Archive of Our Own

The rate Yeosang gets for Wooyoung’s cousin’s great aunt’s house is hard to beat. The place is furnished and spacious - probably too much space, really. “If I hadn’t already signed my lease, I’d have taken it in a heartbeat” Wooyoung says when he texts Yeo his relative’s number. The family connection is what locks in the unbeatable price. It’s full of the great aunt (long deceased) stuff, but he’s told if he doesn’t mind that too much it’s a great place.

Given that it’s furnished, he doesn’t have a ton to add to the house. Move-in is easy, and most the touches are cosmetic (save for the mattress which he needed to be his own - like hell is he using some hag’s old mattress, god rest her soul in heaven or whatever). He figures that she might’ve kept some other useful stuff around, though. Stuff like flashlights or snow shovels. So, he goes exploring.

From the front door, there’s the living room to the left, the stairs leading to the second floor directly in front of it, and the kitchen to the right. Upstairs there’s the master bedroom and master bath, along with another smaller room. He checks the basement which turns out to be full of storage. Musty old boxes with faded labels, tools that haven’t seen use in years.

However, one thing sticks out.

He damn near shits himself when he sees an aquarium with a…

Thing?

He calls Wooyoung and asks what the fuck it is. He sends a picture, too. Wooyoung doesn’t know. He admits he’s not close to that side of the family, though he vaguely knows that aunt was an animal lover. Apparently had tons of pets. Apparently not all of them were lucky enough to find homes after her passing.

Pitying the creature, Yeosang moves the aquarium upstairs into the living room. Whatever it is, it’s been neglected, poor thing. It’s black and wet looking, an amorphous blob of sorts. Yeo doesn’t see any eyes or legs. The only thing he does know is its name. Written on a nameplate affixed to the side of the aquarium is its moniker: “Mars”.

Yeosang tries google and concludes that it’s a giant slug. Or a newt. He’s not positive. Luckily, their diets have some crossover. He ventures feeding the thing even though it lowkey terrifies him. He tries lettuce, bugs, grubs, pellets - stuff for newts or slugs. It seems alright with lettuce but won’t touch grubs.

It seems to like carrots, he notes. Fresh veggies in general appear to be the preferred food which is fine in Yeosang’s book. He hates buying bugs anyway.

Life goes on like that for awhile as the last days of summer fly by. Yeosang settles in. He goes out with friends. He goes out with guys. He hooks up with guys. He gets ghosted by guys. Classes start, and he throws himself into his studies, ignoring the gnawing feeling of inadequacy dragging him down.

Said feeling of inadequacy hits him particularly hard one night when he gets ghosted by his crush - a hot hookup he’d seen a few times named Park Seongwha. The guy is everything. Hot, educated, well-mannered. He’s got a job and a semblance of a life plan without being so regimented that he’s a stick in the mud. He also apparently isn’t that into Yeosang.

Whatever.

Yeosang stays up too late studying, and when that bores him, he pounds back some soju. Tipsy, he points to the black blob in the aquarium and declares that “Mars, you’re my buddy”. And Mars does become his buddy in a way.

Sometimes, Yeosang thinks the creature is growing, but it’s hard to tell. He talks to Mars. The aquarium’s in the living room, so it’s pretty easy to just ramble to the thing. It’s always there, always available, never talks back and never judges. Yeosang starts feeling pretty relaxed around it. It doesn’t even have eyes, so he doesn’t feel watched, and it’s never demanding.

It’s logical that he thinks nothing of nodding off while watching TV when it’s in the room. He doesn’t even notice the top of the aquarium go askew. It isn’t until he wakes up and notices the strange black lump on his couch that he realizes it’d somehow opened. Yeosang swallows nervously and tries reasoning with it. He has no idea if it’s poisonous, if it’s dangerous, if it wants to eat him or wants to latch on like a leech. 

He pulls his sweater sleeve over his hand and goads the creature, “Let’s go back to the cage now,” He requests softly. The thing moves shockingly fast, sliding up his arm onto his shoulder. It takes some convincing to get the creature off his shoulder and back into the cage. Yeosang is very conscious of the lid from then on out. For awhile, he’s paranoid, but he doesn’t notice any further incident, so the paranoia fades.

School. Work. Occasional social life, coming home exhausted. Talking to the strange black creature with which he cohabitates. That’s Yeosang’s life at the beginning of the semester. More of the same. Nothing new. Nothing exciting.

One thing does change, though. His dreams. They grow more frequent, more intense, more elaborate. He wakes up uncomfortable, sweaty with his boxers clinging to his skin, soaked through with come. No longer fleeting visions and sensations; they’re vivid and so damn real. Always about Seonghwa, though, always. Yeo wonders if it’s some sort of a sign at first, but save for a quick sexting session he’s gotten nothing out of the guy. He starts to wonder if the deep meaning of his frequent dreams are really just that he’s desperate and lonely.

He can’t shake them though. They start melding into memories, these dreams of Seonghwa. At first it’s crude. A blowjob here, a handjob there. It starts getting more involved; he’s pinned against the bed in the dead of night or spread out on the couch. One that particularly affects Yeosang is a dream in which he finds Seonghwa just standing by his bed, watching him sleep. Maybe waiting for him to wake up. Then the black haired man pulls him into a kiss, passionate, hungry, needing. A kiss that’s too good to be real.

It’s gut wrenching, and all of Yeosang’s pent up frustrations and doubts pour out, he cries begging the question as to why Seonghwa doesn’t like him, why he’s not good enough. He knows it’s pointless, it’s just a dream, and the black haired one has no response. He just kisses, kisses, kisses, and laps up the tears.

He begs for a response, for anything, like his subconscious reflection of his crush is gonna do anything. The other draws back and looks at Yeo, eyes wide with confusion and weirdly enough, distress.

Seonghwa is confused, at a complete loss. His mouth twitches like he wants to say something, but he can't speak. He looks troubled. Yeosang realizes it's hopeless and he just lets go: "Whatever. Make me feel good. Don't wanna feel anything but you," and by that the hazy man of his dreams can abide.

Yeosang closes his eyes and surrenders. He surrenders to the kisses, the cool hands that somehow seem to be everywhere, wrapping around and filling every single nook and cranny until he's dazed, damn near consumed. His entire body's on fire, oozing pleasure, and it's so much that he can barely breathe

It ramps up, more and more and more and then he genuinely feel like he can't breathe. He's on the precipice between pain and pleasure, teetering dangerously, and his eyes shoot open.

That's when he sees it.

Black, slimy, tendrils wrapped around his entire body, filling him, sucking him, stroking him - they're everywhere. They're slick, secreting something that makes his skin tingle. He tries to gasp, but that's stifled by the girthy mass in his mouth. He cocks his head - that he can do - and he glances behind him to see Seonghwa - but not Seonghwa. It's got the human's body, but from its sides and back protrude those things, amorphous, black tentacles eagerly clamoring to cover and touch and caress every bit of Yeosang's skin.

It squeezes him. Wraps a slick appendage around his throat, around his torso, around each of his legs and his arms. It squeezes him close and hard almost as if in some perverse facsimile of a hug.

All the while the expression on "Seonghwa's" face is peaceful, calm. He nuzzles Yeosang affectionately, the human arms wrapped lovingly around Yeo's waist like a back hug. Yeosang's brain is so, so heavily impeded, mind melting in the heat and slurry of pleasure. Still, he tries to make sense of what the hell is happening, he tries to determine if this is a dream or a nightmare, where he is. How can he wake up?

He feels his body floating. The contact with the human's bed is lost, and Yeosang's body is lifted. He starts flailing, and his hands are bound. When he looks down at "Seonghwa", his expression is dark and intense, desirous. Hungry. But for what? Yeo sees the start of human legs darken into slick, black trunks of appendage. Of god knows what. Whatever the hell it is, it's spreading, like vines the black spreads into tendrils big and small, dropping down the the side of the bed, covering the carpet and running up the walls until Yeosang's nearly trapped in a web.

It resumes. Something Yeosang can understand, that he knows - the pleasure, the consumption, the pumping and fucking and suckling on all the right places. His body shudders with everything coming at him, and when he comes, he comes so hard it pushes tears out of his eyes.

But it's not done, and neither is he. It relinquishes slightly, holding on gently, somehow intuiting his limits, but always pushing him just at the very edge. He's twisted like a rag doll, and at this point he's certain he has to be dreaming. Happy to come to the conclusion, his body goes slack and his mind blank, content to empty itself in favor of pure pleasure. Every time he thinks he's spent, he's proven wrong. It's like the thing fuels him and he fuels it. Even in his dreams, there are limits, though, and Yeo comes to his eventually, blacking out as he feels fluid pumping into him for - well, he doesn't know how many times it's been

Yeosang wakes up the next morning feeling fatigued. His limbs feel heavy, and opening his eyes up is a chore. When he does manage to do that, he nearly has a heart attack. Just inches from his face lays another. Eyes pitch black as night bore into Yeosang's as the face hovers close. Yeosang yelps.

It's Seonghwa?

He shouts and makes demands - "What the hell?" "How are you here?!" But then...

Seonghwa blinks confusedly. There is no answer. Just a confused tilt of the head and wide eyes.

Yeo runs (or, well, limps) to his bathroom, horrified.

Last night happened.

Somehow, some way, it happened. He feels sticky and sore enough to prove it. He rushes to rinse off the previous night’s escapades, wondering if he’d done any hard drugs or if there was asbestos in the walls making him hallucinate.

“Seonghwa” wordlessly follows him. It steps into the shower with Yeo, confused as ever and strangely attentive. He hovers needlessly close no matter how many times Yeosang demands “get out!”. Given what he’d seen the previous night, Yeo’s disinclined to mount any major protest. That thing lifted him into the air like it was nothing. It could probably snap his spine in half if it felt like it.

After a lot of goading and pointing, “Seonghwa” somehow does get the message and leaves the shower (only to stand right outside the curtain and stare). It follows him everywhere - though at a distance with enough prompting. Yeo’s heart hammers panickedly as he throws on clothes and gets his stuff together. All the while this naked “man” follows him and watches curiously.

Yeosang leaves for school as soon as possible - even though his class doesn’t start for three hours. He figures he can do some research on this “thing”. He starts to run out the door, but naked “Seonghwa” follows him out, too. Yeosang squeaks, mortified - what if someone saw?! He pushes the thing back inside and tries to leave again.

It follows.

This happens a few times until Yeosang has to re-enter his house. He pushes the thing all the way in, noticing the empty couch. He pushes it by the shoulders, and it sits on the couch, the same wide-eyed look on its face. Yeosang says sternly “Stay here. Do not move.” In truth he’s panicked, not sure what’ll set the thing off.

That’s when he finally connects the dots. He catches sight of the aquarium lid across the floor. It’s almost as if the thing got thrown off. Yeo narrows his eyes and reads the little name tag. “Mars”. He remembers all too well the feeling of Mars slithering up his arm, the way the strange, pulsating mass moved. How it would sit there. All that time Yeo didn’t think he was being watched, but was he?

“Mars? You’re Mars ?” He asks it. It tilts its head curiously, and for the first time there’s some sort of spark of recognition. It knows its name. Mars knows its name. That does nothing to soothe Yeosang’s nerves. Still, he attempts, firmly telling Mars to stay put. Mars watches Yeosang walk away to school, an almost sad look in his eyes.

Yeo hastily turns the TV on, flicking it to some nature documentary channel. Something neutral. It seems to do the trick, occupying the thing’s mind. Good. Yeosang double checks all the locks on the doors and windows. He prays the thing can’t slip under cracks. At the very least it doesn’t seem smart enough to work the locks.

Yeosang locks it inside and rushes to college. He goes on a google frenzy but ultimately comes up fruitless until class time. He’s got class, work, and goes to the gym. He studies with his friends, and they clown him, asking him “You’re glowing- why is your skin glowing? Are you getting laid?” Does his skin look better? He definitely didn’t notice. Even after his long, exhausting day, he puts off going home as long as possible, dreading the sight of Mars. He’s terrified. What if Mars is angry?

After falling asleep over some alien conspiracy books, Yeo peels himself off of the library table and braves the trip home. He clutches a lighter he’d bought from the convenience store on the way home. He has a feeling blunt force won’t work, but slimy things don’t like fire. Probably. He slowly enters the house and for the first time all day feels a bit of relief.

His tension slackens slightly. Mars is sitting exactly where Yeosang left him, precisely how he left him. The blue light of the TV flickers, making Mars’s human visage look a sickly pale tone. It’s some doc on farm animals or something.

“-fter about twenty-one days in the incubator, the eggs break out of their eggs and hatch…” The woman’s voice drones on.

Yeosang wonders how to approach the thing. He doesn’t know of “get out” will work - or what will happen if it’s let out. It’s contained - but is that his responsibility? As he goes about his moral quandary, Mars finally notices him. It tilts its head and gives Yeosang that same wide-eyed look.

“Incubator?”

It speaks. It’s a soft, almost childlike voice.

Yeosang nearly jumps through the ceiling with shock. He’s confused, and mutters, “Wh- What?”

Mars turns back to the TV and says again, “Incubator.”

Yeo follows the other’s gaze and glances at the screen. He doesn’t know why he elaborates - he’s under no obligation after all. This thing is - well, he doesn’t know what it is - but it can’t be good. Even so, he responds, “Yeah, that’s an incubator,” He gestures to the screen. “It’s, um, it’s a thing they put fertile eggs in to hatch them.”

“Egg?” Mars asks again.

“Y’know, like, babies,” Yeo doesn’t know why he’s explaining it.

“Ba...By?”

“Ff- Offspring. Little- little chickens,” Yeosang gestures emphatically to the screen. Mars’ gaze turns back to the documentary, and after a bit more explanation showing fluffy chicks and their mother, the point seems to click into place.

“Baby,” The thing says - almost cutely, like a baby himself.

It turns to Yeosang again, a small smile on its lips. Yeo’s stomach turns. For some reason, seeing it express happiness feels wrong. He just assumed it had no emotions at all. 

“Incubator,” Mars says again, smiling to Yeosang. “Incubator.”

Maybe it’s not learning so much.

“No, Yeosang,” Yeo points to himself. “I’m Yeosang.”

“Yeosang?” At least it picks things up fast.

“Yeosang,” Yeo repeats. “You” -  he points to the creature - “Are Mars.”

“Are… Mars?”

“Mars.”

It takes a few tries, but the black-haired creature understands. Yeosang leaves it there to learn more about cows and ducks or whatever the fuck else and starts cooking himself some ramyun. He’s exhausted and never bothered eating while he was out. 

He starts, but just minutes later there’s a body slotting itself against his, wrapping arms around his waist. Yeo freezes. It’s a bizarre, dual reaction. His logical side screams out against this. This is some dangerous, black, tentacley thing, not a play toy. It could probably consume him from the inside out or break every bone in his body. He should give the creature a stern rejection.

But another part of him remembers the previous night. The water comes to a rolling boil as gentle, human hands caress teasingly. His body melds into it, longing for the touch, knowing the pleasure the other is capable of giving. Yeosang grips the counter next to the stove in a vice. Mars doesn’t really assert anything. It presses kisses along his nape, and a hand wanders beneath Yeo’s waist, rubbing his hip.

“I need to cook,” Yeosang murmurs weakly, dropping the alkalized noodles into the water. He can already feel is cock straining against his pants, the memory of the previous night too vivid.

