Chapter Text
There is something terribly wrong with Edward Little. There is something insidious that haunts him. A malevolence that hunts and taunts him. He is plagued by it, this thing, this entity. It has always been with him, from boyhood to manhood, and it will be there even at his death. He knows this with each breath that fills his lungs. He feels this with each beat of his heart.
He is five the first time he sees it. Charlotte has made him angry, telling him he is "too little" to go on a ride with her and their brother. He sits alone in the playroom, surrounded by toys, sulking. Across the room he spots his sister's favorite doll carefully propped up in a chair. Charlotte covets the thing, combs out the hair, dresses it in the morning, pretends to feed it.
Later, Edward will not recall what he had been thinking before he came to stand in front of the doll. He recalls only the sound that distracts him. It's a soft exhalation, not unlike the ones he's prone to when annoyed. He looks away to find there is not another soul in the room, but, turning back, the doll is no longer in the chair. Instead she is held in the hands of a boy Edward does not recognize. A boy who looks tremendously familiar.
Edward blinks.
Waking feels like coming out of a warm fog, but once his eyes are open it's as though he was never asleep. He is slumped in the corner of the playroom and, in the arms of a maid, Charlotte is crying.
"Ned did it! Ned did it! I know he did!" The maid does her best to calm the frantic child.
Edward looks at their nurse, who is standing to the side holding a doll. Its detached head is at her feet, smashed, ruined. One eye stares at Edward. It mirrors the judgement he sees in the nurse's eyes. He tries to explain, to say he didn't do anything, but the nurse's pinching grip on his ear is unshakeable. Her barked "You should be ashamed!" drowns out his protests.
His ear is ringing and his throat is hoarse when he is deposited in front of his mother. He maintains his innocence, beseeching her to understand that it must have been the other boy. His mother silences him with a stern "Edward" and then declares everything will be resolved before his father arrives home.
He gets one stripe for breaking the doll and two more for lying.
He is nine, nearly ten, when he realizes no one else can see the boy.
Edward is certain their home is haunted. A shadow is ever present in the corner of his eye. Cold dark gazes meet him over the dinner table and around door jambs. Whispered words startle him awake as often as they lull him to sleep. It seems an ever present element to his life and, as used to it now as he is, he is terrified of it.
One snowy December afternoon, Edward bounds in after a ride with his brother and stops before the looking glass in the hall. Staring back at him is the boy, snow in hair that is the same nut brown as his own. His own hazel eyes gaze back at him, dark and cold. Above the wind chapped cheeks, on his temple, sits a scar that he does not recognize.
There is no breath in Edward's lungs. Looking at a face that is his and not his, so familiar and so foreign, he feels the world stop. He can only watch as the boy slowly reaches out, fingertips spreading, for Edward's shoulder.
Gasping, he is startled by Hale stomping into the house. He is demanding to know if Edward wants new toys or a new saddle for Christmas. He hesitates.
"A new...uh...a new saddle," he replies, unable to hide the tremor in his voice.
Hale looks at him quizzically before their mother strides into the hall speaking of supper. She scolds them both for their dripping boots and sends them off to the kitchen. Before he goes, Edward dares to look back at the mirror. He sees only himself, snow in his hair and wind chapped cheeks.
That evening, tucked away in the sitting room with books or embroidery, Edward dares to ask his siblings what he fears. He wonders aloud if they think the house, their home, is haunted; if they've seen a boy who looks like him, but is not him. He asks if they've seen him in the corner of their eye or lurking in a mirror. Silence falls over the room. The air seems thick.
"You're trying to scare us," Charlotte says, teasing, a smile playing at her lips.
"Come, Ned, it's far too close to Christmas for ghost stories. Poor George won't sleep all night," Hale chimes in.
"I'm not scared!" George cries from the floor, where he had been reading. Both Hale and Charlotte begin to laugh.
Edward laughs with them if only to hide how afraid he feels. He knows now he is alone in this. This ghost haunts him and only him. For, if they could see him, they would know he is standing by the fire, pinning Edward in place with a black stare.
He is fifteen and ignoring the call to his French lessons when he learns his ghost is a demon.
Home feels like a chore, like pretending, a never-ending exhausting act. He seeks out the stables, surrounds himself with the smell of hay and horse and the laughter of the hands as they work. They are good to him. They do not ask him to keep his careful facade. Instead, they speak to him and teach him. They call him "Ned" not "Master Little," like his father and brother. He feels welcome.
He is feeding apples to a newly bred mare with the new stable hand, Billy. He is not much older than Edward himself and is leaning against the side of the stall in shirt and trousers, braces around his hips, sleeves turned up. Eating an apple of his own, Billy is a wonder. Edward can feel the warmth rising up the back of his neck and glances over. He watches Billy's pink lips stretch around the apple as he bites, watches him chew, swallow.
"Take what you want," a low and clear voice says into his ear.
At his side, Edward can feel his ghost, can swear there is breath against his shoulder. It has spoken to him before, in the same low clear tone, but never to tempt him. That it should come forward to taunt him now, in a moment of weakness, is mortifying. Edward determines, as fear settles in the pit of his stomach, to resist.
The mare senses the tension that has gone through him and shifts restlessly. She tries to pull away, but Billy is suddenly there with a soothing hand on her neck. He offers Edward his partially eaten apple as he gentles the animal.
"Here. She's probably just still hungry." Billy smiles when Edward takes the apple and their fingers brush. Something hot lances through him.
This close, Edward can smell the hay and sweat on Billy. He can see each strand of his sandy blond hair as it falls over his cheek, the rich hazel of his eyes. His lips are wet. He wonders what his mouth must taste like. Watching the muscles of his neck flex as he turns his head, Edward feels the urge to lick, to bite.
