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morvantmortuary · 8 months

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morvant mortuary x the boy au -

the House

(prologue)

Even as you walked in to an empty house, alone, it still somehow felt like you were intruding.

If you felt a prickle down the back of your neck, or a sudden chill, you only attributed it to the stillness of the House compared to the summer breeze outside.

It was almost too still. Like the House had breath to hold.

Like - in an insane way - it was hoping you liked it as much as you were secretly wishing to.

You didn’t hear the front door close behind you — the damning click of the lock was oddly soft, given how heavy the dark wood looked.

As ominous as the House looked on the outside, it was huge on the inside. If it hadn’t been for the vaguely dusty (but miraculously not moth-eaten), thick, woven floor rugs, you felt like your footsteps would have echoed through the room.

For reasons you couldn’t quite explain, you were thankful they couldn’t.

You walked towards one of the floor to ceiling windows, hidden behind rich outer curtains — a deep wine-colored satin, of all things — with a once-cream cotton underneath, there to muffle the light (and afternoon heat) but not douse it entirely.

Curiously, they weren’t as dusty as you expected, especially not near the edges. You could imagine the people who lived here once, pulling them aside to sneak looks at the drive, at the clients coming up the path. It wouldn’t be to spy on any neighbors; the nearest residents were the ones buried in the cemetery at the edge of the property. The nearest living ones were back towards the edge of town, as if people were terrified of building their houses any closer to this one.

Well. At least it meant the services you held here would be uninterrupted by outside noise. You’d hoped the more cheerful Cajun wakes would add some lightness to the place, but even that seemed like a tall order in such a huge room.

You pulled the curtains wide apart at last, letting what little dwindling afternoon sun there was into the House for the first time in how many years.

What you assumed was the clientele parlor was a somber kind of beautiful, all antique furniture in dark wood clustered comfortingly around a massive fireplace - which surprised you, given how far south you were. But if the House was really as old as the listing said, it could’ve been built at a time where winters were still cold enough to be bitter down here. You imagined you wouldn’t need it, especially nowadays, with every summer the warmest on record. But maybe you could do something kind of Pinterest-y with it. Arrange a spray of flowers in place of flames, or a collection of glass orbs. Maybe even candles, just to be tongue-in-cheek.

Your gaze wandered higher towards the shadowy ceiling, up the once tasteful, now chipped off-white paint on the chimney - someone’s attempt to brighten architecture that couldn’t help but loom - and felt like it tripped over the dark wood frame hung over the dusty, similarly mute-painted mantle.

Instinctively, you stepped backwards when you realized that what was in the frame was looking right back at you.

It was a moderately sized portrait, a carefully arranged photograph in place of the oils of the old days. Not huge, but still dominating the space. You were kind of surprised it hadn’t caught your eye as soon as you’d walked in. You turned, looking over your shoulder at the front door and back again to chart the distance — and sure enough, yes, it was a straight line from the front door’s line of sight to this. Maybe it was the lighting? You searched the room, locating two subtle floor lamps next to the couch and the loveseat, but that wouldn’t have put the light in the right place for that.

You looked back to the portrait again, and this time noticed the two cobweb-covered, small-ish candelabras at either end of the mantle, the candles in them melted so low they might as well have not been there at all. Ah. Okay, so they weren’t going for anything subtle, here. You supposed, with the rest of the curtains open and the power actually on, it wouldn’t seem as recessed into shadow as it did now. With the candelabras lit, it would’ve commanded the room.

Four figures looked down on you from their honored place — you realized someone likely hung the portrait that high just so visitors could feel looked down on by the homeowners, and know instinctually where they stood.

Comforting, you thought derisively, given how many people would’ve come in here on the worst day of their lives. It spoke volumes towards the sensibilities of its subjects, that’s for damn sure.

And yet, if you squinted, you could still see the faintest outline around the frame where a larger one had hung there before, with another faint outline around that, like rings on a tree — and another faded blank spot just down and to the right, as if a matching portrait had been removed entirely. Clearly, this was a family used to having portraits of themselves front and center over the generations, even if they couldn’t or wouldn’t admit they maybe weren’t as grand as they used to be.

The people staring back at you were eerily lovely, in a distant, haughty way. There were two adults; the most commanding was a man in what looked like a very well-tailored suit, seated in the center of the frame in a chair of dark, glossy wood — clearly considering himself a patriarch. His hair was a deep casket-wood brown, carefully slicked back and styled meticulously, with the ghost of a smile around his thin lips. His eyes were piercing, brown almost to the point of looking weirdly burgundy, in the low light. The way he seemed to be leaning slightly forward in the ornate chair, as if peering at the viewer, made something churn in your stomach. You couldn’t explain it, but he just… unsettled you. You would’ve hated to meet him in person, even the curve of his mouth seemed subtly cruel.

The woman standing to his right was beautiful, but coldly perfect in a way that reminded you of marble. Her eyes were an intense shade of green, but dark, reminiscent of the floor of a sunless forest. Her hair, long and shining and black, hung around her pale shoulders, almost a premature widow’s veil. Her mouth, with lips like a doll’s, was set into a careful neutral line… but it still made you think that with the slightest twitch of a muscle, it could twist with raw emotion. Her white dress was immaculate and gorgeously wrapped around her slender frame, too sterile and perfect to seem… maternal.

Because there were children, here. Teenagers, really. They couldn’t have been older than fifteen (you weren’t sure, kids under college age but above elementary all kind of blended together for you nowadays). They stood together to the left of their father, for these were very much their parents, you realized. A boy and a girl, spookily similar to one another from their faces to their posture (perfect, practiced), but still an amalgam of the two adults: he had the shape of the woman’s eyes and a likeness in his mouth, but she had inherited their father’s stare to balance out the green eyes and distinctive nose of their mother.

The girl, a younger mirror of her mother in matching white, was giving the camera a venomous look that spoke inescapably of familiarity. You could almost hear the photographer saying something she didn’t like right as they took the photo. If her father unsettled you, she unsettled you still more: there was a rage you recognized in her even in this singular, still moment, something familiar about the indignity endured while growing up thinking you were a teenage girl. You could only imagine encountering her in person, and were silently thankful you never would — not as she was captured in this instant, at least.

The boy, in a similarly expensive suit that echoed the older man’s, simply stood on her other side, keeping her between himself and their father’s chair. His eyes - or what you could see of them, almost hiding behind a long-ish flop of sleek brown bangs (definitely a reflection of the time) and round glasses — were the same deep color as his father’s, bordering almost on red. But there was something… softer, to them. A sadness, rather than anger or malice. He kept his face as placid as his mother’s, and you almost wondered if it was something he practiced, with just how still he seemed compared to his sister.

Where her hands were clasped in front of her skirt, you saw his at his sides. The longer you looked, the more you could see that the skin of both their knuckles was bone white. Even standing there must have been a struggle for them, somehow.

Your gaze lingered on the four of them longer than you could quite explain. The photograph was so vivid, it felt like they were standing in the room with you, and looking away would almost be… rude.

Well, rude to the wife and husband, maybe. In the case of the girl, it was like averting your eyes from a big cat tensed to pounce.

And from the boy, like you were looking away from someone… trapped, almost. Unable to meet their eyes because you were just as unable to help.

A feeling - a feathery light something, just on the edge of substance - crept down the back of your neck.

Like there were eyes on you, as well.

Shivering, you whipped around to scan the vast room, but saw only older photographs on the walls staring back at you, or important-looking busts of stone (or well-crafted plaster imitation) gazing back from shelves full of large leather(-looking?) bound books and other living room conversation pieces.

There was no one looking back at you now.

Or at least, no one you could see.

You looked down at the blueprint scan again before pulling your well-creased print copy of the listing out of your pocket, scanning it quickly even though you must’ve read the damn thing a thousand times by now. You didn’t know why; it wasn’t like you didn’t have it saved in triplicate on your phone and your laptop. But it had become a weird sort of talisman for you: a reminder that serendipity was real. That opportunity could land right in your lap, if you were brave enough to seize it and keep it.

Your eyes combed the print, and sure enough, you’d been right. Nowhere in the ad copy did it mention the house came furnished. Yet as you looked around, everything was perfectly staged.

Some of that could be the real estate agency, sure. But these were… nice things. Like, really nice. “Antique” in the good way, worth something substantial. Way outside of the budget you had been planning after you’d finished the cost of renovations, that was for damn sure.

What had happened that these people just… left everything here, untouched?

Had they chosen to not take anything, unwilling to bring any memories of this place wherever they went?

Or had they been chased out?

And if so… by what?

“…Bright side,” you muttered, trying not to spook yourself. “Keep looking on the bright side.”

You finally turned your back on the portrait to take in the rest of the room. Whoever cared for the House before must have done so with great attention to detail — you knelt next to the couch, examining the way that the carved wooden legs had seemed to resist the dust and rot that had crept into the edges of the room, despite the work of hired cleaners. The whole set looked salvageable; it would be a huge Get if you were able to keep them for your own clientele. It looked much more professional than having to dumpster dive and source semi-matching pieces from flea markets and internet ads.

As you stood up and looked around the parlor, you tried to picture yourself having consultations grouped around the little coffee table. Maybe with a vase of lilies in the center? Unless lilies were too expected. But at least some kind of flower, something so maybe the House didn’t feel quite as gloomy as the occasion that it was built for. Perhaps changing the curtains to something lighter still…

Your planning was interrupted by scratching from a room over.

Turning to follow the sound, you found yourself squinting at the border of the afternoon sunlight, where the room fell back into shadow.

There was a set of dark double doors discretely set into the carved wood paneling on the other side of the room, just far enough back that you’d missed them coming in the front door. Your first thought, upon seeing them, was relief that they already seemed to be ADA-compliant for wheelchair users. One more thing off your To-Do list.

Your second thought was wondering just what could be behind them.

Standing there, you stalled briefly, wondering if you should call in Bev from the porch for backup. But she’d been hard enough to get to the House itself, and getting her inside seemed to be an impossible errand.

Whatever stray critter had made a nest in there, you’d have to face alone.

You swallowed, reaching into your bag for your maglite - the big-ass, heavy flashlight that had been a gift from your well-meaning but slightly paranoid folks upon moving out on your own. Along with being bright enough to be seen from space (or so it felt to you) with a strobe mode for getting attention during emergencies, it was also hefty, made of cold metal where it wasn’t thick, slip-proof ergonomic rubber.

Meaning if your uninvited visitor had some troubling foam around their mouth, it was a decent way to… forcibly re-negotiate your personal bubble, if need be.

Your free hand rested on the curved doorknob, and for a panicked second, you wondered if there was any chance a gator had found a way up through rotten floorboards. The swamp was a stone’s throw from here, after all, and those suckers could get goddamn huge. You could just see the news story now, the local color piece that would get passed around the Internet as a quaint oddity in the right circles: ‘Abandoned Louisiana Funeral Home Infested by 20-Foot Gator, One Person Chomped at Scene.’

“It’s a possum,” you said firmly to yourself. “It’s just going to be a little old possum with a cute little face, that can’t get rabies because they’re the only marsupial in North America. You’ll just be an adult and call animal control. It’ll be fine.”

Talking sense to yourself would have worked if whatever was on the other side didn’t start scrabbling even faster, as if frantic at the mere sound of your voice.

You let go of the doorknob immediately, backing away even though it sounded like it was coming from the far side of the room. Briefly, you debated just calling animal control now and letting them open the door for you. Just in case.

But that wouldn’t be a very good way to ingratiate yourself with a town as small as this — you couldn’t see yourself being considered a reliable funeral director if you were also the person who called emergency services for, like, some baby raccoons. Or rats. Or baby rats.

(…To your credit, this sounded bigger than either of those things, but still.)

No, you were just going to have to be brave about this.

“Okay,” you called softly, talking to god knew what. You weren’t expecting them to talk back, but it still seemed only fair to give them some sort of warning. “I’m coming in now.”

You turned the knob slowly, giving the both of you some precious extra seconds to brace yourselves…

Before finally flinging open the righthand door.

The room was pitch black, and you swiped your flashlight quickly around, looking for the source of the noise before it could lunge or shriek or skitter away —

But only silence and stillness awaited you.

You frowned and stepped cautiously further inside, your footfall clicking slightly on the hardwood floor. You’d heard something. You knew you had.

But the only thing you could see were rows and rows of chairs, their backs standing straight together like neat little tombstones. Your light bounced off each of them in turn as you scanned the room, trying to figure out exactly how big it was and what on earth it could be for.

The bier at the front and center of the room was the last thing illuminated, as if revealing itself to you, and you rolled your eyes at yourself. Of course there was a viewing room in the House. (Well, there was room to quibble on terminology. There’d been a push to call it a ‘slumber room’ for a while, but you felt more comfortable just calling it what it was. No one ever slept in one, unless they were real tired or real weird.)

But still, how could there not be one whatever it was called, if this home had been hosting wakes and services almost since it was built? The sheer number of people who must have had their last day above ground in this room, laid right there in serene repose in their casket —

Well, hmm. Maybe not the best mental path to meander down right now, even for you.

You turned your light around the room more casually now, trying to picture it with working electricity and full of people. It was pretty decently sized, with the same dark paneling as the wall outside, and two tall windows muffled by heavy curtains on either side of the dais. The light in here would be decent, even actually pretty, if it was facing the direction you thought it was—

A bulky shape in the corner made you jump again, and you squeaked even as it reflected back to you from a lacquered black surface.

“…Piano,” you managed, choking a little both from fear and from the dust stirring around you. “Just a goddamn piano.”

Not a small one by any means, also old and apparently well-cared for in its day - like everything else you’d seen in the House so far. You treaded carefully towards that side of the room, checking the floor and between chair legs as you passed each row to make sure there were no hidden visitors after all. The last thing you needed was to end up in the hospital the next town over for a rabies shot series before you’d even bought the place. You couldn’t imagine that would contribute much to your image as a professional, either.

Then again, you thought as you inspected the piano up close, maybe you were being a little hard on these Greymoon folks. Maybe they weren’t as judgmental as you had already secretly decided they were. It would take you a little while to get to know them, just as they would need to get to know you. And besides, you really were going to be new at this. Surely they would be reasonably cut you some slack, especially if the place you were buying already seemed to have… kind of a reputation, if various faces and Bev’s behavior were anything to go by?

You mulled this over, checking the wood for any signs of wear or age, then examined the seat to make sure no critters had burrowed into the cushion for a nest. Weirdly, not only did the piano look almost polished, the seat itself seemed relatively free of dust or wear.

“Gonna have to ask Bev for that cleaning crew’s number,” you muttered, impressed. If parts of this place still looked this good after nineteen years unused, you wondered what miracles they could manage with weekly cleanings of a functioning home. Not to mention, now you’d be able to hire someone for live music at your services, instead of having to pipe everything in over speakers —

The way your light reflected off the piano keys gave you pause.

You couldn’t put your finger on why, at first, staring at the way they seemed to glow at you from the dark. The wooden fallboard being up wouldn’t have surprised you if it didn’t also seem to be… weirdly shiny, almost. Definitely moreso than the rest of the furniture in the room. But how, when this place had been empty for so long?

Your brain processed it before you did, and noted it almost passively: There’s no dust on any of it.

You ignored this voice, leaning forward to look again. There had to be dust. Even if there was a cleaning crew in here every couple of weeks, there should still be some traces of dust simply from sitting in a House this fucking old. Things didn’t just sit and not gather dust, especially when there was no one in here on a daily basis.

When no one had lived here for decades.

But the keys continued to glint back at you, looking as though they’d been touched that very morning. As though you’d even interrupted someone playing when you’d arrived.

You rolled your eyes at how determined you seemed to be to scare yourself, turning to head to the next room that needed examined, until the face made you stop dead in your tracks.

It was a little face, sitting on the music shelf. It was attached to a man made of cloth - a doll, almost.

You stepped closer, both vaguely unnerved and intrigued.

The little guy made of cloth had a cheerful expression, a roughly embroidered smile with wide eyes behind thick black glasses. Brown hair slightly obscured the glasses and the eyes, and the body seemed to be clothed in scrap fabrics from a tailor’s floor - it looked like actual material from a suit had been filched to make the pants, vest, dress shirt, and tie.

He looked so strange in the context of things, it was almost tragi-comical: a blithely smiling little face left in a room that had borne witness to so much sadness. Was he an abandoned toy, left here by some grieving child? A homemade grave offering that had somehow fallen out of the casket during transport? How many goodbyes had the little eyes made of thread seen play out in front of him?

As much as the logical part of you was alarmed by the sight of it here so unexpectedly, your sentimental side couldn’t help but feel a little bad for him, all alone in this big dark room by himself.

You reached out a hand without realizing it, set to pick him up, until you forced yourself to stop.

What were you doing? This wasn’t yours. You hadn’t bought this place, you had no right to any of the things in it.

But he just looked so lonely, you countered to yourself. What was he going to do anyway, just sit here forever, being politely ignored by the cleaning crew? What about if someone else bought it? Would he be thrown away, left to smile forever in some trash heap?

But you didn’t know where he’d been all this time. What if he had little gnats or fleas living inside him by now?

Nothing a little cleaning and a TLC couldn’t fix, though; you’d rescued a fair amount of grody thrift store finds in your mortuary school days. With some scrubbing and some new stitches, he’d be adorable. Like a little funerary mascot, in a way.

“Fuck, can I please stop being weird for once,” you whispered to yourself, your hand falling limply to your side. You had a job to do, goddamn it. This place could be your one chance at establishing a real future for yourself without going into more debt; you didn’t have time to be making a pro/con list about some abandoned scrap doll.

But your fingers flexed as you stared at him, still hesitating.

“…Look,” you said at last, talking to a thing that definitely could not consciously process speech. “If I think this place will work out, I’ll come get you after I sign the paperwork, okay? I’ll give you a good wash and put you somewhere less depressing.”

You started to walk away, then paused again, feeling like you had in the parlor with the family portrait.

Like something was watching you intently.

“…If I don’t buy the place,” you added, under your breath and over your shoulder. “You can always just, like, fall into my bag or something.” You shrugged. “My shitty apartment has sunlight, at least.”

For a moment, you lingered like you actually expected the little thing to answer you.

When you realized this, you hid your face in your palm, embarrassed on your own behalf. “Oh, fuck me, I’m losing my shit and I haven’t even started work yet,” you mumbled.

Rolling your shoulders, you hastily stalked back towards the doorway, wondering if there was a small gas leak in a nearby room somewhere that was making you imagine these things. You’d have to make sure you the whole place inspected top to bottom before you opened, that was for damn sure.

You were so caught up in your own thoughts, you forgot you hadn’t actually identified the source of the scratching sounds.

—

Later, when forced to consider the exact circumstances that would lead you to your fate, you would be forced to admit to yourself that you had kind of skimmed this first inspection of the rest of the House.

In your defense, you were mostly concerned with the parts that could prevent your future funeral home from functioning if they weren’t restorable. There was no point sinking so much of your savings into something that would just end up being a bottomless, money-hungry pit due to repair costs.

So yeah, when you went up the stairs to check things out, your mind was already on the embalming room in the basement. But you weren’t super worried about what was up there, anyway. There was no way you were going to use all of these rooms for just yourself.

They were mostly bedrooms, but none really seemed to speak to any sort of unifying aesthetic. One room with a balcony that overlooked the back property was furnished all in white, from the plush rug, to the vanity chair, to the bedspread, to the heavy old-fashioned canopy curtains that shaded the bed in its own pool of darkness. For reasons inexplicable to you - maybe it was the hush of the footsteps, or the natural chill of no sunlight - it reminded you of a sick person’s room. Like someone would only be in here if they were never coming out. It smelled, oddly, like dried roses — it was so strong, you caught yourself looking around, wondering if a vase had been left in here to putrefy in years of summer heat.

What you found instead was a surprising gash in the wall to the left of the bed, perilously close to the full-length window doors. It was horizontally long, and oddly thin, like whatever had been flung wasn’t actually that large. Still. You ran your fingers curiously over the violent notch, finding the plaster had given way almost entirely.

Whatever had caused this, for being as dimensionally small as it was, would have to have been thrown into the wall with immense force.

In a rage, for instance, or out of soul-crushing frustration.

“…I can patch that,” you muttered, trying to ignore the return of the creeping feeling down your neck. You nodded, rubbing the hole with your thumb thoughtfully as though it could possibly buff out. “Cover over that no problem. Hell, maybe I’ll make it a, um…” You frowned, trying to figure out what else a funeral home could possibly need. “A grieving room.” Some people down in these parts were twitchy about crying in front of others. You had plenty of family members who were a great example of the phenomenon.

But it also just felt like a room that was fit for crying in, for reasons yet again inexplicable.

You tried not to leave the room too quickly, the feeling of intruding in someone’s space once again matting itself like moss over your skin.

You missed the figure in the mirror watching you go.

Another bedroom was an odd, contrasting companion to the first: this one was painted a soft, rosy pink, but you could barely tell under all the papers taped hastily onto the walls, as if someone was desperately trying to cover it up. The room was a mess, but there was too much dust everywhere for it to feel like someone had only recently stepped out.

There was so much dust, actually, it felt like it clung to the soles of your shoes, causing you to pick your feet up with a shudder. Hadn’t Bev sworn they paid a cleaning crew to come through here regularly? Were they only obligated to clean up the first floor? You had sworn the white room hadn’t been this bad…

You blazed a trail through the dust, trying to figure out what set this room apart. There were clothes strewn over every surface, it seemed like, at least a few decades old. Though they were oddly mostly white, with some smatterings of green and black, a part of you felt like you were looking at a wardrobe spread from one of those high school dramas that came on when you were little. You remembered watching them with older girls in your family who were supposed to be babysitting you after school or on weekends, learning a bit too much too quick about how badly sex ed was failing teenagers from the soapy plots and love triangles. You remembered thinking the girls always looked pretty, but by the time you were old enough to wear any of the clothes you saw onscreen, they were out of date — plus, you had your own presentation issues to work out at the time.

Again, you wondered what had happened to make the previous occupants leave everything behind. It was like whatever girl had lived here had walked out of the room and never walked back in again.

You also wondered if you were an awful person for speculating how well some of it would sell on Depop. Vintage was in again, after all.

Walking closer to the walls, your eyes scanned the strange pages carefully, trying to figure out just what the wide sheets of yellowed paper were…

And realized you were looking at an anatomical drawing of the parts of a cat, as laid out during a dissection.

Backing up a step, and not for the first time in this House, your eyes combed the rest of the drawings. To your fascination and mild nausea, all of them seemed to be the same painstakingly detailed diagrams of local fauna - chipmunks, squirrels, doves, lizards - all in the same careful hand with precise linework. You couldn’t help but admire them a little; your own such diagrams in mortuary school had always looked far more clumsy, even when you’d been oh-so-careful with your scalpel.

These must have all taken hours, based on how skillfully they were done. Multiplying them by just how many were on the walls, you wondered if the girl who lived here had been dissecting little animals endlessly, from dawn until well after dusk.

Her bedspread was also pink and frilly, delicate, though you noticed rough edges where she’d been trying to pull the frills off with a seam-ripper. On the shelves surrounding her bed in its little nook, there were tons of large, ominous looking books, ranging from ones you recognized like Gray’s Anatomy to and classic novels to embalming texts that were considered antique and niche even in your school’s library.

And yet, on the shelf above the bed itself, you still saw some well-loved plushies, and a doll with mussed hair that spoke of countless adventures.

…And also, one taxidermy mouse that appeared to be wearing sequins and nipple pasties like a burlesque performer.

Whoever she had been, the contrast between her and her bedroom spoke volumes, even now.

Your mind returned to the angry-looking girl in the portrait downstairs, and you couldn’t help but nod to yourself. “Makes sense,” you whispered.

It also explained why the cleaning crew didn’t seem to frequent here as much. If the diagrams had been a surprise to you, who worked with dead people, you imagined they were deeply uncomfortable to people who stayed solely within the realm of the living.

There was a bathroom that adjoined this room, small and simple in its white porcelain tile. It was immaculate, too, as if the aforementioned crew paid extra attention to this room to make up for avoiding the girl’s room next door. You were a little relieved to see there weren’t as many traces of the previous residents here — any grooming products seemed to have been carefully cleared away, as if in anticipation of a visitor. Maybe some things were a little too intimate to leave staged, you guessed. Especially if the House is already a source of gossip.

As you turned to go, you paused, noting what appeared to be a thin white ring of something grainy around the edges of the room. You’d only just missed disturbing it with your foot as you’d walked in. Maybe it was pest poison? Something to keep curious critters away? You’d lived places where people fended off scorpions with lavender, after all. You handwaved it — it wasn’t your problem yet.

When you tried to open the door to the next bedroom, though, you found it locked from the inside.

You blinked, puzzled. That was… weird, even for here. You couldn’t imagine what would need to be locked in here that hadn’t required a lock on the girl’s room. Even though the cleaners didn’t go in there, they still obviously could.

So what was different here?

You walked back into the bathroom again - careful to avoid stepping in the coarse border, whatever it was - and tried the door that connected there as well. Again, it was also locked from the inside.

Letting go of the doorknob abruptly, an irrational part of you wondered if you were disturbing whoever was in there.

For a moment, you actually listened for impatient footsteps marching towards you.

…And then you remembered where you were, and how long it had been since anyone lived here, and shook your head.

“Bev has keys,” you said dismissively, leaving the bathroom once again. This also wasn’t your problem yet, after all.

But you still stepped over the ring of whatever the white stuff was.

The last bedroom on the floor was unlocked, and still had stickers on the door. You counted bands you recognized from the mid-eighties to early nineties, including a vintage Selena one placed with apparent love at an eye level slightly higher than yours.

Walking in, you didn’t think anything about the paint, because every available inch of the walls was covered in photographs.

It gave you pause for a minute, overwhelming you slightly just as the anatomical diagrams had in the last room. They were in every format available back then, some of them obviously altered, some of them clearly fading with time in their untouched state.

You walked closer, picking out a few of the faces instantly - you recognized the boy and girl from the family portrait downstairs, looking much more lively here than they did there. Their mother, whenever she appeared, seemed to command a stiffness in the room - everyone was clearly posing when she was around, locked in place rather than living a genuine moment.Their father was also in a few of the photos, always sitting or leaning off to the side, as if he was above most of what was happening in the room.

When you first saw his double in a photo, you wondered if maybe it was some kind of weird exposure trick… until you realized there was indeed another man almost identical to him. It wasn’t hard to tell them apart after a few photos: his hair long and soft around his face rather than slicked back, and only ever seemed to go back in a ponytail on a rare occasion. His face was similarly softer, with deeper laugh lines. Where Vincent’s face seemed to perpetually scowl or sneer, the other man’s seemed like it was impossible for him to do so.

Especially when he was looking at a beautiful woman with long, warm brown hair, seemingly always dressed in dark blouses and dresses that gave you serious Stevie Nicks vibes, with eyes that were so deep and galaxy-holding black that you thought you’d fall into them. She could’ve been a model, or someone’s muse, but she held herself so much less stiffly than the first woman. Like she actually liked being alive.

The photographer seemed to have almost as many photos of these two as he did of the twins from downstairs, and they were almost always gazing at one another, or in the midst of laughter, or caught in a dance. When they were actually looking at the camera, you couldn’t help but notice the way latent pride set at the corners of their mouths, or in the way their eyes crinkled in a smile.

You were so busy following the photos along the wall, you about tripped over something draped in a sheet leaned up against an empty desk.

You caught yourself before you crashed down onto the rug (still less dusty than the one in the girl’s room), and looked around for a moment before you remembered you were supposed to be up here alone.

With a tired sigh, you grabbed the sheet, pulling it carefully off what turned out to be a matching frame to the one downstairs —

Where a second family stood around the same chair as the people in the parlor.

The beautiful woman with the dark eyes was the one seated, her chin coyly leaning in her palm as she smiled knowingly at the camera. Behind her, the man with long hair was wearing a mirror of the first brother’s suit, although it seemed less harshly tailored in the way it hung on him. One of his hands rested adoringly on her shoulder, while the other clapped the shoulder of a teenage boy you hadn’t seen yet.

He was slightly older than the twins downstairs, with his mother’s dark hair and eyes, and a softness to his features you recognized as his father’s. Rather than being dressed in a matching suit, he was in a dark purple dress shirt, the sleeves rolled up around his elbows. Around his neck was a medallion of some sort that you couldn’t quite make out, but was seemingly simple in its metalwork.

His hand was lovingly placed on his mother’s other shoulder, completing the connection between the three.

You stared, tilting your head slightly to the side as if that would help you understand better.

It was understandable why this portrait wasn’t hung next to the other one downstairs: compared to this family, the first family looked like they were all on strings pulled taut to the point of snapping.

Despite having never met them, you were willing to bet the first man wasn’t about to be shown up by his brother’s family looking like they actually loved each other. He seemed like the type.

But something else caught your eye, too — a fourth figure, looming just beyond the family in a background doorway.

You leaned closer, frowning. Why was this one so hard to make out, if the lighting was the same in both pictures? It looked almost… opaque, somehow. Like it had been entirely engulfed in its own shadow. Like the features had been blurred away in the exposure.

If it had any features to begin with, something in you pointed out.

You stepped back, not super sure where this thought had come from and not thrilled by it, either.

Looking away (for some lighter distraction), your eyes roamed over the other photos again. It was easier to pick people out, now, and you could even spot some photos where the photographer had let himself be captured—

Until you also spotted shadowy figures in photos you hadn’t noticed before.

Some were looming behind the teens, usually whenever the photographer was also in the photo.

Some were in photos that you had originally thought were still-life, revealing themselves usually in a space where you wouldn’t expect them.

When you started seeing photos of the viewing room, set up for different services, you turned back towards the door. Whatever else was in here, you’d seen enough.

You shut the door behind you as if to keep something contained there.

A final room seemed to take up most of the space of the floor, big and airy, with high windows for catching the light outside. It was huge, behind two sliding wood doors, but when you looked inside, you didn’t bother cataloguing everything you saw on different work benches and tables and such.

If anything, you were almost trying to convince yourself it was empty.

A quick run up the second set of stairs led you to some linen closets, another bathroom that seemed… fine, mostly, save for some weird feeling you couldn’t put your finger on, and an attic hatch at the end of the hallway you couldn’t be fucking bothered with right now.

When you found the master bedroom, you opened it long enough to look around and make sure it actually had been cleaned.

“Cool,” you said to no one, thankful for a seemingly ordinary staged bedroom with no defining oddities. “I’ll sleep here, I guess.”

And with that, you nearly slammed the door, running all the way back down to the safety of the first floor.

—

After a quick peek through the screen door to make sure Bev hadn’t drove off and left you (she hadn’t), you walked to the family room back off the parlor, separated by another set of doors.

This had also clearly been cleaned and staged, throw blankets neatly folded over the couch and loveseat, pillows puffed probably just this morning in the arm chair.

Peeking into the kitchen, you got a similarly pleasant, ordinary vibe. While you could see there was more counter space here than most - probably to hold any food the families had catered for their wakes and such - it still seemed almost entirely separate from the rest of the House, the sun pleasant in the windows that looked out over the—

Cemetery. The next door cemetery.

Okay, so it wasn’t completely separate from the House. But at least it was like, comfortable. Chill. You could imagine yourself unwinding in here after a long day with some food, reading a book in the fading sunlight with a glass of wine. The porch just outside looked pleasant too, provided it didn’t have any looming hornets’ nests you couldn’t see yet.

Turning to the back of the kitchen, you saw one door that led outside to the enlarged pavement for transport — handy, you figured, especially when you came home with groceries.

Aside from all the bodies that needed to come and go, of course.

Immediately adjacent to that was another door. The door you’d likely been thinking about this whole time, behind which was the room that would make or break your entire trek to this tiny town near the bayou.

Just wanting to get it over with at this point - if it wasn’t for you, you were ready to get out of here - you near-marched over to it, twisting the knob and opening it to pure darkness all in one fluid movement.

The downstairs chill was palpable. More than palpable — it set your skin off in goosebumps instantly, as if to spite another growing crescendo of cicadas outside.

You were an adult. You were an adult about to make a serious financial decision. You could brave a basement in a decidedly spooky House.

You had to do this, for the good of yourself, and future you, and any kind of good life you ever hoped to have.

Taking a deep breath and flicking your maglite back on, you descended before you could think too much more about it.

—

In an inversion that would have been unexpected for anyone who wasn’t you, the prep room felt the most familiar to you of anywhere in the House. Even in the dark.

But as your light moved over the gleaming surfaces, a weird peace settled over you. This was what you knew. This was what you were here for.

You fought to suppress the thrill that passed through you as the stainless steel flashed back from the depths of the room, refusing to believe it wasn’t a trick of the gloom until you were right next to the equipment yourself.

It was perfect. It was all perfect.

For being unused for nineteen years, it looked like someone could have walked in yesterday and had everything in the room singing. There was a miraculous lack of rust or grime anywhere your light brushed, and while the room was a tad musty, there was none of the disastrous miasma of rot and ruin that you’d anticipated. Hell, even the tile floor gleamed back at you from the dark, and your footsteps echoed without the muffling of dust. Even the embalming machine, admittedly a bit old-fashioned now, looked perfectly clear where it sat like it was ready for a fresh batch of fluid.

You really, really needed to get the number for the real estate agency’s cleaning crew, you thought to yourself, sweeping your light around further and finding nary a cobweb in any of the corners. This was unreal. It was like someone had scrubbed it down sparkling just the other day, mop and all.

For the first time in your self-guided tour, you felt yourself grinning from ear to ear.

You could afford and own your own funeral home. You wouldn’t go into crazy debt trying to rehabilitate the place, and you could move out on your own to start your own business. Hell, at the asking price, you could afford more than just the Frigid embalming machine you’d been wanting. You might even be able to redo the whole viewing room just for the sake of aesthetics.

For the first time in what must have been ages - if ever - laughter bounced off the cold steel as your joy bubbled over, allowing yourself a giddy hop in place at your sheer goddamn good luck. When had anything ever worked out this well for you?

You didn’t see or feel the eyes watching you from behind the crack of the office door.

If you had, you might have noticed how they seemed to gaze without blinking for ages, wide with a perplexed sort of shock.

Or that they seemed to glow red, even in the perfect pitch black of the room.

(It's a little later than I would have liked to have posted, and originally I was planning on having the Realtor's reaction as part of the chapter, but you know what? I'm trying to convince myself that not everything I post has to be over 10k, for whatever weird made-up rule I've set for myself, so this is an exercise in that.

If you've read this far, I hope you have someone who looks at you like a stranger in a basement looks at the Reader!!)

#maxi morvant #maximilian vincent morvant #morvant mortuary #southern slasher oc #slasher oc #necromancer oc #slasher oc x reader #maxi morvant x reader #maxi morvant x you #non-binary reader #genderqueer reader #mortician reader #the boy au #monsterkisser fics #rora isn't in this yet but it's part of the twins' birthday celebration <3 #animal death mention tw #cat death mention tw #ask to tag

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morvantmortuary · 10 months

Text

if I die young —

(Maxi Morvant x genderqueer!non-binary!Reader)

summary: what’s supposed to be a fun little in-joke between you and your boyfriend turns out to be a whole lot of something else.

warnings: brief discussion of past suicidal ideation on both your parts, some mild angst, semi-songfic to cheesy pop music.

general: ‘rae isn’t it like 3 am your time’ I know I know but listen. like!!! I didn’t even mean for this to occur, I just happened to see this on spotify and thought “oh lol I remember I gave Maxi like an irrational hatred of the original song, this is gonna be hilarious”

and then suddenly I’m hormonal and sobbing on my cat and thinking about how happy I am my high school self didn’t go through with it and how I wish I could tell them everything wonderful about right now, bc I love my life more than I ever have and all of the people here I’m lucky enough to have in it, but I can’t, so I wrote this instead okay?

okay! one full serving of schmaltz, here we go

You were moving so fast through the living room and the kitchen that you almost didn’t feel the familiar little bids for your attention all around you - the whispered pleas, the feeling of a cold bony finger tracing the back of your bare leg. You shrugged them off, getting halfway down the first set of basement stairs before you stopped just in time.

You scrambled back up a few, hitting the button wired into the wall that would ring the little silver bell in the prep room. This was meant, after too many close calls, to let Maxi (or any other Morvants lurking below) that you needed attention in some fashion. He in turn would let you know if it was safe for you to come down without you accidentally walking in on some poor late guest in a state of mid-embalming -

Or… something worse, as was wont occasionally happen here.

Your feet shuffled on the step as you listened, impatient even as you held your breath to try to hear any low chanting or ominous hissing.

“That you, baby?” Maxi called, his voice very much singular and regular. He sounded further back, possibly in the supply room, possibly in the office.

“Yeah!” you called back. You paused, taking stock of exactly why you were waiting with your phone in your hand. “It’s not urgent, really, if you’re busy, I just wanted to bug you with a… curiosity, I guess.”

“Well, how mysterious.” You watched him lean in at the bottom of the stairs from the embalming room door, sleeves rolled up as he wiped his hands on a dark cloth. “Consider mine piqued.”

“I’m not interrupting?” You nodded at the rag.

He shook his head, his crooked smile appearing. “No one needs attendin’ to yet, this was just cleanin’. I’m all yours.”

“Perfect. Okay, so.” You took the rest of the steps in a flurry while you looked down at your phone, pulling up your music app. “You won’t believe it.”

“You scare me when you do that, you know,” Maxi said idly, gesturing for you to enter the prep room ahead of him. “I don’t mean to sound old, but you could always get down the stairs first and then type—“

“You’re so sexy when you worry about the statistics of household accidents,” you joked, glancing up at him with a wry smile. “Anyway, just hear me out on this one. Are your speakers down here bluetooth?”

He had told you early on about his penchant for listening to music while he embalmed, if he was working with a Guest of Honor that wasn’t feeling too chatty. Apparently, when the two of you had started dating (and he was learning everything about you he could find by scouring your socials), he’d first heard a great deal of your favorites down here in the company of multiple decedents.

“Always a promisin’ start to a conversation,” Maxi said dryly, leaning his lower back against the right embalming table. “And yeah. They should be labeled.”

You scanned the menu that popped up when you tried to sync. “Are they ‘Music for dead people’?”

“Naturally.” His crooked smile grew into a grin.

