#sleep token request

His hand slid from your waist upward, palm smoothing across your ribs, fingers spreading wide as though to feel each breath you drew. The contrast of his skin -- warm, rougher than yours -- made you shiver even in the still air. He kissed a path across your shoulder, lips dragging slightly, tongue flicking out now and then to taste the skin he'd just kissed. The kisses weren't hurried or mechanical; they were slow explorations, like someone trying to memorize a route by touch alone. You could feel the weight of his hair brushing your back as he moved, the rise and fall of his chest against you, the way he exhaled your name in a voice that rumbled more than he spoke. When he finally murmured "Good morning," it wasn't a greeting so much as a prayer, his lips still moving against the side of your throat. He shifted his hips, drawing you back against him, the heavy press of his thigh fitting between yours, his fingers drawing lazy circles just below your navel. The rain outside seemed to sync with the movement of his fingers, slow and rhythmic, and you realized he was coaxing you awake not just with touch but with the entire space around you, weaving scent, warmth, sound, and skin into a single cocoon.

His hand lingered low on your stomach, thumb stroking idly over the softness there, as though every curve was something sacred to him. He tilted his face to kiss just below your ear, the gentlest press of lips, before dragging his mouth lower, teeth scraping faintly over your neck. You could feel the tug of his breath, how his lips parted to suck, not enough to hurt but enough to leave your skin buzzing. Every shift of his body was deliberate, unhurried -- the slow grind of his hips into yours, the way his thigh pressed firmer between yours as though to coax them apart. The rhythm of the rain outside only heightened the intimacy; each drop against the windowpane sounded like punctuation to his movements. His murmurs came in fragments, each one pressed into your skin between kisses: "So warm here with you...don't want to let go...look at you, love, so beautiful even half-asleep."

When you finally turned toward him, your cheek brushing his chest, he was already waiting. His face hovered close, eyes soft but burning at the edges, and when his mouth found yours it was both sweet and consuming. The kiss dragged on slow, his lips moving with yours in long, deep puls, his tongue slipping past to stoke languidly against yours until you sighed into him. He kissed like a man intent on making you remember it later, drawing it out, stealing your breath in pieces. His hand slid higher, tracing the line of your ribs, then cupping your jaw with tenderness that belied the weight of his hold. He angled your face to kiss you deeper, thumb stroking beneath your ear, until you felt every nerve buzzing with the intimacy of it. When he broke away, it was only to press his forehead to yours, lips ghosting over your mouth as he whispered, "Mine. Always mine." And then he kissed you again, slower, sweeter, as though to prove it.

The warmth of his palm shifted lower, sliding from your jaw down the column of your throat with a touch so sure it made your breath hitch. He didn't squeeze, not yet, just let the weight of his hand rest there while his thumb stroked slow circles over the soft spot beneath your chin. His eyes stayed locked on yours, pupils dark, heavy-lidded, like a storm building behind glass. Outside, the rain deepened, a slow percussion that matched the subtle roll of his hips against yours. The thin cotton of the sheet dragged over your skin as he moved, warm from both your bodies, his thigh still nestled between yours, coaxing them wider. He bent his head again, mouth open against your collarbone, tongue sweeping a wet line up to the hollow of your throat before he kissed it shut. The sound he made -- a low, content hum -- vibrated through your skin, sending a shiver down your spine.

You felt the shift in him when his kisses moved lower, from reverent to hungry. His mouth worked at the edge of your shoulder, teeth scraping, then sucking, leaving damp, red marks blooming on your skin like wildflowers after rain. His hand slid down to your hip, fingers curving hard enough to leave prints, pulling you tighter against the insistent swell pressing against your thigh.

He dragged his mouth back up to your ear, breath ragged now, and whispered, "I need you."

The words were rough, almost a growl, but there was still a sweetness underneath them, like he was confessing something rather than demanding. His hips rolled forward again, slow but heavier this time, the movement dragging a quiet, involuntary moan from your lips that he caught with his mouth. He swallowed it greedily, kissing you harder, teeth grazing your lower lip until it trembled between his. The entire room seemed to shrink down to the sound of your breathing, the rain outside, and the deep, deliberate rhythm of his body drawing you awake.

The kiss broke only when he needed air, his lips dragging wetly from your mouth down the slope of your jaw, leaving a trail of heat and saliva that cooled in the draft of the room. His hand at your hip shifted, long fingers slipping beneath the hem of your shirt, exploring slowly as though savoring the reveal of bare skin inch by inch. His touch was firm but reverent, tracing the dip of your waist, pausing at the edge of your ribs, mapping you with the patience of someone who wanted to relearn what he already knew. Every pass of his palm left goosebumps in its wake, your skin arching up into his touch, your breath catching in soft, uneven bursts. He pressed a kiss just below your ear and murmured, voice hoarse with sleep, "Every inch of you belongs to me...every morning, every night." His words sank in as deeply as his hands did, a vow whispered into the quiet.

When he finally pulled your shirt higher, baring more of you to the dim golden light, his mouth followed the path of his hand. He kissed lower, slow and deliberate, each press wetter than the last until his tongue swept a lazy curve over your chest. He mouthed at you with unhurried hunger, sucking lightly, then pulling back to watch your reaction before diving in again. The scrape of his teeth was faint but deliberate, leaving little shocks of pleasure that melted into warmth. His other hand came to your throat again, fingers curving around the column gently but possessively, his thumb brushing along your pulse as though counting it. The weight there forced you to tilt your head back, mouth parting in a small gasp he immediately rewarded by dragging his lips up again, biting at your shoulder, your neck, your jaw. The dual sensation of his hand steady at your throat and his mouth marking every inch of you left you trembling, trapped between being cherished and being claimed.

