Chapter Text
“You’re so brave,” Clarissa Cunningham simpers, her hands - soft, well manicured, immaculately clean - clutching at his mother’s finest china.
Steve wasn’t allowed to touch those cups.
Elizabet Harrington brushes a tear from her cheek and nods, as if this was something that was happening to her, rather than to her son.
“I am trying,” she says, injecting just enough of a wobble into her voice to imply tears without being gouache enough to actually weep. “I am thankful that I have you as a guide for how to be strong in the face of such a terrible situation.”
Steve remembers how pale Chrissy was before she went, how she seemed to shrink into herself before being swept away into the shadows of that cave, never to be seen again. He remembers Clarissa Cunningham’s dry eyes as she lost her only daughter.
He has no illusions that his own mother will cry when it is his turn.
~~
They refer to it, insultingly, as a “necklace.” When they clasp the heavy golden thing around his neck, Steve wishes they had just called it a collar. Everyone knew about it, it had some ceremonial significance that Steve never paid attention to, something about the beauty of servitude in the name of village safety. He remembers the one that they gave Robin, chain links as thick as her pinkie, woven together until they were almost a solid mass, studded with tiny crystals that had made it shine against her throat.
The one they put on Steve was similar, except the links were smaller, slightly thinner and more delicate, and the stones set in them were larger, some of them the size of his thumb nail, most of them a nauseating blood red. There’s a single loop in the front, shined to a sparkling gold, large enough to fit another chain in. Or the leash that goes with his collar, Steve thinks, nastily, hooking a finger in the loop and tugging.
He remembers Clarissa Cunninham’s whisper to his mother, about the expense, and what a shame it would be ruined, but of course they had to, it was tradition, and Steve had volunteered, just like her Chrissy had, and they wouldn’t want to chance him being misremembered as a pick would they?
He tries to swallow around the sudden lump in his throat, but it feels like it gets caught in the collar.
The cuffs on his wrist are equally shiny and gold, but there’s no disguising the hinges and the metallic snap as they close over his wrists. The anchor loops aren’t big enough for him to fit a finger through, but they’re strong, no give to them when he pinches and tugs.
No chance of escape.
He doesn’t get any shoes, something about “trodding a path of servitude” or whatever. It’s more likely, Steve thinks, remembering how they had to drag Billy, kicking and screaming the whole way, so that he can’t run.
Won’t get far in the forest when everything hunts by the smell of blood if you’re not wearing shoes.
What he does get, in addition to the shackles and the collar, is a white robe, his mother had been sure to tell Clarissa that it was made of silk, (Robin’s was cotton, he remembers, because that was what her family could afford. They made her parents pay for it. Steve’s stomach rolls just thinking about it.) and short enough that if Steve wasn’t going to be ritually sacrificed later tonight he would worry about his dignity. It sits tight across his chest and shoulders and there had been a few moments of panic when he popped a seam by breathing in too much. Steve genuinely doesn’t know if that was because his mother didn’t remember that he wasn’t fifteen and scrawny anymore, or if she was trying to make some kind of statement.
He decides he doesn’t care.
There’s another tense moment when someone steps forward, jar of lube in their hand, and says something about “stretching” Steve, which is a bridge too far. He’s going to die tonight, and he’s going to die tonight not letting some woman old enough to be his mother put her fingers in his ass.
He does the job himself, leg propped awkwardly on the tiny stool in the dressing room, three fingers inside of himself. He debates getting himself off, because he’ll probably be dead soon anyways, but decided against it. It would be too weird to have his last orgasm be in this tiny dressing room while a bunch of middle-aged women sit around and wait for him.
~~
They had offered him a blindfold, like it would be a kindness. He didn’t tell them that it wouldn’t help, that he had watched from the hill every year but the year that really mattered, that he knew enough about what would be coming for him. He told himself that he wanted to meet the god head-on, to see him, and if he could, say you killed her now kill me too, coward. He didn’t know if he’d be able to speak when the time came but he hoped.
He had thought he knew what he was in for, too, before the shadows ripped Billy Hargrove apart the year before. Sometimes his screams show up in Steve’s dreams now, he’s not even sure why, he’d always hated him but still, the screams ricochet through his dreams with alarming frequency.
If he’s going to go out like Billy, he hopes this thing chokes on him, that some tiny piece of his shattered bones works its way inside of it and pokes and pierces until it can’t stand it anymore. It deserves worse, for Robin. But if that is all Steve can hope for then he will wish his bones into tiny splinters until they crack.
It didn’t stop him, but it did give him some pause.
Pause enough to feel the pound of his heart in his chest. Steve has always been turned on by fear. For as long as he can remember. He’s not even sure when or why it started, just that the adrenaline rush of fear registers the same as arousal for him. The drop that forms knots in the pit of his stomach. Steve doesn’t have butterflies, just that swoop of fear, the second of free falling, of flying, before reality sets in.
He is falling. He is terrified. He is so, so turned on.
He has seen the altar before, but never this close. It’s a stone slab about as big as a bed, with one anchor point at the top, for the manacles at his wrists, and a second, lower down, to secure his collar to the altar. It doesn’t matter that he chose this, because everyone tried to run, apparently, no matter how much they thought they were going to stay. They all tried to run.