“…And do they ever get to pick?” You looked up, unable to help a grin of your own creeping across your face at the thought. “Or is it always just you making them listen to your stuff?”

“Hey, sometimes it’s your stuff,” he joked. “And no, for the record, I’ve had some make requests. It’s not uncommon.”

You paused, suddenly immensely curious as to the music taste of the newly dead. “…Okay, so that’s a whole conversation I want to have later,” you said, trying to stay focused. “But the thing I came down here for, also very important: what’s your least favorite song in the world, bar none?”

Maxi’s grin thinned. “You know that. I know you know that.” He looked at you over the rims of his glasses, briefly somewhat owlish. “Dare I ask why you led with such a question?”

“I said you’re going to have to hear me out, didn’t I?” You wiggled your eyebrows to invoke an air of mystery.

“You know, Darlin’, you’re makin’ this a very hard sell, whatever it is,” he said, looking amused nonetheless.

“Get this.” You held up a hand for a dramatic pause. “She wrote a part two.”

Maxi immediately scoffed. “How the hell do you write a part two to ‘If I Die Young’? She was already dead in the first one!” He rolled his eyes to the ceiling. “I swear t’ god, if this means I have to listen a whole new wave of maudlin bullshit every time we get some poor young lady in here—“

“There’s only one way to find out.” You held up your phone, your finger hovering over the play button. “Shall we?”

Maxi paused, then looked you over slowly as he folded his arms across his chest. “Are you tellin’ me you ran all the way down here to make me listen to the continuation of my least favorite song ever with you, for your own sick and twisted amusement?”

“Of course.” You couldn’t help laugh as he fixed you with a playfully judgmental stare. “Who else would I share this masterpiece with for the first time?”

Maxi put a hand to his heart. “Lord, it must be true love.”

“I’m not hearing a ‘no’?” you teased.

He sighed theatrically. “Fine.” He pulled you over so you were leaning next to him against the embalming table, looking over your shoulder at your phone. “Let’s see what new terror the lady hath unleashed upon my poor funeral home.”

“She’s already put it out just under her name, not the whole band,” you said, pointing to the artist info. “I wonder if that means they didn’t like it?”

“There’s some story there, I’m sure,” he said idly. “Anyway. Get it over with.”

“You love me,” you reminded him, grinning as you hit the button.

“I do,” he muttered, over the opening strings.

The two of you held eye contact through the first bars, as if daring each other to be the first person to laugh —

And then as it picked up, something imperceptibly began to shift.

“And Lord I’m glad you didn’t

Pay me no attention

When I sent up a prayer of a child’s premonition —“

You were the first to look away, your face suddenly hot.

This wasn’t… what you expected it to be. At all.

“‘Cause I’ve had time to bloom

Plantin’ them roses instead

and I’m changin’ my tune —“

Your face was hot for reasons you couldn’t quite explain.

After a moment, processing what you were hearing, you caught yourself doing some mental math.

You had been young yourself, when the original song first came out. In what felt like another life, you’d sung along when it was on the radio: sometimes at a party with your friends in the ironic feeling of youthful invincibility, or in your car with a sour cast to the chorus as you headed to a job you thought you’d chosen poorly. Hell, on the really bad nights, you’d let yourself cry along to the sappy little tune when it really did feel like it would be better if you didn’t stick around.

Like the best use of your potential was to die young enough to still pass for pretty, with your whole life still in front of you, so you could be remembered for your everything you could have been -

Rather than everything you would eventually fail to be.

“Now I know that there’s no

Such thing as enough time —“

You were aware of the heat spreading over your eyes in a watery film. You held your breath, doing your best not to show that what you’d thought would be a weird funny thing to jokingly bug your partner with was… actually getting to you?

But suddenly you were too conscious of just how you’d changed between the last song and this one. How you couldn’t remember the last time you’d felt totally, inescapably lost, when you spent so long thinking that was all you’d ever feel.

How you’d fallen in love with someone who wanted to share a life and a death with you after so long alone, and built a home with them you were proud of.

“I’ll pass my name on before it’s on my headstone —“

Cold fingers abruptly intertwined with yours, clutching your hand tightly.

Oh. So it wasn’t just you, then.

You heard the soft tap of Maxi’s finger on your touchscreen before he stood up fully, pulling you with him towards a more open part of the floor.

You hid your face in his waistcoat, trying not to let on just what you were going through on your end, but what you’d thought was a hug turned into more of… something with rocking.

Eventually, when you realized what he was doing, you couldn’t help a watery chuckle.

“I thought we agreed we weren’t the kind to dance,” you mumbled, not quite able to meet his eyes yet. You wanted a bit more of a handle on your composure, first. Or any handle on it at all. “Especially after the Masquerade.”

“Hell, this ain’t dancin’,” Maxi mumbled back, and from the way he kept his lips against your hair, you could tell he was maybe trying to get a grip too. “This is more… swayin’. To a beat. Anyone can do that. We can do that, right?”

You smiled despite yourself. “Sure.”

Stretching up, you wrapped your arms around his neck as he hugged your back, resting your foreheads against one another’s.

For a minute, it was just the cheesy little song on the speakers, and your hearts beating through your chests.

“And I’m so glad I’m here now

Instead of somewhere underground

I think I’ll always wanna stay

I guess it’s too late anyway

to die young —“

You were aware, in the periphery, of the song starting over - meaning Maxi must’ve set it to loop when he reached over to your phone. A soft smirk curled your lips before you realized it, and you instinctively searched for his eyes.

Your chest ached when you found them just as watery as yours, still somehow surprised by this. He managed a wavering fraction of his own smile, rolling his eyes at his tears. “Fine, you got me. You happy?” he joked. “Is this what you wanted? Makin’ me cry in the middle of a work day?”

You laughed, feeling your own tears break the waterline as you did so. “I didn’t mean to, I swear! I thought it was…” You trailed off, your throat trapping your words in the swell of your own feelings.

Maxi pressed his forehead back to yours. “I know.” He reached up with a fingertip, chasing away the tracks down your cheeks. “I know, Darlin’.”

You hugged his neck as hard as you could without hurting him, trying to get the words out.

“…I’m so glad I stayed.” Your voice cracked on the last word, reducing you to a whisper. “I didn’t want to for a long time, when I was younger.” You shook your head without being totally aware of it. “I didn’t think I would make it anywhere close to right now. But I’m so glad I stayed long enough for… all of this.” You gestured around at the prep room, feeling not even a little strange as you did so. “For you. For us.”

“Well, aren’t we a pair?” Maxi’s mouth couldn’t stay steady when he looked at you, so he rested his cheek on top of your head instead. For a long moment, you were lost in his scent, in the warmth of him and the solidity of his embrace before he spoke again.

“I hated who I was for… so long, sugar. What I had to be. I didn’t care if I stuck around. Hell, half the time, I think I was just lookin’ for somethin’ meaner to put me down so hard that it wouldn’t be worth tryin’ to bring me back. Tryin’ to be somethin’, someone… anyone else — it was the hardest thing I ever did. Whatever good I managed, I never thought it was enough. I kept waitin’ for it to all fall apart in front of me.” You felt the faintest trickle of something warm and wet into your hair. “But you make me so glad I tried anyway,” he whispered. “I thank whatever’s listenin’ every day that I didn’t get what I thought I wanted.”

You pushed down hard on the little sob trying to kick its way out of your chest. “I don’t care what you were,” you said, never tiring of repeating this to him. “So long as I get what you are, and what you will be.”

Maxi kissed the top of your head. “You got me,” he said softly. “And you will, always. I can promise you that.”

You leaned up, pressing a kiss to his cheek and coming away with the taste of salt on your lips. “…Well,” you said, managing to get your voice back to mostly normal. “Sorry I kind of came in and, uh, tanked your productive streak.”

Maxi chuckled low in his throat as he kissed your cheek in turn - where you swear you felt the smallest touch of his tongue, the weirdo. “Don’t worry about it, pretty,” he said, smiling as you laughed. “I got all the time in the world for you.”

So for a little more of that time, the two of you just danced.

Neither of you would admit just how much you liked this stupid song. Not for a good long while, anyway.

if you read this far, as always, thank you for humoring me 🖤 everything feels kind of impossible rn and I have family staying over which triples that feeling, so I just needed something soft :’D

if you want to have a listen for yourself, it probably won’t hit as hard as it did for me while I was PMSing in the wee hours, but feel free!

#maxi morvant #maximilian vincent morvant #maxi morvant x reader #maxi morvant x you #slasher oc #slasher oc x you #slasher oc x reader #southern slasher oc #necromancer oc #mortician oc #morvant mortuary #genderqueer reader #non-binary reader #plus size reader #fat reader #daniel brühl fc #monsterkisser fics #scheduling this for sane people hours instead of posting it right tf now #forgive the spacing if it’s weird; I’m working in mobile rn

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morvantmortuary · 10 months

Text

decompression -

(Maxi Morvant x non-binary/genderqueer!plus size!Reader.)

summary: you and Maxi, after a long day, imagine a comfortable future for yourselves.

warnings: discussions of a migraine, brief allusion to chest dysphoria. minor necromancy-related angst. casual discussion of top surgery and also the embalming process (not related), allusions of homophobia while living in the South, Queer people joking around about the stereotypes one experiences when being Out Down Here. one-off sugar daddy joke.

general: idk, I started writing this to take a much darker/smuttier direction (that’s still coming later don’t worry about it), but between feeling gross the last week or so, feeling anxious about my upcoming semester, and my gran having a brief unexpected hospital visit, this just turned into something light and fluffy and self-indulgent lmao. This is pretty specific about some of the things I’m thinking about lately, but I hope other people can find some comfort in it too.

anyway! here’s this, I hope it’s a quiet little reprieve in your day 🖤

Another afternoon curled in the cool sheets of your bed, your head pressed into the depths of your pillows and praying the pain meds would kick in sooner rather than later.

It wasn’t the worst day for a migraine, to tell you the truth. A summer thunderstorm lashed your window, and with your room lit only by the lights strung above you at the edge of your ceiling’s crown molding, it was actually kind of… nice, even. With your fans whirring continuously in the background, your room actually made for quite a cool, comfortable little tomb.

Still. As yet another clap of thunder rolled over your little house, you couldn’t help but open an eye to squint at your phone. It was getting late in the afternoon, and you’d peeked at your and Maxi’s synced calendar on your phone that morning when he’d left, after he’d finally kissed you goodbye when you reassured him there wasn’t anything else he could do besides bring you your meds and some toast (and only because he insisted on doing so). You knew that while he’d had a busy day at the mortuary ahead of him, he’d been supposed to close the office about an hour ago. Provided he hadn’t had to load a new pick-up into the prep room, he’d hopefully—

All at once, as the hair on the back of your neck slowly all stood on end, you became abruptly aware that something in your room had… changed. You couldn’t put your finger on it; it wasn’t the weather, you thought, or the air conditioning kicking on, but something in your space was definitely different.

Something, heralded by sudden, pressing silence, had joined you.

You kept yourself still, trying not to give away the fact that you knew to whatever was looming nearby. As minimally as you could manage, you began to turn your head, trying to get whatever was over your shoulder into the corner of your eye so you could actually see it…

A crack of lightning outside would’ve already made you jump, even if it hadn’t illuminated the figure bending over to look at you.

“Oh, fuck.” You squeezed your eyes shut for a second as you smothered the urge to sit upright and throw a punch. “There you are, Maxi.” You laughed a little at yourself, embarrassed. This was hardly the first time he’d snuck to the end of your bed with supernaturally soft steps - were you ever going to get used to that?

You rolled over so you were staring up into his face, unable to help a smile even as you winced. “I was just wondering when you were going to get back.”

Maxi returned your smile, but you could still see the way his eyes were a little darker than normal, not quite matching the rest of his face yet. They looked just a little puffy besides, his usual bags beneath them deeper to match. “Hi, pretty,” he greeted you, still fairly subdued.

You closed your eyes as he kissed your forehead, his hand resting next to yours on the mattress. “You feelin’ any better?”

“Bleh, but an average amount of bleh,” you said quietly, scanning his lean frame as he bent towards you. “Could be better, could be worse.”

“Mm. Well, that’s better than nothin’,” he said. He smelled shower clean, with just a lingering trace of embalming fluid under that. He’d already ditched his work clothes back at the house, you could see — he was just in one of the million death pun t-shirts you’d given him since the two of you got together, and black sweatpants.

It was the sweatpants in particular that gave you pause: you could just spot the faded logo of Greymoon community college on the leg, chipped and distressed after so long since Maxi had gotten the necessary degree to take his licensing exam, with a hole blooming in the left knee where he sometimes picked at a loose thread.

You knew those sweatpants. Those were a bad sign.

You met his eyes again immediately, and you could see where he was following your gaze, obviously looking for what you saw.

“…You have a hard day, baby?” You were nervous, sometimes, asking. Your own folks had a tendency to snap when they’d had a long one, and while Maxi would never do that, you knew his work was just… harder. Heavier. You’d been reading a lot about the rates of burnout and depression in the funeral industry since the two of you had realized the two of you were going to be a permanent thing (being decreed Soulmates by each other but also the Horrors was like that), and you knew it was alarmingly, but not surprisingly, high.

Maxi’s smile slid away, leaving only his exhaustion. “…Yeah, you could say that.”

He sighed, not bothering to hide it from you. He reached up under his glasses to rub his eyes - from tiredness or tears, you couldn’t be totally certain, which troubled you even more. Maxi loved what he did, you knew that. It was that enthusiasm that probably had kept him from converting the Mortuary into anything else when his father finally died.

So the days even that passion wasn’t enough to ward off the sadness of his work just worried you all the more.

You immediately moved over, pulling down the covers over his usual side. “C’mere, babe. Lie down with me.”

“I will,” Maxi said, straightening up and re-adjusting his glasses like nothing had happened. “First things first, though, you hungry? You need another dose?”

“I just re-upped an hour ago, I’m good,” you said softly, sitting up. “And I’m not hungry, but if you are, you can just relax and I’ll—“

“No,” he said, just a little too quickly. You didn’t miss the nanosecond wince and a shudder. “I mean… I’m alright, for now. Maybe later,” he added, though it didn’t sound that convincing. “You lay back down, darlin’, I’m okay.”

“Why don’t you come down here and make me?” you teased, trying to keep the growing concern out of your voice.

Maxi gave you a ghost of a smile, at least. “Well, if you insist.”

He shrugged off his t-shirt and his let his sweatpants drop to your carpet — he had the distinction of being your first boyfriend to also have a thing about ‘outside clothes’ under sheets, just one more sweet mirror to your own neurosis.

But when he finally joined you on your mattress, he looked more vulnerable than usual in his skin, and not just due to his damp hair giving him that slight ‘wet cat’ look.

You took each other down, you pulling him to you by his waist, him kissing you as he lowered you gently back to your pillows, mindful of your aching temple.

The two of you stayed like that for a while, wrapping your arms around his back as he kissed you like he’d been afraid you’d dissolve at first contact. You took your time rubbing your palms up and down his spine, trying to press some warmth to his bare skin as he seemed to seek it from your lips, your tongue, your very breath.

For a moment, the two of you broke apart, but you kept your forehead against his and hugged his bare chest to your thin sleep shirt.

“I’m here,” you whispered, not quite conscious of doing so. But you didn’t know what else to say — so much of his touch felt like he was desperate to make sure you were solid. Real.

Maxi hid his face in the crook of your neck, letting himself go slack on top of you as his arms burrowed under your back.

“I know,” he mumbled, his lips against your skin. He sighed again, and you could feel his shoulders shift under your palms. He kissed your cheek silently before hiding his face again.

You laid there in silence, your fingertips tracing lines between the faded scars and the moles on his back. “…You wanna talk about it?”

He shook his head. “Thank you though,” he mumbled, muffled against your neck again.

“Sure.” You reached up to card your fingers through the hair at the nape of his neck, creeping closer and closer to the collars of his shirts lately. “Offer still stands if you change your mind.”

Maxi squeezed around your stomach, and shifted so he could get a better grip to hug you from your side. “…I don’t wanna make you listen to all that,” he mumbled, after a consideration. “It was… a lot. Even for me, after this long.”

“You’d do the same if it was my bad day.” You turned, pressing a kiss to his temple.

“S’different,” he said quietly. He rested his chin on your shoulder closest to him.

“I know.” You leaned your cheek against his hair. “But you don’t have to do this by yourself anymore. That’s, like, our whole thing,” you gestured between the two of you. “We kind of ran the undead gauntlet for it. Y’know. The usual relationship milestones.”

Maxi let out a low exhale of a laugh, and it was warm against your skin, which was a relief you couldn’t quite explain. “We got real into those trust-buildin’ kind of dates for a minute, didn’t we?”

“Exactly.” You kissed his forehead again before you turned in his grasp, moving down your pillow so your eyes were even with his. “So if I can watch your undead reanimated dad figure out how to work his knees again,” you said, moving his hair away from his glasses. “I promise, I want to be able to handle anything else that our life entails. Because it is ours now,” you reminded him, your hand cupping his cheek. “Yours and mine. All of it. We marked each other up and everything.”

Maxi chuckled, and for a second, his eyes were something close to their usual brightness. “You make it sound like I drew on you with sharpie or somethin’.”

“Is that not what happened?” You set your lips in a moue of feigned confusion. “Necromancers don’t get glowing markers? You didn’t start doodling on my wrist one night after I fell asleep?”

“Well, if I did that,” he said, amused. “Then you would’ve had to have been pretty sneaky with yours, considerin’ I had you… occupied, at the time.” He turned just a little pink as he said it.

For the breadth of an inhale, both of you were back in the cemetery again under your tree, a tangle of blood-soaked limbs and ragged, fogged breaths in the October night air.

You came back to yourself a moment later, your breath warm in your throat where you had been holding it. “…I’m just that talented.” You winked, and when he giggled, you felt your own shoulders relax. There; that was progress, even if just a little.

Maxi hummed thoughtfully, and you took the opportunity to snuggle closer in his arms.

“I know you’ll listen if I need you to,” he said, his gaze gentle as he laid next to you on the pillow. “And I love you for it. And I will tell you.” His eyes went briefly distant again, staring over your shoulder and crinkling slightly at the corners. “But even I’m kinda…” He trailed off even further, before he seemed to shake himself out of it.

“…I can’t yet,” he whispered at last. “I just wanna be here with you, and not… there.” His eyes searched yours. “Is that okay?”

“Hundred percent,” you said quietly, leaning forward and kissing the end of his nose. “We don’t have to be anywhere but right here.”

Maxi rested his forehead against yours again, but didn’t entirely relax.

“…Yes?” You couldn’t help but feel like there was a question hanging in the bubble between the two of you. You angled to meet his eyes, which were currently downcast again.

When he met yours again, you saw your instinct confirmed. “…I… Are you…” He paused, clearing his throat. “…Is today an okay chest day?”

You blinked, trying to muffle the laugh that had bubbled up at the abruptness of the phrasing. “I’m sorry?”

“I don’t know how else to ask,” Maxi said, his eyes darting sheepishly between yours and down as his ears pinked even after all this time. “I just wanna hear your heart beat for a while, but I know that’s sensitive, and I don’t— you already don’t feel well, and—“

“Maxi, if you wanna spend some time in marshmallow hell, that’s fine. I’m good with that today.” You felt a grin spread across your face.

He rolled his eyes, feigning irritation even as his blush increased. “You don’t have to call it that,” he mumbled.

“No, I think I do, if only because it makes you make that face,” you teased. You lifted his glasses off his nose for him, earning you a withering stare as you folded them and set them on your nightstand. “Be my guest. Get on in there. God knows I’m not using them for anything important.”

Maxi half-sighed, half-snorted in amusement. “As long as you’re not just keepin’ ‘em on my account, sugar.” He stole a kiss before you could reply. “Far be it from me to impose on my baby’s… desired architecture.”

You made a non-commital sound as Maxi slid down your front, resting his cheek on your chest. “I don’t mind them as much when I’m with you,” you said softly, your hand rising to comb your fingers through his hair. You smiled as you heard him sigh in contentment, nuzzling his ear to where your heart lurked, and for a second you were semi-grateful you’d left your compression top off today. “It’s just when I’m trying to do things by myself that they get in the way.”

Maxi hummed in understanding. “Well, if you ever decide you’ve had enough and want ‘em gone, we can research surgeons together. Find a good one. I’ll take you, whatever state.” He sighed again, deeper as he listened to your heart thrumming reliably away in its home of fat and bone and muscle, and you could feel the tension leaving his shoulders. “You can just stay at the House after, I’ll take care of you while you heal. Hell, maybe I can even make it go faster, who knows.” He popped his neck with a small sound of relief. “Put years of necro-bullshit to good use, at last.”

“That’s… sweet of you to offer, baby.” You muffled a laugh. It was. You’d never had a partner who’d been so utterly fine, even wanting to help, with the possibility of you getting top surgery before. “But someone’s gotta run the Mortuary. And I don’t know my insurance will cooperate, to boot.”

“Hector and Rora can cover for me. They need to start pullin’ their weight, anyway,” Maxi said, flipping a hand airily against your covers. Apparently thinking about the future helped on days like this - you made a note for next time. “And don’t you sweat your insurance, okay? You leave it to me; Hell knows there’s always money in the basement.”

“I hope the IRS is scared of ghosts.” Your smile grew to a grin as you absently braided some longer strands of his hair together. “Otherwise y’all would be busted for tax fraud well before they ever got you for murder.”

“I’ve reported all my earned income every year since I re-opened, I’ll have you know.” Maxi opened one eye to squint up at you pointedly. “But the US Defense Department has more than enough demon money in their coffers already, in my humble opinion.”

“I don’t disagree. I’m just glad you’re not the kind of sugar daddy who insists on buying me bigger tits,” you laughed. “That’d be a real bummer.”

“Excuse me, I am not your sugar daddy!” Maxi sat up abruptly with his jaw slack, looking vaguely scandalized at the thought. “I never— I would never dream of askin’- that’s not at all what I had in mind when—“

“I’m kidding, baby,” you said quickly, planting a kiss at the corner of his mouth to soothe his nervous babbling. “I’m just kidding. You’re not my sugar daddy, I never thought of you that way. I just call you ‘Daddy’ because I want to. Hell, you didn’t tell me you had ill-gotten gains until after October, and by then.” You held up your marked wrist with an accompanying quirk of your lips. “I was already yours, wasn’t I?”

Maxi stared at you for a long moment still, as if checking for the tell of a fib, before he let out a pouty huff and settled back on your chest. “I’m sensitive right now, dammit, don’t scare me like that.” He turned so he was facedown on your chest, squirming with embarrassment. “There’s nothin’ wrong with people makin’ a livin’, but I already feel like a cradle-robber when you have to explain a meme to me.”

You let out something between a belly-shaking cackle and an apologetic coo. “Aw, no, that’s not what I meant at all. I’m sorry, Daddy.” You stroked his hair extra tenderly before kissing the top of his head. “You have my whole heart, you always will. Both our places could burn down tomorrow, and I’d still be happy just to be together while we lived in a haunted cardboard box. Okay?”

Maxi shifted with some faux grumbling, planting his torso between your legs as he hugged your ribs. “Lord, don’t tempt me. Arson’s soundin’ pretty appealing after today.”

Your smile faltered, remembering just why your beloved was so in need of affection. It must’ve been a rough one indeed.

The two of you just lay there in comfortable silence for a bit, reassured by the presence of each other’s warmth (or relative warmth, in Maxi’s case).

“…You know, if you ever wanted to go back to school for something else, Maxi, I’d support you.” You shrugged, thinking about it as you continued to stroke his hair. “People put their spouses through school all the time. We might need to pick a place to move in together, finally pull the trigger on that and figure out a joint budget,” you mused. “But we could make it work out. It would be okay.”

Maxi pressed a long kiss through your thin top to the scar over your heart, the mirror of his own, making you shiver pleasantly. “I know you would,” he said softly. He propped his chin up on his hand so he could look at you, dark eyes adoring. “And I don’t take that at all for granted, sugar. But as much as I might want to, sometimes…” He gave you a small, sad smile. “I really do think I’m meant for… well. This. I dunno what I’d do with myself anywhere else, and besides…” He thought for a moment. “I think what I can do makes the most difference here. Even on days like this one.”

“Okay, then. As long as you’re sure.” Your hand trailed from his hair down his cheek, and you watched his eyes scrunch shut with affection as he leaned into your palm. “But if you ever change your mind, we’ll start looking into, like… Vet programs, I don’t know.” You shrugged as he chuckled. “Or medical school. I can see you making mad money as a plastic surgeon. Hell, if we put you through first, you could just yeet my tits for me when you graduate. It’d be a hell of a great investment.”

“First of all, good god, no,” he said between fits of laughter. “I think all my hair would go stark white the second I tried to put a scalpel to you for somethin’ that serious. And second of all, what happened to me not bein’ your sugar daddy, huh?” He nudged your ribs playfully as you dissolved into giggles again. “Why do I have to go to school for somethin’ that pays the big bucks? What if I wanted to go to — I don’t know, cosmetology school?”

“Oh come on, you’d still be making better money than me with that, easy,” you teased. You leaned forward, staring into his eyes to make him fight to keep a straight face. “What kind of hair would you wanna do, anyway?” You idly reached up to play with his again, impossible to resist when the two of you were hanging out so close together. “Or do you mean going for makeup and stuff?”

“Oh, I see myself with my same stalwart clientele of sweet little old ladies,” he said thoughtfully, which in turn set you off giggling again. “This time, though, I give them all their blue rinses and set their perms while they’re actually alive, and they can catch me up on the hot retirement home gossip without me tryin’ to wire their jaws shut in the process.”

“What, no little old men coming to you for a matching shave? A manly chat about sports while you wax mustaches? Or trim beards? Do… something that involves hot towels?” You gestured vaguely.

Maxi hummed at this, his mouth flattening into a line as he considered. “I don’t know about that, baby, that’s… kinda different, down here. If they didn’t think I was a fruit already… well,” he mused, his smile grim. “Me doin’ their wives’ hair and showin’ off my newly flat-chested spouse might sure give them suspicions. And besides,” he added, eyeing you. “When have I ever known jackshit about sports? I’d try to say one word about football, and they’d know I’m capital-q Queer for sure.”

“I’m pretty sure you have to take a course about sports talk at cosmetology school.” You nodded, trying to keep your face in check as he wheezed with renewed laughter into your shirt. “But wait, would you actually have to go to cosmetology school, though?” You poked his shoulder as this thought occurred to you. “You already do all of that stuff, like, all the time. Would that really be enough of a change?”

“I shouldn’t have to tell you it’s different if they’re dead, pretty,” he said, seeming deeply amused by this. “They’re supposed to be layin’ down flat forever. Or at least, while they’re still in one piece, if it’s a cremation,” he added idly. “Not to mention the makeup is all made for cold skin, so it doesn’t settle and fade like it does on warm. Plus, I’m generally tryin’ to make them look like they did before, which hardly ever means I’m tryin’ anything current. And let’s not even get into havin’ to pack their—“

“Oh god, okay, fair enough,” you said quickly, knowing exactly what he was about to say.

He smirked at you, his point proven.

“…But then does that mean you don’t actually know how to cut hair to be seen from the back?” You couldn’t remember the last time your face had almost ached from smiling, talking to someone about dead people. But this was a regular occurrence with him, in this life the two of you were building, and one you wouldn’t trade for anything. “Have you just been doing things to make people look nice from the front this whole time, and leaving the back for God to judge?” You stared at him in a parody of an interrogating glare as he again fell to pieces laughing. “Do you regularly send people to meet their maker with non-gay mullets, Mr. Morvant?”

“Now you hush with your slanderous tongue, I will have you know I can make anybody look damn good!” Maxi protested, sitting up slightly with a firm finger pointed at you. “…From slightly above and at a three-quarter angle,” he grinned.

You pulled him back down against your chest, playfully pretending to smother him even as you kissed his forehead. “I love you so much, you big nerd.”

Maxi made a sound against your skin that was half-laugh and half sigh, his breath warm through your clothes in a way that melted straight through to your spine. “I love you.” It took him a minute for him to look up again, his eyes like embers with a low gleam of red as his crooked smile returned.

“There’s my baby.” The relief in your voice was palpable as you brushed his hair away from his eyes, feeling his gaze like you really were next to the beginnings of a fire.

Maxi reached for his glasses on your nightstand, fingers fumbling for a moment before he at last found them and could put them back on. As his eyes re-adjusted, seeming to drink you in, the red grew a little brighter.

“…I don’t know how I did this, before,” he said at last, the words on an exhale.

You blinked at him. “What, found your glasses?” You smiled, knowing full well you were deflecting a little bit.

Maxi rolled his eyes at you — then, for your impertinence, mimicked a gator’s death roll to pull you on top of him as he slid between you and your mattress.

Your laughter rang off the walls of your room as for a second, you were lost in a whirl of his pulse and his skin and the smell of his shampoo.

Maxi kept you pinned against his bare chest as you squirmed on top of him, obnoxiously kissing the top of your head. “You know what I mean.” He waited until he was sure you wouldn’t escape his grasp to lean back against your pillows, gazing up at you. His smile was soft again, and again a little sad. “I’d get done with days like today and just be… stuck,” he said, shaking his head. “Anywhere I went, I’d just have to go back to the House eventually. I couldn’t get away from the ugliest parts of what I do; it felt like they’d never be over.”

His eyes shifted to your ceiling, distant again. “It was like I went out lookin’ for an excuse to feel anythin’ else. And when I was still… a monster,” he swallowed thickly. “I just made everythin’ worse. Like I was pickin’ someone else for the darkness in me to eat instead. Even when I’d finished my Chain,” he added quietly. “It wasn’t enough. For a long time.”

You took your turn to kiss the scar over his heart, lingering there as you tried to figure out what to say. You knew he wasn’t looking for you to excuse his actions. Denying who — what he had once been only ever seemed to make it harder for him to talk about.

“You don’t have to be him anymore,” you said, your lips still against his skin.

You sat up slightly when his eyes flicked briefly to you and back to your ceiling, uncertain. “You don’t,” you repeated. “You were, once. I know that doesn’t change.” You tilted your head, waiting for his eyes to meet yours. “But you want to be better. You’re trying to be better,” you said emphatically. “And I’ll do everything I can to help you be that person. Just like you do for me.”

“S’different,” Maxi repeated half-heartedly, his voice small again as he still continued to avert his eyes. “That’s… so different. It’s not equal. It’s not fair to you, to make you deal with all that.”

“Well sure, babe, not everyone’s family made a literal generational deal with demons,” you said with a matter-of-fact shrug. “That’s just where we have to start, though. You’re the one who still made the choice to break the chain. And that’s all you could do, okay?” Your arms burrowed between your bed and his ribs, hugging him tighter. “That’s all either of us can do, every day, is just keep choosing together to keep it broken.” You traced his scar with the tip of your nose, and you felt him flinch just slightly at the contact. “You chose to use what you can still do to make up for it. You wanted to take care of people. And you decide how that works and what that means.”

You leaned up, kissing the end of his nose. “If that means you do this until one day you can’t stand it anymore, and I support you through cosmetology school, and then we open the only openly Queer barbershop-slash-hair salon in the Parish,” you gave an exaggerated shrug as, at last, his laugh broke through like sunlight through a cloudburst. “Then so be it.”

“Oh, so that’s what we’ve landed on for sure, then?” Maxi’s crooked smile returned. “Okay, why not. And what’re you doin’ at this Queer barbershop-slash-hair salon, may I ask?”

“Well, you’re better organized than me, so I’m obviously not in charge of scheduling,” you said, which only made him laugh again. “So maybe I’ll just be your handy-person. Y’know. Sweeping up the floors, sharpening your scissors and your razors, answering the phone while you’re still up to your elbows in little old ladies who want your attention.”

“You think they’ll still come see me?” Maxi relaxed against your pillow again, amused. “Rainbow flags in the windows and everything? I get my ears re-pierced, start wearing eyeliner all the time?”

“Oh, I think they’ll like you even more.” You smiled at the feeling of his laughter moving his stomach against yours, giggling yourself contagiously. “They’ll think themselves very cosmopolitan. Probably start calling you their Gay Friend who’s dating that nice What-Do-You-Call-It.”

“Oh, but you’re my favorite What-Do-You-Call-It,” Maxi purred. He pulled you further up his chest so he could kiss your forehead, then tucked you safely under his chin. “We’ll have to have a day where the little old ladies can get a special discount. We’ll play Liberace and Abba and Cher the whole time, really make ‘em feel young again.”

“Oh man, so I see we’re going for hard camp here.” You settled yourself against him, stretching like a cat as you felt yourself relax. “Are we going to lose all our Spooky cred, do you think?”

“Not if we convert the House,” Maxi said, which tickled you more. “We could make the client parlor our waitin’ room - that wouldn’t take much, honestly. Then we move all the kitchen stuff to where the prep room is now, and install a couple more sinks in the counters for washin’ hair. Could probably fit some barbers’ chairs where the oven and the fridge are.”

“Yeah, because Hex and Rora will love doing meal prep right above the demons in the basement.” You couldn’t help but smile, already picturing their comic levels of outrage.

“Hey, they don’t like it, they can finally move out. Get their own places, the freeloaders,” Maxi faux-grumbled. You knew, as much as the Morvants argued and bickered and bugged each other over everything and nothing, that deep down Maxi would never dream of telling either of his relatives they had to leave. His home was their home, until they felt like finding another, and that just meant everyone’s idea of where home was got a little more spread out.

“…And what’ll the Basement-dwellers think, when there’s no more dead bodies conveniently right above them?” you asked, your tone still light even as the idea prickled at you ominously.

Maxi shrugged, still determinedly laissez-faire. “They better be grateful when I feed ‘em all the hair from the floor, because that’s all they’re gonna get.”

The two of you melted into each other in a last fit of cathartic, helpless laughter, and you could swear your room somehow seemed… lighter.

That even as the storm continued to roll outside, cocooning the two of you in one of many tombs you would likely share over the span of your life together, it was brighter than when it had just been yours alone.

When the last of your nervous giggles died away, the two of you just lay there a while, enjoying being warm and close. Eventually, you resumed what had become one of your favorite ways to kill time when you didn’t feel well: laying against Maxi’s chest as he opened a book on his phone and read aloud.

You would do this until eventually your growling stomachs would compel you both out of your bed, which would in turn lead to yet another spirited mini-debate about who felt like they should cook for whom because they’d had a worse day, before you eventually decided you both felt ‘average bleh’ enough to just order a pizza and be done with it. Which would, in turn, lead to just eating it out of the box to save dishes while the two of you lay on your couch, watching whatever weird B-movie you’d found on streaming, until…

Until, for at least for tonight, another evening in the little life both of you had never thought you’d get to have came to a close.

(I know this was kind of random, but I appreciate anyone who read this far 🥰)

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morvantmortuary · 1 year

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Heyy, I just wanted to ask you this question because it’s been bothering me for a long time. Do you think the Morvants would love still love their reader if they were ugly? I know that ugly is a word that is thrown around a lot but I mean it. Someone who is not conventionally attractive at all, who is not the desired version of plus size. Someone who has a big tummy, big thighs but not a round ass. Someone who is fat not thick. Someone who is not wanted by anyone. Would the Morvants still love them? Someone like me? I’m sorry if this is depressing I just can’t get out of my head and I hate the thought of my comfort people not loving me. Either way thank you for bringing them to life and letting us read about them ❤️❤️

I'm sorry this took me so long, sweetheart -- I've been caught between coordinating ongoing events at work with a whole learning curve, dissertation prep, and then a migraine swept my feet out from under me this morning, so I've just been trying to get my shit back together lmao. but I've been thinking about it since you sent it in. <3 I almost wanted to save this to be part of something I'm going to try to do coming up, (*knocking loudly on wood*), but I didn't want to leave you hanging.

short answer first to alleviate any anxiety: yes, absolutely, 100% without a doubt. once you're their person, you are their person, and nothing will change that -- not aging, or weight shifting, or any of the things that come with having a body and being mortal, okay?

I'll put the rest under a cut, because you got me talking a little on something I'm kind of sensitive about too <3

allow me a quick digression: from a doylist perspective, I'm writing the Morvants as someone who's definitely also on the curved stomach/big thighs/plush upper arms/saggy boobs side of things, along with some really frustrating skin that's prone to breakouts at the drop of a hat and other things about myself that lowkey stress me out on the daily. and we are just as worthy of love and desire and affection as anyone else, I promise you. <3 you do not have to be society's idea of beautiful to be worthy of love, or to be a good person. I'm sure you already know this, but I'm repeating it specifically just so you hear it, okay?

"ugly" is entirely subjective -- I'm also someone who isn't conventionally attractive, shall we say -- but I know we are our own meanest critics. I won't fight you on the word if it's one you've embraced, as I know everyone has a different relationship with it, but I will say I bet you're not giving yourself enough credit, honey. people do not have to be conventionally pretty to be worthy of love or a good life, I cannot emphasize that enough. we both deserve that, and we’re gonna get it, goddammit.

and you know something else? conventionally pretty changes every couple decades, and imho usually kind of sucks anyway. I think of being "ugly" as being memorable, distinct. we will never be duplicated, or in danger of looking like everyone else in our time. we're both a manifestation of history's crooked smiles and crows' feet and noses in interesting shapes. that's the kind of shit artists would want to sketch, baby, that's the fun part of being alive.

and circling back to that shifting standards bit -- I promise you there's a lot more classical statues that look like you and me than a lot of what you see on the image/video-dependent apps nowadays, okay? don't forget that. we've been the models for divinity for centuries now, as hard as it is to remember when the waistband of your jeans leaves a mark behind when you take them off like a regular mortal.

plus, there's the old saying about how your features are actually proof that people have loved people who looked like you for generations now. or the myth that your face was actually the face of the person you loved the most in your last life. on the days I'm feeling exceptionally self-critical, I find that one helps: that I've been left with the stewardship of the face of the person I adored more than anything, who meant so much to me in another lifetime that I might not still remember their name, or the sound of their laugh, but they imprinted onto me still, and I owe it to them to take care of it even if I can't bring myself to do it for me.

