#Fear of the Dark

[oracle-of-moon]

🎸🎼 Fear of the dark... fear of the dark! I have a constant fear that something's always near...

Fear of the dark... fear of the dark! I have a phobia that someone's always there! 🎵

I have my suspicions that, in some second-hand parallel universe, this chorus was made especially for our (B. Mgc., Unseen University [failed]) wizzard!

Here's a redrawing of an old sketch of mine from 2019, starring Discworld's Rincewind!

[tadpolesonalgae]

Fear of the Cold[***]

Dark!Ghost!Azriel x reader

Synopsis: after tormenting you for a month, slowly driving you closer to insanity, he finally makes his appearance. Eager to claim you after being denied for so long.

warnings: noncon, dark!az, fingering, strong references to past noncon

a/n: I was struggling with some writer’s block, so of course I ended up coming back here

word count: 3,124

-Fear of the Dark-

——————————————————————————————————————————————

The small cardboard box remains tucked in your pockets at all times, boxes of matches stocked in every room, easily available should the night…find you again.

The house—once deceptive with its semblance of warmth—is now barren and cold. Unlived in and alone. No matter how clean, or how messy you make it, you struggle recall which side of the barrier you lie on. After his visit, crossing into your own world where he should have been unable to, you worry he’d somehow been pulling you under.

You’d thought you were above the ice, but maybe you’re already below it, trapped beneath a layer thin enough to see through but not thin enough to break. Slowly drowning, not even an inch from an unbreakable surface.

Every time a stray draft breezes by, you feel a phantom touch on your throat, like the gentle drag of scar-roughened fingers, stroking placatingly against the fur of a pet. As if it will be some kind of reassurance.

He hasn’t appeared since that night—almost a month ago by now—yet you feel no further away from him. Like you’re trying to run up the snow-capped mountains, but the ground beneath you just slips out from under your feet, pulling you back down into his cold, dead embrace. Sometimes you wake drenched in sweat, lungs aching as if hands had been wrapped around them, squeezing the life from them, to hurry you over onto his side. Other times it’s nothing as overt; when once you had been met with confusion upon not being able to locate a familiar object, now you’re met with dark resign, knowing he’s been moving things again. Moving plates right before you, dragging salt shakers across the table, chandeliers swinging slightly when you know there is no breeze in your house.

Though by far the worst was when you’d been on the verge of sleep one night, tiredly making it to your bed to change. You’d pulled back the covers and found a night gown laid out for you, warmed beneath the sheets. Pale and diaphanous, so sheer it was ghostly, lace wound at its hem like cobweb. You don’t possess anything like that. All your clothes conceal skin, keep it warm against the harsh bite of the desolate mountains, hide it from phantom eyes that watch from the dark.

————

The day is coming to its end, though the constant grey of the skies makes that difficult to tell, every shade blending into the next one, keeping you pithing an inescapable loop. Sometimes you wonder if time is passing at all.

Fatigue weighs on your lids as you stand to put away your plate, making to move to the sink when the porcelain in snatched from your fingers and shattered against a wall, pale shards glittering on the floor boards. A breath hisses beside your ear, skin prickling with cold beneath the harsh exhale, and you freeze. Hands shaking as you stare at the shattered plate, replaying what had happened in the blink of an eye with painful scrutiny. There had been no warning, no dancing shadow nor a drop in temperate—just volatile aggression searing up from nowhere.

You swallow heavily, eyes frenetically dancing through the room, searching, searching for some kind of cause, a way you might be able to predict him in the future, but there isn’t so much as a mote of dusk out of place. Not even an awareness ticking at the back of your mind, no feeling of being watched.

“Leave me alone,” you whisper, softer than a breath.

A slam comes from deep with in your house, like a cellar door being whipped shut, able to feel its vibrations through the bare soles of your feet. Reverberating up into your bones. You turn about skittishly, eyes darting to one side of the room then the next in the same second, frantically searching for him so you don’t have to keep guessing, anticipating where he’ll come from next, what more havoc he’ll wreak to subject you to his kind of fear.

A cold breeze kisses up your throat, and it’s the only sign you need to start running, bolting from the room, plate forgotten as you race through the halls. You have no goal in mind, just desperate to flee from him, to escape his hunting grounds, but your heart continues pounding, passing by doors closing as you near them, the heavy metal grating noise as bolts are slid into place on the other sides, curtains hissing shut as your feet hit the floor, drawers shaking as you keep pushing forward, unknowingly corralled, herded in your own home.

You should have known where you’d end up.

