by Quil Carter
The silence that came after tuned my mind back into what my body was doing. I was once again betrayed by my automatic physical responses because there was a cesspool of nausea bubbling under my skin, some giant ball of rot; like the decaying carcasses being controlled by the proxy worms.
“I wasn’t raised in your family.” My response betrayed the voice inside of me demanding for me to keep silent and let the rot continue to spread and taint me, but my mouth moved in defiance. Whether I could blame it on the opiate cigarettes, or the residue from what I just saw on the computer screen was anyone’s guess. “I didn’t get fucked by Silas at fifteen. I wasn’t raised around skimpy-dressed cicaros, or whatever shit you idiots were undoubtedly exposed to too young. I didn’t get my cock sucked until I was sixteen or seventeen, and I didn’t start having sex until last year. I didn’t care about that sort of shit, and unless it’s Killian, I still don’t. I never liked sexual contact or any physical contact.”
I saw Nero look at me out of the corner of my eye. “Fucking seriously?”
My head nodded, even though my mind had already left the living room and locked the door to Adler’s room. Why I was saying this to him, I didn’t know. Maybe I didn’t want Nero to think I was weak. He had an opinion of me beforehand, and it looked like I’d successfully convinced him I was some damsel bitch. There was something inside of me that felt compelled to defend my honour. I was the man in Donnely watching Nero rape Perish, feeling flickers of respect and awe, and an even deeper thirst to emulate the chimera I’d seen as a power figure.
And the cape I’d put in Aras when I was burning the convicts had manifested that desire into something physical.
“I was trying to fuck Silas as soon as my cock was big enough at thirteen and I started getting wet dreams so often I thought I was a pervert. He was locking his bedroom at night because he was tired of waking up to me sucking him off and beatin’ my meat to it. Silas lied and told me my cock would fall off if I had sex before fifteen, and I believed him.” I snorted at this and Nero chuckled. “If I didn’t believe him so much I’d have taped Garrett’s mouth shut and given him what for. Fuck. I’ll have to show you the video of me on my fifteen birthday. Silas had his mouth on my dick for, I counted, bro, fifteen seconds before I came, huge gobs of it all down Silas’s mouth, he couldn’t eat it fast enough, and I was just moaning like I was in a porno. I came nine times that night. Nine times, Duck. In the end, Silas was fucking me so hard I thought I was going to die from the pleasure. I just wanted him to go faster. Oh man… fuck, I love that video.”
I shook my head, and hid the smile with another drag of the cigarette. “The first time I entered Killian it was the same. I had to pause and just stay absolutely still but he was squirming underneath me from the pain and tightening himself, and I just wanted to tell him to stop it or else I was going to cum. I just couldn’t believe I was doing it. I hated being close to people, even just hugging made me stiffen up and cringe, which sucked because Killian was just this face hugger from Alien, always on me. I got used to it though.”
Nero’s lips pursed and he nodded. Then he reached over and dashed his cigarette again. “I’m sorry, Reav.”
“For what?”
Nero gave me a confused look before to my amusement his expression grew concerned. “You… what do you mean ‘for what’?” He leaned back and his cheeks puffed out as he exhaled. “Okay. I’m going to prep you some china. I guess I’ve seen this shit happen to chimeras. We’ve got so many mental problems we block shit. I’ve–”
“Elish’s right, you really are a moron,” I said through the cigarette in my mouth. “You really think Killian could’ve survived ground zero and that much sestic radiation? Or being in the plaguelands? You really think I’d be sitting here shooting the shit with you after my boyfriend got his face smashed in? Or that I’d even bring him to this house in the first place after everything I went through to save him? He’s immortal, you dumbass. I’m not leaving, you’re not calling Silas. The two of us are going to show that pompous, delusional little cocksucker just what happens when he fucks with us. If Killian doesn’t himself, because that kid has turned into a fucking psycho lately.”
Nero’s head snapped towards me, and a brief moment passed of him just gawking.
Then, with a raise of his hand, he smacked me upside the head, the cigarette shooting out of my mouth and landing on the table in a shower of embers and ash. I almost fell forward from the force of it and the room temporarily flashed white.
