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“Welcome to Sandrock! My name is Burgess.”
He’d been a pitiable thing to lay eyes on. Large in all the wrong ways, rigid and anxious behind that affable smile. Even his voice, weak, weak, just like the rest of him. This was their Chief Security Inspector? The one charged with care of their precious Water Tower? And Pen was meant to work closely with this man.
It only got worse, the more Pen learned about him. He was a staunch pacifist. He was afraid of his own shadow. He was a bleeding heart dreamer who trusted too readily, hurt too easily, and cared so much.
No matter. Pen had been through many trials and tribulations under the Empire. Blood and sweat, the raw carnage of an alpha beast against lesser life forms. What could one wet lump of clay do that his entire life up to that point could not?
It should have been no matter.
But it only got worse.
It only got so much worse.
—
Your words duly flatter me, and you are quite the striking beauty yourself, but I’m afraid I must reject your offer of companionship. I simply do not have time for another.
—
Pen had been born and raised in Duvos, around the border between the Empire and the Principality. It was a dark, wet place—smog and violence, rain and blood. Sandrock’s opposite, in many ways. Perhaps two sides of the same coin, similar yet distinct, one catching light with the other cast in shadow.
The flip side was a jarring place to be. Pen was used to being the light—strong and reliable and heroic in the dark—and now it was all around him, all the time. It seemed to him that these halfwit desert people didn’t realize how much they really had, how inconsequential the problems were which shook them to their very cores.
Clean food. Clean water. In short supply? Pen had seen far shorter. A dangerous environment? Laughable. And they had light, light all around. They didn’t have to scrounge through the shadow, pushing down others around them, just to catch a glimpse.
They could all be so hopeful, because they all had so much.
Burgess was perhaps the most blindly hopeful of them all. He could see the silver lining in every cloud, but had he ever had to reach for that silver, only to have it turn to nothing but wetness on his fingers? What hardships had he had to overcome? Raised solely by a mother who did anything to keep him fed and happy? Never being particularly close with any one member of his close knit community?
At least Burgess somehow had enough self-awareness to admit it.
“I’m not ungrateful, though. I’ve been incredibly blessed. I have a job I love, in a town I love, filled with people I love.”
He’d smiled at Pen, then. His eyes were bright.
Something about it had made Pen feel…
…Angry?
…No.
Hungry.
—
I have too many responsibilities as an icon and hero to devote myself to a relationship right now, but if you’re ever in town, look me up—we could have an explosive night together.
—
Pen was very familiar with anger. It lay always just beneath the surface of his skin, ready to burst forth at any incitement and color his vision with blood. Violent energy and negative emotions, always building, always needing to be pressed back until the time was right.
He’d been learning all his life to control it. A weapon, deadly in his hands. A wellspring of power, granting dark strength that others rightfully feared. It was how he had survived. It was how he had thrived.
Burgess had no anger. Likely if he tried to contain it within his fragile vessel, he would crack apart. He couldn’t comprehend the necessity of it. Didn’t understand when Pen would overflow with its raw intensity, and could not reconcile with his methods of regulation.
He started trying to talk Pen down. He started getting in the way. He couldn’t just leave well enough alone.
He’d tried to hold Pen back, once. By instinct, Pen had knocked him away. The sight of Burgess in pain on the ground, in pain because of him, swelled a terrible storm of pleasure and further rage within him.
“Look what you did,” he’d hissed, stalking forward. “Look what you made me do! Why must you always be in the way? Are you trying to get hurt?”
Burgess had looked up at him with fear in his eyes, shaking his head. The storm stirred.
“Then why are you here?” He’d reached down and grabbed Burgess by the arm, hauling him roughly to his feet. “Get up and answer me! Why are you even here??”
“I—I hate seeing you in pain like this!”
No physical blow had ever hit Pen in such a way. The storm faltered. His iron grip slackened, and next he knew, Burgess’ arms were around him.
“I want to help you.”
They were both heavy of breath. They were both shaking. Pen found his own arms around Burgess’ form, fingers gripping into soft flesh hard enough to leave bruises.
