#Doctor Arthur Harrow x Reader

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ARTHUR HARROW X FTM READER - PART 2 (Doctor Harrow)

TWO: Summary: You meet Doctor Harrow, he introduces some new kinks to you. Continuation of: You’re part of Arthur Harrow’s community, but hold a special place. [ Part 1 here ] Arthur Harrow (Cult Leader) x FTM Reader. Rating: Explicit (Contains smut, Warning for dub-con, One-sided Breeding Kink from Harrow, talk about getting Reader pregnant, Praise kink, use of good boy, reader curses a few times (mostly damn) ). Words: 5785 Thanks to the wonderful supporter who commissioned this fic ♡

For: @apriltearsbringmayfears Tags: Older man x younger (ftm) reader, dub-con and consensual intimacy, praise kink, touching, kissing, explicit sexual content, bit of powerplay, you x the villainous cult leader, Doctor Harrow is messing about.

Your head was spinning, the world a blur of sterile white. White walls, white floor, even you were swallowed by the stark whiteness of the fabric encasing your body. An asylum patient's garb clung to you, the realization cold and sharp in your mind. You were a patient, trapped in a room that reeks of disinfectant and stripped-down sanity. The air was still, almost suffocating in its cleanliness.

"Good morning," came a calm, composed voice from across the room. You turned your head slowly, fighting the dizziness. There he was. Doctor Arthur Harrow, his hair shorter, slicked back in a mockery of casual sophistication. He sat behind a desk made of glass, aviator glasses perched on his nose. A small mustache curled above his lip, giving him an air of quiet authority.

Your eyes were instantly drawn to the cane that rested against the desk. His cane. But the crocodile heads were nowhere in sight. Instead, you saw a modern black cane with a golden accent and a white handle. No crocodile head. Just plain, clinical efficiency.

This wasn’t your Arthur.

He tapped a white, expensive-looking pen against the sides of his glasses and – to your shock- you noticed a golden gleaming ring on his ring finger. He seemed to trace your gaze and hummed, but said nothing.

Modern clothes clung to his frame, a crisp departure from the red cotton he usually favored. White books and little white trinkets adorned the colorless cabinets against the walls. It made you realize this could not be a real place. No one kept everything in white. Even the hearth, the tables, the chairs, everything lacked color except for a painting on the wall.

But the books. Their covers were all blank.

You knew where this place was. And that you weren’t the first to visit it.

"Doctor..." you whispered, the title tasting foreign on your tongue. You’d wanted to ask so many questions, but your throat felt dry. Memories swirled in the fog of your mind - fragments of a different life, a different Harrow.

"Yes, it's me," he said, smile faint but present. His eyes, hidden behind those reflective lenses, seemed to pierce through you. "I believe I know what your problem is."

You shivered, folding your arms tightly around yourself as if that could keep out the chill seeping into your bones. The room smelled of antiseptic and something else. Something metallic, almost coppery. Blood? No. Just your imagination.

"What problem?" you managed to ask, though the words felt insignificant. There wasn’t anything wrong with you. Not anything you weren’t aware of. "Why am I here?”

"Calm down," he replied, voice soothing but firm. "We're going to try something new. Something that could help you." The confidence in his tone was unshakeable, absolute.

Your heart could be heard pounding in your ears, chest heaving more rapidly now. What did he think was wrong with you? Arthur had always assured you that you were perfect to him. Surely, this mirror-version of him was lying – a fraud. Perhaps not so much a dream as a nightmare.

"Help me?" you scoffed, disbelief mingling with fear. "What are you talking about?"

"A new kind of therapy,” he said, leaning forward, his gaze never leaving you. That familiar smile tugged the corners of his lips. A smile you recognized from your Arthur. Oh, how you recognized that look. Kind, yet mischievous. He already had his mind set on something. Whatever it was, you weren’t going to change his thoughts.  

“A new treatment,” you echoed hollowly, mind racing.

"One that requires your complete trust and cooperation." The confidence in his voice was unwavering, a rock amidst the storm of your confusion.

You stared at him, your heart pounding a chaotic rhythm against your ribs. He seemed so sure, so calm. The sterile scent of antiseptic mingled with the faint hum of fluorescent lights above.

“Why?”

You swallowed hard, your throat dry. Questions clawed at your mind. What kind of therapy? Why you? And why did this all feel so disturbingly familiar?

"Trust me," he said, his voice low and hypnotic.

You crossed your arms over your chest, the thin fabric of the white patient outfit doing little to shield you from the cold.

"Why should I agree to this therapy?" Your voice came out sharper than you intended, slicing through the sterile air.

Doctor Arthur Harrow leaned back in his chair, unperturbed, a small smile playing on his lips. "Because you need it," he said simply, his tone smooth and confident. "Everything will become clear. You'll see."

"Need it?" You scoffed, feeling a surge of defiance. "Why should I trust you?"

"Trust is earned," he replied, his eyes narrowing slightly behind those aviator glasses. "We’ve already made such progress, haven’t we? I remember you’ve already put all your trust in me…”

And that caused a pang deep inside your chest because, with a start, you realized he was right. You’d come to trust your Arthur blindly. Fully. Your love for him has become irrevocably passionate and wild. A treasure you did not want to lose or abandon.

Trust Arthur? You already did with your whole heart.

But this? This man? He was not your Arthur. Of that you were sure. And defiantly you gazed at him, your own lips twisting in disdain. How dare someone, or some higher power, simulate the man of your desires?

"Faith," you muttered, tasting the word like poison. "My faith is reserved for one alone."

"And that’s a good thing," he said, leaning forward again, his gaze intense. "It is going to make my job so much easier.”

His words sent shivers down your spine, his voice full of dark promises that had you squeezing your thighs together and your cock throbbing to life. You silently cursed for getting aroused by this illusion of the man you loved.

"What job?” you asked, shaking your head and willing your erection to go down. Not that you were successful…"You keep saying these words, but they mean nothing."

"Words are powerful," he responded, his voice a gentle caress. "They can heal, or they can destroy. It's all in how you use them."

"You're not answering my question," you snapped, frustration bubbling to the surface. "Why me? Why now?"

"Why not you?" His answer was infuriatingly cryptic, his calm demeanor only adding to your agitation. "Aren’t the favorite disciple?”

There it was. Your eyes flew wide. A confession that made him sound more like the man you knew. Was he the same as your Arthur after all?

“And so you chose me for this new… therapy of yours?’

“Sometimes, the universe chooses us for reasons we can't understand," he continued, voice husky and low. Entranced, you watched his finger trace an imaginary circle on a blank paper on the glass table in front of him. The golden wedding band gleamed in the light.

Was it to symbolize his faithfulness to Ammit? Or to someone else?

To you?

Why were you hopeful?

"That's not an answer," you bit back, your pulse quickening.

"Maybe not the one you want," he conceded, his smile widening. "But it's the one you need."

"Need," you echoed, feeling the word coil around your mind like a snake. "What do you think I need?"

"To see the truth," he said, his voice dropping to a whisper. "To understand your own need, I will have to show you.”

While your mind was still racing  - running wouldn’t be of any help as there was no place to go – you heard the clicking of his heels as he rose from his chair and made his way around the desk.

Doctor Harrow came to stand behind you, his presence looming. You felt the warmth first, a heavy presence that crept over your shoulder. The air in the asylum office felt thick, almost suffocating. His hand had found your shoulder, firm but gentle. You tried to turn, to look at his hand, to see where he touched you, but the grip he had on you tightened. His fingers, strong and sure, pressed gently into your flesh through the thin fabric.

A silent warning.

"Shh," he whispered, voice low and soothing. It was a command wrapped in velvet.

You swallowed hard, nerves jittery. "What if I don't agree to the new therapy?" you asked, voice barely above a whisper. You knew going against his will was going to be a challenge.

Harrow's breath warmed the back of your neck. "You'll give in...eventually," he said, each word deliberate, measured. A strange sensation crawled up your spine, settling deep in your gut. His hand squeezed your shoulder, the pressure both reassuring and terrifying.

"Why are you so sure?" you managed to ask, heart pounding in your chest.

"Because," he murmured softly, his grip tightening just enough to make you wince, "I know how your mind works. I cracked the code and found the combination."

Harrow's hand slid from your shoulder, trailing down your spine. His touch was electric, igniting nerves you didn't know existed. You stiffened, feeling every inch of his presence behind you.

"Doctor, what are you doing?" Your voice quivered, barely audible.

"I’ve started your therapy," Harrow replied, his tone maddeningly calm. "This is part of it."

You shook your head, a weak attempt to muster defiance. "I didn’t agree to…"

"Shh," he interrupted, his fingers tracing the curve of your back, then moving around to your chest. "Trust me."

Harrow’s hand was under your clothes before you could react. His fingers traced a path of fire across your skin, each touch igniting something primal within you. Your breath hitched as he found the sensitive spot just below your navel, his thumb circling it with deliberate slowness.

"Doctor..." you gasped, but he silenced you with a finger to your lips. The gesture felt intimate, almost reverent, and yet there was an undeniable dominance in his eyes.

"Shh," he whispered, his voice a soothing purr. "Trust me."

The way he loomed over you felt dominating – as if he was crowding in on you. And then, it happened.

Before you could protest further, Harrow’s lips crashed against yours. The kiss was demanding, consuming, as if he sought to claim every breath you had. His mustache scratched your face, adding to the overwhelming sensation. Your mind screamed confusion, but your body betrayed you, melting into his touch.

His tongue explored your mouth with a hungry urgency, each movement calculated and intense. You felt his hands gripping your face, tilting your head to deepen the kiss. Time seemed to warp, seconds stretched into eternity. The world outside the asylum office ceased to exist. It was only Harrow. His taste, his scent, his heat.

When he finally pulled away, you gasped for air, your heart pounding like a drum in your chest. He looked at you, his blue eyes piercing through your defenses.

This was his therapy? You didn’t want to know how he treated his other patients.

You shivered as his hand moved lower, fingertips brushing against the waistband of your pants. He probably already spotted the bulge there, must have seen the signs of your arousal. Damn him. He took his time, savoring each second as if it were a ritual. The air thickened with anticipation, every heartbeat echoing like a drum in your ears.

Then, his fingers flicked over your bulge, the friction enough to make you gasp deliciously. With a swift motion, he gripped the back of your neck. Not painfully, but firmly, asserting control. The pressure sent a thrill down your spine, making you arch involuntarily into his touch. A smug smile slid on his face, the corners of his lips pulling up in that cocky smirk you loved to kiss away.

Harrow’s other hand tugged at your pants, pulling them down with practiced ease. The cool air kissed your exposed skin, sending a shiver through your body. Your cock popped out, kissed proudly by the cold office air.

"Doctor..." you breathed again, this time less a plea and more a surrender.

"Good boy," he murmured, his hot breath ghosting over your ear. His fingers stroked past your swollen cock, earning him another moan torn from your lips. “So eager,” he muttered. “So ready to please me.”

His hand moved up and down between your thighs, strong fingers teasing and exploring. You couldn’t help the moans that escaped your lips, your body responding eagerly to his touch. He knew exactly where to press, where to stroke, drawing out pleasure with expert precision.

"That's it," he coaxed, his voice velvet smooth. "Give your body what it wants. Let go."

Your head fell back, eyes fluttering shut as waves of sensation crashed over you. Each touch, each caress, brought you closer to the edge. His name became a mantra on your lips, a prayer offered up to this godlike figure who held you in thrall.

"Arthur... please..."

“Doctor,” he firmly corrected you. “Doctor Harrow,” and then he leaned over you again to bring his lips close to your ear. The rasped whisper was enough to bring you closer to your climax. “Or call me daddy, because that is the real issue here. Isn’t it?”

His words confused you at first because you didn’t call your Arthur that. But Doctor Harrow’s fingers moved so expertly, he had you crawling in your seat, back arched, legs trembling, body wrecked with desire. And yet he kept you pinned down by your shoulders, used his own body weight to keep you trapped in your seat as he assaulted you with pleasure.

Just his hand and his voice. You thought it was unfair that he could do this to you.

"You're doing so well," he praised, his voice thick with approval. "But you can do even better.”

The rustling of clothes and the absence of pressure indicated that he had moved. But only when his fingers left your cock did you open your eyes and actually look. Doctor Harrow limped around you and came to stand before you, with a serious and solemn expression. And then he sank to his knees, pushing your legs aside before pressing a hand flatly against your tummy, applying pressure to keep you there.

“Let’s just take this a notch further.”

His lips closed around your small cock and you were reeling. You tried to wiggle under his touch while he sucked and nipped. Your hands found his – shorter – hair and dug into it, tugging at the strands for leverage and a silent plea to let go.

“Don’t,” a hoarse moan. “Stop,” the voice was your own. But damn, this felt good. As did the smirk that you felt against your skin while he kept on sucking and nipping, using his mouth to bring you to the edge, ready to tumble over.

One hard suck – the slurping noise that accompanied it was embarrassing but oh-so-good. With a choked cry, you came undone, your body wracked with intense pleasure. Every muscle tensed, then released, leaving you trembling in the aftermath.

And still, he nipped and sucked until the last of the tremors faded and pleasure became sensitivity, bordering on pain if he didn’t let go and would overstimulate you.

Luckily, he let go of your cock with a loud pop on his lips. One last lick past your cock made you shiver – too much, your mind provided – but then he was done, rising to a standing position in front of you. He withdrew his hand slowly, almost reluctantly, as if savoring the last vestiges of your climax. And when you looked up at him, he was staring down at you intently, yet pensively. As if he was lost in thought.

"Good boy," Doctor Harrow praised you, his tone laced with satisfaction.

You were still catching your breath, glancing up at him. “Is the therapy over now?’ You cheekily asked, not caring if he would think you a brat for the tone of your voice.

Doctor Harrow pursed his lips, the frown above his aviator glasses deepened. “I’m sorry?”

“I asked,” you repeated, this time a little more agitated. He had sucked you off. You were done now, weren’t you? You could leave, right? “Are we done now?’

A pregnant silence filled the air between you.

“My dear boy,” he finally said after what felt like too long. “Why would you assume such a thing.” The way he stood, leaning against his desk, so carefree, so comfortable. It made you want to rage. How could he be so calm and collected?

“This is only the beginning.” And without a warning, Harrow closed the gap between you. You tried to stand up and struggled against his grip as he reached for your neck again. Your pants were still down between your ankles, making it hard to walk away.

Harrow's grip tightened around your neck, his fingers digging into your skin. With a swift motion, he pushed you forward. The cold surface of the glass desk met your chest, sending a shiver through your body. The sound of rattling glass filled the room, mingling with your ragged breaths.

"Stay still," he commanded, his voice firm yet dripping with affection.

You heard the zipper but were too busy trying to wiggle out of his grasp. You barely had time to register the command before he positioned himself behind you. His hands roamed over your exposed skin, greedy and unapologetic. You felt the blunt pressure, then the agonizingly slow slide as he entered you. Your breath hitched, pleasure mixing with pain.

"Doctor..." you gasped, the word spilling from your lips like a prayer. Another deep thrust. Luckily, your walls were slick from your previous orgasm, providing him easy access and an easy slide.

"Good boy," Harrow murmured, his voice heavy with desire. You felt his hips press fully against your ass, knowing that he was completely inside – as far as your body would allow – and suppressed a little gasp. Damn, this man felt good. Even if he wasn’t the real deal. He surely felt real.

A hoarse rasp in your ear, a dark promise: "I’m going to cure you."

The desk beneath you creaked ominously with each thrust, the glass threatening to give way under the force of your combined weight. But the sensation of him inside you drowned out any fear. Each thrust sent shockwaves of pleasure coursing through your veins, pushing you further into blissful abandon.

"Do you feel that?" he growled, his breath hot against your ear. "Do you feel how deep I'm inside you?"

"Yes, Doctor Harrow... oh god, yes," you moaned, your fingers clawing at the edge of the desk for support.

"Imagine," he continued, his pace relentless, each thrust deep and hard, "me filling you up, making you pregnant. Wouldn't you love that, my sweet boy? To carry my child?"

The words sent a jolt of forbidden excitement through you. The thought of bearing his mark, of being claimed so completely, was intoxicating.

"Yes," you cried out, the confession torn from your soul. "I want it... I want you."

"That's right," he praised, each word punctuated by a powerful thrust. "You're mine. Only mine."

The rhythm grew frantic, bodies slick with sweat, moving in perfect, chaotic harmony. His hands kept you pinned, his strength a constant reminder of his control. The eroticism of his power, his dominance, fueled your desire, driving you closer to another release.

You liked him like this, always had when he was in control. But him taking you so deep, so passionately… was he truly working you toward your second orgasm of the day?

Your body started to tremble around him, your own voice growing hoarse with each gasp, and cry, and moan.

“More,” he commanded, another firm thrust deep inside. Another echo of wet noises as he pounded you like there was no tomorrow.

"Say it," he demanded, his voice rough and commanding. "Tell me who you belong to."

"You," you screamed, as loudly as your breaking voice allowed you. Your body was twitching and trembling with pleasure. Thank Ammit you had the desk to keep you up because your own legs surely wouldn’t. It felt good, the truth breaking free in desperate gasps. "I belong to you, Doctor Harrow."

A few more firm thrusts. You were nearly there.

And then he paused.

You cursed, teeth gnashing as you tried to move your hips and ass to get some more friction. The glass felt cold against your erect cock, stimulating you – but not enough. Why had he stopped?

You heard the heavy swallow, the way he cleared his throat, then felt how Doctor Harrow leaned over you, cloaking your body entirely with his own.

The hairs of his mustache tickled your ear.

"See?" he whispered, his lips brushing against your temple. "I told you you'd enjoy the therapy."

Bastard.

You groaned loudly, moving your hips but groaning in disappointment when his hands kept you pinned down, unable to move up and down his shaft.

“Please,” you begged, voice hoarse. It was enough.

"Good boy," he echoed, his tone laced with triumph. "Let go again. For me."

He didn’t wait but started a fast pace, for which you were grateful. Each stroke was deep and hit that right spot inside that had your toes curled and your fingers grasping past the slick surface of the glass.

Your body obeyed, surrendering to the overwhelming tide of pleasure. Everything else faded away leaving only the raw, unfiltered connection between you and Harrow. Nothing else mattered.

