Hello everyone! I know it may seem like I'm not posting any fics, and I'd like to say I'm really sorry for that! In truth, I've been doing lots of drabbles, requests and prompts on my Tumblr account, and I don't really have any plans to re-upload them here. Just my long stories that are too troublesome to edit on Tumblr will be uploaded here. So if you want more fics (And trust me, there's a lotmore), please check out my Tumblr! The link for that should be on my Profile page!
Anyway, this fic was written for threecloveredmochi on Tumblr for the AmeCan Secret Santa Exchange 2013, but seeing as their partner was a no show, and nobody covered it, I volunteered! The prompt I went with was having one of them as a mythological creature from their country, and really, that's as good an excuse as any to put them right into Puritan times and have Matthew possessed by the spirit of a Wendigo! Please enjoy!
Disclaimer: I own nothing but the plot, nor am I gaining profits from this. This was done as a part of the gift exchange on Tumblr for the AmeCan Secret Santa Exchange 2013.
Warnings: Mild sexual scene
Word Count: 3561 words
It began with the colour of his eyes changing, something small, something so barely noticeable with the way he kept his head down, nose out of other people's business, tongue and lips in check, and his ability to simply remain unnoticed until attention was swung in his direction. Very rare that it did, but it wasn't uncommon. It was only Alfred who noticed; saw the little signs at first in the way his secret lover began to change.
Matthew had always been a placid man from birth to adulthood, quiet and calm and always kind. His skin had always been pale, unable to remain in the sun too long without burning or forcing others to squint at the whiteness of his flesh. His hair was chin length, always pulled back in a neat ponytail tied off with a simple blue ribbon beneath the tall, black hat the whole village wore outdoors. He was blond, the colour fair, and the tips warmed like they had been dipped in caramel and then gradated naturally and beautifully through the waves and loose curls. Pink lips, nicely shaped and full, complemented his face beneath a nose that was nice and straight with only the slightest curve at the tip where it had been broken once in an accident as a child.
It was the eyes that had Alfred in love. Even before the change, they were spectacular hues of light blue, the eyelids shaped like large almonds with a kink at the tear duct that made it almost catlike when he smiled. Because when Matthew smiled, oh, the expression would reach his eyes and make them crinkle and crease so beautifully.
It was those eyes which Alfred stared longingly towards from across the village as he worked the carpentry, while the other man carried his work out in his own little hut by his house, on the outskirts of the Puritan village to keep the smell away from the rest of the folk that lived there, all of the small population of about two hundred and seventy four people, soon to be two hundred and seventy five, or six, when young Mrs. Penny from the bakery gave birth to what could be a single child or twins.
The entire village knew each other, tightly knit and not at all private because everyone pried and nobody remained silent when entertainment for passing the day consisted of whispering about oddities. It was all so plain, so dull, so boring, but Alfred avoided the women's pastime, yet he found himself grateful. Grateful because they hadn't caught wind of him and Matthew; of the butcher and the carpenter meeting late into the night when all of the candles and oil lamps had been extinguished so he could taste lips and thread fingers and press bodies in ways only men could or should do with women.
It was why only Alfred noticed the change.
Light blue had steadily changed to violet; a beautiful colour, similar to the northern lights they sometimes snuck out to watch because they couldn't comprehend what could be so evil about pretty colours in the sky every so often. Matthew's eyes were the colour of violets, or perhaps lilacs, and Alfred showed his affection for the pigment by buying the flowers in pots from the florist and caring for them inside of his home in the kitchen window and at his bedside.
Yet it was not natural.
Blue had changed to violet, and he only knew because he'd been around for so long, clumsily painted in journals and notebooks with the colour that Matthew's eyes used to be that when he picked up a paintbrush and went to paint he found the contrast striking.
The eye colour had changed first.
It was an aversion to salads, then, and berries from the forest. Matthew had always loved blueberries, yet when they sat down one night to eat them, after a few little bulbs the plate was pushed away, the paler man's expression twisted with discomfort, hand on his belly. Violet eyes turned from the bowl and light of the candle on the table, instead towards the direction instead of the butchery out the back that stank of congealed blood, meat, and corpses of animals. Alfred was used to the smell, didn't mind it at all, though Matthew was always self conscious about it, making sure to smell like vanilla more than the meat he worked with, and wore the high heeled shoes made for him by the shoe cobbler specifically so that the hem of his pants didn't drag through the sticky mess on the floor.
