Work Text:
You were certainly not weak for it.
No, certainly not. Not for that maddening being that haunted you constantly and presented itself as a human man, calling itself Michael. It could put its stone-sharp fingers to your neck (ha) and demand that you answer it (ha ha) and you would still never admit it.
At least, that's what you told yourself.
Because in truth it was a weakness. A weakness, that when you saw this entity you wanted all manner of things which were decidedly not in the realm of wanting to repel it as far away from you as possible. Quite the opposite, actually.
It had started a month ago.
When you stumbled into its realm—you did not realize the door was out of place, at first— you were... well, scared is not the word.
You were nervous! Truly, you were! But it was not the total, all-encompassing fear that maybe should have been expected from you. You wandered the hallways with some trepidation, traveling the spiral, but in truth you were enjoying yourself. Looking at all the colors, all the strangeness, the way it all changed when you blinked and when you flitted your eyes this way and that.
And when, finally, you spotted his tall, lean, monstrous form down the length of the hallway, you just gasped. At first in fear, but as it stood there, all mirrors in the room reflecting it save one (which you pointedly did not look at too hard) you approached it. "Who are you?" you called, a little loudly so that it may hear you.
It answered in the form of a resounding laugh, at once so chilling and beautiful that it stopped you in your tracks. Goosebumps rose on your arms, strange energy overtaking you, but it was more intoxicating than fear. But it did not attack or advance or anything of the sort.
You kept trying to approach it, expecting not to gain distance at all due to the unpredictable nature of the place that trapped you, but it let you. "Well? Haven't you got a name? Aren't you the master of this place?" You stopped halfway to it, waiting for your answer.
Silence.
Then it moved forward, not so much a step as a shift in reality, shimmering closer to you. "Oh, I don't think so."
You weren't sure which question it was answering, though it probably didn't matter. And oh, its voice. It simultaneously gave you a headache and made you want to hear more. But it said no more, and for moment that seemed to stretch for a very long time you two hung there.
And then it gathered speed, charging you with clearly the intent to attack, and you realized in that moment that you could do nothing. Serves you right for trying to be friendly. But still, it was— beautiful was not the word, but you felt a longing curiosity for the unknown, and you regretted that before you died you wouldn't be able to learn more about this strange creature. That, more than fear, was your prominent emotion.
And then it was gone.
You were—you blinked—in your room. Sitting on your bed, even. But that wasn't right, you had been somewhere else when you'd gone through the door, a friend's or a party or...
It hardly mattered.
What mattered was that you were alive, and more than that, that you had another chance to learn about whatever it was that had spared you in that hallway dimension.
Well.
What else could you do but live your life?
And somehow the idea of it was exhausting to you now. You had never cared overmuch for your circumstances, always working yourself to death trying to pay the bills, and now suddenly something interesting and different had appeared, whisked you away, and then dropped you back in your home before you knew it.
You went back the next day to the place where the door had been, to try and enter again, but it was gone. Something about that seemed funny to you, like maybe you should be trying to forget what had happened instead of reliving it. But you just couldn't get that maze monster out of your head.
You were at a bookstore when you saw him.
He was...in an armchair, reading something. You couldn't make out the title. The letters swirled and shifted, and even the color of the cover seemed to change. This reminded you, immediately, of the corridor from a few weeks ago. How could you have forgotten, even for a moment, what that entire place had felt like? And here was this man, who looked up when he must've felt you watching him, and patted the end table in front of him that sat between two armchairs, as if inviting you to sit with him. When you blinked you realized that the end table was too far away for him to have reached.
But you sat.
Across from you, he folded the book shut, lounging with one arm on the armrest. You leaned forward in your chair, the exact opposite of his relaxed posture.
"Hello," you tried. That was easy, right? That was how you made conversation with a handsome stranger with golden curls not unlike the ones of the-
"Hello," he answered, and the voice was the same. The hair on the back of your neck stood up and you knew . How could you not? A Cheshire grin grew on his face and you knew in an instant that he knew you knew, and it was through this bizarre game of facial-expression telephone that he conveyed his glee. "How do you do?" he asked, very simply.
