Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Evening fell upon the castle. In the Dark World there isn’t really an ‘evening,’ but a lot of Darkners choose to sleep around this time every cycle, so it’s the closest thing to an evening one can get. As with all the new guards, you were tasked with the easiest position available: first floor sleep shift. As most of the other guardsmen and residents sleep, you fight dreariness while keeping an eye on the lowest grounds of the castle. Red, radiant trees bloom and sway in the distance, past the palace gate, but there is little else to watch.

Word reached the castle a cycle or two ago that the Lightners had left Castle Town and were early in their journey towards your new home. The King of Spades had authorized Darkners outside the Card Caste to join the guardsmen in an attempt to secure the castle, but it didn’t mean you were treated any better. Hathies, normally sweet and flirtatious, avoided you and new hires outright. Rudinns banded together and arranged for non-Card Darkners – like you – to be on sleep shift so they wouldn’t have to. Your chances to snooze, on the other hand, have been few and far between, making you a little grumpy but otherwise happy to have a place in the bigger picture. In your short time here, you have never even caught a glimpse of the King, his son, or his Duke. You were simply told your position, what to do if you see suspicious activity, and to never take the elevator without authorization.

Unsurprisingly, most shifts pass slowly. Because day and night blend in the Dark World, your replacements often sleep long past when their own shifts should start, forcing you to keep awake even longer. You can tell they’re doing it again, as your legs are beginning to neglect their job of holding you up. Simultaneously restless and exhausted, you are currently fighting your body to stay awake and failing miserably. You must, must do something before you go unconscious. Your muscles are stiff, your bones are achy, and your head is foggy, nearing total exhaustion. You turn suddenly and head for the castle doors with the intent of using the bathroom to wake yourself up. Your fellow guardsmen protest, as normally bathroom breaks must wait until the Rudinns awake since the bathroom is on the second floor and you only have first floor clearance. Tired, angry, and altogether apathetic, you continue walking without a word to the others.

The halls are quiet and empty. You hear faint shuffling downstairs in the prison area from the other Kings, but otherwise, there is no one else awake in the building. Dragging yourself as silently as you can, you reach the elevator, taking a laborious step inside. You realize this is one of the only times you have been in here by yourself, as normally a Rudinn accompanies you to other floors when necessary. The elevator neither creaks nor responds to your entry as the door slips shut without hesitation. Staring at the buttons on the door, you realize for the first time that there are a lot more floors than you thought. While you mostly stick to Floor 1F, the castle rises all the way to 5F, and down several floors into the basement and prison area. Thinking back to your first day, the guardsmen never mentioned anything beyond the prison – where you were never allowed to go – and ‘a floor with a bathroom,’ where you were also never allowed to go unless escorted. The castle is obviously much bigger than that, but from the outside, it’s almost impossible to tell how many floors or rooms make up the building.

Still staring absently at the button panel, you imagine if you were more awake, you would feel a little irritated by how much you weren’t told when you started this position. In fact, you are irritated how much you don’t know. You were willing to take the worst shift and risk your own safety to help protect the castle and yet you were still lied to and demeaned for not being Card Caste. You can’t even use the bathroom during your shift, the longest of all the shifts!

Clenching your jaw in frustration, you lose yourself in the moment, and thump your fists into the button panel, dragging them down and activating every floor at once. Thankfully, with the doors shut, it is unlikely anyone heard your little tantrum, and you yank yourself out of your stupor long enough to realize what you’d done. You have no idea how the elevator will react and the doors are tightly shut in front and behind you. Your fellow guardsmen will certainly hold their posts until relieved, fearful of the repercussions of entering the castle during their shift. You are alone. The buttons light up in unison, shining on your face, taunting you.

Before you have a chance to think of an escape, the elevator begins moving. Startled and expecting the elevator to jerk in confusion, you hold onto the railing, but find the ride to be as smooth as ever. You can tell you are heading down towards the prison cells, where other guardsmen and the imprisoned Kings are, a floor you certainly cannot be found on lest you end up in a cell yourself. Panic sets in. Every excuse runs through your mind: “I’m definitely sleepwalking,” “I thought I saw one of the Lightners,” “I am extremely lost and also very stupid,” with the last excuse sounding the most believable. Holding your hands to your face, you wait for the elevator door to open.

The doors part, followed by a “Ding!” Your hands shaking hard against your face, you finally find the courage to peak through, fully expecting your gaze to be met with a pair of iron shackles hung in front of you. You peek through parted fingers. Your eyes blurry, you squint, trying to focus on what must be a prison cell, a handful of guardsmen, a spade-shaped doorway, or anything at all. There is nothing on the outside of the elevator in your immediate vicinity, only an endless abyss of black. You step forward, still shaking, and look down at the seemingly never-ending staircase below you, leading to what looks like a door. Still sleepy, your eyes have trouble reading the room, but your mind is wide awake in a flurry of anxiety and now befuddlement. This is clearly not a regular prison floor and there are no guards – or any fixtures, doors, or walls – save for an endless staircase of what appear to be alternating purple shades on each step.

By now, you know you’re dreaming. There is no way a room like this could exist, and even if it did, there is no way you found it. You must be asleep at your post, surrounded by angry sentries, all desperately trying to wake you before your entire shift gets punished for your idiocy. With nothing to lose – since this is definitely a dream – you reach into the nearly empty room and wave a hand around. It feels exactly like Floor 1F. There is no barrier or temperature change. Even if you are awake, and you are definitely not, you know this must mean this room is a trick of some kind. Perhaps the Duke finally accomplished a puzzle that takes more than two steps. Perhaps this is an unfinished room, or you will follow the stairs to find all the castle’s garbage resides on this floor. Perhaps the lights are off?

Seeing your hand inside the room and not covered in flames, you figure the rest of your body will be safe, too. No matter what this floor is, you’ve come all the way down to it, and no one’s called the elevator back up yet to give you a beating. You’re alone, but free to investigate, as far as you know.

A single step forward releases you from the familiarity of the elevator and into the abyss in front of you. While the staircase is plenty wide enough for you, your curiosity gets the best of you, and you decide to reach out into the blackness on the right side of the stairs. It is completely empty. There is no inexplicably dark wallpaper for your hand to touch. There is no light switch. This floor is just as it seems – a long staircase leading down, with nothing else around.

You sigh, knowing you will end up marching towards the door only to find a simple, stupid answer to the anomaly surrounding you. Your frustration has circled back around on yourself, realizing how foolish it was to go against regulation, venture alone, and end up – completely by your own hand – in the most boring room in the entire castle. If you had accidentally ended up standing in front of, say, the King’s bedroom, you would most certainly be a lot more dead, but it would have been more interesting than this. Satisfied that the door will open to the laundry room, you march down the stairs confidently, thinking of all the better ways you could have been killed for wandering the castle by yourself.

You reach the door much faster than anticipated. From the top, the staircase seems so far away, but you realize it is because the stairs constantly shift between hues of purple, making it so your eyes can’t tell how many there are. At least you’re not out of breath before you see the King’s collection of extra-large pantaloons. You reach for the handle of the door before you notice there is no handle. In fact, feeling around the door frame, there is no room behind the door. The door is simply a few bars, similar to a prison cell, with absolutely nothing behind it for as far as your eyes can see. The staircase you followed down to it ends directly at the foot of the door. Somehow, it’s much worse for the door to lack a handle than it is for the door to be floating and not connected to a room at all. If you could open the damn thing, you would at least know if this dream had a good ending or not.

With no handle, the first idea to come to mind is to lean towards the bars and try to see or hear something. Anything. You imagine the prison cells on the other floors must look just like this, except with a bit more physical material surrounding them. As soon as you touch the handles, you hear several flames igniting behind you. You turn swiftly, fearful you didn’t hear the elevator and your higher-ups are finally here to kick your ass, but all you see are 14 candles with bright blue flames that have appeared on either side of the staircase, connected to what would normally be a wall but is apparently absolutely nothing in this room. 14 floating blue-flamed candles just appeared out of nowhere behind you as soon as you touched the bars, indicating to you that your dream may be of astrological importance. Your horoscope was right, you did have a chaotic week ahead of you, you just wish it was in your real life and not your stupid, anxiety-ridden dream life.

You note the color and number of the candles so you can look up the significance of their appearance in your dream after you wake up. You’re pretty sure your Astrology & You! book will have this exact dream description and its importance will be that you’re a dumbass. While counting, you rest your hands on the bars of the door absentmindedly, that is, until the loudest voice you’ve ever heard echoes from what can only be behind the bars.

“AH! AH HA HA! A VISITOR, I SEE! A VISITOR FOR LITTLE OL’ ME! SO MANY THERE IN YOUR LITTLE CELL AND YET SO FEW VISITORS. WHAT BRINGS YOU? DO YOU SEEK A PEEK OF WHAT IT MEANS TO BE TRULY FREE?”

Alarmed, you swing your head back to the door in front of you, desperate to see something past the bars. Listening intently to the disembodied voice, you search for a source, but your eyes are met with an unmoving wall of darkness. Despite having seen so little of the castle or its inhabitants, you know this is not someone you should have ever met or even know about. Realizing the gravity of your mistakes – and the fact that such a booming voice would have woken you if you were asleep – you release your grip on the bars and take a step back. Before you can think of a response, the voice shouts again, this time more desperate than the last.

“WAIT, WAIT!!! I SAY, IT IS SO LONELY, LONELY, HERE IN MY INFINITE FREEDOM. WOULDN’T YOU LIKE A TASTE? YOU LOOK LIKE YOU COULD USE A LITTLE FUN, FUN!!”

Still lost as to where you are or who you’re talking to, you cock your head to the side, wondering what in the world the voice could be getting at. It’s perfectly obvious he’s imprisoned, but with no one way of knowing who he is without being in trouble, you know you’re at his mercy for information. Seeing your expression, the voice moves closer to the bars, but still stays shrouded by whatever is making the room impenetrably dark.

“UEE HEE HEE! DON’T WORRY, VISITOR. A TRIO SHALL ARRIVE SOON AND FREE YOU OF YOUR CELL, AND WHEN THEY DO, I WILL BE WAITING HERE, ALL FOR YOU. WE WILL PLAY A WONDERFUL GAME, YOU AND I! IF ONLY YOU HAVE THE PATIENCE TO WAIT FOR SUCH A DELICIOUS TREAT…!”

A trio? A trio! The Lightners have to be who he means, but how he knows who they are, what they’re doing, or when they’ll be here is anyone’s guess. You estimate you’re the first visitor he’s had in a very long time, based on the terror in his voice when you stepped away. The darkness must shroud both of you from one another so that when you’re away from the bars, he cannot see a thing.

The thought of being alone in the darkness like this for what must seem like an eternity pulls at your heartstrings. Though you cannot see him, you feel sorry for him, imagining the immense loneliness. Sure, he’s imprisoned for a reason, and it must be a damn good reason for them to build an abyss just to cage him, but he’s still very much alive in there. You figure his concept of ‘freedom’ was his mind’s way of coping with being in a prison cell like this for so long, but you worry at what game or treat he could be talking about. If the Lightners do release him, you’re not sure if you want to come back and find out.

Realizing this may be the only time you have to talk to him, you sit down at the edge of the stairs, close to the bars so he can see you or at least hear you better. At this point, you are wide awake and no longer fear the repercussions of stumbling onto this mystery. He clearly needs someone to talk to, and like you assumed earlier: if anyone wanted to track you down to punish you, they’d be here by now.

“OH, WHAT LUCK! A VISITOR WITH MANNERS! UEE HEE HEE!! TELL ME, OH MASTER OF ETIQUETTE, HOW DID YOU HAPPEN UPON MY SLICE OF HEAVEN??”

You spend the next hour or two telling the voice all the details of your life. You start with your job, since that’s what got you down here in the first place, but the voice is eager to hear every detail of your being. You talk of your home life, your childhood, your fears and mistakes. Part of you assumes the voice probably wouldn’t care about all this if he had anything better to do, but another part of you feels like he’s been craving any attention for so long that he really is as eager as he seems. He interrupts a fair amount, mostly with laughter or with a loud, sing-song “HMM!” or “BOO HOO HOO.” It’s impossible to tell how serious he is, especially without a face or body, but you’re more than willing to take the opportunity to anonymously dump all your baggage onto a captive audience. He doesn’t mind enough to tell you to stop, and so you keep talking, long past what you imagine would be your shift end.

After speaking for what must have felt like another eternity to your newfound companion, you slow down, realizing you haven’t asked him anything about who he is or why he’s here. You feel slightly embarrassed, but he’s had more than enough alone time, and probably welcomed the chance to think about someone else for a change. You end your monologue by asking him who he is.

“SO YOU WANT TO KNOW ABOUT ME, ME? WHEN IT IS YOU WHO IS TRAPPED IN A CAGE, YOU WHO ARE SO FULL OF RED-HOT RAGE, JUST BEGGING TO BE SET FREE? YOU STILL WANT TO KNOW ABOUT LITTLE OL’ ME??”

Surprised at the voice’s assertion that you’re full of ‘red-hot rage,’ you frown a little and wonder what you said that made him think this about you in such a short time. Yes, you’re still annoyed about finding a secret room with a mystery prisoner and yes, you feel like a kindergartner having to have permission to use the bathroom, but red-hot rage seems extreme. The voice seems giddy at your furrowed brow, probably because you just proved his theory to him.

“UEE HEE HEE!! RIGHT AGAIN, I SEE I AM! OH, VISITOR, YOU WILL BE SUCH A GRAND TOY WHEN THE TIME COMES. WE WILL PLAY THE WAITING GAME FOR NOW, BUT SOON, SOON, YOU WILL COME BACK TO ME, AND I WILL GIVE YOU WHAT YOU NEED, NEED…!”

You feel slightly as though you’re being mocked until the voice ends his response with a sweeter tone than usual. You feel a warmth brush over your face as you turn from the bars to mask your blushing. Realizing he completely dodged your question, you turn back, demanding he tell you who he is. Silence. For the first time in several hours, the voice doesn’t echo back immediately. Gripping them, you shake the bars a bit, feeling silly and a little pathetic that a simple change of tone made you forget your train of thought. You look behind you, the blue glow of the 14 candles having disappeared along with the voice.

Frustrated once more, you stand to your feet and make your way up the staircase and back to the elevator. Your shift is undoubtedly over by now, and you have no idea how you’ll explain being away for so long (or at all) to the Rudinns. The only certainty is that you’ll be back here if the Lightners ever come.

Two cycles passed. The Lightners arrived during the day, meaning you were fast asleep when they stormed the castle. You weren’t exactly sure what they looked like, as the only way you heard any stories was through eavesdropping on the Hathies and Rudinns who saw them. The only certain characteristics were that there was a blue one, a green one, and a purple one, and their names were something like Khips, Ramsey, and Slushie. Or Kripes, Rascal, and Sally. Sophia? You really need to get your hearing checked.

The King had been overthrown and replaced. While you were pretty good at pretending to have undying loyalty to the previous King, it was a welcome change of pace. The need for so many guardsmen dropped dramatically, and you suddenly found yourself free to roam the castle as you’d like. Prison cells were now reserved for the former kings only, making the castle nearly barren without prisoners or guards lurking in every corridor. Lancer was a sweet King and held a feast after overthrowing his father – a celebration you saw as the perfect time to sneak away to your mystery friend now that the trio had come and gone, and you were free to take the elevator.

Sliding into the unoccupied lift, you looked to the panel as the doors shut. With a sigh, you placed your arm across the top of the panel, then gently lowered it until all the buttons were pressed once again. The elevator stalled a moment, then began lowering, just as it had a day or so before. You looked to the ceiling and closed your eyes, trying to clear your head. You finally got some sleep after the lock down ended and now, with your mind able to focus, you realized you weren’t exactly sure what you were heading towards. The most you knew about the voice was that he was a good listener or at least good at pretending to listen. He knew all he wanted to about you, but you didn’t even know his name.

You never mentioned to anyone what you had found or where you had actually been. Your punishment had been to cover one of the next shift’s spots, but because none of the Rudinns wanted to work with you, you stood alone at the front gate for an entire day without any sleep. You ate a lot of candy and wished you were dead for most of it.

The elevator came to its stop, deep underground the castle. With the doors open, you peered out into the nothingness, which looked exactly the same as it had before except the candles were already lit. All 14 glared back at you as you remembered thinking this place was just a dream the first time you’d come. The section in Astrology & You! on candles was about 30 pages long, but there was only an entry for 15 blue-flamed candles, not 14. You were sure at that moment that the room hadn’t been a dream. Besides that, you hadn’t done much other than recover all your lost sleep since you were here last. Between napping and eating to your heart’s content, you hadn’t reflected on your visit much, but when you did catch a passing thought, it was of the voice you’d spoken to. He was unlike anyone you’d ever talked to – from your job, from your home, from your family – no one spoke like him. His voice echoed not just because of his chamber but because he was otherworldly in some way. You did a lot of the talking when you were here before, but his booming voice stayed with you.

With the candles lighting your way, you descended towards the door. Snapping back from your trip down memory lane, you focused yourself, realizing there was another, smaller door inside of the barred door frame. The smaller door had a handle. The trio had been here, just like he said.

You reach for the handle, slowly moving towards it, but you pull back before making contact. You’re really not sure how to feel about what you’re doing. You don’t know this guy or why he’s in here. Are you really going to be best friends with some whacko who thinks everyone but him is in a cage? Just because he listened to you and promised you some crazy little game if you came back to him…?

You push down the handle, open the door. and walk inside.

What you see inside is not what you expected because you couldn’t have possibly had a guess for what would be inside. The entire room consists of an extremely slow-moving carousel of sorts with a large-brimmed top and bottom with two rounded spikes poking out, one from the top and one from the bottom. Like the stairs, the carousel is purple in color and alternates between different shades. Surrounding the carousel is an infinite expansion of purple-colored ectoplasm pulsating and swirling around the fixture like a horrible washing machine of melted crayons. The carousel seems to have been moving normally before, but it creaks as it slowly loses momentum. You have no earthly clue what material it could be made of, but you’re standing on it, and it’s the only solid object in the room, so it must be real. Hopefully.

As you look around at the bizarre sight before you, trying desperately to understand what it is this room is made of, the carousel comes to a complete stop. The door you entered through closes. You step back a bit in fright, reaching your hand into the ectoplasm churning about the carousel. Your hand glides through easily, causing you to suddenly lose your footing and fall back into the gritty liquid. Your entire arm is engulfed by the ecto-encasing before you feel a rough, rod-like handle catch you by the small of your back, pushing you forward, away from the vortex, and back onto your feet.

“RING-AROUND TOO TOPSY-TURVY FOR YOU, PLAYTHING?? KNEW IT, SAW IT! SAW YOUR EYES BIND WITH THE MAGNIFICENT TURN OF THE WORLD, WORLD! FREEDOM TOO MUCH FOR YOU?”

Following the appendage that brought you back to your feet, you see that it is the tail of a much smaller Darkner, standing directly below you. Clad in full jester garb, the Darkner is nearly half your size, with light blue skin, a perfectly round waist fitted with a purple chiffon button-up and a black cloak laying across his shoulders. He has on a huge jester hat, one half black and one half purple, with the ends attached to yellow bells. His pants are black and flared out on each of the thighs, with large, light green shoes covering his feet. A billowy green and yellow neck piece pops out from under his chin. He is looking directly up at you into your eyes with his pitch-black cross-shaped sockets and bright yellow pupils. He is beaming with the biggest smile you’ve ever seen in your life, his jaws filled with gigantic, bright yellow fangs. Just like his voice, you have never seen another Darkner like him. You knew the Court had a Jester at one point, but you would have never guessed he was locked away, or even what for.

“BETTER THAN YOU EXPECTED, I HOPE? HA HA.”

He clasps his gloved hands together and squints his eyes shut in glee, laughing at your examination of him. He can tell he’s not what you expected, and for some reason, it clearly makes him giddy. As he joins his hands, his tail swings behind him excitedly, making a loud hiss through the air. You laugh nervously, still not sure what to think of this arrangement. You came back because you needed to find out who – or what – was behind the door and now that you’re faced with him, he’s a lot less intimidating than you imagined. He is endlessly excitable, and nearly every time he speaks, his laughter fills the room. There is something charming, even cute, about him, despite his omnipresence in the room.

“YOUR ARM, ARM! SEEMS FREEDOM WANTED A TASTE OF YOU, TOO! HOW FUN!!”

You have been holding your arm a distance away from you as the purple liquid dripped down and off it, hitting the floor and melding in with the carousel. The entire room feels unreal, like it’s made of magic. There is a pleasant, almost fruity smell, not overbearing but certainly noticeable. The purple Darkner reaches up to where the liquid begins on your arm and forms a circle around it with the index and middle fingers of both of his hands through his gloves, pulling them down in a swift fashion, evaporating the plasm in a flash. You thank him and give him a smile, though you know your anxiety is still showing through, considering you may be in an alternate pocket dimension made entirely of magical purple goop.

That, and he just touched you.

