Moth

A/N: I have no excuse for taking so long to finish this. Thank you all for the wonderful things you've said in your AFF.net reviews and in your comments on Livejournal and Y!Gallery. Writing for this fandom has given me the practice and confidence I needed to start pursuing fiction as a profession. Since first putting gory pen to decaying paper, I've added a Creative Writing undergrad major, made plans to get a Master's degree in creative writing, and sold my first short story. I may not succeed. I probably won't. But I'm going to try.



Once again—thank you all for reading. Now let's get on with the show.

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James woke up.

There was softness under his body, a greater softness under his head.

Terror seized him again, claws squeezing, but as he struggled to sit up, the scent of mildew and faint rust flooded his nostrils. His eyes opened to a pocked, mold-stained ceiling and a flood of light from the bay windows along one wall. The feel of the mattress beneath him was familiar, as was the corner of the bland commercial painting he could glimpse on the wall: Lakeside Hotel. Room Three-One-Two.

He relaxed. This was real; this was Silent Hill. As bad as it was, it was not another dream. He propped himself up on his elbows and something occurred to him. How…did I get here?

A glance revealed the man in blue, quietly watching from a desk chair pulled to the side of his bed. Walter’s eerie eyes were locked with his own and James braced himself for another crush of panic, but none came. Maybe I’m just too tired, he thought. Finally exhausted from all the bullshit and insanity this place has thrown at me. His voice was as worn and threadbare as he felt when he asked, “What are you doing here?”

Hah. That’s a nice thought—I’ve used up all my fear.

“I brought you here,” Walter replied. He turned his palms upwards; the motion was fluid, as his motions always were. “Carried you. In my own two hands.”

A ripple of anger and weakness nearly closed James’ throat, forcing him to spit his words. “W…why? Why would…you…do that? What…am I…to you?”

Walter tilted his head. James wished he wouldn’t do that. The movement was far too slow, smooth, unperturbed, utterly expressionless, somehow infinite. It made it far too clear that the man before him was not even remotely human.

Then he did something that James liked even less. He rose up suddenly—the movement couldn’t be called standing—and planted his arms on either side of James’ body. His fear rushed back as a writhing erupted in his guts, crawling and squeezing through his chest, whipping itself up his throat and out through his mouth.

(you lost me thought you lost me how could you ever think so wrong)

No, no, God, what was this thing thrashing to escape from him—

(so good so so good at lying to yourself when I own you darling child)

“Only hate can make someone so patient.” Walter’s voice ran like a thick river under the mad, chittering howls in James’ mind as he bent closer. “My mother’s asleep, so deep in sin, and it’s from deepest sin that she must rise…” Their lips met and James could only witness, horrified, as a long black tongue shot from his own mouth, stretching his jaws until they ached, to caress Walter’s face, plunge between his lips, tighten around his neck, squeeze until his struggles left him limp and defenseless and ohyes—

—ohGod it was gone, too real to be real, and Walter was speaking again. “I know who you are. Do you want to know?”

But Walter’s lips were wet and a strange dullness was in his eyes—a newly fanned heat, a hunger in the way he stared down at him. James suddenly noticed that his own lips were also wet and tingling. That…ugh, that disgusting bastard! Anger swept away his lingering fear; his strength was seeping back at last, faster and faster. “What the hell are you talking about?”

“I know what you are. So do you. This is your kingdom and these are your creatures. You are Mother and Father and God…deep down, O murderer of Mary Shepherd, you know. Your guilt eats you alive even after you made yourself forget—”

“That’s enough!” He surged up, fury flowing from his abdomen like magma, and cracked Walter across the face with a vicious right hook. He stumbled back and James hurled himself after him, out the door and into the hall. Every hit crunched and resounded, every strike was exhilarating, so satisfying, and Walter’s eyes glittered so hot with pain that James’ body seemed to act by itself. He felt possessed, possessed by some yellow-hot, rust-red, salt-black malevolence, licking straight up and fevering his brain—James was on him, sinking his teeth into whatever flesh they could find, a hand, he was biting Walter’s filthy hand and Walter was…laughing?