He lingered at your neck as if addicted to the taste, his mouth working with a slow persistence that left you tingling everywhere his lips had been. Each kiss sank deeper, wetter, followed by the faint scrape of teeth, until your skin carried a constellation of marks that throbbed warmly under his breath. The sound he made when you shivered -- half laugh, half growl -- poured straight into your bones. His hand tightened at your throat just enough for you to feel the shift in power, a reminder that his tenderness always carried a darker edge.

"So good for me," He whispered against your skin, the words smudging into the damp spot he'd just licked. His hips rocked against yours again, heavier now, a rhythm building even as he held back, teasing you with promise rather than giving you all of it.

The mattress creaked as he adjusted, bracing his weight with one arm while the other dragged your thigh over his hip, spreading you open beneath him. The sheets twisted, wrapping around your calf, while the heat of his body blanketed you. You felt the hard length of him pressing insistently against you through thin fabric, the thickness undeniable even before he entered you. He ground against you slowly, deliberately, his cock dragging over you until slickness dampened the barrier between. Each grind was accompanied by his mouth finding another part of you to worship -- your cheek, your jaw, the corner of your lips, the hollow of your throat. He whispered between the kisses, voice deep and shaking with restraint: "I could live here forever...inside you, under your skin...mine." The words made your pulse hammer against his thumb where it still stroked idly at your throat, syncing with the steady, possessive roll of his hips.

The pressure of his body settled fully over you, heaving in a way that felt protective and consuming all at once. His chest pressed into yours, every inhale of his lungs expanding against your ribs until you could feel his heartbeat reverberating through you. His hand, still firm at your throat, tilted your head just so -- enough for him to claim your mouth again, his kiss slower this time but devastatingly deep. He swallowed your breath, your little noises, coaxing you to open wider for him. His tongue slid languidly against yours, teasing, tasting, retreating only to push in deeper again until your head swam. The rain outside beat steadier now, a muffled applause for the rhythm he was building between your bodies, a syncopated backdrop to his every move.

When he finally pulled back from your lips, a thin thread of saliva stretched between you, glistening in the dim morning light before breaking against his chin. He didn't wipe it away -- he seemed to savor the sight, eyes dark with hunger as they flicked over your face, down to your parted lips. His free hand left your thigh only to push the last barrier away, tugging down the fabric until there was nothing separating his cock from you. He pressed in slowly, deliberately, the thick head sliding through slickness before breaching you in one unhurried thrust. The stretch stole the air from your lungs, a cry catching in your throat only to dissolve into a shudder when his hand squeezed just enough to remind you of his hold. He sank deeper, inch by inch, until his hips were flush against yours, his breath ragged in your ear.

"There you are, he rasped, voice almost breaking. "So tight around me...fuck, you were made for this."

He stayed buried inside you for a long moment, unmoving except for the tremor in his breath and the subtle twitch of his cock as your body adjusted around him. His forehead pressed to the curve of your shoulder, damp strands of hair clinging to his skin where sweat had already begun to gather. He kissed you there -- soft, reverent -- before dragging his lips lower, biting gently at the place where your neck met your shoulder. The drag of his teeth sent a shock racing through you, and when your body clenched in response, he groaned low in his chest, the sound vibrating into your bones. His hand at your throat tightened fractionally, the weight of it grounding you as much as it claimed you, while his other hand gripped your hip hard enough to bruise.

When he started to move, it wasn't with speed but with unbearable depth. He pulled out slowly, letting you feel every inch leave you, before sinking back in with a rolling thrust that made the mattress creak beneath your bodies. The sound of him filling you was obscene in the quiet -- slick, wet, perfectly timed with the rhythm of rain against glass. His lips moved over your skin constantly, as though he couldn't bear to stop tasting you: biting, sucking, whispering into every mark he left behind.

"That's it...take me...just like that," He muttered against your throat, his words broken up by his own gasps. Each thrust grew a little rougher, a little more insistent, the lazy rhythm sharpening until the bed shook with it, the air thick with the smell of sweat and sex. His thumb stroked lazily at your pulse, a steady counterpoint to the relentless drive of his hips, as if he were reminding you that even while he broke you open, you were safe in his hold.

The tempo of his thrusts shifted gradually, each stroke gaining force until the bedframe tapped a steady rhythm against the wall. His breath was ragged in your ear, each exhale spilling hot and damp across your skin before breaking into a low growl when your body clenched down around him. His hips snapped forward with a sharper edge now, the slap of skin on skin mingling with the slick sounds of him driving into you. You could feel him everywhere as he kissed along your jaw between thrusts, kissing so deep inside you, messy and desperate. When his teeth caught your earlobe, tugging, you gasped, and he laughed quietly, dark and pleased, before murmuring. "That's it, angel. Give me those sounds. Every one of them belongs to me."

The hand at your throat squeezed harder, not cutting off air completely but claiming all control over the angle of your head, over the way your breath hitched as his grip adjusted. His other hand dug into your hip, pulling you back onto him with every thrust so the impact went bone-deep. The weight of him pressed you into the mattress, the sheets twisted under your fingers as you tried to ground yourself against the sheer intensity of it. He leaned closer, mouth pressed to your shoulder, kissing and biting in alternating bursts of tenderness and hunger.