You clamped down on his cock, earning the stuttering rasped groans in your ear that betrayed he was near as well. A few more deep thrusts and he followed. Warm, hot liquid poured deep inside while his hands held your hips pressed against the cold glass. Your body was throbbing, but so was his shaft as it emptied itself. You imagined the way his balls must be pulsing right now as they were drained dry completely by your deliciously tight cunt.

“Hmm, so greedy,” he murmured, as if he was reading your thoughts. He leaned a little backward, cock still locked inside you, so he could clap a hand firmly to the cheek of your ass.

You did a little yelp, your body scooting forward on the glass, and then tried to look at him from over your shoulder.

“Do you think it will take?” The doctor rasped, his blue eyes finding yours through the reflecting glasses. You felt the way his fingers pried your cheeks open, then slid lower until they pressed inside your cunt, joining his cock.

“You think you’re going to make me a daddy, sweetheart?”

He slowly retracted his cock and seemed to watch how slick seed came dripping from your hole. Holding his cock in his hand, he used his half-hard shaft to rub past your sensitive lips, pushing the semen back in with the tip.

You closed your eyes and allowed him to play with you, your body tired from a second climax and your breath still rapid and uneven.

You felt him push the head of his cock inside you, dipping in and out – almost experimentally – a few times. Then he retracted and the warmth of his body was gone.

"Up," Harrow commanded, his voice a rough whisper against your ear.

You barely had time to register the word before he pulled you to your feet. His hand remained firm around your neck, guiding you as he maneuvered behind you. The cold air hit your back, stark in contrast to the heat of his body. He turned you to face him, eyes blazing with an intensity that made your heart race.

"That's it," he murmured, as he held you close, his touch almost tender despite the intensity of what had just transpired.

Finally, he stepped back, leaving you feeling strangely empty without his presence. You noticed the limp when he walked. At least that hadn’t changed. But the half-hard cock you had expected to go limp was curling up proudly again, tipping against Harrow’s stomach as he limped to the other side of the desk. Wait? What?

You groaned, taking a few deep breaths while you watched him lowering himself into his chair with a grace that belied his years. He sat there, pants discarded, watching you with a calm, expectant gaze.

You stood there, catching your breath, the silence stretching out between you. What did he want from you?

"What are you waiting for?" he asked, his voice barely above a whisper. "Sit on me." His tone was gentle but firm, laced with the promise of more to come. You knew that even if you had wanted to, you could not disobey him.

And a third time? Well, what was one more? Even if this wasn’t your Harrow, he surely was a good fuck. You wouldn’t look a gifted horse in the mouth.

With trembling legs and a racing heart, you moved closer, your skin still tingling from the last wave of pleasure. You discarded your pants fully, even taking the time to take off the rest of your asylum garb until you stood fully naked.

Harrow's eyes were on you, unwavering, his gaze a mix of command and invitation. His hands rested on the arms of the chair, fingers tapping lightly against the metal as if to a rhythm only he could hear.

"Come here," he urged softly, his voice a low murmur that sent shivers down your spine.

You straddled him, knees at either side of his waist. The warmth of his body pressed against yours was intoxicating. Slowly, you lowered yourself onto him, feeling him fill you once more. A squelching sound accompanied the movement, as combined slick from you and Doctor Harrow’s semen paved the way for his hard cock to slide deep inside. A gasp escaped your lips, the sensation almost overwhelming.

"That's it," he whispered, his hands finding your hips, guiding you. "Just like that."

And it was just like that. You preferred this position more, the way your cock rubbed past him, the friction, it was all so much better than the cool glass table had been.

You began to move, the rhythm slow at first, savoring every inch of him within you. He had grown hard again, his cock throbbing and pulsing inside your narrow cunt. Each rise and fall brought a fresh surge of heat, a deep ache of pleasure that built with every movement. His grip tightened on your hips, encouraging, guiding, coaxing you to go faster.

"Good boy," he praised, his voice thick with satisfaction. "You're perfect. Could only be better swollen with child."

The words spurred you on, driving you to quicken your pace. The room seemed to fade away, leaving only the two of you, bound together in this intense dance. Sweat slicked your bodies, the sound of your mingled breaths filling the silence.  

"Arthur," you gasped, your hands gripping his shoulders for support. "I'm close."

"Then let go," he commanded, his voice a low growl. "Show me how much you need this."

The coil of pleasure wound tighter within you, threatening to snap. You rode him harder, faster, each thrust pushing you closer to the edge. His hands roamed your back, caressing, encouraging, sending sparks of electricity through your veins.

"Come for me," he ordered, his tone brooking no argument.

Your body obeyed, the release crashing over you like a tidal wave. You cried out, his name a prayer on your lips, your vision blurring as ecstasy consumed you. He followed soon after, his own release a powerful surge that left you both trembling.

"That's it, my love," he murmured, holding you close, his breath hot against your ear. “Let me stuff you nice and full. Think of all the cum. Make me a dad.”

He stroked your back gently, the touch tender and soothing. You melted into him, feeling safe, cherished. Even if he wasn’t your Arthur. Nothing else mattered.

“We have made such good progress, haven’t we?” he whispered, his lips brushing against your temple.

“Progress?’ you asked, blearily. You felt as if your body could take no more, yet he started to gently thrust inside you again.

“One more time,” he said, but you were already shaking your head.

“No.”

“Come on, we have made such good progress,” he moved you up and down his shaft shallowly, but your pussy was oversensitive and each thrust felt like it was too much. You flinched, trying to push him away, but his hand found your cock and flicked against it. You recoiled, back arched, and let out a cry.

“Fuck, I can’t,” you gasped, still struggling in his grip. “It’s too much.”

But as Harrow gently pounded your sore cunt, the world around you seemed to crumble away until everything faded. Even the feeling of being fucked raw.

You sat up and instantly winced. Your body felt sore, pussy even sorer. As if you truly had climaxed three times.

You rubbed your head, eyes slowly getting used to the daylight that already filtered into the room. That was when you noticed him.

Arthur Harrow sat on the edge of your desk, his shoulder-length hair cascading around his face, worry etched into his features. The morning light streamed through the window, casting long shadows that danced eerily across the floor. You’d almost thought he wasn’t real, but then he moved.

"Good morning," Arthur said softly, his voice a soothing balm against your frayed nerves. He leaned forward, the creak of the desk cutting through the silence. "You missed breakfast so I came to have a look. See if you’re all right."

Your mouth felt dry as sandpaper, and you licked your lips, trying to find your voice. "I..."

"It’s all right," he interrupted gently, holding up a hand. "I brought you something." He gestured to a tray beside him, laden with fruit, toast, cheese, and a steaming cup.

The disorientation clawed at your mind, the lines between dream and reality blurring. You stared at the food, your stomach twisting in knots. "Why?"

"Because I care about you," he replied, his gaze unwavering. Those bright blue eyes bored into yours, filled with an earnest concern that made your heart ache.

"Was it... real?" you muttered, the words barely audible.

"Dreams can feel very real, can't they?" Arthur's lips curled into a small, knowing smile. He pushed the tray closer to you. "Eat. You'll feel better."

You slowly got out of bed, unperturbed about Arthur seeing you like this. He’d seen you in worse states.

You reached for the toast, your hands trembling. The memory of Doctor Harrow's touch still lingered on your skin, ghostly and persistent. You took a bite, the crunch loud in the otherwise quiet room.

"Was it another nightmare?" Arthur asked, concern etching lines across his face.

"Something like that," you admitted after swallowing, unable to meet his gaze. Instead, you focused on the tray of food, absently picking at the toast.

"Talk to me," Arthur prompted gently, his voice a soothing balm that eased some of the lingering tension within you. "What happened in the dream?"

“You were there,” you finally confessed, still confused about everything that had just happened.

"I was?" He asked, his voice low and steady. Arthur's blue eyes bore into you, steady and unwavering, as if trying to decipher the secrets hidden within your soul. Your heart pounded in your chest, the lingering effects of the dream making it difficult to distinguish between reality and fantasy.

You hesitated before speaking, the weight of the dream heavy on your tongue. "It was you," you began, your voice trembling slightly. "But not you. You were a doctor, in an asylum."

A flicker of surprise crossed Arthur's face, his brows knitting together as he processed your words. "A doctor, huh?" His voice was steady, but you could see the wheels turning behind those piercing blue eyes. "And what did this doctor do?"

You hesitated, a shiver running down your spine as you remembered the way Doctor Harrow's hands felt on you, the controlled strength in his grip. "He… he was...helping me, or at least, that's what he claimed." The words tumbled out in a rush, a confession burning your lips as you spoke. "But it didn't feel like help. It felt like control."

Arthur's hand tightened on your arm, a protective gesture that sent warmth flooding through you. "Did he touch you?”

“Oh yes,” you didn’t know why you confessed so easily, but once you looked up it was to see Arthur’s eyes darken menacingly. “Said it was this new therapy he wanted to try, Was supposed to help me with something, but it only ended with him telling me he wanted to see me carry his baby. It was really weird.”

You finally finished, taking your time to catch your breath and think. In the meanwhile, you studied him. Your Arthur.

"In the dream,” he began, eyes unfocused. “I was... obsessed with becoming a father."

He hesitated, gauging your reaction.

“You sure were. Or well, he sure was,” you clicked your tongue and picked up another piece of toast. Orgasming three times had made you hungry.

"Interesting," Arthur murmured, his expression inscrutable. "And how did that make you feel?"

"Confused," you admitted, mouth full, frowning. "I don't understand why he would tell me that."

"Perhaps there's a reason," Arthur suggested, leaning forward in his chair. "Dreams can be windows into our deepest desires and fears. Maybe this is something you need to explore further."

"Are you saying that I should try to get actual therapy?" You asked, skepticism lacing your words.

"Not quite," Arthur replied, his voice soft but firm. "Trust your instincts."

You sighed, running a hand through your hair. The idea of delving deeper into Doctor Harrow's fixation unnerved you. And the way your Arthur reacted to your dream had left you puzzled. Did he know there was a dream version of him lingering around? Could he influence it? Hadn’t it just all been inside your head? Because you’d been pretty certain Ammit and the other Gods loved to use familiar faces and an asylum room to bring their messages across.

"I’m hungry now,” you said, reluctantly. "I just want to eat.”

"Good," Arthur smiled, his eyes warm and reassuring. "I will leave you be. But just remember, I'm here for you, no matter what."

"Thank you," you whispered, your throat tight with emotion.

You watched as Arthur stood and made his way to the door, the familiar crunch of glass beneath his feet a constant reminder of his devotion. His silhouette framed by the doorway, he paused and glanced back at you, his eyes filled with an emotion that you couldn't quite place. Then he was gone. ~ * ~

[littleoddwriter]

Rules, Guidelines, etc.:

[Used to be: ronaldrx]

I'm a hobby writer and mostly write (x Reader) FanFictions and Headcanons. But I am also working on my original story whenever I can, so that I’ll hopefully publish it as an actual book someday. My Ao3.

Here’s a link to my Ko-Fi, in case you want to support me financially. It would mean a lot to me! (Obviously no obligation whatsoever! You never have to pay for anything on my blog, it’s merely an option for donations.)

Also, here are my sideblogs if you’re interested:

Dead Poets Society

Horror

Raúl Esparza

The Simpsons

Only ask for the characters I’ve got listed, please. I’ve written down all of the ones I actually write for, and the list is being updated regularly, as I often find new (actors, whose) characters I write for! (And yes, I always write for every character, so don’t ever worry if you wanna ask for one I haven’t written for in a long time, or ever, it’s fine!) Please always be patient with me. If I haven’t outright declined your request, it’s definitely in the works; even if it has been weeks or months since you’ve sent it in! And only send your requests via ASKs. No DMs or comments, please.

If you have a request, send an Ask to my inbox.

NO sexual NSFW requests, please (more details further down).

Requests = CLOSED (Max. Limit: 10)

Current number of requests: 10

Last updated: October 29, 2023

Masterlists are linked with fandoms/actors/characters below. I WRITE FOR:

ALFRED MOLINA characters:

Doctor Otto Octavius/Doctor Octopus

DAVID DASTMALCHIAN characters:

Abner Krill/Polka-Dot Man

Bob Taylor

Denham

James Lewis

Johnson

Kurt Goreshter

Lonny Crane

Murdoc

Philippe/Abra Kadabra

Simon Lynch

Thomas Schiff

ETHAN HAWKE characters:

Arthur Harrow

Ellison Oswalt

Goodnight Robicheaux

James Sandin

EWAN MCGREGOR characters:

Alex Law

Catcher Block

Christopher Robin

Curt Wild

Dan Torrance

John Bishop

Mark Renton

Obi-Wan Kenobi 

Roman Sionis/Black Mask* (Birds of Prey - Masc!Reader only) [Any other version of Roman Sionis/Black Mask can be with a Gender Neutral/Female!Reader.]

HUGH DANCY characters:

Adam Raki

Cal Roberts

Luke Brandon

Executive ADA Nolan Price

Will Graham

KARL URBAN characters:

Billy Butcher

Black Hat

John Kennex

Dr. Leonard "Bones" McCoy

Markiplier EGOS:

Darkiplier

Illinois

Wilford Warfstache

Yancy

PAUL DANO characters:

Alex Jones/Barry Milland [Platonic only!]

Dwayne Hoover [Platonic only!]

Edward Nashton/The Riddler

Eli Sunday

Jay (Okja)

Joby Taylor

Klitz

PEDRO PASCAL characters:

Agent Whiskey

Dave York

Dio Morrissey

Eddie

Ezra

Francisco “Catfish” Morales

Marcus Moreno

Marcus Pike

Max Phillips

Maxwell Lord

Oberyn Martell

Ricky Hauk

RAÚL ESPARZA characters:

Bobby

Dr. Frederick Chilton*

Jackson Neill

Jonas Nightingale

Rafael Barba

Characters from 9-1-1 (Lone Star):

Carlos Reyes*

Eddie Diaz

Evan “Buck” Buckley

Howard “Chimney” Han

Josh Russo*

Mateo Chavez

Paul Strickland

Bobby Nash

Tim Rosewater

TK Strand*

Characters from Law and Order(: Special Victims Unit):

Detective/ADA Dominick “Sonny” Carisi, Jr.

Sergeant Mike Dodds

Detective Nick Amaro

Executive ADA Nolan Price

ADA Peter Stone

ADA Rafael Barba

Deputy Chief William Dodds

Little Miss Sunshine:

Dwayne Hoover [Platonic only!]

Frank*

Our Flag Means Death:

Edward Teach/Blackbeard*

Frenchie

Izzy Hands

Stede Bonnet*

Prisoners (2013):

Alex Jones/Barry Milland [Platonic only!]

Bob Taylor

Detective David Loki

Renfield (2023):

Count Dracula

Robert Montague Renfield

Tedward “Teddy” Lobo

SLASHERS/Horror Film Characters:

Asa Emory/The Collector

Ash J. Williams [I will usually default to Ash from the TV show, unless requested otherwise!]

Billy Lenz (1974)

Billy Loomis

Bo Sinclair

Brahms Heelshire

Bubba Sawyer/Leatherface (TCM 1974 and TCM 2)

Charles Lee Ray/Chucky

Chop Top Sawyer

Corey Cunningham

Dewey Riley

Drayton Sawyer

Herbert West*

Jesse Cromeans/Chromeskull

Lawrence Gordon

Lester Sinclair

Luigi Largo

Mark Hoffman  

Nubbins Sawyer

Pavi Largo

Stu Macher  

Vincent Sinclair

William Easton

Star Wars:

Anakin Skywalker

Obi-Wan Kenobi

Qui-Gon Jinn

The Girl Next Door:

Klitz

Eli

Characters from The Simpsons:

Cecil Terwilliger*

Fat Tony

Frankie the Squealer

Grady*

Jack Lassen

Johnny Tightlips

Julio*

Legs

Louie

Moe Szyslak

Ned Flanders

Otto Mann

Seymour Skinner

Sideshow Bob

Sideshow Mel

Snake Jailbird

Timothy Lovejoy

Waylon Smithers*

What We Do in the Shadows:

Anton (Movie)

Deacon

Guillermo de la Cruz*

Laszlo Cravensworth

Nandor the Relentless

Viago

Vladislav

* Please note that an asterisk (*) means that these characters are Male/Masc/GenderNeutral!Reader only (including non-binary, of course). Platonic relationships with Female!Reader are possible, but no romantic ones.

If it’s a character that is open to all Readers, and you do not specify in your request what you want, I’ll usually opt for a Gender Neutral Reader by default.

SHIPS, such as:

BlackBonnet (OFMD)

SteddyHands (OFMD)

Black Pete x Lucius Spriggs (OFMD)

Buck x Josh Russo (9-1-1)

Dracfield (Renfield 2023)

Buddie (9-1-1)

Eli x Klitz (The Girl Next Door)

Nandermo (WWDITS)

Herbert West x Dan Cain (Re-Animator)

McKirk (Star Trek: AOS)

Oluwande x Jim Jimenez (OFMD)

Barisi (Law & Order SVU) 

Renfield x Teddy Lobo (Renfield 2023)

Sickrent (Trainspotting/T2)

Stobotnik (Sonic Movie)

Tarlos (9-1-1: Lone Star)

AnderPerry (Dead Poets Society)

ZsaszMask (Birds of Prey)

Lastly, I would like to add things I will NOT write (about):

Sexual NSFW fics/headcanons (I used to write those as you can see in my Masterlists, but I have my reasons for not writing them anymore. Any hints at sexual topics are fine).

Anything related to death as the main subject (this includes deadly diseases, anything fatal, really, etc.).

Anything that romanticizes Mental Illness (my Vent Fics about my own disorders obviously do not romanticize any of it and I do not stand for that).

(Recreational) Drug Use

Extreme Possessive Behaviour and/or Jealousy

Yandere

If you have something you would like me to write for, but you do not see it listed anywhere, please ask me before requesting it, so we can talk about it. I hope you enjoy yourself on my blog and have a good time!

My Asks and DMs are always open for any questions or simply to talk!

