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inkwellsandpens · 7 months

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We Have Always Lived in the Manor

Summary: The year is 1931. David Fayne's parents have just died in a tragic accident onstage. With nowhere else to go, he is taken in by the mysterious and rich Robert Aster, and brought to live in his manor. Whether or not this is a good idea remains---unclear.

David didn’t remember much of his life before.

He knew it existed, obviously, and he knew the basics. His parents were actors in a traveling troupe, up until they died in a sudden, tragic accident onstage. If he tried, he could remember flashes of color and shining lights; people in costumes getting ready for a show. Yet in some strange trick of fate, he never remembered any more than that. His first real memories, stable memories, began only at age fourteen. They only began the first day he ever stepped foot into the manor, as if he had been remade that very day. As if he knew, at that moment, that this was where his new life began.

The sky was gray, when the car rolled up along the cobblestones to his new home. It had been mid-November, and the trees lining the boulevard had been gray, too, barren and empty of leaves. It had been so different from any other place he’d been, he remembered thinking, which had all been shining cities so full of color. Here, it seemed, all color was bleached away, leaving everything to match the grim, gray exterior of Aster Manor, the ancestral home of Robert Aster, of the Aster Railway fortune. David’s new guardian.

He didn’t even remember meeting Mr. Aster that night at the theater. He was told he had. He didn’t remember much of that night, even then. It was all just a blur of pain and tragedy.

He was told that Mr. Aster had asked him to come and stay with him. That he knew what it was like to lose your parents young. He was told that he’d agreed, when Aster had offered. He didn’t remember that, either.

When he arrived, finally, at the old, imposing house that was meant to be his new home, he was greeted by an old man on the front steps. The man wore all black, and his silver hair glinted in the early afternoon light.

“Master David?” He’d said, taking David’s trunk from the chauffeur. “I am Arthur Wisen, the butler here.” He’d said, “I’m afraid that Master Robert couldn’t be here for your arrival, he was called away by business to the city.”

He led David into the manor, through the large and cavernous doorway. For a second, David was afraid to step in, feeling oddly like the door was some sort of gaping, empty mouth, and that by entering he would be swallowed up inside of it, until not even his bones remained.

But David knew that was ridiculous. And besides—he had already made his decision the moment he stepped into the car and left the the world he knew behind. There was no going back now.

So, he followed the butler into the house proper.

It had been massive, he remembered thinking. The ceilings were almost as high as they were in circus tents. The hallway seemed to wind in an endless maze, too, every corner lit only by flickering yellow gaslight in well-placed sconces and the spidery web of chandeliers.

He spoke to no one but Arthur, but occasionally along the corner of his vision there were phantoms of maids in dark dresses and stark white aprons, and footmen in similarly colorless livery. Yet every time he turned, they flickered out of sight, disappearing around a corner or into a hall.

It should have frightened him, he knew: the expressionless, old butler; the ancient house, which loomed and haunted with its high ceilings and endless memory; the cold chill of the oncoming winter which seeped in through the craggy gray stone. If he had been older, maybe he would’ve thought this is no place to raise a child. As a youth, he ought to have been terrified of it; this loveless house, so reminiscent of the haunted ones from scary stories told around a fire.

Yet even though he knew this, even though he was all too aware of what he ought to have been feeling as he wandered his way behind the old butler, he couldn’t help the strange sensation which spread through him with every step on the manor’s well-polished floors. A feeling—of homecoming. Like he’d been here before, even though of course he never had—still, these hallowed halls felt somehow like they were always meant to be home for him. Like the house itself seemed pleased to have David inside it, right where he belonged.

“Master Robert is very busy,” Arthur said, leading him through a long hallway, rife with old-fashioned oil portraits of dark-haired, blue-eyed Aster scions. “If there is anything that you need, Master David, just come to me.”

The room Arthur led him to was covered in pale blue wallpaper, with a matching four-poster bed that seemed like it had been there for the entire last century. Something inside of David twinged at that—it wasn’t totally right, for some reason, not in his head, but he brushed it off anyways. Every part of the manor felt so strangely good, so strangely warm. It was easy to fall in love with the part of it that would be his.

“I shall leave you alone, to get settled,” Arthur said, stepping back into the hall. “I do hope you will enjoy it here, Master David.”

Of course he would, he’d thought, sitting down on the plush mattress and sighing. He’d been so tired then, from the never-ending exhaustion of grief. The manor felt like a balm to him; safe, warm, home. Even the hum and rattle of the pipes seemed to settle him, seemed like it was the manor itself telling him welcome home.

It felt easy to forget, inside the manor’s walls. Easy to lay his head down and rest, to sleep dreamlessly and peacefully for the first time since his parents’ deaths.

He ran himself a bath, after his impromptu nap, stepping into the attached bathroom. The golden taps gleamed when he twisted at them. But when the water spurted out—it was bright red. Like blood.

He shouted, running out of the bathroom to find Arthur, to find someone, because the bathtub was filling red and bloody and he didn’t know what to do.

“Apologies,” Arthur said, once David had explained, shaken. “That is a bit of a difficulty with the water here. From the mineral deposits in the clay, you see. Perfectly safe. Simply let the water run for a moment, see?”

True to his words, the water was crystal clear, just as expected, as if it had never run red to begin with.

He stared at that pure water, not even tinged pink. The steam rose from it in tiny wisps, disappearing into the air. He couldn’t explain what he felt at that moment; a sudden terror clawing away at his throat, like he was a thing being hunted, like the trap had already been set and he was in the jaws of a beast.

But—no. The water was hot when he climbed into the bath, purifying, comforting. The soap scrubbed away his strange, inexplicable worries. This place was new, but it was safe. This he was certain of.

He scrubbed at his hair harshly, his skin turning pink from the heat of the bath. It hurt when he tugged at the knots in his hair, but it steadied him somehow, the sharpness clearing his brain. It was alright. He was alright. He sighed into the water, ducking his head under to clear away the suds. This too, was alright.

Arthur had brought a tray of food to his room. Mr. Aster was still away in the city, it seemed, and so there was no point in serving a formal dinner. He’d be going away again in the morning—something about a business trip to Europe. Privately, David wondered why he’d bother taking a boy in if he didn’t ever want to see him, but—no. That was ungrateful. He was a busy man, and David didn’t know what would’ve happened, if Mr. Aster hadn’t taken him in. He might’ve been left in an orphanage somewhere, some place cold and cramped and full of unkind strangers and nothing he could truly call his own. He was lucky, instead, that he was here in the manor, which—while lonely—still felt, somehow, like it could be somewhere he belonged.

So David picked away at his plate of turkey and vegetables, and went to sleep straight after.

It was strangely tiring, living in the manor. Each night he collapsed straight into bed just as grateful as that night he first arrived; his eyelids heavy, his body aching. Growing pains, Arthur had told him. He was at that age.

It didn’t help, of course, that his sleep was hardly restful. Only a few months into his stay he found himself sleepwalking, wandering the halls of the manor in the middle of night. He never used to sleepwalk, but Arthur told him that these things could happen, especially after something as traumatic as what happened to him.

So he didn’t mind it much, not at first. Arthur found him most nights, and put him back to bed. David was young, he said, it was important for him to get proper rest. So David was bundled back into his room on the opposite side of the manor, and he didn’t think much of it at all.

But then the sleepwalking started happening more and more, and by the time he turned fifteen it was practically every night. There was a pattern to it, even—he wasn’t just wandering aimlessly. Every night he’d slip out of his room, and into the halls, until he got to the East Wing. He always ended up in the East Wing, and always in one specific part of it too: his hands struggling with the knob of some large, mahogany door.

Every night—so long as Arthur didn’t find him first—he ended up at that door, sooner or later, his fingers clawing at the knob, at the wood. It was always locked, but that didn’t stop him from trying. Once, he even woke up with gouges on the door and splinters under his fingernails. He was so desperate to get inside, where he belonged. If there was one thing he was certain of—in the moments before his eyes snapped open, and he found himself blinking and confused in front of the shining dark wood—it was that he belonged in that room. That was the room he was meant to be in, and it hurt being out of it; he needed to be in it, couldn’t they see, couldn’t they know? Why was it locked, why wasn’t he inside, why—

And then he’d wake up, his fingers white-knuckled on the door knob, never even knowing what was behind the door.

He thought about asking Arthur sometimes about what was in that room, but every time he did he found the words frozen on his tongue. Arthur generally found him before he ever got as far as the door, and he felt, strangely, as though the door was a secret, just for himself. That if he mentioned it to Arthur, he might be more proactive in stopping David’s nighttime wanderings, and locks might appear on his own bedroom door. And even though it frightened him that he was sleepwalking so much—the thought of that always stopped him in his tracks.

It had been about a half a year after his fifteenth birthday that he actually found himself inside. He hadn’t realized it at first. He’d thought it was just one of his rare off nights where he finally woke up where he ought to be, inside his own bed.

So he had curled into sheets contentedly, feeling warm and soft and right where he belonged. The sheets smelled so good he could’ve drowned himself in them, and he was so, so very tired…

It wasn’t until the morning came that he realized the light was coming in the wrong direction, that the drapes were red instead of blue, and that across the room was the mirrored image of the imposing mahogany door.

It had been a bedroom all along. A nice bedroom at that—not that most of the rooms weren’t nice, of course, but this was bigger than any of the other rooms he’d been in—not only that, this one wasn’t empty like those had been; it was personalized, intimate. A portrait sat above the fireplace, featuring a man in a suit and a woman in pearls. It was nice. Strangely homey despite its mammoth size. Just being in it, inside of the inhumanly large bed, made him smile so wide and dopily he’d probably have been embarrassed if someone could’ve seen him. It just felt so—so—right, like it had when he first moved into the manor, like there was a part of him that had been secretly missing all along; like he’d been breathing in smoke his whole life and he finally had fresh air in his lungs.

