Again And Again And Again And Again

Again and Again and Again and Again

Or, the reincarnation au fic that I hinted at in my other post, in which a semi-loveless aroace author attempts to write romace by projecting the way they perceive romantic love onto this BAMF demiromantic (hc) bitch who is Bad At Feelings. Additionally, while I was coming up with ideas for this, my brain just went "what if, in this au, MC is the scorned lover from the flower post?" and I kinda just ran with it. Also, I realized late into writing this that there is some great choose-your-own-ending potential here so if you liked this, keep an eye out!

Content Warnings: Gore (not too detailed), implied torture, mentions of captivity, Vere-typical implications of cannibalism, very brief and vague implications of cult activity, mentioned enslavement, death (repetitive in the reader/MC's case), brief allusion to suicidal thoughts (somewhat?) (brief description of being hung on a noose, but only in a metaphorical sense), mentioned starvation (both literal and metaphorical)

Other: Brief Undertale reference, brief Passerine (by ao3 author "blujamas") references (IFYKYK), author does not fully understand how semicolons work, probably improper use of italics, a little moment with "Oh. Oh." vibes Word Count: 3k

This work may be edited in the future if I discover any previously missed typos or content warnings. This work will not be cross-posted anywhere and I will make a direct announcement if that ever changes. Likes and reblogs are always appreciated! <3

Vere couldn't quite remember who you were the first time you met. But he didn't really care all that much, anyway. After all, whether you were a wanderer or a noble or even one of his worshipers, it didn't change the fact that the two of you crossed paths.

He didn't think much of you, at first. Just another mortal; just another meal. But for some reason---boredom, most likely---he chose to spare you a while longer, and was surprised to find your company to be even the slightest bit pleasant.

He was more surprised to find himself disappointed at your untimely death. And although he did plan on killing you at the start, it was not his hands that were stained with your blood. However, his footprints certainly were as he stepped through the puddle of your blood and over your mutilated corpse on his way to pay a visit to whoever---or whatever---did kill you.

Ultimately, your death had little impact on him. Decades passed and he barely even remembered the mildly entertaining mortal.

That is, until he encountered someone who strongly resembled you.

At first, he assumed they were just a distant relative. But as he got a closer look, he noticed something off about their soul. Something oddly familiar.

Imagine his surprise once he realized that it was yours.

For whatever reason, this person, who may or may not have been related to you, held your soul instead of having one of their own.

He was intrigued enough to linger near this familiar stranger. Without eating them, might he add.

There were several key differences between you and this... oddity, of course. Different backgrounds, different hobbies, different pet peeves... And yet, if he didn't know any better, he'd say that you two were exactly the same.

Almost as if someone had taken your corpse and hidden you away to bring you back to life. But that wouldn't make any sense at all, and he didn't bother to toy with the theory for longer than a moment.

Unfortunately, Vere didn't get to solve whatever mystery he seemed to have waltzed into. After all, one thing the two of you had shared was your mortality. This one at least spared him some time by succumbing to something more natural.

Vere left what was rest of that one behind, going on with his life. He was a bit disappointed and somewhat confused, but it still didn't affect his routine very much.

That is, until a few more decades later, when he happened upon yet another stranger with a familiar soul.

And then the cycle would repeat, over and over. Faces so different yet so strikingly similar. Personalities shaped differently by various upbringings that all shared the same color scheme. Each one being just curious and diverse enough to catch Vere's attention.

Eventually, Vere simply stopped trying to differentiate between your seemingly unending number of bodies. As far as he was concerned, as long as each one held your soul, it was still you.

Despite all else, it was still you.

And, as much as he loathed to admit it, he actually found you to be quite likeable. More than that, even.

Vere had long observed the relationships of countless mortals; the trust, the closeness, and even the way that their very souls almost seemed to weave themselves together whenever they formed a close friendship or fell in love.

He never thought he'd experience something like that. He never even thought he'd ever care if he did or didn't. He had faithful worshipers, and there was no end of pretty faces and bodies willing to spend a night with him. Why even bother with anything more?

But, once again, he was curious. Curious about why an emotion meant to be so peaceful could lead to just as many petty wars as rage did. Curious about why it was something so important to many of the most famous pieces of art. Curious about why being betrayed or heartbroken would always leave a soul marred with a particularly delectable form of suffering.