 (evil slick licking heaving thrashing up inside like the urge to puke, red-hot angry so he could taste it boiling the salt in his mouth)

—no, no time to think, no time to care about why, just every injury and insult he’d endured in this hellhole boiled down into one simple solution. Grappling, hurting, snarling, James almost didn’t feel Walter pitch backwards until he was flying down the steep staircase after him—on top of him, riding a human toboggan down the world’s bumpiest hill, until they brought up hard against the wall of the landing with a horrible, wet, mealy crack.

It was several panting moments before James could open his eyes, even more frightened than he’d been. He could make excuses about adrenaline all he wanted, but that wasn’t him just then who’d attacked Walter. Wasn’t James who’d bitten him—wasn’t James who’d beaten him, mauled him like that! He was shaking so hard that it was several more moments before he realized just what had happened.

He was straddling Walter’s limp body, the slack arms still draped about his neck; James tracked unsteadily upwards to his face, close enough to kiss. Walter’s eyes were half-closed and dull. His mouth hung open and his head lolled at an unnatural angle.

James suddenly realized just what that noise had been: the sound of Walter’s neck breaking as his head hit the wall.

Bile threatened in James’ throat. Some distant voice suggested that it might be a good idea to move, move now, but before he could summon the strength to heave himself off…Walter stirred.

James froze. No. No way. This can’t happen.

But the corpse writhed, it arched up underneath him, breath sucking back into its lungs, squirming and trembling with the advent of unnatural life. Its neck straightened with a crunch almost worse than the noise of its killing snap. Walter’s fingers were digging into the tendons on the back of James’ neck, like he was trying to break it or strangle him or rip his way through to the naked spine.

And James would have obliged him all three. That force, that obscene tongue he’d felt before (so many times before, he suddenly realized, since even before the nurse) was rising back. It was struggling inside him, so forcefully that if he were less stubborn about his sanity he’d have to admit he could feel it pushing his eyes out, swelling his blood vessels, like rough slimy fingers bulging out his skin from the inside. He could hear something like the ghost of a voice—no, the fetus of a voice, a voice not yet emerged into this world but so close, so close—urging him on, whispering things that made him flush hot and break out in a sweat so cold it burned, purring to him that ecstasy was only inches away. He tried to pull back, but it had enlisted the cramping walls to its aid and together they were squeezing the breath out of him, squeezing the evil out of him like gristly pulp until it spurted out like marrow out of cracking bones like no no yes oh God please so the world could see it, so everyone who ever saw him would know the awful buried thing it was forcing up into the air on its putrefying tide.

And somehow this man, warm, panting, squirming under him, between his legs, eyes fluttering, mouth slack, back arched, pressing up like begging was part of the cramp and the crush and the shame. The impulse was like a solid thing, a muscle, a body, heaving and forcing up so hard its heat flickered like aurora borealis over every inch of James’ pale, sweating skin. He felt so hot, so fled, so insane to just seize this squirming mewing thing and force his way in like a heavy-jawed beast. The inner voice was screaming now, screaming to murder and fuck and annihilate and fall into a Hell where the rabid pleasure would never end.

He couldn’t resist—he crushed Walter’s mouth to his own like he was starving. But there was, somehow, a shred of humanity (or was it pride?) left at the bottom of his mind, and James clung to it. Walter’s eyes were fluttering open and James wanted so much more, but no, he’d never ever let himself take it, he wouldn’t! This was all he’d let himself have; he sucked the faint salt traces from the other’s lips, muscles cramping with tension, waiting for Walter to punch him in the gut or the side of the head or throw him off or just kill him right there with his bare hands like he knew he could do. His eyes closed hopelessly…anything. He’d accept anything.

Christ, as long as it stops, everything stops…

But the kiss lasted. The murderer faltered, then responded in kind. Then even fiercer, as if he were starving, too. More than starving—hungry in a way that reached into death and then past it, struggling up to James’ mouth like his ultimate purpose was being fulfilled. James couldn’t stop a mewl, awful though this was; it just felt so good to be kissing someone again. After so long, the feel of another human being’s skin and breath and body heat swept over him in a warm, opiate haze.