If he was shameless, he might’ve asked Arthur if he could move in here, instead of his room back in the West Wing. It was as if, having spent a single night inside this room, he couldn’t stand the thought of going back; after all, it was so obvious that this place had been empty for too long. It was so clear that it needed someone in it. But it had, presumably, been locked for a reason—even if the thought of leaving it made him feel so empty he wanted to die.

When Arthur found him, still curled up like a kitten in that bed, however, he went whiter than a sheet. “How did you get in here, Master David?” He’d asked. David told him he didn’t know. Arthur went even whiter at that.

“What room is this, anyway,” David asked, finally feeling courageous, “You never told me what was in the East Wing.”

Arthur faltered, still looking like he saw a ghost. When he replied, it seemed to be out of muscle memory alone. “This is the Master suite, sir.”

David’s fingers itched. “Oh, I see.”

So the room did have an occupant. He was just never home enough for it to actually feel like it did.

He didn’t see Robert Aster himself for almost a year after he arrived at the manor. Not properly, at least. He came to know him in glimpses; a flash of dark hair turning the corner into the study, a set of suitcases piled up before a car. The young Master Aster, David was told, was often away from the manor, out on trips. David couldn’t understand why. It felt wrong to leave it empty, to let it rot away when it so clearly wanted to be alive, to be a home. How anyone could ever leave it, he couldn’t know.

But Mr. Aster always seemed to be far away; off in Europe or Beijing or San Francisco. When he was home, it was for a few days only, before he disappeared off to his next destination.

He only met Mr. Aster once, that first year in the manor. He’d had some trouble in his travels; his train had been canceled due to a snow storm, or some such, and so his plans were squashed and he had to return back home.

David had held his breath the minute he’d heard this, watching the black coil of the telephone wire sway as Arthur replied: very good, sir. Of course, sir. David waited by the doors immediately after, listening carefully for the sounds of an automobile to come up the drive, for the big wide doors to open and finally show the man who had brought him here.

When they did, clanging open with all the gravitas of a burst of thunder on a stormy night, the only thought that David had was that he was far younger than David had been expecting.

For some reason he had pictured some kind of older, wizened businessman, hair streaked with silver. Instead, Mr. Aster was a young man, and he looked it, too—though his deathly pale skin tried to convince otherwise. He couldn’t have been a day older than thirty, if that.

He looked surprised to see David, as if he’d somehow forgotten the boy he’d taken in a year ago. He froze the moment he laid eyes on him, but then that faded. “Hello,” he said. “It’s David, isn’t it?”

How strange it was that David should be living in this man’s house for almost a year, and yet he still barely knew his name. “That’s me.”

Mr. Aster hummed, his eyes trailing off into the distance. “It’s good to see you again.”

“Yeah,” David said, even though he wasn’t sure it was. “How was…” he trailed off, going through Arthur’s latest list of ‘places Master Robert is visiting’ in his head. “…Paris?”

“Beautiful,” he said. “As always.”

Something passed through David, then, like a strange bolt of jealousy; what need did he have to travel the globe for beauty when he had the manor right here, with its old gothic architecture and arching windows? David laid a hand on a nearby column to steady himself, letting the heat of his fingers warm the old stone.

Mr. Aster looked at him strangely. David couldn’t make out the expression in his eyes. “How have you been finding the manor, David?”

“It’s perfect,” he said, leaning against the smooth stone. “Thank you so much, Mr. Aster.”

“I see.” For some reason, he didn’t seem to like his answer. His expression shuttered, his eyes looked away, and his hands clenched into fists.

For one torturous second, David’s heart stopped, too afraid that Mr. Aster was displeased with him, that he’d try and send David away. His hands grasped at the old stone like he could somehow hold onto it so tight they could never make him leave, that if he just held on hard enough, he could somehow become part of the stonework itself.

Yet all Mr. Aster did was draw in a sharp breath and turn a smile David’s way. It was the sort of smile that should’ve set David at ease, the sort of smile that ought to have belonged on a face as handsome as Mr. Aster’s. It didn’t. Instead it just looked all too practiced, all too fake. “I’m glad you’re fitting in so well,” he said. It felt like a lie. “And truly, David, call me Robert.”

“Alright,” he said. “Robert.”

He clapped a hand on to David’s shoulder before he disappeared again into his study. The heat of him surprised David, blossoming even through the fabric of David’s shirt. He’d grown so used to the chill of the manor, to Arthur’s cold, icy hands, that he’d forgotten that another person could be so warm.

Mr. Aster—no, Robert, he’d asked to be called that, even if it did feel strange, even if he tripped over the word at night, repeating it over and over again in the privacy of his mind—stayed for three whole days that time, a new record. He even ate dinner with David, twice, in the big formal dining room where they had to speak to each other across a table which could’ve seated at least twenty.

He told David about his travels, about Paris and Rome and Monte Carlo. The sun seemed to be out every day there, he said, like it never was in the city, and it made the water sparkle like diamonds. He even promised to take David there one day, when he was older.

And David smiled, even though his heart seized at the thought of going so far away from home. “Maybe,” he’d said, and Mr. Aster seemed to like that, smiling brighter and broader in a way that seemed almost genuine.

“You know, I’ve been thinking,” he said, after Arthur poured him another glass of wine. “I know Arthur has been doing his best to homeschool you, but perhaps it’s time you go to school.” He said. “After all, I went to St. Sebastian's at your age, and a young man like you is hardly supposed to languish away in a house all day.”

David froze, a forkful of green beans halfway up to his face. “I don’t mind,” he said, quietly, carefully. “It’s nice being in the manor.”

“But surely you’d prefer going to school.”

David swallowed, anxiety building in him, the same strange panic that occurred every time he thought of stepping past the manor’s gates. “I’m really fine here,” he said. Outside, the wind began to howl. “I—I wouldn’t want to leave Arthur alone.” The house would be so empty without David in it. He could practically see it: gaping, cold, lifeless. And it would be left that way for hours at a time, half a corpse, bloated and cold and so, so empty—

“I shouldn’t have left you all alone here.” He said, too cheerful and wrong; he was hiding something and David knew it. “I’m sure you’d like to make friends with people your own age.”

If you don’t want me to be lonely, David thought, with a sudden, bitter anger, you could always come back home where you belong—

The howling wind grew ever-louder, matching the ringing in David’s ears, the thundering of his heart. He couldn’t think with the panic, with the noise, couldn’t come up with any words to stop him—but then he didn’t have to.

He was dragged back to the present by the sound of shattering glass. Mr. Aster’s wineglass had broken in his hand, it seemed, dripping blood and wine onto the pure white tablecloth. Mr. Aster stared at it for a moment, his expression dark and face white.

Arthur rushed to his side, picking the glass shards from his hand and bandaging it, but that was the end of dinner nonetheless.

When he left the next morning, it was silently, with a flurry of suitcases being loaded into a taxi. He didn’t stop to say goodbye.

He was in that morning’s edition of the paper, though. A picture of him and some beautiful women at the train station. Has New York’s Favorite Son Finally Returned For Good?

David stared at the picture, at the headline, tearing it off the rest of the paper for some reason he couldn’t quite explain. Something about the dark look in Mr. Aster’s eyes, or how his handsome, pale face contrasted against the inky sweep of his dark hair. He shivered, folding it up and tucking the newsprint into his pocket.

Then—he paused. Unfolded it, brought it out again.

He looked at the picture, at the woman’s blonde hair, at the way she curled a hand over Mr. Aster’s arm.

“Arthur,” he asked. “Mr. Aster—he isn’t getting married soon, is he?” He wasn’t sure why he asked. He wasn’t sure how the thought of it made him feel.

“Oh, heavens no,” Arthur said. “Ah, that is—Not as far as I am aware, Master David.” He said, coughing politely. “Master Robert—has often had trouble in romance, I am afraid.”

“I see.” He said, carefully folding back the paper so that the girl wasn’t visible at all. “Do you think—he’ll be back soon?”

“No,” Arthur said. “No, I’m afraid that’s rather unlikely.”

He brought that photograph out that night, running his eyes over the black-and-white lines. Robert, he thought, in the way he couldn’t during the day, Robert. Robert. He asked me to call him Robert.

Mr. Aster had disappeared for three whole months, after his last visit, and David’s sixteenth birthday passed with about as much fanfare as his fifteenth had. When he returned, in July, he brought a set of pamphlets with him. St. Sebastian’s Preparatory School for Boys.

David stared down at them, feeling cold and empty. Mr. Aster’s empty, placid smile felt particularly mocking from where it towered over him. “Just think about it,” he said, clapping his hand on David’s shoulder.

He thought about protesting, but he knew it wouldn’t matter. Mr. Aster held all of their lives in his hands. There was nothing he couldn’t do. And to be fair—He never seemed cruel. Not really. He seemed, instead—David didn’t know how to explain it. Or, well. He did. But it didn’t make any sense at all.

Because Mr. Aster didn’t seem mean. He seemed afraid.

But that—couldn’t be. What did a man like Mr. Aster even have to be afraid of, after all?

So David took the pamphlets with a practiced, wooden smile, and didn’t say a single word. Mr. Aster had smiled at him, then, in that way that almost looked genuine, almost looked relieved. “It’s for the best, David,” he said. He rustled a hand through David’s short hair. David had to freeze at that; had to shiver. Arthur wasn’t a particularly affectionate sort. He’d forgotten what it was like, to be touched. He had forgotten how much he could like it, how much he could need it. The minute Robert’s big, warm hand disappeared, he wanted it back.

But then the moment was gone, and David went off to bed.

He had expected, that night, to wake up as he usually did these days—outside that mahogany door to Mr. Aster’s bedroom. Or, at least, somewhere in the halls of the manor, lost on his way to that room. At his worst, he had figured he’d be shaken awake by a disgruntled Mr. Aster, asking why on god’s earth David had tried to sleepwalk into Robert’s bed instead of his own.

He hadn’t expected to wake up in his own bedroom, that was for certain, but that wasn’t the problem at all.