The hunger was the third thing; the way that Matthew would eat, and eat, and eat, and then his jaw would tighten and he would swallow hard, potatoes untouched yet he would whisper how he craved just a little bit more to fill his belly. It was only ever the meat Matthew couldn't get enough of.
The fourth thing was the missing livestock, blamed on the wolves. Howls had been heard in the area overnight, and doors had been locked and windows boarded, because no one liked to chance the animals getting into their homes and claiming them. Rather the sheep eaten than the good God praising Puritans. Alfred thought nothing of the missing animals, as much a shame as it was and a blow to the steadily starving village, until the lumberjack that brought his wood for furniture muttered to him that there had to be a bear in the area, for in the forest he found not only the bones of their livestock, but the bones of the wolves, carcasses ripped to shreds violently.
At that moment, Alfred began to know better than to pass it as a wolf or a bear.
Mrs. Penny gave birth later that month, but no sooner had the population grown to two hundred and seventy six with the addition of twin babies, that it shrunk to two hundred and seventy two with the loss of Mrs. Penny, her husband, and the newborn children. A bear, the priest had said, studying the claw marks on the inside of the door, touching it with elderly fingers as the town stood nearby in tears, fearful and mourning while they surveyed the wrecked contents of the home.
Only Alfred noticed that the claw marks were only on the inside of the door.
Only Alfred noticed his lover picking at his nails, lips pursed shut and his terrified tear filled gaze at the ground, eyes a deeper violet and shaded beneath lashes with the shadows from a lack of sleep.
At church that day, the village mourned, along with the coming Sunday, begging God forgive them and take to rest the souls of Mr. and Mrs. Penny and their young children, and take with them the steadily increasing poverty and cold. The priest was the first to suggest that the children had been a curse—that they had brought along the ill fortune upon their parents, and that Mrs. Penny had in fact been a witch who had tried to birth demons to their village, bringing the early chill and the dying crops. Quickly, mourning ended, and the Penny household was burnt to the ground with hymns echoing in the background, and the remaining family members—an elderly sister of the husband, and the parents of the wife—were arrested and placed in the holding cell by the church. It was specific that they had to be on holy ground to cleanse their souls and confirm they didn't in fact harbour demons themselves.
The attacks began to grow more frequent, but rather than the howls of wolves, there would be piercing shrieks that rumbled through the woods like thunder, causing the earth to tremble, snarls and roars following not too long afterwards. Nobody left their houses that night, or even come morning.
Nobody but Alfred.
Nobody but Alfred opened the door at the crack of dawn to leave and move through the village, silent and unseen to check on his lover who lived on the edge of the tree line.
Nobody but Alfred heard the sounds of dragging and soft hiccupped sobs from the outskirts of the woods by the butchery.
Matthew.
Never in his life had Alfred sprinted so fast, not even thinking as he pushed his body forward, without weapon, unsure what he would do when he saw the wolf, bear, beast, demon that was tormenting their village in the name of the Devil, knowing only that that was Matthew's voice, and that the sound of dragging was not natural, along with cracks of bone and wet splashes and Alfred could only think of the worst.
When he rounded the final hut, turned to the butchery with a racing heart and gasping in the stench of blood, blue eyes grew wide.
Long limbs stretched out, cracking as they shrunk, bones returning beneath skin and mending with muscles. Curved tusk-like spikes stuck out along a pale back like vertebrae; sharp and long but sinking back in with sickening snaps and lewd slurps of flesh absorbing the bone. Pale waves dipped in caramel were matted with blood and sweat, clumped and sticking to a slim neck and a face that remained hidden, but the voice that echoed from that mouth and ghastly creature's head was husky, rattly, like a sickly plague caught onto an elderly man.
Too afraid to move, he watched in silence, goose bumps pricking his skin and making the fine hairs on his arms and back of his neck stand on end as he watched the rising sunlight caress the pale body shrinking from something close to three metres back to just under two, back to the one hundred and eighty centimetres that Alfred knew, back to the pale and bare body Alfred had memorised so well, back until the monster was a softly sobbing man, bare as the day he was born and soaked in blood, dirt and sweat.
"Oh Matthew…"
The head snapped up, revealing terrified eyes fading from red to the violet he'd come to see so often, tears rolling over pale cheeks splattered with blood, a gory painting on his face of what had to be the latest victim to be taken from the village or woods.