“That was a shitty thing to make me believe, you fucking bitch,” Nero said as I rubbed my head with a smirk on my face. I leaned over and picked up the cigarette and heard him chuckle. “I was wondering why you hadn’t gone Fallocaust, or started tearing out your hair like your brittle fucking mind would’ve done. Fucking weak little shit going batty over some hardcore sex, but acts all stone-cold monster when his boyfriend gets his head smashed in. I was wondering what the fuck was wrong with you.”
Surprisingly, the smirk turned into a half-smile and I reached over and grabbed his tin of drugs. “He’s resilient. You have no fucking idea. The past several months his balls have grown twice as big. Honestly, I fucking hate it though.”
Nero tossed me his black card and a metal sniffer when I brought out the china white. I needed some right about now. The fact that I was talking civilly to the man who had caused all of these problems inside of me, while Killian lay dead and my two newest enemies slinked underneath my feet, was showing just how mentally fucked I was in that moment. Maybe my mind finally realized I couldn’t save Killian while spinning my wheels in the same mud pit.
“Hate it? Why? It gets me off when Kiki shows dominance. The fact that he stole the Falconer and left the family behind to save me, then rescued the two of you. I love seeing the kittens cut their adult teeth,” Nero said. “He’s going to grow up to be a fucking chimera to be reckoned with and I can’t wait.”
I leaned down and did several lines of china white. I rubbed my nose with the back of my hand and handed the sniffer to Nero.
And as he sniffed his nose and rubbed it at the same time, no doubt to clear it. I watched this man who had become the sole vessel for all of my hatred. A chimera who had tortured and raped me for weeks, beat me down without mercy, who had made me chew through my own wrist to free myself.
“You okay? Bad hit?” Nero asked.
“P-prep me some more.” To swallow the barb of humiliation being shoved down my throat, my breathing broke up my words, making them resemble a gasping plea. I clenched my teeth and mentally tried to force the anxiety down to my feet, but it kept rising up like I was trying to push down water with my bare hands.
I closed my eyes, and even though I knew it would make me look even weaker, the lesser of the two evils had me burying my face into my hands, my elbows resting on my knees.
Unfortunately that ended up only multiplying the intense feelings of anxiety that was lighting my blood on fire. Several seconds later I rose and started pacing behind the couch, unable to sit still for any longer.
Even though my eyes were wide open and staring, I saw inside the vivid pictures in my head, the image of my own colon and intestines coming out of my ass, the bright red shiny prolapse followed by light pink intestines, leaving streaks and patterns on the sheets like a morbid art project. Nero had fucked me so hard he’d pulled out my own guts, this was after he’d sodomized me with a knife.
I thought that was bad. I really thought that was bad. But what happened next was worse.
“Reaver… I’ve kind of been around Sanguine enough to know what’s going on.” I heard him get up. “I don’t carry the shit on me, but I’m going to check Adler’s stash for Xanax. Go outside and get some fresh air.”
Like the obedient dog I guess I still was, I walked through the sliding glass door. It was late afternoon now and the sun was blazing, burning through the cloak of ashes to make the yard humid and stifling. I walked out and stayed under the awning where it was sh
ady, and saw two of the bat-cats stretched out underneath a row of rose bushes dozing comfortably.
I stared at them, like one would do when feeling motion sickness. But not a minute later of laboured breathing that was doing nothing but spreading the tension, I ran to bushes opposite of the cats and started throwing up.
This petri dish of growing infection that I had become was starting to become too large for the colourless void to contain, and I found myself scared for my mind.
I had… never been scared for myself before.
I was immortal. What did I have to fear? Wasn’t I stronger than that?
Again I threw up, sour bile that left a chalky taste in my throat and mouth splashing against violet roses, dousing them in yellow-tinged rain that beaded on it and dripped off into the bright green leaves. I had to inhale sharply in order to breathe through the heaving, and I soon found myself unable to catch a breath.
There was no doubt about it. I was having a panic attack, and I had to get away from here as quickly as possible. Nero couldn’t see this.
“Hey, I found some.”
