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“We’re good.”
This was fun. Frankly, he was probably having far more fun with this than he should’ve been. He was on a bit of a schedule here, after all. But, well, for Arthur there’s always time.
“What’s that?” Leaning forward just slightly, Kayne placed a hand to his ear. He didn’t know why he still bothered with the fun movements, Hastur never bothered describing them. Maybe he should start saying them out loud, himself.
The side of his hand brushed against the exposed bones of his teeth, stinging. It earned nothing more than a fraction of a wince. This pain was nothing. It had to be nothing more than an inconvenience. If he let it get to him, it was over. If he let it get to him, he’d lose sight of the point of it. Pain was necessary. Pain was necessary, pain was necessary, pain was necessary for the chance to end it all. No more of this pain. Just the blissful, blinding, joyful pain that emanated from the man standing below him.
Oh, he was saying something. “-saw all of this coming.”
Far more, in fact. God, this was funny. He could barely keep the giggles trapped in his lungs, straining against his cracking ribs. Arthur was beautifully fascinating, yes. But he was still painfully human and hilariously pathetic. His little voice from so far below wormed through his ears, so close to his skull that he felt almost as if he could crush the squirming sound between his teeth. It all reminded him of that first, glorious meeting. When his world had warped so sweetly around him, caving into the burning center.
“From a country mile away!” It was still warping. Worse, now, than it ever had been. It was truly beautiful, something he’d been trying to recreate on his own for years. His stage, his curtains, even the fabric of his suit and the blood on his hands all tumbled away from him, smashing into each other, twisting into fractalized shapes. The colors bled into each other, melting through the space, swallowing the sounds of his cascading giggles. And at the center of it all was his gorgeous black hole.
He couldn’t look at him. Not directly. No matter how much he wished he could. The only things that remained clear were the pulsating, shifting shapes that surrounded him like a halo. The world drained into Arthur like he was its destroying angel, taking and taking and taking, making everything spin. Every part of Kayne’s being begged him to move closer. He could feel it more than ever now, the way his heart—hell, all the blood in his body—strained against his skin trying to break out and drench Arthur. Pleading to be swallowed by him, relishing in every trembling movement of his throat as he was forced to choke him down.
It hurt his eyes. The type of pain you get when you’re just about to cry. Pounding in his head, trying to force his eyeballs out of their sockets. The blood from Arthur’s head burned on his fingers, impossibly heavy.
No matter how much he dreamed of being able to let himself be consumed entirely, his body stretching beyond anything he could dream of and not just wrapping around Arthur but being interwoven in him. He got close sometimes.
When Arthur took his hand at the order. The pain had been blinding, fireworks crashing against the inside of his skull, his hand threatening to meld with Arthur’s and never let him go. Keep him there forever, turning to ash between his fingers, with each twitch of Arthur's hand sending a wave of pleasure through him. He’d had to let go too soon. Far too soon. But it was too much for him, then. It was as if Arthur had instead reached forward and wrapped a hand around his heart, pulling just enough for him to taste blood in his mouth. Choking on it as it rose into his throat, imagining it to be Arthur’s fingers trailing higher, still taking and taking and taking. Unravelling him slowly.
“-your pocket.” Oh, yes, the lighter. Pay attention.
“What’s that, now?” He tried to sound shocked, really, he did.
And oh, the reveal! Lillith! Oh, dear! She was here, waiting in the wings! Who could have ever guessed such a thing?
He didn’t even bother turning to look at her. Content to spend his “last moments” watching the world coalesce into the deep, profound presence that was Arthur. He lifted his still bloodied hand to his mouth and indulged in the sweet, overwhelming taste of Arthur’s blood. It seeped into his mouth, burning its way down his throat.
“You always were a terrible father.”
Yeah. He was. “Oh, really?”
For now, anyway. She’d see, soon. They’d all see. They’d all feel the joy of his pain. Why couldn’t they understand? Why couldn’t Arthur understand? He was the source of it, after all. Never had Kayne felt such thrilling pain before Arthur. He’d dreamed of recreating this world, yes, but never had he had such a clear picture of what it needed to become. Until his heart was in his throat, pressure against his skull, eyes stinging with just the effort of looking at Arthur.
His daughter’s attack hurt, sure. But it was nothing. Not compared to… the stone. Not compared to Arthur.
Killing Arthur had been the greatest pain he’d ever experienced. Keeping himself above the surface was quite the struggle, assuredly. His hands were on him, in him, even. Blood burning holes through his soul as it soaked into his sleeves. He was part of that glimpse of a perfect world that Arthur never noticed surrounded him, abstracting into nothing and everything beneath Arthur’s hands. It didn’t matter who he was, it mattered that he was here with Arthur. Touching him. Killing him. Feeling his skin slip away and tear between his fingers.