"You feel so fucking good," he groaned, the words broken and raw, "taking me so deep -- ahh, fuck -- you're perfect for me." His voice was rough velvet in your ear, the praise both gentle and filthy, each word tethering you tighter to him as his pace built towards something merciless.

His rhythm turned ruthless, each thrust driving you deeper into the mattress, the frame groaning in protest with every slam of his hips. The sound filled the room -- wet, heavy, obscene -- layered over your own cries that slipped free no matter how you tried to swallow them down. His grip on your throat shifted, thumb pressing against the underside of your jaw, tilting your head back so your mouth hung open. He watched you like that, his eyes burning, chest heaving as he pounded into you. "Look at you," He rasped, his voice shaking with the force of his thrusts. "So good for me...taking every inch like you were made for it." His words hit just as deep as his cock, each syllable vibrating against your skin as his mouth claimed your neck again, biting down until you gasped.

Your nails dug into his forearm, into the sheets, into anything you could reach, but he only growled at the sting, hips snapping harder as if your desperation spurred him on. His hand dragged from your throat to cradle your jaw, forcing you to turn and meet his mouth. The kiss was brutal, teeth clashing, tongues colliding, his groans spilling into your throat as he fucked you through it. He broke the kiss with a wet sound and immediately buried his face against your shoulder, biting hard enough to make you cry out. He shuddered at the sound, thrusts going erratic for a moment before he steadied himself, grinding into you so deep you swore you felt him everywhere. “Mine,” he growled into your skin, voice guttural, unrestrained. “Every fucking inch of you is mine.”

Your body couldn't hold back any longer -- the relentless drag of his cock inside you, the grind of his hips against your sweet spot with every pounding thrust, the pressure of his hand at your throat and the heat of his mouth on your shoulder -- it all crashed down in a wave so violent it stole the air from your lungs. The orgasm tore through you raw and unstoppable, your back arching hard into his chest, your nails raking down his arm as your vision blurred with tears. You sobbed his name, voice breaking into stuttered moans as your body seized and pulsed around him, the wet squelch of you clamping down only spurring him deeper. He growled at the feel of it, hips never slowing, his thrusts pounding through your climax until the overstimulation had you shaking, crying, gasping for air against the press of his palm.

He tilted your face toward him, and when his eyes caught the tear tracks streaking your cheeks, his whole body shuddered with need. His jaw clenched, sweat dripping from his temple as he rasped, "I know, I know...just a little bit more, baby. Just hold on for me." His voice was wrecked, desperate, every word tangled with the guttural sound of his pleasure as he drove into you with bruising force. His thrusts lost their practiced rhythm, turning frantic, messy, each one shoving him impossibly deeper as if he was trying to fuse himself into your body. The bed rattled violently under the force, his hand squeezing your throat harder, his other arm locking around your waist to hold you in place for the onslaught. Every sound from your lips -- every sob, every broken moan -- fed his frenzy, until he was fucking you like a man starved, hips slamming forward with such ferocity you thought you might break apart all over again.

Your body was still trembling, clenching around him in fluttering aftershocks that wouldn't stop, and he was unraveling with every pulse. IV's breath tore out of him in ragged gasps, his forehead pressed into the curve of your neck, hair damp and sticking to his temples as if he were burning up from his need for you. His thrusts lost their precision -- wild, frantic, impossibly deeper than before, the sound of his hips slamming into yours loud and wet and unrestrained. His hand at your throat shook with the force of his grip, not from control but from his own undoing, his thumb pressing hard into the hollow beneath your jaw as if anchoring himself there.

"Fuck--fuck--I can't--" The words snarled out against your skin, half curse, half prayer, broken with the sharp catch of his breath.

Every time you gripped him tighter, he groaned so deep it sounded like it was dragged straight from his chest, his cock jerking inside you as if he was already on the edge. He pulled back just far enough to slam into you again, the impact shaking the frame, the headboard rattling against the wall with brutal rhythm.

"So fucking tight, I can't hold it -- ahh, shit -- don't let me go, don't you dare," He babbled against your ear, his voice ragged and raw, almost incoherent with the force of it. He lifted his head just enough to look at you, to see the tears still wet on your cheeks, and the sight broke him open further. His eyes went glassy, his mouth twisting as if the pleasure was too much to bear. "Baby, please -- fuck -- please, just a little bit more, let me -- ahhh -- let me have it," He begged, hips pistoning hard and so fast that the whole world narrowed to the sound of skin slapping, the slick drag of him inside you, and the frantic, desperate way his body clung to yours like he might die if he stopped.

The desperation in his body bled into yours, every brutal thrust dragging you higher even though you’d thought there was nothing left in you. The wet smack of his hips meeting yours echoed in the room, mixed with your ragged cries and his broken growls. His hand clamped around your throat shook with the violence of his need, his thumb pressing into your pulse. His breath was hot and frantic in your ear, words tumbling out between gasps, “So close—fuck—I can feel you—don’t stop, don’t stop, baby, give it to me, cum with me, please.”

Your body clenched down on him again, hard and sudden, your orgasm ripping through you so fiercely it tore a sob from your throat. The tears blurred your vision, your mouth open in a soundless cry as you spasmed around his cock, milking him with every wave. That was what broke him—your body gripping him, your tears shining in the dim light, your voice cracking on his name. He let out a guttural snarl, his whole frame jerking as he buried himself to the hilt, cock pulsing hard inside you.

