#Fleeting Youth Records

[thejoyofviolentmovement]

New Audio: Pink Mexico Shares Bruising "Shame"

New Audio: Pink Mexico Shares Bruising "Shame" @PINK_MEXICO @QUIETxPANIC @henrybainbridge

After stints playing drums for acclaimed singer/songwriter Shilpa Ray and a list of other bands, Robert Preston Collum (guitar, vocals) stepped out into the spotlight with his solo project Pink Mexico. Preston self-released his 2013 full-length debut Pnik Mxeico, which caught the attention of Austin-based label Fleeting Youth Records, who then re-released the album the following…

[millyh23]

Lonely Nights Part 1

word count: 1k

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The Arsenal training facility, transformed into a haven of festive cheer for the annual Christmas party, hummed with the soft strains of holiday music. Strings of fairy lights draped over every surface twinkled against the warm, fragrant air, suffused with the scent of pine and mulled wine. Laughter and cheerful exchanges punctuated the room, where teammates and staff mingled, sharing intimate moments with their partners in a tableau of connection and joy.

Y/N stood apart near the drinks table, a glass of sparkling water in hand. Her choice, long removed from alcohol, symbolized the discipline that had carried her to this point—an illustrious career punctuated by Champions League triumphs, Ballon d’Or nominations, and records with Arsenal and her national team. On paper, she was the epitome of success.

Yet, as her gaze drifted across the room, a subtle disquiet settled over her. Katie leaned casually, her arm draped around Caitlin’s shoulders as they laughed at Kyra's story. Leah twirled her girlfriend on an impromptu dance floor, their faces alight with shared delight. Even Lina lingered in a private corner with her wife and kids, their quiet intimacy a stark counterpoint to the festive clamor.

Y/N sipped her water and turned her attention elsewhere, managing a polite smile as Beth waved her over. “Enjoying yourself?” Beth asked as she settled beside her.

“Always,” Y/N replied lightly. “You?”

Beth’s face softened as her gaze drifted to Viv, animated in conversation with Lia. “It’s nice to unwind, especially with Viv leaving. This year’s been… challenging but I'm just glad she's home for a while”

“I’m glad you have her,” Y/N said, her sincerity unblemished by the peculiar ache the sentiment left behind.

Beth’s smile lingered, though her scrutiny deepened. “And you? Anyone special waiting under the mistletoe?” she teased, nudging Y/N with playful insistence.

Y/N’s laugh came easily, but her response betrayed nothing. “Just me, myself, and I.”

Beth’s humor dimmed into faint concern, but before she could probe further, Viv called her over. Y/N waved her away, maintaining her outward cheer as Beth departed. The hollowed quiet that followed left Y/N pondering her solitude.

Relationships, once peripheral, now loomed in sharper relief. She had known fleeting affections, impermanent and inconsequential. Football’s supremacy in her life had obviated deeper bonds, and she had convinced herself that her singular focus sufficed. Yet, surrounded by the tactile, tangible affections of her teammates, the absence of such intimacy struck a discordant note.

Seeking solace, she wandered to the expansive window overlooking the frost-tinged training grounds. Reflected in the glass was the image she had cultivated over years: poised, resolute, and self-sufficient. Yet, in the faint shimmer of unshed tears, she glimpsed a vulnerability that had eluded her reckoning.

The frost-dappled grass outside seemed to mirror her inner state, serene yet cold, beautiful yet devoid of warmth. Memories of her youth surfaced—days spent running drills with unrelenting fervor, nights studying game footage while her peers pursued youthful indiscretions. Every sacrifice had carved her path to greatness, but at what cost? The accolades lining her shelves were mute witnesses to a life devoted to singular ambition, but now, they felt hollow without someone to share in their glory.

“You alright?” Leah’s voice, uncharacteristically subdued, interrupted her reverie.

Y/N turned, her practiced composure quickly restored. “Just needed a moment,” she said, her tone carefully modulated.

Leah joined her at the window, her posture relaxed but her concern evident. “It’s a lot sometimes, isn’t it? All the… togetherness.”

Y/N’s laugh was faintly sardonic. “Not exactly my area of expertise.”

Leah’s expression softened. “You’ve got us, though. Don’t forget that.”

“I know,” Y/N replied quietly. “And I’m grateful. But sometimes it feels like I’ve spent so much time chasing dreams that I’ve forgotten to leave space for anything else.”

Leah remained silent, then offered a gentle nudge with her shoulder. “You’ve got time. And we’ve got faith in you. Maybe this is just the beginning of something new.”

For the first time that evening, Y/N smiled with unguarded warmth. “Maybe.”

The night unfolded with renewed vigor. Y/N allowed herself to be drawn into the festivities, her laughter genuine as she engaged with her teammates. She joined a spirited debate over Christmas trivia, shared a dance with a giggling Beth, and even let Katie convince her to wear a ridiculous Santa hat for a group photo. Yet, as she returned to her quiet flat that evening, the stillness carried an unfamiliar weight. Facing her reflection once more, she resolved to confront the void she had long ignored.

The days that followed saw subtle shifts in Y/N’s demeanor. At training, her focus remained sharp, but there was a new openness in her interactions. She lingered in conversations, laughed more freely, and even joined a team lunch unprompted. Still, the nagging sense of incompleteness lingered.

Two days later, in the locker room after training, the team launched their ambush. Katie, her grin equal parts mischief and determination, crossed her arms as she delivered the proclamation. “Y/N, we’ve decided to set you up on a date.”

“What?” Y/N asked, her incredulity evident.

“You don’t get a say,” Leah interjected, her stance casual but her tone resolute. “We’ve seen you moping, and we’re not having it.”

“I don’t mope,” Y/N protested, her reddening cheeks undermining her argument.

Beth raised an eyebrow, her skepticism plain. “Right. Look, you’ve mastered football, but even the best need someone to share it with. Trust us on this.”

Y/N hesitated, her gaze flickering across the eager, teasing faces of her teammates. Their camaraderie was infectious, their concern genuine. For years, she had prided herself on her independence, but in that moment, she realized that accepting help didn’t diminish her strength—it complemented it.

“You’re relentless.”

Katie smirked triumphantly. “So, that’s a yes?”

After a long pause, Y/N exhaled a resigned sigh. “Fine. One date. But if it’s a disaster, I’m never listening to any of you again.”

The room erupted in cheers, and Katie clapped her hands. “Oh, it won’t be. We’ve got someone perfect in mind.”

As the team dissolved into excited scheming, Y/N couldn’t suppress a quiet laugh. Perhaps relinquishing control, for once, might yield something worthwhile. The prospect of exploring a new chapter, however uncertain, brought an unexpected lightness to her step as she left the locker room, her teammates’ laughter echoing behind her.

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The End of Part 1

[amarynthian-chronicles]

May I have this dance?

Sebastian Solace x Reader

"Surely, you must be joking."

"Quite the contrary."

He fiddled with the old gramophone, making a few final adjustments in order to get it to function properly once more. All the while he was casually holding his cigarette with his third hand, elegantly tapping the ash away when necessary.

Sebastian had amassed an impressive collection of vinyl records, arranging them according to his tastes. He had done so in a similar manner with his books and research files. You loved watching him sort out his inventory.

It was so unusually domestic, the mingling scents of coffee and cigarette smoke, the presence of warm blankets and pillows on the sofa he had hauled from an unspecified location in the vast facility. Undoubtedly from various loungers that the scientists would once find comfort in before the breach in security.

You cleared your throat, trying to get his attention once more.

"Seb, be realistic. We cannot dance together. I don't even know how to"

"I am certain the youth refers to this as a "skill issue" nowadays. Painter had discovered a whole thesaurus of modern slang, heaven help us all."

"I am not even going to comment this. My point still stands. Besides, you do not even have legs."

"What I do have is creative solutions to complex problems. We crush obstacles, do we not? Ah, there we go. Good as new."

He placed the needle on a record.

Music. Soft jazz, soothing yet playful, unpredictable in its rhythm, improvising, moving from whimsical and exciting tunes to the more melancholic melodies. In many ways, it conveyed Sebastian's own soul perfectly.

He offered his clawed hand, grinning and waiting for you to inevitably accept his offer. Reluctantly, you accepted.

His tail began to tap in a certain rhythm against the floor, as if setting the tempo you should follow along with the music. Confused, you saw his other two arms approach you, all three serving as if they were makeshift dance partners.

Before you knew it, he was making you move and sway as if you were a combination of a puppet on a string and a music box ballerina. He made you twirl, glide, turn, almost hypnotic.

At a certain point, he snapped his fingers, and suddenly the room was completely dark, save for the lone light of his esca.

"See? You do not need to know where to go or what to do, you are only to follow as I say. Trust me and you will never have to worry about anything ever again."

"Seb, I am tired."

"I am sure we can get a few more pirouettes out of you, pet."

"Well, at least I am getting free cardio training here."

You took deep breaths as your puppet master played with you, demanding yet gentle, firm yet rewarding you with tenderness when it was due. As you were about to collapse, he caught you, pulling you into his lap.

Soft kisses were placed on your head, cheeks and lips.

His body began to sway, akin to the ocean waves, his arms cradling you.

Sebastian was truly like the ocean itself, simultaneously a cooling haven that embraced you in your feverish nightmares and a cold unyielding tomb that one could not escape from. A devil is merely a fallen angel, after all.

You whispered, closing your eyes.

"What will become of us, Seb? We are playing in this illusion, knowing that all of this is ludicrous."

"We live on stolen time. Our old lives are forfeit and we can only move onward. We take, we scavenge, we defy probability itself."

"What are we to each other?"

He combed his fingers through your hair.

"Fleeting hope. The same type that a ghost feels in a house with new tenants, desperately wishing to be seen and heard once more. Even for a final time."

Hot tears ran down your cheeks.

"Hope is such a cruel thing, Seb."

He kissed each tear away, savouring your sorrow.

"We lie in the Abyss. This location defies physics itself, it rebels against every possible known law of water mechanics. So shall we. Doomed to fail, given to death, we shall rise once more, wearing the Reaper's cloak as our own."

[not-neverland06]

Only Have Eyes for You

Previous part / Next part

Series Masterlist

Cooper Howard x fem!reader, The Ghoul x fem!reader Summary: He found you, again, you should be expecting it at this point. The only problem is there’s still a Deathclaw lurking around outside the station. You’re stuck with him and the bodies of the ghoul you kill in a desolate gas station.

“God, Coop, this is delicious.” She moans around the fork and takes another bite of dinner. He clenches his fork a little tighter, trying not to stare too obviously at the way her lips wrap around the metal. He feels like a lech, watching her reactions so eagerly. He also feels like she might be playing this whole thing up to screw with him. 

He’s a good cook, but he’s not that good. She glances up at him, red lips tilted up into a mischievous smirk. He lets out a rough sigh, shoulders slumping forward as he shakes his head and digs into his own meal. Of course she was messing with him. 

She lets out a little laugh, “Sorry, couldn’t resist. You’re so easy to rile up.”

“Yeah, yeah,” he tries to sound stern, but he can’t mask his own smile. “Keep it up and I won’t be cooking for you anymore.” He points the fork at her, an attempt at being intimidating, but he can’t keep the act up when she laughs. 

She’s enchanting, everything about her. The way she sits, eats, talks. He could just watch her all day and never be bored. Everything about her seems to be designed to tempt him. He knows he shouldn’t be thinking like this, it’s wrong. But he finds that thoughts like these are becoming easier to live with everyday. 

There’s always a cop out or an excuse that assuages his guilt in the moment. Of course, that night, when he puts Janey to sleep and lies next to his wife, that’s when everything comes crashing down. But when he’s with her, it’s like they’re in their own world. 

There’s no one here to answer to. No responsibilities to worry about or deadlines to meet. He can take off the celebrity mask and just be himself around her. Her presence is freeing. She approaches everything in life with such self-assuredness that he feels more confident around her. 

Sometimes, after a particularly bad day or a rough fight with Barb, he imagines what life would be like with her. If he’d never been a movie star. If he’d never fought in that war. If he’d just met her before everything changed. Maybe they’d have a ranch, out in the middle of nowhere with no one and nothing around them. 

It would just be the two of them together, maybe some chickens, definitely Roosevelt. The thought always makes him smile. Then he remembers what reality actually looks like. The war, the stardom, his family, it’s who he is. It’s so deeply ingrained into him that he doesn’t even know who he would be without it. 

“Oh,” she looks up from her plate and glances over at the record player. Cooper takes the chance to look at her, really look at her. The candlelight gives her a youthful glow. Her lips are eased into a gentle smile, expression soft and open. It’s the most relaxed he’s seen her in a while. She’s been so tense lately, it’s why he offered to make her dinner. 

Now, the tension has melted from her shoulders. It looks like the light’s gone back on in her eyes. Hell, he’d practically invited her on a date, he doesn’t know why he’s surprised by how happy she looks. They’re eating a dinner he made by candlelight with I Only Have Eyes for You playing in the background. 

He’s not sure he could have made this any more romantic. “I love this song,” she whispers. She glances back over at him. It’s a brief look, fleeting and gone as quick as it comes. But he knows what she’s thinking, because he’s thinking the same thing. 