So, he tried to make you fall in love with him. It was much more difficult than he initially expected it to be. He's had countless people lust after him, sure, and he was well versed in fueling their desire. But that was something that could be lost overnight. Love, on the other hand, was not. Even when it results in you getting hurt, it takes time for the heart to lose love for someone.

He truly had no idea how to make you actually fall in love with him. On his first attempt, he only managed to become a frequent fling. But, fortunately for him, he had multiple chances.

Love. Such a small, simple word for something so incredibly confusing.

After your last death, he took some time to observe the couples he came across; watching their mannerisms and dates and conversations, scouring for an idea of how these people made things go past simple flings.

He was horrified to eventually find that one of the most important factors was vulnerability. As far as he was concerned, showing your stomach by bearing your weaknesses for someone to see was just begging to be betrayed.

By time he happened across the newest version of you, he was strongly second-guessing his sudden desire for you to fall in love with him. But something within him was practically aching for it. Something he didn't have the words to describe. The only thing he knew for certain was that he wanted it---wanted you.

And he always got what he wanted.

So, he tried again. This time, when he reintroduced himself to you, he decided to leave a faint hint at something he considered vulnerable hidden within all the flirting, innuendos, and thinly-veiled insults. Not enough to be considered consequential, but enough to entice curiosity.

It certainly wasn't something he was used to, and even just that was enough to make him feel a bit agitated. But by your second encounter, he could tell that something was different; all the usual lust-based attraction was there, but there was also a hint of something... new. Something more.

Whatever it was, it wasn't nearly enough to sate his increasingly inconvenient desires. Instead, it just seemed to add fuel to the fire.

And despite his hesitance, he repeated his actions. It was different each time: sometimes he noted a color he liked, other times a smell he disliked. Eventually, it led to him finding a few things you had in common. Other times, it led to petty, meaningless arguments.

He eventually managed to get some genuine smiles or laughs out of you. In return, you would sometimes manage to get a genuine chuckle out of him, along with a brief thrashing of his tail.

It wasn't always smooth sailing: maybe he'd take his teasing too far, or you'd just catch him on a shitty day. But soon enough, one of you would swallow your pride and apologize, and the two of you would go on as usual.

He could feel his seemingly unquenchable desire grow at a rate which scared even him, but he could tell that there was something similar growing within you, as well.

You were the first one to show true vulnerability. It caught him completely off guard: both the confession, and the way it made him feel.

Usually, Vere was the reason people needed comfort. He didn't have even half a clue of how to be comforting, or even if comfort was something you wanted or needed.

He settled on giving you some harshly-phrased but well-intended advice. And fortunately for him, it seemed to have worked.

But the way that you apparently trusted him enough to bear your stomach to him, even briefly... At first, he thought he was simply satisfied with the way his plan was coming along, but that explanation only covered a small part of it.

Your brief instance of trust made him feel like he was a starving man who had just been given a small morsel of food. It sated his hunger for a moment, but it wasn't enough to fill him. Soon enough, he was starving again.

He wondered if it was you who was starving him, or if he had simply been born hungry.

He wondered if you were starving, too; if he was the one starving you.

If the answer to that was yes, then there was a small part of him which wanted nothing more than to give you a feast, but that part of him was outweighed by the part that felt disgusted at the idea of someone having any kind of power over him.

But he knew that one of the other things he found made people fall in love was mutuality. If you were giving him food, he would have to feed you in return.

He resolved that it you tried anything, he'd just kill you.

He didn't reveal too much, but there wasn't enough vitriol in the world to accurately describe just how he felt about it. But you didn't do anything about it. You offered what he assumes was comfort or advice, but that was it.

You didn't mock him. You didn't try to use it as leverage or gain some kind of upper hand. You didn't do or say a single thing to make him feel any sort of betrayal.

It was just another hardly satisfying morsel for him.

This was the instance which made him finally question his desire for you; the bottomless pit of hunger; the endless longing; the exhilarating thought of you being able to trust him, and the terrifying thought that he could trust you.

The answer hit him like a knife to the gullet.

All this time, he was trying to get you to fall in love with him, and he didn't even consider for even a moment that he could've fallen in love with you, too---much less that he could've fallen first.