"You never answered my question from before," you said levelly, trying to conceal your excitement. This human-seeming man looked nothing like the thin, gangling creature with the billowing hair, but you saw the resemblance now that you looked. He was believably normal, and his hair more innocuous, but it was still quite similar and he carried himself with that same arrogant ease, the mastery of the domain.
"If I recall correctly, you asked me three," he answered easily.
"What's your name?" Could never hurt to try again.
And he- it? Smiled again, though perhaps its smile had never left its face, and it reached out a hand as if to shake.
"Michael," it said, and even though the name did not suit the bearer you didn't care. You reached out to shake his hand and found it to be...not unlike a bag of rocks. Which is a strange thing to say about someone's hand, even though it looked smooth and actually quite pretty.
You gasped when you felt it, his grin widening impossibly in childish glee, and perhaps he expected a fear reaction or for you to run away or maybe even keep asking questions, but you snatched his hand and cradled it in your own, his palm facing up, and with your other you traced along his fingertips. Sure enough, the look did not match the true feeling of them, which was of long, sharp claws. A strange shiver ran through him then, likely surprise, but he did not yank his hand away.
"Well, this is honestly delightful," you said, checking his expression. The smile had melted into something more quizzical—taken-aback almost—his miscolored eyes locked steadily onto you. "I won't lie, I was really hoping to see you."
You let go of his hand. "Were you now?" he asked, drawing back a little from your grip but not quite fully pulling away either.
His voice you still couldn't fully process, except that it rang in your ears and it honestly made you want to crawl into his lap and do— quite a number of things, but this was hardly the place. He really was attractive, as if that could somehow excuse you from being aroused by the otherworldly being that had abducted you. As if sensing your line of thought it began to smile again.
You chose to answer his rhetorical question. "Yes, I was. I wanted to talk to you! Why did you try to kill me?" The almost-murder felt less like a terrible thing and more like a very rude thing.
"If I were trying to kill you, you would be dead," it said, again in that lilting tone that you were beginning to realize was its true, natural voice.
So why leave you alive? That was the operative question. But you couldn't bring yourself to ask it. Instead you asked, "Will I see you again?"
"My my, so interrogative," it practically purred , and the sound of it felt so flirtatious you actually flushed red. You told yourself that was just how he was, and that you were imagining it, but this creature's entire domain was misdirection. "But yes, you will. I hope, for your sake, that you'll be ready for it."
And then he got up, taking his book with him, and walked out through a door—a door which had definitely not been there before, no, but which nobody else seemed to notice either. Your head was spinning. You were glad to be sitting down.
You cursed yourself immediately for not having asked more questions; he would've only answered whatever he felt like, anyway. But he was gone, wiped off the face of the earth.
When you got home you threw your hairbrush at the wall as hard as you could.
Two weeks later, and that was the state of things. So no, you would never admit it, but you were terribly weak for him. More than once you had gotten yourself off to that otherworldly presence, the sound of his voice and that strange yet handsome form he wore. You swore that sometimes, as you came, you heard the faintest ringing of his laugh.
You were certain, even if he came to you again looking perfectly human, you would not fail to recognize him.
And then he did.
It wasn't the bookstore, this time. No, it was...in an alley. You were walking down a side street to some unimportant destination when it happened.
A red door appeared. That's it. Just a single door, but it was hazy and hard to see, a distortion in your view and utterly out of place in the alley. It was an invitation. And as you looked around, puzzled, you spotted him on a nearby fire escape.
He leaned against the railing, grinning and watching, but he did not raise a hand in greeting to you. The wind blew his long, pretty hair, except—no, there was no wind.
You told yourself there was no way he could know. But then, that wasn't even true! He probably at least had some awareness of the slowly smoldering pit in your gut, the fire that you've been feeding for the last month.