It’s the bedroom on the highest floor you reach, frantically running inside as you chase the illusion of safety, slamming the door behind you and locking it with surprising swiftness.

You stumble back into the room, arms shaking, heart pounding, breath misting as it cools in the air, surprisingly cold for indoors—too cold. You turn around to look over the room, to find all the windows either open or smashed. Shards of broken glass line the outskirts of the chamber, ice frosting the windowsills, floorboards slightly snowy. The room looks wrecked.

A force builds at your back, but you don’t even have the time to turn before something is wrapping over your hips, pressing hard against your back, keeping you in place. You don’t need to turn though to know who it is, and as the final dark grey of day melts into the inky black of night, a small part of you crumbles.

“Leave me alone,” you breathe into the darkness, kept incapacitated by his iron hold on your body. Ice kisses against the shell of your ear, and your breath hitches, trembling beneath his touch. The darkness shakes at your back, and you’re certain he’s laughing, ghastly stuttering breaths brushing over the nape of your neck, before frozen lips graze the intimate expanse of skin.

“You can’t do this again,” you whisper, trying to unstick your limbs, but you feel a pressure over your sternum—a hand gliding up slowly between your breasts, fingertips brushing at your throat before gripping lightly.

“So warm,” he breathes, pulling you deeper into his deadened embrace, nosing at your cheek. “So alive.”

“Azriel, stop,” you whisper, shaky palms trying to pry his corporeal touch from your skin—to no avail. He’s stronger than you even after death. Even as a ghost. Phantom. Whatever he is now. A wraith.

“You can’t do this again,” you breathe, pressure building behind your eyes. “I beat you. I won. You can’t come back.”

“I came back for you,” he returns, icy lips curving in a cruel smile against your soft skin. “You can’t escape from me, little thing. You should know that. I’ll always come back for you.”

“I don’t want you to!” You whisper, squeezing your eyes shut, trying to squirm at least enough to reach your pockets. The smallest amount of light will be enough. You have to believe it will be enough. Just one match, struck against cardboard.

It took him down once. It can take him down again.

“So warm,” he murmurs, fingers stroking across your skin, his forearm tightening across your middle, pulling you back into his body, cold enough to be hewn from the same stone these mountains are made of. Jagged, icy, and utterly deadly. Too much for you to ever handle. “You’re so warm,” he repeats, voice shaking with something that sounds almost like reverence. He inhales slowly, breath trembling as his head dips, mouth tracing the elegant curve of your throat, and you manage to shove your hands into your pockets, fingers fumbling with the small box.

“Azriel…” you breathe out softly as his lips graze your neck. “I…missed you…”

He falters at the whispered confession, and you shove away from him, whipping round as you strike the match.

Flame sizzles feebly to life, but it’s more than enough, casting the room in a faint glow as you use your body and hand to shield it from stray breezes that’ll wash in from the shattered windows. You can’t even swallow as you meet his gaze again, cold and unforgiving as it takes you in.

“You don’t belong in this world,” you whisper, fingers trembling but you keep a hold of the match. Even if it burns your skin, you’ll hold on to this small light you have. “Go back to where you came from.”

Shadows swarm over his shoulders, building higher, denser, wreathing his wings and making him into something much larger, impossibly more deadly as he looms, flame casting a shadow on the back wall that does not match his silhouette.

Azriel shakes his head, displeasure lining his features, angered by the trick.

“Did you not learn last time?” He mutters lowly, and you stumble when he steps forward closer to the flame. You retreat, legs shaking as he encroaches further, pushing you back into the room, pushing you further from the door, your only escape back into what feels now like the world of the living.

“Fire can’t hurt me anymore.”

The darkness surges forward, smothering the flame in the blink of an eye. So fast that you barely clock as he crowds your space, palms biting into your shoulders, icy mouth crushing down upon your own, shadows pushing you tighter, squeezing you together until there isn’t even an inch of space to be found between your bodies. The box of matches falls to the floor, useless and discarded, his boot crushing down on them as he swallows you whole in his shadows.

You writhe, trying to pull against him, trying to squeeze your hands between you, to push at him, to claw, scratch and scrape, anything to get him away. You can’t do this again. But he’s entirely dominating, mouth hungrily devouring you, tongue stroking against your own as his hips press flush with yours. His hand tangles in your hair, arm banding around your lower back, palm settling over the curve of your hind, squeezing as he growls against your mouth.

Azriel pulls away for a moment, only to lower his mouth to your throat, teeth sharper than icicles as he nips and bites, pushing marks into your skin that you’ll have to face in the morning. A reminder of his presence. How you’ll never escape him.