No, when David awoke, bleary eyed in the middle of the night, the first thing he noticed was that the sheets were wet. Mortification rushed through him as he bolted upwards, disgust and shame battling as he wondered why his body had apparently decided to regress ten years and return him to being a child again, in terms of its functions—

But then he stared down at the sheets, and even the pale, colorless moonlight, he could tell—

It was red.

His sheets were stained with blood.

He screamed, then, loud enough to wake Arthur, loud enough to wake Robert, even a wing away. He tripped out of his bed, his feet tangling in the wet, red fabric. But his pajama pants were stained, too, were still wet with it. He stripped them from his body in a frenzy, but that just revealed that his underwear were also red, dripping with it. But there wasn’t any wound that he could see, not on his legs, not anywhere, not even any pain—aside from an unusual ache in his stomach, which twinged harshly and strangely.

He pulled his briefs off. He couldn’t care, he couldn’t take it any more, he needed to know what had happened, he needed to see—

and then he saw.

He saw.

He—was going to be sick.

Because there, in between his legs, where before, his cock used to hang—was now totally and completely smooth. Not smooth like it had been cut off. Not like that had been where the blood had come from, like the gristly remnants might be hidden somewhere in the sheets, like he was bleeding out because of that, like he’d been mutilated—but instead, like it had just never existed at all. Like this was how he had always been. Like it was never supposed to exist at all.

He reached one morbid hand downwards, past his blood-slicked thighs. There was nothing. Nothing. Except—at the apex, where there was a slit.

He doubled over immediately, vomiting onto the stone floor.

That was where Arthur found him, eventually: fully nude, near a pile of sick, his left hand still glistening with fresh, wet blood.

He was bedridden for weeks. From the shock, most likely, Arthur said. David himself didn’t think at all, didn’t speak at all. He only stared, blankly, at the canopy of his bed, at the reassuring walls of the manor. That was the only thing which comforted him in those blurry weeks. Something about the manor’s sturdy, stone walls, made him feel as though somehow everything would turn out alright.

A doctor came by, eventually. He looked David over as Arthur tried to explain what happened in discreet whispers.

He stripped David down, prodded him, and scribbled endlessly in a tiny little notebook. “Fascinating,” he murmured, as if David wasn’t even there. “And you say that before this, he was like—any other boy his age?” He said, addressing this to Arthur.

“Just so,” Arthur said, voice clipped.

“I’m afraid I don’t know what to tell you, Mr. Wisen,” he said, eventually. “I’ve never heard of such a thing happening in my life. It’s almost as though it were magic,” he said. “If I didn’t know that you and Mr. Aster were hardly the joking sort, I’d have thought this was an early April fools, and your ‘Mr. Fayne’ was just a particularly athletic, short-haired young miss.”

David flinched at that, if only minutely. He was short for his age, he knew, and he had never truly broadened out in the way that boys, he was told, were supposed to. He’d remained, instead, just as boyish and elfin as ever, even after two years in the manor.

He’d thought that was normal. That he was just a late bloomer. But now he looked in the mirror, and less and less did he think his features were boyish, and more and more did he think they looked—he swallowed, his hands turning into fists—girlish.

Even his chest, he’d begun to notice, had taken a particular sort of puffiness to it, like it was beginning to grow into that of a woman’s.

“It truly is—remarkable.” The doctor repeated.

Arthur’s face had turned even more pinched during this conversation. “I’m sure you’re aware how much Mr. Aster appreciates your expertise and discretion,” he said, lingering just a moment longer on the word discretion.

“Mr. Wisen,” the doctor protested, “this case is truly like nothing I’ve ever seen, surely you will allow me to make some…discreet inquiries with some colleagues—a phenomenon such as this does deserve further study—”

“I’m afraid that will be all, doctor.” Arthur’s tone brokered no arguments. “Thank you for your time.”

The doctor looked like he wanted to argue his point further, but didn’t. “If you’re certain.” He said, stiffly. “Call me if there are any more developments.”

“Of course, doctor.” Arthur said, and then the doctor was gone. Arthur waited a beat after he left before he turned back to David, smoothing back his hair, a concerned look hiding in his eyes. “Well, how about some lunch, then, Master David?”

David, as ever, said nothing. But, after a moment—he nodded, just barely.

“Very good.” Arthur said, standing. Yet as he made his way out to the door, he paused, picking up a piece of paper—the pamphlet on St. Sebastian’s. Silently, he folded it into a tiny square and stuck it into his pocket.

Right. David certainly wouldn’t be attending St. Sebastian’s Preparatory School for Boys, now, that was certain.

He got better, eventually.

Well—no. Not really. He never went back to normal. He never woke up and found his body to be the way it used to. But he started talking again, started eating again, started becoming a little more of who he used to be with every passing day. He just—didn’t think about it. He hung a sheet over his mirror. He didn’t look down as he changed. It wasn’t—ideal, but he got used to it.

And then one day Arthur laid a set of women’s undergarments out for him, delicate satin edged with fine lace.

“What is this.” His voice was barely more than a whisper. He stared at the satin set arrayed on his bedspread. The brassiere, the step-ins. Surely he couldn’t mean—

“Master David,” Arthur said, in that consoling tone he had when he was prepared for an argument. “Surely you have realized by now that—after recent events, well.” He coughed politely. “Your body has been—changing. And growing in certain ways that you…didn’t expect it to before.” He said. “I thought you might find something like this to be more…comfortable."

He crossed his arms over his chest, his face turning red. There was, admittedly, a certain—plushness, there that he didn’t like to think about. Not enough to really show through his shirt, not unless you were looking particularly closely, but still there nonetheless. And there was a certain sensitivity, too, as they rubbed against the starched cotton of his button-down.

The satin brassiere would probably be made of real silk, he knew. It’d probably feel like a balm against the chafing skin there.

But the thought of pulling it on, of seeing the way the dainty lace contrasted against his skin, of wearing that under his clothes—it was unthinkable. It turned what happened from being a—a grotesque medical fluke and into something else. It made it all into something real.

He swallowed back the nausea which rose in his throat. He tore his eyes away. “I won’t wear it,” he said. “I don’t want it.”

“Of course, Master David,” Arthur said, sensing the mistake. He picked the offending garments back up from the bed. “My apologies.”

He shut his eyes. He still saw the delicate silk when he shut them, even after Arthur had left. He saw it as if he had put them on, as if he was staring himself in the mirror. Pale silk against golden skin, slippery soft against him. The way the brassiere would enhance the barely-there swell of his chest. The way he’d look—pretty. Like a girl.

What was it the doctor had said? If I didn’t know better, I’d have thought your ‘Mr. Fayne’ was just a particularly athletic, short-haired young miss.

The blood came back a month later, and he woke up yet again to wet, slick sheets. He screamed again, his heart in his throat and his breath gasping. He tore off the sheets, tore off his clothes, what had happened what had changed this time oh god—but there was nothing again, nothing but blood.

Arthur was there quicker this time, placing a hand on David’s shoulder, soothing him through it. This is natural, Master David, he said. You’re alright. This happens, to women—ah. To people with…such an anatomy. It’s alright.

When he came back to himself, still shaking from terror, he could admit that there was objectively less blood than before. It stained his thighs, yes, and left a wet patch on the sheets, on his pajamas, but it wasn’t everywhere.

“It’ll go on for a few days, Master David, but then you’ll be better again.” He said. “This…cycle is perfectly natural, I promise you.”

“Cycle?” His voice was tiny. Weak.

“I’m afraid it’ll happen about once a month, Master David.”

His hands fisted into the sheets. He squeezed his eyes shut. A few days. Once a month. What was he now, just a ticking time bomb for this to happen? Dread and nausea clawed at his stomach.

“I’ll go and fetch you some rags.” Arthur said. “Until then, how about you take a bath, yes?”

He nodded weakly, watching as Arthur stepped in the bathroom and began to run the bath. He laid back in bed and stared up at the ceiling, letting his breathing even. It was alright, he told himself. It was alright.

It felt like a lie.

“I’ll be back soon,” Arthur said, stepping out into the hallway.

David took in a shaky breath, and pulled himself up off the mattress. The water in the bath was crystal clear and steaming hot. He stepped into it, letting the water sluice away the blood on his legs until it was just a faint pink tinge to the water, until it disappeared down the drain like the water did, when it came out of the faucets red and bloody. Until it washed away, back into the earth, like a bad memory.

He laid his head against the cool rim of the bathtub, and tried to forget.

Mr. Aster came back two more months after that. He’d disappeared the morning after the incident, his face going white as a sheet and stumbling backwards when he came across David. He’d gotten the early train that morning, stuffing a suitcase haphazardly into a taxi and leaving. He didn’t stop to say where he was going. He didn’t say goodbye. Not that David would’ve acknowledged him, not that he could’ve responded, nigh-comatose from the shock—but still. He just left, with hell on his heels, as if that might erase what had happened that night.

When he looked at David again, afterwards, his face was still white, and that strange edge in his eyes—the one that looked like fear—was back with a vengeance. “David,” he said, his voice even and steady, “How are you feeling?”

There wasn’t a word for how he was feeling. There wasn’t a single word for any of this at all. “I’m alright,” he said, leaning back against the stone wall of the manor.

Mr. Aster—Robert, Robert, he told me to call him Robert—looked away, something endlessly sad in his eyes. “I’m…very glad to hear that.”

“It’s not so bad, really,” he said, even though it was a lie, even though his tongue felt foreign in his mouth as he said it, but—he couldn’t stand that look on Mr. Aster’s face. That haunted tragedy. “I—try not to think about it.”

“Of course.”

The clock chimed, then, echoing around the stone walls. It had been late, when Mr. Aster arrived. He’d already eaten. The windows outside had turned ink-black with night hours ago.

Mr. Aster turned back to him with that same charming, fake smile that he had on so often when David was around. “It’s late,” he said. “A growing boy like yourself should probably get to bed.”