The entire event was overwhelming and terrifying and fucking exhilarating .

Mars is lackadaisical, noncommittal. Lazy, soft kisses on Yeosang’s neck and shoulders, gentle touches stoking fire in their wake. It’s frustrating, so much so that Yeosang finds himself canting his hips back in want of more. As if reading his mind, Mars gives more. It palms Yeosang gently through the front of his pants and cupping his ass.

This is fucked up. Yeosang knows this is fucked up. There are many, many layers of fucked up. But what’s worse is that - shit - that makes it better for him. By the time Mars finally slides Yeo’s pants and underwear down, he’s an oozing mess. The thing gets down on its knees. There’s no preamble or hesitation before its lips are pressed to Yeosang’s rim. Yeosang pants and whimpers, the pot left forgotten boiling angrily as he bends over his kitchen counter and rocks into it.

He comes before the noodles are done cooking.

The during the next few weeks, Yeosang falls into an exhausting routine. When he wakes up, the first thing he sees is Mars watching him. Silent, gaze unwavering. Those dark orbs remain trained on him throughout his entire morning routine. He goes to school, work, the gym, the library - anywhere to be away from Mars.

Yeo manages to wiggle his way onto a friend’s couch here and there. He stays studying late at Wooyoung’s and pretends to pass out on the couch or he’ll splay out on San’s bed and refuse to leave. They’re kind and lovely. He’s thankful his friends never make him go. They insist he stay because he’s tired, because it’s dangerous out late at night. Scary people walk the streets at night. If only they knew, he thinks wryly to himself. Yeo can’t sleep over all the time. So, inevitably, he comes home to Mars.

Mars remains surprisingly obedient. He’s curious, but not meddling. He watches, always watches. He likes to watch. He watches the TV - Nat Geo and Animal Planet are his favorites. He watches Yeosang. He watches the woodland creatures outside the window. But he doesn’t stir until Yeosang is home. Then he’s like a shadow, whisping about at Yeo’s tail, eagerly pressing himself against the man. After a few days, Yeo decides he needs to give Mars clothing. It’s too easy for the creature to be tempting when he’s wearing the facade of Park Seonghwa. 

Yeosang no longer has any sort of feelings for that man. Any sort of sentiment is long gone, but he has to concede his look is good, and Mars wears it well. As well as a mysterious, slimy black creature can wear anything. In spite of knowing his true form, Yeosang finds himself drawn to the cryptic beast.

He wonders if it’s a symptom of his deep-seated self loathing that he all too happily seats himself deeply on the other’s cock. There’s some sickness there, Yeosang reckons. He always figured he had a little something. He just thought himself neurotic, but he acknowledges that there’s something severely fucked about his arrangement. He’s using this thing like a sex toy - but in a way, it almost seems like the thing is using him. Sometimes, Yeosang wonders if it’s beastiality, but he tries not to dwell on it too long. Usually he can’t - he’s too busy with life, too stressed out about Mars or too blissed out post-orgasm(s) to give a shit.

He has no idea what Mars is. If it thinks, has wants, needs, what its intentions are. It seems to act on instinct, though it does learn at a decent pace. Sometimes, Mars displays a childlike innocence. He’s all wide eyes and tilted head, curious squeaks and little smiles.

One time, Yeosang came home and caught Mars watching that cartoon pig show. Yeo figures he must’ve learned how to work the remote - a nuisance for Yeosang. The man’s fucking terrified of the impression a horror movie would make. What if Mars sees some slasher flick and decides ripping Yeosang to pieces would be fun?

Peppa Pig, though, that Yeosang could handle. For some reason, the moment impressed itself greatly upon the man. In all of their stilted interactions (the majority of which were sexual), for some reason this one stuck with him. Mars’s expression appeared uncharacteristically worried. He pointed to the TV, an almost fearful expression on his face.

“Wh- Is that scary?” Yeosang asked tiredly.

Mars jabbed their finger toward the screen insistently, stuttering out in a worried tone, “P… P-... Pig…?”

Yeo quirked an eyebrow, “Uh, yes. Those are pigs. That’s Peppa, I think.”

“P...ig?” Mars looked downright stressed, and it’s so incredibly baffling to Yeo what the fuck could stress out a- whatever it is. He knew what a pig was, didn’t he? That farm animal documentary must have covered it.

Cogs turn in Yeosang’s head and he tries, “Oh, she- she doesn’t look like a pig do you, does she?”

Mars pouted - he pursed his lips and frowned, “Look… Like?”

Yeosang has gotten the impression that Mars knows more than they can communicate. They understand but severely lack the tools to express their thoughts. In truth, Yeo counts it as a blessing. He sure as fuck doesn’t need to know what it’s actually thinking.

“Um- This is a cartoon,” Yeosang clarified, “It- It’s an animated, stylized representation of a pig, not a real one. Uh- Moving painted pictures of a pig.”

“Moving… Paint,” The human-like creature repeated. They chewed on the words for a minute before their distraught expression faded. “Not real pig.”

“That’s right,” Yeo’s shoulders slumped in relief. He ended up melting into the couch, exhausted. He knew it was dangerous being so close to Mars, but at that point he’d resigned himself: it’s almost an inevitability that they’re going to do something. It’s gotten to the point that he’s the initiator sometimes, like an adrenaline junkie edging themself by looking down the side of the cliff they’re about to jump off of.

Surprisingly, Mars didn’t move then. His focus shifted the screen, and some animated piggy melodrama played out. Yeosang zoned out and his attention isn’t roused until a while later when Mars piped up again.

“Pa… Pa?” Mars’s head tilted inquisitively.

“Hm?” Yeo muttered, half asleep. He glanced at the screen. The pig was talking to her dad about something no doubt incredibly pressing in the lopsided cartoon animal world.

“Pa...Pa? Papa?” Mars’s nose scrunched in confusion, and they lean forward. Peppa’s mother showed up on screen, further baffling the thing. “Mama?” He turned to Yeosang in hopes of elaboration. It was sort of cute. He mimicked the words on screen, “Papa? Mama?”

“Um- Yeah, that’s a- they’re a papa, and a mama - parents.”

“Pa-pa...rents?”

“That’s right. They, um, they’re like the, um, the mama and papa. The people who take care of the children. A family is- is usually a mama, a papa and a child. It, uh, doesn’t have to be, though.”

Clearly that was too much, because Mars looked even more puzzled. 

Yeosang tried again, “Remember the chickens?”

Mars blinked blankly. Yeo will take that as a yes, given that “incubator” is perhaps his favorite word (and a newly adopted pet name for Yeosang).

Yeo continued, “The egg - the baby - that is a child. The hen that lays the eggs and sits on them is the mama. The rooster is the papa. Mama and papa have to, um, breed to make the baby.”

Mars made a soft “ah” sound and digested the information for a minute. After doing so, he responded, “Mama… Incubator?”

Yeo snorted, “Uh- Technically they- they can be. Many are, but, um, you- you can’t-” It was clear that his stuttering is baffling the other. “Yes you can say that. But. Mama is nicer.”

“Mama…” Mars appeared as if he was testing the word. “Papa… Child is… Egg. Baby?”

“Yes,” Yeosang nods, entirely too pleased with the other’s progress in that moment. “And a mama, papa, and baby together make a family.”

That had apparently been simple enough, because Mars understands it right away. The idea pleases him, and a wide, glowing grin blossoms on his face. Yeosang had never seen Park Seonghwa smile like that, but for some reason he feels like it can’t match the childlike innocence twinkling from the peculiar creature’s eyes.

“Family,” Mars said softly.

“Very good,” Yeosang yawned. At some point he dozed off. He woke up the next morning wearing a fresh set of pajamas in bed.

Unfortunately, not every moment could be like that.

There was another time, a few days later, where Yeosang was surprised to see Mars off of his perch on the couch. Mars was hunched over something in the corner of the room, completely concentrated on it. Yeo plodded over hesitantly to see a cornered rat. He opened his mouth, ready to tell Mars that he would take care of it. He figured Mars was afraid of the unfamiliar creature, upset. 

What a stupid thing to think.

A black tentacle shoots out of Mars’s shoulder so swiftly it’s a blur. The rat doesn’t stand a chance. Mars’s appendage pierces the rat’s gut effortlessly, from the pointed tip, a dozen skinny little tendrils wrap around the rodent like veins, gradually expanding, consuming it until there’s nothing left. Yeosang remains frozen in horror, mouth agape as he watches the creature disappear in seconds. 

Mars licks his lips when he withdraws his tentacle as if expressing satisfaction with a good meal. Is that what he’s been eating all this time? Yeosang has never seen him eat or drink anything before. What irks Yeosang is the slightest inkling that perhaps he doesn’t need to eat. Maybe he just killed the rat for fun. 

Yeosang picked his research back up in earnest after that.

He expanded his search beyond the library, shelling out for zoos and rifling through the strange pseudo-science sections of book shops. He found a lot of stuff, but nothing spot on. There are plenty of dark tentacle monsters in folklore. Various aquatic creatures (mostly categorized as “giant”), lovecraftian horrors, demons from all types of mythology. In terms of animals, Mars’s blackened form resembles a variety of things, but he still finds it most like a black slug. There are aliens called “darkling tentacles” - but they didn’t quite fit the bill. There are countless shape-shifters, too, but the majority are described as animal spirits - wolves and foxes mostly.

While there are certain qualities Mars shares with many of the things - shape shifting, dark “skin”, slick, slithering - not a single one is a perfect fit. Mars is not especially violent. Or, at least, not so far. Yeosang still fears the rat episode is indicative of something that could be developing. One of his theories is that Mars is a young whatever-he-is, and that upon reaching maturity, his appetite will increase acutely. As of right now, Mars only has an appetite for one thing.

That flicks on a light for Yeo. 

He’s been tunneling on all thinks inky, black, and slithering. But what of his habits?

Yeosang whips out his laptop and sets it down on the reading desk in the book shop. He frantically searches, opening up the entire first page worth of links for the search-term:

Incubus.

There are various definitions, but they boil down to mean the same thing. A male demon who visits their victims at night to satiate their seemingly unquenchable libido. Their effects are listed as various, things as simple as unwanted pregnancy (probably a scapegoat) to death from exhaustion. Incubi can be violent and are sex-obsessed. They’re often described to cover their victims mouths to asphyxiate them and cover up their screams. Some articles say they put their victims in a trance.

Yeosang draws back from his laptop.

Looks-wise, Mars has none of the qualities that the articles describe - neither the hideous, exaggerated features of the olden days or the newly glamorized pretty-boy ones.

Wait. The shape shifting.

Can it be?

Yeosang remembers their most intense coupling. It was the first time he’d been truly lucid, the first time he really understood he wasn’t dreaming. The way Mars absolutely consumed him, how he choked him, smothered him…

Yeosang starts typing frantically: how to ki

He stops.

Can he really kill Mars?

How to send away an incubus.

Yeosang’s leg shakes busily as his results load. He frantically clicks on the first one and curses.

“Exorcism”

Fuck, he’s not religious.

“Relocation”

Not really an option. He’s locked into his lease. Nobody’s gonna rent out a single this time of year, and even if they did he doesn’t have enough for a security deposit - not to mention the fees of breaking his lease. Of course, couch surfing has helped. He wonders if he can make something up about the house needing gas for bugs or having a mold problem. That’s temporary, though. Anything too obvious and he’ll probably get accused of insurance fraud or something. That’s all assuming Mars does leave him alone.

Pretty much every solution is rooted in a religion Yeosang doesn’t really participate in.

“Okay,” He mutters to himself. “Okay.”

He nibbles on his nails nervously, raking over the facts - or what he thinks the facts are. Mars is maybe, perhaps an incubus. Kind of. Incubus’ have insatiable lust. They may impregnate their victims (not gonna happen to Yeo). Their victims may also die of exhaustion if they give it up too much (something Yeo figures won’t happen with modern medicine - plus he eats and drinks well).

“This’ll be fine,” Yeo murmurs. He wonders if he’s gonna have to convert or join some church. Maybe holy water is enough. He’ll figure it out another time, but the night’s run late, and he’s ready to sleep. He stumbles home and mumbles a greeting to Mars who’s watching the pig show again. Yeosang goes straight to bed, throwing off his clothes and collapsing. He stirs slightly when there’s a disturbance a few minutes later. Through his lidded eyes, he can make out the hazy silhouette in the dark. Black, slick tentacles grab the edges of his blanket and pull it up to his shoulder. One of them slides up and caresses Yeo’s cheek. He winces at the cool sensation, but surprisingly it’s not wet or slimy which is weird. He falls asleep after that.

For the briefest period of time, Yeosang thinks he’ll be okay, but that idea shatters just two days after his discovery. He walks into his first class and takes his usual seat. A girl sits in front of him, and her sweet, powdery perfume wafts into his nose. He’d never really noticed it before, but things had been off since the morning. He’d been more sluggish than ever, his head swimming and his guts wrenching in protest when he reached for his morning coffee. He forced it down, knowing damn well he’s nothing without his morning beverage and toughed it out.

Feverish heat washes over him in waves, and that goddamn, artificial, oversweet stench fills Yeosang’s nostrils. He buries his face in his sleeve to get the smell out, but it doesn’t help. It’s like it’s fucking stuck there. Yeo’s stomach starts to churn, and he starts salivating. He swallows down mouthful after mouthful, willing the violent roiling of his guts to stop. He’s glad he sits in the back, because it makes his panicked retreat all the more swift. He can’t even make it to the bathroom, hacking up bile and coffee into the trashcan right outside the lecture hall. He feels so fucking shitty, the public humiliation doesn’t even hit him.

Someone catches him in the hallway. He hears an “are you okay?” but just grunts in response. Obviously, he’s not. The funny thing is, he actually feels infinitely better after the fact. Usually the brief honeymoon of relief only lasts a few minutes, but even after the fifteen minute walk home, he’s fine. Still, he stays home just to be sure. He sits on the couch and dozes off to documentaries with Mars.

The creature - an incubus, Yeosang thinks; he’s been calling Mars that in his head, anyway - rubs soothing circles on Yeosang’s tummy. Somehow, he knows.

That was only the first of many episodes.

In the weeks following, Yeosang’s health degenerates at an alarming pace.

It starts with something he can only describe as morning sickness. His stomach is too sensitive and his senses too keen. Almost any smell sets him off, necessitating a mask for morning classes. It’s a stark contrast to later in the day, when the hunger sets in. Having not eaten all day, his metabolism seems to go into overdrive to compensate. He eats everything in sight - yet, he doesn’t gain a pound. The yin and yang of morning sickness versus afternoon hunger.

After about two weeks, the cramping starts.

Yeosang wakes up in a clammy sweat, his insides churning in a different way, a way he’d never felt in his life. It’s like someone is stabbing his lower abdomen over and over and over and over again. It’s like someone’s taken his intestines and is playing jump rope with them or abusing them like play putty. He can’t move. He can barely breathe. He’s powerless to do much else than roll around in bed and make pained noises.

If the morning nausea doesn’t get him, sometimes the pain from the cramping will. It brings him to tears on more than a few mornings, and it gets to the point that his friends are worried. Yeosang goes to urgent care per advice, but nothing is found. Not even so much as a temperature. They look at the symptoms and make some dietary recommendations. “You might just be a little stopped up” they say before asking about his bowel movements.

