Work Text:
1997
Raised among shadows that pursued him from the kitchen to the bedroom, with angels whose eyes shed blood and asked his mother for his body as a sacrifice to allow him passage to paradise, sharing a bed with the man with rotten skin and feet that harbored worms, and being watched by the pack of wolves outside his house who wanted to take him with them to their cave to rape and dismember him. Obi-Wan was always afraid.
The walls of his house had never had pictures of his face or his mother's hanging on them, he never saw himself reflected in a framed photo, there were few times when he allowed himself to appreciate himself in an instantaneous memory. It was his mother's obsessions that hung on the walls. Multiple pictures of men adorned the home, young and old, blond, pale, brown-haired, sick, disabled, men of color, with good teeth or bad teeth, with moles on their necks or faces, tall, short. Different physical appearances, but the same profession. Murderers.
He didn't understand what excited his mother about having the face of a woman's disemboweler in her bedroom, collecting newspapers that talked about them, or sitting for two hours repeating the same interview with her new obsession, which seemed to change every day. He didn't understand where the pleasure was in lying in your bed and having the cold, dead eyes of a man staring at you, who, if he were breathing, would leave you devastated.
Until the new painting arrived at home.
He used to stay home on the days his mother decided to go out and visit the fairs organized by the municipality in the central square. He had been to one, and couldn't bear to run into his high school classmates numerous times.
Obi-Wan, holding hands with his mother, who was carrying a box full of antiques that an elderly couple was selling at a very cheap price, didn't want to be seen in such an embarrassing situation.
So he stayed home, peeking out the windows when the clock struck two in the afternoon.
Because at two in the afternoon was when the wolves crossed the forest until they reached the entrance to the house. There were several of them, a whole pack, with beautiful fur, and they howled, howled until Obi-Wan put an end to it by moving away from the window and returning to the living room. He had the same dream over and over again.
The wolves, wild and impatient because he wouldn't let himself be carried away, managed to break the windows and get inside. Their sharp fangs dug into the flesh of his arms, and they bit and bit, and it hurt him, because even in a dream, he felt them tearing his limbs apart, blood splattering his face and most of it entering his mouth, staining his teeth and tongue.
When the wolves left, around three o'clock, the upstairs began to make noise. Obi-Wan knew he shouldn't go up, and if he did, he would see the tall man who lived in that part of the house for an hour. He was tall, so tall that his head hit the ceiling and he had to bend over to fit and walk down the hallway from one side to the other. His feet were big, because with every step, the house shook, and something in the attic sang, crying for help.
"Ben?" His mother had returned. He could hear her insert the key and ask for him, and he came out from behind the television. It was the place that kept him safe if the giant man decided to come down to where he was. But the hours had passed, and he was not alone.
When he greeted her with a tender kiss on the cheek and she returned it, he looked down at what he had gotten at the fair. The smile faded, replaced by an expression of discontent.
"What is that?"
In front of him was a painting.
It was different from the ones he had grown accustomed to seeing every morning. It was a man, not pale like his mother was fascinated by, but rather dark, as if he had been in the sun for a long time, perhaps his whole life. His hair was an enigma, it seemed to have curls, but then again, it didn't, and it was a very dark shade, unlike his eyes, which Obi-Wan, deep down, compared to his own. He was handsome.
But it wasn't his appearance that disturbed him. It was the way he had been painted.
The paintings his mother had bought before this one were highly detailed; you could see how much time the painter had devoted to their creation. They were all by different painters, yet they all seemed to fail in the same way. The gaze.
The eyes always looked hollow, emotionless. Obi-Wan thought it was because that's how murderers looked in real photos, but he dismissed that idea when, under pressure from his mother, he was forced to make eye contact with Ted Bundy. They weren't empty eyes; they were eyes that wanted to convey fear, discomfort. And they succeeded, not just him, but all of them decorating his wall.
