Chapter Text
Enter, the cowardly king of Shugoddom who (as his name would suggest) cowered behind drawn curtains, battered and worn and his head as if it’d been split open.
The room was dimmed in the dark, reddish hue of its interior, broken only by the slant of silvery light which spilled from the curtain’s gap. On the bedside table: a single dying candle, its flame pitiful as it danced in its final waxing hour. The room was silent.
For the kingdom of gears dreamt but with a tinge of unrest, a reflection of their ruler's tempest heart. See now how Gira Husty was no longer the orphan with copper-dusted palms, raised on bread and modest village laughter. Gira was a king, and kings sat dignified in golden-gilded halls, on iron-wrought thrones, the very picture of power. For iron is strong, Duuga said, enforces the castle walls with a royal will. In the air: a husk of the past Gira lives in, he wears it like his brother’s mantle; the rusty stench of a bloody history lingered here still. Iron is cold, Gira thought, traps you like a cage.
With a heavy sigh his back hit stone before collapsing onto softer carpet, away from spectating eyes at last. The stinging in his abdomen had numbed at this point—though he wasn’t quite sure if that was a good thing. He hadn’t bothered to remove his coat either, keeping concealed his almond skin and the stained white of his bandages, hiding the cut that ran deep and bloody and should have killed him.
Should have killed him.
Ah, it seemed the injury brought home something deadlier still. A headache, for one. And voices, incessant and taunting, telling him all these things in his ear—things like you have a secret, mostly. A terrible, terrible knowledge. One that hid itself just like a festering wound, bloody and ugly and eating away unbeknownst. It weighed on his bones like the tormenting tune of a long forgotten song, the melody he somehow knows.
A wince. The searing jabs of a migraine were far worse than any fatal battle wound, Gira had found out. The infallible tyrant king in disgraced defeat against his own thoughts, how pitiful a sight! And yet there the almighty ruler laid—waiting, for something to pull his mind to a clearing. Some sort of salvation, perhaps, if one could be so selfish. And surely, a tyrant king is nothing but.
The never-ending stillness came alive, suddenly, by the sound of someone entering his room. Feathery steps as they alighted from the window discreetly left unlatched for them. Gira heard them now, creeping closer with ghostly gait. Careful not to frighten him awake, perhaps. The delicate swish of fabric as it gathered on the floor, then a gentle hand to his shoulder; a scene they’ve rehearsed countlessly to perfection. Gira's eyes snapped open at the touch.
Enter, the love of his life.
"Hello," the familiar, velvety notes of Jeramie Brasieri's voice greeted him.
Slowly, the hazy outline of the bugnarak king's face took shape in front of him. Pale, ivory white imposed against the sea of darkness. It's somewhat like looking at the moon, Gira thought passively.
"Pardon the intrusion," the moon smiled kindly at him. As pale yet bright and beautiful as Gira remembered him to be.
Jeramie drew the curtains back again, leaving the slightest opening for the night sky to peek through before stepping back into the low candlelight. The poor flame still swayed desperately, perhaps enviously—how unfair that all the fire in the world seemed to be in Gira's eyes, blazing red as he stared at the king in all white who descended out of thin air in front of him. His salvation.
"Jeramie," Gira sighed, tension releasing from his body like waves. “It’s you.”
Jeramie seemed to immediately take notice of the weariness in his voice. He knelt down and stretched out a darker colored hand, gently brushing away the hair shadowing Gira's face. “I’ve not kept you waiting, I hope."
And just like that, there he was. So effortlessly. So easily an answer to the tyrant's nightly prayers; like a trick, or perhaps a test from some cruel and fickle god, always watching. For what is a silver thread if not something to be dangled temptingly in front of a sinner?
He leaned into Jeramie’s palm, an armored thumb now lovingly caressing his cheek. The newly regrown bugnarak shell was just a little soft and tender still. He shouldn't be up and about so early after molting. Not that scolding him now would be of any merit. To see you, anything, he'd probably say. And what would Gira do then? Against those red-petal eyelids, against that thousand-year smile.
"Mm," Gira hummed weakly. "It's okay.”
A bit of guilt wore itself on Jeramie’s face regardless. The way his brows turned upwards, the way his eyes misted with worry. The only honest thing about him. For the half-bugnarak never knew to control his expressions, living under a mask his whole life. What a bleak place the past millenia must have been—that Jeramie had his pearly eyes locked behind a steel cage, kept such a heavenly visage to himself. Gira pitied such a world, laughed at the face of it.
