You were standing at the stove, yawning as you scrambled eggs that were in the sizzling pan. It was kind of early for you to be up but you couldn’t sleep so you thought you might as well get up and start your day. The small kitchen quickly filled with the smell of food and your stomach growled, impatiently waiting for your food to cook. You crossed your arms, the only thing you’re wearing being your boyfriends tshirt and it didn’t do much to keep you warm.
“Is that for me?” you heard a groggy voice behind you, turning around to see Michael standing there in just his boxers, squinting at the bright sunlight coming from the window. He stretched his arms above his head, walking over to you and wrapping his arms around your waist.
“Not really, I expected you to still be asleep,” you said, reaching up and running your fingers through his bedhead. He looks so young when he first wakes up and you always admired it.
“You left me in there, how was I supposed to sleep?” he said, it almost coming out as a whine. Yep, he was definitely sleepy.
You chuckled, shaking your head at him and running your fingertips over his stubbly cheeks, “You need to shave.”
He rolled his eyes, leaning in and starting to kiss you all over your face knowing that you could feel all of his scruff. You couldn’t help but giggle, trying to push at his bare chest, “Stoooopp!”
“Don’t act like you don’t like it. I know it drives you crazy when I’m between your legs,” he shrugged, giving you a sleepy smile and leaving the kitchen. He called to you before he reached your shared bedroom, “You burnt your eggs!”
You groaned as you picked up the burning food from the burner, unable to stop yourself from laughing at your cheeky boyfriend.
He senses your pain, the disgusting anguish coming from you is curling around his gut and sucker punching his nervous system. You are nothing in hindsight, not even a threat to him. You keep your head down, bashful, almost too embarrassed to be serving the outpost. He catches you looking at him, he smells your wants, but there’s shame, guilt even? It’s not like the rest of anyone here when they take him in.
He’s whatever they desire. Surface gazes, something to touch themselves to or attempt to latch onto for a chance at paradise. But he’s no angel and cannot fly them away on white wings. Simple and carnal. Then there is you in your gray layers, hair bound back but a color he’s enchanted by.
You aren’t after him, but avoiding him. It’s curious, worrisome. If you weren’t in so much dire hurt then he’d enjoy your fear, feed off it even. You don’t assume you’ll be interviewed and so you don’t seek him out like he hopes to tempt you. He tires of this, he has to see what you are about, why you’re tugging these parts of himself out that he’s tried hard to forget.
Michael runs into you in the hallways not long after his search, linens in your hand. You see him, staring, jaw ticking as your tongue snaps to the roof of your mouth, licking at the moist air. You haven’t done anything and yet you want to admit to a thousand crimes. He’s intimidating you. You purchase your bottom lip between your teeth, chewing, then you step to the side.
“Hi.” Your voice is weak, backward, like it’s all you can muster.
The pain is wafting off you in waves, bringing Michael to step forward. He hasn’t sensed someone so unsure, so fucking completely lost since himself a few years ago. And it seems as if you think you belong to serve as an ironic punishment of your pain carrying over from your previous life to this one. You don’t hold confidence. Your posture is respectful but meek.
He can’t deny you anything now. Because he was denied by those that were the most hypocritical, unaware of their selfish logic. You’re pure, free to choose if you can accept help. You should be pathetic to him, someone he wants nothing to do with since you remind him of his past. But that’s the damndest of things, he sees.
One look in your honest eyes that hold promises, dreams, drive, all held back by solitude and loneliness, he needs you as much as you need someone. He wants to be the hand you reach for. He cares for Mead, he admires challenges, but you? The gentle blush dusting your cheeks, how you’re facing him, deciding to stay, like you might’ve been thinking about him too, your simplicity, it stirs a feeling in his stomach he isn’t used to.
You’ve flipped the tables on him. He could have you melting, get you going for his own pleasure, but he doesn’t want to. He’s taking you out of here. You belong with him. He’s not sure why or how he knows.