They speak with their eyes, their looks, it’s become a secret language between the two of them. It’s full of fleeting touches and longing gazes and it’s always quicker than he wants. There was a yearning in her eyes that he knows is reflected in his own. The desire to act on their desires. 

For tonight, only tonight he reasons, he’s going to do what he wants. The world will melt away and he’ll give into the fantasies. They’ll go back to their usual tomorrow, but tonight, tonight is for the two of them and no one else. 

He stands up from his seat and she glances up at him, eyes wide and a furrow in her brow. “Come on darling,” he whispers. If he speaks too loudly the spell will end and they’ll sober up, realize what they’re doing. He holds out his hand to her and she looks at it for a moment. Fleeting touches, it’s all they know, tonight that changes. 

She doesn’t smile, simply slides her hand into his and nods. Acceptance of what they’re doing. Her palm is warm against his, smooth and when she squeezes his hand it takes everything in him not to just bring her into his chest. But he has to be slow, savor this while it lasts. Tomorrow it ends. He can’t let this moment be rushed. He helps her to her feet and leads her into the open space of his living room.

When he comes to a stop she finally takes her eyes off her heels and looks at him. He swears the stars are in her eyes, they lure him in and keep him captive in their hold. He never wants to look away from her. 

Her hand slowly glides up his arm. Her fingers brush against the nape of his neck from where she lazily drapes her forearm over his shoulder. He smiles at her, heart racing a bit when she gives him her gorgeous smile in return. They sway slightly as his arm wraps around her waist and his free hand takes her other one. 

She scoffs in amusement when she notices the way he keeps them apart. There’s a ridiculous amount of space between the two of them. He’s afraid if he pulls her any closer he’ll lose the last thread of sanity he has.  

She takes the final step, slotting her feet between his, their chests pushed up together. For a moment, he worries that she can feel how quickly his heart is beating. It processed slowly that it’s her own pulse he’s feeling. She’s just as affected by him as he is by her. 

She gives him one last look before she leans her head against his shoulder. He mourns the loss of her eyes for a moment before he closes his own and leans into her. He forgets where he is, lets himself get lost in the moment. They're not even dancing, merely moving together. 

He’s not sure how many songs they sway to, how long they stand joined together. He doesn’t care. He doesn’t know whether they’re still in his house or have somehow danced their way into the backyard. He only has eyes for her. 

You hold your hands up, trying your best to placate him. Cooper just gives you a mean smirk, his head tilted in contemplation as he looks at Lucy. Her eyes are wide as she stares down the barrel of his gun. “Cooper-”

He pulls back the hammer and your mouth clamps shut. You have no way of knowing what he’s going to do. Maybe if this was two hundred years ago you might. But this man before you is a stranger. 

Your heart leaps to your throat and you have to stop yourself from lunging forward when he grabs at Lucy. In a split second the gun is pointed at you and his arm is tightly wrapped around her neck. Lucy wheezes, hands desperately clawing at Cooper’s arms. 

You’re crouched on the ground, hackles raised like a feral animal. There’s a throbbing pain radiating from where he shot you. Were it not for Lucy’s medkit you would have bled out. If the wound wasn’t crippling you right now, you would have already shoved your knife through his neck. Again. 

“Up,” he commands with a jerky upward motion of his gun. Your eyes dart to Lucy’s. They’re rounded with concern and she shakes her head as much as he allows. You can’t run, your brains would be splattered across dusty linoleum before you breached the door. You have no choice but to comply with his commands. 

He smiles, seeming to come to the same realization as you. His eyes rove over you, lightening with satisfaction as he catches sight of the blood covering the entirety of your right leg. Then they happen upon the head dangling from your hand. “Well, well, well, look what we have here. Three for the price of one backstabbing bitch.”

Your face screws up in a sardonic smile and you toss the head to his feet, “Take it. Leave us the hell alone and just take the bounty.” Lucy squeaks but her face is turning purple from the grip he has around her throat. She’s got no room to protest against this. Either you give up the head or he kills you both. You don’t see yourself getting out of this one. 

To your chagrin Cooper simply shakes his head. He tucks the gun back into its holster and you track the movement carefully. He reaches behind himself, pulling out his rope and roughly placing it in Lucy’s hands. With a loud gasp she’s released from his hold and shoved forward. You grunt, hands reaching up to brace her as she crashes into you. She pants into your shoulder, rubbing her throat with a wheeze as she catches her breath. 

Cooper’s eyes are cold, devoid of anything except a detached boredom as he watches you both. “Tie her up.”

Lucy looks over her shoulder, voice cracking and painful to listen to. “What?” You can barely hear her, you’re not sure how Cooper manages to understand what she’s saying. But he does, he doesn’t say anything else. He leans back, arms hanging relaxed by his side as he nods once more from the rope in her hands to you. 

Your hands tighten to the point of creaking pain in your knuckles as Lucy slowly shifts away from you. Her own grip on the frayed rope is shaking, hands trembling as her cool fingers wrap around your wrists. You don’t let your eyes leave Cooper. You take in the smug look on his face and let it fuel your hatred for him further. He might think he’s got you now, but the second you’re fully healed you’re going to kill him. Permanently this time. 

There’s a little tsk from Cooper and Lucy glances back at him, hands still hovering over your wrists. He shakes his head and nods upwards. Her lips part, brows narrowed in confusion as her hands slowly make their way higher up your body. Over your forearms, past your elbows, and grazing against your biceps. He’s only satisfied when her hands are placed loosely around your neck. “Leash her,” the command is a rough growl that has panicked shivers crawling down your spine. There’s contempt dripping from his voice, nothing but hate as he barely even looks at you. 

Lucy mouths an apology but you just shake your head. You don’t need her apologies, you just need this to be over. You need him to turn his back so you can both make a run for it. Craning your neck forward, Lucy slips the loop over your head. She tries not to irritate the bruise that is already around your throat from your last run in with him but it's unavoidable. Your jaw clenches, teeth grinding together as you try not to focus on the burning chafe of rope against your skin. 

Something wet nudges against your hand and your stare breaks away from Cooper. The back of your palm is sticky with something slimy and you grimace as you glance down. There’s a sharp yip from the hound beside you. She’s nudging relentlessly against the hand holding the head, like she’s trying to take it from you. Your fingers bury deeper into the hair and you jerk back, forgetting momentarily about the rope and hissing when it tears at the fragile skin. 

Cooper stomps forward, the spurs on his boots sounding like jingling omens of doom. He grabs at the rope and with a hard tug you stumble towards him. Your chin lands on his chest, the bone digging uncomfortably into his sternum. You glare up at him and he’s already grinning down at you. The yellow of his teeth looks particularly putrid tonight. 

His hand is rough as it grasps your wrist. The skin hardened and calloused from hundreds of years of being under the nuclear sun. Your breath catches slightly when it finds its way around the base of your neck. His touch is almost gentle as his fingers skate across your collarbones. It catches you off guard, lips parting with a surprised gasp as they travel deftly up your neck. 

You expect him to squeeze so you take a deep breath. His smile ticks up, grin widening at the action. His head tilts slightly as he takes you in, eyes roving up and down your form. This is odd, this feeling. There’s a flutter in your stomach, a recognizable ache in your chest when you see the way he’s looking at you. 

Your eyes are locked, something old and familiar swimming in both of them. You used to be ashamed of this feeling he brought up in you. He was a married man after all and you were just his lying assistant. You were never supposed to be attracted to him. You’re certainly not supposed to be attracted to him when he looks like this. But despite how much he’s changed, he’s still got that Cooper Howard charm. 

He doesn’t drag you forward roughly. He guides you further into him, tilting your chin up and leering down at you with that angry grin. His hand glides around the back of your neck-

The head drops to the ground with a wet thud as your hands fly to the rope on your neck. He’s grabbed the back of it, tightening it so hard you’re sure you felt your eyes pop out. The smile on his face is gone, instead it’s replaced by an intensely concentrated look. His eyes are boring into your own, taking in every twitch and gasp as he watches you struggle for breath. 

You dig at your neck, feeling warm wet blood bubble under your nails the more you rip at the rope. Your fingers go cold and your tongue swells as the pressure in your face increases until you think the skin will burst. The eye contact doesn’t break between you, darkly intimate as he takes in every detail of your slow death by his hand. 

The world around you is muffled like you’re underwater. The blood rushing around in your head as your brain throbs. Vaguely, you can hear Lucy shouting and the dog barking. But Cooper never takes his eyes off of you. He’s undeterred by Lucy hitting and slapping at him with her own fatigued arms. It’s only when a loud roar off in the distance rattles the floor of the station that he lets you go. 

Your legs give out but you don’t get a chance to sink to the floor. A firm arm wraps around your waist and keeps you clutched to his chest. You have no choice but to hold onto him, nails digging into the leather of his duster as you catch your breath. “Alright,” he mutters, voice low as he speaks into your ear. “Catch your breath, sweetheart.” For a moment you can pretend he’s comforting you. That he wasn’t the one who just tried to kill you. 

He doesn’t let the fantasy last long. “It’s only going to get worse from here.”

You’d cry if you weren’t so exhausted. “Please,” Lucy croaks from behind you. “What do you want from us?” You try to slip away from him while she speaks. But you still don’t have great control over your faculties. Your feet just slide uselessly against the floor as he keeps you strapped to him like an iron band. 

“You,” he spits the word out like an insult. “Well, I don’t want nothing from you, little lady. It’s her I want.” You don’t have to look up to know that he’s talking about you. It’s clear enough from the way he tugs a little at your rope. You whimper at the twinge of pain and he chuckles. You glance up enough to see him look down at the head, frowning slightly as he considers it. “Although, that bounty right there is a bit of a bonus.”

Lucy shakes her head, ponytail waving around wildly. She holds up her hands, starting towards it. The dog lunges forward and Lucy stumbles back with a frightened yelp. “Please,” she looks up at Cooper, eyes pleading. “I need that head to save my father.” You would sigh if breathing didn’t hurt right now. There was no getting him to sympathize with her. 

“Your father?” Cooper questions, voice almost sounding sympathetic. Lucy nods, lips pouted and eyes wide with a beg for mercy. He huffs, a sneer marring his lips. “Well that’s just too bad,” he mocks. Lucy doesn’t seem to pick up on the sarcasm in his words, though, so he makes himself a little more clear. “I don’t give a fuck about your father, darling.”

Before anyone can say anything else there’s another loud roar, this time much closer than the last one. Cooper tenses up around you, arm tightening and eyes darting over to the closed metal door of the shop. Finally, he releases you. 

Your legs are still wobbly, you manage to stay standing for a second before they give out. They fold under you like a crumbling card tower and your body jolts roughly against the floor. Lucy skirts around the growling dog, still guarding her master’s head, and kneels beside you. 

Cooper opens the door, he pops his head outside for a second. You and Lucy share a look but it’s barely a minute later before he darts back inside and slams the door behind him. Without a word he drags a large metal shelf in front of the door and blocks it off. 

You and Lucy watch as he does it to the other doors as well. His face doesn’t give away much but you can tell from the hunch of his shoulders that whatever he saw had scared the hell out of him. You don’t know what time Deathclaw’s like to hunt but you figure it’s probably about now. You would enjoy the idea of something frightening Cooper if it didn’t scare you ten times worse. 

Cooper looks over at the two of you and frowns like it’s your fault you're all stuck here. “Settle in, ladies, it’s going to be a long night.”

He managed to find a half rotted couch in one of the rooms, it’s not very comfortable. But it’s better than the floor. It’s certainly better than being tied up to a counter, which is exactly where you are. You keep shifting around, picking at the dried blood on your pants. He can’t deny the satisfaction it brought him to see how uncomfortable you are sitting in your own blood. 

Your little friend is still hovering around you. He hadn’t really had to worry about tying Lucy up, she refuses to leave your side. Lucy keeps fussing about the wound on your neck. Everytime she tries to take the rope off all he has to do is clear his throat and she’s pale with fear. 

The dog is curled up by him, resting on top of her owner’s head. It’s creepy, her attachment to that damn thing. She should be able to smell the death on him. Though, with the men he used to work for, he’s sure that she doesn’t know any other smell. 

He didn’t bother questioning them about the dead ghouls in the shop. He’d just made them drag the bodies into the empty refrigerators to hopefully keep the smell locked away. It didn’t take a genius to put two and two together. You’d had a bloody crowbar in your hand when he’d ambushed you. 

He catches your eye from where he rests on the couch. It’s hard to believe you’re such a ruthless little killer considering how pathetic you look right now. Your expression is sour, eyes set with thinly veiled hatred. You can glower all you want, he’s not gonna pretend he didn’t see the want in your eyes earlier. You might be angry now, but you still want him all the same. It’s gonna make breaking you so much sweeter. 

Lucy happens to catch the look and she frowns at what she must think is familiarity. He tilts his hat over his eyes, deciding he might as well try and sleep now. They won’t be leaving this place until the Deathclaw lurking around outside goes back to its den. 

“Do you know him?” He attempts to drown out their conversation but its hard. They’re in ridiculously tight quarters and as much as he wishes he was alone right now, he’s not. He could always just toss Lucy out the door, use her as a distraction for the Deathclaw. Sadly, she does have some use about her. 