He swallows, perfectly aware of the collar around his neck as he steps into the pool surrounding the altar. The water is frigid, cold enough that stepping into it sets goosebumps running down Steve’s arms. His hands are shaking.
The sun is setting, the last vestiges of light catching on the water and turning the entire pool gold. Or, not, the water, Steve realizes, as he feels something shift under his feet. The bottom of the pool is littered with hundreds of gold chain loops, twisted and shattered, scattered along the bottom of this pool. Steve can’t help but remember the tug when he pulled on the anchor point, can’t imagine the kind of strength that it would take to rip this collar off of him and leave it broken into so many pieces. The knot twists in his stomach, and his breath catches in his throat.
He’s not alone in the pool, because the inner circle follow him in, wearing their own dark robes (much, much longer than Steve’s own white outfit, for which he is eternally grateful. He doesn’t need to see that much of his father’s thighs, thank you) with the hoods drawn over their heads. It’s hard to pick individuals out when they’re cowled like this, but Steve is going to pretend that the hand on his shoulder is offering something that could be comfort. Others walk a slow circle around the outside of the pool, lighting their torches and chanting quietly. Steve can’t make out the words.
The hand on his shoulder pushes him towards the altar. He goes, without fighting, because he chose this. More than Chrissy or Billy or Robin, he chose this.
He climbs onto the altar, and lays down, hands stretched over his head, because he knows that much.
The chains lock to his manacles, and an iron hook the width of his thumb slides through the ring on his collar, trapping him on the altar. There’s blood, dried blood, but blood nonetheless under him, and he again feels that drop in his stomach - he is chained down and soaring at the same time, his stomach a knot of fear.
So yes, he wants to look this thing in the eye - (did it have eyes? Great question. He’ll know soon enough.) When it comes, he wants to demand recompense for Robin.
He is falling.
The elders, still chanting, step backwards out of the water, slowly retreating to a safe distance as they always do, not turning their back from the gaping maw of the cave. You don’t turn your back on a god. He doesn’t notice the increase in volume in the chanting until it cuts off abruptly, the silence punctuated only by the torches, just lit, being extinguished with a hiss of sparks, one by one.
Steve expects the shadows, having seen in years past the way they swelled up from the water and smothered the altar, dosing the torches along the edge of the pool and sending the entire area into shadow. It was what the shadows were hiding that he couldn't anticipate.
It drops out of the shadows, like a fat raindrop from a leaf, except it lands in front of him with a sound that is both soft and thunderous at the same time, a rolling warning of a storm not yet over the horizon.
If he looks only briefly, and only at parts of it, it has the shape of a man, just one distorted by darkness. If he lets his gaze linger for too long, the shadows pull at the figure, twisting his perception of it until he can’t quite remember what he had been looking at in the first place.
There is the curve of the neck and a shoulder, smooth and pale save for the shadow of a spider that sits against its collarbone. There is a forearm, ending in a hand tipped with vicious black claws that Steve knows could tear him apart so quickly. Billy had screamed, but not for long.
Mostly, there are the eyes, darker even than the shadows that surround them and wreathed in gold. And something that might be a grin, save for the too-wide stretch of the lips and the sheer amount of sharp teeth on display. His eyes skirt upwards a bit, those fangs making his stomach flip in a way he isn’t ready to look too closely at. The shadows writhe behind its head like, well, really, the only phrase that comes to mind is “a riot of curls” except he means that more literally, the shadows practically dancing in twists and turns around its head. And then he stares too long and an eye flickers open from the mass of shadows, the gold ringed pupil darting around before fixing on Steve.
Steve’s heart thumps once, hard, against his ribcage and that cheshire grin spit even wider, revealing more teeth. There is a gleam from the roiling shadows, more teeth, more eyes, opening and closing and shifting and twisting before Steve can really tell they’re there.
“You have options.”
For some reason, Steve hadn’t expected it to speak. He’s not sure why, he supposes he should have, whatever this darkness is, it’s got divinity, sentience, and so many eyes watching as he shivers and tries not to squirm like a mouse caught in a trap. Dignity, he can go out with dignity, he can close his eyes and let whatever the fuck is going to happen, happen and not respond or he can play along.
“What?” Steve says, because he really doesn’t know what else to say and keeping his mouth closed was never a strong suit of his.
“I said, you have options. Three of them.”
In the way that he could barely see the creature through the shadow, he could barely hear the words through the gravel of his voice, each one sinking through his skull like stones in the water before reaching an understanding.
“I get to choose?”
“You get to choose.
Steve honestly doesn’t know what to say, was in no way, shape, or form expecting this. He kind of assumed that volunteering was the last choice he’d ever have to make besides desperately trying not to be one of the sacrifices that called for their loved ones at the end. No need to make it worse and he’d struggle to say he’s left behind any real loved ones anyway.
“What’s your name, little one?” it asks after Steve stays silent, stuck in his own head.
“Steve. My name’s Steve.”