Yeosang insists that he’s fine, and he nearly dies of a heart attack when Wooyoung (who has the spare key) says he’ll stop by. Yeo has no idea what the incubus will do if he sees another human. Sure, he’s seen them on camera, but in real life? Yeosang has no idea about the beast, and he doesn’t want Wooyoung to be the test case.

Mars is a peculiar creature, Yeosang thinks, because he seems to care. Yeosang still isn’t sure about the probably-maybe-incubus. Initially, Yeo saw him as nothing but a black amorphous mass acting on instinct. But Mars has, on more occasion than one, carried Yeosang into bed. He’s pressed chaste kisses on Yeo’s feverish forehead and rubbed his stomach soothingly when his pains are bad.

Does he care? Or did he pick it up from one of the documentaries he’d watched?

Whatever it may be, Mars tries to help. He does so in soft gestures, but he also does so in his own distinct way. Nothing fights cramps quite like an orgasm - something the incubus is always eager and ready to provide. Yeo will be laying on his side and feel the other lay behind him. It starts gently enough - teasing caresses, a hand rubbing circles on his stomach, but Yeosang quickly melts beneath the incubus’s touch. He writhes and wriggles until he can feel the other’s cock against his back, and those hands dip beneath the waistband of his pants.

Yeosang has gotten so damn desensitized, the tentacles aren’t even shocking to him anymore. They just are. A part of Mars, an appendage - a deliciously versatile one at that. Sometimes, they’re bone-dry and smooth, like a snake or a lizard, but they can get slick with secretion to the point of dripping. Mars can mold himself into many shapes - girthy or skinny, bulbed or even a needle-thing to reach places Yeosang hadn’t even dreamed of stimulating.

The pleasant swell in his gut never fails to snuff out his pain. But that’s temporary. Eventually he has to peel himself out of bed, shower, and face the day. Ibuprofen becomes an honorary food group for him with his frequency of pill popping.

By four weeks fatigue starts to set in. In spite of his persistent appetite, his skin appears taut against his bones, things he’d never noticed pronouncing themselves.

That’s when it hits him.

He’s sick.

Like, sick, sick. This isn’t going away, this is a chronic thing.

Many victims die at the hand of incubi due to sickness and exhaustion.

It runs him over like a truck, and his heart sinks. His first thought is: he can’t go back there. Yeosang practically throws himself at Wooyoung who eagerly welcomes him in, saying he should’ve come earlier. Yeo apologizes profusely and buys the other food. Wooyoung reassures him, telling him that he’ll take care of him, that he’s been enduring it so well but he doesn’t have to, that even though he’s been MIA due to sickness they still love him.

Yeosang sleeps over for a few days and doubles his dose of painkillers. It’s not the perfect solution, but he functions alright. He can still do the things he has to do. He wonders about Mars, but knowing the creature, it’s probably just sitting on the couch, watching documentaries, none the wiser.

Friday night after a month of being sick hits, and Yeo’s feeling decent. Not perfect, but good enough to get bullied into a night out. He figures what his trusty ibuprofen won’t do, the booze will. It’s been the longest he’s been apart from Mars since the bastard broke out. Sometimes, he gets hit with a twinge of guilt, but that gets dissolved after the first shot.

The night smears. 

It’s a blur of colored lights and pounding bass. Yeosang grinds on Wooyoung who grinds on San who grinds on some tall stranger. Yeosang’s bank account takes a massive hit after drink after drink after drink after order of fries after drink. He’s cramping like a motherfucker, but he doesn’t even care.

Fuck, it’s nice.

All of his reservations, his issues, his neuroses - they’re all drowned by the drink. He knows damn well he’ll have regrets and he’ll wake up feeling thirty times shittier. But for the few hours of solace he gets from his own thoughts? From his pain? It’s worth it. He gets sandwiched between two strangers, he dances on a table, he dances on a pole, someone slaps his ass, he drinks a shot off of someone’s stomach, he dances more.

It’s a complete and utter blur, and nothing comes into focus until well after the night. Yeosang vaguely remembers half-assed goodbyes to his equally as trashed friends. Wooyoung seemed pretty set on taking home tall guy, and San had been talking about going to sleep for over an hour.

In the cool night air, everything sort of clarifies again, and Yeosang realizes where he’s at. He’s walking toward his place. It’s a bit of a haul, but still walkable. There’s an arm around him. A guy. Big. His arm is around Yeo’s waist, and his fingertips dip low. The guy’s rambling on about some businesses he has overseas. He has a lot of those, apparently. Always traveling for work, he says. Always on the go. Always liked younger people because they could “keep up with the lifestyle”.

He’s older, probably over thirty. That’s the first real hit of reality Yeosang gets, and it sends him reeling. Shit. A hazy memory pops up in his head. He’d stupidly told his friends something along the lines of “gonna get me a sugar daddy”. Apparently, he’d made good on his word. Shit.

The man isn’t ugly. What’s off-putting about him is his manner. He’s walking too fast, practically dragging Yeosang toward his place - if he’s such a damn good business man, why’s he going to the college kid’s dump? Is he married? Everything about him is brash, aggressive. The way he speaks, how he moves his hands as he talks, his tone of voice. A shiver runs over Yeosang’s spine, bringing with it a wave of illness. The pain is back.

“Um,” Yeosang, usually never one to hesitate being blunt, squeaks. “I’m not feeling too good.”

“Oh- Need a seat, baby?” The man asks. Baby. Infantilizing. “There’s a bench up there.”

“I think I just need to go home,” Yeosang mumbles.

“Don’t worry, daddy’ll take good care of you, baby,” The man coos.

Yup. Definitely a mistake. A throb of pain echoes through Yeosang’s lower abdomen as if in response to the man’s manner.

“A-Alone,” Yeosang says.

“Hm?”

“I- I’m gonna go home alone,” Yeosang tries to wiggle away. He manages to get out but stumbles forward, nearly wiping out on the rubble.

“Whoa- hey, hey, hey now,” The man grabs Yeosang by the waist and yanks him back. He chuckles, but it’s not a mirthful sound. “I’m gonna take you home, okay? Then we can have a lay down, get you a cup of water.”

“I’m- I’ll be fine by myself.”

“Daddy’ll help you, baby,” The man’s hands feel huge and heavy as he swipes them up and down Yeosang’s back. Perhaps Yeo would’ve accepted the offer of help getting home of the man’s hand didn’t make its resting place his ass. The weight exerts immense pressure. It’s hefty and uncomfortable and wrong. “Let’s get you home.”

“C-Can you call me a cab then?” Yeosang tries. 

“Fresh air’s good for you, baby.” God. There’s that name again. Of course he wouldn’t get a cab. He doesn’t really care. A cab driver is a witness, someone who’ll see if Yeosang says no and obligate him to stay put.

“No,” Yeosang tries to say more sternly. “I’ll be fine. I just need to rest alone.” He shoves off of the other again and starts striding quickly toward his place, eyes fixed forward.

“Baby, I really think you should reconsider,” The footsteps approach loudly behind him. 

How much more clear can Yeosang be?

“No,” Yeo repeats. “No means no. I- I’m sick, okay? I wanna go home and-” A hand closes around his shoulder and swings him around roughly.

The man looms over him darkly, jaw locked and brows knit in anger, “I paid a fat fucking bar tab, paid for your drinks and your little friends’ drinks half the damn night. And now you’re gonna treat me like this?”

Did he? Yeosang doesn’t remember. It’s irrelevant. The man could’ve bought him the Taj Mahal. Doesn’t mean Yeo owes him shit. Apparently, the constipated, pained cramp look on Yeosang’s face displeases the guy, because he actually shoves Yeosang. The drunk student reels, almost teetering over his heels. His eyes go wide, and fear strikes him.

“Answer me,” The man demands, like he’s Yeosang’s actual father or something.

“I- Wh- N-No,” Yeosang turns around stubbornly, “I’m going home.” He picks up into a power walk, heart hammering in his chest. He keeps his gaze down and focuses putting one foot in front of another. It’s not the easiest, but he manages. His little walk was definitely sobering. It’s quiet at night. There’s a few night owls like him, stumbling back home after a night at the bars, but everyone’s quiet.

Pain and dizziness smear together into an unpleasant swill bubbling in Yeosang’s stomach. Finally, after a walk that feels way too fucking long, Yeo can see his doorstep. He clumsily paws for his keys to open the front gate to his minuscule little yard. He stumbles through and hoists himself up the steps. It takes him a shameful amount of time to get his key into the keyhole. 

A shadow stretches up the steps behind Yeosang, and he freezes.

His heart stops, and slowly he checks over his shoulder. There he is. The belligerent man at the bottom of his steps. Fuck. Yeosang scolds himself for being such an idiot. He should’ve called someone. He should’ve at least checked. But, no, he just wanted to get home. Just wanted to fucking get home.

Eyes wide with terror, Yeosang swings his open door and makes a break for it. He tries to slam it shut, but he’s clumsy and slow. The guy catches it with his foot and barges in.

“C’mon, baby, show me the bedroom,” He snarls, bearing over Yeosang menacingly. Yeosang glances toward the kitchen. There’s probably a knife he can use there.

“Get out of my house. I’m- I’m gonna call the police,” He tries first. The man doesn’t move, which Yeo figured would happen. He grabs his phone, but the man lunges. He smacks it out of Yeo’s hand and pushes him down roughly. The student’s back hits the wood floor with a loud thud, and Yeosang winces, another pain to add to the swell.

“Yeosang?” A voice crops up from the living room to the left. Yeo winces, picking himself up, and he chokes on the gasp that’d risen from his throat.

Mars.

Fuck.

The guy scoffs, “Who the fuck is this? You got a little boyfriend?”

Mars tilts his head confusedly, giving the man that wide-eyed look he always has when he’s curious. Yeosang uses the distraction to reach for his phone, but the older gentleman is canny. He stomps on Yeosang’s wrist before he can reach the phone. Yeosang wails - the force was by no means gentle. If nothing else, his wrist will be bruised and swollen. Tears stream down his face, blurring his vision.

“Yeosang!” Mars exclaims.

Yeo wipes his eyes with his good wrist. His mind is laggy, and he reaches desperately for something to say or do.

The man turns to Mars and speaks in a patronizing tone, “He and I just had a misunderstanding is all, alright? Just let it go man. He owes me somethin-”

Mars isn’t paying attention to the man at all. His gaze is on Yeosang, and distress is written on his face. 

“-our little boyfriend, or fuckboy or whatever is a gold digging slut, and he tried to-”

“Family,” Mars mutters.

“The fuck?”

Mars turns to acknowledge the gentleman face on. He paces over until he’s face to face with the man. The incubus’s expression darkens, the little glimmer in his eye dying. 

“Protect. Family.”

The man shoves Mars roughly, “So, what, you’re fuckin’ related?” He scoffs. “I don’t give a shit-”

Mars’s arm shoots out, and he grabs the man’s entire face with a hand. Black tentacles branch out from the hand, spreading rapidly. Pulsating anger, Mars begins to smother the man, tentacles drilling into his ears, clogging his nostrils and filling his throat. Yeosang shivers on the floor, unable to tear his eyes away.

The man lets out a desperate, throaty noise. It’s muffled, of course, unable to reach the air due to the blockage in his throat. Face fixed into a grimace, Mars lifts the man by his head until his feet are dangling. The belligerent drunk paws weakly at the thick, black coil encasing his body, but it’s a weak attempt. His skin’s already changing color, having gone from red to a sickly blue. 

“Mars,” Yeosang cries. “Mars, stop it.”

The incubus doesn’t listen. Black envelops the man, wrapping around his neck and shoulders, running down his arm in twirling ribbons of slithering, amorphous flesh. A sickly snapping noise sounds out from the man’s body, and Yeosang winces.

“Mars- Mars please,” He cries out again. “Mars please. Stop it.” He doesn’t want the man to die. To go away and get arrested, maybe, but to watch him get killed? To watch Mars do it?

God, he’s in pain. The pain makes Yeosang fold over himself, and he clamps a hand over his mouth to suppress his gag reflex. It’s a sickly sight, watching a person’s life drain right before your eyes. Knowing you could be next.

“Mars stop it,” Yeosang sobs. “Mars, you’re scaring me. Stop it, please- Mars- Mars stop!” He shouts, a pathetic, wet, hoarse noise.

It works, though.

The incubuse halts immediately, his wicked scowl immediately falling. Though his hold on the man remains steadfast, his head turns to Yeosang. He tilts his head as if to ask: “What?”

Yeosang sniffles, “Don’t kill him.” He doesn’t know if Mars understands death, truly, but he tries. “Please, don’t kill him just- just make him go away, okay?”

Mars glances at the man then back at Yeosang.

“Yes- yes, him,” Yeo hiccups. “Just- make him go away, okay? That’s all. No hurt. No kill. Just away.”

Per usual, it takes the incubus a moment to contemplate Yeosang’s words. The spell of silence ensuing is excruciating. What if this is the last straw? What if he snaps? What if this triggers some sort of bloodlust in the incubus, and Yeosang will be next?

Mars nods as if coming to a conclusion.

Without so much as a second thought, he flicks his arm and throws the man away. The body shoots out the still open door all the way onto the street, rolling around until skidding to a stop on the asphalt. Then, with almost comically contrasting delicacy, Mars withdraws his tentacle and delicately shuts the door.

Yeosang stays still, letting the shock just roll over him. He just threw a grown man through the door like it was nothing. Like he was flicking a speck of dust off his pants. The incubus rushes over to the human’s side, face wrought with concern. Yeo winces as a hand - in human form, now - reaches out toward him.

Mars frowns, recoiling slightly.

“You- You scared me, Mars,” Yeosang coughs out.

Mars’s lip quivers, and he drops to his knees besides the human, “Protect.”

“That was- that was scary, Mars.”

“P-P-Protect. Protect. Family. Protect family,” The incubus says almost pleadingly.

“You hurt that person very badly. You shouldn’t do that,” Yeosang says.

“Pro-protect,” It’s the only word he can think of. He looks heartbroken, completely shattered that the human won’t see things from his perspective.

“Mars, please don’t hurt anyone anymore, okay?” Yeo tries to reason with the demon, for some reason. His nerves are shot, and it’s taking every ounce of composure he has left to keep calm. Part of him wants to completely break down, but he doesn’t know what that’ll do to the incubus. It could possibly agitate him.

Or, maybe it’ll worry him?

He looks so damn crestfallen, tears welling up in his dark eyes, face twitching, seconds from crying.

Mars murmurs, “Protect. Protect-”

“I know, Mars, I know. You did it to protect me.”

Protect family - those were his words.

Protect.

Family.

Yeo’s heart lurches at that.

That would mean Mars considers him family.

He doesn’t know how to feel about that. Not in the least. It’s sick, that’s what it is - or so rational Yeosang would say. But rational, logical Yeo left the building hours ago, some time after shot three or four. Now he’s just an emotional, blubbering mess with stomach-turning cramps and a fucked up wrist.

Mars is calling Yeosang family while Yeosang has done everything in his power to avoid him. Mars has been there to help nurse Yeosang through his pains the best he can. Mars has opened his eyes to pleasures and sensations and physical states of being Yeosang didn’t know possible. Mars has been learning and making an effort to communicate. Mars protected him in a situation that would’ve probably ended horribly otherwise.

Mars almost killed for him, too.

This is fucked, he thinks to himself.

This is so fucked.

“I know, Mars,” Yeosang sniffs, wiping away more tears. “I know. You were just trying to protect me.”

