Work Text:
Things go a little differently the second time RT steps into The Deep Dark.
He’s much more prepared, for one. He knows to keep quiet, having a good idea of what sounds set off sensors, and on the lookout for shriekers. On top of that, he’s more resilient; determined. He’s not stumbling in blind, this time. He’s here to find something.
What that something is, he’s not sure yet, but it’ll reveal itself eventually. He has a deep, subconscious feeling that he can’t describe, but he knows it’s there somewhere.
Everything goes fine for a while. He tiptoes around, avoiding triggering shriekers or drawing out the warden. The path downward twists and turns, spiraling between preexisting caves, and he marks his way as he goes. Nothing resembling an unnatural structure or hint of reward reveals itself, but he knows he just has to keep going. If he hits bedrock, he’ll go back up, and travel back down a different way. Something has to be here.
And then, at one turn down, he falls.
There’s a hidden crevice, a dip in the cave, one the light of a nearby torch completely misses, that opens up from under him out of nowhere. His foot slips on the uneven surface of a vein, and he’s sent tumbling down a few blocks. He lands stomach down, face up, splayed out on top of the patch of sculk, wincing at the impact. Luckily, the spongy surface breaks his fall enough so nothing feels bruised.
The sound of his tumble sets off the sensors, of course, and he thanks whatever Gods exist in this world that no shriekers are nearby. They echo back at each other a few times, vibrating around him. One is a foot away from where his head landed, and the other seems to be just next to his outstretched hand. The light around is minimal, the last torch he’d left up aways, and the natural light of the sculk is dim.
As they click at each other once more, circling back the noise in a loop, he realizes where there’s a third sensor with a jolt .
The last sculk sensor in the area is directly between his legs where he landed, the edges of the block lining up with his hips, and the middle nestled against his cunt. Though he can’t see it, he can certainly feel it, the tendril growing out of the center of the block curling around his inner thigh and brushing the front of the seam of his pants. His eyes go wide as it twitches, the end of the appendage dragging from one end of his groin to the other.
The sensation draws a tiny gasp from him, the movement not unlike how he’d use his own hand there. It wouldn’t be a problem, normally, but his head is still close enough to the other sensor, and the noise sets it off again. He watches, this time, as the tendrils twist and emit that low clicking sound, and follows the visible vibrations as they travel to the one near his hand. As its coils contract and quiver, a small flicker of light shows it’s sent a signal to the last one.
The sensor between his legs pulses underneath his hips, the tentacle in the middle tensing and curling up to stroke his slit again. It prods upward , the thinner end playing at the stitching of his pants, as if trying to reach a hole covered by the fabric.
He feels his own face heat up at that thought, tips of his ears burning. A filthy assumption, sculk was nothing more than advanced plant life, anyway. The idea that it was intentionally prying to be inside him was ridiculous.
It occurs to him, finally, that he should probably get up. Nothing besides his own shock at the situation he found himself in was keeping him down here, and all he needed to do was sit up and climb out of the ditch of the cave. He twists his arms so his palms are facing down to brace himself upwards.
And then he stops.
The tendril hasn’t stopped, despite the fact that the sensor hadn’t been triggered again. It continues to palm him, in a way that’s almost…curious.
He should be jerking away in disgust, taking his sword out and slicing the damn thing to pieces for touching him. Instead, he simply lays there, letting it explore up and down a few more times. He bites his lip as the end of it jabs where his clit is underneath his folds. The layers of cloth prevent it from feeling like much, but it’s enough to make him try to clench around it.
The involuntariness of his movements makes him wonder, what had he come down here for in the first place? To find something worth discovering, sure, but he’d been going in circles for awhile. All this really was is morbid curiosity. Despite literally getting stuck in a death loop with wardens the other day, he’d still come back to explore. Was this not, in a sense, exactly what he was looking for?
So he gives into his base instincts. He relaxes, angles his hips, and grinds back against the tendril.
And it reacts. The sound of the cloth meeting the coil must trigger the sensor, because it activates again, a bolt of energy traveling through the limb and vibrating underneath him. The ones near his head and arm hum in response, and his hand flails out, fingers finding the middle and clasping around the tentacle. He pulls, and it trips again, both pulsing before the one underneath him convulses, stroking between him again, drawing a line down his slit.
His body moves on its own, hips pressing forward again to rub himself against it in little circles. A moan slips out of him, and sets off the sensors once more, sending that lightning sensation up his spine.
He lets the sensor stroke between him again and again, driving his hips down in response, legs spreading further apart, desperate for something more. He props his ankles up, toes curling at each brush of the tendril, the tip of his boots trying to find friction on the gel-like surface of the sculk surrounding him.
He gets dizzy, being touched like this, the movements of another humanoid done so alien-like. It’s not helped by the fact that he’s been alone in this world for months on end, having nothing akin to human contact, and no time to get himself off with all the building and exploring he’d done. He’s that much more receptive to it all, the realization that he hasn’t been touched like this in so long hitting him.
That, or the sculk was just making him lose his mind. That could certainly be it. What sane man would be letting himself be felt up by an insentient cave plant?
Well. Maybe they weren’t completely insentient. He doesn’t know if he could convince himself the sensor didn’t know what it was doing, pressing and prodding at all the right angles.
