Break the Skin
a story by Tox
Felix Carter is just a normal human man, and Matt Jones is just his normal human boss—or at least that's the picture they paint for everyone else. In the privacy of a lavish office on the top floor of a corporate building, Felix is a man on a mission to kill a god, and Matt is the god daring him to try.This game can only have one winner, and Matt learns to regret not pulling the plug before it started to mean something.
Break the Skin is a story about gods, demons, and would-be-usurpers.
World
Culture
This story is set in the 21st century, in a world much like our own. There are some key differences, however: namely, the presence of demons, a history of true "gods", and entities not of this world. Most humans are unaware of these things, and life goes on as normal, but there's always otherworldly happenings just out of sight.Most of the main story takes place in a large unspecified city in the United States.
The Company
Though only physically located in one single skyscraper in the middle of the city, the company at the heart of this story is a corporate juggernaut. With vast financial and political sway, an accord with the demons who access it from just underneath the building, and an efficient, methodical workflow, the company has maintained a tight hold on the corporate atmosphere of the entire state.Not all is well, however. The former CEO, Matthew Jones Sr., was rapidly falling into financial ruin at the end of the last fiscal year. He's since been succeeded by his son... Or at least that's the story everyone's been told. The current CEO, Matthew Jones Jr., has somehow managed to pull the company to all new heights of profit. Maybe they just needed a new perspective.
Demons & The Underworld
This world is bound to another plane of existence, the source of many myths and religions worldwide since the dawn of time. It's been called many things, but its denizens and those aware of it generally refer to it as "hell" or "the underworld", for familiarity's sake.Demons come in many forms. Some are more humanoid, and these ones often blend easily into human spaces; others are more otherworldly, often bending the fabric of reality around them to go unnoticed. Demons are, by nature, reality-bending entities.Some of them are born in the underworld, and others start as humans but are warped by demonic influence, usually in death. Once they've been returned to life, they're forever bound to this other place, returning to it when killed and able to pass freely between it and the real world. Some demons are as old as the very concept of culture while others are fresh-faced and inexperienced. They all seem to pull from the same pool of information, though, some manner of mental link that threads through their underworld. Whether they have one ruler or many is unknown.They are closely related to humans, something proven in the way humans so easily join their ranks. Demons and humans are as natural to the Earth as all the rest of its fauna, and though humans are generally unaware of their underworld counterparts, they are nevertheless a vital part of the demon ecosystem.Demons feed on human souls, but they don't steal said souls to do so. They feed in increments, never more than the body can handle, much like vampire bats or mosquitos. Unlike vampire bats or mosquitos, however, demons leave no identifiable trace of their meddling behind. An astute observer may be able to ascertain their presence based on an uptick of severe depression in a population, but only a messy eater ruins their food source for good.They do not take kindly to anything that destroys human souls.
Gods
While demons are recognizable, at least in theory, gods weren't. They were presences woven into the fabric of reality itself, manifestations of concepts from emotions to elements to ideas. It's heavily theorized that they're the source of at least some major religions, although the same can be said of some demons.As facets of reality, they were in opposition to the reality-bending demons, and the two would often struggle for control over various places in this world. Gods generally prevented demons from bending reality, but powerful demons could do so anyway, warping gods who stood in their way. Some say such gods became corrupted, demons in their own right, but no one really knows for sure.In the modern day, there are no gods. Within the past millennia they were all ripped from their places in reality and devoured. Some demons are relieved, but many took it for the threat that it was, and have been on high alert ever since.The fabric of reality is different, now, and things don't work the way they used to. At least the humans haven't noticed.
