Hungry

Morning cast the cave into total shadow as the light danced along the bloody ground. Todd was shaking in a corner, leaning against the large rock. Lance was sitting near him, biting his lower lip again. Their embrace had lasted hours. However, with the first rays of dawn, they’d crawled away from the other and sat alone in silence, each visiting their own irrational thoughts. The screams of the dead lurked in the background, forever ground into their skulls, whether from having heard them or imagined them was up to speculation. The feathers blew around in a light breeze that ruffled their dirty clothes and the empty food packages from the evening before. For the first time in hours, they looked at the other and met eyes. It was as if electricity went through the air, their thoughts were so highly focused.

They both knew something had to be done about Travis. Lance believed he knew what Todd was thinking. He wanted him to run and escape on his own. He was going to tell him to leave the toad with the monster and let them battle it out somehow. There was no way he was going to do that. He tried to express that in his stare, tried to get across his loyalty and show that he wasn’t as afraid as he most certainly was. Everyone else had taken their chance and bolted. That or died terribly. The older wasn’t going to let either happen. He was determined to see to it that they both got out alive and together.

Thus, when Todd opened his mouth, Lance cut him off.

“ I’m not going anywhere so don’t even bother asking,” he said pointedly. He forced his voice to be rock solid. It echoed slightly on the walls and made the younger shiver.

“ Lance... I can’t axe chu to stay here. It ain’t right. Ya have a future... Travis... he’ll eventually eat you... I...” Todd’s words failed him here and he reached forward and grasped the rock tumbler’s hands instead. Their eyes met and both felt tears coming, tears they didn’t want to have to shed in front of the other.

“ No,”

“ Ya can’t,”

It was no use, though. Lance roughly shook his head before embracing Todd tightly. He felt warmth as tears trickled down the younger’s face and squeezed harder. He didn’t get a hug back. In truth, he felt the smaller boy pushing against him and had no choice but to release him. Two devastatingly pained golden eyes looked straight into his soul and the words that were next spoken tore through his heart like fangs through his flesh. He was rendered speechless and stuttered for an answer for a long while after the request was placed in front of him.

“ I want chu to kill me. Shoot me and run. Do it. Fer me,”

There were no words to describe the horror that washed over the older mutant when these words were spoken. Despite how bad things had become, and they had become bad, Lance had never assumed either of them would think of resorting to suicide. Least of all suicide in such a manner. Todd wanted to die. The look in his light gold eyes begged and screamed for it. Was being a murderer so miserable that he longed for the cold peace of death? How long had he been feeling that way? Since Wanda’s untimely murder? Since the paperboy’s? How had Lance been so ignorant as to not notice how deeply his love was falling into the pits of misery and depression? Was that a mark of how evil he was? Had mating with Travis left a permanent mark on his soul, tainted him somehow into twisting into a monster himself? A great shudder went down his spine at the thought, although he found it to be quite likely. After all, he wasn’t nearly as shaken by the murders or the beast’s frequent uprisings as Todd was. Somehow, he figured it ought to be the other way around.

“ I... I... no. I’m not... I won’t. I love you, Todd. Don’t you see that?” was his sharp response as he grasped the other’s shoulders. The toad nodded shyly, “ Then how could you ask me that? I couldn’t kill you,”

“ I could kill chu,”

Ice felt like it’d been poured down Lance’s back. It wasn’t that he’d never thought Travis wouldn’t eat him. That was one of his main concerns, as a matter of fact. That was the primary reason behind his purchasing a gun and loading it with a live round of bullets. However, the person who said those four words, in such a calm, mellow voice, didn’t have violet eyes. They had shining gold ones. Travis was no where near the surface at that moment. It was Todd alone speaking.

And he’d just said he could kill him as if telling him the sky was blue. There was no hesitation, no shaking of voice, no cast away glance, nothing. Just the confidence of someone who knew the answer to a question that was about to be asked. Todd could kill him. And he knew it.