"But you seem weary, my love,” Jeramie frowned worryingly. It pulled Gira out of his daze, and he felt the sudden absence of warmth on his cheek. “Perhaps now isn't the best ti–"
"Stay."
Gira had grabbed his wrist. Rather sudden and frantic, and his voice was now alarmingly awake. Jeramie froze, startled by the sudden act, but then nodded slowly in response. Those fiery eyes, they bore into the very depths of his being—and, he still hadn’t let go of his wrist, Jeramie couldn’t help but notice. The grip on it began to hurt just a little.
A light snapped back into Gira's eyes, and as if rousing back into awareness, he quickly pulled Jeramie into an embrace instead. Jeramie released a breath he didn't yet realize he was holding, sighing into the other king's chest. Warmth, blanketing them like a damp cloth. They stayed motionless and allowed for silence to gently follow.
And silence, you see, was verily beloved in this unnamed relationship of theirs, in this romance with its own, unknowable rhythms. Perhaps spectators should find the makings of their love strange—their language something esoteric, but the king of Shugoddom and the king of Bugnarak held sweet converse in the way their eyes danced around each other in tender, knowing glances, in the way their hands knew to rest on yearning shoulders, in the way their mismatched yet perfectly fitted fingers enlaced in quiet contentment. And on quiet nights like these, surely they knew that true peace existed in the silence of each other’s arms.
And yet, on nights like these, surely Jeramie could sense something different in Gira’s touch. In the way his hands handled a little roughly, in the way his body pressed tighter and tighter, in the way his breathing grew somewhat strained. Jeramie tried to think of a somewhat discreet way to ask why as he mindlessly combed Gira’s hair, carefully weaving the words together in his head.
But Gira moved before such words could ever come. His rougher hands fell further down from Jeramie’s shoulders, trailing slowly before making circles against his clothed waist. Jeramie reciprocated effortlessly, leaning into his touch, the sound of fabric (too much fabric) rustling in the empty air.
Gira closed the inches between them, and Jeramie parted his lips at the younger's coaxing tongue, so impatiently demanding entrance against his mouth. A passionate kiss, eyes fluttering shut as their tongues tangled together in warm pleasure. I missed you too, Jeramie thought. And the thought came out as a sweet and shaky sigh as Gira ran his mouth down his neck. Again, the tight grip on the wrist hurt a little. Again, Jeramie let it be.
When Gira finally released his hold, Jeramie’s hands swiftly went up around his torso to grasp the collar of his coat. He began to methodically peel the clothing off of him, only to then abruptly stop. Smoky-white eyes, widening. The jangling noise of an earring.
“You’re hurt!” Jeramie suddenly backed away and cried—a little too loudly. Enough for Gira to feel the headache suddenly make itself known again. “What happened to you?”
They both looked down to see–beneath the red fabric of Gira’s royal garb–his bare abdomen flecked with cuts, and the dirty bandage wrapped somewhat haphazardly around his ribcage.
His face instantly flooded with worry—worry well deserved. For what reason did the king of Shugoddom have such battle injuries? During what everyone believed to finally be a small period of peace, temporary though it may inevitably be? To think Jeramie had foolishly let his guard down, that he had once again naively chosen to believe in that peace, his heart felt ready to drop and shatter into a thousand pieces.
“It’s nothing,” Gira waved a hand, the tone of his voice a little too calm for Jeramie’s liking. “It was just—”
The Royal Sentai would have been summoned, at the very least alerted. The outer-world threat that Chikyuu faced now was unlike any other they have faced before, and Jeramie knew all too well the consequences of acting alone in this war. This, they had one too many international conventions over for the king of Shugoddom himself to break promise. This, you know this, was the look on Jeramie’s face.
“–an accident,” Gira said, rather unconvincingly. Jeramie kept his doubtful stare.
“Please don’t tell me…” His voice kept rising and rising with worry. “Was it Hirubill? Was she here?”
Gira shook his head, but Jeramie’s expression fell gravely serious. A glint of horror seized his eyes. ”Was it…”
He couldn’t even fathom himself to say the accursed name; too terrible, too cruel for such an already fragile night. And yet, just the mere suggestion, the mere thought of it had killed the air, robbed it of all its life. Gira’s stomach coiled, the stinging at his abdomen returning fully this time.
“It wasn’t him,” Gira said quickly. “Just a stray and confused bugnarak, one of the fallen empire’s…”
But Jeramie wasn’t really listening to him now. He wouldn’t stop staring at the bandages, couldn't help but notice it wasn't wrapped tightly enough, and that a small, strange spot of color had pooled beneath the cloth.
