Archive of Our Own

Around him is nothing but the deep, dark black of ink, far as his eyes can see, and they don’t see much. He thinks he has his arm outstretched; the darkness is so deep all he can see is black, and his limbs lack sensation. Hubert might be flexing his fingers, he might be screaming. He wouldn’t know. Here, there is only darkness and a heartbeat. His, probably, but it’s been so long since Hubert has heard his own heart he couldn’t recognize it, not for anything.

He is so small. This he knows, somehow.

Then, there is a light. At first Hubert doesn’t see it for what it is, hidden behind his outstretched fingers-- and surely, those are his fingers he sees. They are such tiny things, and curled as if ready to strike. Or maybe they already have.

In front of him the light grows brighter, but Hubert never shields his eyes. He doesn’t look away. There is light and it is not a blinding white-- it is golden, and warm. It is something like a flame, and like any fire that feeds from the air, this light soaks the darkness around it, fattening like a ripe fruit, growing, growing, until it is all Hubert can see, this impossible light, this unending brilliance.

Then, there is the screech of a kettle going off, and Hubert blinks back into awareness. Sensations hit him at once; stiff wood at his back, an ache in his joints, the crinkle of papers being shifted, glass jars clanking against each other. Sage, rosemary and lavender wafting through the air. Dampness at his cheek, where it must have been lying against his desk, or his palm. Rain slamming against his windows as the thunderstorm continues.

Warmth, faint as it is, crackling from the fireplace. The kettle, still screaming, and the cottage still unbearably lonely.

Sighing, Hubert peels himself from his desk, and sighs again at the cracking protest from his bones. He stares down at the black claws gripping the edge of his desk and, after a long second, watches as they all meld back into human fingers. One day he won't be able to manage this. Hubert will look down and forget that he's ever had human hands.

(Barely audible in his ear, like a voice screaming from underwater, he can hear the gurgling venom of his father spitting at him: you deserve no less.)

Maybe so. The price for dark magic has always been steep and Hubert, caring too much for his friends and too little for his own self, had agreed to pay it gladly if it meant power, if it meant protection.

There will be no regrets. Not after everything.

Hubert has just placed the kettle atop a wooden slab on his countertop when there’s a knock on his door. Two short rasps, a pause, then another two. Not one of the knocks he recognizes. Hubert glares at the door as if that searing look alone could kill the intruder.

What kind of fool would find themselves at Hubert's door?

It’s the dead of night under a new moon. Anyone who lives in these parts knows better than to traverse the dark woods without moonlight to guide their way. The shadows are darkest this time, with their long reaching fingers and dripping teeth. Magic hangs in the air, and monsters roam, feeding off the power of it. Not even the most foolhardy or desperate would dare set foot in the woods right now, and certainly not far enough in where Hubert’s cottage dwells, sitting near the heart of the forest, surrounded by ink black bramble thicker than a human’s entire body, and spanning as tall as any tree.

This is his home, such as it is, and much like himself, the cottage is a well guarded, barbed thing. Dangerous and kept away from nearly everyone. Reeking in evil.

And yet there it is, that polite, insistent knocking. This is a stranger, and somehow, on the most dangerous of nights, they have dodged every monster in these woods just to find themselves on the doorstep of the biggest of them all.

Hubert looks outside the window, where tree branches swing from the wind. The forest has a wicked sense of humor, he’ll give it that.

Immediately upon opening his door, wind slams into him, nearly toppling him over. It does topple the stranger, however, but that very well could just be because he was in the middle of knocking again, fist poised in the air. He falls into Hubert’s chest, all soaking wet and hard muscle, gasping against Hubert’s collarbone.

Hubert looks down, arching one brow. “Well well well,” he intones, “what do we have here?”

The stranger's head lifts, their gazes lock, and Hubert knows then, with cutting clarity, why someone would find themselves drawn here, to his doorstep, on this of all nights.

What most don’t understand about this forest is how alive it truly is, how the forest is as much a living, breathing creature as the ones it protects. The forest hears and feels and just like the rest of them, it hungers. So what if its hunger looks different? Blood is required all the same. So, like a hand pointing at a slab of meat, the forest is calling for its beloved and protected butcher to do what he does best.

The forest wants its payment of blood, and it has all but dropped it on Hubert's doorstep, soaked through and shivering. He could almost feel sorry for the thing. Searching for salvation and instead it’s found a slaughterhouse. Maybe he’ll make the killing quick, for their sake.

“Has the rain robbed you of your words?” Hubert leans against the doorframe, in no rush to invite the prey in. “Or do you simply not speak?”

Hubert has never seen eyes with such fire in them, or a mouth so made for temptation, even as it's pressed into a tight line. In contrast, Hubert’s mouth curls into something cruel and taunting, not a smile in the slightest.

Maybe he’ll make it sweet, for fun.

The prey rears back and instead of tripping on his slick shoes, as Hubert expects, he finds his footing, planting himself firmly on the floor. He has broad shoulders, Hubert notes, now that there’s space to note such things. They nearly fill up his doorway. The hand that rests on the hilt of their sword is a large one, with thick and elegant fingers. Bare of any signet ring that Hubert can see.

Beautiful, because they’re the hands of someone used to holding a sword. Probably used to killing with one, too. If Hubert hasn’t been entertaining thoughts of enjoying his prey already, they would be rushing into him when the prey pulls down his hood and pushes back his hair, a swarm of fantasies awful and delectable that would make Hubert’s knees weak.

That hair alone is the single brightest thing in the forest, even without anything to light it. Some midpoint between copper and gold and somehow more lush, more brilliant than any jewel, it seems almost set ablaze. Like fire caught mid-motion, bottled with magic and poured, golden rich, onto every strand. Kings would pay ransoms just for a lock. The sun itself would fume in jealousy.

Something in Hubert’s ear buzzes, faint. The back of his neck goosebumps, called to attention. There is a fact calling itself into existence, begging to be known, but Hubert’s mind is a thing submerged deep under black sludge. Whatever it is that’s calling for him, he can hear only distant roaring and the rush of tidal waves.

Hubert realizes, too late to catch himself, that he is staring, tracing with his eyes the sharp cut of a jawline, the perfect arches of two brows.

Then he realizes, so is the prey. Their wide, lush mouth is pursed into a most perfect ‘O’, droplets of rain slipping from the corners. Hubert has never once in his life measured the shape and moistness of a person’s lips so thoroughly upon meeting them. His gaze roves Hubert from top to bottom, lingering on his claws.

Thing is, Hubert knows what kind of figure he cuts. Tall enough to be imposing, pale as bone and shrouded in shadow, all the appearance of a human with none of the soul-- they make folktales about beings like him, whispering them when they're not too busy screaming.

One story in particular is repeated over and over again, spoken so often as to stop being superstition or fairytale and it becomes fact: a handsome hero stumbles upon the home of a monster, asking it for shelter, and the monster will agree. The monster will be courteous, accommodating, and charming. The monster will make the hero fall in love. Then the monster will kill the hero before morning.

The story will always end in death, see. Sometimes, the hero slays the beast instead. Most of the time, the monster devours the hero, bones first, heart last. The skin and meat it throws to the woods.

The story is a warning sign, a cautionary tale. Do not go where the forest leads you at night. Do not knock on the door of strange houses. Turn away at the first sight of teeth, even if the smile is pretty.

Do not fall in love with beasts. Humans are born made for love. Beasts are born made for something else.

The stories are true enough, Hubert supposes. They’re popular enough to even reach his ears, so they must be known elsewhere.

Yet, here the handsome prey is, on Hubert’s doorsteps despite the warnings telling him to walk back. Here they are, a human and a beast, staring at one another, something fraught between them. The wind howls at the prey’s back, sending him tumbling into Hubert’s chest again. This time he catches himself with both hands on Hubert’s chest, and he nearly burns from the heat of it.

The stranger pulls back as if he, too, has felt the same burn.

“Apologies!” he gasps, hands held up.

He's a rich voice; clear and musical, warm and sweet. Hubert hears it and pictures caramel, dripping thick and slow. He imagines theaters, raucous with applause and armies following the command of a single shout. It’s a pretty voice, overall, befitting of such a pretty mouth.

Hubert rubs the place where the heat lingers, in the center of his chest. The burning sensation is nothing new to Hubert. That it comes from a human’s touch is.

Interesting little lamb the forest has given him.

Hubert regards him for a moment, then steps aside, motioning to his room with the same hand that was on his chest. “Might as well come in, then, if you’re going to keep dampening my floors. You can apologize to me properly for that.”

A mouth moves, but another gust of wind has him scrambling through the threshold, the ends of his cloak barely missing being caught when Hubert slams his door shut.

Without the wind howling, Hubert’s cottage seems deathly quiet in the aftermath. His fireplace still crackles, and now there is the drip of water, splattering onto his floorboards. Hubert looks at the puddle beneath the prey's feet, then up.

Then he keeps looking.

He is beautiful in the moonlight, but when properly lit by candles and fire, cast in reds and golds, he is a beauty for the paintings. Sculptors could work until their hands bleed just to capture the perfect lines of that jaw, that nose, and still it would dim in comparison. Capture the sun into pigment and Hubert swears it could not match the glow of that hair, those eyes.

(Here’s part of the story they don’t always tell: that the stranger is golden and resplendent, lighting up every dark, untouched place, and the beast is a lonely, starved thing that doesn’t know what to do with light, has no idea how to hold such a wonder in its hands.)

“Well.” His voice cuts through the still air. Hubert makes a sweeping hand gesture across the prey as a whole. “Here you are, inside at last. Care to finally introduce yourself, or should I call you what you are?”

He blinks, as if woken from a stupor. The confused, doe-eyed look is, unfortunately, a rather good look on his handsome face. It softens the severity of his jawline, which is framed, maddeningly perfect, by his damp curls.

“Ah! Apologies for my rudeness, good sir. I am Ferdinand, of Adrestia.”

Hubert’s brows raise. If the crisp vowels haven’t given his noble heritage away, the immaculate bow certainly does. When Ferdinand rises, clumps of hair stick to his cheek, which he wipes away with a hand, never taking his eyes off Hubert.

“What would you have called me?”

Meat. “A fool,” Hubert answers, curt. “I’ve never heard of the family name Adrestia. I do hope you don’t lie to all the strangers you encounter half so badly. Shall I take your cloak?”

Butlers across every noble household have tried, for years, to mimic the severe detachedness of Hubert’s voice and the sharp, imperial slant of his brows. The result had servants and nobles alike on edge, scrambling to obey his words for fear of the threat that lay just beneath his barbed words.

Ferdinand perks up, a smile tugging at his mouth.

“Yes, of course. Thank you.” He spins around, showing Hubert his back. Without another word Hubert steps forward, reaching around Ferdinand’s broad shoulders to undo the front clasps of his cloak.

Ferdinand must have intended to do the same, for their hands collide at his chest. Hubert bats Ferdinand’s hands away with nary a pause. He peels back the cloak from his person, drapes it over his arm, then begins unbuttoning the jacket from behind.

“Thorough.” Ferdinand murmurs. This close, Hubert smells water and citrus and musk, and the smells should not be as delicious as they are.

“I am well trained.”

“Is that how you recognize the lack of family name?” Looking down, Hubert can see Ferdinand’s cheek curving in what must be a cheeky smile. “You are correct, of course. Adrestia is not a family name-- not traditionally, yet, that is. I was originally Ferdinand von Aegir, the son and heir to the Dukedom, but I have cast that name aside years ago now.”

For the best that Hubert has decided to undress Ferdinand from behind, for he can’t stop the surprised lift of his brows at hearing that. Of all the nobles to land at his cottage, it would be a former Aegir.

That such a thing exists brings a smile, small and pleased, to Hubert’s face. Without a word, he hangs the two articles in the only available hook by his door. When he turns, Ferdinand is facing him. Gone is the dazed, slack jawed look-- there is an open adoration on Ferdinand’s becoming face, a smile split perfectly across. It fits him all too well, this kind expression.

“Forgive me for not having said so immediately, but you have my sincerest, most ardent thanks, for allowing me under your roof.”

He bows again, beautifully, sunglazed curls falling over a fine burgundy blouse that’s embroidered, of all things, with sprawling sunflowers and sun motifs. Hubert thinks about nobles and monsters, and how the stranger in the story is somehow always made in a way so as to be exactly what the monster craves.

He is made for me, Hubert thinks when Ferdinand straightens and smiles, all white teeth and a dimple in the corner. The forest has given Hubert his prey, and he is perfect.

Hubert moves from the entryway, striding to the fireplace. “You can thank me,” he says crisply, throwing more logs in, “by taking off those dirty shoes and drying yourself before you get absolutely everything in my cottage wet.”

Behind him is laughter, clear as bells, and Hubert’s eyes roll skyward. Must everything about Ferdinand be so pleasing, so certain to charm everyone and everything? Of all the strangers, all the nobles, to come stumbling to his cottage, and Hubert must get the one pulled straight from a storybook.

Not even a child safe one either, he laments, turning in time to see Ferdinand bent at the waist, tugging off his boots, one hand braced on the wall to steady himself. Ferdinand must ride often, to have those thick thighs, that plump bottom. Hubert’s prey have always been waifish things, with barely any meat on them for a proper offering, not someone who looks ready to slay dragons.

“Leave your sword by the door, where I can see it.”