Starborn
Primarily a demon term, "starborn" was originally a phrase meant to address all extra-terrestrial beings. Many still use it this way, a catch-all for anything not of this planet that arrives upon it. The proper noun version, Starborn, has come to refer to a very specific race of cosmic entities in demon culture. There is currently only one on the planet that they're aware of: the so-called "Godking", an entity so antithetical to the reality on Earth that being near him is, for them, uncomfortable at best and downright painful at worst.In truth, Matt's kind are as old as the universe itself, birthed by its very existence. They refer to the start of everything as, roughly, "the Origin", the moment when the universe began and they began with it. Born into the stars, they function similarly, growing much the same way until eventually going supernova or collapsing into black holes. The stardust of an expired entity who went supernova will eventually reform into someone new, and thus their kind are never-ending, born and reborn into infinity. Whether or not they're conscious manifestations of actual stars is an unanswered question.Their culture is very particular. They prioritize bonds above all else, usually in the form of romantic intimacy, or their equivalent of such. One is expected to be named by their closest bond upon reaching maturity. Their language is evocative, all sensations and imagery, and to be named is to be understood deeply enough to be described this way. Some reject these names or change to those given by new relationships, a practice that isn't necessarily taboo but is extremely frowned upon.Matt is a juvenile, but he professes to having a name already. An approximation of this name in human terms is "Starlight", although all human attempts to make the right sounds for it fall short. The title he bore before being named roughly translates to "the snake". While such things didn't exist back home, Matt has long since identified that the snakes on Earth are very similar to the concept his original form embodied, connecting that idea to the creatures he knows of now.
Cast
Matt Jones
The Godking
29 (Juvenile)
5'2"/158 cm (Shapeshifter)
Masculine (he/him)
Demiromantic
Embodiment of gluttony, a serpentine starscape with an insatiable appetite
The current Matt Jones is actually the Godking, a moniker he adopted for himself aeons ago for the religions he's started in his own name time and time again. He's a disruptive force in this reality, a remorseless monster with an insatiable appetite for the souls and bodies of other extant beings. He's eaten everything from human flesh to the essence of gods, and he's always hungry.The real Matthew Jones Jr. was in the wrong place at the wrong time, present when the Godking answered Jones Sr.'s plea for company prosperity via invoking the name of a defunct religion's all-powerful god. His greed was his undoing, and after driving the man insane, the Godking devoured Matthew's soul from within and stole his body to become the new CEO in his "father's" place. As he prefers Matt, the name "Matthew" is essentially all that remains of the man who the body used to belong to.Capable of shapeshifting, hypnosis, minor reality-bending, and resurrection of the recently dead, Matt is also functionally immortal by way of persistent self-healing. He can repair his vessel as needed, and he always regenerates from fatal wounds. Resurrecting others has the added benefit of healing them as well. Unfortunately, he's taken this as an easy way to fix "accidents", and he loves to kill and bring humans back as he sees fit.Though his powers are great, he needs a mortal body to actually perform any of it. His "true" form was lost when he was banished from his home for killing his own kind and consuming their essences. Without a vessel to host him, he's formless stardust, untouchable and untouching.As, ostensibly, a "high mass" star, Matt was fated to eventually go supernova. Being stripped of his form has untethered him from this inevitability, and he will continue until the end of time itself.That is, unless Felix wins.
Playlist:
Felix Carter
The Would-Be Usurper
26
6'2"/187 cm
Cis male (he/him)
Bisexual
Favored by luck, consumed by pride, a heart as dark as the abyss
from whence his soul came
Felix is an employee of the company Matt inherited (took over) who blackmailed his way into the position of executive assistant when Jones Sr. was still around. He's never really assisted with anything, only alternated between pulling the strings and being a nuisance when shut out. He had planned to eventually usurp Jones, or so he says. He really just enjoyed the power trip.Frustrated when the company was suddenly in new hands, Felix tried to get under his new boss's skin and was stonewalled at every turn. Jones Sr. had despised him, only bending to his will when no other options were present, but the junior Jones didn't seem to care about him one way or another. Ultimately, he chose to do what he's done for several roadblocks before: kill the obstacle and cover his tracks.Born to a fairly average nuclear family out in the suburbs, Felix seemed to strangers like a very normal, well-adjusted child. Yet the closer one was to him, the more the cracks were visible; he demonstrated symptoms of a personality disorder from a young age, yet all attempts to have him professionally diagnosed with anything went nowhere. By the time his parents realized something was deeply wrong with him, he'd long since mastered the art of presenting himself as a perfectly fine person to outsiders. In truth, a diagnosis would have solved nothing, for whatever is wrong with him goes far deeper than any disorder.His siblings knew him as a remorseless liar who didn't care about the feelings of others and was more than willing to cause harm if he felt it was warranted (or would be fun), and his peers at school knew him as a socially distant creep who cut up frogs and rats under the bleachers. Even his extended family got the sense that something was off, regardless of how he never matched the stories his parents told.As an adult, Felix is a ruthless manipulator and murderer. Skilled with hacking, body disposal, and dissecting how people's minds work to best control them, he's an incredibly dangerous person whose dark talents are wasted on corporate affairs. He just doesn't really care about his potential. This is all for fun, after all.Matt has always chosen "pets" in each life he lives, and when Felix assassinated him only for Matt to regenerate, he gleefully decided Felix was perfect for the role. Felix, however, has no interest in bending to anyone's whims, god or otherwise. Something about his nature makes him mesh well with the ancient eldritch abomination masquerading as a young CEO, and while he's intent on finding a way to kill Matt eventually, he can't stop the bond that forms between them any more than Matt can.What is it that makes him so perfect for the Godking? Is it whatever's been wrong with him since he was a child? Or, perhaps, it's merely a byproduct of the incredible luck he's always held.