“You're sure you’re alright?" he asked again.
“I’m fine,” Gira groaned, a hand on his temple now, the headache coming back, getting worse.
“You’re certain? Here, let me–”
"Jeramie, I said it's fine!"
He shouted. It seized all the air around them for a terrifying second, and then left behind it a long silence. Silence, it seemed, that was not so welcome this time.
For Jeramie had never heard Gira raise his voice like that. Not like that. Not outside the battlefield. Not within closed walls, among loved ones. But at this moment, somehow, Jeramie remembered. A quiet knowledge that the spider kept hidden in the darker depths of his mind. Whispers of it, in the castle. Beneath grand staircases, in wide and empty hallways. Hushed and frantic voices that said, sometimes, their acting tyrant king had a certain look in his eye. Sometimes, as if he were really…
"Jeramie, I–...I'm so sorry. I didn't mean to…" His sentences came out low and shaky, and there was a pained sigh by the end of it. He buried his face into shameful palms, regretful. “I’m sorry for yelling.”
He had curled up into himself, like the night was fast collapsing in on him–beating, beating him down.
“It’s okay,” Jeramie sang gently. His eyes were softer than a mourning dove’s. Slowly, he reached for Gira’s hand again and stroked a thumb across his knuckles. A careful pause.
"Something troubles you,” Jeramie decided to say.
Gira was quiet for a few aching moments. Something tormented him, plagued him with sleepless nights and relentless demons, telling him that he was all these things—things so awful and terrible and unspeakable. So how could he ever speak it?
He lifted his head to meet Jeramie’s gaze, anguished red upon gentle white—and Jeramie knew to hold him in his arms.
Something troubled him, and yet, here was every reason for there not to be. His dearest friend who would cradle him in his arms, unquestioning, weaving soothing fingers into his hair. Gira grew conscious of the silence once again. And in that silence Gira thought of clear skies—of drifting clouds with silver linings. Silver like the threads which made the silk of Jeramie’s robes. Silk threads woven by spiders in heaven, descending into hell’s inferno.
“Jeramie,” Gira whispered suddenly, eyes sealed shut, still. “Do you love me?”
He imagined Jeramie giving him a funny look here, maybe as if Gira were speaking to him in moonrunes.
“Of course I do,” came Jeramie’s response. You silly boy, Gira could hear at the end. I’m not a boy, he would’ve retorted. He was a man. A king. No, no, he was something else. Something…
"Even though I’m an evil tyrant?”
“The cruelest I’ve ever loved.” The older king tucked a strand of hair behind Gira’s ear, then pressed a gentle kiss to his cheekbone, right beneath the red streaks at his temple.
“So we’ll be together, always?”
He felt Jeramie’s kneading fingers come to a halt.
‘Always’ held a certain weight to Jeramie. A word that no mortal has ever promised him in truth. A word that broke his heart over centuries, over millennia. Gira knew it was cruel to ask such a thing of him when Jeramie was still unknowing (perhaps, he really was just a cruel and wicked king? And yet…).
Jeramie’s lips curved into a kind smile. “Always,” he said. Like a vow. Like he meant it.
Always, Gira repeated back to himself quietly. Always. As if a chant, a strange spell that gave him strength, enough to pull away from Jeramie’s embrace and look into his eyes and say:
“I love you.”
A faint shade of red dusted across Jeramie’s cheeks, matching the lids of his eyes. How weak he was, to such forward declarations of love.
“And I you,” he whispered back. “...I love you, Gira.”
His whole being softened as the words left his mouth. Those three inelegant words that only Gira could have wrought from his body. Their gazes lingered, and then slowly, Gira’s arm came snaking around Jeramie’s waist again. He drew back in for a kiss, just as passionate as the last. Then his hands started caressing Jeramie’s chest, sliding over his shoulders and down to the bones of his blades, working him with more and more pressure. Yet another kiss.
“Gira…” Jeramie sighed, beginning to give. “I don’t think you should be moving around…too much…”
The calmness in his voice was like a thin sheet, flimsy and brittle and masking something underneath. Despite himself, Jeramie arched his back at Gira’s touch, leaning into it helplessly as his fingers danced around the sides of his ribs. And Jeramie didn’t stop him. Didn’t stop his hands from tugging at his belt. Didn’t stop his dexterous fingers from slowly undoing the elaborate clasp of his collar.
Gira laid his head into the dip of Jeramie’s collarbone. His breathing was coming louder around him. Louder, louder, louder.