He wasn’t so young that he needed to be patronized in such a way, he wanted to protest, but he swallowed back the strange shame at the dismissal and nodded. He was tired, admittedly. It was late. He’d stayed up so that he might catch a glimpse, but—he’d seen him now. Nothing had happened—though he wasn’t sure what he’d expected to, when he saw him. He’d wanted to see him, and now he had. They were both tired. It was time for bed. “Of course,” he said. “Goodnight.”

He woke up that night as he still often did those days, staring at that mahogany door that led to the master bedroom.

He had begun to make his way back to his own bedroom when he passed by the kitchen, which had a light left on. He drew closer; Arthur and Mr. Aster were there inside, speaking in hushed voices.

He couldn’t help it. He listened.

“I had thought that it would be enough,” Robert said, running fingers through his hair roughly.

“Evidently, sir, it wasn’t.”

“I should’ve never gotten him involved in this,” He said, pacing. “I should’ve never brought a child here.”

“You didn’t have much of a choice, sir.”

“There’s always a choice, Arthur.”

The silence lasted a bit too long. “Of course, sir.”

“No, Arthur, I didn’t mean—” he cut off, sighing. “I should’ve known better.”

“There was nothing to be done, Master Robert. You know that.”

“I should have left long ago. I should’ve never come back. But I was weak. I let it get in my head.”

“Master Robert…”

“It mutilated him. Because of me.”

“It…changed him, yes. But Master David is not broken, whatever it may look like.” It was a common refrain on Arthur’s lips, one David had heard many times since The Incident. This isn’t the end, Master David. Life will go on. “He is young. He will adapt.”

“Adapt to what? A life of—of puppetry—”

“You always knew what it wanted, Master Robert. We both did. Perhaps we were fools to think it would be satiated, yes, but there is nothing to be done about it now.”

“Nothing…” Mr. Aster said, and David could feel his heart drop to his stomach before he even spoke again. “Except send him away. Get him out of here while he still can.”

David stumbled back from the door tripping and falling over his own feet. Anything but that. Anything.

He sprinted back to his room, turning the key in the lock behind him. He leaned against the door, feeling the wood upon his back. That would calm him, normally, but now it wasn’t enough.

Where would they send him away to? A school? St. Sebastian’s wouldn’t take him now. Not when he didn’t really count as a boy anymore. So where, then. A coed school? A school for girls?

Or—his stomach dropped nauseatingly. He couldn’t imagine it. No. No. There was no way Mr. Aster would send him off to an orphanage now. He wouldn’t just cast him away with nothing. David couldn’t believe it. He wouldn’t.

He laid back against the door, fear and rage making his entire body shake. He wouldn’t leave. He wouldn’t. They couldn’t make him.

Why would they send him away? Couldn’t they see he belonged here? They needed him here. No one else could take care of the manor like it needed, no one else filled it with life, no one else fit into it so perfectly and effortlessly. It needed him. They needed each other. How could they make him leave?

He would stay. He would stay. He had to. He’d make it happen, if he needed to, but he would stay. No matter what.

What happened then came in a state of strange calm. There was something that he could do so that he could stay, he knew. Or—he didn’t know, exactly. It was a strange sensation, everything was blurry around the edges. He didn’t feel in control, but the supernatural calmness made everything feel right. Perhaps a bit earlier than expected, but right.

His limbs moved mechanically, and by their own accord. They took him through the halls, creeping silently enough so that Arthur wouldn’t wake and stop him. The route was familiar, too, and he could feel it in his bones. When he arrived—he knew why. It was his door again, the imposing mahogany door that he’d woken up to so many times.

He tried the handle. Just like earlier, it was locked. When he’d tried it again, however—it opened.

He crept inside, shutting the door behind him silently.

Mr. Aster had gone to sleep, it seemed, in however long a time David had been panicking in his room. David ghosted his fingers over his cheek, like he used to do with that old photograph of him, the one that was taken the day they met. Robert, he reminded himself, like he used to do with that picture, trying to get the courage to call him that to his face, even when the distance between them seemed so vast it was insurmountable. He looked younger when he was asleep, only twenty-nine and it showed, his face peaceful and free from worry. The thirteen years between them didn’t seem so far, like this. “Robert,” he murmured, finally; unspoken ever since the first time the words passed through his lips. It felt—strange. Ritualistic, somehow. The syllables had sat under his tongue for a year and half, and now they came to light.

But he was here for a reason. And the supernatural calm washed over him in a wave of peaceful emptiness, as he pulled backwards for a moment. His hands drifted down his chest for a second, uncertain. But the empty calm had taken over him, and he began unbuttoning his shirt, guided by instinct alone, like a butterfly pulling open its chrysalis—fully uncertain of what it meant, but certain that it was what he was meant to do.

His pants came next, falling into a pool on the ground, quickly followed by the cotton of his undergarments. He pulled down the blankets and crawled into bed alongside him, plastering his nude body alongside Robert’s pajama-clad one.

He didn’t know what he was doing. Everything was a blur in his brain. He didn’t think. He couldn’t.

He brought one hand in between his thighs, and ran a finger through the slit there. He shuddered—in the past months, he had done all that he could to avoid looking at that area, at dealing with its existence. He had never touched it if he could help it. He had never explored, curiously, tentatively, with desire like he had when his anatomy was different.

Yet now he did, prodding slowly with one fingertip. It was dry and rough—no good at all. But that could be remedied, he knew somehow, and kept at it. His eyes dropped to Robert’s hands where they lay on the sheets, and an image flitted into his mind: Robert’s hands on him instead, his voice crooning low and sweet, calling him good, calling him perfect. Something hot coiled in the pit of his stomach. He felt the slit between his legs begin to grow slick.

He pressed up against a mound of flesh that seemed to overwhelm him with pleasure, and his breath caught in a gasp. He toyed with it until his hips were shaking, his breath was catching, and the glide between his legs was wet and easy.

It was then that he stopped, though he ached to continue, turning instead to Robert, to Robert, to Robert. He pulled at his pajamas, peppered his jaw with tiny kisses. Before he knew it, he was sinking down on top of him, his lips parted in a breathless gasp.

It was good. It hurt, but—it was good. Better than it should have been, maybe—somewhere in the fog of his mind he could tell that it ached something terrible, that something, maybe, had torn and dripped tiny droplets of blood onto the sheets. But it was supposed to hurt a little, a voice told him, the first time. That was normal. Besides—he couldn’t even feel it, not really. Instead, the only thing he could feel was an overwhelming sense of rightness, filling up his brain like cotton, overwhelming any other sense in his body. It was good, it was good, it was so good—but he needed more, he needed it, couldn’t live without it, god, just a little more—

He heard Robert’s breath catch underneath him, from where he was still asleep. His hips had begun to thrust minutely in instinctual response. He was close, David could tell. Yes. Yes, god, yes—

He kissed sloppily at Robert’s jaw, at his cheek. Just a little more, god, please—

He felt him draw tight and stiff underneath him, the first tell-tale spills of heat inside of him, and then David was tipping over a precipice himself, falling so deliciously sweetly. Let it take, he thought in the haze of it, his hips rolling and clenching down. Let it take, you can’t get rid of me then, not if it takes. Please. Please.

But then Robert’s ice-blue eyes flickered open, and it was all over. “—David? What are you—” he said, first confused, then slowly gaining comprehension. “David.” His voice was frozen in horror, “What have you done.”

“I—“ he said, but it trailed off into a stutter, the preternatural calm leaving him all at once in a crash. He was naked, in Robert Aster’s bed. He was naked, and sore, and there was still—still fluid leaking down his legs from where they’d—from where he’d— “I don’t know. I don’t know what happened, I—I don’t know.”

Robert just stared down at them, where they were still—connected—and the look in his eyes was like nothing David had ever seen before. Like the entire world had burned down in an instant. Like the manor had gone up in smoke, and both of them had been taken with it. “God help me,” he said, his voice strangled and his face bloodless and pale. “I should’ve known—I should’ve known this would happen. That it would come to this. I should’ve known it would never let me go.”

“What do you mean?” He asked, as Robert pushed him off and shuffled away, dragging a sheet to cover them both. The sensation was—indescribable, aching and empty and deeply uncomfortable. It was too much all at once, and Robert was frightening him—even more so than he was already frightened, out of control and spiraling from what just happened. “What wouldn’t have let you go?”

“This place,” He snapped, banging a fist against the wall. “This goddamn house.”

“I don’t—I don’t understand.”

“Of course you don’t,” he said, burying his head in his hands. “God, of course you don’t.”

“I don’t get it,” he said, swallowing past the panic, because he’d just sleepwalked into Mr. Aster’s room, and he’d—he’d—

Only it didn’t feel like sleepwalking. He’d been awake every second; he could remember it in perfect detail; the pure clarity of thought that had possessed him in the moment, the way he’d been so absolutely sure that what he was doing was right, that it would save him, that it was what he was meant to do—

But now Robert was acting as if the world had ended, and he didn’t know what was happening, hadn’t known what was happening since three months ago, back when his body was still normal, was still the way it was supposed to be. And he was so scared, so scared he couldn’t think with it, could only focus on the swooping anxiety in his chest, which grew and grew right under his heart. His heartbeat was so loud he was certain Robert ought to have heard it, if he wasn’t so wrapped up in his own horror—but he was right to feel horrified, because David had—David had—

His breath came in harsh, quick gasps. The world had narrowed down into a pinpoint; into the sheets clenched in his shaking fingers, into the red wallpaper of the master bedroom, mocking in its familiarity. He couldn’t think, he couldn’t breathe. What had happened? What had happened?

Robert’s hands brushed his cheek, warm and strong, and reality lurched back into focus. “I suppose it’s about time you found out,” he said, his voice grimly serious. “It’s my fault, after all, that you’re involved in this.”

“I don’t understand.” Was that really his voice? It sounded faraway. Plaintive. Young.

“I know,” he said, his voice so infinitely sad that David could barely believe it was coming from Robert—Robert who always smiled; Robert who always seemed so certain. “I’m sorry.”