“Steve, for all intents and purposes, you’re dead now. No matter which option you choose. You’ll die or leave this place with no memory of anything, you’ll wander somewhere outside of this valley, and you’ll never find your way back. There’s nothing I can do about that.”
“What are the options?”
“I don’t know how much they tell you but I feed off death and sex. The creation and ending of life. I can fuck you now or you can stay a year and I feed of your secondary sexual energy and you go untouched. It’s the absolute best I can offer you, little one.”
“What about the third option?” Steve asks, certain he already knows what it is. Billy’s screams echoed through his dreams all the time. Those were screams of fear, of horror, of the end. Steve is quickly proven correct as it says,
“I need to feed. I’ll do so however is necessary, even if it means eating you alive.”
“Oh,” Steve says, somewhat shocked by its matter of fact tone even though he was sure it would say exactly what it did, valiantly ignoring the fear and arousal knotting and melting in his stomach, “That’s why you ate Billy.”
“I think the word your kind would use is bigoted. To the point of death. I would never ask for a sacrifice like this but for as long as they call on me as their protector, I must feed. The way I’m bound in this manner leaves me feeling like a fettered dog,” the god says, and it sounds angry, bitter even, “I loathe it but I can’t fight the old magic more than any other elder god can. I can’t step off of this platform any more than you can until a decision has been reached. Even if that decision is to stay the year. I’ve…bargained with the magic for that option. Not easily.”
“Did you eat her?” Steve asks, voice breaking like glass and for the first time, the fear he feels is just that.
“Who?”
“Robin. Three years ago. A girl with short hair.”
“No. I didn’t eat Robin.”
She’s still gone, she’s gone but she didn’t die like this, Robin didn’t die on this altar and Steve isn’t going to either. He supposes he can get fucked on it once though. It’s probably going to hurt like hell but he’d prepared as best as he could and never let it be said that Steve didn’t commit to his decisions.
“I want you to- you can take me here. You can have me on the altar,” Steve’s breathe hitches, “You can fuck me.”
“Oh good, that’s my favorite.”
He can’t help but laugh a little at that, good, its favorite. Let it never be said Steve wasn’t a people pleaser till he died.
That wide grin filters through the dark again and Steve is stunned to watch a long tongue loll out between those rows of sharp teeth. Okay, so...okay, Steve has a good imagination.
He expects the cold, when it finally touches him. He expects chill like an ache, curling deep under his skin, burning almost, to wind alongside the cold rising from the stone beneath him. He doesn’t expect to like it so much, to revel in the way it leaves him a little numb, stings his skin. It doesn’t hurt the way the wind and snow and frost hurt, in fact he couldn’t even call it pain. He feels sensitive and shivery, vulnerable.
One large clawed hand lands on his chest and wow, okay, those are long fucking claws, ones that dig into his chest a little before slicing right down the front of his robe. Steve shivers as he loses the last protection he has, minimal though it was and has the stupid thought of hoping the creature at least likes the way he looks. He’s so hard, has been for awhile now, adrenaline skittering under his skin like ants, desperate for an outlet.
“Look at you.”
Steve isn’t quite sure what that means but the hand trails down his body again, scraping just sharp enough to leave angry red tracks, draw just enough that blood beads in straight lines instead of spilling out of the tracks themselves. Another hand leaves the shadows and he’s yanked down a bit, hands spanning his waist completely, overlapping even, holy shit.
He feels ridiculously small in comparison to the god towering over him, swirling around him and it evokes a feeling like what he assumes the prey animals in the forest often feel. He’s already belly up, might as well lean into it.
Steve’s head tilts back as he feels his legs being slid apart by who knows what wrapped around his ankles. They seem even stronger than the shackles around his wrists and Steve struggles a little just to test the give, feet slipping in the slick surface of the altar.
“Stay still.”
Steve can’t help but listen to that low growl, feels weak with his fear, running through his veins so fast it makes him dizzy, and he’s spread open now, exposed at his most vulnerable with a heartbeat so loud it drowns out even his own thoughts for a moment.
He has no reason not to expect to be immediately fucked but instead his knees get hitched up and something wet moves across his hole a couple times.
“What are you- what are you doing?” Steve says, breath hitching as whatever it is slowly starts to enter him, the way slick, making him squirm again. Is that its tongue?
“Little one, I wouldn’t even be able to fit it in without ripping you in half right now and we explicitly agreed you weren’t going the death route. Haven’t you ever seen me do this before?”
So maybe not it’s tongue then if it’s talking. Although who knows what it actually uses to talk. What is this creature even made of besides shadow and cold?
“I’ve never watched.”
That wasn’t strictly true. He had seen all of them, everyone had to go, he just hadn’t watched most of them that closely. It was hard to see details, the shadows twisted and turned and hid what was actually happening most of the time. It was a bit like watching shadow puppets - enough to guess at the idea, not enough to be sure.
And then there was the year that Hopper had to drag him, kicking and screaming, away from the scene, worried that Steve would have thrown himself at the ball of shadows and tried to fist fight a god. Hopper has good instincts like that.
“You’ve never watched before? And still you volunteered?”
“I’ve- I’ve been here for them but it’s hard to- “ Steve’s stomach packs itself tight and neatly drops away as he feels whatever the fuck it is in his ass slowly start to move in deeper, “uh, to see anything and I don’t- oh fuck!”