“Something,” Gira choked out, “something troubles me.”
But the rest of the words stayed a ball of lead in the pit of Gira’s throat, as if a curse that bound his lips and tightened his cords. So instead, he pleaded into Jeramie’s eyes. Burning, burning embers, telling him that tonight, Gira wanted…needed something more than the promise of fairy tales and bedtime stories.
Nails dug into Jeramie’s waist, almost like they could penetrate the tougher skin where flesh met shell, but Jeramie didn’t flinch, didn’t move away—because Jeramie understood. Surely, he did. Because his softer hand reached forward and coiled carefully around Gira’s neck. Because finally, carefully, Jeramie asked:
"Then, shall I comfort you?"
Behind them, the jealous flame finally died with a hush of smoke.
⟡
There was, at least, a warning.
Thunder following lightning. A half-second flicker in those bloodshot eyes before Jeramie’s suddenly pinned against the bed with a hungry sort of tenacity; hands like claws, constricting around the wrists. Hands which easily found the dips and curves of Jeramie’s half-natured body, an uneven terrain of tough shell and tender flesh, the violet and ivory map of which has long been lovingly burned into the back of Gira’s eyelids.
A shrill sigh fell from the half-bugnarak’s lips as fingers trailed from carapace onto more sensitive human skin. Gira quickly caught the sweet sound in his mouth, shoving his tongue with a bit too much force, swirling and entangling with fervent need. Gasps, sharp and swallowing for air—then Jeramie felt the warmth move to his neck, then at that spot behind his ear, then back to his mouth again, and again, and again, and again.
Jeramie groaned—it was a little too much, a little too fast. His dearest Gira was not usually like this. But Gira's hands continued to run all over his body as it unraveled beneath him, his hard-shelled limbs turning lithe under the tyrant’s touch, unfurling like petals. Kisses, dragging everywhere; lips leaving bruises to bloom in the morning sun. But Jeramie's own movements were still uncertain, still conscious of the delicate bandages around Gira’s ribs—and the tyrant’s every touch, every kiss was telling, commanding as king for Jeramie to forget.
“Gira,” Jeramie gasped, because he did not know what else to do. What else but to moan and arch his back when Gira’s mouth closed around his nipple, sucking wildly; a wet but almost scorching sensation, at times met with cold hard teeth. To be ravished like prey, one should describe it, there was a predatory gaze in his eyes, a hungry want. And yet, there was also a quiet agony—something so painfully desperate that it couldn’t conceal itself in the tips of his frantic fingers. How they begged Jeramie for something, pleaded for it so helplessly.
So Jeramie held Gira closer, wrapping an arm around his neck to pull him in—willing, and unlike prey at all.
They both let out a deep groan as their hips ground into each other, the hot friction between their hardness so delightfully unbearable. Jeramie’s lower body lifted again before he thought to, bucking at nothing as he desperately tried to regain that sensation. He whimpered weakly when Gira gave it to him, rolling again into his hips, and the sound stoked a growing flame in the tyrant’s chest.
Frantically, Gira reached for the strewn pile of robes beside them and felt around for the pocket of Jeramie’s pants, where he knew the older king always kept that small vial of oil. The strong, dizzying scent of olive as it spilled into his hand, and Gira slicked it over his full length hastily, his mouth on Jeramie’s all the while still.
Barely keeping pace, Jeramie slid his own softer hand to his crotch, past the hardened plate which hugged his pelvis and down to the small pink opening shielded underneath. He busily massaged his entrance open with pressured strokes, trying to prepare himself a little quicker than usual. He was about to push another lubricated finger in when Gira suddenly grabbed hold of his knees, keeping his legs spread apart. The half-spider gave out a noise as he fell again onto his back, then watched as Gira lowered his head right between Jeramie’s thighs and pressed a tongue into his opening.
“Gir–ah! Mm…!” Jeramie jerked forward at the hot, wet sensation, his thighs instinctively wanting to clamp but held down by the king’s firm grip.
Gira began licking in short, fast swipes across his gape and Jeramie curled fists into the sheets, throwing his head back because oh, the way that devilish tongue lapped at that cluster of nerves around his rim sent mind-numbing shudders down his spine. He squeezed his eyes shut as he writhed in the pleasure, his thighs trembling helplessly between Gira’s bobbing head. Gira sucked hard, hollowing his cheeks, and the cry Jeramie let out was almost sinful.