Ferdinand obeys readily, and waits, hands behind his back, too much like an eager puppy, for Hubert’s further permission. Hubert lets his eyes roll again, knowing Ferdinand can see it.

“Come, before you make yourself sick.”

If only Edelgard could hear him now, performing a mockery of hospitality. She would find it all hilarious even as she berated him for acting so crudely to a stranger who’s been nothing but kind. Edelgard isn’t here, however, and Hubert finds himself weary of having to stand on airs in his own home, playing the ever dutiful servant when he’s long shed that existence along with his humanity.

Ferdinand beams, a bolt of light that cuts through the storm of Hubert’s thoughts. “Many thanks again, good sir! I will be sure to drip as little as possible over your floors while I make my way over to the fireplace. Should I fail at all, I will take it upon myself to wipe everything dry!”

Hubert’s claws morph into human fingers long enough so he can pinch the bridge of his nose. “Just stop at thank you.”

Outlined by the warm fire’s glow, Ferdinand’s skin turns to smooth wax, his eyes to burning embers, his teeth glinting. He is too beautiful for Hubert to touch without burning. He is beautiful enough to be worth that pain. ‘Thank you,’ Ferdinand mouths.

Hubert takes wide strides to his drawers, eager to look away lest his vision start spotting. He comes to Ferdinand’s side with a clean towel, holding it out for him.

“Do you also want a change of clothes?”

With the towel draped over his head, Ferdinand looks almost guilty to say, “Yes. If you could spare a set, I would be much obliged.”

“I’ve nothing so fancy as silk.” Hubert rummages through his drawers, looking for his loosest clothes.

“Oh, please, I would never-- ah, that is, I will happily take whatever you have to give! Thank you!” True to his word, Ferdinand all too happily accepts the worn cotton clothes, then darts his gaze around the cottage. Trying to find a room or a screen to change behind, no doubt.

Hubert snorts. The only room connecting to his cottage is his workshop, and he’ll not let a stranger in there.

“I’m going to turn around and make something for the both of us to drink while you change.”

Leaving Ferdinand to it, Hubert walks to his kitchen counter, grabbing the abandoned kettle. It’s lukewarm by now, but Hubert heats it back up with a simple touch, then stretches to grab two cups. One is a glazed white coffee mug, with yellow on the inside and wildflowers painted all around. The other is a white cylindrical mug with grooves carved in the sides for an easy grip, and around it, following the motion of the indents, are vines and flowers.

Bernadetta has lovingly and painstakingly painted both, as she has painted all of his cups. She refuses to let Hubert keep everything in his cottage black and has taken upon herself to redesign his home, bit by bit. She has painted his kitchen yellow, drawn wildflowers across his cabinets, painted the handles of his utensils in different colors, and replaced his handles with smooth rocks plucked from the beach. She is currently in the process of drawing a mural behind Hubert’s bed-- at the moment it is all thick swabs of paint and faint pencil marks. To make space for what will cover an entire wall, Hubert has moved his bed to near the center of his cottage, close to the fireplace.

Hubert can’t say he hates the addition of color in his life. Mostly, he just adores that they are remnants of Bernadetta’s work, her presence felt in every artwork, every flower and star that catches his eyes. On the days where Hubert feels more a corpse than a person, all boneless husk, she would draw all over his arms. Flowers, plants, birds, butterflies, bees; she would draw only things that are alive, imprinting them so that when he looks down, he sees only life. He’ll see that his body is a place in which things can grow, and live.

The paint has faded by now. Perhaps he’ll ask her to paint on him, next time she visits. Ferdinand’s presence, exuberant as it is, only reminds him how desolate he is in turn, and his claws are only getting longer. His teeth are only ever getting sharper.

From behind, Hubert can hear the shuffling of clothes being removed, the wood creaking as Ferdinand balances on one foot.

“If I may ask, do you have tea?”

Hubert reaches up to open a cabinet. “What sort of witch would I be if I didn’t?”

“Oh! So you are a witch, then. I had thought as much, but did not want to presume.”

“Please,” Hubert scoffs, “as if I didn’t see you staring at my claws.” His words end up catching in his throat when Hubert twists to shoot Ferdinand a flat look over his shoulder, that look turning into something much more heated upon the sight waiting for him.

Ferdinand has changed into Hubert’s clothes, and he fills them out in ways that are absolutely scandalous, and all the more enjoyable to behold. The top three buttons are left open. Hubert’s pants, already worn thin, stretch around Ferdinand’s thighs, tight as jodhpurs, bringing every definition of muscle into startling clarity. Hubert dare not look at Ferdinand’s waistline. The only part not straining to meld itself with Ferdinand’s skin are the shoulders, and that is entirely thanks to Hubert himself possessing a wide set.

For much too long, there is a pause in which Hubert forgets, rather shamefully, how to speak.

Ferdinand, at least, looks as caught as Hubert, with his bottom lip between his teeth.

“You noticed that, I see.”

Hubert reminds himself to breathe, and breathe slow. Distantly, he can hear drumming in his ears. It does not go away, not even when Hubert turns from the holy sight of Ferdinand in his own clothes, busying himself with preparing the tea and coffee.

“You, Ferdinand of Adrestia,” Hubert quips, “are an entirely too easy read.”

“And you sir, still have me entirely at a disadvantage.”

What alerts him to Ferdinand’s presence at his side isn’t the tingle of awareness from another body, or even the still clear smell of citrus clinging to Ferdinand. It’s the heat, scorching against Hubert’s arm. He flicks a glance over to see Ferdinand leaning a hip against the counter, tucking some hair behind his ear.

Somehow he’s even broader with less clothes on. Incredible. Ridiculous.

Hubert raises his brows, which makes Ferdinand’s grin widen.

“I still have not caught your name.”

“Calling me sir will do just fine.”

Hubert knows the color of Ferdinand’s tongue, when it dashes out to wet his lips. Deep pink, like that of a lotus flower. Hubert could pluck at it like he would a petal.

“Am I also to only answer with ‘yes, sir’ or ‘no, sir’?”

Now that has Hubert turning to face Ferdinand fully, every part of him snapping to attention. This sudden awareness of what their banter has turned into is less a trickle over his bones and more lightning snapping against his skin. Hubert’s entire body throbs and still he leans in, letting all that heat into his skin, crackling, sizzling.

Ferdinand is all heat and siren song, and he makes the monster in Hubert sing.

“You, Ferdinand of Adrestia,” Hubert breathes, much too softly around the fangs that have come out to play, lifting up his lips, “are an incorrigible flirt.”

He feels Ferdinand’s sharp intake of breath as if it’s his own lungs constricting. Ferdinand’s body seems to seize up, his shoulders tensing, chest puffing, back arching. His mouth falls open just as his gaze does, falling and catching onto Hubert’s mouth. Hubert watches, as enthralled as Ferdinand is, as his breathing quickens until he’s panting, beautiful thing, wetting his lip, swallowing, wetting his lip again, then swallowing, then repeat and repeat, like there’s too much saliva building up in his mouth, threatening to spill out.

What a perfect thing. Hubert could have feasted on Ferdinand right then and there and he'd have let him, eagerly filling the role of prey, bared necked, panting, vulnerable. Not even scared, no. Hubert knows fear when he sees it. A boy grown up learning fear by the end of a knife knows it so well he can smell it, like a shark to blood. Hubert smells only citrus and want.

When Ferdinand can at last meet Hubert’s eyes, his jaw clamps shut but he does not swallow, does not gulp like a man fearing the maw of a beast, now that he has it open before him, waiting to bite. His tightly pressed lips smile, instead, bold and daring.

He is made for me, the monster sings.

Hubert reels back, reaching almost blindly for the kettle. It is painful to look away, to act like he can’t feel Ferdinand burning up beside him, feel him slick in his mouth, just begging for a kiss, a tongue down his throat, fangs tearing through his lips. Hubert bites down on his own lip until he can taste blood, and sucks on that to satiate him.

It doesn’t work, but his hands don’t tremble, at least, when he hands Ferdinand the mug with flowers.

“I would highly advise against it,” Hubert tells him, meeting Ferdinand’s gaze and forcing himself not to flinch at the raw desire there, at Ferdinand with one hand wiping away drool from the corner of his mouth. “It’s the height of lunacy to provoke a beast, as I hope you would well know.”

Ferdinand takes the offered cup, and his hands don’t tremble either.

“I disagree.” Like he isn’t vibrating with want, like Hubert can’t see the large bulge straining the seams of his pants for dear life, Ferdinand takes a polite sip of the tea. His eyebrows shoot up, surprised and pleased. He lowers the cup back to the counter, calmly. “I am a rather sensible man, you see. I am not driven to fits of lunacy, and I do not go into any situation without considering the risks. So said, if I am here with you now, I have decided that whatever danger there may lurk, it is not so great that I cannot handle it.”

Hubert bares his teeth in a smile so slow, so calculated, that he can’t even feel all that satisfied at the flush it gets from Ferdinand, how it draws this lovely man’s attention down to his mouth again. That doesn’t mean there isn’t a pool of heat forming in his belly.

“What a pretty and roundabout way of saying you want to fuck me.” The crass words have the intended effect, darkening Ferdinand’s flush, dilating their pupils until Hubert can barely see amber.

If Hubert put his mouth to their skin now, he could probably see how the sun tastes, sucked fresh from Ferdinand.

“Besides, I think you’re rather misstating the facts, Ferdinand.” He cocks his head, considering. Details are becoming clear to him now, and he smirks at the knowledge of it. “Oh, but why else would the forest have brought you here? You like the danger, don’t you? Why else would you still have walked up to this cottage, this dreary little house surrounded by brambles that would scare away any other creature, on the darkest night of the month, if you did not relish in it?”

Ferdinand’s chin goes up easily, when Hubert raises it with a black tipped claw. Hubert coos at him, the pliant thing. He could chew Ferdinand right up, keep him in his mouth, caged in his teeth, for eternity.

Here’s the story, see, only sometimes it’s a joke, a punchline, and it goes like this: the dashing stranger is beautiful beyond comparison, and like all beautiful things they always get what they want so they start wanting something else, something forbidden, something they could never get elsewhere, and the punchline is, the punchline is--

“I do,” Ferdinand whispers, then surges up to claim Hubert’s lips.

Only, he doesn’t. He gets close, though-- just a hair's breadth away from Hubert’s mouth before Hubert grips his hair near the nape and wrenches him back, holding him there, just an inch away, open mouthed and panting, drooling from his want.

Ferdinand doesn’t whimper or beg. He arches his back until their hips are flush, a strong thigh around Hubert’s hip.

Beautiful. Wonderful. Ferdinand doesn’t beg-- he takes what he wants, and he is so perfect for it.

Hubert laughs, dark and manic.

“Is this how it’s done now, when a man wants to show his gratitude?”

He lets Ferdinand rut against his thigh for a moment more before Hubert reaches around, digs his claws hard into Ferdinand’s thigh until he’s hissing in pain, back arching like a bow and so wet against Hubert’s trousers that he knows there’ll be a stain. He tugs on Ferdinand’s hair again, maneuvers them until he has Ferdinand pushed against the counter, his leg held up so high there’s a loud rip, mingled between their heavy breathing. Sure enough when Hubert looks down he sees a tear in the pants, a long gash between Ferdinand’s legs, right beneath his huge cock, his balls starting to fall out of it.

The sight is so good Hubert has to bite down on his lip. There is the urge, of course, to grind his own cock against Ferdinand, feel again how electric, how right they feel, when pressed against each other.

Then there is the stronger urge to play with his food.

Ferdinand’s moan is a guttural thing, coming choked out of his throat, when Hubert lets go of his hair only to push his other leg in the air as well. His food has never looked a fraction so delicious as Ferdinand flushed deep red with want, his knees up to his ears, his toes brushing Hubert’s shoulder. Still he struggles in Hubert’s grip, calves kicking, hands grasping, delirious, desperate to have what he wants.

This could be bad, Hubert thinks as a wave of affection washes over him when Ferdinand pulls roughly at Hubert’s shirt, snarling when he refuses to budge. This could be very bad indeed.

“Is this how former lordlings usually thank their host? By spreading their legs?” Hubert teases, bending Ferdinand even further, until he hears utensils falling from their hooks, seasoning bottles rolling across the counter.

“I could do a lot more than spread,” Ferdinand futilely tries bucking his hips up, searching for friction, for Hubert’s cock back on him, “if you will just come, ah, a little closer--”

“You don’t beg, do you?” Hubert feels himself grinning, and knows it is not a kind one.

Ferdinand responds in kind and it is a dazzling, wide toothed grin. Princely perfect, and made all the better by the flush all over his face.

“Would you want me to?” he asks, sweetly.

Hubert drops Ferdinand’s legs faster than he can blink, stepping back from the counter.

“Would be so easy if I did, wouldn’t it? Ah ah,” Hubert tuts, claws around Ferdinand’s throat when he immediately lunges at Hubert like a man possessed, palms sliding up Hubert’s chest, grabbing at his pecs. “None of that.”

Ferdinand goes still as a stag. Hubert can feel his adam's apple bobbing against his palm, his jackrabbit heartbeat pulsing in his neck. Ferdinand has a lovely thick neck, thick as all the rest of him. Hubert delights in the full body shudder when he digs his claws in deep enough to see red welts and blood smearing his palm. Ferdinand’s eyes are bulging in their sockets.