And as you watched him on that fire escape, clothes and hair fluttering about in some intangible wind, your heart ached to make the choice. And then, with finality, you did.
"Hello, Michael," you said, looking him right in his too-bright eyes as you stepped through the door.
Back again in that hallway of funhouse mirrors, but you felt no real dread this time. Either he returned you or he didn't, but you were going to see him again. That was enough.
You started walking. An echoing laugh rang out, almost immediately as you did, and then Michael's voice: "you've surprised me, poppet. And here I thought you would be too scared to do it."
You looked around but couldn't see him, either in his monstrous form or his human one. You didn't expect it to wear the human in here, though. "And here I thought it wasn't possible to surprise you," you said, throwing his words back at him without any real aggression. "Won't you come out?"
No answer.
You restrained a sigh and kept walking, confident that it would show itself eventually. You began to drift away in the endless hall, and strangely enough its otherworldly shapes and colors soothed you. This was all it was. This was all it had to be.
And then, from behind you: “Turn around.”
He sounded like he was a good distance from you, at least a few feet away. You turned immediately and he was way too close, torso nearly flush with yours. You took a step back on instinct, to preserve your personal bubble, but he just grabbed your hand in his gigantic, monstrous one, claws curling around your wrist with the gentle threat of violence. You looked up.
His face almost hurt to look at, so insubstantial that it was. He was tall, even taller up close; the top of your head wasn't even level with his gargantuan shoulders. You were close enough to be enveloped, almost, by the float and curl of his hair; little strands brushed your cheek as if they had a will of their own.
"We have to stop meeting like this," you joked, and he actually laughed, resounding and echoing, but he laughed as if perhaps it was not your joke but something deeper and funnier that had amused him.
"Are you flirting with me, little one?" it asked.
"I don't know, am I?" you felt sheepish now that it had called you out. But still, you were curious as to what it had to say.
He was now suddenly less tall, but that was not quite right; he had bent, spine seemingly impossibly flexible, and shifted backwards without you realizing it, all the while still holding your wrist in his hand.
"You are the only one who can tell me that," it said, slithering its body around your head so that you couldn't see its face. It spoke directly into your ear, which made you shiver, and you would have sworn to anyone who asked that you felt a forked tongue flick over the shell of your ear. It was an understatement at this point to say that your entire body was covered in goosebumps. "But I will ask you not to lie. I know all about lies."
There was an undercurrent of a threat there, the same one that ran through this entire realm: you do not belong here. And you believed it; you certainly didn't feel like you did. But you never felt like you belonged outside of it either, so that was fine by you.
"I don't know how I would even begin to flirt with you," you tried, hands shaking with nerves, but not the fearful kind. You swallowed. "But yes. Yes, I am."
And then he simply said, "good."
Truth be told, you'd felt the first stirrings of arousal when you spotted him outside, and it had steadily grown until it was nearly overwhelming. He hummed in delight, fully shifting behind you, and suddenly you were staring at a mirror. The carpeted floor seemed more plush than a second ago, though you couldn't be sure.
Michael, behind you, artfully molded to your form, his long fingers tapping against your waist and hips. It crept a hand up, very slowly, from your stomach to your clavicle, not stopping between your breasts at all as you wished it would. With one precise maneuver, it curled the claw until it was tearing your shirt right down the middle.
You tilted your head to the side, trying to get an angle where you could kiss him. The laws of unreality in this place bent for you, as they bent for him, and you found yourself able to turn your front in towards him without disturbing the angle of the mirror. He felt warm, and like static buzz, and you did manage to kiss him. His lips were brilliantly hot and almost sharp, and his tongue much the same. You surrendered to him with a pleased moan. Weirdness aside, it was a still a kiss, and it still managed to set your core alight as he deepened it to an almost consuming degree.