You tried to shake it – tried to swallow it down like you hadn’t just gotten turned on by a fucking cymbal technique – but it was no use. Your body wouldn’t listen. Heat began to crawl slow and sure through your chest, your stomach, down into the spaces where reason had no hold. You tried to swallow it down, to anchor yourself in the rational – it’s music, it’s art, don’t make it about him – but then he looked over. Mid-song. Like he knew. That half-smile, that impossibly subtle tilt of his head – it wasn’t for the crowd. It was for you, a pulse in human form, a silent dare. His eyes lingered on you longer than they should’ve, dark and unbothered by the noise around him, and then he looked back to the kit, fingers flexing slow around the sticks, deliberate now, coaxing sound and silence with the same authority. It felt like a conversation you hadn’t agreed to have but couldn’t look away from. Each hit a heartbeat you could feel between your thighs. You stood there, the rest of the world dissolving into vibration and light, thinking about what those hands might do when the drums weren’t between them.

Backstage was another kind of stage entirely – stripped of color, pulsing with leftover energy, the air still trembling faintly with the memory of sound. You sat on the edge of the vanity, the mirror behind you cluttered with half-drunk bottles and discarded tape, watching the condensation gather on your untouched glass as if it could cool the heat threading through you. The walls hummed with aftershock – laughter from the other side of the corridor, footsteps, the distant thud of a door. But here, in this small orbit of quiet, it was just you and him. He moved through the room with the same unhurried precision he used behind the kit, shoulders rolling as if the rhythm still lived inside of him. His shirt clung to him, black fabric turned a shade darker by sweat, mapping the lines of his back, the long arc of spine to waist. Every movement seemed deliberate, each one measured, as though he was still counting time, as though everything he did had a beat behind it that only he could hear. You could feel it too – in your chest, in your throat, in the place where restraint met want. Every breath felt synced to him, every heartbeat a ghost note he left behind.

He didn’t look at you right away. He never rushed the moment, never snapped it in two by pretending not to know what was happening. He gave it time to build – the quiet, the pull, the ache – until you felt like the silence itself might fracture. When he finally turned, it was slow, controlled, his gaze dragging up from the floor like a brushstroke that took its time finding its subject. That single look pinned you in place. He crossed the distance between you without a sound, and the space seemed to bend around his movement, the low light catching on the fine tremor of sweat along his collarbone. The smell of him hit next – salt, metal, smoke – the scent of performance and restraint. His presence was so close that it felt physical before he even touched you, his favorite kind of foreplay. When he did, it was gentle – his fingers brushing your jaw first, testing, reading, the same way he did the drums before a show: searching for tension, warmth, response. His thumb traced the hollow beneath your ear, slow, deliberate, like he was drawing a note across your skin to see what it would sound like.

“You want me to?” He murmured. The question came like a vibration, low enough that it sank into you rather than struck your ears. His hand cupped your jaw, thumb pressing lightly just enough to guide your gaze up to meet his. The weight of that look was heavier than touch – all control and patience, all quiet promise. He didn’t need to repeat himself. You nodded once, shallow, your breath shivering against the air between you, and that was all he needed. His hand slid down your throat like a second pulse finding its measure. His palm was hot from the stage, skin humming with residual electricity, but beneath the heat was purpose. His touch wasn’t harsh; it was precise. A slow, steady pressure, a weight that spoke of both strength and care, as if he was memorizing your pulse – the living tempo beneath his fingers. You could feel his own heartbeat there too, steady, deliberate, the pulse of someone who never lost time.

He leaned in, his breath ghosting over your cheek, warm and damp with the echo of stage heat. The world compressed into the small space between your faces, the air thick with salt and the scent of skin and adrenaline. “Tell me if it’s too much,” He said, the words a low thrum against your skin, and before you could answer, your hand came up – instinct, not thought – to rest lightly against the wrist that held your throat. His fingers tightened, just enough to make the air stutter in your lungs, just enough for you to feel the shape of his control. The sound you made wasn’t a gasp, not exactly – more like a fractured exhale, a note caught between surrender and hunger. 

His eyes never left yours. Even as his grip firmed, he was watching; how your lips parted, how your pupils widened, how every tiny tremor of your pulse told him more than words ever could. His thumb brushed the side of your neck in time with that rhythm, tracing it, adjusting pressure until it matched your breath. He wasn’t restraining you – he was reading you, playing you like an instrument he already knew by heart.

The room seemed to dissolve around that moment. The dull hum of the air conditioner, the low chatter from the hallway, the flicker of tired bulbs – all of it fell away. There was only the weight of his hand and the thunder in your blood. The pressure made you feel impossibly still, suspended inside your own heartbeat. You could taste the metal of the cymbals in the back of your throat, the phantom sting of sound, the echo of his control. And when he leaned closer, forehead brushing yours, his voice came soft, deliberate, reverent. “There you are,” He murmured, almost to himself. “That’s it. Just stay right here with me.” Every word felt like a touch, a note held just long enough to tremble before it broke. The sound of it pulled something deep from you – a breath, a small noise, something that wasn’t language but belonged entirely to him.