The new painting was different, in a bad way, and that made him take a step back.
Because when he looked at it, something inside him told him that it wasn't right, that the painting was cursed, and that he had to throw it away, even burn it.
His eyes scared him.
He dreamed of being its victim, feeling its hands—they weren't visible in the painting, but Obi-Wan imagined they were large—touching his stomach, rubbing his lower belly, how he would look lying in his own blood, the beating of his exposed heart and the shower of kisses his guts would receive. He would consider that an act of love, or simple morbid curiosity.
He began to hate him.
He began to hate him for how his mother could stand in front of the painting for minutes, muttering nonsense that Obi-Wan, much to his embarrassment, could hear. Why, why couldn't he be his only prey? Why did his mother also want to be devoured, savored, and mutilated by the attractive dead man who now prowled around their home?
The days seemed to pass and his obsession increased. He found himself lying on his back in bed, wondering, asking himself if the killer, alive, could develop an attraction to him, if he would put his hands around his neck, how hard he would kill him, and if at some point in the process he would stop to kiss him, to bite his lips, lick his eyelids, and rip out his nails with his own teeth. He wanted to know if he was tall, how strong his muscles would feel when he touched them with his palms, and if, when he ran his tongue over his neck, it would taste wrong.
At night, his mother's piano was occupied by the devil, the cockroaches hiding in the kitchen flew into his bedroom and entered his mouth while he slept, yellow claws scratched the headboard of his bed, and a whistle echoed throughout the house.
One afternoon, he decided to call Quinlan.
Quinlan was his best friend. He lived in Manchester with his strange girlfriend, who Obi-Wan had seen only a few times. He didn't really know much about him; he didn't say much. If he asked him questions, he would only give him a brief yes, no, or I don't know, and then ask how his mother was, if she was still hallucinating, and if he was okay staying there, or if he needed to escape and go with him.
"The house is haunted."
"Wasn't that obvious?"
He heard the sound of the television on and the tip of a pencil tapping against the table on the other side. Quinlan must have been trying to studying.
"It's different now," he replied. "It's not just Mom, it's... it's me, and that terrifies me, Quin."
He may have spent the last few days touching himself like a pervert who knew the power of masturbation, thinking about rotten flesh and bones, but he was scared.
He always had been, surrounded by his mother's sick obsessions. But this was different. He was afraid because he was becoming her.
"She brought a new painting," he explained, gripping the phone tighter, his eyes following the fierce movement of the clock hands visible from the kitchen. "And I'm scared, I'm really scared. It's not the painting that scares me, it's nothing like that, it's just that..."
A sigh.
"I don't want to be her."
"She's crazy."
"What?"
"She's crazy." He heard his angry footsteps and his girlfriend’s voice asking what was wrong, if he was talking to his stupid friend and if he needed anything, but he ignored her. The pencil fell to the floor. "I don't understand why you don't come here. We have a spare room and plenty of space, Obes. You're in danger with that lunatic. You have to listen to me."
"I won't leave Mom alone," he interrupted him. "I mean, I have a life here, okay? I'm studying, and I'm happy here. I like living here, and I love Mom."
"She's driving you crazy, just like her. Why can't you see that? You have to leave."
Anger rose in his hands, spreading to his arms, chest, stomach, until it consumed his entire body. His face turned red, and his eyebrows knitted together in anger.
Suddenly he wanted to yell at Quinlan, tell him he was wrong, that he wasn't crazy, that he was just having a very minor episode of madness, that he wouldn't end up like his mother, and that he was to blame for everything that had happened since he moved in. He wanted to find someone to blame, so why not Quinlan, who listened to him and didn't look him in the eye, but could feel his fury through a simple object like the phone?
A voice he didn't recognize as his own, deep and distorted, came out of his mouth. He was yelling at Quinlan.
At night, on tiptoe and in silence, he took the painting off the wall and ran to his bedroom.