Maybe it’s the monster’s dick he honestly doesn’t know but it’s wiggling, it’s moving inside him, and it’s unerringly working against his prostate now. Steve has never felt himself build towards an orgasm this fast since he was brand new at it. He desperately wants friction against his cock but he’s also pretty sure he will come immediately.
Steve yelps at the first touch of what he is now pretty sure is the actual tongue, thicker and rougher than the rest of what he’s just going to label tentacles that hold him down. It licks up from the center of his chest, curling out from between its teeth again and he helplessly makes a high keening type of noise, overwhelmed by how sharp they are, how many, how easily he could be torn apart by those teeth.
That seems to set the darkness off, drawing a rumbling, greedy sound out of the black around him. He feels more of his body covered in the shadow, blanketed almost, held firm against the altar, splayed out, the sacrifice. Then its tongue continues traveling, traces around his collar, licks up his face and dips the tip of its tongue into his mouth just enough he almost gags on instinct.
Steve sort of zones out for a moment of time, squirming underneath its hands and tongue, being pinned down tighter and tighter until he feels fangs pricking at what isn’t covered by his collar, sinking in wide enough to stretch from the dip of his neck across his shoulder. Steve can’t help it, he screams, surprised, a little scared at how deep the bite is.
Deep enough that Steve almost wonders if he is actually going to be devoured anyway, deep enough that Steve feels the blood start to run and he’s struck by how warm it feels compared to everything else right now. It’s like little tracks of fire eventually running thick enough to soak through what’s left of his robe and mat his hair down against his skull even more, paint across the collar, red blood on red jewels. He can feel the splatter of his own blood across his face and flicks the tip of his tongue out to lick a few metallic droplets off his lip.
He realizes with a sour twist to his stomach that his blood has officially joined those of the countless others before him. He’s forever a part of the cycle etched into the stone slab beneath him, forever a part of the miserable, never ending cycle.
Then it swipes over the bite marks with the flat of its tongue and Steve feels pleasure like a burst of warmth through his body, surprisingly relaxing against the stone more. As it continues to lick at him again, he feels less dizzy, more focused, and a lot more blissed out. Claws scratch down his chest again, this time deep enough to spill his blood, more hot trails against his chilled skin.
Steve hardly feels the pain anymore, is barely paying attention to anything besides where it is pressing into him because his brain is blinking out of existence as he’s slowly filled so full he feels like there’s nothing else inside him. It hasn’t even put his cock in him yet he’s pretty sure because something is pressed up against his ass and fucking enormous.
He surprises himself by how much he wants to find out if it can even fit inside him. Call it curiosity, call it being a size queen, doesn’t matter, all Steve knows is he wants it. He is terrified, hadn’t considered himself a huge fan of pain until now, but he’s also never been more turned on in his life to the point where he is willing to find out what exactly his body can handle.
The tentacle inside him suddenly retracts, leaving just slow enough not to feel like his guts are going with it. He feels the tip of something solid and wide brush against his hole and is almost completely certain he’s about to be properly fucked. As it presses in, there is a moment where Steve is fully convinced he’s going to break. He is going to shatter right here under the hands of something he can’t even see properly and it’s going to hurt.
That moment passes as the thick cockhead finally breaches him, punching any air he had left right out of his lungs in one quick thrust. Steve has no idea what kind of unhinged sound he makes as he’s bent nearly in half, already being fucked into at a brutal pace without a second to adjust, he just knows his throat hurts with the force but his ass doesn’t for some reason. Everything burns and stings with cold and the unfamiliar stretch of muscle but Steve is already gasping with how good it feels. The darkness speaks to him again and he tries not to sob with the relief of not feeling alone.
“Look at you, taking my cock so well.”
“Fuck, I feel- I feel like you’re going to split me open.”
“I won’t let that happen.”
“I don’t mind.”
“I’m not in the habit of breaking my toys.”
Steve whines at that, at being reminded that he’s just a toy for this monster to play with, that he bends to its will literally and figuratively. He’s so high on whatever the creature’s spit does to his nerves that he’s blissed out limp in its grasp.
“Why doesn’t it- “ Steve hiccups with the strength it’s using to basically move him up and down its dick exactly as it pleases, “Why doesn’t it hurt more?”
“It’s important to me that you come too. I have many methods of easing the way for you, little one.”
Steve takes that in, that his pleasure is important in this. He needs to know, he needs to have some connection so he asks,
“What’s your- “Steve is moaning through his words, and he hopes no one is actually close enough to hear him ask, “What’s your name?”
“What do you call me? The village people, what’s my name to them?”
“You don’t have one. That’s why I’m asking.”
He’s picked up by more claw than hand as he’s suspended almost entirely off the altar except where he’s still chained at his neck and wrists. The rhythm doesn’t break and Steve is just left desperately trying not to scream himself hoarse at the new angle. He attempts to close his legs on default, knees desperate to go inwards, squirming, but there’s nothing to be done, not with how strongly he’s being held, not with how wide its body spreads Steve’s thighs as it fucks into him.