Clearly she knows her way around a gun and a medkit. She’s resilient, he’s sure even if he did toss her out she’d still bounce back somehow. Besides, she’s keeping her friend calm and docile. He needs them both to keep each other under control. 

A light hum, “Used too.”

Lucy’s voice is incredulous, she almost sounds betrayed. “How is that possible?”

He opens his eyes just enough to see yours widen. Your face pales like you’d just realized the mistake you made. He doubts Lucy actually knows much about the vaults she lives in. He’s sure that, just as you always did, you’re still keeping Vault-Tec’s secrets. 

Instead of answering the question you try to deflect. “Come on, he might be missing a nose and have a real shitty fucking attitude.” He can’t help but snort at the anger in your voice. Like you have any right to be angry at him. “But you don’t recognize your favorite little mascot?”

He sneers at the mocking tone. When he glances back up you’ve got a smug little smile on your face. You’re not looking at Lucy, you’re already staring at him. Waiting for him to explode. 

Well, one thing hasn’t changed. You still know how to get under his skin. But he’ll be damned if he lets you know just how much you piss him off. He doesn’t give you the satisfaction of his reaction, he just closes his eyes again and imagines all the different ways he wants to torture you. 

“What do you mean?”

“You should ask him for an autograph Lucy, it’s our very own Vault Boy.” He pictures sliding his knife under your skin and peeling while you shriek. “Isn't that right, Cooper?” He sees himself shooting Bud and Barb and you, over and over again. The same little fantasies that got him through the first years of the fallout. 

Lucy is undeterred by your deflection. She keeps her eyes trained on you both. Her brows are drawn in, mouth set in a firm line. “You two know each other.” You don’t answer, eyes darting away from his and settling on the floor. Lucy sinks back against the counter and sighs. “That’s why you never loved Norm.”

Norm? He tilts his head up, taking in the affronted look on your face. Your head whips back towards her, “Lucy-” she cuts you off. 

“Him?” She motions towards him, voice incredulous and almost hurt. Who the fuck is Norm? You lower your head, like you’re ashamed. He wonders if it’s because you got caught or just because you were ever with him. “He’s so much better than my brother?” She keeps going, voice reaching a pitch of anger as she prods at you. 

He’s surprised by how quickly she connected the dots. He hadn’t thought she would be so perceptive. He’s sure that little show you gave her earlier when he had his hand around your neck probably gave you away. 

“In my defense,” you hiss back, “he used to have a fucking nose.” 

You know she’s struggling with this. The idea that you could have ever loved the ghoul. But, she doesn’t understand just how different he had been when you’d known him. She only knows this cannibalistic sadist without a kind bone in his body. 

Lucy is staring at you with something close to hate in her eyes. You can’t really blame her. So far he’d beat you both down and taken you hostage. You both know it’s only going to get worse. And now she thinks that you loved him, which is true. You think she might believe you still have feelings for him, which, despite your earlier display, is not true. 

She also knows now that you precede everything before the fallout. You’re sure she’s trying to put together how that works and right now you need to distract her with whatever you’ve got to keep her from figuring out the truth. 

“He was different,” you try, voice soft and pleading. 

She just shakes her head, turning away from you. “Norm deserved better,” she whispers and you frown. It hurts, the way she says it. Like you aren’t good enough for him. You cared for Norm as best you could but you weren’t going to apologize for not being in love with him. You can’t control who you love and who just can’t.

She would never know the man you loved and the thought hurt more than you cared to admit. “Who the fuck is Norm?” You and Lucy both leap apart, not expecting to hear his voice. You share a hesitant glance with each other. 

Cooper stands over you, expression expectant and hard. You try to shake your head, but she’s already answering, “Her husband,” she spits the words out like a threat. You recognize the tone, the same one you used to hear pre-war. Like if he keeps bugging you, your husband is going to come kick his ass. 

But this isn’t some asshole hitting on you in a bar. And Norm isn’t exactly a fighter. Cooper seems to realize that too because he steps back and fixes you with an odd look. You brace yourself, for anger or disgust, anything. You’re not prepared for the way he laughs, hands on his knees and whole body shaking with it. You frown, almost offended by his display. 

What the hell was that supposed to mean? 

You’ve never seen him laugh like this. 

Lucy gives you a scared glance before scooting closer to you. “That’s rich,” he sighs, wiping a tear from his eyes and shaking his head. “Married in the fucking apocalypse, how goddamn ridiculous.” He doesn’t sound amused anymore. There’s venom in his tone. His eyes narrow down on you and you shrink further into yourself, thigh throbbing painfully. 

He walks back to the couch, throwing himself down and tugging the hat over his eyes. “Feel bad for the poor bastard,” he mutters, the words feel hateful. But everything about him now is tainted with anger and hate. 

Lucy, realizing he isn’t going to bother you both anymore fixes you with one more angry look before moving away from you. She settles against the refrigerators. She’d rather sit near dead ghouls than be near you. 

Your head falls forward with defeat, chin tucking into your chest with a rough sigh. You’re sure it wouldn’t take much longer for her to discover just who you really are and what you do for Vault-Tec. She’s smart, she’s going to figure it out soon. And when she does she’s not going to be interested in your company anymore. 

Once that happens, well, Cooper’s got nothing left to leverage against you. 

“You cooked?” The astonishment in Norm’s voice has you rolling your eyes. 

“Don’t sound so surprised. I am capable of some wifely duties,” you send him a playful grin and he offers up a brief chuckle. “Your dad’s coming over,” you admit. You turn your back to him, placing a fork beside the plate you're setting. You can practically feel the tension that settles over him at the announcement. 

Hank’s visits never really go the way that he wants. Or the way you want. He’s the overseer before he’s an old friend and especially before he’s a father. At least to Norm. He’s always been a little sweeter on Lucy. You’ve never really figured out if it’s because she embraces her role in the vault so much better than Norm. Or if it’s because she reminds him of her mother. 

You, personally, never got to meet Lucy’s mom. You only heard stories about her. Norm was too young to really remember her, but Lucy always loves to talk about how kind of a woman she was. You don’t know the real story of how she died, but you know the shit Betty and Hank pedal isn’t the truth. 

You try to avoid the topic of parents in your home as much as you can. It’s a sensitive subject for Norm. It’s why you’d been putting off telling Norm about Hank coming over. But you put it off so much, you’ve had no choice but to spring it on him. It’s better like this, honestly. He always weasels his way out of these dinners. Then you’re stuck awkwardly fielding Hank’s questions about your marriage with his son. 

It’s not really fun to talk to the guy you used to get drinks with about creating a child with his kid. 

“You didn't tell me,” Norm doesn’t sound angry. He never gets angry with you. He just seems resigned. Resigned to accepting that he’s in a marriage he never wanted. Resigned in the fact that he hates the vault he lives in, the jobs he works, that he’ll never truly be satisfied. Your husband can be a sad man sometimes. 

You wish you could be what he needed you to be. Wish you could love him the way you should, but you can’t. As much as you try. He knows it’s forced and he doesn’t want to pretend he’s okay with being second choice in your heart. 

“I’m sorry, but you always manage to get out of these things. Then I’m stuck awkwardly talking about sperm count and his and Lucy’s book club.”

Usually Norm just huffs and accepts his fate. Instead, he fixes you with an odd look. It’s that assessing gaze he gets sometimes that makes you feel like he’s looking straight into your core and seeing the rot there. He walks around you, grabbing a plate and finishing up setting the table. “You know,” he starts and you tense up. 

You pretend to be busy mixing the mash potatoes so you don’t have to look at him. Your anxieties are always evident on your face, you don’t need him to pick you apart right now. “My dad seems a lot more comfortable with you than he does me. Sometimes,” you risk a glance and he shakes his head. He seems like he’s talking more to himself than you. “Sometimes,” he starts again, “it seems like you two know each other.”

Your breath catches and you’re pretty sure your heart stops beating for a solid minute. He’s still muttering to himself, not looking at you or really even processing what he’s saying, but you’re worried he’s figured you out. It’s illogical and impossible. You could easily explain your bond with Hank away. But it doesn’t make you feel any better about having to lie to him. 

You’re quite literally saved by the bell as your doorbell buzzes and Hank’s voice calls out a chipper, “Hello!” Norm puts down the last glass, gives you a strained smile, and turns to get the door. You take in a deep breath and slump over the counter for a second. 

You had this foolish idea in your head that the last person you would ever have to lie to would be Cooper. That once you got down into the vaults you wouldn’t have to keep lying to the people you care about. You could finally rid yourself of the constant anxiety and stress of the upkeep of your lies. 

You should have known better. 

Hank walks in with Norm, the two of them chatting about Norm’s new janitorial job. Norm is less than enthused and Hank is worried about the lack of enthusiasm. “Cleaning toilets is a very important role here, son. I’m proud of you.” At least he tries. 

Norm sits his dad at the table and walks into the kitchen. You give him a smile and finish pouring the potatoes onto the dish of food. You hope he doesn’t notice how strained your look is. If he does, he has the decency not to mention it. 

He only offers you a brief smile in return, a secret message in his look. It’s tense, the same as yours, but this is simply a request to play interference between him and his dad tonight. You huff a laugh and nod, he gives you a relieved look and grabs the pitcher of lemonade from beside you. 

You watch him walk back to the table. His back is turned as he pours drinks for all of you. You’re reminded of a different dinner you had a long time ago. Not for the first time you look at Norm and wish he was someone else. 

You screw your eyes shut, turning your back on him and glancing down at the food in front of you. He deserves better than you. 

You take in a deep breath and pick up the dish full of your dinner tonight. You straighten out your shoulders and turn towards the men waiting for you with your most practiced smile. “Who’s hungry?”

end. — I do not own the characters or the game/show Fallout, but this writing is my own all rights reserved © not-neverland06 2024. do not copy, repost, translate & recommend elsewhere.

[icarustypicalfall]

Exciting don't you think?

masterlist • ao3 • follow for more

Leon Kennedy x fem!reader

summary he is too oblivious to notice, bless his foolish heart and pretty eyes.

warnings re2 leon Kennedy, sorta open ending? fluff, mentions of murder and serial killing, short drabble :3

note my hyper fixation is alive y'all, i am not over the infinite darkness leon, but re2 leon is so sweet. sorry if it's inaccurate this is one of the rare times where i post something other than the cod fics. enjoy and ily

**

“[he] is only slain by stab after stab, and loves on till the last drop of life blood drips away”

Raccoon City, what a magnificent place to be! The soft notes of jazz filled the air, permeating your car as you gracefully cruised through the night. Darkness reigned, with a sprinkling of stars and a glowing moon casting its ethereal light upon the road. It was a wonderful night, such a night as is only possible when we are young.

Ah, speaking of youth, you spotted a youthful-looking police officer on the side of the road, gesturing for you to pull over.

Darn it.

Trouble was certainly brewing. You were well aware that the curfew had already passed, a precautionary measure implemented by the government to safeguard citizens from a recent spate of serial killings. They were secretive about the details, as always.

With a heavy sigh, you glanced in the rearview mirror. Thoughts raced through your mind as you turned off the engine, coming to a halt just as the officer approached your vehicle.

Taking a moment to double-check the weapon holstered at his side, the officer—Leon, made his way towards you. A gentle cough escaped his lips before he rested his forearm on the window, knocking lightly to signal for you to lower it.

As you complied, a sweet smile adorned your face, emitting an aura of innocence. The cold breeze crept under Leon's skin, causing him to shiver. He couldn't help but be captivated by your alluring smile and daring attire, a testament to your mischievous nature. Despite his best efforts to maintain composure, his heartbeat quickened as he mustered the courage to speak, attempting to avoid any stammering. "Your registration and identity papers, miss.."

You obliged, handing him the requested documents and, for a fleeting moment, your fingers brushed against each other. Your mischievous self reveled in his bashfulness, as his cheeks flushed, and he retreated to his patrol car to inspect your records. Meanwhile, you remained still, leaning against the window with an impish grin.

Leon returned, his voice barely above a whisper as he returned your papers. "It is past curfew, miss. May I know why you are out?"

Your smile grew wider as you locked eyes with him, finding him rather intriguing. His baby blues avoided your gaze as he fidgeted with the door. With a grin, you replied, "I was with a friend, officer. I assure you, I am a good girl."

Leon gulped, nervously rubbing his neck as the blush continued to stain his cheeks. These formalities were unfamiliar territory for him, making him all the more flustered. Softly, he whispered, a gentle smile gracing his lips as he leaned closer to the window. "Alright, miss... I mean, call me Leon."

You asked, finding the play rather too attempting not to."Tell me Leon, do you always work alone so late?"

He shook his head, feeling his insides flatter with warmth, none had really shown interst in his job before. He replied in a hushed tone still smiling.

"No, I usually don't work alone at such late hours. This is my first time."

Ah, still so young, you thought to yourself.

No, not him.

You nodded, sealing his cheek with a tender kiss. Leon blushed once again, pulling away and watching in awe as you started the car. "Take care miss!"

He called out, and you laughed, "I do enjoy a little danger, Leon."

He observed as you drove off, his heart fluttering with an unfamiliar sensation. Unfortunately, he was oblivious to the crimson stain on your shirt or the axe resting in the back seat.