Mars nods fervently, “Protect family.”

“You did good,” Yeo hiccups. He doesn’t know why he’s doing this. Why is he reassuring some otherworldly predator? “Just no more hurting, okay?”

Mars nods again, though Yeo isn’t sure the incubus genuinely understands. That’s okay. He’s a fast learner, at least. Yeosang attempts to sit more upright and winces. Pain resonates from his abdomen around to his back and down into his hips. 

Suddenly, he feels something wrap around him. The sensation is fairly familiar now. Mars scoops Yeosang up in his human arms, reinforcing the hold with tentacles coming out of his back and sides. It makes a sort of cradle, supporting Yeosang in all the right places, wrapping around him to make him feel secure.

“Thanks,” Yeo murmurs. He’s so damn tired, dizzy, and dazed, he dozes off just during the trip upstairs. He rouses a bit later, woken up by gentle patting on his face. It’s just a brief spell of consciousness. He registers a towel dabbing his skin and hair. It smells nice. Did he take a shower? He sorta-not-really wakes up again a bit later, tickled by slender feelers sliding on a fresh shirt. He giggles and makes some blubbering remark he doesn’t even remember to the hazy silhouette of Mars before falling back asleep.

Yeosang is roused some time in the late afternoon by the stirring of his guts. The sensation is painfully familiar - literally. He folds over himself and rides out the first wave of nausea. It isn’t until his vision clear that he notices Mars standing there, staring.

Yeo’s used to it by now. The creature watches him like a hawk. Why? Yeosang always assumed it was out of curiosity, but what if his intention is different? 

Protect. 

Is the incubus’s display of emotion caused by actual care - a soul? - or is it possessiveness? Perhaps it’s pure instinct. It protects what it’s deemed his. But do incubus’ have families? Or packs or gaggles or herds (whatever the hell they might be)? Everything Yeosang’s read describes the creature as solitary. They definitely don’t seem like the type keen on sharing.

Another stab of pain pierces Yeo’s abdomen, and he seizes up. Shit. Just as he’d predicted, drinking was a stupid fucking idea. Every little ache and pain is exacerbated by the strained throbbing in his head and dehydration of the hangover. The incubus clamors onto the bed. It wraps a human arm around Yeosang, using the other hand to stroke soothingly on his stomach.

At this point, the twitch in Yeosang’s cock is practically just muscle memory. He parts his legs, silently begging for that temporary relief. It’s like the world is a blur, and the only time it can come into full focus anymore is when Mars is touching him, caring for him, tugging on his leaking cock and pressing kisses on his neck. The swell of heat in his stomach dissolves the pain, replacing it with sweltering pleasure.

Yeo’s hips frantically rock into the creature’s touch. Mars has the power to absolutely annihilate him, to break him without a second thought, to spread Yeosang out and fill him to the brim, throwing him over the edge over and over and over again - but he doesn’t. He’s tender - almost delicate - in his ministrations. Yeosang covers his mouth and groans as the heat simmering in his abdomen boils over.

He shudders in the aftermath even though it hadn’t been all that strenuous. All too soon, his bleariness returns, and the cramps return. He knows he can’t stay in bed all day, but the idea is damn tempting. 

Some incubus victims die from exhaustion after multiple visits.

No. He definitely can’t stay in bed. His mouth feels cottony, his lips chapped and plastered together. After taking a minute to motivate himself, Yeo finally manages to leave the comfort of his sheets. Even though he feels uncomfortably warm, he shudders after leaving their warmth.

He wipes himself off and stumbles downstairs to his kitchen. Mars follows at his tail like a shadow, always just a breath away, hovering. The student puts on water for tea - he’s not sure he can handle coffee - and downs a cup of water. He shakily throws a couple of ibuprofens down his throat and makes himself toast.

The day is unremarkable.

Yeosang almost trips over his phone, having forgotten that it’d gotten kicked across the floor the night before. The memory plays through his head, leaving an unsettling impression. He tries to shake the vision out of his mind and answers the storm of notifications on his phone. They start out humored. “How’d it go with your daddy?” “Did you actually leave with that guy?” but they transition into worry. “Are you okay?” “Yeosang we’re starting to worry about you.” “Please answer.”

“He was a creep,” Yeosang answers his group chat. “I dumped him on the walk back.” Like hell can he tell them the truth.

He gets a few jokes out of that, but the subject changes quickly, thank god. They switch the topic to Wooyoung’s exploit, a hotty with a “monster cock” named Yunho. As if Wooyoung knows anything about monster cocks. Yeosang nearly types that out, but he doesn’t know how he’d respond when they inevitably ask for elaboration.

All Yeosang does on Saturday is loaf around. Basically the day (and night) is a sequence of him changing locations and positions in his house. He sits in a chair to eat and dick around on his phone. He sits at his desk and plays league. He starts feeling wobbly and lays down in bed. He goes down to the couch to watch documentaries with Mars. He sits, lays awkwardly, curls up in a ball, sticks one leg out - an improvised dance in an attempt to mitigate his cramping pain.

He plays another game of league, and it gives him vertigo. His friends lament his hasty departure mid-game and defend him against the pubbies in chat while he retches in the sink. He balls himself up on the couch again, and this time Mars stares at the man instead of the television. Something wraps around Yeosang, and for a second he panics. Half a dozen thick, black tentacles squeeze his arm gently. They’re surprisingly warm. Yeosang falls alseep like that, curled up against the creature.

He wakes up at about six in the morning with burning pain in this lower abdomen, and he can’t go to sleep. When he goes to take a leak, there’s blood in the urine.

Fuck.

That’s new.

He limps over to bed and curls up. Mars stands there, as he always does, a silent stalker, staring - always staring, expression blank. Yeosang gives up on going back to sleep at about eight and starts reading comics on his phone. He gets an invitation to brunch around nine-thirty and politely declines. He’s pretty sure anything he eats will get swiftly ejected from his digestive system.

“You’re always sick lately,” Wooyoung texts, and Yeo can see his friend’s frown through the letters on the screen.

“Yeah idk” He texts back. 

“Sorry” He adds, because he is. He’s been a fairly absent friend for the past weeks. He’s too fatigued to do much outside of resting in his spare time. Friday night was a rare occurrence - one he’s not eager to repeat any time soon.

“Wtf don’t say sorry,” Wooyoung tells him. He’s so nice. Why are his friends so damn nice? Sometimes, Yeosang thinks he really doesn’t deserve them.

“Did you go to the doctor?” Woo asks.

“Yeah. They said it was constipation,” Yeo adds a shrugging emoji to that.

“That’s bullshit, you need a second opinion,” Wooyoung texts.

“Youre probably right. I peed blood this morning,” Yeosang admits. Usually he doesn’t like talking about this kind of shit with his friends, but he’s too damn tired to give a shit.

“I’ll go Monday before class,” He says.

“Fuck that. I’m taking you to the ER,” Wooyoung replies.

“You don’t have to do that.”

“You’re sick all the time and you’re losing weight. Even when you’re not having vertigo, you’re in pain…”

“I can go Monday”

“No. I’m coming over”

Yeosang’s heart stops.

“Don’t come over. I’m a mess rn,” Yeo taps frantically.

“I have a key :)” Woo responds.

“Please don’t, I’m a mess,” Fear shoots into Yeosang’s veins like a venom. “It’s coming out both ends.” He lies(ish).

“Ill wear a hazmat suit” Wooyoung laughs.

“No seriously dont”

“Too late. Got my keys.”

“You do not have to. Ill be fine.”

“On my way :)”

Yeosang sends about a dozen more frantic messages telling him to stay the fuck away, but Woo doesn’t answer. He’s probably driving. Yeosang’s gaze flits over to Mars. He stands there doing what he always does - watching. What’s he gonna tell Wooyoung? What’s he gonna tell Mars?

Yeo swallows nervously, hopping out of bed and running down stairs. Mars follows, taking his perch on the couch obediently as Yeosang searches for a channel. Time runs like sand through Yeo’s fingers. It’s not like Wooyoung lives far. And of course the fucker is close enough to Woo relationship-wise that he doesn’t even bother knocking before sticking his key into the lock.

Wooyoung steps in, loud and boisterous, and he starts with a yell, “YEO- oh. You’re here. I thought you’d be in bed.”

Yeo wipes his sweaty palms on his hoodie and nods. 

He’s watching.

Yeosang can feel it, the creature’s gaze heavy on him. On Wooyoung. Fuck.

“Y-Yeah,” Yeosang murmurs weakly. “We can, um, go.”

“You ready? Let’s g…” Wooyoung trails off. He notices.

Yeosang heart drops onto the ground.

Wooyoung narrows his eyes at the silent, black-haired “man” peeking over his shoulder from the couch. Not a single word is exchanged. Not a sound. Yeo peeks at the incubus and sees an expression blank, discerning. He’s thinking, judging. 

“Who’s this?” Wooyoung’s voice lilts up into a tone of amusement. “Hold up- I- Is this the real reason why you’ve been so- are you-?”

“He’s fine to stay here,” Yeosang mutters rushedly. “Let’s go.”

“Wh- B- Hey, you’re not even gonna introduce me?”

“Later. I feel shitty. Doctor now,” Yeo starts actually physically pushing Wooyoung out the door, but his friend resists.

“Hold up, I know you,” Wooyoung’s brow furrows, and he takes a step closer. Yeosang’s eyes blow wide open, and his heart hammers against his chest. The anxiety further contributes to the overarching pain running throughout his body. Woo narrows his eyes, “Aren’t you… Seonghwa?”

Mars tilts his head curiously, blinking a few times. Wooyoung’s gaze darts between Mars and Yeosang, suspect. Of course he’s suspicious. After all, when the real Park Seonghwa decided he wasn’t worth texting anymore, Yeosang whined about it nonstop. His friends were his shoulders to cry on. They comforted him as he bemoaned his crush’s abandonment.

So, seeing him (or a person they think is him) on Yeosang’s couch in the morning is probably pretty fucking weird.

“I- I was gonna tell you, about that,” Yeosang grumbles. “Later. Can we go now?”

“So, what, you two are like…” Woo gestures between them, “You’re a thing now? Again? Or did you just-” He looks at Mars conspiratorially.

“He’s lost his voice,” Yeosang lies. “He can barely speak.” At least that’s the truth.

“Well, why didn’t he offer to take you to the doctor?” Wooyoung asks, annoyed. Of course he is, he’s protective of his friend - like any good friend would be - and from his perspective some jerk who blew his friend off is now chilling on the couch while said friend is suffering.

“He doesn’t have a car,” Yeosang mutters. Another pulse of pain resonates from his abdomen into his pelvis and up his spine. He winces.

“Have you even been taking care of him?” Wooyoung’s tone dips into actual anger. Fuck. Yeosang’s glad his friend cares so much about him, but now is not the time. Mars’s eyes go wider. He responds with an inquisitive quirk of the head.

“Wooyoung, stop,” Yeo says through gritted teeth. The cramping is getting worse, and his knees are starting to knock together. “Can this wait?”

“Yeo, I’m just worried about you,” Wooyoung frowns. “He doesn’t seem worried at all, though.”

Mars is still silent. Observing.

“Wooyoung,” Yeosang huffs, “If you’re not gonna take me to the doctor’s, then please leave so I can go to bed.”

“Wha- Yeo are you serious?”

“Please. This is none of your business.”

“It is my business. You’re sick and miserable for the past month. You- you’re practically a ghost. We barely get to see you unless your crashing at one of our places, and then I come to take you to the doctor and this- this jerk is here just- casually sitting on your couch like he lives here. What is going on?”

A tear drops down Yeosang’s cheek, squeezed out by pain and duress, “Please, Wooyoung, not now.”

“Yes, now, Yeosang. We’re really worried about you.”

“Okay, I’ll- in the car, I’ll just-”

“No, not in the car!” Woo exclaims, his voice echoing loudly. “I’ve known you for years. Whatever it is, you can tell me!”

Yeosang’s blood freezes. He sees it out of the corner of his eye. The shadow shifting. One second, he’s on the couch, the next, he’s there, standing between them. Wooyoung steps back, shocked. Mars’s expression is dark, threatening.

“Oh, so now you’ve got something to say?” Wooyoung huffs. Dammit.

“Protect,” Mars hums, a low growl.

Yeosang steps between them quickly, “It’s fine,” He searches for the creature’s dark gaze.

Woo scoffs, “I’ve known him for years. If anyone’s protecting Yeosang, it’s me.”

“Wooyoung, stop,” Yeosang tells his friend. Mars doesn’t back down, and neither does Wooyoung. 

Yeo swallows nervously, grabbing at the collar of Mars’s shirt and leans forward, whispering, “Hey, hey- it’s fine, okay. Wooyoung is fine. We like Wooyoung. Wooyoung is a friend.”

“Woo… Friend…” Mars mutters. His tensity slackens ever so slightly.

“Yes, Wooyoung is my best friend- you know. I’ve told you about him,” Yeosang plays it up. 

“Friend,” Mars repeats the word. He looks down in contemplation, taking his time to consider the information he’d been presented with.

Yeosang focuses on keeping his breathing steady. Whether it’s the stress or the exertion, something about the situation is making it difficult for him to breathe.

Mars’s fierce expression falls away, and he nods, “Friend.”

He understands?

“Yeah, the- the one I told you about,” Yeosang coughs. “Wooyoung.”

“Wooyoung,” Mars’s eyes shift from Yeo to Wooyoung. “Wooyoung,” He repeats. “Friend.” His lips upturn ever so slightly.

So he does know what “friend” means. It must’ve been from the pig show, Yeosang figures.

“Uh, yeah,” Woo replies gruffly. “I’m Wooyoung. His friend. I’ve known him for five years, by the way.”

“Friend,” Mars nods again, then he steps forward. Yeosang nearly keels over from shock, terrified when he sees Mars’s arms reach out. Yeo is petrified in place, and his mouth drops open in horror as Mars wraps his arms around Wooyoung.

“Friend,” Mars repeats, rubbing circles on Wooyoung’s back.

The creature hugged Wooyoung.

That’s all. He hugged him. The terrified tension in Yeosang’s chest uncoils, and he nearly drops to his knees with relief. Apparently, Peppa Pig taught him the word “friend” but didn’t teach personal boundaries. That, Yeosang could deal with. Wooyoung’s face squashes into a befuddled expression of shock. He awkwardly returns the hug, parting eagerly and ushering Yeosang out the door.

Wooyoung drills him on the drive to the ER. Yeosang can barely cobble together a story. Seonghwa is sick. Seonghwa isn’t much of a talker. Seonghwa wanted to try again and they’ve been working it out. It’s fairly new, so Yeo didn’t want to tell anyone until it was “stable”. Yeo begs Woo not to tell anyone - it’s a pretty empty request. Yeosang knows damn well Wooyoung will probably run to tell San the first second he gets a chance. Doesn’t stop him from hoping.

They roll into the emergency room and, luckily, the wait isn’t long. Yeosang signs in and curls up in an uncomfortable chair. Wooyoung rubs soothing circles in his back. It doesn’t help the pain, but the intention is nice. Yeosang is grateful for him. 

Yeo’s called in. Woo asks if he wants company, but Yeosang declines. He follows the nurse into the back and has his vitals taken. He has, in fact, lost weight. Nine pounds, to be exact.