When your lips finally met, it was less an act than an unraveling. The collision of heat and breath wasn’t hurried; it was measured, like the first low roll of thunder announcing a storm. His mouth fit against yours with a patience that made your skin ache, his tongue tracing the seam of your lips as if learning a song by feel. Each inhale you managed was stolen, parceled out through the narrow space between your mouths, and each exhale tasted of stage sweat and smoke and something sharper. His hand at your throat never loosened fully; he shifted the pressure instead, testing what your body would yield to. The weight of his palm pulsed in time with your heartbeat, and the pulse seemed to echo everywhere – down the line of your spine, through the low ache between your legs. You could feel the tremor of his self-control in the steadiness of his grip, the way he held you open and still without ever taking more than the moment allowed. His other hand slid up, anchoring at the back of your neck, fingers tangling in your hair until your head tilted to follow the angle of his kiss.

He drew back just enough to speak against your mouth, voice frayed at the edges. “That’s it…keep breathing,” He murmured, thumb stroking along your throat in slow circles. The motion calmed you and fed the burn at once. When he leaned in again, his mouth dragged along your jaw, teeth grazing lightly before his tongue followed the path down to the hollow beneath your ear. The heat of him was dizzying – every breath he released against your skin another small possession. He pressed closer, guiding your body back until the edge of the vanity met the back of your thighs, the cool surface grounding the fire in your veins. When his hips met yours, it wasn’t a thrust, just a slow alignment, the thick press of his arousal nestled against you through too many layers of fabric. The friction made you gasp – a sharp, involuntary sound – and his answering breath was a low growl, half-laugh, half-moan, vibrating against your throat as his hand flexed to feel the tremor run through you.

His mouth never stopped moving even as his hands did. He traced the slope of your throat, the hollow of your collarbone, down to the fine tremor of your pulse before catching your skin and guiding your gaze back to his. “You feel that?” He murmured, and you could only nod, lips parted, the faintest whimper escaping before he caught it in another kiss – softer this time, but laced with something deliberate, almost reverent. When he finally pulled away, his breath came shallow, the air between you shimmering with the heat of everything that wasn’t being said. His hand moved from your throat to the hem of your shirt, slipping beneath the fabric just enough to graze your skin. The warmth of his palm made you shiver; the callouses on his fingertips felt like sparks dragging across every nerve. He didn’t strip you – didn’t need to. Instead, he lifted the fabric halfway, bunching it above your ribs, enough to expose the soft rise and fall of your stomach, the rhythm of your breath beneath his hand. The flickering vanity light made the sheen of sweat on your skin glisten gold, like molten sound. He looked at you then – really looked – and something in his expression softened, equal parts awe and hunger.

When he shifted, it was with careful precision, every motion measured as though he were counting silent breaths. He reached between you, unbuttoning just enough, freeing himself without ceremony. The sound of fabric shifting was almost obscene in the quiet. He pressed forward again, the weight of him solid and certain, the heat of his cock heavy against your thigh. For a heartbeat, he didn’t move. You felt him there, the slow drag as he slid up, down, lining himself to you through the panties that separated the two of you underneath your skirt. With a frustrated huff, his fingers push them to the side.

His eyes meet yours – steady, black-edged, intent – and he smiled faintly. “If someone walks in…” He said, his voice a low rasp, “we can’t look like we’re fucking.” The words made you tremble, made the air stick in your throat. The door wasn’t locked. The hall outside still thudded faintly with footsteps, laughter, the clatter of gear being packed up. He used it like a rule, like rhythm – an imposed tempo that forced patience. “So,” He went on, whispering the words against your mouth, “we keep it quiet. We keep it small.” Then he pressed forward, just the tip pushing into you – slow, deliberate, a stretch that made your knees weaken. His breath hitched as he buried only that first inch, the thick head settling inside with exquisite restraint. You could feel how much he wanted to move, but he didn’t. His hand slid back up to your throat, steadying you, grounding you in place as his eyes locked on your face, drinking in every flicker of reaction.

He held still at first, as if testing the edge of stillness itself, his breath shallow against the space between you. Then he began to move – barely – small shifts that were more pulse than thrust, a subtle back-and-forth that kept your body awake to that blissful stretch his tip provided. The motion wasn’t about pace; it was about control, the measured give and take of tension. You felt his breath on your temple, the low hum of his voice breaking through it: a soft sound. Something between a sigh and a growl, meant only for you. His hand at your throat tightened just enough to make the air catch, anchoring you, keeping your focus on him and nowhere else. The faint tremor in his forearm betrayed the strain of restraint, but his eyes never left your face. He leaned back slightly, watching the small, involuntary movements that rippled through you, watching the way your breath stuttered with each shift of his hips, even when you had no more breath left to give. The light from the vanity caught in his eyes, turning them molten, almost tender in their hunger.

The room around you seemed to fall away again – no sound, but the shared rhythm of breath, the faint rustle of clothes, the soft clatter of something rolling off the counter and forgotten. He held you there, half-bent toward him, his thumb tracing slow circles in your neck as if keeping time with your pulse. Every few seconds he’d move – just that fraction more – enough to make your body tremble, enough to draw another sound from you that wasn’t quite a moan, not quite a word.

You didn’t hear him come down the hall. Of course you didn’t. He never made noise when he moved. Vessel had never once entered a room like a human, even though he wore the skin of one. He came like weather, like pressure shifting, like a breath pulled through deep forest just before something moves in the underbrush. He didn’t belong in this hallway, this apartment, this world made of drywall and LED lights—but he followed you here anyway. And when the bathroom door creaked open behind you—not pushed all the way, just barely cracked—you flinched hard, shoulders knotting with shame, panic, exposure. You turned your head, wiped your eyes too rough with the heel of your hand, knowing it was already too late. He’d seen. He’d heard.

