This was written in answer to a brief exchange with Love PNR | Kestrel Caim
started by this note:
Given the prompt, PLEASE MIND THE EXTENSIVE WARNINGS at the end1
Enjoy.
Kneel
The church spire cuts the sunset like a blade. She’s sixty feet above the street, watching people crowd the entrance below—ants on poisoned sugar, lapping up Sunday promises and stale hymns. Old lies wrapped in stained glass and organ music.
Her knees press into rough tar. Grit biting through denim. The church ledge is three inches wide—enough to kneel on, not enough to feel safe. Sixty feet of empty air before her. Her toes curl in her shoes, body tensing against the pull of gravity.
Sky bleeds orange and purple ahead. The sun dying slow and beautiful. Wind cuts across the rooftop, whipping her hair across her face. She tastes copper—bit her lip without noticing. Again.
Below, people crowd the church entrance. Their voices drift up—laughter, greetings, hymns starting inside. The organ’s vibration travels through stone, through her knees, up her spine.
She looks down at them. Insects feeding on rot.
Rage sits hot in her chest. At them. At herself for caring. At being up here, at the edge, still fucking thinking about people who don’t know she exists.
The wind gusts. Her body sways. For a second, the pull is stronger than her weight.
Just jump. Let go. It’s so easy.
The voice breathes against her ear. Not sound—soft pressure. Like warm air on skin, like fingers trailing from neck to shoulder. She knows this voice. Years of it, whispering through every failure, every loss, every moment she stood on edges and looked down.
She thought it had left.
Her throat tightens around her tears.
Behind her—a presence. Not touching, but close. Too close. The air thickening like a body pressing near. Hair rises at the back of her neck. Statics, or something worse.
A punishing hug that isn’t there yet.
She doesn’t think. Just moves.
Her hand snaps back and up—clawing at where his throat should be. Fingers curved like talons, bitten nails digging into nothing. The gesture locks. Arm extended behind her at an awkward angle, shoulder straining, hand frozen in the choking grip.
Stuck.
Tears stream down her face now. Her whole body shaking in rage, grief, something she can’t name.
“I know who you are.”
The air screams.
He watches her grasp at nothing. Watches her cry. The offer hangs between them—violence as intimacy, aggression as invitation. Choke me. Touch me. Choose me. Push me.
No one has ever offered.
His form ripples. Considers. The temptation of it pulls at him with a sun’s strength, like hunger, this need to know what fire feels like when you’ve only ever been the spark.
He wants her hand on his throat.
A step, and reality tears apart. The sound makes her teeth ache—dimensions scraping, bleeding. Then: solid. Weight. Presence.
She spins around. Both hands shoot out. Grabbing. Shoving.
His back hits the church wall. Stone cracks. Her hands close around his throat.
His beauty is arresting, and she forgets to breathe.
Fallen angel, his luminous skin catching the dying light, features so perfect they hurt to behold, eyes deep and full like distant galaxies. Every line of him precise and wrong and right in ways that make her think about people building temples and falling to their knees weeping. Adoring. Worshipping.
Beautiful.
Her vision blurs. Knees weaken.
But her hands are still locked on his throat.
His pulse hammers against her palms—rapid, shocked. He has a pulse. Breath. Warmth bleeding through where her skin touches his. The incarnation crashes through him in waves—sensation, limitation, reality closing around him like a fist.
She squeezes harder.
A sound escapes his throat. Surprise. Pain. Something else.
“This is new,” they whisper.
His lips curve despite the pressure on his windpipe. Even pinned, even choked, amusement flickers. “So what now?” His voice rasps. “You have little old me at your mercy. Are you brave enough to finish this?”
She doesn’t answer. Studies his face instead—really looks past the beauty to what lives underneath. Something wounded pretending not to be. Something desperate wearing perfection like armor.
A last squeeze, for all the tears and the rage she has had to choke on and swallow back, then she releases his throat. Steps back.
“Kneel.”
The command lands between them like a stone in still water.
He doesn’t move. The gall of this creature. No one commands him. He’s the one who shapes wills, who bends others, who whispers the world into the shapes he desires.
“Arms behind your back,” she continues. “Spine straight. Now.”
The temptation of it—the wanting to know—is what pulls him down in the end.
He kneels.
The position looks simple, feels simple: kneeling upright, hands clasped at the small of his back, spine perfectly straight. Weight distributed on shins pressed to rough rooftop tar. Head level. Eyes forward.
Easy. What’s next?
She walks past him to the edge. Turns her back. Looks out at the sunset—the real one, not the slow decay of the crowds below. The sky performs in oranges and purples and golds, throwing color like it’s trying to prove something exists beyond the gray-blue of civilization.
The sun touches the horizon. Still half-visible. Maybe twenty minutes of light left.
Behind her, his breathing stays steady.
Five minutes.
The first awareness creeps in—weight pressing shins into tar, small stones digging into flesh that’s never felt discomfort. He shifts slightly. Adjusts. Finds the position again.