He describes his condition - severe abdominal pains, nausea and vomiting, fatigue, blood in urine. The doctor, a kind looking older woman, asks how long his condition has been the way it is. Yeosang tries to recall. It’s been a few months. She frowns at that. He mentions his previous visit - when his symptoms were less severe, and she nods, scribbling more frantically.

She fires back with an onslaught of questions. Yes, he’s sexually active. Yes he uses contraception. No, he doesn’t smoke. No, he doesn’t do drugs. He hasn’t been out of the country and has no pre-existing conditions. He’s not on any medications and has no known allergies. Hasn’t noticed any blood in his stool, either.

Blood in the urine points to a UTI, a common, solvable problem. An easy solution, something quick that can be wrapped up with recommendations of cranberry juice and a prescription. Yeosang frowns. He wishes it was that easy. 

The doctor orders a urinalysis. He’s given a cup and directed to the bathroom. His face scrunches in pain as he fills the cup. Fuck, it hurts. Everything fucking hurts. He’s so damn tired of it. The sample is collected by a nurse, and Yeosang waits in the exam room. The fluorescent light casts everything in a dismal, bluish-grayish tone. He scrolls his twitter feed and skims the posters on the wall. It’s some generic anatomy thing.

There’s a chart detailing human musculature and another labeling layers of the epidermis. There are various leaflets on the counter opposite the table. Some advertise medicines while others discuss more general issues. “Post natal depression help” “Flu Prevention” “Get your purple back - Humera”. 

The paper on the exam table scrunches loudly as Yeosang lays down. His pain is perpetual, but the intensity ebbs and flows like the tides. Oftentimes, during the day, it’s bearable. A dose of over the counter pain killers will help dull it down to manageable levels. A three or a four on the pain scale shown to him by the doctor. But then the wave washes up onto shore, and in one fell swoop he’s a shivering mess, body twisting and contorting in hopes of finding solace in just the right position. Agony twists his intestines and swirls his brain, making him hazy and off-kilter.

It seems to be ramping up now.

Yeosang isn’t sure how long the doctor is out. He semi-sleeps for what feels like fifteen minutes. Wooyoung sent a text during that time: “How are things going?”. Yeosang taps something out about the test, the possibility of a UTI. “That doesn’t explain everything else tho” Wooyoung says. He’s right.

The doctor is a cool customer, obviously experienced and unphased. Even with her face trained into professional neutrality, Yeosang can tell something is up.

“Yeosang, I have a few more questions,” She says.

Yeosang’s brows furrow. He’s getting tired of this. He huffs and obliges. Yes, he has noticed weight loss and, yes, muscle loss as a consequence of it. No, he really hasn’t been taking any strange drugs, medications, steroids or hormones. He asks why? What did they find?

She frowns.

“Our urinalysis is a pretty diverse panel, so it searches for a lot of things. Judging by the appearance it’s definitely apparent that there is dehydration, obviously the blood in the urine as well can be indicative of things like a UTI, but we found something else from the sample.”

“What?” Yeosang hugs his knees. It’s hard to concentrate when it feels like his insides are being rearranged. He’d been freezing just a minute ago, but now he’s sweating.

“We found elevated levels of a hormone called hCG. It’s called human chorionic gonadtropin. In males, hCG is a known tumor marker.”

The word “tumor” makes Yeosang’s eyes blow wide open.

The doctor picks up on it immediately and tries to smooth his ruffled feathers, “It can mean a lot of things, though. You’re dehydrated, so your levels may be inflated. We’ve put in an order for a sonogram. The radiology ward is on the fourth floor, so I’m just gonna fill out some more notes and send you up, alright?”

Yeosang nods numbly. The doctor hands him a copy of something. He doesn’t bother reading it. He’s too frazzled to really understand the directions he gives her, so he just asks her to write them down on a post-it. She does, giving a few more satiating remarks talking about how they’ll “take care of him” and “help him get to the bottom of it”. 

Yeo clutches his stomach as he walks back out to the waiting room. Tears well up in his eyes, but he blinks them away adamantly. He hates crying in public. Wooyoung rushes to his side and it’s questions, questions, questions.

Yeosang feels faint.

He leans heavily on his friend as he’s escorted up to radiology and seated in another uncomfortable chair. He passes out on Wooyoung’s shoulder.

He’s woken up by a gentle shake some indiscernible amount of time later. For some reason, it’s in that moment that the thick, artificial citrus scent of whatever cleaner they use drifts into Yeosang’s nose. His stomach turns as he follows the medical assistant back. His vitals are taken again. “Looks like you’ve got a bit of a temperature” The affable girl tuts. “So what brings you in?” Yeosang mutters something about the order.

He’s escorted to another exam room. It’s dark, and Yeo can see the sonogram apparatus. His heart wrenches again, and his throat constricts with anxiety. He lays on the table, waiting for the sonographer. Even though he’s no longer in the waiting room, lemon lingers in his nose. His stomach roils and the room spins.

The sonographer comes in a moment later. She’s an older, handsome woman. Her voice is calm and soothing. It probably helps to be so serene in her profession. God knows what this woman has seen, what she’s had to tell other patients. 

What she’s about to tell Yeosang.

Yeosang goes through the motions. He tells her about his symptoms and how he ended up in radiology. She nods receptively, taking a few notes of her own. She informs him of the procedure, and he’s given a gown. She steps out so he can change. It’s a sluggish process. Never had changing clothing been so taxing to Yeosang.

Everything spins, and his body aches. The mere act of moving activates pains he wasn’t even aware he had. His entire body is tender to the touch, and his stomach swims from the small motions it takes. 

He’s bracing himself by the time the sonographer returns. Gripping onto the sides of the examination chair for his life. He tells her he feels woozy, and she kindly grabs a receptacle off the counter and sets it onto a rolling table near him. She asks if he’s ever had a sonogram before, and he tells her no, he hasn’t.

It starts.

She puts tape on his thighs, and he can feel skin stretching. The gel is cool and unpleasant on his skin. Even more so is the probing sensation of the transducer. He used to wonder if guys got hard-ons from their exams. Part of him was always paranoid about getting an embarrassing boner or something during a doctor’s visit. Now, he realizes that, god, no, they probably don’t. What a stupid thought.

Few things are less comfortable than what he feels now.

Of course, the overwhelming, general sickness is sure as fuck not helping. He hesitantly glances at the screen as the image comes to life, black and white stirring on the screen.

“Now, if we’re normal and healthy, we won’t see anything. It’ll all look kinda gray…” 

Their eyes are trained on the screen. The grainy, monochromatic image shifts, and with it so does Yeosang’s stomach. He swallows down mouthful after mouthful of spit, eyes trained on the screen, heart lodged in this throat.

The sonographer lets out a breath, “So, it looks like there’s something here.” She moves the tranducer abruptly, and Yeosang winces at the unpleasant sensation.

He hesitantly checks the screen and chokes.

“There’s quite a few, actually.”

Yeo brances the exam chair even more tightly, the grip blistering as scarcely cushioned metal digs into his palms.

“Wait a minute,” The sonographer breathes out. She shifts the transducer again.

“Is- Is that a tumor?” Yeosang asks weakly, eyes wide with terror, fixed on the screen.

“These growths, they’re different,” The sonographer says. “I’ve never seen any like this. Usually they’re sort of balled up little knots or even big lumps. These are like… Hm.” The transducer travels across to the other side, and it’s more of the same. “There’s a couple here, too…”

“So, um, what does that mean?” Sickness balloons up dangerously, in Yeosang’s gut. His throat convulses, but he stubbornly suppresses it, more concerned with his sonogram. 

The sonographer speaks calmly, “I have an idea, but I think I might grab the radiologist on the floor for a second- oh!” She gasps, practically jabbing the probe into Yeo’s sac. Her voice softens, and she speaks in a tone that sounds almost awed, “Did you see that, Yeosang?”

“S-See what?” All Yeosang can see right now is the edges of his vision tunneling. The screen is obscured behind the haze of his nausea.

“Oh- It did it again, look at it,” The sonographer sounds… Excited. Eerily so. Perhaps it’s good news. She points to the screen, at one of the atypical masses. 

Yeosang leans forward and squints, fighting his sickness to see what the woman is talking about. The masses are completely unlike her description of a typical growth. They’re in no way round, bulbous, or “knot” like. They’re long and thin, a few of them overlapping almost like hairs or noodles.

Yeosang watches closely, knuckles white on the armrests and eyes narrowed. He focuses so intensely that the rest of the dark room goes near black. All he can see is the image, the streaky black and gray ultrasound of his insides. Then, it happens.

One of them - the masses, the noodles, the hairs the what the fuck evers - it twitches. Yeosang practically jumps back.

“There it is!” She exclaims softly. “Did you see that? Wh- Oh, it’s doing it again. That little guy’s on the move…”

The way it moves is familiar. The slight tendril coiling and uncoiling, wriggling across his insides like a damn snake.

“Yeosang, have you been out of the country recently?” The sonographer asks. Her voice sounds muffled by the buzz of sheer anxiety dimming the world around Yeosang. He shakes his head numbly. She asks, “Have you perhaps eaten any raw or undercooked meat? Do you like your meat rare…?” 

She keeps talking, but Yeosang can’t understand her anymore. She’s drowned out by the loud pounding of his heart and the thunderous moiling of his guts.

“-ood news is that this doesn’t look like cancer. It appears to be a case of worms.”

Worms.

Wriggling, writhing, disgusting worms. 

Worms that move just like him.

Suddenly, the spark of understanding ignites. A memory flashes into Yeosang’s head. The vision of Mars, head tilted and lips tipped up in a seemingly innocent, mirthful grin.

“Incubator.”

He looked Yeosang in the eye and said that.

Yeosang always thought it was because Mars liked the word. It was one of the first words he said, and the longest one Yeosang had ever heard him speak. 

Incubator.

An enclosed apparatus used to grow, care for, and protect microorganisms until cultivation time.

Mars wasn’t just saying the word for fun. He was calling Yeosang an incubator. His incubator. Those are his, and, as if knowing that Yeosang was watching, the jet black tendrils start to animate on screen. They twitch and flinch and wiggle and wave. Are they taunting him? 

Incubator.

Yeosang is an incubator.

Yeosang snatches the nearby recepticle and empties the contents of his stomach into it. His throat and nose burn as he heaves, the sickness making his entire body quake with agony.

All the sonographer has to say to that is, “There, there. That’s okay…”

Yeosang feels significantly better after the entire ordeal. His nausea’s evaporated and his aching dulls to tolerable levels. There’s a flurry of activity. Order for a blood sample, quiet reassurances, gentle guidance out of the room.

“So… Worms, huh?” Wooyoung asks in the car on the drive back. Their hospital adventure ended up taking all day, and the sun’s already dipped beneath the horizon by the time they’re heading back.

Yeah, sure. Worms.

Worms my ass, Yeosang thinks. He knows damn well what they are. Trichinosis - that’s what the doctors said. The symptoms are textbook, they told him, all it takes is pills to kill those suckers. Yeosang happily accepted it along with the prescription for pills, ready to get the fuck out.

Yeosang doesn’t know how he’ll repay Woo. He told Woo that about twenty-thousand times, but being the angel that he is, Wooyoung wasn’t having it. He rejected payment at every turn and said he’s just relieved it’s not something dire. Yeo considers asking to stay the night, but after making Wooyoung sit in hospital waiting rooms for his entire Sunday, it feels like too great an imposition. He dejectedly gets out of Wooyoung’s car after almost getting pushed out and told to “go the fuck to bed”. 

When he steps through the door, Mars is there like always, watching the television. Yeosang rushes straight to his shower without a word. He crumbles into the tub, hugging his knees and sitting under the warm stream. He thinks about every interaction he’s had with the creature.

Mars.

All those times he sidled up to Yeosang to comfort him from his pain. The mornings Yeosang woke up with a fresh set of clothes under his blanket after passing out elsewhere. When he expressed his desire to protect.

Yeosang feels like a moron. Like a wretched, disgusting, exploitative, fucked up, sick in the head, moron. How could he ever delude himself into thinking whatever was going on was okay? That the consequences would somehow not catch up with him? That the incubus cared?

Mars never gave a shit about him. Of course he didn’t. Because he’s a beast, a monster, a demon or maybe an alien. Whatever he is, he probably doesn’t have a soul. He’s acting on pure, animalistic, primal instinct. Many creatures have an instinct to protect their kin and whoever is bearing them. Mars’s priorities were to protect his kin. Yeosang just happened to be pitiful body who happened to be deemed host.

He sobs.

He sobs because he’s never felt like such a fucking fool in his life. He sobs because he’s thoroughly disgusted with himself. He sobs because he’s trapped with this creature. He sobs because he doesn’t know what the future holds - what happens when his usefulness expires? And how will those tiny creatures eventually leave his body? Is he a host, destined to be consumed from the inside out, or will they simple burrow their way out, gnashing at skin from within when they’re ready to emerge?

He sobs because he’s so, so pathetic because he’s sobbing because he feels like he’s lost something. Pain scratches inside his chest and up his throat as he sobs, because a tiny, deplorable morsel of him was actually convinced that this creature in some way, shape, or form cared. That it loved him. That if nothing else he had this creature, this thing that would love him no matter how despicable he was or how sick he got or how lazy he felt or how shitty he looked. 

He sobs because he knows that very creature is looming just beyond his shower curtain, staring, probably with its head tilted curiously.

He cries until there’s nothing left but hiccups and achy eyes.

The pills don’t help with the symptoms, really. Yeosang is disappointed but not surprised as he comes to learn this over the next week. He figured it wouldn’t be that easy. Even so, he stubbornly takes his meds in hopes that maybe they will kill those little fuckers.

All amicability is dropped, and Yeosang is back to avoiding home.

The symptoms worsen. It’s like his body has been taken over, converted into a machine with no purpose other than to serve those wretched worms, and now it’s spiting him. Yeosang pulls a strong face. He wears a mask and sits as close to the door as possible in his lecture halls. He uses the quick escape almost routinely, all too attuned with his sickness’s foreboding tells.

Wooyoung and San needle Yeosang about Seonghwa. “Is he feeling better?” “I still don’t trust him.” “What’s his deal?” “When are we gonna meet him for real?”. Yeo keeps it vague and prays they don’t look up the real Park Seonghwa on social media or something. The last thing Yeosang needs is for them to ask him something like “Why is Seonghwa posting selfies with a girlfriend?”. Luckily, the guy’s feed is pretty dry.

Wooyoung’s started dating tall guy - Yunho, his name turns out to be. Hearing his friend act so soft about a boy is endearing to Yeosang. For awhile, it’s a pleasant distraction. Yeo even meets Yunho one time. He’s super nice, a golden retriever of a person, and Wooyoung looks at the guy like he’s the damn sun. Yunho gives him the same twinkly look back.

Yeosang envies them so, so much.

A life without pain. A real relationship built on mutual trust, understanding, and companionship. Nothing made up or phony. Nothing depraved, disgusting, wretched, or fucked. The sweet taste they left in Yeosang’s mouth turns bitter and acrid.

Or maybe it’s just the stirring of his stomach. 

God, it’s excrutiating. He can feel his intestines contracting angrily. He wonders what he did to deserve such punishment. It’s like a punch to the gut when he realizes that it’s all his own doing. He chose to mess with elements out of his breadth, he dismissively waved away the potential of consequences. He wishes he’d never stepped foot in that basement or that he wasn’t observant enough to spot the aquarium. Or maybe he wished he wasn’t so damn curious as to check it. He regrets bringing it upstairs, talking to it, nurturing that thing.

