If God Didn’t Want Us To Snort Worms…

[lethe]

The eyes in the center of the oversized flowers roll left, then right, searching along the banks of the too bright river. Was it pink? It’s pink now. The grass is still a bright blue. A soft splash and the eyes roll towards it, searching along a bend in the river as Lethe comes into view. Pink mouse head bobbing along with the current that carries her closer and closer to that place off in the distance. The gaping black maw of the mountain, dressed up as ice cream and sugar.

She’s in a yellow and white polkadot bikini, yellow flippers on her feet that sizzle every time she dips them into the water. A chemical cocktail that propels her closer to the place she’s not sure she wants to go.

“What are you doing here?” she pouted. “This is where I live and now you’re just… here. Did I invite you here? Did she?”

She. Her. The other piece of the puzzle. The thing she was when she wasn’t this thing. When she wasn’t Lethe. It was [redacted] that wanted him there. It was [redacted] who had brought him into this place and made him a home deep in the belly of the mountain. To watch her. To keep an eye on her.

“After everything… you still don’t trust me.” A mysterious voice from the darkness called out as she drifted along. Nobody in sight, but he was there. Watching. Listening. Waiting. “That’s no way to treat a guest now, is it?”

She scowled beneath the mask. He couldn’t see it, or maybe he could. “A guest I didn’t invite,” she pointed out. “I know you’re here for her. Not me. Why should I trust you?”

“Hmmmm… that’s a good question.” There was a brief silence as she continued drifting along the river. “Why wouldn’t you?” he asked, this time his voice coming from the void to her left.

Silence.

And more silence.

This time the voice spoke from that dark place deep in the mountain. “If something happens to [redacted], then something happens to you, Lethe. And vice versa… you see?”

She rolled her eyes under the mask. Maybe he saw that. Maybe he didn’t. “I see that you’re here to make sure I’m not the reason something happens to [redacted]. Gotta make sure I don’t go toooooo far in the ring. One too many screwdrivers to the throat and now I have a babysitter.”

The flippers sizzle in the pink water as she turns herself a little to face what’s coming. “Let’s not pretend that you’re not here to keep me from doing what I need to do in the ring.”

Laughter came from the shadows and she floated closer and closer to the source. “Something like that, I suppose. But tell me one thing. What exactly is it that you need to do inside of the ring?”


Lethe gestured wildly at nothing. At everything. “What do you think I need to do inside of the ring?!” she demanded, voice almost petulant in a way that she would only let him hear. And wasn’t that a step in the wrong direction. (Or the right direction, depending on who you were asking. [redacted] would have called it the right direction. [redacted] said… trust him.)

Lethe didn’t trust him.

“I’m trying to destroy everything. What does it look like?” Did everything include herself? Maybe. It looked like it sometimes when she crawled out of the rubble with blood in her mouth.

Self-destruction was still destruction, after all.

“I’m trying…to…” another wild gesture. Like he should already know.

“What does it look like?” He didn’t give her time to answer before cutting her off. “You tell me. You saw it from your perspective and not mine, the same perspective as everyone else watching what happened inside of that ring in Chicago.”

Everything goes quiet, total silence consuming the riverside for just a short moment before being interrupted. “Hmm?” He whispered so close it felt as if he was looking over her shoulder.

“You’re trying to do this alone. And the thing is… we both know that you can’t do this all by yourself.”

The pink mouse mask slumped as she folded her arms across her chest. Kicked her flipper clad feet as she finally rounded that last bend and he came into view in front of her.

What do you get if the Iron Throne of Westeros fucks a mushroom on an acid trip? Whatever that is, it’s gold now and there are mushrooms growing up its enormous legs. Sprawled on it, like a dark god in repose, is Hypnos.

And the only thing that annoys her more than his presence is the way she reacts to his presence. The way her heart skips and her breath catches as that red spattered black and white masked face turns to stare into her soul.

She seethed as the float carried her closer and nothing could slow down her approach until finally she found the end of the river.

At Hypnos’ feet.

“Close your eyes,” he demanded, standing over her. He lightly dragged his fingers down the plastic eyes of her mask as if closing her eyelids. “You can’t trust me, but answer this one last question.”

He gently rubbed his knuckles against the cheek of her mask. “Who was it that I pulled Miles off of? Lethe or [redacted]?”

She hates that she stays there, at his feet. Hates that she can feel her pulse race when he touches her. Her voice is full of venom when she answers him. “Lethe. Me.”

With a finger under her chin, he tilts her head back to look up at him. “Open your eyes,” he whispers.

“I pulled him off of you, Lethe, and then I carried you to safety. You can trust me. You want to trust me.” There was a pause as he looked down to her at his feet looking up at him.

“And just like her, you’ll worship me too.”