“Usually I break these,” it says, yanking at the ring on Steve’s collar, “but you look so pretty in it, I might just have to leave it on this time. You can call me Kas.”
Pretty. This monstrous creature thinks he’s pretty and he likes that.
“You’re going to come aren’t you, Steve? You’re going to come screaming on my cock.”
“Uh-huh, uh-huh, yeah,” Steve is whimpering through every thrust, tears blurring his vision enough he feels reduced to sound and sensation, Kas growling, the slick sound of him being fucked, to the smell of blood, the sour taste of it thick on his tongue. He doesn’t know if it’s because he bit his tongue or because Kas’ tongue dipped into his mouth again, covered in his own blood. Possibly both.
He’s stuffed so fucking full and every time he clenches down on the dick inside him he can feel a texture that makes him shiver, feels the bumps and ridges that tug against his hole as he’s fucked relentlessly. He’s going to come untouched, he can tell now, he doesn’t need anything but to be kept so full it makes him choke.
“Kas, Kas, I’m gonna cum, gonna cum- “
“Good.”
Steve comes so hard he almost knocks himself out slamming his head back against the stone, comes screaming that name, Kas. He wonders if anyone watching knows he’s enjoying it, this, being fucked until he sobs by something that’s mostly shadow, the rest wet and sharp and so dangerous, by something that’s eaten many people before him and gladly laps at the blood still freely flowing from his shoulder like he’s seconds away from eating him too.
Steve is shaking uncontrollably at this point, can barely breathe through the tears and almost feels gagged with it, how full he is, how the god isn’t stopping, hasn’t even slowed.
Steve feels the air crackling with an undercurrent of energy like lightning and then he notices with a start that his guts are getting chilled to an alarming degree and he wonders if he can actually freeze from the inside out. He squirms with the feeling, knows he’s already close to coming again.
“You take it so well, full of my cum,” Kas groans, nails digging deep into his thighs, “I’ll put a few loads in you to keep you stuffed as long as possible.”
So that’s what it is, Kas is coming, the creature is coming inside of him, he’s being filled full to bursting by a god.
It keeps its promise so that by the third time he feels that sharp burst of cold when Kas comes, triggering his own umpteenth orgasm of the night, he’s fucking said come in and out of his hole so sloppy it sounds more obscene than anything else tonight, which is saying a lot.
It is a moment. A single moment, when Kas pauses, and Steve hears nothing. Not the pounding of his own heart, or the wet sounds of Kas fucking him, or his own gasps for air that keep getting fucked out of him. Just a moment of silence.
There is a swooping sensation in his stomach, the flip that always accompanies a drop. Steve has felt like he’s falling since they bound him to this altar. This is just the first time that he is not afraid of hitting the ground.
The moment melts, a bit, softens at the edges. The shadows, which had been looming, for lack of a better phrase, pull in a bit. They settle like a cloak around Kas’ shoulder’s, before falling out over the altar and bathing Steve in a rush of cool darkness. They’re wings, Steve realizes, wings made from shadow.
Kas is whispering something, but the words are foreign.
The shadows against his skin feel like the best blanket on a hot summer’s evening. They feel like the rush of a cool river against his overheated skin. They feel like wings when he is falling.
Steve doesn’t want to lose this.
The sounds of his heartbeat thuds back in his ears, the moment fading away as Kas’ wings tuck tighter around him, less cool spring breeze and more winter wind, now.
Steve wants.
Kas’ whispers are picking up intensity, the words echoing back from the mouths that emerge from the shadows, before they disappear in the wink of one of the dozen of the gods’ eyes.
Steve wants.
His breath catches in his throat, stuck by the collar that he is still wearing, or by the river of his own blood that runs from his jaw. He had been worried about the pain, but it is a distant thing now.
Steve wants to live.
That thought plays over and over in his head, after more cold and pain and blood and pleasure, after Kas has finally slowed down, coming to a rest as Steve does his best attempt at catching his breath.
“What if- what if I choose both?” he asks, and fuck, his throat is shredded from screaming, “You’ve fucked me now and I still stay the year.”
Steve startles at the sudden quiet, the way everything that was humming around him stills. The silence drags on for so long, Steve starts to wonder if it’s going to say anything at all.
“Why?”
Steve can sense its eyes blinking in all directions around him, blurring through the shadows instead of settling on its face, watching, studying, wondering.
“I’m not ready to die,” Steve whispers and he means it, if he has another choice, he wants to remember still, to actually feel what it means to be alive for once, even if just for a little longer. He also means he needs to get as much access to that massive fucking cock as possible but that’s neither here nor there. Two birds, one stone, right?
The mouths that had been whispering begin again, but there is a different tone, now. Confusion, maybe? Or excitement?
“Very well. If you are sure.”
The collar prevents Steve from nodding as furiously as he would like, but he does make a good effort at it. He is sure.
The shadows wrap around him, sink against his skin and for a second, Steve is drowning in a sea of black, with only Kas’ golden eyes as lights in the darkness.
And then Steve knows no more.