('rae you're delusional.' I might be. but here we are at the romantic necromancer blog, so it had to come from somewhere!!)

but anyway, you're not here for all that, you're here for the necromancers, so I'll get to those. thanks for humoring me, though ;3 and I hope it helped at least a little, maybe!

If you remember from the October Arc, a lot of Maxi and his Reader falling in love are them finding someone who feels just as out-of-place in the world as they do. When he meets you, he relishes the idea that he finally has someone he can be completely open with — not having to hide his dark sense of humor for the sake of propriety, someone who won’t think he’s weird or gross for being as fascinated by death and the horrible, beautiful parts of it as he is in his position. (A lot of morticians he knows will quickly say they’re not a morbid weirdo obsessed with death, just a normal person who does a job — he is definitely the aforementioned weirdo they’d like to distance themselves from. Who wouldn’t be, with his upbringing?) When he first falls for you, it’s because he’s realizing that after a lifetime of thinking he could only ever be alone (both due to his powers and his particular grimly sunny disposition), there was finally, really, someone who understood. Someone who doesn’t shy away from him in his more vicious turns, who isn’t going to pull back at the last minute when they see beneath the suit and the calmly professional exterior he shows to the rest of the town. It’s exhilarating. He never wants to lose that, and he’d do anything to keep you — to keep you his, and to keep you whole, healthy, and happy. He’s in love first and foremost with the person he knows to be his literal soulmate, the person he trusts with his heart after so long, and your body is precious to him because it keeps you both on the mortal plane. However you choose to adorn it, ornament it, or whatever designs are written into your genetics, it’s something he’s going to adore. But even outside of that — he would love you in any form you took, any change you decided to make, because it’s you. It’s always going to be you, and you’re his. And if he’s being totally honest, he hand to god has a thing for bigger people. It’s partly due to his specialization with flesh, compared to Rora’s bone and Hex’s ectoplasm, but also because he just finds it really, really attractive when someone has some extra pounds. He’s spent a lifetime around bodies that offered no comfort - be it very little warmth or affection from his living family, the cooling bodies of the mortuary in various states of decay, or the warped, broken horrors of the things still half-alive in the basement. His own body has been a source of stress (being lanky and soft in places at the same time all his life), of pain (growing up is hard enough, growing into a body that shapes itself to the needs of a demon doesn’t help), or of bitterness on his part (we’re going to learn more about why he re-opened the scar on his chest at some point). Your body, for whatever flaws you find with it, is something he associates completely with sweetness. He finds comfort in its shape, the way it moves, the way it feels under his hands. You’re entirely alive; your body works to keep you so. It’s a creature dedicated to keeping you here with him, so how could he not be devoted to it? He’s fascinated by all the parts of yourself you’re most concerned about, because it not only makes you something one of a kind (something he thinks of as his and his alone, in his darker, more possessive moments), but he’s also terribly taken with the softer parts of you. In your more intimate moments, he relishes the contrast between the pair of you - you’re unmistakably there, you take up space and ground him with the reality of your presence. (He gets a little carried away being clingy sometimes: whether it’s his hands over every inch of skin he can touch, squeezing the flesh he so adores, biting a little too eagerly at the softest parts of you where you’ll feel the marks later and remember him. Especially your thighs. He’s a thigh man at heart, always.) You’re always his darling, and he looks forward to watching you grow into your old age with him, however you change. Change means life, and he wants to linger on this side of the Veil with you as long as both of you possibly can stay. Watching you gain wrinkles, go gray, your weight shift around — it’s a privilege, and he treats it as such. You’ll have forever on the other side, he knows that. He’s not worried about that. It’s that the two of you can only do this part once, and he wants to make sure you enjoy it as much as possible. Until both your bones are in the family crypt, or ashes are mingled in the same secret place, he’ll love you and whatever your body looks like.

Hex doesn’t love in half-measures. When he’s into you, he’s all in. As we’ll see in his arc, he can’t always put his finger on what initially draws him to someone. But usually, he saw something in the most interior parts of yourself, your very soul’s essence, first. A glimmer of it caught his eye somehow — its color, its light, some facet of you that’s sewn through the entire fabric of your being. Whatever the sign was, he would follow it until he found you… And when he found you, saw you for the first time, your looks would be a matter of interest, certainly. But he wouldn’t be searching you for any kind of lack. He has no mental version of you to compare the real you with, no expectations. Your body is you, through and through, but what you are only complements what he’s already seen. He’s only looking at you to see the things he already knows he’s going to fall in love with. He sees your body as the backdrop onto which your Self is projected. (He would love Judith Butler if he read them ever lmao.) He’s fascinated with the little ways you manifest in your physicality: your geometry of your teeth, and how they’re arranged in your smile; how light plays on the fullness of your face; the precise way your belly moves when you laugh. The way you dress, walk, what you do with your hands when you talk. The way you move through the world is pageantry to him when it’s instinct to you. It’s something to be savored, because it only happens once. Hex knows what it’s like to be shy about certain things; he’s never been very confident in words alone, because people can say anything, only their actions will speak true. But looks, to him, are part of the factual, real world he can see. (Ironically, he’s one of those guys who very much believes in what he sees in front of him — he can just see way, way more than most people can.) You can make changes, or stay exactly as you are, and he will automatically accept that as part of the truth that is You. He also knows what it’s like to not be the blueprint that everyone else wants to look like, but he feels like there’s no point in stressing about that. Does your body bring you comfort when you sleep next to him, or when you eat the food he makes for you? Do you feel happy and free when you dance together? Do you like it when he touches you (there, and there, and…)? If the answer to all of these is yes, he figures, then why worry when you don’t have to? That’s easier said than done, though, he knows. But he will remind you, in a thousand ways, how he loves you for exactly how you look now. Your shape is the shape you were always going to come into his life with, he sees no reason to think about you in another. Your hair was always going to look that way in the light, your eyes were always going to be that color. Why would he ask one of the ancient oak trees outside to change the arrangement of its branches? Why would he ask the sun to be a different color when it sets? You are just as constant as that, to him. You don’t have to be beautiful by everyone else’s standards to be a force of nature that shapes his days. Whenever you cut your hair or switch your clothes or anything else, it’s just like the golden or blue hours to him — something he counts himself lucky to witness. Of the trio, he’s the ass guy, sure, but that means he’s smitten with what’s there. You are most attractive to him when you’re happy, and he only wants to make you happier when he holds you, and shows you exactly how you make him feel, with his hands or his lips or his tongue or— even, yes, the inconstancy of words. He doesn’t want you to think about how you look when the two of you are together, he only wants you to think about how you feel, and how good he feels with you. But he will do his best, always, to make you understand how much he loves your mortal self and everything it encompasses, until the pair of you cross through the Veil and shed your corporeal forms. (He can kind of do that now, tbh, and he’s more than happy to put it to use in some… very interesting ways if you’d be down with it.)

Rora makes it no secret that she loves that you’re not just another doll in a world that demands them. She has a hard, angry relationship with the idea of beauty standards in that she wishes she could set all phone cameras on fire at the same time. She thinks the modern world is mad for what it did to itself, how people have just made it that much harder for everyone to just exist, and it was already hard enough before she accidentally opened her own throat. She is indeed lovely in a nightshade kind of way, and she will acknowledge this when you both are sharing hard feelings, but the idea of beauty and desirability caused her nothing but pain when she was young. She’s a lot like you in the sense that she only sees what she’s missing: she was never the blonde, buxom type. She was never the southern belle that her parents had hoped for, or the perfectly feminine little mini-me that Mathilde had dreamed of for decades (and made no effort to hide her disappointment when Rora didn’t turn into that girl overnight). She wasn’t pretty in the right way her father needed to see her as an effective bargaining chip. She spent her entire first life feeling like she was made all wrong for what was expected of her. She has a loose relationship at times with her own gender, both because she’s doing things again in a borrowed mortal shell, and because she feels at times more like a creature than anything else. But she loves you. She loved you from the minute she first saw you — she loved your skin with any marks that might be there, the particular set of your mouth under your nose, the parts of you that move whenever you aren’t thinking about them. From your hair follicles to your fingernail beds, you were something she found wholly lovely in just how singular you are. You are the only version of you she’s ever seen. You are a rarity. Even in the most common parts of yourself, they’re a combination she hasn’t seen on anyone else her entire life. You look real to her. You look whole, and alive, and like a person who is allowed to just be. You move through the world as yourself, one of a kind, and there’s a part of her that, even now that she’s gained her independence, desperately envies that. Rora’s love is the kind of obsessive where she almost wants to set you on a stool like an artist’s model and study you up close. She wants to make notes about the places where your skin changes color, she wants to look at how your flesh settles into itself. You got folds, or rolls? She wants to get as close to them as she can, look at them like how soft-serve ice cream swirls into itself or a nautilus shell curls around. She wants to look at every bruise or old scar or stretch mark and take in the patterns of your life that has written yourself there. She wants to look at you naked like you would count the rings of a tree to see what the weather was like each year of its life, or like a big cat lounging in the sun. You are just as wild to her, and natural, and beautiful. …And then she wants to throw aside her notebook where she’s cataloguing every piece of you and eat you alive, but just in the fun way. Rora is the boob person of the three, and she is obsessed with yours if you have them/like people touching them. It doesn’t matter what size they are, if they sag, where your nipples point, she’s going to spend an absurd amount of time with her face in them whenever you’re shirtless. She’s just as bad about getting overexcited as her twin, and might bite or suck a little too hard at times, but she’s just enchanted by you. You are the earth itself made manifest to enjoy the sunshine and the breeze in the garden, and you have given her the supreme gift of deciding you like her too. She couldn’t not be in love with you if she tried. She understands our relationships with our bodies are complicated, but she is always on your side. She’d blind the entire town with a butter knife if it meant you felt more comfortable just sitting in the cafe with her. But she understands that the prison time for that is pretty hefty, so she’ll settle for refusing to let you talk bad about yourself.

I know this took a minute, and I’m sorry again love, but I hope it gives you what you needed. <3 Just know that I’m right there with you, but I would still rather us look like you and me than anyone else. Fuck the people trying to sell us something, we’re marvels as we are.

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morvantmortuary · 1 year

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so it’s mother’s day, again.

as we saw last year (albeit closer to father’s day), the holiday is… a complicated, often alcohol-soaked one at the Morvant house when they tend to celebrate alone. It’s not one anyone is keen to observe for long, even if they still do so out of some sense of obligation (Maxi), as a memorial to a source of torment (Rora), or as a sort of looming monument of guilt (Hex).

…Which is why, once they’d been dating you for a while and you’d gotten to the Parents/Family Meeting Stage, they’d be more than happy to spend it with you instead!

Below are a few possibilities, depending on how you feel about your own mother/maternal figures (grandmothers, aunts, whoever was involved in your life in a major maternal way). Pick your favorite or read for multiple, as always. <3

If you and your Maternal Figure (hear after MaF) get along…

- And they’re still here:

Maxi would love to tag along to any plans the two of you had, if he was welcome. (He’d totally understand if it was the kind of day where boyfriends couldn’t tag along, even if he’d be a little lonely without you.) But he’d be the first to suggest a brunch at the local diner if you were feeling kind of stuck in terms of plans. Brunch is the go-to, sure, but it’s popular for a reason, right? Plus, he knows the waitresses well enough that if he smiles just right, they might pour the bottomless mimosas a little heavier than usual (if y’all drink that is; if not they have some surprisingly great mocktails for such a small town). Catch him going all out with a hand-picked bouquet of flowers for your MaF from Rora’s garden (with her begrudging permission, of course) and his bright red silk waistcoat, which he saves for special occasions. (Though he’d leave his hair loose instead of slicked back at your request, even if he feels it gives him major baby face.) He’d love the opportunity to ask your MaF all about you when you were growing up, and relish being able to finally learn the stories behind some of y’all’s favorite memories or inside jokes (even if they’re definitely ‘had to be there’ moments). But mostly he’d want to give you the chance to enjoy spending time with someone who’s been so dear to you in your life, even if he was kind of a third wheel today. He’d never admit it, but he’d always missed having something like that himself (given… Everything), and even if he only got to participate in it by proxy, it would be enough for him today. He might occasionally stare at the two of you with a wistful little smile, although he’d do his best to hide it with something more cheerful whenever someone looked his way. Neither of you would have to lift a finger the entire time, as he’d make sure your glasses stayed full of whatever you were drinking, open every door you and your MaF happened to encounter, and generally insisting on acting like the old-fashioned gentleman he is. He loves any excuse to make your MaF feel like a queen, and you feel like royalty. He feels he owes the parts of your family that you love the world on a silver platter, for giving him something as precious as you

Hector is way more enthusiastic about celebrating Mother’s Day with you and your mom-person than you would’ve expected, tbh. He has tons of ideas: A picnic in the park in the nice part of town, or a trip to a museum in one of the bigger cities nearby, depending on what y’all liked. If both of those sounded like a little much, he’d finally suggest one of those paint-and-sip classes they occasionally host at the little town market (with non-alcoholic options available, of course), on him. He loves meeting MaFs, tbh — he’s a total Mama’s Boy, as much as he tries to hide it most of the time. He’d love joking around with yours and faux flirting in that saucy way that’s cheek-pinching-ly adorable coming from him. (Ditching his favorite hoodie for a white linen button-down and putting his hair up in a bun, he’d look just that adorable, too.) He’d be content to take a backseat to the two of you having a good time, enjoying the sangria and painting a significantly more abstract version of whatever the set example is while sneaking candid photos of you and your MaF on his phone whenever he got the chance. Afterwards, he’d want to take you both out for coffee somewhere chill, and would sit quietly sipping his own and smirking mischievously as the two of you swapped stories, gossip, or anything else y’all loved to talk about. (You might occasionally see him startle a little whenever his phone buzzed, checking the notification with a slightly hopeful expression… only to have a twitching flash of a frown as he put it in his pocket again. He’d soon be all mysterious smiles again, but it’d be just enough to notice.) If the two of you wanted to go dancing somewhere after, he’d be the first to suggest a spot, and would be delighted to take each of you for a spin around the floor.

Rora normally dread-hates this holiday with a particular venom, but if she knew you had a good relationship with your MaF, she’d maybe try to bite back some of her usual acidic commentary whenever she saw ads or reminders start to pop up in the shops around town. If you were stuck as to what to do with your MaF this year, she would - after a little throat-clearing and hesitant noises - suggest setting up a tea party for the three of you in her back garden. Something informal, she’d stress, no dress code, whatever you both found most comfortable. When you and your MaF arrived at the House that day, though, you’ll find Rora maybe went a little over the top - somehow creating an arch covered in climbing white roses overnight, which led to a small white canopy that shaded an ornate set of vintage garden furniture. Rora would have a variety of teas on the bar cart she’d wheeled outside, both hot and iced, and would have a tray of tiny cakes and cookies at the center of the table (something she’d traded capital-F Favors with her brother and cousin for, containing a sample of both of their favorite recipes since she hated baking herself). She would look stunning in a white lace dress you’d never seen (still carefully hiding the faded Y-incision on her chest), but would look a little bit like a deer in headlights as she showed you both inside. She’d insist on pouring the tea herself and preparing the tiny china plates with treats, and when she finally sat down, her hand would be positively squeezing yours under the table. She’d be doing her best to smile and nod and make conversation on a variety of casual topics, some of which you’d never heard her bring up once when it was just the two of you (“So, do you… enjoy sports?” “Do you watch reality television? I’ve heard it’s very popular now. Lots of shows about Housewives in various cities.” “Do you care for jazz?”). You notice her looking down at her knees every so often, and when you angle your head the right way, you realize she’s looking at the google results for “Topics to Discuss with Mother-in-Law or Equivalent” on her phone. You might need to pep talk her a little when your MaF got up to use the facilities, but eventually she’d loosen up a little, offering to add whiskey to the appropriate tea at some point and finally letting herself relax enough to be herself in front of your family (albeit maybe one less likely to talk about debone-ing roadkill).

- And they’ve passed on:

Maxi would want to spend the day with you however you saw fit. If that was visiting a place of remembrance, such as their grave or where you scattered their ashes, he’d once again be prepared with a bouquet of flowers and a kind hello to whatever part of them remained on this side of the Veil. If it was maybe a restaurant the two of you liked to go to, or a favorite park bench, he’d be delighted to spend as much time as you liked there, reminiscing. If you just wanted to stay home and watch a movie you’d both adored, he’d be right there with your favorite drink and a long, tight hug. He’d be eager to hear everything you wanted to share with him: funny stories, favorite trips, the advice they gave you along the way that got you here. The things the two of you shared that it felt like no one else did, and for a long time, you’d thought no one else would ever share again. Every little bit of your MaF you wanted to wring out of yourself, he’d be determined to hold it for you like a bucket, so you could see yourself reflected in it. He’d want to help you celebrate them the best you could, and would be grateful to whoever this wonderful stranger was that they’d been part of what made you the person he gave his whole heart to. He’d kiss away any tears that might appear, and would keep in mind any particulars you’d mentioned — recipes they made you, favorite things the two of you shared — so he could remember to surprise you with them when he’d felt you needed a reminder that they both loved you, even if your MaF was somewhere you couldn’t see.

Hex would also be down for a chill hang today, curious about - of course - photos you had of the two of you. He’d spend ages with you flipping through old albums, giggling along with you at the many versions of you that had come before, pointing out the similarities he saw between you and your MaF (inherited genetically or just through habit), and listening with a soft smile to the memories you encountered in each photo. If it got late enough, and he’d maybe had a little something to drink, he’d ask quietly if you had a small memento of theirs — jewelry they’d owned, or something they’d worn, or some other kind of heirloom. He’d take it carefully between his palms, rolling it between them with a sort of hazy, far-away gaze. For a long moment, it would almost seem like he’d gone into a trance, but eventually, he would return to this world look up with clearer eyes than before. “…She’s proud of you,” he’d say quietly, with a bittersweet smile. “Of how much you’ve grown. Of who you’re gonna be. And she misses you, too - enough to fill oceans. But you’ll see her again, she knows that.” His smile would become a small smirk. “She thinks you could do better in terms of boyfriends, but, y’know.”

Rora would be… a bit lost, truthfully. She only ever has negative things to say about her own dead mom (not without reason), so she wouldn’t know what it was like to miss a MaF genuinely, and not the version of them you’d hoped they’d be. She might be kind of quiet at first, today, not sure what to say… before, at last, sitting down next to you wherever you were, and holding out a bottle of her favorite elderflower wine. She’d want to hear about what your MaF taught you, what they’d set you on the path to doing, what they couldn’t let you not know. She’d want to know about what it was like to have someone like that who loved you as a seedling of yourself, that you loved in return, even if it was imperfectly done on both sides. She’d just want to listen to you talk, whether it was accompanied by laughter or tears, about the person you missed. She’d be fascinated, drinking it all in, and squirreling it away to remind you of the person who loved you when it felt like they couldn’t be farther away. Eventually, the two of you would just end up laying down wherever you were, with her hand twining into yours at the harder parts. Even if Rora couldn’t conjure your MaF in any meaningful way, it would still feel like she was there in the room with both of you, somehow.

If you and your MaF don’t get along…

- And they’re still here:

Maxi would be happy to run interference for you today. If your MaF was expecting the two of you to make an appearance at some sort of family function, he’d be more than willing to call in that morning on your behalf, explaining you were “sick” (down with a tragic case of Leave-Me-Alone-itis) and simply unable to attend, no ifs, ands, or buts. If she tried to stamp her foot or guilt him into making you both come anyway, he’d keep his usual cheerful customer service smile carefully in place, even over the phone. After he finally got her off the phone (with the most passive aggressive “Well bless your whole heart, you take care now, ma’am” you’ve ever heard in your entire life), he’d suggest the two of you perhaps have at least breakfast and lunch (or brunch!) in your pajamas in bed, courtesy of him. The two of you would spend the day laying around with something delicious within reach at all times (and some homemade food as well, ba dum tssh). If you wanted to talk about some of the harder times with your MaF, he’d be just fine being a listening ear, and willing to share some of his own. But otherwise, he’d be determined to not let you be reminded of her, spending today making you feel loved (while he deleted/hid any frustrating posts/messages/etc. she might be trying to send your way. Fuck that. You don’t need to deal with that.)

Hex would invite you early on in the day to go on a motorcycle ride to New Orleans with him. If you didn’t want to - just wanted to be alone, taking space for yourself - he’d understand. But on some level, he’d hope that the thing he frequently used to clear his own head would maybe help clear yours. Put some literal, physical distance between you and the person who haunted your thoughts today like he was haunted by his own. If you chose to take him up on the offer, he’d take the scenic routes with you, the two of you flying over waterways and through wooded swamps effortlessly. Once you were there, whether it was your first time in the city or your fiftieth, he’d be delighted to take you anywhere you wanted to go, snapping photos of you all the while when you weren’t paying attention. If the two of you ended up at the Morvants’ New Orleans apartment, you could be sure of a romantic evening — anything to keep your mind in the here and now, and off the day. If you wanted to talk a little bit about your MaF, he would of course be a sympathetic ear. He might not be as open with some of his own experiences… those are still complicated. But he’d want you to feel heard, and loved above all.

Should your phone ring at any point that day with that dreaded number, Rora would (if she was sure it wouldn’t upset you) pick it up without hesitation: “No. Fuck off.” and immediately hang up. If your MaF tried calling back, she’d pick up again: “Do you know how easy it is to procure killer bees in this country? Do you know where they prefer to swarm? Because I do, on both counts. Don’t make me show you.” And hang up again. With an annoyed look, she’d toss your phone back on the bed, before glancing at you. “Gardenin’ or drinkin’ or both?” Which would lead inevitably to the pair of you day-drinking and giggling as you took turns smudging each other’s faces with warm dirt, the sun languid on your skin like the drink in your mouth. Some new roses get planted, and some herbs, but the two of you are far more interested in taking blossoms that already exist and tucking them behind one another’s ears, or folding them into one another’s hair. Which leads to each of you wanting to smell the other’s new floral accessories, which then leads to the two of you being perilously close together, breath hazy and eyes lingering, and— The flowers certainly get a show, and it’ll take a couple washes to get all the grass stains out of your clothes, but it’s worth it.

- And they’re not here:

“Don’t you worry about it, darlin’,” Maxi would say, kissing the corner of your mouth reassuringly. “Now, what all should we get into today?”

“Let’s just make today about you and me, huh Querida?” Hex would say, moving some of your hair behind your ear with a wink.

“Well. Good riddance, if you don’t mind my saying so,” Rora would say, resting two fingers under your chin to tilt your face towards her. “Huh, sweet pea?”

…And after a day had been well-spent, doing whatever it is you wanted to do, the three of them would convene in the depths of the Basement That Shouldn’t Be, amidst the half-dead, half-rotted, fully tormented remnants of their family’s centuries of victims.

What they would do is… hard to describe, exactly. It would involve a number of things - a shot of blood from the foresworn, the flesh of the reticent living, the stolen tooth of an enemy. In the flickering candlelight (where was a breeze coming from down here?), the Morvants might not… quite resemble their daylight selves. More like the warped reflections of their mirror selves, from only a few Octobers ago. Nightmares made flesh, skin stretched in ways more commonly seen on the dead. The three of them, separately, were already unorthodox practitioners of their respective arts, so to speak. But combined? They make for a force that would cause any skull to further blanch. And wherever the person who had made your life so hard was, on whatever plane… she would be suffering. Deep, unending suffering. No one who so deeply hurt someone of theirs would ever know peace, on either side of the Veil.

I hope these help anyone who needs a little today, I know this holiday can be one of the harder ones for a lot of reasons. Just know we’re here if you need a necromancer!

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morvantmortuary · 1 year

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sweetweirds -

so in our little gc we have a channel where we ask each other questions about our OCs, and my friend @bigtiddythanos recently asked us about weird quirks they adopt with their S/Os when no one else is around. so I wanted to share what I thought the Morvants would pick up once the two of you (or more, I don’t judge) had been dating for a while, just bc I had a lot of fun writing them 🖤

not long, but still putting it under a cut so not to clog things!

Maxi -

Will walk up behind his s/o and set his chin on the top of their head or shoulder, depending, and let out this little huff through his nose like Maggie used to do when she had a nose when he’s curious about what they’re doing/bored/misses them. He won’t hug them if they’re doing something, and he’ll back off if they can’t be distracted, but it’s just how he says hello.

When the two of you are just sitting around, if he’s within range, he might well lean over and just gently grab your arm or your shoulder in his teeth with a muffled “Delicious!”

if you two are cuddling and you try to get up before he wants to, he goes “oh no, rigor mortis!” and hugs you with his arms and legs so you can’t get away, followed by “Oh no, death tickles!” which is self explanatory lmao.

If he’s feeling especially weird and the two of you are definitely not in public (and if he doesn’t run the risk of ruining your makeup, which he views as art), he will totally randomly lick your cheek and say “just re-upping my claim” before walking off like nothing happened.

He also totally bows exaggeratedly whenever he fucks up and drops something or bumps into something or whatever and goes “For my next trick, I will flee into the swamp!”

Hector -

he has sweater paws constantly in his hoodie when the two of you have been going out for a while. he’ll walk up behind you and gently flap you with the ends of his sleeves when he’s bored.

When he wants attention he’ll go “Quiero besitooos~ ;A;” in a sad muppet voice, wandering the house mournfully until he finds you

If the two of you are playfighting (or you say something mushy and it catches him offguard), he does the thing where he pulls his hoodie up and pulls the drawstrings until it scrunches around his face and curls up in a ball.

He’s prone to walking up behind you and dancing as quietly but wildly as he can until you turn around and notice him, and then he’ll ask you whatever he actually came to ask you about.

He’ll also walk up to you sometimes with snacks like chips or something and go “sssh, just trust me” and put it in your mouth before you can see it (but only ever with things he already knows you really like)

Rora -

(Has the hardest time making it to full weird, but when she does, she’s Weird.)

If you’re sitting around reading or on your phone and she walks in, she’ll go “Gasp! A beautiful flower! In the house!” and make a show of sniffing your hair.

Whenever you do something a little bit clumsy, she’ll go “And I must swoon.” in an exaggerated version of her accent, but never in a mean way.

When she’s clumsy, she’s like “And that’s why I was Miss Louisiana.”

She also does the thing where she’ll walk up and lick your face when you two are totally alone/not wearing makeup. “It’s how we used to lay claim to sweets when we were little,” she’d drawl when you finally asked why, which. Explains a lot about the family, you suppose.

When you’re sitting on the couch together doing your own thing (but not something where she could throw you off, like a video game), she’ll go “I wilt!” in a dramatic voice and put her hand to her forehead and fall on top of you, where you must revive her with kisses.

If your hair’s long enough and you’re busy but she just wants to be near you, she’ll stand there and braid tiny strands of it together if it wouldn’t distract you too much.

just a little something I wanted to take the time to share, because I’m enchanted by the idea of those odd little in-jokes/habits that emerge out of a shared language of intimacy 🖤 no I’m not touch-starved I don’t know what you mean

I hope everyone’s having a good saturday so far! (or sunday, depending!)

#maxi vibes #hector vibes #rora vibes #maxi morvant #maximilian vincent morvant #hector morvant-casares #hex morvant-casares #hector emile morvant-casares #rora morvant #aurore morvant #aurore maria morvant #the morvants and their readers #maxi morvant x you #hector morvant-casares x you #rora morvant x you #slasher ocs #southern slasher ocs #necromancer ocs #morvant mortuary

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morvantmortuary · 1 year

Note

12, 56, or 67 for the ask prompts - whichever of these you find most inspired by for our Maxi 🖤

12: "I'll love you til my breathing stops"

56: "I am not myself anymore, I'm yours"

67: "You're so perfect, why do you want me?"

hi bee! :’D sorry I’m an idiot! 🖤

I’ll be honest, this one is definitely more… personal than I intended. I started writing it when I was really Going Through It w/r/t some depression stuff, a minor existential crisis where I wondered if it was worth staying in my program, dealing with the fact that my closest friends were also going through it and nothing I said seemed to help, just a whole slew of stuff that left me feeling rock bottom.

another part of it, I think, is that I have this weird thing where even though these were yandere prompts, I just… had this thing where I couldn’t just write the Reader hearing them? like, I thought for even someone like Maxi, who worships the ground his reader walks on, to out and say some of these things, I had to like - justify them somehow. Like I couldn’t hear them unless I was emotionally bleeding out, almost. maybe it’s because I’m a sucker for hurt/comfort, or something else I need to go to therapy about idk

and then once I got so far in, I was like “rae wtf this is such a fucking bummer, no one is gonna want to read this,” and so for a while I thought about starting over again just for something more fun

but, eventually, I reread this piece again, and decided that even if it’s kind of a sad start, maybe someone else could use something for the worst kind of days. I meant to post this on Yule, bc “longest night of the year” and all, but we all know how I am with doing anything remotely on time :’D

so, if anyone else is maybe having a hard time on this xmas eve, I hope maybe this is a small something to help

warnings for some really vicious self-talk on the part of the Reader, v v v brief discussion of su!cidal thoughts (like I said, I was going through it), descriptions of an anxiety attack, Maxi being a little too happy to murder anyone who hurt you, Maxi and his Reader swearing their deaths to each other, descriptions of necromancy, patricide, etc.

merry xmas, and rora and hector both have pieces coming too - this was just the one that got finished first 🖤 thanks for being kind enough to request, and I’m sorry again it took so long! I hope it’s okay 🖤

it hurts because you’re alive

(maxi morvant x gn!reader)

It wasn’t often you still had to contend with the voice from the darkest part of your brain. The one that had stalked you through the left-hand mirrors from the Masquerade, the one that some demonic presence - essence? Whatever - imitated in Maxi’s own mouth when it was trying to convince you to let yourself lay down and be prey. Since you’d been building yourself a pleasant life in Greymoon, one that you were more than happy to share with the man who’d stolen your heart, it had retreated back to whatever noxious neural fold it called home.

That didn’t mean there weren’t hard nights. Ones where it found you left vulnerable by an insomnia that refused to abate.

This was one of them.

You weren’t sure what had set it off, really: maybe it was the fact that Murphy’s Law had been in full effect at work, and nothing you tried had been enough to turn the day around. Maybe it was the phone call with your mom after, where more than one she’d suggested (albeit gently) that despite all the progress towards feeling like yourself again you’d made since moving here, there was still more you could be doing. Maybe it was the texts you’d swapped with Pavi that afternoon, where she rehashed the latest fight she’d had with a girlfriend she would’ve readily called awful if she’d been yours, Em’s, or Laurie’s. As carefully as you’d tried to point out that Pavi seemed to accept things for herself that she would’ve found intolerable for any of her friends, the two of you had just gone in circles, with Pavi insisting that she was probably just being biased in her recounting of the argument and you nearly pleading with her to consider how she’d feel if anyone else she loved was being treated the same way. When this proved fruitless, you’d eventually stopped and just let your friend vent until she felt better. It was the least you could do.

But long after you’d said goodnight, you were still sitting cross-legged on the end of your bed, lost in thought as you worried the skin on your lower lip with your teeth. After years of living with your specific brain curses, your usual self-soothing method was straightening up your house while listening to music as loud as you could stand it on your headphones; the idea being that bouncing between tasks with something drowning out the Voice would eventually convince it to give up and let you focus on anything else. But tonight, that had only left you more restless than usual. Your brief attempt to sleep had just ended in you plugging your string of fairy lights back in and returning to your playlist, trying to ward off your internal darkness with external stimuli.

How did you think you would be enough?

You trapped a piece of skin between your teeth, and bit down.

No, really. How did you possibly think anything you had to offer, to any of them, would be enough?

“It’s not about me,” you muttered aloud. “It was just a bad day. Shit happens. I’ll live, it’s fine.”

Your teeth, however, bit down once again on the spot. You could just taste the faintest trace of blood.

And now you’re talking to yourself. Just like old times.

Fuck off, you thought instead, but the Voice just seemed to crow in the fact that it’d made you change.

Oh, you little idiot. Just as spineless as you’ve always been. Your job knows that, you know - you weren’t smart enough or quick enough to improvise today. They all saw you fail. You let everyone down. Again.

This is unhelpful. You knew this was unhelpful. This was just wallowing. Everyone had bad days. This would pass. You would be fine.

…Right?

Your progress is not enough for your mother. She knows you can do more, do better. Be more. You can dress up laziness as contentment all you like, it’s still obvious to her. She must be so disappointed in what you turned out to be.

Your teeth kept sawing at the skin, and you winced at the sting of its separation from raw flesh, even as the taste of blood spread across your tongue.

Your love is not enough for your friend. It doesn’t matter how ferociously you care for her - it isn’t ever going to outweigh the hurt she’s willing to endure for even a taste of someone else’s. Someone real.

Stop, you begged yourself. You knew what came next.

How long until that ‘soulmate’ of yours sees all this and realizes his mistake?

You didn’t hear yourself whimper at this over the bass in your ears, the volume hurting now more than helping. You made no move to turn it down.

I’m curious. You suck at math, but make me laugh with an attempt: how long, exactly, do you think it will take for him to realize you weren’t worth the pain he went through? That he’s scarred, now, for nothing that could actually matter?

Your teeth picked a new spot and bit, but the tears were already there.

How long do you think you have until he resents you for your weaknesses? For everything you couldn’t be?

How long until even a creature of the utmost darkness finds you, and your broken little brain and heart, intolerable?

No, you pushed back. He’s not that. He isn’t, even with what he did. Does. He could never be. He’s good, his heart is good, despite everything that tried to force him to be otherwise.

Fine, the voice amended. Then how long until he gets restless because he’s stuck with a burden like you? Because you could never amount to more than everything you are that no one should ever have to deal with, much less love?

You blinked, feeling your breath begin to shake as something warm slid down your face.

There we go, the voice purred. You aren’t completely stupid after all. Gold star for effort.

You tried to force yourself to pick up your hands and wipe your face. Try to stem the flow of tears that turned your eyeliner into so much grime under your eyes, something else that added to the pathetic ineptness of your mien.

But they sat, listless and useless, on your thighs that took up too much room.

You can still exit gracefully, you know. …Well. As gracefully as possible for you. You owe everyone that much.

This was a lie. You knew, on some level, this was a lie. But it felt like the conscious You was locked at the back of your brain, kicking uselessly as this creature that seemed to slither and circle around the rest of your skull - and squeeze.

Your boyfriend’s a mortician, for crying out loud. He’ll at least make you look decent so you’re not a total embarrassment to anyone. Your mom won’t even have to clean up the mess when they find it.

…You had to admit. This made a certain, pragmatic amount of sense. It was tidy. Convenient.

Easier, perhaps, than the mortifying alternative of staying. Of letting anyone look too close.

He might even think one of your friends at the service is cute. Two birds, one stone. Provided any show up, of course.

That’s fair, you figured, this would be fairly short notice. People might still have to work, or have other plans, and you couldn’t expect people to drop everything for—

You let out a small shriek as you felt a chilled hand settle on your shoulder, nearly falling off your bed as you pushed hard away from the direction of your door.

When you just caught yourself on the edge of your mattress, you whipped around to see Maxi standing there, flattening himself as best he could against the doorframe and showing you his palms with an equally startled expression.

He mouthed something at you, and you could only blink, still not quite firing on all cylinders. He pointed to his own ear, looking concerned, and you jumped, quickly pulling your earbuds out.

“Sorry,” you managed. “Didn’t hear you come in.” You winced as you could hear your own voice crack, and before you could clear your throat, Maxi’s face changed.

“Hey now.” In one fluid motion, he crossed the space between you and fell to a knee where you perched at the end of your bed, peering up into your face with a familiar, scalpel-sharp scrutiny. “You okay, gorgeous?”

You looked away, trying to avoid his searching gaze, but he caught your jaw gently, guiding you by his fingertips at your chin to look at him again.

He made a small noise of alarm in his throat when you faced him, and when you finally met his eyes, he looked stricken. “Darlin’, talk to me, what’s wrong?” he murmured. His fingers traced over the tracks of your tears, wiping them away. He turned his hand slightly to examine his own fingertips, looking increasingly worried, before he moved closer to your knees to look up into your eyes. “Did someone upset you?”

For the most part, he still sounded like your partner - sweet, thoughtful, a habitual worrier - but you could hear the edge of something else creeping into his question. Something darker, lurking at the back of his own skull.

But how could you explain? If you told him what was going on - what was really happening - wouldn’t that just prove your inner darkness right? That you were a burden, demanding of care?

You kicked yourself internally, feeling guiltier now. Maxi already had to deal with a lot at his job, people grieving real losses. Why should he have to come home to even more crying from you, who was just wallowing in their own despair?

“Hey,” he urged again, softer, snapping you back to reality. He reached up, gently intertwining his fingers with yours where your hands still sat on your lap. “Angel, c’mon. You’re scarin’ me a little here. Tell me what’s goin’ on, okay? Let me help. Do I need to have words with someone?” He traced his thumbs across the back of your hands, trying to soothe you - but you fixated on the way he subconsciously rolled his shoulder, the one you had marked on that dark Halloween in the cemetery.

For some reason, it was that gesture - so innocuous, yet obvious in how you seemed to inflict yourself on him, on everyone - that finally broke the dam between your sinking heart and the world outside. The spiral had you fully in its grasp, and there was no getting out.

Your eyes blurred over as you looked resolutely down, feeling tears escaping their bounds faster than you could hold them back. A few of them made splattered constellations on the skin of your legs, just adjacent to where Maxi’s hands where intertwined with yours. You bit down on your lip, trying to muffle the sob that had been building for what felt like the entire evening, but the smallest of sounds still managed to wriggle its way out around your teeth.

Maxi let go of your hands abruptly, and you couldn’t blame him for his withdrawal - until the cold clutch of them encircled your face, guiding your head gently upwards to meet his eyes.

What you found waiting for you was the color of blood from deep in the body, seeming to burn of their own accord in the dim of your room. He was practically nose to nose with you, staring at you over the tops of his glasses with a look like a knife’s edge. “Give me a name,” he said, so soft it was barely more than a whisper. His fingers stroked your skin, but his grip was firm. “And they won’t see sunrise. I promise.” He leaned forward to close the distance between you, kissing gently at one of the tracks of your tears - but you still felt the brief, hot touch of the tip of his tongue to the spot. “Let me take care of it for you, please.”

You sniffled, trying to rescue some shred of composure. “It’s n-nobody. Really.”