It felt like his best qualities had all come to bite him in the ass, like a kind deed had been punished. Ultimately, he’s gotten nothing but chronic pain. All because he chose to care for some peculiar, creepy creature.

Yeosang can’t even look at it’s face anymore. His eyes are perpetually on the floor when he gets home anymore. Mars’s domain is the couch, and Yeosang is fine with that. It watches, always watches. It stays away, though. Does it know Yeosang wishes it to be so? Even when he wakes up, the thing keeps relative distance. It no longer orbits at less than an arm’s length, it merely observes from a few meters away.

Something about that irritates Yeosang more.

The display of consideration is so phony. It curdles Yeosang’s insides. The student reaches a breaking point of sorts one day when he gets home to a horrific scene.

When Yeosang walks in, Mars is standing by the wall opposite the TV. That’s strange. He usually doesn’t get up. It’s Yeosang’s understanding that he doesn’t really need to. So why did he get up?

Then the smell hits him. It’s faint. Fresh. Flesh and blood, just ever so slightly underlined by the pungent musk of death, not quite set in yet. Yeo takes a step into the living room hesitantly, and his heart and stomach swap places. He clamps a hand over his mouth, and his eyes squeeze shut, suppressing tears.

At Mars’s feet is a heap of carnage. They vary. There are squirrels and rabbits, a variety of birds and a couple of toads. The creature merely glances at Yeosang, wearing that demure, doe-like expression he always has. 

Yeosang suppresses his gag reflex and coughs out, “Wh- What the ffuh- what is this?” He cries.

Mars smiles and points to the wall, “Paint.”

“Wh- Wha-?” Yeo murmurs dazedly. He steps over to get a better look at what the fuck the other is talking about.

Yeosang’s jaw drops when he gets a look at the wall. 

It’s covered in gore. Blood and guts are smeared everywhere in splatters and jagged lines.

“Paint,” Mars repeats almost cheerily. Rust red blood covers his arms and chest. The incubus’s pupils flitting to the TV briefly. Yeosang follows the other’s pupils in hopes of understanding.

“-ow you’re just gonna wanna do some little strokes like this,” The painter on TV speaks in a calm tone. “And now we’ve got some happy clouds…”

Yeosang sniffles and turns to the wall again.

Paint.

He wanted to paint. So he decided to brutally mutilate the closest living things he could somehow get his tentacles on and smear their life’s essence on the walls. Yeo’s gaze drifts to the pile of desicated corpses, and he can’t help but wonder when it will be his turn.

“I need to clean this,” He blubbers weakly.

Mars tilts his head, questioning.

“I- I need to clean this,” Yeosang has no idea why he’s telling the monster. It’s not listening. His head swims and his chest heaves with rapid breath as he hyperventillates. He takes a step forward, and blood rushes to his head. 

When he comes to, it’s dark out. He wakes up in a panic, faint memories of a nightmare lingering in his body. For a second, he has no idea where he is. He desperately paws around until feeling the familiar edge of his bedside table. When he flicks the lamp on, he screams because the first thing he sees is the monster standing by his bedroom door.

He lets out a weak cry and scrambles out of his bed. 

He’s had it. He’s fucking had it. He throws his stuff into his bookbag and storms off toward the front door. Mars follows him down the stairs, muttering “clean” when Yeo reaches the bottom. The human does a double take and, yeah, it’s clean. He hesitantly steps into the living room, and scrutinizes the floor and the gory wall.

Nothing.

The smell is gone, the animals are gone, the wall, spotless.

No, Yeosang thinks, this does nothing to redeem this monster’s atrocities. It doesn’t change what he is. Yeosang gruffly leaves the house without another word.

He rushes to the one library on campus he knows is open twenty-four hours and sets up shop. He grits his teeth through the pain as he searches manically:

How to kill an incubus.

How to kill a demon.

Killing a demon.

Banishing a demon.

The results are all very similar, and they’re not super helpful. Exorcism is the first and foremost answer, but Yeosang isn’t really religious. Even if he was, they say exorcisms aren’t something widely done. There are prayers, but Yeo’s got a feeling those won’t work either. One solution he sees from a Jewish website does pique his interest, though.

It instructs the afflicted to sprinkle ocean water.

Salt comes up a lot. It’s got cleansing properties that are acknowledged by various spiritual ideologies. Yeosang remembers those first couple of weeks with Mars. How, in that miniscule form, he looked like little more than a blob of slime. Like a slug.

Salt kills slugs.

Salt banishes bad spirits.

When he’s satisfied, Amazon order confirmed and all, Yeosang shuts his laptop triumphantly and returns home. Mars has returned to his post on the couch and greets Yeosang with a little smile. For the first time in weeks, Yeosang has something to smile about, so he smiles back.

Two-day shipping is a fantastic invention. Yeosang never thought he’d be so damned happy to see fifty pounds of salt in his life. Their bulk is almost comical in comparison to the teensy padded envelop the holy anointing oil he added came in.

Yeosang doesn’t hesitate. He collects his items off the doorstep and lugs the salt bags upstairs into his bathroom. He’s so damn eager that he doesn’t even mind the aches and pains raking his guts. Mars’s head turns, but with a stern instruction to stay, the monster remains seated, simply watching in interest. Yeosang starts filling and mixing, filling and mixing, until the bath’s as full as it can reasonably be. Yeo samples the water and grimaces. Shit. That’s salty. As the sea, he hopes, because he imagines that’s what it’ll take.

Yeo takes a deep breath to calm himself.

This is it.

This is the end.

“Mars!” Yeosang beckons the creature by name. It’s strange calling him into the bathroom. There’s something weirdly domestic about it, and Yeosang realizes he’d never once called the creature like that. The thing almost always tails him, so there’s no need to.

In seconds, he’s there, head tilted curiously. Yeo swallows nervously.

“C-Come over here, Mars,” Yeosang waves the other over. Mars has some sort of empathetic abilites, Yeosang thinks. After all, how else has he managed to so perfectly meld himself to Yeosang’s desires? How is it he can so easily anticipate the human’s wants and needs with no prompting whatsoever?

Yeosang prays that, in that moment, the other can’t intuit his intentions. The little grin on the monster’s face implies that he doesn’t. Or maybe he does feel like something is up, but his odd need to please overrides that. Maybe he’s just happy to feel wanted again.

Yeo shakes the thoughts out of his head, reminding himself he needs to stop humanizing the creature. 

Yeosang opens his arms, beckoning Mars closer and closer until he can wrap his arms around the monster’s neck. The incubus smiles, and Yeosang does, too. He pulls the other close and coos. 

“That’s a good boy,” Yeosang says softly, stroking its nape. It seems to like that, melting into the touch and into the hug. “That’s a good boy…” Yeosang maintains the hold for awhile. He can feel the other’s hands on his waist, feverish and antsy. Its instincts are starting to kick in, to override the seemingly uncharacteristic desire for chaste affection.

“Mars,” Yeosang speaks in such a hushed tone it’s nearly a whisper. “I need you to do something for me.” The human takes a shaky breath and mentally counts down. He whispers, “I need you to be a good boy now and die.”

He roughly shoves the creature into the tub. As canny and coordinated as Mars can be, the force takes him by surprise, and surprise blows his eyes wide open as he drops into the water.

There’s a loud splash.

Then a loud wail.

Yeosang’s nerves spike at the sight, and he wills his cooked up method to work. The water goes inky, pitch black, and agonized screams bubble up from the agitated surface. Occasionally a limb shoots out desperately - an arm, a leg. Yeosang steps back and watches in terror. He leans heavily on the bathroom counter for support and just watches. The black water undulates and twists violently. Yeosang thought he’d enjoy this, but the sight is horrific. It’s dying a painful death by his hand.

It’s suffering.

Yeo braces himself. He knows his resolve can be weak - especially in regards to Mars. He urges himself not to move. It goes against his instincts to sit by and watch while something wriggles and writhes in pain, but it has to be this way. It has to.

Suddenly, a face penetrates the water. Mars’s human mask emerges, black slime oozing down the side of his face along with water. He parts his lips and screams. It’s a human sound, strained and tortured.

“Yeosang!” It yells.

Yeo nearly pisses himself. Shit. 

The creature - or what he can see of its human visage - shudders violently and screams, “Yeosang. Hurt! Hurt!” Black tentacles shoot out of the water desperately as if attempting to find an escape, but they’re short and undefined, too weak to save him.

“You hurt me too,” Yeosang says back. Why? He asks himself. Maybe this is his personal way of giving himself closure. He doesn’t know.

“Mars. H-hurt!” It yells, lost and confused. It’s as if it’s begging the question: “Why are you hurting me?”

Yeo shuts his eyes, unable to bear the sight but needing to see it through. Even after he plugs his ears he can hear the monster’s desperate sobs. Every cry drives the pike of guilt further and further into his heart. He fights it with all his might, but in spite of everything, he ventures one last look.

Though he’s weak, Mars clings to his human form. It’s skin appears pallid and sickly, though, its eyes wearing rings of red and its lips pale. Its lip quivers as it cries softly, clinging to the edge of the bath with the one hand it can muster.

“Y… Yeosang,” Mars wheezes out, despondent.

Yeosang moves without thinking. He rushes toward the bath and pulls out the humanesque parts he can. The human slips on the slick floor, falling onto his ass and dropping what one might call Mars’s torso on the ground. It’s not much to speak of, though. The creature appears human from its shoulders to a single arm to about the waist. Everything else is akin to black sludge. A thick tail of it precedes the human waist almost like that of a gorgon, and what would be an arm is nothing but a slack tentacle.

The human sobs.

Fuck.

Fuck.

Fuck.

He cries, terrified at what he was about to do. He was about to maliciously kill a living thing out of spite and malice. Out of disgust. Mars posed no immediate threat, but the fear that he would along with the mind-melting sickness pushed Yeosang over the edge. He damn near killed the creature. In truth, his fate is probably sealed no matter what. Either the pills kill the offspring or they don’t. The presence of the other won’t change that. Yeosang knows that, but he tried to kill it anyways.

If he’d gone through with it, he’d have been no better than a demon.

“Mars... Hurt,” Mars wheezes out weakly. His human body begins materializing again, little feelers slowly converging into a limb, gorgonesque tail transitioning into a flesh tone.

“I’m sorry, Mars,” Speaking scratches Yeosang’s throat painfully. “I was hurt, so I tried to hurt you b-”

A tentacle shoots toward him, landing so close to his head that he feels his hair ruffle.

Fuck.

“Yeosang,” Mars’s voice is low, angry. 

Fuck.

Yeosang picks himself up off the ground and runs. He knows he’s no match for Mars, but he wonders if he can maybe get a head start and leave the house. Maybe then he’ll have a chance.

He lunges toward the door, but a tentacle shoots out and slams it shut. Yeosang attempts to hoist it open futilely. When that doesn’t work, he eyes the narrow window above the toilet, but a web of tentacles quickly forms over that, too, obscuring the light coming from outside.

He’s trapped, he realizes. Black, pulsating tentacles branch off of one another like veins, covering the walls. Ceiling, and floor. The monster’s human bady gets onto its feet brandishing the inky appendages sticking from its back like weapons. Yeosang steps away reflexively only for his back to hit the door.

This is it, he thinks. This is the end.

He wants to go out fighting, but he has nothing to fight with. He paws around his bathroom counter in search of something to use. He closes his hand around his razor - a pitiful little thing, really. He grips it in a vice more so he can tell himself he tried than for the sake of security. He knows he doesn’t stand a match.

Though he wishes he had something badass to say before meeting his maker, his mind is blank. 

“Yeosang,” Mars repeats, human body stepping closer, an enraged glower on his face.

Yeosang braces himself against the door, body shivering violently. Tears stream down his cheeks, and hot liquid streams between his legs. Any chance he had of dying with dignity goes up in flames as he rapidly loses himself to terror. He doesn’t even have it in him to scream. Every sound that tries to come out of his throat gets stuck in there. 

He’s petrified, planted on the door with wide, wet eyes as the beast bares down on him menacingly. His body quakes, and he fumbles dropping his razor and cutting himself on the face. As if playing with his food, Mars closes the gap between them, standing so close that Yeosang can feel his breath bounce off the surface of the other’s “skin”.

The creature stays like that for a moment, snarling, guttural sounds sputtering from its throbbing tendrils. Then a hand - its human hand - grips Yeosang’s face tightly. Yeosang can see between the spread fingers and watches in complete ruin as the other postures for the kill. Yeo can barely breathe with the hand tightly covering his nose, and he starts to feel lightheaded. 

He suppsoses that the silver lining to it all is that he won’t feel sick and miserable anymore.

Mars releases his grip to run a finger callously down Yeosang’s cheek. 

Its index stops at the cut. The creature draws its hand back abruptly, as if stung. Was it the salt in his blood? That doesn’t make sense, though, considering that he’d been fine painting with animal blood.

Mars considers the splotch of red on his pale finger. His predatory expression falls without preamable. His eyes go wide, and his jaw drops. The sheer menace he’d harbored not seconds earlier shatters, yielding to distressed shock. Yeosang, confused and trapped, can only watch.

Mars’s jaw flaps open and closed, and his eyes dart over to Yeosang - now wet. 

“Yeosang,” He mutters shakily. “Yeosang… Hurt.”

Yeosang doesn’t have anything to answer to that. He barely has control over his own body which is tremoring ceaselessly.

“Yeosang hurt,” Mars cries again. His face scrunches as if pained, and his plush lip quivers. “Mars… Mars hurt Yeosang.”

Yeosang just wants this to end. He’s had it, nerves long shot, body constantly in pain. He sinks to the ground, legs no longer able to carry him, and watches the other confusedly.

Mars’s human hands shoot to his face, and in an instant, every single black tendril withdraws. Yeo’s mouth drops open.

“Mars hurt Yeosang,” The creature blubbers repeatedly, shaking his head. “Mars hurt- Mars hurt- I- I hurt you.” He breaks down, dropping onto his human knees and sobbing.

“Sorry,” The monster cries. “Sorry.”

He’s apologizing?

Yeosang remains statue still. It could very well be a cruel trap, one last time to prey upon the human’s good nature before offing him. But then the monster gets back onto his feet. He sniffles, looking entirely too much like a vulnerible, upset human and not at all like the horrifying monster he was just minutes ago.

Mars steps over to Yeosang, and the man winces, pressing himself into the door as much as possible. The monster takes his wrist - gently, with his human hand, and guides him onto his feet. Yeosang allows it. At this point, he’s endured so much physical and emotional pain that he’s starting to become numb. 

Mars walks backwards until his calves hit the edge of the tub. He guides Yeosang’s hand to the middle of his chest and plants it there.

Tearily, the creature says, “You hurt me.”

Yeo shakes his head, at a total loss, “Wha…?” Why is he by the edge of the tub again? It’s still full of the stuff that damn near killed him.

“Hurt me, Yeosang,” Mars sounds so sure of himself, and while his sentence is still clipped, it’s the most well spoken Yeosang has ever heard him.

“I- I know I hurt you,” Yeosang’s voice comes out as a croak.

“Please hurt me,” Mars says pleadingly.

“Please- Wha-?”

“You hurt me. So I… I do not hurt you.”

