TW: Non-Consensual Kissing, Possessive Behavior, Mind Control, Blood Magic, Stabbing, strife gets slowly more and more (metaphorically) fucked, Unrealistic Wounds

"anything you say can and will be held against you, so only say my name; it will be held against you"

The knife digs into the soft flesh of Strife's stomach, cold, and drawing all of the air out of him. It's sharp, which goes without saying, but he can feel the rust and dried blood against his insides, and for one detached moment, he worries about getting an infection thanks to stupid, stupid, Parvis.

Then he snaps open his eyes.

Parv's grin is wide - two rows of sharp white teeth bared to the world.

"Hello, Strifey!" His tone is bouncy, jumping from syllable to syllable with no care for proper prosody. "Don't mind me, or anything. I just wanted to stab something, and you were closest."

Parv says it like his violent urges aren't a thing to be tempered, and Strife opens his mouth to protest. Parv twists the knife, and the protests dry on his tongue.

"It's fine, I promise! Parvy promise, see?"

He pulls out the dagger. Strife makes a pained sound in the back of his throat, and one of his hands weakly moves to staunch the blood flow. Parv, though, brings the blade to his own pinky finger, lightly cutting it, and grins even wider, like it's all okay.

"There we go! All better!"

It's not all better, not by a long shot. But even as Strife furrows his brow and searches for words, nothing comes out of his mouth but a dry croak. Parv tilts his head, earnest smile turning cloying in an instant.

"Oh, Strifey," he says, "Are you just lost for words?" Parv giggles, high-pitched, like it's a joke that only he knows the answer to. He brings down his free hand and presses it onto where Strife is desperately clutching his wound. It's a mockery of caring, but, more importantly, it's painful.

Hissing, Strife presses his hand in further, trying to get away from the skin-crawling parody of kindness.

Parv just laughs again, moving his hand away. Slick fingers begin to move over his skin instead, drawing patterns on the unmarked flesh further up his chest. Whether there's any rhyme or reason to them, Strife can't puzzle out - he's beginning to feel more and more dizzy, scarlet liquid seeping out of him despite his best attempts to staunch it.

"Your blood's so powerful, you know?" Parv's tone has turned conversational again, though his gaze is sharp - focused on where he's drawing lines in blood on Strife's stomach. "I don't know why. It looks exactly like mine, really! Nothing special!"

Quirking his lips in his concentration, Parv tilts his head. "But then, I guess it could be because you're kind of an alien, right?" Strife opens his mouth again, and Parv's gaze flickers up. His fingers still, blood dripping off them.

It feels like there's a fog building in Strife's brain, a dry, cotton-wool feeling sticking in his throat and blocking all his words.

Parv's expression is dark and serious. His eyes are near-black in the light. But a sly grin slides onto his face after a moment, and he leans down towards Strife's face.

"I don't think that's it, though, do you, Strifey? I mean, otherwise someone would have killed good ol' Xephos years ago!"

Somewhere, in the back of his mind, Strife thinks that the only reason someone hasn't done that already is the goddamn respawn. Parv laughs, as if he can hear what Strife's thinking. Hell, Strife wouldn't really put it past him at this point.

"Well, Xephos is all locked up in that, like, gilded cage of his. So maybe it is a weird alien thing after all. Have you ever been to Yoglabs, Strifey?"

Parv keeps staring, unblinking. Strife tries to turn his head to look away from the gaze, but Parv's hand comes up and stops his movement. Bony fingers cup Strife's chin and leave bloody marks, warm and slick.

"Don't worry," Parv coos. Strife can't tell whether he's actually concerned or just trying to be mocking. It's all so hazy right now.

"Don't worry," Parv repeats, smiling. "You've got no Yoglabs, but Parvy will keep you safe." Parv pauses. Then his grip tightens and he pulls Strife up and presses their lips together. It's something like a kiss, alright, but Parv almost seems to want to devour him - and Strife just wants to push him away.

He can't.

"You're mine," Parv whispers against Strife's teeth, before pulling back as fast as he'd arrived and going back to his drawing. The air of focus surrounds him yet again as he runs his fingers over Strife's chest in patterns that are a mystery to his foggy head.

Except... The patterns of the touch are something to focus on besides the pain in his side. Long, straight lines, with the occasional swooping curve. They're getting slowly more and more intricate - presumably as Parv runs out of space - but Strife tries his best to map them in his head. To try and clear the fog.

With every line, the shapes become a little more familiar. He cuts himself off, in the middle of wondering exactly how much blood Parv is using, when he realises.

They're runes. Strife makes a sound in the back of his throat - high like a wounded animal. It is far, far too late. The fog in his head seems to thicken with every moment he spends distracted, and it is far, far too easy to get distracted.

Parv tilts his head, just for a moment, before he grins like a knife's edge. He makes a soft shushing sound - no warmth in it except for the heat of the blood. Parv is etching magic into Strife's chest, and he's powerless to stop it.

As Parv traces another sigil out, Strife... fades, for a moment. There's no better word for it: he blinks, and it's as if the world stills for a moment, locked in calm. Then he blinks again, and Parv is suddenly in close, lips pursed for the briefest of seconds.