He carded his hand through David’s hair, and David turned into it like it was a lifeline tethering him back down. “What’s going on,” he asked, and it came out like he was begging. “What’s going on?”

“It’s the house,” he said, finally, as if that explained things. “It’s…alive.”

“That’s impossible.”

“Not the actual walls and stone, but the spirit of it. The…essence.” He said. “Surely you’ve felt it. How it wants you to stay, and never, ever leave.”

His breath caught, but he didn’t say a word.

“It gets into your head,” he said. “And once it’s in, it’s in you forever.” He paused. “It’s a parasite. It gives—calm. Prosperity. Something almost akin to love. But it takes in return.”

“What does it take?”

“Energy. Life. Blood.” He said. “Normally—when my parents were alive—it wasn’t so bad. It was manageable. A sort of—relationship. Or so Arthur says.” He said. “But the Manor has things it needs. Life. Energy. Blood. And of course, a house full of Asters to give it.”

Something twinged in the back of his mind. It was starving. Empty. Forgotten.

“It wasn’t meant for a bachelor to live in alone.” He said. “I thought—I could give it what it wanted. Bring in a child. Even if you weren’t related by blood—perhaps if I took you in, it would work. And you needed someone, David, when I saw you that night you looked so alone, it was like I was looking at myself the day my parents died—” He broke off, heaving. “It seemed—happy. To have you. I thought—I thought it was working. That it could be content with a new generation in the house, that you could bring in the energy it needed—” he said, “I should have known better than to have ever brought you here.”

“But if what it wanted was just—I don’t know, a never-ending line of Aster babies, why didn’t you just get married?” He said, because it didn’t make sense. “Why did it decide—why did it—why did it have to be me?” Why did it take me apart and reassemble me like some jigsaw puzzle, when there are plenty of women out there in the world. Why did it decide that I had to be the one who was yours. Why—why—

“Because I won’t get married, David. I can’t.”

“What do you mean?”

“I don’t—like women, David. I never have.”

“But I don’t—what do you mean?”

“I like men, David.” He said, “I can’t get married because I can’t stand the thought of—being with a woman.” He said. “But the house couldn’t let me have that. Not when I’m the last Aster left.” He said. “So I tried leaving. But every time I left, it was still there, in my head, no matter where I was or how far I went. Calling me back. Calling me home. Clawing at my brain until I couldn’t stand it anymore and I bought the next train ticket to the city.” He said. “Until eventually the toll got too strong on me, and I thought: maybe I should give it something that it wants. Not everything. But I could bring a child home, and that would be enough.” He said. “But it wasn’t. And so it took the situation into its own hands, and made me a girl I couldn’t refuse.”

“But I’m not a girl,” he said, voice shaking and young, clinging onto those words like they were a childhood toy he refused to let go of even after it had worn out. “I’m not.” He repeated, like if he said it enough times he’d turn back time, like he’d magically go back to the way he used to be. “I’m not.”

“I know, David,” he said, heavy with sadness as he pulled David’s shaking body closer, wrapping his arms around him. “I know.”

And David—finally let himself cry out, long gasping sobs that were muffled by Robert’s neck, clinging onto him desperately as if somewhere in the warmth of his body he might find out that everything would be alright.

He woke up to an empty bed, feeling cold and tired and spent. A part of him wanted to just curl back up and fall asleep again. Outside, he could hear Robert murmuring to Arthur in low tones, probably explaining what happened last night. He squeezed his eyes shut once he realized that. He didn’t want to remember. He didn’t want to think about it. He didn’t want to know what Robert thought about what they did—what he did.

Did Robert hate him? The thought took his heart in a vice grip. The thought was untenable, impossible, terrifying. Robert was the only spark of warmth in his life. The only thing new, the only thing colorful—he had been ever since the day he came. He was the only kindly person David could remember, outside of Arthur. If Robert hated him—

Ice clawed its way through his veins, shaking him to his core. If Robert hated him, nothing that the manor made him do even mattered. He’d just have ruined things, completely. If Robert hated him, then nothing would stop him from pushing David away, pushing him out, and making him leave after all.

The thought tore him open painfully, like an animal that had been wounded but not properly killed. Even knowing what he did about the manor, the thought of leaving it still felt like death. Whether or not those feelings belonged to him or to it, he couldn’t tell. He wasn’t sure if there even was a difference. The manor was the only home he knew. He was nothing without it, and he knew it.

Arthur stepped into the room a few moments later, shutting the door behind him with a creak. “How are you feeling, Master David?”

“I’m alright.”

“Master Robert and I both want you to know—it wasn’t your fault, the events of last night.”

He swallowed. “I know.” It felt like a lie.

“I’m glad to hear that,” Arthur said. “I know the news of—well, the truth of this house—cannot be easy to take, Master David,” he said. “But I have been here a very long time. Longer than you might realize, even, and I know better than anyone just how the manor can be impossible to deny.”

He could feel where this was leading with every passing word, and he couldn’t stand it. It would be better for Arthur to just come out and say it, better for him to just end the misery instead of trying to be kind about it. So—David ripped off the bandaid. “—are you going to send me away?” He blurted.

Arthur blinked. “Ah, I see. So you heard that.”

“Please don’t,” he begged, and he hated how pitiful it sounded, how weak, how small. But still, he had to try.

“Oh, Master David,” He said, placing a hand on David’s shoulder. “No, we’re not doing that.”

“You’re not?” It felt as though a weight in his chest finally lifted.

“No, Master David.” He said, shaking his head. “Master Robert and I agree—That would do no good. It’s far too late for that.”

Once it’s in you, it’s in you forever. “Oh,” he said, fisting his hands in the pillows, staring into the sheets. “I see.” He paused. “Is—is Robert going away?”

“We figured that would be for the best,” he said. “In order to avoid any—future attempts, for the time being.”

The wounded animal inside his chest clawed at his ribs in futile agony. “That makes sense,” he said, even though the thought was so wrong it was nauseating. He belongs here, he thought, without meaning to. This is his home, but he’s always running away.

“He’s leaving for Vienna this afternoon.”

“So soon?” He could feel his jaw trembling, could feel the sickening knot growing in his throat.

“It is…unlikely, for it to have much energy left, after such a large use of its power,” Arthur admitted. “But we both agreed that it would be for the best to not waste any time.”

He swallowed, trembling. Was he even planning to say goodbye? He didn’t ask. He didn’t want to know the answer.

He went and said goodbye to Robert anyway, waiting as he gave his luggage off to the taxi driver. He wrung his hands roughly. He didn’t ask Robert when he was planning to come back. He knew, of course, that he wasn’t planning on coming back. Not at all, if he could help it.

Robert’s eyes were gray and unreadable when he eventually said goodbye, pressing a hand against David’s shoulder. He paused for a moment, as if he couldn’t seem to find any words. “Look after yourself, David,” he said, eventually.

David could only nod stiffly in return. His mouth felt incapable of speech; filled so deeply with some tight emotion that he couldn’t express that there wasn’t any room for sound.

When Robert’s hand left his shoulder, he felt colder than he’d ever been before. This was for the best, he told himself, letting his fingernails bite into the flesh of his palms. This was for the best. Even if it didn’t feel that way.

He stood and watched the cab disappear down the drive, and fought back the sudden, inexplicable urge to cry.

He got horribly sick a few weeks later, his stomach roiling and tossing, as if the manor had reached out and begun punishing him for Robert leaving, furious that he’d failed in the one thing it wanted him to do. The nausea always woke him up in the middle of the night, sending him running for the bathroom.

It would get better, eventually, he told himself. The manor couldn’t be angry forever. Even if he did wake every morning feeling cold and worn down and tired, it couldn’t continue forever. Even if he still felt tired in the mornings when he awoke in Robert’s bed. It would pass, he told himself, splashing water on his face and cleaning up after himself. It had to pass.

A little over two months had gone by before he realized that hadn’t bled again. This was good, he was certain, rushing to go and tell Arthur. If he wasn’t bleeding anymore, then maybe—maybe everything was going back to normal. Maybe that was why his chest was so strangely achy, maybe it was going to shrink and go back to normal, too—maybe if Robert wasn’t here, if he properly stayed away, if the manor could tell that its scheme hadn’t worked—maybe it was giving up. Putting him back to the way he used to be.

He told all of this to Arthur, chattering on in a hopeful, excited blur. Women, Arthur had told him, bled every month. But David hadn’t bled since Robert left, so maybe—

Yet the moment he said this, Arthur’s face just went bloodless and white. “Master David,” he said, voice even and very, very careful. “I need you to tell me exactly how you’ve been feeling for the past two months."

He blinked. “Why?”

“Please, Master David.”

“Tired, I guess,” he said. “But that’s normal. It needs energy, doesn’t it?”

“Never mind that, David.” He said. “Anything—else?”

“I get nauseous, sometimes,” he said, “but that’s been going on for a while.”

Arthur sucked in a breath. “For how long, Master David?”

“I don’t know. A few weeks.” He said.

Arthur wouldn’t look him in the eye.

“What’s the matter? Arthur? Isn’t this a good thing?”

“Go and wait in your room,” he said, finally. “I’m going to go and call the doctor.”

“Arthur?”

“Don’t worry, Master David. Everything is going to be alright,” he said, and his voice was strong and steady but his eyes were nervous. “Go wait for the doctor.”

The doctor who came was the same one from after he—changed. He poked and prodded him, murmuring something to Arthur about it being a bit early to tell, but it looked about right. He could still do some tests, to be sure, though, and Arthur agreed immediately.

“Tests for what,” David asked, his heart thundering.

“Wait until the tests come back, David, and then I will tell you,” he promised. “It’s just a few days.”

No, he wanted to say, this was his body, and he needed to know what was happening to it. He was sick to death of changes that were never explained, could never be explained. No. “Sure, Arthur,” he said, instead. “Okay.”

Arthur’s hand on his shoulder wasn’t warm, like Robert’s was, but it did make him feel a little better all the same.