“I’m fine,” you said reflexively, your voice warping into something thin and pathetic as you tried to string a laugh around it. “I’ll be out in a second, I just—sorry, I—” You didn’t finish. The words collapsed under their own weight. You couldn’t even look at him. You stared at the floor like a child caught doing something shameful. But the door didn’t close. He didn’t retreat. There was a second of stillness, then the slow, soundless thud of him crouching. You knew that feeling too well—not just his presence, but the weight of it, the shift in the air. His name swam behind your ribs before he even spoke, and when he did—it wasn’t a word. It wasn’t even a sound. It was a feeling, spoken directly to the meat of you. Like your name was being sung through some ancient hollow tree, resonating along nerves that had nothing to do with hearing. You lifted your head, not because you wanted to—but because that was the way he asked. And there he was, crouched low in the doorway, watching you. As if the sight of you in pain was unraveling something deep and barely caged inside him.

He didn’t reach for you. Not at first. That wasn’t his way. Vessel never moved casually in your direction—not since the beginning, not even when things were soft between you. It was always deliberate, always measured, like his body wasn’t built for proximity. Like being near you cost him something—but he gave it anyway. And now, crouched just inside the frame of the door, he held still with impossible precision. You could sense how tightly he was holding himself together, how each slow breath was chosen. Even now, he was only half-changed, even with the undeniable rage coursing through his veins. His knees bent at unnatural angles—too sharp, too long. His back hunched in a way no human spine would allow. Even clothed, even masked, even in this dim light—he didn’t look right. You’d always known he wasn’t. But there was a difference between knowing and seeing. Between sensing that he’d stepped out of the woods with moss still clinging to his ribs and remembering how the trees had gone still when he looked at you. He wore that stillness now. Cloaked in it. His shoulders, wide and oddly jointed, heaved once with a breath that rattled faintly through the room, like wind caught in a throat. His hands braced on his thighs. Long, pale fingers ending in nailbeds just a little too black. Just a little too curved. The mask tilted slightly as he studied you—head low, the blank shape of it casting long shadows against the wall behind. There was no pity in him. Never had been. Just this total, terrifying focus, like his entire world narrowed to the image of you curled on the floor, and it hurt him to see you like this—but not in any way you understood. Not in a way a person could feel.

It made your stomach tighten—and not with fear. Not exactly. You didn’t pull away when he finally moved—not fast, never fast—but with a sinuous, flowing motion that made your throat dry. His hand rose halfway, then paused. Waiting. Asking. He didn’t speak. He didn’t have to. You’d learned his silences the way someone learns the weather—by feel. And when you didn’t flinch, didn’t hide, his fingertips reached you. The back of his fingers brushed your cheekbone, the touch so light it almost wasn’t real. But your skin sparked where he touched. Literally. You felt it: a warmth that wasn’t warmth, like stepping into air charged before a thunderclap. You caught your breath without meaning to. His hand was still. Not cupping your face, not pressing—just there, as if anchoring himself. You could feel a tremor in him. Not physical. Deeper. His thumb drifted lower, catching a track of wetness you’d missed, and paused there at the edge of your jaw. That was when he spoke again—and this time, it was speech. Almost. The voice layered under his voice vibrated in your ribs, made your bones ache faintly from the inside. Not a sound meant for human ears.

“Who hurt you.” Not a question. A verdict already passed. Then, lower, like something unhinged was creeping into his tone, stretching it tight: “Tell me.” The second word trembled in a way no voice should. It quivered through you, pulled from a place so old and deep it had no name. “Who.”

You shake your head before you even think to do anything else – an old reflex, so deeply wired that it comes without thought. The instinct to protect, to excuse, to swallow your pain and minimize the wound before someone sees it and recoils. “It’s nothing,” You whisper, and the sound is brittle, a little pathetic, more breath than voice. You hate the way it trembles, hate the sound of your own weakness laid out in front of him like spilled guts. “They didn’t mean it. I just – overreacted. I’m tired. That’s all.” Your eyes drop to the floor, because meeting his stare with words like that in your mouth feels like sacrilege. You know how he looks at you. You know how he feels about you. He’s never been subtle. He’s never pretended he’s anything less than consumed by you in his own feral, quiet way. And now you’ve curled in on yourself again, trying to make yourself small, trying to protect them instead of yourself. Your voice shrinks with you.

 “I’m sorry,” You say again, so low it barely escapes your lips. “I shouldn’t have…” You don’t finish. You can’t. Your throat closes around it like it’s a thing too ugly to name.

But Vessel hears all of it. Every word, every breath, every crack in you. And it does something to him. Something you can feel as though the air as it shifts, thickening with a weight that’s not quite pressure but not quite presence either. Not anymore. His hand lowers from your cheek without breaking contact until the last moment, like he doesn’t want to stop touching you but has to. Like his own skin might betray him if he lingers too long. His body begins to change – and not in the grand, theatrical way a monster reveals itself in stories. It’s slower than that. Quieter. More horrifying in its subtlety. The seams of him begin to blur. The length of his limbs twists just a fraction too far from what’s familiar. His joints sit wrong, shoulders stretching higher, his neck arching with the grace of something that doesn’t belong to vertebrae. The mask tilts again – but now, the shadows behind it aren’t shadows. They’re moving. Curling. Receding. The air tastes wrong. Metallic. Sweet, like blood left out too long in the heat. The tile beneath his feet groans – not cracking, but protesting, like even the house wants to reject what’s blooming in the corner of the room. Your pulse spikes, yes, but it’s not from fear. Not the kind that makes you flee. It’s the fear you feel when something ancient locks eyes with you and doesn’t look away. It’s awe, and danger, and recognition.

