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It’s cold.
Kim Dokja’s consciousness waxes and wanes, but when he finally pulls through the haze it is with the startling realization of how vulnerable he feels. His arms feel heavy, as he barely manages more than a weak twitch of his hands, and he feels to be laying on something cool and solid. Stone? It feels like more of an operating table, but he suspects he’s on some sort of altar.
When he tries to think too hard, of the reason he’s here and why the ceiling looks so familiar, his head only pounds. He tries to push through, to get his brain working properly, but all he gets are blurry blips: the bright-blue announcement screen, a warning from the Fourth Wall, then —
Something sharp twists behind his eyes. He was… He was trying to finish a secret scenario. Right. He had snuck out in the middle of the night, attempting to see if he could figure out this obscure event the novel glossed over. Something had gone wrong, judging by his current state, so he deduces he’s bearing the brunt of the failure penalty right now.
But why was Plotter there? He remembers a disjointed memory, a glimpse of that starry veil and an amused smile flashing across his vision. Kim Dokja tries to dig further, but it’s like banging his head against a wall, the pounding in his skull only growing worse with each struggle.
“I can hear you thinking from all the way over here.”
Speak of the devil.
Plotter’s voice echoes around him, but Kim Dokja can at least pinpoint that he’s awfully close. He’s from… below? At his feet?
Regarding that, it feels awfully breezy down there. Wait a minute.
With great effort, Kim Dokja brings his head up and manages to look down, where Plotter stands as a great, looming figure — in between his bare legs. Everything below where his belt should be, is gone.
“Good morning, sleeping beauty,” Plotter says.
Without his veil, the combination of his glowing, golden eye and wicked smile sends shivers of apprehension down Kim Dokja’s spine. Kim Dokja’s immediate reaction is to shut his legs, but his attempt is futile. One, he has no strength; even if his mind wills it, his body can’t respond. Two, Plotter stands snuggly right in between them, acting as an immovable blockade given Kim Dokja’s weakened state. Is this part of the penalty, that he’s so feeble right now? How long is this even going to last? There’s no holographic screen to give him the remaining time, or what exactly the imposed ailment even is.
The Fourth Wall is also too quiet, adding onto his anxiety. Kim Dokja feels the panic set in, so he tries to take stock of his situation before he falls too far into the deep end, only for Plotter to derail his thoughts by snaking a hand underneath his shirt, a cool palm sliding along Kim Dokja’s flat stomach. Fingers explore, nails lightly raking across his skin and pressing lightly into the dips between his bony ribs.
Kim Dokja’s breath hitches. He knows he’s on the slim side, in the unattractive way where he doesn’t have nice curves in the important places, yet his self-consciousness about his body only rarely rears its head. But right now, he starts questioning a lot of things about his body, wondering if there really is much of anything that Plotter would find interesting. Whatever the outer god’s looking for, does he have to do it like this? Surely there’s better ways to get what he wants.
When Plotter slides his hand back down, this time down Kim Dokja’s side, he presses his thumb in. Kim Dokja can’t help the odd, small noise in his throat as he weakly squirms on the altar. Is he trying to get away? Get closer? It’s just a hand, a hand that in another life was wrapped around his throat and dangling him off a bridge, but this time it feels overly electrifying for such a simple gesture.
“Excellent.”
Kim Dokja looks, sees something gleam in Plotter’s eyes — amusement and satisfaction.
(What could be so satisfying in a body like this?)
Kim Dokja doesn’t know what the hell he means by that. “What are you —”
Plotter digs manicured claws into the softness of Kim Dokja’s belly, just painful enough to send a message. Kim Dokja sucks in a harsh breath and holds it, trying to suck in his stomach, make himself small.
“Shh, be good for me,” Plotter warns, leaning in and shoving the rest of Kim Dokja’s shirt up to press a kiss above his navel, “and you’ll see.”