Those three days seemed to pass longer than any others that he’d ever spent in the manor, the seconds ticking along at an agonizing pace. The manor itself seemed to slow to a standstill; not even a gust of wind blew through with any degree of speed. David spent his time walking out in the gardens, staring down the cliff which overlooked the bay. What is happening to me, he thought desperately, madly, looking into rows of blood-red roses as if they held any answers. What do you want. Why are you doing this. He thought, as if the manor itself might actually come to life and speak to him, he doesn’t want me. He never will. Don’t you understand? It won’t work. He never will.

But there was only silence. Not even a rustle of wind through the trees.

Let me be, he begged silently, grabbing the stem of a white rose and breaking it off the bush. The thorns tore into his skin; he let the blood drip down onto the dirt. Let me be. I’m here. I love you. Isn’t that enough? Isn’t it?

He tore the rose into pieces. No wind came to blow it away.

The doctor came, just as Arthur said, on the third day. The moment he did, the world slowed to a standstill.

“The rabbit died,” he said, pulling papers out of his briefcase to hand to Arthur. The test results.

What did it mean, what did it mean, what did it mean, he thought desperately, his heart stopping at once. But David didn’t have to wait for long.

“Congratulations, Miss Fayne,” the doctor said. “You’re pregnant.”

Oh.

For a moment, it was like it had been right after he’d changed. The slow chemical deadening of his world as he realized that his body had been taken from him, that he had no control over it at all. The way the manor’s silence hadn’t been tacit burning anger, but instead patient, happy quiet, just waiting for him to find out the news. Now that he knew, he could hear the pipes humming quietly in the walls, a phantom warmth spreading through his fingertips. Pregnant. He felt sick.

When he had—when they’d—when Robert had been here, he remembered thinking that he’d wanted it to take. He didn’t know what that had meant, at the time. But now—

He stared down at his stomach. It hadn’t yet begun to swell. It stayed straight and flat as it had ever been, like the doctor had made a sick joke at his expense. David knew he hadn’t, though. He knew it down past his changeable, mutable flesh and into his bones, the only thing the manor had yet to take apart. Something purred in the back of his mind, urging him to be happy, reminding him that finally things would be right, finally he wouldn’t be quite so lonely—he was having a baby. A baby, a baby, a baby.

He ran a hand down to his stomach, ignoring the voice in his head which crooned. He pressed his fingertips into his belly. It still felt normal, but it wasn’t, it wasn’t.

He imagined dragging his nails across his stomach, again and again until the skin was red and raw. He imagined not stopping, even then, clawing at the flesh there until blood dripped down his arms and onto the stone floor. He imagined it: the desperate, wet sounds of his nails tearing apart skin. The way the doctor and Arthur would try to stop him, but he wouldn’t stop, he wouldn’t, not until he could reach his own hand inside of himself and rip out the parasite that had been implanted in him. Not until he could pull out this thing that was changing him again, remaking him and remaking him until there would be nothing left. All of the organs that weren’t his own, that he didn’t want—he’d rid himself of those, too, rending them apart with his hands, with his teeth if he had to. He wouldn’t be the same, of course, he wouldn’t be right, but maybe then he could finally be safe.

His breath had gone ragged and sharp. Without realizing it, he’d kept pressing his hand into his stomach, until the gentle pressure had gone and turned into pain.

“Master David,” Arthur said, lightly shaking his shoulder. “Master David, are you alright?”

Of course I’m not alright, he didn’t say, his breath growing quicker and harsher, get it out of me, get it out of me, get it out—

“Master David—”Arthur said, concerned.

“Miss Fayne—”

Not a miss not a girl not pregnant—get it out of me get it out of me get it OUT—

All of the sudden, his hand flew away from his stomach. His spine straightened. He felt—calm. No, not calm: good. Very good. Why wouldn’t he feel good? He was having a baby. “Sorry, doctor,” he said. His voice didn’t feel like his own; instead it was different: cheery, light, high. “I don’t know what came over me.”

“I see,” the doctor said, eyes wary. “If you’re certain.”

“Of course,” he chirped, smiling, smiling, smiling.

“Well,” the doctor said, standing. “If that's the case, I should probably take my leave of you.”

David just hummed as he left, tracing gently over the angry red marks he’d left on his stomach, basking in the warm, good glow. Sorry, baby, he hummed, Mommy’s so sorry, baby.

The door clicked shut.

He stared down at his hands. Felt the smile fade from his lips. The supernatural calm dissipated in a wave, leaving him feeling empty and cold and shaking.

“Master David?” Arthur said, hovering by his side. “I—are you certain you’re alright?”

“No, Arthur,” he said, voice breathy and shaking and finally his again. “I don’t think I am.”

“Oh, Master David,” Arthur said, voice breaking, gathering David into his arms. “It’s going to be alright, my boy. I promise. It’s going to be alright.”

He fisted his fingers in the starched cotton of Arthur’s shirt, and let himself cry.

The terror dissipated somewhat, afterwards. Once he had—naturally—calmed down, and his sobs faded into nothing. He hadn’t actually wanted to hurt himself, he knew. Even the baby—he didn’t want it hurt, either. Not really. He just didn’t want it to exist. It wasn’t the baby’s fault that it was growing inside of him, of course, even if he wanted it out of him.

But there was no way to get it out of him, Arthur told him. Not one that was safe. Any operations that could be attempted had just as much of a likelihood of him bleeding out as they did success, and that was assuming they could find someone who would do one. And even if it was safe—

He thought about the house pulling his hand away. The way his voice had changed, high and flighty and girlish, when he told the doctor that everything was alright.

—even if it was safe, there was nothing to be done.

Which brought him here, watching the black telephone wire sway hypnotically as Arthur explained the situation to Robert. “The situation is not very good…” he said.“Yes, I know…no sir, I know that is what we agreed…Master Robert, I’m afraid you don’t understand.” He pitched his voice into a near-whisper, as if he could barely stand to speak the words aloud, “he is with child.”

Then, all was silent.

For a moment, David imagined crossing the room and picking up the telephone himself. He imagined hearing Robert’s voice on the other end of the receiver, even a thousand miles away, and how that would make the knot in his stomach come loose and lax. He imagined saying to him. Come home. I don’t know what’s going on. I need you. Help me. He imagined himself begging. Come home.

“I see…alright. I understand.” Arthur hung up. He turned to David. “He’s going to buy tickets for the next train to the city.”

David let out the breath he had been holding, something unwinding inside of him. He was coming home. He was coming home.

Robert came back a week later. Seeing him again was like breathing: the minute he stepped through the doors again, it was instant, instinctual relief.

He looked the same as ever. Perhaps a bit more haggard; dark circles clung under his eyes. But otherwise—just the same.

“David,” he said, crossing the room in fluid, easy steps. He reached out and grasped at his face; David shivered and gasped. “How are you feeling?”

His hands were just as warm as they always were, like tiny flames heating the sides of his face. He shivered, like he always did, at the touch. “I’m okay,” he said and it was true, it was, it was. He felt so much better now, leaning his head into Robert’s hands, breathing in the scent of his cologne.

“You’re certain?” He asked, “it hasn’t been—too harsh on you?”

“No,” he said, even though it had been rough, it had been hard. “No, no. I’m better now.”

He sighed in relief, and David preened; at the attention, at the care. His heart felt like a hummingbird in his chest, light and heady and pounding. Did you miss me, he didn’t ask, though he wanted to. I know you must’ve. I know you must’ve.

Tell me you missed me. Tell me that nowhere else felt right. Tell me that you spent every day wishing that you were here, with me; that you wanted nothing more than to come home where you belonged. Come home, Robert. Stay, this time. Oh, god, for once, just stay—

His hands had fisted into the lapels of Robert’s jacket. He didn’t let him go. “Are you sure,” Robert said, voice measured and calm, “that you’re alright?”

“Of course,” David said, letting go. “Of course. I’m—I’m fine, really.” He said. “You don’t need to worry about me.”

“If you’re sure.” He ran a hand through David’s hair, and David held back a contented sigh.

“I am. I promise,” he lied. His fingers shook with the urge to pull him back, pull him closer, to crawl inside him as if he could magically make everything better.

“I’m glad to hear that.”

His heart thundered in his chest. Are you? Are you? Did you miss me, do you want me, won’t you please, please stay—

Robert swallowed, and glanced away. “Have you—have you thought about what is to be done?”

“What do you mean?” He said. “There is nothing to be done.”

“We could always—” he began, his mouth thinning into a line that he couldn’t speak. We could always get rid of it.

He laid a hand on his stomach, where he could, if he tried, just begin to feel a bump. He tried to imagine it, taking the baby out of him and bundling it away, off to some orphanage somewhere, far away from his parents, from its home, from its birthright—“No,” David said, taking his hand gently. “No, I don’t think we could.”

Robert had shut his eyes tight, looking to all the world like a man on the way to the gallows. “I see,” he said. “I see.”

David squeezed his hand tighter.

“So there really is—nothing to be done?” Robert said, his blue eyes grasping, begging, as though for once he was the schoolboy and David the worldly man.

“No,” David said, and though his words were petal soft, they fell on Robert like the final blow of an ax. “No, I don’t think there is.”

“You’ll have to take responsibility, Master Robert,” Arthur said, later that evening, pouring a glass of blood-red wine.

Robert flinched as he said it, David could tell, his hands jumping ever-so-slightly on the glass.

“I know you don’t like it, sir,” he said. “But the matter is what it is.”

“Arthur—”

“I know the circumstances aren’t ideal, sir, but think of Master David.”

Master David is right here, he didn’t say, staring at his glass of water. In the reflections in the glass, they appeared distorted, like a funhouse mirror. He can speak for himself, he thought, but said nothing.

“There must be a wedding.”

A wedding. His breath caught in his throat. He hadn’t really thought—he knew there was nothing they could do, but he hadn’t thought—he hadn’t thought about after—he didn’t—a wedding—

Robert ran a hand over his face. He exhaled. “I know, Arthur.”