As soon as Strife blinks up at him, though, he grins again, unrepentant. "Back from fairyland, Strifey?" Parv's grin widens. He tuts, a cloying sort of scolding. "You'll want to stay better focused than that , won't you?"

Strife makes a soft growling sound in the back of his throat, cutting himself off half-way as a little of the fog clears. If he had enough blood left, he'd probably flush, but right now... well, he's not entirely sure of the status of his cardiovascular system.

Parv's expression doesn't change from the shark-tooth grin.

"We're going to go on a little adventure, Strifey! Not a Parventure, though, it's not really grand enough for that. But I don't really think you're up to a Parventure, are you?"

No, not really, a detached part of his mind agrees.

"C'mon, up you get!" Parv slips off the bed in one lithe movement as Strife just... stares. He's too heavy to bring himself to move.

After one long moment of silence, Parv sighs dramatically. "Fine, I have to do all the work, like always." Strife blinks, and Parv is by his side, guiding him up with oddly gentle touches. He stumbles when he finally stands, and Parv holds him up.

Parv's hand is warm against the skin of his back. He's pushed forward, almost tripping out of the bedroom, and he makes a soft sound as the movement pulls at his wound. Parv clicks his tongue, the sound disapproving, and Strife shuts his mouth.

Instead of trying to speak, Strife lets his head tip down. He can just make out the distinct lines of the runes painted on his skin. As he slowly takes one step forward, then another, he tries to categorise them in his head. It won't do him any good, but it's something to keep him from clouding over completely.

Instinct, binding, obeisance, silence. Words written in the language of blood, that even on his best of days (which this, most decidedly, is not) he remembers very few of. There's are more sigils that he can't name, too, and a smudge of blood where one was wiped away.

The words are worrying. Or, at least, they would be worrying. But Parv's hand is pressing heavier on his back, steering him up to the blood altar, and Strife feels his thoughts drop out from underneath him.

He stares into the scarlet pool. With every soft murmur that emanates from it, Strife feels like it's thrumming against his skin - as if it's seeping into him. He sways, but he grips onto the edges of the basin, without Parv having to do anything.

Which is good, because-- "Shit." Parv's hand leaves his back in an instant. Strife makes a soft sound, turning his head to try and see what he's swearing at.

He hears Parv laugh, but almost nervously. "Don't you worry, Strifey. Just stand there while I go and get what I need."

Strife bobs his head in affirmation, and he hears Parv laugh with more surety. It stings at something in his head, but it's so very hard to string one thought to another.

The blood in the altar swirls and swirls. It looks almost like a whirlpool, and, somehow, he can tell that it's hungry. Strife pauses to think for a long, long moment. Then he lets himself fall to his knees, and presses his wound to the edge of the cool stone.

It hurts, but it also feels good - the altar accepting the few trickles of blood that still, however improbably, escape the wound.

He stays like that for long moments that seem to stretch on for an eternity-- and then Parv is there, standing opposite him, with a smile on his face that seems almost surprised.

"Aren't you good, Strifey." The praise makes something shiver in Strife - the same part that feels the thrum of the blood altar more acutely than his own heartbeat. "What did I ever do to luck out with you?"

Parv takes one moment longer to stare at him, before shaking himself out of whatever fugue he'd gotten into. He raises a battered leather book up. "Found it!"

Strife doesn't try to ask what 'it' is. The curiosity flickers and dies in his head. And when Parv motions for him to turn around, he does so unthinkingly. The basin is cool against his back as he leans against it, waiting for Parv to stand in front of him and do whatever he will do.

Without ceremony, Parv begins drawing again. The thrumming in Strife's chest seems to increase tenfold with every stroke, this time. More runes - as if there were any doubt about that. Strife finds himself shaking slightly to the thrum-beat of his heart.

Parv smiles, even when Strife trembles more. His movements become smaller and more precise every time, until eventually, after countless minutes, Parv is finished.

Strife's head lolls backwards slightly. He suddenly feels so tired.

"Just in time," he hears Parvis murmur, before pulling out a blank slate from a pocket in his jeans. He touches it to Strife's chest for a moment, before pulling it back. In the brief second that Strife can glance at it, he sees that there's no blood left over at all.

Further attempts at thoughts cut themself off when Parv speaks again, this time at a more regular volume. "Well, we'd best be getting back to sleep, Strifey. Plenty of rest for the wicked, so the saying should go."

Strife hums in assent. But he's too tired to move. Maybe Parv won't mind him just... shutting his eyes here.

(In his dreams, everything is warm, and dark, and tastes of iron, until a crimson blanket pulls itself over him and it all goes dark.)

When he wakes, there's a fresh scar on his stomach. He doesn't remember how he got it, or why his chest feels heavy, and tingling. Parvis has a healing cut on his pinky - and a giant smile on his face as Strife walks out of the bedroom with rumpled clothing on.

There's a book left out, blood-stained, by the altar. Strife picks it up, and can't help glancing over it. If a book's caught Parv's interest, after all... "Ritual of the Thrall," it reads, and Strife sighs. Just another blood magic book. Nothing special.

A flicker of unease crosses his mind, but it's squashed before he even notices it.

"Parvis," he barks, "Will you please clean up after yourself?"

Credit to screechfox on Ao3