“Oh, angel,” Maxi cooed, pulling just slightly back. He traced a new trail down your cheek with his thumb, hovering close to you. “You don’t have to defend anyone who doesn’t deserve it. Whatever it was, whatever they said to cause - this,” his hand flipped to stroke your skin with a knuckle. “It’s justified for me.” He kissed your forehead before meeting your eyes again.

You shook your head as the last of your composure slipped through your grip. “It’s not even a-anybody’s fault,” you managed around the lump in your throat. “I s-swear, it’s just…” You swallowed hard, but the ache just caused you to stop. “It’s just my fucking broken-ass brain.”

“…It’s what now?” You could practically hear the record scratch in Maxi’s brain as the murder dropped out of his expression entirely, leaving him blinking as the glimmering red seemed to cool like the last embers of a campfire.

You hurriedly wiped your eyes with the sleeve of your hoodie. “It’s nothing, I told you,” you mumbled. “I’m just fucking sad again over some stupid shit that doesn’t m-matter, like always,” you tried to inhale, but your breath shook too hard for you to get any relief. “And I c-can’t change it—“

Your heart was thundering in your ears, washing out all other sound. You were drowning.

“B-because I’m not g-good at making anything better, for anyone—“

Your skin was too hot. You felt seasick. This was really it, wasn’t it. The moment that you finally tipped your hand and showed how much of a wreck you really were inside, and he would make the only logical decision. One you could never blame him for, really, because it was inevitable.

It fell out of your mouth in a rush, insensate almost to your own ears: “And I’m just going to be like this forever, and you’re going to get sick of me and leave, and why shouldn’t you, when I can’t even keep my shit together and just be a n-normal fucking functional—“

You were aware of the words dying on your lips, the sudden movement causing the ache to leave your lungs in an exhale, but you weren’t sure of the cause.

You also weren’t quite sure why the room shifted, or why you were suddenly staring up at your ceiling rather than down at your feet, but you were conscious of being cocooned in the essence of your partner: the faintest hint of embalming fluid, something like wood polish, the cologne he put on this morning, and the touch of laundry detergent that had started to smell like home to you.

You realized he’d taken you both to your mattress in a near-tackle, cradling you before you could realize what was happening. You were caged in his arms now, laying sideways next to him with your hands pressed against his chest between the pair of you. The pressure you felt around your torso was him squeezing like he was trying to keep you from coming apart at your ribs.

Like you were something fragile.

It took you a moment to realize further that his lips were against your hair, and the hiss you heard was him shushing the tiny, cracking sobs that were finding their way piecemeal out of your chest.

“No, baby, I’m always gonna be yours,” Maxi murmured into your hair. “It’s okay, baby. You’re my life, I’m not goin’ anywhere.” He kissed your head like he was trying to kiss your skull itself. “Mine’s broke too. It’s okay.”

You half-sobbed, half-hiccuped. “I’m sorry. I didn’t— you shouldn’t have to—“

“Nothin’ to apologize for,” Maxi insisted, somehow managing to hug you tighter without bruising your sides. “You’re mine. I won’t ever go somewhere without you.”

“But I’m a mess,” you blurted wetly against his vest, your chest kicking like a horse from the inside. “I’m such a mess, Maxi, I’m gonna wear you out. I wear everyone out, you don’t understand.”

Maxi shifted so instead of keeping you against his chest, he was eye-level with you, squeezing your shoulders in his hands as his glasses were somewhat crooked against your pillow. “Darlin’, I know everything feels wrong right now, and your brain’s not fightin’ fair,” he said softly, his eyes wide as he searched yours. “But I think your sense of scale is a little bit… skewed, here.” He smiled weakly. “I’m not tryin’ to make light of anything, but I think I have a little more reason to be worried about somethin’ like that.”

Your heart was racing in your chest like you were trying to drive with no way to steer. “I don’t wanna make you tired of me,” you managed, not entirely sure if you were making sense anymore. “I don’t want to make your mark hurt anymore, I don’t want you to come home from a long day to me being a drain, I don’t want you to realize you got a bad deal.”

“Angel,” Maxi soothed, running a hand over your hair. “You’re not thinkin’ straight. That’s not somethin’ I would think about you, ever. You’re talkin’ to the serial killer here, remember?” he added, with a laugh that sounded more nervous than anything. “You’re the one who got more than you signed up for.”

“You had to go through that whole thing with your dad, and They Who Decide,” you went on, as if he’d proved your point. “You wouldn’t have had to if I wasn’t here. You wouldn’t have had to get hurt, or get possessed, or—“

“For you, I’d do it all again tomorrow,” Maxi said, his voice soft. “In a heartbeat. I don’t care.”

You shook your head, not sure how you couldn’t make him see what was right in front of his eyes. “I’m not worth that, Maxi, that’s what I’m trying to tell you now rather than you waste more time.”

“And I’m tryin’ to tell you,” Maxi argued, his eyes plaintive. “That I don’t care what that demon in your head says, baby. I got one too,” he insisted, loosening an arm so he could gesture at his temple. “The real one and the one that comes from growin’ up thinkin’ I’m dead already, and nothin’ would ever change that. You have no idea how many times a day I wish to god,” he smiled, and it was strained. “I wish I could go back, somehow, and tell me when I was livin’ through the worst parts — every dark basement, every broken body, every night feelin’ absolutely fuckin’ inhuman — that we were gonna find you. That all this bullshit was gonna turn out to be worth it. All the years of feelin’ like I couldn’t tell anyone the truth, and we survived.”

Your shoulders bucked slightly as you fought your sobs. “I don’t want to let you down. I’m so scared of disappointing you, you don’t understand—“

Maxi took your face in his hands again, his gaze pleading. “No, you don’t understand,” he said, and you could hear him fighting to keep his voice steady. “You don’t have to be the one that’s afraid of that. You could never disappoint me in a way that matters. I’d swear it to you on our future tomb. I need you to listen to me, baby, I will love you ’til my breathin’ stops and long, long after. There’s nothin’ you could do, no part of you that you hate that would ever make me think otherwise. You could put a bullet through the dead center of my chest, and not only would I think you were in the right, I’d still love you when I hit the ground.”

The idea of causing him harm of any sort squeezed your throat harder than the lump that was already there. “I don’t know how you can say that,” you whispered, shaking your head. “I keep waiting for you to realize that I’m not enough to justify that kind of pain. I’m so scared of hurting you. Of being the reason you get hurt.” Your hands found his shoulders and your fingers curled tightly into the fabric of his shirt, desperate for something to hold on to. “You’ve already been through so much, you don’t deserve to suffer when you can avoid it. I couldn’t stand myself if I brought that on you, on top of all my shit you already have to put up with.”

The red returned to Maxi’s eyes, and oddly, you were more soothed than alarmed. You almost wanted his darker self there as a form of assurance, to know that it could protect the man you loved from the fathomless chasm that felt like it was splitting your chest.

“Listen to me,” he demanded, that shadow from his eyes creeping into his words. “I never… I never got to belong to myself, you understand? I was always my family’s next chess piece on the board, or They Who’s next prize monster, or the reaper’s host. I knew that. I spent my life knowin’ that, and I didn’t see another option.”

You recognized the way his fingers of his left hand moved against your back, his tell for weighing his options. The way his eyes went briefly distant, you realized he was making a decision.

His free hand moved to his chest, tracing the scar there through the fabric of his clothes. “…This wasn’t…” He trailed off, his lips a frustrated line as he chose his words. His eyes met yours again, the red still there, brighter now. “…This wasn’t just my dad,” he said at last. “I mean, he put the first one there. The original.” He hesitated a moment longer, the tip of his tongue briefly tracing his lip. “…When I thought my family’s legacy was all I had — all I’d ever have — I reopened it.”

You flinched in horror at the very idea, knowing just how deep that scar tissue went, how thick it was over the muscle. “Oh, Maxi… why, baby?”

A corner of his mouth twitched into a grimace “There’s all sorts of things you can do with a heart when you know how, babydoll. Unnatural things that no one can undo… that no good person would ever dream of.” His eyes moved to a point in the distance over your shoulder, something in them dimming. “And for a long time, I studied it. I read everythin’ I could find about it. It was all I could dream about anymore.” His eyes flicked back to yours. “I was ready to give up blood, skin, and bone for just the chance that it would work.”

Your tears were sticky on your face where they were drying, and you fought a shiver from somewhere deep in your gut, like it recognized something in Maxi’s words you didn’t. “…So what happened?” You couldn’t help but whisper, despite the fact that it was just the two of you in your room.

Like you were afraid something else would hear you.

An exceptionally grim smile bloomed on Maxi’s face. “Not my proudest moment, is what.” He looked away from you again, as if he couldn’t bear to hold your gaze. “Or maybe it was, I don’t know. It was the night I buried my mother. I wasn’t sober by any means, but my father was dead drunk. He interrupted me, we got to arguin’, then screamin’, and before I quite realized what I’d done… he was just dead.”

Silence settled over the pair of you as he met your eyes again, watching you like he was waiting for you to recoil from him. To suddenly realize in that moment what kind of monster had been sharing your bed for all this time.

“…Yeah, well,” you murmured. You reached up, gently brushing a lock of his hair away from his eyes as you held his gaze. “Good riddance.”

Maxi’s smile softened into the one you knew best, his eyes relieved despite the shade lingering in them. “I didn’t realize just how lucky I was that night. Not by half.” He reached up, moving some of your hair on your pillow away from your face. “Because later, after so long of never belongin’ to myself, you let me be yours. And you gave me back what was left of me, you hear?” He swallowed hard, and you could finally see the glow that had swept in with the familiar red gleam was at least partially tears of his own. He traced the line of your cheek. “You reminded me I was still a person, somewhere under all of this. That I was allowed to want more than just grittin’ my teeth and gettin’ through what brief mortal life I was meant to have.” He shifted on his pillow again, closing the distance between the two of you. “I spent ages askin’ myself, ‘they’re the closest thing to perfect I’ve ever had, the hell do they want with me?’ And—“ He stopped, forcing himself to take a breath that wasn’t quite steady anymore. “And you took such… care of me,” he went on. “You loved me so much, I started to believe I could just… be human, after all this time. Could deserve to be loved, even.”

He moved his hands so his arms encircled your waist again, hugging you tightly while giving him enough space to keep eye contact. “You have no idea how many times in my life I went out in the dark and didn’t care if I saw daylight,” he said softly. “But that night we walked into the Masquerade together, I knew I’d fight Hell itself just to stay alive with you for one more hour. I’d never been more certain of anything in my entire life.”

The heat that seemed to fill your own eyes, lingering at your lash line, was from something entirely different now.

“Your brain chemistry can run its miserable little mouth all it wants, darlin’.” Maxi rested his forehead gently against yours. “And I’ll be here to hold you until it quiets down, whenever you need me to. But it’s dead wrong. I know that for a fact.” One of his hands, still cool to the touch, cupped your cheek like you were something wondrous. “There is nothin’ about my life you haven’t made better just by bein’ in it. And we’re gonna live a longer one still. A happy one, despite everythin’, together,” he took one of your hands in his, bringing it gently to his lips. “I love you exactly as you are. I always will.”

Fresh rivulets formed on your face, but these felt… different. Like rain after a drought.

You wound your arms around his neck, trapping his chest — scar and all — against your own. “I love you the same,” you whispered. “Exactly as you are. All of you.” You pressed a single kiss to the corner of his mouth. “And there’s nothing that can ever change that.”

Maxi’s grin was unmistakable. “Y’know, it’s the damnedest thing,” he said quietly. “For the first time, I’m lookin’ forward to livin’ through whatever’s next.”

You smiled for what felt like the first time in days. “I’m glad I get to be here for it.”

Maxi leaned forward to kiss you properly, long and slow as though to make it last the rest of your lives.

#nice people #bee!! 🖤🥰#maxi morvant #maximilian vincent morvant #morvant mortuary #maxi morvant x reader #maxi morvant x you #maxi and his reader #maxi's final them #slasher oc #necromancer oc #slasher oc x reader #gn!reader #genderqueer reader #non-binary reader #plus size reader #reader's in a dark place #not quite hurt/comfort but close

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morvantmortuary · 2 years

Text

Blood Fest Week 1: our strange duet

Blood Fest prompts: Rope. Teeth. Size. Blood. keywords: Wicked. Rain.

summary: Maxi has a hard time focusing at work after your date the night before, and resorts to some... unusual tactics to find relief.

warnings: smut, 18+ only, minors dni. descriptions of embalming and body restoration, of grievous mortal injury, grief, mourning. discussion of body dysphoria, chest anxiety. brief talking about being queer and hiding it in the deep south. brief discussion of male body image issues. mutual oral sex (m and afab receiving), brief facefucking, first time as a couple sex, period sex. discussions of the demon living in maxi’s body, for funsies. stalking, breaking and entering, sort of spying on someone in the shower, use of sex toys, size kink, voyeurism, masturbation, slight breeding kink if you squint, minor humiliation kink, maxi is the definition of a service switch, definitely creepy behavior from the serial killer, dead dove do not eat, don’t open the bag if you’re not a slasherfucker ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

general: Reader is non-binary/genderqueer, uses they/she pronouns; Reader is plus size, Reader is queer, Maxi is bi and talks about it. Everything else has been left up to the reader, please let me know if I need to tweak any language.

y’all wanna get a little weird with me this spooky season?

(I’ve been writing this one for funsies for a while, but I’m super grateful to the lovely Bree at @the-slasher-files for this delightful opportunity to share this for an event. Sorry mine’s so late, and they definitely won’t all be this long!! :’D Week 2 will hopefully be up later tonight or tomorrow, and I’ll hopefully not be too late with the rest of them lol

okay! here goes!!

Maxi was pretty sure he shouldn’t be thinking of you on top of him last night while he was preparing to embalm the forty-something woman on his table. No, in fact he was certain he shouldn’t. Despite the multiple layers of PPE he was wearing - his usual scrubs, gloves, and mask, and then a plastic splashguard over that - he still caught himself feeling oddly vulnerable in front of the decedent. He was used to empty, staring eyes, he’d been used to them for more than half his life. But something about Mrs. Berthelot-Yang’s glazed gaze today made him feel like he was the one with just a sheet for modesty’s sake, rather than the other way around. He kept dropping things, leaving them in his office or on the wrong counters, forgetting what he was doing in the middle of filling out paperwork - he couldn’t help but feel like he was fumbling in an entirely different sense, whereas last night couldn’t have felt easier.

But damn, if you didn’t seem to have him utterly bewitched, and you’d only been going out for a month.

Well, okay, three weeks, six days, thirteen hours, give or take fifteen minutes. …But who was counting, anyway. Certainly not him, nope.

There was something about you he was having a hard time putting his finger on, but since that kismet day in the cemetery, he’d found his mind wandering back to you at the most inexplicable moments. He couldn’t hear the afternoon rain pelting his windows without remembering your smile in the passenger seat of the hearse, giggling even when you were soaked. He couldn’t just lay on his couch in the grip of insomnia and watch a shitty horror movie without remembering your soft, clean scent when you were sitting next to him at the movie theater, and how he’d wondered if the cherry slush would’ve been any sweeter if he’d tasted it on your tongue.

And now, despite the purposeful chill of the prep room, he swore he could still felt the heat of your mostly-bare form pressed against his while it had taken everything in him not to devour you on the spot.

He’d been careful with you. He’d been so goddamn achingly careful with you, wanting to take this slow. He wanted to make sure he took his time with you, didn’t scare you off, didn’t lose your interest before he got the chance to...

He blinked out of his trance when he realized he was still standing over Mrs. Berthelot-Yang with the trocar still in his hands, staring at her still violently bruised and scraped bare abdomen. Motorcycle crash on the highway. Even with a helmet, she hadn’t been any match for the concrete barrier she’d swerved into in her attempt to move around a semi that had thrown on its brakes. The devastated wife was delivering her clothes tomorrow for her viewing this weekend.

“I’m so sorry, ma’am,” he sighed, shaking his head in exasperation and feeling himself blush. “I don’t know where my head’s at today, I swear.” That was a lie. He knew exactly where his head was at.

He heard a ghostly chuckle from the very edge of the salt that bordered the edges of the room — not the sharp, cruel ones of some of the House’s permanent residents, but something soft. Almost knowing. He glanced up to see the faintest flicker of movement near the door, as though a figure had just poked their head in the room and pulled it quickly back out again.

There was sudden wafting of a warm, light scent of jasmine and vanilla… a perfume. Her favorite, her wife had told him through tears in the client parlor upstairs - and Maxi couldn’t help but smile a little to himself as he relaxed. It was always a relief to have an understanding guest of honor.

Or, well, as much as they could be, under the circumstances.

“Thank you for bein’ patient with me,” he said, carefully lining up the sharp tip of the instrument with a spot just beside her navel. “Now, this is gonna look nasty, but I promise it’ll be better in just a sec—“

The tip slid through the soft flesh like butter, and he let the trocar do its work before carefully angling it again to perforate the other end of the cavity. With a couple more easy jabs, he set it aside, watching the new wounds attentively before he set to preparing to close what needed closing.

But even as his hands went through the same motions as they had for a little less than two decades, his mind wandered immediately back to you, and the curiously strong effect you’d had on him already. He couldn’t explain it to himself, but he felt like if he slept with you and you ghosted, it would drive him insane for ages afterwards. He’d had friends with benefits before, sure, but they were usually more of an obstacle to work around with his… other nocturnal activities, than something he ended up entertaining for long.

And he wanted more with you, he already knew that. He wanted so much more, so soon, and he was trying his damnedest to be cool about it, but god if you didn’t make it difficult in the best way. How you liked his morbid jokes, and he genuinely laughed at yours, how you didn’t mind his odd hours or his tendency to ramble about various histories of death and decay at the drop of the hat. How curious you seemed about his work, and your compassion for the families he dealt with. How he loved the way you talked about your own day, even if it was something as simple as your side gig, and the care you took with it even when it was frustrating you. He just liked you. All of you.

And he’d been so close to finally getting all of you last night, when the two of you had stumbled into your bedroom after you’d invited him over —

He maybe should’ve guessed something new was afoot when you’d wanted to change plans from actually going out to just staying in for a quiet evening at your place, but he’d been happy just to get to spend time with you, so he hadn’t thought about it too much. It had genuinely started as the two of you goofing around with some multiplayer horror title over pizza, but when you’d teasingly tried to distract him by kissing his neck like you usually did, you lingered there just a touch longer than normal. There was a bit of teeth to it, heat that the two of you had skirted but hadn’t quite explored yet.

Needless to say, he’d immediately dropped his controller to pull you into his lap. You hadn’t protested - to the contrary, you’d straddled his thighs with yours, your hand pulling his shirt collar like a leash to close any distance left.

— Even through the rubber gloves he was wearing now, he swore he could still feel the silk of your skin like fire against his palms. He shook his head again, the trocar wounds closed and now trying to thread the needle so he could sew the dear lady’s mouth closed through the frenulum and up through the septum. But he felt his face burn under his mask as he remembered just how you’d sighed when he’d run his hands up your sides under your top.

Like you were relieved. Like you’d been waiting for him to touch you, almost as much as he’d wanted to.

If you had any idea how hard it had been for him to let you go, especially once he heard that sound, you would’ve called the cops—

“Son of a bitch,” he growled, putting the musculature needle down just a little too hard on the steel table top when he couldn’t get his hands to stop shaking.

He was instinctively reaching to pinch the bridge of his nose under his glasses when his hand ran smack into the plastic face shield instead. Frustrated, his swore under his breath, about to fling the offending garment across the room when he heard another gentle laugh from the doorway. He hesitated, then carefully exhaled his frustration in a practiced sigh through his nose, before turning to look over his shoulder. “Well,” he mumbled, the tension leaving his shoulders. “I’m glad one of us is havin’ fun with this.”

He could see a gentle swirl of white floating in the doorway, like steam out of a shower. For a moment, the swirl changed direction, as though something like a waving hand had interrupted its floating through space.

With this small encouragement, he turned back to the waiting guest, taking another cleansing deep breath. “Get it together, Morvant, christ,” he muttered, tilting his head to both sides to crack his neck before trying again. You had him acting like an amateur in his own house.

This time, he hooked the needle through the needed places as easily as writing his own name.

He still frowned even as he neatly stitched the lips closed, hearing the faintest echo of his father in his head. Not the torso half-corpse chained to the wall downstairs, thank Everything Below. But the version that still loomed large in the crevices of his brain, that still snidely muttered about his every move if he performed his duties less than perfectly.

Mooning over a mortal. Jesus, his father would’ve taken the belt to him for that. Again.

Once he was satisfied with how her mouth lay, he picked up the wax he’d be using to fill some of the rougher contusions on Mrs. Berthelot-Yang’s face. With a careful angling of a flat blade to get it out of the jar, he rolled it across the side of his latex-gloved hand, letting it warm itself into something malleable.

You would’ve been worth his father’s wrath, he caught himself thinking. He didn’t know quite how he was so confident yet — the unbearable soon-ness of it haunted him again as he sized up the empty hole the glass shards had left in her cheek — but as he did so, he felt you again, flush against him like you were there in the room.

He’d gotten greedy last night, he knew that, but you’d been right there and so soft, he couldn’t resist. He clenched his free hand through his glove as he remembered the scent of your neck, the lightest hint of some delicious fragrance as he’d taken small, covetous bites of your flesh just to feel you writhe in his grip.

He’d paused his tasting at the neckline of your shirt, sitting back to watch you open your eyes he stopped. “…Can I take this off you?” His hands were still up at your back, holding you close, but he indicated what he meant in the way he passed them over the fabric. The two of you had a tendency to be all over each other in stolen private moments during the brief time you’d been going out: at the House, in the hearse, on his favorite bench in the cemetery. But these had been careful explorations despite your shared enthusiasm, mostly over clothes due to him never being quite sure who - or what - might be lurking nearby. Now, there was no threat of a paranormal pest, or his spectral sister’s looming eyes from the shadows.

It was just you and him, alone at last.

He was too close to you not to see the tiniest hesitation on your part - your teeth briefly grazing your lower lip - before you nodded, your coy smile back in place. “…I’d like to keep what’s under it on, though,” you admitted, your voice soft in how close you were to him. “Is that… Okay?”

“Anythin’s fine by me,” he murmured somewhat hazily, nodding as his hands slid down your sides to your thin top. “Whatever makes you feel comfortable, gorgeous.” He savored the feeling of his fingers sliding under the fabric and finding the warmth of your bare skin, curling around its hem, before he glanced up at you one more time to double check.

You nodded again, your eyes bright with anticipation, and that was all it took for him to yank the flimsy fabric over your head.

Maxi sat back slightly, taking in your mostly-bare torso — your soft stomach was adorably sweet, just as he’d imagined. He admired your clavicle, the way it was set into your shoulders, the way your skin looked with all the small marks collected over a life. You were a miracle, a work of art, just like he’d dreamed. He took you in almost ravenously, wanting to memorize every freckle, mole, spot. The small galaxy that was you.

You shifted in his lap, your arms drawing in slightly over the dark garment covering your breasts. He couldn’t help but move his attention there as well, pausing in his awe-struck inspection. That… wasn’t a bra. At least, not one he was familiar with. He was flustered internally for a moment; he knew he hadn’t dated around in a while, but did they really start making them a whole different way when he wasn’t paying attention? He swore he’d just put a regular one on a nice little octogenarian at work the other day; was that considered outmoded now? An antique?

“…It’s a half-binder,” you said softly, snapping his attention abruptly back to your face. His heart jumped into his throat when he saw you looking shyly down at your thighs, anticipation replaced with more hesitancy. “It’s. Um— It’s for when—“

“Oh, no, that’s not—“ Maxi stumbled and nearly bit his own tongue, cursing himself for interrupting you. But he was desperate for you to understand how much he was only looking at you with wonder, not with second thoughts. He wanted to curl into himself in agony at the mere thought of you having such a notion.

But the way you looked immediately back to him made him think you were almost more nervous than he was, rather than annoyed, and he felt a flash of protective fondness at the expression on your face.

“I— It’s okay,” he soothed, nodding. He reached up to your face, his thumb stroking your cheek as he kissed your jaw line. “It’s fine,” he reassured you again, smiling at you. “That’s all okay, baby. I only looked concerned because… well,” he paused, feeling his own face warm slightly. “I thought they’d gone and changed how they made bras on me, s’all.”

Your uncertainty was punctured by your surprised laugh, and he immediately felt relieved at the return of your smile, even as he rubbed the back of his neck. He didn’t want to do anything that would make you think he was less than… capable, of taking care of you. But he was only being honest.

“No,” you said, kissing the corner of his mouth. “You’re sweet. No, this is a different thing.” You shook your head. “It’s… um.” The shyness crept back into your face, and as much as he wanted to reassure you again, he made himself wait for what you wanted to say. “…Okay, so,” you said slowly, letting out a breath that shook a little around the edges. “Sometimes, um. I have some presentation issues around my…” You paused like there was something stuck in your throat, instead gesturing to your chest under your binder. “And I don’t… really want to have them there. Or out. Or, like…” Your hand clawed for a moment in frustration as you tried to explain. “I just don’t want them to be a focus?” you managed at last, a sigh on the heel of your words. “I don’t know, sometimes I’m fine with them! I mean— Obviously,” you gestured shyly to Maxi, who immediately recalled every time he’d pulled down your neckline to nip at the top of your breasts greedily, on his couch during a bad movie, or against the wall of a crypt during a cemetery walk.

“I’m… very familiar, yes,” he agreed, smiling even as he felt the heat in his cheeks.

Your smile in return reassured him, and he watched the tension in you ease. You reached up, running your fingers through his hair, and he had to fight not to shiver pleasurably at the contact. “I just… today was a bad chest day, is all.” You bit your lip again, clearly still somewhat nervous about this. “And I was just, um. I thought we might… and if I- I flinched, or something, I didn’t want you to think… it was you, or anything. Because it’s not. It never would be.“ You looked down at your thighs again as you trailed off, your hands sliding to his shoulders. “It’s just - this thing my brain does sometimes, and I don’t always know when.”

Maxi was trying too hard not to get stuck on the fact that you had implied you’d never flinch from him, from his touch, his heart fluttering like a trapped bird in his chest with muffled excitement. He had been trying to slow down just how hard he’d been falling for you lately, but you weren’t making it easy. You didn’t know, you didn’t know, he reminded himself sternly. He couldn’t take it entirely at face value if he knew what he was hiding from you, and you didn’t.

And ideally, he thought to himself, you never… would. Not completely, anyway.

Because there’s no way you’d stay if you knew what he was, was there?

Realizing he’d been still too long, been too quiet, his hands went to your hips and squeezed affectionately. “Hey.” He waited until you met his eyes to roll his shoulders in a slow, lazy shrug, smiling up at you. “I’m just happy to be here with you like this, darlin’,” he said, his tone hushed again as he ran his hands up your bare sides. “Really. That’s all. Whatever you don’t wanna do, or— don’t want me to touch,” His hands stopped a respectful couple of finger widths away from your binder. “We don’t have to, at all. Okay?” He shifted a little, going to loosen his tie out of habit before realizing he’d already taken it off and left it in the hearse before he walked in. He flattened his lips instinctively into a line for a moment, his eyes wandering off to the side as he realized what he wanted to tell you right now.

It wasn’t The Thing, but it something he didn’t discuss often, that was for damn sure.

“You’re sure?”

He looked immediately back to you, and realized you’d been watching his face. Your eyes were careful, searching - veiled, he noticed with a hint of panic. You must’ve thought his hesitation was about you, when nothing could be further from the truth.

“Yes,” he said immediately, nodding vigorously. “Yes, angel, absolutely.” He tapped his fingers where they rested on your skin. “Your boundaries are yours. I’m not about to want anythin’ you tell me you don’t, I swear.” He smiled at you again, feeling a little nervous now. “I was just… you got me thinkin’, is all.”

You blinked, your eyes lightening a little bit as you tilted your head. “Oh yeah?”

Maxi nodded, wetting his lips out of nervous habit. “I…” He hummed quietly, trying to figure out how to word this, exactly. He cleared his throat a little, before looking back to you. “…You, um.” He swallowed. “…On our first date,” he finally said, forcing himself to meet your eyes. “I saw your, um. Your pride pins. On your bag, and all. And then, of course, you told me ‘they’ worked for you, obviously,” he added quickly, realizing he was just talking in circles. “So I just… god,” he sighed in frustration, his head falling backwards against the couch to stare at your ceiling. “Why is this hard.”

“…I could state the obvious,” you deadpanned, still straddling his lap.

There was a pause, and Maxi half-shrugged. “You’d have a point.”

He met your eyes again, and the both of you dissolved into muffled laughter, the tension at last broken.

“What are you trying to say, Maxi?” you asked when you’d both got it out of your system, tilting your head the other way to catch his eyes again.

Maxi sighed, looking up at where you were perched on his lap. “What I’m tryin’ to say,” he said quietly, forcing it out now. “Is that… me too?”

You blinked, your brow crinkling. “…You ‘too’?”

Maxi groaned, running one hand under his glasses over his face. “You’re gonna have to forgive me, Darlin’, old habits die hard.” He gave you an apologetic smile. “I mean… I have to be a little more careful about, y’know… who knows, and all,” he said, gesturing vaguely around the room to indicate Greymoon as a whole. He swallowed again, not sure why his heart was racing, why his palms felt like they were going to sweat. You of all people were someone he knew he could tell this to and be safe. So why did this still scare him? “I, um.” He felt himself flushing furiously, looking at you and mentally begging you to understand. “…If I could wear ‘em, y’know, and not get shit for it with my… my job, and all,” he said quietly. “I know we’d have at least one of ‘em in common.” He let out a quick, slightly unsteady breath. “I don’t say this to make things about me,” he said quickly again, his words tripping over themselves. “…But because I really want you to know, there’s nothin’ you could do, or change about yourself, or how you present, or anythin’, that would make me… not attracted to you,” he explained quietly. “Does that make sense?”

Your eyes visibly brightened when you beamed at him, clearly relieved - and, if he dared let himself believe it, even elated. “Yes,” you said, nodding excitedly. “Yes, it totally makes sense.” You leaned in, cupping his face in your hands. “I fucking knew it,” you added in a triumphant whisper, your smile delighted, before you closed the distance and kissed him intensely.

In that moment, Maxi was suddenly intensely aware of the feeling of something… else, looking out through his eyes at you.

Something that wanted you - to drink the light from your eyes until there was nothing left - with such a desperate ferocity, he could swear the scream was audible inside his own skull.

Startled by this unbidden urge, he broke this shared kiss abruptly, pressing a messy kiss to your pulse in your throat. External sensation tended to help shut the Reaper up or drown it out, and you gave him plenty of that: the softness of your skin, the scent you wore in your hair, the surprised noise from low in your chest that turned into a barely-muffled mewl. He lingered there, drawing it out, feeling you squirm on his lap as your hands found his hair again and tried to tug him upward. He winced only slightly, seemingly determined to leave his unmistakable mark on the precious column of your neck, but internally he was running a panicked inventory. After decades of being aware of the Reaper, the demon that had made him its home, he thought he’d gotten a good handle on just what could set it off. Sure, it had made noises about liking you, especially the more you hung around. It had done that with everyone he’d dated, as inescapable as it was. It was a jealous, territorial sumbitch, but so was he, deep down, so he couldn’t really blame it.

But that fascination, that need… what the fuck was that? Demanding as his darker self was, it had never been that… specific. Blood, flesh, souls, the usual maudlin bullshit, sure, he was used to it railing and howling and carrying on as it called for what it believed was its Due. Sometimes for sleepless nights on end, when he was younger and trying to fight his true nature.

But wanting you? Specifically, to watch the life drain from your face? To feel your flesh grow cold under his palms?

He had the unavoidable mental image of something else wearing his face, running a tongue over too-sharp teeth in his mouth, and he couldn’t fight a shudder.

Before he could really figure out what had triggered the spike of aggression, however, you’d turned the tables, yanking slightly on his hair so you could capture his lips when he reluctantly let go of your throat. Your hands moved to unbutton the dress shirt he’d worn having come straight from closing up, and he felt you pause when you got so far down, then the twist of your smile against his mouth as your hand found his shirt stays still on once you unbuttoned his slacks.

“Aw, Maxi - for me?” As much as you were trying to tease, he could hear how you sounded slightly breathless, your fingers shy as they skimmed over the elastic.

His face positively burned, and he wondered if you could feel its warmth, as close as you were. “Well,” he mumbled, suddenly unable to quite meet your gaze. “You mentioned that you, um. Didn’t mind, last time—“

“No,�� you corrected softly, and he looked up immediately. You were fighting a grin as you toyed with the one on his left thigh, before your eyes flicked back to his. “I said I thought they were hot, remember?” You gave him a coy smirk. “That’s different.”

He had to remember to swallow just then, the Reaper well and truly quiet as his brain was too overloaded to process much else besides your expression and your fingers tracing along the inside of his thighs. With some maneuvering, you had his shirt open a moment later, your hands roving over the coarse hair on his torso.

Something else he couldn’t help but adore about you, besides the enchantingly warm squish of your figure against him, was the way you seemed just as taken with him as he did with you in that aspect. Lord knew why — he knew he was that slightly confusing mix of lean with a soft stomach, and he still didn’t know how to feel about that even now — but it was also the way you didn’t seem to flinch at any of his scars. Namely and especially the thick line of tissue over his heart, where his father had beat him to the punch and drawn first blood all those years ago, and where he’d painstakingly re-opened it not long after, trying a particularly dark bit of magic in attempt to dull his own pain.

As he’d held you last night in his arms, feeling your warm palm ghost over it with all the sweetness in the world, he was so bitterly glad that it had backfired - and not as badly as it had for his late sister.

“I want you.” You’d said it so softly, your lips brushing his, that it nearly broke him. “Please?”

“I’m yours.” He’d answered as automatically as breathing, and for a moment he’d felt at least a fraction of the blood rush back to his face, realizing just how… eager, he must have sounded. But you’d only laughed in that way that left him weak every time, and when he’d shifted underneath you to kiss you harder, it had hitched into the sweetest breathy moan when his cock pressed against the core of you through the cotton shorts you’d worn.

“Goddamn, Maxi,” you’d whispered, pulling away to glance down between the two of you, and it was everything he could do not to let himself smirk. You’d turned it right back on him though when your eyes met his again with what was unmistakably hunger. “You gonna wreck me with that, babe, or just make me suck on it?”

He’d heard the soft hissing inhale through his teeth before he even realized it was him, his hand gently settling over your throat. Even as he held it like it was made of glass, he still felt himself freeze, realizing he hadn’t asked you first. He watched your eyes, nervously retracting his hand just slightly to hover above your skin — only to relax when he saw the entertained glint there, and the way you tilted your chin back to grant him access.

He replaced his hand delicately, his thumb lovingly tracing the vein he knew lay just underneath your skin from years of filling others with formaldehyde. “You’ve got a hell of a mouth on you, sugar,” he’d murmured darkly, unable to help himself. “If you’re not careful, you’re gonna give me ideas.”

This was apparently the right thing to say, because you’d shoved your neck further into his palm as you’d kissed him furiously, grinding your cunt against his length as you did so.

He’d had to will himself to keep at least a modicum of self-control, both hands falling to your hips and pulling you harder against him to hear you gasp. As he felt the faintest trace of heat and slick through the thin garment of your underwear, his grip turned to steel, fighting the urge to yank away the meaningless little fabric between the pair of you and push into you to give you what you wanted — what he wanted, if he was being honest, just to feel you clench around him in any capacity. When he heard your gasp change to a soft, tremulous moan as you moved again, it took everything in him to force himself to let go of your waist.

“Your room.” He’d blurted it before he realized quite what he was doing, and you’d blinked at him, your eyes already sweetly hazy. “…Please,” he added, swallowing slightly. “I want to-- I need to do this right.” He pressed a soft kiss to your jawline, hoping he hadn’t just made a fool of himself. “I wanna do this like you deserve.” If this was going to go how he thought, he wanted to make sure it mattered. That even if it was all he ever got, he could say he’d gotten to really savor all of you while he’d had it ever so briefly in his grasp.

Your laugh was shaky but real, and you tilted your head to kiss him again (and, unbeknownst to you, muffle his sigh of relief). “You fucking angel, you’re so sweet,” you’d murmured, kissing his mouth and his cheek and the tip of his nose in quick succession. “C’mon.” You’d stepped backwards onto your floor, grabbing his hands to pull him up with you, and the two of you had only run into a chair and one wall when you couldn’t be bothered to look up from refusing to let go of the other person.

Maxi had been over to your house enough times that it wasn’t too odd how well he could pick his way through your living room, and then your hallway. Luckily, by the time he was walking you backwards to your bed, you were too busy nipping his lower lip and gripping the back of his neck to notice just how well he could navigate across your somewhat messy floor, sidestepping you carefully around things he logically shouldn’t have already known were there.

But he’d gotten very well acquainted with your floor in the last couple of weeks. And the space under your bed, which if he was being honest, was more comfortable than most, if only for the rug underneath and the lack of perilous storage boxes he’d have to contort himself to fit around. It would’ve been downright homey, comparatively, if he wasn’t constantly in danger of knocking his head on your bed frame if he sat up too quickly.

In that moment, he’d been beyond thrilled to be with you on top of your mattress as the two of you fell towards it. He was more than happy to be pinned beneath your full hips, his hands caressing your sides, and feeling you push yourself against his cock already leaking into his clothes as you sought any sort of friction between the two of you. This was more than agreeable. If you wanted to ride him until he couldn’t remember his own name, that would be divine. There would be plenty of time after to fuck you into your mattress until you ruined your sheets, he had all night.

Your fingers had finally hooked into the open waistband of his slacks when suddenly you hissed a curse under your breath, withdrawing so abruptly he was left bewilderedly blinking at your ceiling for a moment.

“Gorgeous?” He sat up to see where you’d pulled back, your expression at once stricken and frustrated. “What’s wrong- you okay?” He felt himself snap out of his own blissful trance, looking you over for any immediate obvious cause of distress. “…Is it somethin’ I did?” He swore he’d just been laying here savoring the taste of your tongue - did he miss something obvious? Had he been careless, distracted? The latter had made him panic even more, wondering if the dark presence inside him had somehow made itself known when he had his guard down.