Feeling. What had he even felt? Pain. Pain, pain, pain, entirely unnecessary. Indulgent. It was like he’d been standing on ice for an eternity and finally let himself break through and drown. The pain filled every inch of his body, flowing through him. It wrapped around his throat, suffocating him like the hand of a lover, leaving bruises that bloomed across his skin as pretty reminders. Invading his skin, writhing beneath the surface and consuming whatever lay beneath. Replacing him with nothing but the knowledge that he was dying, that he was killing, that he was touching Arthur.
He forgot to die.
“It’s not enough!” Lillith screamed to Arthur from her place on the balcony. Whoops. It was supposed to be. He had a whole comeback and everything scripted and blocked.
His body was starting to break apart, the light from Lillith streaming through the cracks. Falling from its place in the air, just low enough to almost reach the floor. He really needed to know what the real lighter did because if this was what happened without it… eesh.
“Fuck!” Arthur’s voice crashed against his ears. “What do we do?!”
“I don’t know! I don’t-” Lillith began, but it didn’t matter. Oh, nothing mattered.
Arthur was on him. Lurched forward and crashed his body to the ground. Above him. On him. Touching, touching, touching, hurting, aching, burning.
He couldn’t see anything. Arthur was all-consuming, a spinning fixture of bleeding walls and melting skin. Crashing colors, mangling shapes, and pain. The pain he so, so dearly missed. It spread from each little point of contact, Arthur’s thighs against his hips, his hands against his chest. It was as if his heart rose to meet them, anxious to rest between his fingers, infuriated by its cage.
He couldn’t turn away. Eyes burning in his head as he was forced to stare directly at Arthur, his soul tumbling out through his pupils to trail down into the abyss above him. Performative screams of pain disappeared from his mouth, replaced by whimpers at the back of his throat. Breaths refused to work their way out of his lungs, trapped beneath Arthur’s hands. Slowly trailing their way up, fingers reaching his throat, releasing a gasp. That was all he got before Arthur wrapped his hand firmly around his neck, squeezing. Stars spread across his vision, twinkling in the empty vacuum of Arthur, highlighted by the dancing colors spaghettifying into him.
Now he really was drowning, letting Arthur hold his head underwater. He didn’t have a throat left to try to gasp for breath, replaced by the all-encompassing pressure of Arthur’s hand, the spreading heat of skin against skin. He wanted—needed—more, legs fumbling against the floor for any kind of purchase so he could push himself up, become flush against Arthur. He’d only been so close when Arthur was already dead, lying cradled by his cracked bones. Flesh still dangled from his ribs as they surrounded his head like a crown of thorns, his mouth pressed against Arthur’s stilled heart.
Ascending. No holy light opened above him as his head was lifted from the floor. His vision was filled only with the never-ending expanse of Arthur’s soul, blurred at the edges, filled with spliced stars. Getting lost there, letting the world he contained spread to fill not just Kayne’s life but everyone’s, that was all he ever wanted. That’s what all of this was for. He was a benevolent god; didn’t they see that? Didn’t they see Arthur? The way he enveloped the world, the way it bent towards him, the way he trapped him. Caught like a rabbit in the jaws of something he couldn’t even fathom. Arthur’s teeth coated with his blood as they stabbed through his skin, encircling him in a painful, maddening love.
Arthur smashed his head back down against the floor, sending streaks of light across his vision. A choked, strained moan crawled from his mouth, struggling against the heat of Arthur’s fingers.
“That’s for killing me the first time.” Arthur’s voice scratched its way down his spine like sandpaper. Lillith’s power broke through Kayne’s skin again, leaving a sizeable gash down his chest, exposing his needy heart. Incessant buzzing turned to a duller static in Kayne’s mind as Arthur removed his hand from his throat. He was in too much pain to chase it, his body blissfully heavy against the floor.
“And this…” Arthur began, his fingers gracing over Kayne’s chest again. The opening was right there, waiting. Aching to be pried open, for Arthur to press his fingers in and dig his way to his heart. “This is for killing Lillith.”
Fingers slowly bent around the edges of the gash in Kayne’s chest and he shivered, his breaths hitching higher. Arthur pulled, tearing Kayne’s flesh apart. His head felt heavy, trapped on the floor while the rest of him rose, arching up to meet Arthur’s hands. A truly disgusting sound ripped out of his throat as Arthur pressed his hands in, immediately flattening his full palms against his ribs, wrapping his fingers around the sides.