The words hit Yeosang’s heart like a hammer. Yeosang shakes his head in disbelief. This can’t be happening. Is it- is he seriously asking for Yeosang to kill him? Because he doesn’t want to be a danger to him? That does nothing to assure the security of his kin. What does it matter if an incubator is happy so long as they’re alive and adequately nourished, right? So why would he give a shit about Yeosang getting hurt? Like he hasn’t been hurting all this time?

“I don’t understand,” Yeosang mutters.

Mars sighs and sits himself on the edge of the bath. Using Yeosang’s wrist again, he presses the human’s hand into his chest more forcefully.

“I… Do not want to hurt. You,” His sentence is still disjointed and awkward, but the meaning comes through loud and clear.

Yeo lets out a wry laugh. He’s so beyond done, his wits having expired eons prior. His life has devolved into some comsic lovecraftian joke, apparently. What else is there to do but laugh at it?

“You already have,” Yeosang whispers.

“Sorry,” Mars sniffs loudly, water beading up in his eyes again. “ Sorry.”

Heaving a sigh, the human makes a decision. Maybe it’s the wrong one.

Hell, it probably is the wrong one, but he commits to it. In this fucked up world, Yeosang figures he can only be true to himself. He isn’t positive there is a right answer to the twisted ordeal he’d wound up in. He only knows that going against his gut will make him regret it. He’s got a feeling that, at this point, the conclusion is inevitable. He may as well act on his principles.

Yeosang takes his hand back from Mars - the other doesn’t resist the action. The human leans forward and reaches into the tub, pulling up the drain cover. Loud gurgling sounds out as water rushes down the newly opened passage into the pipes.

“I’m so fucking tired of pain,” Yeosang says with finality. He collapses onto the floor next to where the other is sitting. “I don’t want to hurt you, and I don’t want you to hurt me. I’m tired.”

He slouches against the bathtub and in spite of the utter state of filth he’s in, he just sits there for awhile. Without being spoken, the question hangs in the air between them:

Now what?

The change in the days following comes as a shock to Yeosang.

Mars is different. He keeps his distance and hangs his head low. Is it because he’s guilty? Yeosang notices things around the house change. It’s little stuff. One day he dashes home from school, clamoring for bed and a familiar bathroom, and he notices that his kitchen is spotless. Mars doesn’t do laundry, but somehow he’d learned to fold. It must’ve been on a show or something, Yeo muses. 

Half of his laundry ends up folded into tight rolls, like how a hotel would do it for decoration. It’s not ideal, and Yeosang ends up having to undo most of his clothing rolls - but there’s something undeniably endearing about it. Yeo has to remind himself what he’s dealing with upon occasion. Mars is not some domesticated house pet. He is an incubus - or something of the sort - an otherwordly, supernatural monster capable of extraordinary and terrible things.

No matter how handsome his face or how adorable his mannerisms can be, Yeosang can’t forget. Not after what he’s seen.

He wonders if maybe he can forgive, though. He’s weak, always has been. He wears hard armor on the outside but beneath it he’s soft, sentimental and emotional. It’s a difficult quandary. After all, what’s one to do? Not everyone can say that they almost killed the organism they cohabitate with only for said organism to turn around and damn near kill them. Yeosang’s pretty sure it cancels out. That could be his general numbness due to the severe mental wounds afflicted on him for the past few months talking. Or maybe it’s the perpetual knotting and unknotting of his guts talking. 

There were a few little things that Yeosang admits he missed since distancing himself - the cute teaching moments, the adorable way the incubus acts, the easy, pressure-free company. However, as time progresses and his pain worsens, more than ever he misses the comfort that somehow only Mars could provide.

It strikes him especially hard on a Saturday morning when ire pulls Yeosang out of his slumber. His lower abdomen throbs with pain so sharp that it wraps around to his back. He feels as if his spine is melting at the base. Yeosang writhes, biting his pillow to stop himself from screaming. Without prompting, he arrives by the human’s bedside, a concerned look on his face.

The human’s breaths are labored and stunted, shaky from his pain. Heat roasts him from the inside out and drenches him in an unpleasant sweat. Mars’s lips press together into a worried frown, but he doesn’t move from his spot. Another quake of pain ripples through Yeo’s body. The human seizes, clutching his stomach and wheezing. Mars’s expression of dismay deepens. Still, he doesn’t stir. He reaches a hand hesitantly but rapidly draws it back. 

Yeosang doubts even the incubus’s touch can mitigate his pain anymore, but he’s half-asleep and miserable, so he opens himself up.

“It’s okay,” Yeosang murmurs weakly. 

Mars tilts his head, questioning.

“It’s- ‘sokay,” Yeo shudders. Fuck. It hurts so bad. He’s not sure how much longer he can take it, in truth. “Please,” He whimpers pathetically.

Mars understands the plea and not a second passes before he’s laying beside Yeosang, cooing, carressing. Little noises drift out from between the creature’s lips. It’s like a low, whispery, hum. Reassurance. Sweet little nothings in the form of indiscernible babbling of some far away creature. Somehow, it helps.

The incubus carefully straddles the human, assuring that Yeosang takes none of his weight. He runs his humanesque hands along the man’s sides in long, languid strokes. The hands dip beneath Yeosang’s shirt, lifting the fabric delicately. 

Delicate.

Everything is so delicate.

Yeosang’s thoughts smear, a slurry of contradicting sensations. With each gentle stroke along his body, the hurt wanes slightly. Just that ever so slight uncoiling of his knotted guts makes Yeosang want to cry with relief. The incubus dips his head down and kisses. He kisses the dried tears streaked down Yeosang’s cheeks. He lays soft, wet kisses along his neck and down his torso.

Yeosang shudders for another reason, pain diminishing rapidly, overwhelmed by simmering warmth pooling in his groin. He happily obliges Mars when the creature tugs at the waistband of his underwear. His cock springs up, already dripping with anticipation. It’s shocking, Yeosang thinks, how readily his body excites in spite of weeks of exhaustion.

Mars takes Yeosang between his lips and takes him to the base on his first trip down. Yeosang supposes that’s what happens when someone doesn’t have a gag reflex. The hot, wet suction makes Yeo shiver, and the pain is nothing but a faint whisper, a memory echoing across his bones but completely dissolved by the heat of lust. Fingers gently massage and prod Yeosang’s entrance. They’re slick with the creature’s secretion - some warm, slimy substance that makes Yeosang’s skin tingle. Mars scissors his finger in and out rhythmically as he licks and suckles at Yeo’s throbbing cock.

Yeosang happily yields, wanton moans leaving his throat as he arches his back and cants his hips. Shit. It’s so good. It’s so fucking good. Was it always this good? He wonders. Or is it the insane contrast to the pain that makes Mars’s ministrations so mind melting? Mars’s free hand wanders, drawing idle shapes inside the human’s thigh, stroking soothing circles on his stomach. 

Bit by bit, Yeosang unwinds. His legs fall open, slack, and his eyes roll back. He didn’t think it possible for his body to perform so well given his sickness. But it does, delivering the blissful sensations to every nerve ending, opening up readily for one, two, then three fingers. He clutches his sheets in a vice as he nears the edge, white hot pressure pressing against his insides. His hips jerk, and he comes with a loud, breathy moan. Mars swallows up every drop as if savoring the human before finally pulling off. The post-orgasm daze doesn’t last forever, but it lends Yeosang enough comfort to allow him to sleep again. 

Mars helps him out a few more times during the day. He treats Yeosang as if he’s something precious and fragile. At first, the human finds it endearing, but toward the end of the evening when he’s brought to orgasm again with just fingers and lips, he finds himself a bit frustrated. Maybe it’s courtesy, he thinks.

As nice as the relief is, it’s fleeting - increasingly so. The sickness returns faster and faster as the day progresses, and by Monday morning, Yeosang is already booking it to a bathroom before he can even get to class. He turns up twenty minutes late, breakfast, last night’s dinner, and everything else completely gone.

The dehydration takes a toll on him, and he stops wanting to eat. He has to go home early on Wednesday. Wooyoung, Yunho, and San fret over him, offering to stay with him to take care of him. He declines, making up some bullshit excuse about “side effects” and how “it’s normal” and that “Seonghwa’s taking care of me”.

Seonghwa is taking care of him.

Well, Mars is - in his own way. He’s back to being Yeosang’s shadow. The creature tails the man day and night, hugging him, cuddling him, kissing him, nuzzling him and giving him little smiles. He’s even learned that Yeosang needs water and brings the human a cup every so often. Even so, toward the end of the week, Yeo struggles to keep that down.

He actually blacks out in the library on Friday. He wakes up feeling feverish and achey with a dry mouth. People nap often in the library and, even though it’s technically not allowed, nobody goes around waking people up. Consequently, nobody even noticed that his blackout wasn’t just a result of poor decisions late at night.

Yeosang calls a cab home.

When he steps in, thick, odorous air freshener fills the car like a fog. Yeo’s stomach does an unpleasant flip, and straining agony pulses in his temples. He can’t get out fast enough.

He actually runs to his front door - something that probably looks really strange to the taxi driver. Not like he gives a fuck. He stopped feeling shame after about week three of frequent vomiting in public places. Yeo stumbles in, and the world spins. His knees turn to jelly, and he drops, just barely catching himself with his arms.

He registers the vague thud against his elbows, but his entire body is in such anguish he doesn’t even care. He clumsily shucks his bookbag and lays still on the ground. The cool wood of the floor feels nice on his skin for a minute. It warms up far too quickly to lend him any substantial comfort, though. 

A dagger of pain drives into his gut, twisting violently, and he yelps. His body tremors violently, and goosebumps prick his skin. He can’t move. He can’t think. It’s just pain. Pain, pain, pain.

This is it, he thinks.

This is the end. D-day. No doubt the parasites leeching off of his body have accelerated the degradation of his organ function. He doesn’t know how, but his body is simultaneously sweltering and freezing.

“Mars,” Yeosang whispers, voice breathy and strained. Tears well up in his eyes as he quivers uncontrollably. The pain in his abdomen spreads, branching off and running up into his chest and down into his groin. “Mars.”

Where is he? It’s not like the creature to be distant.

“Mm...Mars,” Yeo whimpers desperately. He doesn’t want to die like this - in pain and alone. Suddenly a myriad of regrets pass through his head. He should’ve told his friends. He shouldn’t have bore this alone. Maybe then he wouldn’t be in this position. At the very least, he would be surrounded by the people closest to him in his last moments. But, no. He had to be stubborn. He had to shoulder the entire weight by himself.

“Mars, please-” Yeosang’s teeth clench together as an acute jolt of pain strikes him. 

If he is going to die - which he believes he is, he has to be dying - then he wants it to be as easy as possible. Mars cares about him. Of that he’s convinced. And Mars does his best to help with the pain. He’s the only one that can help it, really. It seems a fitting end - pleasant while being horrificly ironic. What undid Yeosang in the first place will usher him into the afterlife.

Finally, the familiar shadow looms over Yeosang.

Yeo blinks the tears out of his eyes to glance up at the incubus. Strangely enough he appears… Calm. Completely pacified. Mars bends over and scoops Yeosang up into his human arms and carries him upstairs. A tentacle slithers out from the creature’s shoulder to open the bedroom door, shutting it quickly behind them.

Yeosang gasps, reflexively clinging to the creature carrying him out of shock. His bedroom is dark - nearly pitch save for the dim glow of the automatic nightlight. His curtains aren’t nearly thick enough to accomplish such obscurification. As Yeosang’s red, puffy eyes adjust he just barely discerns black, pulsing tentacles covering his entire room. They branch out like a web of veins, covering wall, floor, ceiling - just like they had in the bathroom. It makes the white sheets on his bed stick out starkly. 

Unlike last time, the sight of the pulsing tentacle web relieves Yeosang. The darkness ever so slightly helps his headache. It’s not as if he wanted to look outside, anyway. 

Mars lowers the ailing human gently into the bed, and Yeosang shivers from the loss of contact. Another sharp pain gouges his groin, and he curls up into himself.

The incubus carefully peels Yeosang’s sticky clothes off before discarding his own - one of many tee and sweats sets Yeo’s loaned to him. It’s strange. Mars never thought it necessary to do so before. Yeosang can’t rightly contemplate it in his condition, though. He can barely muster opening his mouth, fearful that if he does he’ll cough up a lung or get sick. Instead, he gives the incubus a desperate, wanting look.

Please - he asks nonverbally. Please take me.

Take all of me.

Take all of me until there’s nothing left .

Mars closes the distance, beginning with a chaste kiss on Yeosang’s lips. Yeo scarcely returns it, too coiled up inside. He appreciates the extraneous gesture of affection even if it’s entirely fruitless. 

Mars deepens the kiss, and his hands massage Yeosang’s chest in deep strokes. Yeosang hisses when the other’s thumbs rub the sensitive nibs on his pecs. They feel tender and sore. Even so, there’s something gratiating about the slight twinge of pain mixed with pleasure. Yeosang wants for more. His mouth is too occupied to vocalize it, though, full of the other’s gently probing tongue.

The pain dulls, stepping aside to allow the familiar hot sting of pleasure to take the spotlight. Yes, the hurt is still there, but it’s less - something tolerable that can coexist with the pressure tingling in his crotch. Fuck , that’s good. Just the slight subsidization is blissful to him after days, weeks, no months - it’s been months - of misery. The tears on his cheeks dry as lucidity returns to his pain hazed mind.

Yeosang’s legs spread eager and wanting. He’s been frustrated, bored of fingers and lovely little kisses. Mars is an incubus for shit’s sake, he ought to fucking act like one. While Yeo would normally be mortified that such a thought crossed his mind, he’s at his wit’s end. Hell, he’s beyond it.

As if reading his thoughts, Mars’s lips part from Yeosang’s to move down. The incubus sucks and nips at his jaw and along the sensitive skin on his neck. Yeosang shudders, and his cock starts to fill, ready.

At first, they tickle. They’re slim, slimy things, the tentacles that begin carressing his body. Yeosang actually jolts as dozens of them simultaneously shoot out of the incubus’s back and start feeling him. They’re almost cursory at first - in spite of the fact that Mars has no doubt touched every inch of Yeosang’s body in one way or another. 

Their hesitance quickly diminishes, though. It’s peculiar, how little tentacles can somehow feel like lips on his skin. They kiss and suckle and nip everywhere - thighs, nipples, taint, rim, armpits, toes, wrists, palms - everywhere. A quake runs down Yeosang’s spine, and his cock twitches, nearly there. 

Mars’s human parts move down, too, repeating the same process Yeosang has become so familiar with in the past few days. The black-haired beauty licks a fat line from the base of Yeosang’s flushed cock all the way up the shaft, dipping into the dripping slit. 

Fuck, he’s so pretty. 

Mind completely bleary, Yeosang muses that he’s glad Mars chose to adopt his old crush’s appearance. Fuck. What was his name again? Yeosang doesn’t know. He doesn’t care at the moment. That face belongs to Mars as far as he’s concerned.

Mars’s fingers work Yeosang open quickly. With the frequency of their trysts, Yeo’s body is practically molded to Mars’s fingers by now. Three fingers glide in with ease, and the incubus scissors them in with quick rhythm. Slick secretion squelches as Mars pushes it into his hole, and the incubus’s smaller tentacles start releasing more, too. It’s warm on Yeosang’s skin, oozing out of every pore or gland or whatever the mechanism is.