He swallowed Walter’s startled cry as his thumbs brushed over the odd waxy gash in his neck. This was not Mary—he felt phantom teeth close over his head again and shuddered, no, not Mary, thank God this wasn’t Mary—wasn’t Mary—not even a woman, maybe not even human or alive, but he was warm and not a monster and made little noises high in his throat that were more than enough.

As if in condemnation, the sirens lurched into their slow wail. But James did not stumble up to run. He squeezed his eyes shut even tighter, so he would not have to see the frustrated disease around him climbing the walls, peeling away everything that was human. If he could just shut his eyes a little more, shut his ears and nose and everything but his skin, he could make himself forget. He could make himself forget who was under him. Maybe he could even make himself forget where he was.

(It’s not like you haven’t done it before, James.)

The red-yellow-black evil lurched up inside him again, stronger than ever. It rose from the sea of his body like a rabid god. He fought it. He lost.

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James’ eyes opened again. Pleasure was spiking in sweet waves from his groin to the base of his skull. Walter’s murderously strong fingers were again digging painfully into his neck; the man himself was pressed even closer than before, clinging to him with his entire body, rough face buried in the junction of his neck and shoulder. His own arms were clasped around Walter’s knotted back. A low, raw moaning pulsed and sobbed in his ears. With a start that woke him from his blissful daze, he realized that his hips were rolling. No, more than rolling. Thrusting. Hard.

Yet there was no friction; something slippery let them slide together and back and together again. And there was a heavy scent in the air. Heavy as the fog. A rusted, salty reek that could only be—

His stomach wrenched. James squeezed his eyes shut; he didn’t want to see what he could now feel was coating both their crotches up to the navel, soaking the shredded fabric brushing his thighs with every stroke, oozing from Walter’s—oh, God, he was horrible, he was worse than the Red Pyramid violating those mannequins, a disgusting thing too depraved to be human…

Walter choked and shuddered against him. The inner muscles dragging blissfully around his length gripped hard and James’ eyes rolled back.

And that was the worst part.

It just felt so god damned good.

Walter shuddered again, voice low and sinuous and rough. “Oh…” James cracked an eye and almost swallowed his tongue. The murderer was staring straight back at him, green eyes half-closed, grinning, raging, laughing, boring through his to the back of his skull. Burning.

“Oohhh, yes…” Walter breathed. His was the gaze of a snake into the eyes of a sparrow, and James was transfixed. His bones felt so fragile, so hollow—his eyes began to water almost immediately, but James didn’t dare blink. If he broke that stare, he knew, it would break him. Even though Walter was being so horrifically violated, James was the one who felt like prey. “All the right sins—ngh!—in all the right places…”

(Reality stuttered and the overheated body he’d buried himself in was cold, so cold, it was slimy it was Mary and no God no God no he was fucking a corpse—)

Walter’s eyes fluttered almost closed. He bared his teeth in a strange rictus somewhere between a smile and a snarl. “Oohhh, yes, sink into your sin. Filthy murderer! You—demon—oh, M-Mother!” He spat each curse with such a lustful, wanton throb that the hair rose on the nape of James’ neck. He suddenly realized that it had been Walter making that noise, that agonized moaning—and it was all pleasure, pleasure like tearing a body apart, like howling, like murder, like being devoured, like burning in Hell.

