Gold Mourning
Lust, Love, and Death Metal (OC, Non-BB, Pre-Canon)
Apex isn't really sure who he is. He isn't really sure what he's doing. But he likes fighting, he likes rocking, and he's content. Until he meets a fan and, as always, he adapts.
Content Warning: Vivid depictions of mental health issues. Brief violence/gore. Brief mentions of suicide. Brief abusive relationship. Monsterfucking.
1. The Time Has Come To Awaken Him
It started on a hill beneath cloudy skies, a light drizzle misting the air. My fur was dark, gray-green, cilia waving gently, colors subtly shifting to match the earth and sky. I glanced up, tasting rain, smelling damp grass and freshly-turned soil.
A movement at my side, seen without eyes. A woman, small but fierce, hair styled in three brightly-colored mohawks, slicked back with rain. The tang of metal on her skin, set into her forked tongue. Animal smells—musty fur, damp scales—concealed beneath a bulky wool peacoat. Bleached bones. Familiar. Like she belonged, even as she looked uncomfortable, faintly awkward. Her lips were dark, a sharp contrast to her pale skin, and I remembered.
"You take me to the nicest places," she muttered quietly, although I could hear her easily. One hand slid up my arm, jostling thick, living fur that writhed and gripped at her as she ran her fingers through it. She tucked her arm in mine, glancing up at me, other hand warding off the rain from her face. Searching my expression.
"It's not supposed to be raining," I rumbled back. None of this was supposed to happen, I felt, deep inside where my few certainties were buried. I glanced out over the trees, further down the hill, towards the ocean. Tasted decay, rotting fish, old rust, and more rain. Saw clouds, dense and foreboding, approaching from the east. A storm was coming. But I had some time.
I looked back up the hill, to the fresh grave and the man standing beside it. His head was bowed, as though the weight of the whole world rested upon his shoulders. Perhaps it did, in a way.
The woman followed my lumbering steps with practiced ease, one hand still resting on the crook of my arm, as we slowly made my way upwards. To the grieving man, and to the end of the world.