~~
When Steve wakes up, both sore and loose-limbed in a way that he has never been before, Steve doesn’t even open his eyes before he starts groaning in pain. And it’s not even his ass that burns the worst. Surprisingly he actually feels okay, all things considered, but his muscles are so sore from being moved around and bent like that. Steve is flexible and fit enough that none of it feels like an injury so much as a bone deep ache but still he’s never been bent like that, not like last night, not like Kas. He wonders if he’ll get used to it over the course of the year.
He’s in a bed, softer than he is used to, and larger, too, since the stretch of his toes doesn’t find the far edge of the mattress. There’s a thin sheet slung over his hips, but that seems to be more for his modesty than as a bulwark against the cold - he’s pleasantly warm. Still naked, which isn’t surprising given how many pieces Kas had ripped that silk robe into with his claws.
The ceiling above his head is gently rounded stone, a dome of some kind. The walls are also made of stone, smooth and polished, but undecorated. Oh. He’s in the cave, which is where Kas usually takes people to feed off of their, what had he called it “secondary sexual energy?” Steve’s in a fuck cave. This is excellent.
There is someone in the fuck cave with him.
Steve turns his head, expecting Kas.
Chrissy Cunningham is trying to quietly set a pair of pants on a nearby chair.
“Oh,” Steve says, because that makes sense. “I guess I died.” Less excellent.
Chrissy yelps, dropping the pants to the ground and her hand comes up to press against her chest.
“Steve! You startled me! We didn’t think you’d be awake yet!” Steve blinks. That seems like a weird thing to say to a dead person. He moves to sit up, but is jerked back onto the surface of the bed by a tug on his neck. When he tries to reach to feel what’s keeping him there, his hands meet the same resistance.
He’s still tied down.
His heart pounds, rabbit fast in his chest. He thought they had a deal.
“No, no, no,” Chrissy says, reading something in his facial expression. Or maybe the wounded noise he didn’t realize he was making. “It’s for your safety! He wasn’t sure if you would panic when you woke up, and if you ran you could get really hurt. He’s just making sure that you’re okay!”
“Okay,” Steve manages to force out, once the panic has subsided a little, enough for him to breathe. “I’m not going to run. Could you unlock me?”
Chrissy shakes her head, but she looks genuinely apologetic about it.
“I don’t have the, uh. The key.”
Great.
Steve is distantly aware that he should be more surprised to see Chrissy, that this whole situation has gone sideways from what he expected, but his brain feels sort of soft and fuzzy and stringing more than two thoughts together to form an idea seems like too much work.
“Aren’t you dead?” Is what he comes up with.
She laughs at him, but it’s not really a mean sound, she sounds more delighted, like he’s about to be let in on a really funny joke.
“I’ll go find Kas, he has the keys,” she says, instead of explaining. Probably guessing by the look on his face that Steve wasn’t going to follow any complex thought processes right now.
Chrissy leaves to get Kas, and when he comes in several minutes later, he finds Steve idly tugging on his wrists just to see how much give there is.
Steve expects Kas to drop from the ceiling, much like he had the night before, but instead he walks through the door, like he’s a normal fucking person and not a god.
Steve isn’t even standing up and he knows Kas will tower over him when he does. He is tall and broad and any skin he can see is gray like ash and covered in dark swirling markings, tattoos maybe. Steve isn’t completely sure but he thinks they’re moving, like they breathe all on their own. The shadow he had seen before, the spider that sits under Kas’ collarbones moves in the way that everything about him does, like shadows across the floor. His hands are still tipped in those dark claws, each one a razor point.
The new part - or the part that Steve hadn’t noticed the night before - was the pair of horns, not black like the shadows that frame Kas’ head, but a burnished gold, arching back from Kas’ face and curling back towards his ears.
Kas doesn’t touch him. He doesn’t touch any part of him as he unlocks the first cuff and he’s stepping back as soon as Steve’s hand falls free. Steve wants to be touched though, feels weirdly needy for it after being absolutely surrounded by this creature before and why does he trust this thing, this- he doesn’t even know what it is really, something ancient and powerful and hungry with fangs and claws and apparently tentacles. Steve asked to be devoured before he even knew what he was really getting himself into and now he’s willing to beg for it if he has to.
Kas flips the blanket back and then settles into a chair and Steve tries to remember to breathe as Kas’ eyes flick over his still very naked body.
“Go ahead,” Kas says and Steve is surprised to hear a mostly normal masculine sounding voice, not much like the thunder rumble of a voice last night. It’s still deep and really nice to hear but he feels a little lost anyway.
“Go- go ahead and do what?” Steve asks,
“Touch yourself,” he says, like it’s that simple, like Steve is just supposed to jerk off with him right there and not collapse into a puddle of nerves.
“Oh. Are we- so we’re just jumping right in then.”
“It can wait.”
“No! Uh, no, it’s okay, this is good.”
If Kas wants to watch him, he can do that. Steve can do whatever, really, if Kas wants it. He’s already getting hard, it’s only...
“This isn’t the hand I- uh- usually jerk off with.”
“And?”
Steve bites at his lip, worries at the dry skin till it cracks. Kas watches, silent, and multiple golden eyes blink open and shut across his face which surprises Steve so much he has to suppress the urge to jump. He’s not sure why that bothers him more than any of the other things, he hadn’t felt as unnerved by all those eyes last night for sure.