The following morning, Leon couldn't believe his eyes when he saw your picture in the newspaper. The headline screamed of the capture of the notorious serial killer who had slain a cop while being stopped during the curfew.

You did that in order to silence the persistent officer who had stopped you right after Leon. Caught red-handed, the only thing on your mind was those mesmerizing baby blues... too precious, too angelic. You contented yourself with leaving a mark on his cheek and etching a core memory in his heart.

[theredofoctober]

MANNA- CHAPTER TWENTY: PUMPKIN SOUP

Dark!Hannibal Lecter x Reader x Dark!Will Graham AU fic

TW for eating disorders, noncon, abuse, Daddy kink, cannibalism mentions, murder mentions

Read after the cut

---

For two days you persist in your begging for a hospital stay, seizing feebly at the improbable chance of liberty through that once feared institution.

You’ve read of women escaping their keepers through a word in the ear of some sympathetic doctor or neighbouring patient, fantasising at length that you might mimic such simple ingenuity.

The obsidian eyes of cameras in their probing fleets, your blood family surging forth to embrace you, weeping in regret at their heartless desertion— in want of it you indulge in an even greater exaggeration of illness to the extremes of near losing your voice to the performance.

Yet for all that you moan and cough and writhe in the clutches of muscle cramps and drenching fever Hannibal rejects your pleas with minimal reply.

He works shifts at the office around your care, bathing you and changing sodden bedsheets twice daily by duteous hand.

You’re fed medicine and light stews when you’re too frail to take the spoon yourself, and scarcely hungry enough to swallow, have throbbing joints chafed between his palms at your slightest complaint of suffering.

All your favourite music and filmography is set up on a timer so that you need not leave the bed at the end of each recording; like a slovenly youth you loll, watching Hammer Horror pictures back-to-back, and think your captor’s house far more lush than even those lurid sets.

When you waver between frigid and overheated your jailer adapts the room to either need, exchanging one thickness of blanket for another, training a fan upon you until you cannot help but squirm luxuriously in the breeze.

It’s on the third day, held through an attack of coughing in Hannibal’s arms, that you disintegrate and softly weep with the shame of your gratitude towards him.

He lifts your chin up in his palm, his eyes moist with empathy.

“Dear one,” he says. “What is it? Are you in pain?”

“I just don’t understand,” you say, rubbing a tear from the stinging corner of your eye. “How can you be what you are and still be so kind to me?”

Hannibal smiles, all fatherly goodwill, unruffled by the gauche enquiry.

“I am many men, and one. You knew this from the moment you sat before me in my office, kicking your foot in dislike of what you saw there. With you I’ve always been open with that aspect of myself. Some among us in society define themselves primarily by the sport they favour; I, however, embrace my multitudes, as should you, Little One.”

He strides across to your window, letting in a rope of umber light like the hair of a tower-bound princess.

“Yeah,” you say. “I get that. We’re different people with everybody. That’s how we survive: by being who they want so that they’ll like us. But what I mean is— this is real. Not just a costume, or a trick. You’re good to me because you’re choosing to be. But why do you want to do all this for me when I’m not like you?”

"I have faith that you'll come around,” says Hannibal, easily. “You don't wholly detest this life as you did in the beginning. Even what you consider the most unsavoury aspects of it will soon appeal to you, if only for the briefest moment."

You scent the inference behind his words and shake your head.

"I don't want to eat Uncle Lee. Even if I was like you, Daddy, I really don’t think I could.”

Hannibal’s visage, previously neutral, lightens with the solemn interest you recognise from therapy.

“Why is that?" he asks. “What would prevent you if you shared my tastes?”

“It’d feel... dirty."

You tense up, anticipating an airy dismissal, and are surprised when Hannibal appears to digest the answer quite as seriously as any debate.

“You equate the concept of eating flesh with sex,” he says. “A fellatio of sorts.”

Recouping from a startled coughing fit, you rasp, “I mean, not always, or that’d be super weird, but in this case— maybe? But even if I saw it as just degrading him the way he did to me, eating him would make me sick. Leland’s basically diseased."

Hannibal’s brows arch.

"If he were then I wouldn't suggest such a feast."

With a weak groan you shift to face the wall.

"You know what I mean. I just don't want to eat someone so disgusting. I mean, I don't want to eat anyone."

“Or anything, for that matter,” Hannibal comments; the quickness of his answer puts you in mind of Will.

“This isn't about that.”

"Yet it isn't entirely divorced from your illness, either."

You don’t reply, wishing he’d cut you free of the conversation and leave you to the consoling darkness of your chosen music to softly decay. He will never convince you to be what he is; you’ll only ever pretend until you’re loose of this house, or under the earth. You were not built to eat.

“What if someone else were to consume Leland Frost?" asks Hannibal suddenly.

Rolling onto your back again you find that he is the one now turned away, allowing you an enigmatic angle of cheek, the dash of his jawline, a noble in stasis.

“You'd do that for me?" you ask. “You’d eat Leland Frost?”

“Without question. It would be a token of my love."

A bashfulness comes over you, your heart stuttering in blighted rejoice that you, of all women, he would not have die in a doll.

Alana he would kill, you feel, though only through some necessity to silence or remove some object in her; Hannibal enjoys her too much to otherwise let her go, as possessive of his human toys as of the treasure box of life he has built about him.

You, the daughter-pet of the man that is his lover in all but the physical, are too vital to discard. This you have over Alana, the iron guard that is to be the favoured concubine of kings.

"I know I'm not the one you love,” you mutter, keen to pretend you hadn't heard Hannibal's wistful ruminations on the matter. “Will is.”

Hannibal sits down at your bedside, making the chair rather more elegant for his arrangement within it. You cannot help but glance at his crossed legs, feeling by memory the weight resting between them.

“I'm capable of ardour for more than one being simultaneously,” says Hannibal. “Would I have invited you into my home if I were not?"

Your mouth opens, then seals again without comment.

Once, you would have stridently declared you’d rather be detested by a cannibal than held in any regard, but being that such a claim is no longer honest you can only look at the ceiling and will yourself away from that coward’s longing to be loved.

"Do you still think that you’re unworthy?” asks Hannibal, with a certain sadness. “I selected you above others because upon reading your files and the many unhappy confessions made in private sectors of your online existence I saw your resilient heart, your keen perception of unspoken truths, and a compassion for those you hold close, few though they were, at that time.

“I saw, too, a proximity to darkness that bore a forbidden allure to you, that which you resisted through an oppressed certainty that you should.

“Your passion for it, your torment in the stranglehold of conformity— you were enamoured with your own illness and its extremes: the minimum you could consume, the lengths of time you could abstain from sustenance. The symptoms, even the most repugnant of them delighted you in the provision of security they brought to an unstable universe. That craving for discipline and your adherence to it I admired.”

Hannibal pauses, watching you take in his confession with a continuing want of acceptance.

“Ultimately you recoil from my habits as you do from all eating,” he says. “In you, the consumption of human flesh is made equal to that of all animals.”

With a jolt you stare at him, wondering if he is aware that you've come to so similar a realisation about him.

"I’ll never be a cannibal,” you say. “You get that, right? I don’t want to disappoint you, Daddy, but I would never eat a human being. Not by choice."

Your captor leans into your cheek, his breath stirring a tremble of horrid pleasure down your neck almost to your breast like the venom of an asp.

"Precisely,” he murmurs. “You’ll submit in the knowledge that you must."

The quilt shifts as his arm slides beneath it with a gentle cunning. You fasten your fevered thighs against him, aware that you have not bathed since the previous night and are ripe from your bedbound decay.

“Don’t,” you whisper. “I’m sick and dirty.”

“Then when I’m finished I’ll wash you and change the sheets,” says Hannibal, looking warmly down at you under lowered lids. “You’re taut from lack of release. I will unwind you from that knot; this, too, is care for you.”

His fingers form the simulacrum of a key, your entrance the lock he means to open for his amusement. You release a shivering gasp as he pushes into you, putrescent with the guilt that this deathmonger finds no resistance in the soaking welcome of you.

He touches you where the moonlight of forbidden nerve song waxes into silver life, and he does not release you until the phantasmagoric wilds of it reform at some mad height.

Twice he walks you there on well-trained fingertips, his face in the cave of your shoulder and neck, kissing the raised presence of a vein.

You feel his temptation to bite the flesh from that junction, and there is something erotic in his restraint, the tension in him as his breath smokes your throat. His teeth raise grooves there, flirting with the meat beneath your skin, his warm tongue taking the measure of your flavour.

You catch at him, push at him, feeble and defenceless. How kindly he absorbs this little violence, pressing your fists to his pursed mouth to soften them with his forgiveness.

He will not punish you for this, allows you this instinct to resist the hunter’s dominance. That he does not fuck you with his phallus is another proof of his strength; that form of sex he might have when you’re well, and a more even match against him.

His fingers in you curl like the neck of the swan over Leda, and you hear your tears fall upon the quilt, an errant rainfall.

“So beautiful,” says Hannibal, as you croak in hopeless admission of pleasure. “It’s a pity you’re unwell. Your voice is a joy to listen to at times like this.”

You think he’d like your death screams as much, the keen blackness of his eyes glistening with the satiation of the knife. He would study you, tanned head aside, considering how he might depict your agonies in graphite to commemorate their aesthetic peak.

What painting would serve as the base of this image? The Death of Marat? Saturn Eating His Son? You’re not educated enough to anticipate where so cruelly intellectual a mind would take root for inspiration. Hannibal has never conducted a human experiment quite like the one in which you are subject, this from the subtleties of his behaviour you feel, the satisfaction he takes from a new evil.

Killing and eating those that stain his world with imperfection is no sexual act to Hannibal as it is for others of his monstrous guild, but it may become sensual in recollection of what you once were to him. Should he slaughter you he’d stroke himself afterwards into religious ecstasies, a eulogy to all the hours emptied within you.

Even as he plays the scales of your bleak rapture in the present you are sure he pictures it, the murder that has not been. His hand, in thought, around your heart, letting it beat against his wrist like the lapping tongue of a wolfess dying in the snow.

You are beautiful to him in two realms: the real and parallel, the living and the dead. He would channel his love through your body, display you like the tortured beauty of some vanquished clan, whatever wound he’d killed you by presented like a brooch, some bright red gem.

After your death, what would become of you then?

Young people of the same morbid leanings you’d once indulged in would admire the images of the crime scene as they might some rare exhibition, unaware that the man that had posed you with such elaborate direction had fucked you with that same drive.

Yet perhaps they would learn of it, your organs examined for such sadistic tampering, and would pity you for your miserable life.

If only you were not so afraid to die: you must be his breathing art for all your days, and that may well be worse.

Your expression must glaze with this dark musing, for Hannibal takes back his arm from the quilt and slips noiselessly into the bathroom to wash his hands of your sour delight.

Later, when you’re washed under crisp plum and ebony sheets he comes to you once more with a glass of water and a pill in his hand.

“What’s that?” you ask, straightening against the mountainous stack of pillows. “I already had ibuprofen.”

“It’s a sleeping aid,” says Hannibal. “You were coughing through the night. This will assure you rest undisturbed.”

Miserably you contemplate the calories in the little capsule before you take it, hoping it will at least grant a dreamless sleep.

In this you are disappointed; your mind walks a road of memory, revisiting a September afternoon you’d watched Leland Frost work on your father’s car, his muscled body rolling under his shirt like an orca beneath a wave.

In the dream he whistles at a passing woman, a dimple creasing his grin.

“Ah, I need a girl like you, me.”

His blond head snaps up to look at you as you shrink back towards the house.

“No, no, cher. Stay. There somebody been asking about me?”

You scuff a white sneaker against the sidewalk, dirtying the sole.

“No, Uncle Lee.”

Leland wipes his hands on stained blue jeans and rises into a crouch, his smile like the coil of an eel in rivers deep.

“Aw, come on,” he says, cajoling. “I seen her runnin’ after you the other day. That lil, lil girl that live at the end of the street.”

“She’s just in my class, that’s all,” you insist. “She’s just a friend.”

Leland spits a brown liquid under the car and laughs.

“You got no friends but me. That girl, Hannah. She don’t like you. Still she come after you. I wanna know what she wanted.”

You look at your shoes, counting the eyelets. Leland’s eyes brand your bowed temple with their questioning.

“She asked about you,” you mumble. “And I didn’t say anything.”

“That’s good,” says Lee. “But you better tell me what she asked.”

“If I knew you were a bad man. And I said I don’t know what she’s talking about, just like you said.”

Leland winks, a conspiratorial gesture.

“That’s my girl.”

You’ve had worse dreams, yet you spring from this one as though from the top stair of hell, wishing with a sickened wrench of innards that Hannibal was in the room to calm you from its frightful squall.

Angered by your own wallowing terror, you get out of bed and force yourself to stand in front of the mirror in penance. You examine your body from all perspectives, fancying you see it narrowed by your lack of appetite while simultaneously convinced that it hasn’t changed at all.

Were that you were unwell always: you’d waste to the littleness of a Frozen Charlotte, a frail perfect thing, not the child darling lumped from clay in a killer’s hands. Neither Will nor Hannibal quite understand your fervent tenacity to achieve the quality of air, nor will either help you to achieve it.