The pleasant sensation withdrew momentarily as Gira replaced his mouth with his digits instead, rubbing then thrusting and stretching the bugnarak even further until his skin turned a lewd shade of red he wished Jeramie could see, for him to flush shamefully at the sight. Gira should have relished in the act, should have savored the sound of Jeramie’s delicious mewls as he curled his fingers against his walls, but he did it all but hurriedly. Gira just wanted to be inside of him, quickly. Soon. Right now.
As if he heard, Jeramie gave a gentle push on the king’s shoulder, prompting for him to move on. He complied, silently pulling away, and for a moment Jeramie could make out his expression in the dark. Flushed and feverish, his eyes a seething red. The moment Jeramie knew that lust was a color.
Gira came up to bring Jeramie’s legs into a straddle around his waist, lining his cock up to the now slippery and readied entrance. Jeramie could feel the heady pulsating of the cock’s tip against him, and his pink entrance contracted eagerly in erotic invitation. Jeramie closed his eyes, bracing, and waited for Gira’s large mass to enter him. Praying, perhaps, to any Shugod that would hear him.
In a single smooth motion, Gira pushed himself in, and a guttural groan left his throat as the swallowing sensation of Jeramie’s walls clenched overwhelmingly around his dick. Hot. Tight. Jeramie was much too tight. The half-bugnarak keened, pushing his weight back against the bed.
Then, Gira was suddenly unmoving. He held his gaze from above, merely watching the shaky rise and fall of Jeramie’s chest. The gem-like core of his vulnerably exposed heart glowed dimly like embers, the living proof of a miracle, of love borne between star-crossed races, of a history much, much kinder. Gira bowed over to caress the not-quite-human, not-quite-bugnarak texture beneath it, urging Jeramie to relax. His brows drew upwards, almost taken aback by this gentle gesture, a stark betrayal to everything Jeramie knew up until then. But that look in the tyrant king’s eyes, Jeramie knew. Hushed and frantic voices; beneath grand staircases, in wide and empty hallways.
“I’m alright,” the older king smiled encouragingly, but the sentence came out like he’d just learned how to breathe. Gira sensed the hint of strain in his voice, but Jeramie’s muscles eventually stopped tensing, adapting to Gira’s size, so he nodded.
“Come,” Jeramie whispered softly, as though the beginnings of a bedtime tale. “Take me, Gira.”
Like oil fed recklessly to a fire.
A burst of flames in his chest, and Gira reeled back before slamming his length back into Jeramie with surprising force. Jeramie arched, choking back a scream. At once, a moment of shock, then pleasure, then nails sinking deep into wheat-colored skin.
“Gira…! A-ah, hah…!”
The pace was relentless. The dizzying intensity of Gira’s pounding hips a raging chariot, wild and merciless as he rammed deep into Jeramie. The bugnarak’s sobs climbed higher in pitch as he came closer and closer to the hilt with each thrust. Gira was fucking him so hard—so desperately—as if the night was being chased by the threatening tail of daybreak, as if the purple mist would lift and Jeramie would vanish with the moon once more. The poor spider could only cling to Gira’s frame, not knowing how to adjust to this ridiculously rapid rhythm, the claws which he usually kept carefully retracted into knuckles now raked careless streaks at Gira’s back, and the gold crescent moon hanging beneath his ear shook violently.
Gira hitched Jeramie’s legs higher over his shoulders, shifting the angle of the penetration slightly, and Jeramie grabbed for hopeless purchase against the pillow beneath him. The tyrant watched as his jet-black hair tossed to the side, framing the ornate royal mark on his forehead which glistened prettily in sweat. His red-petal eyelids fluttered as he stirred with lilting moans and shallow sighs, that narrator’s eloquence in his voice long gone.
There was such selfish solace in knowing only he can make Jeramie like this. That only he can make the king of Bugnarak yield his graceful body to pleasure. Only he can steal the words from the storyteller’s mouth and render him speech unable. This, only he can give to Jeramie for eternity. Never again will Jeramie see another millennia of solitude or sorrow, for they’ll be together, forever. And forever they’ll stay entangled in the twisted web of their love, this inescapable trap—how sweet of Jeramie to spin it just for the two of them.
Gira’s panting was getting erratic, a carnal growl tearing out of his throat as he rocked into Jeramie harder still without rest. Gradually, their moans began to drown in the obscenely growing sound of flesh slapping against flesh, brutal enough that a vivid color of sore-red had replaced the pale of Jeramie’s skin.
A small voice in Gira’s head, then—amongst all the other ones that reveled in his torment that night. Telling him: you were gentle once.
