Chapter Text
Here is what's happening. None of it is real.
You are sitting in a breezy room. There is ocean air filtering in, making the gauzy drapes around you shift and dance in the gentle wind. It's just cool enough that gooseflesh spreads over your skin. A rich violet drape stretches all the way out to you, brushing your shoulder. It's ticklish, but you don't move to bat it away nor budge from your seat on the thick pillow. You're not supposed to.
The gooseflesh thing is interesting. Your dreams have never managed to be so vivid before. Maybe because you spent the majority of your life not so much dreaming as flipping between consciousnesses. It's a funny conundrum, to be bad at dreaming.
Maybe you're getting better? The time since your departure from the Game has grown, and you've had more practice at the whole human sleep thing. Finally, the details are filling out, and you can learn what all the kids are raving about.
Anyway, that line of thought is pointless and is kind of bucking you from enjoying the experience. Lucidity has always dogged you in your dreams. You've been under the impression that's just part and parcel of being the Prince of Heart.
You do your best not to think too much. It's a considerable effort.
Salt and flowing gossamer colors and an extremely comfortable pile of pillows and cushions on the floor. You move enough to allow your neck to turn. The room is like some rose-colored version of a saucy harem, with the gold ornaments and carpet of floor seating and something citrus-spiced like incense in the air. Smoke wisps up from a wrought metal burner. You inhale deeply, and can taste it.
You're left alone in the room for a while, unable to move, only to let the dream sensations buffet you with their too-real simulacrums, the details giving the world a weird degree of verisimilitude. Something in your head quiets, and you stop paying attention to how real everything feels and just focus on the feeling.
Sighing out a deep breath, you blink slowly. Weird. Not weird. Normal. Accurate. A tactile facsimile.
Before you can put yourself on a tangent on the nature of reality as translated by the mind and the singularity of experience, someone enters the room. There's no sound of a door opening. Just a change in the way the gauzy streamers part around the presence of a person, twisting and bowing out of his way.
He's a handsome boy with dark skin, laugh lines around his mouth, and eyes like chipped emeralds. He's dressed in a finely embroidered tunic, woven shorts, and sandals. He's carrying a wooden box in both hands.
You feel drawn to him immediately, but hold yourself still on your cushion, just tracking him with your eyes and the turn of your head.
"Well, now that is some adherence to instruction! You've not nudged or budged an inch from where I left you, have you?" The handsome young man walks up to you, navigating the uneven pillow-strewn terrain expertly, and begins to describe a circle around you, tread silent and measured. "Very nice."
It's true. You haven't moved. You nod quietly.
"I thought so. Figured you'd enjoy this," he says very softly, so much you turn your head to hear him better. "Ah ah!" His voice leaps back to crystal clear and audible. Present in a way you can't nail down. Present how? As opposed to absent? "Forward, clementine! Keep those eyes trained on that horizon line."
You are facing a great open balcony, and beyond it is the ink-blue of the ocean. You find the point where it meets clean blue sky, and hold.
The boy giggles, bright and nervy, out of your sight. He clears his throat and stifles it down, and that easy command returns. "Let's get you all set and raring to go."
Gaze fixed, you can only watch in your periphery as he works. He kneels down next to you, resting his wooden box on the floor, seeming to be relieved without the weight. flicking his thumbs against the latches, it opens. From this angle, you can't see much of the contents.
"Where to start…." He huffs out a breath. "It's like trying to pick your favorite treat from the pick and mix, they're all great." Glancing sidelong at you, he rubs his chin. "Hm hm hm! Oh, I know."
He takes hold of one of your ankles and pulls, directing and controlling your leg until your foot is flat on the floor in front of you, knee bent. "And the other one."
You do the same with your other leg, both bent and lightly pressed together. He reaches in and nudges them apart. "Perfect." Patting your leg, he returns to his box and lifts out the first item.
Across his palm are little crescent-shaped gold bands and wires. They are small, and you want to look down to figure out what they are but your mind is still centered on the delineation of sea and sky ahead of you. Soon, he ducks out of your sight, beyond your knees, and you feel his hand on your foot.
You twitch, toes curling, and the boy tsks loudly at you. Chastised, you relax again. "Don't do that again," he says, stern but not unkind.
Then he spreads his hand over the bony arch along the top of your foot, stroking, and presses down as he fits the little gold crescents on your toes. They are rings. Okay. You frown slightly, but the boy pays you zero mind as he straightens up, looking over his handiwork with a grin.
