#Pred Lean!Frank Bannister

[ellavorer]

The Key To His Heart

Okay, so... I’ve been meaning to rub my dirty vore hands on The Frighteners for a while now, and it was only now that I got a spark of inspiration for it. Even if people find it gross, at least I’ll be raising awareness of this criminally underrated movie. So watch the director’s cut twenty times before you do anything else today.

Trigger warning for an attempted suicide at the beginning, references to past spousal deaths, references to canon character deaths, references to canon-typical violence, references to a previous unhealthy marriage (Lucy and Ray), references to past unwilling vore, references to emeto.

Otherwise, enjoy and Happy Halloween!

“What was that in that cell, Frank?” Lucy demanded as soon as they stopped running. “I felt something crushing my heart.”

“I can’t fight him, Luce,” he lamented as he tried to catch his breath. “I can’t protect you.”

Whatever this thing was, it was responsible for Debra’s death.

It had taken his wife from him.

And just now, not only had it tried to take Lucy, it succeeded in destroying Stuart and Cyrus’ emanations.

He looked at the pistol that he had grabbed from Dammers, checking the cylinder and re-cocking it. “There’s only one way to deal with this thing. I gotta have an out-of-body experience...”

“What...” Lucy couldn’t even finish her sentence.

“And I gotta have it now.”

Frank pressed the pistol to his temple.

“No!” Lucy cried, her plea coming out in almost a harsh sob. “No!”

“Go away, Luce, just walk the other way,” he tried to coax her.

Despite the early autumn weather, sweat was beginning to form on his forehead as his finger tightened on the trigger. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath.

“Wait!” Lucy grabbed his shoulder. “Wait...”

With caution, she reached for the pistol, took hold of his hand, and gently pushed the weapon away from his head.

“There’s another way,” she said.

“What?” he asked, opening his eyes.

“Before you turned yourself in, Agent Dammers told me that you’re a pred lean,” she began.

Frank stiffened at her confession of her knowledge of where he stood on their society’s food chain. His stupid pred senses had told him that Lucy was a prey lean from the moment that he had stepped into her house.

“And I know that it... it would be safe,” she continued. “B-- besides, you didn’t even get to eat anything at the restaurant...”

“Luce...” he was afraid of where this conversation was headed.

Yes, his stomach was bordering on painfully empty; he hadn’t eaten since the morning of Ray’s funeral.

Well, he had... he had gulped Magda Rees-Jones down in order to try to protect her, but the car crash had caused him to vomit her up, leaving the now-tiny reporter at the mercy of the Reaper.

And he knew logically that it was unlikely that his system would make the mistake of digesting Lucy, but... what if she got hurt?

What if she ended up dying anyway?

She could die because of him, and he’d have--

“Frank...”

Her sweet voice dragged him out of his thoughts.

“Frank, you forgot that I’m a doctor,” she reminded.

It wasn’t a scolding reminder, though. It was reassuring, as if telling him that she knew what she was doing.

“This was one of the many things I studied in med school,” she told him. “I know that in cases of protection, preds automatically neutralize the stomach acids for as long as needed--”

Her words were interrupted by a long, low, and loud gurgle from Frank’s middle. Even in the dimly lit alleyway, she could see him blushing.

“Oh my God, you’re really hungry, aren’t you?” she asked.

“Lu-- Luce--”

“Frank, have you eaten anything at all today?”

His belly growled again, and he bent over as a hunger pang hit him. Even though his body had already answered her for him, he said, “No.”

“Then it isn’t just about me, Frank,” she said. “You need to keep your strength up--”

“Luce, you’re already in enough danger--” he tried to argued.

“Frank, please,” she interrupted him, taking his hands into hers. “I’ll be fine; and it would help you. All you would do was drain some energy from me, and when the danger’s out of the way, you’ll be able to spit me up and unshrink me. I’ll be fine. I’ve done this before.”

“Really?” he asked.

“Yeah,” she confirmed. “Ray... he was a full pred. One of his ways of winning an argument was eating me until I agreed with him.”

