This one’s for you, anon. To everyone else: I’m so, so sorry for what you’re about to read should you choose to. I am simultaneously not sorry at all. This is a masterpiece and actually my magnum opus. Written in collaboration with @clear-what-i-was-seeing, the creator of Hrab. All the crab facts in this fic are true. Many Hrabs were harmed in the making of this fic. Please brace yourself for what lies ahead.
“It is in the nature of every living thing to be cruel. Many species of animal have been known to play with their food, oftentimes in painful and savage ways, and show great pleasure in doing so. Their prey is but a hapless and tortured thing, lying in wait to be devoured yet playing spectator to its own drawn-out suffering at the behest of the predator’s brutal whimsy. Tell me, Will,” Hrab says, “are you, here and now, assuming the role of a hunter? Savage and unremorseful, delighting in the feeble struggles of that which you have conquered? Or are you perhaps the hunted, forced to bear witness to your own pain, your own humiliation, unable to do anything as you are torn into and devoured?”
“Shut up,” Will tells him. “You’re going in the toilet.”
“You have donned the skin of the hunter, then,” Hrab says, undeterred as Will snatches him up, careful to avoid his pincers as he clamps his hands down over his flailing legs and starts to carry him to the bathroom. Will doesn’t miss the note of delight in his voice. “Forcing me to submit to your design.”
Will says nothing, shouldering open the bathroom door and making his way to the toilet. He holds Hrab over the bowl, raising a brow. “Any last words?”
“Only that you are magnificent in your chosen fury, dear Will.” Hrab wriggles in his grasp. “When will I see you again?”
“With my luck, all too soon,” Will mutters.
“Nothing,” Will says. “Bye, Hrab.”
Before Hrab has a chance to respond, Will drops him into the toilet and presses the flush vindictively, watching with a detached sort of resignation as he swirls around a couple of times, caught in the current of the water with his little legs waving around madly before he disappears. He’ll be back, Will knows.