Lance’s hands let go of the boy’s shoulders as he fell back against the stone wall. Todd crawled closer, his body moving in ways only Travis’ had before. Todd wasn’t that confident. He wasn’t that sure. He wasn’t that cocky. He never moved like that. He was never seductive. Everything about the way he leered over the rock tumbler was reflective of the creature inside him. The way his head tilted, the way his hips swung from side to side, the closeness between their faces, as if one wrong move would have them kissing. All of it was Travis. Todd moved more humanlike, kept his head down and looked up through his bangs, and preferred distance. This wasn’t right. His eyes were gold. Solid gold. Pure gold. Why was he acting exactly like Travis? How could that be possible?

“ I know you’ll do it fer me, Lance,” his webbed hands touched the sides of Lance’s face lightly. The touch, the way those fingers moved, wasn’t human. At the very least, Todd’s touch was normally human.

Then it happened. The one thing that blew the older mutant’s mind into oblivion. Everything ceased to be real and the world had vanished into a fit of sheer confusion. His breath stopped, his heart jumped to his throat, and it was clear that there was no longer a line separating Todd and Travis. The line had blended, the two people had begun to become one over the dark night. Gold eyes or not, Lance realized he was in absolute grave danger when his love, the boy he’d silently pledged undying devotion to, leaned down and committed an act worse then murder.

Todd licked his cheek, his eyes foggy with desire.

A moment pasted in which time moved at a snail’s pace. The younger mutant straddled his mate and caressed his face, licking his lips and kissing him as though possessed. His eyes, however, remained gold. That monster inside him was getting through in all sorts of ways that tears formed in Lance’s brown eyes. He’d never thought the takeover would be so fast, so rapid, so complete. In his darkest hours, he’d considered the possibility that Todd wouldn’t be there in the morning. He’d thought that he’d wake up and only find black purple eyes for the rest of his days. He’d figured he’d be trapped with a boy with tan hair, dark eyes, and the voice of a devil who barely spoke a word of proper English. Never, though, had he thought Todd would still be left there, stuck in the middle of the destruction of his own personality. That he would be faced with a gold eyed Todd who acted like Travis was right beneath the surface. Even in the earlier days, when Travis was lurking there and their eyes had blended in color, the toad had at least retained his own movements and ways. All of the adorable shyness and shaking was gone in the dark morning light. There was no longer a real ‘Todd’. By morning the next day, he would have disappeared completely. That thought killed Lance.

Perhaps worse, however, was this half blend on top of him. Watching Todd disappear so slowly, but so thoroughly, was heart breaking. Tears slid down the older’s cheeks as he gave the other a shove off him. The confusion in those gold eyes was Travis’ confusion, not Todd’s. Todd would’ve understood. Todd would’ve definitely understood. Travis wasn’t human enough and now neither was Todd. He wasn’t human enough to understand pain. That made Lance choke and sob as he clicked the safety off the gun.

“ B-back ther-ere... ok-okay?” he stuttered, motioning with a quivering hand at the other wall. Todd nodded and moved backwards to the cave’s wall, next to the large rock he’d been hiding behind when he was still himself. The way he held himself wasn’t scared, wasn’t the way it should’ve been. He should’ve been afraid. He wasn’t and that made Lance take aim.

This was the very last thing he’d ever thought of doing. He’d planned it all out while they were running, while he held the terrified young mutant that needed him for so much there were no words to express it. For the past year, he’d been watching over the awkward teen who’d never been very good at saying thank you or helping himself. Then he’d fallen in love with a boy who was speechless at the horrors he had committed. He’d given up his life, his future, for that boy who shook in his arms late at night, who burst into tears at the slightest sound in the dark. When they’d run, he’d planned it all. They would go away, far away, and live together. They would pinpoint the trigger that brought that beast to the surface and rid themselves of it. In the fear, in the whirlwind of rash decisions, in the explosion of blood, he hadn’t seen how badly his love was vanishing. He’d watched the mutant he’d loved so deeply for such a short period of time die. He hadn’t known it, but he had.

Death was the only way to describe what he had seen. His love had died before his eyes as if stricken with a fatal disease with no cure. He’d choked and twisted and bent in agony as his soul was torn apart and eaten away by that thing inside him. His eyes had paled and paled, his voice had changed, his movements melted into the inhuman, and now there was nothing left but the one last plead the sane Todd had asked of him. Only his mind remained himself. There was only so long until it was taken too, they both knew. This was the only way to end the disease. This was the cure. This was the only way.