You cry out as he tears himself off you, able to hear his deep breathing, hungry for more, tired of waiting, and he shoves you backward. Shadows flit about the mattress as you fall back on it, at once attempting to scramble away but those dark tendrils bind your wrists, lightly tugging, keeping you from escaping too far as he prowls onto the bed. Your heart pounds as his fingers skate up your ankle, brushing over your shins, taking your night gown with them.

“Azriel stop,” you demand shakily, trying to press away, trying to press tighter into the headboard, to press further from his touch. “You can’t—…you can’t do this again.”

“Watch me,” he murmurs softly, palm tipping the fabric over the curve of your knee, so it slides up your thighs, pooling at your hips. “You’ll enjoy it even more than last time. I promise,” he whispers, a faint curve to his hellish mouth. “We can go slow…” He pushes your legs apart, and you shiver beneath him, teeth chattering slightly in the cold, under the iciness of his touch.

“What would—…what would your brothers think?” You manage out, trying desperately to dissuade him. “You know they wouldn’t forgive you.”

If he won’t listen to your words, maybe someone else will have a sway with him. But he chuckles lowly, hand cupping your jaw, thumb stoking over the crest of your cheek and you sink into the pillows in attempts to hide from him. “If they knew the kind of strain you put me under,” he murmurs over your lips, “the kind of pleasure you bring. They would have buckled long before.”

“You’re disgusting,” you breathe, and his eyes gleam in the dark, practically glowing with predatory hunger. “You know you enjoyed it last time,” he taunts quietly, hand vacating your jaw, trailing down your collar bones, fingers grazing your breast, their pads circling your nipple lightly, before continuing down. “Practically soaked me. You can’t lie to me, little thing. I know you too well.”

You flush with humiliation at the reminder, shame tasing foul at the back of your throat, because he’s right. A repulsively large part of you had enjoyed it. He’d taken you over the edge more times than you could count, each orgasm turning your mind numb, making your muscles spasm with liquid pleasure.

“You’re going to hell, Azriel,” you say softly, lower lip wobbling as your heart pounds, his hand settling between your thighs. His cruel mouth curves. “I did,” he replies, “when you tried to send me away from you, I found out what it was like.” His fingers stroke down your centre and breath mists before you as you inhale sharply, exhaling heavily, breath stuttering as he plays with you, prodding at your entrance. “But I survived, didn’t I?” He smiles, tendrils of shadow curling beneath your night gown, pulling it further out of the way, pulling you further down, until you’re entirely trapped beneath him. “I survived, and came back for you,” he breathes, “my love.”

“I’m not your love,” you spit vehemently, eyes gleaming with wetness as tears well, despite your attempts to blink them away. “You’re messed up in the head. Whatever you think love is—it’s repulsive.”

His fingers slide in, and your lips part, hazel glinting as he devours your expression, how your spine arches a little.

“Then what does that make you, hm?” He muses softly, long fingers curling inside of you, “as someone who’s receiving it.” His thumb presses to your clit, and you squirm, tears spilling over as you try to shift away, hips winding as you struggle to move. “Fuck, stop it,” you cry, shadows allowing your hands to slip free, to find placement on his broad shoulders, fists slamming against them repeatedly as he works you with a familiarity even dying couldn’t remove from him.

Even the searing burn of fire couldn’t purge him of his malevolence.

“Stop it?” He hums, as if it amuses him, fingers scissoring inside of you, watching how you gasp at the ministrations, giving reactions that only sing to the pleasure you’re feeling, heat beginning to dawn across your skin, liquefying between your thighs. “I think you’re enjoying it quite a lot.” His fingers pull out, and you pant in the silence, eyes squeezed together as you treasure the reprieve, hoping he’ll leave now. Now that he’s taken something from you again. It should be enough.

Your eyes crack open when you hear those wet noises, soft and saturated as he licks your flavour from his fingers, humiliation unfurling in your abdomen, and you turn your head to the side, again closing your eyes in attempts to block him out. Digging your nails into his shoulders.

“You taste wonderful,” he chuckles lowly, before cold palms are pushing your thighs apart again, and you brace for the intrusion of his fingers, but instead—

“Azriel!” You almost scream, voice too hoarse to reach that volume, tears becoming heavier as his mouth seals over your cunt, the ice of his tongue contrasting with the heat that’s gathered between your legs. “Azriel, stop!” You cry frantically, hands moving to try and push him off, to grab at his soft hair and pull him away, but he groans when your nails drag over his skin, grinding his hips into the mattress, and you stop almost instantly.