Kim Dokja only shuts up because he knows those fucking claws can eviscerate him; and sure, he knows he’s pulled one too many suicide tricks, but he’s not in it for the pain. A nail digs into his lower stomach, scraping across. The air sizzles like live wires, a distinct hum in his ears, and he feels the faint crackles of Probability jolt throughout skin. Kim Dokja tenses at the sudden sensation. His body wants to run, but he’s in no position to. He hasn’t fully recovered from the penalty, yet he also suspects that it may also be partly Plotter’s doing.
All he can really do is gasp and curl his fingers into the stone beneath him, his legs quivering uselessly as Plotter’s body keeps them apart. Unable to keep his head up, Kim Dokja is forced to lay his head back down and let Plotter do as he pleases. He squeezes his eyes, feels the tears prickle at the corners as the burn within Plotter’s nails intensifies, scoring into Kim Dokja’s skin. It burns across his nerves, but when Plotter takes his fingertips a little too close to the pubic bone, something snaps.
Fire from the surface of his skin blazes into his core, lighting Kim Dokja up like a Christmas tree. A keen rips out of his throat, his nerves sizzling and brain short-circuiting at the carnal desire rushing through him, a supersonic torrent of new sensations and yearnings crashing into him straight out of nowhere.
“W-What is… What did you do?” Kim Dokja barely manages to say, breathless and trembling as he is.
“I was curious, you see.” Plotter answers, almost purring. “But I knew you wouldn’t disappoint. Your body truly is a marvel.”
Kim Dokja wants to point out that Plotter is answering fuck all, until a hand nudges against him. He goes deathly still.
“Uh?”
He can feel the blood drain from his face and pool into his gut, anxiety and confusion swirling into a sticky pit of nausea. A broken image flits across his vision again, of a fluorescent red screen and scattered white text. He realizes what his penalty was.
The description had been vague, citing something about Venus’ Retribution, and he had banked on a success with the deceivingly easy difficulty rank. He hadn’t even thought of the repercussions let alone a back-up plan, resulting in hubris and utter failure.
(Venus represents beauty and fertility, so how bad could her “retribution” even be, he had wondered. Turns out it may just be his undoing.)
When Plotter chuckles, low and amused, one hand slowly massaging the swollen lips and the other continuing to etch into the flesh above, Kim Dokja realizes much too late what’s happening, too confounded on what his body’s become.
The fingers playing with him are light and gentle, but Kim Dokja throbs in all the worst ways, reacting as if he’s got a cock teasing him instead when he’s only woefully empty. He swallows down a sob, gritting his teeth, frustrated and stressed. Tease him for all he cares, but he knows for a fact he is not this sensitive. He’s never been this desperate, either.
“Stop,” he whimpers, begs. Kim Dokja never really cared for his body, always treating it like a means to an end. The penalty’s not even that important, now that he has part of the answer he’s been looking for. But he knows what Plotter is doing, what he’s etching into his tender flesh; he can feel each curve and line burn into him, a little piece of his sanity scraping off with each stroke. To be branded like he’s some livestock for another’s use has him drowning in regrets and humiliation. Is this punishment? For not appreciating what he had? For recklessly putting himself under harm? “Stop, stop —”
“I will not.” Plotter leans down, kissing the incomplete handiwork inked into Kim Dokja’s stomach. “And you will take it. Obey.”
The deadly combination of words and pleasure robs Kim Dokja of choice. A cloud falls over him, dulling him to any other thoughts of escape or fear. The panic that wrapped itself around his throat loosens, fading, his mouth relaxing according to Plotter’s will and spilling shamelessness. Kim Dokja, however much he wants to fight it, can only give in.
Maybe as a reward, maybe as encouragement, Plotter rubs a knuckle into Kim Dokja’s clit, which almost has him arching off the stone. “You’re doing wonderful, darling, just a bit more.”
Too easily, Plotter breaks him into submission. It isn’t the gentle touches between his folds, fingers teasing his entrance and playing with his swollen desire, but the tender words of praise that he whispers into Kim Dokja’s skin, where he kisses after each stroke and stain his black fingertips leave behind. Kim Dokja sobs, unable to take such sweet words. It would have been better if Plotter was just simply cruel. Kim Dokja could have fought against violence, but he has no defense against such sweet, soft murmurs.