Love. Such a small, simple word for something that could inflict so much terror.

His first instinct was to run; leave the two of you starving for the sake of his own sanity. But Vere had seen and tasted the suffering that came from heartbreak and betrayal, and it pained him to imagine that burden and pain weighing on your soul.

That and, well. It would make him appear incredibly weak and cowardly to just run away like some teenager caught with a hookup. And he couldn't risk leaving such a humiliating impression on you, now, could he?

Time went on. Mutual vulnerability; slowly being less dreadful each time. No more morsels, just meals. No longer starving, just hungry.

All the questions he had about love were slowly starting to make more and more sense.

But all good things must come to an end; you were mortal, after all.

Death had never affected Vere much. At most, he was inconvenienced. But this, like everything else about you, made him feel something new.

Sure, he already knew---or was at least relatively certain---that your death wasn't permanent, that he could find you again.

Mourning, unfortunately for him, wasn't an emotion that gave a fuck about logic.

Love. Such a small, simple word for something with the potential to cause so much pain.

He didn't even question his lack of questions about going after you again. And again. And again and again and again.

The cycle was somewhat painful for him: having to wait for twenty or thirty years to pass; finding you again; trying to get you to trust him again whilst assessing if he can trust this new version of you; trying to get you to fall in love with him again while he was already smitten for you; staying with you as you died; repeat.

He couldn't tell which part of it was the worst. But as far as he was concerned, it was worth the pain every time.

Sometimes, he'd question why you: what about you made him fall so hard?

There wasn't a solid answer to that question. Or if there was, he couldn't find it. A part of him didn't care to.

It was almost funny; he was so terrified of you using him and his feelings to gain some sort of power over him. And yet, here you are, with the power to maneuver him like a puppet, yet no want or knowledge of it.

Sometimes it scares him, but he usually doesn't mind much these days.

It's a shame, then, that nothing ever lasts forever.

He tried not to recall the details of what happened that day; how he managed to lose to a group of pesky, mortal mages; their robes as white and bloodstained as the snow they stood in, towering over his limp form as they forced a collar around his neck and a harness on his chest like a broken stray.

He was dragged away and locked in a tower's dungeon. He tried to bite and snap at their prodding hands, growing more and more desperate with each attempt. And yet, he didn't even manage a nick or a flesh wound, thanks to the enchantment he soon realized coursed through the collar and harness.

It filled him with a brand new form of rage. Of fear.

Though he loathed to admit it, he felt completely and entirely helpless and paralyzed during those first few weeks.

He wondered if you worried about him. Of course you would care if he were in danger, but he was sure he had you convinced---or should he say fooled---that he was untouchable; that him being in any true danger simply wasn't possible. So, he wondered if you worried about him; about why he hadn't been home for weeks.

Did you think he was in danger? Or did you think he abandoned you?

He tried not to think of you too much. He had an escape to plan, after all. He'd just have to figure out the best way to clarify things once he made it back.

At some point, the mages began ordering him around. Nothing he wanted to do, but was forced to do so by the collar. It wasn't much: just pacing back and forth in his cell. Degrading, sure, but something he could bear if it meant gaining a chance at freedom.

Once they were satisfied,his cell door was opened. His first instinct was to lunge out, but their apparent leader---a woman wearing a mask---ordered him into docility.

Pity. He'd have to wait a while longer, then.

The masked woman hooked a leash through the loop on his collar---as if being beaten, collared, and caged like some mangy mutt wasn't humiliating enough---and ordered him to follow.

The only thing keeping his pride from falling into ruin was how the mages escorting him were still on edge, despite all their precautions.

Initially, he just tried to focus on the twists and turns and doors he was led through, attempting to make a mental map of his prison.

That is, until he was being led down a cramped, dank corridor.

The hall itself wasn't special. The thing that caught his attention was the faint scent that haunted it. The faint scent that sent a new wave a dread through him.

Your scent.

Just why, exactly, did this hallway smell of you? And why was it getting stronger as they approached a door at the end of it?

He already suspected---no. He knew the answer before one of the mages even removed the key from their pocket. He just didn't want to admit it. He so badly wanted to be wrong.

There you were, shackled to the far wall of the cramped, dimly lit cell.

