*writes this instead of updating my other fics* Important notes: Sexual situations (aka smut. Shameful, shameful smut), swearing, dark themes, and psychological trauma. Also on A03 (but the prologue and chapter 1 are together).
Prologue
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"Rise and shine, Jack."
There is darkness judging him from above and evil is grasping at him from below. Her hands give him a sense of familiarity, keeping him grounded as the tower shifts when the continents collide from somewhere over the burning horizon. When he dares to open his eyes he finds the same stone ceiling, the same marked walls, the same Hell. He's here again for the fourth or fifth or fifteenth time, hallucinating that he's in a world of crumbling skies and earthen fire and he's the King of all its desolation.
He barely recollects how long he's been trapped, if he really is trapped. Who's to say this isn't real anymore? He can't tell. His nightmares have merged with his reality, his dreams have been ripped open at the seams to release their destruction. And this girl, at his side – she spits lies through her teeth and masks them with gentle smiles that resonate Carly but are borderline demonic. Her black sclera gloss over with falsified emotions, layers of desire and lust and hate and despair, collapsing into her pupils, swallowing up what little remains of the woman he loves.
Carly and Misery, they're one in the same now. The line dividing them has been ripped away by that Immortal deity.
"Isn't this simply wonderful?" she purrs into the base of his neck, entwining their bare legs, pressing her chest into his arm. She digs her blunt nails into his ribs, earning a hiss when blood draws up to the surface of his punctured flesh. "Just you and me. We have this world, we have all the ruin and the chaos at our every command... and those ghouls worship you, Jack. They worship their King."
A shiver rides up his spine. He clutches the sheet beneath him to keep himself steady, to breathe in. Breathe. Just breathe.
Misery mounts him when he doesn't answer her. She kisses him, tastes like ash and rot and ice, but he can't help himself and meets her for every tantalizing movement. His hands have already made themselves comfortable on either side of her neck, one thumb against the base of her throat, the other pressed to her quickened pulse. From this angle, if he really, really wants to, he can snap her neck.
"You won't hurt me," she hisses into his ear, trailing kisses down his jaw. One arm snakes under the sheet, nails sensually scraping his skin. "You don't want to harm Carly. You don't want to be alone again, do you?"
He gasps when her firm grip finds what she's looking for. "This isn't real," he utters, clutching her throat, not tightly but surely. "As much I'd like it, you wouldn't die."
"Mm, you're hoping to escape from this." She strokes him to life, weaving her fingers into his golden locks and tugging, hard, so his head snaps back and exposes his throbbing veins. "You can escape any time you want to, Jack. I'm not the one keeping you here."
"That's another lie."
"That's the truth." She settles easily onto him, bringing both hands back to anchor into his sides. "You can leave when you want. I've already tormented you to my liking – and you've figured out this is just a trick. So what's stopping you, Jack, hm? What's"—she rolls her hips—"stopping"—he gasps, thrusting up to meet her—"you?"
"I just want my Carly back," he says finally, hands dropping down to Misery's waist in defeat. In reluctant submission. She's won, she always wins.
The demon chuckles as he breaks for the umpteenth time this cycle, gives in to the nightmare again and again and again. "I'm sorry Jack," she whispers, but her quiet voice fills the musky air with the intensity of a roaring engine, "you're not strong enough to save her. You never were."
And he believes her.