"All gleaming and starbright," he murmurs, turning back to the box. "Maybe you didn't like those much, but I've got a kit and a half in here, don't fret."
Next he has wire loops, wide rings with coming together in little interlocked hooks. He grabs a handful of them and pulls the hooks with his thumb until they pop open. A few have golden beads on them, and other have green. The light in here feels too soft to make each facet of the green beads gleam like that, and yet.
He shuffles over to sit in front of you and starts wrapping the rings around your ankles, rehooking each one before putting the next one on. You'd assume he'd spread the rings out between your ankles, but all of them go on your left.
Then he grabs another handful, pops each open, and puts them on your right, until you have almost a dozen laying metal-cool against your skin.
He flicks at a few with his finger and beams at the jingling noise. "Alright there?"
You lick your lips. It's a question. Are you allowed to speak? The answer hands itself to you on a golden platter: Yes, when spoken to.
You nod.
He pats your thigh, then gets into the box again.
Next he pulls out something you can't really figure out until he starts putting it on you. It's a little weird, a round gold plate about the size of his palm with soft padding on one side, and twin green ties looped through holes in the top and bottom. You have no idea what the hell it is.
The boy is confident as he balances one on top of your knee, the cushion against your skin and bone. Grabbing your ankle under the rings, he pulls your leg out, and puts your heel on his leg, propped up just enough for him to work. He takes the rich green ties and fastens them to your leg, keeping the weird kneecap jewelry piece in place.
Then he does the same with the other, so you have two sun discs on your knees. The boy looks you over, bends your legs again, then unbends them… before settling on keeping you stretched out, nodding to himself.
Leaning back, he peers up at your face. It's strange to suddenly have his attention on you like that. You blink and look down at him.
His grin is electric and as shocking as the static zip that hits you out of the blue. Putting two fingers on your chin, he tilts your head up again, refocusing you. "You're better at this than I thought, my fine feather-haired fellow."
You nearly thank him for the compliment, but it heats in your chest, and a sigh comes out of your mouth like steam rising. You nod again.
The boy claps his fucking hands, rubbing them together in blatant delight. "What next!"
You are not being asked, so you just relax, subtly placing your hands behind you and leaning back.
A warm, callused palm runs over your stomach, making your breath stutter once before you get a handle on it. You hear him chuckle, see his head shake ruefully as he pulls at your navel, finger tugging on your bellybutton. That's very hard not to stare at, but you take deep steady breaths and keep looking up, past his dark hair, at the sea and sky.
So you miss it entirely until a prick of real pain catches you, making you jerk. You start to bend inward, towards the pain, protectively.
The boy snaps, "Stop, stop it," and plants a hand on your collarbone, holding you back. "You're fine, sit still. You were doing splendid, there, clementine, are you going to pitch all that into the fire now?"
You gasp in a breath, your heart rabbit fast. It's effort, but with each subsequent breath your spine unwinds more and you sit up again, like before.
He's watching you, lips a thin line, piercing green behind his spectacles.
It takes you a moment to realize he is waiting, and you-- close your eyes for a second, then look up again, at the horizon.
"Good," he says, low enough to nearly be a growl, and gets back to it, clipping something into place down there. Now, the pain is gone. Your skin is humming with a charge, making it much harder to sit still, but you're fine.
A fine gold chain as thin as spidersilk threads through the adornment in your navel and around your waist, his arms brushing your sides as he wraps it around you and back through the piercing. It's a hoop of some kind, you assume. He does it again, lower on your hips so the chain slings around your ass, then once more higher up, above your hipbone and back to clasp against the hoop.
He traces the fanned chain with his fingertips, and pulls at a few, testing. You keep still, and he nods, pleased.
Then the chains get a little heavier as he hooks little coin-sized circles along the links. His placement seems erratic and random, a few here, some there, a heavy one low to tap idly against your wiry hair. Your arms tense, and you breathe out hard.
He gives you a pat, then moves on.
There is much less surprise in you when he does your nipples next. In fact, it's fun to keep your eyes fixed ahead, your breathing steady as he finds the holes there and threads in the piercings. He keeps glancing up at you as he puts one in, then the other, and retrieves another thin gold chain to connect them.
When you remain a statue of detachment, he frowns and tugs the chain, making you hiss and slam your eyes shut.
"There. I am doing very fine work over here, you should admire it."