- Jesse

[the--morning--room]

RESURGAM (Arthur Harrow x F! Reader) Chapter 15: A cold, solitary girl again

"That bitter hour cannot be described: in truth, 'the waters came into my soul; I sank in deep mire: I felt no standing; I came into deep waters; the floods overflowed me.'" -Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6 Chapter 7 Chapter 8 Chapter 9 Chapter 10 Chapter 11 Chapter 12 Chapter 13 Chapter 14

AO3

I don't know if you're aware of this, reader, but the human body is quite poorly made. The temperature in the desert that night was not nearly low enough to freeze one to death, but it was enough to harden the Thorn's joints until she could no longer move her fingers to wipe the sand from her eyes and mouth. Her breaths came painfully and haltingly, and once her knees failed her she knew she had no choice but to rest. She clutched the thin, whitish hairs of the jackal and let it lead her, half-crawling like a primordial beast, to the relative safety of a cliffside, where she sandwiched herself between the chilled, sandy rock and the jackal's body.

"Thank you," she told it, and patted its slimy head.

There was a faint silver line along the edge of the horizon. The coming dawn, or the distant Cairo skyline? Either way, why was the light growing so quickly?

The whiteness expanded until it enveloped the sky, erased the desert and the jackal, and the Thorn knew nothing but white.

She'd been here a while, she thought. Of course, she'd just gotten there, but she knew that place, didn't she? The columns, the checkered floor. The information desk, where a "Tomb Buster" poster sat upright in a swivel chair. The gift shop with its window full of ushabtis, standing like a tiny army. And of course, the art. Stacks of prone statues, safely mummified in protective wrapping.

Everything was white and silent.

"...And here we have—oh, you! Yes, you. I'm supposed to come and find you. Hellooo..." The friendly Scottish voice cut through the quiet, and an arm was waved in front of her face. That tattoo looked so familiar. She turned to him.

"Billy!" The relief nearly knocked her over. She threw her arms around him, and was met with a sickening squelch.

"Oof. Sorry, love. This happens," Billy said, red-faced, as his stomach fell open and spilled its slimy contents onto the pristine floor. The two visitors he'd been leading, a crocodile and a hippo, exchanged annoyed glances before turning and walking away. Both wore tutus and oversized pointe shoes.

"Can I, um...get someone for you?" the Thorn asked awkwardly. "A doctor, maybe?"

"'S fine. Just something I have to get used to," Billy replied, gathering up his intestines. "Reading room's back that way," he jerked his head, "through the armory, then take a left."

She followed his pointing finger, wove through the suits of armor and past one massive, silvery-gray getup made of material resembling a mummy's wrappings. It was holding a sign: "Reading room this way," then the Thorn's name and an arrow.

Thoroughly creeped out, she followed the arrow. What other choice did she have?

A rush of book-smell swept over her as she crossed through the doorway. It was a wide, cylindrical room lined with shelves of books and a staircase that spiraled endlessly into a ceiling of clouds. Despite the seemingly infinite shelf space, the floor was crammed with stacks of even more books. For once in her life, however, the Thorn had no interest in books. She could only stare in astonishment at the man in front of her.

He said her name, smiling through his beard. "We meet in person at last!"

Indeed, she had never seen his face outside of a computer screen. She knew him, though. The beard, the glasses, the smile that radiated both kindness and intelligence, and that fuchsia scarf he was never seen without. She remembered the first time she'd seen him, years ago, presenting a paper to a livestreamed conference. He had been wearing a simple blue suit, and the bright, cheerful color of his scarf was a welcome contrast to the general stuffiness of the event.

The last time they'd spoken was over email. He'd sent a letter of recommendation to Lowood, he wished her luck and promised to meet her in person the next summer. That never happened, of course. Dr. El-Faouly was dead before summer.

He was dead, and yet there he was now, standing before her. In order for this meeting to be real, one of them must have traveled between worlds. The Thorn knew which of them it was more likely to be.

"Is this the Duat?" she asked.

"You figured it out much more quickly than I did. But, of course, I am actually dead. Well, fully dead. There might be a difference in the way one's consciousness reacts to the change if—"

"Wait, I'm not 'fully' dead? What does that mean?"

He pursed his lips sadly. "Your hands."

She looked down to see her fingers flickering. Invisible—then not. Gone—and back again. She blinked, and in that tiny fraction of a second she felt a shock of excruciating cold, her body crying out with hunger and thirst, her heart wailing its brokenness, and sand everywhere. There was even sand in her throat—had she tried to eat it?

"Your body is unconscious," Dr. El-Faouly explained. "Your only hope now is to be rescued, but I'm afraid at this point it would take a—"

"—Deus ex machina." She blinked again, and heard the roaring of the desert wind. Her fingers were frozen.

"Yes."

She let out a hopeless laugh laced with tears. "I think the gods might be a little busy right now," she said. "I'm probably the least of their worries, especially since..." Her voice caught." Since I helped...I helped Arthur..." She broke down.

He looked at her with weary eyes. He said her name, lifted a hand to her shoulder—it passed through. She felt no comforting touch, only cold and wind and sand and hunger.

"Come," he said, and two plump chairs appeared nearby.

They sat. The Thorn pulled her flickering knees into her chest, sobbing into them.

"It's peaceful here," Dr. El-Faouly said. "You're in a good place. Don't cry."

"My scales are unbalanced," she said through a curtain of messy tears. "I won't be staying here."

"Who told you your scales lack balance?"

"Well, Ammit."

"And you know better than to take Ammit's word as law, don't you?" He laughed scoffingly. "For goodness sake, the Ennead doesn't even regard her as a proper goddess."

The Thorn's lips quivered with a sudden, familiar need to defend her goddess. No—not her goddess, not anymore. "Praise revoked" and all that. She looked down at her flickering forearm (the flickers were fewer and further between now). Bare.

"The goddess Taweret weighs hearts on the scales of Anubis," Dr. El-Faouly explained. "Ammit has no say in deciding the fates of the deceased." He smiled. "Your heart is safe."

"Even without Ammit, I don't think my scales are going to balance," the Thorn confessed.

"Why do you think that?"

She dragged a hand across her face, and it came away slick with tears. Her flesh was completely solid now. "Like I said, I helped Arthur. I found the scarab for him, I protected him from Marc and Khonshu. And," she heaved a wretched, shuddering sob, "to be honest, I don't regret any of it. I don't regret loving him, no matter what I did for him, what I let him do..." She covered her face, drowning in shame.

He looked thoughtfully at her. "Do you regret leaving him?"

She nodded, sobbing violently.

"Even after he betrayed you so terribly?"

She paused to try and breathe, disgusted by the feeling of so many sticky tears racing down her hot cheeks.

"You didn't want to be Ammit's avatar, did you?" he pressed.

She sniffed. "Of course not."

"Well, that was Arthur's plan for you. Do you think he would ever change his mind, regardless of how artfully you may have argued against him?"

"Never," she admitted, wiping her eyes.

"Then what exactly do you regret?" he asked kindly. "Sparing yourself from a fate you would have hated?"

"I could have handled it," she said sullenly.

"Really? You could have handled committing murders in the name of a deity whose cause you don't believe in? You could have handled living under her abuse?"

"I could have sucked it up," she said after a stubborn pause.

"You have done more than enough 'sucking up' in your life," he frowned. "No more. You deserve to be treated well, to make your own choices and live your own life."

"What about love? I deserve that too, right?"

"Of course you deserve love, but not if it comes at the cost of your freedom."

Freedom. What was it she'd said to Arthur about freedom? "I have a free, independent brain." She pictured herself as a bird triumphantly escaping its cage, soaring out into the bluest of skies only to find itself promptly shot down. Would that little bird miss the safety of its cage as it plummeted to its death?

"Will he be okay?" she asked. "If he really loves me like he said he does, and he finds out I died while leaving him..." Her eyes were drowning all over again.

Dr. El-Faouly reached out and took her hands. Her flesh was solid now, no more flickers. "You are not responsible for his feelings toward you."

"He was always trying to protect me," she said. "He's going to think he failed."

"It's not your responsibility," he repeated, gripping her hands. "He's a grown man; he can take care of himself."

"But what if he..."

"He will grieve, he will recover, and he will move on. And you will do the same."

"I can't." She shook her head at the wall of books, unable to look her mentor in the eye. "I can't."

"I said the same thing when I arrived here, knowing I was leaving my loved ones behind. I worried so much for my daughter, thinking she would never be able to move on. But of course, she did. She had to."

"You don't know Arthur. He's," she interrupted herself with a high, panicked laugh, "he's a professional sufferer. He never gets over anything. He needs—"

"He needs a kind of help that you were never equipped to give him. Either he gets that help, or he doesn't; either way, it has nothing to do with you. You renounced his love. He is no longer yours to worry about."

She was remembering the nights she spent pulling shards of glass from Arthur's shredded skin, and how each shard would leave a sickening deluge of blood and pus in its wake. That's what Dr. El-Faouly's words had done to her heart—not that she herself hadn't caused the wound. She had left Arthur behind. She had rejected his goddess and broken off their engagement.

He would never have abandoned her. She would have only had to stay by his side, loyal and silent, and let him make her Ammit's personal killing machine. In return, he would have loved her, cared for her, kept her company for the rest of his life. A few million sinners' blood on her hands, in exchange for a lifetime of romantic bliss...if that wasn't a fair trade, what was?

No. No, she would have hated it. It would have been hell, serving Ammit, and living with Arthur would have been even worse. Didn't his goddess always bring out the worst in him? Ammit would have been a plague on their marriage. The most loving, sincere religious fanatic is still a fanatic, and even his most passionate kisses would never have been able to love the sticky sheen of guilt off her heart.

She bent her body into a pathetic curve and let out a long, slow wail into her knees. Waves of hot sand beat at her dying body. She could feel the brightness of the sun behind her closed eyes. There were voices, two of them, arguing above her.

"What if I hurt her?"

"Steven, look at her. You carrying her to the car isn't going to damage her any more than the desert already has."

"I just don't know, she looks so frail..."

An exasperated sigh. "Fine, let Marc do it then."

"No! Wait! I can do it, just let me—"

Her hands were disappearing, blinking away before her eyes. "I'm going back," she said. "No, I don't want to. No, stop," she cried in a panic, unsure of who or what she was pleading with. "Let me stay here, I want to stay here!"

"It looks as though your body has other plans," Dr. El-Faouly said. "We'll see each other again someday. Say hello to my little scarab for me."

"Your what?"

He smiled. "She's right next to you. Tell her—"

She blinked, and was alive.

The first things she knew were yellowness and hot air, then a sliver of morning creeping in through a pair of thick curtains. There was just enough light for her to note that nearly everything in the room was broken, and the various pieces of things had been scattered across a loveseat in the corner. Someone had apparently begun cleaning up, but never finished the job. A cracked mirror across from the bed showed the Thorn that she was in a white bed, and wearing white clothes: A man's T-shirt and baggy shorts. Her hair felt clean, and smelled like an unfamiliar shampoo. Nearby, another woman sat cross-legged on top of the bedside table. She was balancing a laptop precariously on her knees, and seemed either unwilling or unable to look at the Thorn. The light from the computer screen exaggerated the pronounced circles under her eyes.

"Morning," said Layla.

"Little scarab." The words slipped from the Thorn's mouth so unexpectedly that she almost felt as if the words weren't her own.

Layla slammed her laptop shut with a ferocity that left the cracked mirror vibrating like a cowering animal. Her face was stony. "If one of you people," she growled, spitting out the word people as if it were a deadly curse, "ever calls me that again..." Wet bullets of grief shone in her eyes.

"I'm sorry," the Thorn said reflexively. "I don't know why I—"

"Just stop." Layla shook her head and put a frustrated hand to her face. She took a single loud, tremulous breath, lingering on it as if considering making it a sob. She stood up suddenly, nearly knocking the small table to the ground, crossed the room in a few staggers, and flung the thick curtains wide to reveal a stunning panopticon of Cairo, pyramids and all.

"Wow," the Thorn breathed.

Layla paused in front of the window, her back to the Thorn. "Yeah," she agreed, apparently with some reluctance.

"Thank you for, uh," she could think of no less awkward a way to put it, "saving m—"

"Thank Marc," Layla said curtly. "And Steven. One of them, can't remember which, but he saw you in the sand when we went back to get some stuff we left in that car."

"Are they here?"

"No." She moved away from the window, started to sit on the sofa only to note the mess covering its cushions, and sank down to the floor instead. "No, we're...we're kind of taking a break."

"I'm sorry."

"Don't be."

Layla's face was shifting oddly. Sometimes the shadow of a beard, the glint of a pair of studious glasses, and the shout of fuchsia-colored fabric around her neck would appear, just for a glimmer of a fraction of a second. It seemed to the Thorn that she had yet to entirely leave the Duat—or maybe the Duat wasn't ready to let go of her. Or, it could simply be the ghost of Dr. El-Faouly materializing around his daughter. Of course, she could also have been hallucinating. Even I'm not certain what the truth was.

"Well," said Layla, "don't you want to know what happened?"

A clump of dread had been growing in the Thorn's stomach, anticipating this subject. Clearly, Layla and Marc had survived Ammit's wrath. That fact didn't bode well for Arthur.

"I don't know," she said.

"He's alive," said Layla. "Does that help?"

A tear slipped down the Thorn's cheek and hovered saltily on her upper lip.

"You were supposed to be Ammit's avatar, weren't you? Is that why you left?"

Avoiding Layla's gaze, she nodded.

Layla mirrored her nod, an infuriating knowledge in the way she pursed her lips. "Yeah," she said, "I saw that one coming."

"You did?"

She shrugged. "I always thought something about you and him together didn't really add up. It seemed wrong. And this explains it."

"What do you mean? Are you saying you don't believe he could love me?"

"No. Well, maybe. I find it hard to believe he could love at all."

"And what gives you the right to make that judgment?" the Thorn retorted wildly, her voice climbing in pitch. "Who do you think you are, saying something like that about another person's relationship? As if yours is so perfect."

Immediately she felt herself tense and recoil, shocked by her own cruelty. Layla, however, only hardened her jaw. A deadly silence followed.

"I guess that's fair," Layla said. "But I do know what it's like to be lied to."

The Thorn, of course, wasn't sure what Layla was referring to—but she nodded anyway, wary of opening her mouth for fear she might let loose another needless barb of cruelty.

"I had to hear the truth from Harrow before Marc had the balls to tell me himself. How fucked up is that? To have to learn something like that from the man who shot my husband?"

The Thorn swallowed. "The man who what?"

Layla closed her eyes. "It was so loud," she said, "and the echo...and the blood on his white clothes..." She was shaking.

"He shot Marc?" the Thorn heard herself say. "Arthur did?" His name had never felt less pleasant in her mouth.

Layla nodded, swallowing a sob. "I wanted to kill him."

"He would have killed you first."

She let out a short, mirthless laugh. "Yeah. For sure."

From there, she told the whole story, up to and including the battle between the three avatars in Cairo.

"Stop," the Thorn said suddenly.

"Really? Now?" Layla had reached the point in the story where, sutured to the side of an overturned van by one of Marc's crescent darts, she watched Arthur approach Marc's prone body while Ammit and your humble narrator tangled in combat on the horizon.

"I don't want to hear any more." Tears were dripping from her chin and staining the white sheets between her legs. "Not yet." Never, she thought.

"Suit yourself," Layla said with a tired shrug. "You probably want some food or something, right?"

The Thorn shook her head. Her stomach cried out pathetically, earning an unamused look from Layla.

"I'm getting you some food," she said. "After all that's happened, it would be really stupid if you died of hunger now."

She left, and the Thorn let her body descend into convulsive sobbing—but not before crossing the room to yank the curtains shut. The pyramids would not be a witness to her suffering.

[weirdcrocodilelady]

hey!! saw you asking for arthur x reader prompts. i’m sorry if this isn’t what you were really looking for but could you do something more platonic? like arthur being a bit of a father figure for reader :)

I actually think about Harrow as a father (or father figure) a lot...I think he'd be really good at it. He talks to that teenage girl in Episode 2 and she seems really comfortable with him, and it makes me think he probably takes a personal interest in all his followers, regardless of age, and really has that special set of "people skills" that lets him manipulate form close relationships fairly easily. I mean, he's a cult leader. They're kind of known for that...

...But putting aside the cult stuff for now, here's some nice wholesome headcanons:

If he had a "kid" kid (meaning under 18), I think he would definitely homeschool them. He kind of toes the line between wanting to control their learning and be aware of what they're up to at all times, but also having a sincere desire to nurture their interests and let them learn at their own pace without the restrictions of grades, standardized tests, etc. So god forbid he catches his kid reading smutty fanfic that isn't appropriate for their age, he might instead help them find reading material that's more age appropriate but that they still find interesting, and maybe even help them write their own stories. (it's called redirecting, y'all)

I think he would be more restrictive when it comes to their social activities, unfortunately. His worst fear would be for their scales to not balance, so he doesn't let them hang out with anyone who might pressure them to do things that might affect that balance. The hard part of that is, Ammit doesn't exactly offer a handbook detailing what specific activities affect a person's scales, and a kid going to the mall with their friends unsupervised will probably not do anything evil, but why risk it, right?

I have no idea where this came from, but I have this random headcanon that he doesn't trust doctors? So he'd take his kid to get checkups and vaccines and everything only because there isn't really a safe alternative, but he'd be very reluctant and it would probably be one of the rare times he actually appears nervous or anxious to other people. Other than that, he relies on alternative medicines as much as possible and is kind of a genius at that stuff. (Again, this is a REALLY random headcanon that came to me out of nowhere one day, so feel free to take or leave it)

Part of my general backstory for him involves him being really poor for a lot of his life, then ending up with a lot of money due to getting wealthy "backers" on his side when he started the Ammit Club (I decided a while back that Billy Fitzgerald is a millionaire, again, I have no idea where these headcanons are coming from). So if you lived with him when he was younger, money would have been tight and there probably wouldn't have been many luxuries. But he would make things special for you whenever he could. I imagine he's very creative in the kitchen (he had Victor's recipe that one time, but who's to say he couldn't whip up his own unique lentil soup on a whim if he wanted?) and could make all kinds of delicious meals with even the most seemingly random ingredients.