His tongue swirls over your clit, suckling gently, teeth occasionally scraping, just to keep you on edge, his shadows wrapped over your waist, flooding across your chest, seemingly eager to play with your breasts. How they pinch and rub at your nipples, giving light tugs as if in reprimand for attempting to banish him.

“Azriel, please,” you beg, though you can hear the slight breathlessness to your voice, horror coiling in your gut. It can’t happen again. He can’t make it feel right again. His pleasure is disgusting, a cruel manipulation of what it should be, contorting into something it’s not.

His rough palm wrap over the top of your thigh, forcing you wider so he can slide his fingers back in, and a moan has spilled out before you can stop it.

You want to slap your hand over your mouth, but the shadows pin your wrists to the bed, more pleasured noises gasping from your throat as he rubs against those spots inside of you, fingers gently stimulating parts that make you tremble. Arousal fills the room, and you can feel the weight of his attention of you as he pushes you further, delighting in the slow climax he’s bringing you to, dragging it out as long as he can bear, after being denied of you for so long.

Heat swells beneath his touch, and your back bows from the mattress as he curls his fingers, as if beckoning you forward to tip over that edge. His tongue swipes over your clit, swirling with more pressure, and the pleasure breaks, crashing down as you squirm beneath his touch, toes curling as you try to scramble away. “Az—Azriel! Stop! I can’t…!”

He pays you no mind, eager to taste your high, licking up every drop of arousal as it fills his mouth, starved away for too long for him to allow you the mercy of a reprieve.

Overstimulation hits you hard, back curving as you gasp heavily, clawing at him in a way you know he finds pleasurable, but do out of instinct, trying to escape the high he’s forcing you through.

Azriel only pulls away once you’ve stopped scrambling, taking in the hot flush of your body, the arousal that’s slicking your thighs, that’s sitting on his tongue. He could continue for the entire night, but he doesn’t want to spoil anything for you. He has his own events planned out, and he needs you to digest this night first, before he can progress. He knows if he moves too quickly you might simply fall apart in his hands, and then he would be left with nothing.

But if he takes his time, gently stretching you out, delicately putting his pleasure into your body—then you will bend and buckle to his shape. Then he will be able to have you as he pleases.

At last feel your warmth encompass him entirely.

——————————————————————————————————————————————

general taglist: @myheartfollower @tcris2020 @mali22 @slut4acotar @sfhsgrad-blog @needylilgal022 @hannzoaks @hnyclover @skyesayshi @nyotamalfoy @decomposing-writer @soph1644 @lilah-asteria

az taglist: @azrielshadows1nger @jurdanpotter @positivewitch @nightcourt-daydreaming @assassinsblade @marvelouslovely-barnes @v3lv3tf0x @kalulakunundrum @vellichor01 @throneofsmut @vickykazuya

dark!az taglist: @honeyandhalfmoons

[formulas-fatal-to-your-mom]

[one-time-i-dreamt]

I was Twilight Sparkle with octopus tentacles and I had to feed my pony friends to the Leviathan whale monster dude to light up because I was afraid of the dark.

[promptsforyourwhumpfic]

Whump Prompt #1358

Whumptober #8: "Leave the light on."

“Leave the lights on.” 

It’s the first thing the whumpee had said in the days since their rescue, and the caretaker nearly missed it as they left the room.

As of yet, the caretakers didn't quite understand the nature of the whumpee's capture, but that phrase told the caretaker more than they could discern from the place they rescued the whumpee from.

The next night, there's a night light plugged into the wall.

[sweetsweetperil]

If you cannot escape it,

As it will always be a part of you,

What do you do

When the bruises heal

But the pain lingers and continues to bloom?

[pastellich]

Maxwell Rayner, leader of the People's Church of the Divine Host

Pencil and pastel

Check out my other TMA drawings

[wutwutno1]

V x reader comfort vore?

I just had this lil idea where reader is afraid of the dark and needs help getting over that fear, so V decides to help them-

Read ask and tags before reading

Friday.

It's most student drone's favorite day of the week. After all, school was over for the weekend and everyone could hang out and do whatever they wanted.

However, you weren't excited this time. You had a sleepover, and it was with Uzi Doorman of all people.

There was nothing "wrong" with Uzi per-say, as far as you were aware, but one thing she liked more than anything, was darkness.

You didn't like the dark. Not one bit. It also doesn't help that your normal body was undergoing routine maintenance and you were using your mini-form, and on top of that Uzi has two murder drones at her house!