Playlist:
Sebastian Kerr
The Loyal Sidekick
23
5'10"/178 cm
Cis male (he/him)
Gay
Too kind for this darkness, too warped for moral superiority, an eternal dirty secret and lost cause
Sebastian is the son of a state senator, and it's his father's former connection to Jones that got him a job in the company's accounting department. He's certainly capable enough, and does his job well enough to be appreciated by his coworkers, but the work bores him to tears and isn't remotely what he'd have chosen for himself. He didn't really have a choice in the matter—his father insists it's a respectable position and that he needs to make something of himself. Sebastian is fairly certain he's just being swept under the rug as something of a family disgrace.Before he could consider defying his father and seeking a career that would actually satisfy him, Felix Carter arrived at the company.At a glance, it's easy to assume that Sebastian must be stuck under Felix's influence. After all, why would such a polite young man with such promising aspirations be a lackey for a man who gets power via threats and coercion? One need look no farther than how trapped Sebastian feels by his father's expectations to understand the real reasoning. Felix is cruel, disrespectful, and dangerous, but in helping him take control of the company from the inside, Sebastian feels like he's covertly defying the position he's been forced into.He isn't stupid. Felix is a monster, and as deeply attracted as Sebastian is to him, actually pursuing a relationship would be suicide. Maybe that's why he doesn't object to Felix starting a relationship with Matt too much. It stings, but better one of Felix's targets be in his intimate grip than Sebastian himself. The position is far more of a risk than anything else.Many people deserve better than they've got. Sebastian could abandon all of this, spend his time with his real friends and find a job in the arts instead of subjugating himself to data entry and being complicit in various felonies. Unfortunately it would seem he's too far tangled in Felix's web... and he's choosing not to escape.
████████ ███████
The Faceless Demon
Unknown Age
Varies, often 6'3"/190 cm
Masculine (he/him)
Unknown Orientation
Was he ever here at all?
He rarely shares his name, and it's because he doesn't respect most entities enough to give them access to any information about himself. Especially humans. He has little interest in them, regardless of any shared culture or heritage, and only deals with them when necessary. Felix has dubbed him 'Faceless'.Faceless is one of the highest ranking demons in the underworld, but what that means is generally hard to discern from a distance. He's personally close to the top of the hierarchy—that much is clear. He takes his orders from a ruler above him, and otherwise acts on his own, having great power and control over most other demons.He's been around long enough to be very familiar with the Godking. In an age long past, he personally did surveillance on one of Matt's old compounds, blending in with the cultists as he gauged whether this extraterrestrial entity was a threat or not. At the time, it was decided they would simply stay aware of this mysterious Godking. Now, Faceless leads the charge on keeping Matt in their sights. One could almost assume he takes this personally.He is usually tall, usually broad-shouldered, usually tan-skinned, and usually dark-haired. He can also be none of these things. He goes unseen, unheard, and unknown more than anyone but his boss knows. His own reality-bending abilities greatly outclass most of his peers and allow him to be nothing and everything all at once. A threatening presence, a voice on the wind, a shadow on the wall, a tall man in a three piece suit with a deep voice. He is not to be underestimated.