Gently, almost reverently, Hubert’s other hand cards through Ferdinand’s hair, down all those luscious strands. Then he wraps the end around his hand, and wraps and wraps until he has all of Ferdinand’s hair curled in the palm of his hand. Ferdinand knows what’s coming next. Hubert can read it in his glassy eyes, his trembling lips, his staccato heartbeat, pounding against Hubert's hand.

Hubert licks his lips. "Don't look so pleased about your predicament."

He yanks, hard. Ferdinand all but melts in his arms, yielding to the strength of Hubert’s grip on his hair as he forces Ferdinand to bare his neck to him, chin pointing towards the ceiling. Hubert finds himself leaning over that neck and it’s such a delicious sight --skin pulled taut, red lines peeking from beneath Hubert’s claws-- that he feels his own mouth water, drool dripping down to Ferdinand’s neck, sliding into his collar.

The monster in him is calling to feast.

Caught head first in the grip of a beast, Ferdinand is docile as a lamb. His face is purpling at the edges, his mouth all puffed up, swollen to the dark red of congealed blood. Hubert wants, he wants so badly.

With effort, he shoves Ferdinand back with all his strength. His lovely Ferdinand moans when he slams against the counter, just managing to catch himself with his elbows lest he stumbles to his knees. Hubert catches the look of pure euphoria --eyes rolled back, drool spilling from a grin-- before Ferdinand is doubling over, heaving in great gulps of air.

He gives Ferdinand all the time as he needs to gather himself. Meanwhile, Hubert spoons honey into Ferdinand’s tea and tries to calm his own pulse.

“You never did answer me, Ferdinand.” It seems almost ridiculous now, to try for civility when Hubert’s had Ferdinand bent over his counter just moments prior, but twice now he’s tried to drink his damned coffee and he will have it. Ferdinand is still collecting himself, hand rubbing at his throat, fingertips coming away red, and Hubert watches, amused, over the rim of his mug. “Is this how the civilians usually do it? Or am I just a fun exception?”

“Neither.” The slight rasp to Ferdinand’s voice could make anyone fall to their knees. “If you would believe me.”

“Oh?” Hubert slides Ferdinand the mug again.

Ferdinand sips his tea, then laughs, very softly. “You are, I must repeat, a thorough man. Delightfully thoughtful, too.”

Hubert takes the compliment for what it is and toasts Ferdinand with his mug.

“I didn’t plan on nearly ripping your throat out. That was a terrible reflex on my part.”

“I do not recall asking you to stop.”

Hubert swishes the coffee in his mouth, for want of something to do besides drool over this bold, charming, perfect man.

“Very true. Regardless, I wanted to stop.” No, what he had wanted to do then was tear into Ferdinand’s throat while he kissed him raw, kissed him dirty and unholy.

From the glint in Ferdinand’s firescore eyes, Hubert knows he’s being seen through. Not many creatures can say they have the talent to do so; that Ferdinand can after a mere hour in Hubert’s company is as terrifying as it is electrifying.

(He is made for you, he is made for you, he is made for you.)

A lifetime ago, Hubert would have scuttled away at the first flickers of light on him, roaring like a beast wounded. Now, he knows what it means to stand in the light and be unafraid, even as he knows it is not meant for him.

Ferdinand works on the rest of his tea, just as Hubert works on the rest of his coffee, and they do not look away from each other. Not for a blink. When he’s done, Ferdinand sets his mug down with a satisfied sigh, tongue swiping out to savor the last taste.

“Better?” Hubert asks, softly.

Hubert can’t read the expression in Ferdinand’s eyes, but they are glowing.

“Much.” His voice has lost its raspiness, and has dropped well deep.

Hubert feels Ferdinand’s words rumbling in his own chest. Or maybe that’s something else in there, stirring to life? To distract himself from further thought in that direction, Hubert cleans up their mugs.

“Would you like a new pair of pants?”

“I would say that depends!” Ferdinand beams, watching Hubert from his spot, arms crossed, one leg hooking over the other. He seems uncaring of the fact that his throat has nearly been gutted. “Will you tear the new ones?”

When was the last time someone has made Hubert want to laugh, strangle, and kiss them all that once? Never, actually.

“I feel I must defend myself and point out that I did not intend to rip them. It was an unfortunate incident, let’s say. An expected outcome, considering the circumstances.”

“Them being?”

“The pants were not made with your physique in mind, nor with the level of flexibility you demonstrated.”

Hubert expects a pretty flush, maybe a bold comment. He doesn’t expect the laugh from Ferdinand, but he feels no disappointment for it.

“Ah, but you are quite correct! Indeed, what pants are made in mind that take into account being manhandled by a delectable witch with claws sharper than a blade? You have my sincerest apologies for ruining one of your garments. You must allow me to pay for them later.”

That opening is so obvious Hubert only deigns it with an eye roll.

“Save your pretty words for someone who actually wants to hear them. Come, I’ll find you another pair.” Hubert beckons Ferdinand to the drawer.

“Would it not behoove the point, considering I will soon be rid of them?”

Where Ferdinand can’t see, what with his head bent down, Hubert grins, lopsided. “Have you considered,” he coos, “that perhaps I would enjoy undressing you at my leisure?”

“You could undress me now.”

Hubert whirls on Ferdinand, new pants in hand. “And deprive myself of the next few hours of fun? Now why would I do that?”

Grinning insouciantly, Ferdinand accepts the pants from Hubert’s hands gracefully, then switches them for the torn pair. Ferdinand does not ask Hubert to turn away, and this time Hubert doesn’t offer. His eyebrows raise appreciatively.

Even waning a bit, the size on display is more than generous, as are the thighs bulging from Ferdinand’s smallclothes.

Yes, he will take his time undressing Ferdinand again, every layer peeled back like a gift, like torture. Before that, however, is the matter of the red gashes littering Ferdinand’s throat.

“If you’ll let me, I can tend to that for you.”

Shock flashes across Ferdinand’s eyes, then smooths to an expression much too soft, too much like fondness for Hubert to stand looking at. He turns away from Ferdinand’s sun bright smile lest his eyes burn or, worse, he gets the urge to smile back, and plucks a jar of salve from one of the floating shelves littered all over his walls.

“You can sit there.” Hubert gestures to the writing desk pushed against a window, where he’s fallen asleep just an hour before, a solid dark wood with potted plants, ink jars, and parchments strewn about. At its left side is an old gilded mirror, large enough to act as a vanity when needed.

Dorothea had gifted it to him and insisted he put it somewhere in plain view, both to broaden up his stuffed cottage and so he is reminded to look at himself every so often, checking for signs of spreading corruption, of injuries he might have incurred without noticing, or simply hair that’s growing overlong. Touched by the gesture, and knowing he’ll not live one more day if he refuses, Hubert has acquiesced to her demands.

She is right, in that it opens up his crowded space. It also does a fine job reflecting Ferdinand’s handsome, slightly wrecked visage, so it absolutely is worth the space.

Hubert drags over a dining table chair to place next to Ferdinand’s. One the way over, stricken by an impulse and the sight of Ferdinand’s locks falling over the back of the chair like a waterfall, Hubert grabs a roll of twine from a shelf as well.

“Let me fix your hair first,” he says, standing behind Ferdinand, holding up the twine so he sees it in the reflection. Ferdinand’s smile is so sweet that Hubert’s teeth ache.

“That is quite lovely of you to offer! Thank you.”

Too charmed by Ferdinand’s enthusiasm over something so simple as getting his hair tended to, Hubert can say nothing in response but smile, privately. Or not so privately, if Ferdinand’s cheeky grin in the mirror is anything to go by. For all he lets slip by, acting none the wiser, Ferdinand seems a person that misses nothing. Hubert likes that.

He might have thought Ferdinand a fool before, stumbling into a beast’s cottage without realizing the danger, but now he knows that is not the case. Keen and observant Ferdinand has most certainly seen the warning signs. Bold and noble Ferdinand must have also known that he can stand up to whatever monster lies within. Only two types of people find their way inside Hubert's cottage: the foolhardy and the brave. One of those would not survive the hour.

Ferdinand hums, tilting his head back in Hubert’s palms. So trusting, even know, but they both know Hubert will not maim him. Not in this way. "You have skill in this."

"I’ve had much practice,” Hubert replies, carding his claws carefully through the russet locks. Fingers might be better, but it is only hair braiding. Hubert has braided Edelgard's mountainous swaths of hair into many intricate styles, with both human and inhuman hands. He can manage a simple braid for Ferdinand.

“Oh?” Ferdinand has his eyes closed, making him look unbearably soft. “Have you worked on hair much in the past?”

“I was a servant for a noble house.” This much about himself, Hubert will divulge. The memories herein are mostly sweet, cutting only shallowly when they do cut. “I worked on my lady’s hair every day, and now I have other friends who require their hair done, on occasion.”

“Is that so? Hm. Which noble house were you in service to?”

“Nice try.” Hubert gives a particularly mean tug to a strand as punishment, but Ferdinand only laughs. “You must possess far more tact than that.”

“You will forgive me if I find it a tad difficult to think in your presence.”

“And why would that be?”

Ferdinand’s eyes find his in the mirror.

“Because the memory of what happened last time your hands were in my hair is still too fresh.”

Leaning far down, Hubert curves his lips around the shell of Ferdinand’s ear.

“And whose fault is that, darling Ferdinand, if you can’t keep your mind away from such distracting thoughts.” He smirks at the shiver this elects from Ferdinand, and straightens back up to dodge the mouth trying to catch his. Hubert gives Ferdinand’s half-made braid another sharp tug, to right him back to facing forward.

Ferdinand is pouting at his own reflection.

“You never do learn, do you?” Hubert teases, tying off the braid with a length of twine.

“I assure you that I do! But sometimes it does not hurt to try, and keep trying.”

“Is that your plan?” With Ferdinand’s hair cleanly out the way, Hubert settles into his own seat, facing Ferdinand, and reaches for the salve jar. “To keep trying until I give in?”

This part does require some delicacy, and so Hubert morphs his claws back to human hands. He expects a rebuttal, a flirtation, as he opens the jar, gathering some salve on his finger. When he gets only silence, Hubert glances up. Ferdinand is staring at him, bottom lip between his teeth again, looking contemplative. At the prolonged silence, Hubert can only raise his brows, curious.

A decision must have been made, for Ferdinand’s expression sharpens and in the next moment, Hubert has a lap full of bewitching man, thick pecs and chest hair and citrus all in his nose. Credit where credit is due-- Ferdinand has executed the change in position so smoothly, his limbs moving with such beautiful grace, that even Hubert couldn’t bring himself to react in time.

Now that he has Ferdinand’s lush thighs and bottom on his legs, he can’t bring himself to push him off. Which Ferdinand must know, if the way he slings his arms over Hubert’s shoulder is any indication, his smile too confident by half.

He looks too content, stradling Hubert’s lap. He feels too perfect, too much like he belongs there, wrapping around Hubert while Hubert forces his arms not to do the same.

“Is this okay?” Ferdinand whispers. Like this, he is a vision in sunset colors, filling Hubert’s until he can see only gold and orange.

“You can well see that it is.”

Long after this splendid man is gone from his life, Hubert’s cottage will still be painted in golds and oranges. He will smell citrus in every corner. He will hear laughter in the fire crackling.

Ferdinand will be seeped into Hubert’s very skin, and he will not be washed of him anytime soon. How horrifying that knowledge is, but how more horrifying, to think that Hubert would not want to be washed of Ferdinand.

Hubert gives in to an urge and brushes a stray lock of hair behind Ferdinand’s ear.

“Tilt your head up for me,” Hubert murmurs.

Ferdinand does, baring his marked throat to him. Hubert’s eyes go half lidded.

“My but you make a pretty picture.”

He feels the breath that leaves Ferdinand’s throat, smirking at the following squeeze of his strong thighs. Pretty and obvious, Hubert notes, warming the salve between his fingers.

“What’s that? Can’t be the first time someone has called you exactly what you are, you beautiful thing.”

The sound from Ferdinand’s throat could be him moaning or choking. Ferdinand’s chest seizes with the effort of catching the noise before it leaves him. Hubert places a hand on the small of Ferdinand’s back to steady him, then, gently, he begins smearing the balm across the red lines with his thumb.

He takes his time with it, going slow, making sure to cover the lines well. Ferdinand’s throat bobs beneath Hubert’s finger but he stays silent, undisturbing Hubert’s work. Hubert’s smirk turns into a grin. Such good behavior is rewarded by soothing circles that Hubert rubs into Ferdinand’s back and soft coos he breaths against Ferdinand’s neck.

“I imagine it must be a point of pride for you, getting a monster such as I to admit that. Well, this you can have from me, and have it freely.”

Done smearing Ferdinand’s neck in healing ointment, Hubert’s freed hand slides down to rest on Ferdinand’s generous hips as his mouth drops to that heaving, spilling chest.

“You are the most beautiful thing I have ever seen, and you won’t ever understand how much it means for me to say it.” Open mouthed, Hubert skims his lips against Ferdinand’s clavicle, not kissing, not doing anything more than touching, barely. “You stepped into my cottage and it’s as if I’ve never seen the sun before. As if I’ve never been touched by light until you looked at me.”

Is it just Ferdinand, or the heat between them that makes him run so hot? Every point where their bodies touch burns. Ferdinand’s thighs have Hubert in a death grip. Hubert’s hands cup the swell of Ferdinand’s ass, pulling him closer. Ferdinand grinds down on Hubert’s lap, ass pushing back into Hubert’s hand. He allows it because Ferdinand has been good and docile so far, has not tried to kiss Hubert at all, and when he glances up through his lashes, Hubert sees Ferdinand with his head thrown back, mouth fallen open and trembling.