Maybe bothers isn’t the word, intrigues, fascinates, he doesn’t know, it’s strange to look at something that’s much more solid and human like and yet still see shadow wrapped around him, like he’s an unfinished painting, bits and pieces sticking out in ways he isn’t sure they should to form something that barely understands what being human even means.
Kas’ head tilts to the side and he’s got the slightest smirk on his face which makes Steve go hot with embarrassment when he realizes he’s just been staring at him blankly. He’s pretty sure Kas is making him use the wrong hand just to watch him suffer a little and that definitely turns him on but he still scrunches his eyes shut for a moment, wraps the wrong hand around his dick because fuck it, and tries to center himself, ground himself, something, anything to not overthink this right now.
This was going to be his life for the next year, he might as well start strong right? That thought sort of flies out the window as soon as he opens his eyes again though, because Kas is watching him so intensely he can’t help but feel like he’s falling as soon as he starts moving.
“Are you gonna say anything?” Steve blurts out, overwhelmed by the silence outside of whatever humming sound is filtering into the air around him, something Kas specific but he doesn’t know why.
“Did you want me to?”
“Kinda,” Steve admits, tucking his face against his shoulder, officially shy now because maybe he shouldn’t have spoken up. He doesn’t know if he’s allowed to ask for things but he’s so horny it hurts and it would help okay?
“What would you like me to say?” Kas stretches out in the chair a bit more and his smile is razor edged sharp with fangs, “That you look good enough to eat?”
He’s admittedly a little surprised that that specifically gets him going, Kas wanting to eat him alive, but who is Steve to judge himself right now.
Steve whimpers as he presses his thumbnail right under the head of his cock, gives him that little burst of pain to make up for how sloppy this is.
“Or how your stomach is still so full of my cum I can see where it strains inside you?”
Steve glances down in alarm to see that his stomach is indeed still surprisingly distended and when he looks back up Kas is in his space. He studies Steve’s face with eyes almost human for a moment before his hand lays flat across Steve’s distended stomach and presses.
Steve’s entire body goes hot with pleasure and shock when he feels cum start to trickle out of him, warmed from being inside him all night. He pulls his knees up without being asked so Kas can watch as he slowly pushes his cum out of him, watches the way it leaks between his cheeks, as he moans softly, feeling light headed with the sensation of soft and warm and wet against his raw skin.
Kas keeps pressing down over and over and his tongue keeps dipping out of his mouth, almost like he’s tasting the air. Steve’s hand is brushing against Kas’ own on every stroke and he wants to be hurt, he wants to be used, he wants more but he settles for speeding up his hand and enjoying the chill of Kas’ hand against his hot skin. Nails flat against him, nothing but moderate pressure, and still Steve will gladly take it.
“You held so much inside you,” Kas says, and his voice sounds probably the closest to awe a god could get, “Let me fill you so full it slid down your thighs.”
And just like that Steve comes, jerky and gasping for air, spilling over his fist and Kas’ hand and awkwardly jerking himself through the aftershocks. His hand isn’t as coordinated both because it’s the wrong one and because Steve’s entire body has kind of locked up. He’s biting into his lower lip so hard it hurts, is probably bleeding, and he cannot take his eyes off of Kas. He’s watching Steve with what seems like every single one of his eyes open and it’s intense.
Kas raises his hand to his face and that long tongue cleans Steve’s cum off. His hips jerk at the sight and Kas laughs a little at Steve’s whimper. It’s a nice laugh.
Steve isn’t quite sure but he feels like he’s got blurred double vision when it comes to Kas’ mouth half the time, can’t tell how many he really has, one, two, is he all teeth and eyes and Steve just can’t see it? How many layers of illusion lie between Steve and the god before him? Probably more than Steve could hope to count.
All that really matters anyway is that Kas keeps smiling at him like that, like he did something right. Steve rarely gets that feeling, approval, not even when he fucking volunteered did he get more than a rueful “good luck” from anyone that actually gave a shit about him and a chorus of “you’re so brave”s from all the people who wouldn’t lose even a night of sleep over sending him to his death.
Then Kas just...leaves, most of his eyes blinking shut as he goes and the shadows follow him out of the room like the light being turned on. Steve isn’t particularly happy about that but Kas must not be interested in more right now and what can he do about that really?
“Hey, wait! Come unlock me!”
~~
Later, once he finally gets unlocked from the bed, Chrissy, who is blushing scarlet, shows him to the bathroom and hands him the pants she had been trying to sneakily leave on his chair earlier.
When he emerges, scrubbed and at least partially clothed, she is waiting for him, rocking back on her heels like she’s a little nervous.
“Can I show you around?” She asks. Steve shrugs, because if he is going to be living here for a year, he might as well learn where everything is.
It turns out, everything is everywhere. The cave is a sprawling system, branches and turns and dead ends and Steve just knows he’s going to be getting lost for the first month, at least.
Chrissy shows him the kitchen, where they eat, more bedrooms than he can really shake a stick at - not that he currently has a stick to shake, whatever that means. Several places to just hang out, decorated with squashy pillows and mountains of blankets, one of which Steve recognizes as being from his own house. It had gone missing last year.
