In this chapter: Porn. Angst. Awkward awkward sentence construction. And some unconscious soul-spilling on the part of one soulless demon-god.
The firm belief that he was denying Griffith some scrap of pleasure every time he convincingly disguised his inner turmoil was all that kept Guts on his knees over the next few minutes.
Because when he reached up to fully expose Griffith's…to fully expose Griffith, and Griffith slapped his hand away and murmured "no, Guts, remember? You're only to use your tongue for this," it was all Guts could do to stay put, let alone stay "obedient". No matter how forcefully he reminded himself of the futility of trying to fight off every fucker in the room to get Casca and get the hell out, by that point the escape fantasies skittering temptingly through his mind were clouding out all rational thought.
But it was futile - even if Guts somehow managed to onehandedly, bare-assedly slaughter every monster around him before any of them killed Casca, even if he successfully rescued her and miraculously got them both out in one piece, Griffith would just send more apostle guys after them; they'd never stop coming, never, and Guts could keep on fending them off like he'd been doing, but he was so goddamn tired. If he knew Casca had been able to find real peace, real freedom, wouldn't that be enough to give in, to stop fighting, albeit if the stakes had changed and it no longer meant an eternity in hell but an eternity of, of...this? The answer was unequivocally "yes", of course; it was enough, it was enough and horrifyingly inconceivable as it was he was going to do this, damn it, he was. But knowing something in your head and knowing something in your body are two very different things, and reminding himself over and over again of just how much he needed to do this wasn't enough to get his shoulders to stop shaking. Thinking about Casca being happy wouldn't, couldn't force his head down into the dark open place inside Griffith's britches.
But thinking about the motherfucker waiting with that supercilious patience for Guts to cry his fucking eyes out with fear and humiliation, and instead getting forced to stand there like an idiot while Guts swallowed his cock as boredly as he'd swallow anything else? Now THAT was enough to make the trembling to subside, to get Guts to shove his face into the asshole's pants with boldness, heck, with relish.
That was enough for Guts to temporarily fool himself into feeling strong again.
Unfortunately, Guts was quickly forced to acknowledge the fundamental flaw in using the belief that you're denying someone pleasure to get yourself to, well, pleasure them.
He had planned to make quick work of this, to get Getting Griffith Off over with as swiftly as possible, and accordingly, he really did put his best lip forward, so to speak, in attending to His Royal Bastard.
He had no idea how to go about it, of course, but he figured one unimpeachable method was to simply attempt to do to Griffith the sorts of things he remembered women doing to him; he had a vague sense of how things worked...down there...right? All he had to do was apply this experience to Griffith, and ignore the fact that it was Griffith he was doing this to - as well as the unpleasant odor of another man filling his nostrils, the uncomfortable size of another man pressing against his cheeks, the unsavory sensation of another man's precum trickling down his throat, and oh yeah, the unbearable knowledge that hundreds of that man's henchdemons (not to mention Casca of everyone on the fucking planet) were flying around watching his excruciating debasement - and this should be over in no time.
Fortunately enough, Guts proved quite the masterful ignorer after all (perhaps because he would be at a rather impossible loss any other way). He spent the next several minutes licking up and down Griffith's shaft, wrapping his lips around the other man's length and sucking, tonguing his balls and his head and his foreskin, and basically trying everything he could think of to get Griffith's cock to move from what could barely be called half-hard to a slightly more engorged state. To his disbelief, none of that appeared to have any effect on the other man. Guts finally managed to elicit one real flicker of interest only when, in his frustrated distraction, he started to choke on Griffith so violently his eye teared a little.
That was when Guts realized he wasn't going to get out of this without showing some inner turmoil.
Griffith's facial expression had still never shifted in the slightest, of course. But his prick was apparently perfectly happy to show its appreciation for Guts' misery, and since Griffith's prick was the thing Guts actually needed to induce a reaction in, misery was what he'd have to give the sadistic fucker if he wanted to get this the hell over with.
Letting Griffith see his pain was different from letting Griffith see his fear, though. Guts realized with some relief that he could compromise and get through this by showing Griffith all the meaningless physical discomfort he could possibly want, and still keep any outward signs of his real emotional torment to himself.
And that was how Guts found himself between the legs of the man he hated most in all the world, gagging and retching on his cock, on purpose, deliberately letting it hit the back of his throat, intentionally allowing the tears of pain pricking at the corner of his eye to drip down his face.
Guts had never felt so thoroughly degraded in his entire life.
Mortification and despair made for a dangerous combination, too; suddenly all Guts could think about was tearing the man in front of him limb from limb.
But it was working.
Guts' head swam with fury, his cheeks burned with humiliation, his thoughts ran red with blood. And Griffith's cock grew stiffer, thicker against his tongue.
It was working.
If Guts let his mind slip out of focus for even one moment, the claustrophobic levels of hatred and rage hammering at every corner of his consciousness threatened to unleash forces inside him he knew would swallow him up forever. It was all he could do to concentrate on the sickening task at hand, to blink away heady images of Griffith with his skull shattered, with his bones crushed, with his flesh pummeled into putty. All he could do to dutifully choke and gag and swallow, and pretend the only pain he felt was physical.
But it was working.
It was working, and when Griffith's steady breathing quickened and then slowed into a single, almost imperceptible gasp, Guts knew it was finally over. He pushed his face all the way forward on Griffith's cock one last time, retching painfully, then eased off it as it tightened and spasmed against his lips. It wasn't fully out of Guts' mouth before it was shooting strands of white all over his tongue and face.
As the sticky mess cooled on his skin, Guts wondered, with a numb curiosity, if the way Griffith's eyes had fluttered shut and his cheeks reddened before that final moment could make this some kind of triumph.
