Work Text:
He hadn't said a word as he'd dragged the doll down the slope of the hill, leading her away from her usual post at the foot of the old workshop, away from the messengers' peering, inquisitive, adoring gazes. He'd sat her down among the eternally dew-filled flowers, trampling the ones beneath them now as he straddled her, resting on his own knees, the damp pressing into the cloth of his pants. He wondered if she could feel it too, through the layers of her dress. He couldn't imagine her having an opinion on it.
He pushed just enough of his pants away to expose what he needed, and lifted the layers of her dress skirts, revealing the porcelain beneath. It was cold when their skin—if hers could be called that—met, and his first breath came in a small, shocked gasp at the sensation. It would have to do. He ground quietly against her, an arm wrapped around her back and gripping her shawl to prop her up, angled just so for him as chased after the friction he needed.
There was a rustling above them, and his eyes darted towards the sound. He caught the old hunter's hat peeking up over the hill, soon enough to have saved his life in the town, but far too late to hide anything in this dream. Gehrman's eyes were already fixed on him, overlooking his little rendezvous.
Gehrman's presence was intimidating despite the evidence of his age and fragility: the thin, white remains of the hair from his youth, the deep-set, overgrown wrinkles across the skin of his face and hands, and the rusted old chair that groaned softly with his every move. He feared Gehrman would suspect his secret, even if the doll’s skirts still concealed his own exposed body, but the old hunter only laughed a little.
Gehrman's lips smacked with spittle as he remarked that he liked to squeeze himself between her thighs, a much nicer feeling than that juvenile rutting. The hunter wondered how long ago that must have been in Gehrman's permanent residency.
The hunter nodded curtly, waiting for him to leave. Gehrman stared a full, agonizing, moment longer, long enough that the hunter nearly grew uncomfortable with the thought that he might be looking at them too, gaining satisfaction from their debauched state, but then Gehrman turned to wheel away, chair squeaking as he retreated behind stone walls. The hunter sighed, breathing against the doll.
She was looking at him with something akin to consideration, something too kind for this moment and what he’d done to her, and it squashed what was left of his dwindling arousal. With another glance towards the building to check that the old hunter really was gone and not peeking still, he pulled his pants up and stood from her. He offered a stilted hand to her, and she took it to she raise herself, following his suit as if nothing significant had happened at all.
“Will you be returning now?” Whether she intended the workshop or the waking world, he wasn't certain.
"No." He cleared his throat. "Excuse me. I'll take another moment here."
“If you still require my assistance," she said, unmoving, "I am here for your needs, good hunter.”
A new rush of embarrassed heat flooded his face. He avoided her delicate, painted one. "That won't be necessary. Thank you."
Gehrman had welcomed him to use anything he found in the dream—even the doll, that rasping whisper—but he felt like something less than human to have whisked her away, succumbed to more baser, primal desires without a second thought to spare. She shouldn't speak to him like this, as she'd always had before. Shouldn't call him that.
She waited another short, cursory moment, an assurance of the veracity of her claim, before she nodded and turned, treading gently through the grass and flowers back towards her usual resting spot.
He rubbed his face with both hands, resisting the urge to scrub at his skin, to try to peel away grime that remained far deeper than fingers could reach. He stared, aching, out into the misty void beyond the haven's walls. His head wasn't on right, he told himself. He just needed to finish this hunt, to see through to the end of this night, then it would all be no more than a bad dream to an unfortunate version of himself in the future. This fever would simply have to be excised some other way.