It was so warm, where their skin pressed together through fabric. Pen wanted to press Burgess through his armor, to feel that warmth at his very core.
He wanted to devour him.
Pen’s hunger grew.
—
Your application to be my girlfriend has been rejected.
Pen looked down at the attached picture. Sharp cheeks, trim stomach, slim arms and legs. Eyes that were darkly mysterious and a smile to match them.
You’re just not my type.
—
Pen wasn’t one to give of himself to others. When one only had one’s self to rely on, it was crucial to keep as much of that self as possible. To gain as much as possible. His life was an ever active quest to acquire, to grow, to be so far away from the point of ruin that he’d never have to consider it a possibility ever again.
He did quite a lot of gaining around Burgess.
Burgess was such a giving individual. Overly so. Always stretching himself thin, with very little in the way of return. Burgess didn’t seem to view it that way, something or other about telesis, but Pen’s sharp eyes saw past such delusions. Burgess so often gave to the detriment of himself. It was a baffling mindset, and one Pen found himself taking advantage of regularly. How far would Burgess stretch himself? How much could he possibly give before there was nothing left of him?
If he gave it all to Pen, would the hunger finally subside?
Pen hated seeing Burgess give to others. That little piece of himself, broken off, sent out of Pen’s reach. It was Pen’s, it should be Pen’s. He could have killed to get it.
It crossed his mind, at times. If someone else took just a little too much of Burgess’ time, his attention, his generosity. The thought of putting his hands around their neck was at once cathartic and incensing. The more they took, the more he wanted to take back by force what should have been his.
He had it worst with the Builder. They were always coming around to bogart Burgess’ attention, stealing away his kind actions, his sweet words, his bright smile. They drew forth laughs that Pen had never been able to, received special looks and color dusting freckled cheeks. Only the Builder.
Pen wondered what they would look like as a heap of broken bones, in a puddle of their own blood, with the life slowly fading from their eyes. He wondered what it would feel like to make that happen. How one might get to that point. The Builder went out in sandstorms all the time, didn’t they? And people were lost to the sandstorms all the time. It wouldn’t be unreasonable, for some out-of-town upstart to get in over their head and just… disappear. Right?
Too risky, he had to remind himself. The consequences of getting caught weren’t worth it.
It was a reality that became harder and harder to maintain.
If only he could keep people away from Burgess. If only he could make his claim known, irrefutable, sacrosanct. He thought of branding that unblemished skin, of pressing his fingers back into that tender flesh, of bringing his lips to Burgess’ neck and sinking his teeth in hard enough to draw blood. A permanent mark of ownership, affirming Burgess as his and his alone.
It set a fire through Pen’s whole being.
The hunger was overwhelming.
—
Your application to be my girlfriend has been…
Pen’s eyes bore into the photograph. Plump in an aesthetically pleasing way, golden locks, rosy cheeks dotted with freckles. Eyes the color of the oasis. She was near perfect.
She was…
…rejected.
—
Pen had not always been a hero. He had been born in darkness, raised in darkness, dragging his way up and out, searching for light. He fought, for it was all he knew, and in time his power and ability came to grant him status. It put food in his mouth, gave him a place to lay rest. It brought him accolades, adoration. People looked to him as a symbol. He had become the light he so sought.
But when one is the source of all happiness and hope, they do not get to bask in its radiance. Pen remained in the dark.
Until he met Burgess.
Burgess was Light given physical form. He was resplendent, saintly, such that to be in his presence was both torture and salvation. His hope, his tenderness, his love—Burgess was everything that Pen was not, everything he never had a chance to be, everything that his dark soul ached for.
Pen hated him. Pen loved him.
Pen wanted to kill him. Pen wanted him.
Pen didn’t need him. Pen needed him more than anything.
The feelings tumbled endlessly within, stronger and stronger, whipping up like the winds of a tempest. The edacity was all-consuming.
The light Pen had fought his entire life to find was what finally broke him, in the end.
—
Your application to be my girlfriend has been rejected. You’re not
him
You’re not him
You’re not him
None of you will ever be
Pen crushed the paper in his hand.