Chrissy sees him noticing it and shrugs.
“We make do,” she says, and the impish grin on her face reminds Steve of the incredibly nice set of dishware that he had seen in the kitchen, and the fact that Clarissa Cunningham had stopped hosting people pretty recently. He grins at her, and instead of the blush and squirm that he had expected, that he would have gotten before they were here, she just laughs, and tells him that she has a surprise for him.
“Oh, and I think you’ll like this surprise,” Chrissy says, and there’s a bounce in her step to match the excitement in her voice. Steve’s not quite sure what she thinks could warrant this much excitement, when a body slams into his side.
His first reaction is to shove at it, but he gets his hands on the shoulders and freezes, because he recognizes that mop of hair tucked under his chin.
He grips, and pushes, forcing her far enough back that he can see for himself, that he can be sure that this isn’t just a horrible taunting nightmare that he’s going to wake up from.
“Robin?”
“Hi, dingus,” she smiles at him, and her eyes are shining a little bit, but it’s Steve who starts crying first, because she had been gone. For years, now, she had been gone except here she was and it’s like he died on that altar and got to go to a better place that has both awesome sex and his best friend.
He crushes her to his chest. It’s supposed to be a hug, but he’s probably squeezing a little too hard. She doesn’t protest beyond a squeak, before wrapping her arms around his waist and squeezing back just as tight.
And then she’s pulling back to smile at him again, except her gaze catches at something and the smile slides off her face a little bit.
“Oh Steve, you didn’t,” she says, and she reaches up to put a hand against the collar, still around his throat, all the jewels and gold to say “power” and “prestige” and “volunteer.” To say “I chose this honor.”
“I couldn’t not,” Steve says, but it’s not enough to explain how desperate he was to know what happened to her, to keep Nancy and Jonathan with their siblings for even one more year, to do anything. “Not after you.”
He doesn’t tell her about Hopper dragging him away from the hill, how he and Joyce had practically babysat Steve the next two years, to make sure that he didn’t immediately rush in after Robin. They had probably hoped that Billy’s gruesome demise had dissuaded him, but it was just the opposite.
Since the moment he knew that Robin was going on that altar, Steve had known he was going to follow her. He just didn’t think that he would get to hug her when he did.
~~
“I was too scared,” Robin admits to him, after Chrissy has gone to bed and Kas has long melted away into the shadows. “I spent my year here, and Kas was fine, really. He didn’t lay a hand on me. But the year was over and it was time for me to go and I just. I didn’t want to. And he said I didn’t need to leave right away, that I could stay for a while and leave when I was ready.
“I think he was lonely.” She adds, after a moment. “I kept trying to talk to him and he would walk away in the middle of a sentence, which, rude, but then he’d come back later and ask a question about it? So he was paying attention, at least a little bit.” She doesn’t say that she was used to being ignored, that it had been safer back at the village for her to be ignored. Steve knows that about her.
Steve leans against her, knocks his head gently against hers, the way that he used to when she was worried about something.
“And then Chrissy,” he says, teasing gently, because he knew her and he knew her type and Chrissy was the exact same kind of vivacious that Tammy and Vickie were. If she was kinder than either Tammy or Vickie, and more prone to smiling now than she had been before her sacrifice, well, better for Robin that way.
“And then Chrissy,” Robin says, before she buries her face in her hands and laughs. “She’s so pretty, Steve. And sweet. She keeps trying to feed all the bats even though they are repulsive because she’s worried they’re not getting enough to eat.”
Steve blinks.
“Bats?”
“Focus, Steve, we’re talking about Chrissy.”
“No, you’re talking about Chrissy. I’m concerned about the bats.” He looks up, half expecting the cave ceiling to be covered with a swarm of fuzzy bodies, but there's nothing there but stone.
“And wolves.”
“Now I know you’re fucking with me.”
“I swear,” and Robin pulls her head out of her hands to stare at him with wide eyes in an attempt to convince him that she was being completely serious about this, she really was. “There are so many wolves. It’s most of the reason they tell us not to go into the forest, because of the wolves. Also the reason he kept you chained to the bed-”
“Not the whole reason,” Steve mutters under his breath. Robin smacks him, a backhand across his chest that wouldn’t have hurt if she hadn’t landed directly on the scratches Kas had left on him.
“-was so you didn’t run off into the woods and get eaten by wolves.”
“Say wolves one more time.”
“Fuck off.”
They sat there for a minute in silence, just enjoying getting to be around each other again.
“We could hear the screams,” Robin says. “Last year, we could hear the screams and I was just so terrified that it was you, and you had done something really, incredibly stupid. I was so relieved when Kas described Billy’s stupid mullet.” There are tears in her eyes and Steve wraps an arm around her shoulders and pulls her to him, slotting her cheek against his shoulder and tucking his chin on top of her head.
“Nah, I just did something else incredibly stupid,” he says. But he has his best friend back, and Kas, for all that he terrifies Steve, excites him too. It was stupid, maybe, or reckless. But it feels right, too, in a way that things haven’t in a long time.