nutashall

“You are… singular,” Kuras whispers, like a prayer in the clinic room made dull by the memory of something brighter. The vision of him—whatever he was—to call him a monster feels like an insult to the dread, to name him a saint…

His gaze remains fixed in your exposed hand, reaching toward it as if moved by instinct rather than thought. You are used to others recoiling in horror at such a sight, but the awe in Kuras's eyes is new. Dizzying and almost unbearably tethering longing.

You stretch out your trembling fingers toward his. “Touch me again. Please.” The words that escape sound mad—are mad—and unhinged even to you.

You don't take them back, don’t regret them, and don't retreat.

Kuras wants to. Desperately. Tension locks him in place, drawn taut as a bowstring.

He hesitates.

You don’t.

You catch his hand before he can fully withdraw. If you don’t fracture the moment, the memory won’t scar—and if it doesn’t, you might still be able to believe it was only a dream. A beautiful, brutal dream, bristling with thorns around your blooming heart.

Defiant little thing, the heart.

It carries you straight into danger’s open arms, folding you against his ribs with your eyes squeezed shut. You feel his shaky breath, his warmth, the fragile evidence that he is real.

But you don’t look.

You don’t dare.

Your breath ghosts the hollow between his collarbone and throat, and the room exhales with you.

For one terrible, suspended moment, he doesn’t move. Then his hand tightens in yours. Not one that traps—never that—but a hold like he’s anchoring himself as if you’re the only real, holy thing in the room.

You feel the tremor run through him, the uncertainty, the need. His forehead tips forward until it almost touches your hair.

“Don’t close your eyes,” Kuras murmurs, barely a sound. “I want to…” He slowly reaches his other hand around your cheek, guiding your closed eyes up.

“If it scars,” he whispers, and he almost sounds afraid, “let it be on me.”

For a heartbeat, he nearly stops himself.

Then he leans in.

The kiss is just as hesitant—barely there at first, more breath than touch—like he is asking permission with every fraction of a second. Something softer and far more dangerous than hunger sighs between you; relief.

“Look at me again,” Kuras whispers, hand trembling where it rests before he dives in again, pressing further into you. “Please.”

He could very easily command it, force you to open your eyes without a second thought, but he doesn't. He begs. He softens and melts like butter against you, like this is worth everything he ever chased, conquered, or sacrificed in his life.

You don't—not yet—but your other hand flies Kuras's coat anyway, caught between pulling him closer and pushing him away, and he shudders.

His love—his need—comes so suddenly it becomes overwhelming. You step back just to breathe, but he doesn’t let the distance live. Kuras’s free hand finds the small of your back, guiding you.

The back of his desk meets your back and steals the choice from you, forcing you to brace yourself against it.

Kuras pulls away for the smallest of moments. You can hear his fingers finding the hidden catches beneath the decorative straps, moving from habit rather than thought, tearing open the central clasps, and the belts coming loose in a rush of sound as he pulls himself free.

Your breath turns shallow, barely existing anywhere outside the space between you, tangled with his, lost in the quiet where neither of you remembers how to retreat.

He takes your hand and places your knuckles against his forehead, murmuring something incoherent; a prayer or a plea or both. Then, he trails it down his neck, collarbone, and finally on his chest—his heartbeat thundering right below the hot skin.

“Nobody else will do,” he whispers, voice barely audible over the steady rhythm under your fingertips. “Only you.”

His lips meet your neck softly, hands leaving yours completely, focusing on slowly taking off your clothes with a tenderness that belies the urgency in his touch. He leaves you every chance to push him back if you want to, but you can’t—won’t.

Kuras lifts you up on the wooden surface effortlessly. His thigh parts your legs as he presses his body against yours, carefully aligning himself with you. Your eyes fly open and lock with his; he barely holds your gaze, like he's afraid of what he might see in your eyes… or what you might see reflected in his.

A flash of light momentarily consumes you, and your vision blurs before feathers flutter around you, cascading down the Monster's body, seemingly settling around you both like a protective shield.

You’re naked beyond your body; your soul is on fire, and the flame is dancing in Kuras’s hands. It knows you, your secrets, your dreams, your sins. Does it feed off of them? Or has his own misery left him so overwhelmingly full his plate only knows apathy when it comes to his nature? 

“You’re everything,” Kuras makes a sound at the back of his throat—human, somewhere behind the vision your eyes see and your body feels—half a whimper, half a sob.

His thrusts are almost shy in the loudness of the room, as if he fears breaking you. But you want to be broken, shattered into a million pieces that only he can put back together. You want to be remade in his image, to let his power consume you completely until there is nothing left but him, and to then be reborn as something new and unrecognizable.

You have been nothing, and suddenly your curse nudges a thorn in his heart you won’t draw out. You want him to burn for you, if not for himself. It feels only right, if truly you are—

Your back arches against him, and from the sides of your vision, you see his form ripple and shift. You shift your hips so they press up against his, taking him in deeper and wrap your thighs around his waist. You’re not sure where your hands are, but you feel them reaching out to him.

One of his hands finds and intertwines with yours; bright golden claws and cuffs decorate his hands and wrist, the other grips your body like you might vanish or run away from him. You nestle your other hand into his hair, pulling lightly and guiding him down onto you—a gnawing feeling settles in your gut as the helmeted flame brushes against your skin, vanishing immediately upon the familiar taste.

His lips travel everywhere; you can feel him biting and sucking and burning your skin. 

And now your hands—

You rip them away.

Isn’t that what he wanted? To walk amongst humans, to love and bleed like them, to be one of them. Kuras looks down at you with eyes that are no longer his own, as if the human he never was has finally been shed.

His lips open in quiet surrender. His body tenses, pleasure rippling through him, and he buries his face in the crook of your neck, breathing you in deeply, hands trembling against your skin, fingers gripping you tightly as if trying to hold onto the moment forever.