I know? “But we can’t get married,” he blurted, though his voice was quiet and shaking. “We can’t.”

The room fell silent. “Why not, Master David?” Arthur said, deceptively delicately, as if David was an animal who needed to be corralled, or a bomb about to explode.

“Why not?” he said, “I’m not—I can’t be—I’m not a bride.”

I’m not a girl I’m not I’m not I’m not I’m not—

“We know this, Master David,” Arthur said, soothing. “But, well… for appearances sake, perhaps—”

“They know I’m not a girl,” he said, desperate. “There were papers, weren’t there, after my parents died? They said Robert took in a boy.”

“This is true,” Arthur said, slowly, “but—well. No one has seen you since you arrived at the manor here, Master David. And the papers have been known to be wrong on occasion. It would not be too hard to perhaps…convince the public that they had misremembered.”

“But, but—” he protested, his breath coming in short gasps. “We can’t.”

“It doesn’t—it doesn’t have to mean anything, David.” Robert said haltingly from across the table, but that was so easy for him to say, wasn’t it? It wasn’t him who was being erased and rewritten, like everything about David was mutable; like if they didn’t like his answers they could just reach in and change it.

“We don’t have to decide this now, Master David,” Arthur soothed. “Perhaps you can think about it?”

That night, he sleepwalked again. When he awoke, standing at the door of the master bedroom, he was holding a ring.

It clattered as it fell to the floor.

He shut his eyes and put his face in his hands. He didn’t let himself think. He couldn’t.

When he finally made his way back to his room, he locked the door behind him.

He didn’t speak to Robert or Arthur for three days. He passed by them, instead, in silent protest. He wouldn’t give in, he told himself. He wouldn’t.

Every night, he awoke holding that same ring. Every night, he threw it away.

On the third night, he finally let himself sob: full wracking things that took control over his body, chest heaving, body shaking. He beat at the walls with his fists, he threw the ring across the room, he screamed and he screamed and he screamed until his voice gave out and he slumped, exhausted, back onto the sheets.

The next morning, he slid the ring onto his finger.

“This house is not a cruel one, Master David,” Arthur said when he found him that morning, still staring, blankly, at where the ring sat on his finger. “It may seem that way at times, but it isn’t.”

The ring was pretty, by all accounts. Gold and red, studded with rubies and diamonds. It shimmered in the early morning light. It looked good on his finger. Like it belonged there.

“Instead, it is proud,” Arthur said. “Perhaps, in some ways, that is worse.”

Arthur left his breakfast on the table. Eventually, David came to eat.

The next few weeks were a scramble of preparations which passed, mainly, in a blur. Arthur took care of everything, as always. The food, the flowers—everything. A date was picked a few weeks out—they didn’t want David to be showing. It was fine, it was fine.

Until of course, they had to send out the invitations. Which meant, of course, that they had to tell the world exactly who Robert Aster was going to marry, in a fortnight’s time.

“You’ll have to change your name, I’m afraid,” Arthur said, apologetic. “No one will accept ‘David’ as the name of a young lady.”

Oh. He swallowed back the nausea which rose inside him, the prolonged horror. His body wasn’t his own, when he looked into the mirror. His mind wasn’t his own, either. Now—even his name was taken, remade.

Who even was he, anymore? That boy, the one who came here, the one who traveled the world—would he even recognize him, now?

Robert wouldn’t look him in the eyes. “Do you—have any preferences for a different name?” He asked. “It can be anything you like.”

Anything other than the truth, of course. Anything other than who he really was.

He breathed in, jagged and heavy. He thought about that boy he used to be, the one he couldn’t remember, the one the manor must have took from him. He thought about all he could remember of those times—the flashes of light, the color, a woman’s voice telling him good job, little bird.

“You don’t have to decide now, David.”

“No,” he said. “No, I know what I want you to say.”

“You do?”

He took a breath. Breathed in, breathed out. He thought about those flashes of color again, the dazzling lights. He remembered that woman, that woman, that woman. What was her name again? He could hear it almost, if he tried. The slope of an R, curling on the page of a playbill. He could remember it, he could—

“Rebecca,” he said. “In front of everyone else—you can call me Rebecca.”

They were married in May. Pale white flowers grew on the trees in the boulevard, and they were married in May.

How did that song go again? I’ll be with you in apple blossom time…

The wedding dress was white. Traditional. Arthur mentioned something about the latest fashions from Paris, but it didn’t really matter, not to David. He could’ve been wearing some one hundred year old moth-eaten relic, and it would’ve felt the same. The buttery soft fabric was nothing more than a shroud of cream colored silk, dripping down his legs. Covering him up until there was nothing left at all. He wore the underthings, too, the ones Arthur had bought for him months ago. Every whisper of silk against him felt like a mockery, but—it was what it was.

There was a girl in the mirror, and she was a stranger to him; her cheeks rouged, her lashes edged in mascara. A pretty girl, a pretty bride. She wore a veil, of course, but underneath it, her red lips looked happy. Picturesque, like something straight out of a magazine.

Would it have been easier, he wondered, if he’d just been that girl to begin with? If this was how he’d always been and was always meant to be, if he’d come into Robert’s house wearing skirts instead of trousers. If he had, then maybe, maybe—

Maybe nothing. There never would’ve been a world where this could’ve been true, never a world where he actually was as happy as he looked, smiling blankly into the mirror. If he had been a girl, it wouldn’t have worked, Robert had said so himself. It had to happen the way that it did.

Still, he thought about that world that they pantomimed; the happy young bride, the doting husband. Something twinged in his chest, desperate and keening.

He laid a hand on the pale blue wallpaper in his room, and breathed. It still calmed him, even now, to lean upon the manor’s sturdy old walls, to breathe in its air. His heart felt light and flighty and manic; the reality hadn’t begun to sink in, not until now.

But it didn’t matter. It didn’t.

“You look beautiful, mast—my dear,” Arthur said, sidestepping his name and settling down a crown of roses on his head. The veil was long and sheer. He wished it was more opaque. He wanted to get lost inside it, to bury himself in it, until he didn’t exist anymore, until he could wake up one day and find that this had all just been a dream.

Of course, he didn’t. So, he looked at the girl in the mirror, and waited for himself to disappear.

The wedding itself happened in something of a blur. He kept expecting someone, anyone, to call him out as an imposter as he marched down the aisle—but they didn’t. They didn’t at all. The women tittered about his dress, about Robert; the men murmured about the end of the playboy Robbie Aster, but—they did nothing. Nothing at all.

The ceremony was beautiful, he was told. He didn’t remember most of it. Only Robert’s eyes held him steady. They were in this together, the two of them. If nothing else, they had each other.

Do you take him, to have and to hold, in sickness and in health, until death do you part…

“Yes,” David said, and for once, his voice didn’t shake. “Yes, I do.” So help me god, yes, I do.

“I do,” Robert echoed, his eyes sad but steady. David let himself get lost in them, grasping onto those eyes like a lifeline. This was real, this was calm. Forget the sky, forget the world—forget the manor’s walls surrounding them, forget the baby he carried in his stomach—Robert Aster’s eyes were clear, clear blue, across from his own.

When Robert kissed him, it was soft and fast, barely a second passing before he disappeared again. For a moment, David wondered if he’d dreamed it. He’d had more vivid dreams than that tiny brush of velvet-soft skin, before.

His lips tingled. He felt the sudden, deep urge to fist his hands into Robert’s lapels and pull him closer. To slot their mouths together again and again until they were both gasping for breath. Husband and wife, husband and wife.

He looked at Robert, some unknown sensation bubbling in his stomach. This is my husband, he thought, experimentally, as Robert took his arm and they paraded down the aisle while people threw rice and birdseed. This is my husband. My husband.

Robert looked like the prototype of a husband like this; his hair groomed neatly, his features aristocratic and handsome, his arms large enough to carry David away in them. What a picture perfect couple they made, he thought, as reporters’ cameras flashed. The magazines would have a field day with them, he was certain; a fairytale wedding for a fairytale story.

The billionaire and the theater brat. It was close enough to Cinderella to count, wasn’t it? The press must’ve thought so: lights flashing and questions posed as Robert pulled him closer and smiled wanly.

He clung to that arm like a life preserver, nestling into Robert’s side like he’d never been allowed to before. God, Robert was so warm. The heat spread through his body sweetly. Like most of the time he was in the manor, he hadn’t even realized he’d been cold until now; like he never knew what warmth even felt like until he was pressed up against Robert’s body heat. He’d always been so warm, and David was always so cold.

He wanted to burrow straight into him, to climb under Robert’s jacket until he couldn’t be seen—not by the paparazzi, the guests, or even by Robert himself. He just wanted to disappear into his side—no longer a wife, no longer anything at all.

“It’s going to be okay, David,” Robert murmured under his breath, too quiet for anyone else to hear.

Traitorously, desperately, David let himself believe it.

Robert let go of him once they reached the ballroom, and he felt the loss like that of a limb. He pressed a champagne glass into David’s hand after they cut the cake, however, and promised him that they wouldn’t have to stay for too long, not if David couldn’t stand it anymore.

Something warm and golden glowed inside of his chest, and David took a sip of champagne to drown it out. It was sweet and bubbly, however, and only served to make his stomach feel warm and light along with his chest, and so he turned away, and let Robert disappear into the crowd of wedding guests.

It was strange, seeing the ballroom like this, all done up and sparkling and bright. Before, it had sat mainly empty, littered with furniture covered in tarps, barely stepped into, apart from the days when David felt curious or whimsical. It had been a gray, lonely thing back then—now it was bright and stunning, the chandeliers lit and an orchestra playing as women spun about in bright colored gowns.

Just as it should be, he thought, and closed his eyes. They weren’t his thoughts. Or were they? It looked beautiful, having the house like this, all full of people. Even if he knew none of them, even if it was too much and overwhelming beyond belief, even if they looked at him and saw someone he wasn’t—he had to admit that it was nice, seeing the house like this.