“SO, SO?! WHAT DO YOU THINK OF FREEDOM, MY SUDDENLY EVER SO SPEECHLESS VISITOR? DOESN’T IT SMELL ODDLY LIKE GRAPES? UEE HEE HEE!! THEY THOUGHT THEY TRAPPED ME, BUT IT WAS THEY WHO WERE IMPRISONED, FAR AWAY FROM MARVELOUS FREEDOM!”

He motions to the sadly small room, laughing as he extends his arm out towards the door. It becomes clear in this moment that he is either very insane or very tormented and that there is absolutely no way for you to tell. You’re not sure who you’d even ask about him to figure out why he ended up this way. His joy seems so genuine, but you find him even harder to read now that you can see him. Regardless, you feel a tinge of relief that he seems to be happy to have you here, even if you’re a little confused and not all that talkative. You figure if he’s comfortable enough to have you in here, you can try to ask his name again. If he dodges it again, you’ll just give up on it and move on, figuring he’s not ready yet.

“YOU STILL WANT TO KNOW? NEVER BEFORE HAS ANYONE ASKED, ASKED. I HAVEN’T HEARD MY NAME IN DECADES, VISITOR, NOT SINCE I WAS PUT IN HERE.”

He frowns.

“AH, YES, YES! I HAVE AN IDEA! I WILL TELL YOU MY NAME, NAME, IF WE PLAY A GAME, GAME!! UEE HEE HEE!”

His frown shifts into a grin so wide it takes up most of his face. He begins jumping up and down rapidly, clasping his gloved hands together and resting them under his chin as he cocks his head to the side and squints his eyes closed again. His tail jerks back and forth violently, and you think to yourself how glad you are you’re not behind him and there isn’t anything in here he could break. His hat’s bells ring with each hop and the carousel groans from his jumping, but you figure it only makes the noises he wants it to.

You smile reflexively, taking in how sincerely cute he is in all his unabashed enthusiasm. His voice is a little deafening now that you’re standing directly in front of him, as it seems his voice is one with the room he is in – it emanates all around you, almost like a blanket, if a blanket could be made of screaming. You let him bounce for a moment before asking him what game he’d like to play.

“WONDERFUL, WONDERFUL! A WILLING PARTICIPATE! GIVE IT UP, LADIES N’ GENTS!!”

He poses for an audience that isn’t there, and an audience that isn’t there cheers for him. You are immediately frightened upon hearing a thousand ear-piercing fans screech from nowhere, but with everything else that’s happened, you know you shouldn’t have been surprised. It seems that this entire floor, and especially his room in particular, do not follow normal laws of…anything. He seems able to conjure sounds, objects, and even himself at will, seeing as he appeared from nowhere to save you from a purple-colored, grape-scented untimely death. A breeze emanating from nothingness blows his cloak gently. You calm a bit and smile, posing alongside him for the nonexistent audience. They scream even louder. He looks positively delighted that you’ve joined in.

“I’M SO GLAD YOU ASKED, MY DARING AND DASHING VISITOR, VISITOR! IT’S A GAME YOU’VE ALL HEARD OF BEFORE! IT’S A GAME OF…CHICKEN!!”

While the audience shrieks in unison again, your smile fades and turns into a look of worry. Chicken. That can’t be good. You’re completely at his mercy, and the only way out is a doorway he could probably make disappear. Your only help would be the party upstairs, and that’s if the celebration is still going on. It’s hard to keep track of time in Dark World, let alone so deep underground like this. You decide to keep going along with it since he has never once approached you with ill intent as far as you know. He’s a little grabby and a little unpredictable, but he doesn’t seem violent. Against you, anyway.

“UEE HEE HEE! IT’S PRETTY SIMPLE, SIMPLE! ALL YOU HAVE TO DO…”

He leans towards the audience even though he’s talking to you.

“IS…!”

Your eyebrows have nearly jumped off your forehead in anticipation.

“…OUTLAST ME!”

Great. That could mean anything. He’s intentionally vague when he wants to be, and this is one of those times. The audience loves it, but he seems to realize the fake audience gag is getting old, and lets their cheers fade away. He turns to you, looks up, and repeatedly lifts himself up and down on the tip of his toes impatiently. He has the same smile on his face, but he looks a lot more…hungry? What would he even eat down here, anyway? You’ve never once heard of another guard coming down to feed him, or seen anyone on your two trips here.

Before you can ask what you’re supposed to do, he motions for you to come down to his level by wiggling his gloved fingers towards him. You have to get on your knees to come face to face with him, but you keep a foot or two of distance between you. You’re still not sure what his end goal is or if you’re going to bolt out the door very soon.

“THIS WILL BE SUCH FUN, FUN! FIRST, CLO-O-OSE YOUR EYES…!”

You’re starting to guess where this is going. Your face becomes warmer. He closes his eyes, causing them to look even more like crosses, with the slit that normally houses his pupil perpendicular with the lines over his eyes. You can tell he’s having trouble keeping them closed even in the span of a few seconds. You reluctantly close yours, still ready to leave at the first sign of danger.

“THEN ON THE COUNT OF THREE, THREE…WHOEVER “CHICKENS” OUT FIRST IS THE LOSER!! UEE HEE HEE!!!”

Wait. He didn’t give you any instructions. He’s being intentionally vague again to rope you into something without explaining it all the way. You’re also not sure what the ramifications are for losing. Or for winning, for that matter. You’re starting to wonder if this is worth doing just to learn his name, but he starts the countdown and rushes through it in about a second.

“TRUTH!! WHY DID YOU COME HERE?”

It’s truth or dare, but your opponent chooses what you do. This is the kind of thing little Darkners do so they can kiss their crush, not prisoners who have been put away for decades. Is he serious? You tell him you really did stumble on this floor because of your lame job. His demeanor stays exactly the same. Knowing he would probably disqualify you if you ask for his name, you give him truth and ask him why he’s imprisoned. He smiles, knowing you’re going for the tough questions, too. Shark-to-shark.

“I WAS JUST TOO MUCH FUN FOR THE OLD KINGS!! THEY HAD ME PUT AWAY, AWAY, BY MY OWN CONFIDANT, NO LESS! IT’S BEEN A LIFETIME SINCE I’VE SEEN HIM. SINCE I’VE SEEN ANYONE.”

Unlike last time, you cannot see his face, so you’re unsure if he frowned for having to admit how lonely he’s been. He clearly doesn’t like talking about himself or his past, but you’re interested that he’s had a ‘confidant’ before. He’s got to be the Court’s old Jester, but his idea of ‘fun’ has to be particularly corrupted if it got him put away for so long.

“TRUTH! WHY DID YOU COME BACK?”

You weren’t expecting that. You thought he might press you for more information on why you’re here, but this is a better question than that. Vulnerability is something you can understand and work with a lot more than outright paranoia. You tell him you wanted to talk to him again and see him if you could. It’s as honest an answer as you can give, especially since you had no idea he or this place existed just a few days before. He laughs, but not his normal laugh. He tries to hide this one. Feeling your face get warm again, you decide to see where you can take this. You say truth and ask if he really did want you to come back.

“OF COURSE, OF COURSE!!! A VISITOR MEANS A GAME TO PLAY, A GAME TO PLAY MEANS A CHAOS TO SPILL, A CHAOS TO SPILL MEANS A WORLD TO SPIN! WHAT IS BETTER THAN TO SPIN ANOTHER’S WORLD? THAN TO CAUSE SOME MISCHIEF, MISCHIEF, SOME CHAOS, CHAOS?!”

He is laughing maniacally again but didn’t really answer your question in a way you can understand. You hear him clapping and jumping a few times. He seems to have excited himself with his own response, but you feel frustrated not knowing what he means half the time. You grunt in annoyance. He stops.

“…YES, I DID! I SAID I WAS LONELY, LONELY, AND I MEANT IT! TO LISTEN TO YOU TALK WAS LIKE LISTENING TO AN OLD FRIEND. UEE HEE HEE!”

You’re surprised he gave it to you straight like that but relieved you might be on the same page. You genuinely enjoy each other’s company, which is more than you can say for most of your relationships, friendly or otherwise. He’s absolutely bonkers and gives you a headache with his constant shouting, but he is a fountain of unmatched excitement. You realize it’s his turn and wait for his command. You wait. And wait. He’s never taken more than a few seconds to say anything, and it’s been at least five. You crack an eyelid open against regulation only to see him shaking a little, but he's smiling wider than ever.

“DARE!!! TOUCH ME.”

Somehow, you saw that coming. You clench your eye shut so hard you feel like you just nearly blinded yourself. Even though you felt it heading in that direction, to hear him actually say it is a lot more jarring. With no repetition or giggling after, you know he said it as serious as he can physically muster. You wonder if it was even really him that said it. Perhaps he conjured it from thin air.

With the distance you placed between you, you have to scoot towards him to even reach him. You figure you’ll just do something small, like touch his hand or even his goofy hat. Since your eyes are still closed you have to guess approximately where he is. You decide to head in the face direction and hope for the best.

Your hand finds its way to his cheek, and you cup it. He nuzzles you affectionately without missing a beat. You instinctively pull your hand back, unsure of how to feel. He giggles as soft as ever, his voice suddenly wavery and shaky, nothing like the confident loudmouth you’re used to hearing.

Your face has to have a warm glow now, startled by the caress but also by his shameless affection. Though he isn’t laughing as loudly as normal, he still snickers under his breath, waiting patiently for you to return with your own command. You technically did touch him, perhaps more briefly than he would have liked, so you are still in the game, but he has clearly taken it in the direction he wants to go and is testing you to see if you want to, too. His loneliness coupled with his impulsivity makes him capable of anything. His hunger is deep and gnawing. You can feel it all around you.

You say dare. You tell him to kiss you.

He bounds towards you, wrapping his somewhat stubby arms as far around you as he can. He is all too eager to oblige and puts his lips against yours in a sweet, full embrace. You kiss back, gently but willing. He giggles madly as soon as he pulls away, clearly pleased that you wanted that as much as he did. You forget you’re still in the game for a minute and have to shake your head when he pipes up.

“DARE! MORE!!!”

With him directly in front of you, you crawl towards him, matching your lips to his with such force that he wobbles backwards and onto his rear. Your body hangs over his, twice his size, as he grabs at you with such fervor you feel like he’s been wanting you his entire life. His tail curls around your back, gripping you and pulling you closer. He has more strength than you’d think, holding himself close to you even as you dangle yourself over him. He waits for you to open your mouth before opening his. His tongue is flat, wide, wet, and a little fruity, just like the smell of this room. He feverishly traces your teeth and canines, desperately suckling on your tongue and whining into your open mouth, which only worsens as soon as you return the favor and bite at his tongue. You start gentle, nibbling on it between kisses, but he cries to want it harder, so you bite down a bit more. He lets out an exasperated sigh and claws into your shoulder blades. You grunt, biting his tongue hard enough to feel it squish between your molars. He yelps excitedly, breathily laughing into your mouth.

Your hands hurriedly explore his tiny body; though his belly is round, and his behind is sizable, his stature is so small that he feels bite-sized to you. His strength lets him grip onto you while his size lets you pick him up with ease. You hoist him up into the air with you as you stand, his arms wrapped around you desperately and his mouth still connected to yours. Your left hand holds the back of his head as close to yours as possible while your right hand aggressively digs into the fat of his rear. The pain of his tongue being bitten and his ass being clawed is intoxicating to him, causing him to whine, moan, and laugh in a constant cycle. His kisses are becoming sloppy and wet with the size of his tongue only making it harder to contain. Your breathing is heavy against his face as you pull away from him to say dare. Harder.

“HA…HA…YOU WANT MORE? DON’T ASK FOR SOMETHING YOU CAN’T HANDLE, HANDLE!!”

He hops down from your arms and bends his tail over his head to shove you back into the ectoplasm, which has formed itself into an alcove. He has done this before. Sometime, probably very long ago, he figured out he could shape shift anything he wanted to with the magic in this room. Maybe for another Darkner, maybe not, but it’s not his first time.

The ecto hardens under you enough to make a squishy but usable surface. Your petite partner climbs onto the makeshift bed with a little struggle – you know he could have just jumped up normally, but his small stature is pleasing to you, and he knows it. He makes sure you’re watching as he crawls from the edge, placing a hand next to you, then over you, then a leg on either side of your hips. He mounts you, facing you, laughing so hard his shoulders bop up and down as his tail sways methodically from side to side. You’re not sure where the light is coming from in the room, but it’s lighting up his back and causing shadows to form all over his face and clothes. He looks a lot more menacing this way and a lot more arousing than cute.

He places a hand on your groin, letting his tongue hang out of his mouth a little, showing you how hungry he is to taste you. You’re so hard against his touch that it must feel like solid rock. His face is flushed with a dark purple tone and sweat drips down his forehead in tiny droplets. You lay back as a pillow-shaped mound forms under your head. How considerate of him.

“OH YES, YES, MY PLAYTHING. YOU’RE GOING TO LIKE THIS VERY MUCH, METHINKS. LAY FOR ME, ME.”

You do so, putting your bent arms under your head and relaxing as much as you can. It’s been an incredibly long time. You haven’t even bothered to do it yourself in so long that you’re not sure if you’re going to last past his first touch to your needy, needy flesh.

His tail is high in the air behind him, swaying from side to side mischievously as he unwraps his present. He slips down your trousers slowly, watching impatiently as your cock pulls against your underwear before finally releasing itself into the air. Your erection stands in front of him, bent back towards you by its natural girth and length but still hanging appetizingly in the air. His eyes shine like the bright candles outside his room. In all this time, he has never looked so excited, so deliciously enthralled with your very being, than in this moment.

Closing your eyes, you lay your head back, waiting for first contact. You worry about the huge rows of teeth you noticed earlier when you first met, but you’re hopeful he’s done this before. If he hasn’t, well, it’s an interesting way to die, at least.

Hot, wet warmth. You suck in air through your nose like you’re drowning in the heat of his mouth. He laughs as his long, now tentacle-like tongue wraps around the entire shaft of your cock, starting at the tip and winding its way down to the balls. You bite the back of your hand, trying not to cum immediately and ruin the fun. You grunt harder and harder into your hand as he begins pumping you with his abnormally flexible tongue. Purple saliva drips down your shaft and into the ecto-bed below. With his mouth open to let his tongue out, you can hear his loud, violent moans as he rubs his own groin against your calf. His height lets him suck you off while grinding against your leg impatiently. He plays with the tip of your dick and switches between paces to stop you from climaxing right away. His hands hold onto your thigh while he rides your leg, caressing the sensitive flesh and digging into you lovingly. Suddenly, he unwraps his tongue from your cock and begins crawling closer to you as quickly as his little arms and legs can move him. He pants heavily, and shouts even louder than usual.

“HEE, HEE…I NEED, NEED…MORE, MORE! I NEED MORE OF YOU, YOU!”

He places himself in front of you as you sit up. His hands are touching his own body now as he begs for more of you. Your hands can’t grab onto him fast enough, nearly ripping his clothes from him. His shirt unbuttons, his neck piece slips off, his cloak ends up on the carousel outside your alcove next to his hat. Under his neck piece, you notice he has a gleaming, silver coil. You imagine it must be something like a jack-in-the-box toy, where he springs his head and lets it bounce. You guide his pants off him along with his shoes until he is completely exposed in front of you.

His cock is proportionate to his body. All of him is thick, stocky, and perfect for digging your much nimbler fingers into. Under his hat were two horns that are about as long as his skull, light blue and pointed sharply up into the air. His cock is like yours but with a little more flexibility, like his tongue. You figure he can probably metamorphose it the same as anything else in here or on him. It drips a long current of transparent purple-colored precum down his shaft and onto his thighs.

You shove him backwards again, forcing his arms up and behind him. He laughs loudly, angrily.

“RED-HOT RAGE…YES, GIVE IT TO ME, GIVE IT TO ME HARD, JUST LIKE YOU WANT TO, PLAYTHING.”

This is what he meant. He was mocking you for all the pent-up aggression you have laying dormant in you. He could see it from the start. You’re more than happy to take it out on him.

He giggles as he closes his legs, blocking you from what you want. He shakes his lower half teasingly, his tail between your legs, rubbing you affectionately on the small of your back again with the length of his tail gently brushing your shaft and balls. You’re beastly, more than you’ve ever felt before in your life. You violently spread his legs as wide as they will go, exposing his cock and bare ass to you. He lets out a gasp, followed by biting his tongue as it slips through his teeth, a bubble of purple saliva forming under the bite of his sharp fangs. Gripping into his thighs with your talon-like claws, you force his entire cock down your throat. He isn’t particularly long, but his shaft is somewhat fat, and he takes up more of your mouth than you’d expect. Your eyes water a little, but you’re immediately distracted by his reaction.

“AH!! AH!! OH, YOU L-LITTLE! HEE HEE- MMM! AAHH! YES, YES, YES! TAKE ME! TAKE MORE OF ME!”

As with everything else, he lets his excitement get the best of him, and he grips into the back of your head so he can ram himself deep into your throat over and over. He bucks wildly into you, laughing a little but mostly panting to keep up the pace. He purposefully grinds his shaft along the sharper of your teeth, the pain making him even harder in your mouth as he mixes a concoction of stimulation. The flexibility of his cock, just like his tongue, makes it tickle bits of your throat you've never felt touched before. His shaft is slicked by the endless dribble of precum, but his energy makes it hard to avoid gagging outright. His body isn't much bigger than your head and shoulders, so he wraps himself around you, mercilessly ramming himself deep into your throat.

His grunting becomes more laborious as he nears climax but abruptly pulls out of your mouth to avoid it.

“AH…OH…NOT…YET. NOT YET. NO…THERE IS SO MUCH MORE…MORE FUN TO BE HAD! UEE HEE HEE…”

He smiles at you as he heaves, knowing you both want the same thing. Your mind is one-track right now. You sit up on your knees and motion for him to turn over. He gladly accommodates, turning over so his tail and rump are facing you. His ass is strangely spectacular. It’s perfectly round and rather large despite his short stature. He knows you’re staring (and drooling), so he shakes it playfully at you. His tail is hanging up over his shoulders and out of the way, but he jiggles it along with his ass, laughing.

For some reason, he seems to think he has the upper hand, and his smug little grin shows it. He has his head rested on one arm as he bounces his legs back and forth, waiting for you to make the first move. He figures he knows exactly what you’re about do to next, so you decide to do something a little different.

Your erection stiffens back up at the sight of his body, and in a moment of pure instinct, you lift him up by the waist, towards your cock. He’s shocked for probably the first time in his life. He thought you’d plow him from behind normally, but you have a better idea. You position him so his face is against the bed and his body is perpendicular to it. His ass, up in the air, reaches right to your cock, his legs spread open by the pull of gravity.

It’s uncomfortable and a bit painful for him. He is very, very happy to let you fuck him this way. Novel experiences don’t come easily to someone who’s lived for as long as he has, especially when he’s been tucked away for so many of them.

You angle your cock down and into his welcoming, though still tight, entrance. He murmurs a loud sigh of relief, finally able to feel your flesh slide into him. He props himself up as best he can with his arms, still forced into the bed, but able to breathe and focus. You’re tired of taking it slow. You’re tired of waiting. You slip in and out twice before beginning to pump him as hard and fast as you can in this position. Your legs won’t be able to take it forever, but you won’t need forever. He’s tight, and with him upright like this, it feels very much like he’s your fucktoy. This is not lost on either of you, and the vulgarity excites him. He loses all semblance of control. His voice booms loudly throughout the room, seeping into your very consciousness. All you hear is a slur of desperate pleas.

“GOOD HEAVENS, GOOD HEAVENS!! IT’S SO MUCH…YOU’RE SO MUCH…I FEEL…I FEEL…OH!! OH!!! YES! FUCK ME! FUCK ME, FUCK ME! YES!! AHH…AHH…YES!! HARDER! MORE! DEEPER!!! UEE HEE HEE HEE HEE! THIS BODY CAN’T TAKE…MUCH MORE…MAKE ME YOURS!! HA…HA…!!”

You fuck him faster than he can process. In, out, in, out, in, out – he pants, moans, screams, all in pleasure and all from you. He’s an endless stream of indecent begging, making you thankful you’re in a pocket dimension and, hopefully, no one will hear him. Your cock glides in and out of him with ease, but his behind takes quiet a beating from how large you are compared to him. Your hands have been digging into it to hold him in place and to, as he asked, make him yours. His flesh is burning a deep indigo from the hunger of your claws. Seeing this and realizing his little body is probably quite sore, you decide to give both of you a break, slipping out of him, leaving him gaping. You look at your work, which has left him a mess covered in precum, drool, and sweat. He lazily lets his body plop to the comfort of the plasm below, resting his poor muscles.

“HA…HA…WHEW! I…WELCOME A LITTLE BREAK, BREAK. BEFORE...HA…THE GRAND FINALE!!”

He sits up slowly, his arms shaking as they try to hold him up. He pants, looking like he’s about to pass out. You gaze at him in a way that can only be described as lovingly. He is best in this state, desperate and ravenous for you, just as you are for him. You close your eyes and lean back for a moment to let yourself breathe. Big mistake.