Has anyone else spoken to him like this? Even his companions, who he risks and loses life and limb for, have yet to talk to him in such light, returning his efforts with tearful expressions or disappointment.
“Gorgeous,” Plotter says, both his hands pausing. Kim Dokja can feel a shift of movement, and he weakly lifts his head to see Plotter climb onto the altar, on top of him, where he rests his cheek on an inner thigh. This close, his breath warms over Kim Dokja’s leaking cunt, when he asks, “Do you still want me to stop?”
Like magic — one of the penalties lifting, probably — strength returns to Kim Dokja’s body, but he’s too weak in heart and mind now. Rather than escaping, his mind is only filled with a miserable desire that has him teetering into insanity. He wants, he wants — no, he needs.
He needs. He needs. He needs.
Maybe he accidentally babbles it out, which is why Plotter wastes no time pressing a trail of kisses that leads from Kim Dokja’s inner thigh straight to his aching heat. When Plotter runs the flat of his hot tongue over him, Kim Dokja’s immediate instinct is to wrap his legs around Plotter’s shoulders and hold him in there. The god doesn’t seem to mind at all; he grabs the back of Kim Dokja’s thighs and pushes them forward, bending Kim Dokja in half as he angles to get better access.
“You’ve always been a wonder,” Plotter murmurs, in between the hot drags of his tongue. “But you’re more magnificent when you’re honest like this.”
Kim Dokja doesn’t have a reply to that, his heart stuttering at praise and his will turning into waste. When Plotter moans into him, the vibrations shake him in both body and heart. Never has he felt so wanted, so desired; for another to take him like this, to lap and drink from him with such vigor — it makes his head spin. How and why would anyone, let alone a god, want him in such a way? There’s no reason an ordinary, run-of-the-mill sack of bones could be this enticing, but the little hopeful glimmer in his heart wants to believe in the man’s honeyed words.
He can’t help but cry a bit as he clamps his legs around Plotter’s shoulders and hook his ankles along the man’s back, sobbing uselessly when Plotter pulls a two-hit combo of suckling on his clit and slipping his fingers into Kim Dokja’s eager hole. Distantly, there’s a tiny voice of concern for the sharp nails scraping his delicate insides, but when Plotter strokes against his walls, he nearly climaxes right there. Perks of the brand, maybe? The reason why his mind’s such a mess?
He doesn’t know.
He doesn’t care.
He just needs more.
He tries to grind against Plotter’s mouth, but the man’s hold on him limits his movement. Fuck dignity. He’ll beg if he has to. The fires blazing in the pit of his stomach have him in a veritable fever, maybe melting his brain or whatever, but he can’t go on like this.
“Please, please, please,” Kim Dokja chants, reaching his hands down and digging them into Plotter’s hair. Please, anything, everything.
Delirious as he is, Kim Dokja thinks he feels Plotter smile into his cunt the moment before the god’s mouth and fingers turn rough. All it takes is a few harsh sucks against his needy clit. Kim Dokja convulses, would almost ricochet off the altar if not for Plotter’s firm hand pinning him down by the stomach where he’s been freshly branded. Kim Dokja’s jaw falls open. If he screams, he doesn’t hear it thanks to the rush ringing in his ears. The white stars in his vision turn to black around the edges. He thinks he’s about to pass out, but something pulls at his consciousness, forcing him to stay awake; he blinks, through the copious tears welling up in his eyes and cascading down cheeks.
Plotter cups the side of his face, looking upon him with such affection that it almost hurts.
It hurts almost as much as the fire that’s still blazing in his loins. Even after all that, Kim Dokja needs more. It’s not enough. He’s still so agonizingly empty.
With trembling hands, Kim Dokja reaches up and grabs Plotter by the lapels of his coat. He chokes, unable to voice what he wants and put a name to this feeling. Temporary or not, he wants to be loved, in whatever cruel or gentle way Plotter can give to him.