[lethe]

The cave beneath the mountain was dark, except for a single light filtering down from up above. Underneath the light was the golden throne sitting by the river’s end, covered in mushrooms and weeds devouring everything on its way up towards that weak light. Sitting on the throne was Hypnos, his identity hidden behind the blood stained mask of Mickey Mouse after consuming far too many bath salts. In his lap sprawled Lethe, the mask of Minnie Mouse covering her face and dressed in her yellow and white polkadot bikini. For a mouse, she was pretty fucking sexy.

“I told you…” Hypnos said as he slowly dragged those blank masked eyes down every curve of her. “You’d worship me just like she does.”

There’s a languid relaxation in her limbs that wasn’t there before. A familiarness in the way she leaned back against him. She can’t deny the truth in his words even though she wants to.

Beneath the mask, she tries for a half-hearted scowl. “Don’t get used to it.” The lack of venom in her voice this time gives her away.

“Don’t get used to it?” He questioned her as the two mice looked into each other’s eyes, or rather the eyes of their masks covering their true identities.

He held her closely, an arm around her waist holding her down, but she wasn’t sitting in his lap against her will. “And what if I do?” He asked her another question but slowly raised a single finger to place over the mouth of her mask as if silencing her so he could continue. “Can I get used to it after we make an example out of Gennifer Swan and Illania Karn this weekend, my precious Lethe?”

There was something there. A flicker of something that she’d never experienced before and didn’t like the feeling of. Trepidation. At getting back into the ring after Miles Lucky had nearly made her one quickly forgotten name in a rash of recently deceased deathmatch wrestlers.

He might have (would have) if it hasn’t been for Hypnos.

And no matter how bad things had gotten in those matches she had always walked out (crawled out) on her own. Until that last match at SCUM.

“Maybe,” she said, but there was no bite. And he could hear what she didn’t say.

“Only maybe?” He asked, loosening his hold on her, yet she stayed in his lap. “I think I can get more than a teeny, tiny maybe out of you.”

This upcoming match in Infinite Pro Wrestling would be the first time they teamed together in the ring. Booked together, as a team. For once, she wouldn’t be going out there alone. She would have someone in her corner, watching her back, unlike all of the other times she competed before. He wouldn’t need to come from the crowd this time to save her, he would be there with her every step of the way.

“Tell me the first thing that comes to your mind when I ask you this, Lethe.” He dragged his finger up her arm, over her shoulder and down to her heart before lightly tapping her chest. “What do I need to do out there, against them in our first match together, to prove to you that I’m not only here for her, but I’m here for you as well, my Lethe?” He leaned in close to her face as the last words left his lips.

She wasn’t sure she liked the way he made her docile like a kitten but she wasn’t sure she hated it either. But she silently seethed because she knew he could feel the way her pulse raced. “I don’t know,” she gritted out. But she did know and after a pause where she knew he expected more she finally gave in and spat. “Show me your teeth. Show me that they can get bloody just like mine.” Show her that he was capable of the kind of violence she was.

But underneath all that… was that annoying fucking trepidation. Because last time… last time she’d been in the ring…

“Bloody just like you?” He softly chuckled at the question, leaning back away from her. “Don’t forget now, my blood runs through your veins,” he said, taking her hand in his and holding it in front of the big, blank spiraling eyes of her mask.

“You and her both know that I will do anything for you. I will paint the canvas with their blood and we’ll drink it from a chalice as we celebrate our first win together. I’ll kill for her, but I think I can take things a little further just for you, dollllllll.”

Emphasis on doll. Her own word thrown back at her but not with malice. He was teasing. Coaxing her out.

“Hers,” she muttered. “Her veins.” But even as she said it she knew it wasn’t true. They were Lethe’s too. The lines between them were blurring. Was it [redacted]’s heart that beat too fast or Lethe’s when he promised her a bloody canvas and a victory to ease a little of that bruised ego. (Miles Lucky’s fingerprints are a still faded bruise around her throat and her pride.)

“Your veins,” he reiterated. “Just how my blood runs through yours, your blood runs through mine.” He leaned up from his slouch and towards her.

“There isn’t a single thing out there that I wouldn’t do for you, Lethe. As much as you want to pretend otherwise, you even know it yourself. When I took [redacted] as mine under our [redacted], you became mine as well.”

“Stop denying it. Stop fighting it. Just fight…” he leaned in as close to her ear as he could and hissed.

“With me.”

There was the promise of violence in that hiss and it made her blood sing. (His blood. Their blood.) Like called to like. Brontë said He’s more myself than I am. Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same.

She understood that now, maybe.

But still, she pushed back. Just a little. “Once. One time. Don’t disappoint me.”

“I would never disappoint you.” He took her hand and raised it to the mouth of his mask, flashing the side with the teeth exposed, and kissed it. “Never, my dear.”