Had the person in front of him shown any sign of being the Todd he loved, he wouldn’t be able to do it. His hand steadied as he stared at that expressionless face with it’s calm eyes. Travis was too inhuman, inhumane, to have a concept of death. He wouldn’t understand and he wouldn’t care that his mate was getting ready to blow his brains out all over the cave wall. This thing with gold eyes had that same demeanor. Lance put his finger on the trigger.

A few shining tears inched their way over those bloodstained cheeks. A shudder went up the spine, the hands gripped the ground, the shoulders tightened. But the face remained emotionless.

Two shots were fired. The cracks echoed in the cave and birds tore off into the morning sky. Lance collapsed to his knees, shaking uncontrollably, as he cast the gun off towards the opposite side of the wall. Tears poured down his cheeks as he shook his head over and over again, not having any words to describe how ashamed he felt of himself in his darkest hour. As he cried, though, two hands raised his head up and his tears were licked away by a compassionate, understanding Todd.

“ I can’t do it! I couldn’t! You cried, dammit! You shouldn’t of fuckin’ cried!” Lance roared, although his voice shook violently. His lover nodded, kissing him gently on the lips. His body began to relax on cue, those hands gripping at his shoulders, “ I couldn’t. I want to stay with you forever, Todd,”

For the first time, he kissed the younger instead of the other way around. He tasted blood and slime, but the tastes were a nice shock. He plunged his tongue inside, hands carefully grazing the hips of the boy he loved. Two webbed hands locked his arms at his sides as he smiled into the kiss. He felt his lover growing more passionate about it, pushing his own tongue into his mouth and running it along his teeth. Although they weren’t touching, the moment was so pure, Lance’s head exploded and he shook from intense emotions that weren’t riddled with horror for the first time in the longest. They kissed, their heads switching positions. He went to touch the other, but was restrained and took that as an amazingly good sign. Todd didn’t like to be touched, after all. He couldn’t help laughing into the kiss as he felt the mutant shyly draw back. He pushed forward as a click echoed out into the night. His lips were licked like an animals then and a trickle of confusion made his stomach turn to lead. His eyes fluttered open and the world was gone in a flash of what could be described as breathtaking terror.

The eyes he was staring into were deep black purple.

And they were furious.

Lance had time to scream before his head was plunged into Travis’ mouth. He fought as best he could as everything went black and wet. It was no use, however, as his hands were already pinned to his sides. He fought to create an earthquake, but his concentration was broken by his shoulders being pushed inside. He couldn’t scream anymore and found himself fighting for air as he panicked and thrashed around against the warm sides of the stomach he was in. His face was splashed into the sticky blood of birds as he felt teeth around his middle. There was a sharp pain and he opened his mouth to cry out. Acid and blood made him gag and choke, bright spots appearing in his eyes as teeth dug into his spine and numbness echoed in patches down his kicking legs. His body went stiff, then limp as he felt himself curling into a ball. His legs were bent and he felt a sharp pain that made a tremble go up his body. There was a snapping even he could hear and his vision went dark as he cried out wordlessly. One of his legs was broken when it was shoved roughly inside.

He dropped down into the stomach and struggled to get out. There was no air coming in and he felt like he was staring down a long dark tunnel. He had no way of knowing what was what and could only fight as best he could. His movements, though, were growing weaker and weaker, even he knew that. Tears faintly ran down his cheeks as he realized he was dying.

Lance breathed in one final breath as he prayed, for the last time, that Todd was still alive. Even in death, he loved the boy who’d just murdered him. He prayed that boy would be able to fight this monster on his own. He prayed, tears freely falling, as a bright light appeared in his vision. Everything went weightless and his thoughts disappeared. There was nothing anymore.

On the other side, Travis clutched his round stomach in absolute rage. His entire field of vision was bathed in blood red anger, his body was shaking violently. He couldn’t believe his mate had tried to kill him. He couldn’t begin to express his unadulterated fury at such betrayal. His hands tightened on the bulge that was his lover, long since dead, seeing as he was barely breathing himself. The movements had ended minutes ago. Now the body was his, forever. He never had to face that confusion again, that rage inducing confusion. Yes, he’d never be able to mate again, but that somehow didn’t matter much in his terribly dangerous mind. He only bared sharp fangs and glared at the opposing wall. Once he had slimmed down, he’d go searching for something to take his anger out on. Something living, something that would scream and gush blood like all the rest.