Before you hear a thing, he mounts your still hard cock, this time straddling you in preparation to ride you. He tricked you once again.

“KIDDING! A FINALE WE SHALL HAVE – NOW, NOW, NOW! ONE LAST BOW, PLAYTHING!!”

He positions his ass just so, allowing you to slide your cock between his ass cheeks without yet penetrating him. You’re so incredibly exhausted from fucking him and a little tender from keeping it up without coming that you simply moan in protest of his teasing. He obviously tires, just not for long until he’s back at it again, torturing your painfully stimulated sex.

“MMM-OH! DON’T WORRY, MY SWEET. I WILL DO ALL THE DIRTY WORK, WORK. HEE HEE!”

Like music to your ears. Finally, you can come in peace, and maybe he’ll be satisfied enough to let you rest. He lifts himself back up and over your cock before slowly, slowly, agonizingly descending on you. He purrs with pleasure, letting his tongue hang and his own cock rub against your stomach.

Then he stops.

You wait a moment before opening your eyes to check on him. He meets your gaze with a devious smirk. You pulsate inside him, wondering what he’s doing.

“OH? IS THERE SOMETHING YOU WANT, WANT?”

He’s speaking normally, no panting or screaming at all. His voice emanates only from him, in front you, the room quiet besides your panting. Still hard, you buck into him once to remind him he said he’d do all the work.

“MMM…I CAN’T SEEM TO UNDERSTAND WHAT YOU’RE GETTING AT…?”

He looks off to the side, putting a finger to his cheek in confusion. His head cocks to the side but keeps going as his neck uncoils and lets his head bounce to your left, his finger still placed on his cheek teasingly. He wiggles his behind just enough to make your cock move in and out a bit. It hurts so much from waiting to come that you feel like strangling him for making you wait. You think for a moment. You can do that. If he doesn’t like it, he’ll just tell you, but it definitely seems like he wants to piss you off right now, and his neck is exposed for the taking. You let the last remaining bits of your aggression build up watching him mock you. You take both of your hands and wrap them angrily around the middle of the coil of his throat. He lights up, his bright yellow teeth glaring out from his maw. This is exactly what he wanted.

You squeeze as hard as you can against his organic metal throat. There’s too much of it to get in one grab, but you have a sizable chunk between your fingers. He chokes, coughs, and laughs as he begins riding you as hard as you wish he’d been. He lifts his behind up and down in a rhythmic motion, making sure to piston himself on you from tip to the bottom of your shaft. His asshole is a bit looser than the first time you fucked him, making it even easier for him to fuck himself on you. His coil comes completely loose, making his head bounce back, up, and down wildly to the motion of his riding. In the same moment, you notice his cock also bobbing up and down to his movements. He looks deeply lost in the pleasure, laughing in tiny, laborious chuckles as his extremely long wind pipe is crushed beneath your strength. His ears have fallen, drooping on the sides of his head, and his pupils are so far against his forehead they looks as though they would roll, if he had eye sockets.

You’re coming closer. Feeling him struggle under your grasp and watching his face turn a deep purple as he drools all over himself inspires you to once more push him onto his back. His eyes widen as you pin his throat to the bed beneath you. You relentlessly fuck him into the mattress, so hard you can’t be sure you’re not hurting him, but he tries his best to buck himself onto you so you know he’s having fun. His legs grip around your thighs, one hand grasps the sludge-like mattress as the other frantically jerks him off, faster than all the other movements. You take your hands off his throat and he’s desperate to say something, but in the split second before he speaks, you connect your mouth to his. He’s so unbelievably happy to taste you again. He breathes hard as you play with one other’s tongues, biting heatedly as he continues his tirade of profanity when you move your mouth to his shoulder to bite and suck it.

“AH…AH…FUCK, FUCK! FUCK ME!! AH! IT’S TIME, IT’S TIME! FILL ME, PLAYTHING, FILL ME FULL! MAKE ME YOURS!! AH, AH…! I WANT IT, I WANT IT, I WANT IT!!”

Holding his hips in your hands, you pound as hard and fast as you can, arching your body and lifting his legs up until your entire cock is as deep inside him as it will go. He’s having a marvelous time, shrieking in pleasure as you hit the most sensitive spot in his little Darkner body. You can’t possibly hold it in any longer. You growl as you bite his shoulder hard, your legs spasming and your cock pulsating deep within him until you release your load. It’s much bigger than normal since you’ve gone so many months without touching yourself. He continues to jerk himself off until he climaxes shortly after you, splattering his chest with ropy, opaque slivers of purple goo.

You both stop for a moment to let yourselves bask in the musk and faint smell of grapes in the air. He looks directly into your eyes, smiling and chuckling while trying to catch his breath. Slowly growing soft inside him, you slip out, a spill of cum following your exit as his bottom is left still quite gaping but full of your aftermath. He lets his legs rest over yours as his tail, for the first time over the course of your fun, lays motionless next to him. His hands are on his horns, palms facing you.

“WHAT…A WONDERFUL GAME…JUST LIKE I TOLD YOU…RIGHT, PLAYTHING?”

He smiles, pants, and waits for a moment. Then, as you stare at him, he lifts his hands and places them on himself. He begins pulling at his fresh cum, directly from the tip of his cock, starting with a strand of thick ejaculate before a band of tied-together multicolored flags appear as he pulls, hard and fast, on what seems to be a never-ending rope. He laughs and laughs and laughs at his own joke until the rope ends, landing on the unmoving carousel outside in a giant pile. His still slightly uncoiled head bounces in unison to his giggles before he retracts it back down into his neck. You remember seeing that trick at a birthday party you went to when you were a child, and it wasn’t nearly as funny then as it is now. You giggle a little, still tired but amazed that he can do anything he wants, at least in this room.

Your head swirls for a minute. You forgot where you were in the moment, and only with his voice do you start to come to your senses. Your faces are so close together you can feel every breath of his and he yours. He keeps smiling.

Hmm? Wait.

The…the game. Right. You…

You still don’t know his name.

You blink a few times, making eye contact with him. He knows exactly what you’re thinking now.

“UEE HEE HEE!! IT SEEMS YOU DIDN’T OUTLAST ME, MY OTHERWISE SPECTACULARLY RESILIENT BEAUTY! WHAT A SHAME, SHAME. I GUESS YOU’LL NEVER KNOW MY NAME, NAME!”

He triumphantly cycles his legs in the air as a substitute for his childlike hopping. He really bested you. Again. Your face turns to slight annoyance, making him cover his mouth as he giggles at you.

“DON’T YOU SEE, LITTLE SINNER? IF YOU’D HAVE WON, IT’D BE MUCH LESS FUN. I’M CLEVER, CLEVER. I SEE INSIDE YOU. I WANT IT TOO, EVERY BIT OF YOU. YOU WERE ALWAYS GOING TO PLAY, BUT WITH MY WAY, WE BOTH GET TO WIN.”

His smile takes up nearly half his face, as it usually does, and he wraps his arms around your shoulders and nuzzles your nose to the spot where he’d have a nose, if he had one. You decide to hug him back, placing one arm around his behind and one up around his horn, caressing it lovingly.

He whispers for the first time since you met.

“HOW ABOUT THIS? SINCE YOU WORKED SO VERY HARD, HARD, I’LL LET YOU IN ON MY SECRET…”

You nod.

“IF YOU PROMISE TO KEEP ME COMPANY.”

You smile, and nod again.

“HEE, HEE. MY NAME, NAME IS…JEVIL!”

Chapter Text

Jevil. Jevil Jevil Jevil. Hmm. Looking at him again, even without the over-the-top costume, you’d say that fits him pretty well, with the devilish horns and tail, the latter of which is now wagging a bit at the tip. He seems eager to have told you, but you can tell most of his satisfaction is relief. You guess he hasn’t had anyone to say his name to in so long that it feels foreign and tickles his tongue on the way out.

You pull him towards you, sitting up on the pseudo-mattress and holding him in your arms. He’s definitely heavy but the support of your surrounding alcove lets him rest easily on you. He stops giggling as you shift positions, watching you closely, and places his legs around either side of you, cupping you in a close embrace. Your own legs bend, resting behind him, making a soft seat for his rump. His arms lay lazily around your shoulders, with his much smaller limbs barely taking up any room around you. He’s warm, sweaty, and still covered in his own cum as well as yours, but you can’t help cuddling him. The longer you hug, the harder he seems to hold onto you. It dawns on you that he probably isn’t sure if you’re real. Maybe if he lets go, you might melt right into a puddle of purple goo.

He nuzzles his (somewhat big, considering the horns) head into your left shoulder, tightening his arms around you. He’s gone absolutely silent since you started holding him. The only sound you hear is the beat of your own hearts against each other’s chests, which have finally started to relax. His breathing is irregular and suggests he’s lost deep within himself. You haven’t known him long, but you can tell he’s trying to sort what is undoubtedly a mountain of thoughts - if his outside is so quiet, his inside must be exploding.

Your hands have stayed wrapped around his waist to keep him near, but you break your right one free to place it on the back of his head, stroking down until you reach his neck. You rub his muscles affectionately, not knowing what to say but wanting to remind him you are very much here. You think so, anyway. You haven’t tested the dream scenario in a while, but if this were a dream, it would be breaking world records by now. Plus, if it’s not in Astrology & You!, it has to be bunk, right?

While you haven’t had luck in the romance department lately either, you imagine it’s been a bit more unbearable for him, trapped and completely alone in an ever-swirling vortex of ethereal magic. If the carousel were spinning, it would be maddening, with no place in the room standing still. Even picturing it makes you queasy. You think back to the tidbits of information you do know about him, providing his mind isn’t warped or that he felt the need to lie to you. You know his name now. You’re pretty sure he was the Court Jester, which explains his obsession with games and performance. And the magic thing. He had a close friend before he was put in here and it was that person who was tasked with imprisoning him which, even by itself, is traumatic, not to mention the unfathomable years he’s spent by himself. Oh, and he’s incredibly, incredibly horny. And insane. But so, so cute!

You smile to yourself, thinking back to your previous partners and how he’s not so bad in comparison. At least he’s always happy to see you and more than happy to play 'games' with you. You’re not sure he’s the type your parents would like to meet, but hey, that’s a problem for later you.

You catch yourself in that thought.

Is he allowed to leave now? The door opens. There isn’t anything standing in his way. But…

Right. He’s a criminal, of some kind. Even with King Lancer being so kind, you’re sure there’s someone on the surface who knows what he’s in here for and would probably object to his freedom. On the other hand, if he really does believe himself to be the free one, he may not want to leave. The door was stopping you from coming in, and you’re what he wanted, not the castle or the outside (inside?) world.

It seems you’re both lost in introspection. There is no safer place to drift off than in each other’s arms, but you start to feel restless, unsure where to go next with whatever this is. You want to know what he wants more than anything else. If he’d like you to stick around, you have to think of a way to convince everyone else to let you come and go as you need to. He may not need to eat or use the bathroom, since he apparently hasn’t in god knows how long, but you’re pretty sure you still do. Unless the room somehow takes care of that for you, but you’re not ready to find out how it does that. Or ready to eat goop.

You figure you can ask him about it later, since he’s still not said a word after telling you his name. His tail slithered around your waist awhile ago, gently tugging at you, every square inch of his body desperate to make contact with yours. You sit, half waiting for him to come around and half still in a trance of your own.

Suddenly, but ever so gradually, he begins to shake, sniffle, and finally, cries.

It’s nothing like how you’d imagine, especially since it’s impossible to picture him even sad in the first place. His usual deafening voice is gone. The only origin is his own body, his own throat, hidden deep within your shoulder blade. Under no circumstances does he want you to look at him, judging by his shifting away from your gaze as you worriedly turn to check on him. There’s a suffocating feeling of guilt, knowing you don’t know what to say and that even if you did, it wouldn’t be the right thing. The juxtaposition of his usual bubbly demeanor to the weeping mess you’re holding now feels like the biggest whiplash you’ll ever have. You wonder if he’s ever been able to cry before in his life.

With nothing else to do, you pull him towards you as much as you can, looking helplessly out into the rest of the room. Your legs tighten behind him, holding him farther up and huddling you together into a little ball. Of all the directions this could go, you would have spent a lifetime guessing before you got to this one, even knowing the damage he probably had tucked away. He just didn’t seem capable of dropping the act, no matter how much he wanted to. Like something outside of him was stopping him.

He empties what must be a century of emotional baggage, some in the form of tears down your back and some in the form of weak, barely audible sobs. It has to be cathartic. You hope so, anyway, because it would be a shame to lose a ray of light as bright as his. Not long after he starts, his tone changes. The volume picks up, the pitch straightens out, and the room breathes back to life, enveloping your mind with his growing laughter. Before, the room seemed to stop breathing entirely, either unsure or unresponsive to his sadness. Looking now, the purple whirlpool around you picks up the pace, returning to its usual spin about the room. He labors to pull his head off of you, leaning back and giggling as he was not too long ago. His eyes are tightly shut, still coated with fresh tears, as he smiles as much as he can, ears perking up along with the rest of his face. You’ve never felt so thankful in your life.

“UEE HEE HEE! THAT FELT ODDLY GOOD, GOOD. I FEEL FREER, LIGHTER, LIKE MY HEART HAS SHED ALL ITS BLOOD TO MAKE ANEW. A TROUBLE HAS LIFTED, LIFTED. THE VERY WORLD AROUND US IS SMILING, PLAYTHING!”

You follow his opening eyes to the walls around you, which are making giant, goofy, clown-like faces. He looks to the left, to the ceiling, to the right, then back at you, making a full spin about the room before finally smiling as big as he normally does. Dried rivers coat his cheeks, flushed from the stress of letting go. You crack-up, your shoulders bobbing as your hand finds its way to your face, barely covering your mouth. The joke itself is pretty on-the-nose, but you’re so extraordinarily relieved to hear his voice again that his giddiness infects you. His tail releases its hold on you as he places his hands on either side of your face, pulling you towards him for a kiss as he closes his eyes. His tail, now loosely hanging behind him, contorts into the shape of a heart. Cheesy.

You let your eyelids drop, enjoying the most composed kiss he’s given you yet. His teeth and tongue stay securely in his mouth, a feat you must commend, considering his reputation with self-control. He releases, immediately forming a grin, though once again with no teeth. His eyes droop a bit as he stares lovingly into yours. Perhaps his crying session helped get some of his energy out, but probably not for long.

You look back into his eyes, returning his gaze with one of your own. His are like the endless abyss outside his room – dark, darker, yet darker, an infinite expanse like the night sky, like the deepest pits of an undiscovered ocean trench, like the hot tar of primordial soup, like a black hole ripping through your consciousness and out the back of your head –--

You snap back.

Jevil’s expression is different in an instant. He looks worried, an expression unfamiliar to you. In fact, the shift is so instant, it’s like you weren’t even here, if only for a second. You’ve heard of getting lost in someone’s eyes, but that was more like something was trying to forcefully pull you out of your own head. A nauseating feeling of disorientation washes over you, your head spinning a bit.

“NU-HA!! PLAYTHING, PLAYTHING, METHINKS IT’S BEST YOU GO, FOR NOW, FOR A BIT, FOR NOW.”

Jevil struggles to his feet, standing his tiny body up in front of you, still naked. His hands are shaking. He looks terrified of you, or rather, terrified like someone is standing directly behind you. You look over your shoulder, only to see the wall of clown faces melting into…someone else’s face? They look like massive doll heads with cracks in them and huge, vacant eyes. They are still smiling.

By now, Jevil has already snapped his clothes back on with what you assume is magic. That, or he’s gotten very good at taking and putting his clothes off and on. He takes you by the hand, frantically pulling you out of the alcove, letting it close after you yank your clothes from it. You put them back on, shaking a bit yourself, asking him what the hell is going on.

“NO, NO, NO, I COULDN’T POSSIBLY! THE RINGLEADER WOULD BE UNHAPPY WITH ME, SEE UNFIT TO KEEP ME, UNFIT TO MAINTAIN MY WORLD, MY ROOM, MY FREEDOM. YOU MUST GO. YOU MUST GO, UNTIL HE MOVES ON. UNTIL HE’S SATIATED. PLEASE, PLEASE, PLAYTHING! GO FOR NOW. COME TO BACK TO ME LATER, LATER.”

He hops, gives you a peck on the cheek by floating in the air for a second, then ushers you out the now open door. As soon as your feet hit the stairs outside, the door is closed behind you, and all 14 candles die at once. You don’t hear anything.

You’re afraid to try to call out to him. You stand at the door for a moment, wondering if you’re really supposed to just go home like nothing happened. He did say come back later, so you’re not banished, but…

You can’t stand here forever. You don’t even have a weapon to fight whatever that was off with. Well, that, and you’re starving. You head upstairs through the elevator. There are party decorations thrown about the rooms and halls of the castle, some banners saying “GO KING LANCER!” and others with “SPADE KING SUCKED” on them. Food is smeared on most of the walls, including a cake that must be as tall as you, destroyed along the floor. Apparently, the celebration went very, very well. It is now what would have been sleep shift before, so attendees are strewn about the castle, asleep and snoring loudly. You quietly lift yourself over a pair of Hathies who are coiled tightly in an embrace.

Once outside, you sit on the ground next to the palace gates, flowers extending out from under you and up around your thighs. You have no idea what just happened. Actually, that applies to most of the last week, which has easily been the most eventful of your life. At least the red trees surrounding the castle are the same, gently swaying, their leaves’ rustling causing you to close your eyes.

You focus on what you just saw happening to Jevil’s room and to Jevil himself. Something changed in him, which made the very room transform, but it wasn’t just him – there was another presence, something powerful or angry enough to scare him. He wouldn’t ask you to leave like that without a good excuse, and he told you to come back later. Something was checking up on him and you couldn’t be there when it did. The existence of his room must depend on his own, and something must control whether or not the door in the basement opens or leads to that room or even exists at all.

You feel guilty again. You couldn’t think of what to say and you were powerless to help him escape. What good have you been to him? Sure, he enjoys your company, but he would probably enjoy anyone’s company at this point. You’re not special, you’re just a plug to fill a hole, so to speak. Ha, ha.

Then again, he let you tell him your whole life story, and he still asked for you to return after the Lightners opened the door. That, and, well, he put himself in danger just to let you in in the first place. Even if you are special somehow, you’re not special enough to fight a Big Bad. Not a Little Bad either. Maybe a Microscopic Bad, if you stretch first.

Frustrated with yourself, you decide to head home, eat dinner, and sleep as much as you can. Rallying yourself back onto your feet, you start the march home, livened by your sudden determination. You haven’t had this feeling much in your life – like you’re ready to do anything. You’re heading back to his room tomorrow whether you’re afraid or not.

In a flash, the next cycle arrives, like the following line in a poorly-written fanfiction. Sheesh, someone must be trying to hurry to the good part! You stand outside your front door, stomach full and a pleasant 16 hours of sleep had. As soon as your head hit the pillow, you went legally comatose, your body trying to make up for all the ‘exercise’ from the evening before. Now, staring into the distance, you still have no idea what you’re going to do when you get there. It’s hard to come up with a plan of attack when you don’t know what you’re attacking, but you still feel hardened, ready for combat. If it’s combat against someone like a surly grandmother.

It’s not a long walk to the castle, and when you get to the gate, you see the King on his bike, doing wheelies on the front grounds. He waves to you, then asks one of his Rudinns who you are, even though the Rudinn doesn’t remember either. They’re too far away from you to hear, but whatever he answers with makes the King laugh hysterically before he sticks his tongue out at you, smiling wide. You’d rather them have a stupid nickname for you than to ask why you keep coming back even though there’s no jobs and you were fired, like, yesterday.

The halls are being washed by Darkners of varying castes, with a loud radio playing as they sing together, scrubbing the floors and walls to rid them of icing. It seems the Card-ners dropped their smug exteriors when they realized they shared similar music tastes to the non-Cards. Thankfully, no one notices you among the crowd, everyone singing along to a bubblegum pop tune, making your sneak towards the elevator and down to Jevil’s floor run smoothly. You guess that this was a lucky day and that you might have to actually come up with a reason for being here the next time you come, but that’s another chapter for another day, yeah?

The elevator door opens before your eyes do. You realized on the way down that, if the candles are out, you may have a much bigger problem on your hands. No candles means no Jevil. If they are lit, you still might not be able to get in, since you have no idea how much later he meant for you to return. Your stomach gurgles from the anxiety and the hearty (but healthy!) breakfast you had. Your hands cover your face, shielding you.

A peek through your middle and ring fingers is all it takes before you see a blue light. Then another. And another, candle by candle, until your hands lower to see all 14 lit in front of you just as they were when you descended yesterday. You search the abyss for disturbances, but the staircase remains in place and the endless black still surrounds you. Both door frames sit unmoving at the edge of the final stair. Everything here is as it was, and your first signal is cleared.

