Chapter Text
Charlie woke to warm sunlight and cool autumnal air kissing along his naked skin.
He slowly blinked his eyes open, but didn’t yet move. He didn’t want to. He was comfortable in a way he had not been in days, safe enough that he could allow himself a moment of rest and respite. The ichor he drank last night was still a pleasant buzz at the base of his skull, keeping him soft and pliant as the morning greeted him like an old lover.
Like this, the warmth of Carcosa’s twin suns was heavenly against his skin, raising gooseflesh along Charlie’s arms and thighs as it twined with the chill of the crisp breeze drifting in through the open balcony doors. He would almost swear he can smell sweet apples and even sweeter candy, like a harvest festival is rolling in along the wind.
Maybe one is.
Carcosa has them every so often.
Charlie lifted his arms above his head in a languid stretch, the motion causing the silken sheets he was tangled in to slip lower down his hips.
He aches like he always does after the Pits, but it’s…it’s good.
It’s not the ache of cramped spaces and starvation, but rather the satisfying tug of stretched muscles and a well fucked body.
He’s reminded then, almost painfully, of Noel (Charlie can’t even begin to count how many mornings he’s woken so very nearly like this, loose limbed and limp, Noel’s handsome face looking down at him with a crooked smile, his pretty copper hair mussed and tangled from Charlie’s hands, lips still red and kiss swollen, and he was beautiful, Noel was always so beautiful) and whatever happy mood Charlie may have been reaching for is swiftly torn away from him before his fingers can touch it.
“Did you sleep well, my dearest?”
A hand brushes the hair from Charlie’s eyes (there’s more silver in the ink darkened locks than what Charlie remembers—from stress, certainly, but he knows Carcosa is changing him too, has been for so long that it’s easier to just not think about it), finally allowing him to greet the day proper.
Charlie immediately scowled.
“Do you even give a fuck?”
Hastur hummed, unperturbed by Charlie’s language.
He’s sitting on the edge of the bed, cradling Charlie’s cheek in his palm like it’s something delicate and breakable (and it is, isn’t it? Hastur’s broken Charlie’s bones before, when he first came to the Dreamlands, before Hastur decided he liked Charlie more intact than ripped apart) and wonderful. Hastur is holding Charlie like he loves him, but dawn has broken, the suns have risen from Lake Hali into the pink tinged sky, and Charlie will not pretend when there are no shadows to help with the illusion and no audience to keep entertained.
“Of course I do.” Hastur’s touch is so gentle (this too reminds Charlie of Noel, and he hates it, he hates it, and he hates himself for leaning into it). “Even after all these years, is that still so hard for you to believe?”
Charlie sits up abruptly and pulls away from the King’s touch.
Hastur lets him go.
There’s a robe hanging off one of the posters of the bed (yellow and gold, of course, like every other piece of clothing Hastur has given to Charlie), and Charlie snags it as he stands.
He slips it on, cinching it tightly around his waist as he walks out to the balcony.
And still, Hastur lets him go.
Surprising, considering his recent escape attempt.
Charlie has scaled down this balcony many times before, made it to the shores of Lake Hali only once before Hastur dragged him back (he remembers that moment better than most, the way Hastur had knotted his fingers in Charlie’s hair, the way he’d pulled him through the halls of the palace by his scalp, the way his Dancers had flitted and fluttered out of the way even as Charlie screamed and cursed and sobbed, the way Hastur had kept him locked in his room for weeks, the way it had so very nearly broken Charlie because Hastur hadn’t even had the courtesy of throwing him in the fucking Pits–). Charlie would like to go back, would like to see the lake up close again and walk upon the red sands of its shores without the weight of the King In Yellow bearing down on him–because it had been beautiful, and Charlie had long since learned to hold onto his sanity by appreciating beauty where he could–but he knows he’ll never be allowed.
He’s certain Hastur would let him go back if Charlie only asked, but the King would go with him, and it would be too much like before, and that’s not what Charlie wants.
A hand settles on the dip of his waist.
(Charlie sometimes wonders if he’s already broken)
“I do.” Hastur’s voice is a sweet rumble in his ear. “My dearest, I don’t care for anyone like I care for you.”
(He can’t be)
“What can I do to prove it to you?” Hastur continued. “What can I do to make you happy?”
“Don’t you have court?” Charlie asked instead of answering, crossing his arms high over his chest and propping his hip against the balcony railing. He doesn’t look at Hastur. He keeps his gaze on Laki Hali, on the fog that hangs over the water, on the checkpoint he so desperately wishes he could get past.
The breeze is stronger out here.
Colder.
Charlie bites his tongue as a chill builds at the base of his spine.
It’s a question Hastur asked often, and it’s a question Charlie didn’t often answer. They both know what answer he would give (I want to go home), and they both know that Hastur would refuse (you are home). Charlie doesn’t even know why Hastur keeps asking him, except that’s a lie, because he does know, of course he knows, Hastur loves his plays and his scripts and his stage and he’ll keep feeding Charlie lines until he gets the response he wants.
“I postponed it.” Hastur answered. He lifts his hand from Charlie’s waist to card his fingers through Charlie’s hair. It would almost be soothing, if not for the pinprick of claws on his scalp. “You were sleeping so peacefully—I didn’t want to disturb you.”
Charlie dug his fingers into his arms.
He was still expected to go, then.
“A cigarette.”
Hastur stilled. “Pardon?”
Charlie blinked slowly, waiting a heartbeat, then two, before finally looking back at the King. “A cigarette would make me happy.”
It wouldn’t.
But if he was going to sit in on Hastur’s court then he’d damn well have a smoke before he did.
“...there are better vices for you to have, my dearest.”
Charlie shrugged. “There are worse.”
Hastur pulls his hand back, and when he holds it out to Charlie again there’s a carton of cigarettes resting in his palm. Chesterfield. Not Charlie’s preferred brand (he thinks it might have been worse if it was), but he’ll take what he can fucking get. So Charlie snatches the pack from Hastur and cracks it open, places one between his lips, and before he can ask for a light Hastur has one ready for him. Charlie eyed him, but leaned forward (is he broken?) so Hastur can light it.
(no)
Charlie took a deep drag, then blew the smoke in Hastur’s pretty porcelain face.
(he refuses to be)
“Thanks, doll,” he drawled, then pushed past Hastur and back into the room.