The tip of the vine nudges his clit again, and he whines, unbidden.
That was it.
He forces himself off the ground with one strong push of his hands, sitting back and wobbling to a standing position. He stares down at the lower sensor, which seems to reach up for him, the tendril winding around itself, as if missing the lack of contact as much as he was.
The knee high boots his wears go first, shuffling them off with his own feet. His belt is next, which is a struggle in itself, hands shaking, and the second it comes loose it’s tossed to the side with a clatter. It sets off the sensor again, and he looks down to see it pulse, the space between his own legs throbbing in response. He finally drops his pants and briefs to his ankles in one yank and kicks the bundle of cloth somewhere nearby, body impatient now that cool air hits his thighs.
Taking one look at his high socks and garters, he quickly decides they’re not worth the effort. Naked from the waist down besides them, he opts that’s good enough, leaving his longcoat and the waistcoat and blouse underneath it on. He wasn’t about to freeze doing this.
Gaze tilting down, he is dripping wet at this point, open and empty . Screw any precautions he should be taking, he’s ready enough.
Eager, but acutely aware of what he was doing, he gently lowers himself back down to sit on his knees, calves positioned on each side of the sensor. The tendril slithers up his inner thigh, exploring the bare skin, and he bites his lip. He knew what sculk felt like already, but the unnatural coolness was still strange to feel in a place where his body was burning hot.
It takes turns nudging up each of his thighs, until finally the end of it strokes up his entrance again. He does his best to relax, shoulders dropping and ankles shifting away so he can lower himself just a bit more, hoping the sensor would get the idea.
It does.
The tendril enters him carefully, tip slipping past his folds and pressing inside him.
“Oh.” He pants, mouth dropping open. His voice sets it off again, and he feels the vibration inside him this time, jolting his core. The coil reaches up and deeper, the thicker lower half of it filling him out. He can feel it shifting there, a stretched, but not unpleasant, feeling. It satisfies an emptiness he didn’t know was yearning to be replaced.
Sliding his hips up and back down, it plunges in and out of him, settling deeper this time. “Oh my gods.” He groans, the tendril quivering in reaction to his own voice.
He rides the sensor like his life depends on it, chest hunched forward so he can dig his hands into the surrounding sculk blocks, needing to anchor himself. Every little movement sends it pulsing, the clicking of the other sensors echoing in his ears. His senses blur, all feeling taken up by the tendril inside him.
It comes on suddenly, a throb of the coil that has more force than the ones before, an after feeling that leaves him keening. Lightheaded, he looks down between his legs to see glowing slick trickling down the tendril from inside him, the same cyan color of the sculk around him.
It’s coming inside me, he realizes. The logical part of his brain tells him that can’t really be what it is. In scientific terms, it must just be a reaction to stimulus, an excess of energy overflowing.
But it sure as hell feels human. Not just that: it’s better than anything human he’s ever felt.
He thrusts his hips down, hard, bottoming out flat against the surface of the sensor, forcing the coil deep inside him. It pulses again, sending that electric energy up and down him in streaks, gushing out more of the bright liquid.
His orgasm hits him like a bolt of lightning, entire body tensing for a split second before shuddering. Involuntarily, he throws his head back as his shoulders arch, and a wail escapes him. It cuts off into panting, hot flashes flickering across his skin. The sensor hums inside him one more time, filling him with a final surge of the sculk’s fluids.
At some point in the afterglow, he slumps forward and feels the tendril slip out of him, whining at the empty feeling. They stick to his thighs for a few seconds, before drawing back completely, going still.
He regains his composure slowly, unsure if a few seconds or minutes have passed. Heartbeat steadying to a reasonable pace and breath returning to normal, he sits up with more than a little effort, and glances around.
He blinks. Once, twice.
Darkness. Pitch, black, darkness. He rubs his eyes and blinks again. This time, he briefly sees his surroundings, only for his vision to pulse and fade into nothingness again.
Senses heightened, he hears the telltale sound of a shrieker going off in the distance, muted through walls of stones, but there nonetheless.
Shit.
He stands on shaky legs, lower half still over-sensitive, his own fluids and those from the sensor dripping down his thighs. The second he regains of vision allows him to see where his supply bag and remainder of clothes ended up, and he quickly dismisses the thought of getting dressed, knowing it’d make too much noise no matter how hard he tried to do it quietly. Earlier, maybe, but with his own scream most likely setting off the shrieker, all the sensors in the area would be more hightended to sound. He was not in the mood to meet the warden in this state.
He’s thankful he kept his socks on, taking a few light steps to get to his stuff, using the pulses of vision he gets to carefully bundle it up into his arms and hitch his bag over his shoulder. Supplies gathered, he turns to the wall of the crevice behind him, pursing his lips as he thinks about the journey up to the surface. If he remembers his path correctly, it wasn’t too far to get out of The Deep Dark , but he had no idea where the nearest water source was, noting his skin getting uncomfortably sticky.
As he finds his pickaxe to carve a way out, he takes once last longing glance at the patch of sculk behind him.
He’d have to remember to bring silk touch next time he came down here. A sensor in the tower was a wonderful idea.