Posted originally on the Archive_of_Our_Own at https://archiveofourown.org/ works/6796255. Rating: Explicit Archive Warning: Rape/Non-Con, Underage Category: M/M Fandom: DRAMAtical_Murder_(Visual_Novel), DRAMAtical_Murder_-_All_Media_Types Relationship: Trip/Virus_(DRAMAtical_Murder) Character: Virus_(DRAMAtical_Murder), Trip_(DRAMAtical_Murder) Additional Tags: drug_references, Asphyxiation, First_Time Stats: Published: 2016-05-09 Words: 3465 ****** what rough beast, its hour come round at last ****** by PikaCheeka Summary The pain he'd feared Trip would inflict on him when they'd first met all those years ago has finally come to pass. -- Trip with his brutal hands and wide shoulders and bulky jaw all yet to be grown into, his sullen, sunken eyes that might be stupid were it not for the primal gleam of ruthless knowing that only Virus could see. He remembers fragments of a poem he’d read years ago, one he had shown to Trip, who it seemed the poem had been written for, who listened attentively and mulled over it for several minutes before shrugging and asking when they could eat again. What fell beast, what ponderous beast…he sighs. Ironic how he can remember the image, the reaction, but not the words. The center cannot hold. The poet had an inability to recognize the perfection in chaos, slouching towards the end of time. Trip would remember. ...He can feel those hands on him again and arches his back an inch or two off the mattress. Sheets sticking to the dried blood on his backside, he can feel those eyes on him again. Notes This fic has explicit depictions and references to rape, underage sex (Trip's the perpetrator here but he is only fourteen), past child abuse, drugs, asphyxiation, vomiting, etc... Because this is in the perspective of Virus, most of these things are not portrayed in a way that a healthy, decent person should see them. Just be aware of that when reading!  The first thing he does when he blinks the sleep from his eyes only to find the sun in his face is reach for a cigarette, shaking fingers clawing at the nightstand as he searches for a lighter. He knows he isn’t ready to think and doesn’t remember why, but the dread is a raw taste in his mouth as he lights up and draws his first trembling breath. It’s an unfiltered day. He can see the bruises on his wrist, feel the strained muscles of his neck protest when he deeply inhales, run his tongue over the cuts on his lips. He needs to sit up, stand, piss and clean up, but as he takes a second drag he can feel the dull ache in his backside, a throbbing pain growing with startling crescendo as he becomes fully awake. Trip. He’d always known this day would come eventually, when he’d awaken and the world would have irrevocably shifted, settled one tick closer to the end, to the way things were always meant to be. And he supposes he’d always known it might happen the way it did, but that doesn’t make him more prepared to think about it. He lays still for several minutes, chaining another cigarette, and then a third, inhaling in what must seem like a mad rush towards death. He finds himself smirking. One tick closer to the end of the world. Because last night, Trip fucked him. He knows there is a word for what happened, knows anyone else in his position would use it, but no one else is him and no one else knows Trip as he does. He isn’t interested in using that word, even if last night there was no consent. He sighs, rolls the fourth cigarette between his fingers, and wonders if there is still skin and blood beneath his fingernails. He feels filthy, and the pain in his backside has grown unbearable. Virus’ eyes close then, slowly, deliberately, as he remembers, savors the visceral horror that unveils itself as he peels the sides of his skull open and scrapes the surface of the memory. He ignores the heat in his belly and takes another drag. Trip finally fucked him, finally threw him down and pulled his thighs apart and forced himself on him, in him, ignored his screams and protests and rutted in him until they both climaxed. He’d been brutal, relentless, forcing him by any means his virgin fourteen-year-old mind could think of to come, not once or twice but three times before Virus had finally blacked out. Virus snorts then, coughing instead of laughing as he inhales wrong. Trip. He’d just been dominated by a kid, one who merely happens to be larger than him. But he knows better, because despite the gulf in age between them, he’d given his life up to the violence in those once-green eyes seven long years ago. Trip had always been this, a dull, vicious, brooding savagery looking over him, making him feel safe while simultaneously threatening the very core of his being. Because he knew he was not Virus without Trip, and he knew this was inevitable. One tick closer to the end of the world. Trip with his brutal hands and wide shoulders and bulky jaw all yet to be grown into, his sullen, sunken eyes that might be stupid were it not for the primal gleam of ruthless knowing that only Virus could see. He remembers fragments of a poem he’d read years ago, one he had shown to Trip, who it seemed the poem had been written for, who listened attentively and mulled over it for several minutes before shrugging and