Big Book of Hatsome One Shots

Shattered (N)

TW: UMY, brief sexual mentions?

He had spent a long time watching humans. When the church was new and his brothers and sisters were still with him, they would watch together in fascination. The humans then respected them, had created them for a purpose and the gargoyle felt a certain amount of kinship with them, despite their strange customs.

Then the centuries wore on. His siblings decayed and crumbled, helped along during the day by prying hands and grasping fingers, and soon he was the only one left. He retreated into the eaves and watched, alone for decades more. The remnants of his kin stood stark around him during the night, silent reminders of the life he used to enjoy.

The descent to hatred was slow. He found himself tormenting the few humans that strayed in, making noises and rustling around in the shadows. He wasn't malicious, but fae morality has always been suspect and the church was his lifeblood. The ones who thought themselves adventurous or with particularly morbid streaks would come looking for ghosts or to impress their goth girlfriend or boyfriend. They would fuck in the pews and with them he was less subtle, growling and dragging his claws through the pocked stone, making it screech and spark.

The kelpie was unexpected. He looked human, tall and ginger, but the stench of seaweed and brine rolled off him, and the fae tended to know one another no matter what glamour was in place. He hid away, warily observing this intruder into his domain.

But the kelpie kept coming back. Night after night he returned, driving his car soaked in the scent of blood and despair. He never harmed anything, just wandering through, cigarette hanging lazily in his lips.

The selkie appeared after a few weeks of nightly visits. Their intimacy was almost shameful, but he watched them with silent fascination, the moans and gasps filling the rafters with noise for the time in years. He felt no drive to chase them out as he had countless human couples. On their way out the door, the kelpie blew a kiss and a wink towards the rafter where he was perched. He sat there for the rest of the night, the stench of sex strong in the air, lost in thought.

They came more and more often. Mostly it was just the kelpie, whose name, he discovered, was Smith, but the selkie came often enough. He called himself Trott and the gargoyle learned piecemeal about their lives. Smith liked to talk aloud, holding conversations with the bats and spiders and him. When Trott accompanied Smith they would talk about their trysts, the men Smith had strangled in the backseat, the girls Trott had seduced. Some nights they fucked, always slow and sensual, and the gargoyle felt an unaccustomed ache as he watched them.

He crept closer and closer each night, staying in the shadows still but now in the choir balcony, now in the arches at the side of the room, now hiding behind the baptismal altar. And then, one night, he was standing right beside Smith, breathing in the smell of salt water and something darker, heavier, sickly sweet and purely primal.

Smith didn't say a word, uncharacteristically silent. He just inclined his ginger head at him, and the urges that had been suppressing for months overcame him. They kissed, and it was urgent, harried, not in the least romantic or sweet. Stony lips were pried open with an insistent tongue, the salty taste overwhelming, blocking out any other sensation he had ever experienced. Hands roamed under leather jacket and tight fitting shirt, brushed over the jean clad ass, felt every bit of skin they could find. Smith returned each grope with matching enthusiasm, cold hands caressing defined muscles, tracing abs appreciatively, rubbing surprisingly gently along the crease of folded wings.

For the first time he felt some embarrassment at his lack of clothing, his arousal obvious and unavoidable. Smith chuckled throatily, "Eager mate?" He hands traced ice-cold lines downward, and he shivered, delighted and horrified. "What do we call you then?" Smith asked, voice husky. Those chilled hand finally reached where he had been imagining them for weeks. He shrugged, lost in pleasure. "No name." His voice was rough, unused for decades. Smith nodded, and those hands never stopped moving, and then there was no use for words, names or otherwise.
After, when Smith was lazily smoking a cigarette, clothes back in place, he cleared his throat. His entire world felt different, turned on its axis by this bastard horse, with his charming smile and his loud car.

"Ross." His voice broke utter silence and Smith looked at him a bit oddly. The gargoyle cleared his throat again, unsure of himself. "You can call me Ross."

Smith's face lit up, and Ross felt an odd twisting sensation in his gut, joy mixed with repulsion, and a deep-seated fear he didn't quite understand. "Ross," the kelpie tested the name, and hearing it from those lips made the newly named gargoyle feel dizzily elated. "See ya round Ross."

And then he was gone, the roar of that antiquated engine fading down the lane.

Ross wondered if he had made a mistake.

Credit to thespeckledbandicoot on Ao3