“No,” you shook your head quickly, pressing your lips together in a slightly aggravated line. “No, baby, it’s not you.” You sighed heavily, sitting back and crossing your legs as you looked… embarrassed? You bit your own lower lip hard for a moment, clearly annoyed with something, before you glanced at him from under your lashes. “…My uterus has the worst fucking timing, is all.” You have him a rueful grimace, wincing slightly as you did so.

Maxi felt himself exhale a laugh in relief, his fear immediately abating. “Oh, babydoll - is that all? Hell, I don’t care.” He shrugged, his shoulders suddenly immeasurably light compared to a second ago. “Or — wait, shit, hold on.” He caught himself a second too late, blushing slightly at his own phrasing and quickly running his palm over his face under his glasses. Smooth, dumbass. “I mean,” he said, showing you his palms apologetically. “That I don’t mind. But obviously,” he gestured to you. “I don’t wanna do anything that would make you… uncomfortable.” He gave you a smile meant to be genuinely soothing, but only relaxed when he saw you let out a breath you’d seemed to be holding.

“Ugh, I’m so sorry.” You rolled your eyes, falling on your back next to him with an exaggerated sigh. He immediately stretched out next to you, determined to be as close to you as possible while he had the chance. You were always a vision, to him, but stripped down like this, you were something he wanted to treasure. “I tend to be really… sore, later, after my first day. Like, ‘hurts to sit down’ sore, sometimes.” You rolled onto your side, and your fingertip traced a soft line down his chest and stomach that stopped just above the exposed fabric of his boxers. He suppressed a visible shiver as best he could, but it was a struggle. “And based on what you’re packing, babe,” you said, your eyes flicking downward before meeting his and causing him to forget to breathe for a moment. “I don’t think I’m going to be quite able to handle it all tonight. Which sucks,” you added, with an embarrassed giggle. ��Because if I’m being totally honest with you, I was really looking forward to it.” You have him a small, shy smile that still felt somehow conspiratorial.

Jesus, you were going to kill him. He was going to die right there in your bed from the sheer thought that you’d wanted him as much as he’d pined after you.

He took a breath as subtly as he could, trying not to give away that you’d about knocked it all out of him. “Don’t worry about it.” He reached over, lightly moving some of your hair away from your eyes. “Again, I don’t want to do anythin’ you don’t want to do. Right now, later, whenever.” He smiled, admiring your bare stomach and thighs in the soft light of your bedroom window, how the beginnings of the blue hour reflected just a certain way off your skin. You were already lovely from his place in the dark, but out here with you? Where you’d wanted him to see you? “You’ve got me as long as you want me.” His eyes had met yours again, taking in how those shone as well, how he wished he could see them in this light more often.

“But I really do want you, though,” you said with just a hint of a whine, and when you leaned in to kiss him again, it was everything he could do not to roll and pin you down so he could kiss you everywhere, slowly and deliberately. You moved closer to him on your mattress, your hand skimming lower over clothes that now felt far too tight. “Can I… help with this, at all?” —

Maxi swore softly to himself as he mis-aligned the apple of the decedent’s cheek again, impatiently picking up the clay and re-rolling it into what it would’ve looked like if half of it hadn’t been ground off onto the hot concrete of the highway once the visor of the helmet had been smashed out.

“I swear I can do this,” he said over his shoulder, still smelling the hint of perfume. “I’m just… havin’ a day, is all. You know how it is.”

He paused, looking back down at the face he was working on restoring and feeling slightly mortified with himself. “I mean, of course you do. Of course. I’m so sorry, that was thoughtless of me. I’m - I’m just gonna shut up now,” he muttered, furiously re-rolling the clay in his hands to try to change the texture.

When he felt the tiniest ‘thump’ against his shoulder blade, like a heavy palm lightly clapping him on the back, he about jumped out of his skin.

— As cool as you were trying to be about it, he could hear just the slightest hesitancy in your voice still, and he could’ve died at the idea you thought he would still say no to you. “I…” His face felt almost drunkenly warm as he tried desperately to get his brain to work with him here, overwhelmed with just how long he’d ached for you to touch him at all, the warmth of your flesh threatening to scorch his normally cool skin. “I don’t want you to feel like you have to? I—“ He forgot what words were for a second as he felt your hand move again, your fingertips skimming the skin above the waistband between the pair of you. “I’d wanna be able to reciprocate, somehow,” he managed, forcing himself to meet your eyes again. “However, um—“ Oh, you’d been positively teasing him then, sliding his trousers down as slowly as possible while you watched his face. Your expression was sweet, your lips parted just slightly as if in innocent curiosity, but he could still see that light in your eyes that told him you knew exactly what you were doing. “However you feel comfortable,” he said, buying himself time by gently taking your hand in his. “I don’t want this to just be about me.” He couldn’t have imagined anything more agonizing than you touching him and him not being able to touch you. It just wasn’t how he was built. He kissed the back of your hand, and the wickedness in your eyes liquified into something soft. “Please?”

You bit your lip thoughtfully, considering. He knew what it was to be vulnerable with someone new - to be even more vulnerable than you’d maybe expected, in your case. He gazed at you earnestly, hoping you would see that he was already devoted, there was nothing about your body that could scare him, because it was yours, and at this rate, he was as good as.

“…Okay,” you said at last, and he couldn’t help but beam when you smiled a little at his enthusiasm. “But only whatever you’re cool with. Don’t feel like you have to reciprocate in exactly the same way, if you don’t want to.”

“Try me.” Maxi said, quirking a brow in a playful challenge.

“Oh, I intend to,” you murmured, kissing the corner of his mouth before dipping lower to trace the scar over his heart with the white-hot tip of your tongue.

Maxi fought to keep his surprised inhale from being too obvious as you did so, feeling his already present blush turn into a full flush down his neck and shoulders. He’d been with other people, sure, but he couldn’t remember the last time anyone had seemed to… savor that part of him, quite like you were.

But of course you’d caught that. You looked up quickly, meeting his eyes with a furrow of concern. “Sorry,” you said softly, your eyes flicking between his and his scar. “I- should I not—?”

“It’s fine,” he reassured you, kissing your cheek hastily. “You’re fine, sugar, I’m just… not used to that, s’all.” His fingertips ghosted down the line of your jaw, watching your brows ease apart. “…People tend to avoid it,” he explained quietly, the corner of his mouth lifting in a half-smile and a shrug of his shoulder.

You blinked. “Oh.” You glanced sheepishly down again. “I should’ve asked first, I know, I just—“ You lifted a hand, your fingers ghosting over the ridge of tissue you’d just claimed with your tongue, and Maxi found himself not only enjoying the feeling, but leaning into it as much as he dared. “…I just figured, it’s you,” you murmured, your eyes finding his again. “And I-“ You broke off, teeth grazing your lip self-consciously like you were fighting a laugh at yourself. “I want that too.”

Maxi sat up with an abruptness that drew a small squeak from you, lifting you so you were straddling his lap now. One hand tangled in your hair as he kissed you hard, the other hand squeezing your hip with a need he was sure gave away just how desperate he was for you—

He slammed down the clay knife a little harder than he meant to on the steel table surface, cussing up a storm under his breath as he failed for a third time to get it shaped exactly how he needed it over the partially exposed gums. “Come on,” he growled, not sure if he was more annoyed with his lack of focus or embarrassed at just how completely you’d invaded his every sense, leaving him stumbling like an apprentice on their first day.

Probably even moreso, given just how long he’d been helping shape flesh back into faces before it was entirely legal for him to do so.

“I’m so sorry,” he said again, straightening up and folding his gloved hands behind his head. He turned away, unable to quite face the woman he was making a fool of himself in front of on his on table. “I swear, this has never happened before, really. I’m absolutely gonna have you lookin’ right as rain for your viewin’, I promise, I’m just… feelin’ a bit off, today.” He gave a long, slow exhale, one that shook just a little bit around the edges. He had to focus. He had to try. It wasn’t like he hadn’t done this hundreds of times.

But you — you were something new. He’d never had to work with someone like you in his head, before.

And it seemed to be having the worst time trying to hold his infatuation and his professionalism in the same amount of space.

— His brain immediately returned to how you’d kissed him back with just as much eagerness, your teeth nipping his lower lip, and when his tongue had filled your mouth, you sucked on it in a way that went straight to the base of his spine.

“PleasecanItaketheseoffyou?” he’d asked in a single breath as he broke away, his fingers hooking impatiently into the cotton lounge shorts you were still wearing.

You looked shy again. “Um. I’m not—“ You sat there for a second, choosing your words. “I’m not wearing a lot underneath,” you mumbled. “I thought I still had a day or so, and I wouldn’t want to—“ You gestured loosely at the white dress shirt he still had hanging loosely about his shoulders, more off than on at this point.

Maxi pressed another messy kiss to the side of your neck, emboldened and secretly thrilled by the idea that you’d been planning ahead for this. That you’d wanted to, been hoping for it maybe as much as he had. “I don’t mind,” he said against your skin, and he felt your head fall back slightly as he kissed down to the crook of your shoulder. “I swear to god I don’t mind, there’s no part of this I don’t mind, I promise you—“

“Okay,” you half-breathed, half-giggled in his ear, and you got your knees under you to hover over his waist just as he pulled down, finding the black mesh waiting for him underneath.

“Baby,” he nearly whined at the sight, his hands moving covetously over the curve of your ass as he admired you. “Fuck, you’re pretty. You always are, of course,” he added quickly, looking up at you where you were still perched up over him on your knees. “Of course I knew that, but— fuck,” he repeated, his hands moving up your plush hips and your soft sides adoringly. “You’re gonna be the death of me.”

You giggled in a way that went right to his chest. “Calm down, Monsieur, you’ve already got me naked,” you teased, still looking a bit shy.

He hooked his arms around your waist, pulling your stomach flush to his chest where he was somewhat pinned under you. “I mean it,” he whispered, and he watched your face change - the self-conscious half-smile falling away at what must be the sheer dark intensity of his gaze. “You have no idea how much I want you. Just like this.”

He was sure his eyes would have changed, the way he was looking at you. He couldn’t always feel it when they did, but the yowling ache of Want inside him as he looked at you like this, for him — you had to have to seen it. There’s no way you could have seen him and missed it, the way he wanted you all to himself, folded into his arms against the dark that threatened to swallow him up when he thought of being parted from you.

He knew it was scary, especially so soon. It scared him too, in a way. He wouldn’t have blamed you if you’d unwound yourself from his grasp right then and thrown him out.

…But, miracle of miracles, you hadn’t.

You’d watched his eyes with a tilt of your head, transfixed by what, he wasn’t totally sure, but your stare was curious - and, eventually, oddly familiar. He saw it then, that flicker of pure Want, not quite as sharp or dark as his own. But it had been there as you looked down at him, your hands lightly carding through his hair… before one set of fingers tangled in it, scraping ever so lightly at his scalp.

That dark presence in him - something that had no business being so close to you, especially not this quickly - crowed in triumph in a way it hadn’t in a long, long time.

You leaned down, catching his lips in yours, and he met you with a kiss that bordered on ravenous. He couldn’t help the sound that escaped him when you gave another careful, experimental tug at his hair — which blossomed into a full moan when you’d pulled harder, eliminating what space there’d been still between you.

“Tell me what you want,” he demanded as you broke away, the pair of you panting slightly as though you were starved for air. “What can I do for you?”

“…Those all the way off,” you said softly, nodding down at his open slacks as your tongue traced your lips - which, he’d noticed, had begun to look just the tiniest bit swollen with his attentions.

He let go of you only long enough to fumble with them and the accompanying underwear, unable to help the slightest of smirks when your own hands had dropped to help him when you decided he wasn’t quite moving fast enough for you. He’d been appreciative of every display of your enthusiasm so far, but the need he’d felt crackling between the pair of you at that moment had been undeniable.

Maxi slid them off with your help, immediately pulling you back against him as soon as they rustled to your bedroom floor. He was trying to keep his breathing level as he felt you finally skim your palm lightly over his cock, and he couldn’t help but glance down to see you sizing it up.

“Damn, Maxi,” you murmured, glancing back to watch his face as you took it fully in hand. He bit down hard on his lip as you spread the drops that were already waiting there over the head, trying not to be so obvious in how much he’d been wanting you to touch him. “Were you planning on making sure I couldn’t walk tomorrow?”

He opened his mouth to answer, only to have the words tangle into something somewhat incoherent when he watched you move down his abdomen to lick a long, hot stripe towards his hips.

The pressure at the base of his spine was taking over the rest of his brain, and all he wanted was the heat of you around him, wishing he could do exactly as you said.

“Depends on what you wanted, pretty,” he managed through his teeth, feeling his fingers dig into his own palms.

“Oh yeah?” You glanced up at him, moving so your torso was perched gently on his thighs. You ran a fingertip lightly up the inside of one, smirking a little as he obviously squirmed.

Maxi forced himself to nod. “I swear I could— be careful,” he said, trying to keep his voice from shaking as he watched you lick your own palm lasciviously. “I wouldn’t hurt you, I promise—“

“Unless I wanted you to?”

He knew you felt him flex in your palm in response. It was too obvious. He said nothing, looking from where his cock was aching, leaking in your hand to your eyes, where you were watching his face with such a dark glitter to them that he had to fight to keep his hips still in response.

“…Okay,” you said slowly, your smile enigmatic. “Good to know.”

Oh, shit. He was a goner now.

You didn’t say much else, your hand twisting up his shaft and gripping just enough to make him inhale raggedly. You gave him a couple of experimental strokes, watching still before your mouth was around him, and he had to fight to keep his shit together.

“Fuck.” His hands tangled hard into your bedspread, trying to keep himself grounded through this onslaught. He’d kissed you a million times by now - he couldn’t help himself when you were around - and just like then, you were slow, deliberate. Taking your time with him because you seemed to like keeping him right on the line of agony and bliss. He felt the softest puff of air, like a suppressed laugh, and when he looked down he felt everything inside him seize at the way you were watching him, your eyes mischievous as he saw a thread of saliva trace its way from your lower lip down his shaft.

He fell back against your pillow with a moan, forcing himself to look away for a moment so he could keep from totally embarrassing himself with you. You had no right to look that perfect with your mouth on him like that. His fist knitted tighter into your comforter, until he felt the soft touch of your hand on his - looking down, he let you gently pull his hand away from your bed and set it in your hair, holding it there for a second as if to reassure him before your hand returned to pinning his hips to your mattress.

Tentatively, he curled his hand in your hair, not wanting to pull hard enough to hurt. He relished the feeling of its familiar texture, something he’d come to love in the time the two of you had spent on the couch with your head on his shoulder. He was just willing himself to be gentle when he heard the quietest noise, and it was only when he felt a shift in your mouth that he realized you’d taken him deeper.

He pulled hard on your hair reflexively, gasping at the change, at the soft sound of you fighting to take him into your throat. “Fuck, angel, you don’t have to...” He looked down at you, and the slight glaze of tears at the corner of your eyes made him forget himself so entirely, he felt his hips thrust forward before he could stop himself.

If you hadn’t been ready for him, he would’ve hated himself for being so careless with you. But you met his worried eyes with something of a challenge, your tongue tracing the underside of his shaft invitingly, and something dark in him delighted at the mirror it seemed to find in you.

Experimentally, Maxi thrust up again, and when he could feel you fighting to control your breath, he wound his fingers tighter in your hair and pulled.

Your moan couldn’t have been more exquisite, and Maxi at last let himself give in.

He wasn’t a monster - his thrusts were tempered, short, but he lost himself in the feeling of you around him: the warmth of your mouth, the soft ragged puffs of your breath, the spit that dripped from your lips. With the lovely wreck you made, and the way he felt you carefully take the rest of him in your hand to make sure no part was neglected, he found himself falling apart fairly soon.

“Darlin’,” he whined, glancing down at you through the now lightly fogged lenses of his glasses. “I can’t take this, I’m— I’m close, I have to—“

It was the way your eyes locked on his and the subtle shake of your head that finally sent him over. The sharp, clear gaze you gave him, the way you made it clear he was doing this your way. That this was something of his that you wanted for yourself.

He came with a shaky groan of your name, feeling the tiniest bit guilty he did so alone, but unwilling to deny how much he loved watching you as he did.

When you finally sat back, gasping, he sat up and immediately crushed his lips to yours like a man possessed, his hands gently cupping your face. He could taste just a trace of himself still on your tongue, and everything that just happened crashed over him at once, turning his kiss nearly feral.

Even through catching your breath, you giggled again at his eagerness, and he knew immediately he would fight a pissed-off alligator for you if it ever came to that. Two alligators. Possessed ones. There was nothing in the world he wouldn’t face for that sound.

“So you enjoyed yourself then,” you teased, leaning over to kiss him on the cheek. “I’d hoped so.”

“You were divine,” he mumbled, leaning down to kiss your bare neck like a man called to worship. “I mean - I already thought so,” he added. “But that was…” He felt his brain go pleasantly blank again, distracted by whatever scent you were wearing on your skin.

You smiled under his praise, but there was the tiniest hint of relief in your eyes. “I’ve been wanting to do that for ages, to be honest.” You leaned forward, kissing the end of his nose as he blinked at you in surprise. “I knew you’d be hot when you weren’t totally together. Not that you’re not hot when you’re put together,” you continued, seeing his eyebrows begin to knit together. “I mean, I’ve been wanting you to rail me in those suits of yours for ages, obviously.” You waved a hand as if this were, in fact, obvious, despite Maxi having a very distinct hiccup of brain activity at the mere thought. “But you’re always so… poised, Maxi,” you said, your hands lovingly coming to rest on his now-bare chest. “I know you have to be, with everything that can go wrong with what you do,” you went on, and he had to keep his face neutral at just how close to the truth that came. “But I’ve been… curious,” you leaned forward, your lips an inch from his as you searched his eyes. “About what I’d see when you finally let go for me.”

Maxi watched you apprehensively as you reached up and ruffled the hair that sweat had undone. You fixated on it slowly sliding over one of his lenses, where it was naturally inclined to lay when he didn’t attack it with hair gel and a comb every day, and after a moment, you sat back with a smirk. “I have to say, baby, I really like it.”

You weren’t totally prepared for when he moved forward suddenly, capturing you in a kiss while flipping you beneath him. He delighted at the soft moan around his tongue in your mouth, only pulling back to hover over you when you were both absolutely out of breath. “If I wanted to make you come so hard you can’t think straight,” he whispered, dark eyes boring into yours. “What’s the best way I could do that right now?”

He watched the coquettish set of your face dissolve into a mixture of surprise from his phrasing and - what he was far more excited by - open, undeniable need. Your teeth grazed your lower lip hard, but he got the feeling that you weren’t having to think about it. No, this seemed more like you were hesitating.

“Try me,” he repeated, more insistant now. He kissed the corner of your mouth, then kissed you properly, coaxing you into something more heated. He lingered until he felt you relax a bit, opening up to him, before he pulled back just enough to speak. “I mean it, anythin’.”

Your guard was down, because he saw your eyes move briefly towards where his hips were resting against yours, your back arching very slightly to rock gently against his hipbone in search of any sort of contact. But they snapped back to his immediately, widening when you must’ve realized you’d given yourself away.

“You a hundred percent do not have to reciprocate,” you blurted, your words tripping off your tongue in your hurry. “Especially not, like, today,” you added with an apologetic wince. “Obviously. I’m not about to ask you to— well.“ You looked askance, embarrassed. “Not our, um. Our first… time, and all.”

Maxi snorted, smiling wryly. “Babydoll. C’mon, now.” He propped himself up on an elbow, cocking his head to look at you. “What, did you think I was gonna try to dodge that every month? Twiddle my thumbs ’til it was over?”

You met his eyes again, yours wide - and Maxi realized he’d tilted his hand, hinting at anything remotely close to a future together this soon. He opened his mouth to backtrack, kicking himself for being so presumptuous - when you looked off to the side again, giving a tiny shrug. “I didn’t want to assume or anything,” you said, smiling shyly. “Some people just aren’t into it.”

He managed to disguise a sigh of relief as a chuckle, realizing you weren’t automatically discouraging the idea of a… repeat engagement. Hell, that you didn’t even seem to be that put off by the thought of him sticking around. “Well. I appreciate your lookin’ out,” he said, tilting his head further to meet your eyes. “But trust me when I say there’s nothin’ about you I’m not into.”

You laughed, disbelieving, but there was a curiosity in your eyes that, when he saw it, he couldn’t look away from. “Define ‘into’ here, babe.”

Maxi sat up a little more, skimming your torso with a rakish glance. “Put it this way,” he drawled, leaning down to kiss just underneath the elastic of your top. “When you do what I do, there isn’t much about the human body you don’t learn to appreciate, in its own way.” He ran the broad swathe of his tongue down the curve of your stomach as he moved lower, causing you to inhale through your teeth and squirm slightly. He trapped your plush hips in his hands, fingers nimbly spreading and adjusting to hold you down against your mattress. His thumbs worked their way under the waist of the pretty sheer underwear you’d worn - for him, he thought with an eager twist of his insides - down over the skin, as though he were unveiling you. “There’s nothin’ I don’t find more beautiful than somethin’ alive just bein’ allowed to be itself.” He kissed your lower abdomen with parted lips, his teeth grazing lightly below your navel just to hear your gentle sound of surprise, to feel you try to move against his palms… and find you couldn’t break his grip. He couldn’t help but sneak a peek at your face, or help the grin that was just a touch too sharp when your eyes were already hazy and huge. “…And it’d be a sin,” he added quietly. “For you to feel like you had anythin’ to be shy about.” He held your gaze as he shifted his hands to your thighs, letting you watch as he pulled them a little wider, his fingers sinking into the plush flesh.

He waited for a response from you - the barest nod, given with only a short dazed lag - before he settled his torso between them, his thumbs tracing the velvet of your skin. He planted an open-mouthed kiss to the inside of each, just adjacent to your cunt, with all the slow measured movements of a ritual. He took the opportunity to adjust his grip again, his right hand shifting slightly upward to mitigate the jolt of your hips, his left staying anchored to your thigh as he continued to rub circles there.

He didn’t know what his eyes were doing when he looked at you a last time, but he could feel the Reaper poised just behind their sockets, unable to resist the proximity of something so vulnerable and precious. He didn’t bother to try to knock it back - it liked this too, too much to ruin it for both of them.

He’d let it watch, it didn’t matter.

Pleasing you would be something that would strictly fall to him. He’d make sure of that.

His eyes flicked downwards, seeing you were already visibly wet - something that sent another searing jolt through him - and there, as though a sign, the beginning bloom of red.

When he swiped his tongue brazenly up your slit, pushing into your folds, the moan you let go from your chest hit him at the same time as the unmistakable taste of blood.

He fell on you like a man starved, pulling your thighs even wider to spread you for him. He felt suddenly insatiable, taken in by your heat, the way you shivered on his tongue, and couldn’t help but cant your hips just slightly upwards to allow himself better access.

You made a sound of surprise that turned into a mewl, your thighs pushing slightly against the side of his face and his palm as though to keep him there, and he felt himself grin wickedly as he continued giving you exactly what he’d wanted to since that first encounter in the cemetery.

In the midst of the familiar human essence, the iron across his palate, there was something that left the vague impression of… sweetness. He chased it, lingering on your clit to lave the flat of his tongue there like a wave. He heard your moan twist into a whine, and he couldn’t resist the urge to echo it, his cheekbone scraping the inside of your thigh as he unashamedly lapped at your core. Your slick spreading across his mouth and further left him wanting, and as his hands clenched at your body with need, yours fell to his hair.

He couldn’t help the moan at the feeling of your nails against his scalp, the way he was sure you didn’t realize just how hard you were pulling. He had to fight to keep his eyes from rolling back as you tugged hard, your hips pushing against his mouth for more. He didn’t know which got him to start rutting lightly against your mattress, the little licks of pain or the way he was tempted to just let you grind against his jaw until you were done with him.

“F-fuck,” you groaned, your first actual word in a while, and it came from somewhere low in your chest. This was beyond the breathy noises of a first time, what people thought the other person wanted to hear or expected. There was a rawness as your groan became something strangled, your voice breaking, and when your heel very lightly came to rest on his back, his nails sank into your skin before he could stop himself.

“Fuck, Maxi, I’m—!” You punctuated that sentence with a keening cry as you came apart, and he held his tongue steady against your clit when your hips spasmed against his face. Your heel dug further into his back, and your hands knotted in his hair as evidence of your orgasm coated his tastebuds. He drove his own hips hard against your bed as you shuddered, already inescapably aware that he wouldn’t know peace again until he could have you making a mess on his cock too.

But this was more than enough, for now. He would’ve been happy to do this until the day he died - and then to be resurrected, at your whim, for this express eternal purpose. His name sounded so much more pleasant from your mouth, especially when you sounded on the verge of tears with sensation, your throbbing cunt indecisive as to whether it wanted more or if it couldn’t take anything else.

He only let up when he felt your fingers go slack in his hair, your foot hitting the mattress with a soft little thud. When he pushed himself up to catch his breath, you were gazing sightlessly at the ceiling, your eyes like a starless night as your own chest heaved.

The blood he could feel congealing around his mouth only exacerbated the sudden overwhelming urge he felt to cage you in his arms and never let you go again, to meet everything else that sought your attention with a murderous glare and hands that itched for cold steel.

“Mine,” the Reaper hissed in the back of his skull, and for once, he had found himself in total agreement.

- Fuck. This wasn’t working. If even open wounds weren’t enough to dull the heat he felt spreading through his veins, he didn’t know what would. “Christ, M’sorry,” he muttered sheepishly to the woman on his table, hastily throwing down the clay knife as it felt like his skin was going to combust inside his protective gear. “I’m so sorry, ma’am, I’ll fix everythin’, I swear I’ll make it up to you, I’m—“ He couldn’t even finish the sentence as he pulled the sheet over Mrs. Berthelot-Yang for her dignity’s sake, then bolted out the door of the prep room towards the door to the hearse’s loading bay.

A full-throated peal of laughter rang out as he left, echoing off the stainless steel on the walls.

He slammed through the exit door, barely noticing the pouring afternoon rain as he scrabbled free of his gloves first, ripping the black latex in the process, before yanking off the splash guard and tossing it over his shoulder and back inside. He was already panting as he ditched the mask underneath, then clawed off the protective coat over his dark scrubs and throwing it behind him as well. Only then did he let himself lean over to put his hands on his knees, letting the somehow still warm rain run through his hair and over his face as he tried to figure out how to deal with the throbbing ache that drove him to literal distraction. If work wouldn’t do it - especially a hard restoration like this one - he wasn’t left with a lot of options.

One tempted him in particular. One he’d been trying to avoid, to be honest. It wasn’t something he liked to do, and it was definitely something he wanted to get in the habit of doing whenever a… similar situation occurred.

But as evening loomed on the edges of the afternoon, he couldn’t see himself with a lot of other options.

If he wasn’t in such a state, he would’ve admitted to himself that it was probably troublesome how he could’ve made the drive to your house blindfolded by now. How it was probably even more troubling that there was starting to be a spot in the bushes in the empty lot just down the street from you where he hid the old Mustang. Or how he’d already had a change of clothes in the back seat for just such an occasion, and he stripped out of his wet scrubs with as little eye contact as possible with the smugly smirking figure of his uncle in the rearview mirror.

He followed the little not-path that was starting to form between the lot and the trees that encircled your house, carefully ducking as needed to avoid any sight lines to the neighbor’s place across the street, avoiding the thorn bushes he’d learned were there the hard way, and carefully stepping around what rodent warrens he’d come across -

And at last, ending up exactly outside your bedroom window.

Your light was on, but your curtains were closed. He checked his phone, scrolling to his last text message from you - before lunch, if he remembered correctly. Amidst a flurry of bad jokes and some random dancing skeleton .gifs, you’d told him you had been feeling kind of gross today, and were planning on taking it easy.

So you were definitely home, then.

He peered through the small crack he could find in your blackout curtains, scanning your room and finding it still charmingly messy, but blessedly empty. Your bedcovers were rumpled, but there was no sign of you.

He hadn’t seen any light from your front windows when he’d driven by, though - so you weren’t watching TV on your couch. But where were you, then, if not here?

Slowly, he cracked the window, listening to what sounds he could catch to see if he could tell: sure enough, he heard strains of music, loud, but distant - further in the house. So no headache then, he thought with a touch of cheer. Good, you always seemed so miserable when you had one of those. You were endlessly restless on your mattress when you were, like you could never get comfortable.

He took the faraway music as his cue to crack the window wide enough to slide in, bending over to fit through in as little space as possible. It was a careful step over the window seat (something he was rather envious of, if he was honest) to your carpeted bedroom floor, and he immediately removed his shoes, not wanting to track dirt around your room.

From there, he dropped into a crouch to hide behind the silhouette of your bed in the middle of the room, carefully lowering the window as he himself sank to the floor. Once he was sure it was secure, he fell over on his side and rolled in one motion under your bed -

And came to a stop right before he ran face-first into your box of clean bedsheets. Perfect, he noted, you hadn’t moved anything in the few days since he’d been by. He’d carefully arranged everything under your bed so he was concealed from view from the doorway, but gave him enough room to stretch comfortably and avoid a dreaded leg cramp. He even had enough room to stash his shoes down by his feet, safely out of sight and nowhere where they could leave a mess.

He curled into his familiar space, resting his head on the hoodie you’d left down here once the weather had turned warm. He wasn’t even sure if you’d noticed it gradually sliding off your bed - genuinely, without any manipulations on his part - but after multiple nights of being tossed about in your fitful slumber, it had finally hit the floor when you’d rolled over, and he’d snatched it up immediately to repurpose it for himself. It was an old lesson he’d learned early: never waste a good opportunity. Not only did it make lying here easier, it had the lovely bonus of smelling like your soap, too.

…But that scent was a little stronger than usual, if he wasn’t mistaken. He sniffed your hoodie again, confused - it wasn’t like you’d found it to wash it, recently. When that wasn’t it, he kept still, trying to figure out what was happening to create this change. Your room wasn’t a place that changed drastically, and definitely not under your bed, so anything that caught his notice was definitely worth assessing as a potential new hazard.

However, it took him all of a minute to realize the music he’d heard was coming from your bathroom - accompanied by the sound of water rushing through the pipes in your walls. You were just having a shower. Was it cramps, then? Heat might relieve those, or it could just be general exhaustion. Bodies were tricky things when they were alive - he’d just have to wait and see what was ailing you.

He took a moment in the stillness to pull his phone out of his pocket and turn off vibrations along with sound, putting it completely on mute. He couldn’t risk him responding to one of your texts giving him away - wouldn’t that just be awkward.

As he did so, he caught another layer of sound amidst the water and the music, and he froze in place instinctively, trying to identify it. It was a voice, but not unfamiliar - yours, he decided after a moment.

After another moment still, he realized you were singing.

His heart was fit to burst; he’d never heard you sing before. It wasn’t professional, by any means, but it was just so… adorable. Genuine. You were no songbird, but neither was he. And he would’ve listened to this for hours, just to hear you sound so happy and at peace.

The song itself was familiar too, although the instruments weren’t quite right - a cover, maybe? He scooted as close to the far side of your bed as he dared, trying to make out the lyrics through the wall and the water. You’d stopped singing, your part apparently ended, and the voice had changed:

“—Sing once again with me,

Our strange duet.”

Maxi sat bolt upright in his excitement - or tried to, before he smacked his forehead hard into your bed frame. He immediately lay back down, cursing himself quietly and touching the tender spot that he was sure was going to bruise. Pulling his fingertips away, he was grateful not to see any blood, at least. But he was definitely going to have to not slick his hair back for a little bit, lest he attract unwanted attention.

But you’d rather liked it when he did that, he remembered you saying so. He squirmed a little where he lay at the idea of your fingers running through his hair, playing with it, the ache in him only slightly assuaged by being so close to you (after being tempered somewhat by having to walk through the rain in the growing dark, on top of that).

But the song was definitely a Phantom cover - he was surprised it had taken him so long to place it, but he was willing to chalk it up to the water and the less-than-spectacular acoustics of being stuffed under your bed. But it had just gotten to Christine’s part again, and he could hear you trying to keep up as she swept into her grand finale. You were admittedly nowhere near the singer’s range, but it was obvious you were having fun. When her final note sounded, he could hear you laughing at your own attempt to match it that came out more of a squeak at the end, and he thought his heart would melt out his mouth and dribble all over your floor. He couldn’t believe he’d never thought to ask you if you liked the show, when he knew the two of you had discussed the book before. He was already reaching for his phone to google when the next tour would be in town when he heard the water shut off.

He froze even though you were still in the next room, listening hard. You’d turned the music down as well, the playlist having shuffled to something else - another singer he liked, he noticed with glee, making a note to ask you about it later - and he could still hear you faintly through the walls, singing at a much more subdued level to match the quieter melody.

He heard the clattering of your various skincare products as you moved around, before the music moved as well, leaking into the hall as you opened the door and stepped lightly back into your room. Only wearing a huge t-shirt and (he could barely glimpse them) a pair of underwear, you seemed to move on a cloud of steam and something sweet, the whole room filled with the scent of your favorite products now, and he relished just laying there and drinking it in.

He watched your bare feet as you walked around your room, your nails freshly painted your favorite color, and surmised you must have been trying to treat yourself to a spa day. You had said you’d been feeling less than your best, so this might have been your way of trying to take care of yourself. He had to resist the urge to check the date, make a note for next time - he knew he was weird, sure, but there were lines even he was willing to respect. He’d have to trust you to tell him if you wanted his assistance with… something like this. He could respect your discretion if not, your relationship with your body was your own.

But still. He’d at least make sure to have some extra of your favorite snacks in his kitchen. It wouldn’t stand out too much, he supposed.

At last, you fell over onto your bed, and he heard you sigh contentedly as you relaxed onto your mattress. He resisted the urge to echo it aloud, instead just stretching out as much as he could manage to pretend he was resting alongside you. This wasn’t perfect, but it was definitely better than trying to white-knuckle through things at the Mortuary alone. At least you were here. At least the overwhelming feeling of… everything, had subsided somewhat now that he was with you.

He heard something move from your nightstand, and a moment later, he saw an empty wine glass come into view as you set it on the floor. You stayed leaning off your mattress, opening the door to your nightstand, and he moved backwards as much as he dared, trying to make sure you wouldn’t happen to notice him if you happened to glance underneath your bed. But you seemed fixated on whatever was in the cabinet. He couldn’t help but be a little curious - he hadn’t gotten to see what you’d kept in there, before, and it wasn’t like he had the opportunity to ask when he was here last night.

With an impatient sigh, he heard you moving to the right side of your mattress, then settle your feet back onto the floor. A moment later, his heart - previously melted - resolidified and jumped into his throat as he saw your knees follow suit, and you kneel in front of the cabinet you were still digging through.

Shit. Shit, shit, shit. There was no excuse for being under here, especially this early on, and double especially since you didn’t Know. He held his breath without realizing, pulling as slowly into himself as he could manage. It wasn’t like you had a direct line of sight under here, but it also wasn’t like you wouldn’t see him as soon as you bothered to look.

He had no one to pray to for this - the good ones wouldn’t dare grant his request, and the bad ones weren’t worth talking to. So he just held his breath and hoped, watching you rifle through a collection of —

Oh.

He watched you set what was very definitely a vibrator on your lap, then a second toy: long, made of dark silicone, it looked like. You picked up and held a couple similar ones of different sizes after that, clearly trying to decide something between them.

He knew he would’ve been scarlet if anyone could see him, the ache from earlier returning tenfold in an instant. So that’s what you kept in there. How… educational.

You were holding the dildo in your hands, and he felt one of his own slide up to cover his mouth, while the other slid… elsewhere. Your fingers were perfect, and once again, he found himself wishing you would touch him, as you had last night.

…In very different circumstances than right now, obviously. But still.

You were tracing the shaft with your thumb, humming thoughtfully to yourself. “Close enough,” you mumbled. “Or close as I’m going to get, anyway.” He heard you laugh to yourself, sounding a little embarrassed. “Yes, wonderful date conversation. ’Hi, Maxi, maybe-strange request, but can I just measure your dick for a sec? …Why? Oh, y’know, just wanted to commission something custom off the internet so I could fuck myself while thinking about you, even though we’ve only been going out for a month, no big deal.’ …God, I’m such a fucking weirdo,“ you muttered, sounding amused yet exasperated with yourself.

Maxi felt his fingers digging into his cheeks as his palm clamped hard over his mouth, barely cognizant of that possibly leaving yet another bruise. His brain felt like it was on fire, his sweats suddenly uncomfortably, impossibly tight. You… what? You what? You were doing what? Regularly enough that you wanted a what?

If he could’ve moved either of his hands, he would’ve pinched himself to make sure this was real, and not some pleasant fever dream from accidentally inhaling embalming chemicals. But one was firmly latched onto his face, determined not to give himself away and ruin this, while the other was already subconsciously desperately rubbing over his cock pressing against the front of his pants.

You pulled out a bottle of lube before you closed the cabinet, stepping back up onto your bed. He listened as you moved like a fox would track a rabbit, aware of every little slip of your skin against fabric, every slight motion of your legs -

Then the familiar sound of your gasp, soft and fluttering. Unexaggerated, wholly yours.

You writhed slightly on the mattress over him, and he could tell you were just warming yourself up. His face felt searing to the touch as he heard the growing sound of your wetness, you moaning quietly as you touched yourself, trying to relax.

Slowly, his left hand slipped under the waistband of his sweats, finding a slickness of his own already leaking from his sensitive tip. He bit down slightly on his right hand, determined not to make a sound as he spread it with a painful slowness over his shaft. As much as he dared, he tried to match the pattern of your movements, wishing it was him with you for real - as much as he was deathly curious about the version of him with you in your head.

He heard a quiet, choked sound from you not long at all after - a muffled moan, you biting your lip as you brought yourself to your first orgasm. You let out an unsteady exhale, and he heard you adjust, reaching for something you’d set down on the other side of your bed.

He had to hold his left hand still as he heard the pop of the plastic cap on the lube, the further hushed sounds of you spreading it along the proxy shaft, before finally you fell back again with a soft ‘thud’.

“Okay,” you murmured quietly to yourself. “Let’s see if I can manage not to totally embarrass myself with another person.”

