valencing:

The sun was
shining on a calm sea when the small band of novices set sail. Harry Styles gazed at
the rippling waves and remembered the difficult path that had brought them
all to this point: the years of prayer and study, the vow of chastity that
confirmed their renunciation of the material world. Now, as the final step on
their monastic journey, he and his comrades had only to navigate this narrow
sea.

As Niall, Liam, Louis, and Zayn adjusted
sails and consulted maps, it seemed to Harry that their handsome faces were
exalted. Surely the gods themselves had blessed their journey. But then the
ship lurched sharply, and he fell to his knees. What was happening? The ship
lurched again, and tilted sickeningly. Niall screamed. The wind picked up, and
the sky seemed to darken before Harry’s very eyes.

Then he saw it. A
dark, pulsating mass at the side of the ship. As Harry watched in horror, it
extended itself, wormlike, down the bulwark. Louis and Liam joined hands and
started to pray. Another feeler appeared, this one to starboard, and began its
own creeping progression toward the band of terrified young men.

“A sea
monster!” Harry called as a third tentacle curled itself thickly about a
mast and the ship began rocking from side to side. He staggered to his feet
again. “The gods are testing us! We must be strong!”

And yet a
longer, narrower tentacle was even now quivering barely a foot from Harry. It
seemed oddly purposeful, as if it knew where it was going. Harry looked wildly
from side to side. The number of tentacles had multiplied, and the ship was now
riding impossibly high in the water, as if enclosed in the monster’s vast
embrace.

“I have
studied such creatures,” Niall said, his voice shaky. “The ancient manuscripts,
they say–” A tentacle prodded insinuatingly at Niall’s sandal. Zayn pushed
Niall behind him and picked up a stick.

“What
does it want?” yelled Louis.

“It
wants––I fear it wants––there was an illustration in the manuscript––”

Zayn clapped a
hand on Niall’s shoulder. “Tell us, Niall.”

“It wants
one of us,” Niall said, his face a mask of revulsion. “I mean, not to
keep. Just to––”

“Oh my
god,” said Harry, beginning to understand. “It wants us to give it
pleasure.”

“Sort
of,” said Niall. “But more like…the other way around. The visitation ceases when a man give up his
seed to the beast,” he recited.

“Absolutely
not,” said Louis.

“Our vows,” Liam agreed.

The ship rocked
violently. Dozens of tentacles were twining about the masts, the tiller, the
capstan. A tentacle pulled at the mainsail, and it ripped clean through. Harry
stumbled, and realized that another feeler had wrapped itself about his ankle
and was stroking at his calf. “Surely the gods would not wish us to
die,” he whispered.

Zayn grabbed him
by the shoulders. “Harry, no! There must be another way!”

“Don’t you
understand?” Harry gritted out…

(credit to @solo-harry for the gif, credit to @dulosis for tagging it ‘fuck or die’)