I whirled around, and when he saw me Nero’s eyebrows raised. He extended his arm and presented me with three blue pills. I took them and popped them into my mouth, more sour joining the already gag-inducing taste of the puke, and I started walking along the house to where I knew the dirt road was.
“Hey. Don’t fucking leave, idiot. The cultists’ll recognize you.”
I kept walking and I heard Nero jog up to me.
“No, get the fuck away from me!” I suddenly snapped. “Fuck off.”
“You’re not blowing our fucking cover by prancing down to Melchai.”
“You don’t tell me what the fuck to do. Do I look chained up to you?” I whirled around and reached to my belt to draw my combat knife, only to have my hand graze an empty sheath. Nero must’ve taken it while I was resurrecting.
But then I remembered seeing it on the coffee table. He hadn’t taken it, just removed it while I healed.
“You’re not thinking straight, and I’m not going to let you march down the fucking road where they can see you. We have enough shit on our plates trying to get the boys back, dumbshit.” Nero jumped back as I took a swing at him and roughly pushed me. I stumbled backwards, and my back hit a tree.
“Why the fuck are you getting all panic attack anyway?” Nero said, his voice raising. “Your boy is fucking immortal.”
“Why? WHY!” I exploded. By now my head was throbbing, a migraine coming swiftly and quickly, and proceeding to saw my skull in two. “Because I’m a fucking idiot for sitting with the bastard who tortured me like a fucking subhuman. Who made me have to tell my boyfriend I fucked another man. Who’s given me nightmares that have rendered me a babbling, sobbing idiot!” The higher my voice raised the more I felt myself lose control. Everything around me was turning hazy, and I was starting to think all of this might be a dream. It had to be a dream. This wasn’t Reaver.
“Who keeps telling me I’m overreacting to almost a month of being fucked until my intestines spilled out of me. Who beat me senseless, who suffocated me from face-fucking me, who fucking drugged me, humiliated me, made me chew my fucking hand off and even then you couldn’t let me go!” My voice was breaking. Oh fuck. Reaver, stop. Stop showing this side of you to him. Anyone but him. Anyone but fucking Nero.
“You made me unable to have sex with my boyfriend without going into a psychosis so real I hurt him, I killed him just last week from it. I ripped out his throat. I have become such a weak bitch in front of Killian, he’s starting to try and dominate me… that little shit has been challenging me, talking back to me, trying to soothe me when I turn into a manic anxiety-plagued mess! My life has been destroyed. I don’t even know who the fuck I am anymore because of this. Because Reaver Merrik doesn’t act like this; Reaver doesn’t feel like this! I didn’t have weaknesses before this besides Killian being in danger, and he’s immortal now. I’m fucking supposed to be stronger, unbreakable. I’m the born immortal killer. I am the Reaper who kills for fun, who manipulated an entire town to burn their own alive. I was unbreakable. I was fucking unbreakable!” Though no tears came I let out a sob, and at that, my legs became water and I fell to my knees.
“And you guys are looking at me like this wasn’t a big deal, like I should be over it because I’m a chimera. But it’s all I think about and no matter how many times I try and get over it… I can’t get you out of my head. I can’t stop seeing you whenever I try and be intimate with Killian; whenever I try and be half the dark chimera I was. I’ve lost myself… and I’ve lost the respect of my boyfriend… all because of you.”
I looked up at Nero, and I saw a look of astonishment on him, as if someone had just ran up and smacked him across the face. He just stared at me like I had been uttering incantations, not a blink or a mouth twitch, just a fixed look.
But as he looked at me, I saw something different with him, a change in his normal visage. Nero looked unbalanced, off-kilter, like a painting of a man with slight enough facial changes for you to know that something was wrong, but not enough for you to put your finger on it.
“I’m like… your Jasper?” Nero suddenly whispered. He ran a hand down his face, staring off into nothing for a moment. He was acting like he’d come to a realization, but I didn’t understand what he was saying.
Then my mind caught up with my mouth, and with cruel vigor embarrassment flooded me, making my ears burn with a heat that rapidly spread to my head. If this outburst was supposed to try and lance the infection that I was now unable to contain, it hadn’t succeeded. Now I had only confirmed to my worst enemy that he had damaged me beyond repair. The humiliation from this was so strong I honestly felt like killing myself.