You take the steps slower than you have before. You’re waiting for Jevil to call out, hearing your approach, but there is no sound whatsoever. The room feels like a vacuum – both limitless like space but compact and smothering like a vat of quicksand. Dirt from your shoes falls into off the stairs and into the void below, but no sound follows. If you were to fall, you’re not sure where you’d go, if anywhere at all.

You walk up to the door, but before trying the handle, you whisper in between the bars, holding onto them for support as you lean in. If the big bad is still in there, you’re really hoping it doesn’t hear you, because your extradimensional jesterfriend might be dead on the spot. You almost jump when he responds immediately, ten times louder than you.

“UEE HEE HEE!! A VISITOR, A VISITOR FOR ME, ME! HOW GOES IT IN THE CHAINS OF YOUR CELL? WHAT SAY YOU OF YOUR TINY HELL?! SO MANY OF YOU AND YET SO FEW WHO VISIT ME, THE ONLY ONE WHO’S TRULY FREE!”

Still startled by how loud he’s speaking, you shake your head in confusion. You tell Jevil he just told you yesterday to come back later and you wanted to see if this was later enough. You tried being as inconspicuous as possible in case whatever came yesterday was still in there, but clearly that’s not an issue since he’s screaming your head off like he did the first time you met him.

He doesn’t reply.

You call his name. And again. You hear scattered breathing.

The door opens.

You fall into the bars of the door frame, not expecting it to suddenly open and pull your support away from you. Jevil catches you in his arms as he stands directly behind the door. He helps you to your feet, staring at you intensely. His eyes are as wide as they will go, taking up the space on his face usually reserved for his smile. He’s breathing heavily, rapidly, and shaking again as he looks you up and down. He doesn’t seem to recognize you.

“YOU! JUST HOW DO YOU KNOW MY NAME, NAME?!”

As he lifts his hand to point to you, a giant purple and green scythe appears in his grip, pointing to you. The edge has sharp yellow teeth, just like his, and the tip is decorated with a small black hat also ending in a yellow bell. It must be twice his size and fairly weighty, but he holds it easily, clearly just an extension of himself. Smaller versions of the same weapon appear behind him, all angled at you. His ears are tight against his head, pointing backwards towards his neck, while his tail sticks straight out, making a “T” instead of a “J.”

Startled, you take a few steps back, hands splayed in front of you defensively. Your jaw drops a bit as you grimace and shake your head. You don’t know what to say. Standing still, an inch from the door, you decide the only thing you can try is to jog his memory. The big bad may have erased it, but he also could of just…toyed with it a little? You don’t know how frying someone’s brain works. If it doesn’t work, you’re right near the exit, so hopefully you could potentially make it out in time if your theory proves wrong.

Inhaling and closing your eyes, you tell him, in visceral and explicit detail, everything that happened before. If this were a movie, this would be the montage part, perhaps humorously censoring all the fucking with duck noises and sticker-like pictures of Jevil’s face plastered over the genitals. Leaving your post, sitting and talking for hours, waiting for the door to be unlocked, then, well, everything you did to him, and he did to you. It’s a bit awkward telling someone how you fucked them the cycle before, but everyone likes a chance to brag. Yes - some spooky, evil force came into the room and gave him amnesia - but you’re still you and you still have an ego to stroke. His hand slowly retracts and falls as you go on, angling the scythes towards the floor and away from you, his fury turning to confusion and then embarrassment. He blushes hard as you finish. The scythes dissolves into thin air.

He drags his hands down his face, his eyes and mouth drooping along with them in a goofy fashion until he lets his chin go, snapping his features back into place, albeit the wrong spots. He moves his eyes back to approximately where they normally are, rubbing one on the hem of his shirt like a glasses’ lens before carefully placing it. He stretches his mouth out to meet the ends of his face. Tired from rearranging himself, he sighs, his head dropping towards his chest. His neck uncoils, loose like a rope, until his skull hits the floor, when he turns it to look up at you.

“AND TO THINK, DEVILSKNIFE WAS SO PLEASED TO HAVE SOME FUN TO POUR. UEE HEE HEE. WELL, PIIP PIIP, LOVER BOY…HMM, WHAT DID I CALL YOU, YOU?”

Jevil stands with his hands on his hips, tapping his foot a bit. You think for a minute what he means. Like a light bulb turning on above your head – actually, one does, Jevil giggling to himself before it promptly disappears – you tell him: “Plaything.”

Ding, ding, ding! The yellow pupils of his eyes glow for a moment, and the VHS player in his head seems to rewind back to normal. He recoils his neck back into his body in a millisecond, then bounces over to you and hugs your legs. He is hopping with such force that your pants start to fall down a bit. You pick him up and squeeze him like you did yesterday, reassured he remembers you.

“AH, AH! PLAYTHING, PLAYTHING, PLAYTHING! YES!! I REMEMBER, I REMEMBER! IT’S MY LITTLE TRICK, MY LITTLE WORD, SO HE CAN’T STEAL YOU FROM ME. THE PITCH-BLACK CORNERS OF MY MIND WHERE HE CAN’T GO. TOO DARK FOR EVEN HIM, HIM. I KEEP YOU THERE, THERE, SAFE AND SOUND, MY LITTLE PLAYTHING. YES, YES, YES!!”

He is burrowing his head into your shoulder again, this time more like a happy puppy excited to see its owner. His tiny legs hang below him as his tail wraps around your torso then around your thigh a few times. He pulls you to him with both his hands, kissing you again, but this time much more animated. Forehead kisses, nose kisses, cheek kisses, and finally, wonderful little mouth kisses. He slips a nibble of tongue, holding your jaw with his hands. This is the Jevil you’re used to.

Before you end up naked again, you have to ask him what happened. It’s so easy to get pulled into his tornado of crazy that you can’t promise yourself you’ll do it after. You pull your head back an inch or two so you can separate from his feverish smooching and ask him why you had to leave.

He looks at you, smile dwindling but still there.

“HEE HEE, LET’S JUST SAY, THE JIG WAS UP? THE CURTAINS WERE CLOSING, THE AUDIENCE WALKING AWAY?”

He’s smiling but serious. You ask why. As he replies, he nudges your crotch impatiently with his hand.

“SO SERIOUS, SERIOUS! COULDN’T WE PUT THAT PASSION TO GOOD USE, INSTEAD?”

You frown. He wiggles irritably, whining, now like a sad puppy. He retracts his hand and pouts like he’s punishing you.

“BOO HOO, BOO HOO. PLAYTHING, WHY DON’T WE PLAY ANOTHER GAME, GAME? DON’T MAKE OUR DATE TURN SOUR!!”

You tell him you’ll play every goddamn game at this motherfucking carnival if he would just tell you why he almost died probably (?) and then forgot you for some reason. He shakes free from your hold and uses his tail like a pogo stick, bouncing it to keep himself eye-level with you as his legs stick out in front of him. He crosses his arms, scowling and groaning loudly as he angles his head away from you, the room rumbling in unison. His ears are pointed down again and the bells on his hat jingling weakly to his bouncing.

“FINE!! FINE, FINE. FINE! BUT ONLY BECAUSE YOU’RE MINE, MINE. HEE, HEE.”

He coils his tail tightly until he is low enough to the ground to go back to standing. Motioning to the ectoplasm wall, what looks like a crude loveseat forms, and he, inexplicably, picks you up. Not in the way you pick him up. He picks you up and carries you in the exact position you’re standing in, just tilted to the side. To a bystander it would look like he’s picking up a cardboard cutout of you. He gently places you on the left half of the loveseat but flattens you out so your legs extend over the right side, resting your body along the length of the pseudo-seat. He climbs on top of you and lays his head down on your chest, bopping you with his hat’s bell before sliding it back, away from your face. His horns poke out a bit from the edge of his hat as he pushes it to the back of his skull. He curls up, holding you in his arms and nestling his head into your chest. You’re still stunned into silence by his casual, incomprehensible strength. Maybe you should just work out more?

“MANY YEARS AGO, I BORE A TITLE OF GREAT STANDING. TO MAKE THE KINGS AND THEIR CHILDREN LAUGH, LAUGH!! I AND ANOTHER WERE PARTNERS. TOGETHER WE, LIKE ALPHA AND OMEGA, HELD THE TRUE REIGNS OF THE KINGDOM, KINGDOM! HE WAS AN EXPERT ENCHANTER. I WAS A MAGNIFICENT MADNESS!! UNSTOPPABLE, GRANDIOSE, BETTER TOGETHER, UNITED AS ONE! UEE HEE HEE!!”

Tumbling over the last few words before laughing, Jevil looks far away from you, off into the distance, like he’s watching his own life play on a movie screen in front of him. He’s laughing, remembering this time in his life fondly. You know he’s talking about someone you remind him of, perhaps not in personality, but importance.

“BUT THEN I CHANGED. I MET THE RINGLEADER. AND I CHANGED, CHANGED. THE WORLD WAS DIFFERENT NOW. A PRISON! I LOOKED, AND ALL I SAW WERE BARS. A NEW GAME HAD EMERGED.”

He stops for a moment. You stroke the back of his head, beneath the hat.

“THEY TOLD THE ENCHANTER I WAS A TROUBLE. THAT MY GAME WAS TOO DANGEROUS. THAT I WOULD BE PUNISHED, PUNISHED, PUNISHED. SO, HE BUILT THE BARS I SAW, MADE THEM REAL, REAL. TRAPPED YOU IN THE WORLD YOU SEE, WITH ALL THE OTHERS. IF I COULDN’T HURT THEM, THEY COULDN’T HURT ME.”

His pain is right in front of him, a thousand yards away. Close enough to reach out and not touch.

“THEN HE HEARD ME. AGAIN, AGAIN, THE RINGLEADER HEARD ME. ALONE, ALONE. HE WANTED SOMETHING, DEEP AND DARK, SAID HE WANTED TO PLAY, SHARK-TO-SHARK.”

Jevil’s black eyes turn glassy.

“AND HERE NOW I AM, AM!”

You listen to every word of his story intently. He’s the Court’s Jester from long ago, as you suspected. The big bad, the Ringleader, doesn’t seem to be of this world. Whatever he is, he has the power to keep Jevil hidden down here for whatever use he has for him. He seems scared of this being, and you would be too if it wiped your memory and kept you trapped, alone, for decades. You have no clue how many times it’s done this to him. You’re the first to actually enter his room, as far as you know, but there could have been plenty of visitors over the years, perhaps even ones that played with him or talked to him or even miss him to this day. But he wouldn’t remember, unless the Ringleader let him. He seems to want him in a constant state of loneliness, maddeningly pining, remembering his life before but having no way to return to it and no one else to talk to.

You ask him if there have been other ‘visitors’ or ‘playthings.’ He looks up to you for the start time since he began monologuing, a little shocked.

“I WOULDN’T KNOW, KNOW. YOU’RE THE FIRST TO STEP INTO THE SHOW, SHOW! THE FIRST I COULD KEEP TUCKED WITHIN ME, USING MY PET NAME AS MY KEY. I AM SURE TO HAVE TRIED IT MANY TIMES BEFORE BUT I SUPPOSE THIS IS THE FIRST TIME IT HAS WORKED. OH, HOW LUCKY I BE, TO KEEP YOU SAFE, LOCKED WITHIN ME!!”

He is gleaming, clearly overjoyed he was able to figure out a way to remember you. You ask him what you need to do.

“NOTHING LEFT FOR ME TO GIVE HIM. HE COMES AND GOES ON A WHIM, WHIM. SOMETIMES HE DOES NOTHING, SOMETIMES HE IS NICE, BUT SOMETIMES I MUST PAY A TERRIBLE PRICE!”

You ask if he had to give up anything this time.

”HE STOLE EVEN THAT MEMORY, MY PLAYTHING. I WILL NEVER KNOW ALL THAT I’VE LOST, LOST. IT’S A ROTTEN GAME HE PLAYS WITH ME, BUT I MUST PLAY IT TO STAY FREE, FREE!”

You ask if there is something, anything you can do, or give him. You ask why Jevil cannot just leave.

“BOO HOO HOO. PLAYTHING, DON’T YOU SEE? HE IS KEEPING ME ALIVE. THIS IS WHY I AM ALL AROUND YOU IN MY WORLD, WORLD. I AM HERE! HERE IS ME!! MY FLESH AND BODY!”

As he finishes his sentence, you start looking around, slightly panicked. Jevil laughs nervously. The walls laugh nervously. The walls breathe unsteadily. Jevil breathes unsteadily. In, out, in, out, in, out, all in unison. He is struggling to face forward towards the wall and away from you, as you start to realize what he means. You’re holding him, but you’re also sitting on him. And in him? Not in the fun way but the awful, extradimensional way.

The Ringleader had done something to his mind. Long, long ago. That’s how he ended up in here. His friend, his confidant, put him behind bars to protect him and, presumably, all the others in the kingdom from Jevil. But the Ringleader, using some otherworldly power, has entwined his body – his very existence – with the room he was imprisoned in, forcing him to stay alive. His endless pool of vigor, of excitement, is what he gave to the Ringleader in exchange. When he cried, the pool was suddenly emptied, and the Ringleader came to check on him. He must keep Jevil in a constant state of madness in order to siphon his energy.

You think carefully of what to say next.

The only way to get the Ringleader here is to make Jevil cry, which you’re not going to do. Even if you could bring yourself to do it, you’re not going to fight him alone, or possibly at all if he’s strong enough. The best you can do, being you, is to keep Jevil happy. He may not be able to come and go, but you certainly can. Your presence is only a problem if you become a problem. If you keep his spirits up, you can at least keep the Ringleader off his back while making him happy and letting him keep his memories. You know what to say.

You tell him you will bring life to him.

“NOW YOU SOUND LIKE ME, ME! UEE HEE HEE!! WHAT DO YOU MEAN, MEAN?”

You’ll bring him food. Cakes and candy and whatever else clowns eat. And games. Actual games, like board games, and playing cards, and super soakers. And clothes. Stupid, silly clothes that he’ll like. Maybe some naughty ones too, for him and for you. Whatever he wants, you’ll bring it to him.

Jevil starts to shake. Not in the sad way. Shake, rumble, like an unopened bottle of soda that someone just brought back from inside an actual fucking earthquake. He turns to you so fast his hat flies to the edge of his head but gets turned around by his horns, twisting it in circles until it settles, hanging partially over his face. His tail makes a “T” again.

“HEE, HEE!! YOU MEAN IT? YES, YES, YOU REALLY MEAN IT!! PLAYTHING, THAT WOULD BE DELIGHTFUL!! UEE HEE HEE!”

He bounces eagerly up and down on your lap, his hands resting themselves on your chest. The love seat squeaks like a regular one would because, as you correctly guessed much earlier, everything in this room works the way he wants it to. Speaking of the room, you see now that it glows faintly when he hits his peak, a lilac luminosity appearing on all the walls and the love seat under you. You didn’t guess the reason right – you thought it was magic – but, well, it’s a kind of magic, just a really weird, fleshy kind.

You smirk at him, though now that you think about it, you really wish you could do more. Bringing him toys can’t possibly keep his attention forever, but anything is better than being alone and bored for another century, right? Plus, of course, you can do other things, when you’re together. Other things that make him very, very happy.

In fact…

You leisurely, finger-by-finger, trail up Jevil’s arm as he bobs. You make a walking motion with your index and middle fingers just to spice it up since he likes silly little jokes like that. As soon as you made contact, he stopped, eyes wide open as a shiver ran up his tail. He looks devilish right now, ears alert, tongue poking out from between his golden fangs. Your hand makes it to the back of his head again. You ask him if he wants to sweeten up the date.

“OH, HO!! HOW COULD I EVER SAY NO, NO?”

Roughly?

“YOU KNOW HOW I LIKE IT, PLAYTHING. UEE HEE HEE!”

Unsurprisingly, the rubbing from Jevil’s riding your lap as he celebrated had already made you stiffen a bit. With your hand on the back of his head, you lovingly stare into his eyes, raise your hand farther up, slipping it under his hat and gripping one of his horns hard, yanking his mouth to yours. His tongue already hanging out, you take it into your mouth, hearing him squeal with joy at your aggression. You grasp his horn in one hand and his behind in the other, situating him up and onto your groin. You grind your cocks together through your clothes, as Jevil allows you to move his head and body as you please. He moans in ecstasy at the hot friction of your bodies. Using his horn as a sort of steering handle, you can angle his mouth and head however you like. You trace along his teeth before continuing to suck, nip, and bite at his much bigger, fruitier tongue. You bite onto his tongue hard, feeling it squelch under the tension of your canines, before pulling his head back by his horn, pulling more of his tongue out of his mouth as you grip it with your teeth. Drool trickles, forming streams along his chin.

“AH! HA, HA…FUCK! NGHH!”

He looks disoriented by the sudden rush of pain, and his tongue turns a deeper purple. His drool coats his fangs, causing them to shine, the liquid dripping onto his already wet tongue. You free him from your bite, returning to connect your mouth back to his. As you move closer to his face, you notice he yelps whenever you squeeze his horn up above. Curious, you separate from him again, studying his face. His mouth is quivering, making him look overstimulated as he begs you for mercy with his eyes, knowing you realized you have a whole new body part to exploit. You slowly pull your hand down, encircling his horn from tip to base, a hard shiver running through his entire body in coordination with your pump. You furrow your brow roguishly as his head droops to the side, saliva running out of his mouth at its corner. He giggles hazily.

“HEE, HEE…MORE, MORE!!”

You do as he insists and begin stroking his horn as you would his cock. His giggles intensify, and he begins reflexively grinding you harder, forcing his horn through your hand faster as he moves up and down. You move your face closer to his once more, hot breath exchanged between the both of you. You ask him if he likes it, and he laughs, eager to please.

“AH…YOU’D LIKE THAT, WOULDN’T YOU, PLAYTHING? YOU WANT TO HEAR ME SAY IT, SAY I WANT YOU TO FUCK ME, ME! BUT I WON’T!! I WON’T SAY I-“

You cut him off by sneaking your other hand from his behind up his shirt, pressing your fingers into his soft, rounded torso. The chiffon scratches on the outer side of your hand, contrasting with his body. He sways his head, dazed and intoxicated with your movements all over him. His voice is sing-song.

“MM-MMM! OH, OH…I WON’T, WON’T-“

You roughly twist his nipple between your index and thumb.

“AH! FUCK!! MM-OKAY, YES, YES!! I LIKE IT! UEE HEE HEE!! I LIKE IT, I LIKE IT, HEE HEE! MMM, TOUCH ME MORE, I NEED YOU, NEED YOU! OH, I’VE BEEN SO BAD, JUST AWFUL! I NEED YOU TO FUCK THE SINNER OUT OF ME, ME!!”

Jevil arches his back, his arms bent and raised behind him, stretching his chest out into your palm for further exploration. You skim the surface of his skin, hand splayed against his chest, then stomach, then hipbones. He arches into your hand every time, pushing his hip and pelvis towards your hand as you travel downwards. He makes circles with his hips on your crotch, his voluptuous backside heavy and tantalizing to your flesh. Your other hand continues fondling his horn, feeling the ridges and indentations, a pattern so unlike his supple body.

You feel his tail softly swaying as you grope him, giving you another bright idea. You trace your hand over the edge of his hips and wrap around to his back, right at the base of his tail. He starts snickering again, just as he did before you touched his horn, indicating you may have hit the jackpot. Nothing better than a lover whose whole body is an erogenous zone, right?

He feels your warmth sneaking closer towards his tail, causing him to pull away, wiggling to dislodge your hand from his hip and his horn. He laughs uncontrollably, his excitement building up too much inside him, causing him to squirm away and off you. He lands on the carousal’s floor with a few hops on the tip of one of his shoes, nearly losing his balance. His hat has completely fallen to one side and his shirt has ridden up from your pawing, both of which he casually fixes like he wasn’t about to get the life fucked out of him a minute before. Feeling your erection lift a bit into the air without his weight, you snap out of your haze to look at him in annoyance, which almost immediately turns to hunger. He straightens himself out, standing a few feet away from you, glaring playfully. He wants to play cat and mouse. Very well.

He looks at you, angling his gaze downward, licking his teeth. His tail jerks back and forth violently as he waits for your next move, his legs crossed like a ballerina about to perform a play. One foot in front of him and one behind him.

You stand at full height, towering over him, twice as tall. Your bulge pushes uncomfortably against your pants, angry at being denied. You lift a foot off the ground, holding it out in front of you without yet taking a step. Jevil twitches, ready to bolt in the opposite direction, but sees you stop midair and doesn’t make a move. He bounces side-to-side impatiently, cocking his head and sticking out his tongue in a taunt. You know he wants to be fucked as badly as you want to give it to him, it’s just a matter of catching him. Once you do, you know exactly what you’ll do with him to make up for the chase.

You decide to make a run for it head-on, just to see what his tactic will be. He chuckles and hops back, but not fast enough to avoid a collision. Well, you thought so anyway. As soon as you make contact, he disappears, forcing you to quickly skid to a stop lest you dunk yourself in the molten grape juice again. You turn around, growling as you see him far behind you jumping up and down on his tail, his neck uncoiled and his head bouncing wildly. He taunts you in a melodic voice.