However, your parents and Uzi's dad came up with the sleepover idea. Uzi's dad wanted Uzi to have friends that weren't "murder bots" as he put it, and your parents wanted you to get over your fear of the dark. Win-win for the parents, lose-lose for their spawn.

Anyways, you waited for Uzi to pick you up, literally. You sat at your desk as the final bell rang and everyone got up to leave. You sighed as Uzi walked up to your desk and sat her hand down next to you. "Ready to get this over with?"

Uzi spoke with a sense of disgust, but not at you. You climbed onto her hand and she lifted you up to her shoulder. "Ready as I'll ever be. Let's get this over with."

You sat down on Uzi's shoulder and held tight for the walk to Uzi's house.

Uzi walks through the front door to the Doorman living quarters. You take a quick glance at her living room from her shoulder. You see the two murder drones sitting on the couch.

N, Uzi's definitely-not-a-boyfriend boyfriend, was sitting on one end looking like he was anticipating something, while V, Lizzy's 100%-just-a-friend-not-a-girlfriend girlfriend, was laying down, using N's head as a peg-rest while texting someone on a pink phone. N's leg was bouncing antsy while staring at the tiled floor.

Upon hearing the door open and Uzi walking in, he looked up. When he saw Uzi, he stood up and dashed for Uzi, knocking V off the couch, and causing her to yell out N's name. N knocked Uzi down with a bear hug and an excited,

"Uzi!"

You fell off Uzi's shoulder. However, Uzi still had half a mind to catch you before you hit the ground.

"Hey! Watch it N! We have a guest!" "Sorry, Uzi. . . Where is this guest anyway?"

N got up off of Uzi and looked around as Uzi stood up herself. Uzi dusted herself off with her free hand and V walked over and stood next to N. Uzi held you out in her palm, presenting you to the two drones.

"This is Y/N. They're going to be staying with us for the night because my dad and their parents are jerks." You waved nervously. You knew N was safe. Uzi drove that point home all the way to her place. V however. . . Despite her best efforts, the only thing Uzi could say about V was that she "hasn't killed in a week."

"Oh! So we're having a sleepover? That's so cool! It's nice meeting you, Y/N," N babbled excitedly.

"Welcome to Loser 1, and Loser 2's house. I'm here against my will." V said with venomous sarcasm in her voice as she looked at N and Uzi.

"Hey! Can-it, V! Before I rearange your code and have you fatal error out!" Uzi's left hand and right eye flashed the absolute solver symbol for emphasis, but V didn't seem impressed. "While on the subject of sleepovers, Lizzy is joining us."

"What?! Why would you invite her?! She's so insufferable!"

"Khan said I could! Plus, she's like... way cooler than you, short stack!"

"I'M NOT SHORT! I'M COMPACT!"

Uzi placed you down on a coffee table in front of the couch. You watched the two titans fight as N sat down.

"They fight often?" You ask N.

"Ha ha! Yeah. I only intervene when things get physical though."

"Cool." Luckily for you and N, things didn't get physical as Lizzy walked in. V and Uzi stopped fighting. Instead, Uzi started setting up a movie.

After a few minutes Everyone but you was situated on the couch. N and Uzi on one side, V and Lizzy on the other, with you on a beanbag with a handtowel blanket in the middle. Uzi turned off the lights before starting the movie.

You started to shuffle nervously as the movie progressed, not feeling comfortable in the barely lit room. V noticed and chuckled.

"Afraid of the dark, bite-size?"

"What? No. . . Yes. . . Shut up!" V chuckled before leaning to Lizzy and whispering something in her audio receptor. Lizzy giggled and the pair looked at you with an evil look. You didn't notice, however, as you were staring at the movie, trying to ignore the darkness around you.

When the movie ended, Uzi had fallen asleep, so N volunteered and took her to her room, leaving you with Lizzy and V.

Lizzy stood up and moved to the other side of you.

"So, V tells me you're afraid of the dark."

"Don't worry your little head, Y/N. We know the perfect place for you to get over your fear," V teased.

Lizzy picked you up by the back of your shirt and just let you dangle for a second.

"Okay, V. Open up!"

V gave a sinister chuckle and opened her mouth, revealing her razer sharp teeth and she stuck out her squishy black tongue. Lizzy held you over V's cavernous mouth as you began to kick the open air frantically.

"You two can't be serious!" Lizzy laughed and spoke in a snarky tone.

"Oh, relax! We're robots! We can't digest stuff! You'll be fine! I already gave her tummy a test run a few weeks ago. It's perfectly fine! Nice and dark, and it's the perfect place for someone with a fear of the dark!" "What do you mean you did a test run—?"

