Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

My room for the night was up on the third floor. Frank led me further up the winding staircase, the eyes from the many paintings following us as we went. It should have been eerie to me, like walking past portraits in a supposedly haunted house, but instead I only felt comforted, their presence comforting me that I wasn’t alone here, with him.

Knock it off, I thought to myself. If he had been intending on something nefarious, no doubt he would have done it already.

We stopped in a doorway, Frank flipping on the light and motioning for me to go inside ahead of him. It was a large room, filled to the brim with beautiful, ornate furniture: there was a massive four-poster bed in what must have been mahogany, carved all over with intricate flowers and brocade, climbing up to the ceiling; across from it there was a dresser, dark and glistening, almost dripping with lacquer; there were several mirrors, one on the dresser and several on the walls, and, to my surprise and slight indignation, one above the bed, sprawling and glistening. The décor was dark, a swathe of blacks and deep purples, the sheets a shining black silk that looked wet in the light. It was a beautiful room, and though I sensed something quietly threatening about it, for some reason all I could think of doing was crawling beneath those sheets and feeling the silk against my skin.

“If you don’t like this one, I have more,” Frank chimed from behind me.

“No, this is fine,” I breathed, the wind knocked out of me by the way his eyes appeared to me in this light, almost wholly green and deep. It must have been the purple of the room, bouncing off of them. I cleared my throat and glanced around, looking at nothing in particular, anywhere but at him. “It’s great.”

He leaned a little further into the room and gestured to our left, at a closed door I had somehow missed. “The bathroom’s just through there. There should be everything you need, but…” He trailed off, easing back and stepping back out of the room, nodding his head back the way we had come. “My room is just down the hall, I’ll be in there.”

“Thanks,” was all I could manage, smiling sheepishly and nodding, the two of us just standing there, hands in pockets. He nodded, rocking a little on the balls of his feet. I didn’t move to look and see where his room was; I was afraid that if I knew, I would follow him there.

“Good night,” he said gently, turning to walk away but then spinning back around. “Ah,” he groaned, somewhat pained.

“What is it?” He grimaced, the expression slowly spreading into a tense and uneasy smile, slightly crooked teeth gnawing at his lip ring.

“I didn’t offer you anything to eat.” He looked completely distraught over it. “Are you hungry?” I frowned — I probably was, but I couldn’t tell. There was a comfortable emptiness to my body. I shook my head.

“No,” I whispered, and he relaxed.

“Just lemme know,” he said, rubbing at the back of his neck, “I mean – there’s no food in, but I can order something. So…” He shrugged and straightened up. “Yeah. Lemme know.” He turned abruptly and moved quickly down the hall, disappearing out of my sight. I lingered in the doorway as if waiting for him to return but quickly shook my head, the figurative cobwebs falling away as I stepped inside, closing the door quietly behind me.

I sat unsteadily at the very edge of the colossal bed, spreading my hands out either side of me on the silk comforter. The silence was so thick and so palpable that I started to feel as though I was being buried alive, the walls so dark that they could have been closing in and I wouldn’t have noticed it right away. I closed my eyes and willed myself to breathe. It was the most uneasy I had felt since coming into this house, as if Frank had taken my calm with him. Without him, all I was left with was my common sense. There was no reason for someone like him to take me in like this. We had spoken for a total of ten, maybe fifteen minutes. People were never this nice to me, especially not guys like him. I wondered if perhaps he was going to rob me but I had nothing to steal, not so much as a single in my wallet. Maybe he would come into the room as I slept, molest me and kill me and then molest my corpse. Maybe there was no food in the house for me because his refrigerator was full of body parts and severed heads. I shivered and leapt up to lock the door but, of course, there was no lock. I swallowed and backed away from the door as if that was the thing that would hurt me.

You’re being ridiculous. Why do you always assume people are out to get you?

Because they are, I snapped back at myself inside my head. Paranoia is just healthy mistrust. Can’t be too careful. I’ll stay the night and then I’ll get the hell out of here.

Upon closer inspection, there was a lock, but only on the bathroom door. Spurred on by my newfound safety, I reached around in the dark until I found the light-switch. It certainly wasn’t a bad place to be holed up in for the night if that was the way it was going to be. There was a huge, claw-footed tub with heavy gold taps, more gold dotted around on the sink, the cupboards beneath it, and even the towel rail. The tiling was – unsurprisingly - black, stretching seamlessly from the floor all the way up to the ceiling. There was a shower, too, a huge glass cubicle that could have technically been its own room, and I almost missed it through the glass, the black tile swallowing it. I considered showering but there were priorities. Lock the door first.