There are limits to their madness, immune as they are to any folie à deux but their own. You are a soldier of one in your aim, ground down to lose faith in the war.

In a malaise you attempt a slow lap of the room, made pathetic by your coughing and quivering progress from one end of it to the next.

Hannibal’s car sends a lasso of auburn leaves up from the wet road as he rides in under your window; hampered by time, you return to the mirror to body check again, pulling up your nightdress in the hope your stomach has by the devil’s miracle become concave, your ribs closed in like praying hands.

Disappointed, you get back into bed and arrange yourself in a believable pose of just waking for Hannibal to find.

“How did you sleep, Little One?” he asks, setting a bowl of pumpkin soup down on a tray before you.

“Not too well,” you admit. “I had a dream about Uncle Lee again. Well, a memory, I guess.”

“You’ve remembered something new,” says Hannibal. “What have you retrieved from the galleries of time?”

It relieves you that he's so attune to your need to confess, seated at your bedside with such swiftness it is as if he never left.

“There really were other girls,” you say. “I know that for sure, now. There was this one girl, Hannah— I guess she wanted my help, and I told her to go away and that I didn’t know anything. I was scared, but still. It was wrong of me to do that to her when she needed a friend.”

“You were a child,” says Hannibal, soberly. “I’ll remind you as many times as is required of me. Leland may have hurt you had you struck out against him.”

You bow your head in rejection of his comfort.

“There were other girls that asked me for help when I got older, and I never said a word. I don’t deserve forgiveness for that, and honestly, I don’t want it, either. That wouldn’t help anybody. I just wish... well, it’s stupid, but I wish I could turn back time and do it all again.”

“The past cannot be reversed, as tempted as one might be to take it upon oneself to calculate some process of correcting one’s mistakes. You are not alone in that desire, however. I, too, have considered how it might be done. Alas, it is an impossible fantasy. There’s no benefit to ruminating on such things.”

You consider Hannibal in a kind of awe. What could such a being regret if not the act of murder?

A telephone knells in the gut of the house.

“Drink your soup,” says Hannibal, getting to his feet. “I hope to see at least half of it absent on my return.”

Resisting the compulsion to roll your eyes at him you say, with a falsely placid air, “Okay, Daddy. Sure thing.”

You make reluctant scrapes with your spoon about the bowl, swilling each mouthful about your teeth ten times before you swallow.

In five minutes Hannibal comes back to you with the telephone in his hand. There is animation to his face you’ve noticed absent since his companion left to sink himself into the case again.

“It’s Will,” says Hannibal, the expected answer. “He wants to talk to you.”

“He does?” you say, wrinkling your nose. “Wow. He’s a changed man.”

You take the receiver, waiting until Hannibal leaves to return your soup tray to the kitchen before you speak into it.

“Hi, Daddy,” you say.

It’s loathsome how eagerly the words spill from your lips, a breathless young girl’s gladness to hear from the object of a summer pash.

“Hey,” says Will. “How are you feeling? Hannibal told me you were laid up.”

“Yep. Chest infection. Listen to me.”

You cough to demonstrate, and Will laughs gently.

“That’s rough. Has Dr Lecter been taking good care of you?”

“Yeah. Sure. Just like he always does. When are you coming home? It’s Halloween in two days. It’ll be weird without you. It’s my favourite holiday.”

Will chuckles again.

“I’ll bet it is. I’ll try to get away. Jack’s got me pretty tied up, but I’ll do my best.”

You imagine Will in the mystery of his house, his free hand tousling the miscellaneous heads of many dogs. That home would smell of hair, and old books, of Will, the hermit fisherman; its scent is in your throat as if you were there, upon his lap again.

Certainly you seem able to do nothing else, your form enraptured with what once merely hurt.

“Have you missed me, Will?” you ask, coyly, and just as coyly he answers.

“Some of you.”

“Hey!” you protest, wriggling under your quilt.

The night Will had covered your mouth as he fucked his irritation up into you is like a sunrise of the womb, a burning, desirous giant. It is horrible what these men do, but like the snarling ache of starving you must love it against all that you know to be true and good.

“Just kidding,” says Will, a grin in his voice. “I do miss you. But there’s something I wanted to talk to you about. Something serious.”

The solemn shift in Will’s voice nips the smirk from your lips at once.

“What is it?” you ask. “What do you mean?”

“I got an MRI the other day. Figured it was time to get to the bottom of those seizures I’ve been having. Alana hooked me up; I guess somebody owed her a favour. Turns out I have encephalitis. I’ve been in the hospital for a couple of days. Probably going to be on medication for a while now.”

The hand gripping the receiver seems to run with fire over blood.

“Oh, God,” you say, breathless with nerves. “Is everything okay? Are you?”

“Okay isn’t the word I’d use,” says Will grimly. “You knew about this already, One. I want to know how.”

Panic drills you through with such adrenaline that you feel as though you’re above the bed rather than within it. If you expose the truth you’ll be punished severely, perhaps even lethally should it drive the two men apart.

You’d made a mistake in taunting Will over their friendship; you should have left well alone, endured their union in unstirring quiet as you’d done under Leland Frost.

“Um,” you mumble. “I know a lot of stuff before it happens. I just feel like it’s true, or guess, like you said. Or I dream about it.”

“This wasn’t out of any dream. The details were too specific. You said something about the food. Somebody told you what was going on, and what was triggering my encephalitis, because they were purposefully making it worse.”

Will pauses, and when he speaks again his tone is clipped, all controlled rage.

“It was Hannibal, and you covered for him. Not very well, but you did.”

“I didn’t know he was doing it on purpose!” you squeak. “He seemed worried about you, Will, I thought—”

“Don’t say anything else. Just listen to me.”

You chew at a loose whisker of skin on your lip, the same you’ve gnawed to the blood beneath a thousand times in conflict.

“I’m going to come home in a couple of days,” says Will. “I’m going to talk to Hannibal and you’re going to stay out of it, just like I asked you to. This is between me and him. Not you. Please don’t disrespect me by getting in the way.”

“He’ll be so mad at me,” you croak. “Oh, God. Please don’t say anything to him, Will. Just leave it. What if I’ve ruined everything?”

There is a protracted silence into which you both breathe like the winds at the end of the world.

“If anything’s ruined just know that it isn’t you that’s to blame,” says Will, at last. “Goodbye, Little One. I’ll see you soon.”

The line goes dead, leaving the phone a chill corpse in your hand.

[ginxyy]

True Love

But I hate you, I really hate you

So much I think it must be

True love, true love

The sun began its lazy descent, casting an amber glow throughout your living room. You sat curled up on the couch, your fingers nervously combing through your hair. This wasn’t just another day in your life as a singer; today, it felt like the world was closing in, overshadowed by the weight of your first real fight with Woozi. It stung like a slice of ice against your heart.

Moments ago, youthful laughter had filled your apartment, but that faded into the distance as harsh words were exchanged. In a whirlwind of misunderstandings, you argued over something that felt monumental in the moment but insignificant in hindsight. The silence now felt heavier, echoing with memories of the joy you shared. You couldn’t believe you had let a miscommunication turn into this.

As you pondered over the remnants of your fleeting happiness, a thought struck you: music. Your solace. Your escape. You rose from the couch, walked over to your keyboard, and let the familiar keys guide your fingers. After some time, the melody of “True Love” by Pink began to dance in your ears. You poured your heart and soul into the song, embodying every word with raw emotion, thinking of Woozi with every note that filled the room.

With every lyric you sang, memories of joyful moments flashed before your eyes late-night giggles, soft whispers under a blanket of stars, and the way Woozi's smile had made your heart flutter. You felt tear stains track down your cheeks as the words resonated deeper, striking chords that stirred within you. As the final note lingered in the air, you realized you needed to share this. You needed to reach out, to show him through your art you still loved him, no matter the storm that had passed.

After recording the cover, you hesitated for a moment before pressing ‘post’ on Instagram. “This is for you, Woozi,” you whispered, hoping the universe would somehow carry your message to him. With bated breath, you watched the views climb with each passing second, hoping he would recognize your plea.

Just when you thought despair would settle over you like a thick fog, you heard it—the soft tap of footsteps outside your door. Your heart raced with anticipation. Could it be him? Holding your breath, you opened the door, and there he was. Woozi stood on the threshold, a small smile forming amidst the hazy aftermath of the day’s discord.

“Hey,” he murmured softly, his voice wrapping around you, steadying your racing heartbeat. His eyes searched yours, reflecting a mixture of trepidation and longing. The words spun around like dandelion seeds caught in the wind, evading both of you until finally, you broke the silence.

“I’m sorry for what happened,” you said, your voice barely above a whisper, remembering the music you shared and the love that came before the fight. “I didn’t mean for it to escalate like that.”

He stepped closer, his warmth washing over you as he took your hands in his. “No, I’m the one who’s sorry,” he confessed. “I should have listened better. I never want to hurt you.”

Just then, you caught a glimpse of your phone screen, your cover of “True Love” still playing back. He tilted his head slightly, his attention drawn to the soft melody flowing from the speakers. His eyes glimmered as he listened, and for a moment, time stood still just the two of you caught in a cocoon of sound and sincerity.

When the song faded, Woozi pulled you into a gentle embrace, his warmth enveloping you completely, flickering like a flame in the encompassing shadows. “I love you,” he breathed, and those three words held more magic than any song you could ever sing. Your heart flitted, caught in a whirlwind of emotions.

You looked up at him, your cheeks tinged with warmth. “I love you too,” you confessed, your voice steadier now. It felt like the words had been etched into your very being, meant to escape your lips when the moment was right.

Without another word, he leaned down, his lips brushing against yours with a tenderness that left you breathless. The world faded away, leaving only the sweetness of his kiss. Apologies, love, and trust wove into the fabric of the moment. You felt as if you could conquer anything, hand in hand, heart and soul, with Woozi by your side.

As the sun set beyond the horizon, you knew this was just the beginning, a mere chapter in the story of you two imperfect, messy, and true. Each note of love, every moment shared, would only make the symphony of your lives even richer.

[princess-ibri]

King Magnifico Backstory : Part One

Ok! Here goes part one for my ideas for Magnifico’s backstory with the DisneyVerse! I based it on the fairytale “The Carnation/ The Pink” as recorded by the Brothers Grimm, the tale of a young man who’s every wish comes true…

Link to the fairytale I’ve based this on here

Once upon a time, a lonely, childless queen wished upon a star, and the star answered. The Fairy of the star said that for the Queen’s great kindness and pure heart, the child would be blessed with beauty, charm and that he would have the power to grant the wishes of his people, in order to bless the kingdom he would one day inherit.

(This is me justifying that “Mirrors love my face/got these genes from outer space” line xD)

The queen was overjoyed with her son, and marveled at the magic he already displayed. She intended to keep his gift secret from the kingdom until he was older, in order to protect him, but it was too late. Word of his gift had leaked out, and one day the child was kidnapped.

He grew up under the watchful eye of his “parents”, granting them whatever they desired, wish after wish, day after day. Gowns and jewels, a manor house on the kingdom’s border, a fleet of fine hunting hounds to tear up the countryside. A covering of protection from any who might try and discover their whereabouts.

The child gave it all to them, for he felt the power of Love inside him when he used the gift that was meant to bless, and thought the love came from them.

They told him to never be selfish and wish for himself, though this was only to keep him from one day wishing in anyway that might undermine them. They lived in luxury and he in loneliness, for they of course allowed none to get to close to their prize lest another steal their good fortune.

Finally though, when the boy had become a youth, his loneliness became too great, and he wished deep in his heart for companionship. And the wish was granted. A beautiful young woman stood before him, shocked to be suddenly in a strange place before a strange man. But the youth was so comely, and spoke to her kindly and with assurances she would be safe with him, that soon she lost her fear. She still wished to return home, but the youth persuaded her to remain with him a while longer.

(He’s not evil yet obviously, but he’s always been a smooth guy and now he’s got a taste of having something he wants he’s loath to let it go. Which is understandable but can and will of course turn darker…)

For a time the youth hide the girl within the hallow of the pink rose bush in the center of the garden, and their loved bloomed with the roses they both found sanctuary in.

But eventually they were discovered by the youth’s “Father”. The boy confessed he had wished for a companion, and the man feigned acceptance. He asked the girl her name and origin, and she told him she was called Amaya, and that she hailed from the Kingdom of Córdoba. Upon further questioning, the man realized his stolen ‘son’s wish had pulled a woman to him from a completely different world.

Realizing the youth’s power would soon grow out of any control they could exact over him, the man and his wife determined to cut their losses and finally do away with him, lest their treachery be uncovered. Unbeknownst to them, the youth had overheard their plot, and began to plot his vengeance against the people he had believed to have been his parents.

Meanwhile, the leacherous man had taken a fancy to the girl, Amaya. He told her that if she aided him in getting rid of the youth he would aide her in returning back to her own world. Amaya had no interest in either the foul man nor in betraying the youth she had come to love, but she knew if she did not do as the man asked both she and her lover would be killed. So she took the heart of one of the man’s beloved hounds and brought it to him, claiming it to be the heart of the youth.