“Oh, don’t worry, dearest.” Plotter lets himself be dragged down, low enough to kiss away at Kim Dokja’s soaked cheeks. He presses up to him, grinding low. “I’m far from done.”
Kim Dokja whines, high and desperate, when he feels a thick heat brush up against his hip. He doesn’t have to look to know what’s about to come; like instinct, he parts his legs, not even caring what kind of image he must be giving. He’s already all kinds of messed up. Wouldn’t it be cathartic to simply not care anymore? To drown?
Let him be broken, rearranged, and remade.
When Plotter rocks into him, going so slow as if he means it, as if he cares, Kim Dokja utterly crumbles. When Plotter takes his trembling hands, lacing their fingers together as if they’ve long held a connection, Kim Dokja lets himself fall into the delusion. When Plotter takes him and holds him and kisses him like a lover would, Kim Dokja silently sobs a name that shoves a heavy stake of guilt straight into his heart.
But Plotter only looks upon him, a content gaze that seems to hold all of Kim Dokja, like everything that he’s done so far hinges upon this very moment.
There’s an almost eerie essence to his sharp smile, a touch of mania in his otherwise pleased expression, as if he doesn’t care for the traitorous name hanging off Kim Dokja’s tongue. He looks a little expectant, even. Kim Dokja suspects something, his only clear thought thus far, and he fears that his guess may be right. It feels wrong, so damningly wrong, to think, to hope —
“Tell me, my dear reader,” Plotter says, his low voice coaxing Kim Dokja oh so sweetly, “Say it.”
“Yoo Joonghyuk.”
Plotter takes him like a victor takes his prize — completely, triumphantly.
Kim Dokja feels like he’s being devoured, Plotter burrowing in so deep and ingraining himself into each little cell, drowning him in whispers of sweet nothings and promises of everything. He can feel his eyes glaze over, succumbing to each gentle caress along his face, neck, chest, Plotter tormenting him with such an easy pace that his body trembles all over, unused to such tenderness.
“That’s right,” Plotter sings, a thrill in his breathy laugh, “You were mine first, just as I was yours. I was Yoo Joonghyuk before anyone else — I am the story you read and loved, the story that made you.”
He’s not wrong, not wrong at all. Kim Dokja survived because of him, for him; he’s only lived this long because of Plotter, because of Yoo Joonghyuk. If he owed his life to him, then wouldn’t it only make sense if,
“Therefore, your life belongs to me. Do you understand, sweet star?” Plotter presses a hand against Kim Dokja’s stomach, the brand burning underneath his palm, reminding him of the god’s claim.
Kim Dokja can only nod, his mouth incapable of anything other than a mindless string of wet gasps and Plotter’s name. He doesn’t think he’s ever felt so whole before. He knew it was an unhealthy obsession, to rely so much on a story, but it’s exhilarating to have that obsession returned in full; the story he’s lived for, accepting and wanting him just as much, filling in the smallest gaps like Plotter was made for him, for this purpose, sends him spiralling into a warm, dark pit he can’t fathom crawling out of.
And why would he even want to leave?
Wouldn’t this be perfect for a reader, to live in the never-ending story he fell in love with?
Plotter turns him in his hands, running reverent fingers over each bony jut of Kim Dokja’s spine, like Kim Dokja would the spine of a priceless, well-worn book, adorning him with such delicate kisses to his neck and shoulders. Kim Dokja feels like he’s being decorated, that even when Plotter takes his sharp claws and starts carving into the blank canvas of his back, it’s as if he’s being embraced in a love letter instead. He aches all the more for each bend and curve drawn into his skin, his vision swimming with Plotter’s written and spoken words, his body quivering under Plotter’s touch, his lungs filled with Plotter’s breath when he’s reached for his mouth, his entire body remade in Plotter’s honey-soaked adoration.
When Kim Dokja drifts in and out, Plotter lets him, encouraging him to fall and promising to catch him. So he falls, ensnared in the words that had held him captive since the first day he laid his eyes on them.
[Story ‘Hell of Eternity’ continues its storytelling.]