His weakness swallowed him up. James gripped Walter hard and thrust harder until the air coagulated with both their cries. Yet nausea twisted his stomach until he thought it would rip, until self-loathing turned it to ash. He deserved whatever punishment he got. He deserved to be flayed to the bone by the acid of patient demons, his head stove in by nurses’ steel pipes, his torso crushed between the legs of the mannequins—he shivered at the thought—ripped limb-from-limb—his thrusts sped up—his personal tormentor’s tongue squeezing and cracking his neck, that Great Knife driven through his belly so that he struggled like a pinned fly and bled down the filthy walls of his Hell and screamed his life out—

James must have screamed out loud, because a metal-edged rumble like falling rocks answered from behind him. He knew without looking that it was his tormentor, his Judgment, his Pyramid Head, but it was so good and he was so close and there was no way he could stop now. He whimpered, begging: Please, let me come, oh God, kill me but let me come…

But there was no creak as the floorboards gave under the beast’s weight, no squeal or scrape of the Great Knife on rotting wood, even though James could fucking feel it standing in the doorway not even ten feet away. It was just…watching. The tight, icy wrench of fear, far from dousing the white-hot lust burning in his gut, made it all the more urgent and unbearable.

And Walter was still moaning, like a dog struck by a car, pleading to God for the sweet end of its misery. In his distraction, however, James had not noticed how his moans had been climbing in pitch, into indeterminate yelps of agony or ecstasy or rage; they all seemed the same to this man. Walter arched like an aimed bow beneath him and James remembered with horrible clarity how he’d done that before. “Hahh, yes…James…oh, Mother—!” Sharp, meaningless pain, warmth sliding thin down his nape, splattering thick on his belly, and oh god yes the Devil’s grip grown so tight James couldn’t help but let it drag him down to Hell. He let out a harsh, mutilated cry of desperate pleasure, every muscle shivering with the force of it until all at once they gave out and slumped him forward onto a wonderfully warm, pliant body.

Getupgetupgetupgetup… Now that heavy tread was closing the distance, but his trembling limbs wouldn’t obey. Walter’s head was tossed back, as if his neck were broken again. He didn’t move as James sat up shakily and turned, on hands and knees, to face his punishment. Whether he wanted to or not, he cowered.

James. There was no sound. That one word was, instead, a thought that split his skull and sucked the little remaining strength from his limbs like marrow. James gasped and his arms buckled. His head fell, presenting the blood-streaked back of his neck to the monster. Submitting.

When no killing blow came, James gritted his teeth and half-spat, half-pleaded, “Go on, do it. Why’re you just standing there? Kill me!”

A laugh bubbled out, as if through congealing blood, into the rotted air and blossoming out from the center of James’ head until it felt like his brains were being forced out through his ears. James retched, resisted, and brought up a thin, acidic bile onto the decaying wood floor. He looked up, panting, to find the monster’s cruel metal face pointing down at him.

I’m not the one who shall carry out your punishment. The laughter came again, louder, and his sudden, deranged compulsion to ask what was so funny was derailed by the feel of blood running from his ears. The pain was so hellish he barely noticed the steel butcher’s knife stabbing into his back.

The first inches shocked all at once through his muscle with a snarl that, he realized stupidly, belonged to the man behind him. Walter had to force it in irregular jerks after that, his voice sliding between singsong snarls and cackling laughter, scraping his ribs as the knife widened towards the base—and James sure as hell felt it then. It twisted rabid and vicious until he couldn’t rise at all, only lie with his face pressed into the rotting floorboards and feel his lungs fill. Lie there bleeding from his nose and mouth and eyes and ears as he felt Walter’s hot breath huff over his skin, his lips pressing almost tenderly to the nape of his neck, kissing and murmuring and licking the tacky blood his sharp nails had drawn there moments ago. His body curved warm over James’ suddenly cold back and his knife kept thrusting in, vicious, in an ever deeper parody of their just-ended embrace.

Perhaps the worst thing, James thought, was that he couldn’t turn around.

Thank you for creating us, James. Thank you. So. Very. Much.

Yellow-hot screaming agony ate his sight to black. The last thing he saw was rust and cruelty and the flash of a face that made his brain turn inside out with warped familiarity. The last thing he felt was cold, slippery fingers, blunted by the pain, emerging from within his flooding wound. Pulling it wider. Making way. The being inside him, the dark self, the alien body. Coming through.

The last thing he heard was a laugh, and for the life of him, James couldn’t figure out whose it was.

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