She rejected the man’s advances though, refusing him vehemently and reminding him their bargain was for him to help her to return home. Pretending to accept her rejection, the man waited until night to steal into her rooms within the manor, with a dagger drawn to plunge into the sleeping girl.

But he was met with the livid face of his erstwhile ‘son’ instead.

“So, ‘Father’, at last you show your true face. Your heart is a coal of envy, your wishes are cruel and selfish, you would take and kill with no more thought then your beloved hunting dogs do. So I wish that your outward self might reflect the beast within you!”

And with those words, the man’s bones shook and snapped, his hair darkened and spread, and soon enough a great beast spawns tearing around the manner, fire pouring from its insides as it burned all the ill gotten gains in the manor, and itself along with it.

The youth attempted to return to his true mother, but tragedy has struck while he grew up ignorant of his heritage. The King, furious that the son he had waited so long for had been stolen, blamed the Queen for the tragedy, and locked her within a doorless tower. A bird came twice a day to bring her food, but her heart was broken, and she eventually wasted away. The people, who had loved the kind queen, rose up against the cruel king, and the kingdom was left broken and destroyed.

The youth had no wish to stay in this place, full of the memories of all the good that had been destroyed by two greedy thieves. The youth, a man now, innocence scorched from him, kept a part of the banner that once hung in the grand hall to remind himself the folly of granting the wishes of the undeserving

He was ready however to grant the wish of the one who had not betrayed him, his beloved Amaya. Her wish brought them a ship that would carry them across the waves of sea and space, and together they sailed off into another world…

Edit: Part 2

[yjw1a1]

too early too late | psh

PAIRING. Park Sunghoon x female reader. WORD COUNT. 808 words GENRE. When two people were perfect for each other, but the timing wasn't right. She fell first, but he fell harder. angst w/ a bit of Jungwon fluff :) DISCLAIMER. I DO NOT OWN ANYTHING EXCEPT FOR THE WORK I WROTE, SO PLAGIARISM IS NOT ALLOWED HERE. all the credits to the owners of the photos. Please be kind because this is my first work I've posted here. WARNINGS. angst, sunghoon doesn't get the girl.

DATE RELEASED . 02-11-2024

THE AROMA OF FRESHLY BREWED COFFEE, infused with hints of cinnamon and nutmeg, wafted through the cozy late-fall air. The soft glow of warm, amber lights glowed softly through the window of the cafe as leaves tumbled down the trees.  

“One caramel macchiato,” the barista called out. Two hands reached for the drink at once only for them to clash. 

“Sorry,” you mumbled, retracting your hand, but once you saw who’s hand bumped yours, you felt a wave of nostalgia rush through you. Years had passed since you last seen him, yet you knew no matter the length of time or the distance apart, you would always recognize him. How could you not, when his face graces every magazine cover, dominates headlines on the news, and consistently shatters records while setting new standards in the world of marketing and business?

His gaze held a hint of surprise as he met your eyes. Your hair had grown longer since the last time he saw you, and you had grown into your features, only making you more beautiful from the last time he had seen you. 

"You can take it, Y/N," he murmured softly, urging you to accept the drink. The barista raised a eyebrow. "We have another caramel macchiato on it’s way," the barista informed. 

You accepted the cup from the barista and placed it in front of Sunghoon. "I'll wait," you replied calmly. Sunghoon chuckled softly. 

"After all this time, you're still the same," he remarked with a small smile, settling into the seat beside you. "Always assertive, never leaving the other person with a choice," he observed as you toyed with your fingers, a faint smile playing on your lips.

“Some things just never change,” you admitted. The barista handed you the newly brewed caramel macchiato. You quickly thanked them and turned your attention back to Sunghoon. 

“I see you’re back in Korea. Are you visiting? It’s been a while since you’ve left,”

"I'm just here to check a few things at headquarters with my father," Sunghoon remarked, taking a sip of his drink as you nodded. "But it'll be a brief visit."

Sunghoon had left almost exactly five years ago, leaving oversee to run the international branch of his father's company. But how did you come to know Park Sunghoon? He was two years your senior, and your brother's closest friend. Their friendship had blossomed effortlessly when Sunghoon arrived at the school. From the moment your eyes met his, you were enamored. He was everything to you. He was your youth. Your childhood. Your first love. It was during those early high school days that you fell deeply for him, your heart captivated at first sight. 

However, it seemed Sunghoon remained oblivious to the depths of your affection, or perhaps he simply hadn't realized his own feelings for you until it was too late, until you were no longer within his reach.

"Hi, love," a voice suddenly broke the silence. "Sorry I'm late. Boss kept me tied up," He apologized sheepishly. You let out a soft giggle. 

"Jungwon," your eyes sparkled glimmered with happiness, as Jungwon tenderly kissed your temple. For a fleeting moment, a hint of longing flashed in Sunghoon's eyes. “Here’s your caramel macchiato,” you smiled up at him. 

"Thank you, love," Jungwon beamed, as Sunghoon's gaze followed as you intertwined your fingers, his heart cracking at the sight of the ring adorning your finger. 

"Hyung," Jungwon grinned as he enveloped Sunghoon in a warm hug. "It's been too long." Sunghoon could only muster a smile and nod in response. Jungwon redirected his attention to you, his eyes brimming with love and adoration, causing a pang of discomfort in Sunghoon's stomach. "You ready to go, love?" he asked, gently tucking a loose strand of hair behind your ear as you nodded in affirmation.

"It was nice bumping into you again," you smiled gently. "I’ll have to brag to Jaeyun that I got to see you before he did," you teased lightly, your eyes brightened as you reached for his hand cheerfully. "Next time, let us know you’re back. Jungwon and I would love to treat you to dinner," you added, extending the invitation with warmth. Sunghoon managed to force a small smile, but as he watched you and Jungwon walk away, a heaviness settled in his chest, and his smile fell.

Sunghoon whispered softly to himself, as a bittersweet smile touched his lips. "As long as you’re happy, then that’s all that matters,” he sighed looking down at his caramel macchiato. 

For you, you believed that falling for Sunghoon made you a better woman at the end, believing he wasn't the right man for you, but the bitter unspoken truth was, your story with Sunghoon was unfortunate and mistimed— you had fallen for him too early, and he had realized his love for you too late.

NOTE: again this is my first work ever hereee so please don't hate! I'm still tryna figure out how to use tumblr, and I'm not sure when I'll have another update or story coming out because this week I have three exams (love midterms-not really-) and even though I should've been studying I wrote this LOL! But i hope you enjoyed and thank you for reading!!

© yjw1a1

[vgperson]

Vocaloid Highlights: April 2023

No foolin', she IS the star. Highlights Archive

========== Stand-Outs ========== April Star Toe Loop Cheap Property King Queen Jack Dance Samsa Heart-Fluttering Star☆Land! Nero Misfortune All Ameri A Brief History of Us Gourami Kiss Spring Express Train Unclear Wisdom Requiem Startling Dystopia Kotonoha Dance Da-Da-Da-Dance Strobe Caster Euphobia Record of Exile Simulcaster Know Misery Rain Shelter Babel Obscured Mad Head Worm Open Eyes Lost in Void

========== Worth Your Time ========== Anomaly You-Colored Sky Non-Inevitable Greed Gazer One Day At A Time Ms. Dummy Insomnia Meaningless Music FROM A TREASURE BOX On a Night of Red Ruin Be The MUSIC! Closing the Distance to You Absolute Status Quo Keeping Imitation in the Mirror Burnit!! Plant Human MAGIC CITY NIGHT Diva In Praise of Youth Apple and Pomegranate Retro Future Being Dream Dancer Rainy Noise Words Are Longing To Get Out Happy End Konpeito and Love Horoscope Let Me See Water Space Ultramarine Let's Die Together With the Piano After It Breaks You Don't Listen To People, Huh Fleeting Eternity RED Final Correspondence Muddy Bouquet Demo Song Dream Girl I'm Home Haustier Conspiracist I Just Can't Live SUSHI-GO-ROUND Destruction Girl The Same Outcome Gerbera Lost Forever Impurity save to heart Aster Stop the HICCUP Midnight Railroad Crossing Last Order Spring Haze, Clouding in Windstorms If Life Has a Weight Happy Creator Te-Te-Te Metamorphose Lost City Girl Love and Sakura are Moments. Season's Cheeks and Wonderland Night Walk Gold Prize Rainy Raine-chan '89 Da Da Dawn Our Experiment Sound of Spring's Departure Trash Can Search Climber Wind Sprint Won't Kill Divine Possession Parallel White Clouds Lethal Pervert Waiting in the Sea Sorrow's Pocket Nothing to Sell But Kindness Light Blue Damage Fashion Poor Loser Gymnastics #1 Seriously Sick Blossom Scar PAREIDO (Parade) Anaphylaxis X-Mark Batter Your Point of View The Day I Learned Love PLUG→OUT Labyrinth Lamentin' Bein' Sick (Special Version) Reminiscence Poetry Vanity L Violet Refrain & Remind Round and Round and Under Teto-Teto-Toteto Monologue The Day's End Boiling Isol-ization (2023 ver.) Beyond Sleep, It Doesn't Rain. You said you love me

[vengefulvermin]

Can i get more passage of time/music development yapping ☹️☹️☹️??? I give you official permission to yap the most you can im so interested

YES YES YES YES YES I LOVE THIS ASK

warning beneath the cut SCARY WALL OF TEXT WARNING 😱

decided to divide it into colored parts if you dont gaf about certain elements 😭

second warning all of this is unedited rambling so some points might contradict each other or just plain not make sense.

okay so for CONTEXTTTTT

i have diagnosed OCD, and like, roughly since the end of last year and the beginning of this one, the 'obsession' part of OCD that was negatively affecting me, was the concept of time. how fleeting it was. how it's basically unescapable ALL THINGS MUST PASS (get out of my head george harrison) that shit proper cold dead SCARED ME MAN. sleepless & haunting me in my dreams type shi. sometimes it still does. i try not to think about it too much

to cope, i found great comfort in the 70s-80s since at the time i was and still am hyperfixated on david bowie and that was sort of his prime (love his 90s-00s work tho.) i was also starting to think of how much parallels and similar experiences i have to previous generations and how it's not ALL that bad after all so far. i can still walk to a record store and roller skate if i really wanted to, or go to a diner.

okey here's where the life changing stuff happens. i decided i'd listen to pink floyd's the dark side of the moon. then TIME CAME ON. ohhhh god oh gosh golly god i was bawling and everything the whole song spoke to me on a molecular level. then i found out about DB's song also called time, and i ALSO crode to that. i was like. wow. i'm not alone on this feeling of utter desperation and helplessness as eventually all things Must Pass. (GEORGE HARRSION GTFO)

i used to be bitchy on how i whined i was part of the 'wrong generation.' i thought i was alone, but virtually everyone of almost every era has thought this. somebody who lived my dream life wished they had what i have now.

that's when i started to lowkey realize the parallels and oneness of human experience. i could go to a club in the 70s, and (granted the infrastructure and music remains similar) i could today. nothing would change on how i perceive events. there is no color filter on the past. unless you got huge TVs and stuff all over your house, you could walk around, and think it's the 80s. AND IT'S BASICALLY THE 80s. the way your parents or any other gen Xer saw the world with their *eyes* (not counting the changes in buildings and stuff) is the same as you today pretty much.

i already really enjoy subcultures, and particularly how they evolve and adapt. the indomitable human spirit prevails no matter how gentrified or 'banned' things become. nowadays i feel like there is No Youth Subcultures. at least, none that will pass the test of time and be memorable enough to be remembered in the books. nobody's gonna go to their child and proudly say: "when i was your age, i was a chav" or something. and i credit this to the lack of creativity allowed in the wider music industry.

HEAR ME OUT this is because 90% of youth subcultures had everything to do with music. and now, everything must be palatable. to be clear there's nothing inherently wrong with that type of music, but to me it speaks no soul. it has no risks. contemporary pop music is very much formulaic and this is because now more than ever entertainment (this also applies to movies btw) is more of an investment than passion. I WILL SPECIFY.

music production is so vastly different genre to genre, and we're not letting it flourish because of how much short form content is valued nowadays. LET ME COOK.

tiktoks are formulaic. algorithms are formulaic. WE'RE GETTING SOMEWHERE. there must be an instant hook or rift in music if you want to 'go viral' as a musician. digitized fame doesn't mean SHIT (to me), since clearly monthly listeners don't equate real world fans. album sales are being replaced with streams, and because of how ASS spotify treats its artists, newer, less established acts need to GET ON THE GRIND INSTANTLY to earn Coin. that means that to be smart and work with the exploitative system they're given, they have to make albums filled with 1 minute 30 second songs. so you can technically give them the most amount of streams possible. i feel with this formulaic approach, you can't get 6 minute long gutwrenching guitar pieces. no more 4 minute drum solos, hell avant garde experimental works were 2 people shout their names out at each other for 20 minutes. THERE ARE NO MORE FRANK ZAPPAS.

i'm not going to be one of those sad assholes who claim there's 'no more good rock music' and how it'll never be the same. as corny as this is, the next beatles or nirvana could be right under our noses and we'll NEVER know because of how fame is distributed. it sucks to see a small band beg on tiktok for streams to kickstart their career. but this is what we gotta work with. if we want subcultures to be created and thrive, we gotta go looking underground again, except unlike in the past it's a kajillion times easier now AND everything gets gentrified in 2 tiktok weeks. but this is evolution. MUSIC EVOLUTION

the end honk shoo honk shoo (it's midnight)

[thejoyofviolentmovement]

New Video: Pink Mexico Shares Brooding and Bruising "Dungeonhead"

New Video: Pink Mexico Shares Brooding and Bruising "Dungeonhead" PINK_MEXICO @QUIETxPANIC @henrybainbridge

After stints playing drums for acclaimed singer/songwriter Shilpa Ray and a list of other bands, Robert Preston Collum (guitar, vocals) stepped out into the spotlight with his solo project Pink Mexico. Preston self-released his 2013 full-length debut Pnik Mxeico, which caught the attention of Austin-based label Fleeting Youth Records, who then re-released the album the following December. Collum…

[lavendersugarplum]

𝐎𝐁𝐋𝐈𝐕𝐈𝐎𝐍 | umbrella academy reader insert

▋ ────── ; (CURIOUSER AND CURIOUSER)

✧･ﾟ*:･ﾟ➽ anguish, vengeance, and death. . .