Your clothing was torn in a few places. Their were bruises pretty much wherever your skin was exposed. Dried blood caked your hands and fingernails. You were trembling, both from the cold and from fear. It hadn't looked like you had anything to eat. There were heavy bags under your eyes.

If Vere didn't want every bastard in that tower to die painful deaths already, he certainly wanted that now.

The masked woman barely spared you a glance. Instead, she unhooked the leash, stepped away from the door, and uttered two words:

"Kill them."

It all happened so slowly.

The collar forced him to move before he could fully process the order. You glanced up at him, barely even having a moment to recognize him before he was on you. His claws tore through your flesh. Bones snapped. Your screams pierced the air. Your blood stained his hands. No matter how much he wanted to stop, he couldn't.

"Enough."

At last, he was able to stop. At last, he was able to see the carnage he wrought.

Somehow, you were still alive, though there would be no chance of saving you. You lied there in a puddle of your own blood, twitching and writhing in pain. You choked on whatever blood was left in your body. Tears brimmed your eyes as you looked up at him.

He could clearly see the emotions clouding your eyes---your soul. The betrayal. The heartbreak. The pain.

If you were anyone else, he would've taken great pleasure at the sight: some poor, naive fool who fell for his charms and was betrayed by his hand; soon to be a meal, body and soul.

If you were anyone else, he'd revel at the feeling of being covered in blood after a satisfying hunt and would later be annoyed by the inconvenient process of having to clean it off.

But you weren't anyone else. No matter how many lives you've gone through, you were you. You were always you.

It brought up a new feeling for him: heavy feeling of... emptiness.

He didn't bother to pay attention to the chattering of the mages as he was leashed and escorted back to his cell. He could only think of you. Of your limp soon-to-be corpse. Of your eyes. Of your soul as its shape began to change shape right in front of his eyes. Of your blood, staining his footsteps and marking his unwilling path. Of you.

The emptiness soon turned to something else. Something too cold to call rage.

The name of this new feeling didn't matter to him. All that did matter was that he was going to make sure anyone else who dared breathe in this godsforsaken tower would feel twice the anguish you had felt in the final moments of your life.

Soon.

The word repeated in his head like a prayer.

It didn't matter how much time had passed: years.

Decades.

He still held onto it when the better part of a few centuries had passed.

The cold feeling almost made him feel as if he were going insane, some days. Whenever that happened, he would indulge in someone else in order to distract himself. He usually killed his flings by the next morning, with there being a few, very rare exceptions.

There was one other thing he felt during his years of enslavement, nestled alongside the hollow, cold feeling: hope.

There were many interpretations of the concept of hope found in many different stories and poems. Some viewed it as an ethereal thing. Some viewed at as a skill.

To Vere, it was a noose hanging over a pit. It would strangle him for as long as it remained around his neck, but it would drop him to his death the moment it was cut off.

Even if living as a particularly useful pet was a special kind of pain, he could not let it kill him. While his original captors were long gone by now, the ones who took their places were hellbent on carrying the legacy. And so, his oath of vengeance applied to them in the place of the originals.

The only problem was: how to get the collar off of his neck so he could act on that oath?

Ais, the one person in the city he was willing to consider tolerable (and vice-versa), could certainly take on a few pesky little mages. And despite what others probably assumed of him, he would probably be smart enough to figure out how to work with the enchantments on the collar. Unfortunately, Vere would most likely be forced to kill him before the two of them could get very far.

Kuras might have been powerful enough to manage it, but he hated Vere as much as he hated the Senobium, and wouldn't mind seeing Vere rot away under their command; seeing as it would mean that he was dead and the Senobium was without one of their greatest assets.

Mhin was desperate to get into the damned place, sure, but there's no way they would ever agree to helping him. Not yet, at least. Maybe if he waited a while longer and they grew a bit more desperate, then he may have a chance. Although, the reluctance was very much reciprocated; perhaps he'd have to wait for himself to grow a bit more desperate as well.

And don't even get him started on that damned, flea-ridden mutt.

He was mulling over his regrettably limited options while waiting for whichever cleric had the displeasure of dealing with him that day when he spotted an outsider, looking lost as they cautiously stumbled through his alleyway.

A stranger. A very familiar stranger.

Part Two >