No words fell from Matthew's mouth, voice broken and only able to choke out sobs and soft squeaks, damaged from the powerful roars that had undoubtedly been him that night; an ominous warning.
It was a monster, but it was Matthew.
Alfred helped his lover up, Matthew's limbs weak and shaky even beneath the toned muscles that seemed as though they had been turned to gelatine, heaving the body to walk towards the butchery and the tub of water within. As a butcher, Matthew knew how to clean himself of any blood that got on him. It was useful in this situation. Nobody questioned blood under his nails, or blood stains near his home, or the piles of meat in stock; it was his job to work with living or freshly killed animals, and getting flesh or blood under the nails or on the clothes was all part of the job. Someone had to do it. Nobody questioned.
Yet the way Matthew scrubbed at his skin with a wide brush had Alfred concerned, watching the hard bristles rub raw at his hands, face and neck until broad hands calloused with hammers and saws grasped at the brush and held the paler still until he stopped struggling and simply sobbed against his throat. Alfred wasn't afraid, because this was Matthew, the one he loved.
He kissed at the reddened skin, even though he knew it had been covered in blood minutes ago. He kissed at trembling lips even though they had more than likely devoured human flesh that night and still stunk of meat. He held shaking hands close even though he now knew they could rip him limb from limb and tear out his heart without so much as a single issue.
Alfred wasn't afraid, but he should have been.
It became a ritual; Alfred kept his doors and windows locked, but only on Matthew's pleas and insistence, and then when the violent sounds started to die down and the sun was threatening to break the horizon, he left and tiptoed briskly from his home to the standalone hut and butchery at the edge of the forest and helped Matthew to stand, helped him indoors, helped him wash and kissed away the tears while he soothed the aches from bones that were still setting in the right structure once again.
"It's not every night," Matthew whispered softly, the two lying in bed together, Matthew wrapped in thick blankets to warm his chilled body from the crisp autumn air, his hair still drying and being stroked softly by Alfred, head pillowed on the darker haired blond's bicep, "It's only when the hunger's too strong."
"Can you think when you're… you know…" Alfred scrunched up his nose, trying to pick a word that wouldn't be offensive to his lover.
"A monster?" Matthew finished, eyebrows knitting in frustration and guilt, and immediately Alfred was there to kiss the creases between them to ease the stress.
"You're not a monster."
"I can't think when I transform. I black out, and then I wake up again somewhere else naked and covered in blood," he continued, as though he hadn't heard the reassurance, "I ripped through my clothes at first, and then I had to burn them to hide the tatters they were in. I realised if it kept happening, I'd run out of clothes, and people would grow suspicious."
A sigh fell from Matthew's lips, shame colouring his pale cheeks and violet eyes hooding as they looked downwards.
"So I began to sleep nude, and if I felt dizzy, I'd go around the back bare, lock my door and wait in the woods until I either blacked out or the hunger passed," he finished, shivering a little and pressing close to Alfred, eyes shut tight, "I never meant to kill the Penny's."
"Shh, I know, Mattie… I know."
The village remained frightened after every death, a bloodbath, and they began to pray daily in mass conducted with mandatory attendance for even the elderly and the sick. Those who missed even one mass were imprisoned without trial while they waited to see if there were any more deaths, testing to see if the one caught skipping mass was the one calling the devil. If all survived the night, the person was released, but if someone was killed, then the accused was burnt at the stake before the dwindling population.
The numbers had cut to two hundred and forty nine within six months since the deaths first begun; a combination accredited to the executions by the village, and the beast inside of Matthew.
Nobody had grown suspicious of the real cause of death to these people, and nobody but Alfred knew who was really behind it; the placid and calm butcher with his head down and hair so neatly tied back, wrapped in a coat to protect his body from the winter chills, eyes that were now a distinct bright violet downturned to his feet as though his head was bowed permanently in prayer.
Alfred knew it was more because it was weighed down with guilt and shame.
At nights, Alfred would do his best to make sure Matthew knew he was still loved despite the creature inside of him that overtook when his hunger for meat and blood was too strong. Alfred still kissed lips that tasted too much like vanilla, the flavour overbearing but Matthew wanted to drown the taste of blood, and Alfred himself only wanted affection shared between them both. Alfred still threaded his fingers with Matthew's, even when there was blood crusted beneath deeply blunted and short fingernails. Alfred still pressed their bodies together bare like only man and woman could and should and listened to the soft sounds that fell from his lover's lips as they made love in the darkness, trying to reassure Matthew that sometimes lying in bed naked was good and wasn't simply an ominous precaution of what could happen.