I figured I could sleep in the bathtub. It was big enough. I went back into the bedroom and wrenched the massive comforter from the bed, bunching it up against my chest and then grabbing at a fistful of one of the pillows, plush and thick and heavy. I dragged my makeshift bed with me into the bathroom, stopping and feeling my skin jitter and jump and crawl as I peered into the tub.

There was a spider, bigger than my hand with thick, heavy and hairy legs, looking at me. I recoiled, the spider and I locked in some staring contest as it refused to move and I backed away. There was a noise behind me and I jumped violently, a startled and unceremoniously high-pitched yelp coming out of my mouth.

“Sorry, I did knock,” Frank said from the doorway. I turned to look at him, embarrassed to notice the smirk on his face, mischief glinting in his honey-green eyes. “I was just going to ask if you needed a change of clothes or anything.” He cocked his head slightly to one side, studying my face. “Why do you look so spooked? Not that scary, am I?”

He’s not a serial killer if he’s five-six.

His smirk only intensified in the wake of my silence. I sighed, irritated, glowering at him.

“There’s a spider.” Saying it aloud brought me back to my senses and I rolled my eyes. My heart rate had stabilised dramatically. I looked back into the tub and the offending thing didn’t seem quite so massive anymore, but it was still looking at me. Frank peered into the tub with me, looking around my shoulder, and made a loud euck of revulsion.

“Gross.” His eyes flickered up to meet mine before darting back down. “I’d offer to get rid of it but those things freak me the fuck out.”

Serial killers aren’t scared of spiders. Surely.

We stood there looking at it for a minute or so, Frank standing so close that I could feel his breath against my neck.

“Should I kill it?” I whispered, and I felt the air shift as he nodded emphatically. As slowly as I could with the spider’s bazillion beady eyes watching me, I took off one of my shoes, raising it an inch at a time to not arouse suspicion. Frank had ducked behind me, waiting. I brought my shoe down as hard and fast as I could, closing my eyes and wincing at it collided with the tub with an echoing thwack. I opened one eye to see the spider’s legs spread out at odd angles around the toe of my shoe, not so much as twitching. When I pulled back there was no denying that it was dead, its body squished into a blackish splodge against the pristine white of the tub. I sighed and felt Frank’s exhale of relief from behind me and straightened back up.

“Good job,” he breathed, grinning at me as I looked over at him, eyes a little wild with something between fear and exhilaration. I smiled back anxiously, clearing my throat and moving to dispose of the body. When it was gone, bunched up in toilet paper and flushed down the toilet (twice for good measure), I looked back at Frank and saw that same smirk once again plastered on his face.

“What?”

“Why do you, uh…” He gestured to the crumpled heap of pillows and bedding on the bathroom floor. My cheeks flushed red and I scrambled to pick them up.

“Oh! I, uh, I was just—”

“Hey, man, whatever floats your boat.” He grinned, running a tattooed hand back through his hair. “You good for clothes? I’ve got some sweats and some shirts that should fit you.”

“Uh…” I swallowed, disarmed by the soft honesty in his eyes that made me out to feel like the biggest jerk on the planet. “Yeah, that’d be great.” I paused. “Thanks, Frank.”

“No sweat. I’ll be back in a second.”

When he returned I was back on the foot of the bed atop the mess I had made by piling all the sheets back onto it. He laughed softly in the back of his throat and held out a small pile of clothes, complete with underwear and socks. I mumbled my thanks again and he hummed in response.

“You can keep ‘em if you want.” His hand brushed mine as he handed them over and my eyes darted up to meet his, shocked by the coolness of his fingers. He withdrew his hand with a dark, subdued, maybe even sad smile creeping over his face, not wanting to hold my gaze. “I’ll see you in the morning. I’ll… I dunno, I’ll make pancakes or something.” All I caught of his face before he was gone was a grimace, lips and teeth moving quickly as if he was muttering something to himself. Once more, there was silence.