Lizzy cut you off by dropping you onto V's tongue. You grab the spongy rope out of fear of falling further, soaking yourself in V's saliva. Before you can say anything, V pulls her tongue and you into her mouth.

You were now trapped in V's mouth. You trembled in the darkness.

Suddenly, there was a bright light as V opened her mouth. You peered outside to see Lizzy taking a picture of you in V's mouth.

"Heh. Nice. Alright V, they're yours now."

"Wait! Wait! V, don't—!"

V closed her mouth quickly and swallowed before you could say another word. Her tight throat quickly pulled you down as you wiggled with your eyes squeezed shut.

Eventually, you were deposited in V's stomach. You felt it churn softly around you and heard it let out a soft groan of satisfaction. You tentatively opened your eyes and felt... calm. . . You laid down in her stomach, not bothering to try and struggle. The whole experience soothed you and you didn't feel afraid of the darkness in her stomach. You could hear V chuckle above you and you felt two soft pats near you.

V smiled warmly as she felt her little snack settling in. She leaned back on the couch and patted her abdomen.

"Aww, they're getting comfy! They must like it in there, despite the dark!"

"I told you it would work!" Lizzy laid on top of V, laying her head on V's tummy so that she could hear you better.

"How are you doing in there, Y/N?"

"It's actually quite comfortable in here!"

"Told ya. Now get some sleep, that's your bed for tonight!"

Lizzy giggled and pulled herself up so that Her head was under V's chin.

"Glad you came up with this plan, V. I was skeptical at first, but it worked and was fun to pull off!"

V wrapped her arms around Lizzy, holding her close as she pulled the blanket over herself.

"I know right? Well, since you told Y/N to go to sleep, why don't we do the same?"

"You read my mind." Lizzy and V would close their eyes, replacing them with "Sleep Mode" and holding each other close.

Inside V's belly, you snuggled up to one of the walls, feeling the plush surface sink under your weight. You quickly found the perfect position and closed your eyes. You fell asleep faster than you ever have in your entire life. Your eyes were replaced with "Sleep Mode" and underneath was a single flashing line of text; "Sweet Dream Mode: On."

The next day after you were let out you left Uzi's house happier than you went in.

Not because it was over, but because you found a way to actually enjoy the dark. Maybe you could find someone else to let you sleep in their belly, or maybe. . .

You could find someone to sleep in yours. . .

[k-i-l-l-e-r-b-e-e-6-9]

Iron Maiden - Wasting Love

[heretherebedork]

Fear of the dark is one of my favorite phobias. And it's not the most common but when it's done, it's always a blessing. Thank you. (I have a lot of questions about many things but I am just going to enjoy this moment.)

[tadpolesonalgae]

Fear of the Dark

Dark!Ghost!Azriel x reader

synopsis: after escaping from the Shadowsinger, the High Lord provides you with a new home, in a location entirely of your own choosing. One that just so happens to be frequently visited by window-rattling blizzards, and snow so heavy you’ll often find yourself trapped within the supposedly safe haven. But when things begin moving on their own, and shadows stalk your well-lit halls, you begin to think maybe the Spymaster somehow eluded death, too.

warnings: references to implied noncon, dark!az, paranormal events, nonconsensual touching (shoulders, mouth, hip)

a/n: dedicating this to @azrielhours , and inspired by her wonderful Company of Phantoms🧡💛

want to know more?

word count: 1,963

-Fear of the Cold-

It’s been six months since he died in the fire.

Six months of roaring screams echoing through the desolate hallways.

Half a year.

It goes by quickly when swallowed by delusion. Of persistent psychosis.

Of imagined shadows stalking your corridors. Of dragging footsteps just outside your chambers. Of the windows rattling, and not from the sudden blizzards that sometimes hit—seemingly out of nowhere. Unpredictable, and haunting.

Some days you’ll wake up, greeted by the barren landscape or grey skies and greyer rock, and others all that lays there is white. Blinding, dominating white, like a blanket smothering the harsh, unforgiving terrain.

You know why you picked here to be your place of refuge. For complete isolation.

The rocky landscape means no one could stumble upon your house without intention, tucked up in the sides of the rugged mountain, weathered by icy rain and lashing winds that could make the blood in your fingertips recoil in the space of a breath. Cold so penetrating it could snatch the air from your lungs.

Few understand the true horror of the cold.

Absolute, inescapable cold.

Nature’s blade, that could cleave glaciers in two.

With the stormy skies, there is no access by air. Winged creatures staying clear of your northern-facing home. And yet, despite the utter isolation, you’re faced with company.