Beautiful, so beautiful.

His eardrums are pounding the same beat as when he got his first look at Ferdinand, shimmering and resplendent at his door. Still he has no name for this feeling, this sense that he is missing something and needs to look closer, to turn his head and see it just right.

Instead Hubert grazes his teeth across Ferdinand’s chest and relishes the guttural moan he receives, the delicious press of Ferdinand’s hard cock against his.

“It’s hard to imagine you’re real.” Hubert begins unlacing Ferdinand’s shirt, greeting each space of revealed skin with his lips and teeth. “That you, golden and gorgeous as you are, a hero made with storybook magic come to life, would melt in my hands. That you would want to be held by me. That you would want to kiss me.”

“Can I?”

Fingers gripping his jaw force Hubert to look up and there Ferdinand is, looking at him with something akin to wonder, something almost half feral and half begging. The space between their mouths is filled with heat and heavy breathing and not just Ferdinand’s, Hubert realizes. His own chest is rising, falling, panting. His thumbs are digging into the sharp jut of Ferdinand’s hip bones while Ferdinand’s thumbs are touching the apples of his cheeks.

This is the first time Ferdinand has touched Hubert’s face.

This is the first time someone has ever touched Hubert’s face without intending to harm.

Hubert has gone slack jawed. “Can you what?” he croaks.

“Can I kiss you?” Ferdinand wets his lips, eyes flickering from Hubert’s to his mouth. “May I kiss you?”

“Why would you want to?”

Ferdinand stares at him, searching. What could they possibly find in Hubert’s eyes to make him melt like that, make him smile at Hubert like he deserves any of that softness?

“Because you are precisely what I asked for, when I found myself lost in this forest. I asked it for a haven, and I had thought it gave me my death. But instead of killing me on your doorstep, you invited me in.”

His thumbs stroke Hubert’s cheekbones, and he’s never felt brittle before, but he feels, suddenly, as if he could crumble if Ferdinand would just press his thumbs in.

“You gave me your clothes, your tea, your wit. You braided my hair because you saw it was a mess. You almost tore my throat out, then offered to heal it. Because you, darling beast, have thus treated me far better than most.” Ferdinand gnaws on his lower lip, fluttering his lashes. “And because you look remarkable, with a mouth I could get lost in and fangs I want to feel biting me. Why would I not want to kiss you?”

Hubert wants to scream. He wants to run away. He wants to drink his fill of Ferdinand until he can carry the heat of him in his ribcage for eons after.

“How do you do that?” Hubert whispers.

“Do what?”

One of his hands cup the back of Ferdinand’s neck, caressing the curve of his ear with more tenderness than Hubert ever thinks himself capable of. “Be this lovely and full of light. So warm that even a creature like me is touched by it.”

Something fills up Ferdinand’s eyes that Hubert can’t describe. It’s like trying to explain the morning sky to someone who has never seen it. There are moments that can’t be held in words.

Ferdinand falls into Hubert, until their foreheads rest against each other’s. His hands have never left Hubert’s nape; his fingers have never stopped stroking the hair there. They are as close as two people could possibly be without merging and he could, Hubert thinks, he could merge with Ferdinand, right now, if only this man asks.

“How are you real?”

It’s the breath against Hubert’s lips that tells him Ferdinand has asked that, not himself.

Hubert swallows. “What do you mean?”

Close as they are, Hubert can almost feel Ferdinand’s tongue when it swipes out to wet his lips. His gaze trails that movement, enraptured. There must be some real magic to Ferdinand, for Hubert doesn’t make a move to stop him when his hand trails to Hubert’s face, fingers carding through his bangs. He should stop him, he really should, when Ferdinand pushes his hair away from his forehead, but Hubert is too fixated on the lights dancing across Ferdinand’s cheeks and seeing himself, bare faced, both eyes wide, in those pools of amber.

Of all the reactions Hubert expects from someone seeing the mangled black veins on the right side of his face, it’s not this sweetly spreading smile, or the knuckles caressing his temple.

The sweetness of the gesture is on the edge of too much. Hubert grips Ferdinand’s wrist, tugging his hand away.

“Too much?” Ferdinand asks, conceding, turning his hand around so their fingers interlace.

A hysterical laughter bubbles its way to Hubert’s mouth, but he silences it against the jut of Ferdinand’s collarbone. Both Ferdinand and his cock jump.

Yes , Hubert wants to say, admitting to it like a man brought to church, bloody hands clawing at the confessional doors, yes, you are entirely too much. You are exactly what monsters fear, for a monster fears nothing more than their own undoing.

No monster wants to see their skin pulled back, revealing what’s underneath. Hubert fears inside him is nothing but ash and bone. Not even lungs, or a heart.

But Ferdinand’s hand is calloused and warm, fitting into Hubert’s hands too perfectly. He might allow it, if it’s Ferdinand’s hands pulling him apart. He’d lie on his back, showing Ferdinand his stomach, handing him the blade. He would, he would.

Hubert brings their joined hands to his mouth, placing a kiss on Ferdinand’s knuckles.

“Oh.” Ferdinand’s entire body shivers. “O-Oh,” he stutters, squirming anew in Hubert’s lap, “that–”

“Dearest Ferdinand,” Hubert sighs, because Ferdinand really is too much, “you must pick a stance. Are you going to go wild over me throwing you around like a doll, or over me kissing your hand chastely?”

“What is to say both cannot happen? I am, as you will find, extremely versatile.”

“Extremely, hm?” Hubert nips at Ferdinand’s knuckles, then shoves four fingers into his mouth, sucking.

Ferdinand’s shocked gasp melts into a moan. His head falls onto Hubert’s shoulder as his hips tighten around him again and yes, the part of Hubert that wants to ravage is screaming, yes they’re back to this, the heat finally returning.

Or rather, the heat never truly left between them, but where it had settled into gentle embers now it’s back to a scorching fire. Back to Ferdinand gasping for air and Hubert pawing at every dip and valley of Ferdinand’s body, mapping out all the hard planes of muscle and fat until he could craft Ferdinand blind from stone, if he has to. Hubert’s cock has gone from hard to soft and back so many times now his vision is starting to swim at the edges.

He’s played for long enough. Ferdinand has proven himself more than capable of handling Hubert, and has proven more besides. The tenderness from before has not lessened their wants any less but adds to the heat of it, turning their desire white hot, flaring until it hits the ceiling, fanning to every corner of the cottage.

Hubert lets Ferdinand’s fingers slip from his mouth so he can immediately attach it to Ferdinand’s nipples, sucking hard enough to bruise. Ferdinand wails, then wails louder when Hubert runs a thumb down the length of his cock, pressing into the wet tip.

“Finally,” Ferdinand pants, “oh, finally, finally, yes–”

Ferdinand’s hips push, insistent, into Hubert’s hand. He allows it, but merely keeps his thumb where it is, stroking Ferdinand’s cock without any hurry.

“Grab me,” Ferdinand hisses, hand gripping Hubert’s hair, pushing him harder into his chest, until Hubert’s lips could go numb from the impact, “grab me fully, come on–”

Hubert pulls away just enough so he can pant out: “And have you come in two strokes? I think not.”

“I think you’re vastly underestimating me.”

“And you me, dear Ferdinand.”

Hubert’s hand leaves Ferdinand’s cock to slip behind him, into his pants, squeezing his ass hard as he can. Ferdinand keens like some animal, desperately trying to rut against Hubert.

“Let me have this!” Ferdinand is yelling, clawing at Hubert’s shoulders, his neck, arms. “You can fuck me however you like, as many times as you want, I’ll keep myself open for you, promise, promise, you can fuck me like I’m your doll, but this–”

Ferdinand’s voice breaks into sobs when Hubert slides a long finger between his crack and rubs against his rim. Hubert almost thinks Ferdinand had come right then and there, from the way he shudders and goes stock still, but his cock is still rock hard against Hubert’s. He peels off Ferdinand’s nipples with a wet pop, looking to see the darling with his eyes squeezed shut, his bottom lip near white from how hard he’s biting it, thin strands of hair sticking to his sweaty temples. No deity itself could never hope to look half so luscious.

Gently, Hubert pries Ferdinand’s lip out from his teeth. Cruel creature that he is, he’s not stopped rubbing at Ferdinand’s hole with his other hand. If Ferdinand responds well to tenderness and roughness, then Hubert will gladly give him both, until he’s wild with it. There’s nothing Hubert won’t turn into a weapon, even now.

“I’m going insane.” Ferdinand looks pained to admit it, pupils blown wide, and the beast in Hubert likes that.

The beast has Hubert using Ferdinand’s sweat so he can push a finger past his rim, just a little. Just to see Ferdinand go a little more insane, his eyes rolling back, ass clenching Hubert’s finger in a vice grip.

“I’m going to die.” Ferdinand looks as if he’s coming to terms with that, his arms slack around Hubert’s shoulders, staring at the ceiling like he can see the goddess judging him. “I really will die tonight, and it’ll be in the lap of a handsome witch, with his finger barely in my ass.”

Hubert never thought he could ever laugh during sex, but he’s discovering many new delights tonight.

“You think I would let that happen?”

Ferdinand angles his head down just to glare at Hubert. “You’re the one who’s doing the killing!”

Oh, fine. With some mercy, Hubert begins pushing Ferdinand’s shirt up his chest. Slowly, though, because Hubert is only so merciful, and with his claws out, because Ferdinand starts shaking like a rabbit caught when they scrape over his bare skin.

There is an image, of Ferdinand covered in claw marks, his skin torn in beautiful strips of red, slathered in blood and cum and smiling, content, debauched. That's an image churches should paint on their windows. It's one Hubert would pray to.

“How is it that you become a bigger brat the further along we go?” Ferdinand already has his arms high over his head, eager, cheeky thing he is. Hubert can’t pretend to hate that. “Shouldn’t it be the opposite?”

“I’m not usually this impatient.” But Ferdinand is too cute, wiggling his head out of the shirt, stray strands tickling his cheeks. His arms go back around Hubert’s shoulders, fingers interlocking behind his neck. His breath hitches when Hubert trails his claws down his chest, lingering at his nipples. His eyes are molten. “I do not ever have to wait this long for someone to touch me.”

Hubert cocks his head at that, watching Ferdinand closely, at the flush that darkens beautifully, spreading across the breadth of his chest like a wine stain, when Hubert begins unlacing the breeches at his leisure.

“What, has no one ever wanted to take their time with you?”

Ferdinand’s lashes flutter at the feel of Hubert’s claws toying with the edges of his smallclothes. Hubert really could sit here like this, all day and all night, watching the rise and fall of Ferdinand’s chest and how his harsh breathing makes it bounce. He would, too, if only Ferdinand isn’t so needy, so eager to get his much deserved release.

“Not keep me on the edge of orgasm for nearly two hours now, no.” Ferdinand grits out, raising his hips for Hubert to pull his breeches and smallclothes down.

“Can’t imagine why they wouldn’t, not when you look this delectable, all desperate as you are.”

Or when Ferdinand looks torn between being outraged or preening at the compliment. The expression that settles on his face in the end is suitably scandalized, Hubert would call it, when he maneuvers Ferdinand's body so his legs are over Hubert's shoulder, his back balancing on Hubert's thighs.

Hubert purrs at this delicious sight, pulling Ferdinand's thighs wide apart before the breeches can even flutter to the floor.

Ferdinand gulps, the motion all the more exaggerated by how stretched his neck is, falling over the edge of Hubert's knees.

"This position is." Ferdinand gulps again. "Uhm."

Hubert watches Ferdinand's cock-- and more pointedly, the throbbing vein, the thick head wet with precum. "Too much?"

"No." Under his stare, Ferdinand's cock twitches. "Just not, ah, something I'm used to."

"Are you worried you might fall?"

"If I do, I am taking you down with me."

Hubert's grin is more fang than teeth. "Get a good grip somewhere. You'll want to stay on for this."

Then Hubert pulls Ferdinand's hips further up, until he's bent well in half, his knees pressed to his shoulder, and swallows Ferdinand's cock in one smooth slide.

Ferdinand screams.

It’s a good thing Hubert fully intends to make Ferdinand come in less than a minute, for the thighs that instantly clamp around his head block most of his movements. Ferdinand is convulsing in his lap, his hands scrambling for purchase at anything; Hubert’s hips, the back of his knees, the edge of the chair, the legs.

Steady now, Hubert wants to tell them. He hollows his cheeks instead, relishing in the way Ferdinand’s body tenses, lifting near off his lap. Hubert pushes him back down with a hand on his stomach. He keeps it there, fingers splaying to feel every twitch, every choked out breath as Hubert sucks Ferdinand like a beast starved.

Maybe he is.

Ferdinand’s cock is all kinds of wonderful: thick and unforgiving in Hubert's mouth, so long he can feel the head at the base of his throat. Lesser creatures would choke at the sheer space Ferdinand takes up. His is a cock that demands attention and adoration, a cock meant only for the bold and depraved. Hubert is a beast half starved; before that, he was a man who learned, and learned well, the pleasure in servitude.

As if he would do anything less than gorge himself on Ferdinand.