He certainly was hungry now that he thought about it. His hands rubbed the sides of his stomach longingly. He was as full as he could be. He couldn’t even stand up. Yet, he was starving. When was the last time he’d eaten? Hours ago. His rage began to slip away as his desire for basic needs rose up like a dark demon in the back of his mind. He shuddered, eyes darting around.

There was a bird pecking at the crumbs of the food his mate had eaten. His brain clicked and buzzed, his senses growing ever sharper. He could pick up the smell of fresh blood, moving flesh. He needed it. His stomach was caving in. He let out low cry, his voice stolen away at the sight of real food. His stomach begged him, urged him. All around him, a fog rose, the only clear sight was the bird. Everything whirled around him, his head throbbed and his back arched as he clawed at the ground. His nails dug in and his eyes contorted, causing the dark to swell up around him in great darting figures.

Forcing himself up, Travis inched across the stone floor. Every muscle in his body roared with fire, his limbs trembling. But he couldn’t stop himself. His greed for blood was overtaking his desire and willing him forward even more then the piercing agony that was his stomach. The bird chirped, the sound enraged him. But he could go no farther. His body gave out and he was left curled up on the floor, panting and glaring at the bird. It pecked it’s way close enough in animalistic stupidity.

His tongue wrapped around it and suddenly it’s last chirp was cut off as it was in his mouth. His teeth broke it’s body into pieces as he chewed. Blood exploded inside his head and thickly leaked down his throat. He swallowed slowly, licking the red liquid off his lips. The pain stopped and his head cleared off all the fog. His body was warm and pleasant, full and digesting his mate. His head began to swim in what he took to be joy and comfort as he wrapped his body around his large stomach, inside which were the remains of his lover. All was good, all was perfect. By morning, he would be free. There would be no human to tie him down. He would be able to fill his greed and grow fat off of delicious humans. He’d never felt so satisfied in all his life.

But in his satisfaction, Travis felt a trickle of fear. His eyes widened as hands grabbed hold of his mind. A scream echoed out into the forest as his brain was torn in two and his body was racked with pain. His back bent, his convulsed, and prickling icy cold needles ran down his skin. A fire like passion burst in his chest and blood splattered on the walls from his own mouth as his eyes were melted in the heat. He was thrown head first into a dark pit with an animal like howl that echoed into the very depths of the cave as two gold eyes shone in what was once his face.

Todd cried out as he felt hands gripping his soul, refusing to let go. His body convulsed but he fought for control, hearing loud screaming inside his skull. That rage was building inside his chest. There was no time to think. There was only time to act. He had no chance of breaking the hold of this monster without someone to keep him sane, keep him in love with the world he’d once known. Everything was too primitive, too much like Travis’ world. He couldn’t return to the world that made him normal. He had no one to help him. And he would only have this bit of control for the moment, for the second it took for the monster to explode with fury and rage that would wash over him and rid his mind of what was left of his human side. His brain had been torn apart too much. He couldn’t do it again. This was the only second he has to himself and it was fading fast. The world was already turning red, that voice was already in his mouth, and he was already screaming in rage as he reached forward and grabbed his only hope. His movements weren’t human and he held the gun as though he’d never touched something manmade in his life. Fingers were running down his body, taking control. His eyes were bleeding out. This was it, he was already blended. He was about to be taken control of. There was nothing left. The fear was replaced with anger and the smell of blood overwhelmed him. He wasn’t himself, the world was different, and he couldn’t focus. Only one piece of him remained.

Todd’s desperation to avenge those who’d died. The paperboy, Scott Summers, Evan Daniels, Wanda Maximoff, and especially his beloved Lance Alvers. That was all that was left. It filled him completely as his eyes faded from control.

Travis screamed out in horror as Todd squeezed the trigger.

Control was won as the world vanished in a blood red blur.


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Fin.