He expects all his followers to help maintain the community as much as they're able to, and it would be the same for those he considers family. But he's not one of those leaders/parental figures who just gives a command and expects you to understand how to do it without any instruction. If someone is new, or younger, or doesn't seem to understand the task, he would explain more clearly or demonstrate, whatever kind of help you needed. He would also give you tips on doing your work more efficiently or easily, if it seems like you're getting bogged down or discouraged. You can come to him with literally anything you're having trouble with, even if it seems like a really simple task that you "should" be able to complete with no problem. He's incredibly patient and a great teacher/mentor.

I fully believe the majority of his physical touches are genuine, and I think touch is probably his love language. Even though he also uses touch to manipulate people into trusting him, he knows that method works for a reason. If you don't like being touched, or you're not comfortable with it at a certain time, you'd have to tell him because his instinct is to reach out and hug you when you're upset. But once you've told him, you'll never have to tell him a second time. He can be perfectly respectful of boundaries when he wants to be (i.e. when the person isn't standing in the way of him springing his goddess free).

I hope this is the kind of thing you were looking for...again, some of these are pretty specific headcanons I made up, so you can take or leave those if you want😅

Thanks for the ask!!!

[helldegirl]

i really feel like an old woman discovering the tools on this site but come on, the requests are REALLY open as hell

(found out bc the asks button was not activated😭)

[girlwithwolftatoo]

Having a bit of a bad night, can you write some hcs of maybe a fem!patient of dr harrow is having a negative moment of hypersexuality and just meeds some comfort during it? It could either be nsfw or fluffy angst. thank you.

Every time I get some Doctor Harrow request, I end up learning something new. Not complaining.

Doctor Harrow + patient in crisis

*Just like age regression, hipersexuality can be a sympton of other disorder. Doctor Harrow knows that, and so he knows what's behind your sudden behavior, thought is the very first time he witnesses it.

*He gently reminds you some actions cannot be permited into the hospital. He's aware of the way you're looking at him, so he goes straight to the point. "I must comprehend you're not following me, are you?"

*It's curious how you speak out loud of the things that are bothering you (like the idea of assaulting to the next male nurse who enters your room) but still looking embarrassed. "But they're jsut fantasies, (Y/N), you don't have to make them true" "But what if I find someone who helps me to? What... about you?"

*Doctor Harrow will remind you he likes you, but that still you're his patient and his main interest in you is your health and well-being. If you're getting into a crisis and end up asking him to get dirty with you, with the promise of not telling anyone, he'll use his best card for that... "Fine, come here, let's sit on the couch, but you're gonna do as you're told, are we agree?"

*He sits right beside you, placing a hand on your back and giving you some nice rubs. Then, he'll talk about other topics, something that may interest you: a new book he's been reading, visits to the zoo, walks on the park... His other hand holds yours and caresses your knuckles, but won't go further. He just wants you to get well.

*"Now, why don't you close your eyes?" he doesn't give you the typical not-going-to-touch-you talk because that's the oposite of what you want. Now, noticing you feel more comfortable due to the physical closeness, he'll perform some therapy stuff to help you pass the crisis.

*"Physical needs aren't a sin, either a bad thing at all" he explains as your head rest on his shoulder "But you can't go through them hurting yourself, or someone else... Are you happy when you're hurt? You think I am happy when I hear you've hurt yourself?" (yes, this is less professional than it should but -doctor Harrow, ladies, gentlemen and others).

[clouded-dreams2]

I wanted to say thank for all the love! Thank you for the 29 followers, I adore each one of you. Thank you for all the love on my writing, I’m glad you all love it!

[respectfulkitfistosimp]

The dear priestess

A khonshu x reader fanfic PT 1 (warning for swear words)

PT 2 here PT3 here

You went out to the terrace of the hospital for the third time that night. And for the third time you did nothing more that to smoke and complain to the moon, as if the huge space rock cared about the patient that tried to attack you or your constant struggles to keep the hospital you worked at afloat.

This time you just complained about the latter, about how the funding was never enough for a hospital so needed. The hospital that you worked at was in the middle of a rough area of London, so on average you stitched up to 20 people every shift. And yet with how important it was to keep it open it was extremely hard to do so, so many doctors, nurses and personnel had been laid off but nothing.

Hearing the timer on your phone woke you up from the trance that you normally fell on while complaining. You turned it off along with your cigarette and after saying goodbye you went inside again to deal with the next set of patients until the end of your shift. But once inside you found nothing but silence, there was no one on the hall and the line of patients on the entrance was suddenly empty, at least it would be if it weren't for the group of men and women standing next to a middle-aged man, the feeling that you got from him was so off, you felt sick to your stomach and the feeling of eyes burning holes on your back only worsened it.

—Good evening Dr (l/n), wonderful night isn't it?—asked the man while approaching you—I hope we can talk a little?

—My shift is almost over, make it quick please—you said trying to look calm.

He only smiled and sat on one of the dirty seats, which reminded you to find a replacement for Isabella if the budget permitted it, and looked at you signaling you to seat next to him. Yet you stood there with your arms crossed waiting and transforming the sickness you felt into anger.

—There is no need to be so tense, my team and I already helped everyone here—he exclaimed trying to calm you down—My name is Arthur Harrow and I would like to found your hospital, in exchange I just have a small favor to ask of you.

You widened your eyes in disbelief, who was this man? Not only did he take care of the patients, and the staff as well, but he was also offering to found a whole ass hospital? Either he was a millioner who wanted to laundry money or he belong to some weird mafia or cult, whatever it was, it was definitely for something bad.

—And may I ask why you want to do that, and also what you want from me?—you answered a bit more calm but fuming at the thought that this might be a joke.

—I know that this is going to sound ridiculous, but I serve Ammit, do you know who that is?—you answered yes recalling what you learned in your youth after a small obsession over the Egyptian Pantheon—Then, I would like to use this hospital and employ you doctor to treat the people—if you weren't confused before now you definitely were, who in their right mind would do that?—I also know that this sounds even more ridiculous, but believe me when I tell that once Ammit is back she would be very pleased with your help.

Once he stopped talking the lights started blinking, you would normally think nothing of it as it was a normal occurrence, if it wasn't for the deep voice you heard behind you telling you to not trust him, for some reason you trusted this body less voice over the man infront of you.

—Don't mind the light—you inquired to the man and his company—I am delighted to hear that you want to help the hospital, but I have to deny, this place is agnostic—you just spoke the worst lie you could ever think of, even you cringed at how bad it was.

Your answer clearly only made his people mad, yet all Harrow did was get close to you and grab your hands, you were frozen on the spot the moment you saw the tattoo on his arm move and stop to light up in green.

—Even if you are a good person you still deny it?—you definitely didn't like the tone on his voice and the overall attitude that he had been giving you made you see red, in a second you removed your hand from his and gave him the strongest sucker punch you could.

You were ready to be killed by his people yet the sudden apearence of a man dressed in white slashing them up like nothing made you back up, and as if that night couldn't go worse you felt yourself hit something, the moment you looked up you saw the underside of a skeletal bird head. You looked back down hopping and praying to every god you knew of to help you.

—There is nothing to fear—spoke the same voice from before from above you, in other words, you had just listened to a dead pigeon who is twice as tall as you and carries a staff that you just noticed, gods, you could only hope to either be dreaming or high on drugs.

The steps coming closer to you scared you awake and made you look at who was making them, that vigilante-looking-guy stayed away from you and the thing behind you disappeared.

—Let me walk you home—said the man—there is a lot for us to talk about.

Completely mentally exhausted you just did what he said even though you knew that the relationship between a healthcare worker and a vigilante was the worst nightmare for anyone, but you still complied. You went around the hospital looking for anyone and since you found no one you just turned off all of the light, locked all of the doors and left feeling absolutely defeated by everything that transpired in no more than an hour.

[make-me-imagine]

Requests

Status: CLOSED

Alright, requests for all of my fandoms are open. Send some in while you can, they will not be open long!

Writing Prompt List #1 *210 prompts (fluff/romance; angst/emotional; Misc/Humor; & Scenario Prompts)

Writing Prompt List #2 *200 prompts (fluff/romance; angst/emotional; Misc/Humor; and Scenario Prompts)

Sensory Prompts #1 *125 prompts (nature ambiance; fluff/relationship; angst/sad; scary/horror; comfort; and Misc.)

Sensory Prompts #2 *around 130 prompts (nature/outside ambiance; relationship/fluff; angst; scary/horror; comfort; and Misc.)

Rules Page *Basic Rules: - I only write 'x reader' inserts; no ships or oc inserts - GN!Reader only - I do not write specific body types, or for other specific physical characteristics, since I try to keep my inserts as neutral as possible - No nsfw; no pregnancy/children, no readers/character fics below 18

-

You can request for fics/oneshots or headcanons.

You can send in your own plot, and/or 1-3 prompts. Feel free to mix and match from the prompt lists!

-

Full Fandoms List Below Cut:

9-1-1 (FOX show)

Evan “Buck” Buckley Eddie Diaz Det. Lou Ransone Howard “Chimney” Han

The Boys:

Serge “Frenchie” Hughie Campbell Billy Butcher

Bridgerton

Anthony Bridgerton Benedict Bridgerton Simon Basset Colin Bridgerton *maybe others? 

Buffy the Vampire Slayer

Spike Angel

Criminal Minds  (I have only watched seasons 1-11)

Spencer Reid Aaron Hotchner Derek Morgan

Doctor Who

Ten Eleven Twelve

Elementary

Sherlock Holmes *I have not watched the whole series so I wont write much for in-show plot points

Firefly

Malcolm Reynolds Simon Tam

Lark Rise to Candleford

Daniel Parish Fisher Bloom Sir Timothy Midwinter Alf Arless Mr Rushton

Leverage 

Eliot Spencer Quinn Alec Hardison

Magnificent Seven Tv Series (1998-2000)

Chris Larabee Ezra Standish Vin Tanner Buck Wilmington

The Mandalorian + TBoBF

Din Djarin Cobb Vanth Boba Fett (prefer platonic)

M*A*S*H (Tv Series)

Hawkeye Pierce BJ Hunnicutt Trapper John

Merlin (BBC)

Merlin Arthur Gwaine Percival Lancelot

Moon Knight

Steven Grant Marc Spector Arthur Harrow

Person of Interest

John Reese Others; platonically is preferred

Prodigal Son 

Malcolm Bright Gil Arroyo 

Shadow and Bone:

Kaz Brekker Matthias Mal Alexander/Kirigan ?

*I have read the Grishaverse books, so I am willing to write around that plot. But the characters will be in character for the show, and the characters will be written as 20+ as their ages are not stated in the show but it feels as though they are aged up in the depiction. 

Sherlock (BBC)

Sherlock Holmes Greg Lestrade Jim Moriarty

Star Trek: Discovery

Christopher Pike Gabriel Lorca (willing to write for an alternate ‘Prime’ version of Lorca) Sarek Spock **I’m in the process of watching Disco and am currently on Season 3. I will be watching Strange New Worlds when I can. **please make sure to specify which Spock you are requesting for (Disco or AOS.)

Star Trek: Enterprise 

Captain Archer Trip Tucker Malcolm Reed 

Star Trek: Voyager 

Chakotay Tom Paris

Stargate Sg-1

Jack O’Niell Daniel Jackson Jonas Quinn Cameron Mitchell 

Stargate Atlantis

John Sheppard Carson Becket Ronon Dex

Supernatural  *Have only watched seasons 1-9

Sam Winchester Dean Winchester Castiel Gabriel Gadreel Balthazar Crowley Lucifer Caine

Teen Wolf 

Derek Hale Peter Hale

Vampire Diaries & The Originals

Elijah Mikaelson Klaus Mikaelson Damon Salvatore Kol Mikaelson Lorenzo “Enzo” St John Finn Mikaelson

**Never watched The Originals’, so I only know the Mikaelsons from TVD.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - 

- - - - - Franchises/Movies - - - - - 

MCU:

Original Avengers:

Tony Stark  Steve Rogers Thor Bruce Banner Clint Barton Natasha Romanoff

Others:

Bucky Barnes Sam Wilson Helmut Zemo Loki Heimdall Vision Scott Lang Peter Parker (Garfield and/or Hollands; aged up) Dr. Stephen Strange T’Challa Agent Ross Shang-Chi Peter Quill

*** Feel free to ask about other MCU characters; I will write for most (depending on if I like the request as well) ***

X-Men

Original Timeline Movies:  Logan/Wolverine Scott Summers Kurt Wagner “Nightcrawler” Viktor Creed “Sabertooth”

First Class Timeline: Charles Xavier Eric Lehnsherr Hank McCoy Alex Summers Azazel Peter Maximoff “Quicksilver” Warren Worthington III “Angel”

**Many of the younger characters ages are not obvious in the First Class movies, so everyone will be written/suggested as 20+

The Eternals

Druig Ikaris Kingo

Venom (1 & 2)

Eddie Brock

Deadpool (1 & 2)

Wade/Deadpool  Ajax/Francis Cable Domino

- - -

Star Wars Universe

Episodes I-III

Anakin Skywalker Obi Wan Kenobi

Episodes IV-VI

Luke Skywalker Han Solo

Solo: A Star Wars Story

Han Solo Lando Calrissian Dryden Vos

Episodes VII-IX

Finn Poe Dameron Ben Solo/Kylo

- - -

The Hobbit/Lotr

Thranduil Thorin Kili Fili Bard Legolas Aragorn Eomer Faramir Elrond

- - -

Fantastic Beasts:  ((JK Rowling is a bigot and anything I write regarding the wizarding world is of my own imagination and a continuation of a world I want untainted by her bigotry)) 

Newt Scamander, Percival Graves *So far I have only seen the first movie

**I will possibly write for characters from Harry Potter or Marauders, such as the Weasley twins, Malfoy, Cedric, Remus, Sirius, etc. But if I do, it will be after they leave Hogwarts and are 18+.

- - -

Star Trek AOS

Cpt. Jim Kirk Dr. Leonard McCoy Spock Montgomery “Scotty” Scott Pavel Chekov Hikaru Sulu Khan *please make sure to specify which Spock you are requesting for (Disco or AOS.)

- - -

The Outsiders

Darrel “Darry” Curtis Maybe: Sodapop Curtis Dallas Winston ^^Aged Up

- - -

Pirates of the Caribbean (1-4)

Captain Jack Sparrow Will Turner James Norrington Elizabeth Swann/Turner

- - - 

Magnificent Seven (2016) 

Joshua Faraday Billy Rocks Goodnight Robicheaux Vasquez Red Harvest

- - -

Maleficent I & II

Conall, Borra, Diaval, Maleficent

- - -

The Man from U.N.C.L.E 

Napoleon Solo Illya Kuryakin

- - -

Kingsman: The Secret Service and The Golden Circle

Eggsy Unwin Hamish Mycroft “Merlin” Jack Daniels “Whiskey”

- - -

Jane Austen/Period Movies: 

Pride and Prejudice (1995 & 2005) Characters: Mr. Darcy and Mr Bingley (other characters if requested)

Mansfield Park (1999 & 2007) Character: Edmund Bertram

Sense and Sensibility (1995/2008) Character: Edward Ferrars 

Emma (2009 & 2020) Character: Mr. Knightley

Persuasion (2007) Character: Captain Wentworth

- - - - -

Outside Characters: 

Actors who have multiple characters outside of the listed fandoms that I am willing to write for!

Charlie Hunnam:

Arthur (King Arthur: Legend of the Sword) Raymond Smith (The Gentlemen) William “Ironhead” Miller (Triple Frontier) **Will also write for Ben Miller

Oscar Isaac: 

Santiago “Pope” Garcia (Triple Frontier)

xx

[jokeringcutio]

His - DR. Harrow x Reader / Mature Ficlet

Fandom: Moon Knight (Series 2022)

Pairing: Dr. (Arthur) Harrow x (fem identifying) Reader, Slight Jake Lockley x Reader

Rating: Mature

Warnings:  Amnesia, unexpected husband, dub-con, betrayal, mature descriptions, 18+ content.

Summary: Reader had amnesia and forgot dr. Harrow was her husband before, dark twist. Written especially for @nicktremblaywayfu

HIS

1.

The beeping of machinery was the first thing your mind registered as you were slowly pulled out of deep darkness. You blinked your eyes open to find whiteness surrounding you. Your first thought was that you had passed into the afterlife. But then you realized you could see lines on the walls, and that you were in a chamber. You couldn’t remember your own bedroom being this bright. Then again, you couldn’t remember much of anything.

“You’re awake,” a male voice sounded, near to you, and you did your best to turn your head – which was hard to do. It felt as if you’d bumped it and moving it made you all dizzy. Your neck felt stiff, as did your spine. But you managed. “I’m glad.”

Your eyes found the shape of a man, only several feet away from the side of your bed. When he saw your eyes had opened and were lain upon him, he took a careful step closer. The corner of his lips trembled as if emotions pulled at the smile he held. Why? You should have wondered. Why did he seem so shaken by seeing you awake?

“You’re a doctor,” you stated, seeing the white clothes he was wearing. The typical doctor’s uniform. There was a slight mustache on his lips and silver-rimmed spectacles on the tip of his nose. His greying hair was pulled back. Somehow, it made him look all the more distinguished. He must be outstanding in his field, you thought. Though you had absolutely no idea if he was – or even what his field of work was. You presumed it had to do with one of your injuries. Perhaps even all of them. He was a doctor, he’d be able to mend most of them, right?

“I am,” the man calmly confirmed. You realized for the first time now that he used a cane as he walked, but only because he placed the cane in between his legs to stabilize himself, holding onto it with both of his hands now as he watched you. He was standing awfully close, you thought. 

“Are you my doctor?” you asked. A frown slid on your face when you heard how your voice lolled. It sounded like you were drunk. Must be the medicines, you thought. Perhaps they’d given you something against the pain. You knew those types of drugs could make your mind hazy.

“I am your doctor,” he paused and seemed to think about what to say next, then merely nodded in confirmation. “Yes.”

A small smile played on his lips and there was a glint in his eyes, hidden behind the glasses. What was that emotion you had spotted? Relief? Because you were awake? Or was it something more? You found it hard to tell.