ANGUISH GOES BY MANY FORMS. As in the wise words of Steve Erikson: The soul knows no greater anguish than to take a breath that begins with love and ends with grief. Just by the way it sounds from the tip of the tongue, you instantly understand the despair. The experience of Anguish is a matter of fate, an eternity of isolation, grief, loss of hope and pain. Trials of anguish and despair can always vary from person to person. It could go by a spaceboy living in a black and white world, A man with daddy issues, a woman who's life thrived through rumors and lies, a hopeless drug addict who carries a trail of death along with him, a man who holds a beast inside, a man who had nothing extraordinary about him and was deemed an outcast from the rest of his family or It could be the face of a boy that loses his entire family all because of stubborn pride. But most times, anguish can go by the name of ZERO.

A young girl that is no stranger to the tortures of anguish. A young girl who would inevitably succumb to life's cruelties. A 13 year old who went through hell and back all for 7 strangers that she didn't even know.

Every night the same terror and delirium, and every morning, the same nightmare.

Anguish is a luxury. A concept reserved for those who've known the warmth of connection, the sting of loss. Zero had originally felt neither. Her existence, a void carved into the cosmos, was devoid of such emotional intricacies.

She was a cipher, a null set, a being defined by absence. Confinement had been her cradle, isolation her nurse. The world, a foreign entity observed through a glass prism. Her siblings, fleeting shadows in a distorted reality. Their laughter, a discordant symphony in the silence of her mind.

Reginald, the architect of her imprisonment, was a god playing with shadows. His creation, a monster birthed from the void. A weapon, a tool, a cosmic anomaly. Yet, Zero was more than that. She was the absence of hope, the antithesis of life.

She watched them, these vessels of flesh and blood, with indifference. Their joys, their sorrows, mere ripples in the cosmic ocean. She was the ocean, vast and indifferent.

Her mind, a labyrinth of logic, was devoid of sentiment. Emotions were a weakness, a liability. To feel was to be vulnerable, to be human. And Zero was not human. She was something else. Something beyond comprehension.

Their world was painted in vibrant hues, a kaleidoscope of experiences. Hers was monochrome, a stark canvas devoid of color. She existed in a perpetual twilight, a prisoner of her own mind. Yet, in the depths of this solitude, a flicker of something stirred. A curiosity, perhaps. A desire to understand. To connect. But it was a fleeting sensation, quickly extinguished by the cold logic of her existence.

She was a paradox. A being of infinite potential, trapped in finite form. A cosmic anomaly yearning for oblivion.

In her youth, Zero was keenly aware of her incongruous presence in this world. The nonexistent number of records about her and the dismal chamber that served as her confinement left her with an acute sense of her own illegitimacy. Her choices, too, seemed to consistently diverge from the norm, from what was expected, from what was deemed sacred. She was never truly considered a member of her own family until the moment of her untimely passing. And yet, perhaps it was her unquenchable yearning for the snuffing out of her own flame that spoke most poignantly to her sense of displacement. For only in death could she hope to reunite with her beloved mother, and her friend, who had all passed on to the other side.

She would frequently try to picture how her true parents might seem. In all honesty, she had trouble thinking of any mother but by Grace Hargreeves. With her friendly smile and loving aura. She would also envision her own version of a father. She would wonder what he would look like? How he would sound? Would he look like her, with dark hair and gray eyes? Is he alive? He liked kids, right? and instead of the persistently directed frigid fury, all she would experience is affection and security. All of these concerns seemed to intensify as she grew older, but she never lost sight of her biological father, and she developed a profound hatred for Reginald despite her remorse for the children born on October 1, 1989. Though her eyes started to blur until atlas she lost sight of her father when she found out what truly lied beneath.

With all she's been through, she should resent them with a burning passion. Hate them. For every instance they frolicked and explored a world beyond her reach, for every moment they reveled in the joys of childhood, for every bond they shared that she could never hope to attain, envy and rage could have consumed her. The ease with which they could pack their bags and venture forth without a second thought, while she had no say in the matter, could have been a source of bitterness. And yet, despite it all, she carries on with a grace and fortitude that is nothing short of remarkable.

Where else would she go, anyways?

Whither would she wander, when the world had no place for one such as her? Her unique circumstance, defying the bounds of time, would inevitably draw the attention of those around her. Suspicion would fester like a malignant growth, spreading through the populace like a contagion. And in a world where ignorance could lead to catastrophic missteps, the consequences of being misunderstood and ostracized could be dire indeed. It is a cruel fate to be denied the simple pleasure of belonging, to be relegated to a life of solitude and isolation due to circumstances beyond one's control.

Imagine a life confined within the four walls of a house, never venturing beyond the threshold, never tasting the sweet and bitter flavors of the world beyond. Such was the fate of Zero, a soul caged by the fear instilled in her by her guardian, Reginald. He had spun tales of a world rife with darkness, a realm where demons roamed free and the most malevolent of humanity lurked in wait. And so, she had lived a cloistered existence, shielded from the dangers that lay beyond. Yet, even in death, Reginald's words still held sway over her, and she could not help but imagine the censure he would voice were he to see her now, daring to step out into the unknown. But despite her trepidation, she felt a stirring within her, a longing to break free from the stultifying confines of her sheltered life and experience the world in all its tumultuous glory. For there was a yearning within her, a thirst for adventure and discovery, that could no longer be denied.

The tendrils of desire should have crept upon her like vines in the dark jungle, ensnaring her in a web of emotions too complex to comprehend. She should have been engulfed in a maelstrom of feelings, tossed about like a ship in a stormy sea. Waves of anger, envy, and despair should have relentlessly crashed and dragged her further from the shore, leaving her gasping for air. And yet, ever since her birth, she had felt as if her head was spread submerged in the depths of a bottomless ocean. But even in the midst of it all, she could not bring herself to harbor ill will towards the children, for they too were victims of her father's cruel ways. They too had suffered at his hands, ever since they too had displayed their unique abilities. She could not hate her supposed "siblings,", for in the end, they were all prisoners of circumstance, trapped within the confines of a fate beyond their control.

Zero's very existence was an aberration, a deviation from the natural order of things. She was never meant to be brought into this world, much less to have her presence acknowledged. She was a variant, a mere concept given flesh and bone. An idea taking shape, an illustration brought to life, a personification of the impossible. And yet, despite the incongruity of her existence, she was undeniably real. A living, breathing being, with thoughts and feelings all her own, and a soul that burned with a fierce intensity.

To the world, The Monocle had 5 sons and 2 daughters. That's how it was supposed to be. 

At first.

The thought of bidding farewell to the people who had become her family after her father's passing was almost too much for Zero to bear. The one person who held the key to her heart had been taken from her far too soon, leaving a void that could never be filled. If she had the power, she would have bargained with the divine and taken his place in the great beyond. To lose her only home was a thought too unbearable to contemplate. She had never asked for this fate, but she knew that life, death, and love did not discriminate between sinners and saints. The finality of death did not hold the same terror for her as it did for most. Death was not a heartless monster to be feared, but rather another stage of life. From the womb to the tomb, life was a cycle, a series of interconnected stages that led to inevitable conclusions. And so, even in the face of loss and grief, Zero found solace in the knowledge that death was not an end, but merely a transition to a new beginning.

Zero didn't fear death.

They despised it.

She despised the very thing that people feared. 

Because it took everything from her.

They took everything from her.

In a strange and unsettling way, Zero found herself admiring Death as well. 

Despite her loathing, there was a morbid fascination that drew her to the great unknown. She had made countless attempts to confront Death, frantically seeking out its presence in a hopeless bid to understand its terrible power. She yearned to experience the full extent of its dreadful splendor, to glimpse the abyss that lay beyond the veil of life. And yet, despite her best efforts, Death remained elusive, slipping through her grasp time and time again. 

From the perspective of others though, her behavior might have seemed like that of a child with a death wish.

A lot things reminded her of death.

Her Best Friend.

Her Friends.

Her Family.

Her "Family".

Five Hargreeves.

The mere mention of the name "Five Hargreeves" was enough to stir a deep and abiding resentment within Zero. It was an infuriating moniker, one that brought back memories of a young boy whose intellect she had admired from afar. A boy who had been gifted with every advantage that life could offer, yet who had thrown it all away in a reckless bid for power and control. 

When she thought of Five Hargreeves, she could not help but see him as a kind of Icarus, soaring too close to the sun and ultimately falling to his doom. And yet, unlike the doomed Greek hero, Five had not been content to simply perish in his folly. No, he had dragged others down with him, leaving a trail of destruction in his wake. It was a bitter pill to swallow, knowing that someone with such promise could squander it so easily, while others like herself were left to struggle and suffer with little hope of reprieve. In the end, Zero could not help but see Five Hargreeves as a tragic figure, a cautionary tale of the dangers of ambition and hubris.

But how was she supposed to respond when he appeared after a 16-year absence, claiming that the end of the world was nigh?

She swore that boy was going to be the death of her.

Zero had never expected anything but pain, despair, and death from the world around her. And yet, when the universe finally granted her a chance at life, it seemed as though all hell had broken loose. She had made a deal with the devil, a pact that would lead her down a path of bloodshed and violence. The consequences of that fateful decision would haunt her every step, the blood that soaked her hands and knees leaving a permanent stain on her soul. The body count began to rise, a testament to the retribution she had wrought upon others, and perhaps upon herself as well. The trail of bloody footsteps followed her relentlessly, a grim reminder of the price she had paid for her second chance at life. In the end, she knew that there would be no escaping the consequences of her actions, that the weight of her sins would crush her beneath their burden until there was nothing left.

Or maybe to their downfall.

Things would never be the same except that every night, the same terror and delirium and every morning the same....nightmare.

Death had been a constant companion to Zero, a shadow that loomed over her every thought and action. She had imagined its embrace so frequently that it had begun to feel less like a possibility and more like a memory. The thought of crossing over to the other side no longer held the same terror it once had, for she had grown accustomed to the idea of her own mortality. And yet, even as she contemplated the inevitability of her own demise, there was a sense of sadness that clung to her heart. For in the end, death was a thief that stole away not just the living, but the memories and dreams that they held dear. It was a reminder of the fleeting nature of existence, a fleeting moment in time that could be snuffed out in an instant. And so, even as she faced the prospect of her own mortality, Zero clung to the hope that her legacy would endure, that the memories of those she loved would persist long after she was gone.

Such a tragically bittersweet tale—a story of a young girl forced to grow up too fast and become a monster in order to survive. In the end, her journey had led her to a bleeding, brokenhearted conclusion, cradled in the arms of the one person she had come to consider a true brother. It was he who had reached out to her first, understanding the pain and loneliness that had driven her to the brink of madness. And yet, in those final moments, all she could see was the sorrowful expression on his face, his clear, green eyes bearing witness to the countless tragedies that had unfolded before him. She had fallen into his arms, the very person who had ended her life, the one who had delivered the final blow.

To her heart.

[spiritsession-arch]

Independent DnD oc

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Bio and Rules under cut

Sideblog, follows back from @murderreign!

**Icon border by sibylsource

-

Name: Alasdair Greives

Age: 30

Height: 6'4"

Gender: Nonbinary (They/He) (AFAB, but please don’t have your muse know this by default)

Personality: A very animated person with a macabre sense of humor. Can be rather quick to anger and highly defensive when certain nerves are pressed. Doesn’t react well to flirting.

Class: College of Spirits Bard

Species: Dhampir/Satyr

Alignment: Chaotic Neutral

Strength: 8

Dexterity: 18

Constitution: 13

Intelligence: 12

Wisdom: 11

Charisma: 19

**This character has the Dark Gift from the Ravenloft expansion called Gathering Whispers

You are haunted by spiritual beings, whether the souls of the departed or entities from another plane. Their voices endlessly whisper, taunt, or cajole, sometimes rising to unearthly howls. Only you can perceive the spirits, unless you allow them to speak through you. The spirits are intangible and invisible; anyone who can see invisible creatures sees only fleeting glimpses of these spirits as they haunt you.

