Archive of Our Own ^beta

“Tell me, exorcist, why do you subject yourself to this?”

You hunch over into a pathetic ball, feeling your insides lurch, threatening to spew out the remains of your dinner. Tyki’s fingers ghost over the lining of your liver. You seize— then your body arches itself upward against your will, bending backward as a scream rips out of your mouth, bordering inhuman from the way it tears out from your throat.

The forest around you seems to quiver in the moonlight at your desperate gasps for air— or maybe it was from the way you were violently convulsing with the Noah’s hand in your guts. His grin doesn’t relent, and he’s thoroughly enjoying the way each stroke against your organs has you keeling over, your limbs instinctively reaching out to swat him away— but it is all futile, as your hands pass through his face, his body.

“You poor thing,” he coos, looking toward a tree. Its bark is split down the middle, as your weapon rests snugly in its wake, pitifully far from your hands. He shifts from crouching beside you to sitting crossed-leg, watching you twitch helplessly, your kidney in his hands.

“Alright, alright,” he removes his hand, and you’re blindsided by the sudden lack of pain— the past hour of pure, agonizing torture lasted an eternity, and for a moment, it was all you ever knew. He rests his elbow on his knee, propping his chin against the palm of his hand. “I’ll give you thirty seconds. Grab your weapon.”

Like a predator toying with prey. Even with your blurry vision, he looks like the very bringer of death itself— the fluttering of butterflies behind him, each flap of their wing a grim reminder of your mortality.

Your body refuses to move. Your mind screams gibberish nonsense at you, something along the lines of get up and fight, but there’s a disconnect between your nerves and the will of your mind, and your arm uselessly flails onto your chest, heaving as you try to reorient yourself to reality.

Get up.

Tyki looks at you curiously.

Get up.

Your hand finds purchase on the soil— you numbly push yourself off the ground.

Get up.

“Maybe fifteen more seconds?” Tyki wonders, glancing at the clouds that shroud the moon.

UP.

You forgo the thought of your weapon and launch yourself at the Noah, knocking him to the ground, hands wrapping around his throat. You still can’t quite feel all your fingers, and your head is fuzzy— but it doesn’t hinder you from squeezing tighter, pinning him below you, inching closer to his face in crazed rage. Blood pools in your mouth— you must’ve bitten your tongue at some point, but you don’t feel any pain at all. Just the feeling of his Adam’s apple, bobbing as he swallows, lips parted as he looks at you.

And you, in all your deranged glory, Tyki thinks—

The clouds clear, moonlight shining tenfold brighter against your form, bouncing off the edges of your jaw and the bridge of your nose.

You are beautiful.

Your hands pose no threat to him. He lets you delude yourself into thinking that you’re doing something while you press your body against his, pinning his legs down with yours. Your coat is disheveled and shabby from the fight, but he thinks you look so absolutely gorgeous, with the way you abandoned everything to lunge at him with your whole heart.

The static around your vision clears, and some part of your brain fog lifts, too, because you quickly realize that strangling the Noah will get you nowhere. You resort to grabbing him by his cravat, and swing your fist as hard as you can, right into his cheekbone. It collides— he lets it, and you don’t even let the pain register on him. You swing your fist again, and again and again—

He stops you. His hand comes up to catch your wrist, holding it in place. You grunt, almost feral.

“Isn’t it funny?” He says, directed toward himself more than you. “In the face of overwhelming pain and the realization of your death, that you get reduced to nothing but your base instinct?”

You snarl at him, releasing your hold on his cravat to swing your other arm—

When did he sit up? The jolt from him catching your other arm shakes you out of your stupor. You were just holding him against the dirt a moment ago— when were you sat atop his lap? Your weapon— oh, no, where is your innocence—

Tyki clicks his tongue, calling your attention back to him. His face is too close for comfort— you feel heat radiate off him, seeping through your exorcist cloak, directly into the pores of your skin.

“Look here, exorcist,” he tuts, and you’re reminded of the predator and his prey, again. Backed into a corner, trapped in his literal clutches, broken and ready to be discarded by the order for failing a simple scouting mission—

“Look.”

He jerks your right arm toward him— the loose sleeves of your cloak slide down with the force. He presses his lips on the inside of your forearm— and licks along the strip of skin, along the inside of your wrist, and kisses the small sliver of your palm visible through your torn gloves.

A violent shudder runs down your spine. You rip your arm out, throwing yourself back, forgetting your other arm was still in his hold. Your shoulder dislocates from its socket with a sickening pop, and you wince, feeling bile run up your throat. The pain was a pinprick compared to earlier— it is a dull ache that zips through your nervous system, and everything feels muddled, hazy.

Tyki releases his grasp. Your arms fall uselessly to your side, and your torso gives out, you fall uselessly onto the ground, draped across his lap.

You’ve passed out, eyes rolled into the back of your head.

The Noah gazes upon you— the moonlight paints the scene, ethereal, the way you fall over him like an angel, and the way he falls for you, like a sinner.

And, oh, what a feeling it is, to be so infatuated.