“YO-O-OU’LL HAVE TO TRY HARDER THAN THA-A-AT, PLAYTHING! UEE HEE HEE!!”

You catch your breath, frantically trying to think of a way to outsmart him. You know you can’t catch him – he’ll just disappear again. He controls the room in its entirety, and even if you could use it against him, there’s nothing in here to utilize. Your face is a hot, red mess as you pant, cock still throbbing hard enough to hurt. Nothing excites him more than to see you predatory, ready to pounce but so far out of his reach. You imagine he’s in as much pain as you, but that only makes it more fun, fun.

You decide the only way to win is to get him to come to you.

You stand up straight again. He watches you with intense, devoted eyes. He can’t wait to see what you’ve come up with. You make sure he’s following your hand by lifting it slowly, placing it on the front of your pants. His brow wavers a bit. You unzip, slower than you raised your hand, as the sound of your pants undoing fills the room. Zipper down. Button opened. Hands on either hip, pulling down inch-by-inch. His smile is fading as the realization hits. You start rubbing yourself, pants on the ground but boxers still covering your cock. Precum stains the very tip, but otherwise, you’ve got a full load again. You play, letting it slap against you, stroking up and down from tip to balls. You look like a four-course meal while he looks like he’s been on a deserted island for two weeks.

You pull at the edges of your underwear, just as he had the cycle before, letting the tip get caught until it pulls its own way out, smacking against your pelvis. Jevil can barely contain himself, his own erection beginning to form a shadow on his dark pants. No longer smiling, he realizes he’s going to lose. You wrap one hand around your cock, and with one deliberate pump, then two, then three, start jacking yourself off, standing across the room. He’s not going to let you go to waste and you know it.

“CLEVER, CLEVER! I HANG MY SORRY HEAD IN DEFEAT, PLAYTHING. YOU KNOW I COULD NEVER LET YOU HAVE ALL THE FUN, FUN!!”

Shrugging his shoulders, he begrudgingly lifts his foot out in front of him to take a step toward you but you immediately shake your finger at him, taking your other hand off your cock. You point to the floor. You tell him to crawl to you like a good boy or no treat for him.

That makes losing completely worth it. He eagerly drops to his knees, his tiny body looking even smaller close to the floor. He arches his back, putting his chest to the floor and stretching his arms so that his ass is high in the air, plump and ready for pounding. His tail curls towards you and down in front of his face, bouncing up and down. He figures a little out-teasing contest is in order, so he rolls over onto his back, still locking eyes with you, his hat scrunched down by his head, leaving you ample room to see his body and for him to see you hard.

“I KNOW HOW TO MAKE YOU WANT ME, ME! UEE HEE HEE!”

Pulling at the tip, he yanks one glove then the other off, tossing them to the side so his nimbler, pointed fingers are free. He starts at his neck, unhooking the neck piece and letting it fall to either side of him. Then he undoes the cloak. He traces the first button of his shirt, circling it with a finger before he undoes it. He strip teases you, gliding his hands all over his chest, torso, hips, groin, until he wraps around to his ass, wiggling into his hands as he moves down himself. He can’t help but buck occasionally, absolutely desperate to be touched but more desperate to draw out your hunger. He makes it to the final button, his shirt still lazily draped around his arms and shoulders but open at the front, showing off his smooth belly.

“MMM, DON’T I LIKE APPETIZING? DON’T YOU WANT TO JUST…DIG INTO ME? HEE, HEE!”

As he pauses, he grabs his groin suggestively, winking at you. You point to the spot below you, beckoning him to come closer. A drip of precum falls from your tip to the floor, right near where you pointed. He flips himself back over, stretching like a cat, arms and fingers down and out in front of him. His ass is once again in full view, albeit still clothed, unlike most of him. He takes his sweet time crawling, hips swaying with each movement towards you. You stare at one another the entire time, faces blushed and slightly sweating.

He stops about a foot in front of you, situating himself on his knees, waiting for your next command. You lift his hat up and over his horns, leaving them exposed without taking it off completely. He’s not entirely sure where you’re going, but he watches your every move, following your hands and squinting in suspicion. Before he can say anything, you roughly grab both of his horns and tug his coiled neck loose, shoving your cock into his throat without displacing his body. You hold his horns like a steering wheel again, fucking his throat as fast and hard as you like. He has to keep his mouth open and slack jawed to avoid ripping your dick clean off with his razor-sharp teeth, but this makes it so all the saliva leaks out of his mouth, around his teeth, and onto the carousal floor. He can’t make much noise with your cock filling his throat, so the room is filled with wet, messy pounding sounds. You mumble for him to take your cock like a good pet, and the corners of his mouth lift a little, trying to smiling but barely able to with his mouth agape.

He makes the sleaziest bedroom eyes at you as you use his throat, entranced with your use of him. He pulls his pants just far down enough that his cock is poking out. You notice he’s wearing sheer tights under his pants, ending right at his waistline. He plays with himself through them, the friction undoubtedly making him harder into his hand. His knees still bent and body close to the floor, he starts jacking himself off wildly with one hand as the other collects some of the stray spit pouring from his mouth like a waterfall. You half watch him, more interested in his throat than his antics at the moment. You see his tail come around to his front then back to his ass, slipping it down in between his tights and pants. You realize he lubed his tail with the thick, fruity spit from his mouth so he could fuck himself with its rod-like tip as you thrust into his throat and he pumps his own cock. It’s not his first time doing that. His body shifts back and forth to fuck himself on his tail, his neck creaking from being stretched to reach your groin.

Jevil’s eyes are watering a fair amount, but he doesn’t make you pull out or stop. The tightness of his throat is almost too much for you and you have to slow down before you come. You reluctantly pull yourself out of his mouth, letting him cough and clear his throat of spit. You bend down to place his neck back into its carapace, watching him continue to fuck his tail, though he stops pumping his cock. You tell him to let you do that for him.

“OR WHAT? OR ELSE? WHAT WILL YOU DO TO ME, ME, PLAYTHING? HOW WILL YOU DISCIPLINE INNOCENT ME?”

Hmph. Devilish. Whoever picked out that name came up with a good one for this little fucker. Nothing is ever easy with him, is it? He lifts himself off the floor a bit to spread his legs, shoving his tail farther up inside of him, staring at you fixedly. His panting gets loud, dramatic even, and his tongue wags as it hangs from his mouth. You pick him up by the hips and walk towards a section of the wall. You leave your undergarments in a pile behind you, now only in your shirt.

The wall you walk towards instinctively hardens on your approach. He knows what’s about to happen. With his tail still lodged in his ass, you rub your cock against his, holding him up by clawing your fingers into his back. Because they are so small, it takes both of his hands to wrap around your cocks in unison, but he does so, pumping them together, his still hidden in his tights but glistening with thin droplets of cum. His hand is soft but his tights are gritty. It feels different, more vulgar than just flesh to flesh. The buildup is alluring. He loosens his neck a bit and wiggles his head upwards towards you so you can kiss again.

You play with his tongue for a moment before nudging your head under his to find his neck coil. You drag your tongue as far along as you can reach before testing the feeling of its organic metal against your teeth. You bite down lightly a few times, realizing a serious chomp would probably damage you. You settle on careful nibbles, coating the section of coil with your warm saliva. Jevil lets out a deeper groan than usual as his head rests back on the ecto-wall, which you take to mean he’s enjoying himself. The bells of his hat ring quietly as he bobs up and down to the motion of his tail fucking him.

“OH, PLAYTHING…MMM. I LIKE BEING YOUR TOY. I LIKE OUR LITTLE GAME OF CAT AND MOUSE. WHO IS WHO IS WHO? UEE HEE HEE…!”

His voice sounds sleepy, far away, as he moans in between words. He can barely focus with his ass, cock, and neck all played with at once. He won’t be able to last much longer without a break. You stretch your neck back up to his face to get his attention and he leans down, smiling languidly, eyes half shut. He giggles, more drool leaking out of him as he plays with the tips of your cocks, rubbing the small globs of precum on both. Your cock is a bit longer, but his is fatter, making his grip on them a little awkward.

You pull him away from the wall, still holding him close, as he slowly removes his tail from inside of him. With a moment to breathe, he seems to perk back up in your arms, able to focus his eyes on you once more. He still has this arms and legs wrapped around you, his black pants and green and yellow polka-dot underwear hanging loosely at the end of his leg. Seeing him work himself up so much gave you a grand idea, especially if his magic works with your touch. You tell him the game hasn’t ended yet and that you’d like to try something new.

“HA, HA…NEW, NEW! NOVELTY MAKES THE WORLD GO ROUND, ROUND! NOVELTY MAKES MY HEART POUND, POUND! AMONG OTHER THINGS. UEE HEE HEE!!”

You let out a quick, airy laugh, not expecting him to make a sex joke out of a rhyme but pleased that he did. You glance to the floor then back to him, indicating to him to use his tail to hold himself up. He does, sandwiching him between you and the goop but allowing you to free your hands. Sliding him up a bit to reposition him, your cock goes from directly above his to poking at his backside. You take his arms from your shoulders and roughly shove them up and against the wall. You cup some of the ectoplasm in your hands, pulling and pouring it over his wrists. It hardens into shackle-like shapes, holding his arms up by his hands, restrained by the wall. You figure this will hurt after a while, but he still has his tail to rest on, as long as you’re not playing with it yourself.

“OH, OH, MY PLAYTHING, MY CAPTOR, I AM AT YOUR MERCY, MERCY!! UEE HEE HEE! DO WITH ME WHAT YOU WILL, WILL!”

He dramatically turns to the side like a damsel in a tacky romance film, the bells of his hat jingling along with the shift. He pretends to frown, which doesn’t last long before he starts giggling and smiling again, excited to be at your disposal. He tries to stifle himself but he’s awful at it. He wiggles his leg to free the undergarments from him, leaving him in only his hat and tights, the latter of which his ass and thighs fill perfectly with a bit of love handle poking out from where they meet his waist. Grunting, he lifts his legs far up above him, reminding you of his unnatural flexibility, as he presents his covered cock and ass to you like a dessert. He holds onto his own ankles with his shackled hands. You imagine, in all the time he’s been in here, he’s used this position to suck himself off many, many times. You know you would if you could.

“LO, AN INNOCENT SUCH AS ME, AT THE HANDS OF SUCH TYRANNY! BOO HOO HOO!!”

Still smiling, he looks away as he fake cries, wagging his ass at you as it hangs in the air impatiently. As soon as you go to touch him, his tail covers his groin as best it can, being so thin compared to his much thicker rump.

“NO, NO, I MUST RESIST YOUR FLIRTATION! BUT SO HANDSOME A CAPTOR, SO SWEET A TEMPTATION…!”

He sounds like he’s reciting the lines to an abstinence-only themed play. He’s trying so hard not to laugh that you’re pretty sure he knows that. His face deepening in color again, you know he’s enjoying the roleplay but more so turned on by being on display. The translucence of his tights glints in the abnormal lighting of the room, enhanced by the wetness of his cock. Under the tights, you see that he has loosened himself plenty from playing with his tail earlier, his cock twitching in anticipation of your touch.

You grab his tail, finally making contact with it since trying to stroke it before the game began. He lets out a squeal. You pull from the base towards you, unrolling it out like a coiled rope and uncovering his behind. A hard, full-body shudder runs through him, forcing his tongue out of his mouth, his yellow pupils rolling around sluggishly in his black sclera. You drag your tightened hand along its length, leaning in towards his face to hear him whimper in joy. His cries worsen as you use your other hand to rub his thighs, ass, cock, rotating between every bit of his groin. Touching him is like finally making it to the finish line of a marathon, like finally reaching the peak of a mountain. Like finally catching your prey.

“HEE, HEE, MAYBE, MAYBE A TOUCH OR TWO, OH, MMM!! MAYBE A TOUCH OR THREE!”

He bucks into your hand, his still-clothed cock convulsing against your palm. You let him grind you for a time before releasing your grip on his tail and body, making him whine in protest, loud and lovely in your ear as you stay leaned in towards him. His whine is genuine, as he expected to get filled very soon, but now you get to be the tease. You stand over him, taking it in for a moment before finally telling him you’ll give him what he wants if…

“OF COURSE, OF COURSE! I’LL DO ANYTHING FOR YOU! TO YOU! TO ME, ME! UEE HEE HEE!!”

…he begs for it.

“MMM-OH! SO PROFANE! DIABOLICAL, EVEN! TO MAKE ME BEG FOR YOUR TOUCH!! I CAN’T, I CAN’T-“

He turns dramatically again, holding himself like that for a moment before springing his eyes right back to you, his pupils rolling around the outsides of his eyes like loose marbles before locking into place to gaze at you.

“JUST KIDDING! AH, OH, PLEASE, PLEASE, FUCK ME, ME! FUCK ME INTO SWEET SUBMISSION! MAKE ME YOURS! USE THIS BODY TO YOUR HEART’S DESIRE! FILL MY EVERY, HUNGRY HOLE!! PLEASE, MY PLAYTHING, MY CAPTOR, I AM YOURS FOR THE TAKING!! UEE HEE HEE!”

He rolls his hips at you as he begs, his ass protruding towards you, directly in front of your still exposed cock. If he wanted to, all he’d have to do to make contact would be to lift himself towards you a bit more, but he wants to be toyed with. To let you take control. Performance is fun, fun and comes natural for him.

You lower yourself, positioning your knees under you so his bottom is at face-level for you. Since your heights are so dramatically different, it doesn’t take much lift for you to come face-to-ass with him. He looks at you, wide-eyed, waiting ever so patiently to feel your mouth or tongue, but all you let out is hot, humid breaths against his tights. He flinches uncomfortably, ready to burst. You stay hovered over him before finally placing your wet, flattened tongue against him, starting at his ass and licking up to the tip of his cock. The fabric of the tights is grainy against your tongue, but the warmth of his body mixes with the slick of his fluids as you move closer to his cock. His moans quiver as his flesh spasms against your tongue. Your hands unconsciously latch onto his thighs again, unable to stop themselves from groping him. He is so undeniably enticing in this position.

“OOH! OH, GOODNESS, TOO HOT TO KEEP YOUR HANDS OFF ME? UEE HEE HEE!!”

As he says this, you look down to your fingers digging into him impatiently. You quickly retract them, embarrassed. He’s right. It’s hard not to just fuck him right away. He laughs even more, boastful that he’s so irresistible to you.

“HEE, HEE! DON’T YOU WANT IT? DON’T YOU WANT TO HAVE ME AGAIN, AGAIN? I WANT YOU, TOO!!”

His words are breathy, naughty, as they radiate from him and the walls around him, like millions of microscopic Jevils surround you, moaning in unison with their relatively-normal-sized-but-still-quite-small host. His face is burning as sweat rolls out from under his hat. He must feel sickeningly pent up. You begin to extend your legs to stand up, placing each of your hands on either of his thighs as far down him as possible. As you slowly stand, you lean closer to him, rubbing your hands along his thighs, each inch you ascend another inch along his tights. You gaze upward, then forward, your eyelids drooped low, vaguely smirking. He is biting his bottom lip as he watches you, feeling your hands sneak up towards his cock. As you come face-to-face with it, you place your mouth over the very tip, tasting his fruity precum. Your saliva seeps through his tights, the fresh heat causing another tiny spurt to enter your mouth.

”YOU TEASE! OH, OH, FUCK!! MMM!”

You suck the side of his cock you can reach from outside of his tights, soaking them and him, a dark spot forming under your mouth. Your tongue twists and turns against him, pleasant but much too delicate, as you feel him shifting uncomfortably.

“PLEASE, PLEASE, OH, PLAYTHING, I BEG YOU! I NEED MORE, I’M LOSING MY MARBLES! RUIN ME, ME!!”

You tell him you’re in control. You’ll fuck him when you’re good and ready. When you feel like he deserves it. He titters, a tinge of fear in his eyes as you growl at him, another drop of cum leaking into his drenched tights. You feel powerful with him shackled against the wall, body outstretched and vulnerable, his face thrilled and scared.

You grip your hands into his tights, right above his cock, and pull as hard as you can. You snarl. They rip loudly, resisting your strength but ultimately tearing apart, leaving a gaping, messy hole in the cloth where his cock and ass are. His eyes, dramatic as ever, turn into big, yellow hearts as he begins laughing and breathing heavy again. His tail slips between your legs, the tip flattening against your back, shoving you towards him and your cock against the very edge of his. He grinds against you wildly, arching his back as fast as he can. His small fingers twitch every which way as they hold onto his ankles, so tired from holding up his body but even more pleased to edge towards the finale. His head is scrunched against his body as his torso bends, his belly squished into his chin, his legs still firmly secured upward and latched to his hands at the shackles.

You can’t take it anymore. You’ve been waiting for what feels like an eternity, half of it getting your cock sucked and half of it staring at his displayed ass, desperately trying to put off fucking him. By now, you’re both so ready to climax, you’re going to explode if you don’t go for it. You reach down and under his thighs, still-ripped tights snaked around his legs but shredded near his sensitive bits. Gripping him by the rear, you pull him up, letting him wrap his legs around your waist tightly. You lick your fingers and put one in his asshole, feeling the warmth of his insides. Ready for you to fuck. He tenses it on you, which you respond to by putting in another finger. He lifts himself up and down on your digits, rubbing your cocks together in the process.

“OH, COME ON, COME ON, COME ON, PLAYTHING, COME ON, COME IN, COME DOWN, COME PLAY THE RING-AROUND, UEE HEE HEE!!!”

His words nearly fall over themselves as he rushes to get them out. When he says ring-around, he circles his hips, rocking his head in the same movement. You take your fingers out of his ass and place them on your cock, angling it towards his entrance. He purses his lips, nearly choking on his excited laughter, his chest bobbing up and down rapidly. Staring down at him, you press the tip of your cock up to him without inserting, circling his rim. His voice cracks as he licks his teeth and bites down hard on his bottom lip. You trace, taunting him. He tries to be sneaky, loosening his shackles so he can drop himself onto your cock and force you inside of him, but you pull your cock up and away before he can. He giggles mischievously. You start to threaten him, telling him you’re not going to fuck him if he keeps acting like a brat; right as he wonders if you’re being serious, you push your cock into his ass.

“OH, OH, YES! YES!! FINALLY! OH, YES! GOD, YES!! FUCK ME! YES, MY PLAYTHING! OH, OH, OH, OH!!”

You slip into him agonizingly slow, feeling him arch and tremble, a tsunami of relief washing over him and drowning him in pleasure. His tail still between your legs, it begins drooping towards the floor, but you lift one leg out of the way so you can reach your hand down to grab it. It’s long enough that you can hold it while fucking him. You yank on it, hard. More fruity semen spills out of Jevil as he bends his head back and screams at the top of his lungs, if only for a moment. You’re a bit deafened from the room yelling in unison, but his eyes are watering and he’s smiling ear to ear. You yank again, fucking him in the same beat. His tail comes lose in your hand as a string pulls out at its base. The string pulls his tail back to him like some kind of doll, and when it hits its connection to his back, his head pops out, hitting its apex and falling at its midpoint. Now loose from his neck, his head is hanging next to you as it bobs from the momentum. He looks at you, his face now upside down, laughing as tears drip from him. You’re not half as shocked as you would be if he didn’t pull this shit every 10 minutes.

You lean over to kiss him as you move your hands to his thighs to hold his legs up as you fuck him. When you bite his tongue, you pull him closer, but when you release it, his head swings through the air a little. The disorientation is making him dizzy, his body still in front of you being pounded but his head upside down and swaying. As you fuck him, his body bounces away from the wall, swinging a bit from his shackled arms. The wall makes vaguely wet noises as you fuck him against it. He sighs into your ear, head still hanging next to you, everything jiggling in unison to your entering and exiting.

His insides melt around you, shifting into different textures, some smooth and some more ribbed. His entire body seems to pulse against your cock, waves of pleasure rolling over him steadily. With his arms restricted, his cock can only convulse and spurt in response, wet but untouched.

You fuck him in this position for a while, surprised at your own stamina. Something tells you Jevil is purposefully loosening on you when he feels you start to climax so you’ll last longer. You open your eyes for the first time after a moment, noticing his eyes are closed in a pained scowl. You look down to see his tail trembling as it holds him up. His arms are tired.

You pull out of him, still holding onto his thighs so he doesn’t topple. You tell him to let the shackles melt so you can change position, and he gladly does so, allowing you to place him wherever you’d like. His tail lowers him to the ground again, leaving him facing you. You make a circle motion in the air to tell him to turn around; he does so, his mouth wiggling as he realizes you’re going to fuck him against the wall. You drop to your knees, scooching in closer to him, his tail affectionately rubbing your chest as he waits for you to enter again. You line up his small, thick legs on either side of your knees. He has to half-stand because of your differing heights, but he’ll have your cock to rest on soon. Placing his hands on his ass to spread himself, his tights rip further to accommodate his stance. You finally remove his hat, tossing it to the side with a soft jingle, leaving him in nothing but his torn sheers.