The sky darkens another shade. First hints of pink at the edges.
His thighs engage to keep his spine vertical. Constant small adjustments—core muscles firing, back muscles pulling, shoulders opening to keep arms clasped behind him.
Not painful yet. Just... present. His body announcing itself through small complaints he’s never heard before.
She still hasn’t turned around.
Ten minutes.
The burn starts in his thighs—slow, building, like coals heating. His weight wants to sink back onto his heels, but that would collapse the position. He has to stay upright. Has to keep the strain distributed.
Sweat forms at his temples. Single drops sliding down.
The sun is half-gone now. The gold bleeding into deeper orange, red creeping in at the edges.
His breathing changes—not quite labored, but no longer effortless. Small grunts when he makes micro-adjustments to ease one screaming muscle by engaging another.
The shins are the worst. Constant pressure on bone, on nerve endings that weren’t designed for this. Sharp pain mixing with the deeper burn in his thighs.
He tests shifting his weight. Worse. Goes back to center, locks into the agony he knows.
She stands motionless at the edge, lost in thought. Wind moving her hair. The dying light painting her in colors he’s never bothered to learn the names for, but please him.
Fifteen minutes.
The burn becomes fire. His thighs are screaming—every muscle fiber engaged in keeping him upright, in defying gravity’s patient pull. The shake starts small. Just a tremor in his left quad. Then his right.
He tries to stop it. Can’t.
His breathing goes ragged. Fast, shallow gasps. His body hunting for oxygen to feed muscles being asked to do the impossible.
More sweat. Running down his spine now, pooling at the small of his back where his hands are clasped. The salt stings his eyes.
The sun is almost gone. Just a sliver of gold on the horizon. The sky above them deepening to purple, to blue-black. First star appearing like a pinprick in fabric.
His arms—he’d forgotten about his arms. But they’re going numb now, circulation restricted by the position. Pins and needles spreading from fingertips up through palms, wrists, forearms.
A sound escapes him. Half-groan, half-whimper. He bites it back. Too late.
She doesn’t turn.
Twenty minutes.
He can’t stop the shaking now. It’s taken over—both thighs trembling violently, the vibration spreading to his core, his shoulders. His whole body a tuning fork struck and resonating with agony.
Tears form. From the pain, from the strain, from the sheer muchness of having a body that suffers and keeps suffering and won’t stop.
The wetness starts—barely noticeable at first. Just slickness, dampness. Pre-arousal leaking without his permission, without his awareness. His body responding to something he doesn’t understand yet.
The sun is gone. The sky holds onto its last light—that strange luminous quality before full dark. The city below starting to glow, streetlights flickering on.
His thighs are on fire. Every nerve ending in his shins screaming. His shoulders pulling out of joint. Arms completely numb now—he can’t feel his hands anymore, doesn’t know if they’re still clasped or if they’ve fallen apart.
He tries to speak. Jaw won’t work right. Just shaking.
Another sound—this one he can’t contain. A sob. Raw and broken and disgustingly human.
Still, she doesn’t turn.
Twenty-five minutes.
Something shifts. The pain stops being thighs burning and shins stabbing and shoulders pulling. Becomes one unified agony that encompasses his entire existence.
He can’t remember not hurting.
The wetness at his groin is obvious now, the dark stain spreading. Arousal he didn’t expect, didn’t want, this body betraying him in the most humiliating way. The shame of humanity breaking something in him.
More tears. Running freely now. His face is wet with them, mucus running from his nose, saliva thick in his mouth.
Beautiful. He is beautiful. Perfect and luminous and untouchable.
He’s leaking from every orifice, shaking like prey, sobbing like a child.
The stars are out. Dozens of them. The sky full dark except for the city’s reflected glow.
His muscles start to fail. Not metaphorically—actually failing. Micro-tears in the fibers, lactic acid building past the point of function. His left thigh spasms. His right. His core collapses for a second before he hauls it back upright.
He can’t hold this much longer.
He knows—knows—that if she releases him now, he’ll simply fall. Another Fall. He’s broken. It needs to stop.
It feels so good.
Thirty minutes.
“Please.”
The word tears out of him. Barely audible. Destroyed.
She turns.
The look on her face—not cruel, not kind. Just seeing. Really seeing. What he is, what he’s become, what he’s always been underneath the performance.
She walks toward him. Slow. Deliberate. Circles him like a predator, like an artist studying her work.
“You can’t move anymore,” she says. Soft. Almost tender. “Even if I let you stop. This body’s failed. You’d collapse.”
His form flickers. Just for a second—edges going translucent, immaterial trying to reassert itself. The possibility of escape opening in front of him, he is not this body, he could simply…
He pulls himself back. Solid once more.
The pain crashes back in, doubled. He gasps.
She watches the flicker, the return. Her eyes narrow slightly.
He makes a sound, it tastes like recognition and horror and want all mixed together.
She crouches beside him. Eye level. Her face filling his vision.