For a second, you do, taking a glance down your body.
Somehow, being naked didn't really bother you. But this, being half-dressed in gold and emerald jewelry, is… affecting. Your skin is a blank boring canvas spotted with streaks and dots of brilliant metal. The chains around your waist almost glow as they reflect light, and your nipples burn green with bright polished gemstones. It's stark, and you look up, away, back at your focus point as your cheeks burn.
The boy smiles, dark as treacle.
Next is your hands. He puts a slough of webbed chains down over your hand and wrists to sit awkwardly. Rings on each finger, each with a little hook facing up. Grinning to himself in delight, he takes the netting of smooth yielding metal and hooks it to each ring, until your arm is wrapped in a glove of gold. "Plum wonderful," he murmurs, and clicks a band above your elbow, hooking the glove into that too.
Tangling your fingers together, he looks over your arm, then firmly places your hand on the cushion at your side.
He does the same with your other hand, and it's methodical, smooth work. You hold still, eyes lidding as your body becomes increasingly heavy with everything he's adding to it. How did all this fit in that little box? How much more is in there? Is he going to leave you so dripping with gold and chains you'll be too weighed down to move?
You lick your lips.
The boy rises up on his knees and grabs your lower lip between thumb and finger.
It knocks a breath out of your chest. Oh, fuck.
Without a word of caution or soothing, he pierces you there too. You inhale sharply, fingers tight in the cushion to hold still. He lets out a wordless chiding noise, and clicks something into place, letting you go.
You trace it with your tongue the moment he's done; it's a scrolled band encircling the swell of your lip. You can feel the lettering embossed into it, but can't decipher it.
While you're still trying to wrap your head around that, he moves. A hand on your chest shoves you back until you instinctively brace yourself on your hands, behind you. He nods once, then kneels over you, across your lap.
There is something gold in his hand. You don't see it for more than a second as he cards his hands into your hair, touch tender and sweet for just a moment before it tightens into a fist.
You squeeze your eyes shut and drag your heels against the floor, unable to keep your voice free of a soft moan.
"You're a stunning thing," he says in your ear, voice tight, his own cool composure evaporating into the smoke. "It's all a whirling dervish in my mind. I could keep you right here, all to myself." He strokes down your shoulder to your elbow, pressing on the band there, as if you'd forgotten for a second it was there. "Or I could take you out. A nice walk on the beach. You'd look like a gleaming idol, making all the sunbathers into sinners just gawking at you." He runs his mouth over your ear first, giving you a bite like a prologue.
You hear the sound of metal on metal, like something unhinging. Then, his grip on your hair goes even tighter, and something prickes your ear in two places.
It closes over the upper curve, gold warmed by his hand setting into a cuff around your ear. You shake your head, and feel it on you, and groan again.
He kisses your forehead, lips pressed against your skin and remaining for a long beat. Seconds tick by.
Then he turns your head the other way with his grip. He likes symmetry, you decide.
Your body is throbbing all over as he finishes. Your focus is shattered, and your eyes roll like dropped coins, this way and that as you shift and squirm. There is no position that lets you calm down and stop being too aware of everything he's laid on your body, in your body.
You barely pay attention as he adds a few more things to you, dripping gold necklaces and chains with gems around your neck, fastening more around your bicep. Already, it's too much. Anything more is pointless, mindless.
"No," he says softly. "I think I'll keep you. I like that better, don't you?"
You gasp and nod, nod, keep nodding as your body makes clicking metallic ringing noises.
The sound you make as he shoves you down, flat on your back, is like a coin jar overturned. You blink yourself to awareness, panting, looking up.
He stands over you, his hands on his hips, lips lifted in a smug little quirk.
You swallow thickly, and feel a wide, just-tight-enough band around your neck move with your adam's apple. Fuck. You missed that one.
"You were a looker before," the devilish boy tells you. "Now, you're… dunno, actually. Treasure, mayhaps. Right out of the Cave of Wonders." His grin grows. "Wonders, and Earthly Delights."
You say nothing, laying there panting. You're hard as the metal that's embraced your body.
He knows, of course. With a glance, he takes in the state of you, and whistles softly. "Now then. I think you're all ready."
The handsome boy clicks his fingers, and you brace yourself, getting your arms under you, rolling onto your side. The chain gloves press into you, and your anklets jingle, and your hips jangle, a cacophony of opulence following you as you drag yourself to your feet, your legs shaking.