”LAST RIDE ON THE MERRY-GO-ROUND, ALL ABOARD! UEE HEE HEE!!”

He can’t help himself, can he? You angle your cock, press into him, then put your fingers into the sides of mouth to feel his teeth and hold onto him. He laps at you but doesn’t bite down since you’ve probably lose your hand in the process. Using your grip as leverage, you start to mercilessly pound into him harder than before, his ass banging on your cock with loud slapping noises. Your balls swing as you buck, occasionally hitting against his when you go particularly deep. The angle causes you to hit his sweet spot. His short arms bend, his hands splayed against the wall on either side of him. He faces up towards the top of the carousal, his tongue hanging out of his mouth again as he groans.

Overcome with longing, you take your wet fingers from his jaw and run your hands over his body, starting with his chest, stomach, and finally, his cock. Slicked with his own saliva, you start pumping his cock at the same pace you fuck him. His tail wraps around your waist, tugging you into him. You lean over him, using one hand to jack him off and the other to hold onto his body. You use your mouth to stroke one of his horns with your tongue – it feels sandy, gritty, and yet still like him.

“OH, OH!! SO DEEP, DEEP! MMM! HARDER!! HA, HA, I LOVE IT! I LOVE IT!! GIVE IT TO ME, BIG BOY! HEE, HEE!”

You quicken your thrusts until you’re pounding right into his swollen gland, over and over and over and over. His cock is violently pulsating in your hand. His fingers spasm until they turn into fists against the wall. His tail scrunches up around you like a flayed piece of string. With a loud, forceful exclamation, you feel his cock flex in your hand, his insides tightening abnormally hard around you, unexpectedly making you orgasm at the same time. You feel yourself empty inside him in spurts, his ass not loosening, sometimes gripping, until every drop is sucked from you. He chuckles, tired but pleased that you filled him up again. Expecting him to have come all over you and the wall, it takes you a minute to notice your hand doesn’t have anything on it. You lean over his side to see a tiny red flag with “BANG!” written on it protruding from the tip of his dick. It seems this is what he was waiting for – you to see his joke – and he smacks a hand to his forehead, covering his eyes as he laughs deliriously. Another cum joke? Really?

As he’s falling into hysterics, you grab the horn on the other side of his head, pushing his mouth towards you, like you’re biting his very giggles right out of the air. He’s more than happy to finish by kissing you, your cock still a little inside of him but starting to retract as it grows flaccid. The flag poofs from his dick, letting a slow torrent of cum drizzle out of it as he softens as well.

“HEE, HEE, TALK ABOUT…GOING OUT WITH A BANG! UEE HEE HEE! YOU DID A REAL…BANG-UP JOB, PLAYTHING! REALLY…AH, BANGED ME INTO SUBMISSION!!”

Every single time he says “BANG,” a drum roll followed by a cymbal crash plays off to the side, emanating from thin air. A laugh track plays after the third “BANG.” There’s the audience he mentioned earlier. If you were more of an exhibitionist, you might be excited by the prospect, but you’re mostly just drained.

Both of you sighing heavily, Jevil’s mixed with laughter, you start to loosen your leg muscles to allow yourselves to stand up. You were in that position so long that your legs seem to have forgotten how to bend any other way, and it takes a bit of painful stretching to get back to normal. Jevil’s body recovers much faster than yours, of course, so he waits for you to move before extending his legs back and up, gripping at his ass cheeks to spread them and show off his filled asshole as your cum trickles down his thighs. He looks at you through his legs and sticks his tongue out proudly.

”WE’LL HAVE TO DO THIS AGAIN SOMETIME, DON'T YOU THINK, PLAYTHING? UEE HEE HEE!”

Yeah, yeah. Have to pick up a cake from Top Chef, but yeah. You're pretty sure you will.

Chapter Text

With your legs recovering back to their normal strength, you stretch, reaching towards the ceiling of the carousel, groaning in relief as your body loosens. Now flaccid, your dick lays against you lazily, the head slick with your drying cum. Jevil, still leaning over to look at you through his legs, puts his hands to the floor and hoists his torso upwards until he’s securely in a handstand. You imagine, if he were anyone else, his body would be a bit heavy for his small arms to hold up like so, but he doesn’t even grunt as he lifts himself. With his legs in the air, he bends one knee, placing his foot against the side of his other leg’s knee. He seems to be half stretching, half showing off.

With his eyes closed, he smiles, humming to himself as he poses. He extends his bent leg, pointing it outwards to his side, slowly angling it downwards, closer to his stomach. Again, if he were anyone else, this would be a lot more unbelievable with his body type. There’s no way in hell you could possibly bend like that and you’re much thinner. You’re a tiny bit jealous. Even the few drills you had to do to become a guardsman wore you out, but he can do fucking acrobatics like it’s nothing. As you stare, both envious and enamored, he does a single cartwheel to his side, landing perfectly back onto one of his hands. He opens his eyes for a moment just to wink at you before closing them again. His other leg stretches, pointing and angling, as his tail twists back and forth like he’s meditating. His torn tights have stopped ripping by now since they’re shredded and barely hanging onto his legs. Through the massive hole in them you can still see his ass, a matching splatter of cum leaking from him as he moves about the room.

His arms are just long enough so his horns don’t scratch along the ground as he hums and rolls his head. It must take some concentration to stop his neck from uncoiling. Finishing with his leg stretches, he tucks and rolls forward towards you before hoisting his body back up into a handstand in front of you. He lets out a quick “HUP!!” as he hops on his hand, turning his body around so his behind is facing you. From there, he leans, sliding his legs around your waist, latching on so he can pull his torso and head up until his arms can grab onto your shoulder blades. As soon as he comes face to face with you, what must be holes at the tip of each of his horns release clouds of confetti, his head bouncing slightly to the motion of him grappling you. The sound of invisible, omnipresent noisemakers accompanies the confetti as it blows out and drifts onto you, him, and the floor around you.

“TA-DA!! ONCE A PERFORMER, ALWAYS A PERFORMER! UEE HEE HEE!”

You laugh, still in a daze. You interlock your fingers around Jevil’s rear to better hold him up. Flesh to flesh, you hold him close to you, exposed. In between giggles, both yours and his, you tell him how impressive he is. How amazed you are at what he can do. How cute and fun and entertaining he always is. How warm and full you feel when you step into the room, when you hear his voice after even the briefest absence. How you feel like you have a reason to wake up now. How, no matter how terrified you were the cycle before, you knew you would come back, even if it meant risking your life. How addicting he is to be around.

You realize you haven’t talked this much since you met him. This is the first time you get to watch Jevil listen, entranced with your words, eager not only to be praised but just to hear you. The room is so often filled with him that it must be freeing to let it fill with you for a change. Unblinking, he looks into your eyes, his yellow pupils darting back and forth as you go on and on. His tail sways methodically below him. He doesn’t interrupt, but his face gleefully twitches in accordance, his expression turning to slight concern as you mention being scared and in danger. His ears droop. He doesn’t stop smiling, but you can tell it stings, remembering how easily you were wiped from his life with nothing he could do to stop it. If you had chosen to stay gone, he would have been none the wiser, returning to another year, decade, or century of perpetual loneliness. He wouldn’t even have a memory of you to cling to. Even with the door open, he can’t leave the room, so he would be at the mercy of some other visitor wandering their way down to his floor.

As you near the end of your speech and see Jevil wince, you realize you don’t want to upset him again. Even if it wouldn’t be enough to bring the Ringleader back around, it hurts you just as much to see him sad, so you stumble over your words, trying to turn the conversation around. Instead, you try to corral your rambling to remarking on how much you enjoy your time together again. How you feel safe in his room, as freaky and fleshy as it is, to which he laughs. How you’d miss him if you were ever gone long. How you’d miss his body. How much you love his body. How much you love holding him, and touching him, and kissing him, and...

His face grows increasingly excited, waiting for you to say the best part.

Yes, yes, and fucking him. He squeezes his legs around you, leaning in closer and looking off to the side wistfully as he soaks in your praise.

“I ESPECIALLY LIKE THAT LAST PART, PART! UEE HEE HEE, OPEN UP YOUR HEART, HEART TO ME, PLAYTHING! I AM ALL EARS!”

You grip your fingers into his bottom playfully as you growl in his ear. It perks up to your advances. You tell him how much you like fucking him. How good it is to hold him down and use him. To feel him pulse against you, to hear him moan and cry for more. You tell him how great his thighs are and especially his ass. You like his body and his girthy little cock to match. He blushes, leaning on you leisurely and taking in your compliments. You imagine, if you wanted to, he could go again – endless stamina, and all. But, as it stands, you’re mostly just having fun and trying to keep his spirits up. You couldn’t possibly come again, and even if you tried, you know you’d probably chafe and then have to wait even longer.

“OOH HOO HOO, PLAYTHING! I HAD NO IDEA YOU FELT THIS WAY ABOUT ME, ME!”

He begins fanning himself dramatically.

“WOULD IT SURPRISE AND DELIGHT YOU…”

He leans in, whispering as best he can.

“…THAT I FEEL THE SAME, SAME? UEE HEE HEE!”

He rocks his hips against you as he speaks. You feel him hardening as he stimulates himself on your pelvis, your flirting making him hungry. He wants you again. Already. It’s definitely your fault for leading him on, but it’s hard not to when it makes him light up so beautifully.

Well, there are other ways to fuck that don’t involve you tiring your dick.

You lean your mouth down to his, sloppy sticking your tongue in his jaws, with no kiss to lead up to it. He’s surprised by how forceful you are, but so, so pleased that you’re willing to play again. A tiny gasp escapes his throat before you block it. You prod and bite on his tongue and lips, getting more beastly as he cries into your open mouth and his cock presses against your torso harder and harder with each passing second. He claws into your neck and shoulders with his small, pointed fingertips. You release one of your gripped hands from his rear and wrap it around his throat, pushing his head and mouth away from yours. He has a look of desperation on his face, his eyes drooped slightly. You squeeze your hand around his coil, looking down at him with a serious, almost angry face. You want him to feel a little afraid of you right now, and he starts to, his facial expression wriggling between horny and nervous. He trusts you enough to know you won’t hurt him, not really, or maybe just enough to make it more fun.

You gradually let your legs bend beneath you, lowering you both to the carousal floor, one hand tight around his throat and the other still clutched into his ass. As you sit cross-legged, you situate Jevil so he is sitting in the dip of your legs, still close to your body. His legs rest over either of your hips with his ass on your lap and limbs. You move your hands to his face, holding it in your palms and aggressively forcing him to look up, directly at you. He isn’t laughing as much as normal, and when he does, you can hear the shiver in his voice. He likes that you’re in control, but he doesn’t always know what to expect. It’s an incredible feeling – the ability to do anything to someone.

You move your head side to side, dragging your gaze along his body, holding him by the jawline so he has to make eye contact with you. His erection is stabbing at your stomach, painfully hardened by the tinge of fear. His tail curls around the outside of your legs, nearly wrapping all the way around your body. His hands are on either side of your waist, gently clasped around your hips. With your own dick still flaccid from working so hard earlier, it’s much easier for you to focus. You’re glad you can soak him in.

You ask him what’s that throbbing against you.

“UEE HEE, MMM, I WONDER, I WONDER? PERHAPS YOU SHOULD INVESTIGATE?”

Instead of giggling, or smiling, or really reacting at all, you stare down at him intently, slowly leaning your head to one side. He bites his bottom lip, looking away as he pretends to be bashful, more and more unsure of what your intentions are. One hand returns to firmly wrap around his ass. The other slides along his jaw until you reach his mouth, slithering a finger, then two, over his lip and in between his teeth. He lifts his tongue hesitantly, waiting for you to touch it. You trace along its side, starting towards the back and moving it outward until you reach his teeth. His tongue is large, purple, and very, very wet. You circle his sharp canine, feeling the slickness of his warm saliva over his tongue and teeth. Drool trickles down his chin as you force his mouth to stay open as you play. His eyes, unblinking once again, look up at you, a smile barely hinted across his face. He’s really not sure what you’re up to, but he loves being toyed with.

Spit starts to leak, dripping onto his chest and stomach, rolling over his belly. The longer you keep his mouth open, the wetter his torso gets. Naturally, he produces can unnatural amount of saliva, like an excited puppy. The purple of his saliva and the light blue of his skin mix, glinting in the ambient light of the room. Finally, it makes contact with his cock, dripping first onto his head and then down his shaft. His eyes contort, driven mad by the sudden warmth. He glances down quickly, unable to move his head with your digits locked into his maw. His fingers grasp into your hips tighter as his cock twitches in response to the stimulation. You feel his body quaking – a little violently - against you.

“MMM…WHAT A TEASE, TEASE…”

It’s hard for him to talk with his jaw gaping open, but he does anyway, aided by his connection to the room, like surround sound speakers. His ears are close to the sides of his head, pointed down towards the floor behind him. You search around the inside of his mouth for a moment longer, feeling his gums and sharp teeth beneath your touch. His mouth opens more to allow you ample area to peruse, causing saliva to fall from the pool atop his tongue. It looks similar to a shark’s mouth with less rows of teeth. You softly wrap your fingers around his bottom lip and drag, pulling his mouth open so far his jaw looks dislocated, until you finally remove yourself from his mouth altogether. He stays agape for a moment before the instinctive tension of his muscles pulls his mouth to its normal closure. With one finger, you trace his chin, then down his neck and front coil, reaching his chest last.

He blinks a few times, never turning his gaze from yours, his head so slightly tilted to one side. He’s captivated. You glide your finger along the wetness of his collarbone, moving side to side at first and then down. Your other hand claws along his thigh, making deep purple lines raise in his skin in reaction to your nails’ digging. A barely noticeable shuddering hits your back as you realize Jevil’s foot is curling in response to the pain, pressed against you. As you make your way over his hip, you let go with your nails and instead outstretch your hand, touching his stomach with your palm. Both of your hands rest on his damp torso, albeit on opposite sides.

Before he can react, you move your hands to either of his pecs and then his nipples, using the slickness from his saliva as lubricant. You start gentle, rubbing his tender flesh with your thumbs in a circular motion. His body rocks back and forth a bit, mirroring the path of your movements. He leans his head back and closes his eyes, hands still around your waist but so loose he might fall backwards. As his hold on you weakens and he looks to be tipping, you quickly pinch both of his nipples with your thumb and index fingers, grinning a bit as you do. He yelps, his ears suddenly pointing back towards the ceiling and his form straightening to face you again. His head rolls around the corners of his neck hole like the last piece in a gumball machine until it settles back in the middle.

“AH!! OH! THAT’S THE SINNER I KNOW, KNOW! UEE HEE HEE HEE HEE!!”

As he begins to titter, you keep one hand on his chest but roughly place the other on his jaw, forcing his face towards yours again, cutting off his laughter with your tongue. You fondle and twist at his nipple while sloppily kissing his mouth as he tries to keep up with you. You’re a bit crazed, tasting his spit and tongue and teeth and flesh, your tongue not staying inside his mouth or yours for long. His cock throbs hard against your stomach and his legs jerk uneasily on your back, his tail now thrown off to the side, wagging crazily. You can tell you’re sending him into a deep frenzy with your hands on his body and your wild, unintelligible kisses. His chest puffs out into your hand and he starts to pull at your hips, trying to get even closer to you.

Pulling away from his mouth, you angle his head away from yours so you can reach the lobe of his ear. Flicking at it with your tongue, you nibble and bite it, testing his reaction. He suddenly tenses his legs around your waist, uncontrollably bucking against you, clearly turned on by the sensation. His fingers and hands spasm, sometimes managing to grip at you but mostly curling and pushing into your soft hip.

His speaking is breathy, fast, and tumbles over itself, peppered with giggles.

“OH, OH, OH, MMM, YES!! OH, YES, I LIKE THAT, LOVE THAT! UEE HEE!! OH, OH, YES, YES, TASTE, TASTE EVERY INCH OF MY BODY, OH, OH, I AM YOURS, YOURS TO SAVOR!! UEE HEE!”

Your breath is hot and loud against his ear as you place its cartilage between your molars, still playing with his nipple and holding his face in your hand. You let him grind against you, feeling his wayward saliva and fresh precum mix and dribble down his cock and onto your legs and abdomen. His legs are constricted against your back, the shredded remains of his tights only on his calves and feet, the latter of which are pointed towards one another with his toes firmly curled.

Time to follow his advice.

All at once, you let go of his ear, jaw, and chest, instead wrapping your hands around his waist. Using your legs, you push both of you, him onto his back and you towards your front. Holding each other’s waists, you stay close to one another, tumbling over swiftly but safely. Your body is quite a bit bigger than his, though he’s girthier than you. Jevil seems to think you’re going to continue kissing and wiggles impatiently, waiting for you to lean down to his face, but you begin retracting your arms and sliding downwards, your mouth leisurely making its way to his cock, your tongue starting to slip between your lips. Looking up at him intently, you make it a few inches before he gets wind of your plan and starts laughing eagerly, his legs finally letting go of your hips to kick and cycle in the air around you.

“HU-U-UNGRY FOR MORE, ARE YOU?”

His voice gets a little louder, booming like that of an announcer for a freakshow. Breaking your serious streak, you smile and nod, your hands splayed on the floor on either side of Jevil, seemingly locking him in place underneath of you.

“OH, BUT PLAYTHING, DON’T YOU KNOW…?”

He’s suddenly quiet and tender. Your brow furrows a bit.

“ABSENCE MAKES THE HEART GROW FONDER!!”

Like the smallest, thickest racehorse ever recorded, he’s off. Jevil scrambles out from under you, backpedaling using his short arms and legs to prop himself up and away. He doesn’t get as far as he would have if he just teleported, allowing you to heatedly grab the last body part in reach – his tail. The rod-like tip fits it to your hand perfectly and you yank as hard as possible. Jevil, who managed to crawl a few feet away on his hands and knees before you snatched his tail, squeals as his head jumps out of his neck in surprise. His head, launched far in front of him, rolls and bounces as he hoots loudly, the room shimmering as it sucks up his joy. His body slumps over onto his back as his arms wrap around his stomach and hold his belly, his torso jiggling and his legs kicking as he laughs. The sorry remains of his tights swing under his legs.

You take his laughing fit as an opportunity to sneak over to his body, his tail sluggishly retracting into the small of his back, his neck following suit on the other end of his body. Your hand reaches the spot next to his right thigh before the vibration alerts him and he abruptly looks down at you. The pace of his neck and tail stay the same, but he maleficently closes his thighs, blocking you from his crotch, before covering his ass with his closed calves. He’s obviously not running away, at least not right now, so you help his tail along faster by angling it into his back with your hands, reforming his body in front of you. Even on your knees, you tower far above him, the shadow of your body casted over his smaller frame in a powerful, omniscient way. The twinkle of fear returns to his eyes as he beams up at you, a loud gulp echoing from the hose of his throat.

You place one hand on his calf, far away from your destination. You rub up and down, the grittiness of his torn tights making a soft, manufactured noise that his flesh would not. His breathing is loud and heavy as his chest beats up and down, a few streams of sweat dripping down his forehead. He’s gazing down at you, smiling. It takes everything in him not to give in right away, but the payoff is too good to miss.

One of his feet is on top of the other, toes still curled. You slowly move your hand to the crease where his calves meet, bringing up your other hand to meet the one already there. You envelop his calves in your palms, lightly caressing him, staring down into his eyes. Your face is hard and quiet, frozen. He looks back and forth between your eyes, darting around your face for any sign of your next move.

A moment of silence. Intense, unreadable watching, long before you feel the most miniscule shift of his muscles. Waiting for you, Jevil lost his concentration, confused and perhaps a little annoyed that you stopped playing with him so suddenly. His calves loosen just enough…

You shove your hands in between his knees, forcing them to spread eagle easily under your aggression. Shifting your entire body downwards, you thrust your head in between his thighs so he can’t close himself off again. He panics excitedly, his face immediately lighting back up, grin plastered as far as it will fit. With your head directly in front of his cock, you put your hands on his ass and thighs, squishing into his flesh, hard and needy. You turn your head to one of his thighs, dragging your tongue from the sensitive skin near his cock outward towards his knee. The head of his dick is darkened, hot and pulsating, a familiar stream of precum returning as it leaks down his shaft and nearly to his balls. His hips shift and ache uncomfortably under your grasp, his voice high-pitched and whiny as he whimpers.

“OHH…OHH…MMM…ER, I MEAN, BOO HOO HOO! YOU’VE CAPTURED ONE AS CUNNING AS ME? PLEASE, OH PLEASE, SIR, SAY YOU’LL LET ME FREE! I’LL DO ANYTHING YOU ASK, JUST PUT ME TO THE TASK! UEE HEE HEE!!”

Really? Anything?

He rolls his head and pupils drunkenly before letting himself fall to the floor, tongue hanging loosely from his mouth. He moans loudly as you squeeze at him, each grip causing another gentle pump of precum to exit the top of his cock. His skin is supple, with only the slightest hint of hair, like the fuzz covering the outside of a ripe peach – or, plum, in this case. He is warm, soft, wonderful to touch and feel. With him rolling in submissive delight, he is no longer looking down at you, unknowing of your next move. You seize the opportunity.