Kayne wished he could watch. His own blood coating Arthur’s hands as he trailed them slowly up, as if mesmerized by the fact that he could touch Kayne this way. That he had the power to kill him. To reduce him to putty in his hands. Instead, he watched the stars in the melding, blurred expanse above him, letting his body join the masses that swirled into Arthur.
Then there was the pressure. Arthur rose up a bit, his thighs, still pressed hard against Kayne’s hips, creating a dizzying friction as he did so. All of his weight was put onto his hands, bearing down against Kayne’s bones. They were already cracked, already weak from the stone’s influence. The first snap sent a jolt through him, sharp pain shooting up his spine to release a needy sound from his lips.
Another snap. He tried again to press himself up, to get some kind of friction between them. His legs fumbled against the floor, soaked with his own blood. Arthur only pressed down harder.
Another. And another. Arthur was saying names with each one, but Kayne couldn’t be bothered to remember who they were. Who he’d killed for Arthur. He didn’t know if he was even still seeing anything, blinded by the universe that surrounded him now. Blurred at the edges of his vision, the stars and bleeding colors mixed into something entirely new, a warped reflection of Arthur’s bloodlust and Kayne’s desire.
His whole body spasmed as Arthur finally broke through to his heart, his hand landing roughly against the muscle. “Hurt,” wasn’t a good enough word. It didn’t feel like his heart was being ripped from his chest. It felt like he was being held. A lover touching him gently, sending pleasant stripes across his skin to fill his face. Like he was being felt, like Arthur suddenly knew him exactly in the way that he longed so deeply to know him. Like each press of Arthur’s fingers against the flesh as he tried to feel his way around the edges was taking something from him. A pull at something deep in his gut, giving him just enough to keep him aching but not to send him over, pushing a million other pleading, whining notes from his throat.
“Did you fucking hear me?” Arthur asked. Kayne hadn’t. He hadn’t heard anything. He didn’t even know if he could hear his own voices. Too distracted by Arthur’s hand finally pressing fully against his heart, fingers already drenched in his blood tangling with the flesh that held it in place.
“Arthur- ah- hah-!” was about the best he could choke out, his voice catching on the end of it, bending into a breathy moan as Arthur began to pull. Without any real command from him, Kayne’s arms shot forward and grasped at Arthur’s back. Anything to try to have him. To make him keep going. His fingers couldn’t get any real purchase, fisting the fabric of Arthur’s shirt and releasing it again and again and again.
“Fuck you,” oh, god. “Fuck everything you’ve done to me,” Jesus Christ, Jesus fucking Christ, keep pulling. “Fuck everything you’ve done to my life,” it was barely still attached, one more yank would do it. Arthur would finally, truly have his heart. He’d become nothing, filled only with the pain Arthur so willingly gave him.
Kayne found Arthur’s neck, finally wrapping his hand around the back of it as Arthur groaned. His voice buzzed against Kayne’s hand, and it took every remaining ounce of restraint in him not to rip his throat open right there.
“And you will never…” Arthur tightened his grip around Kayne’s heart. The sound he made wasn’t a scream. “Never do anything to hurt the people I care about ever again.”
One final pull and Kayne’s heart was ripped from his body. In the same moment, he pulled Arthur down to him, pressing their mouths together. It was a massacre of a kiss, Arthur struggling in his grip, mouth wide open with ragged breaths. Kayne took what he could, stifling each moan that was pushed from his mouth by the rolling waves of pleasure originating from the now empty cavity of his chest. His fingers moved up just enough to entangle themselves in Arthur’s hair, staining it with blood. He pulled as the final pulses of dizzying pain racked through his body. A pained sound moved from Arthur’s mouth into his and he swallowed it greedily.
“Oh, Arthur,” Kayne breathed against his mouth. The light of Lillith’s power brightened as he finally let himself go. “Thank you.”
And he died.
Well, he pretended to, anyway. Exploded into a million little pieces and then disappeared to go stand on the other side of the room, intact once again.
Lillith and Arthur began to celebrate their victory as Kayne raised a hand to trace against his fixed chest. He could still faintly taste Arthur in his mouth. His heart hammered, each beat a reminder of where he’d just been, of the feeling of being under Arthur’s hands, of the sheer, blissfully, agonizingly painful experience of letting Arthur indulge. Kayne shut his eyes, just for a moment, watching the remnants of Arthur’s stars against his eyelids. The afterburn of his death was going to remain within him forever, wasn’t it?
Eventually, as Lillith and Arthur’s conversation became unsure, he moved his hand over to his pocket, pulling out the coin. He flicked it open.
“Oh!” He began, voice perfectly calm again. This was over now. The pain continued. “Oh, don’t mind me.”