It’s not his finest work, but it doesn’t have to be when Ferdinand is so close. Nose pressed to Ferdinand’s navel, Hubert swallows. He lets his jaw unhinge, lets Ferdinand’s cock take up as much space as it wants. Ferdinand can fill Hubert until his throat is carved in the shape of him. He can replace the air trying to fill Hubert’s lungs. In this moment there is only Ferdinand-- his pleasure and his moans that Hubert wrenches out with every squeeze of his throat, every drag of his claw up and down his thigh, every swirl of his tongue.

Then there’s his come, spilling right down Hubert’s throat. He doesn’t even have to swallow, what with Ferdinand’s cockhead already so far in. More’s the pity, really; he would have liked the taste, probably. There’s always the second orgasm he can milk out of Ferdinand, sure, but it seems almost a shame to not taste him after the first time.

Ferdinand’s thighs tighten even further when he comes, body locked in the waves of his pleasure. Any tighter and Hubert’s head might have popped right there, right from the force of Ferdinand’s thighs, and isn’t that a wonderful thought, to have died right there, reduced to a red smear between Ferdinand’s thighs, his last moments spent giving him only pleasure?

That single thought and nothing else is what makes Hubert’s breath catch, choking, just a little, around Ferdinand’s cock. For the first time tonight he’s aware of his own cock, almost painfully hard in his pants, untouched and ignored until now, until the thought of the power barely kept in Ferdinand’s thighs have it pulsating, screaming to attention.

Hubert can’t even be shocked. A beast responds to violence in unpredictable ways. Hubert knows what he likes, even if what he likes threatens to kill him.

He lets Ferdinand squeeze him as he pleases, happy to be reduced to the role of fucktoy as Ferdinand rides his release, chasing every aftershock. The human nails digging into his thigh is a delight in its own right. In contrast, Hubert tenderly pets Ferdinand's thighs, softening his slick lips when he feels Ferdinand’s cock softening. Hubert widens his jaw, and waits.

When Ferdinand’s thighs go slack, Hubert lets him go at last, pulling his mouth off. Both his legs and cock fall away from Hubert, lying limp and curled up, flushed from the aftershock of orgasm.

“I’ve got you.” Cooing, Hubert cradles the back of Ferdinand’s head in his palm, holding him aloft.

Ferdinand is a heavy weight, and made doubly so when reduced to putty. He starts sliding from Hubert’s lap, so Hubert is given no choice but to follow him to the floor, letting his body be used to cushion the blow. They land gently, in a heap of limbs and elbows, but Ferdinand’s breathing is steady, if quick, and his full body flush is a testament to a cocksucking well done.

As is the smile on his face, and the way he instantly clings to Hubert, using Hubert’s chest as a pillow. Ferdinand post coital is even softer than normal. Done away with the tension, he’s all loose curves and one steady heartbeat reverberating against Hubert. He’s clingy, but his hands do nothing once he has Hubert where he wants him, one content to rest at Hubert’s waist, the other at his stomach. He’s exactly what Hubert expects of a man too used to his partners giving him what he wants. Boneless now that he’s satiated. Likely ready to fall asleep, if Hubert lets him.

He could. Hubert has nowhere else to be, and there are certainly worse places to rest than on his floor, with the warmest companion one could ever dream for. Carefully, Hubert untangles the hair sticking to Ferdinand’s cheeks, brushing them back into place.

Ferdinand’s nose twitches, mouth quirking up. “You are full of surprises.”

Hubert feels his own mouth spread in a smile. “Is that so?”

“Very much so.” Ferdinand’s voice is deeper when he’s satiated, the crisp vowels of his accent blurring until he sounds less like a noble and more just a man, sex-drunk, in the arms of a monster. “I ask for a kiss, and instead I’m given an orgasm so good my mind goes blank for a moment.”

“Would you like another?”

That has Ferdinand’s whole attention on him, both eyes wide, his smile a promise of more wicked delights to come. Hubert tucks two claws between Ferdinand’s crack just to feel his breath hitch and his cock stir to life against Hubert’s thigh. Ferdinand’s balls tighten at the brush of Hubert’s knife sharp tips, but whether in pleasure or fear at the risk of injury, Hubert can’t say.

Seeing what he’s seen of Ferdinand thus far tonight, he would wager an even mix of both. It takes a special kind of person to bed a beast, a unique kind of depraved to look at a monster’s claws and want to kiss it, want to swallow it.

Hubert hums, a rumble that comes from the deepest part of his chest. “You’re lucky you’re as sprung as you are demanding. No one else would bother to keep up with you otherwise.”

Ferdinand is already rutting at Hubert’s thigh again, fingers scrambling at his shoulders much like before. “You honestly don’t think that a cocksucking, sublime as it was, would be enough for me, did you?”

“I quite like hearing the word cock fall from your noble lips.” Ferdinand’s legs spread apart easily, with hardly a nudge needed from Hubert’s hand at his knee. “Are you sure you’re even allowed to say that word?”

“Again, sir, you underestimate me--” the words bleed into a moan when Hubert pulls Ferdinand’s cheeks apart, kneading them in his palms.

Ferdinand’s ass is a delight into itself. However good it felt to have it rubbing in his lap before, it’s an entirely more enjoyable experience to have it in his hands now, so plump that Hubert can’t fit one in his hand, and so firm with muscle. Ferdinand is made in equal parts gold and sin, with a body begging for worship and ruin.

When Hubert digs in hard enough to know he’ll leave scratch marks, Ferdinand thrashes above him, wailing like an animal. Curious, Hubert turns his hand to press a knuckle at the ring of muscle between Ferdinand’s cheek, and all but growls when he feels it twitching.

Hubert’s head hits the floor when Ferdinand’s cock rubs, maddeningly, against his. The friction frays on his nerves, makes his skin itch like his desires are clawing its way out of him, undoing him. He brings all the dead and buried bits of Hubert back to life, and they are demanding for sunlight, for Hubert to put his teeth to skin and feast.

(There’s a trick to slaying a beast and all it requires is a little light, a little warmth. Show the monster what it never has. Make it want tenderness more than flesh and it’s yours, you have it.)

“How can you do this?” Hubert groans.

They are the same words as before, except this time Hubert isn't as collected as he was then. This time, when Hubert asks the question, he is near pleading it.

Above him, Ferdinand gasps sweetly. “Do what?”

“Make me want you in ways that are dangerous. Ways I’m not used to. You light up parts inside me that have not known light for ages.”

It is a small truth, but it makes Ferdinand wide eyed, staring at Hubert with an unreadable expression. It also makes Ferdinand hot, so red beneath Hubert’s fingers, and not just because he’s close to breaking skin.

Ferdinand, blessed Ferdinand with his sun-soaked skin and holy hands, grips Hubert’s face and says, desperately: “May I kiss you?”

There are few things Hubert would like more. “No.”

This is the most frustrated Ferdinand has looked all night, and knowing this draws a bark of laughter from Hubert. Good, he thinks, pulling Ferdinand tighter to him with hands on the back of his thighs. Feel the pain of want just as I do, until we’re both flayed alive by our desires.

"Why not?” It’s impressive how Ferdinand’s able to grit the words out with a slither of dignity even as he’s rubbing against Hubert like a beast. A noble to his very bones, even spread and practically gagging for cock.

“Do you want the truth?”

Hubert’s hands abandon Ferdinand’s ass to map out the ripples of his back, his sides. Ferdinand’s body is all marble, but there are parts with enough give for Hubert to pinch cherry red. He drags his claws, ever so slowly and gently, from Ferdinand’s shoulder blades to the swell of his ass.

Ferdinand’s feet kick in the air just as his head drops to Hubert’s neck, breath damp and hot. Over Ferdinand’s shoulder, Hubert sees his toes curl.

He retraces the path of his claws back up to Ferdinand’s shoulder just to feel Ferdinand’s muscles tighten again, his back arching into a tight bow, swears muffled into Hubert’s neck.

Is Hubert cruel for taking away Ferdinand’s ability to speak, after Hubert has asked him a question, no less? Absolutely. Turning his head, Hubert latches his mouth to the shell of Ferdinand’s ear, and tugs it with his teeth.

Ferdinand’s moan, already raspy on the edges, is the best kind of song. His full body shiver ripples through them both. Hubert goes to nibble on the skin behind Ferdinand’s ear, and lets his fangs dig in at the same time his claws do. Just a little bit. Just enough to have Ferdinand gripping Hubert’s hair painfully, wonderfully tight, wailing so wet Hubert has to pull off just to see if Ferdinand’s crying.

He is. Tiny tears, just starting to drip from the corners of his eyes.

Starved for it, Hubert lurches up to lick those tears away, savoring the salt on his tongue, how it burns down his throat. Forget holy water, forget witchfire. Nothing could cleanse Hubert half so well as the taste of Ferdinand pouring through him. He knows what this means, and knows enough that he should be terrified of it.

Ferdinand wants to know the reason Hubert keeps refusing to kiss him properly? Here it is:

“Kissing you would be absolution," he confesses, lips pressed to Ferdinand's ear. "There’s power to a kiss, you know. A magic of its own. I almost fear what would happen, should I kiss you and see for myself if I could find the sun in your mouth."

Hubert watches as his own claw digs into the meatiest part of Ferdinand’s lower lip, plumping it up even further. He pulls on Ferdinand’s lip just to see it twist and fold like a petal.

"I think," Hubert says, "that if I kiss you now, I would never stop. Dear Ferdinand, you must know of the warning tales. Do not give a beast what it's never had. You will find yourself devoured.”

Ferdinand pulls from Hubert’s grip, his mouth indented by the shape of Hubert’s claw. He smiles, brilliant blinding gold, then drops a kiss to the tip of Hubert’s claw. Hubert shivers.

"Have you not realized it yet, darling beast? I want to be devoured by you. Give me your teeth and I will show you how the sun tastes."

Hubert nearly screams.

Some part of him always knew that in the end he’d give in. He can tell himself not to become another cautionary tale as much as he wants, but give him a man with sunlight pouring from his mouth and Hubert is helpless to do anything but sink his teeth into it. Hungry, always, beast that he is, for whatever light that can come his way.

Hubert pulls Ferdinand to him with a hand at the back of his head and they meet like a collision, like every part of them was made for this precise moment. It’s inane to imagine that Hubert’s mouth could be created for anything besides kissing Ferdinand, now that he has Ferdinand’s bottom lip between his, Ferdinand’s tongue a faint, consistent presence at his mouth. Someone moans. It might have been Hubert.

Ferdinand’s mouth is intoxicating and Hubert doesn’t have the control to pull Ferdinand away. Now he can deny Ferdinand nothing. Now their desires are one and the same, and Hubert can do nothing but take and take. He kisses Ferdinand open mouthed and messy, until he’s whimpering, his lips bruised and puffy and dripping, slick. He kisses Ferdinand like a beast starved, like a man grasping his salvation by the mouth.

Hubert sucks Ferdinand’s lip greedily into him. He bites down with his teeth. Ferdinand shudders at the drag of his fangs, and his moan turns into a wail when Hubert draws blood.

Delicious. Divine. Ferdinand’s blood bursts onto his tongue and Hubert swears he sees stars. He purses his lips tight around the wound and drinks Ferdinand down in big, greedy gulps. He drinks Ferdinand until he’s dry, until this lovely man is thrashing wildly above him, elbows and knees jabbing into Hubert’s sides, blunt nails digging grooves into the back of Hubert’s neck.

Yes, Hubert thinks deliriously, just like that. This is how things should be. Ferdinand’s blood in Hubert’s mouth, the taste of him searing up his insides. This must be hellfire igniting his veins. It must be magic.

He’ll need an exorcism to remove the traces of Ferdinand in him after his. The Goddess herself could try to wrench Ferdinand out of him.

Growling, Hubert wraps his arms tight around Ferdinand’s waist and twists until they’re rolling across the floor, spinning towards the desk. He does not stop kissing Ferdinand, and Ferdinand makes no move to pull away. Hubert’s shoulder hits a table leg and he reaches up blindly, searching for the salve jar with one hand while his other squeezes Ferdinand’s cheek. Ferdinand’s body is so slick with sweat that Hubert has to dig his nails in just for a grip. This makes Ferdinand moan loader, his thighs spreading wider. He’s so hot that Hubert can feel the heat radiating from his entrance.

Which is probably twitching again, eager. Hubert slides the underside of one finger to see, and he is. Against his mouth, he can feel Ferdinand’s breath stutter. His hole clenches, then relaxes. Ferdinand tilts his hips up further, rutting himself on Hubert’s finger.

Their mouths pull apart with a wet pop. “Careful, there.” Hubert grins, Ferdinand’s saliva coated all across his jaw. “Distract me too much and you’ll hurt yourself before you can have any fun. Can’t have you bleeding out before I get my cock inside you.”

Transforming his claws into human appendages takes all of a blink. Maintaining them is what requires some focus, and everything about Ferdinand heaving and moaning above Hubert is a challenge to it. The jar lid has barely fallen to the floor before Hubert has a slicked up finger rubbing against Ferdinand’s entrance, prodding just past the rim.

Then he slides his finger past the first knuckle and Ferdinand throws his back so far Hubert half worries he’ll re-open the wounds at his neck.