Once upon a time, like a far gone memory. Those painfully innocent and early days of their knowing each other, Gira would hold Jeramie with an awkward sort of tenderness. Shy and careful as he studied the intricacies of Jeramie’s foreign body, the same seriousness in his eyes as when he’s deciphering old textbooks, holding him like his sclerotized armor were made of porcelain. ‘Does it hurt?’ he’d ask, as if Jeramie had not endured a thousand years of pain much more imaginable. ‘Do you want me to stop?’ as if his silk were not tougher than steel.
And now—silk, dampening in sweat. Gira, Gira, against his ear like an unheard prayer—and not a word which fell from the tyrant’s mouth. For he knew Jeramie didn’t want him to stop, he wouldn’t, he’d never.
A particularly forceful thrust, and Gira knew he had hit Jeramie’s pleasure point, for the moan he drew out from his lips could drive even the wisest of kings mad. And for a dangerous, fleeting moment (as he looked into Jeramie’s half-lidded eyes fluttering so prettily in ecstasy), Gira felt like he would readily give up his kingdom to ruin.
It would be so easy, Gira thought, to fall. To forsake this world, to submit to eternity in nothingness. He’d bring Jeramie down with him. He could fuck Jeramie just like this every night, until the tyrant’s name on his tongue was all he knew, he’d drown them both in endless pleasure. Because you love me. Because you’d let me, and you’d want it, too.
“Jeramie…!”
He was dethroned by his own desire. Gira growled Jeramie's name repeatedly behind his neck, breathing fire against snowy skin, no longer the king of this castle, but its dragon, a raging beast brazen in iron, the same iron in the walls, the same iron that traps him like a cage.
Somehow, they found each other’s place of breath, somehow locking into the vicious in and out rhythm of their hips, and Jeramie’s body felt like it was always made to take in Gira like this. So right and perfect. Like it was fate, like the stars had willed it years and years ago.
Tears started to bead at the corner of Jeramie’s rose-kissed eyes, streaking down his cheeks like strings of pearl. The white spider drowned in his helpless gasps, drowned in Gira and everything he carried with him: eternity, the whole world, the universe and all its burning stars.
They were both getting close now.
Gira pressed their chests together, hugging his beloved spider impossibly close.
“I love you, Jeramie,” Gira uttered into his ear. And then, more deeply, “You’re mine.”
Mine forever.
The words caught like wildfires in his chest, blazes flooding through his ribcage and spreading into roaring firestorms, uncontrollable. His. This spider was his. Jeramie Brasieri belonged to him and him alone. For he was the evil tyrant king! Selfish as he was wicked; cruel, cowardly, and creepy! Now—
—Scream for me, Jeramie.
As if on cue; as if the huge, red closing curtains came cascading down on them from above; as if the words flowed effortlessly from his lips like a script he knew by heart; Jeramie screamed.
The name of his ruin was like music on his tongue—and as his toes curled at Gira’s back and his legs locked tightly around his ribs, Jeramie came to a finishing climax. The heavenly convulsions sent like lightning through his body.
“Gi...ra…”
Gira followed soon after, driving his full girth into Jeramie one last time as he spilled hot release inside of him, panting fiercely as the pleasure of the orgasm engulfed his whole being. A few seconds of stillness as they came down from their high, then Gira finally, finally pulled out. Jeramie’s body immediately fell limp against the bed.
He laid like that for some time, exhausted; the aftershocks of climax still coursing in smaller waves. Gira too, was breathless, and he sat motionless as slow-setting clarity began to lave over him. The room was finally silent again.
In his warm daze, Gira suddenly heard the whirring whip of a spider web being shot, and he was pulled down by a silvery thread to the chest and into Jeramie’s mouth. Jeramie kissed him, passionately.
Reciprocating, Gira put a hand over the silken one which had pulled him forth, strumming the line of web which attached them together. Gira grasped onto the thread tightly, whitening his knuckles and reddening his palms as he pressed deeper into the kiss. His nails drew blood, and the red droplets seeped into the pure-white string as it dyed slowly into a more lustrous color. The air lulled still and the stars grew cold to watch as myth came into truth, as the red thread of fate became visible under Shugoddom’s paling moon.
And thus, the night closed in around them with a heavy, cloaking silence, as if the world outside had blurred away into deafening nothingness, as if the only sound that ever was since time’s beginning was the thrumming heartbeats of a spider and an evil king, echoing as one.
And in that silence, as he clung tightly, Gira thought to himself: this spider’s thread is mine.