asking when they could eat again. What fell beast, what ponderous beast…he sighs. Ironic how he can remember the image, the reaction, but not the words. The center cannot hold. The poet had an inability to recognize the perfection in chaos, slouching towards the end of time. Trip would remember. Trip. He can feel those hands on him again and arches his back an inch or two off the mattress. Sheets sticking to the dried blood on his backside, he can feel those eyes on him again. It had started with a kiss. Virus sitting on his bed reading while Trip lounged beside him, lazily swiping through his emails. It wasn’t unusual for him to spend evenings in Virus’ room, and the older man had thought nothing of it. Not even when Trip had suddenly turned his Coil off and thrown it to the floor, leaned over and kissed him on the cheek. It had startled him a moment, but he’d ignored it and continued reading. The Master & Margarita, an infuriating read that made little sense with such constant interruptions. No, not unusual, merely unexpected, well over a week since they’d last done any such thing. But Trip had only stared at him over the top of the page, eyes unreadable and ponderous as he studied Virus before he suddenly knocked the book from his hands and kissed him on the mouth this time. Virus has sighed, caught his forearms and held him still. Even then though, feeling the muscles quivering under his fingers, he hadn’t thought anything was different. Not quite even when Trip had pushed him bodily back onto the bed and kissed him a third time, shoving his tongue into him and licking the roof of his mouth. He wasn’t good at it, sloppy and eager, but there was something unnervingly deliberate about him that night, as it slowly dawned on Virus. Lips running down his jaw and neck as Trip nuzzled and nipped at his throat. Virus had moaned then, forgetting himself a moment as he felt the heat and the weight of Trip on him, warm and solid, a force bearing down. And then he’d pushed him back, arranged his glasses, sighed a not-now-Trip as he’d done so often before. But unlike so often before, he was met with a silence so powerful he could feel it enclosing him, and that was when he fully understood. Virus remembers Trip’s eyes in that moment of dawning realization and smiles faintly. What rough beast, its hour come round at last.That was it. The slouching lion, moving the world one tick closer. Because when he had met Trip’s eyes last night in that moment, he’d known that something had irrevocably shifted between them. Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world. He would not be deterred, would not be refused. He’d grabbed Virus’ wrists in a single hand and pinned him down as he kissed him long and slow, rubbed his clothed erection over him. Virus had kicked at him, snarled and bit and struggled to free his arms, but Trip was horrifically strong and large for his age, and had been immoveable. Virus shudders and chains yet another cigarette without finishing one, runs his hand slowly over his belly and brings it to rest just at the top of his pubic hair. His skin is sticky, itchy, but he makes no move to scratch. The center cannot hold. Trip fucked him last night and the world is tilting closer to madness and the thought brings heat to his groin. He rolls the memory of that dawning horror that he’d felt last night in his mind, savoring every corner. He is ready to think about it now, he supposes. It. Not the sex itself, but that feeling he’d had during it. He’d never been that aroused in his life, knowing no matter how hard he fought and how much he begged, Trip wouldn’t back down, and his vicious ruthlessness, the way he touched him that bordered on a violent reverence, the heat and strength and smell of him, had all been too much for Virus. He’d realized then, as Trip tore his pants down and began to fondle him, that he wanted to be consumed by him, and it at once terrified and aroused him. He hadn’t been in the mood. He’d been afraid of the pain he was sure would follow, an uncomfortable reminder of when they’d first met and he’d been uncertain if Trip would hit him. He hadn’t back then though, hadn’t hit him the next seven years. But last night, things had shifted. Last night, he had. Not only hit him, but choked him and bit him and fucked him again and again, had shoved his way into him with no lube and no more preparation than the mere knowledge that it was about to happen. The pain had been searing, exquisite, as if it had festered in the air between them all those years before finally coming to fruition, and was now making up for lost time with a vengeance. It might have been unbearable, but it had come from Trip. He shudders at the memory, arches his back and creeps his fingers still lower. For so much of his life, that momentary fear of Trip harming him had lingered. Now it had come, had passed, and Virus found himself hopelessly excited by it. There’d been people before him, but none of them had made him feel this way. They’d simply been irritating, tedious events he tolerated and shed like a second skin in the shower afterwards. The Yakuza who had lured him with cash and refused to even pay him afterwards. The Rhymer who got him drunk the first week he was