After not even a week in your new house, the hairs had been rising at the back of your neck. Unexplainable drafts ghosting up your spine, or kissing the length of your throat. Doors clicking shut during the grey hours of limited daylight. Books that fall from low shelves, the chandeliers that swing softly when you enter a room, plates that appear where they hadn’t been left.

It’s rarely dark in your house, but the weight is smothering. Every corner is kept clear of shadow, flame purging the darkness with a quiet conviction that feels almost reassuring. But there’s nothing reassuring about your new home. Forearms almost constantly littered in goosebumps, hairs rising, skin prickling.

Even at night, candles burn away at the dark, eating at every shadow that tries to crawl in from the cold. But it feels like lighting a fire in the barren wasteland of the frozen tundra. Flame blazing with superficial strength, until it melts the snow bowing the branches far above, ice slipping free, and smothering the fire in one smooth avalanche.

The glass is rattling again, deathly cold wind whipping, icy rain lashing down as you try to lower yourself into sleep. But every time you near that precipice, something pulls you back: the groan of heavy wooden beams that creak through your house, flame flickering with dwindling light as if blown by a ghostly breath, a strange coldness rising from the foot of your bed. That seeps into your blankets first, then spreads to your feet. Slowly crawling up your body, until you’re wrapped in the haunting embrace of long-dead arms.

Even fire can’t always clear his kind of dark.

Dark that smothers, and festers. That concentrates in the hollow space beneath your bed, that hides in the softness of your pillow, that lurks in the pits of your pupils.

He found a way inside, and now he’s sunk his claws in. Like hooked blades that disembowel when they’re extracted. You’d have to empty your brains out into a bucket to be free of him.

Even then, your body would remember. His touch memorised into the tissue of skin, his terror embedded in the sinew of flesh.

The window spiderwebs, the distinct sound of fracturing glass dumping icy water over your near sleeping form. Hauling you up from the pit of an ocean, wrapped in seaweed to face the stormy grit of the blizzard outside.

Instead, your attention is sucked in by the ever-shifting shadow at the foot of your bed, chilling wind pouring in through the glass, candles winking out. Swallowed in darkness.

The air is pulled from your lungs faster than the cold can snatch it, sat bolt upright in your still-cooling bed.

The darkness holds no recognisable form, simply clustered together as a writhing mass of overwhelming shadow, but there’s no mistaking who it is. Who lurks beneath those suffocatingly concentrated umbras. Inky and undulating.

You’re frozen to your mattress, an icicle thawing out far above as it drips cold sweat down onto your brow, every breath biting at your lungs, making your throat raw.

It’s dark, and you have no protection as he looms so tauntingly before you, hands trembling as they try to grip the freezing sheets. But you can hardly move.

Air chokes in your throat as the shadowy mass expands forward, encroaching toward the foot of your bed. Your eyes widen with terror, watching as talons of darkness spider-crawl onto your duvet, feet recoiling like hot blood against the cold, knees pulling up to your chest, back pressed against the headboard.

“You’re dead,” you breathe out, air thin and slippery between your lips. “You’re dead. You can’t hurt me.”

Your stomach seizes, lurching as the shadowy tendrils stutter in their movements, like shoulders shaking with silent mirth. You get the feeling he’s laughing. Crawling closer still.

He reaches past your feet, darkness swarming over your knees, and within the cloying night you can feel the weight of hands. Of heavy, corporeal touch. One that sinks into your bones as they tremble with old fear.

“You can’t be here,” you whisper, pressing tight into the cold cushioning of the headboard, head tucking into your shoulders as you try to pull away from his overwhelming darkness, writhing throughout the deathly cold room, his touch like ice. “Leave me…” you breathe, voice breaking.

The weight of a palm weighs into the mattress, beside your hip, tying you in place as the living night, faceless and dominating, swells above you.

Your hand reaches sharply for your bedside table, viciously shaking fingers fumbling with the box of matches, sliding the cardboard out with a last trembling hope. Again the darkness stutters, a shadowy laugh whispering beside your ear, an icy draft kissing up the length of your throat.

The match strikes…once…twice…three time before sizzling into a small lick of flame.

In the few seconds of light you’re afforded, shadow easily melts away, pulling out instead hauntingly dark hazel eyes, piercing as the flame sharpens them. The cold, dead mouth that had once hungrily claimed your own, teeth dragging and prominent as they bit you into pieces. The eerily pale tones of his face, warmth vacant from the smooth planes.

You choke on a breath.

Soft, cruel lips curve at the edge, eyes twinkling with the reflection of your match, before his weight shifts over the bed and scarred, calloused fingers pinch out the flame. Skin that remembers its burn now extinguishing it without thought, freed from its sizzling agony.