Yeosang’s entire body feels like it’s on fire, and he’s powerless to stop the flames licking up the sides of his gut. Shit, he laments, it’s too soon. One would think after all he’s gone through, he wouldn’t come so quick. Yet there he is, fighting it, putting it off with all of his will after just minutes.

“Fff-” Yeosang gasps, throwing his head back onto his pillow. “Ff- Mars!” He groans, and his back arches. His cock twitches, and his eyes roll back as pleasure rolls his body. Mars stops his ministrations and watches with his wide-eyed stare.

Yeosang labors to catch his breath as he comes down. His entire body is still burning - though the heat has lowered to a residual smoldering. The man gazes at the incubus, wondering what the creature’s watching for, then he notices something. Nothing came out. He’s still hard, too.

If that wasn’t a real orgasm, what was that, then? Yeosang wonders. He quickly tosses the thought out. It doesn’t matter. He doesn’t care. 

The familiar itching prickle in his groin returns quickly, and he rocks his hips impatiently. He wants release - real release.

Mars lets out a hum and kisses Yeosang on the stomach. The incubus withdraws his fingers from Yeosang and sits back on his heels. Yeo’s brows knit in confusion.

Suddenly, the human’s body lifts off the bed. Yeosang yelps in surprise, eyes wide in search of an answer in the other’s gaze. Mars simply appears calm as ever. The skinny appendages that had been suckling at Yeosang’s skin gather, collecting into fewer, thick tentacles. Mars lifts the human into the air above the bed slowly and carefully. A couple of tentacles bind the man’s wrists. An especially thick one supports the human’s back, and half a dozen support his legs, spreading them wide. Yeosang’s exposed in such a way that his ass is at face level with the incubus.

Mars plants his human hands on Yeosang’s inner thighs and dips forward, running his tongue around the swollen pink pucker of his entrance. That sinful tongue dips in, and Yeosang groans, throwing his head back. His cock throbs as the incubus tongue fucks him ruthlessly, all the while more small, black appendages trace lines along his skin.

“Hh-hah- hhah-” Yeosang whimpers. He trembles and twitches, but the firm binds of the tentacles keep him rooted just so. Sweat mats his bangs to his forehead, and clear ooze drips off of his body onto the sheets below, but he can’t be assed to care. That tongue delves deep, deeper than any human tongue ever could. The sounds coming from the pair are obscene - the wet squinch of the incubus’s tongue abusing the human’s hole, the stunted, wanton murmurs dribbling out from between the man’s lips.

“Mff- ffuh- Mm- Mars ‘m-” Yeosang’s body clenches around the tormenting appendage inside of him, and his eyes squeeze shut. Another orgasm rocks his body, the explosive sensation igniting in his gut and radiating out to every corner of his body. Yeosang’s toes curl, and his breath hitches. But still, nothing comes out.

“Fuck,” Yeosang cries. “Mars, please…” 

The incubus withdraws, wiping a wrist over its slick mouth for some reason - as if it matters. Again, Mars kisses Yeosang - this time on the inner thigh. He nuzzles the sensitive skin, running his lips up the human’s leg, mouthing at his balls and kissing his shaft again.

“Please,” Yeosang replies dazely. “Need to come.”

Mars opens his arms, and his tentacles lower the human into his lap. Yeosang attempts to oblige the other, to wrap his arms around the creature’s neck or even guide himself onto the other’s swollen cock. But he can’t. His body is weak - much weaker than he’d expected. All of his joints feel like jelly. His arms fall limp by his side. He rests his head on the creature’s shoulder heavily.

The two remain like that for a couple of minutes. Yeosang simply tries to catch his breath while Mars rubs circles in his back. When Yeosang seems ready, the incubus moves the other.

Mars kisses the top of his sweaty head and has his dark limbs do the work for Yeosang. Tentacles take hold of Yeo’s wrists and hold them up high. Another few work on his legs, lifting his knees and ankles so he’s spread open.

Finally, the human thinks. His gaze drops to Mars’s girthy, seeping cock, and he licks his lips desirously. The incubus angles his hips and directs his cockhead to Yeosang’s stretched hole. For a moment, Mars just leaves it there, pressing implicitly against the human’s entrance. Yeosang flinches and twitches, wanting and ready.

Is Mars teasing him?

Before he can further reflect on the question, Mars’s slick cock pushes in. Yeosang gasps loudly, body quaking and eyes squeezing shut at the new intrusion. It’s so much bigger than fingers or a tongue. The pain of the stretch is faint, though. Likely due to the days of intense activity leading up to it. 

“Oh-” Yeosang moans crudely, mouth dropping open when Mars slides in completely. He’s huge. Of course he’s huge. He’s an incubus, surely he wouldn’t be anything less. Still, it’s been a long time since Yeosang last took the other’s cock, and the heft of it just stretching him sends electrifying tingles down his spine. Mars starts to move, and slender tentacles start tugging and nipping at the human’s nipples. 

Yeosang screams. He howls shamelessly, like a bitch in heat, overcome with ecstasy as the incubus’s massive member thrusts in and out rhythmically, pressing against his prostate with deliberate precision. It’s almost cruel, at this point, the way Mars is merciless, making him dry come another two times in that position alone. All the while, the beautiful demon seems so pleased. He always soothes the frazzled human with smiley kisses and vague, reassuring sounds.

“Mars, please,” Yeosang croaks out as his cock twitches, releasing nothing. He’d gotten turned over and put on all fours at some point. He isn’t sure what time it is, now that he thinks about it. How long has it been? 

A tentacle around his waist and chest keep him upright. He’s certain he’d have collapsed onto the bed long ago otherwise. “Need to come,” The human says. The simmering in his guts has transitioned into a perpetual burn demanding resolution. The dry orgasms feel amazing, but they pass quickly, leaving the same fire pit in his stomach from before.

Yeosang is a mess.

He knows this much. He doesn’t care, but he knows. He can’t see himself, thankfully, but he imagines if he did, he’d look like some sort of junkie - shivering, red-eyed, covered in sweat and begging for more. 

“Please,” Yeosang begs again. He rocks his hips back onto the incubus, taking just a little bit more of him in doing so. “Fuck, please…” He murmurs weakly, repeating the motion, fucking himself on the other’s cock. “Please, Mars. Please…” He’s completely delirious at this point, enslaved. A brief reminder that this is it, this is the end, pops into his head, but it’s quickly pushed to the wayside. Pleasure. Want. Need. Pain. Those are the only things Yeosang can dedicate himself to anymore.

The incubus’s tentacles shift the human again. He wonders what position he’ll be twisted into this time. 

This one’s slightly different.

Yeosang is set down so he’s standing on his knees, his back to Mars’s front. The incubus wraps a human arm around the other’s waist, holding him close. He presses kisses along the human’s neck and whispers to him.

“Yeosang good.”

Praise? Yeo wonders. He gets distracted from the question, eyes widening with apprehension as the web-like vein formation of tentacles spreads up onto him. It binds the human to the incubus behind him, wrapping around their torsos and thighs. Yeo quivers as more wet, hot secretion seeps into his skin on contact.

Mars kisses his neck and starts to thrust again. The angle is different, penetrating surprisingly deep. Yeo realizes it feels deeper because it is. The member in him gradually swells and expands, breaching him further, stretching him more and more. A choked gasp leaves the human’s throat at the new, whelming sensation.

A tentacle runs up his leg and wraps around his cock. It starts stroking, and the tiniest feeler juts out from the appendage, dipping just ever so slightly into his slit. Yeosang cries as the searing pressure builds up in his gut yet again. He pants, laboring to catch his breath, then a tentacle slides over his mouth, smothering him. It grows, filling his mouth until his teeth are sinking into it and the tip is just barely tickling the back of his throat. The screams rising in his throat remain there, stillborn, muffled by Mars’s presence.

Yeosang’s entire body shudders and seizes uncontrollably. Without the other’s support, he’s certain he’d be a writhing mess on the sheets. As it is, Yeosang’s eyes are rolling back, and his back is arching, straining against the amorphous web wrapped around him. Mars drives his cock in harder, faster, and the tentacle around his cock tugs faster. Even the miniscule feeler dips further into Yeosang’s slit - another layer of stimulation contributing to the long building static charge of ecstasy in his stomach.

The stimulation drags him to the edge, dangling him over the steep incline. Yeosang wails, every part of his body straining and so very alive in the throes. It’s so much. It’s too much. Just as he’d felt too much pain, now he feels too much pleasure. He doesn’t merely crave release - he needs it. If he doesn’t have it, he feels as if he’ll surely expire.

As if sensing this - intuiting that the human is at his limit - Mars abruptly withdraws his supernatural hold on the human. With only human arms around his torso, Yeosang’s body writhes as it pleases. Yeosang takes a deep breath through his mouth, and the sheer relief, the release of the pressure and the binding, pushes him over the edge.

He lets out a high pitched moan as release greater than he’s ever known crashes over his body. Mars’s human hand jerks the other’s cock, coaxing out the other’s true completion. Yeosang’s vision blurs with tears as the pressure shoots out of his cock in spurt after spurt. His body goes completely limp halfway through, and all he can do is watch as he empties himself onto the bed.

Tears dropping down his cheeks, Yeo still reels as wave after wave pulses through him and he expends more and more.

But something is wrong.

Something is terribly wrong.

His cock spits out spurt after spurt of black liquid, dark as night. It’s almost as if the black fluid is forcefully pushing itself out of him of its own volition. The substance jumps out of his cock in long, thick ropes, covering his once white sheets. 

Mars sees Yeosang through the entirety of it. It’s a purge, and the human expells everything he has - sickly black ooze, come, piss. Mars is there until nothing is left, and his concerned face is the last thing Yeosang sees before taking his final rest.

His final rest is surprisingly short, only lasting until the next day.

Yeosang stretches languidly as a yawn works its way through his body. He wipes his eyes and sits up, sleep-dazed. One quick look around the room tells him that he’s not in heaven. He’s in his bedroom. Soft morning light filters in through his sheers along with the faint tittering of birds. 

Yeo wrings a hand through his hair as clarity dawns upon him all too slowly. The first thing he does is check his phone. He taps his screen, bringing it to life, and gasps when he sees the mass of notifications filling the screen. Between Yunho, San, and Wooyoung, he’s got over a hundred texts ranging from obxious to worried. “Where are you?” “Are u ok??” “Are u sick again?”

The human shakes his head, confused. When he checks the date, he understands. He wasn’t asleep for a night. He slept for an entire day. After what he and Mars did, he supposes it makes sense.

Mars.

Yeo jolts, throwing his phone down and searching his room frantically. Usually, the incubus is hovering over him by now, head tilted and eyes fixed on the human. The first thing Yeosang notices is his bed. It’s spotless. He’s laying on a fresh set of sheets. Yeo’s heart aches slightly. Only one inhabitant of the house could be responsible, and he appreciates the kind gesture. He’s wearing a clean set of sleeping clothes, too. 

“Mars?” Yeosang murmurs.

His last memory with the incubus is still sort of bleary, blurred by pleasure and heat. He remembers sensation and intensity, but not precisely what happened. For a second, Yeosang entertains the theory that the incubus fucked the living shit out of him and dipped. The shadow in his doorway bins the idea immediately.

“There you are,” Yeosang says.

The incubus steps in wordlessly, a smile on his face. He’s holding a glass of water which reminds Yeosang that he’s parched. Yeo extends his hands, happily taking the offering and gulping it down. The incubus perches on the edge of the human’s bed and kisses his head in the meanwhile.

Suddenly, something hits Yeosang.

He’s thirsty, and his body is sore - superficial muscle aches from physical activity. But, save for that he feels… Fine.

It’s gone.

The sickness is gone.

Excited, Yeosang bursts out of bed and rushes to the kitchen. Mars follows at his tail like a puppy with a wagging tail, happy because its human is happy. Yeo throws open his fridge and reaches for the most smelly, odorous thing he can find. He opens the long neglected container of kimchi that his mom had sent him and takes a big whiff. The punchy aroma of spice hits his nose.

And he loves it.

It rouses no nausea nor does it provoke a migraine. It just smells nice. Yeo does it again, finding some hard-boiled eggs, and he’s still fine. He bounces around the kitchen enthusiastically, thinking of all the stuff he wants to eat and all the fun things he wants to do. They say you never know what you have until you lose it, and fuck, did that turn out to be true for Yeosang and his health.

Mars sops up the happiness like a sponge, showing it back tenfold with a mirthful grin. Yeosang, overexcited and grateful, pulls the incubus into a tight hug.

“Thank you, Mars,” Yeosang says, kissing the incubus’s cheeks a dozen times each. The incubus keens at the affection, giggling.

He giggles.

Yeosang has seen smiles, but he’s never heard a giggle. It’s so endearing, Yeo could smother the other in kisses, but he decides not to. He’s hungry. Like, starving. He skips over to the fridge to grab ingredients for kimchi fried rice when a hand tugs on his wrist.

“Yeosang,” Mars says softly. Yeo closes the refrigerator door and quirks an inquisitive eyebrow at the incubus. “Yeosang family.”

Yeosang flashes the strange, otherwordly creature a sheepish half-smile, “I- I know. I’m your family.” He turns back to the fridge, but Mars squeezes his hand again.

“Family,” Mars says insistently, the edges of his lips twitching as if suppressing a smile.

“Y-Yes?” Yeosang replies confusedly. “What is it, Mars?”

The incubus’s face blossoms into a full blown smile, and he walks, gently pulling Yeosang toward the sliding glass door to the back yard, “Family.”

Mars guides Yeosang in front of the sliding glass door and hugs the human closely from behind. The incubus nuzzles the human’s ear dotingly and mutters again, “Family.”

Yeosang’s shakes his head at first, puzzled, “Mars what are you…” He trails off.

Terror drives into his heart like a stake, digging in deep. Yeosang’s jaw drops, and his eyes go wide. He can’t tear his gaze away from the glass door and what’s just beyond it. His throat constricts, and terror surges through his veins. It petrifies him like a gorgon, cementing him in place as the incubus coos and kisses him. 

A teardrop falls onto the ground, and all Yeosang can thinks is: what have I done?

Through the glass door is the backyard - a barren fenced-in lawn with a few weeds jutting out from the grass. Decorating the patch of green dead center is the bloated carcass of a deer. The corpse is positioned in such a way that Yeosang can look right into the seeping hollows of its gouged out eyes. Guts spill out onto the lawn everywhere, and limbs bend and snap in a sickly, unnatural way. Occasionally, the thing jostles or jerks. It’s dead, of course. Long dead by the looks of it. What causes the movement isn’t some strange chemical reaction or law of physics.

Dancing around the corpse as if it were a playground are about a dozen jet black, amorphous masses not unlike worms or snakes. Not unlike Mars. Though their forms are completely devoid of expression, Yeosang can somehow feel the happiness radiating off of them as they rip apart the mauled animal bit by bit, rending flesh and coiling around organs.

A hand takes Yeosang’s chin and turns his face delicately.

Mars cups Yeosang’s face, eyes warm, full of adoration. 

“Family,” He says again. 

Yeosang can’t muster a response to that. He starts shivering. 

Mars strokes a thumb across the human’s cheek, “Mars Papa. Yeosang...” His gaze turns out toward the backyard, and he grins fondly, nuzzling Yeosang as he watches the deer corpse get mangled. Pecking Yeosang on the cheek, Mars finishes the thought, tone loving and soft:

“ Mama .”