“You seem a bit,” you tried to tilt your head to the side but found it hard to move. Your neck felt all stiff. “Odd,” you finally concluded.

“Odd?” he asked in turn. You thought he was remarkably professional, the way he stood next to the bed, hands upon his walking cane, expression one of calmness.

You wanted to nod but found it hard. Instead, you ran your tongue past your teeth before you spoke again. “Cute though,” you admitted.

At this point, it did not surprise you that those words came out on their own accord. Under any normal circumstances, you would have blushed madly at such a confession. But it was as if the filter had been removed from your brain. As if any words you thought came tumbling out with no way to stop them.

The man chuckled and shook his head. He looked friendly enough, you thought. A friendly, professional, and skilled doctor. And he was all yours. Guess it is my lucky day.

“Why are you smiling?” you asked, seeing how the man tried to hide his smile from you.

“It’s because,” he hesitated, then shook his head again. His eyes, which had been cast to the floor, slowly slid up to meet yours.

“Allow me to let you in on a little secret,” his words were whispered and sent a warm tingle down your spine, all the way between your legs. Such an effect this man had on you. This stranger. This doctor.

You watched with eyes wide as he leaned over the bed, the cane was placed to rest against the bedside, his hands were now free. What was he doing? You felt how he brought one hand to your shoulder, fingertips grasping you firmly yet gently, while the other was used to support himself on the bed as he bend over you.

And then his lips descended upon yours. Softly, like the touch of a feather. Lightly begging for entrance. Shocked by this sudden descent, your lips parted on their own accord, allowing him to dip in and roam his tongue past yours.

He tasted funny but nice. Warmth tingled down your spine and ignited your core. You felt yourself grow wet under his touch. And then, all of a sudden, he was gone.

You were panting rapidly, staring up at him as he sat on the edge of the bed. Not even that far away, but still the distance felt as if it were too great. You wanted him near again, wanted to feel his warmth seep through your hospital gown.

“So,” you gasped, still catching your breath. “What is your little secret, doctor?”

The man’s lips curled upwards into a smile. “You might not remember it due to the amnesia, little one,” and here you frowned because this was the first time you heard what was wrong with you. Amnesia, eh? Forgetfulness? But for how long? You frowned and looked him in the eyes.

He leaned a little closer again. Forget the professionality, you thought when he brought his right hand up to your cheek. You felt the coldness of a ring when he pressed his palm against you. His finger traced your skin gently, sending more warmth to gather in your core. “There’s something really important you need to know,” he whispered, thumb gently brushing past your lips as he looked at you with longing. As if he wished to kiss you again.

“You are my wife.”

2.

“Doctor Harrow,” the nurse said while she folded the clean linen and put it in the cupboard ahead of you. “Of course, he is one of our finest doctors.”

You pursed your lips while you thought about this. She hadn’t been the first nurse you had asked about your forgotten husband. Apparently, he wasn’t the doctor treating you. That was a lady, in fact. And she had been very nice. She’d explained to you that you had suffered trauma to the head and that it had made you forget a lot of your memories. To your idea, most of them were still there, you had just forgotten some of the more recent days.

But that could not be right, because how could you have forgotten your own husband?

It must be more than days. Weeks or months perhaps even?

You vaguely remembered Doctor Harrow’s face from somewhere before all of this. Or Arthur, as you found out he was called. He seemed to be a very respected man in the hospital, a psychologist working in a different department than where you were. But most nurses and medical staff seemed to know him and they always smiled and praised him when you asked about him. You hadn’t mentioned that you were married to the man yet. Though you knew the nurses at least were aware. Arthur had been visiting you many times during the day. He’d made sure to come by on his lunch breaks, and he had rescheduled certain appointments just so he could be with you during the day.

All the scattered moments together had made you grow more and more fond of him. He always spoke in a gentle voice and was kind and polite to the nurses and other doctors. He brought you books and sweets and made sure there were fresh flowers at the head of your bed. The stranger you had married had slowly become a friend.

You also had overheard him discuss his schedule with one of the nurses. He was trying to arrange for someone to replace him for a couple of days when you were discharged, just so he could take full-time care of you at home.

You loved the thought of that. He was your doctor all right. Your loving husband.

Your eyes fell upon the ring you now wore. Arthur had brought it for you on the second day of your stay at the hospital. He said it had been taken off because you had been through the MRI scan, which sounded logical. The ring fit perfectly and had both your own as well as Harrow’s initials in it.

To take away your doubt, he had even shown the inside of his own ring – which came off with much more ease. And though his ring was one with a big nub, much clumpier than yours, it bore the very same initials on the inside. Wedding rings, all right. There was not a doubt left on your mind.

His kisses began soft, but grew more and more demanding as the day of your discharge grew nearer. You knew Arthur used some of the authority he had in the hospital to get you discharged faster, eager to have you home again.

And when that day came, he was the one who pushed your wheelchair to the car. He was the one who drove you to an unfamiliar house he claimed was your home. And he was the one who lay you upon the blankets of an unknown bed, kissing you as if the world could come to an end any day soon now.

You trembled slightly in his hold, shy to reveal yourself to your husband, though you did not know why. Surely he must have seen it all before? He pried your hands away from your chest, admired you once he saw you in all of your glory, and the gaze in his eyes took the last of your fear away.

This man adored you, you could tell. By all the tiny gestures, by the way his eyes softened when he looked at you, by the way he claimed your lips in a kiss. This man worshipped you, you could tell. Because his fingertips placed featherlight touches upon your skin and all was done with such reverence, it felt as if you were a goddess and he was the high priest, bringing you the ultimate sacrifice.

His hips fitted snugly against your own, his pubescent hair tickling your skin. The sharp gasp that escaped you had him frown in concern, and he paused to ask if you were all right. Such a considerate lover. “It’s been a while,” he explained. “I will have to be gentle with you.”

He started a gentle pace, and soon he had you arch your back and moan his name. Your hands traced past his shoulders and chest. Wet sounds echoed through the bedroom. He became too eager to hold back and apologized for this as he started to slam into you harder. You did not mind though, it felt good to have him in you. And when he came, not much later, he kissed your neck, mustache tickling your skin. He whispered sweet little nothings in your ear and promised that next time, you would be orgasming together.

The blood on the bed made him groan, and as you stared at it in surprise – it wasn’t much but still – he quickly turned to you again and explained that he must have been too rough. “We’ve been days without, after all,” he said, a hand nervously running through his hair.

He made true of his promise that same evening and brought you to your own climax, along with his. The joined orgasm was unlike anything you had ever experienced, and it left you love him even more. This was your husband. The kind and gentle man who poured you your drink and brought it over to you. The one who would sit next to you on the couch and cuddle with you under the blanket, while snacks were at your side, provided for you both, and a video was playing on the touch-screen laptop he said was your own.

Your new life seemed perfect.

Until it wasn’t.

3.

From the start, you noticed little things that seemed odd. The moment you arrived at the house – your house, which you could not remember – you noticed that it was glaringly empty. Arthur did not own many items, as he had been at his work most of the time. But he had his closet with clothes, his golf gear, a computer he used for personal stuff, and a game console he claimed to use mostly to stay fit. It had worked for his fingers, you thought amused. Because damn, he knew how to use them.

And then there were the gardening tools, as apparently he loved to be outdoors taking care of his plants. And there was a whole lot of cooking equipment in the kitchen, because your doctor appeared to be something of a homemade cook. Though his recipes weren’t showing spectacular skill, you knew he cooked with love and delight, and you were all too happy to be pampered by your husband.

But then, there was your shared room. Part of the closet contained your clothes. And you had noticed rather quickly that you did not seem to recognize any of them. They all looked new, mint-conditioned items, and you wondered if you had ever worn them before. Some of the items didn’t fit as nicely, like a bra that was the wrong size. But Arthur had assured you he would get you a new bra the right size. And he had. But still, it made you suspicious.

You had a laptop that was worryingly empty. Not even a browser history could be found, everything dated back to the day Arthur had brought you home.

There were some plushies that he claimed were yours, but they too brought forth no memories. And the makeup in the bathroom included items you knew you would never use. Just like the bottles of perfume, which you singlehandedly dumped in the bin the very same day you found them. Arthur had merely smiled when he found them there, and said you didn’t need them either way. Your own scent was alluring enough. The comment had made you blush.

Apart from the lack of personal belongings that related to things like hobbies, there were other tiny things that roused your suspicion that something wasn’t quite right. When Arthur had to go to work again, you had filled the day by playing games on the game console. When you told him which ones you had enjoyed, he replied that they were yours. Bought specifically for you. He never mentioned this in advance, only after you claimed to like them.

There was an array of hygienic products that you did not recognize in one of the cupboards. The wrong kind of hygienic pads, for instance. You’d bought those to try them and didn’t bother to throw them away. He had said that. But upon inspecting you noticed the packaging had never been opened.

There were books you did not like that were swapped for ones you did enjoy. New items popped up around the house as if Arthur had forgotten where they were until he found them again. This usually happened after you had a conversation in which you revealed some of your interests to him. It was as if he was slowly learning to know you.

But that could not be, could it? You were his wife. The rings proved it. The nurses at the hospital knew this.

Then why, why did you not remember your life with him as days turned into weeks, and weeks slowly turned into months?

4.

You looked at the screen in horror. “Does she need to know, sir?”

“No one needs to know.”

Arthur was visible from the side. Unmistakable. It was him. Donned in different clothes, hair loose instead of kept tidy at the back. His mustache was gone, but you recognized him.

The man in front of you looked up at you expectantly. His hand hovered over the now ejected videotape. Brown eyes that pierced into yours. The man’s chest was rising and falling rapidly and sweat covered his brow.

One of the asylum patients. You would have tried to avoid him like Arthur had told you to – these patients could be violent and suffer from delusions that could turn them into dangerous men. Especially this one. This Jake.

Your hand automatically flew to your belly, protectively laying upon it. Jake’s eyes didn’t follow the movement. He didn’t have to. He already knew you were carrying Arthur’s child.

“How did you get that?” you asked, mouth suddenly dry.

“I’ll tell you something else,” Jake said, sitting up again. He raised his hands and for a moment you feared he was going to get out a weapon, like a gun or a knife. Instead, he removed a ring he had been wearing on his finger, turned it around in the air, and showed it to you.

Your eyes widened at the initials inside.

“No,” you gasped. Surely, they could not be yours?

But a pang of clarity shot through you. You’d recognized Jake the first moment you’d seen him. His face was familiar to you, even if you had difficulty telling why.

“An engagement ring. I suppose they took away yours,” Jake sounded sad. You glanced at it, studying it for authenticity “We were to be married,” Jake said, voice harsh through gritted teeth. “Then that bastard took you away from me. Took you as his own.” 

Jake clenched his jaw, eyes averted, as if looking at you hurt too much. He tried his best to get his breathing under control. The anger seeped out of each and every one of his pores.

“I remember,” you softly whispered. “I remember now.”

Jake, your friend. Jake, the man you promised to marry.

And suddenly, everything became clear. The items that suddenly appeared in the house and the way that Arthur seemed to want to pamper you, coaxing out more and more about your interests. It explained the blood on the bed that first time. You had been a virgin, saving yourself for the marriage night, for Jake. This explained why every friend of Arthur that you met had to be introduced. It wasn’t due to your amnesia. It was because you had never seen them before.

Arthur Harrow had lied to you. You had been promised to another.

“We fought him,” you said as memories started to flash in front of your eyes. “We fought Arthur. And we lost.”

“No,” Jake reached for your hands and took them in his own. His eyes were wild, the darkness in them glistened with anger and despair and love. “No, we did not lose, you hear me.” He was desperate to undo what had been done, to be together with you again.

“I might have lost you, but I will get you back. Harrow used your amnesia to make you believe you are his wife. I’m not sure why he did that, but it must have been to hurt me,” Jake gritted his teeth, and then you saw realization dawn on his face. “To hurt me, and because of you.” His voice softened. One of his hands slipped free to cup your cheek gently. “Look at you, my beautiful butterfly. What man could resist you?”

You had to suppress a wry laugh. What man indeed? You never thought you were something special, but to Jake, you had been. You still were. Perhaps it was the same for Arthur. Perhaps this was more than just a pitiful plan for revenge.

“But first, I need to get out of here. Harrow has me locked up under false charges. He has me pinned down like a madman. Once I get out, we can get back at him. I can defeat him, I am sure. And you will be free again.”

For the first time, his eyes slid to your belly, and you saw he swallowed hard. “I will take responsibility. After all, it was because I could not protect you that night, that he could lay his stake.” His hand hovered over your tummy, not quite touching, while his eyes searched yours for permission.

With a careful nod from you, he slowly lowered his hand until his palm rested warm upon the baby bump, and you closed your eyes and imagined it was his. That life had gone the way you two had planned it. That you had managed to defeat the villain who now claimed to be your husband, and who was the actual father or your child.

“I will love the kid,” Jake whispered, slowly pulling you in for a hug. “I will love the kid because it is yours.”

You reluctantly pulled away, knowing that time was sparse. Arthur could come out of work any moment now. He must not find you in the concierge’s office, not with the man he had set out to destroy and not with the tape that showed the evidence of his betrayal. A recording of the conversation the day when you had been brought into the hospital, and he decided to lay claim on you. No one needed to know. Well, you did know now.

There was no going back.

5.

“How long have you known?” Arthur stood in front of you. His spectacles balanced on the point of his nose, his eyes upon you. He looked like an angry teacher in front of the classroom.

Your shoulders sagged. Nevertheless, you cradled the baby in your arms closer to your chest. He certainly wanted to punish you, you thought. Perhaps take away your child. You could admit defeat, but you would not lose your child. Not like this.

“A while,” you answered. Your eyes pricked with unshed tears. The child seemed to feel your distress and started to cry. Even as a baby, the little fellow looked like his dad. Upsetting, really. You wondered if Jake could ever have kept his promise to you. You thought it impossible with how much the boy resembled his biological dad.

“Will you kill him?” you asked.

Something dark flashed in Arthur’s eyes, but it was gone just as quickly. He pushed his glasses back on his nose with his thumb, then sat himself on the edge of his desk while he watched you carefully rock your child. You were trying to calm the baby down. It worked a little.

“Jake is taken care of,” he said, and you assumed he was forever gone. The man you helped escape, the man you had once promised your heart to, had been murdered by the man in whose house you now lived. And whose child you were now holding.  

You did not know that Jake had escaped Arthur’s clutches. And if Arthur had his way, you would never find out. He deliberately let you assume the worst. He did not need to lie to you. Your mind provided you with false answers that would only bring you closer to him again. He was certain of it.

Tears started to fall down your cheeks and Arthur tutted. He held out his arms, ready to collect you in an embrace. And having grown used to his touch and affection, you slowly stumbled over to his awaiting arms. The baby calmed down once he felt he was held by both his parents. And Arthur was smiling down at him, happy to hold you both.

“It is good to cry,” he murmured, lips against your hair while you cried against his shoulder. “Let out the tears, let out all the fear and tension. It’ll bring you relief.” You felt how he placed a gentle kiss on top of your head and how his embrace gently tightened.

He let you cry until the tears faded and held you through it all. His voice remained a gentle whisper, his touch light, despite the betrayal on your behalf. You had let Jake escape, and you knew that Arthur knew this now. Yet he did not grow angry.

There was only his smile. Gentle and soft. A glint of victory in his eyes.

“Sweetheart,” he murmured against your temple, lips brushing gently past your skin. “I forgive you.”

To you, it meant the world. To him, it was easy. He knew that Jake had lost and he had won. Jake hadn’t stolen you from him, despite having tried his hardest. And even if Jake wasn’t defeated, he would have a hard time getting his hands on Arthur’s little family. Because that day, when you had been knocked out and brought to the hospital, and he had looked upon your unconscious form, he had decided that Jake would never get his hands on your pretty form ever again.

And that decision, to claim you as his own, had been the best decision he had ever made.

You might have stolen his heart, but he had stolen you instead.  

AN: Hope you enjoyed this twisted little villain x reader tale <3 Love myself a bit more Dr. Harrow content, so hit me up if you have suggestions or prompts.

For a sweeter version of Amnestic reader x Arthur Harrow : [ click here ]

[dilf-fuckersblog]

Desires | Doctor Arthur harrow x female!reader |

warnings: smut; p in v sex, reader being called pet names, slight make out, and fluffy ending.

a/n: first time writing for him!

As you left Arthur’s office, you kept thinking about him.. and even when you were in there with him, you needed him so bad.. you just quickly went back into his office to tell him something, “Hey, c-can you meet me at my place tonight?” You asked.. “Yeah, but is there something else you need to tell me?” he asked.. “Just meet me at my place.” You replied.

When you got to your house, you headed inside and waited for Arthur.. you then hear a knock at the door, so that must be him.

You got up and walked up to the door and opened it, “may I come in?” He asked, “Y-Yeah, come on in.” You replied.. Arthur went in and sat on the couch, you also did the same.. sitting next to him. "I just wanted to tell you that I.. I.. I've been having these sexual desires for you and I-" you got cut off by him kissing you, roughly.

You froze for a minute but slowly kissed back, with a more passionate kiss.. and you backed away quickly, "Can you please help me with them.. I really need you." You begged.

Arthur smirked, "Of course, sweetheart."

He went back in for another rough kiss, and sliding his hands under your shirt, grabbing your breast, massaging it.. which made you moan in his mouth.

You then deepened the kiss, making it more passionate, more rough.

He then backed away from the kiss, panting.. but he was tracing your curves..

"You wanna do this here or the bedroom?" Arthur asked, "Bedroom is this way." You said, leading him to the bedroom.. entering the room and closing the door behind you.

Arthur grabbed you and threw you onto the bed which made you yelp.. but first he took your clothes off, and he did so with his clothes too.

He lied on top of you, lining up at your entrance.. slamming himself into you which made you scream.

"you're so damn tight." He groaned out, starting to thrust in and out of you.

Tears filled your eyes, running down your face.. "Sweetheart? are you alright? We can stop if you want." Arthur said. "D-Don't stop please!" You begged, soon.. the pain turned into pleasure and Arthur sped up the pace really fast.

"I-I'm gonna cum!" You moaned out, "Good.. cum for me.. cum for me darling.." he said in a dark tone.