I glared at the stack of clothes, like it was their fault that I once again felt anxious and absurd. I flopped backward on the bed and closed my eyes, sighing heavily and leaning into the soft, downy sheets. I couldn’t think straight. For a moment it was as though I was in a dream, the darkness behind my eyes shot through with a rapid-fire montage of everything that had happened that day. I hadn’t known it was even possible for so much to happen and for it to all go wrong. It was hard to believe that, at the end of it all, I was here. But, I guess, me being me, where else would I be?

I opened my eyes and stared upward, at the canopy above the bed. To my horror, I was met with my reflection gawking back at me. I looked like hell and there was a fucking mirror above the bed. A mirror. I cringed away from my reflection and curled onto my side, pressing my face into the sheets until I could barely breathe, hoping that it would stifle my tears. But none came. My senses felt at once heightened and dulled, the bed and the darkness and the warmth of the room euphoric to my body. My memories quickly got muddled, foggy, soft around the edges like they were years, decades old. Sleep had me in its clutches and I leaned into it, a shiver running down my spine as I remembered the chill of Frank’s fingers and the heat of his eyes.  

There is something inside of me clawing to get out. It doesn’t hurt, but there is a substantial ache to be relieved of it. My body feels at once solid and liquid and deep, like black, molten metal.

I sense a hand against my face and I count the fingers, one, two, three. Feather-light, a settling of dust. My blood rises and draws me closer as if magnetised. The soft pad of a thumb smooths over my mouth, first my top lip and then the bottom, slow like a breath. There seem to be hands all over me now, the gooseflesh of my arms and my neck and my chest prickling to life. My breathing is alien and wistful and quiet. A tongue against my neck draws a flinch from me and settles in the hollow between my collarbones. There is a hand in my hair sweeping it away. The silk sheets are ice hot against my back.

The moan is impossible to ignore and I struggle to discern its origin, the back of my throat wet with need and bated breath. It comes again, louder, lower, as these disembodied fingers drift lower. A tongue against my nipple, first one and then the other, simultaneous and overlapping. The calculated, perfect graze of teeth. The fingers glide over me, around me, into me. It hardly lasts a second.

I find the will to open my eyes and as they flutter, blurry and damp, they catch my reflection in the mirror above the strange bed and I am entirely alone. The darkness finds me again and once more, the ache builds low in my chest. A mouth finds mine and it is tart like berries sat in the sun, warm like cigarette smoke, like blood. My neck stings, an insistent and stomach-churning sharpness. I detect an overwhelming nakedness and my back is no longer touching the sheets as I writhe there in the air like a savaged marionette. The hands trail through my sweat and clutch at me as though they could break me and my head drops back.

Something presses deep inside of me, an overwhelming fullness that sets the ache inside of me free and it comes bubbling out of my throat. My hands find hair and stiff shoulders and my toes are hardly grazing the silk on the bed and my back arches. Everything is spinning as I open my eyes and the familiar eyes catch mine. Lamplight flickers deep inside of them, appearing to me like igneous rock in the sun. There is a flash of teeth and a rush of heat and it is as though I have been plunged underwater. My head is wrenched back and there are hips rocking into mine and dizziness settles into my head. My fingers grapple at biceps and a firm waist and I am shocked my body does not shatter as I am laid down on the sheets again.

In my reflection I am alone. My chest heaves with my breath and my cheeks are flushed and I can hear the surge of my blood beneath my skin, flooding me, rushing downward, only ever downward. There are fingers curled around me though I cannot see them and I continue to press into their weight. There is a mouth on me and I am helpless to it. The mouth kisses my mouth while it kisses elsewhere, lower, and my fingers are balled around the bedding, the silk slippery and my breath desperate and thin. There is an intensity, a heaviness in my stomach and my moans echo over and over again until I cannot breathe. I am contorting in ecstasy and there is nobody there, I am sure of it, yet still my eyes roll back and my fingers search for him though they are glued, it seems, to the bed. His mouth tastes to me now like all good things I have ever tasted, sweet and warm, and he laughs and then his tongue laps at my neck slowly the way a dog might lick a wound, a determinate tenderness. He groans into me and I curl myself around him though there is nobody there and I nod. I bid him to do it again. He takes my hands in his and kisses them and his teeth graze the heels of my palms and the insides of my wrists and he presses into me again, and again. The mirror above me is black as ice, and empty.