free. A group of kids at the institute who found out that Virus would do what he had to in order to survive. And finally, two doctors there, one of whom had threatened to do things to Trip if Virus didn’t obey him. And he’d obeyed, done everything that was asked of him and more, and had watched Trip sleep that night and told himself that he hadn’t done it to protect him, that he’d only done it because Trip was hisand he’d be the one to first do those things to him. Ironic how things ended up. He’d been right, but he’d still been the one to be fucked against his will. Virus is no stranger to this kind of violation, but when it came to Trip, he could tolerate it, even embrace it. He’d never been so aroused before. Everywhere the ceremony of innocence is drowned. He wonders absently if this should bother him, if it’s a sign that something is wrong, but the feeling is so fleeting he forgets it within seconds. Nobody knows Trip as he does, after all. Nobody deserves Trip as he does. He remembers the look Trip had given him in the moment when he had first shoved into him, fingers digging into his thighs as he bent him nearly double and leaned over, forehead to forehead, and simply stared, a gaze blank and pitiless as the sun. He remembers hearing his own voice screaming in pain, hoarse and broken and detached from himself, as those vibrant blue eyes bore into him. He remembers the way Trip had then run a hand down his ass and pulled it away, red and wet with blood, and absently licked it, never breaking his gaze, never even blinking. And he remembers when Trip first began his assault. Slow thighs moving as he slid out nearly all the way, the pace torturous in its unseemly delicacy as Trip adjusted to the tightness. It hadn’t taken him long. He’d been relieved when he’d finally come, believing for the barest of moments that it was over, that Trip would lose interest. But Trip hadn’t. He’d only laughed, wiped the come from his belly and smeared it over Virus’ face as he lay gasping for air, and said he wasn’t finished yet. It dawned on him then that Trip had taken something to prepare for this, that it had all been carefully planned and only masked as a spontaneous act. Because even though Trip had come only moments before, he left his body still hard and threw Virus onto his stomach and thrust into him all over again, the sound of skin on blood-slicked skin ringing in the older man’s ears. The second time had been even worse, somehow, the possibility of Trip being drugged and ready to go all night amplifying the fear to something unprecedented. He’d begged Trip by the end, something he’d never imagined he’d do, something he’d never done before in all the times he’d been assaulted, but Trip brought that out in him, had dragged that terrifying vulnerability out from the deep recesses of his being. It was a side he could only ever show to him, a side that only existed for him. He touches his partially-erect cock finally, running a finger slowly up the underside. He wonders if Trip knows this, knows how he now carries a part of Virus in himself that is his alone and will forever be so. Virus had finally passed out after he’d come for the third time, when Trip has resorted to choking him to make him orgasm, the pain and exertion and fear too much for him to bear any longer. Trip had still been thrusting into him, a mindlessly brutal force that made its way into him even as he slipped into unconsciousness. At this memory, he drops the cigarette into the ash tray on the nightstand without lighting another to better focus on his body. Run fingers over his bruised throat – he’d felt Trip’s fingers shaking as he’d choked him. His nipples, one scabbed over where Trip had bitten him. And his stomach, filthy with dried fluids. He hisses in pain, his skin still uncomfortably hot and sensitive as he wraps his left hand tightly around himself. Yes, he is finally ready to embrace it. At that moment, there is a jarring crash, and Trip stands in the doorway with a box from the pastry shop down the street and an idiot grin on his face. Virus is too stunned to even swear. “Good morning, lazy.” He doesn’t finish whatever insult he had in mind though, and Virus takes the pause to hastily let go of himself and pull his arms out from beneath the covers. It’s just in time, because Trip immediately throws himself on the bed, missing Virus by mere centimeters, landing his ass on the pillows before rearranging himself, shoving his legs under the covers and leaning against the headboard with a sigh as he studies the pastry box in his hand. Virus sits up quickly, flinching at the pain in his backside but otherwise ignoring it as he carefully slides backwards until his hip touches Trip’s. He pulls the sheets with him though, unwilling to look at the streaks of blood and come covering his stomach and thighs just yet. He’s also still aroused, and doesn’t want to give Trip any ideas while he’s holding food. The first thing Virus notices is that Trip himself is clean. He’d showered at some point after what happened last night, even managed to brush his hair into some semblance of order and put on clean pants, though the sweatshirt is the same as the one he’d ripped off halfway through their first fuck last