He leaned up against the wall, felt the comfort of it slide over him like the champagne did, loosening his limbs and making him feel good, soft, loved. Ladies wandered up to him, congratulated him, asked him how on earth he managed to catch Robert Aster, and David—David smiled, and stuttered, and blushed, like a good girl. Adorable, they called him, so shy, so sweet! No wonder Robbie likes you.

Did he? That was the question. Something raw and grasping burned inside of him. They were bound together, by the house, by the baby in his stomach, but—did Robert even like him? Did he think of David while he was away, like David had thought about him? It seemed impossible. Robert was bright, charming, popular. There was no way that David was a silent phantom in his life the way he’d been in David’s—present even despite the absence. Maybe because of it.

David squeezed his eyes shut, for a moment. He drank more champagne. Robert hadn’t wanted this, he knew, of course. David hadn’t wanted this, either, but—but—

His eyes darted open, he searched out Robert in the crowd. There he was, talking with some golden-haired man, laughing from some joke. Something low and desperate clawed at his stomach, something he couldn’t quite name. “Who’s that?” He asked, voice light.

“Hm? Oh, Harry Cohen,” the girl across from him said, “You know, I’m surprised that Robert didn’t ask him to be best man. They used to be so close, back in boarding school.”

Close. What did that mean? The ugly feeling in his chest grew stronger, sharper. He took another glass of champagne.

Harry Cohen was a handsome man, David could see that. The kind who, like Robert, probably made you feel immediately at ease the moment you spoke to him. He made Robert smile. He made Robert smile, and they were too far away for David to tell if the smile reached his eyes or not. Something twisted in his gut, and suddenly David was canting forwards, crossing the room and pressing up against Robert’s side again.

“Something the matter?” Robert asked, cocking an eyebrow.

“I’m tired,” he said, something desperate clawing at his chest. “Can’t we go to bed?” He hated how young his voice sounded, how plaintive, like a child. Harry Cohen laughed, easy-going and warm, and David hated that even more.

Robert tucked a strand of hair behind his ear, and looked at him with soft, understanding eyes. “Alright,” he said, and David couldn’t help flushing at that; at the immediacy of the attention, at the surety in his voice. The minute David came over, Robert looked to him, no one else. “Apologies, Harry,” Robert said, turning back to his friend. His hand had found its way into the small of David’s back, and his thumb swept in circles until David felt practically boneless. The strange and sudden anxiety had disappeared. “I’m afraid my little bird has grown a bit over-tired.”

Harry Cohen laughed. “Sure, Aster, whatever you say. I bet she just wants to keep you all to herself, doesn’t she?” He winked. “Well, Rebecca, if you ever decide you want to trade up from Aster, you just call me, alright? I happen to know a very good lawyer.”

David could feel himself flushing red.

“That won’t be necessary,” Robert said, tonelessly, the hand on David’s back pulling him in closer. David shivered.

“Aw, you always were the possessive type, Robbie.” Harry said. “But then again, I suppose I can’t blame you, not when you’ve got such a fine wife to come home to now. Congratulations.”

“Thank you,” Robert said, though his voice was slightly stiff.

“Oh, lighten up, Robert!” He said. “I haven’t seen you this out of sorts since I took—what was her name again?—to senior prom.”He laughed again, always, always laughing. Was that what Robert liked? Someone happy, golden, glowing? “Don’t worry, Rob, I promise I won’t try and steal your girl. This time,” he said, with an exaggerated wink in David’s direction again.

David felt—greasy. He didn’t like the jokes, and he didn’t like the look in Harry’s eyes, but at the same time, he couldn’t look away from him either, his eyes flitting to his broad shoulders and strong hands and easy, glimmering smiles. Could David have grown into someone like this, if he’d never come here? Or if he had still come, and the manor had decided to leave him alone, could he have been someone like this?

Was he always meant to have been slim and elfin, or would he have eventually broadened and bulked up one day? If he had been—normal—would he have been able to smile at Robert like Harry did, to clap a hand onto his shoulder like it was as easy as breathing?

The champagne made his head spin. He closed his eyes.

“Are you alright?” Robert asked, combing a hand through his hair.

“Let’s go to bed,” he begged again, and hated how it sounded. He wished his voice was older, deeper. A man’s voice. He’d never thought about his high tenor as being a bad thing, before, but he was all too aware these days as to how it edged onto alto; how it would never be as low and rumbly as Robert’s, or as hearty a baritone as Harry’s.

“Alright,” Robert said, “Alright.” He made his excuses to Harry, and pulled David away.

It felt better, being apart from the crowds. He wasn’t used to so many people being around, and it was dizzying, exhausting. In the hallways, however, it was just him and Robert, and that— that was nice.

He leaned into Robert’s side. His balance was already off from the heels and the gown, and the situation certainly wasn’t helped by the way the champagne made the room swim. “Take it easy,” Robert said, “we’re almost there.” David nodded, and pressed his head into Robert’s shoulder. He always was so warm.

“Robert,” he murmured eventually, voice weak, “I want to ask you something.”

“What is it?”

“Do you—” he swallowed. His throat was dry. He squeezed his eyes shut even tighter. “Do you—like me?”

Robert faltered in his steps, falling to a stop. “Oh, David.” He said, cradling David’s cheek in one of his hands.

“Do you?” His voice sounded wet with tears. It was terrible. He couldn’t stand the thought of opening his eyes.

“David,” He said, and his thumb swept away the tears that leaked from his eyes. “David—I love you.”

“What?” He blinked his eyes open.

“I love you,” he said, placing his other hand over David’s heart, where he undoubtedly could hear his pulse skip and quicken with every touch. “Surely you must know that.”

“You do?”

“As much as I know you love me, David.” He said.

“Really?”

“Of course.” He said. “Did you think there was any way that I couldn’t?”

Oh.

He looked at the walls, at the floor. He listened to the sound of the pipes, like the veins to the ever-beating heart of the manor. Did you think there was any way that I couldn’t? He’d said, because he didn’t have a choice. Neither of them did, not really.

Robert started to walk again, but David fisted his hands into the lapels of his jacket until he stopped. “Wait,” he said. “Wait, I—”

“What is it, David?”

“I—” he stuttered. He turned his eyes away. “Will you kiss me?”

“David—”

“Please,” he said, somehow finding his confidence, “Kiss me.”

“Alright,” he said after a moment, voice quiet. “Alright, if that’s what you want.”

“I do,” he said, “I promise I do.”

Kissing Robert now was—different, than the kiss at the wedding. He’d barely registered that kiss at all, it was over so soon. This kiss—Robert wavered for a second before he actually did it, their mouths less than an inch away from each other. David could barely breathe in that moment, all of his thoughts a disjointed blur of anticipation and need. Then—then Robert closed the gap between them, his lips brushing against him once, twice, thrice. David sighed into the contact.

This was better than champagne. His heart flittered in his chest; everything felt so light and airy, it was a bit like flying. Robert was kissing him. Kissing him, David. The kiss at their wedding had been for the guests, had been Robert Aster and his blushing bride, but this—this was just them. Robert and David. Only them.

His lips were soft and warm, warm, everything about him was always so warm. David wanted to get lost in it, to press himself into the heat of him until David turned liquid and molten. It felt possible to burn into nothingness, pressed at Robert’s side, to just turn into a pile of ash and smoke, and for some reason that felt strangely appealing. He didn’t want to be real. He just wanted this.

Robert’s tongue pressed at the seam of his lips and David gasped, his hands clinging desperately to the back of Robert’s neck. It was so good, so good. He felt so happy he could die.

When they finally broke apart to breathe, Robert smoothed a hand through David’s hair. “We should go to bed, David,” he said, and his voice was warm and soft and gentle. “You’re drunk.”

He fought back the urge to argue that he wasn’t drunk, he couldn’t be drunk, but the room spun and David felt far too good to argue. “Okay,” he said, leaning back against him. “Okay.”

He felt more normal after they stumbled through the halls and into the master bedroom. Their bedroom. Finally, finally, it really was David’s bedroom after all.

“Drink this,” Robert said, handing him a glass of water.

David hummed, swallowing it all down. Robert had already strong-armed him into brushing his teeth and changing into pajamas, and he tugged haphazardly at the collar.

“Are you feeling better?”

David nodded, silently.

“Good,” Robert said. “Good.”

“We should…” his voice wavered. He pulled again at the silk of his pajama collar. He didn’t think about the last time they ended up in this room. “We should go to bed.”

“Alright,” Robert said, climbing in beside him and shutting off the lamplight.

It felt strangely wooden, all of the sudden, to be laying beside him. They didn’t touch at all. He didn’t think about the last time they were in bed together. He didn’t. He didn’t. He— reached out a hand. “Robert,” he murmured, as his hand pressed against Robert’s arm. “Is this—alright?”

“It’s fine,” he murmured back.

Quietly, slowly, David inched closer, molding the rest of his body along Robert’s side. “Is this still okay?”

“Yes,” he said, pulling an arm around David’s waist. “You’re always fine, David.” He ran a hand through David’s hair.

David felt the tension seep from his body. The night was quiet and dark and peaceful, and it felt somehow freeing. As if everything he said could just disappear into the ink-black night. He breathed. In, out, in out. Robert’s neck still smelled like cologne. The weight of his arm along David’s waist felt comforting, steadying. “Robert,” he said eventually, his heart catching in his throat.

“What is it?”

"I think I wanted you. Before this." He said, turning his head into the crook of Robert's shoulder.

Robert kissed him, softly, delicately. He didn't say are you sure? He didn't ask the question they both knew he couldn't truly, ever answer. He didn't say was there ever really a before this, for us? He kissed him, instead, and that was almost good enough.

Around them, the manor seemed to sing in pleasure; the hum of the pipes and the radiator all sighing together in contented symphony. David shut his eyes, buried his head into his husband's shoulder, and slept.

As he did every night in the manor, he had pleasant dreams.

#gothic horror #original fiction #haunted house #tw: gender dysphoria #tw: mutual noncon #tw: mind control

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