Matthew panted hotly against Alfred's ear, too self conscious of the stench of his breath to let it caress Alfred's lips like the man truly wanted him to, wanted to see his eyes screw shut as he pressed inside of him, aided with oil or lard. The sounds Matthew made were soft, voice box under constant strain and damage from the creature abusing it with its cries, but even the soft sounds were enough for Alfred because he knew they couldn't be too loud.
Not in a Puritan village where they would be hung or burned alive.
It didn't stop them from touching, kissing, spilling their orgasm over their own bellies or inside one another so that the creamy substance dripped down thighs and caught in the dim light of the moon that shone through the window.
Alfred was in love, and he stayed with Matthew through the sweeter times, and even the tougher times. He held him when his lover shook in his sleep or cried or murmured in tongues, helped hunt down animals for food when stomach gurgles became too painful sounding or loud, and lead him out into the woods clothed to stay warm before stripping the pale body bare and returning home hurriedly with a kiss, a murmur of love, and a promise to soothe aches away come morning.
The village's population continued to dip lower; two hundred and thirty five; two hundred and thirty four, two hundred and thirty.
By the following spring when the snow had thawed and flowers had bloomed, the village housed two hundred and seventeen people.
It was only then, quietly, that Alfred came to Matthew and suggested that they leave.
Matthew, by that stage who was a wreck of guilt, self hatred and fear, only agreed numbly, gathering what was needed and whatever else could be carried, and by nightfall when all were asleep, they disappeared together silently. The village undoubtedly mourned, for they wrecked the remains of their homes enough to make it look like they were mere victims, but they never stuck around to see if their names were placed upon a stone in the growing graveyard or whether they were mourned over.
With Alfred's profession as a carpenter, it wasn't too hard to build a new home far away and deep in the depths of the woods, and with Matthew's skills with cooking, cutting and preparing food, they found themselves easy to feed.
Their new home was built by a lake, the house large and sturdy with a second level, the items they had dragged with them helping to set them up all over again.
There were nights when Matthew disappeared, came back shaking and covered in blood, yet those nights grew fewer and fewer the longer they remained out in the crisp air away from the stench of the village burning bodies and the butchery. Alfred was convinced that that was partially to blame, and that the two scents had aroused a demon to make Matthew hunger unnaturally, having to spend his days chopping up animals and meat and being covered in blood whilst suffering the smells of people being burnt at the stake. Matthew never wanted to talk about it—was simply glad when the cravings faded and he, eventually, after almost two years suffering, was left in peace and no longer craved to taste human flesh. It became easier to eat when they were feeding two mouths rather than a population of two hundred more, and with the hunger gone, so too did the demon disappear.
Their shared bed was large, first made soft with sheets and clothes, and then with hay and grass layered beneath, until gradually they had enough fur and feathers to stuff a mattress to accommodate them both.
Alfred learned how to sew; Matthew learned how to spin thread.
At night, even years after his breath stopped stinking of flesh and blood, Alfred still kissed Matthew on the lips sweet and slow. Even long after the trembles had stopped in Matthew's hands and blood no longer crusted beneath nails that had grown out to more than stubs, Alfred still threaded their fingers together. Even now that sleeping naked in bed was no longer a precaution to preserve clothes, Alfred still pressed their bare bodies side by side at night and wrapped them in blankets to feel each other's heat in ways that felt so right without the judgement and looming threat of the rest of the Puritans in their old village.
They were at peace together, yet no matter how soft the touches or how silent the evenings, whenever Matthew would glance to him, Alfred would be reminded that there was a scar of what had happened, of what his lover used to be, being eyed with irises tainted violet like blood had covered the blue hue permanently. Matthew smiled like an angel, loved like he was holy, yet their bodies reflecting identical gender and unnaturally coloured eyes were welted scars on their souls that they would eventually be going to Hell.
Deep down, they both knew they were pure no more.
Thanks for reading! If you enjoyed it, let me know what you thought about it, what you liked, or what you disliked. I love reading what you guys think; reviews are always much appreciated! Once again, a reminder that many more fics I have are uploaded to my Tumblr, and the link for that is on my profile page. Thanks again, and see you hopefully next fic!