“Yes!” Ferdinand shouts, fingers vice tight at Hubert’s biceps. “Finally, finally, oh, f-fuck–”

Ferdinand feels as lovely around Hubert’s finger as he does around his tongue, which is a problem only because it means Hubert can stay here forever, finger fucking Ferdinand until his knees are bloody. His rim clenches when Hubert pulls out, then spreads when he pushes back in. Heavenly. If this is a taste of how Ferdinand will feel around Hubert’s cock, then his fate is sealed. Hubert truly will keep him in this cottage, warming up his cock forever.

Saliva splatters against Hubert’s cheek. He looks up to see Ferdinand drooling with his tongue peeking out, his eyes rolled to the back of his head.

He tuts, gentle and fond and painfully aroused. “Oh, but you’re a beautiful thing.” Then he surges up, reclaiming Ferdinand’s lip in his.

The cottage fills with the sloppy sounds of their kissing, the wet smacks Hubert’s finger working in and out of Ferdinand. Hubert rolls them to their sides, hooks an arm beneath Ferdinand’s knee. Hubert fucks him with two fingers, the two turning into three when Ferdinand snakes a hand between their bodies, palming at Hubert’s cock. He’s a delight, Ferdinand is– his hand shaking when they wrap around Hubert’s cock, gasping at the girth, how his fingers just barely wrap around all of it. His hole flutters every time Hubert pulls all the way out just to tease his fingers around the rim, feeling how stretched and puffy he is. It’s obscene. It’s marvelous.

It has Hubert ghosting his fourth finger along his entrance. The skin is stretched so tight, with barely any give. Hubert grins wolfishly when Ferdinand rears back suddenly, eyes blown wide. His mouth is purpling at the edges, bitten raw, and it is falling open, trembling as his thighs do when Hubert eases his pinky in.

Hubert watches him closely. He measures every hitch of his breath, counts every bead of sweat that slides down Ferdinand’s cheek when he has four knuckles inside him. Hubert kisses away the sweat, but keeps the tears.

“Don’t worry lovely,” he coos, “I’ll take it slow. Make it good for you.”

Ferdinand makes a choked off sound, like a man desperately grasping for air. Threads of Hubert’s shirt tears from how tightly Ferdinand is pulling at it. The way Ferdinand’s ass clenches and unclenches matches the drumming of his heartbeat, rattling both their chests.

This is not fear. Hubert wouldn’t need to look at Ferdinand, see the sullied smile on his face to know that. Lovely, luscious Ferdinand, his perfect storybook prince, loves being caught in the jaws of a beast, it seems, as much as he loves being stretched gaping open. Up to the last knuckle and Ferdinand only angles his hips up further, his ankle hooking over Hubert’s shoulder. Fucked open to his limits and still Ferdinand wants more.

He is so good. He’s devastating, losing himself to his pleasure, body offered to Hubert like a sacrificial lamb. Prepared to be split down the middle. Ready for ingesting. He could probably take Hubert’s entire hand, if he tries, could probably come gagging and screaming around Hubert’s arm like a man fighting for his life. Given more than one night with Ferdinand, he would have loved to find out, to see just how depraved this holy man could be.

Hubert can feel his mouth watering at the thought, so he kisses Ferdinand. This is a devouring of another kind. Ferdinand is blood and sunshine and honey on Hubert’s tongue, whimpering and lapping at Hubert’s lips whenever his fingers push in, digging against his walls, robbing Ferdinand of his mind, his ability to move. Speaking has left him a long time ago. Hubert hasn’t heard a proper sentence since he’s put three fingers in Ferdinand. Hubert can gauge his enjoyment purely by the moans and shrieks and nails digging into his skin, urging him closer, closer.

He’s gone all boneless from Hubert’s ministrations, growing looser with every thrust of Hubert’s fingers, letting his body give in to the intrusion, to be molded to Hubert’s exact desires, made to fit Hubert precisely as needed.

He’s also rock hard and so wet at the tip that Hubert can feel it through his own breeches. His balls are tight and solid, whenever Hubert’s palm grazes them. Ferdinand could come again, just like this, on nothing but Hubert’s fingers and teeth. He could have Ferdinand spilling between them both, get them real sticky-- give Hubert a reason, then, to finally remove his clothes.

That’s a pretty thought. Hubert’s knees protest when he shifts so he’s leaning over Ferdinand, but it’s worth it when Ferdinand’s moans lift five octaves at the sudden force behind Hubert’s fingers fucking into him, the gentleness that he abandons now that he knows Ferdinand can take him and more. Ferdinand’s back is a perfect arch, his mouth a useless thing, unable to do anything more than hang open and breathe for dear life as Hubert pistons his fingers in and out of him savagely. He fucks Ferdinand well and proper, arm moving so fast it’s like Hubert’s trying to punch a hole right through him. His fingers reach so deep like they’re trying to scoop out his insides, like if Hubert stares hard enough into Ferdinand’s mouth, he can see the tip of his own fingers emerge from the abyss of his throat, slick and red.

He wants to ruin him. He will ruin him. Hubert will fuck Ferdinand so raw and broken that his body will heal in the shape of Hubert’s fingers, his cock.

“Yes,” Ferdinand croaks, voice shattered.

“Have I said that aloud?” Hubert nips playfully at Ferdinand’s nose, then his lips, feeling the skin split open anew. “While I’m delighted to have your approval, I’m less so to see you can still speak. Let’s see how you fare after I make you come, hm?”

He catches Ferdinand’s frantic, gutted look and could almost laugh. Instead he wiggles his fingers inside Ferdinand, crooning when he feels a distinctive bump, feels Ferdinand go wild beneath him.

“Don’t look at me like that, dearest Ferdinand. Of course I’m going to make you come, right here on the floor, and then I’m going to make you come again.” When he fucks into Ferdinand, he aims for that precise bump. “And again.” Ferdinand’s chest is heaving a mile a minute. He is tense, wonderfully so. “And again.”

There’s a great, shuddering breath, and Ferdinand clawing at Hubert’s arms. Then, so soft and so wrecked: “Tell me.”

Hubert doesn’t slow one bit. “Tell you what?”

“Your name. Tell me– tell me your name.”

“Want to know the name you’re going to be screaming?”

Ferdinand bares his teeth, and Hubert wants them, fervently, on his throat. “That, and I want to know the name of the beast who’s going to fuck me so hard I’ll need to have a church dedicated to him.”

Hubert's laugh punches from him, and it is a joyous thing. The debauchery! The blasphemy!

Given a reason that good, how can he do anything but acquiesce?

“Hubert,” he tells him at last, sweetly, as he fucks Ferdinand cruelly. “My name is Hubert.”

Ferdinand’s eyes snap open, and through the honey thick glaze, Hubert feels seen. “You,” he gasps, “I know you.”

A pressure within Hubert builds. Pinning Ferdinand to the floor by the neck would be a waste of all his hard work, so instead Hubert keeps his pace, fucking into Ferdinand with a steady precision. Pleasure is a weapon, as much as any blade.

“And how is that?” he asks, watching Ferdinand closely.

“You don’t remember me.” Speaking is difficult for Ferdinand; it takes twice as long, and not entirely because he’s panting so much. Hubert takes no mercy, and spreads his fingers wide. “But I– I remember you. Goddess,” Ferdinand chokes, then sniffs, gathering his remaining strength along with his tears, “how could I ever forget. You’re Hubert, of course you are– Hubert von Vestra.”

It isn’t quite screaming his name, but the long, shattered moan wrenched from Ferdinand’s lips as he clenches painfully tight around Hubert is as close to a holy experience as he’ll ever get.

Ferdinand is a vision of pure debauchery, so resplendent Hubert has to tear his hand away, heedless of how much Ferdinand’s body clenches to keep him in. Not a second too late, his claws cut through the air, gleaming in the firelight. Ferdinand cries out, real pain in his voice, his leg dropping heavily, and instantly Hubert is holding Ferdinand’s head in his claws, kissing his cheeks dry. He kisses Ferdinand through his orgasm, holding him close even as his cock pumps all over their stomachs, making a mess of them both.

The interrogation can wait; Hubert turns Ferdinand flat on his back and bends down to lick up a long stripe of his come. Then he licks again, when even that small taste turns him ravenous. How is someone so addicting? Or does Hubert’s hunger stretch farther than he knows?

Ferdinand hisses when Hubert mouths over his softening cock. Feebly, his hands shove at Hubert’s head and he draws back, tongue passing over his lips to savor the taste.

He pets Ferdinand’s cheek languidly, wiping away some drool with a thumb. Ferdinand’s head lolls to the side, nuzzling at Hubert’s palm. He must be so oversensitized, his every nerve alight, and still he curls into Hubert.

Still, his body reaches for him.

Ferdinand might as well have hearts in his eyes, for all how fond he looks, staring up at Hubert with a blissed out smile. The warmth of the fireplace dims in comparison.

Something in Hubert roars, and the pressure breaks into a million shards. Or it’s Hubert breaking. However much the stories get wrong, this they always get right: softness will always be the way to kill the beast.

Ferdinand has earned his safety for the night, and all it took is a single warm look, his mouth twisted in the shape of Hubert’s teeth. Forgive him, forest, but you will not have your sacrifice tonight. Ask for another, anyone. Ask for Hubert’s own flesh again as payment. Just not him.

“You look,” Ferdinand wets his lips, “like you’re going to eat me.” His voice is starting to gain a rasp, hoarse at the edges. Hubert likes the sound of it very much.

With an arm behind Ferdinand’s shoulder, Hubert lifts them both from the floor. “I am,” he answers directly to Ferdinand’s ear.

It’s only because Hubert has a steady grip that he keeps Ferdinand from falling over himself, when his knees buckle.

“I don’t think you’ll be walking tomorrow.” Hubert sets Ferdinand onto his bed with care, laying him out like he would a rare flower, a special plant.

Ferdinand hums his contentment, looking like a decadent painting, lounging on Hubert’s sheets. “A price I pay gladly.”

Locating the abandoned salve jar, Hubert turns back to the bed to find Ferdinand with Hubert’s pillow clutched in his arms, half his face burrowing in it. Over the top of the pillow, his eyes glimmer. Hubert crawls over Ferdinand, straddling him, and smiles, all fangs, when Ferdinand squirms.

“I could stop. Let you sleep, as I’m sure you’re battling right now.”

Hubert watches Ferdinand watching him as he peels off his shirt at last. The way Ferdinand bucks beneath him, pillow thrown to the side so his hands are free to instantly latch onto the black gems pierced through Hubert’s nipples, is gratifying. They are most definitely not stopping. Hubert lets Ferdinand have his fun. The scrape of Ferdinand’s nails against his piercings sends lightning straight down to his cock, igniting Hubert from within.

He’s been doing well ignoring his cock in favor of Ferdinand’s pleasure until now, but he feels the thread of his desire pulling taut with every tug of his nipples. It doesn’t help that Ferdinand looks like a man discovering gold. Hubert shucks off his pants, moaning when Ferdinand grabs handfuls of his chest and puts his teeth to his nipples.

The pleasure is exquisite. It’s flames licking across every inch of his skin.

“Keep playing with them as much as you like,” Hubert forces his breathing to calm, “but I’m going to fuck you now, Ferdinand.”

That makes Ferdinand pull off, Hubert’s nipple dragged by the suction of his lips. “Oh!” Ferdinand gasps. “I did not even– oh.”

Whatever he’d been about to say dies when he looks down and sees, for the first time, Hubert’s cock. His mouth snaps with a clack. Hubert sees Ferdinand’s throat bob when he stares and stares and stares. At his chest, Hubert can feel the minute twitch of Ferdinand’s fingers. Like he can’t be sure if he dares to touch.

Hubert might wonder if that’s fear in Ferdinand’s eyes, if not for the saliva he can see, piling in the corner of his mouth.

Listen. Hubert knows what kind of image he makes. He knows the size of his cock can be– excessive, is the word used, once, and Hubert had been flattered before he tore open that person’s throat. The ridges along the base, black and scaled, hard to the touch, have frightened partners as much as it delighted them. It all depends on the person, really.

Ferdinand looks ready to burst out of his skin. His hands clutch the backs of his knees, holding his legs apart. It’s a good image. It’s too good of an image, actually. His already thick thighs look delectably wider, when the muscles are tense. A more perfectly round ass, Hubert will never see. In the middle, Ferdinand’s entrance is stretched to an obscene shape, still loose from Hubert’s fingers. Puffed red all around, and dark in the center, it beckons for something to fill it.

Hubert cages Ferdinand between his arms. Idly, he lubricates his cock well, gets it wet and more. When he’s inside Ferdinand, he wants no resistance. Only slickness, only heat, the feel of Ferdinand’s walls wrapping around him.

Ferdinand is stock still when Hubert eases his cockhead in. He’s seen rabbits do something similar, when they find themselves caught underneath a predator. Some animal instinct makes them surrender. Just lie back and let the beast have its way with them.

They know better than to fight; they know, on some instinctive level, that they were made for the slaughter.

That it’s inevitable: Hubert sliding into Ferdinand, and it feeling right. Like a blade into its sheath, rain to a forest, or a match to tinder, Hubert’s cock pressed to the hilt is perfection. As one, they throw their heads back and moan. It’s glorious, is what it is. Stars dancing behind his eyes. Witchfire boiling his blood. Chants of Hubert, Hubert, Hubert fogging the windows as Ferdinand breathes around the feel of Hubert, thick and alive in him, buried up to his organs.

The feral part of Hubert salivates at seeing the bulge in Ferdinand’s stomach, when he looks down. This is how he knows Ferdinand is his for the plundering. Marked from out, and marked from within.