I got up to my feet and started walking away from him as quickly as I could.
“You know why this happened, Reaver?” Nero said.
My feet stopped and I paused. In front of me was the beginnings of the hill we’d scaled to get down here, brown dirt with bits of grey rocks and lumps of yellow grass clinging to the incline.
“It happened because you let yourself have a weakness,” he said. I heard him start to walk towards me. “And your weakness is too much pride. You know my brother Elish…? He’s so full of pride to the point of just seeping it, and we love him for it. He’s just this dominant badass, all cold and unfeeling, and people gravitate to that since he backs up his shit with being so ruthless and completely frozen solid. You know what I haven’t done to Elish in like… forty years?”
I saw Nero out of the corner of my eye stand beside me.
“I haven’t fucked him. No one has but the one guy he can’t say no to. Silas. And every time Silas fucks him, he’s like raping Elish. Because Elish hates it, you can see it in his face. This disconnect like he’s flying around in outer space and not in his own body, the same one I saw on your face at times. Kingy now only fucks him when he’s mad at him, or needs to feel powerful and in control. It’s not sex anymore, Silas actively rapes the dude and for days after Elish is just a fucking monster. You can tell it screws him up inside, but he’ll never admit it, he just puts a few more bruises on Jade.”
Was that true? I didn’t even have to think about it, I knew it was true. Elish didn’t tell me outright but the story he’d shared after I told him about Nero gave enough stock to Nero’s words. An incident that happened between Silas and Elish that I suspect was a huge trigger in him deciding to kill Silas.
So the cold chimera had a weakness besides Jade. Even he couldn’t absorb and compartmentalize having himself physically dominated.
“With me… I’ve never been raped before,” Nero said, and then he let out a dry, humourless laugh. “I’ve been fucked against my will, but I’ve never been dominated or raped. Because I don’t play the game that you prideful guys play. I don’t see someone sticking their cock inside of me and fucking me as them being dominant towards me. I just don’t play the sub-dom thing. I don’t see the submis
sive partner in that sort of way. You saw it yourself, I let Kiki fuck me in front of you, didn’t I? And I’d have let you, but I decided to save that for another time.”
The time he was referring to jumped to the front of my head, pushing the other caustic, degrading thoughts aside. I’d been half-conscious, Nero already using my body thoroughly to the point where I’d been a crumpled heap. I remember him being on his back, not even on his hands and knees so he didn’t have to look at the kid, on his back with Kiki’s rapid panting filling the room to the beat of his thrusting hips, and Nero’s groans and growls of encouragement.
“Reaver… I’m going to give you the most powerful piece of advice I can, brother to brother. You need to find these weaknesses, and make them your greatest strengths. Find them and fucking gild them in steel with a diamond coating. Pride will break you in this family, and if Silas ever does catch you, he’ll do a lot worse than me, believe me, baby. You felt nothing towards me but you hate Silas, imagine Silas in place of me and what that’d honestly do to you. With the snap of his fingers not only he could rape you, Reaver, but I’ve seen disobedient chimeras get gang raped by the entire family, and I happily took part in it.”
I felt a hand on my shoulder, and my mind was too full from his words to make any move to shake him off.
Because though the old, arrogant me would dismiss him because my own pride would deafen me to any sort of advice… I found myself actually hearing him and absorbing his words.
Nero was right.
“You want to know a secret?”
I looked at him and saw the corner of his mouth was raised in a smirk.
“I’ve raped a lot of guys, you were hands-down the best. You fought and fought. Where most kids your age would’ve crumpled and died, gone completely catatonic and dead to the world, you kept fighting it even when it did take you. I had you for almost a month and I was a thousand times harder on you since you were immortal, and I didn’t have to worry about permanently killing you. I was that sadistic with you because I had to be, because you just kept on fighting, and not only that, outsmarting me. It was hot.” He rubbed my shoulder. “And when you chewed your hand off and escaped? I was honest, I did want to let you escape just to hunt you down. Because I knew you’d keep fighting. You just didn’t give up.