You both cummed, Arthur's cum filling you.. spilling out of you.. which made you scream his name.

He pulled out and lied on top of you, he kissed your forehead. "Are you happy that your desires have been met?" He asked with a smile, you nodded 'yes' with a wide smile.

"Good."

@nicktremblaywayfu @seraferna @hoeforreiner @pschrdr

[izbelross]

THE SIGHTER

I'm nervous, this here is a, well is something I have been working on and very afraid to post.

It's my first time writing a ff and actually posting it. And what better starting than a Moonknight fanfic. Relying on my actual hyper-fixation. This is planned to be short and starting with Moonknight series so... be careful if you haven't watched it.

I really like writing, is a personal therapy of mine and after almost a year of learning about my fears I decided to front one... posting.

I would actually love to read what this made you think or feel or... just anything, it would be lovely.

English is not my first language, if I have typos, am sorry, tried to make reader gender neutral, if I missed again, I apologise :D

Words: 3.9 K –I really love writing jejeje–

Pairings: Steven Grant x GN!reader, Marc Spector x GN!reader, Jake Lockley x GN!reader, Arthur Harrow x Platonic!GN!reader, Khonshu x Platonic!GN!reader

Warnings: Spoilers for Moonknight series, angst, mention to mental illness, drama idk, some sparkle of fluff, mentions of death. Khonshu being my little shit of a pigeon.

You have always wondered if you weren't just some crazy ass. If your life wasn't really just an entire hallucination of what was supposed to be a normal person. You had family that loved you but never really understood the way you will look to an specific area because "Mommy, there is a creepy looking dog over there" or "Yesterday a flying snake told me that I'll have a pigeon" or that one that made them definitely scared "Ma fren said that when I die I'll be like him".

You had a very different way of seeing life. It wasn't the usual bland experience but a majestic and incredible surprise. You used to talk to your grandma, even when she had already passed, and she told you to not tell your parents, for they weren't very knowing of this kind of stuff. All your childhood you were surrounded with the colours of peoples feelings in the tip of your tongue. You bonded with animals that often than not had to be kept in the garden meanwhile your parents wondered why they were so attracted to this area. It was as if life was a rainbow which you could experience all on your own with the guidance of your deceased grandma.

But not everything was good. There were shadows as well, shadows that clouded your nights taking away the joy of the day and making you scream until the birds sleeping on the edge of your window started to fly around your house and the wolfs in the distance cried along side you.

Night terrors was what the doctors told your parents. And it was "common" in children. The problem started when you where no longer a child. Every night you had to endure the visits of ghostly shadows without faces that grabbed your arms leaving you thrashing against them with bruises covering your skin in the mornings.

Which brought another problem. Your parents believed that you were hurting yourself. Hallucinating, paranoid. They medicated you, which left you tired and sleepy all the time. They gave you pills after pills, each one with a higher rank until you had to pretend that you couldn't see them anymore, that you couldn't hear them. Only then would they stop giving you such strong pills that left you in a trance of numbness and heart hammering.

You didn't have many friends for those years. Many of them believed you were a freak and the ones that really wanted to hangout with you were never the kind of friendship that last a lifetime. As with your parents...

You preferred to relay in yourself and the counsel of your grandma.

She taught you about the mysticism of people like you both. The Sighters. You had an astral bond with the universe. And even if they didn't seem like magnificent powers like the ones that could cause destruction, it allowed you to help those who needed it. Like the lost souls that sometimes would roam the streets searching for closure from this world. Or for people that had ghosts lurking their backs, trying to have free access to this realm of the living but weren't allowed anymore.

It was all good until your grandmother had to pass to the "Other side" as well. You were wrenched between being selfish by keeping the only one that understood who exactly you were and giving her the peace you knew she deserved. The latter choice was the one that attracted the sight of certain someone to your life.

When you met Arthur Harrow, things in your life were complicated.

You were tired of having to pretend be someone else. After all, you were a Sighter and your power was consuming you every time a denial came out of your mouth for fear of what your friends would think of you, what your parents would make you take this time or how many days will you spend in a hospital now?

You had just escaped your home with nothing more but the hope of finding a new place you could live and be at peace. The bag at your back had only the essentials, money you kept, ID, few coupons for fast food and two sets of clothing.

Totally a mistake of you for having got out at night, the streets as lonely as they could be only echoed your footsteps and even with the narrow light of the lamp posts the dread of being alone started to climb deep in your bones. The heavy clouds announced the coming of rain and stoped the moon light to seep to the street.

When people was behind you their auras used to approach you, hugging your own and acknowledging each other for what you were. Humans. It was a weird sensation that helped you ground yourself on moments of panic, to remind you that after all, you were normal, in a sense, just with a little extra in you.

But these sensation, the coldness and unnatural stillness of it reaching out to you and claim you against your will was the peak of every nightmare.

And it reached out with those anti-natural fingers pressing tight against your leg until it bled. Your scream was agonising and it flew among the shadows of night until it reached Harrow –clothed in his avatar armour– and even Khonshu stoped bickering when the full force of your soul searching refuge reached his undying one.

"ARTHUR, REACH TO THEM. NOW!" He didn't understand the deep uncomfortable feeling that overcame him, memories flooding his mind of old times when priest, priestess searched for his aid and as only payment: unconditional devotion.

When the Ennead stoped caring, the humans were left alone asking them selfs and each other "Where were our gods? Why haven't they answered? Why have they left us?" He can still remember how his devoted were hunted and punished for praying, for waiting for them. For him.

And seeing a Sighter, seeing you without protection, without a guide.

NO

With full speed his avatar jumped over the buildings until your silhouette came into view. The god could not hide the terror on his skin, for there was you, a Sighter, one of the rare who were born under the protection of a god. And your soul was being ripped away by a shadow clad in animal skin. "HURRY!"

You were fighting with all your will to suppress the darkness trying to creep into your eye sockets, your mouth, your nose. The power of fear overcame you and you begged for anyone, anything to help you.

You prayed to anyone who shall listen for help.

And then it happened. No one came to aid: no person, no spirit, no god.

Your power was ripped and your soul split in half.

You realised two things then and there. One, your grandma was right, the power you had was unaltered, raw, savage. It could flow without limit and burn everything on his way. Two, it could drain you to the point of dead.

Golden light enveloped you and the darkness gripping you was not fighting anymore to eat from you but to get away. His touch was cold but you were a constant fountain of warmth.

You carbonised the cutting ice clawing at you from the inside, your screams weren't of terror now but of fury and the air around you burned even when Harrow tried to coax you to stop.

Khonshu marvelled at the sight. As a god of the moon, coldness was his, it enveloped him, nurtured him. And he found himself craving the blinding warmth that for a few seconds surrounded the world.

Your breath became even, the claws not anymore near you, not even existing, and standing there, an astonished Arthur finding in your eyes the same look he once had when Khonshu found him. Horror, pain, confusion.

"SIGHTER." Looking up the god Khonshu was coming your way, empty sockets looking without eyes. He put one knee on the ground and carefully to not spook you anymore, a hand cladded in old wrappings touched your skin. "HELLO LITTLE SIGHTER. DO NOT FRET" His hand was cold and it covered then the top of your head, patting it like one would do a puppy. "WHAT IS YOUR NAME, SIGHTER?" You gave your name and behind him Arthur walked to you, finally showing his face.

"It's a pleasure to meet you, I'm Arthur Harrow." The blue eyes looked at you like you held the answers to the most impossible questions, and the firm shake he gave to your hand was accompanied by a soft smile. You were a shaking mess. "Come with me"

Not even questioning him you followed this man and his god, you didn't have anywhere else to go, no one else who to trust but the aura surrounding him, a beautiful almost imperceptible melon colour told you that he was in pain, he was grieving but the more outstanding shade of mustard yellow gave away the gentleness and caring and safety.

~~🌙~~

Khonshu was watching both of you, still holding hands like your life was depending on it. He followed to Harrow's apartment, he stood alongside you while you ate so fast you almost chocked on the chicken and Arthur had to pour more water on your glass after you drank in two gulps. "You will be safe here"

"Are you- are you like me?" You both were still sitting at the dinner table, heart rate was finally normal, your stomach full and after he talked about mundane things –like how interested he was on science and that he had being learning german for 5 years– you were able to almost feel safe. He was easy to talk to. "You can see Khonshu and you could see the shadow from before."

"It's different for me," you poured a little more coffee on your cup and offered more to Arthur who nodded, grateful. "I'm the avatar of Khonshu, which gives me certain abilities: strength, velocity, awareness, the Sight. You were born with these gifts, for what I see."

"My grandma used to be my guide, she passed away and even then I learned from her." Arthur got up inviting you to the large sofa, he gave you a blanket and sat next to you, hearing everything you wanted to share. "She used to tell me that I could have explosions of temper, powerful but draining,"

"Powerful indeed, it felt like I was touching the sun for a moment." You both let out a lazy laugh. "My condolences. I know how it feels to- to lose someone you love." There was a pause where both of you lingered in the memories of it. "I think your grandma would've been proud of what you did tonight."

A tiny smile was your answer and Arthur chuckled. "Thank you. For- for letting me stay here as well, I know Khonshu is making you and- and I'm really sorry for invading your space-"

"Hey, hey. Stop, please. It's not only him that wants you to stay here. I prefer that you don't go around looking for a place on a doubtful motel. If you need to stay for a while I wouldn't mind and if you wish to go, the door is open. Just- " he laughed lightly when a soft breeze passed by and you looked over to where Khonshu was suddenly perched, you couldn't see his expression but the stillness told you he didn't agree on the options Arthur gave you. "Just be sure to let us now. You can take the spare room, and, yeah... that's it. I should get ready, you go take a nap, it's gonna be daylight soon."

"Thank you again Arthur." You smiled at each other and parted ways.

The room was small and cozy, with a large window illuminated in moonlight. You didn't dare turn on the lights and for the appreciative hum behind you, Khonshu agreed.

"I WILL KEEP YOU SAFE, SIGHTER. THERE'S STILL SO MUCH FOR YOU TO LEARN ABOUT YOURSELF." The god sat in front of the large crystal panels, crosslegged, and the room seemed smaller at his presence, even from his place at the floor.

You were curious– tired but curious. There looking at the way his beak tilt to the side while you carried the sheets from the bed to the floor alongside him, searching comfort from a being so cold, so different from the burn that was still in your chest, you realised that you felt more at ease with this two strangers for the few hours you met them than all the long years with your family.

"I have a lot of questions, but I feel- I can't really- everything is just, this... and-" you sighed.

"THE ANSWERS WILL COME, SIGHTER. WITH TIME, WITH PATIENCE I SHALL ANSWER YOUR QUESTIONS." Khonshu watched as you laid under the comforter and gazed right to the moon. Your tired eyes shined with white light, resembling the way Arthur's would when he summoned the suit.

"I should be panicking," this need to talk overcame you, the need to say it, you were distracted by the chat with Arthur, it helped you get your head back in time, it stopped you from spiralling into an anxiety attack, but you still wanted to, you still needed to talk about it, to know you were not- you weren't- "I should be feeling scared or at least crying. It was the first time I was able to do, well, that I did back there. But I feel..." the tears stung, your throat was closing in a painful knot. "I feel numb, I don't feel my body, is like I am here but I am not here. I can see you, I could see Arthur and I am- I have so-" a sob wracked you body, curling into yourself.

In one night you got away from home, after years of feeling like a monster, of feeling the looks they gave you.

You were attacked and you were terrified. You unlocked an unknown power and saved yourself. You met Arthur, an avatar, with eyes that hide torturous emotions like your own. You met his god Khonshu– that proclaimed his protection over you. You got a place to sleep, you got to eat, to laugh with this man. And you had so much in you, inside, that the tears cascading with no end and the headache pulsing relentless weren't enough to make you feel.

"YOU DON'T HAVE TO OBLIGE YOURSELF TO FEEL EVERYTHING ALL AT ONCE. YOU HAVE LITTLE CAPACITY AS A HUMAN. YOUR BODY IS STILL CATCHING UP TO YOUR BRAIN AND YOUR BRAIN IS IN A RACE TO GET TO THE PRESENT FROM WHAT HAPPENED."

Now, Khonshu wasn't human, he didn't understand the reactions of his own avatar and he couldn't even comprehend for the life of him what was that deep ache that –if he needed air to live– would have constricted his lungs. But weirdly, his cold reasoning and truth tone at talking made wail with more force and without guilt, without telling yourself you shouldn't feel sorry because you already had a roof.

Crying helped you clean your mind, your body was lest stiffen after long minutes of gasping for hair between wrecking sobs and the added weight of Khonshu's hand patting your head while you slipped into unconsciousness took some of the anxiety that got you every night.

~~🌙~~

That first morning you woke up to the smell of bacon and coffee. To the sound of relaxing ambient music and chirping birds. Your soul was sad, still crying without the need to shred tears but by finding yourself on floor with the memories of last night, free of a broken family you smiled.

It was a little smile and more started to come when you found a message from Arthur on the fridge, wishing you good morning, "Guten apetit" and the first gift of many from Khonshu, a moon shaped stone, held in a little crystal ball that hang from a black leader necklace. A protection, for his Sighter.

Soon your live changed, quite literally from night to morning, and you couldn't be more grateful for that fate.

Khonshu helped you with the soul call of the universe, the shadows lurking your way, the night terrors. For five years he taught you the way of the Sighters, to protect, to defend, to attack. And Arthur, your new found friend, showed you how to fight without your Sight.

For five years you had Khonshu, an asshole that protected you and taught you how to protect. And you had Arthur, your confident, your friend, your family who taught you how to defend yourself without magic, without immortality, with the fear of dying that kept every human alive on impossible situations. You learned how to science as well.

Maybe that's why it hurt so much when Arthur betrayed Khonshu and by consequence, betrayed you.

You had everything you never had, for those five years you learned what having a family felt like, and you learned that even the most perfect ones could be the more hurting ones.

~~🌙~~

The pain of that betrayal didn't waver, it didn't only affect Arthur and Khonshu's relationship, but yours and Khonshu's as well.

You believed that something had happened, something that made him get a so radical change of mind.

"You have to help him Khonshu! He isn't himself, I know it!" By this time, you were sure Arthur's neighbours were wondering calling or not to the police. You couldn't care less anyways.

"HE HAS CHOSEN A PATH, HE MADE THAT CHOICE SO HE WILL SUFFER THE CONSEQUENCES. AND YOU HAVE TO MAKE UP YOUR MIND WITH IT. I WILL NOT WASTE MY TIME ON HIM MY LITTLE SIGHTER, AND YOU SHALL NOT EITHER."

It had been like these since Arthur had gone out of that palace. It was so sudden, the way he talked, the way he walked. The simple job of justice was perfectly performed by him, as always and Khonshu was satisfied, or the most satisfied he could get. You were waiting at hotel room, after having done your own work. Helping the lost souls to find the path, helping the living ones to understand that same path. A group of extremists had got to you though, you had a few bruises and sore arm muscles but out of it, nothing a bubble bath and pain killers didn't heal.

At the hotel room he had a dry humour and the worst happened in the morning. Khonshu went away, he often left you both for short in the mornings and came back in middle afternoon, and so, Arthur got his chance. Started telling you about the justice, so passionately that his eyes looked maddening and when you started to joke he snapped.

One minute, breakfast in the balcony with a man you trusted, friend of years, the next you were in front of a stranger that held a cane from an old goddess, one that you recall, was the devourer of hearts. A chill swept your back when he asked for your hands, when you didn't give them willingly he took them with a harsh grip, forcing the cane on your wrists. To say that you kicked him, he kicked back and the fight finished with you running on a frenzy to the airport and him screaming your name on the crowded Egyptian streets.

"If you don't help him then I fucking will!" The desperation clouded your senses, you'll do anything for not letting go, you couldn't, why would someone give up something so beautiful? "He is my family, he needs me Khonshu and I'm not giving up on him," your voice was strained, between screaming and crying your vocal chords were suffering a great deal.

"HE IS NOT YOUR FAMILY." You stoped mid track packing your clothes. "YOUR FAMILY ABANDONED YOU, HE IS NOT BUT MY AVATAR AND YOU SHOULD UNDERSTAND THAT." Honestly, if he had just stabbed you with his centre the pain would have been less. Your heart clenched so painfully that the little mental awareness left in you wasn't enough to understand his next words. "YOU WILL NOT SEARCH FOR HIM, NOT IF I CAN HELP IT."

Yes, it hurt. Like a limb being sliced from you, suddenly the ground beneath you, your own gravity centre changed, your power changed. The utopia of a bubble of familial love fade away with the memory of Arthur Harrow at the same time that Khonshu prayed the god Dolos and put you to sleep.

~~🌙~~

"Ah, yes, Annubis, god of the embalming and the death, a very important and praised god until, well- heh, Osiris. Quite a family, 'innit?" You looked at the man that appeared out of nowhere, startling you a little. Now, you had the fucking Sight, but not even that was able to distract you from the soft, nervous smile under big brown eyes.

You might have seem like a fish out of water but who could blame you, this man just talked and it was like the lights around were brighter than ever, like the holes in your incomplete memories weren't important anymore. "I- yeah, yes. They should probably take a few holidays, can't imagine what thousands of years can do to someone relationships." He chuckled with your answer, his hand playing with the zipper of his jacket. Holy shit, he's cute.

"Although it was almost endearing, how he accepted his new position, Anubis, I mean... " you stared at him meanwhile he talked about the entire myth of Isis and Osiris love, Anubis and his supposed brother Horus and the why yes he might be, no, that might not be, but... a soothing voice he had, with a so heavy accent that had you wondering how could you have lived without it? "... which is a little funny 'cause he ended up embalming Osiris himself, don't ya think? Oh, I- I'm sorry I- I tend to ramble a lot, I- didn't-"

"Well thanks to the very renew Osiris and Horus, even Set myths now we have Anubis to take care of the embalming and those who are transitioning. Pretty funny as you say but in a way, like any belief, unstoppable."His mouth hanged open at your answer. You were listening, of course you were. You used to serve Khonshu, you used to... pray to him. And Egyptology was one of the most interesting subjects you could ever stood by, even before being catalog a former Sighter. And hearing someone like him, a pretty yet handsome man that was passionate about Egypt, that looked at you like you were a wonder and a full smile making his eyes shine Oh so bright, so fucking pretty.