He made sure to lock the door as he entered, without turning on the lights.
He wanted to really feel it. The horror.
He placed the painting on the bed and carefully climbed onto it himself. The mattress creaked more than it should have, as if someone else were joining him.
A small smile graced his face as his fingers traced the man's cheekbones, traveling toward his long, beautiful eyelashes, and then falling onto his mouth. He imagined his lips colliding with his, sealing a union between two destined bodies, their coldness and how they would move, whether he would bite or lick, or both. He closed his eyes, removing his hands from the texture of the dry paint, and barely touched the slight bulge that was beginning to bother him in his underwear.
He couldn't control himself. It was as if someone else was controlling him. He wasn't afraid.
It wasn't him. Or maybe it was.
He thought about being on top of him, feeling the hardness of his body, hearing his voice, the way he would moan and arch his back when he felt the hard touch of huge hands searching for any area to squeeze, squeezing his neck until it exploded, until he himself burst and every piece of him shot out in all directions, his blood landing on his face, and he, pleased, would drink it like wine, and in his mouth, after kissing him countless times, he would want to taste his warm organs, bite them, tear him apart, piece by piece, swallowing and running his tongue over every pool of blood that would form around his dead body.
He didn't notice when the painting flew towards the wall, remaining suspended in the air, nor when an invisible force held him against the bed, making him levitate a few inches above the blankets.
He didn't care. He wasn't going to scream. He had been longing for this.
A ghostly touch, but firm enough to let him know it was real, pierced his ribs, navigating inside him, causing a tickling sensation that he expressed with small moans. His legs spread without effort, and his toes curled when his cock was pressed against another, much larger hardness. And he moaned.
He moaned loudly, opening his mouth wide, his eyes tightly closed and his cheeks flushed, not thinking about his mother, asleep on the other side.
He actually wanted her to hear it. He wanted her to hear how her new obsession fucked her son.
"Can't you go faster?" he whispered with slight annoyance, opening his eyes a little. Sleepy, dimly lit eyes stared back at him, his skin rotten compared to the smooth complexion he had in the painting, his hair tangled and dirty, perhaps greasy, and he loomed over Obi-Wan like a wolf over a deer.
The wolves that were coming to get him at his house.
He noticed his lips, cracked and dry, colorless, and his hand automatically went to the back of his neck. He was cold. Ice cold.
He was touching death. He could smell death. And he was fascinated by it.
He wanted to know his name, he wanted to know everything, and at the same time he also wanted to speed things up, because his excitement was growing and he just wanted to be touched madly by that decomposed body that seemed to be as in love as he was.
It was a biblical night when his blankets were the flames of hell, sheltering and protecting him while his new owner possessed him in every different way. His body bent in unreal ways, and a repetitive song came from his lips that lasted until dawn, his thighs dripped, his forehead sweated, and his whole body was jelly, a dessert made to be destroyed.
All he could say was Anakin, over and over again.
At times his hands touched his back, his chest, at others, only nothingness itself.
His cock, abandoned in the act of pleasure, throbbed with pain at being neglected, while he was filled to the point of cramping his toes.
He held onto the headboard, screaming and wanting to scratch the wood, his body burning because he was on fire and trapped in the devil's trap, and he didn't want to leave, he wanted to stay until his body was turned into something that no one could find a shape or explanation for.
He wanted to merge with Anakin, to be one with him and never leave him, to touch his lifeless heart and feel the texture of his rotten skin.
He collapsed when something hot exploded inside him, the bed shook violently, the picture fell to the floor, and he was lying on the mattress again, surrounded by warm blankets.
A whisper passed through his ears, and a strong grip settled on his cock, an invisible hand pulled back his foreskin, exposing his glans, three sharp tugs were enough to make him come, and a sharp blow to his forehead made him see it, standing in front of him, a tall, dark, hunched figure.
That morning, all that could be seen was an empty bed, with a foul smell and burnt blankets.