Spirit Whispers. You learn the Message cantrip if you don’t already know it, and require no components to cast it. When you cast the spell, the messages are delivered by one of your whispering spirits rather than you or the target’s voice. Your spellcasting ability for this spell is Intelligence, Wisdom, or Charisma (your choice when you gain this Dark Gift).Sudden Cacophony. When you are hit by an attack roll, you can use your reaction to channel your haunting spirits, letting their voices howl through you. If the attacker isn’t deafened, add your proficiency bonus to your AC against that attack, potentially causing it to miss. Once this trait causes an attack to miss, you can’t use the trait again until you finish a long rest.Voices from Beyond. Immediately after you make an attack roll, an ability check, or a saving throw and roll a 1 on the d20, the haunting voices grow too loud to ignore. Roll on the Voices from Beyond table to determine the effect of these voices. Once one of these effects occurs, none of these haunting voices manifest again until you finish a short or long rest.

-

This character will involve themes of child neglect, transphobia, sexual assault mentions, fantasy racism (toward dhampirs), references to mental illness in a derogatory manner (only mentioned due to backstory reasons)

The scorned child of a small forest village, their early years were plagued with heartache and emotional neglect. After disappearing into the woods under mysterious circumstances, only to return completely unharmed two weeks later… with claims of being able to speak with the dead the child was promptly outcasted by the rest of the village.

For the remainder of their youth, they were the subject of isolation, bullying and worse from local villagers young and old.

No matter how many times they pleaded with their mother for protection, help, advice, anything, all she would tell them is that ‘if they wanted it to stop then they just needed to shut up and act normal for once’.

During the years since their disappearance, they’d made no attempt to hide their newfound ‘gift’, finding the idea of being able to gain wisdom or even help those who have passed fascinating. The other villagers… clearly didn’t feel the same.

As time moved on Alasdair grew resentful of the villagers, as well as their mother. They began to cling onto their gift, doubling down and convincing themself that they’d been given this gift for a reason. They were chosen for a specific duty, to record and preserve the stories of the dead.

They left the village, and began a journey as a traveling poet, writing down the stories that spirits would tell them and turning them into poetry to share with the world.

-

▍ ❝   RULE ONE. Crossover friendly; I prefer rping with fandoms i’m familiar with, but i’m open to those i’m not as well. You’ll just have to excuse me for any mistakes since I won’t be too familiar with your muse or their world.

▍ ❝   RULE TWO. Multiverse/Multiship; All relationships will take place in different verses.

▍ ❝   RULE THREE. Do not force ship; Do not try to force your muse on mine and do not get upset if I happen to say no to your ship. Not every ship is going to work, that’s just how it is.

▍ ❝   RULE FOUR. Mun is 25+; Due to the nature of this character, I will ONLY interact with those that are also 18+.

▍ ❝   RULE FIVE. No godmodding; I control my character, you control yours. Do not have your muse auto-hit mine, or narrate anything happening to my character without discussing it with me first. It’s really quite infuriating and can leading to a lot of things happening to my character that my character should have reasonably been able to get out of or would be generally ooc.

▍ ❝   RULE SIX. I am generally pretty quick with replies. I usually respond within 3 days, a week at most. If I take longer then that it means i’m probably busy with other blogs and haven’t checked in. Feel free to send in message if i’ve gone a week without replying and you see me still being active. I might have missed your reply or ask somehow.

▍ ❝   RULE SEVEN. Triggers; Due to the nature of Alasdair's backstory there will be prominent themes of Death, Ghosts, Violence, mentions of SA, PTSD, Mentions of Transphobia, Suicidal Ideology, and more.

[triscribe]

DC in Westeros - the Doom of Krypton

It began with Val-Lor and Hatu-El.

For more than a thousand years, the Kryptonian Empire ruled much and more of the lands of Essos. At the height of their power, over thirty Grand Houses of Dragonlords vied for power within their cities, supported by untold wealth and unknown magics. Their airborne armies could cross thousands of miles in a matter of days; their pyromancers and bloodmages raised great palaces and formidable temples; even in hidden places where Kryton did not rule, their influence shaped culture and custom, inspiring traditions that still last into the present day.

No one could challenge the might of the dragonlords. Not their slaves, nor their subjects, not even their allies. And though the exact cause of the Doom that came upon Krypton remains unknown, many surmise that the Grand Houses reached for power too dangerous even for them to touch, that their pride and hubris at its peak at last roused the anger of their gods, who opened the earth and filled the skies with molten rock and burning ash. No matter the cause, it took the Doom less than a day to unmake all the mighty wonders of the Kryptonian Empire, to utterly destroy all those who’d lived at its heart.

The dragons rose, the dragons ruled, and then, the dragons died.

Except for those few of House El.

A mere seven years before the Doom, a Kryptonian youth named Val-Lor dreamt of fire and blood, of the world he knew undone in a thrice, with only a single beckoning gleam on the horizon that promised of safe shores. Attempting to share this dream, this warning, did not produce the desired result: the dragonlords all laughed at Val, the second son of a lesser branch of a minor family. All, that is, except for his friend Hatu-El.

Records tell us this single lordling attempted to support Val-Lor’s claim, even against the desires of his own family. When that led nowhere, Hatu instead made a fateful decision: to abandon Krypton entirely. He gathered his closest friends, their spouses and small children, their indebted servants and beholden soldiers. And most importantly, Hatu took a single egg, a young hatchling, and his own nearly grown dragon, Nightflame.

Four other names have come down through the histories, those dear friends who cleaved to Hatu-El and his decision. Tyr-Van supplied three of his family’s best ships; Kad-Zee furnished them with all the supplies his coffers could purchase. Col-Ur brought chests of books from the great Hall of Magecraft; Lan-Zod kept her warriors on guard at all times, protecting and hiding the movements of the others until they were ready to depart. When the moment came, they went swiftly, leaving Krypton far behind before any could realize they’d gone.

We will never know the full reactions of the families abandoned by these six; only a single mention is made in the chronicle of their journey west with regard to a squad of dragonriders swooping low over the ships, led by an elder sister of Hatu-El who pleaded for him to return. He steadfastly refused, and the riders subsequently departed. If any other attempt was made to convince the wayward Kryptonians the error of their ways, or else to forcefully seize and bring them back, then those sent to do so never encountered the tiny fleet. And any annals kept in Krypton itself that may have made mention of the incident did not survive the Doom, seven years later.

By then, Hatu and Val had found their way to that gleaming shore in the latter’s dream: a small isle across the Narrow Sea, formed of shining black stone and possessed of a single smoking mountain. It sat across the opening of Blackwater Bay, and served as a rest stop for local fishermen and passing trade ships. These lowly Westerosi, who may not have ever even heard of the Kryptonian Empire, let alone seen a true dragon, were so taken by the arrival of Hatu-El and his people that none protested his claiming of the isle, and replacing any title it may have previously carried with the name of Kandor.

In short order, a grand fortress took shape, made of that same gleaming black stone. The courtyards stood wide enough for a hundred men to drill, or a single adult dragon to sprawl in the morning sunlight. Wide halls and large chambers were carved into the mountain itself, kept warm by the volcanic vents within, with a thick curtain wall keeping all of them safe and sheltered. Seven towers climbed into the sky; one for each of the Kryptonian bloodlines who’d settled there, and the last a mighty beacon, housing an enchanted flame at the top to safeguard the small inlet below and keep incoming ships from dashing themselves upon the sharp rocks at night.

During construction of their new home, the displaced Kryptonians learned of the Doom, the utter ruin of all they’d known and loved in days past. With the fortress of Kandor complete, some years later, Hatu-El insisted upon a celebratory feast, during which he pronounced their six families to be the new unified House of Krypton, the last bastion of their lost empire. Whether truth or legend, it is said that as he made this declaration, outside the great hall Hatu’s dragon Nightflame lifted her head and roared, unleashing a wave of blazing fire into the sky, briefly making the dim evening as bright as midday.

Ever afterward, the line of El ruled the House of Krypton, the dragonlords supporting and supported in turn by the descendants of Van, Zee, Ur, Zod, and Lor.

---

So THAT is progress.

I'm still tweaking my description of the Conquest, several generations later, but with luck I'll have everything sorted out soon and be able to post this to AO3. Might make another post today with my so-far layout of the other Great DC Houses of Westeros and my vague intentions of how they'll all be tied together.

Absolutely feel free to ask questions if y'all are interested, that's the best motivation for me to actually type all this nonsense out instead of just letting it sit in my head.

[caiusmajor]

Warsmith Kalkator Part 2: Zerberyn

In the last post, I talked about the adventures of Warsmith Kalkator with Marshal Magneric of the Black Templars in the War of the Beasts.

Now, we're going to talk about Zerberyn. When we meet Zerberyn in Echoes of the Long War, he is the First Captain of the Fists Exemplar. The Fists Exemplar are a First Founding Imperial Fists successor chapter, but you may never have heard of them because they were later wiped out of the historical record for reasons we'll get into below.

The Fists Exemplar were formed of the Imperial Fists that thought the Codex Astartes was a great idea. In addition to this, they have a fine chapter tradition of insubordination, which explains some of Zerberyn's actions.

At any rate. Zerberyn's small fleet of Fists Exemplar, as well as Kalkator's single ship, both escape from the void battle of Vandis, but none of the ships are in good shape. Kalkator offers to bring Zerberyn to a place where they can all repair their ships and then be on their way.

Zerberyn agrees. Unfortunately, the first place Kalkator takes Zerberyn, the world of Prax, has already been colonized by the orks, who are using it to process human captives en masse into food to be distributed to the ork war effort. (War of the Beast orks are more civilized than most; this is part of why they're such a problem.)

So they fight their way through Prax, which was conquered by the Iron Warriors way back in the Great Crusade, along with some human stormtroopers that...unfortunately have to be killed when they discover that the Iron Warriors are traitors and try to kill them. Zerberyn at this point is getting along well enough with the Iron Warriors that he cooperates with this, and even condemns some of his own Fists Exemplar to death to cover up the Iron Warriors' involvement.

Also Kalkator calls Zerberyn "little cousin," which is cute.

Anyway, it turns out that Perturabo had installed a self-destruct button for the planet Prax. So Kalkator hits the self-destruct button, killing a lot of orks and their human food/slaves and hopefully disrupting their war effort. And Zerberyn and Kalkator and their Iron Warriors and Fists Exemplar fly away together.

After Echoes of the Long War, Zerberyn and Kalkator show up briefly every book or so -- half a chapter in The Hunt for Vulkan, a whole chapter each in Watchers in Death, The Last Son of Dorn, and Shadow of Ullanor.

By the The Last Son of Dorn, Zerberyn's Fists Exemplar and Kalkator's Iron Warriors have set up housekeeping together on a moon of Immitis VII. They're sharing supplies, working together on defenses, and even raising neophytes together:

A pair of bulky, muscular youths, perhaps eleven or twelve standard years of age, hovered behind [the Apothecary]. They looked sickly from blood loss and enforced genhancement. [...] Zerberyn could not tell just from looking whether they were Iron Warriors or Fists Exemplar. (The Last Son of Dorn, Chapter 11)

The Fists Exemplar and Iron Warriors continue to be allied and grow gradually closer (and Zerberyn closer and closer to severing ties with the Imperium), but the next really important developments are in the final book of The Beast Arises, The Beheading.

With the War of the Beast over, Zerberyn finally sends word to the other sons of Dorn of where he is and asks them to "come in peace and bearing the markers of truce." (The Beheading, Chapter 7)

Chapter Master Bohemond of the Black Templars arrives instead, determined to kill the Iron Warriors. When the Fists Exemplar won't give up the Iron Warriors, the Black Templars' ship attacks and Marshal Bohemond himself teleports onto Zerberyn's ship and tries to kill Kalkator.

After some fighting and intense discussions of philosophy, Zerberyn kills Marshal Bohemond to protect Kalkator and orders his fleet to fire on the Black Templars' ship.

At this point, some of Zerberyn's own Fists Exemplar subordinates rebel against orders and fighting breaks out between (and on) the Fists Exemplar ships. One ship gets away and returns to the Imperium; more on them later.

Zerberyn himself? He's made his choice.

‘A Fist Exemplar is never mistaken,’ he said. He knelt [before Kalkator]. Behind him, the crew and Space Marines of the Dantalion followed his example.

‘Iron within, iron without,’ he said.

And this is the last we see of Kalkator and Zerberyn! So, as far as I know, they're still living together as Iron Warriors, somewhere in the galaxy.

As for the rest of the Fists Exemplar, the one ship that defied Zerberyn and made it back to the Imperium shows up with 22 surviving warriors. In the meantime, the Chapter Master of the Fists Exemplar, Maximus Thane, had become the Chapter Master of the reconstituted Imperial Fists. (The previous incarnation of the Imperial Fists had all been killed by orks.)

Because of the shame of Zerberyn's betrayal, Thane has the Fists Exemplar chapter dissolved and all records expunged. Surviving Fists Exemplar not in the Iron Warriors were inducted into the new Imperial Fists chapter.

So that is the story of Kalkator and his sons of Dorn! Please do take a look at the original books if you are interested -- there's a lot of details I didn't have time for here.