Maxi was all too aware of his physical body being anchored to the floor as he resisted the urge to climb onto your mattress and kiss those fears away. He could never find you wanting, not in a million years, he could prove it to you right now if you just knew he was there, if it wouldn’t scare you—

But behind his eye sockets, he was aware of something looming, a dark near-arrogance that he couldn’t totally separate from himself. You thought you couldn’t take him. That you might struggle, be shy and flustered if you couldn’t manage it one one go.

The Reaper wanted to see you try, to see the embarrassed tears that might result if you couldn’t, to feel you try to push him back out again because you just couldn’t keep him there.

The part of his brain that was still wholly his wanted to soothe any such tears, reassure you with coos and murmurs about just how good you were, how well you were doing. But there was the tiniest part of him that wanted to lick those tears away, not kiss them, and savor them instead.

His train of thought was entirely interrupted by your sudden gasp, and your quiet groan. “Fuck,” you whimpered, and he could hear you writhing slightly, your feet sliding as you struggled to get comfortable. “Fuck, okay. Okay, it’s fine, I just need…” He heard your head hit the pillow with a sigh, and he felt like his body was one exposed wire.

He couldn’t help but squeeze just a little as he heard you panting softly, making a small, muffled noise as he heard you try to take the toy deeper, accompanied by the occasional slick sound of something moving in you. He felt his cock twitch in his hand at the noise, wishing desperately he could be letting you adjust around him instead.

A breathy whisper of his name sang across his nerves like a bow over strings, followed by a quiet resulting mewl. “I’m trying,” you whispered to the imaginary version of him with you, your voice sounding a little frayed and overwhelmed. “You’re just… a lot.”

Christ, you really were going to kill him. Carefully, painstakingly, he timed the movements of his hand over his cock to what he could make out of yours - his hand hoping to even fractionally capture the way you would squeeze around him, the achingly slow pace of pushing into you and pulling out again, trying to offer you some relief while still trying to satisfy the gnaw of need he could feel building at the base of his spine.

“I can,” you murmured to him and not-him, your voice shaking a little. “I can, I promise, just… I need a minute.” He heard a groan muffled by you biting your lip, trying to push the toy further. “There’s just so much of you, Maxi.”

He bit his own lip so hard it could bleed, trying his damnedest not to react to that out loud. You thought he was a lot. You’d seen him - you’d had him in your mouth, for christ’s sake - so it’s not like you were exaggerating, but still. You were already anticipating not only fucking him, but wanting to take him fully, and in that moment he thought his own anticipation might burn through his skin from the inside out. He wanted to be in you, for real, now.

Then he heard a soft cry, followed by another thud of your head against your pillow, the scrabbling of your feet as your back arched. “There,” you moaned, and his eyes threatened to roll back in his skull yet again. “See? I- oh, fuck, I told you I could.”

And then, slowly, he heard you starting to fuck yourself on it.

He bit fully down onto his own palm, matching your pace now, hoping your own slick sounds and now-desperate whines would cover the sounds of him trying to jerk himself off as quietly as possible. He wanted to be on you, his chest pressed against yours, feeling your sweat and your heart racing under your bones and your warm panting on his neck as he fucked you properly, gave you everything you were begging for just a foot away. He wanted to pin you down and fuck you until you forgot your own name, until he only knew his own from the way it fell off your lips and onto his. He felt your pace pick up in his own grip as you got closer, and the way his whole body tightened, he desperately wanted to fill you with his own release, to feel it slide down your thighs as he stubbornly fucked it back into you, not for anything to take but just to know that you wanted him inside you.

“Please, please, Maxi, don’t stop,” you whined above him, and he tasted his own blood as his teeth finally split the skin of his hand. He wished it was your neck, your shoulder, those wicked little lips of yours - he’d kiss it better in a second, he’d apologize immediately for marking your precious skin, but he was so hungry to feel you with him, for real, that he longed for even the warmth of your wounds on his lips.

Just when he thought he couldn’t take anymore of this, the closest thing to heaven and hell at the same time, he heard you come with a last cracked moan of his name. He shattered immediately, spilling his own load from a day of obsessing over and repressing the memories of you inside his clothes, and utterly ruining them in the process. He flushed even more furiously, the heat spreading down to his chest from both the ecstasy of relief at last, and embarrassment for coming in his pants like a freshman. He fucked into his hand as he heard you coming down until he went fully soft, bordering on the ache of overstimulation but trying to satisfy the gaping hole that came from not actually being able to pull you against him, to descend together in each other’s tangled, sweaty limbs.

For a moment, the two of you just lay there in silence - you still panting softly, him still biting into the flesh of his hand, not trusting himself not to moan the minute he pulled it away. He wanted to kiss you, to tell you that you were perfect, that you took him like you were made for him - or that you would, when the time was right, he was sure of it. But not until you were feeling better, not until you wanted to, until you chose.

“…Holy fuck,” you mumbled above him, sounding somewhat hazy, and he instead had to fight his usual giggle-snort. How were you this cute, he wondered, it wasn’t even fair.

He heard you shift slowly, reaching for something else on your nightstand - he winced as he caught himself secretly hoping it wasn’t the lube again. After a day of agony, he wasn’t sure he could go another round as enthusiastically as you.

But instead, he heard a soft, familiar tapping. In his scattered haze, it took him a minute to place it — until he saw your arm dangling over the side of your mattress, your phone still clutched in your hand as you waited for a text to send.

He caught his name on the screen before you pulled it up again, and hurriedly, he rummaged in his pocket to pull out his own just as the notification of a new message appeared.

<[Thinking of you, handsome <3 Hope work isn’t giving you too much trouble today?]

You wicked little minx. Maxi slowly released his palm from his teeth, bringing up his second hand to write back.

[Aw, miss you pretty. <3 Work’s been… work haha. Feeling better?]>

That was as close as he could think to summarizing the situation, anyway. And he was reasonably sure ‘hey look down here :)’ wouldn’t be very well received, even if he was starting to become aware of your own more… interesting tendencies. He glanced up at the bottom of your mattress as he waited for his own message to send, pondering this. He knew the two of you were still in the early stages, but he was now deeply curious what other strange urges you were hiding in that sweet little head of yours. Besides apparently liking his dick enough to want a memento of your own - something that, if he wasn’t already still flushed, would’ve made him do so all over again as he thought about it.

He heard your phone buzz, and his heart lept at your quiet little excited noise as you rolled over on your mattress. He was half-tempted to peek and see if you were kicking your feet in the air, for as much as you made him want to do the same, but he kept himself out of sight.

A second of fast typing later, your response appeared:

<[So much better omg. Sorry about work though :/ Do you maybe want to hang out tomorrow? We could watch a bad movie and drink about it.]

‘Yes,’ Maxi sent immediately. He winced at his own eagerness, then quickly added:

[Whenever works for you, if you feel up to it! No pressure if you start feeling bad again.]>

He heard you roll back over onto your back, giggling to yourself. He restrained himself from sighing in relief. At least you thought he was cute, and not desperate.

Another response popped up on his screen:

<[Oh I’m definitely better, no worries. <3 My place, maybe seven-ish if that’s okay?]

And then, as he was typing a confirmation, another:

<[And don’t sweat needing to drive home or anything btw. I have a spare toothbrush and stuff lol. ;)]

Maxi resisted the urge to punch the air, both because it would send his fist straight into your box spring, and because he was far too old to be doing that and not feeling ridiculous about it. But he definitely wanted to, in the moment.

[Haha sure. I’ll see you then angel <3]>

You wouldn’t need to know he was seeing you before.

Or at least, he would tell you later. Much later.

(as always, if you read this far, you’re a saint and I love you! <3)

#SFBF #Blood Fest #Blood Fest 2022 #maxi morvant #maximilian vincent morvant #maxi morvant x reader #maxi morvant x you #slasher oc #slasher oc x reader #necromancer oc #plus size reader #non-binary reader #genderqueer reader #morvant mortuary #monsterkisser fics #mdni

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morvantmortuary · 2 years

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Maxi my love & 29 and/or 47 🥺🥺🥺🥺

“Come one more time for me, I know you’ve got it in you.”/“Are you holding back? Don’t.”

nonny, I am. so, so incredibly sorry it took this long. I’m sure you’ve entirely forgotten you sent this in by now, and for that, I totally understand. :’D but you will see, hopefully, why it took me a while to finish. I think this thing was 15k when I finally cut it off, and I was deeply tempted to go on.

so! when I say these two lines got in my head, I mean I took them and I ran a whole usian football field with them. I hope y’all like it, bc I certainly enjoyed myself writing it. I meant to have it up for Pride month, but alas, the best laid plans ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ here’s hoping you’ll find it just as queer now.

let me dirty up your mind (18+, mdni) --

summary: you explain to Maxi just how his peach of an ass makes you feel, and when he still doesn’t believe you, your afternoon takes a different direction while the two of you indulge in something new.

warnings: smut, mdni. discussions of gender feels/dysphoria, discovering queerness, coming out, some v v minor references to past closeting due to homophobia/transphobia. some verbal body worship, anal play, pegging, strap-on blowjob, handjobs, cum-eating, overstimulation, brief facesitting (afab receiving). feelings are shared in the middle of all of this, bc ofc. Maxi uses mostly fem petnames for reader, but I don’t think the word “girl” is used specifically.

general: this one’s for all my fellow queers who developed feelings for a murder blorbo and/or daniel brühl and his perfect ass. dedicated again to my saintly nonny, I really am sorry this took so goddamn fucking long. :’D

okay! here we go~

You weren’t entirely sure how you’d gone from a simple conversation to slowly, languorously spreading lube along the shaft of your strap-on while Maxi watched your every move, his face already ablaze with heat.

It’s not like the two of you hadn’t discussed this before, in that haze of first learning everything about each other, how your bodies responded to one another. The first time he’d lifted off your shirt to find one of your looser binders on a bad dysphoria day, he’d paused, suddenly less intent on railing you senseless and more curious to hear how or if you would like to be railed senseless, or if you’d rather be the one doing the railing. Maxi was different than a lot of your exes - understatement of the century in some cases, but still - and you remembered what followed as the most comfortable conversation you’d ever had with someone about how you worked. How you understood yourself, how it felt like sometimes the world was just determined to sing your name off-key, or how they kept writing it with the wrong spelling, but more. How it felt when you knew people looked at you and didn’t see you right. How sometimes you weren’t sure what you were supposed to look like or feel like, anymore.

He’d sat in front of you on your bed in just his boxers, watching patiently with his warm brown eyes and handing you a tissue when you got overwhelmed and teary with the weight of taking inventory of yourself. He’d intertwined his fingers with your free hand, asking you question after question with his thumb tracing your knuckles: what should he call you on days like today? When did you like being his “good girl,” and when did you want to be something else? What wasn’t he thinking to ask?

He spoke slowly and softly, his eyes never leaving your face and never once pulling away, and inside, you felt something light up that had been dark for a long time. It was all the things you’d been holding back - hesitating to explain, not wanting to see someone’s eyes glaze over again, or the tight smile when you asked if they could please just call you what you wanted. You weren’t going to have to drag them out of your chest one at a time and nervously hold them up for someone to see, hoping they wouldn’t immediately roll their eyes. Maxi just listened, and nodded at each new thing you told him, and asked to see whatever else was hidden inside you like it was perfectly ordinary.

He was more than willing to open up himself, then - a little shyer, pulling his knees to his chest as his eyes fell to your bedspread. He told you about his first crushes when he was young: one of the few good friends he ever had in middle school, a boy with dark hair in cornrows and warm deep skin, then a red haired girl with freckles who always smelled like laundry detergent and fresh cut grass. How he kept his cards close to his chest until he could drive something other than the hearse, and all of high school was just hushed, messy encounters in the backs of cars and hidden in alleys that no student at his school would ever acknowledge in the light of day (not with him, not with the family he belonged to, anyway). How he’d briefly met the red-haired girl again when he graduated and they lived together for a year and came to hate each other, and how his only serious boyfriend had been another student at the mortuary school who’d he’d never told where he lived and promptly ghosted upon getting his certification. You understood how deep he must have reached into himself to tell you this - how he couldn’t quite look at you, his voice soft and stuttering more than usual.

With hindsight, you would’ve said he almost had a harder time telling you this truth than telling you about the Curse later. But for this confession, you knew what to do. You knew how this felt. You traced your thumb over his hand, listening silently, taking everything he handed you and putting it safe behind your own bones next to what you kept there yourself. You knew what it meant to be heard. When at last he let out a shaky breath, reaching the end of this, you asked him all the ways you didn’t know how to make him feel loved in his own skin - what might not occur to you, what you might need some assistance giving him, but were determined to do so nonetheless.

Neither of you ever once let go of the other’s hand.

The way he’d wrapped his arms around you after - loose in just the right places, firm in the ones that made you feel safe - felt like the first good, solid hug you’d had in a long time. The two of you had just laid there the rest of the night, tracing each other’s scars and talking in low whispers, though for once neither of you were afraid of being overheard.

Cut to today - time, new scars, and a magic you didn’t quite understand between the two of you - and this afternoon had honestly started innocently enough.

He’d come back from a wake as you were sitting in his office, tapping away at your latest project on your laptop. You’d gotten weirdly used to sitting in the office off the embalming room in the first sub-basement - for reasons you didn’t understand (and maybe didn’t want to), the wifi was still weirdly perfect, and something about it felt… it was hard to explain. Lighter, than the rest of the House somehow. Less likely to be engulfed abruptly by gloom, despite being the closest to the dearly departed. Maybe because it was a room that felt like Maxi, with a framed photo of the two of you on his desk (a particularly adorable candid Hector snapped in the graveyard when it first snowed, and begrudgingly gave him for Christmas) and a stash of sour candy in his bottom desk drawer (next to an emergency bottle of whiskey). Maybe it was the fact that he triple-layered salt in the corners of the room out of client eyesight, who knows. You’d been in flow state for a while when you heard his familiar footsteps on the stairs; he’d gotten in the habit of announcing himself, in a way, after the third time he’d accidentally startled you and the first time you notched a scalpel an inch from his eye in the doorframe. After that, a discussion was had, and protocols were established.

Maxi hopped the last step and beelined right for the open office door, where he opened his mouth in a bright smile to say hello — and then paused, immediately turning around as he held up a finger to walk back out for his phone or something. This gave you ample time to watch him leave.

“My favorite distraction,” you’d joked, making a point to close your laptop and plant your chin in your hands as he’d walked away. “You have a decent crowd today, babe?”

“More than I’d thought, actually!” Maxi chirped, walking back in with his phone in hand. “I hate to say it - bless her heart - but I wasn’t actually expectin’ a turn-out like that for Miz Elmwood.”

“Oh yeah?” You’d paused in your appreciation, your eyes flicking back to his. “Why, no old flames? No siblings with a grudge?”

“No anybody,” Maxi shrugged, leaning against his file cabinets in front of you. “Heard she wasn’t very popular at the senior center, either. I was walkin’ in thinkin’ it was gonna be empty, but damn if all the ladies of the Greymoon Historical Society weren’t there.”

You couldn’t help a smirk curl at the corner of your mouth. “You don’t say?” You leaned slightly over the desk, making a show of confirming your suspicion with a knowing look. “Mmmhm. That it explains it.” You leaned back in his antique leather chair, wondering if you looked as smug as you felt in that moment.

“…What?” Maxi looked at you, then looked down at his shoes and back again. “Explains what, gorgeous?”

“You’re wearing the grey pants today,” you said as you tried to fight a grin.

Maxi blinked at you, uncomprehending. “Well… yeah. If I’m wearin’ the grey suit, the pants need to match.” He looked down and back at you again, as if trying to figure out if he should be self-conscious or not. “Is there somethin’ wrong with ‘em?” he asked, the tiniest bit of concern creeping into the voice.

You giggled, unable to help yourself. “No.” You shook your head. “There’s absolutely nothing wrong with those pants. In fact,” Your grin broke through as he looked back to you. “I bet if you wore those every day, you’d have the best attended funerals in the parish.” You chewed your lip for a moment, thoughtful. “What time did you get to the chapel this morning?”

“9:30, service was at eleven,” Maxi said without hesitating, his brow furrowed. “Wanted to say hi to the pastor first, set up the flowers.”

“Mm. And you picked up the flowers from the usual place?” You asked, raising an eyebrow.

“Della’s, yeah. But that’s not it,” he shook his head, and you couldn’t help but think about how adorable he looked when he was confused. “My grandpa was the one that started goin’ there, that’s where we’ve always gone. ‘Til Rora gets the garden established enough that we can do it in-house, anyway.”

“And who’s the person who handles pick-ups in the morning?” You prompted, smirking again like fucking Sherlock Holmes over here. Living in a town as small as Greymoon meant you knew all of this already, even if you hardly went to these places yourself: Maxi knew just about everybody, even if just on a congenial level due to his work, and you in turn heard all about them when he told you about his day.

“Miz Amelia,” he said slowly, still staring into space as he tried to figure out what you were getting at. “…But what’s she got to do with it?” He looked back to you, shrugging.

“Amelia’s also in the Historical Society, right? And she was there today?”

“Yeah,” Maxi nodded.

You muffled a full laugh, gesturing at him. “You just answered your own question, handsome.”

Maxi pursed his lips thoughtfully, then crossed to the desk, placing both palms on the surface to lean over conspiratorially. “Clearly,” he said, nodding with an exaggerated sage expression. “…But, let’s say we had to hypothetically explain it to someone who didn’t know just what you were on about? What would we say, exactly?”

You cracked up laughing, and he beamed, unable to resist at the sound. “Maxi,” you managed, still fighting giggles. “Amelia saw you were wearing the grey suit and called all her old lady friends so they could come check out your ass the whole time! It’s obvious!”

Maxi immediately went bright pink, looking somewhere between vaguely scandalized and amused. “Are you impugnin’ the honor of the good ladies of Greymoon?” he asked with an overdramatic flourish, still trying to keep up the bit.

“No, they have excellent taste, clearly,” you said, gesturing to him. “Your ass is always great, babe, but it’s a whole Second Line when you wear the grey suit.”

You watched as he went fully red, looking sheepishly away even as he laughed to himself. “You better watch that mouth of yours, you liar.”

“I’m dead serious! Have you seen you?” You got pushed back from the desk and walked around to his side, determined now. “Here.” You seized his hand, pulling him to a full length mirror he kept in the office for when he switched between his embalming scrubs and his suit.

“Okay, okay, I accept your conspiracy theory,” Maxi rolled his eyes, holding your hand but not making any move to follow you. You looked back at him, and saw him wavering - still smiling like he was laughing with you, but like he was internally trying to figure out if you were teasing him or not. “The little old ladies of Greymoon have a phone tree they use for nefarious purposes. Next you’ll tell me they rig the jambalaya competition every year.”

“It’s not a conspiracy theory when I’m right,” you rolled your eyes playfully. “Come here and let me show you.” You tugged on his hand again gently, but he still didn’t move, glancing from you to the mirror with a hesitant face. “…Baby,” you faux whined, swinging your joined hands between the two of you childishly. “You tell me all the time how into me you are, let me have a turn.” You play-pouted when he looked back to you, knowing that was a weakness he’d never openly cop to, but had nonetheless.

Sure enough, he sighed. “That’s different,” he half-mumbled, letting you pull him over towards the mirror. He was still smiling at you, but you could see where it didn’t meet his eyes. “You were some lovely creature that tripped into my cemetery while I was sweaty and covered in dirt.” He stood with you in front of the mirror, giving himself a cursory glance while taking more interest in you. “Then you stayed,” he added under his breath, his eyes softening as he looked you over.

“First of all, I would’ve done unspeakable things to you in the hearse while you were still sweaty and dirty. Hell, I would now,” you said casually, prompting Maxi’s familiar giggle-snort as he turned to meet your eyes again. “I didn’t want to freak you out, though, considering we’d just met. And second of all,” you reached up and grabbed the lapels of his jacket, spinning him so he was standing sideways in front of the mirror with you. “You really want to stand there and tell me you don’t look good?”

“This is how I always look, darlin’, I’ve had this suit for years,” Maxi said, giving it another critical once-over. “…Kind of impressed it’s still holdin’ up, actually.”

“Daddy, you’re killing me,” you rolled your eyes again, not missing his soft inhale at the name. “Here, look—“ you reached around him, pulling him flush against you as you blatantly grabbed his ass with both hands for emphasis. “Look at that and tell me that’s not a gift.”

Maxi made a noise that was half an embarrassed squeak, half his laugh. “C’mon now, chances are I’m already buyin’ you dinner, flattery is unnecessary.”

“I’m serious!” You squeezed the flesh in your hands, watching him giggle flusteredly in the mirror. “Do you have any idea how often I look at you and forget how words work for a minute?”

Maxi looked nearly overwhelmed, his hands finding their natural place at your waist after a second of clearly not being sure what to do. “I appreciate you bein’ sweet, pretty.” He wasn’t quite looking at you still, half-heartedly glancing between you and the mirror.

You turned to face him directly, standing up on your tiptoes. “I mean it.” You locked eyes with his as your voice dropped, your face serious as your lips were barely an inch from his. “Do you have any idea how often I forget what I’m working on because I catch sight of you, and then I really, really just want to bend you over and…” You trailed off, suddenly realizing just how detailed you were about to get with that particular fantasy. You felt your face heat, biting your lower lip to shut yourself up. This had escalated quickly.

But Maxi was searching your face, eyes going slightly wide as you trailed off. He was silent, and for a moment you’d wondered if you’d gone too far — until he tilted his head. “…And?” he prompted, his voice just slightly breathless.

The air in the room was suddenly thick, and you weren’t sure if it was warm in here or if it was just your face. “I—“ You hesitated, your mouth open slightly as you saw just how dark eyes eyes got in the span of a second, his hands squeezing your hips just a little harder. You licked your lips slowly, not once looking away. “…Are you busy this afternoon, by any chance?” you asked softly, oddly shy now.

“Not anymore,” Maxi shook his head quickly, his eyes growing darker still behind his glasses. “Now, you gonna finish that thought, or what?”

You’d made a quick trip back to your apartment for your essentials, and when you’d gotten back to the House he was already waiting for you at the front door, catching you as you walked in with a kiss like teeth and hunger.

You smiled against his lips at the feeling of a hand on your hair, one on your waist, backing you up to the front door as it closed. “I told you I’d be right back,” you laughed, a little breathlessly when he finally let you go.

“I know, I just missed you.” Maxi was barely an inch from your face, hands moving to rest lightly on either side of your shoulders on the door.

You caught his jaw with your free hand, your thumb traveling down the line of it affectionately. “Needy already?” You couldn’t help but smile, seeing him open his mouth briefly to protest… before closing it again with the slightest pout.

“Did you get what you wanted, gorgeous?” he asked instead, glancing curiously down at the dark duffel bag in your hand.

“That and then some.” You kissed the end of his nose while he was distracted. “Now, our room?”

“Uh. Well.” Maxi glanced at the staircase, biting his lip thoughtfully before he looked back to you. “…You’re gonna think I’m bein’ needlessly weird.”

“Oh, it’s far too late for that,” you said with exaggerated grimness. Maxi rolled his eyes at you before you set a hand reassuringly on his chest. “Whatever you need to be comfortable, Maxi, it’s fine. I’m not about to argue.”

At the sound of his name out of your mouth, you saw him visibly relax a bit. “…Let’s go to my old room,” he said at last, looking back to you. “I know it’s not… our usual,” he said quietly, off your curious head tilt. “But I just… it’s more—“

“You don’t want me to fuck you in the room that used to be your parents’ room?” You asked, raising an eyebrow. “Again, I’m not arguing,” you soothed, fiddling with his tie when his overactive capillaries turned his skin pink again. “Wherever you want to go, baby, that’s perfect. Hell, I’d be cool with the graveyard if it weren’t still light outside,” you added with a shrug.

Maxi paused before he could get his words out, as if considering this. “…We’re gonna come back to that later, because I like the way you think,” he said, pointing to you and making you laugh again. He glanced at the stairs again, his gaze wandering reflexively upward. “But it’s just--“

“You don’t have to explain it to me,” you said softly, tugging slightly on his tie so he looked back down at you. “Seriously, whatever you need to do. I want you to feel safe, okay?”

“But I don’t want you to think there’s some… double standard, about this,” he said, his brow furrowing anxiously. “I don’t want you to think I think it’s different if I’m— or, well, if I’m not— if you’re—“ He gestured frustratedly, trying to find the words.

“Honey.” You dropped the bag next to your feet, taking his face gently in your hands and forcing him to hold your gaze. “I love you. You know that.” He nodded instinctively against your palms. “I know you love me just as much, and I know there’s not a double standard. We can do this in your old room if it means you can relax, it’s totally okay with me.”

Maxi sighed, leaning down so his forehead rested against yours. “…I haven’t done this in ages,” he explained softly, his arms loosely circling your waist. “And when I did, I never brought someone… here. And sure, maybe it’s ridiculous, but I’d just… rather not be surrounded by all my parents’ antique furniture covered in dust and disapproval while we’re tryin’ somethin’ new, y’know?” He winced, and you weren’t sure if he realized he had done so.

“There’s no dust in that room, and you and I both know that,” you murmured reassuringly, lifting your face to press a kiss to his forehead. “You’re in there with the polish and the rag like clockwork, you big Virgo.” You smiled a little when you heard him give a low exasperated chuckle, then met your eyes again. “I won’t disagree about the furniture, though - I’ve definitely felt mildly judged by the armoire at the end of the bed after a night or two.”

“Mahogany just has that feelin’,” Maxi nodded. “I swear, it’s always the hardest casket to sell - you can only picture the person inside frownin’ the whole time.”

“You’re such a nerd,” you cooed, giving him a proper kiss at last. “Now come on,” you said, grabbing your bag again and taking his hand. “Let’s go have fun with this, okay?”

Maxi squeezed your hand slightly, his shoulders finally relaxing as his smile reached his eyes. “Lead the way, pretty.”

It took you everything not to wander around Maxi’s childhood bedroom like a museum whenever you were in there. It was a rare occasion; he preferred to romance you in the much more spacious, airy master bedroom on the third floor, with the west-facing windows, the four-poster bed, and the clawfoot tub in the adjoining bathroom. Here felt entirely different: walls clumsily painted black in a fit of teenage pique; scary movie posters and flyers for tiny local bands that never made it hanging on with yellowed tape; faded red curtains that look like they’d barely survived a fight with a belligerent straight razor, covering the small window that overlooked the empty side of the yard. It made you both a little amused and a little sad to see that your usually meticulous boyfriend’s room had once looked like yours often did, after a particularly rough tango with your old friend depression. But there were little joys, if you knew where to look: his Playbills for his favorite musicals were carefully kept in a bottom drawer of a beat-up old desk, his stuffed gator from when he was small was hidden under his bed with its button eyes, an entire collection of vintage horror comics kept in a long white box next to his rickety bookshelf. And your real favorite: photos all over the far wall of the room, badly lit and sometimes blurry polaroids of teenaged Morvants. You could only assume Hector was the photographer - he only showed up in some of them, and even then only from the now-familiar vantage of a selfie (usually making a goofy face with Maxi, occasionally clearly trying to tempt Rora into participating). You were smiling to yourself as you walked slowly past a collection of them, giggling softly at Maxi’s too long-bangs and braces, Rora’s perpetually annoyed expression and frosted lipgloss, Hector’s barely-there wisps of the beard he had now.

The now-adult Maxi groaned quietly behind you, and you turned to see him leaning against his closed door on the other side of the room. He’d changed out of his suit into just some sweatpants - still grey, you noticed with a small flutter in your stomach - but he had his arms folded over his chest, the familiar rogue curl of his hair falling loose onto his forehead.

“I forgot why I never bring you in here,” he muttered, nodding at the photos with a grimace. “Especially not…” He trailed off, rolling his bony shoulders towards you in a shrug that explained the rest of his thought.

“Oh, hush,” you soothed, crossing the room to him. “You’re adorable in those photos, I love them.”

Maxi made a small, doubtful noise of protest as you hugged his bare torso, his hands running from your shoulders possessively down your sides. “Let’s just say I’m grateful I met you when I did,” he said quietly, his grimace cracking into something softer as you nuzzled the scar over his heart.

“Here, look,” you said, looking back up to his eyes and resting your chin on his chest. “If it makes you feel any better, next time we’re at mine, I’ll show you my high-school pictures. Then we’ll be square, right?” You tilted your head to meet his still hesitant gaze.

“…I saw some of yours, back when,” he admitted with a shy half-smile. “Diggin’ through your old facebook.” He giggled as you let out your own frustrated groan, wrapping his arms more securely around your waist and swaying with you in a playful hug. “You were cute with your hair like that. Different, but cute.”

“God, I’m never doing that again,” you rolled your eyes, swaying with him. “I kept it for a while for a boyfriend who said he liked it at the time, and all it got me were some terrible photos.”

“Good.” Maxi kissed your forehead, nuzzling your cheek with the end of his nose. “…He didn’t know what suited you, anyway,” he added with a defensive mumble.

You giggled, turning to kiss his cheek. “Look, if it really makes us even,” you said, smiling as he kissed softly down your neck and to your shoulder. “I’ll show you some of the prom ones I hid before I went to college. …Unless you found those already, you fucking snoop,” you teased.

Maxi made a curious noise, releasing the spot he’d been marking with a soft ‘pop’ to look at you over the frames of his glasses. “…With the white dress?” he asked, raising an eyebrow.

You smirked, pleased you still had some secrets. “Nope. That was junior prom. I wore a pink one to my boyfriend’s senior prom to please my mother.”

“No,” Maxi gasped, looking at once smitten with the idea and mildly horrified on your behalf.

“It’s true,” you said with a grim nod. “Bright pink. You could’ve spotted me from across the hotel, in their little, like, pretend ballroom or whatever.”

“That’s awful, darlin’,” Maxi said, his eyes wide as he clearly struggled to balance his discomfort for you and his amusement at the thought. “…I bet you were just precious, though,” he added quietly, his smile winning out at last.

“You better be careful, Morvant,” you warned, your voice exaggeratedly threatening in a way your teasing smile completely undermined. “I might just revoke your Choosing privileges.”

Maxi paused, gaze wandering over to your black bag at the end of his bed. “…I thought you were doin’ that anyway?” he tilted his head as he looked back to you.

You shook your head, kissing his collarbone. “Nope. That’s all you, handsome.” You pulled back to meet his eyes. “That’s the rules: I picked the color already, you pick the size.”

Maxi looked from you to the bag again, hesitating with an expression of both apprehension and curiosity.

“Here,” you said quietly, lacing your fingers through his left hand. “C’mon.” You pulled him over to his bed, sitting down next to the bag and unzipping it as he hovered next to you.

You took out four dark-colored toys of sleek, clean silicone, laying them out in increasing size on his bed. You’d stuck with the ones on the smaller, leaner side - those were easier to control, and if this was going to be your first time trying this together, there was no need to go with the big guns just yet and stress you both out.

“Shi-it,” Maxi drawled in genuine surprise, looking at you with an arched brow and the beginnings of a faint blush. He shuffled slightly in place, crossing his arms again. “You do this a lot, sugar?”

“I bought most of these for me, or a girlfriend du jour,” you said with a shrug. You paused, fidgeting slightly with his duvet. “I… actually haven’t done this with a guy before,” you confessed, smiling shyly.

Maxi blinked, then smiled a little himself. “Oh. …Well. I’m honored,” he said, leaning down to kiss the end of your nose. “I, on the other hand, have only done this with guys,” he added with a chuckle, reaching up to push his hand nervously through his hair.

“Cool, okay, firsts all around,” you said, trying to seem nonchalant with a shrug. “So we’ll just play this by ear.”

“Sure,” Maxi returned your shrug, clearly trying to match your chill about this himself. He looked back to your assortment, seeming to relax a little more now that he knew this was going to be something new for both of you. He sized them up thoughtfully, his tongue subconsciously tracing his lower lip in a way that made heat rush to your face. After a moment, he reached forward, his hand hanging in the air before he nudged the base of your second-largest one with his knuckle. “That’ll work.”

“Looks good to me,” you said softly, your voice already fading a little bit at the idea of teasing your boyfriend with that particular toy. You picked up his selection, testing the weight of it in your hands as if just holding it for the first time. You felt like you were seeing it with new eyes now as you re-explored its shape and length, curious what made this the one Maxi chose - if he was going easy on himself for a first time, or if this was about what he could handle. You were lost for the briefest of moments, a lick of heat spreading through you as you wondered just what he’d handled before, tantalized by the possibility of wrecking him in the way he so often left you feeling wrecked in turn.

When you glanced up at him, your next question froze on your tongue, seeing the way he was watching your grip on the dildo as he bit his lip. You cleared your throat, and his eyes found yours again with a slight start, but you were sure you couldn’t quite hide the want that was starting to spread at the core of you. “You, um.” You felt your tongue dart over your own lips, wondering if it was warm in here or if it was just you. “You wanna warm up with one of those while I get this on, babe…?” You jerked your chin towards the smaller options left on the bed.

Maxi shyly shook his head, smiling. “I’ve got my own for that,” he admitted, nodding towards a nightstand that looked like a relatively recent addition to the rest of his old room.

You followed his gaze, looking between him and the dark furniture. “Oh! Okay, cool,” you nodded. “Perfect.” You paused, your eyes flicking back to his. “You, um, want me to use that instead…?” You were thinking quickly, hoping the O-ring of your harness would fit whatever he happened to pull out.

“Nah, yours’ll be fine,” Maxi nodded towards the toy you were still holding. “…Probably be more fun, anyway,” he added with a smirk.

You felt your breath catch as his voice sent a white hot bolt straight to your clit, trying to keep your face in check - but realizing it was pointless when his eyes went dark, his lips parting just slightly at your expression. “…Okay,” you said quietly, suddenly feeling a touch overwhelmed with how much you actually wanted to do this.

“Okay,” he echoed, his hands flexing slightly at his sides, and you could hear a mix of your own nerves and anticipation in his voice.

You two switched spots - you standing next to his bed as you swept the unchosen toys back into the bag, him sitting on the edge to watch you. This was a little weird, being much less spontaneous than the two of you just ripping each other’s clothes off and falling into bed. But there was something to the preparation aspect you found yourself enjoying; the feeling of enacting something ritualistic as you pulled out your harness, fitting the dildo inside the O-ring before turning your back to him. You took your time shedding your clothes - dragging your shirt and compression bra up over your shoulders, letting your shorts slide slowly down your lush thighs. When you slipped off your scant excuse for underwear, you heard the softest whine from the bed behind you.

You glanced coyly over your shoulder, meaning to tease - but froze in place instead, mesmerized by the sight you found.

Maxi was watching you with his familiar dark hunger, his sweatpants and boxers pulled hastily down his thighs to reveal his waiting cock, already dripping at the head and stretched against his soft stomach. But while that was a welcome sight in itself - one that had your tongue tracing across your lower lip before you were quite conscious of it - it was something else that had rather caught your attention.

You turned around entirely, captivated with the sight of him working a smaller toy in and out of himself with a deft hand. His pale skin was already flushed to his shoulders, his hips twitching slightly as the lubed — glass? Were you seeing glass? - rod penetrated him fluidly, leaving him already panting a bit as you watched him adjusting around it.

Your knees briefly threatened to fail you, as it felt like your entire face caught fire at the spectacle of your boyfriend’s bitten lip and quiet whine.

Maxi, who had been blatantly letting his gaze roam up and down your now-bare form, regained a somewhat unsteady smirk when he caught sight of your expression. “Now, baby,” he said slowly, his voice betraying him a bit as he pushed his warmup piece further than he had a minute ago. “Y-you’re not just gonna stand there and watch, are you?”

You blinked, remembering just what it was you were supposed to be doing. “And let you have all the fun? Hell no.” You shook your head perhaps a touch too eagerly, and he chuckled. You turned back to the harness, lifting it over your thighs and settling the various straps into place. You checked each side to make sure it wouldn’t chafe before moving to fasten it around you —

“Wait.”

You froze, looking to Maxi with concern. “You okay?”

Maxi nodded, still gazing at you with a dreamy haze over his eyes. “You, um… want help?” He nodded at the harness straps in your hands, his expression a muddle of curiosity and need.

You couldn’t help but smirk, realizing what this was. “Is it more that you want to give me a hand, Maxi?”

Maxi nodded again, and as his eyes fell to the harness, you distinctly saw his cock twitch where it lay.

Unable to suppress a grin, you walked back to the side of his bed, holding it in place as he set the glass rod back on the nightstand and sat up eagerly. He took your murmured instructions like gospel, notching each belt exactly where you needed it, tugging with just enough force to make sure they were solidly fastened, then near-greedily watching you run your thumbs along the insides to make sure they would hold without cutting into your skin.

When you were satisfied, you leaned back slightly to admire yourself in the strap-on. It had been a weird sensation when you first tried it, to be sure — you weren’t used to having anything there, much less something with weight and mass — but once your brain adjusted to having something so intimately attached to you, you had to admit: it was hot.

“Fuck me,” Maxi murmured, taking in the sight himself with something akin to awe.

“We’ll get to that,” you reassured him, undeniably enjoying the way he seemed to like you in this as much as you did. You went to avail yourself of the bottle of lube he’d used on his glass object earlier, but he caught your wrist delicately, causing you to look up with a raised eyebrow. “Babe?”

“Here, just- we’ll get to that,” Maxi echoed absently, his voice somewhat flustered in its hush. He surprised you by stepping out of bed before gently grabbing your hips, switching your positions so you were now back against the edge of the mattress.

“What do you…“ your voice failed you as he dropped to his knees in front of you, his hands sliding from your hips down your thighs like velvet.

Your question was immediately answered by the way his tongue slipped out to wet his lips, dark eyes traveling from your face to your strap and back again.

Oh.

He drummed the fingers of his left hand lightly on your thigh, the shy smile he gave as he looked up at you making your whole nervous system feel electric. “Well.” Maxi half-shrugged, casual. “You’re always so… obligin’, y’know,” he said quietly. “I figured… might as well return the favor, now that I have the chance.”

You had to swallow, your brain pleasantly fuzzy. “I- As long as you want to, babe,” you managed, a touch breathless.