Instead of such a wretched, wretched loss.
Griffith stroked his fingers through the splattered semen on Guts' face, rubbing it into his cheeks and forehead. He was casually directing his minions around - Casca was on solid ground now, and her shirt had already been replaced - and Guts hated himself for it, but he was too afraid of getting in the way of her freedom to protest the humiliating treatment. He wouldn't fucking blink without being told, not till Casca was out of the line of fire, and it didn't matter how pathetic that made him; Griffith was a capricious motherfucker and Guts was doing what was necessary.
That's it, console yourself while you still can, buddy... He shivered with self-disgust.
"You asked if I hated you," Griffith murmured, as he waved the majority of his demons out of the room. "I don't hate you, Guts. Why should I hate you? You are an obsolete part of my destiny, who played his role and now no longer has one. I don't feel anything at all for you."
"Then why the fuck are you doing this, you psychotic shithead?! How the fuck can you -"
"Shh, Guts. Don't interrupt, it's rude."
Guts wasn't interested in finding out if that was an order or not. Let Griffith make his little speech. Casca was almost out of this hellhole, and that was what counted.
"No, the reason I'm doing this has nothing to do with hatred. It is, to the contrary, all a matter of pleasure."
Guts shook with infuriated disgust. So King Griffith was desperate for a bedmate after all, and naturally the only solution he could think of was kidnapping the two people he'd already wronged beyond imagining to satisfy his sick urges...
"Not something so cheap and human as sexual pleasure, as you assumed earlier." Guts made sure to display his incredible skepticism as clearly, if soundlessly, as possible. "No, Guts, it's very simple: Your suffering brings me pleasure, and sex is one extraordinarily efficient method of inducing this."
Griffith smoothed a sticky hand through Guts's hair, like he was a fucking dog or something, and Guts was sure the throbbing vein in his temple would soon explode with the rest of him.
"Yeah, Griffith, so you're a sadist, hurting people turns you on, what a shocker. My eyes are popping out of their sockets right now, seriously. And hey, know what else? All of that's about as cheap and human as it comes. You pompous fucking hypocrite."
Griffith stared at him for a moment, and, humiliatingly, Guts broke into an uneasy sweat. He could work as hard as he liked to deny Griffith any visible sign of fear, but it was getting increasingly impossible to pretend in his own head that he was anything but cowed and conquered. If he had fucked up just now…if it was all for nothing, if Casca ended up hurt and he ended up having to live with that…or die with that…Guts was suddenly tempted to throw himself Griffith's feet and apologize. For…not shutting up when told. And the self-disgust, it grows.
Luckily, the stare evidently proved to be a "I shall not dignify your worthless human mutterings with a response" stare, and not a "I am presently determining the most effective way to torture you and your beloved, o he that has transgressed against Me" stare, because Griffith simply blinked then and continued monologuing.
"Hurting people does not turn me on, Guts; know this. I feel nothing for 'people', and I feel nothing for you, and the only aspect of this situation I find so satisfying as to be sexually arousing is that single fact alone. Human suffering no longer affects me; most invigorating of all, your suffering does not affect me. I don't expect you to understand why this is such a powerful and affirming experience, for you are still bound by human thoughts and emotions, but suffice to say it is the very act of not registering your pain on anything but an intellectual level that stirs my blood. Sadism is for mortals; as a god, I have been liberated to exist in the negative space of such emotions." Griffith smiled beatifically, as if he'd just explained some essential truth and not the single most psychotic, unhinged, backwards-ass thing Guts had ever fucking heard.
There was something in Griffith's words, though, deranged as they were, that struck Guts as important, as saying more than the demonic fuck probably intended. He tried to think about it as Griffith, after instructing him to stay in place and damn were his knees starting to ache, moved to the entranceway of the room and had a brief conversation with a wide-eyed girl far too young to be caught up with the likes of him (though as she continually peered over Griffith's shoulder to stare at Guts without any trace of the unfamiliarity or discomfort that should accompany seeing a grown man naked and on his knees, Guts wondered how young she could possibly be), but Griffith's outrageous circular logic was making his thoughts run over each other in endless figure-eights, and Guts gave up thinking for now.
"Well, Guts. Congratulations. You've managed to successfully live out your new purpose long enough to get Casca sent home. Come. You may stand if you like and follow me to yours."
Idly as Guts rose he considered with bitter amusement how different a little sexual gratification (or non-sexual non-gratification by Griffith's description) made King Fuckface; he'd gone from giving Guts condescending non-orders and telling him he was worth nothing to treating him like some prized royal pet worth explaining himself to, all in the span of one blowjob. Looks like sex is the great equalizer after all. Demon-gods, humans, nobody's invulnerable to the power of a fucking orgasm.
Guts followed the back of the man he hated with a passion more intense than any orgasm, naked, through the halls of the palace he'd built on the bodies of the Hawks, and was just glad he'd found something else to hold onto in this great oasis of nothing.
I'm so sorry that took me so long. I'm not sure how obvious it is (I don't know if the writing is as obviously awkward and sub-par to anyone but me) but I really struggled with this chapter. As much as I know what turns me on, kink-wise, and where I want to take this story pornishly, I have to fight a lot of awkwardness and embarrassment to actually write it all out in words. But now that I've crossed the hurdle that is Publishing Porn On The Internet, I'm hoping the rest of this will go a lot smoother! I can't promise super-fast updates because I've got some other things I need to finish writing before December is through (some of them are Berserk things, which I'll definitely publish here when I'm done) but I can promise it won't take me six months after this. Haha :)
When we return: Casca comes home, Sonia vs. Schierke! Hooray.