His clothes...when had he gotten rid of them? Were they ever truly there? He still looked jagged to your eyes, an optical illusion. He pushed you back with one hand and you went, except you were falling forward, and now rested on your knees on the floor and looked in the mirror. Michael flickered, somewhere between his now-recognizably amused human expression and something else entirely.
Something began to inch up on you, then. A sort of mist, or haze. It didn't interfere with what the two of you were doing, but it did...increase the pleasure of everything. By several degrees, in fact. This creeping lust started from your core and radiated outwards and you were hot, throbbing, this close to a whine. It must've been Michael's doing. Surely it was.
It draped itself over your back, resting its head in the crook of your neck and peering upwards at the mirror that you prostrated yourselves in front of. It ripped your pants and underwear right off of you, easy as that. You didn't dream of stopping it. Its hips, or the nearest approximation thereof, rested enticingly over your cunt, though in the mirror you couldn't see. You only saw his hands, resting on your hips with so much care, and the way his head was tucked so well near your own. Its breath fanned your neck and it laved kisses there, kisses which almost felt like bites, and its pleased noises seemed to echo throughout the entire dimensional hallway. You could never get enough of that voice.
"More," you pleaded, even as the pleasurable fog continued to work through your muscles and mind.
A sharp laugh, his hair caressing your arms. "Careful," it warned, though it did not elaborate what you should be careful of.
Something pressed against your cunt, though what exactly it felt like was anyone's guess. He mouthed at your shoulder. "Last chance," he cooed in your ear.
"Fuck me," you hissed.
You didn't even have to beg. He pressed into you in one smooth motion, and it didn't hurt. You'd expected at least a little pain, even though you were quite honestly gagging for it and more turned on than you'd ever been in your life. No, what Michael felt like inside of you was impossible to describe. It was like a sweet and heavy weight, something that filled you up in exactly the way you needed, the pressure not consistently solid but enough that you were instantly shoving your hips back for more.
He chuckled, indulging your wish that he fuck you deeper. You'd never felt anything like it before. It was not like normal sex at all. The fog made everything sharper, made you sensitive and made Michael feel so present that it was dizzying. You tried not to moan out of embarrassment, but quickly gave up because you didn't think it was the sort to care about that at all. So you moaned, freely and openly, letting it hear all of your broken sounds, your pleasure echoing loudly through its hallway-realm.
"How's the real thing?" he purred in your ear. "Better than all those nights alone?"
That was a little difficult to process when he was currently fucking your brains out, but you did your best. And then, a bolt of lightning shooting through your core, you realized what he was referring to.
"You- hah, you knew?" He was making it so hard to think.
"Of course I knew, poppet. You... mmm, you never tried to hide it, did you?" At this you craned your head up, to try and look at it in the mirror. And you both were a sight, bent together over the floor, though the sheer amount of color made your eyes hurt. He licked long stripes up your neck, claiming you, and the action turned you on so much you tried to bare more of yourself to him, tilting your head so that he could reach better.
"I didn't...I didn't think..." your head was swimming. What were you trying to say?
Michael finished for you. "You didn't think I could see you?" It chuckled, breathy and low in your ear. "I can see everything that comes through my realm, dearest," it growled.
You pressed your cheek into the cool carpet. You no longer had the strength to keep your head up and look in the mirror; one continuous whine fell from between your lips. You found you could, impossibly, still see: as if you had a new eye, in the center of your forehead, and you saw yourself getting fucked from this new, sideways angle.
"I could see you, night after night," it continued, still in that disaffected tone but you knew it was getting flustered, knew in the same way you always realized you fell before you hit the ground, waiting for impact. "When you were bored, or especially wanting, and it was me you saw. It was me...and you, here, that you imagined. Oh, I know all about it." The "oh" had drawn itself into a moan, a slow hammering headache in your skull and you were mad for it.
"Michael," you whimpered. You wanted to tell him you were close, but you couldn't say the words.
"I know," it crooned, and then you came.