You introduced yourself, shaking his clammy hand and with a smile as big as his. It was almost impossible to your heart not to flutter with his nervous chuckle.

"I'm Steven Grant, it's a really- real pleasure to meet you." By now you were only holding hands and you couldn't care less if it was awkward. His smile impossible to fade, your cheeks hurting of the same problem.

"Oh no, believe me, the pleasure is all mine."

If you were being honest, this was by far the best moment of your day. And you didn't know but, Steven with tired eyes and a hopeful gaze still in you couldn't agree more.

Again, I'm sorry for any mistakes 😅

I really liked writing this and finally making a move around my new Moonknight obsession 🌙✨🥰

[starlightsoulwriting]

Ghost-Blood//Revenant: 5

Khonshu, Marc Spector, Steven Grant x Fem!Reader

AO3

other chapters

Rating: PG-13/T, for cursing and later violence

Warnings: None

Summary: You meet The Problem.

As much as it sucked to get up and go to work on so little sleep, you still managed to slog through your morning routine even though your breakfast cereal tasted like cardboard and you almost fell asleep on the bus and missed your spot.

So, of course, just your luck, Doctor Jackson’s - no, Daniel’s, he’d reminded you to call him - Daniel’s flight got delayed and you get another day working alone going over artifacts in every minute detail down to the tools that made them, so other art historians can use that information in their analysis. Not that you minded terribly, it’s just the lab rooms can be so sterile.

It’s the point of course, it needs to be clean and cold and carefully controlled to keep the artifacts from degrading. But at least Sarah, the secretary, would be at her desk in the office across from you, so you wouldn’t be completely by yourself. Her soft voice making calls all day made for comforting background noise over the sound of the rumbling ventilation system.

“Good Morning, Iris!” She looked at you with a winning smile as she got settled into her space - it seemed a nervous habit at this point, she arrived a bit before you, but then futzed with all the stuff on her desk until the clock actually hit the hour mark - politely ignoring the puffy bags under your eyes even though she could probably see them from orbit. “We’re getting a donation to the collection today, you’ll need to handle the inspection and storage for it.”

You paused. You hadn’t handled a donation here before. “Okay, any special form for that, or the same as everything else?”

“The same. Just make sure you don’t mix it up with dig items. The donor’s name is Arthur Harrow, he should be here before lunch.”

“Okay. I can handle that. Any idea what it is?”

“A papyrus by a doctor in the first century BC, going over the patient he saw that day, although the translation is… rough. The authentication seems good so far, but you’ll still have to cover all your bases with it.”

You pressed your lips into a thin line. Authentication had never been one of your favorite tasks. “Right. Great.” You said blandly, not bothering to even attempt for enthusiasm.

Sarah had the audacity to giggle at you, and all you could do was roll your eyes with a huff, and wave her off as you retreated into the break room to grab your lab coat and glasses. You were working with fragile documents today, so you couldn’t risk anything falling off you and hurting it, after all.

Sarah peeked into the room around eleven o’clock with a tiny wave. “He’s here, should I send him in?”

“Give me a minute to put this back up, and I’ll be right out. I’m not letting some random dude get debris on my artifacts.”

She smirked at you, probably at the ‘my artifacts’ remark, but, hey, you were their guardian right now and someone messed with such precious pieces of history over your dead body.

Making sure everything was in its protective case and correctly in place inside the cabinets of the back room only took a few minutes, and you could only imagine Sarah effortlessly making small talk with this ‘Arthur’ person. Hopefully he wasn’t the impatient type.

You walked back out front with a smile, peeling off your soft cotton gloves and shoving them in your pockets haphazardly as you took in the scene before you.

Arthur Harrow was certainly not the usual kind of donor. He looked like he belonged on a hiking trail in the middle of nowhere, seeking the enlightenment of nature or some shit - a plain outfit, long grey hair. Not an ounce of vanity in his whole build. A stark contrast to the usual type, rich people with too much money, donating things for tax write-offs rather than real philanthropy.

What was this guy's deal, then?

Although, when he turned to you, a chill ran up your spine. There was something calculating in his gaze, like he was sizing you up.

“Cool cane.” You spat out instead of a normal greeting, in a blind panic. “Know some people from art school who would love that.”

Admittedly, you were right. It was very cool, the twin crocodile head handle a kind of detail you haven't seen before, if a bit Indiana Jones villain-ish. Though that added to the charm in your opinion.

“Thank you.” He smiled gently at you, and even though his eyes still felt calculating, he seemed genuine. “Not many seem to appreciate it.”

Though, that voice… it reminded you of harsh rains and the glow of fire. Still, oddly familiar and - comforting? What?

“Do I know you from somewhere?”

The briefest flash of surprise blew across his face like wind before it was gone just as fast, smoothed over to the same placid look as before. “I doubt it, but the world is full of coincidences - perhaps we crossed in the street?” Though, the low, rough tone of his voice did little to shake the feeling in your chest that told you that you did, you’d met him before. But feelings like that plagued you twenty times a day, and they’d never done anything but make things strange. So for now, it was fine. “My name is Arthur, though I’m sure you already know that.”

Sure, dude. Whatever you say.

“I’m Iris. .. Anyway - you have a doctor’s note for me?” You cracked with an uncomfortable smile, struggling to contend with the conflicting bolts of unnerving chill and comforting calm that rolled up your spine at the same time.

It all had you nauseated.

His mouth quirked into a barely there half-smile, like the kind you would give to a child that just said a joke that made no sense.

So absolutely fitting, in this context. You felt stupid, for whatever reason.

“I do.” He nodded to a small black case. “I’ve already sorted out the proper documents with Sarah here.” He smiled at her. “She’s made me feel very welcome.”

“Just doing my job,” She let the attention roll off her like water, taking a sip from her water bottle. “You’re the one who has such lovely recipe recommendations.” She shot you a meaningful look. “Arthur here’s a vegan. I’m sure he has an idea for something you can cook up for Steven.”

Yeah, no. You weren’t going to talk about vegan cooking right now.

“...Anyway.” You forced out, ignoring the awkward pause you'd made as your eyes flickered between the two people looking at you, Sarah’s eyebrows practically in her hairline. Because you were the crazy one here. Sure. “Let’s get to it then, yeah? I’m assuming it’s inside a glass slide inside there?”

“Of course.”

“Then you can come back with me, if you want to see it off. Some people like to do that.” You rocked back and forth from your toes to heels, fighting the urge to dive out the window and make a break for it.

Not a great idea, considering you were on the second floor.

“I would like that - I’ve never been to a lab like this, and I find it all terribly interesting.”

“Are you into art history, then?” You tried to make conversation as you headed down the hallway and back into your lab space.

“You could say Egyptian history has been an important part of my life for a long time.”

“Well, you’re in the right place then.” He was still skeeving you out, but it was slowly wearing off the more you talked. He seemed nice enough, even if he looked like he belonged in a store selling crystals. “Sarah can link you to books we’ve contributed to, or you can ask for a copy of any papers you might be interested in. Daniel’s always more than happy to share.” You placed the case on the table and started to pull on your gloves again.

“And what about you?” He asked, not too far away to your left, and you paused.

“Hm?” You turned to face him with a tilt of your head, just to find him rolling up his sleeves, revealing a tattoo on his wrist. A set of old-fashioned balance scales, with more crocodiles. You look back at his face. “What about me?”

“Your accent - you're not from here. You’ve obviously found your calling, to move all the way to London.”

You shrugged, closing your eyes for just a moment. That was one way to put it. “More like a voice in my skull screaming at me than a simple calling.”

His eyebrow rose at that, but made no other indication your words were strange.

Then, his lips twisted into a pained smile. “I know the feeling.”

“Really?” You tilted your head. This guy was confusing the hell out of you, if you were honest. “What do you do, then? Besides donate to academic collections, I mean.”

He held out both his hands, palms up. “Why don’t you let me show you?”

Huh. What the hell could he possibly mean by that?

And, well.

You know what they say about curiosity and the cat.

A/N: You have no idea how close i was coming to making Arthur a romantic interest. My shit taste and love for enemies to lovers strikes again. the only thing that stopped me is that it would irreversibly damage the ending and her relationship with literally everyone else.

Taglist: @theratscorner @astronomicbeans @khonshus-wife @dancingqueen21 @raelwrites @izbelross @n1ght5h4d3-24 @fallingfavourites @stxrrielle 

[girlwithwolftatoo]

Hi can you write an Arthur Harrow or Dr. Harrow hc / fic with a fem!reader, where either version of Harrow is doing cunnilingus or where the Reader is doing some cockwarming?

First drabble of the day! Please enjoy.

As you sat up, propping yourself up on your elbows, you had one last glimpse of Dr. Harrow's face before it was shadowed by your thighs. The tip of his nose slipped into the middle of your labia, and his eyes leered at you, hungry, eager.

"Delicious" he murmured in the deepest voice you'd ever heard him "Why don't we start to...?"

His tongue traveled the same path as his nose, gradually making its way to hidden folds that responded to the caress with an electric shudder. You gasped, and brought a hand to your mouth, the warm muscle reached the bud of nerves at the end of the path and drew circles over it, so slow and so gentle it was almost torture.

Your head fell back, Dr. Harrow imprisoned your clitoris with his mouth, sucking on it, his blue eyes fixed on you so as not to miss a single one of your gestures. For a few moments, his teeth preyed on the hypersensitive button, and your whole body shuddered, it was getting harder and harder to silence your moans, and you opted to bite down on one hand.

"It feels good, doesn't it?" he asked you with his characteristic seriousness "The female intimacy is better prepared for pleasure than a man's, it is possible to stimulate it even with the lightest... caresses..." and as he said this, he licked again in the middle of your lips. Your chest was rising and falling to the beat of increasingly shocking breathing, and the man smiled, satisfied "Now, let's try for an orgasm..."

His hands clamped between your thighs and your ass, to hold you in position. His tongue descended to your throbbing entrance and he showered it with kisses and gentle caresses with his mouth, before thrusting his tongue in. You jumped, your hips jerking in search of more contact, but the doctor paused for a moment to warn you:

"If you stir, I won't be able to finish. You must be patient, enjoy it."

Patience was not your virtue, and you felt more and more desperation as he continued to penetrate you with his tongue, nibbling at the plump flesh that guarded your pussy and murmuring, almost like a purr, because he was enjoying it too.

"How delicious you taste...what an exquisite little pussy you have" he whispered briefly so as not to neglect his work. He brought one of his fingers to your clit to rub it, at times circling it, at times pinching it gently, and you noticed the impending tremor in your insides that warned of climax.

"Doctor!" you made a terrible effort not to raise your voice too high "Please!"

"What is it?" he asked. Your teary eyes gave him the hint "I get it..."

He shifted his fingers with his mouth, sucking, licking, biting at dizzying intervals. You felt your toes wriggle as the only relief from the sensations you were subjected to, and as the tingling increased, again your hips moved upward, pleading. This time Harrow didn't stop, he turned his attention back to your pussy just seconds before you cum, and nonchalantly drank up the wetness you left behind the torrent of pleasure that stung you until you lay languid on the desk.

[clouded-dreams2]

Requests are open for Head-cannons / Drabbles

While I slowly work on making a comeback I requests are open for short works so I can work back into writing. Thank you for understanding my absence.

[the--morning--room]

RESURGAM (Arthur Harrow x F!Reader) Chapter 7: Presentiments are strange things

"I still felt as a wanderer on the face of the earth; but I experienced firmer trust in myself and my own power, and less withering dread of oppression. The gaping wound of my wrongs, too, was now quite healed; and the flame of resentment extinguished." -Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

WARNINGS: Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Past/Referenced Child Abuse and Neglect, Implied Alcoholism

Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6 Chapter 8 Chapter 9 Chapter 10 Chapter 11 Chapter 12 Chapter 13 Chapter 14 Chapter 15

AO3

Unsurprisingly, Harrow tightened security around the commune after the night Marc Spector and I gained entrance. This involved recruiting a number of additional followers specifically for this purpose; neither military nor first responders, what these humans lacked in professional training they more than compensated for in enthusiasm, and thanks to them—all right, let's cut the crap. They were basically just hired goons, reader.

In addition to the goons, all members of the community were "strongly encouraged" to take part in daily sessions studying the arts of basic combat and self-defense. It's less "cozy community center" and more "military boot camp" these days, the Thorn wrote in her notes. I think Arthur is genuinely scared for us.

Apart from this, the community managed to function as usual. The Thorn, for the most part, was able to maintain the same routine she'd held before the incident, with the one exception that each night before bed she joined Harrow in his study, where she dutifully cleaned and doctored his torn, tortured feet. Bafflingly, she found herself almost enjoying this task. There is a certain level of intimacy in all forms of human touch—Harrow knows this better than anyone—but something about caring for a wound can bring out a unique vulnerability in the injured and inspire deep compassion in the makeshift nurse. Harrow trusted the Thorn with the weakest part of himself, and in return, the Thorn began to open more of herself to him.

The night inevitably came when the flower of trust bloomed in full, and the two of them could truly be called friends. Harrow had his self-abused feet and sinful past life; the Thorn had the story of her school uniform, her flight into the woods, and the disastrous night in the cave. She let the story pour from her as she cleaned Harrow's feet, feeling grateful for his nonjudgemental silence.

"It was very foolish of you to run away from your school like that," he finally said when she had finished the story.

"I was ten. Give me a break."

"I understand why you fled, and I empathize. As a child, I imagine I might have done the same thing in your situation. But even so, it was reckless and dangerous."

"I have a hard time imagining you as a child," she said with a repressed grin.

"Do you?" He looked neither pleased nor offended, only curious. "Give it a try."

"Okay… One thing I can say for sure is that you were smart. Really smart."

Harrow modestly dipped his head with a closed-mouth laugh. "Trying to flatter me? Is that really the best you can do? Come now, you've had no trouble giving my adult iteration his due criticism, so surely you can do the same for my younger self. What if I told you I was a rotten, undisciplined, arrogant little boy, a disgrace to my parents and a bully to my teachers?"

"Is that true?"

"You tell me. Does it sound plausible?"

"I don't want to say; I'm not comfortable talking about children like that."

Harrow nodded. "I respect your integrity."

The Thorn silently finished bathing his feet, rinsed out the bowl in the sink, and returned to sit on the floor in front of Harrow's chair. She rested her head against the side of his knee, delighting in the subtle intimacy of touching him without having to look into his face. He laid a hand on her head and combed his fingers through her hair, absently massaging her scalp.

"You mentioned a young friend of yours," Harrow said, "Marc. Tell me about him."

If he were anyone else, she may have wondered about the sudden interest in Marc. But Harrow has a way of making every question, no matter how random, seem completely natural and unsuspicious.

"He was my best friend as a kid," the Thorn said, "until I went away to boarding school, and his little brother died, and we never saw each other again. There isn't much more to it than that."

"I doubt that very much. The friends we make in childhood are among the most influential people in our lives, regardless of whether or not the friendship survives into adulthood. They teach us invaluable lessons about the art of social interaction, and inform some of our very first philosophies about human nature."

"I guess. Marc used to teach me things he learned in Cub Scouts—you know, the different kinds of knots, animal tracks, that kind of stuff. I don't remember any of it, which is probably for the best because I'm pretty sure he didn't fully understand it himself and was teaching it wrong. Come to think of it, he may have just been trying to rub it in that I wasn't allowed to join Cub Scouts because I was a girl."

"Interesting," Harrow said in a voice that implied a smile.

The Thorn continued, lulled into a "talking mood" by the intoxication of Harrow's subtle caresses. "I don't know what you mean by 'informing our very first philosophies.' I'm sure you talked about philosophy as a kid, but Marc and I sure didn't. We spent most of our time camping on his patio and running around the woods, pretending to be the characters from our favorite movie."

"And it was that movie, and your memories of enjoying it with Marc," Harrow interrupted, "that later inspired you to study anthropology, was it not?"

She whirled around it indignantly. "Why do you even bother asking me questions about my past, if you and your scales know everything about me already?"

He laughed lightly. "The scales don't work quite like that, lamb. I see pieces of memories, but only those pieces which Ammit has deemed important in calculating the balance of the scales. I am not privy to every detail of every person's lifetime—if that were the case, I'm sure I would have well and truly been driven to madness by now."

Reader, I do not know if he was aware of the irony in this statement.

"For example," Harrow continued, "your scales showed me that on the evening of Randall Spector's death, you and Marc shared a parting conversation that left quite a lasting impression on you. What did Marc say to you during that conversation?"

She did her best to recall to him the talk she'd had with Marc across each other's windowsills. "I hardly ever think about it," she concluded. "We were just kids. Why did you say it left a lasting impression on me?"

"Well," said Harrow, "if you don't know yet, it must be something that remains to be revealed in your future. The scales, again, don't always show me the full story. All they told me was that what Marc discussed with you that afternoon would come back to you in a poignant way."

Several flights downstairs, under a blanket of scattered papers on her desk, the Thorn's phone jumped with a message from her mother. Now, let me make this very clear, reader, and don't forget it: There is no such thing as a coincidence. It was not a random concatenation of circumstances that led to the Thorn receiving that particular message, but some form of divine mischief. As to her receiving it just as she prepared to leave Harrow's study in the wake of their discussion of childhood and Marc…well, let's call that "divine foreshadowing."

Whatever we choose to call the phenomenon behind these circumstances, the following facts remain:

1. The Thorn received an unexpected message from her mother.

2. The Thorn wouldn't see this message until early the next morning.

3. When she did see it, she groaned audibly and roughtly deposited her forehead on the hard surfact of her desk (clonk), indulged in a few minutes of frustrated self-pity, then set about making the appropriate last-minute plans.

She located Harrow easily during lunch. He occupied his usual seat at the head of the most fully packed table in the room, allowing his own food to turn cold while he bestowed his full attention on the starstruck disciples surrounding him. If one thing can be said for Harrow, it's that he is an attentive cult leader. Some men in his position perform "miracles" of healing or divination; Harrow prefers to bless his followers with the gift of conversation. They come to him pleading for advice, inspiration and comfort, and—providing their scales are balanced—he delivers all these things and more. He listens to these whiny throngs of humans as they moan about their stupid problems, he cries with them over their meaningless losses, he embraces them, promises them a place in Ammit's impossible utopia, and of course it's all a manipulation, but that isn't the worst of it, reader. Do you know what is?