You open your mouth wider and wider, exposing somewhat sharp fangs against his thigh, testing to see if he really isn’t paying attention. He doesn’t react to you, instead running his hands up his horns, breathing deeply and closing his eyes as he does. Your gaping mouth lowers itself to his thigh before devouring and sucking, rolling his tender skin between your teeth and tongue, the sensation causing his light blue hue to deepen from the broken blood vessels under his skin. As soon as you bite down, his body but especially his leg spasm hard, making him screech out from the sudden rush of pain. He flings his hands to either side of him, grasping at the suddenly malleable floor, digging into it with his small fingers.

“AHH!! OHH!! N…NAUGHTY KITTEN PLAYING A LITTLE ROUGH, ROUGH!? GOOD THING THE JESTER BEFORE YOU IS PLENTY TOUGH, TOUGH! UEE HEE HEE!”

He jerks his head up to look down at you, eyes and face contorted in a flurry of pain and exhilaration. Tears form in the corners of his eyes, barely visible against the black of his sclera until they start streaming down his cheeks, light lavender against his skin. He cries as he gasps out the second “TOUGH,” his cock throbbing hard enough to lift off of his pelvis a bit, jolting from arousal. He’s still joking around but you can tell you shocked the hell out of him.

You lick and bite further down his thigh, leaving patches of bruised, wet skin. His groin lifts off the ground, thrusting uncontrollably, his thigh muscles contracting violently. His head is shaking back and forth as he tries to maintain himself. He chuckles manically as the floor under his claws gives way, creating craters with his small hands. What has normally been metal turns soft and loose like clay, molding to his need. It seems to melt around both of you, warm and bendy, like a mattress made of ethereal flesh. Your body sinks just enough for you to notice.

Bite marks of various sizes coat Jevil’s thigh, along with a thin mask of your saliva. You let up on gnawing, instead smooching him, starting closer towards his knee until your mouth makes it to the most tender bit, right next to his cock. He pants heavily, recovering from the overstimulation, his forehead dripping with sweat. As you move your lips closer to him, he snickers in a different way than usual. You kiss the same spot again. He tenses a little, his tail suddenly swishing to the side. You realize he’s ticklish in the crease between his balls and his thigh, so you teasingly lick at it with the tip of your tongue.

“OUHEE HEE HEE! NU-HA! NOT MY WEAK SPOT, SPOT!”

With his legs bent in the air, he points his feet straight down towards the floor, wiggling them when you tickle him. He covers his face with his hands as best he can, laughing into his open palms. As soon as he blocks his eyes, you carry your tongue over to the bottom of his scrotum, slipping your tongue around the curve of his balls. He shivers, the breath escaping his mouth into his hands loud enough for you to hear it. Forcing his feet to the floor, he arches his back and lifts a little as you move your mouth along his cock, gliding up his balls, shaft, and finally, to his head, slick with precum. Besides the thin layer of down all over him, he’s hairless, letting you drag your tongue with no resistance. When you make contact with the drizzle of cum, you’re a little surprised by how viscous and, well, tasty it is, even more so than the last time you sucked him off. It’s like the glaze you’d find in a pie, thick and fruity, and it spills over the edge of your lips, into your mouth, and some on your cheek. He is wonderfully, if abnormally, wet.

Jevil cricks his neck, unwinding his coils so he can look down at you over his stomach. His eyes are squinting hard as he bites his bottom lip, fangs poking out and shining with saliva through his grin. His ears twitch anxiously, like confused antennae.

“OH YES, ENJOY MY SWEET SPILL, LICK ME CLEAN-“

You turn your head sideways, enveloping the shaft of his cock with your mouth, locking eyes with him. You curl your tongue over your bottom row of teeth and around his cock, your spit leaking out of the corner of your mouth and down into the fruity mix. His face is hot and blushed indigo.

“O-OH, FUCK, FUCK, OH-H, PLEASE…!”

It doesn’t take long to tilt your head back up and over his tip, the length of his cock unrivaled to its girth. You close your eyes, positioning your throat directly over top of him, angling yourself so you have a clear pathway for him to fuck into. You take your time, rubbing the top of your palette and your tongue around and over him, not yet sucking or tightening yourself. Your tongue easily makes rounds about his shafts and head, twirling and teasing him.

“HAH, HAH, OH, FUCK, ME, ME…THAT’S DELIGHTFUL. THAT’S MAGNIFICENT. HEE, HEE…”

The gentle fountain of cum bubbles, far more frequent and far thicker than any other cum you’ve ever dealt with. It seems to flow endlessly from him, which you’re more than happy to enjoy since it’s basically candy jizz. You pull away from his cock for a moment, a cobweb of cum strings following you, attached to your tongue and mouth. You lick your lips, the strings breaking and falling back to his shaft. Your face is half covered in his juices.

“HEE, HEE, WHAT A SIGHT! AT YOUR MOST BEAUTIFUL, NEEDY AND GREEDY!”

Feeling his cum trickle down your chin, you smile, holding yourself away from him for a moment. There’s a few seconds of air silence as he looks lovingly down at you before he sways his hips, signaling to you he wants you back. You stick your tongue out at him.

“WELL, I NEVER! WHAT SASS! NO LONGER THE MASTER OF MANNERS!”

He shakes his head and crosses his arms dramatically, frowning and turning away from you. He seems to expect you to taunt him a lot longer, so he goes to close his legs to cut you off. Before he does, you pounce back towards him, pushing his thighs open with your hands and wrapping your mouth around the entirety of his cock. You get a few pumps in before he reacts, flinging his head to the other side and splaying his arms out next to him, scraping back into the small craters he made earlier. He’s soft and smaller than you and easy to grab, move, turn – whatever you’d like, using his thighs and ass as your grappling point.

You sneak your fingers under him and around his behind, clawing around his ass as you rapidly fuck him into your throat. He spasms and twists, his whole body moving in response to your blowing him. He puts his legs over your shoulders and tightens until he scoots even closer to you. His legs are small but strong, allowing him to use them and his arms to force the back of your head down, fucking harder and deeper. You gag more than you did the first time as he rams himself into the back of your throat, his cock pulsating and elongating unpredictably, morphing in tune to his arousal.

“OH, OH, FUCK, YES, FUCK YES! TAKE ME, TAKE ME, TAKE ME! MMM, OH! PLAYTHING, PLAYTHING, YOUR THROAT- MMM! FEELS, FEELS SO GOOD ON ME, ME! HA, HA…MMM, OH, FUCK! FUCK ME! TAKE MY COCK, TAKE IN ALL OF ME! FUCK, FUCK, FUCK!”

His words trample over one another, turning into a mix of grunts, moans, and profanities. You use your grasp on him to lift his hips towards you, quickening his pace even more. Between his thrusts and your help, you barely have a chance to breathe, his cock shapeshifting like a liquid, filling every inch of your mouth and throat. While his cock itself doesn’t taste much different from any other, the sweetness of his cum is delicious, albeit overwhelming with this much in your mouth. His balls are proportionately small and rotund, sometimes smacking into your chin as he forces himself as deep into you as he will go. You feel his hands wrap around your skull, his fingers softly scratching at you, pushing you onto him. There’s no possible way he could be fucking you any faster without warping space itself. Which he can do. So be happy he isn’t doing that because you would probably suffocate and die.

“AH, AH, AH, I’M SO- I’M GOING TO- OH, MMM, FUCK! I’M GOING TO- AH, FUCK, TAKE ME, ME, YOU DIRTY- AH, DIRTY, LITTLE SINNER! AH, EAT MY COCK LIKE- AH, MMM, LIKE A GOOD PLAYTHING! AH!!”

Your face is flushed and your eyes are beginning to water as you try not to cough or gag. You desperately scrape into his thighs, trying to get him to come down your throat before you make yourself sick. He thrusts and thrusts and thrusts, wrapped so tightly around your head that it feels like you’re wearing a helmet made of the horniest Darkner to ever exist. His body is soft and hot against your face, enveloping you in him. Finally, he lets out a deep growl, the entire room suddenly brighter in unison. His cock pulsates in your throat, pumping what feels like an entire jar of fruity maple syrup into and down your esophagus. It exits him in a torrent so violent that you swallow most of it within a few seconds, thankfully allowing you to open your mouth up and catch your breath. He stays inside your mouth and around your head for a moment, breathing so heavily his chest puffs into your forehead.

“OH…OH…YOU…JOB WELL DONE, PLAYTHING! OH…I CAN…SEE THE ROARING REVIEWS, NOW! HEE, HEE…WE’LL ADD YOU AS OUR…HA…SWORD SWALLOWING ACT!”

Sluggishly leaning up, letting his cock fall from your mouth, you grimace at him, your lips still covered in his cum. Before you tear into his awful joke, he shifts just enough to extend his head down to kiss you, holding your face in his hands. You lazily open your mouth, letting your tongues roll over one another, playing with the thick cum still remaining. He expels an approving “MMM!” here and there, clearly pleased that his seed is as addicting as he is.

“OH, AH…LET ME RETURN THE FAVOR.”

You lick up the last of his cum from your mouth, swallowing and clearing your throat. You explain to Jevil that your body isn’t an extradimensional portal room that only half-exists, so you can’t come over and over like he can. He seems surprised, his lucid expression focusing after blinking a few times in succession. One of his hands rests around your jawline, holding you tenderly.

“BOO HOO, BOO HOO, I WANTED TO TASTE YOU, YOU, BUT NOW I THINK I’LL TURN…BLUE!”

He jolts his head from side to side, tongue hanging and following suit, amused at his own wit. A laugh track plays. In case anyone missed his genius, the joke – and it’s a real fucking doozy, ladies and gentlemen – is that his skin…is already blue. Wow.

You roll your eyes and bend your head back, groaning as loud and dramatically as you can. It only makes his giggle fit intensify as he begs for your forgiveness, kissing you all over your face, on your forehead, cheeks, nose, ears. You whine in protest, half-assedly pulling yourself away from him as punishment.

“AH! NOOO! COME BACK TO ME, ME! HAVE MERCY, MERCY!”

You pull so far away from him that you end up laying on the floor on your back, but he follows, still holding your face in his hands as he desperately tries to kiss you. You splay your arms out above your head, giving him free reign, though you’re still facing away from him to signify your disapproval. He sits a little ways up your stomach, his legs on either side of your torso. You’re both still naked, his now softening dick squished between his much rounder belly and yours, his tail wagging anxiously behind him. His thin, pointed fingers cup your face, delicately turning you towards him as he closes his eyes and calmly kisses you on the lips. You can’t help but return his affection, though you still don’t forgive him. Any joke that results in a laugh track is punishable by death. He’s lucky you like him so much.

You lift your arms from the floor, placing your hands on the back of his head, holding him as you kiss. You both release, locking eyes and staying that way for what seems like an eternity, him on top of you, naked and embraced. The floor under you has melted and formed perfectly to your body like one of those expensive mattresses you see advertised on late night television all the time. Looking behind Jevil, you notice the ectoplasm around the carousel is rotating slowly, radiant and full from all the joy it’s been siphoning from him the last few hours. The ghostly but familiar glow lights up behind him, casting shadows all over his face, horns, and ears. His eyelids hang low. He looks contented, if a little sleepy.

Jevil lays his head on your chest, angling his horns away from your face. He listens to your heartbeat, hands now resting on your shoulders. His tiny legs hang over the sides of your hips, his tail now curled and laying on his back.

“MMM…I COULD GO FOR A LITTLE SHUT-EYE RIGHT ABOUT NOW. HOW DO YOU FEEL, PLAYTHING?”

Sleep has been on the back of your mind for awhile now. Fucking and coming and fucking some more takes it toll on your body, and you’re more than happy to take this chance to actually relax with Jevil. You don’t get very many quiet, sweet moments like this one. You pull him closer, shifting yourself so you’re turned to him just enough to hold him in your arms, close to your chest and enveloped all around. Your legs tuck so that his body is entirely surrounded by your limbs. He lets out a long, deep sigh of relief, his voice smoother and deeper than usual. He nuzzles his face into you.

The floor drops under you as makeshift blankets melt over you both, with soft, bubble-shaped pillows forming under your head, his head supported by your chest and arms. It’s the most comfortable you’ve ever been in your fucking life. Those late night commercial mattresses don’t hold a candle to this.

You both close your eyes, tightly entwined, until you fall asleep. It doesn’t take long.

Cold…

You’re so cold.

It’s freezing.

It hurts. It’s so cold it hurts.

Your bones are aching.

Out in front of you is a flurry of colors. Like static, but impenetrable and real. You can’t not feel it. It’s all around you, swallowing you, making you nauseated. Your eyes focus over and over. It’s so cold your skin is burning, boiling right off of you, though you can’t see your own body. You just know it’s happening.

Cold. Deafening. It’s so loud you can’t hear anything. Something is talking, screaming in a whisper. It’s millions of voices fighting to be heard, all at once. You hear one of them. You have no idea what it’s saying, but it feels like it’s strangling you, like it’s snaking its way into your ears and out of your throat. Endless, endless, endless. You’re so cold you’re sweating.

You try struggling, but you realize you’ve already been thrashing so much your body is exhausted and unmoving. You muster up the strength to try again, but you’ve been trying and trying. You’re so tired. It feels like layers of every sensation possible are building up on you, freezing and tired and angry and restless. You’re drowning but your throat is so dry from endlessly screaming. You start crying, hot tears running down your icy face, your skin taut and lifeless like porcelain.

You feel something on your body, but your body is lightyears away. You have to swim through an ocean of static, the abyss screeching as you force your disembodied consciousness through it to reach yourself. It’s alive. You’re hurting it. As soon as you make it back to your body, you realize you’re shaking violently, but not from the cold.

You jolt, sitting up on your elbows. You force your eyes open, feeling the relief of your trapped tears escaping your closed eyelids. Your face is suddenly hot and wet, tears mixing with sweat. Jevil is still on top of you, but his hands are hard around your shoulders, apparently from trying to shake you awake. He’s frowning again, his face similarly coated from sobbing. As soon as you come to, he hugs you so tight you cough a little.

“OH, HEAVENS, HEAVENS, NOT AGAIN. I’M SO SORRY, PLAYTHING. I’M SO SORRY, SORRY, SORRY.”

You rub his back, wiping your face with your other hand. You’re not sure what to say. Something, presumably the Ringleader, tried to make direct contact with you. He knows you’re in here but doesn’t seem to know who or what you are. Instead of giving you a chance to run, he waited until you were vulnerable within the room itself, dropping you into the ocean between this dimension and the next. For a moment, or what was probably actually a few hours, you were sandwiched in that crossroads, and he tried speaking to you. Whatever he said wasn’t a language you’ve ever heard in your life, which doesn’t really surprise you since he’s some kind of extra-terrestrial weirdo. Jevil is mumbling to himself, but you can’t understand what he’s saying. You say his name.

He keeps rambling. Shifting upwards, you keep him in your arms, but sit him on your lap like you did earlier. You say his name again, keeping your voice soft so you don’t startle him. He still doesn’t respond. You kiss the top of his head and change the pattern you’re making into his back. He whimpers, blinks a few times, and looks up at you. He pauses, then inhales quickly.

“PLEASE DON’T LEAVE ME, ME.”

He bites his bottom lip, his mouth wobbling as he tries to stop crying. You cup his cheek in your hand, rubbing it with your thumb. You tell him you’re not going anywhere, unless it’s to grab him something to eat. He sniffles (with a nose he doesn’t have) and looks down, smiling. You use your thumbs to wipe away the tears from under his eyes and cheeks. Your eyelids hang low, gazing at him fondly.

Your stomach gurgles enough for you to feel and for him to hear. Speaking of food, you could use some right now. Fucking and night terrors are two of the most tiring ways to spend an evening and you’re officially an overachiever. That, and it’s a good way to cheer up Jevil so you don’t have to come back to a brain-drained jesterfriend. You offer to grab food for the both of you, and before you even finish your sentence, he hops off of you and jumps up and down in front of you, clapping excitedly. His mood took a 180 degree turn the second you mentioned food. His face voids of any evidence of crying.

“UEE HEE HEE!! IT’S BEEN SO LONG SINCE I’VE HAD, WELL, ANYTHING! ARE YOU SURE YOU FEEL UP TO IT, PLAYTHING?”

You look down at your naked body, your crossed legs half-engulfed in the sludge of the floor. Jevil sees that he let you sink a little too much and, embarrassed, looks off to the side as he flicks his fingers and the floor releases its melty hold on you. You’re now sitting normally, your body supported by a solid foundation once more, but still very naked. Drowsy, you stretch, letting your eyes squint shut, yawning long and wide. When you finish, Jevil is even closer, holding your clothes out to you, smiling ear-to-ear as his tail wags enthusiastically. He’s already back in his signature uniform, bells at the tips of his hat ringing quietly.

“OOH, OOH, OOH, I WOULD JUST LOVE SOMETHING SWEET, WITH CARAMEL AND NOUGAT AND ROASTED PEANUTS AND POPCORN AND A MOUNTAIN OF POWDERED SUGAR!”

You take your clothes from him as he imagines the perfect dessert, turning in circles like a dog chasing its tail, his own following behind him with each rotation. You put your clothes back on, standing to your full height once more, looking down at Jevil as he continues his ever-expanding list of cavity-inducing candy. Most of what he mentions are the types of foods you’d find at a fair or a circus, which you assume is because it’s either all he’s ever eaten or it reminds him of better days. You finish wiggling your pants on before bending over, picking up Jevil, and tossing him up into the air as best you can. For about a solid second, he looks completely bamboozled, but that quickly gives in to loud, tickled laughter.

He does a flip in the air, poses confidently with his arms crossed and his tongue out, then lets himself plunge into your arms. He definitely cheated and gave himself more air because there’s no way you launched him that far up. It is in this moment you realize you only had enough adrenaline to hoist him, not to catch him, and you prepare for the worst. As soon as he hits your arms, your legs plummet into the floor comically. A laugh track plays for a single beat before being cut off with a record scratch as Jevil remembers what happened the last time he did that. You hold him in your arms, everything from your pelvis down stuck securely in the magic floor. Jevil throws his arms over your shoulder, smooching you and poking his leg out into the air as a flurry of cameras you can’t see flash all around you. Paparazzi!

After the nonexistent crowd dissipates, the floor rises you back up, finishing with a “pop!” You tell Jevil you could head out now and see if anything’s open, and he nods rapidly, thrilled. He snuggles his head into you, minding the horns, before you set him back down. The room’s soft glow has brightened enough that you can see vague, black outlines of images in the purple goo, though it’s almost impossible to tell what they are, if anything. The rotation is continuous but even and easy on the eyes. It’s like being inside a giant, functioning, grape-scented organ, and that’s not too far off from reality. A dull pang of sadness hits you, remembering that the room is only this healthy because it’s eating up Jevil’s emotions. He doesn’t particularly…look worse for wear, but regardless, you wish it wasn’t this way.

You tell Jevil you’ll do your best to buy something that checks off all his wishes, but you’re not sure someone could legally sell food with that much sugar in it. His face turns to confusion for a moment, then to laughter. His hand hangs in front of his mouth lazily, bobbing as he giggles.

“PLAYTHING, I WOULD BE HAPPY WITH A SLICE OF CAKE. THE TINIEST SLIVER! OR THE CRUSTY OUTSIDE PIECE OF A BROWNIE. EVEN A CRUMB WOULD BE GOLDEN TO ME. I’D LIKE TO THINK I’M EASY TO PLEASE, PLEASE! UEE HEE HEE!”

That’s certainly true. All you’ve really done is hang out and fuck, and while that’s contented him plenty, you’re - as stated - an overachiever and you’d like to do more than just get off and get out. You tell him you’ll be back as soon as you can, bending over to peck him on the forehead. He doesn’t let you get that far before he stands on the tips of his toes, holding your face in his hands and giving you a deep, loving kiss on the lips. You stare at one another for a moment before heading for the door.

“MMM! I HATE FOR YOU TO LEAVE, LEAVE BUT I LOVE TO WATCH YOU GO, GO! HEE HEE!”

You place your hand on the doorframe, turning to smile and shake your head disapprovingly at Jevil before you exit. The transition is always nauseating. As you step through, the room behind you disappears completely, the black portal engulfing your body and sending you back to the bowels of the castle. You can’t really sit half in, half out because a force expels you from Jevil’s room, presumably since you’re not really supposed to be in there that long, or at all.

The smaller door inside the larger, barred doorframe stays open, but you can’t see anything inside. It’s silent for a few seconds before you notice a very faint, echoing smacking noise. You turn to either side, seeing only the abyss. It takes Jevil laughing at your confusion for you to realize he was blowing kisses at you from behind the extradimensional doorway. You jokingly put your hands on your hips before blowing one back at him. He lets out a scandalous “OOH!” like you’re secret lovers sending each other risky letters through the nosy postal service who may or may not have read every word and eagerly await the next one you send.