The Story
Break the Skin is hosted on AO3 and is written in Ellipsus. The story will never be monetized, so it will remain on AO3, though it may eventually be crossposted elsewhere. The lore on this site may or may not be fully explored in the text, depending on how things progress, but all of it is canon.The story is ongoing as of now, with no specific number of chapters planned.
Summary
Rating: Explicit
Archive Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Category: M/M
Fandom: Original Work
Relationship: Original Male Character/Original Male CharacterAdditional Tags: Shapeshifting, Hypnosis, Manipulation, Murder, Cannibalism, Resurrection, Snuff, Eroguro, Slow Burn, Angst, Enemies to Lovers, Alien/Human Relationship, eldritch space entity in a human body, the body is cis technically but he does give himself pussy sometimes. or tentacles, Implied/Referenced Incest, Demons, Office Sex, BDSM, Necrophilia, let me make it explicitly clear that all the gore/death tags and the resurrection tag go together, they both die but they both come back every time
Felix Carter is just a normal human man, and Matt Jones is just his normal human boss—or at least that's the picture they paint for everyone else. In the privacy of a lavish office on the top floor of a corporate building, Felix is a man on a mission to kill a god, and Matt is the god daring him to try.This game can only have one winner, and Matt learns to regret not pulling the plug before it started to mean something.
Chapter 1
Months before the arrival of the being that will end his life, Matthew Jones has an unpleasant night at his father's company party.
Chapter 2
It's best to not make accords with gods—you never know what you might actually get.
Chapter 3
The company's sudden change in ownership throws all of Felix's plans off, and none of his attempts to regain control are working. Maybe it's time for more drastic measures.
Chapter 4
For the first time in his life, Felix faces true consequences for his actions.
Chapter 11
art pending
Matt isn't used to having to adjust his plans, but he can make this work.
Chapter 14
art pending
Felix doesn't know how to feel about Matt, sometimes. Good thing Matt doesn't mind.
Chapter 15
TBA
art pending
(wip)
Gallery
art by Tox
Felix Ref
Matt Ref
Cradled
In Flight
Year of the Snake
Dance
Classic Dynamic
Weapons
Lunatic of a God
Lover's Waltz
The Sin and The Tragedy
Dance 2
For Centuries
Company Halloween Party
The Horror and The Wild
Stardust
Winter
art by others
amordidas
avoidcrow
glossamer
notfebruary
oxytreza
Pajamajapes
Pajamajapes
Pajamajapes
Pajamajapes
quoting_mungo
s1mpl3sp0ng3
snakewife
tewro
Playlists
Break the Skin
Light Years Between You and Me
[Malix B-Side]
Lunatic of a God
[Matt]
Caught Up in the Riptide
[Felix]
Trivia
Matt's voiceclaim is the lead singer of Ludo (all songs work but "The Horror of Our Love" fits his affect most; Matthew was more suited to the tone of "Such As It Ends")
Felix's voiceclaim is the lead singer of VOILÀ ("THE LAST LAUGH!" is on his playlist if you want an example)
The two of them were built off of an old impromptu server roleplay where a bunch of us turned our "humansonas" into members of a corrupt company that was also just kind of the server itself. "Mr. President", the character my sona turned into, would eventually become Matt. We're very different people, but honestly Mr. President already wasn't much like me.
The story's title is from my favorite Malix song, "Bang" by Armchair Cynics. The title is the first line of the song. It felt like an appropriate homage to a song that honestly shaped a lot of their dynamic in the early days.
Matt's halo is from a brushpack by Bunabi. If you use CSP, you can download that pack for free here. The one I use is "Boned Spikes".
The story used to have more evangelical themes, but these days the most properly religious thing about it is Felix being raised Catholic. That said, Felix and Matt still very intentionally embody two of the Seven Deadly Sins, those being Pride and Gluttony. What can I say, I love bastardized religious theming.
Doodles
Drunk
Illness
Starsnake 1
Starsnake 2
Cascada Break
Daddy Kink 1
Daddy Kink 2
Daddy Kink 3
Plaything 1
Plaything 2
Small Horses
Monsterfucker