He saw something sad in her eyes; a dark kind of sadness that suggested that there was more to when she told him that her marriage to Ray “wasn’t good.”

That gave him all the more reason to hesitate, even as his stomach rumbled again.

“Frank...” his name escaped her lips and her eyes landed on his stomach.

He gave a resigned sigh; if this was the only way to protect her...

“Fine, I’ll do it,” he relented. “But are you absolutely--”

“Yes!” she said, beginning to sound a little frustrated.

Gingerly, he placed his hand on her shoulder, too afraid of hurting her. She began to shrink under his touch and he reached out his free hand to catch her.

“You okay, Luce?” he asked almost immediately as she was sitting in his palm.

“Yeah, I’m fine,” she told him, noting the hesitance still in his eyes. “Now... you... you just have to open up and let me climb in. Just let me take off my shoes first.”

As she removed her shoes and handed them to him so he could put them in his pocket, another hunger pang gurgled in his stomach. Despite how small she was now, he could hear Lucy wince in sympathy.

Why was she so concerned about him?

She was the one about to be eaten alive!

“Frank... I’ll be okay,” Lucy’s soft voice pierced that nasty voice in his head that sounded a little too much like Dammers.

Frank could only respond with a small whimper.

“Go ahead...”

He slowly moved her closer to his gaping maw, but stopped.

“Wait...” he said.

“What is it?” she asked.

“Could you just... climb in?” he asked. “I’m-- I might-- I’m afraid I--”

I’m afraid that I’ll bite you.

“I can do that,” Lucy assured him, offering him a comforting smile with a hint of teasing. “Well... open up...”

Frank closed his eyes and opened his mouth as wide as he could. Lucy climbed in, laying herself on his tongue.

His eyes shot open at her taste.

It was sweet-- but not like candy, which always seemed to turn his stomach.

It was sweet like cookies or cake... with cinnamon and a hint of something... flowery...

Lavender or...

“Frank?”

Only when he heard her voice did he realize that he had pinned her to the roof of his mouth.

“Just swallow when you’re ready,” she told him. “Take all the time you need.”

He tried to find it in himself to swallow, to pull her down... but he couldn’t.

He couldn’t.

“Frank, it’s okay,” she continued to reassure him. “Just take your time.”

It baffled him that she was being so reassuring as she was lying on his tongue, but, in a strange way... it was comforting.

With a tightening of his muscles, he swallowed with a “GLRK,” tracing Lucy’s path with his finger.

Lucy kept her eyes closed as she was pulled further and further down Frank’s throat. She landed in a soft, wet chamber with a yelp.

Only when her new sanctuary gurgled did she dare to open her eyes again.

Just as she was about to reach out to touch the wall of the chamber, she froze. But it wasn’t from fear-- it was in absolute awe.

In medical school, she had meticulously studied the organs of the human body with such interest. Besides the gurglings of Frank’s stomach, she could hear his heart beating, the blood rushing through his veins, the air circulating his lungs...

It was incredible!

“Frank,” she called gently, finally pressing a hand to the wall of his belly. “Frank, I made it done okay.”

Above her-- no, around her-- she heard him gasp. His large hand pressed back at her.

“Luce?” he asked. “Luce, are you alright?”

“Frank, I told you, I made it done okay,” she repeated gently. “So far, no burning, no acid... just like I told you.”

He sighed. “Okay... but what about... are you... you comfortable?”

Lucy leaned forward into his touch. “Yeah. It’s really comfy in here. But what about you? How are you feeling?”

Frank looked down at his middle, realizing just what a poor job he had done of taking care of himself over the past five years. It was so obvious that he had acted on his pred instincts.

But he felt better than he had other the last five years.

“Good,” was all he answered. “Now, what do you want me to do now?”

“Go to the medical center, but spit me out before we get there,” she instructed. “If there’s an APB out for you, they’re not gonna let you in. But I know that place inside and out.”

He nodded. “Okay.”

Throughout his short journey, he kept his hand over his belly, to reassure Lucy as much as she had reassured him.

And if they made it through this...

He would love to try this again.