“This is what they feel,” she whispers, lazy. “Standing on ledges, holding pills, finger on the trigger. This exact thing. The strain of holding on when every cell is screaming to let go. The desperation for it to stop, for someone to just allow them to stop.” Closer still, and so soft, “Ask for it.”
His breath catches.
The trembling intensifies. His breath comes in sobs. His arousal building toward something he can’t control, can’t stop, the heat blooming through him, ready to finish what it started without his permission.
“Please,” he says again. Begging now. No pride left. No performance. Just need.
She reaches out. One finger traces his jaw—so gentle it makes him sob harder.
“Please what?”
“I can’t—” His voice breaks. “I need—”
“I know.”
Her hand slides to the back of his neck. The other braces his chest. Supporting him. Holding him up when his body can’t anymore.
She leans close. Her breath on his ear.
“Let go.”
His body collapses—all tension releasing at once. But it’s not just muscles giving out. It’s something deeper, something he’s been holding clenched for eons finally opening.
He falls forward into her arms and the world breaks.
Sensation cascades through him—not just the relief of stopped pain, but everything. Her hands solid on his back. Her warmth bleeding through where their bodies touch. The smell of her skin—salt and sweat and smoke and human. The sound of her heartbeat against his ear, steady and finite and real.
The release starts in his groin—inevitable, unstoppable. Warmth spreading, muscles contracting in waves he has no control over. The shame of it mixed with relief so intense it feels like dying and being born simultaneously.
But it doesn’t stop there.
Something in his chest cracks open. That place he’s kept locked since the Fall, since the rejection, since he learned that needing anything made you weak. It shatters.
He sobs against her shoulder—not from pain anymore, but from the overwhelming fullness of feeling. Her hand in his hair, fingers gentle, holding him like he’s something precious instead of something damned. The weight of her acceptance pressing into all his broken places.
His tears soak her shirt. His body shakes with aftershocks—muscles twitching, nerves firing randomly, the machinery of flesh learning how to exist after being pushed past all limits. More wetness, more leaking, the body refusing to maintain any dignity or control.
And underneath it all, not an emotion he’s felt in... has he ever felt this? This desperate, aching thankfulness for being seen—truly seen, all his ugliness and need and brokenness visible—and still being held.
Her hand moves in slow circles on his back. Patient. Steady. No hurry to push him away, no discomfort with this complete unraveling.
Time stops meaning anything. There’s only: her warmth, his shaking, the stars overhead, the city humming below, and this moment of absolute surrender that feels more like redemption than any prayer ever did.
Slowly—so slowly—the shaking eases. His breathing evens. The tears stop.
But she doesn’t let go yet.
And he doesn’t want her to.
For the first time in his existence, he understands: this is what they’ve always been searching for. Not power. Not certainty. Not even pleasure.
This. Being known and held anyway. Being broken and having someone stay.
When she finally helps him sit back against the church wall, when she sits beside him and their shoulders touch, he can’t speak. His throat is raw. His body is wrecked. Something fundamental inside him has been destroyed and rebuilt into a shape he doesn’t recognize yet.
They look at the stars together.
She’s quiet for a long time. Then: “There’s more, you know.”
He turns his head slightly. Questioning.
“More than this,” she says. Gestures at his ruined body. “Agony is just one part of it. There are many kind of ecstasy. Things you haven’t felt yet.” Her voice drops lower. “Things only the human body can reach, and divinity can’t touch.”
His breath catches.
“If you come back like this—” she pauses, lets the words hang. “In flesh. Real. I’ll know.”
A sound escapes him. Want. Fear.
She stands. Brushes off her knees. Looks down at him with something like a smile.
“And you’ll kneel again.”
Not a threat. A promise.
She walks to the roof access door. Doesn’t look back.
He stays there—sitting against the church wall, wrecked and wet and more real than he’s been in eons.
The temptation settling into him like a seed, like poison, like the most dangerous thing he’s ever encountered.
More. There’s more. Come back, and you’ll kneel again.
The stars wheel overhead.
The body slowly remembers how to breathe, how to exist, how to bear the weight of limitation.
And underneath it all, already: the wanting. The curiosity. The terrible, beautiful need to know what else flesh can do.
How much more human she might make him feel.
The city glows below. The stars burn above.
He stays there a long time.
Yearning.
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© 2025 E.M.V. - writing as Morgan A. Drake. All rights reserved.This story contains mention of suicidal ideation, explicit sexual content, BDSM themes including dominance/submission and stress positions, breath play, religious imagery in sexual contexts, psychological manipulation, what could be construed as dubious consent and extended scenes of physical and emotional torture. It engages with Christian mythology in a non-traditional way. Readers sensitive to these themes should proceed with caution.
Love this perspective. The imagery is so sharp and the feeling of disillusionment really comes through. This comunicates so much, I totally agree.
My quads are killing me after this one 🥵. Making the fallen angel fee what human agony is like? Cruel ecstasy.