It does unnerve him. The thought of you alone, however, is one he can’t bear. Leaving you behind now? You drown in drinking his appearance in, staring at his outstretched hand. He lowers his voice in reservation for you. “You do not need to be afraid of me, Y/N.”
Doubt. You feel you’re dreaming, there’s a catch. “Mr. Langdon….”
“Please, it’s Michael.
You smile, it stretching across your beautiful mouth. He likes how your lips shape to it.
“It suits you, I think.” You say to him. And he is unashamed of the name his dead grandmother has given him.
“Will you run if I ask you to take my hand?”
“I don’t think I can right now.” You’re still holding your footing, managing to keep his gaze.
“Then I shall carry you.” Michael responds, watching your eyes light up, how you shift.
He’s pleading silently. You are drawn. You stop thinking it over and let him grasp your fingers. He pulls you close to him, not enough to make you protest, just to share his radiating warmth. “May I wrap my arms around you?”
“Please.” This time it’s you who says it, Michael battling some of your pain away. Your doubt is knocked out for a few, shock leaving her comatose.
Michael gathers you into his arms like a gift given fragile, especially for him. You’re not death, darkness, seeking to fuck, escape, kill, or take. You desire to find purpose, to settle your heartbeat sated. You want to feel like it’s okay to just be, that who you are makes sense. It brings tears to his eyes, ones he cannot hide.
The corridor is empty, he knows. You rear back, holding onto him, presenting your whisper. “Why are you crying?”
Michael is able to be just in this rare moment. He smiles at you. “Because I think I was looking for you a few years ago and now I’ve just found you.”
You are still breathing heavily, skin scorching hot in the wake of your open wounds, dried blood caked inside them. It takes a good hour to calm yourself down and tug the reigns that hold your heart to your throat – back in its rightful place. You’ll never get used to the comforting high you are gifted by your crimson call with with the devil. Michael always links you to his life force, ensuring your safety throughout the process. You share a dagger, a hissing kiss that causes the candles to spill their wax over, dripping, river rushes towards the snakes that come free of the pentagram.
Licking your salty-slick lips, damp with your own sweat, you lean back on blood smeared thighs, eyes closing into your deep set sigh. You’re humming, unable to forget how it felt to move in shapes that had no purpose, yet translated a perfect show, your fingers holding the handle of the knife that easily peeled your skin an offering to blend with Michael’s. There is nothing else like it, connecting with him, that darkness encircling you like a vice, his heart in rhythm with your own. He was graceful, bleeding all over, enchanting you with his flexing body that angled his gifts. There’s a brush across your skin that has you opening your eyes.
Michael places the candle holder down, towels hanging across the claw foot bath. There’s an easy steam wafting from its enticing surface. He offers you his dark red hand, pulling you in for a breathless kiss. Once he takes you in he’s thumbing your blood dotted cheek. “Are you hurting too bad, love?”
You shake your head and lift yourself into the bath, offering your hand to him. It doesn’t take you long to settle into a quiet routine. You’ve soaped your warm rag and began to wipe down Michael’s golden skin, watching in fascination as the water turns red around you. Michael takes caution, dipping your breasts with his cloth, lingering a little longer on your nipples. You giggle into his clean peck to your water shined cheek, wrapping your arms around his neck.
“Can I please take care of your hair now?” You’re reaching for the shampoo bottle, a hopeful look on your face. Who is Michael to deny his best girl anything?
He has to stop himself from hardening at your delicate scalp scratches, lathering him carefully, giving him more attention than he’s had his whole life. Genuine time. By the moment he brings you to him you’re caught on his blue eyes a piercing admiration of you, his hair sticking to his shoulders, wet and dripping, rivulets of water latching onto his mouth. He seeks permission to give back the favor, your body swiveling back to lay between his legs and still as he finishes cleaning you. You’re both out in fluffy towels, Michael bringing you to his arms.
Toad's Cave 