Clapping his hands again, he beams, his eyes dragging up and down you with avarice, saturated with a cocktail of lust and pride. "You're a gorgeous treat. Any passing dragon would snatch you up. Best keep you safe and sound in here. Now." He waves you closer.
You step in, almost staggering. You're so goddamn heavy.
He touches you the moment you're in his reach. His hands drag up your hips, pulling up the chains, letting them drop loose to ring musically as the fall back into place. With the chain between your nipples, he pulls you in to sway closer to him, then pets his hand up your clavicle, the necklaces running over his hand, his palm hot against you.
Somehow, he pulls one loose. Catching it between his fingers, you feel it as a single chain amid all the others slides over your shoulder, across your back, and out to follow his hand.
It's thicker than the others, and terminates at your collar, set into the wide band.
The boy kisses your forehead again, long and lingering.
Then: "On your knees, treasure."
The purpose of the strange sun discs on your knees is suddenly, crisply, abundantly clear. You drop down, and find yourself comfortable, the pressure spread over the circles, your knees resting in the soft padding. Oh. You could… probably spend a good while down here. That's kind of clever.
It also ignites some fire in your belly, making you sag forward, gasping at the force of the revelation. This is what you were waiting here for. This is what you're readied for. This is what you are for.
His hands on your jaw are almost gentle, as if helping you in a time of need, lifting your head into position. "Go on," he bids you kindly.
You lift your hands, heavy but your fingers and palms clear. You glint and sparkle with every movement as you pull out his dick from his shorts. He's hard, wet at the tip already.
You lick your lip, and gasp as you bump into the band there.
"Go on," he says again, a little harder.
You nod, listen to the sound that makes, and lick at his cock, your eyes sliding shut.
His hands leave you, only the end of your lead still kept in his fist. As if you would go anywhere. You press your forehead against his tunic, inhale a deep breath, and open your mouth to tuck him inside, your tongue curling under the soft, damp head, rocking him in slowly.
He lets out a lush, pleased sigh, and you flush all over, heating the metal with your body as you burn with his approval. When he rocks his hips in, past the little curl of your tongue, you grunt, but take in, flattening and sucking him further in without delay.
The groan is satisfying. You need more. You need more of him, more than his absent touches and grazes as he drapes jewels all over you. You want him.
Placing your palms on his chest, you open wide and swallow him, your fingers twitching and clenching in his shirt. He gasps, real surprise for the first time, and follows your tongue all the way to the back of your mouth.
You seal your lips and keep swallowing, until he curses in a terse, tight voice, and grabs the back of your skull.
Your handsome tormentor lifts up a bit on his toes and thrust in, the angle just right to get you in the throat. There's no choice but to swallow, muffled noises eeking out around his cock as you take it all.
"Fuck, that's so good," he says in a rumble, and grabs your chin, holds your head, and pulls his dick all the way out, until you instinctively curl the tip of your tongue under the head again. he takes a breath, then thrusts all the way back in, holding your jaw in place so your lip ring drags against his entire length.
Your throat clicks as you desperately swallow around him again, and he pulls back, does it again, all the way out to just the tip, then all the way in until he's got you in the throat.
You twist your hands in his tunic, sucking in air in a frantic staccato pattern, never quite getting enough. You claw at him, and he just fucks you again and again, and it's so fucking hot, the headrush and his hands in your hair, you rock on your knees, your own dick hard and bobbing as it follows you.
The boy's grunts twist and turn high, sharp, his cock shoving harder and faster into your mouth. You do your best, trying to take care of him, make him come. After all the work he's put into you, you have to make him come. Make it all worth his while.
So determined on that goal, you cry out bereft when he pulls his cock out of your mouth. You blink up at him, wanting to know what you did wrong.
Then he grips himself, and comes. Stripes of white hit your cheek, your shoulder, down your chest, molten hot and dripping down your skin and over your adornments.
His head falls all the way back, showing his throat as he keep jerking himself, keeps casting a fucking mess all over you. You are stock still, and let it happen. There's no other option.
Then, he's done. Shakes out his hand, and lets out a deep, satisfied sigh.
Slowly, his head lolls forward again, looking down at you.
He grins. "Now," he says. "Finally, you're perfect."
The weight of it all lands solidly on your body. You bend forward, helpless to it, bracing first on your hands, then sinking to your elbows, then sinking down, down, down, into euphoric sleep.
None of it's real. So, you wake up.