhe, stumble across the footholds of your jagged mind. You want to set him out across the piano keys and make him dance.
"Not quite," you say. "Although it does feel like that, doesn't it?"
Or maybe, you just want him. We know it, you know it, hell, he'll probably figure it out too. You can't resist him. You want to kiss him senseless, so that he might taste your hunger.
But you can't just tell him that, because it will only make him hate you more and understand you less.
When did this all become so complicated? When did he become so deeply rooted in you?
We can tell you the answer to that. After all, we have our own stories.
Gods love humans. Everyone knows that. They can pretend all they like how little they mean. They're all ants, maggots, squirming and dying flesh lasting not even a fraction of what you've lived, and so they mean nothing. This is true in theory. But the stories have some merit, and the idea is far different in practice.
No god in any reality batted an eye when they found out about you and him. What would a human call it? Ah yes, a harmless crush. You'd get over him in maybe a century, and then find another toy to play with.
But there was something about him, something familiar.
The first time you saw him eat, you could've sworn you were in love. His lips were stained black with blood, curled in a grin like those you've seen reflected back in shattered mirrors. It was dark, the walls packed dense with mud, but you could see him so clearly. He was pallid and gaunt, and his skin draped across jutting bones like a tapestry, threads of bleeding red weaved in golden ribs. You never understood the veneration for all those gilded saints lined in old castle walls, because the King in Yellow had one right here. And god, he was an animal.
He shoved a liver between his teeth, and you felt lightheaded. He was carnage, everything you want the world to be, a fraction of your vision realized. Oh, what a gorgeous monster he was.
But you weren't there, at least not on the record. You knew all that had happened, watched it from our eyes instead of yours, felt what you did when you saw him. And how you ache for it ever since.
You curse your father for it, just as you curse him for everything. For how could he have dreamed something so beautiful, that you might betray yourself? Surely it must be intentional, because there is no way you can love Arthur Lester for the reasons you do. Azathoth must've known, even in his slumber, that you would take the bait. You would fall for Arthur, whisper to him through bleeding lips everything you desired, how you pictured your father's downfall, and the confession would find its way to stab you in the back.
You cannot love Arthur Lester.
He might just kill you.
"What is it then?" he asks. "If it's not torture? Are you trying to break me? Drive me mad?"
Far from it. If you take his hand and guide him, his mind might just evade fracturing. It sounds impossible when we say it like that though, doesn't it? You haven't thought it through, and that's the best part. It would be such a wonderful wager.
"It's not on purpose," you say coyly. "But it would look beautiful on you." For so long you've known so much. But he's a mystery to you, a familiar one, and you want to know what makes him so incomprehensible to even you.
"So– what is it then, your end goal?"
Well? What do you say? How much of yourself are you willing to give?
"I just want to know you," you say, much quieter than you meant it. There's a second part to that, we can hear it. I just want you to know me.
"I thought you already knew everything about me."
"I do," you say. "But I'm eating your heart right in front of you, and then you look at me like that and I–"
He furrows his eyebrows.
"I don't know who I am. I don't think I ever did."
Oh, what have you done now?
He lets out a short breath, and says nothing. His hand moves to his chest, idly prodding at the fraying edges of his broken flesh.
"I never thought I'd hear you say something like that." He looks up at you. "When did you get so vulnerable?"
There's a look in his eyes, and you can almost trick yourself into thinking he's smiling. Something violent is welling up in you, with curling claws and gnashing teeth. How dare he? A vicious monster one minute, a lovely bright thing the next. You want to tear him apart.
Maybe you can save this, maybe you can crush that mind of his to a pulp and start anew.
"How do you know I'm not lying to you?"
He smiles again, but the brightness falls away. His lips are black with blood, gleaming teeth red as jewels. You might have been able to feel him, feel his heart, but even then, he most certainly felt the hand that held it—and the mouth that ate it.
"I don't," he says. "But I have a feeling."
You sit in the silence, turning the remains of his heart. You can never understand what he is. He's almost like you, in a way, only if you turn the looking glass just right.
It's just the veins and arteries left, and the fleshier bits that sit outside the whole. You're not much hungry anymore, but your prince is waiting for you.
"I never liked the auricles," you say, turning them in your hand. "They were always tougher on the teeth." You hold it out to him.
He looks at you, for a moment too long, then the remains of his heart in your hand.
He might not ever understand you, and what would that mean for your perfect world? For you?
Oh.
He's– he's laughing.
You're stunned, watching in– in utter confusion as his chest shakes, tugging at the veins hanging from his tattered heart.
Why is he laughing?
"Oh, what the fuck," he laughs. "You know, I'm not so sure how I feel about you anymore."
You're not sure what to say. This isn't how you thought it would go. And to be frank, it isn't how we thought it would either.
He takes the gory tatters from your fingers, holding it closer to look. "I'm going to regret this, aren't I?"
You're stunned for just a moment, before erupting with raucous laughter. "Oh, certainly."
He laughs with you, and then presses his heart in this mouth. There he is again, the saint you saw in those pits, all that time ago. His arteries are pulled by his teeth, growing taut from his chest. They snap with a thin, wet sound, like a bug being crushed. He swallows the thing, a raw and frail creature whole once again.
He wipes the blood from his lips, and it does very little, only smearing the red further across his chin. He doesn't heed it however, and buttons back up his shirt with shaking hands.
"Do you still want me alive?"
The side of his head is still bleeding, the wound a deep concave towards his brain. He looks at you as you look at the bloody crater.
And from his eyes you can tell—
Arthur Lester is going to kill you one day.
You hope he uses his teeth.
"Yes."