Come morning, there won’t be a single part of Ferdinand that Hubert hasn’t ruined.

Ferdinand’s mouth moves, but nothing comes out except his own saliva, dribbling out the corners. Hubert wipes at it with his knuckle, then gets two rows of human teeth clamped around his finger, gnawing at it like a dog would a bone.

Filthy thing. A cock in him is all it takes, apparently, to reduce him to his animal parts.

As it should be, thinks Hubert, pulling back and lavishing the feel of Ferdinand’s rim clenching on him the entire way. I’ll make a beast of you, too, Ferdinand. I’ll undo you as you’ve undone me.

He doesn’t quite slam into Ferdinand, but he’s not slow about it. There’s no waiting for Ferdinand to acclimate to his size. Only steady thrusts, Hubert forcing his walls open like he’s cutting him apart. Ferdinand wants cock, so he gets it, in the way that suits them both: savage, relentless, violence mixed with sweetness.

The bed doesn’t start creaking until Hubert has a steady pace going. By then he’s watched Ferdinand’s expression, calculating his every twitch, every huff. Ferdinand’s brow furrows if Hubert pulls back too far, his cockhead barely inside. Ferdinand moans something wicked when Hubert slams the last few inches of himself in and holds himself there, just a second, pelvis to ass, buried to the hilt. Near tears spring up if Hubert slides in extra slow, forcing Ferdinand to feel every single bump, his folds catching, ravenously, on Hubert’s scales.

When Hubert bends Ferdinand even further, forcing his knees to his own shoulders and driving himself deeper, somehow, within, Ferdinand gags.

Then, when he’s done gagging, he’s urging Hubert on, asking for more with nonsensical babble, streaks of saliva dribbling down his chin and neck.

Hubert has to peel his hand away from Ferdinand’s mouth so he can grip his bedsheets, get a good leverage to slam into Ferdinand proper. It’s a punishing pace. Has Hubert breathing hard, sweat collecting between his shoulder blades. The bed screams as much as Ferdinand does. Hubert’s covers are darkened equal parts by Ferdinand’s sweat and tears.

Ferdinand’s hands have abandoned his knees to grip at the wooden headboard. His flexibility is an admirable thing. Hubert feels Ferdinand’s ankles at the back of his neck, the wire taut stretch of his every muscle at being wound into a ball, and still, not a single protest. Ferdinand takes cock better than anyone Hubert’s seen. He takes cock like it’s expected of him, like every part of him is created to be spread and bent and fucked.

He takes cock like it’s his holy right to do so, earned through sweat and blood.

“Amazing,” Hubert breathes, wondrous, enchanted. His spine burns with the effort of his fucking. “You’re amazing, Ferdinand.”

Around his cock, Ferdinand’s hole flutters. Stomach to stomach, Hubert feels a hardness slowly working its way up. Hubert chuckles, delirious. What a man. What a lovely man.

“Think you can come for me a third time?” Hubert grits, the question punctuated with a thrust that has them sliding up the bed, Ferdinand’s head almost knocking against the wood.

Ferdinand screams like he’s being gutted.

That could be a yes, a maybe, a no, of course I can’t, you’ve literally wrung me dry, Hubert.

But he’s welcome to try and find out.

No one mourns the loss of heat more than Hubert when he tears his cock out of Ferdinand suddenly, so fast that his precum splatters on their chests. Ferdinand’s growl is pure fury, and it’s possibly the best sound Hubert’s ever heard. Before either of them can blink, Hubert has Ferdinand flipped to his stomach and his cock sinking back to the root.

They moan in unison. Now it’s a proper animal fuck, with Hubert railing into him, staring at the jiggle of Ferdinand’s ass with every thrust, staring at the deep red of his rim, pulled and stretched and abused by his cock. Ferdinand’s nails rake down the headboard. His braid is nearly coming apart. He could be sobbing, but Hubert can’t be sure what with the way his face is buried into the bed and the way Hubert’s ears thrum, wild with pleasure.

There are scars peppered throughout Ferdinand’s back. Hubert trails a single claw down his spine, wondering if he should add one more.

Muffled and stained, Hubert thinks he hears a yes. It could be a please. It becomes Ferdinand screeching when Hubert slaps him hard on the ass, open palm and claws and all. Welts already form. A thin line of blood swells on one particularly deep cut. Hubert palms at it, squeezes until it drips into his hand.

“You’re beautiful.”

If Hubert could capture a moment forever, it would be this. Ferdinand with Hubert’s marks all over him. In the braiding of his hair. The lines around his neck. The bruise at his shoulder, from rubbing against the floor for too long. Now his ass, red and cut up.

Hubert grips both cheeks just to see the flesh indent under his claws. He spreads them apart until Ferdinand’s hole is as wide as his mouth when he smiles.

That’s a sob for sure, coming from Ferdinand.

Grinning something devious, Hubert lets go of his handfuls just to crack the back of his hand against them. Then he does it again, to hear Ferdinand scream, to see his ass get redder, grow new welts. Hubert catches the blood starting to drip from the cut with his thumb, then sucks it in his mouth. He goes cross eyed at the taste of it.

“You’re perfect.” His guts on fire, Hubert doubles over, hands landing on either side of Ferdinand’s head. Sweat drips down his nose, splattering into Ferdinand’s hair. His vision is blurring. His hips ache, but he only fucks faster, harder.

All he can see is orange and gold, brighter than the sun. He can feel only warmth and Ferdinand’s heartbeat, thumping the way Hubert’s ears drum.

“Ferdinand, you’re– perfect, you’re so–”

Ferdinand bucks like an animal when he comes for the third time. Screams like one, too, but Hubert barely hears as his head goes maddeningly, wonderfully silent as he comes right after, barely pulling out in time to spill all over Ferdinand’s back.

They both heave like they’ve breached the water’s surface. Hubert locks his elbows to keep himself from collapsing atop Ferdinand as he blinks back the dots in his vision, sweat in his eyes. Ferdinand’s arms go limp, falling to the bed. His head whips to the side, and Hubert can see only ruddy cheeks and a wet nose through the mess of his stray hairs. Ferdinand’s back glistens with sweat and Hubert’s come.

Without thinking, Hubert bends down to lick and suck away every drop.

A trail of come has slipped its way between Ferdinand’s crack, and Hubert laps it up as if it's the last drop of water he'll ever get. When his tongue slips down, it catches on the folds of Ferdinand’s rim. Hubert almost doesn’t recognize it for what it is at first, it’s so puffed up, juicy as a berry. He pulls back when Ferdinand whimpers in pain, and can’t help the satisfied smile at seeing his hole gaping, still stretched to the size of Hubert’s cock.

Now that’s an ass well fucked. If Ferdinand can sit down at all tomorrow, Hubert will have to concede to the power of the Goddess. Or the sheer strength of Ferdinand.

Ferdinand must be overstimulated to the point of pain, but lovely man that he is, Ferdinand merely mewls and tries to raise his hips for Hubert’s mouth. In appreciation, Hubert kisses the cut on Ferdinand’s ass.

“I’m going to get you a cup of water, lovely. Then change those sheets.”

When Hubert returns to bed with a fresh cup, flower patterned hand towels, and a jar of honey, Ferdinand has remained exactly where he is, unchanged. Hubert coos at him, and very gently holds his chin to help him drink. Droplets of water spill from Ferdinand’s mouth; Hubert dabs them away with the towel, as well as all the saliva and as much of the sweat as he can. By that point Ferdinand has collapsed to his side and Hubert lets him as he works diligently, cleaning his lover up.

He’s expected the sheets to be ruined beyond salvation, but when Hubert moves to Ferdinand’s stomach, there’s nothing but more sweat.

“Came dry, hm?” He shouldn’t be as pleased by that as he is, but this isn’t the first time Ferdinand has made him feel things he shouldn’t. Things he haven’t felt in a long, long time.

In lieu of an answer, Ferdinand nuzzles his nose to Hubert’s arm. That he hasn’t fallen asleep yet is either an insult to Hubert’s prowess, or a testament to Ferdinand’s stamina. Considering the way Ferdinand’s hips are still twitching and his body is still deep red all over, he’ll assume the latter.

Done drying Ferdinand up, Hubert sets the towel aside so his hands are free to hold Ferdinand’s face, tenderly, and pepper kisses all over his hairline, his brows. His cute freckled nose. Hubert kisses every knuckle on Ferdinand’s hand, then carefully rubs at his wrists, massaging the tendons. He does the same to Ferdinand’s thighs and calves, using his own knuckles to knead into his skin.

Ferdinand sighs dreamily and simply lies there, taking the coddling like it’s his due. Which it is. Hubert has a simple rule, if his partners survive through the night: the rougher the fucking, the sweeter the aftercare. Ferdinand has been bitten up, fucked up, then chewed back out. He deserves no less than to be treated like a saint after.

Hubert presses his lips to every mark he’s made on Ferdinand’s body, his praise silent, but still there. Well done, Ferdinand. Very well done.

He uses more ointment on the new cuts at Ferdinand’s ass. He peels the twine off Ferdinand’s hair and takes his time re-braiding it. Doing so while Ferdinand is on his side is more difficult, but Hubert doesn’t dare ask him to move. He’s given his everything to Hubert’s demands. In the aftermath, Hubert wants only to give him everything back. To hold him like he’s the most precious thing in the world right now, something Hubert will guard with his life.

Ferdinand sighs, and Hubert can tell he’s smiling from the way his cheekbones move. He shuffles backwards in Hubert’s arms, getting even closer.

Then Ferdinand jerks, freezing.

Hubert kisses the back of Ferdinand’s head and smoothly angles his hips so his hard cock can slide between Ferdinand’s thighs. He doesn’t do anything more after that. Just lets it stay there, swathed in heat.

“No worries Ferdinand. I am satiated, believe me.”

Hubert debates on pulling the covers over them, but decides the cottage is warm enough. The pattering of rain against his windows is almost as good a balm to Hubert’s senses as Ferdinand is.

He could fall asleep like this, and he’ll do so the most peaceful he’s felt. Ferdinand, however, keeps squirming against him, his thighs tightening wickedly around Hubert’s cock. This time, Hubert is the one hissing.

“Now now lovely, that’s--”

Hubert’s protest turns into a groan that’s physically torn from him, when Ferdinand, in a blink, has reached behind himself, grabbed Hubert’s cock, and shoved it in him. On reflex, Hubert presses forward, but catches himself at the last moment, before he’s fully buried. They both gasp and shudder, feeling exposed, pained, like alcohol has been poured over an open wound.

“Ferdinand.” Hubert’s hand slams on the bed, barely missing Ferdinand’s nose. He doesn’t tear open his mattress, but it’s a near thing. “You don’t know what you’re doing.”

Fingers grip the back of Hubert’s neck. He’s pulled down, where Ferdinand’s luscious, chipped mouth is waiting for him. The kiss is barely a kiss so much as it is their mouths opening to one another, tongues twirling once, twice.

Ferdinand, despite everything, can still smile up at Hubert. It’s that smile that tells Hubert he’s lost the argument, and all without a single word from Ferdinand. He can deny Ferdinand absolutely nothing now, and especially not when Ferdinand is offering himself, skin and bones and all.

It’s one thing to fuck a man into ruination. It’s another for him to offer the remaining pieces of himself and tell you to turn it into ash. Ferdinand, for all his smiling, breathes as if on the verge of collapse. His body trembles, unstable, exhausted.

With everything he has, Hubert keeps his hands firmly on the bedsheets. Away from Ferdinand’s body, from that tantalizing, bruised skin. If he gets his claws on Ferdinand now, he won’t stop until he reaches bone. It’s a terrifying thought only because of how much Hubert likes it.

“If we do this,” Hubert growls, moans, pleads into Ferdinand’s ear, “Ferdinand, if we do this, you’re not leaving my bed for a week. I mean it, you won’t be able to move for days, Ferdinand. You’ll be stuck here with me, come morning, and the day after that. And after that. Ferdinand, understand.”

In response, Ferdinand puts his hand over Hubert’s, human fingers interweaving through inhuman claws. Then, in a move that must take the rest of his strength, Ferdinand pushes his hips back, taking Hubert the rest of the way.

Hubert screams, and it sounds too much like Ferdinand’s name.

The last thing Hubert sees is Ferdinand, head thrown back, eyes closed, pain and pleasure painted in equal measures on his face. Then Hubert’s fangs are sinking into Ferdinand’s shoulder, and his world dissolves into inky black and sunset orange.

Long after, there is Ferdinand, unconscious in Hubert’s bed, soaking from sweat and blood.

He’d be drowning in it if not for Hubert there to hold him aloft, wiping off the sweat first, then sucking away the blood. Gathering all the come ruins the towel, so Hubert throws it in the sink when he goes to grab some gauze.

Hubert’s body has never felt so light, so liquid. It’s as if he could topple over from a single touch. This must be how Ferdinand must have felt after his second orgasm. All the more incredible, then, that Ferdinand has managed to stay awake for Hubert after that. He truly is perfection.

Or insane.

A bit of both, Hubert concedes, as he gently maneuvers Ferdinand’s dead limbs, wrapping bandages around the ugliest parts. His bitten shoulder. Gashes at his hips, his arms. Nothing to be done about his bottom-- Ferdinand will be sleeping on his stomach tonight, and several nights after. He lets the ruined again braid be, for it would disturb Ferdinand too much.