His voice is different when it returns – not just deeper, but wrong in a way your body understands before your mind does. A warble beneath it, like more than one throat is speaking. Like something is echoing through him, wearing his shape but not confined by it. “You are not overreacting.” The word sounded foreign on his tongue. It isn’t comfort. It’s declaration. And the way he says it, heavy and exacting, it feels like judgment laid bare upon the earth. “You are not too much.” Each word falls slow, like stones being placed on the base of a grave. There is no room for doubt. No softness. Just certainty, delivered in a voice that has no business forming human syllables. “And they…” He tilts his head just slightly, and something shifts in the way his spine curves. Not a crack, not a pop, but a slip – like a limb detaching inside his back, something sliding into a truer place beneath the disguise. “They are already dead to me.”

You met his gaze then, because you have to. Even if it hurts. Even it burns. The mask obscures much, but not the glow behind it – dim no longer, but burning through the eyeholes like backlit moss under black water, twin coals pulsing in uneven sync. The heat of it reaches your skin even across the gap between you. It should make you flinch, but all you can do is stare. Because for the first time, you understand that what’s beneath the mask is not just strange. Not just otherworldly. It is not for you to look at. Not without cost. Your eyes blur slightly, water not from tears but from something more primal – a soft static under your skin, the beginning edge of madness if you stare too long. But still, you don’t look away. Because this is Vessel. This is him, the one who waited outside your childhood home for hours without knocking, simply because he knew the sound of the doorbell made you flinch. The one who picked out your favorite tea with shaking hands even though his claws couldn’t hold the tin right. The one who stood at the edge of your world and didn’t demand to be let in, only watched, patient and still, until you reached back.

And now, in this moment, that ancient, unspeakable creature looks at your pain and doesn’t flinch. Doesn’t recoil. He rises to meet it.

He moves – slowly, but not gently. There’s a weight to it now, a terrible inevitability, like tectonic plates shifting underfoot. He uncoils from the crouch with a liquid, insectile grace, joints moving in the wrong order, limbs lengthening further than they should. His shoulders scrape the frame of the door even though you know the ceiling hasn’t gotten any lower. His head tilts again, the mask still fixed in place, but what radiates from behind it is anything but still. You can see it clearly now: the outlines of him aren’t holding. The illusion of skin, of form, is peeling at the edges, warping with every breath he takes. Something ripples down his spine, beneath the fabric of his hoodie, like a spine that doesn’t end where it’s supposed to, like extra limbs are folding themselves out of sight beneath the surface. There’s a sound, low and constant – like wind through the throat of a cave – and it’s coming from inside him. You feel it in your teeth, your sinuses. It’s not meant for your ears. He’s shifting. Not just his body. Himself. Whatever Vessel you’ve known is unraveling in front of you – and yet he does not look away from you for even a second.

And still, you do not run. You should. You think, distantly, that anyone else would. Anyone sane. But you stay where you are on the floor, blinking past the ache behind your eyes, your chest a hollow drumbeat of fear and something softer and more dangerous. He isn’t showing you this to scare you. You can feel it. Every flicker of movement, every trembling thread barely keeping him together – it’s all wrapped around one truth: he is doing this for you. Because of you. Because something in your sadness cracked open a dam inside him, something old and patient and long-starved. Because you are crying, and that should never have been allowed. He stands tall now, a crooked silhouette casting long unnatural shadows in all directions, his hands at his sides – too long, too clawed, twitching with the need to do something. Not touch. Not yet. He hasn’t earned that. But act. Protect. Destroy. Anything that would stop your voice from breaking like that again. And even through all that monstrous warping, even as the very air around him ripples with unreality, you can feel it beneath everything else: the anguish of not knowing how to fix you. The helpless, furious love of a thing not built for comfort, trying anyway.

You rise before you even realized you’re doing it. Slowly, shakily, palms pressing to the tile, your body moves toward him as if answering something unspoken. Not out of courage. Not out of curiosity. It’s gravity. That’s what it feels like to be near him when he drops the mask – like orbiting a black star. Your knees ache from the cold floor, but you don’t care. You stand with your breath uneven, your chest still shuddering from the tears, but your spine finds its strength again. You meet him eye to eye, or at least you try to. It’s hard to tell exactly where to look when his gaze fractures like light through deep water, and the thing behind the mask is seeing you through more than just vision. There’s heat pouring off him now in waves – worse than heat, not natural, like standing too close to a kiln filled with wet stone and copper. Your skin itches, your eyes burn, but you don’t blink. You reach for him.

Your fingers touch the fabric of his hoodie first – still warm, still real – but what’s beneath it is anything but. You can feel it through the material, the way the texture shifts in pulses, like something alive and muscular slithering beneath the cloth. He doesn’t move. Doesn’t flinch. If anything, the moment you touch him, everything stills. Like the storm held its breath. His hands flex at his sides once, claws dragging slow against his thighs, but he doesn’t reach for you. He’s waiting. Always waiting. For permission. For your fear. For your revulsion. But none of it comes. You step closer instead, until you can rest your forehead lightly against his chest, where his heart should be. What you hear there is not a heartbeat. Not even close. It’s more like distant thunder, a subterranean hum, the slow tectonic churn of something that does not belong in flesh but wears it anyway – for you. Your name moves through him again, not spoken, but carried in that chest like a resonant chord, and you feel it roll through your body like an echo in your bones.