The worst part of Harrow's sick façade of benevolence is that it isn't a total façade. His love for other humans is twisted beyond repair, but it's real—so real that is spurred him to turn away from me and toward Ammit, to let himself embody evil for the sake of a possible greater good. He loves his followers so deeply, in fact, that he will not hesitate to destroy any one of them whose scales tip ever so slightly out of Ammit's favor.

He is, by far, the human being least fit to wield even a fraction of divine power. Too much heart and too many brains…never a promising combination.

Now, where were we…

"Arthur," the Thorn said, awkwardly and pointlessly attempting a confidential tone, "can I talk to you about something? It'll only take a minute."

He excused himself and let her lead him to a corner of the hall. Many pairs of eyes followed them from the table.

"What is it?" he asked.

"I need to go away for a few days. Back home, actually, to Chicago."

"What for?"

"A family friend died unexpectedly, and I've been invited to her shiva."

His eyes narrowed with concern. "This shiva is worth leaving our community and traveling across the ocean for? She must have been a close friend."

"Not really, but I was close with," her voice caught a bit, and she cleared her throat, "with her son. Marc."

Harrow raised his eyebrows. "Ah."

"I'm just leaving for three days. My flight leaves tonight. I just thought you should know, since…since we work together so much."

"Your flight? You already booked a flight with a commercial airline?"

"Yes."

"Cancel it. Billy will fly you—there and back."

"What? Why?"

"How else can I guarantee you'll come back to us when you're finished with your personal concerns in Chicago?"

"You could try trusting me."

"You will come back, then?"

"Of course. I'll be back as soon as I can."

He simply looked at her for a long time, then reached into his pocket. "All right, then. Take your scheduled flight, but at least let me give you this." He rifled through his wallet and handed her a neat stack of bills.

"Arthur!" she exclaimed on seeing the amount of money in her hands. "You're kidding, right?"

"Not at all."

"I can't take this."

"You can, and you will."

"No."

"Half, then." He divided the stack and handed her share back to her.

She sighed. "Fine." She started to leave, then turned back suddenly. "Arthur."

"Yes?"

"I'm coming back because this community is my home. You are my home. The first real home I've ever had."

Harrow took her hand and smiled. "Travel safely, my lamb." He kissed her on the cheek, and they went their separate ways.

Bobbi Kennedy kindly offered to drive her to the airport that evening. The Thorn liked Bobbi in a distant, pleasant way, and the sentiment had always seemed to be mutual. Still, the interior of a small car is not a space one typically enjoys spending with those not in one's immediate social circle. Something about the environment of an enclosed, moving space, especially in the semi-dark, tends to invite the sort of conversation that could be lightly termed "awkward." Bobbi and the Thorn were about to illustrate this odd social trend beautifully.

After a sizable chunk of their journey had been completed in silence, Bobbi spoke: "Be careful."

"...What?"

"I'm telling you to watch yourself. With Arthur."

"Are you threatening me?"

"On the contrary, I'm trying to protect you. I'm not blind, you know. I've seen the way you act around him—a lot of us have. And we've noticed you going in and out of his study late at night."

"No! Listen, it's not like... I mean, it's not the way you're making it sound. We're just working together. He's helping me with my dissertation, I'm helping him find Ammit, it's all perfectly—"

"Spare me." Bobbi held up an impatient hand. "You're not the first of his followers who's looked at him that way, believe me—but you are the first whose feelings he's indulged to this extent. The question you should be asking yourself is, why?"

"Because he likes me, maybe? Have you considered that?"

"Oh, I have no doubt he likes you. But again, I think you should ask yourself why."

"Why shouldn't he? Am I not a likable person? Is there something wrong with me?"

"Please. It is not about your personality. But think about this: There must be plenty of experienced scholars in your field who could aid Arthur in releasing Ammit, and yet it is you, a student, who he chose to recruit to our cause. You are intelligent, of course, and I'm sure you have potential, but forgive me when I say nothing about you really stands out as exceptional."

The Thorn had no retort for this. She felt as though something inside her were sinking, very slowly.

"Arthur is a great man," Bobbi said. "I respect him very much, and I believe he is the key to unlocking a brighter future for humanity through Ammit. If what you told me just now is true, and yours really is a purely professional partnership, then I'm sorry for misunderstanding you. But I don't think my concerns are unfounded: It is strange for a man to spend so much time alone with a much younger woman, especially when the woman obviously has deeper feelings for him."

"I have no idea what you're talking about," said the Thorn, looking pointedly out the passenger's seat window. Reader, sometimes, when one feels cornered and has nothing better to say in one's own defense, one simply feels the need to resort to a cliché.

She was grateful for the crowded flight to Chicago. Being pressed amid a musky flood of strangers helped to ease the emptiness in her heart that expanded more with every mile the plane took her away from Harrow, and the tightness in her stomach as she traveled closer to the "home" that was not her home.

"Cool tattoo," said the man sitting next to her, when she reached across him to take her drink from the flight attendant. "Is that for a band or something?"

"Sort of," she replied with a nervous shrug. To her great relief, the man didn't ask any further questions.

The Mother surprised her by waiting inside the airport, eschewing her usual routine of sitting passive-aggressively in the car lane just outside and playing raucous car horn duets with anyone who dared to annoy her.

"We can go ahead to the car," the Thorn said by way of greeting. "I don't need the baggage claim."

"Hello to you, too," the Mother replied with an exclamatory smack of her gum. "That's all you brought? That sad little carry-on? So I take it you were serious when you said you're not staying longer than three days. Geez, tell me you don't like me without telling me you don't like me. Wait, is that a tattoo?! When did you get that?"

"Mom, please," the Thorn mumbled. "I was just on a plane for ten hours; I really just want to get some rest."

"Yeah, fine, get your 'rest,'" the Mother said with a dismissive flap of her hand. "Remember, we're going to the Spectors' tomorrow. You've got something appropriate to wear, I hope? I know you get weird about clothes, but really, you never know who might be there to see you. You want to put your best self forward, just in case."

"It's a shiva, not a cocktail party." Truth be told, there was only one person she wanted to see at the Spectors', and she had a feeling he wouldn't care what she was wearing. She wasn't sure if she even wanted to speak to Marc; it would be enough just to be reassured of his existence, of his survival. At least, that's what she thought at the time.

The neighborhood in which the Thorn grew up is actually somewhat similar to Harrow's commune in London. Both are small suburban pockets within a major city, both are largely constructed of brick, and both share an oasis-like quality of feeling separate from the surrounding urban chaos. When she lived in Harrow's community, the Thorn got used to the sounds of rustling trees and plants, food being prepared and enjoyed, acoustic guitars being played at widely varying levels of expertise, and a generalized flow of contented multilingual chatter. People in the community were constantly making things—art, food, creative new rationalizations for their dangerously skewed morals, etc.

When she woke the next morning in her childhood bedroom, it was to a conspicuous lack of sound. The occasional honk of a car and the distant scream of a train were the only signs of human life she could hear. She was holding Harrow's shirt—there was no bothering to stash it under her pillow these days; she held it all night—and, bringing it to her face to breathe him in, she was shocked by a rush of tears in her eyes and the return of that horrible emptiness she'd felt on the plane. She'd never been homesick before, reader. Recognizing the feeling, she actually laughed a little bit and let some tears fall onto Harrow's shirt. I have something to miss, she thought. I'm so lucky.

The walls in the Spectors' house were green. The Thorn didn't know how she could have forgotten such a simple fact. On days when the weather confined them to indoor play, she, Marc and Ro-Ro would turn this room into a vast jungle. The furniture became rocks and trees to hide behind while waiting to ambush the bad guys. Paperweights and coasters were Aztec artifacts containing clues leading them to the lost tomb of Coyolxauhqui, coffee table books were ancient texts unearthed by Dr. Grant's morally dubious research methods, and the pencil marks on the wall that documented the Spector children's heights was a coded map written in Nahuatl script, which only Bessie could translate. But none of these could compare to the majesty of the great tomb itself, the dining room table, under which the three of them took shelter with flashlights and excited whispers and granola bars they pretended to cook over a fire. This was how rainy days were spent at the Spector house.

Well, except for that one rainy day, of course. The day that no one saw coming.

They could have at least repainted, she thought as she took in the achingly familiar, yet unbearably different scene. The air was full of an emptiness called Randall, and emptiness was something she could endure, as we know. She knew and understood the emptiness, even if she hated it, but there was another sensation here that overpowered it: An oppression, almost a hostility. The feeling of being watched. The feeling of being hunted. ("Sounds to me like danger.")

"I can't take my eyes off of it, and I don't mean that in a good way," the Mother was saying, shaking her head in the direction of the tattoo on the Thorn's wrist. "It's just so gaudy. And did you really have to put it in such an obvious place? God, you're never going to grow up, are you? Still going through your 'rebellious' phase at twenty-six—unbelievable."

The Thorn heard her name called, and turned to see Elias Spector bounding awkwardly across the room to her, a watery smile spread over his tired face. "It's so nice to see you," he poured, wringing her hand in both of his. "Oh, I wish Marc were here, I'm sure he would love to catch up."

"Marc isn't here?" She tried in vain to mask her disappointment. "I invited him, but," Elias interrupted himself with a nervous laugh, "he's so busy these days with...you know, work..." He trailed off, gazing vacantly out the front window. What a sad, weak, pathetic little man he was, reader. Having harbored an inexplicable, dog-like affection for his wife, without her he was nothing but a vessel for regret, crudely held in one piece by a ridiculous hope for the return of the son he had so coldly betrayed with his inaction and endless excuses.

The Mother grabbed the Thorn by her elbow and steered her away from Elias. "'Busy with work,' yeah, right," she whispered loudly. "You know what I heard about Marc? I heard that he and his wife are..." She dragged a flat hand across her throat, making an exaggerated khshh sound, "and that he's been doing an awful lot of..." Here she mimed drinking from a bottle. "I'm betting he doesn't even have a job."

The Thorn suddenly felt sick. "Give me a minute," she said, slipping out of the Mother's grasp and through the crowded living room. She escaped out the door and down the sidewalk to her house, where she collapsed on the front steps and rested her head against the cold iron handrail.

Marc was married. Estranged, separated, whatever...he still got married. What was his wife like, the Thorn wondered? It would have been fun to go to their wedding, maybe even be part of the bridal party. She saw herself standing in front of a room full of people, wearing a nice dress and delivering a corny, yet oddly moving speech filled with inside jokes. Leading a moment of silence for Randall, who should have been best man. Bonding with Marc's new wife over how her contributions to the décor were undeniably superior to Marc's. A fullness of the heart, a cushioning sense of belonging that comes with a friendship that has stood the test of time, a bond stronger than distance or grief or trauma.

A new vision took hold of her, another wedding. Marc was making the speech this time, and his wife was approaching the Thorn later, wrapping her in a hug filled with perfume and sisterly affection, "you look so beautiful, I'm so happy for you two, you're absolutely perfect together." The Mother following, a little drunk, "you know what? Maybe it's the tequila talking, but he's a lot better looking than I thought he was. The tux probably helps, too—that 'Buddhist monk' look really doesn't work for him." The groom himself appearing silently behind her, wrapping a silver-braceleted arm around her waist, whispering in her ear, "are you ready to go, lamb? I've been waiting all day to get my hands on you, my perfect bride..." She giggled, turned to kiss him—idiotically happy—but he had transformed; in place of her Arthur was the dry, cavernous skull of a long-beaked bird, sepulchral black sockets gaping at her in judgement,

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

No! She snapped back to reality, her head hitting the iron-wrought fence with a cartoonish bonk. What a ridiculous daydream, she chided herself. As if Harrow would ever sully his own dignity by holding a traditional wedding, and to her, of all people. A shimmer of grayish-silver caught her eye from across the street. She looked, saw it just for a moment, but a moment was all it took for her to note those sepulchral eye sockets, the jeering white beak, the tall, gaunt column of rags wielding a crescent-moon staff with elegant menace. In the Thorn's defense, reader, it does tend to be something of a shock for a human the first time they encounter a god in its physical form (remember Steven Grant's embarrassing performance in that elevator?), but I can't pretend it didn't, well, sting a little bit when the sight of me caused her to be physically ill over the side of her mother's front porch. I know I'm far past my prime, but come on, I can't be that revolting, can I?

Obviously she was imagining it—that's how she tried to explain me away, as she wiped the vomit that still clung to her mouth, blinked to release the stinging tears down her cheeks, and swallowed the remaining acidic tang in her throat. Harrow said Khonshu and his avatar had come to the community to find him, so why would the Egyptian god of the moon have followed the Thorn all the way across the ocean to her childhood home?

Answer: Because I wasn't following her, reader. I was following the taxi that carried my utter disgrace of an avatar and promptly deposited him on the sidewalk just as the Thorn was throwing up for the second time all over her mother's dead, shriveled shrubbery.

She looked up, saw him: The stubbled face, rimmed red with perpetual exhaustion. Brown eyes drained of their old warmth, hollowed out by the slow torture of growing up.

"Marc!"

With an embittered shake of the head, he extracted a flask from the pocket and took an anguished swig, then turned and set off down the street, staggering with the erratic gait of intoxication.

It was the flask that told the Thorn something was not right. She ran to him, calling his name with increasing panic. "Marc, come on, get out of the street. I'll make you some coffee or something, we can go to my mom's house, just please get out of the street."

She grabbed him by the shoulders, shook him a little. "Please, Marc." He stared wildly at nothing, muttered incoherently to himself ("not giving you that satisfaction"). Convulsing with wet sobs, snatching the blue kippah from his head and slamming it to the rough cobblestone pavement.

"Marc, don't you remember me?" She said her name, then said it again with desperation. The taste of vomit still coated her throat. "You can trust me, okay? Tell me what's going on." He looked at her, looked through her, and in his sunken eyes she saw exactly what he must be thinking: Trust you? Why should I trust you, when we haven't spoken in sixteen years?

"I'm sorry," she whispered. Reader, I'm not sure what she was apologizing for. She wasn't sure, either.

All at once, Marc's body began to strain. He hunched forward, his eyes rolled back to their whites, the Thorn was flooded with panic (was he having a heart attack? a seizure?) and then he snapped upright, turned his head back and forth with an air of disoriented panic, and spoke.

"...What? Where am I? Oh, bloody hell. Not again..."

She had many questions, but chose to ask the simplest and most obvious of them: "Marc? You okay?"

"'Marc?' Wha—?"

"Are you doing an accent?"

"What do you mean? This is how I talk. Oh, hey," he said, peering into her face, "you're that girl who was at the Library of London."

She'd had a prickle of unease, reader, but now it blossomed into a low, smoldering fear. "Remember? I was waiting for my interview, and you called me 'Marc' for some reason. You were with that friend of yours who looked like he wanted to kill me."

"?????????????????????????????" said the Thorn.

"Look," continued Steven, "I think I'm really horribly lost—this is going to sound daft, but can you tell me where exactly we are?"

Finally, a question she actually knew the answer to. "Chicago."

"Chicago?! Oh, bloody hell, I can't believe this. How the hell did I get myself to bloody Chicago without knowing it?"

It must be the alcohol, she decided. He must have had more to drink than just what was in the flask. It was the only non-ridiculous explanation for this bizarreness.

"Marc." She put a firm hand on his arm. "I know it's probably none of my business, and you have no reason to listen to me since we haven't talked in so long, but I think you really need help. I don't know what happened that hurt you this bad, but drinking isn't going to make it any better. Can you please just...promise me you'll get some help? Professional help?"

He stared at her, frozen, for just a moment. Then he appeared to wilt slightly in a jumble of concern for her, fear for himself, and sheer bafflement over the situation in general. "Listen, love," he said, "I know this Marc guy must be really important to you, since you're, like, traveling the world to try and find him...but I'm not him. I'm not Marc. My name's Steven, and I...oh...oh, shit...I'm sorry...I'm so sorry..." This sudden derailment into apologies was owed to the fact that the Thorn had started to sob.

There was an awkward few seconds wherein Steven searched his [Marc's] pockets for a tissue or handkerchief, found he didn't have anything, and in the end settled for giving her Marc's kippah.

"Well, I'd better be off and try to find out...where I'm going," he said.

"Wait." The Thorn reached into her own pocket and pullet out the fat stack of American bills Harrow had insisted on giving her. "Take this. I don't need it. It'll help you get home."

"Really, mate? Whoa—shit, this is a lot of money. Are you sure? I mean, this is an insane amount of money."

"I'm sure. Take it."

"Can I at least have your name, so I can find you and pay you back?"

She told him her name, "but don't pay me back. It's not my money anyway." Seeing the look on his face, "No! I don't mean it like that—it was a gift...kind of. Long story."

"O-okay. Look, I don't know how to thank...anyway, I'd better get going. Laters, gators!" He waved to a stopping car and began to hurry across the street.

"What?"

"Laters, gators!"

Just a coincidence, she thought. It must be a common phrase. But still, in all her life she had never heard anyone outside the Spector family say it.

"Wait," Steven added suddenly, turning and trotting back to her. "Just one thing—I know it's none of my business, I don't know you at all, but you seem lovely, so I just thought I should say..." He bit his lip, scrunched up his face in a how-do-I-put-this-nicely way, and tried again. "Your friend, or whoever he is—you know, that guy you were at the library with when you met me. I've got this feeling you should get away from him. I could be wrong, of course—I mean, I'm probably wrong, I almost always am—it's just that he gave off kind of a funny vibe. Bit shady, y'know? Anyway, just felt like I should tell you that, just in case."

"In case of what?" she asked, clutching the kippah between her hands.

"Hang on, gotta get this taxi—" and he was gone.

Here's another thing this neighborhood has in common with Harrow's community: Both possess an eerie quality of airtight self-containment. Standing for a long enough time in that street, one can get the impression that whatever happens in this quaint little All-American micro-suburb, stays there. No entry, no escape—so why even bother crying out for help?