You ascend the stairs, the blue candles staying lit behind you. As you ride the elevator back up, you’re left with your thoughts for the first time in awhile, and you’re not happy about that shit at all. It dawns on you that you have very little spending money and a lot of castle residents to get by without being questioned. The lights of the elevator panel transition, moving upwards, until you’re at the ground floor. Somehow, you bracing yourself before the elevator doors open has become a reoccurring motif, which may have had some significance if the author wasn’t too stupid to figure one out.

You search around for signs of life. There are a few Darkners of varying castes walking around together, but the cleanup crew has finished, the last of the still-drying floor sectioned off with blue ribbon. No one really even looks in your direction, and the castle is way emptier than you expected. It seems to be about mid-cycle, meaning you have time to go shopping.

You take out the list in your pocket that you conveniently wrote as Jevil was listing everything he wanted earlier. Your best bet is to see if you can actually find Top Chef and put in an order, but you’re not sure how much it’s going to cost or even where he is. You walk outside onto the lawn, searching for someone to ask. A necklace of Rudinns are sunning themselves, laying out on patio chairs with mirrors in their hands and sunglasses on their eyes. You probably know at least one of them, but it’s hard to tell because they all have the exact same body, voice, and personality, for the most part. They are idly chatting about celebrity gossip. You approach them and ask if they’ve seen Top Chef recently. Two of the Rudinns frown without speaking, forcing the third one to respond to you. He sighs, pulling down his sunglasses with the tip of his tail to look at you.

“Hey, man. Didn’t you get the memo? You don’t have to be here anymore. Do you not have, like, a home or something?”

You tell him it’s a free country before realizing he doesn’t have to be here either if he doesn’t want to. You’re a little flustered that someone actually noticed, so you stutter calling him out. The other two Rudinns are chuckling, hiding their mouths with their tails.

“Do you not see the tan I’m working on? This is the best spot in the kingdom for those sweet rays. What, are you trying to cozy up to the King? It’s not like that’s hard.”

You ask him again, calmly, if any of them have seen Top Chef.

“Hmm…name doesn’t ring a bell.”

The only fucking chef this side of the Dark World (and the only one in the game so the author has to use him for this bit). He looks like a slice of pizza with a mustache.

“Oh, yeah. Why didn’t you just say so? I know where he is.”

Pause. The other two Rudinns laugh louder. You ask him where.

“I’ll tell you…if you tell me where you keep going.”

You groan. The conversation was obviously heading this way but you didn’t bother to think of a good excuse before you got over here and now you’re forced to think of one on the fly. Thank goodness you’re really good at that.

You tell them you like to pretend to be a war criminal so you shackle yourself to one of the prison walls downstairs and then have to figure out a way to escape because you’re actually innocent and it was a case of mistaken identity but you’ll never be able to tell your lieutenant you didn’t betray him unless you get out. You failed to account for how difficult lockpicking is and it took a lot longer than you thought it would. This is the first time you’ve been outside in days and you want a cake to celebrate.

Man, what the fuck? Really?

“Th-that’s…that’s r-really weird, man. Do you…are you okay?”

You tell him you just want some cake. You have tears in your eyes. You’re not sure if they’re fake.

“O…okay, man. Whatever. He’s on the fifth floor. Seriously, do you need someone to talk to?”

Oh, well, yeah. But you have time for that later. You tell the Rudinn you’re okay, just hungry, before uncomfortably turning right back around towards the castle. You can feel them staring as you walk away, a little concerned but mostly glad they didn’t talk to you much before this.

You’ve never been to the fifth floor before. Like the other floors, it’s pretty barren, being completely black-and-white. This floor, however, has a storefront, which you plan on visiting if you have any Dark Dollars left. Come to think of it, you’re not really sure who this store was intended for since this floor gets the least amount of traffic. There’s two other doors, one leading to what you assume is the King’s bedroom (based on the spades-shaped doorway) and another leading to stairs. You don’t see or hear anyone around, so you head up the stairs. A long hallway rests between the door you just exited and the door on the other side of the room. If you have to climb more stairs, you’re going to be very angry.

As you walk, you let your thoughts float. What strange circumstances to find oneself in, but it’s nice. It’s nice to have someone. It’s nice to have a goal for the first time in a long time. You really wish you could’ve slept longer, or maybe at all, but you’re willing to try it again if only to have Jevil by your side when you do. You’ve certainly had nightmares before, but night terrors are new to you, let alone ones in which your very brain matter is being scooped out and analyzed. Perhaps you can try reasoning with the Ringleader next time? Or just…communicating anything? If you could explain to him that you’re actually helping him by making Jevil happy, maybe he wouldn’t care if you were there? That’s if he doesn’t want to trap you too, or even trap you in a prison cell of your own. You shiver. The idea of being trapped inside yourself for an eternity is viscerally, and existentially, distressing.

It doesn’t take long to get to the end of the hallway, but your thoughts began racing so fast that you feel like you just ran a mental marathon. Guess what’s on the other side of the door? More stairs. Cool.

As you ascend the stairs, you finally hear talking, so hopefully you went in the right direction. When you get to the top, you see King Lancer, Top Chef, and a giant, three-headed, catlike Darkner all surrounding a table. The table, as well as some of the floor, is covered in flour, sugar, bowls, batter – everything you need to make more cupcakes than you could ever eat. Bags of ingredients are strewn about, some against the walls and some next to the table on the floor. Everyone is wearing aprons and King Lancer has on a chef hat that covers half his face. They are laughing as Lancer attempts to use an electric mixer without splattering more cupcake on himself before he fails and coats his tiny face. After he wipes himself off with a comically oversized kitchen towel, he looks back up and sees you standing in the doorway.

“Haha, if it isn’t our friendly, local Castle Hobo! Come to see the rest of your new home that no one said you could live in but you did anyway??”

The others stay quiet, letting Lancer decide how to approach you. Apparently the Rudinns told Lancer you’re a bum and have no where else to go, so you just stayed even after they fired you. That’s honestly a better excuse than being some weird war roleplayer. You think for a second before nodding slowly, adding that you’re getting hungry and wanted to look for some food.

“No probert, Robert! You came at the right time!”

Lancer gestures to the mess of a room around him and laughs, hands on his belly. Top Chef relaxes a bit and joins in, spinning. One of the heads on the catlike Darkner giggles cheerfully, one softly, and the other not at all, staring you down intensely. Lancer hops down from his stool and walks over to you, handing you an apron.

“We could use the extra elbow grease! Unless your elbows literally secrete grease, in which case please don’t touch anything!”

You smile for the first time since entering the room and Lancer, straining his neck a little to look up at you, smiles back with a wide, goofy grin. You tie the frilly pastel pink apron around your waist and head over to the table.

Cue the baking montage!

Ripping open bags of flour too fast, making the flour poof into a cloud and get on everyone! Everyone laughing! Cracking open egg after egg into mixing bowls! You slyly making suggestions from your list so you can make some just for Jevil! Singing off-key together! Top Chef being the only one here who knows anything about food, making him run between the three of you to ensure you’re all doing your part to make something edible! Learning Clover’s name so the author doesn’t have to use roundabout ways to refer to her! Clover telling you her favorite flavors of cupcakes then arguing about it with herselves! Lancer revealing to you all his deepest, darkest secrets so as to strengthen your bond as a baking collective! Each of you cutting one of your hands and letting the blood drip into a cauldron, creating a cupcake-baking blood pact!

End montage!

Clover places the final cupcake on a display against the wall. You all stand back, looking at your masterpiece. In total, you made about 13 dozen cupcakes of varying flavors, sizes, and quality. Some have holes in the top with salsa spilling out. Others have three wildly different toppings all on the same cupcake, sometimes including tennis balls. You went all out on the ones you made and decorated, with bright, flashy liners, sprinkles, drizzles – a few even have sparklers and noisemakers placed on the curl of their frosting. Top Chef pretty obviously helped plate yours, since you have the baking prowess of a blind infant with no arms, but you were the one with the fun, oddly-specific circus-themed suggestions, so it evened out.

“That was so much fun~!! | I’m going to eat ALL of them! | I don’t want a stomachache…”

”Whew! Being a master artisan is a lot of work!!! Let’s dig in!”

You pipe up as Lancer and Clover each take a cupcake if their own making. You ask if it would be okay for you to take a few and head out, since you just spent the last six hours baking and not, like, progressing the story much more than that.

“Hohoho! I take it Castle Hobo has better places to be?”

Lancer eats his cupcake in one bite, laughing after he swallows it.

“Thanks for the help! I hereby grant you permission to continue not leaving as long as you join us for our Monthly Cupcake Marathon!”

Wow, that was easier than you expected. All you have to do is make a metric shit ton of cupcakes once a month and you can basically live here for free. Works for you. You laugh and tell Lancer you’ve never let down a baking blood pact before and you don’t plan on it. He gives you a thumbs up as Top Chef, somewhat bashfully, approaches you with a three-tier carrying tin that looks to fit about a dozen cupcakes. He’s taller than you so he’s hunching a bit to come to your level, blushing.

“Oh! H-here! You can take some in this...!”

You take the tin from him and grin, thanking him. You throw in a wink for good measure.

“O-OOH! M-M-MAMA MIBA!!”

He starts sweating and twirls away from you until he’s off-screen, even though this is real life and not within the confines of a screen so that doesn’t make sense in this context. Lancer wiggles his (nonvisible) eyebrows suggestively. Clover argues with herself over whether that was cute or just kind of weird. You back towards the door, pack up some cupcakes and fruit, then wave awkwardly as you exit, your new friend group sending you well wishes.

As you head towards the elevator, you remember the shop nearby and figure it wouldn’t hurt to stop in and see if there’s anything worth getting. You have no idea who would be running this shop or what would be in it since you’ve never been up here, but you’ve still got enough of a baking-induced adrenaline rush to keep suppressing your social anxiety. You turn the corner and step inside.

A bell dings above you as the door swings through its frame to open into the store. As with the rest of the castle, the floor, walls, and ceiling are all black-and-white, but the shop itself is pretty small compared to most of its other important rooms. A marble-topped counter rests between the doorway and the stockpile of miscellaneous wares behind it, including a microwave, a rack full of multicolored clothing, a few cabinets, some weapons resting in boxes and hung on walls, as well as a coffee maker and a plate full of…live, wriggling earthworms. Okay.

An extremely tall, slender, blue-and-white Darkner is draped across the counter with his legs towards his wares and his head and torso hung over its side towards you. He is upside down, looking at a magazine called “FANCIE LIVINGE QUARTERLY,” the cover of which is covered in a landscape of gardens and Greek-style columns. His absurdly long, stark white hair hangs under his head, splaying out across the floor towards you, almost reaching your shoes. He seems startled by the door, immediately covering his face with his magazine, pulling it down swiftly to peek out from behind it at his visitor.

“Ah! Quite the surpriseth, I muste say! Most fools faile to maketh it this far! What bringst thou, worm? Cometh to peruse my Fine Wares?”

He turns himself right side up, his head staying in the same position until he’s sitting to his full potential, where it finally turns to face the proper direction. His body seems to be made of a gelatinous substance, but he has little difficulty maintaining his thin frame. The only hint that he’s made of slime, besides his obviously unnatural movements, is the string of goop connecting his upper and lower lips. He may very well keep it there on purpose, but you suspect he may have been injured at some point, rendering that particular chunk of slime in his body petrified or too numb to control anymore. His flesh and clothes are a dark navy blue while his eyes, hair, and the inside of his mouth are bright white. All of him gently ripples like cooling lava, though his body still stays in the same place and shape.

He sits in front of you on the counter with his legs crossed and his fingers entwined, twiddling his thumbs. He’s forcing what seems to be a Customer Service Smile™, clearly a little miffed that some random guy just wondered into his shop for what is probably the first time in months, but still interested in why you’re here. And potentially hustling you out of some money.

You greet him, telling him your name and asking his in return.

“Well! Another low-level savante who lackeths the Blessinge of having known the Duke of Puzzles! Thou stand before a Master of the Artes, young larvae! The one, the only, Rouxls Kaard!”

As he flips his mane behind him, you notice actual sparkles glinting in the ambient light of the room within his hair, making the waterfall of white shine artificially but beautifully. He closes his eyes and beams as he poses, shifting from the dreaded Customer Service Smile™ to the Narcissistic Prick Smile™.

You reassure him you’ve definitely heard of him before but never had the luck to actually see him or his magnificent hair, laughing. You tell him you’re quite enchanted to meet him, extending your arm for a handshake. He seems genuinely taken aback at your compliment, but if he’s blushing, you can’t really tell. He hesitantly shakes your hand, the warm, viscous slime molding to the shape of you before releasing itself from your skin with ease. No residue resides on you after, though you expected it to.

“Ha-ah, ahem! Er, feelst free to looketh around! Let me know if somethinge catcheseth your eye, darling.”

Kaard seems to be trying to compose himself, primping his hair and resting his hands on his knee, one on top of the other. He may even be smiling genuinely this time, no trademark needed. You don’t remember being this successful with other men in your entire life, let alone all in one day. It must be that thing where you seem more charismatic to other people because you’re not worrying about getting a partner when you already have one waiting in an underground dungeon for yo- Don’t say that outloud.

You look around the shop for awhile, genuinely interested in trying to figure out what kind of theme is supposed to show itself within all this stupid shit he’s collected. You imagine, if you were perhaps the protagonist of a wildly popular video game demo, you would actually have a use for any of it. Weapons are fair enough, but scarves and earthworms are either a fashion or culinary mix and you don’t want to find out which. There doesn’t seem to be anything Jevil would be interested in, and anything he would be (say, an ax), you don’t want to give him as a precautionary measure. After pretending to look around like you would in any other resale shop, you slink towards the door, desperate to not have to talk to Slime Boy again.

“Ah! I muste say, Lowly Guardesman, if thoust ever in need of a Rare Goode – or, perhapst, a Ravishing Companion – I implore thee to stoppeth by once more. Thoust’s always welcomed in mine shoppe.”

Are you being flirted with again? What is happening? This is getting more annoying than flattering.

Kaard shyly looks way, certain that his offer will be taken up later. He gives you a small, chaste wave, to which you smile and awkwardly return before quickly turning away and grimacing as you shuffle out the door. That guy was made of Jello and seemingly eats worms and you’re realizing now that you may have really won the lottery finding Jevil because all the other men around here are much worse. Yes, he’s trapped in a room made of his own body, and he probably can’t ever meet your parents or, well, anyone really, but at least he isn’t insufferable.

Anyway. You exit the shoppèéêë, cupcakes and fruit still in hand. The floor is pleasantly empty, giving you a moment to breathe and soak in the silence. You had plenty of cupcakes to taste test, so you’re definitely not hungry, but goddamn are you tired. You just want to relax and feed a clown some berries.

You head back the way you came, making it to the elevator with no interruption. Honestly, as the author, I can tell you that there were Rudinns down here, but they were talking about your weird ass and scattered when they heard you coming. There’s really nothing better to do around here than gossip.

The familiar hum of the elevator lulls you, as you wobble a little waiting for it to make its stop. The normally gentle “Ding!” startles you, popping your eyes back open. Thankfully, when the doors open, all 14 candles are happily lit, their flames completely stationary. Back down the stairs, back to the doors, la-dee-da-dee-da. All good so far, but this is the real moment of truth. You call out to your jesterfriend.

“OH-H-H-H-H, WHO-O-O I-I-IS I-I-IT??”

He calls out in a singsong voice like that of a vintage sitcom wife wearing an apron and doing the dishes. Laughing, you return his singalong, answering with your name and ending with “your faithful plaything!”

“OOH, OOH, NOT SO LOUD, MY HANDSOME YOUNG HUNK! DON’T LET THE NEIGHBORS HEAR, HEAR!!”

Jevil trying to whisper is like a cruise ship trying to gently wake a sleeping baby. The door shifts open slowly, like he’s trying to sneak you in through the back of his midcentury home for a little hanky panky before the hubby gets back. You imagine him gesturing his little paw at you, telling you to come in, though you know he can’t reach through the portal to do so. As soon as you step through you nearly fall over into him because he was doing exactly that.

You gleefully look down at your companion before realizing the little surprise he has for you. He’s wearing a frilly yellow and magenta apron that’s stretched to barely cover his torso. And nothing else.

You nearly drop your hard-earned desserts in a mix of laughter and slight, slight arousal. It’s hard to look past how ridiculous and cute he is to truly appreciate the effort he put in to acting as your secret side chick. He wags his tail viciously through the air as he watches your face light up, his tongue wedged between his teeth. As soon as his eyes make contact with your gifts, he clasps his hands, yanking them next to his face dramatically as his smile opens to cover most of his face.

“PLAYTHING!!! OH ME, OH MY, I COULD JUST DIE! SO SWEET, WHAT SWEETNESS, I CAN’T DENY!! YOU, MY LOVE, THE APPLE OF MY EYE – WHAT HAVE I DONE TO DESERVE SUCH A GUY???”

Still holding his hands next to his chin, he hops and bounces, his legs firmly squished together with his feet providing the jumps like flapping wings. Several bright purple, semi-transparent hearts materialize from his neck area, floating a bit from him before popping and disappearing. After his wonderfully cartoony display, he props himself up on his tail to reach your face, holding each side of your jaw with his hands and kissing you lovingly. He is so genuinely happy. The room looks warm, gooey, lucid.

“I MEAN IT! I REALLY, REALLY MEAN IT!! NO ONE HAS CARED FOR ME SINCE…”

No. You lean back over to kiss him and cut him off from trailing off into despair. You’re here, you have snacks, no need to sink back into nothingness. After the vague surprise washes over his face, he closes his eyes, kissing you back tenderly, as if to say ‘YOU’RE RIGHT. LET’S JUST ENJOY EACH OTHER.’

Jevil lowers himself down back to the floor and approaches an open area, tilting his head to rest it in his palm. A few, barely visible shapes begin to bubble from the foundation, raising slowly from the sea of purple, shifting in size and design before polishing into what looks like a dinner table with a flower vase on top, two dining chairs, a refrigerator, and a cabinet full of “fine china.” Whether Jevil has ever lived a life where he’s seen a kitchen like this is anybody’s guess, but part of being a clown is having access to any knowledge that can make a gag funnier.

You place the three-tier tin of pure stomachache on the table with the carton of fruit next to it. Before Jevil can make it to the chairs, you step behind one and pull it out for him, waving your hand over it and presenting him his spot next to you. For the first time since you met him, it seems Jevil doesn’t know how to react, which is, obviously, not something he’s used to.

“UEE HEE HEE! I, ER…PLAYTH-“

He stops talking and looks back to you as you approach him, wrapping your arms around him to hug him before picking him up and sitting him down on the chair yourself. He’s still wearing only the apron, so it was a little precarious touching him like this, but his face is awash with a look of total adoration.

“YOU REALLY ARE SOMETHING.”

You’ve never heard Jevil’s tone so free of laughter. He’s looking at you like you’re the only person he’s ever known. Well, that’s kind of the situation, but you elect to not think about it like that.

You pull out the chair across from him, only briefly glancing away from his gaze to seat and situate yourself so that your hands are outstretched, palms open towards him. He smiles, mouth closed, no hint of funny business. His tiny fingers curl around yours, holding your hands tenderly.

You muster up all the stupid courage you have inside of you, bracing to say what you’ve been fighting yourself to not say for awhile now. It feels like you’re in the last few sentences of a really cheesy fanfiction that was supposed to be only smut but you ended up liking the character a lot more than you first realized and so you genuinely enjoyed spending your time writing a fantasy involving you and him carving out a little pocket in time to be together, however long life will allow. But this is real life, not that.

Inhaling deeply, you force yourself to look deep into Jevil’s eyes, his looking back just as intensely at you. Here it comes.

“You gonna eat that?”

Chapter Text

With the recent release of Deltarune's second chapter, my work - this one in particular - has received a sudden revival in popularity. I'm so thankful! I love to see new kudos and get new inboxes about it! I would have never finished Imprisonment if it weren't for all the wonderful support I received while writing it.

As for potential new works (possibly involving the newest [[CAPS LOCK ENTHUSIAST ©1997]] in chapter two), I honestly hadn't thought about it much. If I am to be perfectly transparent, even if I wanted to write again, my work situation has been...tumultuous...to say the least. The "Unpleasantness" made it much harder for someone like me, who already wasn't having the easiest time, to find and hold down a steady job.

That being said! If by some chance any of you, in the last few years, have read either of my works and felt inspired to send a little monetary affection my way...I have set up a little Ko-fi for just that. A few (incredibly generous) friends have reached out in the past to offer financial encouragement but I frankly didn't need it as much at the time. Oh how things change!

https://ko-fi.com/lordrotten

Anyhoo, I truly appreciate all the love I have received, from way back when I first published Incorruptibility all the way to this morning when I was graced with my most recent kudos on this fic. Even if I don't get a single dime, I am proud to have created both of these pieces! If nothing else, they serve as a testament to the weirdest of my desires, and at the end of the day, they really were fun as hell to write.

All in all, thank you for all the support, and I hope to see you all soon again.

Ever yours,
Lord Rotten