Maxi’s pupils were endless dark pits. “Oh, trust me, sugar,” he said, shifting on his knees so he was more between yours where you perched. “I do.”

So you were willing to be this wasn’t quite the same as when you did it. But just the sight of his pink tongue tracing up the underside of your strap’s black matte shaft knocked the breath from your lungs, feeling your own eyes widen as it left.

You were deeply glad you’d chosen a strap that gave some sensation on your end of things as well, the ridged base of the o-ring grinding against your clit as Maxi took his time tracing every inch.

When his eyes met yours, gazing up at you from hip height, your toes about curled. You absolutely understood how he seemed to quickly lose all powers of speech when it was your turn — even if the feeling wasn’t quite the same skin-wise, just the sight of him on his knees for you left your insides a molten mess.

“Fuck, you’re so hot like that, Maxi, that’s not even fair,” you murmured, your hands unclenching from his duvet to stroke his hair.

Maxi made a noise between a whine and an appreciative hum, his lips suctioning around the tip of your shaft as your fingers combed out the last of the careful hair gel. You gasped as he took you into his mouth, your hands curling into fists faster than you’d realized.

He didn’t seem to mind at all that you were pulling a little — if anything, he made a show of taking you deeper still, the sound of his saliva on the silicone leaving you feeling intensely warm even if it wasn’t direct contact. You obliged him by pulling a bit harder, and you swore you could feel his moan vibrating down your length.

His hands resettled around your upper thighs, taking you by surprise as you were reminded you existed as a whole body. He tugged gently, causing your hips to rock just slightly, and you steadied yourself quickly against his shoulders.

“Are you okay?” You watched his face anxiously, worried about him choking by accident. You had a bit… more to deal with, when it was your turn, but still — you knew choking in this particular situation could really suck.

Maxi huffed air lightly around you, and you realized he was laughing. He tugged to shift your hips again, and you realized after a moment he was asking you to thrust.

“Oh.” Something white hot squeezed at your core at the idea. “…You’re sure?”

Maxi glanced up at you again, something in his eyes the slightest bit sardonic as you felt another huff of air. You got the vibe he felt vaguely insulted you were doubting his abilities.

“Okay, okay.” You were unable to help a smile. Your hand moved from his shoulder to his chin, keeping eye contact. “You tell me as soon as something feels off,” you said softly, brushing his hair away from his glasses - which, you noticed with a small flutter, were fogged from the attention he was paying to you. “Promise?”

Maxi squeezed once at your thighs - your silent signal that everything was fine.

You leaned down, kissing the top of his head as best you could (he craned up just slightly to help you in that regard). After a second to plant your feet for more stability, you hesitated, calculating just slightly — overthinking, you were sure — before thrusting carefully into Maxi’s mouth.

Maxi gave a small moan - something along the lines of “Finally” - and squeezed your thighs again.

You nodded, giving your hips more of an experimental snap, and you heard him moan again lower in his chest. Another, more insistent squeeze to your thighs.

“Okay, fine,” you murmured, one hand coming up to rest on top of his head. He looked up at the touch, and the two of you locked eyes as you allowed yourself a small smirk. “But remember: you asked.”

Maxi’s eyes were onyx, nearly engulfed by his pupils as he nodded once.

You put more force in your hips, your hand curling in your boyfriend’s hair as you thrust hard into his mouth.

Maxi’s groan was a one of raw enjoyment, and you watched him adjust to take you deeper as the two of you established a pleasant pace. He was a sight — saliva dripping from his lower lip and down the shaft to the tops of your thighs, his breath hot and shallow against your hips. Your hand tangled further into his hair, mussing it, and you felt yourself clenching at the sight of him looking so debauched. His noises of pleasure, combined with the slick sounds of his spit over your strap, went straight to the core of you.

You could get to used to this, you thought, admiring Maxi’s face as you fucked his throat thoroughly.

You were so taken with the feelings, wanting to get closer, that you didn’t realize you’d thrust a little too hard until he gagged around you.

“Oh shit,” you panted, your hand immediately leaving his hair to pull away. “Shit, I’m sorry, baby, are you okay?”

Maxi came up for air at last, and as concerned as you were, the sight of tears at the corners of his eyes mixed with his mussed hair and the saliva still dripping down his chin left you feeling a new strain of… possessive, almost. Jesus. It was absurd how he somehow looked more delicious the messier he got.

Maxi let out a low, hoarse laugh as he wiped his mouth. “I’m fine, pretty, I promise,” he said, looking up at you. “If I had to pause a blowjob every time I gagged, I would’ve never had time for anythin’ else in my twenties.”

He froze as this statement hung between the two of you, glancing at you as if he wasn’t sure how you’d take that. You couldn’t blame him — old instincts died hard, especially in a town as small as this.

You couldn’t help but bite your lip at the image of him playing out in your mind, tilting your head as you looked him over while still on his knees in front of you. “…If that’s the case,” you said slowly, reaching up to twist his familiar loose curl around your finger. “I almost want to make you keep going.” The twisted curl became a whole lock of hair that you pulled to force his head back. You weren’t sure when the two of you had fallen into this particular dynamic — whether it was the offer to blow you, or him wanting to help you with your harness, or what. But it was definitely new.

Maxi’s eyes gleamed, his lips slightly puffy from his efforts. “I’d be inclined to agree,” he said, his voice low. “Contrary to popular advice, I never wanna leave you wantin’, sugar.”

“You haven’t, love,” you crooned, releasing his hair to lovingly stroke along his cheekbone. “But we have more to try, don’t we?” You caught his chin in your hand, admiring the wide-eyed wrecked look he already had. “It’s my turn,” you added in a near-whisper.

Maxi stared at you with a hybrid of reverence and blatant lust, his gaze feeling like hands over your skin as he took you in from his knees and made no move to break your grip.

You felt your face heat and the cool collectedness threaten to leave you, and you reached down for his hand. “Come on, handsome.”

Maxi seemed to remember himself at the sound of your normal voice, blushing a little as he took your hand with a smile. You helped steady him as he got to his feet — though his cock caught your attention, now flushed dark and dripping more still with want.

“Aww, Maxi,” you purred, reaching to swipe a droplet of precum onto your fingertip. He hissed at the contact, his blush darkening on his skin. You kept your eyes on his as you licked it off, giving your palm a lick as well before you took his shaft in hand. “Did you enjoy giving me head, babe?” You felt him spasm against your palm as you gave him lazy, loving strokes.

“You know I always do, angel,” he managed as best he could, clearly having to make an effort not to thrust into your hand. “W-whatever that might involve at the time,” he added, biting off a whine at the end as you swirled your palm around the swollen head.

“You marshmallow,” you cooed, moving carefully so it was you stepping him back against the mattress now. You sped up your strokes as he perched where you’d sat, watching him squirm and moan through clenched teeth. “You’re such a gentleman, aren’t you babe?”

“Baby, c’mon,” Maxi ground out, clearly struggling to keep a grip on himself. “I— fuck, I’m not gonna last if you keep this up.”

“But I’m fucking you, remember Daddy?” you murmured, learning close to his face to watch his agonized expression. “You could cum all over my thighs or my stomach right now, and just let me take care of you while you’re still all cute and speechless.”

“Oh, fuck you,” Maxi groaned, but you could hear the edge of an exasperated laugh. “You’re so mean to me when you wanna be, pretty baby.” He reached up, holding your wrist in a gossamer grip to slow your pace.

“Excuse me?” you laughed, leaning forward so your lips were a breath away from his. “Who had me tied up all Valentine’s Day, huh?” You smiled, watching Maxi try to close the distance to kiss you but leaning back to stay just out of his reach. “Consider this me giving as good as I get.”

Maxi let out a frustrated huff, settling with staying as close to you as possible. “I’m gonna remember this on your birthday, you tease,” he mumbled, his soft smile giving him away.

You closed the distance between you when he least expected it, kissing him as you pushed him back towards his mattress. He made a small noise of surprise, but his hands moved immediately to your back, wanting to keep you close to him as you directed him towards his pillows.

You only broke the kiss when he was well and truly pinned underneath you, sitting up to take him in. You were well aware of the burning proximity of your hips, your strap arched against his pelvis, his erection pressing urgently into your thigh. “It’s not a threat if I’m going to enjoy myself, lover boy,” you murmured, enjoying how his already expanded pupils managed to stretch just a little wider as he gazed up at you. You were sure yours were just as helplessly dark as you leaned down to kiss his forehead, then the end of his noise. “…So.”

“So,” Maxi echoed, his eyes flitting between the strap-on at your hips and your breasts, which thus far were much neglected by his standards.

You reached back to the nightstand, picking up the bottle of lube again and pouring some into your palm. Sure, it felt like you were still plenty coated by Maxi’s spit, but you weren’t about to take chances.

Plus, you couldn’t help but grin as he watched your hand moving along your own shaft as though he was in a trance, coating yourself a bit more salaciously than you needed to. “How do I make this more fun for you, Daddy?”

It took Maxi a moment to answer, his eyes still caught at your hands. “…I mean,” he said slowly, at last looking back to your face with a brand new flush over his skin. He gave another half-shrug. “I’m already enjoyin’ myself a great deal, t’be honest with you.”

You giggled, and his soft smile returned. “Well, I’m always glad to hear that,” you said, your voice low. “Pass me a pillow.”

Maxi reached behind his back without ever looking away from you, as if afraid to miss something.

“Thank you.” You took it and tapped the pillow against the side of his thigh. “Up.”

Maxi lifted his hips with a confused scrunch of his brow long for you to slide the pillow underneath them. As soon as he resettled, you moved to settle yourself between his thighs, pulling them just a touch further apart as you did so.

You hesitated somewhat, aware of some sort of shift happening. You’d seen each other naked a million times - you’d probably spent more time naked with each other than alone since you’d started dating - but something about right now felt… well, new. You looked over Maxi’s thighs to either side of you, your hands sliding softly over the coarse dark hair on his pale skin.

One of his legs twitched beneath your hand, and you glanced up at him, curious.

He was watching you just as intently from where he sat at the top of his bed, taking in the way you were sitting on your knees in way that put you above him somewhat.

You leaned down as he watched, making a point to run your fingertips along the inside of his thighs. While he still shivered softly at the touch, you placed a careful kiss to the innermost part of his right thigh.

His gasp was hushed and half bitten-back, like he was hesitating to let it out. You glanced up from where you were leaning, seeing him watching you with a new expression; while you’d both been vulnerable with each other before, of course, there was something to the way his face was filled with a hopeful uncertainty that made your heart absolutely melt.

You leaned down again, kissing his inner left thigh even more sweetly, and savored both the the feeling of the hair on your cheek and the soft noise Maxi couldn’t hold back.

You took your time there, lavishing his inner thighs in soft kisses that turned warm and open-mouthed, with nips like you were trying to take the smallest bite of ripe fruit. Your hands slid up to his hips — partially because you enjoyed the feeling of his hipbones against your palms, and partially because the poor thing just wouldn’t stop squirming at the contact. You only let up when one of his thighs began to twitch, his hips giving an abbreviated buck against your hands as he sought some sort of friction. This didn’t do much to curtail you; you instead just relocated to the skin on the inside of his hips, moving your hand so you could suck a small bruise into the flesh next to the left ridge of his pelvic bone.

“Gorgeous, c’mon,” Maxi broke the silence at last, his voice strangled with need.

You held up a finger, finishing the small heart-shaped bruise you’d been determinedly nipping into his skin. “I just wanted to make sure I was taking advantage of the… different perspective,” you said, batting your lashes in exaggerated innocence. “I can’t have any part of you feeling neglected, babe.”

Maxi growled in frustration, his head falling back against the pillow. “I appreciate the attention to detail,” he said, running a hand under his glasses. “But you’re killin’ me here.”

“Well.” You sat up, making sure to catch his gaze as you smirked. “We can’t have that, can we?”

You reached back down to his thighs, pulling him so he slid down the mattress and closing the space between your hips. As he blinked, adjusting, you leaned up and supported yourself to hover above him at last.

“Now,” you said quietly, watching the way his breathing had sped up ever so slightly as you gazed down at him. “Do you want me to hold you down?” You adjusted so your hands were resting on his wrists, which had been resting on either side of his head.

Maxi thought about it before shaking his head. “I wanna touch you.” His fingers spread subconsciously, and the way he said it had you shifting slightly where the bottom of the strap was in contact with your clit.

“Noted,” you said, trying to hide that he’d left you just a little breathless as you moved your hands. You couldn’t help but linger over him, reaching again to play with the stray lock of hair that hung down over his forehead. “…Any chance you’d want to call me ‘Mommy’ while we’re trying new things?” you asked, your mouth curling amusedly at the thought.

Maxi snorted, catching your hand to kiss your palm. “Absolutely not.” He stopped, his lips still brushing the center of your hand before he pulled it gently away. “…Unless you… want me to…?”

You giggled at the clear conflict etched on his face; if you didn’t already know he was technically a serial killer, you would’ve thought he was incapable of hiding anything with those big doe eyes of his. “No, Daddy, don’t worry.” You kissed the back of his hand in turn. “I just thought I’d offer. Wanted to be fair, y’know?” You gave him a wink.

Maxi visibly relaxed into his pillow. “I appreciate it.” He laced his fingers loosely through yours. “But that’s… complicated, for me. I would’ve tried if it was somethin’ you wanted, though—“

You shook your head, squeezing his hand. You hesitated, trying to figure out how to word this next part. “…You know… me wanting to do something doesn’t outweigh you not wanting to, Maxi,” you said quietly, watching his face.

Maxi squirmed slightly, his eyes dropping from yours for the first time in a while. “I know,” he said, shrugging. “I just wanna make sure I’m givin’ you what you need. If it means tryin’ somethin’, that’s part of it.”

“That’s different.” You ran your thumb over his knuckles, waiting for him to meet your eyes again. “That’s trying something we both want.” You turned his hand so his palm was resting on your thigh, and he ran his thumb over the skin there in turn. “I don’t ever want you to feel like you have to try something for my sake, when it’s not something you’d choose yourself.”

“You’re sweet, darlin’.” Maxi gave you a small smile, but you still felt his fingers briefly drum over your thigh.

You shifted so you were sitting back slightly, watching him still. “It’s not about that,” you said gently, covering his hand on your thigh reassuringly with your own. “I want you to trust me.”

“I know,“ Maxi cut in quickly, sitting up just as fast. “I know, and I do, of course I do—“

You made a soft noise of mild skepticism, leaning forward to kiss him quietly. “So,” you said, pulling back just a fraction to meet his eyes. “Why do you seem nervous?”

Maxi didn’t move, his eyes still on your lips for a long moment before he met yours again. “…I don’t want you to think I won’t do whatever you need,” he said, his voice barely above a whisper. “Or want… to keep you happy.” He flipped his hand on your thigh so his palm was facing up, intertwining his fingers tightly with yours. You looked from this and back to his eyes, seeing a familiar gleam of red reflected from the late afternoon light in the window. “Anythin’. I swear.”

“Maxi.” You couldn’t help but smile, leaning forward to press your forehead against his. “Of course I know that, love.” You set your free hand on the back of his neck, your fingers twisting in the part of his hair that had been left to grow closer and closer to his shoulders for a while now. You felt him shiver lightly and saw his eyes scrunch somewhat closed, clearly enjoying the sensation. “But I don’t want you feeling obligated to give me anything that doesn’t fulfill you in the same way.” You kissed the corner of his mouth to punctuate that statement. “I only want what makes us both happy. Especially here.” You brushed the end of your nose with his.

His eyes, when they opened again, were less brown and more burgundy. His expression was inscrutable: you recognized the studied calm of him trying to keep something close to his chest, but there was a light there that looked something like longing as well.

You bit your lip, hoping you weren’t about to kill the whole mood. “…I know,” you began slowly, reaching up to hug his shoulders. “That in your line of work… hell, even before then,” you amended. “You’re used to handling things that are truly difficult. The duties that you have to take… because you’re expected to, or no one else can. Because if you don’t step up and handle it, who will, am I right?” you murmured. “Not the grieving family, not the deceased, not the demons in the house. There’s just you.”

The coolness of his gaze immediately fractured into something less certain, and you could feel his tapered fingers clutch at your hips as if he was looking for structure, something safe to cling to.

“I know you don’t think of me that way,” you reassured him, seeing the concern looming in his wrinkling brow. “But I don’t want you to ever think of any part of what we do here, together, as something else you have to white-knuckle your way through. …Fuck,” you mumbled, looking aside for a moment to gather yourself. “I don’t know if I’m making sense here. I promise you don’t do anything to make me think I’m a chore for you, I swear.” You looked back to him, seeing the concern pulling his mouth into a frown. “Just…” You hugged his shoulders again as you stared at the hollow of the base of his neck, trying to untangle what was on the tip of your tongue. “I just…”

You took a deep breath before you locked eyes with him again. “I know,” you said slowly. “That a lot of times in your life, you’ve had to grin and bear it. With your job, with the… night work,” your agreed-upon term for his less legal activities. “Hell, with your family, because if you didn’t you were going to lose it. And I know you’re good at it. You’re very good at it,” you nodded, reaching up to run a hand affectionately through his hair. “You handle shit every day, Maxi, that would leave me not wanting to get up in the morning. You’ve done a job for decades that would break most people after a month. And you take care of those people well, you have as long as I’ve known you. And I love that about you,” you beamed, unable to help yourself. “And I know you’ll take care of me too, always.” You bit your lip again, leaning against his chest somewhat more as you chose your words. “I think… part of me wanting to take care of you is to tell you that I don’t want you to ever have to grin and bear something when we’re here, ever. If you’re not into it like I am, then it’s off the table, period.” Again, you leaned your forehead against his, closing any last space between the pair of you. “I want that to be part of how I can take care of you. To let you have a place where you can say ‘no,’ and that’s that. That I won’t be disappointed, or… or leave,” you murmured, your eyes unexpectedly warm. “That you can just… be. And I’ll be here too, with you. Because that’s all I want. I swear.”

You swallowed, your throat suddenly thick and pressing against itself. “…Am I just talking in circles?” you asked, glancing sheepishly back up at him through your lashes.

You weren’t sure how the world was moving around you until you realized you’d both fallen sideways onto the mattress, Maxi kissing you like he’d just come up for air from a cavernous depth. His hands — still somewhat cool against your abruptly searing skin — moved from your hips, over your stomach, and across your back so he could pull you against him in a ferocious hug. You hugged him back as tightly as you could manage, still knowing it wouldn’t even come close to his true strength.

He kissed the corners of your mouth, the hollow of your throat, your pulse, and your eyelashes before he finally settled nose-to-nose with you. Somewhere in the process, you could swear you’d felt the faintest trace of something warm and wet tracing softly down your skin.

The eyes that stared back into yours were the shadow that felt like home, carmine into obsidian. “I love you.” His voice was from somewhere deeper in his chest, and as soft as it was, you knew it was from both halves of himself. The one that was yours daylight into darkness, and the one you only encountered sometimes — in the cemetery, or the ruined church. “I love you more than anythin’,” he breathed. “I want you to always be certain of that. As sure as you are of your own pulse, or air in your lungs.”

“As the grave,” you said, unable to help a smile at your own promise in a terrible joke.

Maxi kissed you with a bite, as he had at the front door, and you weren’t quite sure who moved how; if he’d pulled you on top of him, if you’d rolled to pin him down, or if you’d simply succumbed to a natural gravity existing only between the two of you.

You only stopped kissing him when you were holding his hips, pulling back to look him in the eye. “Just tell me what you need,” you whispered. “If you want me to slow down, or—“

“I trust you,” Maxi whispered back, grazing your cheek with a messy kiss.

You pushed into him slowly, your eyes moving quickly between his face and the strap as you did so. Partially so you could keep an eye out for any signs of pulling away or pain, but mostly because watching Maxi take you, even carefully, was… intoxicating, to say the least. Something in you twisted keenly at the way he moaned, his head falling back against the pillows as his eyes closed. You watched them crinkle briefly as he adjusted to your length, then relax as he exhaled a slow, shaking breath.

When you glanced down again at your strap-on, pushing further still, you were suddenly intensely aware of just how possessive he seemed to get when he penetrated you. The way your face felt like a flash fire, the strange, slightly giddy, slightly demanding sensation in your chest to curl around him and keep him there forever.

You heard a soft chuckle, and looked back up to find him watching you in turn with a smirk. “Right?” he breathed, raising an eyebrow.

“Yeah. Oh, definitely.” You nodded a little too quickly, your hand finding one of his on the pillow and interlocking your fingers tightly. “Fuck,” you hissed, withdrawing a little just to push in again. “I never want to let you go.”

“M’fine with that,” Maxi managed around strangled near-whine. “God, pretty.” His free hand scrabbled to your harness, tugging insistently at the leather. “C’mon, give it to me, I’ve been good.”

Face again hot enough to burn, you leaned down to nip at his lower lip as you gave him your first real thrust. Your insides felt similarly aflame as he groaned from deep in his throat, tugging again on the strap insistently. You tried to move in sync with how he was guiding you, trusting him as you fell into the pattern, and before long the air was thick with the sounds of his gasps and soft, growled pleading.

You were half in anony, the ridged base teasing your clit but not quite providing the full, rough touch you craved. You were willing to deal with that for now as you rocked into Maxi, still trying to be careful so as not to hurt him, but also wanting him to just relax and give up control. Your beloved Reaper, who you knew would move this world and the next for you, deserved to just let himself be taken care of and adored. To not have to lift a finger for his own pleasure, to be loved just as completely and thoroughly as he loved you.

You wanted to give that to him. You wanted to give it so badly, it threatened to burn a hole through the skin and bone in your chest. You wanted to watch the calculation and the careful cunning leave his eyes, for any thought of having to stay two steps ahead to totally leave his skull. You just wanted him to be here, in this moment, with you.

“H-hey.”

You looked up, your hips falling out of rhythm for a moment as you wondered if you needed to stop, if you’d hurt him somehow —

But you felt his left leg curl around your hip, pinning you closer to him, and when you looked back, your clit positively ached.

He looked completely debauched, skin flushed, hair starting to stick to his forehead as he looked up at you through half-lidded eyes. “You holdin’ back, darlin’?” he drawled, gazing up at you with pupils like fathomless pits.

You hesitated a little before nodding once. “I’m just trying to be careful, baby,” you soothed.

Maxi gave you a grin that made you realize just how slick you were behind the hardware. “Don’t,” he said softly, shaking his head.

Almost without thinking, you reached up to pull him down hard, pushing into him as deep as you could manage. He moaned encouragingly, his other leg crossing over your back so it was impossible for you to pull away as you let him have it.

The room was filled by the sounds of skin on skin, and your free hand twisted into his hair and pulled.

Maxi let out a sound somewhere between pain and pleasure, and it didn’t take you long to realize he wasn’t content to merely let you fuck him - his hips met yours thrust for thrust, tugging still at the harness before his nails clawed over your ass, your back, seeking some sort of hold.

“Come on, Maxi,” you cooed in his ear, pulling again at his hair to expose his throat to you. You leaned down, sucking a bruise near the base of his throat. “I’ve got you, Daddy, let me take care of you.”

Maxi’s cock throbbed, fluid leaking freely from the tip, and you reached down almost without realizing to slather it down his shaft, enchanted.

“Fuck, baby,” he groaned, his hips spasming slightly at your touch. “Goddamn, I’m c-close.”

“So let go,” you murmured, pressing a sloppy kiss to the corner of his mouth. “Come on, love.” You felt yourself smile wickedly to yourself as you leaned down, nipping hard into your collarbone. “Show me how a good boy gets his ass fucked, won’t you?”

Maxi’s whole body shuddered, and with a cry that bordered on a yell, he came spurting messily onto his own chest and stomach in a gush.

Without losing a beat, you leaned down, pistoning your hips harder into him as you cleaned him carefully with your tongue.

His pants became gasps as he squirmed underneath you. “B-baby, c’mon—“

You glanced up at him as you licked up another rope of fluid, which drew a ragged whine from him. “Are you asking me to stop?”

Maxi clearly still dazed, riding his high, his legs moving as if uncertain whether or not to unlock them from around you.

“Because if you’re not,” you murmured, your hand coming up to stroke his cock again. “I want to see if you have one more for me, Daddy.”

Maxi watched you, skin flushing harder as he nodded like he was hypnotized.

You grinned, feeling a sharpness to your own teeth. “That’s my Maxi,” you purred. You leaned up, moving to kiss his cheek, but he grabbed you firmly by the jaw so he could kiss you with an open mouth. You felt him tasting his cum on your tongue, shivering slightly as he did so.

Your hand found his throat, gently lowering him back down to his pillow, and after a nod from him, you squeezed lightly on either side to impact the blood flow to his head, fucking him deeper still into his mattress.

Maxi’s legs re-locked around your back, his hands moving to clutch your hips in their new ferocity. His panting turned again to soft moans, his hair now thoroughly a mess on his pillow.

Under your hand, you felt his shaft hard and hot, spasming against the force of your palm and the way you spread the renewed beads of fluid down towards the coarse dark hair at the base.

“You take this so well, Daddy,” you murmured, your lips moving against his cheek. “You should’ve told me earlier how much you like being greedy this way, too.”

You heard Maxi gasp a laugh through his frustrated, teeth-gritted groan. “You make it hard to choose, gorgeous, what can I say?” He hissed back at you, and when you turned to kiss him, he nipped your lower lip so hard you swore you felt a drop of blood.

You hissed softly, your hand tightening on his throat with a twitch, and only leaving it when you saw his eyes flash keenly in response. “Come on, Maxi, one more for me. I know you’ve got it in you.”

Maxi growled as he shoved one hand into your hair and pulled just enough to surprise you, his legs so tight around you that there was no space left between the two of you at all.

You gasped at the yank to your hair, your hips shoving hard back, and that seemed to be enough. Between one hand on his cock and one on his neck, Maxi was quickly overwhelmed again, your name bordering on a scream on his lips as he made a second mess between the two of you.

From the way he fell back hard on the pillow, you knew he was truly fucked out this time. You stilled your hips slowly as he came down, moving your hand from his throat so you could reach up and idly twirl his hair around your fingers as he lay there trying to catch his breath.

“You did so well,” you murmured, your other hand slowly moving between the pair of you to gather his cum on your fingers. “You did so well for me, Maxi, taking all of it like that. You were so good.”

You saw Maxi blushing still, both from the exertion and your words, and a shy smile on his face even as his hair fell messily over his glasses. “Yeah, well,” he said quietly, blowing his hair out of the way so he could glance at you. “You made it easy to let go, pretty.”

You froze with your liquid-covered fingers almost to your mouth, wondering how this man could make you feel so shy even while you were about to clean your hand with your tongue to make a point. What the fuck, how was that remotely fair. “Yeah, well…” You sat there wondering if he could feel the heat from your face radiating all the way over there, before quietly attending to the task at hand while your brain was overwhelmed by your feelings and his sweetness.

Maxi watched you attentively, eyes following the motions of your tongue on your own skin like it was something holy. Before you could swallow, he pulled you back to him, kissing you again with as much fervor as before.

You moved carefully so you could lay there with him,, sweaty and still side by side, just kissing. Over your heart racing in your ears, you could just make out the dim whirr of the cicadas outside, and the growing chorus of crickets joining in. The two of you had been here a while.

You watched Maxi next to you, dreamily licking the salty beads of sweat from your shoulders and throat, his fingers rubbing the skin beneath the straps of your harness as if to massage it. You found yourself moving your hip against his hand, craving his touch. Subconsciously, you were rocking ever so slightly against the base of the dildo — hazily content with Maxi’s pleasure by proxy, but still enjoying the sparks it left when it hit just the right place.

Your Reaper, ever watchful even when so sated, noticed before you did. He made a small, gravelly noise of concern, and you looked up, startled out of your own subtle squirming.

“Did you not get off, gorgeous?” he drawled, looking from your hips to you through the strands of his hair.

You blinked, still slightly spaced out yourself. “I… not directly?” You shrugged a shoulder against the mattress, nuzzling your face into his pillow. “I was having too much fun watching you to worry about it, to be honest.” You reached up, pushing some of his hair away from the eye you could see. “We really should bust this out more often, love,” you teased.

Maxi’s tongue ‘tsk’ed softly against his teeth. “We can’t have you goin’ without, though,” he murmured. You felt his fingers move from the inside of the strap to the outside, still impressively dextrous with the buckle. “Here, let me take care of this…”

“Maxi, it’s okay, baby,” you murmured, reaching one hand to smooth down the dark trail of hair down his stomach. “It doesn’t have to be about me this time. It can just be about you.”

“Oh, that’s a definite ‘absolutely not’,” Maxi snorted, smiling at you as he got the first side loose.

You set your hand gently on his cheek as he worked his hand between the mattress and your other side, looking for the second one. “You don’t have to, if you’re too…” You let the air have the rest of your sentence, knowing he’d understand.

Maxi shook his head, his hand finding the other side of the harness as you rolled slightly to give him access. “This is somethin’ I’d never be too tired for, trust me.” He winked at you as he got the second strap off, and he sat up to lift it off your hips.

You sighed in pleasure as your bare skin touched the soft sheets, relieved to be free no matter how well-fitted the harness was. “This feels so good, oh god. Thank you,” you added, glancing up at him as he leaned over to set the whole thing gently on the floor.

“Don’t thank me for anythin’ yet,” Maxi chuckled, laying back down next to you. He reached down, drawing a line across your bare hips with the tip of his finger and making you shiver. “I’ll do whatever you like, gorgeous,” he purred, watching you move. “But if I could make a humble suggestion?”

“Hm?” You glanced at him from your side of the pillow, one eye sunken into the fluff.

He smirked. “It’s been a minute since I got to have these on either side of my face.” He traced his finger down your full thigh, and you felt yourself clench around air. “If you don’t mind, I’d love to get re-acquainted.”

You wondered if he could feel the skin on your thighs flush at the contact — if it could ever be hot enough to send up a tiny plume of steam from his cool skin against it. “…Are you sure?”

“Only if you are,” Maxi said, glancing at you even as he was tracing spirals into your flesh. “If you don’t wanna, I’ll happily try somethin’ else.”

“I mean, I’m not saying I don’t want to,” you said quickly. God, did you want to. You’d gotten yourself off more than once in your morning shower just thinking about Maxi’s cheekbones rubbing against your inner thighs. “I just…” You hesitated.

Maxi moved further down the pillow so the two of you were nose to nose. “‘Just what,’ angel?” His eyes were still holding a hint of red in the iris, but it was warm. Safe. “If you wanna, and I wanna, who else do we need to chime in?” He paused for just a moment, then glanced quickly up to the ceiling. “I don’t think this counts as a ‘leave room for Jesus’ situation by any means.”

You laughed, and Maxi grinned. “It’s not that, I swear,” you managed, still giggling at the idea. “It’s not that at all, it’s just…”

“Just what?” Maxi said again, his voice soft as he kissed you sweetly. He paused, and you could see him thinking. “…Did I do somethin’ to make you uncomfortable last time?”

“No!” You propped yourself up on an elbow. “It’s not that at all, babe, I promise.” You reached over, running your fingers up the thick line of scar tissue over his heart. You watched him relax slightly — this was an unspoken gesture between the two of you that you were sincere. “It’s like… okay,” you said, sighing slightly. “So, we’ve established my thighs are… thicker, than some.”

“And I will not hear one word of slander against them for that,” Maxi said immediately, his other hand moving to your thighs as well. You couldn’t help but giggle as he ran his hands lovingly over the pair of them, his face mock-serious. “They’re precious gifts, and one of my favorite pairs of anythin’ in the world. It isn’t their fault they’re blessed.”

“I wasn’t going to slander my thighs, Maxi,” you laughed again, your fingers lingering over the scar on his chest. “They’re fine. I like them plenty.” You paused, biting your lip as you tried to choose your words. “…You’re gonna laugh and think I’m ridiculous.”

“Oh honey, no,” Maxi’s tone was suddenly soft, concerned and coaxing. He slid his hands back up from your thighs to your waist, pulling you tightly against him in a hug. “I would never laugh at somethin’ you were concerned abut, baby doll.” He kissed your forehead, leaning back so he could see your eyes. “Tell me what’s wrong. I’ll fix it.” His own were serious, searching, and you almost felt bad he looked so worried.

But you also knew he was absolutely going to laugh.

“…Okay,” you began again. “…Do you remember… that tweet I showed you, a while back,” you said slowly. “With the photo of the girl in the hospital?”

Maxi frowned, clearly trying to remember what you were talking about. Eventually he shrugged silently, clearly coming up blank.

“…The one with the neck brace?” You tried again. “Whose girlfriend—“

Maxi made a loud sound you couldn’t identify, somewhere between a snort and a yelp, and suddenly clapped one of his hands to his mouth as he curled into himself on his side.

You were worried for just a second, concerned you’d somehow offended him… until you realized he was, indeed, laughing and trying to hide it from you. Very poorly. “…You can laugh and it won’t hurt my feelings,” you sighed with a smile, after watching him try to muffle it for a minute and doing a terrible job.

Maxi rolled onto his back, laughing so hard he was nearly in tears. A couple of times, he caught his breath, trying to talk to you — only to immediately snort-giggle all over again, falling to pieces at the memory of the girl who went viral because her girlfriend sat on her face too hard.

“I told you,” you said, watching him with a smile of your own you couldn’t help. “I said you’d laugh.”

Maxi’s laugh turned into a groan, then a soft sigh as he wiped a tear from his left eye. “Aw, darlin’,” he cooed once he finally caught his breath. “I wasn’t laughin’ at you, I swear. I just—“ He cut himself off, trying to muffle a snicker that threatened to escape as he reached over to stroke your cheek. “I think it’s really sweet that you’re worried about that, s’all.”

“Are you kidding me? Of course I am!” You were giggling yourself, but still feeling like you were confessing your secret darkest fear. Which you were “Think about it! How the hell are you supposed to show up to work in a neck brace? And at your job, specifically? I can’t have you directing funerals like that, Jesus Christ.” You watched Maxi dissolve into giggles again. “What- what would you even tell the little old ladies at the Historical Society? You know they’d all be fussing over you, thinking you had an accident or something terrible.” You giggled harder as Maxi did, clearly tickled at this idea. “I mean, they have a phone tree dedicated to what pants you’re wearing, for crying out loud!” Can you—“ You had to take a moment to try to breathe through your laughter yourself. “Can you even imagine what they’d do if you showed up to work with an injury? Especially if they thought it had anything to do with me?”

You were still giggling until you felt Maxi’s hands at your sides, and then squealed slightly as he - seemingly effortlessly, somehow - scooped you up to set you lightly so you were sitting on his chest.

“Tell you what, gorgeous,” Maxi said, still chuckling a bit himself. “How about you just relax,” he turned his head, kissing the inside of one of your knees where it rested now on his shoulder. “And let me take care of you,” he punctuated, kissing the inside of the other. “And we won’t worry about what the fussy old ladies think, alright?”

He scooted you forward, and you felt your cheeks blaze again as you felt a trace of your own slick left on his skin.

Maxi licked his lips, locking eyes with you so your breath caught in your throat. “’Cause trust me,” he said, his voice low. “That’s the last thing I’m worried about right now.”

You immediately felt the same, suddenly more concerned with how he lifted you again, followed by the scalding muscle of his tongue pushing into your cunt.

Honestly, at this rate, it would be a good while before he let you remember that anyone existed outside this room.

(if you’ve read this far, as always, I adore you, and I’ll see you in the next prompt pulled from the shadows of time long forgotten :’D thanks! <3)

#nice people #nonny!!#maxi morvant #maximilian vincent morvant #maxi morvant x reader #maxi morvant x you #maxi and his reader #maxi's final them #genderqueer reader #non-binary reader #plus size reader #slasher oc #slasher oc x reader #Daniel Brühl fc #morvant mortuary #monsterkisser fics #minors dni #nsfios

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morvantmortuary · 2 years

Text

in honor of another monday, I present a time-honored question:

Would the Morvants still love you if you were a worm? 🧐

If you asked Maxi, he’d put down whatever he was doing (mortuary paperwork, reading a book, properly sharpening his scalpel and his lister knife before stalking his next victim) and focus on you intently, brow slightly wrinkled in confusion. “...Run that by me one more time, darlin’?”

When you repeated the question, he’d nod without a second thought. “Oh yeah, of course. I mean, obviously,” he gestures at you with one of his crooked smiles. “That would... change a few things, sure. But wouldn’t change who you are, I bet. And if that stays the same...” He’d pause, staring into the middle distance for a second with a thoughtful moue before he looks back at you. “...Do I get to be a worm too?”

When you blink at him, he’d shrug. “You didn’t specify how you got to be a worm. If it was a Kafka kinda deal, or if it was maybe a mistaken misapplication of dark forces beyond your knowledge, or a witch got mad and misfired a spell or somethin’.” He leans his chin on one hand as he ponders this, intertwining the fingers of his left hand with yours. (...You kind of want to ask if he knows witches who have accidentally transformed people into worms. Maybe later.) “But the way I figure,” he goes on, his eyes slightly distant in the way you recognize comes with his compulsive need to plan everything three steps ahead. “Is that my first thought would be to see if I could break the spell somehow. I don’t know,” he blushes a little when you giggle at this. “Maybe it’s like kissin’ a frog, or somethin’. I’d give it a shot. Then, if that doesn’t work out, I’d just ask whoever did it if I could be a worm too.” He squeezes your hand. “It’s only fair. Sure, that’d leave Hex and Rora in charge of the mortuary, but that wouldn’t be our problem anymore, we’d be too busy doin’ worm stuff.”

When you laugh at this, he grins, pulling you gently so you’re settled in his lap now where he’s sitting on the couch. He kisses your cheek, lingering there for a minute before he tucks you protectively under his chin and against his chest. “Of course I’d love you if you were a worm,” he says, like he’s stating the color of the sky. “Worms are an important part of the process of decay, you know? They’re just Death’s little helpers. Not that’d I’d be makin’ you do that, obviously,” he adds, distracted again.”I’d probably get you set up in a terrarium or the like, somethin’ nice and safe with good soil quality and adjustable temperature and some cute little decorations. But we could still go to the cemetery for picnics and stuff, if you wanted.” He kisses the top of your head, the fingers of his free hand now trailing up and down your spine. “I’d probably keep you in a little travel-sized terrarium to make sure the birds don’t try their luck, but y’know, we’d still go all the places we’ve been wantin’ to go.”