You scream into the darkness, sinking down into the false safety of your duvet, hauling it over your head as you tuck yourself tight, trembling violently despite desperate attempts to still yourself. A cry breaks from your lips as you feel himself lower over you, directly atop you, trapped beneath his bulk. A cannonball shackled to your ankle, pulling you beneath a frozen lake, blood icing in your veins.

He shouldn’t be here, shouldn’t be alive.

You heard him die, watched as the flesh slid from his bones, muscle melting beneath the blazing inferno of the house fire.

You smelled it. Could taste it in the smokey air.

“Come out…come out…,” the shadow rasps mirthfully, weight brushing atop the blanket, stroking down your arm, drifting to your hip. Touch biting into bone. “Come out…and play…”

“Go away,” you beg under your breath, squeezing yourself tight, tears burning as they drip over the bridge of your nose, sliding off your face. “Leave me alone…”

The darkness laughs, and your stomach seizes as the duvet is slowly pulled back, dragged firmly from your grip. Numbed fingers try to grapple with the sheets, but he’s so much stronger than you. Just as he’s always been.

“Stop it…” you beg, trying to turn to the side as the blanket is pulled away, revealing his swarming darkness that looms above, with a weight that should not be possible. A spectre should not be corporeal, should not have the right to touch the living. He should have lost that privilege upon passing.

Icy fingertips brush your cheek, and a small cry breaks from your lips, quiet and terrified, eyes squeezed shut in feeble attempts to keep him out as the storm rages.

He dips down, and chilly breath grazes the space beneath your jaw, a whimper pulling from your throat as a broad palm makes its way up your front, settling across your sternum heavily, pressing down on your chest, making it difficult to breathe.

“Please…” you whisper, crying now, “just leave me alone…”

His cold mouth opens over your neck, soft lips sealing over a patch of skin as he tastes you, tongue slowly licking over the junction between your shoulder and neck. Darkness shrouds your bedroom, encasing you in a perpetually cold bubble, sealing out the lashing wind and rain, but trapping you in mist. Thick and impenetrable.

The phantom pulls away, lips grazing your jaw, and even with your eyes closed you can feel his proximity. The piercing weight of his attention as it presses up against your skin.

“Call out for me,” he rasps, voice shadowy and shifting, as if speaking in multiple tones at once. “Call out for me,” he urges, coldness thumbing across your cheek, as if trying to coax your eyes to open. So he can feel their warmth, and their terror.

But you shake your head, teeth chattering as you shiver, shuddering beneath his touch. “Go away,” you beg, “leave me alone.”

A soft puff of breath ghosts over your lips, like a faint laugh, and you shrink back into the mattress while his shadows wrap closer around your body, squeezing like serpents. “Call out for me,” he repeats, his gaze roving over your mouth, parted for air despite its bite.

Hot tears scald your skin as they drip out, peeking open your eyes, as breath is again snatched from your body. A mountain of pressure sitting atop your chest.

He’s as haunting as you remember, cruelly carved beauty, hewn from an ice that tries to be soft, but will only end up flooding if it thaws. Drowning you in his deadly affection. Filling your lungs until they’re close to bursting with his poisonous infatuation.

Hazel eyes flicker as they greedily devour your own, overwhelming and immense as you’re submerged into his obsession. Saturated in his hunger. Starvation so deep it persists after death.

“Azriel…” you breathe, lips trembling around his name, feeling as though its the last line of an enchantment, solidifying his presence, binding him to your own mortality.

Soft lips curve at their edges, a spark of life stolen from your existence. Fed off of, until he’s permanently entwined with your being. Persistent and parasitical.

He hums lowly, approvingly, and you swallow. Fear making you feel sick.

Slowly, as if basking in the descent, he settles his mouth atop your own, snow-soft lips slanting against a frozen stiff set, applying gentle pressure as he savours the feeling.

He still moves with such grace, such innate refinement that between the two of you, you seem the more lifeless. With unmoving limbs, and vacant eyes, you are the more dead.

The shadows pull away, blood gingerly rising to where his touch had been.

“I’ll return,” he whispers, mouth still faintly curved into a soft deception of tenderness.

Flickering night morphs and shifts, dissolving along with the wind.

“Find me in the dark.”

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[alice-the-kittycat-yt]

[aspergirl2022]

Fairy Whumpee locked in a jar and used as night light for Whumper's kids

[almostlookedhuman]

[voidgrease]

“Angel tears” self portrait for 2024