"Take what you want."
It is so loud, so insistent this time. There is a hand on his hand, guiding, reaching out to touch. Startled, Edward drops the apple and wrenches himself backwards. He nearly stumbles. Catching Billy's gaze he stands and stares, eyes wide. He gets nothing but confusion in return.
"Alright, Ned?"
"Uh...I…" Edward shifts his gaze to the floor, suddenly ashamed, and brushes nonexistent dirt off his trousers. "I have a French lesson. Must go," he mumbles.
He does not wait for a reply; simply trudges out of the stables and up the lawn. He does not stop to see if his ghost is following. He knows it is. His face burns with embarrassment. He stands outside the house staring at a rose bush, his trembling fists clenching at his sides, until a maid finds him and shoos him inside.
Edward is scolded for missing half his French lesson. Though, in truth, the lessons are more a formality than a necessity. A late endeavor selected by his mother, he took to the language with an ease none of his siblings could ever muster. The tutor often praises him for being a "damn near natural." Edward feels anything but natural.
He cannot rightfully say how he came to this seeming talent for French. He cannot explain how, even as a child, the books of French poetry in the library had always made perfect sense to him. How, last summer while visiting relatives, did he know the streets of Paris better than his cousins? He cannot say why any of this is possible. He thinks, however, that some small part of him must know.
Across the room, as he recites his lesson, his ghost stands. Its face is bitter with anger and the hard line of its mouth moves in tandem with every word Edward says. They gaze at each other, eyes locked, and this thing must be a demon. The lips seem to be moving faster than they should, like this creature knows what words to form before he does. Like it's speaking for him.
Feigning illness, Edward does not go down for dinner. He kneels clutching his Bible and prays harder than he ever has. He reads aloud, searches for text that will ease or save him, begs God to deliver him. His knees ache and his legs cramp while his sweat soaked fingers smudge the ink on the pages. The demon taunts, with its presence alone, that there will be no absolution.
He feels exhausted and shaky, as though he were truly ill, when the maid knocks on the door to light a fire in the hearth. Accepting the warm cup of tea his mother sends up and allowing himself to be dressed for bed, he finds no comfort in the familiar tasks. Laying in his too warm bed he feels as though there is a coating of grime on his skin. He goes to the basin and dips his hands in the cool water, splashes some on his face. It provides precious little relief.
"You have to take what you want."
Edward spins around. The demon is perched leisurely against his bedclothes. Trembling, damp hands curling into the hem of his nightshirt, Edward chokes out, "What do you want from me?"
"The world will not give anything to you. You have to take the things you want." That a demon can sound so genuine is surely a crime against nature.
"What are you?" Edward whispers. The creature stands and takes two steps forward, beginning a slow, methodical, approach.
"You could've had him. You could've learned what it felt like." Closer now, unrelenting.
Gazing at the floor, cheeks burning with shame, Edward's mutter of "please" sounds weak even to his own ears.
"His hands. His mouth."
"No. I-"
"You want him."
There is no denying this. There is no denying the vast amount of excuses and fabricated scenarios that have brought him to the stables in the last month. There is no denying the lies he's told to simply be alone with Billy for ten minutes or the desire to touch or taste. Shame wells, again, in his chest as he recalls the dry chafe of his own hand against his prick, an act he'd committed only this morning.
Edward whimpers when the creature finally stops before him. So close. Too close. It does not have a smell, but it seems to be breathing steadily in opposition to his own stuttering breaths. It places one hand on his chest. He gasps at the touch, that it should feel so real.
"You could've known satisfaction," it hisses. Edward cannot help looking up and into its eyes. They are fathomless. Dark pools of blank anger. So much like Edward's own and so very different.
"What are you?" he tries again. The creature presses closer still, nose to nose now, breathing the same air.
"I am you."
The shiver that runs down Edward's spine is masked by the sensation of a wave washing over him. It's terribly cold and scorching hot. An odd almost fog settles over him. He knows his body is moving, but not how. Distantly he is aware of removing his nightshirt and climbing into the center of the bed. Hands, his own, slide up his sides and over his chest in gentle, slow strokes. They are familiar movements, practiced, as he always does to himself.
But there is something different. The caresses are firm, but slow, lasting. Edward typically sets a fast and brutal pace so that it will be over quickly. The discomfort, the occasional pain, a reminder of the sin that he is committing. A small sign of penance. He licks his own palm, tastes salt and sweat, and knows there will be no penance for this sin.
"Sin," the demon scoffs in Edward's ear as it strokes his own hand up his cock. The wet of saliva provides just enough slick sensation and Edward is panting. "Sin doesn't exist." It brings his other hand to rub and pinch at his nipples. This is not something he has done before and the sharpness of it has him moaning.
Lost to sensation, Edward's hazy mind cannot keep up with the onslaught of images that filter through it. Whether they are supplied by the demon or himself he cannot tell.
"Oh, no, it's all you. You." The demon breathes into his ear.
Billy without his shirt, shining in the sun, his hair wet. Water droplets trace down his chest to the waistband of trousers. The way his hands flex and his neck curves. The tension in his straining muscles. His eyelashes against flushing cheeks. His lips, swollen, kiss bitten. His hair messy from the hand in it as he kneels at Edward's feet. The sounds he makes choking -
With a sharp cry Edward spends hot across his stomach. Panting, chest heaving, he lays atop his blankets. The hazy feeling is gone as quickly as it came and he is left bone weary and too aware. Sweat cools on his body and he shivers. The demon stands at the foot of the bed. Observing.
"It can be so good, Edward" it says, then it is gone.
He manages to clean himself up and redress before he collapses into bed and sleeps.