He wants to tell Ferdinand how good he’s been, to have taken him so well. Beyond expectations. Better than anyone Hubert’s ever seen. He’d like hearing that, Hubert knows. Would puff his chest at it, flushing all red and delighted. Ferdinand loves being praised, and Hubert finds he likes praising him.

When he’s awake, Hubert will tell him. For now, he lets Ferdinand sleep, at last. This, he’s more than earned. The forest trees could come crumbling over this cottage right now and Hubert would use every spell he knows to keep them from waking his lover. He knows what this means, and he’ll accept the consequences.

He’ll not regret a single thing.

Before Hubert returns to bed, he pulls the curtains shut. The rain has stopped, and the darkness is passing, black turning into grays, which will turn into blues and pinks and purples and all sorts of colors, and all before Ferdinand can open his eyes. The forest after the rain is a beautiful sight to behold, but Ferdinand is an even better one, wrapped up in Hubert’s sheets, smiling even in his sleep. There are worse things to miss than the dawn.

Hubert lies down beside Ferdinand, throwing an arm across his battered back, and when he closes his eyes, there is only light.

And after that, there is this:

A bathtub Hubert has pulled from outside to place beside his bed, filling it with steaming water, covering it with fresh picked flowers. Ferdinand, water up to his shoulders, head pillowed by Hubert’s finest towels. Ferdinand’s legs still don’t work, so Hubert had to feed him a numbing potion just so he can sit for a time without pain. Still, has to lie on his side. As expected, his ass will still be tender for a while.

(That Hubert had taken one look at the rosebud Ferdinand’s hole has become and put his mouth to it until he could taste himself from last night certainly does not help, but Ferdinand hadn’t stopped him.)

They’ve slept all through the morning and most of the afternoon. The evening light colors Ferdinand in shades of amber and lavender. His skin glows in the way it can only do after a good fuck.

Hubert, sitting beside Ferdinand on a short stool, wearing only trousers, feeds him a cut of cured meat. Breakfast and lunch have passed, so he feeds Ferdinand his dinner with his claws, and kisses his cheek after every other bite. Ferdinand only accepts food if they’re held between Hubert’s fingers. Even jams and honey Ferdinand will only swallow if they’re scooped on the tip of one black claw. Spoiled man. Hubert kisses his cheek.

Ferdinand has not stopped smiling since last night, which is a problem because it keeps opening the splits in his lip. He’s so spoiled, knowing Hubert will kiss the blood away. Hubert does, every single time.

“I imagine you must have questions,” Ferdinand exhales. His voice is still wonderfully hoarse, melting Hubert’s gut with every word, but he can speak again, at least.

Hubert pushes around a violet, pressing it to Ferdinand’s chest. “Not as many as you’d think. You likely have far more than me. I only care to know how you recognize me.”

A wedge of cheese is pressed to Ferdinand’s mouth. He eats, eyes sparkling.

“Our fathers worked closely together, during our youths. You must not remember me-- we were not close, not even a little bit, and I was sent away from Enbarr often, but sometimes I would come along with father on certain visits and I would see you. I must have been ten at the time.”

Which means Hubert had been twelve, his existence a haze of poisons, antidotes, whippings, dagger cuts, black magic fumes, and Edelgard. The years of Hubert’s life before he turned twenty are a blur, intercut only by the gashes along Edelgard’s body, trailing like lightning bolts, and blood spilling in water.

If Hubert was ever a child, he wouldn’t know. He has no recollection of being one.

“Of course I wouldn’t remember you.” Hubert feeds Ferdinand a berry, which Ferdinand sucks on with too much eagerness. “My life was not my own, then. I was focused on purely one thing, and had no space for anything else.”

Ferdinand jolts, suddenly, and Hubert smells the blood before he sees it, wetting the tip of his claw. He sighs.

“How often must I tell you to be careful?”

Ferdinand, it seems, can pout with just his eyes. He sticks his tongue out for examination when Hubert opens his mouth. The cut is a small one, close to the center, but there is blood seeping out. With great care, Hubert licks Ferdinand’s tongue, lapping up the blood. Iron and honey should never taste so good together.

It’s no surprise they end up kissing again, slow and careful. No tongue, just lips. It’s a kiss meant for nothing but pleasure. Just them enjoying the feel of each other, and all the warmth that brings.

Ferdinand’s eyes are molten gold, his smile so sweet. “And now?” He murmurs against Hubert’s mouth.

“Now? I am precisely as I appear to you. Just a witch, living my days away in this cottage.”

“That seems rather lonely.”

It is, but not always. There’s Edelgard, Bernadetta, and Dorothea, constant, appreciated, cherished, the stars that fill up his sky. Sometimes there’s Jeritza and Constance, whirlwinds that they are, leaving Hubert’s cottage just a little shaken, each time. “I get visitors, now and then. Some regulars.”

The expression on Ferdinand’s face is not a difficult one to decode. Ferdinand can make even jealousy beautiful. “Visitors like me?”

Hubert bites the lobe of Ferdinand’s ear, hard. “Sometimes, but not often. I don’t know how you did it, but very few people stumble upon my cottage unless they know where to look. No, I meant my friends who live in this forest, same as I. They stop by from time to time.”

Ferdinand moans, tilting himself into Hubert’s touch. “I would very much like to meet them sometime. If you are here, then Edelgard must be as well, not too far off, and I miss her.”

Hubert startles so badly he nearly knocks Ferdinand’s teeth out when he wrenches himself away. He can only stare, his eardrums pounding. “Ferdinand, that’s--”

“Not possible?” Ferdinand finishes for him, brows coming down. “And why not?”

“You know that’s not how these things play out.”

Still at the mercy of a beast, with his body more bruised than not, Ferdinand can remain as imperial as he ever is, staring a monster down.

“And how do they play out?”

Ferdinand has never looked more radiant than now. He could cut into Hubert with that look alone and Hubert would tell him precisely where to carve. The knowledge feels like surrender, like the punchline he’s been trying to avoid, but it does not feel like defeat.

“Dearest Ferdinand. You know how the story goes.” He cups Ferdinand’s face, unafraid of the burning. “A gallant stranger gets lost in a forest, finds themselves in the arms of a beast for one night. I'm letting you walk out of this alive, whenever you wish. How could we ask for more?”

“You truly believe I would let myself be confined to the limits of a story?” Ferdinand looks as if he wants to reach for his sword and put it through Hubert, through the entire world for daring to say he can’t have a romance with his monster on his own terms.

Fondness cuts through Hubert’s chest, and he lets himself bleed. “They exist for a reason.”

Ferdinand’s eyes are pools of liquid fire. “Perhaps the stories need a retelling, in that case. They cannot all end the same.”

Hubert grins, whip fast. “Is that what you intend to do? Change the story? The stranger encounters the monster and they get more than a night? They get the mornings and evenings after?”

“And why not?” Ferdinand leans in, and just like that, he’s managed to capture all the light in the room and store it right in his eyes. He is so radiant it makes Hubert ache. “You showed the world, years ago, along with Edelgard, that anything can be changed. It merely requires a little fire, and blood. Have we not given both?”

Something shakes. It could be the cottage, it could be Hubert. He swears he hears the trees sigh, as if agreeing with the sentiment. Hubert thinks about cautionary tales disguised as fairytales, of the garden of bones in Hubert’s own backyard, but mostly he thinks about Ferdinand’s hands on his face, offering him the sun and asking only for a kiss in return.

Hubert swallows thickly. “We have.”

Ferdinand is an easy man to make smile. In a blink, all his righteous fury melts away into a self satisfied smile. His hand goes to graze Hubert’s jaw like he’s mapping out the planes of Hubert’s face, searching out every sharp angle, every dip, committing him to detail. When Ferdinand brushes the hair away from Hubert’s eyes this time, Hubert lets him. Hubert stays nice and still, daring not even to breathe as Ferdinand runs his thumbs across Hubert’s temple, tracing the cracks branching on the side of his face.

“You know,” Ferdinand says, like he’s come to a realization himself, “I think the stories forgot to mention some very important details.”

“Oh?”

Ferdinand grins, and Hubert feels caught out on something he’s not even aware of.

“Yes.” Ferdinand drags the word out like melted sugar. “The stories always talk of the beast and how evil it is, how lonely and hungry and awful. What they do not mention at all, however, is the beast’s capacity for tenderness.” Ferdinand’s nose is pressed to Hubert’s, his mouth a hair's breadth away. “They do not talk of the beast being soft and thoughtful. How difficult it must have been, to learn gentleness, when you have hands made for violence. Yet the monster does it, all so it can offer comfort, when someone asks.”

Hubert wants to pull back. Hubert should pull back. All he does is lean into Ferdinand, nuzzling his face in the palm of his hand.

“They warn us about falling in love with a beast. They never say how the beast could fall in love just as well.”

Hubert regards Ferdinand coolly, even as he trembles. “This is not love.” It is the truth.

Ferdinand, awful and delightful Ferdinand, keeps holding Hubert’s face, gentle, so gentle.

“It is not,” Ferdinand agrees, and why does he sound like he’s soothing Hubert, all of a sudden, like he’s trying to calm a startled animal from running, “but, my darling beast, consider that this is not some cautionary tale, either. That I am not the naive hero, and you are not the mindless monster. Consider that there is something in you that calls out to me, and it is not in the way a predator calls to prey.”

Slowly one of Ferdinand’s hands trails down Hubert’s chest, resting in the center of it. His breath is warm and honey sweet and Hubert is caught, he is caught. He has been caught, likely since the moment Ferdinand stepped into his cottage.

“Consider that you have a heart, just as I do, and it is beating just as fast as mine.”

Ah. So that’s what that sound is. That’s what it’s been all this time.

Ferdinand kisses Hubert’s nose, then digs his teeth into Hubert’s neck, all in the span of one second. Tenderness melting into violence makes Hubert’s body throb.

“Whatever you think of yourself, know this: you were already half beast when I saw you as a child, and that did not scare me. You are a monster now, and still I walked through your door. Still I wanted to kiss you. Do you know what that means?”

“You are a man of startlingly poor judgment.”

“That I am a man made to love a monster such as you, Hubert.”

Ferdinand is dangerous because he knows how to kill without ever holding a weapon. Maybe they are still the story and Hubert is being slain, after all, but Ferdinand has chosen softness as his blade.

Hubert plucks a daisy from the bath, inspects it. He glances over to Ferdinand, sunlight in his every pore, and all of it turned to Hubert. He sticks the daisy to Ferdinand’s cheek, and feels his breath caught at the beauty of it, at the giggle it draws from Ferdinand. Hubert takes another flower and presses it beside the daisy. Then a rose petal. A violet. Another daisy.

One by one, Hubert presses flowers to Ferdinand’s cheeks, the bridge of his nose, following the line of his freckles until he’s created a string of stars. A perfect constellation onto a perfect face.

“You know.” Hubert’s claws swim across the water’s surface to trail up Ferdinand’s chest, playing with the hairs. “When I first saw you on my doorstep, I thought the forest had sent you here as a sacrifice, but now I don’t think that is the case. Then when you stepped into my cottage and smiled at me for the first time, I had another thought.”

Hubert holds Ferdinand’s face in one hand and holds it up more towards the light, where Hubert can see all of him, and smile at him, adore him. Everything is clear, now that Hubert is looking at it right.

“It was ridiculous, but it was spoken in my own voice, said so clearly that it must have been nothing but the truth, trying to cleave me in half. I looked at you smiling and thought: this man was made for me.”

Ferdinand grins so wide his cut splits wide open. As he’s done all evening and will do for as long as he’s allowed, Hubert kisses the blood away. When he starts to pull back, he’s kept close by a hand at the back of his neck. The bath should be cool by now, but all Hubert feels is heat and the caress of Ferdinand’s thumb.

He’s too caught up looking at Ferdinand that Hubert doesn’t notice the flower held in his fingers until Ferdinand is pressing it to Hubert’s cheek, then pressing a kiss.

“Dearest Hubert.” Ferdinand’s fingers find his and he holds them without fear, as he’s done since the start. “This may not be love, but it is something. It is alive, waiting to bloom. We created this from nothing, all in the span of one night, with flesh and blood and words. Is that not magic?”

If Hubert had any breath in him, he’d have laughed, wild and free. He turns Ferdinand’s hands in his and bends to kiss his knuckles, his palm, all of his fingers and calluses. He kisses his way up Ferdinand’s hand, to his wrist, his arm, his shoulder blades. Up his neck, gentle, careful, then up some more until he kisses Ferdinand’s cheek, coming away with a daisy caught in his mouth.

He smiles around it, then transfers it to the back of Ferdinand’s hand with a kiss.

“Well well. Consider this my defeat, Ferdinand. You have bested me in every conceivable way. I am not the same thing I was when we met, and I never will be again. That is destruction, and by your hands, I will accept it. Tell me how the story goes, sunshine, the one you want. I find myself wanting it just the same.”

When Ferdinand’s arms curl around Hubert’s shoulders, Hubert is already leaning forward, one hand braced on the tub, the other submerged in the bath beside Ferdinand’s hip. They meet as one, smiling against each other’s mouths, and lights burst behind Hubert’s lids.

Maybe this is why tales exist as warning signs, why they're told to monsters as much as humans. When a beast sees that much light, it wants to drown in it, be changed by it. That sort of undoing is a danger. There is so much pain to be had, so much to lose.

But then, there is so much to gain.