Your hand drifts upward before you realize where it’s going. Fingers trembling lightly – not from fear, but from the weight of what this moment means – you trace the edge of the mask where it meets his skin. It’s warm. Warmer than anything should be, like stone left too long in the sun, like breath across fevered skin. He doesn’t move, doesn’t speak. Just stands there, vast and still, letting you touch him. Letting you choose. Your thumb brushes the sharp plane of the cheek, the edge chipped from old, invisible violence. The material hums faintly under your fingertips. Not like metal. Not like bone. Something older. Something alive. You’ve seen him remove it before, yes, but never like this. Never for this. Never when it felt like offering, not armor. Never when it shook him.

He dips his head, just slightly. Just enough. The moment is reverent – not for you to serve him, but as though he serves this moment. The mask tilts into your palm, weight settling, and with your other hand you find the hidden notch along the edge, the one you weren’t meant to know was there. You hesitate. A breath. Two. And then, with a quiet click, the mask releases. You lift it gently, slowly, drawing it away like unveiling a relic sealed behind glass. What’s underneath is not his face. Not really. Not something the human brain was built to behold. His skin is wrong in the way the inside of a cave is wrong – glimmering faintly in patches, too wet-looking in others. Moss-dark, shadow-drenched. Something between flesh and bark and ash, layered like he was formed in strata, like he was built up over centuries by the weight of the forest pressing inward. His mouth is almost a mouth – too wide, lips soft but pulled slightly too far at the corners, teeth that glint slick and bone-white, too many, too sharp. And his eyes – God. They are awful. Not because of ugliness, never that. Because they are not meant for you. Wide, lidless, and gold-rimmed, with pupils like broken mirrors floating in ink. Looking at them feels like drowning in place with no surface.

But you do not look away.

He doesn’t blink. He doesn’t need to. His eyes hold you in that terrible, unrelenting way the woods do when you realize you’ve wandered off the path too far and the sun is dying behind the trees. The longer you look, the more it feels like your soul has to make room for him. Not just in your heart – he’s already there – but in the deeper parts, the ancient, pre-language parts that remember how to fear the dark and love it anyway. He breathes, or does something like it. A ripple moves through the inhuman lines of his torso, the skin there – if it can be called skin – shifting and flexing in gradients of color and texture, like tree bark swallowing light, like oil poured over old stone. You see the shape of his collarbones, or what they might have once been, set too high, too pointed. Below them, his chest rises and falls in a rhythm not meant for human lungs. It’s slow. Deep. As if the air in the room must first be translated by him – into something ancient and raw and barely permitted.

But he’s still waiting. All that horror, all that power seething just under his skin – and he waits. For you. You can feel the tension humming through him like a wire pulled too tight, not because he’s afraid of you, but because he’s afraid for you. Afraid that this – this truth – is something you’ll finally flinch from. That the sight of him bare and real will drive you back, away, leave him with nothing but your scent left behind in the air. But you don’t run. You reach again. Your fingers touch his cheek – not a cheek, really, just the shape of one. The texture is confusing: soft in some places, firm in others, shifting slightly under pressure like his body is reacting to you in real time. There’s warmth there, yes, but also something colder beneath, like roots stretching down into black water. He lets you. He leans into it. It’s subtle, but you feel it – an aching press of his monstrous frame into your small, mortal hand. The reverence of it could destroy you.

“Don’t hide,” You whisper.

And something breaks. Not in you.

In him.

He shudders, and it starts at the base of him, a subtle quake that ripples up through the too-long length of his legs, through the shifting latticework of joints that hold him upright. He’d been holding himself still like a cathedral, like a thing carved to withstand centuries. But the single whisper – don’t hide – hits him like a blade sunk between the ribs. And suddenly, he can’t bear it anymore. His legs fold beneath him with a terrible, graceless weight. Not a gesture. Not a bow. A collapse. The sound of his knees striking the tile is damp and solid, like stone dropped into wet earth. His claws scrape against the floor as he catches himself on his hands, hunched over, body heaving with something that isn’t breath. Isn’t sobbing. Just breaking. A sound spills from him – not loud, but raw, low, like wood cracking under the strain of fire. He doesn’t look at you. Can’t. His hair falls forward, damp with sweat or something deeper, clinging to the hollowed shapes of his face. His mask lies abandoned to the side. A relic. A tombstone.

You kneel with him. Not to comfort him. Not because he needs it. But because he is not alone. You sit on the cold tile, knees brushing his, the air between you thick with the scent of rain-drenched leaves and something older, coppery, faintly sweet, like the air before a hunt. The room hums around his grief. And yours. And you understand now – fully – what he is. That he is not a man. That he never was. That he was born in some unseen place, where gods went to die or sleep, and he clawed his way toward light not because he wanted the world, but because he heard you. From wherever he was, he heard you. And that’s the only thing he’s ever answered to.

His voice is ruined when it returns. Not deep now, not doubles. Small. Hoarse. His. “I don’t know how to be gentle. But I try. For you. I’ve tried every day,” He rasps, fingers curling hard against the floor. “If I had a soul, it would be yours. Say the word, and I’ll tear the world apart in a heartbeat.”

You don’t speak. You just lean forward, head resting gently against his, not caring how strange he feels beneath your skin, not caring that the air trembles with his unshaped power. You sit there, both of you, hearts mismatched and bloody and stubborn, the monster and the mortal, the beloved and the afraid, both of you finally, finally, seen.