night before it had gotten too dirty. It isn’t a big deal, but it’s different, a sign of maturity and responsibility that until now he’d scarcely showed any hints of, as if Trip had grown up overnight. Surely some revelation is at hand.Perhaps he has. Trip’s next word is unexpected. “Sorry.” Virus’ stomach lurches. This is not what he wants of Trip. This is not how he was supposed to behave after doing what he had done last night, after he had just moved the world closer to the way it was meant to be, as bloody and horrific as it had been. He doesn’t sound particularly genuine, but the fact that he’s even saying it nauseates him. “What for?” He sounds small to himself, as if the mere prospect of Trip actually feeling regret somehow diminishes who Virus is. “I already bit all six doughnuts,” he tilts the box forward as he speaks, showing Virus. It’s true. The fear evaporates as if it had never been there. So that’s all it was. He should have known, should never have doubted him. His voice returns to one he can recognize as he replies, “I don’t want one anyway.” He shrugs, leaning his head back and dropping the remainder of a doughnut in his mouth. Chewing with his mouth open, he asks, “Were you jerking off?” There’s no point in lying. “Yea.” “You can finish,” he smiles amicably, managing to bare all of his teeth before shoving another doughnut in his mouth. “I’d go with you but I’m a little uncomfortable there.” So the blood on the sheets isn’t his all own. That’s satisfying, Virus supposes, but he doesn’t want to ask about it. He’ll find out what he means eventually. “It’s okay.” Trip shrugs again, rearranges himself so that he’s right up against the older man, and keeps eating. He wrinkles his nose a few times, as if only now noticing that the room smells of smoke, but says nothing about it. Virus realizes he’s wearing not only his outdoor clothes, but his shoes under the covers, which is vulgar and typical of him, but these sheets will have to be washed anyway. He says nothing, leans his head on Trip’s shoulder after a tentative moment and breathes deeply. Even after a shower, he still smells like raw sex and violence, fear and power. It sends a thrill down Virus’ spine and he wonders absently if he can finish jerking off without Trip noticing. They remain this way for nearly ten minutes before he finally breaks the silence. “Do you remember a poem…I showed it to you a couple of years ago. About the end of the world. There was a sphinx in it.” “The Second Coming. Yeats.” Trip replies immediately. “The best lack all conviction, while the worst Are full of passionate intensity.” He can’t help the corners of his mouth turning up. It’s an odd line coming from him, as he suspects Trip remembers the entire thing and had chosen it for reasons known only to himself. His memory for useless information has always been extraordinary despite the fact that he regularly leaves stores without paying because he simply forgets you are supposed to do that. He’d always liked poetry, readily absorbing whatever nonsense Virus read to him back at the institute. “I knew you’d remember.” “Ya….” His voice lilts. “Why?” “No reason,” Virus answers just as quickly. “Okay.” Trip accepts everything he says so easily that it sometimes unnerves him. “What time is it?” He licks frosting from his fingers carefully and drops the now-empty box on the floor before speaking, answering the unspoken question while ignoring the one asked. “I called Toue and said we aren’t working today.” For the second time that morning, Virus is mildly impressed that Trip is taking initiative, being responsible, even if it’s only to call out of work. Trip’s hour come round at last. He wonders absently how much of this is because of himself, but pushes the thought from his mind just as quickly. “What’d you tell him?” “Said you hurt your back.” “That’s not suspicious at all.” Maybe not so impressed.He sighs, “And he accepted that reason for both of us?” “I’m sick. Just ate six doughnuts. I’ll hafta throw up soon.” “You know you could have just told him you were sick without making yourself sick.” Trip grins, “Not why I ate ‘em.” With anyone else, Virus might have assumed they wanted him to ask why, but he knows Trip will offer exactly as much information as he wants to give, whether that information is desired or not, so he says nothing and merely sinks further under the covers. He hopes Trip doesn’t actually get sick, or at least if he does, he’ll be quiet about it. He glances up at him warily, and realizes that Trip looks as if he is thinking deeply about something, jutting his lower jaw forward in what could almost be a pout. He hasn’t grown fully into his face yet. Better not be thinking about getting sick. He decides he should give him something else to think about. And so he speaks without considering his words, though the moment they spill from his mouth, he knows he is genuine. “You can sleep in my bed again tonight.” One tick closer to the end of the world, settling around him. Trip looks mildly surprised at this. “Really? You—“ Virus pulls him down over him and silences his mouth with his own. Their hour has come at last.   Please drop_by_the_archive_and_comment to let the author know if you enjoyed their work!