The two of you would stay entangled like that for a while, giving into the temptation of going over the list again: the one the two of you had made after the Halloween Incident, when you’d both been unable to sleep the first night of November due to anxiety and adrenaline, and were dreaming of somewhere you could go together. A little escape, even if it’s only temporary.

The list is longer now, and you know it’ll take your whole lives to finish it. It’s just nice to know that your Type A funeral director has a plan for everything, even the unexpected.

When you ask Hector, he looks up at you from where he’s editing some of his work on a tablet, narrowing his eyes just slightly with a dead serious expression. “You piss off a witch, Querida?”

When you explain no, it’s just a question, he’d narrow his eyes a little more, setting the tablet aside and stroking his chin. His eyes are fixed on something you cannot see, pouting slightly as he tends to do when he’s thinking hard. “...Is this a metaphor?” He looks at you with a glimmer in his eye, like he’s trying to figure out your game. “You know if you need something, you can just ask for it, my love. I’ll give it to you. Or do it, whatever it is.” He tilts his head, watching you still. “You just need to tell me straight, that’s all.” He holds up a hand, palm up and waiting. When you give him yours, he grazes your knuckles with his lips, his eyes never leaving yours. “Are you feeling neglected, gatita? Do we need to have another feelings check-in?”

He tugs gently at your arm until you join him where he’s stretched like a cat on his bed, making a happy little hum as he folds around you in a flat bear hug. He takes his time inhaling the scent of your hair, then tickling your face with scratchy kisses he knows make you giggle uncontrollably. “I’d love you no matter what shape my baby took,” he says, his voice soft. “But you’re so much prettier than a worm. You’d be a better raven, or a mockingbird - something smart, something that can tease and laugh and sing songs when they’re happy like you do. When you think I can’t hear you.” He nuzzles your cheek. “You always struck me as something that should be able to fly, you make me feel so light.”

He’d pause for a moment, going still, and his eyes would flicker open. You could almost swear you could see the dark thought there, circling, like something had whispered it to him. “...Did someone say something to hurt your feelings, preciosa?” His voice is softer still, but in a way that sends a chill through the soft insides of you. “Someone running off at the mouth?” He kisses your hair. “Need a house call? Because I can do that too, you know.”

You’d reassure him quietly that no, that’s not the case. This was just something you saw going around, that other people were asking their partners, and you’d been curious what he’d say. Your hair would stir with the warm breath of his muffled snort. “...People are weird,” he’d mumble. He’d reach up, his thumb tracing up and down the side of your neck as his palm cradled the back. “Yes, I’d love you if you were a worm. You’d love me if I was a snail. It’s the same thing. I love the you-ness of you, you know that. It’s simple. A fact.”

The two of you would lay there in contented silence, you comfortable against the worn-in cotton of his flannel shirt, and in the stillness of the room and the soft stroke of his hand, you’d just be dozing off for a nap when he spoke up again, amused. “...Hey. You would still love me if I was a snail, right?”

Rora would stare at you for a long moment when you asked her, her expression unreadable at first. Slowly, she’d cross her workshop to where you were sitting in a worn armchair, looming in front of you for a moment with her face gradually solidifying into puzzled concern.

That would be when she’d touch your forehead with the cold back of her hand, pressing it there with a critical eye on your face. “You don’t feel feverish.” She’d frown, folding her arms. “Are you gettin’ sick, sweet pea? Do you need to go lie down?”

When you explained to her no, you were just curious, she’d continue to stare, her perfect forehead puckering in thought. “...Why on earth,” she’d say slowly. “Would you be a worm?” She’d pause, her eyes suddenly alarmed despite the stoicism of her face. “You haven’t crossed paths with that infernal ginger woman, have you?” She’d ‘tsk’ her tongue against her teeth, turning to glare at the door. “You don’t listen to a thing she says, petal, she’s all talk. I’ve been telling my dumbass--”

At your question of ‘Who?’, Rora would look abruptly back around, blinking in surprise. “...Oh. Well.” She’d tuck the dark strands that had come loose from her bun behind her ear. “Never mind all that. Why are you askin’ me about being a worm, cherie?”

You would maybe show her a couple videos - Rora was always a visual learner, after all. She’d watch them with a cool, skeptical expression over your shoulder, at most arching an elegant brow. “...Is that all?” She’d look back at you when you put your phone down, and again, she’d be looking concerned. To your surprise, though, she’d come around to the front of your chair, sitting on the mismatched footstool in front of it so she could be at your eye level.

“You deserve so much... more, than that.” She’d slip her hands, ice cold as ever, into yours. Even when you giggled and tried to explain it wasn’t serious, Rora would shake her head. “No, I know - I’m undead, little bee, not ancient,” she’d add, giving you a wry look. “I saw what you showed me. But just -- listen,” she’d squeeze your hands, her face uncharacteristically open. Vulnerable. “That... that should be the bare minimum. ‘Could someone love you if you were a worm’,” she repeats the question with dry distaste. “That’s so abysmally small compared to how anyone should be loved, much less you.” Her thumbs would stroke the skin of your hands, insistent somehow. “You deserve people tellin’ you they love you if you were... a forest. As widely as they sprawl and deep as one can ho, and unknowable in all their parts but still beautiful. Even in the darkest parts where the sun never shines, and the mushrooms grow on everything, where things go to sleep forever because it’s quiet there and they know they’ll finally get some rest...” She trails off, her green eyes feeling like you might fall into them if you look too long.

She clears her throat, suddenly marshaling her face and looking down at her knees. “...I might’ve gotten a little away from myself, there,” she’d say, her mouth for a brief second flattening into a slightly embarrassed line. Finally, she’d look up at you again, her mask of impenetrable perfection back in place. “But I know I’m not wrong.”

Rora just manages to brace herself when you practically tackle her into a kiss - a kiss so enthusiastic and messy that her expression melts entirely, and you can feel her smiling against your lips a moment later.

The two of you get a little distracted after that, what with neither of your hands willing to stay still and both your shirts mysteriously on the floor.

This was inspired by the very sweet @darkhairedmenrule - thank you again for sending me that note, darling, and sorry it took me a minute to get it done! :’D I hope it was worth the wait. hopefully I’ll get to write more soon now that my schedule is kind of establishing itself, knock on wood.

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morvantmortuary · 1 year

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tw//self harm

recently after years of not doing it I’ve fallen back into self harm, i’m full of extreme embarrassment and guilt.

the morvants have been a huge source of comfort for me in trying to cope with this slip, through reading all of the other comfort asks. But I was wondering how they would comfort in this specific situation.

(im sorry if this ask is triggering in anyway thank you for creating such loving and comforting ocs)

oh, oh honey

as someone who’s had some harm-adjacent tendencies before, just know that slips aren’t anything to be ashamed of. it usually only means that something in your current system to get through the day just isn’t able to handle the amount of stress you’re under rn. and even if the slip has been going on for a bit, the holidays aren’t usually a great time for anyone’s mental health. it’s hard for lots of reasons right now, I promise you’re not alone 🖤

just know before I get into writing that a. you’re absolutely not going to feel this way forever. this will pass, and you’ll get back to where you were in the time you need to take to get there. as deep a hole as it feels right now, you’re gonna come out all right 🖤 and b. you don’t need to feel ashamed or embarrassed. this is just you returning temporarily to something that worked before, but it’s not permanent, and progress in this kind of thing isn’t always linear. don’t beat yourself up when you’re already having a hard time, okay?

the rest I’ll put under a cut, just to save space 🖤

the first thing to know is that none of the morvants are going to be mad at you. no one is going to be angry, whether you tell them yourself, or they happen to glimpse a fresh wound, or stumble across something they weren’t meant to see in your bag/room/house etc.

if they see something that makes them concerned, none of them will confront you about it. they’ll wait for a quiet moment where you’re both comfortable and you don’t need to go anywhere anytime soon - maybe just chilling on the couch, or curled up in bed, or sitting together during a lull in the kitchen - and will, calmly and gently, ask if you’re okay. if there’s anything you want or need to talk about. if they can do anything to make you feel safer, or more comfortable talking to them about something… difficult.

when it’s appropriate, they’ll voice their concern - Maxi phrasing it delicately but still clearly, Hex having trouble quite getting the words out for a minute but eventually managing to get the point across, Rora asking you point blank but not meanly.

you only have to explain to the level you want to. they won’t make you justify it to them, they just want to know that they aren’t mistaken in what they think might be happening. no matter why or when, they will still love you.

Maxi’s first concern will be making sure everything is clean and properly bandaged. Even though you’ve possibly tried to handle that yourself to some degree, he’ll still go get his first aid kit from the prep room and insist on taking care of any wounds himself, no matter where they are. He wants to make sure that no matter how deep or what they look like, that they won’t get infected, and that they’ll heal as cleanly as they can. He’s gentle and precise, and might even have some topical lidocaine lying around still so you don’t have to hurt any more than necessary (he’s had plenty of nights where he had to stitch up some much larger wounds on himself, or Hector, and lately even Rora sometimes. he’s an old pro at numbing pain and cleaning up). He’s the perfect person to help you cover anything if you feel self-conscious at all, but first he’ll want to make sure that you’re healthy and comfortable.

if he thinks he won’t upset you, he’ll make a point to press a kiss to each bandage once he has it safely on. just to help them along. (literally, with his brand of necro-magic, but even if he couldn’t do that, he would still want you to feel loved no matter what.)

he’d want to talk, if you were in the right place, about what he could do to help you. what you think your triggers could be, and how he could help minimize them. things he could do to help you if you had the urge again, something to help replace it or circumvent it or at least keep you safe and sterile. (bless his heart, he’d ask if a bite to the spot of your choice - not to draw blood, of course, but just for the feeling - would help at all instead. he’d be willing to volunteer for that, if it made any difference.) he’d want to talk, if you could, about where your feelings had been lately, what was on your mind. he’d be looking for a spot where he could help take something off your plate, something he could do for you to help take some pressure off yourself. He’s a romantic, but one of the ways he shows love is trying to do things his partner doesn’t want to, just to show them that a. he’d do anything for them, and b. he’s here to help you, in whatever ways that entails.

if you didn’t want to talk, that would still be fine. he’d give you carte blanche over what the two of you did that day: what you watched or read or listened to, what you ate, anything for you to feel better. He’d go get anything you wanted, take you anywhere you wanted to go, make you anything you asked for, if it meant you were having an even slightly nicer time in your own head. The entire time, he’d insist on staying close to you - holding your hand, or keeping you in his lap if y’all were hanging out at home, even just sitting with his hip pressed to yours. He would want you to feel secure, safe. There would be kisses to your cheeks, your eyelids, your forehead, the backs of your hands, your shoulders, your neck. He would just want you to know he was there, and he wasn’t going anywhere. You want a human weighted blanket? He would be one, happy to spend the days he didn’t have to work lying on your chest, or keeping you laying on his as he cradled you against his torso, content to feel the beating of your heart through his skin.

when you finally called it a night, he’d keep one arm wrapped firmly around your ribcage as always. in his other hand, with his phone set to the lowest brightness possible, he’d be reading anything he can find about supporting a partner with similar coping mechanisms. he’d defer to you first and foremost - you know your own experience best - but anything he can learn, he’d file away for later. He would want to learn how to be there for you in the ways you needed most.

he would just want to figure out how to make you feel better, if he could. how to let you know that whatever pain you felt, he would carry that weight with you, if it meant you didn’t have to take it out on yourself or carry it alone.

it would be hard for him not to check your wounds every day to make sure they’re healing okay -- he wouldn’t want to keep reminding you of something painful -- but he would want to reassure you (and himself) that you’re going to be fine. and if you ever had another slip, he would want you to know you could tell him, just so he could take care of you after in the same way. He understands things happen. He just wants you to know you don’t have to hide from him.

Hex would flounder a little more - he’s not the best at talking, sometimes, and he keeps his own feelings under a few safe layers of sarcasm and artistic distance between himself and his work. But he would hate the idea of you being in so much pain alone. He would swear to you up and down that you were perfect, beautiful, wonderful, that you could tell him anything and he would still adore you. That he would talk as much or as little as you wanted, he just wanted you to know you could talk to him, and he would never be afraid of what you had to say.

He would want to at least check your scars himself, to clean them and make sure they didn’t hurt. He wouldn’t go as all-in about it with a first aid kit, but he would want to treat you with some soap and warm water, a soft towel and bandaids in cartoon patterns. (“Who wouldn’t want Batman on a cut, c’mon,” he’d tease, gently applying them. “Nothing’s getting past him.”) But before he put those on, he’d offer you a bath, if you wanted to calm down - he’d be happy to draw it for you, to sit and chat with you while you soaked and he would wash your hair. Or if you wanted him to join you, he would sit with you in the warm water, drawing on your skin with the tip of his index finger. He’d be happy to talk if you wanted to talk, or if you didn’t, he would sit there and tell you all the little things he loved about the skin you wore, pointing them out as he went.

He would insist on keeping you as comfortable as possible - he’d want to cook for you himself, if he can make something you’d like. If you still wanted something from out, he’d be willing to go pick it up or have it delivered, but he feels better when he can feed you from his own know-how. He wants to be able to take care of you while doing as much as he can with his own hands, mostly to show you that he won’t let you go without (but also, in the back of his own head, to prove to himself that he can). If he can’t provide the meal itself, he’ll still make sure you don’t go without a snack, a cup of tea, even just some fresh water with fruit in your favorite water bottle. Food is a huge comfort thing for him, so anything he can make you or share with you, you’re going to get. He’ll lay off if you ever told him to, but it’s instinctual to him to feed the people you love in times of need. It’s been a huge love language all his life, so this is him explaining in the loudest possible terms ‘I love you, you never have to be afraid of not being cared for.’

He’s not the best at sitting still. If that’s what you wanted to do, he would busy himself with a book of poetry, or a video game, just something to keep in his hands and keep his brain distracted. But he’d be more likely to ask if you’d maybe want to take a walk or a drive to talk some stuff out. He knows that sometimes, when you’re talking about heavy things, it’s easier to be able to look somewhere else -- out the windshield, down at your feet, up at the sky -- to get things out properly. And he would listen, deeply, drinking your words in, at times maybe pausing for just a little bit longer than feels comfortable when he needs to say something. But he just wants to get it right. He doesn’t want to run the risk of being clumsy with his words when you’re already hurting. His worst fear is saying the wrong thing, anything, that would just make you feel worse. At times, it would be hard for him to start -- there’s a lot of stuff in his past he keeps quiet about, because talking never seemed to change anything. But if he tried to follow something you said with a hushed story from his own life, full of long pauses, it’s just because he’s trying to tell you he understands in his own way. That you don’t ever have to think you’re going through this alone, or that there’s any experience you could have that would scare him away. He’s determined to stay as long as you want him, no matter how bad your days get o how many slips you might have.

Where he feels words aren’t his strong suit, physical reassurance is always going to be a strength of his. If it would help at all, he would stop what he was doing to kiss you whenever you needed it, or swallow you in a hoodie hug that squeezes you down to the soul. He’s always going to want to cuddle, to touch, to lean behind you with his chin on your shoulder and pester you playfully. He would insist on letting you “borrow” clothes of his - his hoodies, sure, but his big flannel shirts, even his t-shirts or jeans or the skinny hair ties he keeps around - just so you know he’s always there.

Rora would probably be the one who understands the most literally of the three. When you finally told her, she would give you one of her sadder, knowing smiles, taking your hand in hers to intertwine your fingers. It would take her a moment to speak, but eventually she’d find her voice, low as always. “In my old body -- my first one,” she’d explain. “I used to be so... angry. At my parents, at the role they expected me to play... at myself, for not bein’ what I was supposed to be,” she’d pause. “I felt like the only thing I could take it out on, and it would actually make a difference. Ruin the little doll my mother wanted. Put that aching gnaw at the back of my skull somewhere real. Things that only make sense when you’re in the moment, and all you can feel is... well, you know.” She’d frown down at her thighs under her skirt. “I forget, sometimes, that they’re not there anymore. That that girl is dead, and I left that body behind. And, as strange as it sounds...” She trails off, hesitating for a moment. “I don’t always know how I feel about that absence.” She’d look at you, knowing you’d understand.

She would kiss the back of your hand, her lips just a touch too cool. “I know what it’s like, petal. When it feels like you have no other way to get it out. Like it’s the only thing to do to get your brain to leave you alone. It’s okay.” She would lean her forehead against yours. “You were in a space where it would’ve felt worse to keep it festerin’ inside. That still happens to me too, sometimes.” She’d smile, surprisingly gentle for her usually sharp features. “We learn other ways to make it go away. You will, too. It’s okay to feel all different ways about it, but you don’t need to be ashamed of nothin’. You’re just a person. But you’ll always be my favorite person,” she’d add, her voice hushed. “So you can tell me when you feel like that. If you feel like it’ll happen again. I’ll be here. I promise.”

Rora, as mentioned before, tends to feel things most strongly in a physical sense. (Two decades of being trapped without a corporeal form will do that.) She’ll want to do whatever it takes to make you feel comfortable in your own skin. She’ll want to take care of your hair, giving it whatever it needs to grow strong, and in the style that you feel most yourself in. This could be anything from adding oil/a mask to your roots, or giving your cut a fresh buzz if it needs it. While she’s not the cook the boys are, she’d want to share with you fresh fruit from her garden, or (if you drink) a wine she’d been saving for a special occasion. Even if it meant just sitting in the sun with you outside amidst the flowers, she would want you to feel connected to your own body again. Anything she could do to help you feel like it wasn’t your enemy, she would be willing to try. This could mean expensive oils or lotions for your skin, or taking the time to rub your feet, your hands, anywhere you might be holding onto some hurt.

If you didn’t mind -- if it wouldn’t upset you -- she’d want to take care of your scars, too. Cleaning them, of course, but also treating them with something like shea butter, wanting to show them as much love as the rest of you. That they were just another part of the mural of your skin, nothing to find shameful, just something else to make sure they got the care they deserved.

She would also, in a perhaps more abstract method, want to get something new into your hands to help you find an outlet for your heavier feelings. She’d surprise you with anything she thought you might like: a calligraphy pen and ink in your favorite color, an embroidery pattern to keep your mind and hands busy, something as ordinary as a sketchpad and pencils, some clippings and supplies to grow some of your favorite flowers from the garden all on your own -- even (if you could stomach it) a beginner version of one of her taxidermy projects. Whatever it was that you felt most at home with, she’d encourage you to bring it to her workshop while she set about her latest project, doing her best to respect your space as you worked (but definitely trying to sneak a peek every so often, as curious as she is). Rora is v much someone who wants to throw herself into the work she loves when she’s feeling in turmoil. She’ll be happy to talk - and to listen to anything you might want to tell her, anything you’d want to get off your chest - but it’s much easier for her to do so with something in your hands.

If none of these appealed to you, she would want you to show her your most favorite ways to hang out and enjoy yourself. She would want to know every little detail about your favorite game, your most loved hobby, the show you watch over and over again, the band you’ve loved since high school. There’s a very high chance it’ll be new to her somehow, but most importantly, she would want to see them through your eyes. She loves you, and because you loved these things, she would love them because they reminded her of you happy. Even if it was completely foreign to her, she’d be determined to try to learn and talk about it with you. Not necessarily as an escape (although it could be that if you needed it), but to find parts of you in the things you loved, so she could remind you of them when you needed it most.

...And of course, with all of them, if it was a person who made you feel this way, then murder is definitely not off the table! You provide a name, they’ll handle the rest, and gladly.

I know this took me a day, but I’ve been thinking about it since you sent it in, hon. I hope any of this helps even a little, and just know that they would all be happy to be there for you on your worst days. So am I. 🖤 we all have to look out for each other, after all.

take care, and thank you for being sweet enough to reach out. we’re all rooting for you, but be gentle with yourself in the meantime.

#maxi morvant #hector morvant-casares #hex morvant-casares #aurore morvant #rora morvant #maxi morvant x you #hector morvant-casares x you #rora morvant x you #the morvants x you #the morvants and their readers #morvant mortuary #to be sorted into the comfort list #self harm cw #gn!reader

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morvantmortuary · 2 years

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I've had like zero energy the past two days because of my period, and I've been wondering how the Morvants would be with a reader who struggles with it

well first of all, babe, a big solidarity high five from me, bc Omg Same :’D I’ve been on the daily pill since I was a teenager, and Istg my symptoms have only gotten worse. the first two days of my placebo week every month just wipe me the fuck out now, and those were this past monday and tuesday for me and I swear I’ve been at half-battery since ☠️ I’m feeling a bit better today - I got up at a normal person time and have managed to get some stuff done - but I hope if you’re starting to feel a bit better if you’re not quite on your feet again yet 🖤♥️ Fatigue as a symptom can be hard, esp. when lots of people already don’t take PMS super seriously.

The Morvants, however, know bodies can be complicated things, and would be happy to help their sweetheart out when you weren’t feeling well 🥰 (mdni, we get a bit 18+ below the cut)

Maxi would love the excuse to have a slow, sleepy day with you - but Death usually has other plans. If he has decedents to prepare or services to arrange, he’ll have to tend to those, but depending on where you are when you wake up will dictate how his day goes:

If you wake up with him at the Mortuary, he’ll insist you stay there with him so he can take care of you. You’re welcome to spend the day in his bed sleeping as you need to, or working remotely, or whatever you need to do. You can even stay in pajamas all day, he’ll be the last person to judge. Instead he’ll check on you whenever he finishes a client appointment or an embalming, bringing you a snack and something to drink, some pain killers if you’re having cramps or a headache, or ordering delivery for the pair of you from wherever you like. He’ll linger with you as long as he can until he’s called away for work again, fiddling with your hair, adjusting your pillows or the fans in your room.

If you wake up at your house, he’ll still do as much of the above as he can when he can get away - if your neighbors weren’t so used to the hearse in your driveway, they’d be concerned about how much it drives back and forth on these days, as he walks in with your favorite silly little coffee drink or some other treat from town to cheer you up whenever he walks into your room.

When he’s finally off work for the day, his attention is entirely on you. If you haven’t bathed yet that day and want to, he’ll take it upon himself to care for you that way, whether that’s stepping with you into the shower to wash your hair and lather your skin (and get the formaldehyde smell off himself, tbh), or drawing you a bath to let you wallow in the warm water as he rubs your muscles where they ache.

After this, he’s going wherever you want to go in his old joggers and a t-shirt: if you want to just lay in your bed with a hot water bottle and listen to podcasts or watch movies on your laptop, he’ll spend the rest of his evening as your big spoon, idly kissing your neck and shoulders (and muffling soft scoffs if you’re listening to a true crime podcast about cops being fucking incompetent again). He’s content to drift in and out of naps with you, holding you firmly in his gator’s grip and sniffing lightly at your hair as he enjoys your warmth and nearness.

If you’re feeling well enough to hang out on the couch, he’s right there with you. If you want to lay on his chest while the two of you watch creepy YouTube videos or play video games, he’ll absently kiss your forehead every now and again, his hands resting on your body where you aren’t pressed up against him and rubbing circles there when he’s distracted. If you just want to binge a season of whatever new spooky tv show you’re watching together or a bunch of bad horror movies, he’ll lay on you if it won’t make you feel sore, happy to provide some comforting weight (and enjoy the solid thud of your heart beneath his ear) and cuddle you like you deserve.

If you want, he’ll absolutely read to you from an old favorite, or something you’d been meaning to get around to forever but just didn’t have the energy for. His drawl adds something to the book, a dimension you hadn’t considered when you read it alone, and you’re reminded as you listen just how long your beloved has been living in Cajun/Creole country - it gets a little stronger the longer he reads as he relaxes into his words, and you go back later to re-read some passages, smiling to yourself at how the words sounded completely different on his tongue.

He’ll bring you snacks as you desire, cook about any comfort food you ask for (you discover he’s actually really good at pancakes and crepes when you guys opt for breakfast for dinner one night), and build a nest of pillows and blankets for you both if it means you’re comfortable and looked after

We know our boy absolutely has A Thing for period sex, but he obviously won’t ask if he knows you feel exhausted/gross. He’s had partners like that before, he knows it sucks. But the minute your hand tangles a bit too long in his hair, or he feels you grind ever so lightly against his thigh if you were laying on him, he’ll turn to you curiously, his hand sliding over your lower back. “Can I help you with somethin’, baby doll?” He’ll ask innocently enough, eyes wide and soft, but you can see the smile pulling at the corner of his mouth as you feel a mirroring one on your own face.

If you tell him yes, he’ll ask you exactly what you want, and give it to you. In spades. He’ll plant soft kisses down your stomach as he moves, pulling your pajama shorts down and shushing you gently as he kisses your inner thighs. “Easy, darlin’,” he murmurs, glancing up at you over his glasses. “You don’t have to do anythin’, just let me take care of you.”

He’ll put your thighs on his shoulders and keep your hips in his grip as he devours you whole, and by the time you’re shaking and out of breath from overstimulation, his mouth is as red as his eyes are now shining. He licks every drop of blood and slick from his face as he looks up at you, still your sweetheart, but something closer to the feral, frightening thing you know that’s hiding inside him. (…If his tongue looks maybe just a touch… longer? Narrower? Than it normally does? You’re willing to chalk that up to the fact that you’re literally seeing stars, holy shit.)

If you prefer something else, he’ll lay you out however you’ll be most comfortable - on your back, or maybe on your stomach - and wet your cunt thoroughly with his own spit and some careful applications of his fingers before he works himself into you, taking his time not to overwhelm you (but unable to resist a light lick of his own lips when you moan at the stretch, the ache of adjusting around him). Slowly, with soft reassurances in your ear - “There you go, pretty, look at you, I knew you could. You’re so good, takin’ all of me like this—“ he’ll pull you so his hips are flush with you, watching you squirm admiringly for a moment before he experimentally rolls them to move in you. “It’s okay, angel,” he murmurs, his thumbs running over the soft skin of your hips. “You relax. Daddy’ll do all the work.” You then only have to lay there and whine for more as he gives you all of him, as slowly or as rough as you want, until you’ve thoroughly soaked his cock as many times as you can manage and he’s filled you with as much as he can give, pressing soft kisses to your panting face as he lovingly fucks his cum further into you, before the two of you at last collapse in an exhausted tangle to cool off before you can cuddle properly.

This always happens when you’re not well - there comes a point whee he lays awake, gazing at you like it will never be enough no matter how long he looks. The monster inside him is only ever silent when you’re this close, when it knows you’re safe at his side and only Hell itself could part you. It has no business being this close to you, but as much as he hates it, he can’t help but agree that this is the most at peace he ever feels. The thing inside him - not quite demon, not quite him, all reaper - would tear the world apart for you, this one or the one beyond.

Hex’s work doesn’t demand as much socially from him, so if he can afford to cancel his latest shoot or cancel whatever plans he was making to stalk his next Chain link, he will. He’ll be happy to either bring you to his place or to come over to yours, armed to the teeth with your favorite junk food, his softest flannel shirt for you to borrow, and scratchy beard kisses wherever you want them.

As much as his first thought to make you feel better is usually to get you moving, he understands that in cases like this, that’s just not going to work. So he’s determined to keep you comfortable: he rubs the muscle balm his mom used to give him after training with Maxi and his dad into your lower back, he rubs your feet if he thinks that would help, he sits behind you while the pair of you watch tv to rub your neck and shoulders.

He keeps you on a steady diet of fruit juice and homemade dishes, a constant deluge of scents of cooking and baking coming from the kitchen of whoever’s house you’re crashing at. It feels like every time you wake up from a nap, he’s standing over you with a new batch of rolls or conchas, or with a new smoothie recipe, or something smothered in cheese. If you really want something greasy and fried from your usual take-out place, he’ll get it for you without complaint, but he always prefers to cook for you when you’re not feeling well. He’s proud to be able to take care of you that way and it dispels the nervous energy he always has just under the surface when you’re not feeling well.

He’s content to lay around wherever you want to lay around - be it your bed, his, or the couch at either person’s house. He’ll be tweaking some photos on his laptop while you scroll through your phone, or he’ll happily hold you between his legs so you can rest against his chest as the two of you take on a season of your shared favorite shitty reality show. (He’s a sucker for Catfish and the Circle - cyber drama always intrigues him, and the wilder episodes will have him cackling in a way you only ever hear when he’s with you or around the twins. The boy was raised on telenovelas, after all.) He might doze off in the middle of your favorite prestige drama or procedural (if he’s not quietly mumbling observations about the camerawork and the lighting to himself), but he mysteriously always keeps up with the plot. If you turn on Great British Baking Show, he’ll wake right back up, I promise. He might even want to make you more snacks after, just to try his hand at some of what he saw.

If you’re napping on the couch or reading quietly, he will take stealth candids on his phone. Lots of them. He loves it when you’re just hanging out with him, casual and in your comfiest clothes. He thinks you’re beautiful - even if you don’t always - and he’ll want to look at this photos later, to admire the light on your skin and the engrossed expression on your face.

If you want to bathe, Hex will happily offer to help - but if you just want to stick to dry shampoo and a washcloth, he’d help with that too, making sure to spray the deeper layers of your hair evenly and get that hard to reach spot between your shoulder blades for you. He’s done that plenty of times himself when he was on the run traveling, he knows sometimes that’s all you need if you just don’t have the energy. He’d always make sure you had fresh pajamas, though, even if it meant you stole a t-shirt and a pair of his worn-out sleep pants for a day or two.

If you need a nap buddy, he’s always down to be a nap buddy. He sleeps a bit more restlessly than most (as happens when you tend to slip a bit more easily Beyond the Veil from your dreams), but even if he can’t be your big spoon the whole time, he’ll sleep with one part of him always in contact with you - be a hand on your thigh, or his shoulder blades against your back, even intertwining his legs with yours. Even if he can’t sleep, he’ll lay there and watch you, taking in the little things about your face: the way your brows knit together and smooth out when you dream, your little sniffles and mumbles in the deepest parts of your cycle - how vulnerable you are, and how much you trust him to let him see you like this.

Period sex isn’t quite as much of a thing for him as it is for Maxi - he has his own... cravings, as it were - but if you ask him, he’s not about to deny you.

This could be anything from sliding his fingers past your waistband and teasing your clit while you watch a bad movie, pretending not to notice as you flinch and whine and writhe in his lap while he makes you come until you’re ready to cry without once pulling away his hand, or on your sides in bed, whispering to you as he fills you while holding one of your thighs on his hip.

“Aww, pobrecita,” he mock-coos at your muffled moan, tilting his head to look at you as he snaps his hips against yours. “You’re just feeling way too much, huh?” He nips your lower lip before you can respond, pressing closer to you and deeper inside in the same movement. “Don’t worry, baby, I’m gonna make you forget all about that...” His hair falls in his eyes, but you don’t miss the way he grins as you whine and cling to the fabric of his shirt, the way his free hand squeezes your ass as he eliminates any possible space left between you two.

He only lets you go when you’re having to bite back a scream, having left a few bites of his own along your collarbone and shoulder earlier. When he does, he smirks. “How’re you feeling now, Querida?” he asks like he doesn’t know, his tone light as he takes his time cleaning you up.

For acting so smug, he really is a big softie. He’ll get you anything you like after before he stretches out next to you, sighing contentedly as he pulls you against him and fits you under his chin. He strokes your back, singing what sounds like a lullaby under his breath as you fall back asleep on a wave of hormones, satisfaction, and exhaustion. You feel a soft kiss to your forehead as your eyes finally close, and his lips linger there like a ghost.

He’s overwhelmed with how much he loves you. He hadn’t believed Maxi when he talked about that dark other self living inside him, how possessive and utterly greedy it became when he found his own Obsession. But he gets it now, and he has to banish that shrieking wraith inside him that wants to take you over just the same, to keep you prisoner to his worst impulses and fears. He never wants you to know about that, just how much of you it would take for himself. It scares him too.

While the boys are sweet, Rora’s the one who will absolutely Get It. “Oh, Petal,” she frowns, taking in your dulled eyes and the bags beneath them. “You too, huh? Don’t worry,” she runs a hand over your hair, affectionate and soothing all at once. “I remember how this works.”

She’ll move a bare-bones version of her workshop into whatever bedroom you make your main crashpad - yours at your house, hers in the Mortuary - tiny portable desk and all. When you want to just lay there, slipping in and out of consciousness or boredly scrolling through your usual apps, she’ll sit off to the side, a silent but constant watchful presence as she works. She knows that sometimes cuddling just doesn’t cut it, and being able to stretch out in a big empty bed alone is the best remedy, but she still wants to be close to you. You’re impressed with just how quickly that woman can taxidermy small rodents. It’s kind of alarming.

Heating pads, ice packs, anti-ache ointments of her own concoction - you want it, she’s got it, and she’s got it in a million combinations she probably tested on herself back in the ‘90s. She keeps you regularly dosed with Motrin (or whatever painkiller is most compatible with anything else you take), giving you your next set pills as soon as is reasonable so they can’t wear off and leave you achey, so you can sleep as much as you need to.

(If you express surprise she isn’t sticking entirely with Natural TreatmentsTM, she snorts. “Cramps are never the time for farmer’s market bullshit, Little Bee. There’s treatments, and then there’s painkillers.” She gives you a withering, knowing glance. “I know which one I’d prefer to have when a linin’ of tissue is tryin’ to expel itself from my body. I’m not about to mess around when it comes to yours.”)

She brings you fruit-infused water from the kitchen with fresh slices floating in it, ones she obviously just cut herself. She’ll have a glass herself in the process, but she’ll watch you like a hawk to make sure you’re staying hydrated, only swapping that out with something caffeinated if she thinks that would help your sleep schedule from getting completely out of whack.

The woman has an entire collection of silk sleep masks you didn’t know about. She’ll pass you a fresh one each day you’re not feeling well, and you luxuriate in the cool smooth fabric against your tired eyes. You wouldn’t have thought to get one of these for yourself, but you’re grateful for her stray flourish of fanciness she only shows on unexpected occasions.

She will take her time showering with you or giving you a bath, if you want one. As much as you know showering can sometimes give her a bit of vertigo in her host body, she’ll focus intently on yours, covering your skin with her favorite English lavender soap and giving your hair whatever it needs to keep it clean and healthy. She spoils you after with sweet-smelling oils, thick creamy lotion, a facemask or just something cooling for your undereyes if you’re feeling up to it. Her hands are firm but tender as she rubs your scalp, your shoulders, your thighs and the backs of your calves - everywhere that can get too tight if you’re stressed, or laying down a lot.

Rora doesn’t have quite the same attention span for bingeing that the boys do - when she was alive, she got told off for watching tv for too long, and she’s still getting used to the whole “everything streaming all the time everywhere” kind of thing. But she’ll sit with you through whatever you feel like watching. While she has patience for all sorts of shows, she perks up during nature documentaries, shows like How It’s Made, or - her favorite - anything involving cold cases or autopsies. If you watch a costume drama, she’ll pretend to only be politely interested for a while, but eventually you’ll hear her softly gasp at an especially pretty dress, or titter or tsk at something happening on screen. When the service finally asks if you’re still watching, she glances at you, holding a pillow to her chest and looking somewhat enchanted. “...Maybe just one more? Y’know, just to make sure the Duke gets what’s comin’ to him,” she’ll ask quietly.

(You finish the rest of the season in a night, and spend the rest of the evening googling whatever you can find out about the upcoming next season as she looms quietly over your shoulder. When you show her the tag for the show on a site like this one or AO3, she’s mesmerized.)

(You open your eyes at one point late that night, aware of her cool, solid presence beside you - still, but with her breathing too shallow to be asleep. You peer over her shoulder to see her browsing the same tag on her phone, screen on minimum brightness as she scrolls with abandon.)

(If she hears you chuckle, she doesn’t say anything. But when you kiss her shoulder and wrap an arm around her waist, she squeezes your hand as it rests on her stomach and finally sets her phone on the bedside table.)

Period sex for Rora is, like many things, a bit complicated - it brings up memories of her own original body, but she’s never not enticed by yours. If you ask, she’ll answer with a kiss, and her cool hands sliding possessively over your frame as she hums low in her throat.

Rora’s fingers are strong and sure despite their aristocratic taper, and she knows exactly the way to work them in you to make you feel like you’re lighting up from the inside. She twists and scissors them in a way that makes just how wet you are extremely audible, her emerald eyes never leaving your face as you come undone repeatedly under her calculated touch.

Or, taking another route, depending on who’s house you’re at she’ll pull out one of your favorite toys - or her old reliable of a spotless hitachi wand if you’re at hers - and apply it mercilessly to your clit with a cool reserve. She observes with a deceptively stoic mask how long it takes your thighs to shake helplessly, for you to try to flinch away when it all becomes too much, and exactly how many soft pitiable whines it takes until you soak the sheets with a softly pink-ish rush of warmth. “That’s okay, daffodil,” she soothes, leaning down to kiss your flushed brow when you mumble a slightly teary embarrassed apology. “They’re just sheets, nothin’ worth gettin’ upset about.” She runs a hand over your hair, and her pale pink mouth quirks in the hint of a smile. “You wanna go again? It’s good for you - it helps, I swear.”

If you ask to make it up to her, by burying your head between her cool thighs and feeling her nimble fingers now curl helplessly in your hair, for once - she won’t refuse. After, she’ll take your face in her hands with a still-dazed expression, and kiss you messily with an open mouth to hide just how much her breath is still shaking.

Rora watches you sleep - it’s no secret. She has problems getting to and staying asleep since she came back to this side of the Veil, and she would sooner shave her own head than get out of bed and risk disturbing you. But sometimes she feels something else watching out of her eyes, taking you in with an avarice that isn’t entirely hers. She and the boys have talked about it since she found you: that urge to keep, to claim, to never let you out of her sight again. To never let you be parted by something as flimsy as the Veil. While the creature in her head coos over you like something more precious than gold, counting your every breath, she knows in her conscious mind that she would bring you back a hundred times if she never had to be without you again, damn the consequences. She has lived too long alone, her and the monster inside her - and neither of them will be denied now.

Sorry this took a while, sweet nonny!! I was feeling a bit worn down myself this week 🖤 I hope you’re feeling better now, and have this for the next time Shark Week decides to throw you out of whack 🥰✨ sending love your way!

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